'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/usa/news/surveillance-spying-e-mail-citizens-178/ <comment><USER3> It's easy to opine about things like educating the public or engineering 'crypto' for the common man.

In my opinion that would be an exercise in futility.

I think a proper response to this issue is to simply promote social depravity on a grand scale.

Everybody should just constantly read/watch/listen to media involving things like methamphetamine manufacturing, nuclear & home made weapons/chemicals, illegal currencies, human trafficking, hardcore pornography, armed rebellions, the middle east, famous terrorists, serial killers, bon jovi, etc

All of those are a lot more interesting to the common man than lessons on how to use PGP....which is theoretically breakable thanks to the advent of quantum computing.

If everything is being sniffed and stored, there have to be a number of very specific topics that are being sought after in that data.....in my opinion it'd be far worse if the government wasn't searching for things like human trafficking and nuclear weapons (things, hopefully, we can all agree are not good).

Television series like "Breaking Bad" are already pulling weekly audience number of around 3 million plus. One could argue that you wouldn't even have to do much promotion, as these topics already seem to be mainstays in much present day pop culture

<comment><USER4> Business idea: A "chaff box" that can be sold to the public.

Given a list of dodgy search keywords, youtube links, etc etc etc, regularly updated from a central location (think like a websense blocklist but in reverse), uses a configurable amount of bandwidth. Hits these sites with a human-like usage pattern when HTTP traffic from your LAN IP is detected (so it only works when you're actually browsing the web).

Plug it in and gain plausible deniability from most forms of government shenaniganery. Given critical mass, makes most forms of government behavioral analysis (and possibly advertiser behavioral analysis) useless.

Build it on the raspberry pi or similar platform. Materials cost is $35 plus shipping materials. Main time investment is limited to maintaining the blocklist and the central servers.

Hmm. Wonder how this could sell to the soccer mom crowd...

Would also raise some interesting and thorny questions for the server side. If enough people are using the box for the effect to be meaningful, then a lot of sites are going to have a lot of useless web traffic; yet allowing sites to "opt out" or having an identifier of some kind of the box's traffic completely defeats the purpose of the system.

<comment><USER5> There's a story by Cory Doctorow, in which terrorists blow up Bay Bridge and the US establish a surveillance state in the wake of those events. In response, the protagonist creates a distributed system using Xboxes that pretty much works like the way you're suggesting.

<comment><USER6> The story is called Little Brother for those who are interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> According to Mr. Binney's sworn declaration[1] in support of an EFF suit[2] against the NSA (stemming from the warrantless wiretapping/AT&T scandal,) he doesn't actually _know_ that any of this is going on, but bases his assumptions on decade-old knowledge that it was _possible_.

It certainly might be the case that all net traffic is being stored by the NSA, but this man's say-so is hardly proof.

[1] <https://publicintelligence.net/binney-nsa-declaration/>

[2] <https://www.eff.org/cases/jewel>

<comment><USER8> To me the warrantless wiretapping scandal IS the proof.

I mean if we know that there are Room 614As [1] all over the country, and that they are diverting nearly ALL communications to their facilities, in addition to them building new facilities to house data all the time [2].

All of this culminating with their shiny new data center [3], which cost 2 billion dollars to build, covers 900,000 sqft, and has a 40 million dollar annual utility bill, it becomes less about proving that they're doing this, but proving that they _aren't_ doing this.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A>

[2] <http://www2.sacurrent.com/news/story.asp?id=69607>

[3] [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/)

<comment><USER9> Next time I can't find an IRC log I'll just call the NSA.

<comment><USER10> An interesting take on your comment: would people be more open to the NSA snarfing everything if they also acted as a personal Google, giving you access to all your own "lost" data?

<comment><USER11> I've been thinking about this lately, with regard to my own privacy policy.

I was thinking something to the effect "I will make all data I save that references your account or IP available to you through the following portal" - I of course, can't do it yet, as I haven't built the portal or figured out how to separate the data, but I think it's a neat solution to some of the problems I have (e.g. I really want to start doing console logging on VPSs 'cause it gives me a wealth of data when someone says "something was wrong with my VPS last night" - but so far I haven't (I do log physical consoles, just 'cause it's impossible to deal with hardware otherwise) due to privacy concerns.)

<comment><USER9> at /domain/portal just put a contact page and ask them to specify what they are looking for. You'll have to do it manually until you build the automated system but maybe the inconvenience would be motivation?

<comment><USER11> >but maybe the inconvenience would be motivation?

I need to limit the number of times I give myself extra work as 'motivation' - you get to the point where you spend all your time shooting alligators, and don't have any time at all to drain the swamp.

I mean, sometimes this is better than just not doing it? but not in this case, if you ask me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Right from the start it sounds strange. They cite the case of Petreus as a proof FBI has access to everybody's email. But it is certainly wrong - <USER2> _can obtain access_ to everybody's email if it is hosted by US provider such as Google, given enough cause to obtain warrants (such as suspicion that CIA director's email account was compromised). This is not news - hardly anyone in the US has doubts that given strong enough cause, FBI can solicit and receive access to specific accounts at US providers. Calling this "everyone under surveillance" is misleading. And how is it related to NSA? And why does not Binney point out Petreus' case is not about surveillance?

<comment><USER13> The key to this all are these two things (and someone who knows more please correct me):

1) Constitutionally they (NSA) seemed to have found a loophole that states that just storing the data on the disk doesn't constitute spying|invasion of privacy. Only when someone (a human) looks at the results then it triggers all the Constitutional restrictions. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me, but that's how they are justifying it.

2) A court subpoena or an executive "magic-Patriot-Act-Federal-Injunction whatever it is called?" when issued can apply to _all_ the data, including historic data from the beginning of time associated with that individual. So, if they ever get a subpoena say when you are in your 50's they could legally pull all the data you generated, created, accessed since the day you were born.

Basically it is pretty obvious they are just planning on storing all the data they can. Therefore the big new data center with a 65MW power station next to it.

My hope is only that someone who is involved in this, just like this whistle- blower, will realize that this is wrong and will expose it and the public in general will start caring enough about this to turn this into a major political issues.

<comment><USER14> This is a story that hasn't shown itself to have legs, I think largely in part because both political parties are fully complicit, so neither are interested in driving the narrative.

So the problem is, what does it mean for the public in general to care? Or rather, what is the value of truth in a world where we have no agency?

<comment><USER15> _> So the problem is, what does it mean for the public in general to care?_

That's actually simple - public should use strong encryption. That's it. I.e. those who care about such violation of civil freedoms have no other option anyway, if attempts to prevent this surveillance will continue to fail (and with the current power - they most probably will).

<comment><USER13> They should. I agree, however effectively using encryption not as simple as it sounds (both hardware, software and user interfaces need to work together and well) for this to work. On the other side I predict using encryption is becoming strange/weird/suspicious. There is an already well designed propaganda framework to portray those who care about these issues as associated with all kinds of scary crimes.

I predict in the future after a couple of high profile scape goat cases where a famous suspected terrorist, illegal movie downloader, or say whistle blower, cannot be prosecuted because they used encryption, the use of encryption will become illegal.

<comment><USER16> > the use of encryption will become illegal

The problem with outlawing encryption is: everyone needs it for business purposes and to protect public / private infrastructure. If SSL encryption were to be forbidden, e-commerce would become very difficult...

Also interesting: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaffing_and_winnowing> ("Chaffing and winnowing is a cryptographic technique to achieve confidentiality without using encryption")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wired had some time ago an article about one NSA data center [1]. That article had some additional numbers on the scale of the surveillance efforts. Specifically it did note that the specific site will have a 65 MW power station, which one can compare to some supercomputers. For comparision RIKENs K Computer demands roughly 12 MW of power. [2] ( One can also try to estimate similar numbers from the size of the facility and from the building costs. In all cases one gets a similar factor of a few above modern supercomputers.)

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3711603>

[2] <http://top500.org/list/2012/11/>

<comment><USER18> > a 65 MW power station

That seems like a giant blinking point of failure.

<comment><USER19> Alternatively, the power grid itself is the SPOF, and the 65 MW power station is essentially a redundancy.

<comment><USER20> "Single Point of Failure" is my guess, for those curious.

<comment><USER19> Oh, yes, exactly right. I apologize for my telegraphic speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is this news? We've known this since Mark Klein[0] leaked the NSA warrantless wiretapping program to the press in 2006, more than 6 years ago. If you're doing anything illegal with a method of communication that doesn't have end-to-end encryption, then you're really stupid. Fortunately for the authorities, the vast majority of individuals who commit crimes are really stupid.

0: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Klein>

<comment><USER22> Sigh. I keep seeing comments like these whenever such article is posted. But there are 2 problems with that mentality:

1) Just because _we_ the HN readers and Reddit readers, and other people who take an active interest in either being up to date with this sort of stuff, know about this, doesn't mean that population at large either a) knows about it, b) believes it (this sort of stuff sounds too much like conspiracy theories, even if it's real in this case).

2) Just because there were some news about it a few years ago, and there was like a mini-outrage for like a week, and then nothing really happened, doesn't mean we should stop talking about it now, and just let them continue doing it. The point is to keep raising awareness, and incite people to fight for their rights, and demand answers from NSA and the administration. More than that - demand change.

<comment><USER21> Re to 1): well, this is HN, so you're just preaching to the choir. Why not instead spend the time/effort spreading awareness among the general public? They're the ones that decide elections (and thus policies, or at least I hope).

Re to 2): again, this isn't going to raise awareness. The vast majority of people here already know about this.

<comment><USER23> When the general public's candidate pool has been narrowed down to two candidates by the media, is the general public really deciding elections anymore? It becomes multiple choice where both options are pro-plutocrat and pro-authoritarian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "I don't think they are filtering it. They are just storing it"

How much would it actually cost to store all the emails that American citizens send and receive? I find it difficult to visualise a system of checks and balances approving the massive budget required to house all that data. And the technical challenge of sifting through those emails would be seriously hard. I understand that this might not be just about national security, but it could also be a power game on the part of the FBI. One has to consider how much [national security | power] this really affords [US citizens | the FBI] when measured against the gargantuan expenditure required to actually pull it off. This makes me totally skeptical. Additionally, by saying ' _basically_ the e-mails of _virtually_ everybody in the country' Binney demonstrates his lack of conviction and uncertainty of his own claims.

So, if his words aren't the giveaway, then two minutes of critical thinking will make the interview seem alarmist and inaccurate.

<comment><USER25> > a system of checks and balances approving the massive budget

NSA budgets aren't approved by the entire house, but by secret meetings of the intelligence sub-committee.

This datacenter is definitely being built. It is so well known that Wired did a cover story on it:

<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/>

<comment><USER24> Interestingly, the article explicitly mentions the FBI, not the NSA. But, if we were to unify them in our respective imaginations (for the purposes of discussion), they still need to have the budget for their operations supplied from somewhere. [http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/fbi-budget-request-for- fis...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/fbi-budget-request-for-fiscal- year-2013) \- it appears as if the FBI's budget is just as rigidly controlled as any other governmental organisation. How they internally allocate the funding they receive is a different matter. To me it seems that if there is any form of oversight within the FBI, then the funding of a project of this cost/return ratio would be infeasible and therefore the project could possibly be shut down. There is the possibility that this is an exercise in propaganda and scare tactics: "We can read your emails, so don't try anything. Check out our power". However, because the internal mechanics of the FBI are necessarily not public knowledge this is all speculation and unsubstantiated opinion. But, the argument can be made that this very fact enables the FBI to get away with scare tactics. I _still_ don't see an organisation with the real-world constraints of money being able to store the sheer volume of data that they claim to. For arguments sake, let's assume that the year-on-year rate of email generation remains uniform for the next decade. In one year, they need to have the ability to store X amount of emails. In a decade, they'll need 10X amount of storage. How are they going to store all that data?

<comment><USER26> > they still need to have the budget for their operations supplied from > somewhere. [http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/fbi-budget-request-for- > fis...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/testimony/fbi-budget-request-for-fis..). - > it appears as if the FBI's budget is just as rigidly controlled as any other > governmental organisation

I'm not an American, but I guess rules can be mended and solutions found in a country where 1.1 trillion USD can just "vanish" (<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/729997/posts>).

Also, I've commented on the NSA probably intercepting on the people in command immediately after the Petraus affair hit the media (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4767644>), but I had hopes that they would stop at those people. Someone in the comments reprimanded me for viewing things in a CSI-like manner (CSI the TV show), but it was not that, just the natural reflexes of a former kid who has grown in Eastern Europe with Securitate ruling and surveying everything in sight. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitate>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm curious as to the technical specifications of the supposed Naris device. I don't doubt that the US government can obtain the email logs of most citizens, but would it truly occur in this manner? Binney seems to describe a single unit connected directly into the backbone networks of major ISPs, logging all data on certain ports I assume (ie, the common POP3, IMAP, SMTP ports)? Depending on the level of distribution, this device would be tapping into potentially enormous amounts of data. The processing and storage infrastructure would have to be incredibly robust.

I'm not very knowledgable as to the feasibility of such a device, and quite frankly don't know where to begin, but I would love to hear from someone who might know more.

As a back of the napkin, rougher-than-order-of-magnitude calculation, it seems more feasible for the government to tap into existing email providers' databases than to try and administer their own. Would it not simply be easier to file requests (perhaps in a quasi-legitimate manner) for data from Google/Yahoo/MS/Apple than to try and catalog the entire email history of the Internet?

<comment><USER28> I think the government is sniffing packets directly. It's much easier to feed through whatever content analysis engines they have today than try to access remote systems routinely. SSL? When the government has access to most of the internet's root keys, decrypting 128-bit SSL is 'annoying' and definitely solved. There was a controversy a few years ago about secret closets with direct access to raw fiber traffic:

* [http://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/12/25/0029204/nsa-data-mini...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/05/12/25/0029204/nsa-data-mining-much-larger-than-reported)

* [http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/07/1246259/att-forwarding-al...](http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/07/1246259/att-forwarding-all-internet-traffic-to-nsa)

* [http://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/11/09/2040206/ex-att-tech-s...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/11/09/2040206/ex-att-tech-says-nsa-monitors-all-web-traffic)

Mirroring traffic at the ISP would be much harder to detect, more thorough, and reduces the number of pesky admins who would come across surprises in their logs. My vote is on that approach -- it's similar to how spy satellites are operated now ("record everything and playback like it's a DVR when we need it").

As an aside, this is the third time in as many days that I've seen 'repeated' content from old Slashdot on HN. Not sure what I make of that trend.

<comment><USER29> Can you clarify the government's SSL decryption capabilities?

I'm aware the US government has CA certs installed in pretty much all browsers. Obviously being a CA allows you to MITM any SSL connection (though probably not without someone noticing, if done on the scale people are talking about, which is probably computationally prohibitive anyway).

But isn't it impossible to decrypt passively sniffed SSL traffic in all cases?

<comment><USER28> Neither SSL or cryptography are broken. However, it's widely known that the government has its hands on most root-level private keys. All of cryptography comes down to how well we manage keys, whose weakest link is humans :)

Having the internet's root keys does two things:

1) The government can impersonate as most sites to perform a MITM, which is rare and would only happen on specific, targeted people.

2) The private keys reduce the search space for brute force 128-bit decryption to the point that it can be completed in near real time. If the government were to have direct access to the fiber backbones, then they could monitor SSL traffic as easily as plain-text traffic. Hence, "solved problem." Part of the trick behind this is pre-computing a lot of commercial site's individual private keys ahead of time. If you do nothing but monitor headers you would know the top 90% of hosts to pre-compute first.

To be clear -- I don't _know_ what the government does or does not do. But I know a little bit about crypto and the industry, and I'm inferring what the government does based on 'innocuous' requests it makes regularly to a popular crypto products such as the one I worked on.

<comment><USER29> By root level private keys you mean the third-parties like Verisign etc, not just the ones explicitly belonging to the US government?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In all honesty, is the constitution in America even worth talking about anymore?

It seems like every day a new article comes to light about how the government is blatantly violating it with complete disregard.

Worse, nobody seems to be doing anything about it.

<comment><USER31> In addition to probably millions of pieces of cyberpunk/science fiction, there was a crack in Gilmore Girls about victims not caring if you take away their freedom slowly and without them noticing at first.

<comment><USER32> The old boil a frog slowly metaphor.

I think this myth was debunked, interestingly enough

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd feel a lot better if this article was from almost any other news site. RT is not known for being fair or balanced when it comes to anything involving the USA.

<comment><USER33> If you find similar coverage elsewhere please link it. In the meantime I'm glad RT is on this.

And please distinguish between the long-term goals and values of the USA and the craven personal interests of its present rulers. In pieces I've read and seen from RT, they've often honored the former while excoriating the latter. Which is something I wish an American news source could do. I'll know it's possible as soon as I see a single example.

<comment><USER34> The Defcon video is similar: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqIz-RNUL1g> (not sure if this link is bootleg) [https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc- archives/dc-20-archive....](https://www.defcon.org/html/links/dc- archives/dc-20-archive.html) (just the audio)

has the ACLU and the same guy if that makes it more legit.

The 10 zetabyte storage capacity estimate is based on building size. I think we need more details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Best quote:

>> RT: It seems that the public is divided between those, who think that the government surveillance program violates their civil liberties, and those who say, 'I've nothing to hide. So, why should I care?' What do you say to those who think that it shouldn't concern them.?

>> WB: The problem is if they think they are not doing anything that's wrong, they don't get to define that. The central government does, the central government defines what is right and wrong and whether or not they target you. So, it's not up to the individuals. Even if they think they aren't doing something wrong, if their position on something is against what the administration has, then they could easily become a target.

</comment><comment><USER36> _the Buffdale facility_

It's _Bluffdale_ , not Buffdale. And it creeps me out every time I look across the valley at it.

I really wish the investors in the company I was working on building to encrypted email for the "common man" would have been willing to invest what it would really take to make it work. We were on the right track. :(

<comment><USER37> And also _Narus_ not Naris. Seems like this is a rough transcript, perhaps from live closed-captioning.

<comment><USER38> And of course the "18-T" facility and "AST&T" were all AT&T.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thought my connection to Google was almost always under the HTTPS protocol... can someone explain to me how the NSA has broken SSL encryption to possibly THE largest internet company in the world?

<comment><USER40> ever heard of _NSAKEY or 'stellar wind'?

<comment><USER41> Thanks. For those like me who had not. <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY#section_2>

<comment><USER42> I'll probably get shot for this but in the shared source license there are a number of huge holes around the signing key code. NSAKEY doesn't exist any more but its more suspicious when there is just no code there.

I wouldn't trust Microsoft - the world's largest Trojan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How does this compare to the current practices in other countries? Are there whistleblowers elsewhere whose revelations are reported on in reliable press sources?

(I used to live in a country that was then ruled by a dictatorship, and I am aware of how people behave under such rule. That country now has a free press and free, contested elections for the national leadership.)

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy)

</comment><comment><USER44> Yes, this is old news, but we need a reminder every now and then about how intrusive our government has become.

</comment><comment><USER45> The initial, public report describing this sort of thing was prepared by for the European Parliament in 2001... PDF at: [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN)

I would invite HN readers to consider that report, then consider over a decade of technology improvements have since occurred, then consider how little of the public's interest has been engaged in such matters. Having done so, consider supporting the efforts of a small number of parties like the EFF and Assange to raise awareness of these issues and fight for the public interest and individual rights.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it possible to write an OTR plugin/extension for Google Talk that can encrypt the text locally before it's sent to the other person, who would also use this plugin? From what I'm reading Cryptocat already works in a similar way.

I know there's already Jitsi or Pidgini with OTR that can do this for Google Talk and FB chat, but those are just other apps that you need to install, and I think a Chrome plugin/"app" would see much wider adoption. Or should we just wait for web crypto before this can be possible (2014)? Or just wait until Google themselves to do it? (if ever)

<comment><USER15> Those who care anyway already use clients which support OTR with the same Google Talk or any other XMPP server like Pidgin, Adium, Jitsi and etc. Those who don't care won't use anything even within the Google Talk web application.

Standalone XMPP clients anyway are way better than Google Talk web application, since they are more flexible and allow using several accounts at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Someone should buy a Naris and let hackers start hammering on it. The delivery vector for any malware developed would be trivial. Just send it in an email to someone in the USA.

Hi NSA!

<comment><USER46> 1.) Citizens can't afford a Narus device, let alone what they're offering now (more service oriented, less local hardware)

2.) Narus doesn't sell to citizens. Citizens aren't allowed to have information on what kind of monitoring Narus does because it's national security classified.

>The exact use of this data is not fully documented, as the public is not authorized to see what types of activities and ideas are being monitored.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narus_%28company%29>

<comment><USER33> Yeah it probably isn't cheap. If motivated enough, however, somebody like EFF or WikiLeaks could co-opt enough officials in a third-party nation (Ecuador, perhaps?) to purchase the service. "National security classified" has never stopped Boeing from selling cut-rate, not-latest-generation tech to other nations before. After all, their pals who want to work for them upon "retirement" from the military decide what's classified. Probably the service wouldn't come with a complete ruleset, but it would come with consulting, from the same people who helped develop the initial USA ruleset. Also, the system is probably optimized for the use of its largest customer.

Failing that, you might be able to enlist the help of some of the APT folks who've been downloading all the F-35 plans. Why would we expect Boeing's network to be more secure than Lockheed's?

If one were really patient and as immoral as the NSA, one could start moving around a lot of fabricated-but-plausible evidence against USA citizens for national security-type crimes, and then paying special attention to federal prosecution notices. If you noticed which manufactured "evidence" turned up most often, you'd be able to run a kind of oracle attack by fine-tuning for what got prosecuted the most. In addition, many of these framed citizens would be so obviously innocent that even our debased court system would acquit. This would undermine the perceived accuracy of this fancy expensive system. After federal prosecutors look foolish a couple of times when relying on super- secret we-can't-tell-you-where-we-got-this surveillance data, word will get around.

However it's done, if someone figured out how to characterize which packets get saved (I still refuse to believe they're saving every packet sent in the USA), one could generate many such packets, which could be obviously bogus upon inspection but enough to fool the initial analyzer. That's a DOS right there.

Just throwing out some ideas. I'm sure you smart guys have already thought of all this.

<comment><USER46> The problem with all your proposed solutions is it doesn't allow the market to escape from the ever more technologically advanced supply of data because the development time is constrained by how fast you can fail. By the time you've found a vulnerability in their monitoring system, they've already written exception handlers for it and set up team dedicated to finding solutions for exceptions to those exceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Being Russian myself I always thought that nobody took anything that RT publishes seriously. I guess I was wrong.

<comment><USER13> I am from those "parts" of the world but also monitor US media. I found from experience that RT actually does a great job covering issues related to US (and other countries) but it is complete bullshit when it comes to Russia itself.

American and other news agencies (say Al Jazeera) also seem to follow the same pattern more or less.

So it helps to monitor and compare various news outlets and you can sort of see who they cover the same story and how they spin and then, well, decide for yourself if you can't independently verify the facts. If you can then you can benchmark and compare the performance/quality of each of the news sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> 'Everyone in US', but not limited to the US, right? Services provided by servers in the States are used by people all around the world. Many communications started in other countries have their recipients in the US.

So isn't it more like 'A large part of the worlds population under virtual surveillance'?

<comment><USER49> in short, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Does this lead to a functional definition of freedom that's actually more useful for more people than what we're used to?

What is freedom? A functional definition might be -- you're not prevented from doing things when you try to do them.

Interested in electronics? Want to build an igniter for your home-brew rocket engine? Fine ... if we know enough about you to conclude that it's for fun, not for killin'

Want to build a rocket? Great ... if you're not likely to endanger others or sell your knowledge to those who might.

In a perverse way, more detailed profiles could lead to better discrimination between those who have esoteric interests but are unthreatening vs. those whose who are threats.

Of course, if you build it, it will be abused ... but it's an interesting thought experiment.

</comment><comment><USER51> Google 'Room 641A', that's all you need to know...

<comment><USER52> Or you could just click this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A>

( _In a nutshell:_ "Room 641A is a telecommunication interception facility operated by AT&T for the U.S. National Security Agency, beginning in 2003, and exposed in 2006. [...] It is fed by fiber optic lines from beam splitters installed in fiber optic trunks carrying Internet backbone traffic [...] contains several racks of equipment, including a Narus STA 6400, a device designed to intercept and analyze Internet communications at very high speeds.")

<comment><USER53> But then he wouldn't look so mysterious!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Some of you might be interested in his recent talk:

MIT TechTV – The Government is Profiling You [http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/21783-the-government-is- profili...](http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/21783-the-government-is-profiling- you)

<comment><USER48> From that clip:

"Where do you see this going in 5 or 10 years? I see it becoming a totalitarian state. An imperial president (a dictator). Unless we do something."

"It doesn't matter if you say 'bomb' or not. Everything is stored now."

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> ECHELON is ancient; the only differences between that and this is are i) the lack of other nations and ii) the US directly spying on its citizens.

While it's not acceptable it surely can't be surprising? Especially seeing the other attacks on liberties happening every day.

Having said that, other people mention a bunch of problems with the article. Warrants provide easy legal access; connections are encrypted (and it'd be scary if that encryption was broken); the reliability of Russia Today; etc.

</comment><comment><USER56> Google is already monitoring everything I do on the internet, why should I be more worried about the NSA doing the same?

<comment><USER57> Because one of those has the ability to arrest you and the other doesn't?

<comment><USER56> Sure, but we've got a pretty spiffy legal system that protects you from that, and in any case the NSA has no incentive to arrest me. I have no real protection from Google or its employees selling my information, using it against me, etc, and as a practical matter they have a lot more incentive to do that than the government does to arrest me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This reminds me of the presentation "DEFCON 18: Your ISP and the Government: Best Friends Forever" <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0aQojDGSD4>. I wonder if the "don't get involve in drugs and you'll be fine" advice still holds.

</comment><comment><USER59> Privacy aside... I simply don't trust the government or any of the people who might have access to this data. Assuming you somehow have information about everyone whats to stop you from eventually controlling everything.

</comment><comment><USER60> It is implied that the NSA surveilled Petreus' gmail using naris by capturing backbone data which implies that the NSA has cracked 128-bit SSL. Or maybe they just got it from google...

<comment><USER61> Wouldn't it make sense that the NSA owns a few Certificate Authorities and gets access that way? They try to have backdoors installed for them everywhere according to that whistleblower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> If you really want to keep NSA busy just add "USSID 18 Violation" to every email you send :P

<http://cryptome.org/nsa-ussid18.htm>

</comment><comment><USER63> What are you going to DO about it?

</comment><comment><USER64> This can't possibly be a surprise.

<comment><USER65> Certainly that can't make it acceptable.

<comment><USER66> Oh yes it it. US voters happily allow it. You allow it.

The problem is your government, whether Rep or Dem, sees you, the people, as the enemy. There for, the government is your enemy, an enemy with in. It must be logically. How else can that work? Now, why does your constitution allow guns? Why do so many US citizens insist on their right to gun ownership? Is it not to oppose such an enemy? Yet all Americans do is sit on their big old butts and type stuff on the internet. So, what are all those guns for? Polishing and comparing to penises? Are women attracted by them?

What makes me laugh (or is it cry) as a Brit is that mention universal health care and its commie time, people on the streets claiming health care will kill granny. Yet here is a Democrat government continuing and expanding the removal of your freedoms and privacy started with a Republican hawk government, and your all cool with it. All you do is bleat on the web, and that's that. As some one pointed out, you knew this in 2006. Yet here you are 6 years on, and its worse. You do nothing.

Don't get me wrong, its the same every where. People just accept this stuff. Which is why this disgusting spying on your own people lark, KGB style, is in fact absolutely acceptable. Your inaction says so.

Until the people say no, the government, either party, UK or US, does what the hell it likes. Its up to us.

<comment><USER67> You made a great point and I hate to see you get downvoted to hell just because some people don't want to accept some of the truthful things you said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> it's a question of time until this will turn against the people. My family has lived in eastern europe and was under survailance during comunist times in the 80's. very sad to see this happen to the US - land of the free.

</comment><comment><USER69> The Kremlin can't afford this scale.

USA! USA!</comment>


Charlie Munger: Turning $2 million into $2 trillion - <AUTHOR> http://stableboyselections.com/2008/03/25/charlie-munger-turning-2-million-into-2-trillion/

<comment><USER2> There's a lot of hindsight there, even in the first few paragraphs. For example, the monetary inflation of the 20th century wouldn't have been obvious to someone living in 1884 right after the monetary tightening accompanying the resumption of the gold standard. Inflation occurs in societies that debase their currency or that discover large new sources of whatever commodity their currency is backed by. It is far from a universal occurrence. Constant inflation did not occur in the United States until after the FDR presidency when we adopted a fiat currency standard. Making a company worth $2 trillion 1884 dollars is much harder than making a company worth $2 trillion of today's dollars or of 1865 dollars.

Couldn't bring myself to finish. If there are good ideas in there somewhere, let me know.

<comment><AUTHOR> The inflation thing has been an article of faith with Buffett and Munger. I think a fairly smart person could see that: unless the government has a bias _against_ extending suffrage, you should expect politicians to advocate extending suffrage to more groups (so those groups feel they owe it to whoever let them vote); so there will be more voters; so politicians will have an incentive to do take more broadly redistributive action; so if they can have their money on the benefits (projects funded by deficit spending) but not on the costs (depreciation of financial assets), they'll go for it. This is a huge part of the reason that Buffett and Munger have moved away from capital- intensive industries.

I thought one interesting part was the mix of different cognitive biases used to make Coke popular: the idea that universal distribution was a form of 'social proof' was new to me (the first time I read it; KO is up about 40% including dividends since then).

And the inflation thing should not be a big deal. Besides those paragraphs, the essay holds true if you have a real-money target (with the same compounded growth) or a target in terms of ounces of gold or cowrie shells. It's not like Coca-Cola made their money because they were short the dollar through leverage.

<comment><USER2> >And the inflation thing should not be a big deal.

I know it's not a big deal, it's just in an early paragraph and a glaring example of hindsight. If you'll recall, in the late 19th century farmers in the United States wanted to legalize silver as currency because deflation was making it hard for them to pay back their mortgages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The true effect of Coca-cola: Soft drinks were the trojan horse that allowed food manufactures to begin adding sugar (for taste) across the board

Sugar consumption per person in USA - 1850s (52 lb/yr) 2000s (150 lb/yr)

[<http://www.cspinet.org/new/sugar_limit.html>]

<comment><USER4> It's also extremely refreshing on a summer day. Let me worry about my own sugar intake.

<comment><USER5> As long as you are not in my health insurance pool, fine...

A good rule of thumb seems to me: avoid drinks that only taste good when cooled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oddly, I can only stand warm/cool coffee if it's been sweetened. Is this rule of thumb based on a known phenomenon re: sweet drinks?

<comment><USER5> Probably the underlying rule is really avoid sweetened drinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's easy to criticize the New Coke fiasco in hindsight. But when your product is losing by a wide margin in every blind taste test to a competitor that is smaller but growing a hell of a lot faster than you are, that's gotta have the people in the C-suite shitting bricks.

And I'm still not saying I disagree with him, but I think it's a little more than a lack of knowledge about Pavlovian conditioning that leads to a mistake like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Coca-Cola had invested a whole lot in making their flavor synonymous with, well, every positive emotion they could think of. It _is_ amazing that they decided to get rid of their flavor and try again. It would be like Google getting into the farm equipment business and just _shutting down google.com because it was distracting them_.

<comment><USER7> I think new coke had more to do with switching to corn syrup than anything else. Corn syrup tastes worse so you can't do a strait up switch but by introduce new Coke and then bring back the old taste with a minor change and people don't notice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does Pepsi use corn syrup? Do the other soda companies?

It's a little weird for them to risk their brand on making their product worse by way of risking their brand on throwing the whole product out. And (I am not a flavor scientist, so this is perhaps uninformed) why not just sweeten with 10% corn syrup and 90% sugar, and gradually raise the syrup ratio?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sr iOS Developer - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/company/apollo-neuroscience/jobs/491295-ios-engineer <comment><AUTHOR> Apollo Neuroscience has developed a first-of-its-kind wearable that is scientifically validated to improve people's resilience to stress. A spinout of research between the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, our small company is already helping thousands of people all over the world.

We are looking for a Mobile App Developer who possesses a passion for creating solid, reliable applications for handheld devices. This position offers immense growth potential for the right candidate.

<comment><USER2> You could perhaps have posted this under ASK HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which I would have done if the rules were clear. Which I would have deleted if it were actually possible to do so

<comment><USER3> The rule is: no job ads allowed [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Coinbase undergoing performance upgrades; transfers are frozen - <AUTHOR> http://gist.io/5210125

<comment><USER2> I suspect there was a run on coins. Many people tried to extract at once, and Coinbase has no means of faking true Bitcoins.

If that's the case, they should be honest and try to fulfill coins partially, and make a commitment to fulfill the rest of the coins in the future. If there's a possibility a Buy order won't be able to be fulfilled, the user should be informed of that.

If the prices are too low, Coinbase should raise them-- not just match the latest price on Mt. Gox.

If Coinbase fails, it will be harder as a casual investor to get into Bitcoin. It's bank integration is spot on. I hope they resolve everything.</comment>


APL Keyboards - <AUTHOR> http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/adcolkey.html

<comment><USER2> Whoa, are all these APL-related links springing up because I posted about K today? Huh.

I'm not convinced that a vastly different keyboard _layout_ with the same form factor is a big deal. I've been typing Dvorak for several years now, and have never once touched a non-Qwerty-labeled keyboard. (I like split + ergonomic keyboards, though.)

<comment><USER3> I wonder if the keyboard in question is actually different at the hardware level -- in the sense of transmitting different scan codes -- from any of their other models, or if the difference is simply cosmetic (different keycaps).

Either way, you could do the same thing in software, but I suspect that learning the layout (which is even more foreign to most people than Dvorak) would be hard without the keys. Still, you could probably get a spare set of keycaps or just a cheap keyboard and write the glyphs on there with Sharpie for the time it took you to learn.

Still, it's kinda neat.

Also, opening saved APL files and displaying them correctly (with the modern Unicode equivalents) is probably a good test for anyone writing an editor these days. I assume it must have used its own high-ASCII codepage to store the uncommon characters.

<comment><USER2> Historically many of the APL glyphs were produced via digraphs - 'quad' is [] overstruck, making a narrow rectangle. The rotation verbs overstrike a circle with -, |, or \\. While the original character set was different* , it seems like a reasonable alternative to a completely different keyboard layout (in hardware or software).

* According to the APL book I was looking through recently, some keyboards required the user to overstrike ' and . to get an ! (!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I bet this seller was one of PG's first clients at ViaWeb.

<comment><USER5> I'm picturing PG plopping into a shell, going into an old code repo, studying it a bit, whipping up a little script to exercise an exploit or do the protocol equivalent of knocking on a secret back door... _bingo_ and then he posts, "Yes, they're still running it!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> These keyboards, BTW, are Model Ms; I wrote a review of the Customizer here: [http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp- custom...](http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-customizer- keyboard) , which is also sold by Unicomp.

</comment><comment><USER7> What are some other languages that have embraced a non-Latin character set (internationalized languages, using different alphabets not withstanding e.g., Soviet versions of BASIC that used Cyrillic)?

Guy Steele's Fortress seems to partly do so (allowing the code to be beautifully typeset). Are there any Lisp dialects that allow a literal λ to be use in place of (lambda (...))?

<comment><USER8> racket allows this! I would love a keyboard w/ a lambda key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have a model M from these folks (with or without APL keys)? Is it good? Any thoughts?

I've been hankering for a buckling-spring keyboard for years now (ever since I used one at university), but I'm a little hesitant to put down the cash when my $13 keyboard works perfectly fine...

<comment><USER6> I do -- see my comment here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1459962> . Or go straight to the long review I wrote: [http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp- custom...](http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-customizer- keyboard) . Short answer: the Customizer is very nice. If you're going to do it, get the Space Saver, which is the same keyboard but with a smaller plastic border and thus easier to fit on most desks.

But now I use a Kinesis Advantage: <http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis- advantage> , which is better still, although the cost is high in both financial and retraining terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it looks a little dusty it's because they've been remodelling it.

Since 1996. Almost done though.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hee hee, look at those cute little down- and sideways-butt symbols on the W and E keys!

(seriously, though, I had no idea what this was about. Apparently, it's a keyboard with specific meta-keys for writing the programming language, which appears to use a lot of unusual symbols... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)> )</comment>


Mirra 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hermanmiller.com/content/hermanmiller/microsites/mirra-2-chairs.html <comment><USER2> This is a good redesign.

I've had a Mirra for maybe 5 years now, best chair in the house. The only issues I had were the prongs which provide the back skeletal strength broke through the mesh. As the meshing is plastic this meant a sharp pain in one's shoulder blade. The warranty covered the fix and paid for fedex to came to my house with a giant box and ship it for repair. I cannot imagine what it must have cost to ship a full sized chair! Even still I was out a nice chair for a couple weeks. Those few weeks reminded me how much nicer the Mirra was compared to my old staples chair.

This redesign appears to address said structural weakness by spreading the point of contact. It also widens the usage space for positioning your back. In my Mirra 1.0 your body must be dead center else your back will be sitting over a pointy prong. It looks like this 2.0 will have a backing which folds into your back, hugging it so to say.

It also appears they have slimmed the box below the seat. In general the plastic casings are slimmer and less bulky. Also of note it appears the adjustable lip where your knee joints occur has been given a longer radius of rotation. Or atleast it looks longer to compared to my Mirra.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone recommend a good chair for long term sitting which costs under $300 usd? I would like to find something mesh-like; it stays cleaner and breathes nicer than foam cushiony things.

For a while I tried a medicine ball, but noticed towards the end of the day I would be in bad posture. I also found it hard to have it inflated at the right level and be at the right height.

The only thing I could find, which seems to have a cult following, is the "Euro Style" bungee chairs. Something like

[http://www.gotoeurostyle.com/prod_detail.asp?product_id=835](http://www.gotoeurostyle.com/prod_detail.asp?product_id=835)

They have a bunch, but I only got a chance to try two. The flat bungee is definitely comfortable, regular bungee had too much pressure on my skin.

Anyone else have recommendations for budget mesh all-day office chairs?

<comment><USER4> Look out for second-hand chairs. I managed to get a Steelcase Leap for around $120 second-hand, in really good condition. It's been holding me up pretty well for about 3 years now.

<comment><USER5> I also got a like-new Leap for under $200 from a used office supply store I found on Craigslist around four years ago. They usually sold larger quantities to businesses, but I came with cash and they were fine with that. They couldn't provide change, though, so I just rounded up to the nearest $20, which was still a steal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >High-tech ergonomic chair

>Macbook Pro on a flat desk - no mouse, no external keyboard, no keyboard tray, no eye-level monitor.

</comment><comment><USER7> Just to toss it out there, because I also drool over awesome chairs (and lament their price tag):

I recently picked up a standing desk (geekdesk). I still love my Steelcase, but the standing desk is a bigger improvement on the work day. This isn't even a close fight. I would not hesitate to drop the cash on a standing desk and buy a cheapo chair if that's what the budget dictated.

YMMV, of course. At least try the Ikea standing desk hack ([http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk- for-22-dolla...](http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk- for-22-dollars.html)) before you jump.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've always wanted a Herman Miller chair, but unfortunately I've never been able to afford one. Some day...

<comment><USER9> I'm still sitting on a former Enron-owned HM Aeron I got off of Ebay for less than $200.

The mesh seat is great for farts, but ergonomically it is crap, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The edge of the chair where the mesh attaches puts pressure on a vein or an artery and makes my legs falls asleep. I've read reports that the design was more about form over function too.

Consequently, I'm thinking about picking up a Humanscale which I've been told was designed for ergonomics first and appearances second. I'd be interested in hearing any opinions comments from people who've sat in one for over a year.

<comment><USER10> We had the Humanscale Freedom at the office, and they were kind of crappy. Not much back support (at least for me, 6'2), and they break _all the time_...

<comment><USER9> What part of them broke? Where they the metal framed or plastic framed versions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When was the last time that you found a car seat to be uncomfortable?

Summer 1976, when they were vinyl covered?

I just wish Johnson Controls would make seats for the office:

[http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en/products/automo...](http://www.johnsoncontrols.com/content/us/en/products/automotive_experience/seating/complete- seats.html)

They don't quite have a monopoly when it comes to car seats but it is close. They supply almost everyone, not that you would know unless you were really into the auto trade. Just imagine how good their office line would be if they ever decided to go into that market. The prices would be good too, plus there would be an extensive amount of dealers able to order spare parts.

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess no chair can help me solve my problem, which is I slump. No matter what chair I sit in, I slump. I've reached the point now where my back is giving me problems, and I only realise I'm slumping in the chair when it begins to hurt.

<comment><USER13> I slump as well. I'm 21 years old and I spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer either slumped or with my feet up on the seat and my head resting on my kneecap or similarly poor posture. I'm curious what other people use chair-wise and if there's a fan favorite.

<comment><USER14> Try using a footrest, perhaps a rocking one so that your feet get to move a bit while working. It should help you maintain a better posture.

You should also try to get out of your chair and move about for a few minutes as often as possible throughout your day. Among other things, the slouching/hunching/shifting in your chair is often an attempt to alleviate the pressures placed on your spine while sitting. Forcing myself to get up with a timer made a huge difference with my back pain. Before, I was at my chiropractor's office at least once a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I work in an office with a bunch of broken Mirras that have all failed by the plastic shearing off near the shoulder mount point. I wonder if they fixed that bug in the refresh - Might even consider picking one up for home. That said, I still find HM's cloth lined chairs (Aerons and Embody) more comfy than the half poly ones.

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks like a less expensive version of the Embody, which is a good thing. I've got an Embody at home and at work and won't sit in anything else.

I think this will be a good replacement for all those Areons out there. Attractive, cheaper, and likely better quality. It seems like a winner for them.

<comment><USER14> I love my Embody. For the past year and a half or so, the chair has single- handedly made my work more enjoyable. A good chair is more important than perhaps anything else. You don't know what you're missing until you've found the one that fits you best.

<comment><USER17> I love my Embody chair, but i have to say my Filco mechanical keyboard made an even bigger difference. Perhaps it's just that many offices have halfway decent chairs, but few standard computer setups come with good keyboards these days.

<comment><USER18> Agreed, A good keyboard makes all the difference; clack on brother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I just bought the Mirra 1 two weeks ago to replace an aging office chair that I'd picked up without much thinking in a furniture store for ~200 Eur. Recently I felt that my back was not feeling that good anymore after longer coding sessions and started looking for an alternative. Being a single indie dev, I didn't want to spend around 1000 Eur for an Aeron but then I stumbled upon a used Mirra in good condition (around 300 Eur) and picket it up. It is an absolutely great chair, way better than my old one. I'm really impressed with the quality of this chair.

</comment><comment><USER20> We had a few Herman Miller chairs in our office and are now switching exclusively to them for our new digs. The reason is that despite having bought our current chairs on eBay, HM upheld their 12 year warranty and fixed any and all issues that we encountered over the past few years. That level of service has made me a convert for life!

<comment><USER21> Did you guys have receipts for them when you got them used. I picked up some on auction and they need a couple small replacement parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> FWIW, I have the original Mirra and don't like it all that much. The seat is too stiff, and ends up cutting off blood supply in my legs (yes, I know about edge adjustment, no it doesn't help). I'm scheming for s Steelcase Leap now, but only time will tell if it's better for me, of course.

</comment><comment><USER23> I purchased a Mirra 5 years ago and it is quite comfortable. Sturdy and never had a single problem with it, not even a loose bolt.

The Mirra has recently been commandeered by my SO, so I bought a used Aeron for $200 to replace it. Not nearly as good for my frame. Ill probably replace the Aeron with a Mirra 2.

Anybody know the pricing yet?

<comment><USER24> > The Mirra has recently been commandeered by my SO, so I bought a used Aeron > for $200 to replace it. Not nearly as good for my frame. Ill probably > replace the Aeron with a Mirra 2.

Miller isn't the only one making nice chairs, have you considered e.g. Humanscale's stuff? (spoiler alert: I've used a Liberty for the last 6 or 7 years and have been very happy with it, my only kind-of complaint being the gel seating which is comfortable but gets too warm/humid in hot summer, but their most recent chairs have mesh seating as well as back)

<comment><USER25> > spoiler alert

You ruined the whole... story you were already telling!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wen't to test out the HM chairs. I've used both a Mira and have an Aeron chair now, however after trying the Sayl and the Embody I have to say both are significantly better chairs. The Embody being a bit expensive for my taste I'd take the Sayl over the Mira or Aeron after trying them out.

</comment><comment><USER26> I haven't used a Herman Miller chair, so I don't claim to understand why they are popular, but from a purely aesthetic view of the world, that is a very nice looking chair.

Can someone enlighten me as to what the big deal is about Herman Miller chairs?

<comment><USER27> They are comfortable and extremely high quality. Not to mention the aesthetics. Cheap chairs break, and even worse they break "slowly" with weird tilts and whatnot that creep in slowly.

My first Aeron lasted 12 years of my use. The hydraulics finally died, but my son uses it now ^^

<comment><USER28> One of the best things about the Aeron chairs is that nearly every part is replaceable, so there's nothing to stop you replacing the hydraulics and reviving the chair.

<comment><USER27> Thanks again. Got the part yesterday and installed it with ease. This chair has another 12 years in it for sure :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have an Aeron and it's over hyped. Simply put - not worth the money. I would not buy it again.. This new Mirra looks pretty good though, i wonder how much it will cost.

<comment><USER30> considering the Mirra costs £500-£600 I would expect it to be at least £800

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It looks a bit like the Steelcase Leap. I spend more time in my chair than in my bed. The Leap chair cost more than my bed.

</comment><comment><USER32> That is my dream chair... Unfortunately, they cost north of $1000 here in Australia.

<comment><USER33> Spending money on a good chair is totally worth it. I picked up an Aeron back in 2006 and it is still going strong today. I think I paid around $700 for it, so that breaks down to $100 a year. I know up front costs like that are hard to do all at once but if you can buy quality items such as a good chair and desk and keep them for a long time it totally pays off. I did this with my desk too. The Fit System from Anthro is bad ass, aside from having to move it.

[http://www.sit4life.com/products/Herman-miller/Aeronreg- chai...](http://www.sit4life.com/products/Herman-miller/Aeronreg-chair/62)

[http://www.anthro.com/getdoc/406c4518-c3e1-4447-8e77-bfd5944...](http://www.anthro.com/getdoc/406c4518-c3e1-4447-8e77-bfd59444ea2a/Fit- Console?ext=.#.Ul9XtlB018E)

<comment><USER34> Seconded. When I started my business I was sitting on a pretty ordinary Staples cheap-o office chair. Within a year I felt like I was eighty years old -- my back was killing me, especially when standing up or sitting down. It felt like how it must feel to be Grandpa Simpson.

I eventually bit the bullet and bought a better chair (a Steelcase Leap -- see [http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-office-chair-is-the- st...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-office-chair-is-the-steelcase- leap/)) for around $850. Man, it hurt to spend that much money on a freaking _chair._ It felt like ridiculous extravagance. But it wasn't long before my back pains were completely gone.

If you make programming your profession, you're going to be spending most of your life in two pieces of furniture: your bed and your desk chair. There's lots of places where it's OK to cheap out, but don't cheap out on those.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Knoll's ReGeneration is the yin to the Mirra 2's yang.

</comment><comment><USER36> The colors just remind me of new iPhones...</comment>


Show HN: Startups – This form will save you tons of $ in US taxes - <AUTHOR> https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/83b-election.asp <comment><AUTHOR> A seasoned friend just alerted me about this form.

I registered my new startup with Stripe Atlas, but for some inexplicable reason, they do not mention this very important step to take right after you incorporate.

* and you have only 30-days to do this from the date of incorporation~ _</comment>


Show HN: Sashboard, white label, self branded clone of buffer/hootsuite - <AUTHOR> http://sashboard.com

<comment><USER2> I like the design, and the cleaner look than Hootsuite, who's usability sucks (for me at least) .

But the Branding aspect means that onboarding process is a bit cumbersome. As it means creating new apps for both Facebook, and Twitter, it does make getting up and running take a while. I wonder if having a quicker way to get up and running - or at least take a look around - might be good for signups.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

You're right, this is the real drag but is the only way to achieve this as neither facebook nor twitter offer a way to generate apps programmatically (understandably).

The process (or guide) we have at our end could definitely be improved, we have plans for a more interactive affair.

I do like the idea of a demo, perhaps a quick video?

<comment><USER2> Either would work for me.

More hand-holding in the app creation process would definitely be good!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey Guys,

Congrats for launching.

Feedback: I personally don't find the "via x" text something that affects the brand of the company, I guess big companies might, but if that is the case - what is the point of launching a SaaS product?

Nice design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback eytan :)

I can see where you're coming from, but certainly to some brands, brand consistency is paramount and I suppose I would suggest that this attitude would be found in companies who have, or are seeking, a big _impact_ or large _following_ , and todays web based business models has brought both to smaller and smaller companies, with fewer resources (lean!).

We hope this is useful to any business using social media but know it will be particularly poignant for those who are seriously brand orientated.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to note; this is currently powering posts seen by over a million facebook users and a quarter of a million twitter users everyday with great success. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions, thom[[at]]seddonmedia.co.uk</comment>


Show HN: A tool to explore 100+ coworking retreats - <AUTHOR> https://www.nomadhubb.com/locations <comment><USER2> Nice tool - what tech stack are you using?

I built this with Ruby on Rails and would love to see people using it for projects like what you've done:

[https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder](https://github.com/etewiah/property_web_builder)

If you are interested in adapting it for your use case let me know and I'll do my best to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, I'll check it out but unfortunately, I've never used Rails before! This is made in Node, Express, and Mongo. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice work, finding a lot of links/organizations I wouldn't have found otherwise.

I understand that a lot of these guys are for-profit companies trying to make it, but are there any organizations that self-organize in the spirit of digital nomads?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Kevin! From my understanding, actually a lot of these companies started with just some friends that wanted to travel/work together and it ended up turning into a "for-profit" company in the end. I don't know if there are any that exist purely in self-organizing nomads now, although I've often considered the idea myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> great work, did you think about opening an API?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I actually haven't, but I wouldn't mind having the data completely public. I just don't know technically how to do that yet, although I will put in in my "to dos" :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Stream ethereum event logs on etherstream.io - <AUTHOR> https://www.etherstream.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I made a tool to stream ethereum event logs [https://www.etherstream.io](https://www.etherstream.io), and I would love to get some feedback. I've found that it is extremely useful to be able to quickly "tail" logs from particular contracts while developing Dapps. My hope is to get a link on etherscan.io event logs (for example, [https://etherscan.io/tx/0x75512fd4151dafce8f5a6b8b406d58f2ce...](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x75512fd4151dafce8f5a6b8b406d58f2cea69e05e6525dbbc48fda09635bc375#eventlog)) so you can jump directly from an individual event log to the stream of those logs.

There are a few rough edges (the front end talks directly to Infura with a key I made with a throwaway email, so this won't be able to handle a huge surge of traffic until I add a backend), but if this project gains some traction, I'll smooth them out.

If you're someone who develops apps that interact with the ethereum blockchain, please let me know what you think!

Elliot</comment>


Top Scientist: Another Fukushima Quake Would Mean US Evacuation, 'Bye Bye Japan' - <AUTHOR> http://globalresearchreport.com/2013/11/07/top-scientist-another-fukushima-quake-would-mean-us-evacuation-bye-bye-japan/#sthash.wc1pTyS9.dpbs <comment><USER2> In the interests of balance: [http://www.vice.com/read/these-nuclear- physicists-think-davi...](http://www.vice.com/read/these-nuclear-physicists- think-david-suzuki-is-exaggerating-about-fukushima)</comment>


HN Users: It's Time To Relax - <AUTHOR> http://wavmap.com/ Take a break from work for a little while and listen to the relaxing music on the site. <comment><USER2> I like the service itself, but the website is the opposite of relaxing. Simplify...</comment>


On Stack and the IRS - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/on-stack-and-the-irs_b_468529.html

<comment><USER2> I'm just catching up to the news on this, but I'm kind of disappointed in the articles that I've read, like this one, which are so quick to backpedal and say, "not that his actions were justified".

This is going to be a terribly unpopular point of view I'm sure, but all specific details of his particular case aside ... what is an individual or small business with limited resources going to do if they end up stuck in an IRS quagmire? Is the IRS really defensible at all here?

What happened is exactly what can be expected to happen when the rules of the social contract are violated. For social contracts to work, there must be a way for parties to peacefully resolve arguments. In the case of the IRS (in particular), you have a complex, constantly changing system, with little recourse for resolving disagreements.

I've been _really_ poor, and it's easy in that situation to adopt an us versus them, self-defeating attitude towards government and bureaucracy. Resolving any disputes requires resources, and when you don't have those resources, you find yourself struggling on the losing end of deals over and over again.

There are, at least, thousands of people that would imagine themselves doing what Stack did, and for much the same reasons. Doesn't that practically _require_ that the tax system get reviewed, and fixed?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of those very fine lines where on one side you have completely understandable outrage at an unjust and broken system--and on the other you have completely understandable outrage at an unjust and broken system, and killing people who are employed by the system but don't any have direct control over it. I think the former is entirely justified, but the latter is clearly not.

<comment><USER2> Hmm. If the latter is unjustified, what does that say about situations in war where civilians are killed, injured, or have their property destroyed?

I'm not quite equating what happened in Texas with war between sovereign states, but I do think there are some parallels in the mind of the terrorist, as well as in history and human behavior in general.

If you find yourself in a violent conflict with something intangible, like a government or a bureaucracy, how do you not see the people who are working for that government or bureaucracy as being part of the problem?

EDIT: I want to be very clear here. What happened to the employees at the IRS building is tragic, and they didn't have any influence on the IRS' decision- making process, or even on Stack's particular situation. Rather, what I'm trying to say is that as long as there is no way to peacefully resolve disputes in situations like this, to the satisfaction of both parties, then what happened is to be expected and will continue to happen. (Remember Tim McVeigh? He had some of the same complaints...)

So, what happened _must_ prompt a quick response in the form of reforms of the IRS, specifically in dispute management and resolution, and I think that every article that handwaves Stack's terrorism as being the actions of "a wacko", "a nut", or "unjustified", weakens the case for those reforms.

<comment><USER3> _I'm not quite equating what happened in Texas with war between sovereign states_

It's only a matter of scale. Nations have gone to war for less righteous reasons; such as religion or taking stuff from weaker nations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is bizarre to me that the author is cutting down Stack and at the same exact time defending his message (but not his actions). So you really think you'd be writing this piece if he didn't take dire actions, Aaron Greenspan?

I have said it before, but there is a certain point where things are not terrorism or insane but instead revolt and rebellion. I, for one, understand his actions (although I, myself, would not choose to die over money). Perhaps he understood that only making a dumb, cruel decision would give his message weight to appear on major news sites. We do not know.

What exactly should a man that has tried to financially change things, politically change things, and fallen back on trying to avoid getting in trouble do?

In any case, I do not like the IRS and it's veil of mystery. I use tax software because it takes me tons of time to do the paper form by hand and figure out what forms I even need to submit (it still took me around 2 hours to get everything in order to do my taxes and complete them with the software - just personal taxes and no state taxes). What does it say when the IRS Commissioner can't do his own taxes yet this guy was financially penalized for using an accountant to try and get his records right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I've been writing about taxes for a long time, actually. See

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/new- deal-20_b_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/new- deal-20_b_142518.html)

What you're supposed to do is bring problems to light through the press and/or lobbying Congress (the lobbying process is not just reserved for corporations) and/or filing lawsuits. When and where appropriate, I've done all three.

What you're not supposed to do is physically harm those you disagree with. That's the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship ruled by thugs.

<comment><USER4> You briefly scuffed on the subject of the IRS having a bad system for a single form in that article. You're telling me that this recent article you wrote was being prepared prior to Stack's violent decision? I did not think so.

He brought the topics to light by forcing them into the light in a crude manner. Harming government employees is probably as close as you can get to making a strong point without committing a huge atrocity (unless you consider picketing "strong").

Unfortunately, we have done tons of physical harm in the past to get our way, Mr. Greenspan. See the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, etc. It sometimes requires ugly situations to fix ugly problems. So you're going to really claim that the entire history of our United States is based on a dictatorship ruled by thugs?

 _Edit:_ I did not mean to imply you did not have an interest in tax reform, simply that you (among many others in the news industry) are touching on the subject when the interest has peaked due to Stack's actions. You may have wrote something similar in 5 months or 5 years, but it is easy to say that the message would not resonate as much.

<comment><AUTHOR> See also (dated February 1, 2007):

<http://www.aarongreenspan.com/essays/index.html?id=11>

I disagree that violence is the best answer to problems that are themselves non-violent in nature, such as tax problems, and I'll leave it at that.

Besides, who are you, and what have you done to help improve the nation's tax system?

<comment><USER5> _Besides, who are you, and what have you done to help improve the nation's tax system?_

invisible's point is that you would not cover the issue as extensively had it not been for the Stack's actions, therefore those actions were not entirely pointless as they created more awareness of the problem. Your reply amounts to an ad-hom. Kindly refrain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree. First of all, I never said that anything was pointless. Secondly, Mark criticized my arguments because I had merely "scuffed on the subject of the IRS" in his words. I think I'm entitled to know what he's written on the subject.

Especially when I've offered up my name and background, asking for an anonymous critic's name and background does not constitute an ad hominem attack, and may in fact raise important points in the context of a debate.

<comment><USER5> _I think I'm entitled to know what he's written on the subject._

Try addressing the substance of the argument instead of the person that brought it forward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bleah. By Stack's own admission, the first of his beefs with the IRS was getting caught in an "organized religion" scam. I didn't read past that, but I understand his third beef is akin to that.

(The second is legitimate, it too put me out of a job in 1987 and on a bad career path for a long while, but the problem was more with the Congress that removed the safe harbor just for us "technical professionals" than the IRS which then enforced that.)

<comment><USER7> Can you summarize what safe harbor provisions were removed? It wasn't clear to me from Stack's writing what, exactly, technical folks were being exempt from.

<comment><USER6> Another HN contributor did a much better job than I could: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1137930>

My only caveat is that as far as I remember this is something that Pat Moynihan in the middle of the night slipped into a COBRA bill (one of those last minute 1,000 page catch alls to continue funding the government) instead of something subjected to _any_ debate in the Congress. Yep, it did happen in the same year as the tax changes, but not e.g. in the same bill or as I recall at the same time.

<comment><USER6> My recollection seems to be wrong: [http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/the- austin-p...](http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/the-austin- pilot-.html) (HT the Instapundit.)

Then again having lost my job I didn't care _that_ much about the details, which weren't particularly available in that pre-real Internet period.

<comment><USER6> Or maybe not, except for it being the _big_ tax bill that year instead of a COBRA. This article: [http://infoworld.com/d/developer-world/fixing- independent-pr...](http://infoworld.com/d/developer-world/fixing-independent- programmers-no-win-scenario-764) and one of the comments matches my recollection that Moynihan slipped it into the bill in the dead of night and that it was never directly considered.

Says also that Moynihan tried to get it repealed a year later, so it could be that he was also successful in spinning it as a considered part of the bill instead of a disastrous favor for a very narrow special interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I believe that our legislative branch is nearly broken. But for the most part, people are tolerant of their situation. But how long can we go on without a functioning (i.e. serving the people) legislative branch? That's like driving down a winding mountain road without brakes. If the grade gets too steep, and the road too twisty, we'll fly into a ravine.

</comment><comment><USER9> Stack was just a loony murderer.

Planning to die in first field operation == teh crazy.

Planning to survive for indefinitely many field operations == professional revolutionary.

Let's just be glad he was not visited by what Charlie Stross calls the Plutonium Fairy.</comment>


I'm sorry, but this "Full Stack" meme makes me mad/sad - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/cubiclebuddha/i-m-sorry-but-this-full-stack-meme-makes-me-really-mad-sad-35hi <comment><USER2> > What do you think? Has your company pushed too hard for split UI/Backend > teams?

I haven't see this personally, I've only seen the opposite, companies pushing for full-stack devs. And from what I've seen, people self-select frontend vs backend despite teams pushing and hoping for more full-stack activity from every person on the team.

Frontend and backend and ops are specialized activities, and those domains are only getting more specialized and more complicated over time. Writing an API and designing CSS almost couldn't be more different, and they're both full time problems.

When I started a company with a friend, we both wanted to be full-stack and we both tried multiple times, but we just automatically drifted to me on the UI and him on the bots. After a while, when I would try to write bot code I would screw it up despite good intentions, strong knowledge of the code, and unit- tests in place. I would forget important security or schema details, or not quite understand the way my partner's code had changed structurally even when we talked about it for hours. He'd get tired of explaining it and just write the code. Same thing happened the other way when he'd dip his toes in the frontend. If two people who want to be full-stack and communicate non-stop can't make full-stack happen, I'd guess it's a hard problem.

<comment><USER3> At my company, the product team leads want full stack for the flexibility of having any dev pick up any story. But the devs gravitate to their preferred side. Personally, I tend to avoid the front end because I'm weary of learning yet another js paradigm there every year or two and because I'm just more passionate about the back end than the UI anyway.

<comment><USER4> This is also what I have seen. The push for "full stack" devs and teams came from product because they don't like to have to coordinate multiple people or teams in order to get a project done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Full Stack", in my experience (which is anecdotal and just my own), means "We want Front-End but can't find enough people so we're going to hire you as 'Full Stack' and then give you all Front-End work, but you wouldn't accept the job if we told you that's what it was". In other words, "Full-stack" means "Bait-and-switch", when coming from an employer.

Not saying that you shouldn't want Front-End work; if you enjoy that, great, and I am happy to support you with that API in a timely fashion. Happy to work closely with the designer and/or Front-End dev to make sure you get what you need so that things look good on the front end. But, I prefer Back-end development, for the most part. When I take a job that's described as "back end" it usually will involve every once in a while doing a bit of js, html, or css, but not much, and it's understood that it is not what I am going to be doing most of the time.

Again, this may not be other people's experience, but it's mine.

<comment><USER6> >When I take a job that's described as "back end" it usually will involve every once in a while doing a bit of js, html, or css, but not much, and it's understood that it is not what I am going to be doing most of the time.

Do you feel that 'reporting' (of the SSRS variety)falls under the backend umbrella?

<comment><USER5> Tough question. It's kind of like, does "data science" count as back-end, or a separate category? I tend to think both reporting and data science (which are at different parts of a spectrum of data-oriented roles) are different enough from other back-end jobs to deserve a separate designation.

In practice, I've also seen a similar "bait-and-switch" where people get told they'll do data science, and then get pressed into back-end development instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I think it's just a cheeky joke. The point it underlies is rooted in truth - > that it's really difficult to master both frontend and backend development > in real life.

That comment on the post sums it up perfectly, in my opinion.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. The JavaScript world is evolving at a crazy fast pace. Front end development has become inextricably linked to it. No-one writes Vanilla JS + CSS anymore.

It's unrealistic to think someone can be an expert an the front end stuff (changing by the month) and be an expert at the back-end stuff with its own completely separate set of skills and knowledge.

It's like asking for a back-end dev who's also a DevOps expert and can handle all 100+ AWS services. Hell, good DevOps folks can't handle that _without_ trying to become good back-end developers too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember seeing a snarky tweet saying something along the lines of "Try asking your full-stack developers which direction the stack grows on x86"

<comment><USER10> This was the kind of joke I was expecting, based on the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The idea of naming developers based on the tools they are currently using is akin to name an mechanical engineer a wrench guy or a carpenter a hammer guy.

Of course not everyone is a computer scientist but even then everyone who is worth their salary should be able to get up to speed with a new language or deployment scenario.

That being said, how many job postings do you know that explicitly mention "we work with XXX - do you think you want to, too?"

<comment><USER12> I think devs who think they can do everything are lying to themselves. Sure, I can do Java and understand the environment. Sure I can do React and there is nothing special about it. But I am better at C#/.NET/Angular, because I have been working with edge cases for the past x years.

To say I can lead a team in a Java environment would be a lie, because of all the minor details.

Just because you can do something in a language doesn't mean devs are truly universal and "it's all the same."

Can I write some function integration in C/Go/Powershell, etc? Sure, but when I do, I am not nearly as efficient as when I am using my daily languages/frameworks.

<comment><USER13> > I think devs who think they can do everything are lying to themselves.

I don't think I agree with this, but there's an underlying truth here.

Personally, I have at least dabbled in pretty much everything that I've come across. I do this intentionally for two reasons -- first, it makes me aware of what tools exist, so I can make better tooling decisions, and second, it gives me a little head start if it becomes desirable to actually achieve competency in one of them.

I'm minimally competent in a very large variety of things. I can accomplish pretty much anything with a tech if I'm minimally competent with it. It will just take me longer to do so.

I'm competent in a variety of things, and I'm expert in a handful of things.

An expert dev should be able to at least muddle through with pretty much any tech, where "muddle through" means that you can produce using that tech, but it will take you longer than with someone who is at least competent. But you can still do it, and recognizing that isn't lying to yourself.

<comment><USER12> I don't think we are in disagreement on "should be able to." The argument is that it's not an efficient use of time.

<comment><USER13> Yes, that was why my assertion was qualified. The part I disagree with is "I think devs who think they can do everything are lying to themselves."

I agree that devs can't do everything efficiently.

<comment><USER14> I think there might be some devs who can do everything, but given that nobody has ever been tested on everything how do they know - at best you know that you have never yet been unable to meet a challenge and considering some challenges you have had you can estimate how long it should take to complete similar ones.

<comment><USER13> Well, if we limit our discussions to Von Neumann machines anyway, the number of different kinds of problems are not actually unmanageably large. Once you've touched on each of them a few times, I think you can be confident that you can figure out pretty much any situation. The only question is work efficiency.

Different languages don't really matter, because once you've learned the major types of approaches languages take then everything else is (mostly) just a difference in syntax.

If we look at mathematical and algorithmic issues, all of those can be learned if needed. They don't affect the ability of a dev to do them, only how long it would take.

When I say a dev can do everything, I don't mean that everything is easy or fast for them. Just possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is not just a meme. This is a mentality.

At my last job at a big company we had HipChat rooms for all kinds of user groups. The one for frontend devs had constant discussion about their job (in)security, and every couple of weeks someone posted an article complaining about the existence of "fullstack" engineers.

I wouldn't care if this ended at chats and picture, but it's these people who deliberately push for ever increasing fronted complexity to make sure they're not easily replaceable.

The sad reality is that IT industry is currently in a bubble. It is choke-full of overspecialized tool junkies with no transferable skills. Certain complexities you "have to know" to perform basic operations are often 100% artificial and shouldn't be there in the first place.

<comment><USER16> I never understood this concept at all. Is this a metaphor somehow, or do you literally think everyone is secretly conspiring to make life more complicated for themselves and their team because of job security? What about the fact that everyone changes jobs every 1 to 3 years anyway? The market for engineers is pretty hot these days, I don't think most devs even want all that much job security, much less are willing to go to such extreme lengths for it.

Have you considered that problems you're not working on may actually have more inherent complexity than you realize?

From my own experience, and also just based on Ockham's razor, it seems much more likely that people are mostly giving an honest effort and trying to solve real problems. Sometimes they succeed and sometimes they fail to solve the problem, or fail to recognize the right problem to work on, but overall real things are certainly getting done in the software world — new products launch and companies provide real value and gain real customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every "full stack" team I've ever been on almost immediately partitioned itself into "the frontend people" and "the backend people", with people only crossing sides if there was some kind of emergency fix needed and the "right person" wasn't available. From what I gather in talking to others, this is pretty typical. Full-stack development is mostly a myth that we all pretend to believe in.

<comment><USER18> Isn't that ability to cross to wherever you are needed actually what full- stack means?

I was hired as front-end and did angular and css but earned respect of my back-end devs by pestering them successfully about creating correct indexes on the tables involved in queries that were mysteriously slow to them.

The other front-end guy just switched to Java were team were short of back-end capacity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm a Full-Stack developer at Google, which is fairly uncommon given the complexity of systems here.

The chief trait of a Full Stack developer, in my opinion, is often just growing into the needs of the team/moment. I've been weighted in different directions because that's where the product needed me; I'm currently the Front-End domain expert on my team.

Self-adulating thought leaders who throw shade at Full-Stack are themselves just really bad at using more than one language, let alone thinking about different parts of a large system.

(I'd also expect a Full-Stack developer to understand systems and resource provisioning/monitoring. Not just JS vs. Java.)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'll admit - I'm that horse drawer.

The converse problem is a brilliant but un-coordinated team of front end and back end developers that make things that the other team has trouble interfacing with: the severed front half of a narwhal and the back end of of a dragon with thousands of JSON/XML ants going between the two distant mounds of meat.

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of comments here bemoan "Full Stack Engineers" as being Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None. But that misses the point. Don't forget that the full quote is:

"A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

In a startup or smaller organisation an Engineer with a deep understanding of a single area (frontend, backend, devops etc) is far less valuable to the business than an Engineer with "T-shaped" skills ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills)), a solid understanding of fundamental best practices and the ability to quickly understand new things as required.

This article nails it:

[https://angel.co/blog/what-skeptics-get-wrong-about-full- sta...](https://angel.co/blog/what-skeptics-get-wrong-about-full-stack- engineers-and-why-we-need-them)

</comment><comment><USER22> > What do you think? Has your company pushed too hard for split UI/Backend > teams?

One relevant (anti-)pattern I've seen too often: nominally full-stack teams who fail to value and take ownership of their UI component. In my examples, this happens when they "require" full-stack devs, but will give full rating to the "meme horse" developer (weak UI, strong backend) and completely de-rate the opposite developer: strong UI, weak backend.

That said, I agree with the author's preference for "full-stack team" where the entire team puts real value in the whole range of competencies rather than just pushing the full-stack need down onto every individual developer.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think Mitch Hedberg described it best:

[https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-when-you-re- in...](https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-when-you-re-in-hollywood- and-you-re-a-comedian-everybody-wants-you-to-do-other-things-mitch- hedberg-129-5-0509.jpg)</comment>