Long Google Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/03/long-google-again.html <comment><USER2> congratulations but I would've bought at 150 in half a year. and it has nothing to do with google.</comment>


What do you use for project planning? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a good system to plan out a project idea I recently conceived.  What are some good services/ applications for helping to compile all your thoughts and ideas? <comment><USER2> Trello is awesome.

trello.com

</comment><comment><USER3> try [http://getgolo.com](http://getgolo.com) I built it.

</comment><comment> the-swa Asana + Instagantt</comment>


Homeowner vs. Renter:  Why Should You Ever Buy a House (at all)? - <AUTHOR> http://patrick.net/housing/contrib/servitude.html

<comment><USER3> Of course, at this time the housing bubble is still deflating, so this kind of calculation heavily favors renters in many areas.

The guy at Shadenfreude Central, a.k.a. www.irvinehousingblog.com, recommends computing the ratio of a house's sale price to the monthly rent for an equivalent house. The charts on this page:

[http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/wot-3-22-2008...](http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/wot-3-22-2008/)

assert that the national historic norm for this number is about 180: i.e. a house that rents for $3k should cost about $3k x 180 = $540k. As a rule of thumb, if the sales price is significantly more than this calculation would suggest, it's a good time to rent instead of buying.

Having said all that: The reason to buy a house was well articulated by Christopher Alexander in _A Pattern Language_ (which, as all pattern-wielding Java programmers should know by now, is a classic):

 _Pattern 79. YOUR OWN HOME

People cannot be genuinely comfortable and healthy in a house which is not theirs. All forms of rental - whether from private landlords or public housing agencies - work against the natural processes which allow people to form stable, self-healing communities...

This pattern is not intended as an argument in favor of "private property," or the process of buying and selling land. Indeed, it is very clear that all those processes which encourage speculation in land, for the sake of profit, are unhealthy and destructive, because they invite people to treat houses as commodities, to build things for "resale," and not in such a way as to fit their own needs.

And just as speculation and the profit motive make it impossible for people to adapt their houses to their own needs, so tenancy, rental, and landlords do the same. Rental areas are always the first to turn to slums. The mechanism is clear and well known. See, for example, George Sternlieb, The Tenement Landlord(Rutgers University Press, 1966). The landlord tries to keep his maintenance and repair costs as low as possible; the residents have no incentive to maintain and repair the homes - in fact, the opposite - <USER2> improvements add to the wealth of the landlord, and even justify higher rent. And so the typical piece of rental property degenerates over the years. Then landlords try to build new rental properties which are immune to neglect - gardens are replaced with concrete, carpets are replaced with lineoleum, and wooden surfaces by formica: it is an attempt to make the new units maintenance-free, and to stop the slums by force; but they turn out cold and sterile and again turn into slums, because nobody loves them.

People will only be able to feel comfortable in their houses, if they can change their houses to suit themselves, add on whatever they need, rearrange the garden as they like it; and, of course, they can only do this in circumstances where they are the legal owners of the house and land; and if, in high density multi-story housing, each apartment, like a house, has a welldefined volume, in which the owner can make changes as he likes._

</comment><comment><USER4> $400k for a 2 br place is expensive by national standards, which would make Sacramento a high-priced real estate market (not hard to believe, most of California is).

He claims $949 a month is much higher than median for a 1 br. That does not seem to fit with what I've seen in high priced real estate markets. By comparison, in Ohio, a brand spanking new two bedroom detached condo (nobody builds 2 br homes in most parts of the country, so you couldn't find a newish one) in a great area would cost maybe $150-175k. But rent on a good one BR apartment is still $750/mo.

I've looked at places in a lot of markets (midwest, Vegas, Bay Area among them) over the last 5 years and if what he says is true, it makes me think the rents in Sacramento are depressed for some unusual reason, and the ratio of mortgage to rent is atypical, and therefore not permanent.

My off the cuff guess as to why would be the terrible real estate market there. It's so hard to sell a house right now for more than you owe the bank on it that a lot of people have taken to renting them out instead, creating an unusually high number of rentals. It's a lot easier to rent a place out at a few hundred bucks below mortgage and pay the difference out of pocket than it is to sell it and pay the bank the 50k you'd owe them after. If you're doing well enough to afford two mortgages, you can pick another house up at a good price, move there, and rent the old. That's exactly how we got our place in Campbell, and what a lot of the places we looked at in the bay area were doing as well.

So maybe he shouldn't buy a home in Sacramento, at least right now. There are lots of times in various markets where this happens and it's financially beneficial to rent until the ratio swings the other way.

<comment><USER5> _By comparison, in Ohio, a brand spanking new two bedroom detached condo (nobody builds 2 br homes in most parts of the country, so you couldn't find a newish one) in a great area would cost maybe $150-175k. But rent on a good one BR apartment is still $750/mo._

Where are you getting your numbers? I grew up in Columbus; most of my friends and family still live there. The cost of a condo there is anywhere from 30-50% more than what you cite, and the rent for a 1BR apartment is 20-30% less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What the author seems to miss is that if you rent for 30 years, you still have to buy or rent a home for year 31. Whereas, if you own your home for 30 years, in year 31 your housing payment is $0 + maintenance, which I'll guarantee is less than the rent the author would be paying.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but the renter's balance is higher than the future value of the owner's house (which the renter could then buy in cash and still have money left over).

One thing that was ignored is the increase in rent over time. By year 30, the monthly rent will probably be higher than the mortgage payment (in the calculation, we assumed fixed rent over 30 years).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Surely arguing that renting is cheaper than owning implies that landlords make a loss - which I'm sure is very rare.

<comment><USER9> What makes you think it is rare? Genuine interest, I have no knowledge about it. I know cases were renters pay less than the monthly rates paying of the credit for buying the house.

Wouldn't it be kind of zero-sum? Either you live in the house yourself, than the calculations apply, or you live somewhere else, but then (simplified) your rent equals the rent your renters pay, so it cancels out and the calculations would still be correct.

<comment><USER8> Of course. I'm sure it's common in some parts that landlords make a loss in month to month terms, but then once the mortgage is paid off they own it and sell it, and it's gone up massively in price. Maybe that's their big pay day.

I'm sure other landlords make a very good profit month to month also. But if landlords were making a loss in real terms over years, they would probably stop doing it.

<comment><USER10> Even if the property loses money, the owner gets tax deductions for depreciation on the property, and the owner can apply the loss to their own taxes (useful if you have high income like a doctor or lawyer).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is wrong. Admittedly, some problems occur due to its US-focus. In the UK, for example, _residents_ pay property taxes, not just owners, so you pay the same property tax whether you own or rent the property, removing that advantage of renting.

The figures for the mortgage versus renting are bogus in any case. The writer has not compared like to like. An apartment with people walking around above you is not the same as a HOUSE. It is therefore no wonder the rent is 2.5 times cheaper than the mortgage.. it's on a property that's subjectively at least 2.5 times worse. Like for like, the mortgage on a similar apartment would be a lot less than $2500 a month.

Given increasing population, rents and property prices are unlikely to rise at just 0.4% above inflation over the next 30 years. While the mortgage payment can only go up based on interest rates (and it's not /that/ hard to lock into a fixed rate right now..), the rent will go up in absolute terms. Assuming a 3% rise after inflation, the unlucky renter will be paying $2303 per month at year 30, and very little will have been put into savings for the last 10 years. Worse, they won't have an asset - the homeowner will.

Buying a property with a mortgage gives you incredible leverage you'd struggle to obtain with other investments. The bank won't loan you $400,000 to invest in stock, but you can invest in a property this way.

Given that rising rents will cause the renter to barely be saving anything by year 20, that the renter will have no property and a less than exciting savings account come year 31, and that the renter has had to put up with all sorts of restrictions that come with rental properties (no modifications, often no pets, no guarantee you can stay there), I think the homeowner is a lot more wise if they plan on staying put for at least a few years.

Renting is a nightmare even if it proves to be cheaper in the /short-term/. If you're an automaton that doesn't mind uprooting whenever your landlords say so, perhaps it'll work for you. But for those of us with kids, pets and geographical attachments, owning a home gives us both an asset we're invested in using the bank's money for leverage, and a permanent base that only severe economic conditions can take away from us.

</comment><comment><USER12> Investment return rate, rent/buy cost ratio, inflation and home appreciation (or depreciation) rates all matter. It's a lot to consider.

Luckily, the NYTimes put out a great calculator for just this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAP...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A good benefit of renting is that you could travel anywhere you want to for months or years, especially if you're in a startup in the digital space that focuses on making money every month instead of raising Venture Capital. You could travel across the country or internationally. You could do this frequently, and live in places that are cheaper per month than your mortgage or rent--which is going to be especially true for almost every other country if you live in an expensive city already, but still true if your current rent is $1,000. One might not want to buy a house unless they plan on living in it for at least a few years (there are web site calculators that compute how long you have to live in a house to make it worth it, factoring local rent, buying and selling costs, and the small interest you would earn on the difference between the rent and mortgage price.)

</comment><comment><USER13> One thing nobody seems to mention is that the owner has to pay for the maintenance of the home, while the renter doesn't. Over a 30 year period there will be quite a lot to do.

<comment><USER14> Landlords factor that in to the rent. Here in Ontario, we have rent control legislation, so rents do not move with the market. However, the landlord is permitted to raise the rents when the cost of maintenance rises.

If you don't want the hassle of actually dealing with maintenance, you can purchase something like a condominium, where a management firm handles the maintenance and you write a cheque each month.

So... I'm suggesting the maintenance issue is orthogonal to the ownership issue.

<comment><USER15> True, but landlords usually either do their own maintenance or know who's good and cheap. The average person might tend to get ripped off by incompetent or unscrupulous repairmen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The economist and the financial times started recommending renting a few years ago - and they acknowledge that this was a remarkable turn of events.

That said, I think that deliberately renting is a short term play - one that paid off for folks who stayed out starting 2004 or so. These people will probably be in a stronger position to jump in later (though it's incredibly hard to know exactly when... and I suspect this bust will go on for a long, long time).

That said, when I was looking for apartments in SF a few years ago, I met people over the age of 50 who were losing their rent controlled apartments. They were truly shocked at the prices, and were angry about it. Of course, I'd never actually come out and say this, but I thought it: "you've been in SF for 25 years, was there really never a good time to buy?"

Maybe not. I grew up in SF, and over the course of my life, housing has gone from quite expensive ( early 70s) to very expensive (late 80s) to brutally expensive (early 00s). I actually think that a lot of people just never quite managed to get a toehold, and I feel bad for them.

Personally, I'm making payments on an expensive 1200sqft house with a little yard in an unfashionable corner of the city. It may well be worth less than I paid for it, but I locked in a 30 year fixed loan, and I'm not struggling to pay the morgage (though it is a big chunk of my pay).

When I bought, I actually would have predicted a downturn as well. But I don't really act on those beliefs - any more than I get into and out of equities based on where I see the stock market going. My best _guess_ is that housing has a lot further down to go (something I believed as early as 2002 or so) - but my guess is no better or worse than what any other astute reader of the business section could come up with. But I'm a lot more confident in my belief that when I'm 55, I'll be glad that I own my hous and that I'm not worrying about whether I'll lose my rent controlled apartment.

I still think that starting early, investing in stocks and owning your own house, is by far the winning long term strategy.

</comment><comment><USER17> It is rather ridiculous that this author would not include the simple fact that rents nearly always go up... especially over 30 years.

<comment><USER15> I expect rents to go up considerably, given that people are avoiding buying houses, population is increasing (expected to be 500M by mid-century), and inflation is high (I don't see any way out of the US government's debt mess other than inflation to reduce its real value).

So in 10, 20, 30 years a renter will be paying considerably more while a buyer will be paying a rate locked in long ago.

Imagine the relative pittance you'd be paying now on a loan locked at 1988 housing prices - and that's after 2 decades of inflation rates that were lower than those of the next 2 decades will probably be.

<comment><USER18> I bought my house in 2001, and for me to rent an equivalently sized house now is already $600 to $1000 more expensive per month than my mortgage. It was a bit worse a couple of years ago, but still; people who forget about rent increases are in for a big surprise if they could have gotten a house for a reasonable price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Try explaining this "logic" to a family with a newborn when the landlord decides to kick them out! Owning a home is security. Also, as noted by tesla, at year 31 you no longer have a house payment. I hope the people who advocate renting for life like paying rent _after_ they are retired!

</comment><comment><USER8> Not this old chestnut again :/ Buy a house. Now. In a stable or up and coming area. Do it. I know things.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think having the ability to have a home equity line is reason enough to buy. That's 100-200 thousand dollars credit you have at your disposal for a rainy day. And unlike credit cards its not at 30% apr.

<comment><USER21> If you have decent credit, you can generally get credit cards at, near, or even below a HELOC rate. I have two credit cards that I don't use (well I put 1 fixed payment on each every month to keep my credit score up) with limits at $30k on each. With the money access checks they give me with promo rates, I could easily sit on 30k each year, just bouncing the balance back and forth anywhere between 0 and 2.99%.

<comment><USER20> yes thats an option but those credit cards last like 6 months before you need to bounce them. And you need to qualify for the credit. With equity line you qualify once at your best at then you can still get access to it if you no longer work/have bad credit etc.

<comment><USER15> Not necessarily. I have 15K credit card debt at less than 6% until the loan is paid off. The trick is to max out a credit card, make a big payment, and then they send you a blank check for some ridiculously low rate for an indefinite period on your account with a note that says they hope they're not losing you as a customer. Then you pay the rest of the credit card off and write the check for (almost) your entire credit line. At least that's what Chase did for me.

I do have good credit, but then you have to have good credit to get a low enough interest rate on a mortgage to make it worthwhile, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you want to play with numbers, the New York Times has an excellent tool:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAP...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1210623109-gRZfVKFPW6Lum2KGvsXGwA)

It allows you to play with multiple variables and then tells you how many years you need to own a home for in order for it to become profitable.

</comment><comment><USER23> Of course the answer is always "it depends". If you want to run the numbers, here is an excellent Excel spreadsheet that will analyze the rent vs. buy decision for your personal circumstances. [http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2006/04/bubblizer_a_req...](http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2006/04/bubblizer_a_req.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> It's harder to rent a _nice_ place than it is to buy one. In general, landlords don't take care of rental units as well as they would their own house, and the same goes for the tenants. Of course, we're just talking percentages, but in the end it makes it much harder to rent a nice place.

</comment><comment><USER25> 1\. pay downpayment 2\. let other people rent from you, pay mortgage with that rent 3\. profit.

the downpayment you made gets paid back into the equity on the house within the first couple of years. everything after that is FREE EQUITY.

<comment><USER25> also: I blame this partly on the attitudes of today's generation. they can't seem to distinguish between owning and borrowing.

Is music DRM preventing people from making good financial decisions in other aspects of life?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This may hold true, in certain areas, if you keep the same house for 30 years. I read somewhere that the average American home changes ownership every 11.9 years.

I did a quick calculation on the percentage ROI after 1 year of owning a $300K house.

home cost: $300,000

10% down payment: $30,000

30/yr mortgage @ 6%: $1,618.79

tax at 1.25%: $312.50

maintenance/misc: $200.00

actual mortgage payment: $2,131.29

investment after 1 year (($2,131.29 * 12) + $30,000) = $55,575.48

appreciation after 1 year at 4%/yr: $12,000

percentage ROI: ($12,000/$55,575.48) = 21%

what index fund are you going to see a 21% return on investment from? did I make a horrible mistake?

<comment><USER27> Three obvious ROI friction factors you missed:

1\. Closing costs.

The mortgage is not a free transaction, for the buyer. There are a lot of services (inspection, title insurance) and misc charges. That's a couple thousand dollars. I don't know what the rule of thumb is; I know that it ended up being about $11k for a mortgage less than $300k, and that's without points or any other mortgage instrument issues.

2\. Equity.

Almost all of your payments in year 1 go to interest with 10% as the downpayment, you'd probably owe about $266.7k -- play with an amortization calculator. If you sold the house for $312k, the difference would be about $45k. That's $45k back for your $55k... except

3\. Selling fees.

The seller in a transaction is typically responsible for paying the real estate agent fees for some combination of seller and buyer. That's 3% each (if you both used something like redfin.com, it would still be 4% total). That's up to 6% of the $312k -- $18.7k.

So, with #1 you increase your investment requirements (call it $10k, so $65k for the year). With #2 you decrease your net ($45 on the $65k). With #3 you decrease your net even more ($26 on the $65k). On the plus side, you typically only make 11 payments in the first year, so you're only out $37k instead of $39k!

Summary:

Real Estate transactions are not efficient, low-friction or highly liquid investments. Duh. This has a positive and negative aspect - you have the potential for outsized appreciation because of the illiquidity, and because transaction costs keep the potential market (somewhat) more constrained. But you also have greater penalties on shorter ownership cycles.

Conclusion:

One year is an awful timespan for a house purchase unless you're completely confident in an extreme appreciation or you are investing additional sums or sweat equity which may guarantee the extreme appreciation (ie, a flip). It has to be extreme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> <http://www.burbed.com/> makes me glad I am a renter.

</comment><comment><USER29> Some items the article is glossing over:

First, the rental value doesn't take into account inflation. House payments are fixed, which means it gets effectively cheaper every year. Meanwhile, rents keep increasing. This means that while you can catch a house at the bottom of a bubble and lock in the price, if you rent in that same area, you'll find rents going way up when the housing bubble rises again.

Next, an 800 sq. ft. apartment isn't equivalent to a 1000 sq. ft. house with a yard. If you really want to cheap out on a house, get a mobile home -- though of course that doesn't include land, which is often leased.

Further, in this example, it assumes you have the difference between the two prices free and clear to invest -- you'll certainly need to make sure your investments do well, because at the end of 30 years, you aren't going to be a homeowner, and will still need a place to live.

Not to mention, pets are typically a problem; you're at the mercy of your landlord; the rent can be increased at any time; you have to deal with shared walls with neighbors; and your 6% return is not going to seem very exciting in 5 years when housing picks up again and that $400k house is worth $800k. It WILL pick up -- the country isn't becoming LESS crowded.

Your monthly investment amount will decrease every year as your rent gets increased, meaning your return is not going to be as good as depicted, especially if wages stagnate (as they effectively have in many sectors for the last 8 years). At 5% rent increase per year, you'll eventually be paying around $4000 for that same apartment in 30 years. Around year 20 the apartment costs more per month than the house. (This is a great area, remember, so the demand will be high. In some areas the rent can jump by 20% in a year instead of 5%.) This would mean you'd do significantly worse than if you bought the house.

The basic premise of this article is really "what if you live cheaply and invest your money vs. what if you spend all your money on housing and your house appreciates more slowly than an index fund".

Step 1. Live in your parents' basement for 30 (more) years.

Step 2. Invest the WHOLE $2400 per month on an index fund.

Step 3. Profit!

As you can see, the article ignores things about having your own house that are nice -- like a stable place for people to visit since you don't move every few years to cheaper places; not being at the mercy of parents or landlords; having a yard; not having to obey "quiet hours", and so forth.

<comment> daniel-cussen I agree, the article ignores many positive aspects of homeownership. However, some of the points you make are poorly founded. For instance, there's no guarantee a 400k house in Sacramento will be worth 800k in five years, solely because US is becoming more crowded. It's a bold claim. Also, the idea of being at the mercy of your landlords is weird. In markets with a lot of excess inventory, some landlords can't find tenants. This puts them at the tenant's mercy. Second, if you own a house, you can be at the mercy of the bank, or the local home owner's association, or some such.

Some points are good, though; if one takes out a fixed-rate mortgage, payments are fixed and will become less painful as inflation makes them smaller in absolute terms.

<comment><USER29> > For instance, there's no guarantee a 400k house in Sacramento will be worth > 800k in five years

Sure, but based on historical events with housing in "great" areas, this can and does happen. If you buy right before a bubble, it can even happen sooner -- in a couple years. A 6% fund is not going to even have the _chance_ to do that.

> In markets with a lot of excess inventory, some landlords can't find > tenants.

A given, per the article, is a "great" area. Great areas are always in demand. I have not yet lived in an area that lacked for tenants.

<comment><USER5> _Sure, but based on historical events with housing in "great" areas, this can and does happen. If you buy right before a bubble, it can even happen sooner -- in a couple years._

If you buy a good stock right before a bubble, you can double your money quickly, too (ask me about INTC or CSCO or AMZN in 1998). The point is, what's going to happen under _likely_ circumstances? More importantly, what's going to happen in a _rational_ market?

Home prices are coming down from the largest asset bubble in US history. If you've never thought about homeownership before 1995 or so, you might assume that home prices always increase by at least 5% per year. You'd be wrong, however. Homes in the US are historically an under-performing investment; over the long-term, their returns approximately match the rate of inflation.

There are exceptions to this rule, but I think that the parent comment is generally well-taken: it's _not_ guaranteed that your home is going to double in value in five years. (In fact, in some parts of the country, there's a real chance that your home will be worth 50% _less_ in five years' time.)

<comment><USER29> > The point is, what's going to happen under _likely_ circumstances?

In high-demand areas, it's likely housing prices will see another bubble.

> it's _not_ guaranteed that your home is going to double in value in five > years.

We're all in agreement on that.

The point I was making is that real estate bubbles recur and so there's always the possibility of a large, rapid gain, which doesn't happen with mutual funds (correct me if I'm wrong there).

> In fact, in some parts of the country, there's a real chance that your home > will be worth 50% _less_ in five years' time.

The article specifically stipulates a "great" area. So we're not talking about parts of the country that _aren't_ in demand. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kids Must Take the Bus or Be Driven Home No Matter How Close They Live - <AUTHOR> http://www.freerangekids.com/kids-must-take-the-bus-or-be-driven-home-no-matter-how-close-they-live/ <comment><USER2> How to breed fat children.</comment>


Awesome OS X Command Line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/herrbischoff/awesome-osx-command-line <comment><USER2> While the cli forms of the various "defaults" registry commands are interesting and useful for e.g. scripting provisioning of many new machines, on a one-off basis it's probably easier to just use TinkerTool ([https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html](https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html)) which offers most of them with checkboxes or radio buttons

(One could argue about safety/visibility/trust but it's really probably no worse, and possibly better, than any installer to which you give your password)

<comment><USER3> I quite like the badge: [https://www.bresink.com/osx/FullSoftware.html](https://www.bresink.com/osx/FullSoftware.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was thinking that a few those can be found in [http://secrets.blacktree.com/](http://secrets.blacktree.com/) and the boom the website is gone.

Thankfully the payback machine is there for you: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150621044359/http://secrets.bl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150621044359/http://secrets.blacktree.com/)

I should start donating money to those guys

<comment><USER5> I think you mean the Wayback Machine. The Payback Machine sounds pretty badass though.

<comment><USER6> macOS spelling checker strikes again?

<comment><USER7> Thankfully, the fine article offers a solution :D

defaults write -g NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For this kind of setup I use this very well maintained script

[https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.macos](https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.macos)

This dotfiles repo is even recommended by Github at [https://dotfiles.github.io/](https://dotfiles.github.io/)

<comment><USER9> I don't think that's a recommendation by Github. The site even says "Your unofficial guide to dotfiles on GitHub." and none of the 3 members of the dotfiles org seems to be Github employees. Neat list tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Worth reading for this alone:

        # Stop iTunes Responding to Key Presses
        launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist

Also, pbcopy tends to not work in tmux - I've been using this as a workaround: [https://github.com/ChrisJohnsen/tmux-MacOSX- pasteboard](https://github.com/ChrisJohnsen/tmux-MacOSX-pasteboard)

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice list.

Maybe it's just me getting older and grumpier but I see the word "awesome" being overused so much that it has completely lost its original meaning. If everything is awesome, nothing is.

<comment><USER12> That's just part of the daily coding jargon. Call it a pet peeve, but it frustrates me intensely when everyone calls their defaults 'sane' (implying others their defaults are not). Such a misused word. Same goes for sensible. Seriously, if you start looking out for these two words, you'll notice how stupidly overused they are..

<comment><USER13> Not that I necessarily disagree with your overall sentiment, but I think you've chosen a poor example:

> _(implying others their defaults are not)_

This is wrong. The point of "sane defaults" is something along the lines of "first do no harm", a sort of minimal starter where if, in principle, an operator started using it out of box and never ever touched a single configuration file or setting, they might lose out on many features or potential but they'd have something minimally usable and that would in general not cause issues. There isn't necessarily one set of possible sane defaults, but it's not hard to imagine _IN_ sane defaults for a lot of software or hardware. This is particularly a big deal with all sorts of products that have security, infrastructure, or safety implications. Networking hardware/software products for example necessarily have a great deal of complexity and flexibility under the hood, but that makes Foot-Gun Syndrome a real issue. So they also generally have minimal default factory settings that aim to ensure that they can in fact be configured, accessed, and won't immediately open any gaping holes, flood the network, etc. A firewall might have "sane defaults" of nothing, or perhaps minimally allowing SSH from the LAN and port 80/443 say. An OS should by default not expose services to the net (this was a real problem at one point).

Sane/sensible defaults acknowledge the fact that most consumer users never touch settings, and that even expert users appreciate having a good basic starting point that they can customize from or reset to. "Everyone" thinks about this because it's a universal problem for any configurable software/hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone know how to uninstall the Google Update that ships with Picasa 3.9.140 for Mac? That's the last version of Picasa that works with local folders.

[Edit] I think I figured it out. The ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate folder was being recreated every time I opened Picasa. So, I emptied out ~/Library/Google and then changed it's owner. Next time I opened Picasa, it remained empty.

</comment><comment><USER15> I find it handy to add a few of these as a service, so they're accessible through context menus.

Basic steps found here: [http://michal.karzynski.pl/blog/2013/01/13/how-turn- shell-co...](http://michal.karzynski.pl/blog/2013/01/13/how-turn-shell- commands-mac-os-x-services/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Being able to access SF Mono outside of terminal is really nice

</comment><comment><USER17> I've never seen AppleScript before, and I'm fascinated by the syntax. Is it as easy to write as it is to read?

<comment><USER18> No. It's probably the most frustrating syntax I've had the (dis)pleasure of working with.

<comment><USER19> Sadly, I have to agree. The first time you see an AppleScript, you think, wow, that looks great, can't wait to dive in. Two hours later, still can't get the simplest little things to work, start wondering if maybe I can do this with a bash script, or something else ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> That one could be really useful :

 _Dock : Add a Stack with Recent Applications_

      defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-others -array-add '{ "tile-data" = { "list-type" = 1; }; "tile-type" = "recents-tile"; }' && \ killall Dock

<comment><USER21> I have that, it is kinda useful sometimes. Usually it is faster to just re- open it with Alfred/Spotlight though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hey that's cool stuff. For a total ignorant like me, where should I go to learn the basics of automating some tasks like I'd like to type $ ipaddress and get the local ip address instead of $ ipconfig getifaddr en0. Is that bash? How is that called? How do I make "programs" to automate tasks and run them from terminal with a single customized word like dbstart dbstop?

Thanks for the pointers.

<comment><USER23> The first way that comes to mind is to use alias, e.g. `alias ipaddress="ipconfig getifaddr en0"`. Then running `ipaddress` would do what you want. To avoid having to run this again every time you log in, you can add the same line to your `~/.bash_profile`, which configures your shell when you log in before the initial command prompt. You can then type `source ~/.bash_profile` to reload your configuration without having to log out then back in.

<comment><USER22> Ok, so I write a bash script then create an alias for it like alias hello="bash hello.sh"

Something like that? I found some nice bash tutorials that'll keep me busy for the weekend. Thanks.

Edit: Ok, apparently alias hello is not needed since hello.sh can be run directly with just the name, I was having permission problems and couldn't make it run, but now with just $ hello I can see the output. I'm loving it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> TIL you can make Finder quittable! It has always irked me that you can't quit it.

<comment><USER25> Is it actually quittable or does quitting it just relaunch it? Because using killall Finder on the command line or killing through Activity Monitor just kills and then relaunches Finder.

<comment><USER26> It is actually quittable, but you have to set a 'defaults' option to make it happen.

        defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES

Once that's done, you can quit it from the menu or hit CMD-Q, and it stays dead. If you do an ungraceful quit from the force quit menu or by sending it a signal, it'll still relaunch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The 'tput bel' command has got be there by default & those who don't want it can uncheck it from pref. It'd save so much time & strain by not looking for a completed task/prompt for input.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm missing a "Enable select from QuickLook". Most annoying that Apple removed that feature. Otherwise good list.

</comment><comment><USER14> A command to enable/disable the Socks Proxy on my wireless network adapter would be super! It's six clicks right now.

<comment><USER29> sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate "Wi-Fi" on|off

<comment><USER14> Wow!! You're awesome!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Disappointed this isn't Awesome (the window manager) for Mac. I use Spectacle, but Awesome would be welcome.

</comment><comment><USER31> i want job

<comment><USER32> The first step is finding something that you can "curate" that hasn't been "curated" yet. It's all the rage these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I just saw 'Awesome' and 'Command Line' and confused it with the Awesome window manager of Linux.</comment>


On the San Bernardino Suspect's Apple ID Password Reset - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2016/02/san_bernardino_password_reset <comment><USER2> A naive question: What happens if Apple resets the password once again, back to the previous value? It seems reasonably likely that the hashed value of this password exists somewhere in a backup. It seems likely that rather than giving up on any further backup attempts after a single failure, the phone would try again with the password it knows when next given the opportunity. Is this not the case?</comment>


Bruce Schneier: Refuse to be terrorized - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/essay-124.html

<comment><USER3> From 2006, and sadly so; this advice should have been followed back in 2002, and been the reality by 2010. Schneier is well known, but somehow still isn't being heard by the right ears...how can we help change that?

<comment><USER4> What seems interesting to me as a European is that this type of reactions happened mostly in the US. Terror attacks have happened for a long time in Europe (red brigades, IRA, algerian terror cells, etc...), and the reaction has been quite different to say the least. Granted, the amount of damages has been different (nothing near 9/11 has ever happened on European soil), but I don't think that explains it.

This is even more incomprehensible to me because I have always considered American citizens to be more attached to civil liberties and individual freedom than most Europens.

<comment><USER5> Events in Northern Ireland have killed approx 3600 in the last 40years - <USER2> too far off.

<comment><USER6> The timeframe probably makes the psychological impact different (over 40 years vs. in one day), though.

<comment><USER5> Yes two generations of train stations closed because of bomb scares, of weekly news reports of a new bomb blast.

<comment><USER6> "Different" means exactly that. I'm not downplaying it, just saying that it's not as easy to compare as saying that the number of deaths is similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I remember reading about airliners being blown up: Air India Flight 182, Pan Am 103, etc. etc. Red Brigade, PFLP, IRA, etc. etc. So many planes were hijacked, blown up, or even shot down (Korean Air by the Soviets). And yet we didn't start cowering in terror like we do today. Here's a quick link; just read it and see how safe we've been since the late 90s: <http://www.historycentral.com/Terrorhistory.html> We were safe without any groping or x-raying or taking off our shoes and throwing away our bottles of baby's milk.

What happened? How did we become a nation of wimps??

<comment><USER8> What happened? Our leaders pursued a policy of fear and vengeance and the public ate it up like starving dogs.

<comment><USER9> The shock of 9/11 will do that to a person, heh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "a Port of Seattle terminal was evacuated because a couple of dogs gave a false alarm for explosives"

That doesn't sound like living in terror, that sounds like good sense. IIRC dogs are pretty reliable (false alarms are rare) and one terminal isn't the whole airport.

<comment><USER11> I wonder why, instead of X-rays and pat-downs they don't just use dogs. I would trust that a dog would be able to detect a bomb on a person much more readily than a person who's eyes are glazed over after looking at the nth person's scan or pat-down. And they gladly work for just love and kibble. Of course the TSA claims they are able to detect weapons such as guns and knives too, but I believe metal detectors are probably just as effective along with secure cockpits, air marshals on-board, and a public ready to fight back if necessary. Am I missing something about dogs that would make this impractical?

<comment><USER12> >Am I missing something about dogs ?

Puppy breeders don't make million $ campaign contributions or hire TSA officials as 'advisers'

<comment><USER13> Also some people are terrified of dogs so having one sniff over them would be worse than being groped. Not that the TSA cares about feelings or anything though.

<comment><USER5> Thats why airport sniffer dogs are often beagles rather than the German Sheppard/Bloodhounds used for cargo. Beagles are small cute and non- threatening, and they don't have to climb all over you to smell explosives.

By contrast the police here got German Sheppards to sniff for drugs on suspects on the street. It turns out the police didn't actually buy trained sniffer dogs - they just wanted something big and fierce looking to 'encourage' people to cooperate.

Not that the TSA would consider any such thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with the coverage of events by the press/media encourage people to be terrorized. If the media get a story that will sell papers / get eye balls watching TV screens they will run with it until the cows come home (<http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/382900.html>).

</comment><comment><USER15> We're not really afraid/terrorized. We only require that leaders protect us and some are willing to forgo more liberties than others.

If we were terrorized, we would not fly by the millions... every day!

I won't get into the civil liberties topic. There are trade-offs we will all never agree on. One of those is security v. liberties. So everyone just tug their way and we'll see where we end up.

<comment><USER16> Your view attributes much rationality to how people are acting.

My view of it is that humans routinely miscalculate risk and behave quite irrationally from a risk-minimization perspective. At the same time, a public that is largely apathetic about politics in general is easily moved by fear- mongering, us-vs-them rhetoric, etc. -- like any fad, terrorism simply captures the imagination of some people.

Attempts to stop the overreaction suffer from the typical challenge: the majority who don't care about terrorism care about the issue less than the vocal minority for whom it's a very big (as in scary or as in profitable) deal.

Also, due to the government's habit of paying for terrorism prevention, the typical corruption/overspending problems happen far more easily than they would in a decentralized system. And, due to the political nature of terrorism prevention, our leaders work to minimize the extent to which they would likely be blamed for an attack rather than working to make us feel/be safer.

<comment><USER15> Funny, I was going to start and end my post with similar statements. My first statement was a quote "a person is smart but people are stupid" (due to herd behavior). And I was going to end with the fact that many leaders care more about maintaining their seats than losing any lives on their watch and so are ready scare the minority who actually are not afraid of terrorism much more than they are about religions, people and ways of life they ignore (most of the author's examples are in fact evidence of this).

But I edited my post because statistically the majority of us are not afraid. We care, and definitely vote for leaders who refuse to terrorize us a la Cheney, but we know we have to adapt our way of life to minimize the risks-- which can be confused with fear, but is actually the rational thing to do, since we're dealing with irrational people.

I was too succinct, but yes the majority needs to do a better job of controlling the message we send to terrorists--that I should have conceded.

<comment><USER16> Minimize the risks? There is no significant risk posed by terrorism. It's equivalent to the risk of spending a few extra minutes in the sun each week w/o sunscreen in Northern Canada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> (2006)

</comment><comment><USER18> "Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed."

Yes, the terrorists would have failed. Then they would exploit our continued lack of vigilance and try again and again until we were scared and started to crack down. These arguments that we should not respond to terrorism are a bunch of lovey dove hopeful hogwash. Terrorists aren't going to give up because we ignored their destructive acts. They will keep blowing more shit up until they are dead or get the attention they seek.

<comment><USER19> "This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots."

<http://www.schneier.com/essay-038.html>

At least read the next paragraph, dude.</comment></comment>


Golang Is Good, Structure Is Bad - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/azbshiri/gigsib <comment><USER2>
      func NewBaz() Baz {

in a package called baz is already unidiomatic, in cases like that, the function should just be called `New`, leading to usage like:

      thing := baz.New()

which, to my eyes, is perfectly fine.

<comment><USER3> And the returned Baz should be a pointer.

<comment><USER2> .... Only if it's meant to be a pointer. Don't just make everything a pointer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Golang is good, but I still don't get how packages work yet."

</comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr: export one type per package to avoid shadowing of package names.

Can't help but quote: "Design patterns are bug reports filed against the language" (Peter Norvig, iirc).

<comment><USER3> Not really, not in this case.

The author of the article should take some time to learn idiomatic Go. "[...] I can use packages as metaphore for classes" is a big red-flag that one doesn't have the fundamentals.

When one writes Go, writes in Go. Not in Ruby, not in Lisp, not in Haskell. In Go.

<comment><USER6> You don't understand. Good programmer can write in Fortran in _any_ language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> FWIW this is a problem for Python as well:

        import requests

        # uh-oh!
        requests = []
        for url in ['http://google.com', 'http://duckduckgo.com']:
            with requests.get(url) as req:
                requests.append(req)

You'll get

        AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'get'

because your sensibly-named `requests` object is shadowing the module. Obviously you could re-name it to `reqs` or something, but having module objects in a top-level global namespace can sometimes non-trivially increase cognitive load.

By comparison, R and Common Lisp have special syntax for accessing objects in namespaces. There are good and bad approaches to both. Having namespaces/packages exist alongside other objects makes it easier to reflect on their contents, obviating the need for specialized access functions.

</comment><comment><USER8> `go vet -shadowstrict` works pretty well for the shadowing problem.

Look at go's `net/url` package. The type is `URL` because it's exported, there's no `New` function. It instead uses the conversational `Parse`.

`url.URL` does stutter, and `url.Parse` probably belongs in the url module, with the type in `net` to reduce stutter.

This would make `net/URL` a clearer non-stuttering type. It would also make 'net/url' a library of functions with which `net/URL`s are manipulated and a clean-room fashion.

</comment><comment><USER9> You can also use dot

      import (
              . "fmt"
      )

      ....

      // now call function without prefix
      Println("Read more docs")

<comment><USER10> Obviously this is fine only if you feel safe that no two imported packages share the same function/variable names.

import ( . "fmt" . "log" )

func main() { Println("broken!") }

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> More like "Golang is Good, Rubylang is Better, I write all my Golang code to look like Rubylang".

<comment><USER12> You made my day.</comment></comment>


Is this a joke? New Service, AdKeeper, Lets Consumers "Click to Save" Online Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/10/2296478/new-service-adkeeper-lets-consumers.html

<comment><USER2> > AdKeeper is founded by Scott Kurnit

Founder of MiningCo -> About.com, which IPO'd. The allstar cast of investors is not surprising.

I like the idea of an inventory (like in the old text adventure games) for the internet, but I wonder if just having it be for a single object type is what users (versus what advertisers) want. Ideally you'd be able to keep anything in your inventory. This was part of the ultimate vision for Delicious a long time ago.

<comment><USER3> Diigo comes closer to this than anything else I've seen.

<http://www.diigo.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If they can connect with their audience, there are definitely people who will love this.

How do I know this? One summer I had the job of delivering ad mail. Most people are like me, didn't want it. But it was my job to deliver it, and I did. _However_ there were _some_ people who wanted it. You see they didn't know what they were doing with their weekend until they'd read the ads and learned where the sales were.

If they can connect with that audience, they could very well succeed. And sure, it may be a small portion of people. But it is a fraction that advertisers _love_ to reach. You know, the people who like to cut out coupons. The ones who use groupon. The ones who are likely to actually buy if you offer them a deal.

</comment><comment><USER5> It actually appears to be a real product, as opposed to an elaborate joke. Even after the initial feeling of nausea wore off, I'm still left wondering about what the market for this thing really is.

From what I've read (very little), ad clickers make up some fairly negligible portion of total internet users, and tend to be less educated or have impulse problems like compulsive shoppers, gamblers, etc. Making a complicated system to 'save' and re-visit your 'favorite' ads later on seems to not target this ad clicker market at all, as they'll most likely never look at an old ad again. And I really, really don't see this turning more people into ad clickers.

This might induce job creation for paid ad clickers in india, though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Behold, an application with a business model based solely on the naive, inflated sense of importance of people working in marketing.

<comment><USER7> I think you greatly underestimate the degree to which a segment of the population enjoys shopping, coupon clipping, etc etc.

<comment><USER6> I actually once worked for a discount/coupon code website whose main feature was the ability to save offers. It had a low adoption rate. People who are aware that you can save money using coupon codes or partner links on the Internet also generally know that they can type "X free shipping coupon code" into Google and find what they're looking for (or better) again.

There's almost no user loyalty in the space, so creating an application people can go back to just so they can review the coupons they like is set up for failure on two accounts. This means the people behind the business ma not have done much market research. Or it may mean that they don't feel the need to cater to the customer, since they're not selling to them, but rather to the advertisers. So assuming that they had a solid business model and did the appropriate kind of research to make sure they would have clients and revenue, they probably have letters of intent and partnerships with a few advertisers who didn't crunch those kind of numbers, or trusted the perceived market expertise of this business.

That's what I mean by naivete.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of my pet peeves is that Ads don't respect the back button. Sometimes, I hit the back button on Stack Overflow because the ad was interesting, but it's been rotated away.

<comment><USER9> Shouldn't this be solved by the browser? The back button behavior should be no different from if I were to switch from a new tab back to its parent tab.

<comment><USER10> No. He's talking about reading a page and having 'Ad Blindness' while he's focused on the content. Once he gets to a link, he'll click on it, and at that same moment, see an Ad that looks interesting (because he is no longer focused on the content). After the new page loads, clicking on the back button doesn't help because the original page will reload with all the ad spaces regenerated with new random ads.

Anyone need an idea for a side-project startup? This happens to me all the time and I absolutely hate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > AdKeeper was launched today in beta and is currently available by > invitation. The service will be widely available in the first quarter of > 2011.

I had a good laugh at this. An ad service so good customers will be begging to try it!

</comment><comment><USER12> Longest. Press release. Ever. It would be nice to read a _review_ of the service rather than a press release.

That being said, I think one of the main hurdles a service like this will be user banner blindness. Many people have banner blindness and interactive advertisements don't seem to perform better than passive advertisements.

</comment><comment><USER13> Do not editorialize in the title. The original title was fine.

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems like an idea with some potential. They charge the ads' publishers based only on clicks or impressions of saved ads. Saving and storing ads is free on both the users end (obviously) and the publishers end, which means ad publishers should be able to get started on the system without much risk.

I'd think the value to publishers would be in acquiring additional metrics about user interest in a particular ad, but I'm sure the pricing will be a critical piece of the puzzle.

They certainly have a number of well-known advisors and large investors (not that that is enough to predict success!), it'll be interesting to see if it takes off.

Direct link to the site: <http://www.adkeeper.com/>

</comment><comment><USER15> Part of it is the advertiser tunnel-vision thing I've seen where you get ad people saying things like "People will be eager to opt-in to our fantastic savings and they like to be aware of the newest prices and products. Hey... why is almost nobody opting in?"

</comment><comment><USER16> It seems to me like it would work for very specific ad-types. Eg coupons, upcoming sales, promotional offers, etc. The thing is, 99% of internet ads are NOT this type of ad, but are instead a generic click-through to a site or service, in which case this idea is laughable at best.

There has been plenty of times i've seen an ad for a discount at Threadless (etc), or a promotional offer i'm interested in, where I refuse to click due to my geekish nature considering it taboo to do so, but at the same time wanting to remember that deal for later when i'm free to go check it out. I'd still rather just jot it down in notepad though.

<comment><USER17> Most ads are for branding, for sure, but that's because people don't want to waste time clicking on ads. If you take the time suck out of the equation, people might actually click and save the ads and offers they're interested in.

It's going to work great with deals and offers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What I find most interesting is the potential for advertising to get better. Yeah, people have trained themselves not to look at the ads, but that's because the ads are usually pretty bad. If it really will be easy for people to click and save ads, the people who make the ads will want to make those ads ones you're gonna wanna keep.

Pretty ads : ) Useful ads, entertaining ads. Ads people might want to share with their friends. It could be pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER18> Got the impression the PR was written by someone in the advertising industry. They were practically slobbering all over themselves with lust over the magical deliciousness that is Internet advertisements.

Meanwhile, back on Main Street, and in Hacker's Haven, I bet most folks find them usually annoying or irrelevant noise, at best.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't see this working without some sort of incentive for consumers. I already know badges will be implemented, so that you can win virtual crap depending on the ads you see and collect. Coupons possibly will work, but then they need a way to redeem them.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is one of my oldest, favorite ideas. Damnit. :-)

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems like the same thing as a company co-founded by a friend of mine: <http://www.dropcam.com>. Just wondering if you're aware of them and whether I'm missing something?

<comment><USER21> Sorry...posted this in the wrong story.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is the majority of modern web code object oriented - <AUTHOR>

I have written mostly procedural code for myself on side projects but work in an Object Oriented code base for my full time job.  I was just wondering if my day to day work is the standard, or my side projects. <comment><USER2> Well, looking at langpop.com we can see that C is still on top but if we sum all the other top player like Java, Javascript, Ruby, Python, C++ I would say that OO wins.(I didn't consider PHP because it's a bit of both)

Looking at github([http://githut.info/](http://githut.info/)) it seems pretty evident that at the moment OO is leading. But I don't think there is a "right way", you should write code in what you are comfortable. Especially for you side projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Consider me ignorant, but I assume that with Javascript, Java, Python being the top on githut.info, that is what your are basing your info on. Can't all three be procedural instead of OO?</comment></comment>


The Genesis of Attribute Grammars by Donald Knuth - <AUTHOR> http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~sk/cs325/gag.pdf

<comment><USER2> His book "Selected Papers on Computer Languages" collects a few more papers that provide more context for the discover and subsequent application of the invention of attribute grammars.</comment>


Reinventing organizations (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/uploads/2/1/9/8/21988088/140305_laloux_reinventing_organizations.pdf

<comment><USER3> The author of this book wants readers to pay what they feel the book was worth to them. [http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/pay-what-feels- right...](http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/pay-what-feels-right.html)

So you if you end up downloading and reading the direct PDF link (the security through obscurity method is clearly failing here) I recommend paying what feels right to the author:

You can watch a pretty good summary of the book here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcS04BI2sbk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcS04BI2sbk)

<comment><USER4> The PDF link isn't to the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started a company (GrantTree) that operates (or tries to operate) largely by the principles described in this book, though of course we have our own unique vision of it. A lot of it is described at [http://danieltenner.com/open- cultures/](http://danieltenner.com/open-cultures/) .

Feel free to ask me anything about how this actually works in practice - <USER2> know it's not obvious from just reading about it. I'll do my best though.

</comment><comment><USER6> I found this a worthwhile read. It's an interesting view of how to run a business without hierarchy, with plenty of real world examples and answers to all of those "yeah, but how do you ... ?" questions. There is one weakness however, there needs to be one leader who forces a leaderless style, because left to its own devices a group of people develops a hierarchy. All of the examples in the book had founders or leaders who forcibly did away with hierarchy, and in the examples where they left the company reverted to traditional c&c.

<comment><USER5> To be fair, the only example "where they left" is AES, where the leader was forced out by the shareholders and replaced with a more traditionally minded leader, so it's not the leader's absence which caused the reversion - or at least we can't know for sure.

The other examples don't show a leader leaving and the company reverting to traditional top-down, as far as I can remember.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the idea of a hierarchy-free organization. I get the appeal of thinking we are going to live in a world without bosses, but how utopian is this idea? Misguided, maybe.

I believe the current examples show that even relatively flat orgs must revert back to a command and control structure once they get to any size, for instance Github, and Google retricting freedom (the 20% worktime perk being taken away). Orgs are based on a division of labor and that means roles and that means you play your position and that is less individual freedom.

Also, hierarchies don't exist just to 'tell people what to do' or divide people by status - bosses have authority to resolve conflicts among peers, and a final decider - as anyone who has witnessed the pitfalls of 'design by committee'.

<comment><USER5> First of all, as dangoor points out, the presentation linked to here lists a dozen companies, some including thousands of employees, operating by teal, hierarchy-of-people-free principles.

Secondly, teal does not mean "flat hierarchy". The meaning is far more subtle than that. There is some impact on hierarchy but calling it "flat hierarchy" is very misleading - arguably that's more a green approach than teal - this is not surprising if you're operating in an orange environment at the moment, as people typically only see one level higher at best. Teal recognises that people are different and different people are likely to have greater or lesser accountabilities, impact, etc. What it rejects is the idea that anyone owns anyone else. We are all free agents operating in the organisation by choice. No one has the authority to order another person around. That is not a "flat hierarchy", nor is it a false declaration of equality between all - it is something else altogether.

Thirdly, yes, the traditional management hierarchy serves many, many functions, including conflict resolution and making decisions. Those processes have to be handled in some way. According to the RO book, most teal companies end up developing robust conflict management practices that teach people to resolve their own conflicts. You might think that doesn't work - that's because you're operating in a traditional hierarchical environment where indeed it can't work. GrantTree has been going down the teal route for over 2 years now and it's only this year that we started developing a proper conflict management process. As for the decision making, I cover that in this article, if you're curious: [http://danieltenner.com/2014/11/06/the-advice-process- defini...](http://danieltenner.com/2014/11/06/the-advice-process-definition- and-usage-tips/)

So, while your points are totally fair and skepticism is always a good practice, based on my direct experience _and_ based on the dozen or so examples of companies doing this, in the book - I believe that this is not utopian at all. In fact, I am fairly convinced that just as 100 years ago the red and amber models were dominant, and today the orange model is dominant, give it another few decades (I reckon less than 3) and the green and teal models will start to dominate.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for these perspectives. Haven't thought that people might not be able to see beyond the next level from the level they're in. Quite an interesting thought. And it seems to apply to all the verticals of human development, like spirituality, self-identity, cognitive capacities, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice read. Pay what feels right.</comment>