Is Express.js dying? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2844 <comment><USER2> The thread actually represents a discussion between the most active maintainer (dougwilson) and various employees of IBM who now own and oversee the project, with a few confused third parties chiming in.

It looks like IBM is making some predictable mistakes, which have disillusioned dougwilson to some large extent. Simultaneously they are being fairly inflexible at fixing those mistakes and ultimately forcing abandonment, at least by dougwilson. My prediction:

1) IBM continues with the typical corporate policies which are probably not great for the sort of OSS project that involves independent contributors

2) dougwilson leaves permanently

3) the project sort of wallows a bit

4) IBM puts some resources on it, and claims it all worked out.

As to #4, they'll be sort of correct, assuming the goal was to see resources and progress on express. They'll be wrong if the goal was to properly maintain an open source community around the project.

NOTE: I don't know anything about this, but I've seen this play out many times before. I chimed in here because the other comments in this thread seem to be wildly off topic given the content of the github discussion.

<comment><USER3> This happened with node-inspector for a while: StrongLoop became the official sponsor, and basic stuff like 'var x = 1; console.log(x)' returning undefined was left unfixed for years while the company simultaneously used it as advertising for how great their node contributions were.

<comment><USER4> I've been frustrated with their code on a few occasions. We've seen breaking changes in patch versions on strong-remoting, PRs rebased out of patch releases with no explanation (and nobody could figure out why/how), and intentional abuse of npm's optionalDependencies to track users ([https://github.com/strongloop/loopback/issues/1079](https://github.com/strongloop/loopback/issues/1079)).

This tracking is not only unethical but exceptionally dangerous, as the dependency is fetched over http, and as we know, npm modules essentially have full user access as they can spawn any command via the `postinstall` hook. So a mitm could pose as blip.strongloop.com and own any servers calling out to it.

I've ended up forking every strongloop package we use to trim this tracking abuse. I really shouldn't have to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe there just isn't that much left to do? I've used Express a lot over the years, and I can't think of anything right now that it's missing. I'll be happy if it's going to be stable from now on, with no breaking changes.

More fundamentally, I feel the "web framework" doesn't need to be an exciting piece of the stack anymore, like was the case maybe ten years ago. Routing URLs and gluing together middleware doesn't need to be "interesting" or "cutting-edge".

It's great that Express makes it easy, and I'm happy to keep using it regardless of whether there's a version 5 and 6 and 7 in the works.

<comment><USER6> The discussion brings up that there is some core functionality that should be added to just have Express keep pace, mainly implementing ES6 changes and supporting HTTP/2 (which some say should just be a new framework).

Those are not easy maintenance things to do, and certainly are important.

<comment><USER5> If it were up to me, I'd leave both of those to a different framework.

There's nothing in ES6 that warrants breaking Express's compatibility with older runtimes. And HTTP 2.0 probably is better off in a new framework that's designed from scratch for it. (I'm not a great fan of HTTP 2.0 and would rather see Express unburdened by its complexity.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If done correctly I think this could have been great. Two full time employees working on the project is far more than it has seen in its lifetime. I don't there has ever been even a single full-time person working on it. Lots of amazing contributions of course though. Hopefully things work out, still feels a bit more dramatic than it should be.

</comment><comment><USER8> While express isn't dying, that thread is a great example of corporate sponsored/run OSS gone wrong.

</comment><comment><USER9> The public airing of their dirty laundry - especially the snark from so many of the participants - would kill it in my mind. There's no good reason to have this "open and transparent" conversation devolve into "let me bitch about IBM here, but don't bitch back at me, keep to IBM-only channels". It's all very childish. The whole thing should've been on the IBM back channels until they got their shit together and could agree on some messaging, and if the maintainer didn't agree with the messaging or how long it was taking to come up with it, simply fork it into the expressjs org _and leave_. Shouting out "I'm leaving! I'm going! I really mean it this time!" just seems like ... a child running away from "mean ol' parents" rather than an open source leader whose project work speaks volumes. It's tragic to watch this train wreck that could've been avoided by both sides refusing to posture. Like my father used to say, "shit or get off the pot, don't keep debating out loud if you're really going to do it."

Compare it to Linus' openly-hostile dictatorship, which is universally both reviled and excused by contributors, just for a moment: At least when it comes to Linux kernel, shit gets done; nobody has to question the commitment of the project's stewards; and Linus hasn't (that I recall) threatened to take his toys elsewhere.

<comment><USER10> Linux doesn't seem to be a fair analogy.

If Linux had been, somehow, acquired by a large company (or, at least, access/edit rights to all of the code repositories and web presence and such), and Linus had been removed from administrative roles on those repositories and sites (or asked to remove himself and others), then the comparison would be fair.

Admittedly, one answer would be to loudly fork the project. That's happened on a number of occasions. Joomla forked from whatever it was called before a similar story (Mambo, maybe?). Node.js itself forked into io.js over similar disagreements (and then people worked those disagreements out).

I suspect some of the back and forth happening is people trying to figure out if a fork is necessary _and_ if they actually want to be the people leading the fork (sounds like Doug Wilson does not want to be a leader, but wants to keep contributing). Contributing heavily to a project is not the same as being a leader of a project, and it is entirely fair to not want to lead a project, even if you care strongly about it, and have worked hard on it for a long time.

<comment><USER9> I think it is a fair comparison, because I think Linus WOULD loudly (and with much profanity) fork it and go back to getting shit done rather than hit slow- mo on a multi-car highway pile-up. EDIT: After further thought, I do see your point. My comparison was purely hypothetical and has some logical flaws. I'm literally guessing at how he'd handle losing control of the reins.

My takeaway was that Doug (who, I should clarify/add, I have a lot of respect for as a hard working OSS guy, but lost a few brownie points from me for this soap opera) actually did want to lead the community effort: "I ask them if I can take over the project in order to be the leadership and ensure this gets moved on," we're his exact words. I guess that is an exemplar of why committed project stakeholders need to get their messaging straight before pointing fingers: You and I had different interpretations of the actors' motivations.Nobody wins when fingers are pointing everywhere. At least someone wins when a stakeholder says, "screw you guys, I'm going to _do what I know is right_ rather than _vent about what I know is wrong_." EDIT: And to his credit, Doug did try to mitigate the problems he saw with the project. I don't know why he didn't take that one last step of trading on his good name and _fork the project_.

In my opinion, StrongLoop folks are hard working people, more than casually invested in the nodejs community. Even the controversial npm tracking could be argued to be a logical act, to help them understand more about how their projects are used than npm can tell them. Politics (and an unfortunate exit) got the best of them.

Doug is a hard working guy. And more than casually invested in the nodejs community. Politics got the best of him, too.

I believe Doug will come to regret his participation in this drama, and will quietly go back to writing great software and leading great projects, having learned an important lesson: don't believe for a moment that BigCo gives a tiny rat's ass about you or your community's sensibilities, just be the best dev/leader you can be and don't hand the keys to anyone who isn't a trusted driver. And if they take those metaphorical keys anyway, well then, that's what forks are for.

<comment><USER10> It's an issue in an issue tracker. Nobody's blogging about it, or doing interviews in the media. I would consider this a reasonable level of drama for an issue tracker conversation. Again, I think Doug is probably pushing this in public (though not dramatically so, again it's an issue tracker which normally would have a couple dozen readers) as a final last ditch effort to get IBM to act right. Nothing wrong with taking things public if private conversations are going nowhere fast, as tends to happen with big corporate takeovers. I don't think he needs to worry about his messaging all that much; he's not a marketer, and doesn't seem to be trying to sell anything or get elected to anything. He's just explaining what's going on, and expressing his frustration with it.

Anyway, that's how I read it all. I agree that we are interpreting things differently, and I'm probably missing a lot of detail here. I scanned the thread and missed some details you've called out. But, I tend to take an optimistic approach to stuff like this. If someone has proven they're mostly a "head down get shit done" kinda person, I'm not gonna sweat it when they pop their head up and rant for a little while when things go pear-shaped. I'd probably rant, too, if something I was working on was being killed by a corporate overlord. _Then_ I might decide to fork the thing.

<comment><USER9> That's a fair implication, that I didn't give Doug all the credit he's due as a "head down get shit done" kinda guy, so let me correct that: Doug is an amazing talent, and it's a raw deal that he got sucked into the politics of this; I hope he's able to move on (FWIW I think his name carries enough weight that a fork would get attention) and we can all forget the soap opera that happened on that thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been building an app using Express over the past 9 months and this gives me pause. It seems like IBM wants to have its cake and eat it too. Should be interesting to see how it all plays out, but is building an app on Express a liability? I have been contemplating switching to hapi, maybe this is a good time to explore that option.

<comment><USER12> What's giving you pause? According to the link, Express is undergoing extensive and active development...

<comment><USER11> After reading that entire thread, it seems to be that IBM/Strongloop wants to maintain ownership of the project without contributing the resources. They expect dougwilson to continue running the project but he doesn't want to unless it is under the expressjs organization or something like that.

Apparently IBM threw a few guys into discovery on the project a few weeks ago and they may actively get involved, but it is yet to be seen. Maybe IBM just wants to own it and doesn't care what happens to the project one way or the next. I have no way of knowing what IBM's intentions are, and I think that's the concern of the maintainer, dougwilson.

<comment><USER13> If your comment isn't a good (microcosm-ish) description of IBM and all their internal incompetency issues in general right now, I don't know what is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This sure doesn't look like death to me: [http://npm- stat.com/charts.html?package=express&author=&from...](http://npm- stat.com/charts.html?package=express&author=&from=&to=)

The project is incredibly popular. When it comes to community PRs, it's hard for people to swallow sometimes but often a PR isn't _good enough_ or doesn't fit the vision of the project. It's easy to break things in the process of improving or fixing something, and perhaps Express has hit a bit of a stability point which is great.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pull an io.js, fork it and publicize the fork as the maintain version for active contributors and then if IBM/Strongloop step up you can re-merge in.

I do think there is increased competition though as well from other frameworks.

<comment><USER16> Don't do this.

<comment><USER17> Can you elaborate? I don't have an opinion but I am curious to hear why this might be a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just use koa@next, it's awesome. ES6/ES7 with Babel, Flowconfig, and more.

<comment><USER8> Another good alternative is Hapi: [http://hapijs.com/](http://hapijs.com/)

<comment><USER19> Hapi might be an alternative to Express (both are outdated callback-style frameworks), but it's in no way an alternative to Koa.

<comment><USER20> Koa middleware are generally more composable and more robust than Express. In Koa, middleware flows down and up in a stack-like manner with the help of generators. E.g., in Koa you set an X-Response-Time header like so:

[https://github.com/koajs/response- time/blob/master/index.js](https://github.com/koajs/response- time/blob/master/index.js)

The response time middleware records the start time, then yields to any other middleware, and finally sets the header.

You just can't do that as nicely in Express. Here is the Express version:

[https://github.com/expressjs/response- time/blob/master/index...](https://github.com/expressjs/response- time/blob/master/index.js)

responseTime has to wait to be called via "on-headers". on-headers is a separate module that monkey-patches response.writeHead.

The Koa version is 21 lines of code (really just 4 LOC), while the express version is over 200 LOC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Of course. It's the web, where we rewrite the entire stack every two years.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's not the cool web framework for Node any more. I don't think it's going to "die" in the sense that existing express applications are going to be impossible to maintain any time soon.

<comment><USER23> What is the current cool web framework for Node? (I'm not a node user at the moment, but I've seen Express a lot)

<comment><USER24> Koa is the new hotness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The state of documentation of Express 4 is not great. You have to look at the source code to see how it really works most times, or read someone's blog about how it _used_ to work in Express 3 - but no longer does.

Whose decision was it to go from a "batteries included" web server module to one where users had to assemble a bunch of ad-hoc third party components to make a usable web server? I'm looking at you, body-parser.

<comment><USER9> It seems to me that decision grew organically from a feeling of helplessness over the future of the framework. Take some of the eggs out of the basket, limit the loss.

Body-parser does have issues, though. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Well here is the answer from the guy who is still maintaining it:

[https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2827](https://github.com/strongloop/express/issues/2827)

The link is from the fifth comment.

When developing in node it makes a lot of sense to use lots of different modules for the one project. At work I have a good dozen or so, it really helps with iteration and testing.

<comment><USER27> > guy who is still maintaining it

without commit access...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> We have source code licenses that govern what we can do with the source code of an open source project. I wonder if it's time to start creating more explicit licenses for repositories or projects that govern behavior and the day to day activities of a project - ownership / releases / etc.

Linux would be under the 'Linus Project Governor' model or the LPG... ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm curious, has this kind of takeover of an open-source project by a corporation happened before? It is disconcerting to watch people who never had any involvement start pouring in acting as project owners, considering the fact that there is no real legal ownership.

</comment><comment><USER30> I use expressjs with es6 and have zero issues with it. The only thing that is required from my point of view is a small shim for catching promise errors.

What about es6 isn't compatible with express?

</comment><comment><USER31> It's simple. Everyone has switched to either Koa (designed by the team behind Express) or, more likely, a client-side framework like React.

<comment><USER32> I use express because it is the most barebones solution before vanilla http/https. The middleware API is trivial and relatively agnostic (most just expect node-style req/res objects and a `next(err?)` callback). The router does what it is supposed to and allows nesting.

However I would likely chose something different if my needs were different. If I wanted to implement REST APIs in Node I would use Hapi. If I wanted to build more complex web apps I might look into Koa (although I don't think I'll ever move back to classic server-only rendered apps).

Express is my JS equivalent of Ruby's Sinatra and Python's Flask. Nothing more, nothing less.

Addendum: I wouldn't say "everyone" has switched to Koa. Koa was handicapped by its conceptual overhead for most ordinary express users in its early days (relying on a combination of generators and promises -- both not yet sufficiently widely established and understood technologies at the time -- to build coroutines, which even fewer people understood). It has improved and the JS community seems to have caught up (just look what's going on with the Redux ecosystem -- "thunks" and "sagas" (essentially built around coroutines) are beginning to see some traction). But it didn't initially deliver the same "read this tutorial, start building apps" experience express had.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> saved you a click: no

</comment><comment><USER34> people still use Express? Koa is where it's at.

</comment><comment><USER35> Popcorn aspect aside to the drama in this thread, this is a great example of how companies should NOT behave in relationship to open source projects. They simultaneously made the maintainer feel unvalued and like his role in the project was being held hostage, while sending BS sounding mixed messages to the community.

</comment><comment><USER36> Express needs a collection of first party middlewares for logging, strong params, cookie-jar and etc with extensible ORM ActiveModel for more than regular SQL, e.g RethinkDB and MonogDB.

</comment><comment><USER37> Well, that certainly seems to be a ton of drama. I don't want to bad mouth any of the people involved, regardless of their affiliations, so I'll just say that I'm not sure what good will come of this spat.

</comment><comment><USER38> Clickbait. Express.js is not dying. At all. It is being very much actively worked on by some of the hardest working maintainers and contributors.

Express.js is actually a combination of various modules. If you want to see the work being done, go to those individual modules.

<comment><USER39> I actually have to agree with this. It seems like some semi-political debate about how one guy left and they don't like the direction the project is headed, but it is clearly not dying.

I've flagged it for mod review, I'm not sure if this should be on the front page, it doesn't seem like it meets the requirements for HN.

<comment><USER40> That one guy is the only one currently contributing code (a slight exaggeration, but very slight).

That info by itself seems HN worthy as many of us have likely used Express as the "safe" choice when starting a new project. Time to rethink that...

<comment><USER41> Perhaps, but I can assure you that Express 3 and Express 4 are completely safe. The interface set up by Express is depended on by far too many companies and other frameworks for that to not be the case -- for instance, even though Express 3 is officially unmaintained by Strongloop, the Sails core team has committed to taking over critical patches.

As for the future of Express: I've only had the opportunity to get together with Doug in person once, but we've talked about this a few times in the past. I can guarantee you the last thing he wants is drama, so I'll leave the ball completely in his court there.

I will say this though: keep an eye on Doug's federated projects (jshttp and Pillar). Whether or not the various pieces are released as Express 5 or not, the _code base_ is still improving and becoming increasingly standardized, regardless of the monicker. More on that: [https://github.com/balderdashy/sails/pull/3235#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/balderdashy/sails/pull/3235#issuecomment-170417122)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Frameworks die. It is a fact. Death in this sense means discontinued support and development. It is not difficult to see how this can render any software that depends on a 'dead' framework unstable or even broken with time.

I have experienced exactly this multiple times. In fact, I am extremely aware of this when I start a new project. Perhaps especially when I am dealing with frameworks like Express, Django or Ruby on Rails.

If I recall correctly, Gary Bernhardt, said it well: "Treat Rails like a disease and isolate yourself." You can replace "Rails" with any popular framework. Yourself in this quote referes to the business logic of your system.

<comment><USER43> While I realize it may not be the case here, discontinued development doesn't necessarily mean death. Sometimes it means "done". I don't think enough developers get that.

<comment><USER44> Software can only be done if the environment it runs in remains static. Any software dealing with the web can never be done as the environment it runs in is constantly evolving.</comment></comment></comment>


I Decided to Delete All My Facebook Activity - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/01/facebook_cleansing_how_to_delete_all_of_your_account_activity.single.html <comment><USER2> I "deactivated" my Facebook account long ago. I'd like to _delete_ it, but that apparently involves sacrificing some small animal and studying the entrails for clues.

I deleted by Google+ account(s) recently, as well. I have several Twitter accounts with no tweets. I'm thinking of sanitizing my LinkedIn account soon.

It's not that I'm anti-social (well, maybe); I am just one of those elder geeks who once dreamt of truly federated services under one's own control.

<comment><USER3> Deleting your Facebook is difficult? I believe mine is hard deleted (not deactivated), and it was the same workflow as deactivating it, if I remember correctly. I just clicked "delete" instead of "deactivate" or whatever.

Facebook leaves the account deactivated for a week so you can ponder on your choice, but if you don't do anything, it was my understanding that the account gets deleted.

<comment><USER4> I believe doing the delete account via Facebook will only delete [your own] posts and things on "your timeline/wall". Any comments you made on other peoples posts do not get deleted. I believe, using the "automation" method or similar methods actually goes through and finds all your posts and comments on other people's walls/timelines and also deletes them.

<comment><USER5> I deleted my account and I am pretty sure all your comments on others' things do get deleted..

<comment><USER6> Nothing gets deleted ever, your account and related data still lives in facebook servers but only accessible to facebook and their commercial partners (also NSA, US government, spy agencies and crackers).

<comment><USER5> Unless I am misunderstanding, that is all but totally unrelated to what we are talking about, however true it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What most people seem to be missing and which the article does not properly explain is why some people think it is necessary to delete each item individually.

Yes you can both deactivate (soft delete) an account and you can actually say to facebook to actually delete it. Deleting an account does not allegedly remove your data from the Facebook servers. Deleting items however will remove your data from the servers. The idea is that you should delete each little thing first, and _then_ delete the actual account.

From the FAQ at [http://suicidemachine.org/](http://suicidemachine.org/) :

"Facebook and Co. are going to hold all your informations and pictures on their servers forever! We still hope that by removing your contact details and friend connections one-by-one, your data is being cached out from their backup servers. This can happen after days, weeks, months or even years. So merely deactivating the account is just not enough!"

<comment><USER8> He wants to keep using the account, just remove the historic activity.

<comment><USER9> NB: She, presumably, based on "Jennifer Golbeck".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Expiration dates for posts is a brilliant idea. Who ever is working on the "next Facebook", I hope you implement something like this.

<comment><USER11> Actually I'd rather prefer someone to not invent the next Facebook. It reveals the human trait that despite best intentions, when shareholders get involved, cash is king regardless of the ethical stance the company supposedly takes.

<comment><USER10> Good point.

In my mind, ideally the next big social media platform will be P2P and open source. I have some ideas on how this might work and the features this would include, but I've never hashed them out since my programming ability doesn't approach the level required for such an undertaking. Maybe I will as a thought experiment and publish my ideas so that anyone can use them.

<comment><USER12> Are you aware of Diaspora ? It's both distributed and open source.

<comment><USER6> Diaspora is a poor attempt at copying facebook, it's nothing like the distributed I have in mind, which would be easy to use encrypted self-hosting and not tied to a specific network/website/technology.

<comment><USER13> So basically implemented with no technology? Maybe just an idea in your mind?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ooh, cool. I was just idly wondering today whether I could easily delete all my posts from high school (full of angst about calculus and bus rides).

If Facebook actually wants people to be using their service in twenty years, they should really build timeline cleansing in.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I was just idly wondering today whether I could easily delete all my posts from high school (full of angst about calculus and bus rides)."

Although I agree with your feature request why does it matter to you that that stuff is there? I enjoy going back through my timeline (maybe once a year or so) and seeing old things. There may be a few things that make me cringe but there's nothing so embarrassing that it would have any effect on me currently should anyone else see it.

<comment><USER15> Probably just me but that sounds crazy (very possible you use it normally while I don't). I've deleted then returned to FB many times. Even when I'm not deleting my account, I always clean out my past posts, sometimes a few days later (after posting them) while other times I'll wait a few weeks. If I add a new profile pic, I usually delete the old one. Also, I talk to people via PM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady The author keeps referencing posting 'links and videos'. I guess the value you get from Facebook depends on how you use it. I occasionally post a cool video I've found (and I usually post that specifically on the wall of someone I think would like it) but 80% of the stuff I post and my friends post is not links to content on other sites. Most of the content posted are photos or people messaging each other through wall posts rather than PM. Although it's obviously not all useful to me it makes Facebook's Timeline feature more interesting. Going back and seeing links posted would be quite boring. Seeing messages people posts to me or photos or comments on an event we were at are nice to look back on.

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe I'm just cynical, but I am very doubtful that Facebook would hard-delete anything.

</comment><comment><USER17> I did this a year ago. I used the mobile site because it has less JS and iMacros[1] to delete the posts. Took me about an hour to delete approximately 900 posts.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/imacros-for- fire...](https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/imacros-for-firefox/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Cough..snapchat..this is the value it brings.

<comment><USER19> Except that's not really secure, either.

<comment><USER18> I never claimed it was secure, or private, or whatever. Just that the functionality of Snapchat embodies what the author was saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >> On average, it took 20 to 30 minutes to purge a month's worth of posts. After about 12 hours of hand-deleting stories, I decided it was time to automate.

12 hours of deleting by hand? I don't know if I could even do 20-30 minutes worth without seeking a tool.

That's dedication, or something.

<comment><USER21> You'd be surprised how dedicated normal people are when they don't _know_ that these simple things can be automated. I remember about 15 years ago when I was a freshman in highschool, and found my sister replacing every space after period on her 40-page thesis with two spaces. I told her of the find/replace all feature, and she was pretty happy. Over the years I've gone through a crazy number of incidents where normal people are spending tens of hours on things that would _literally_ take me less than maybe 30 seconds to do.

<comment><USER20> That's fair. I actually had a similar experience with our publications team replacing a word across multiple pages on multiple spaces of our wiki. I can hardly imagine not immediately seeking/knowing to try to seek a better solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I cringed when I read "(...) and since it's my data, I want to be in control of its disposal.", OP obviously makes the confusion between providing the data and owning the data. It's regrettable that she contributes to propagating the idea that users own their data on facebook, when in reality once it is on facebook server it's not their data anymore, it now belongs to facebook.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think this is why Snapchat strikes fear into the heart of Facebook. It's not the current business model of sending drunken cleavage shots and not charging for them... it's the potential for a social network that really states the present, not the forever. I think there's tremendous value there.

</comment><comment><USER23> imho deleting social profile is not an option anymore. Other guy could make it look like yours. It just too suspicious to not have online profile. Double identity is the key. Just be one kind citizen for the system. Generate likes and upload kittens.

</comment><comment><USER24> Have cleaned up the garbage? It's time to create some real stuff now: Visit us on Kickstarter for the project "BingoBo: Build your Private Web"

[http://kck.st/JNqv8z](http://kck.st/JNqv8z)

</comment><comment><USER25> wait, wouldn't it be faster to write a small script to hit the facebook API foreach activity? I thought this was hacker news, not clueless article writer news

</comment><comment><USER26> You know they won't actually delete your data, right?

</comment><comment><USER27> Remove the cause and not the symptoms.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd be more impressed if you just deleted your facebook account

</comment><comment><USER29> And so I just did</comment>


White House backs repeal of broadband privacy rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-idUSKBN16Z2JI <comment><USER2> Donate to the EFF as much as you can. The reason the AARP, NRA and other lobbies are so successful is the amount of money and votes behind them. Dollars speak louder than anything. Donate to the EFF until it hurts and earmark the donations.

</comment><comment><USER3> If this data becomes available privately, it is inevitably only a matter of time before it all comes out publicly.

<comment><USER4> > becomes available

This bill makes no change to currently implemented policy, it only cancels a change that was to take place in 2018.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If this passes, would I be able to buy the info of all the congresspeople who voted for the repeal?

<comment><USER6> What about a crowdfunding campaign to purchase this data? I wonder if they'd have second thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seriously, what is _wrong_ with the US?</comment>


Ask HN: What does my startup need to do to comply with GDPR? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://gdprchecklist.io/](https://gdprchecklist.io/) is a good start. For many startups it's more than half the work is documentation, not changes in what they do.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't recommend that checklist. It seems to be a list of every topic in the regulation, whether it applies to you or not, presented as a list of things required for compliance.

While technically not wrong, some of it is so misleading that the reader might be _less_ informed about the law than when they started.

I wish I had a better option than just reading the text of the law, but most explainer sites I've seen have been misleading, confusing, biased, incorrect or generally not so good.

I've been using this[0] reference—basically the text, but better organized.

[0] [https://gdpr-info.eu](https://gdpr-info.eu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A solid answer would depend on:

\- what it is your startup does

\- how you process user data

\- what third parties - if any - you draw upon to process that user data

If you process any user data at all (of users currently located in the EU, that is) the very least you need is:

\- a privacy policy

\- a list of your data processing activities

\- a list of your technical and organisational measures for protecting user data

\- a data processing agreement with every third party that processes user data on your behalf

</comment><comment><USER5> You probably don't _need_ to do anything. It depends on how risk averse you are. Where are you located?

</comment><comment><USER6> Obligatory: This question is at least a week late. But you should've been asking this far before then.

What's your startup? GDPR's burden on you is going to be different depending on how much and what kind of user data you handle, why you handle it, and for how long.

<comment><USER7> You're not obligated to be a jerk. There's absolutely nothing this person can do about the fact that they didn't address this before now, so why bring it up? Just to scold? Helpful.</comment></comment>


Supreme Court rules in Carpenter: Need search warrant for cell site records [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/06/22/16-402_h315.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This case is very important, because it's holding up Ross Ulbricht's/Dread Pirate Roberts/Silk Road Supreme Court case.

And this ruling, while helpful, will be more helpful just by removing a barrier to hearing the case.</comment>


Ask HN: UI for editing YAML/JSON backed by version control - <AUTHOR> Is there an existing service that exposes a web UI to guide folks editing a JSON or YAML configuration according to some schema? It should store each edited file with full audit/revision history (or even better, just be backed by git).
The goal is to make it easier for non-technical folks to safely editing config files at a higher level while retaining the benefits of version control systems.
Edit: they shouldn't have to know they're editing YAML or JSON. The ideal would be the equivalent of a GUI SQL query builder but for config files. <comment><USER2> I built something like that when I needed expose config changes to non- technical peers using [https://github.com/rjsf-team/react-jsonschema- form](https://github.com/rjsf-team/react-jsonschema-form) \+ one POST function that checkouts git and commit a change

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the fast path is to start with a self-hosted github clone

[https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/github-alternatives- op...](https://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/github-alternatives-open-source- seflt-hosted/)

and then add a web-based editor specialized for JSON and/or YAML.

</comment><comment><USER4> 'make it easier for non-technical folks to safely editing config files' gives me the heebie-jeebies</comment>


Obesity: Drink till you drop - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16881791 <comment><USER2> I'd like to know how much obesity is caused by a structural "finish everything on your plate" problem. By this I mean the tendency of certain folks to finish everything that is served, no matter what their hunger level is. Also, I've heard it said that people who eat from smaller plates will consume fewer calories over time.

In the study, the group given water also had their food portions slashed by a substantial amount. What happens if the portions stay the same size? How many people will read or see re-hashed versions of this study in their daily papers or news and simply prefix a large glass of water before their dinners, only to find that it has made no difference?

<comment><USER3> Plenty of it, but that's also because typically people will prepare (or expect to be prepared for them in restaurants) unbelievable amounts of food.

I weigh about 70 Kg and a _half_ portion in any US restaurant is more than enough for me. I always feel bad about sending food back to the kitchen but I'd feel even worse for overeating.

<comment><USER4> I find this is somewhat dependent on the restaurant I'm at. I'm a stable 60-65Kg, but I hungrily consume almost anything in front of me, except at the most excessive of restaurants.

<comment><USER3> High metabolism?

<comment><USER4> Or something like that

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Me and the significant other have known this for quite a while. Frankly, I'm REALLY surprised that this wasn't an established scientific result.

The way it works IMHO is not too obscure - water fills you up and gives you the impression of being 'full' earlier, so you tend to reduce your regular food intake. Feeling 'fuller' equates to being satiated for a lot of people (including me), so the tendency to chow out at random times during the day is highly reduced/eliminated.

I used to be 90+ kg in the middle of 2009. Once I decided to drink copious amounts of water during the day, by Jan 2010 I had come to about 60ish kg and lost 4 inches around the waist. My other breakfast/lunch/dinner eating habits remained the same, and the water meant I cut down on snacking between meals.

Seriously, isn't there any research showing water fills you up?

<comment><USER6> In the study, they controlled for caloric intake by giving everyone a limit. This would seem to point toward an effect other than the fact that water makes you eat less. It's possible that the group drinking water actually stayed below their caloric limit, but I didn't see that mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER7> I imagine it's hard to enforce caloric intake limits effectively. Perhaps people who drank water simply had more success staying within (or close to) the allocated limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was wondering if it altered the quality of calories taken in. The article mentioned that it wasn't just dropping calories from drinks, since they were counted as part of the allocated amount.

On the other hand, if people were eating (for instance) more proteins in place of the simple sugars of fizzy drinks, they would drastically alter how their body was interacting with those 1800 calories.

I was disappointed by the apparent attitude in the article that every calorie was equal, regardless of source. I really believe calories are to the nutrition industry what counting lines of code is to software: a number that is just too easy to calculate but absolutely meaningless in measuring anything.

<comment><USER9> "...absolutely meaningless in measuring anything."

This is not true, not for calories nor for lines of code. Both are not _sufficient_ measures when used on their own, and both need context to be interpreted in, but outright dismissing any measurement of them is just as wrong as blindly relying on them.

Apart from this, this study was done by professional nutritional researchers - the article may have dumbed down their word a bit but I'd be hard-pressed to believe that they didn't account for things like that.

<comment><USER8> I'm curious (please don't take this combatively, it's not meant that way) where you've seen value in measuring lines of code. What is the context that makes the measurement valuable?

I ask because in the many years I've developed software or managed the development of software, I've never found it a useful metric to study because there are too many variables that impact it. However, if I'm missing something there, I'd like to know.

<comment><USER9> When you have a team of people who do the same work, if there is one person who consistently writes half as much code as the rest that could be a reason to look deepen into that person's performance. When you have for example a new project, you split up all task to be done in several-hour long chunks and you assign those chunks to all team member in a way so that the work is comparable (roughly equal parts GUI, algorithm implementation etc.), it's reasonable to expect that everybody would product about the same amount of code (or checkins or similar). If someone is 2 or 3 standard deviations from the median, that says something. Maybe it says something about that person, maybe about the way tasks are allocated, either way it says something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I completely agree with the gist of the article, Dr Davys counter- argument is terrible:

"It is possible that the water displaced sugary drinks in the hydrated group, but this does not explain the weight loss because the calories associated with any fizzy drinks consumed by the other group had to fall within the daily limits."

There is such a thing as good calories and bad calories - obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola.

Still, nice article.

<comment><USER11> > obviously getting your calories from healthy fats such as olive oil and > avacados is going to be a lot more beneficial to your weight in the long run > than getting your calories from sugary fizzy drinks such as coca-cola.

It may be "obvious", but I'm not sure if that's true!

<comment><USER10> I would say it's pretty common knowledge in the fitness world. I think this quote explains the concept nicely:

"The second rule of fat loss is that healthy fat does not make you fat. Excess calories, in particular excess from the wrong calories makes you fat. This is a very hard concept to get across. People still believe that fat makes you fat and will argue without you to the grave while they eat a gallon of low fat ice cream that has the power to make you fat over night.

...

Lets get back to fat. Low fat diets equal low testosterone and low progesterone production. Both are necessary for men and women for optimal fat loss and well-being.

Without adequate levels of fat in your diet (30% of calories), you will not have adequate levels of testosterone. Without adequate levels of testosterone you will not be able to build muscle. Building muscle is the most effective way to get rid of fat and keep it off. " - Mike Mahler

<comment><USER11> You're preaching to the choir here. What you're not going to be able to demonstrate is that, in laboratory controlled conditions where literally every calorie is counted by a scientist, and all variables are taken into account (e.g. hyrdation levels) that one kind of calorie leads to a "metabolic advantage" over another and lead to more or less fat loss or gain _given adequate protein_. This would be a kind of holy grail discovery.

What is undeniable is that any study where people self-count their caloric intake has a ton of potential problems which have been demonstrated over and over again. People are notoriously terrible at counting calories in what they eat.

It is true that sugars have certain metabolic effects, for example with insulin, that will make you hungrier and crave more. This makes it true that they should be avoided. Basically I think we're on the same page if you're willing to scratch the "obviously".

Another point is that the amount that doing weight training raises your metabolism is extremely overrated. I don't have the hard data in front of me but I think if you look up how many more calories you burn by gaining a pound of muscle, you will be shocked that it isn't that much. This is one of those "everybody knows" facts about fitness that everyone believes but isn't really backed up very well.

<comment><USER12> This covers some of that very well: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

<comment><USER10> Cliff notes?

<comment><USER12> Due to the way the body processes fructose and glucose, fructose leads more directly to being 'fat', as it's stored as adipose tissue more readily/rapidly than glucose. Fructose, in HFCS and other solutions, is becoming extremely common in food where it did not used to be - this is leading to the huge increase in metabolic syndrome/etc. tl;dr: sugar makes you fat, but different sugars do it at different rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I just started doing this myself a few days ago. I've found that I've bloated up a little bit at first (as water is prone to cause) but at every meal I am feeling 'full' earlier and not eating as much. My body seems to be enjoying it as well. I definitely say give it a try, the most painful outcome being an increased number of trips to the bathroom - the bladder can only hold so much liquid.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with "solutions" like this is that they don't really fix the problem where it lies. Weight gain is attributed to caloric surplus, there's no two ways about it.

Drinking water before a meal will help you feel a little fuller and ultimately, eat less. People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating even more poorly.

If you really take a step back and look at this, what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods (water being the ultimate example), preferably with a high satiety index (here's a list: <http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm>).

<comment><USER15> > People ignorant to nutrition will begin to use this as a free pass to eating > even more poorly.

One danger would be that they would wash out too many useful substances out of their body by drinking to much liquid.

I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch.

> ... what they are suggesting is filling up with less calorie dense foods

Another way to accomplish the same thing (for me at least) is to eat spicier, more flavorful foods.

<comment><USER16> _I would also imagine so much liquid dilutes the stomach juices and the food doesn't digest properly. I don't have any scientific basis for this btw, just a hunch._

I've never heard of that happening, or anything like it. There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication though: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication>

It's not a serious concern for anyone not running marathon distances or taking part in a water-drinking competition, though.

<comment><USER17> >There is such a thing, supposedly, as water intoxication

Why do you doubt that water intoxication exists? Exertional Hyponatremia for example doesn't seem to have any gross reasons to doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The advice I read (somewhere, so long ago I don't remember) is that sometimes when you think you're hungry or craving something, you're really thirsty. This has worked well for me for many years, and usually means I don't end up eating anything at all. Too bad it doesn't help with anxiety.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not sure about the "science" behind this, but this technique has definitely worked for me. I've been drinking ~3 litres of water daily for the last year - and along with other changes in my lifestyle, have lost ~65lbs in that time.

If for no other reason, drinking that water reduces my urges for fizzy drinks - which helps a lot. Additionally, as others have said - reducing the amount you eat, in whatever way that works for you, has helped a lot.

<comment><USER20> The "science" behind this is a randomized, controlled trial. Why the scare quotes?

<comment><USER11> For one thing, though scientific, any conclusion is going to be rather soft if it's drawn from one study where human beings self-report calories, and where the difference in weight (2kg) is within the variance of how much our weight can vary within a single day.

<comment><USER21> Heck, if I go cycling in the morning and don't drink enough I can be 4kg heavier after dinner that day than right after cycling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Could that be related somehow with people drinking less and less tap water (I live in US, but also seeing this in my home country Bulgaria)?

I mean nowadays you have to buy your water most places, you might as well get something "better" for that money, and that won't be water - some some kind of beverage, soft drink, etc.

So you would be drinking less, simply because you have to pay (yes, you pay for tap-water too, but that's done as part of all your water usage bill, and it's done at the end of the month usually, and probably way cheaper than bottled water).

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be interesting if restaurants cut the portion sizes in half, kept the same prices, but used higher quality products and better care in preparing.

I guess it's wishful thinking.

<comment><USER24> Just a random anecdote here on portion sizes:

Piper's in Raleigh has a really good fish n chips plate - my wife loves it. However, it's an insanely huge portion. $13.95, but it's _more_ than enough for two people (she split it with a friend last time and they couldn't finish it). Dropping the sizes in half and making it $10.95 would still be a good value (well, in line with the rest of their portions, FWICT). The waitress has said that most people don't finish the fish because it's too much - it just ends up being thrown out. You can't easily reheat fried fish the next day as a leftover (well, _I_ can't - any tips?)

Getting Chinese takeaway always felt a bit expensive (for the good stuff around us). However, we've cut back on portion sizes, and my wife's dinner is enough for dinner, then lunch, then usually another dinner, all from an $11 menu item. In those terms, it's a good deal. But if you tried to eat it all in one sitting, it's too much.

I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings.

<comment><USER25> >I just do not understand restaurant portion sizings.

The food is a very small part of their costs. They can double the amount of food for a cost of $1, charge an extra $2 AND have many more customers for their great value!

It's like selling home PCs with a 1Tb drive, most users don't need it but it only costs them $5 more than a 500Gb drive.

<comment><USER15> Why don't European restaurants do it. Is food more expensive there or is it just considered bad form or somehow un-sophisticated to serve giant portions.

I would also guess that it depends on the type of food. High quality, fresh organic produce is a lot more expensive, so perhaps for some food items it really is about the price. For example the fish in fish and chips could be some really expensive fish. Doubling the portion would be a lot more than adding another $1 to the cost.

<comment><USER26> Culturally food quality is considered more important than quality. Also, higher quality ingredients cost significantly more. So basically it costs them more to do so, and their customers don't care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I drink upwards of a gallon of water a day, maybe only 3/4 gal in winter. I'm very easily dehydrated. I weigh ~350lbs.

Just a reminder that studies may find a typical or probable result. They do not find cause -> effect for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER28> s/water/beer/g and get the exactly opposite effect. ^_^</comment>


IBM looks back on 100 years of history, finds plenty to be proud of (video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/22/ibm-looks-back-on-100-years-of-history-finds-plenty-to-be-proud/

<comment><USER2> I did a summer internship at IBM, and the history behind the company is fascinating. One would think that a gigantic 100-year-old company would suffer from bureaucracy and eventually become antiquated and obsolete, but they remain agile enough to stay alive and even grow. Also, IBM Research is a patent machine - they patent a great number of innovations per year.

<comment><USER3> yep, IBM was granted a record 5,896 U.S. patents in 2010 Source: <http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/33341.wss>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Skip the summary:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39jtNUGgmd4>

</comment><comment><USER5> There is some to be less proud of too - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust> and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_during_World_War_II>. However, it should be strongly noted that culpability for the use of the systems has not been established.

</comment><comment><USER6> "We built and shipped it to 'Microsoft'" Hard to imagine something like that today.

</comment><comment><USER6> "I was the mother of Motherboards"</comment>


Ask HN: Quit my job and learn to code in Thailand for a year? - <AUTHOR>

I currently work as an account manager at a large company and I'm building a web app on the side with a freelance Rails dev.  It's always been a goal of mine to work in technology but my career is taking me in the opposite direction.  After teaching myself HTML and CSS, I've started learning Rails so I can begin contributing code.  The problem is that with my job, progress is slower than I'd like it to be and it will probably be a few months before I achieve basic competency and can do anything useful.
I'm 25 and have a fair amount of cash saved up, no debt, mortgage, or family I'm beholden to.  My idea is to take a load of cash, move to Thailand, and live very cheaply as I teach myself to code.  Hopefully, after a year, I can come out the other side armed with the knowledge to build whatever I want whenever I want.  It'd also be one hell of an adventure; I just got back from a trip to Beijing a few weeks ago and loved it so I'm at least a little familiar with how things work in Asia.
Has anybody in the HN community done anything like this?  I'd like to know if I'm completely delusional here or if there are solid points to this idea.  Also, would a year be long enough?  With no income to speak of I'd have to make my cash last for as long as I'd plan on staying there.  Any advice/insights would be appreciated! <comment><USER2> I have been doing something of the same. I started out learning web development while going to college. The first big plus was that I was able to quite my part time job and do web development working from home. I then quit college to do freelancing full time (I hated college and my grades were crap, so this wasn't as bad of a decision as it sounds.) I then decided that I could take this a step further and not just work from home, but work from anywhere in the world. I then moved to the Philippines and two years later I'm still there.

Peter Cooper mentioned that your year out could turn into a "procrastination- ridden year of hedonism" and I would agree with that. It's really easy to get caught into a "vacation" mindset. My first year here ended up being more of a case of "let's see how little work I can do and still get by" rather than building my business. The beer here is really cheap and there are a lot of expats who don't work. Every day is Friday, and if I'm not careful I can slip into their same routine.

That said, I'm not sure I would take the path you are looking at. I think you need to define your goals more clearly. What is the reason for learning to code? I learned how to code during my free time after work and on the weekends. Most important for me wasn't to have a lot of full days to learn how to code, but rather practicing every day if even for an hour a day. So, you don't have to go on a year sabbatical from your job just to learn how to code. Also, if you are practicing every day, you can get pretty good relatively quick.

After you learn how to code, what are your plans? This is where you are very vague. Though I'm a freelance web developer, I wouldn't suggest this for most people. This is a real business and takes real commitment. It takes a lot of time and effort to really figure out the business side. It's stressful and I don't have much time or energy left over to work on my own projects. I would love to be working on some sort of start-up idea which would allow me to switch, but I can't afford to break my business cycle (quit accepting work, build my own application with no money coming in, perhaps have to start taking in new work if my idea doesn't work out and having to rebuild the cash-flow cycle.)

If you want to build something, you can take the time to learn the code just as you are doing now. As you said, progress is slow but you are still making progress. If you were to be competent in 3 months, then that's not really very long. Maybe another few months and you would be surprised with what you could accomplish. Even if you aren't a guru yet, you might just be good enough that you can tackle just about any problem that you run into. At this point, you are "good enough" though you will continue to hone your craft.

So, the moral of the story is that the year away isn't something you need to do. You can learn what you need to learn doing what you are doing. Keep building up that savings (something you will lose when you leave,) keep building on the side and be patient. Eventually you may even be able to build something that makes a bit of money. If you could build an application which could bring in $1000 / month in profit then you would have enough to live on without having to dip into your savings. That's the point where I would be considering moving abroad.

I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying that you should be honest with yourself and define your plans more clearly. What is it that you really want to do? If it's simply to get away for a year in Thailand then go for it. If it's to learn to be a better coder, then stay on your present path, it's working! If it's to quit your job because you are simple "done" with it, then go ahead and take a sabbatical to find yourself again (though I'm not sure I would want to burn through my savings to do this, it would be better if you could support yourself while there so that you don't have to touch your savings.)

On a side note, the Philippines is also a great place. It's about the same cost of living. English is an official language. The visa allows for tourists to stay up to 16 months without having to do a visa run outside the country. I live in Dumaguete and I work out of an office (working from home just isn't effective for me anymore.) The biggest downside is the infrastructure in general is probably worse than in Thailand.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only you can analyze yourself and determine whether a "year out" could turn into a procrastination-ridden year of hedonism. At 25, though, you're not too old to have a "gap year." If you can realistically make it work with your resources, what's the worst that could happen? You come back with your tail between your legs in a few months?

The key thing you mention is not having any family to support.. once you go down that road, you're highly unlikely to be pulling off stunts like these unless you have an extremely liberal significant other and the derring-do to stay strong with a family in tow. I'm married and have a daughter now and even getting out to California for my once-regular vacation is now a project with logistics on the scale of invading a small country.. :-)

Hopefully someone else can come along and give you the specifics on how easy this is to do in Thailand, but in terms of actually doing it, if you see no significant downsides, go for it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder why Thailand? Are you planning to spend your time in Bangkok or the islands? My memory of first was a fairly dirty and hot city with exception of malls and palaces, while my memory of the latter was a very chill place with exception of monsoon month where it would be a challenge to concentrate on work. All in all, you will a need a place with high speed broadband and air conditioning at the very least.

</comment><comment><USER5> If it's on your mind, go for it. Otherwise it may just end up as a regret down the road.

Thailand is cheap. You can easily live on a few hundred dollars a month so a "fair amount" of savings should be no problem.

I don't know why you asked though. Are you looking for someone to talk you out of it?

<comment><USER2> Easily a few hundred dollars a month? I doubt that. Maybe a Thai with support could do that. I have never been to Thailand but living on that much in the Philippines, which is comparable, would be difficult. You would be barely squeaking by.

<comment><USER5> My friend recently went to Chiang Mai. His decent hotel room cost something like $3 per night and his meals were about $1.

I went to Thailand in 2002 and stayed in an awesome resort right on the beach. It cost $8 for the night including food. Thailand is really cheap as long as you don't spend all your money on beer and liquor. A few hundred dollars per month goes a long way.

<comment><USER2> You can get a room here for about $4 - $5 per day. This doesn't include utilities but if you only run a fan and go without cable and internet then utilities won't be much. You can also get meals here for $1 / day.

There are other costs that you can't forget. Transportation can easily cost you another $1 / day unless you walk everywhere. There are places where you can get free wifi but if you can't do that then an internet cafe will charge 40 cents per hour. The killer is the visa, which runs approx $60 / month.

I didn't say you couldn't do it. I said you would be barely squeaking by. For some that is okay (easy even) but for me it's difficult. I have tried to live on that budget and it's not fun. We might call it backpacking, others call it poverty. ;)

Maybe at first you can take this as a personal challenge to live cheap. In my experience that eventually wears thin and you sort of bounce back to wanting a decent life again. I suppose that's the point where it became not fun for me. Fortunately, I didn't have to keep living like that, I simply quit taking it easy and did more work.

However, point taken. You can live very cheap if you choose to, and that gives people an idea of where the bottom would be for a foreign visitor (many Filipino's live on far less.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Don't go on your own 2\. make sure you can go back to your current job if things don't work out

<comment><USER7> It's perfectly okay to go on your own. In fact, that alone would be great for your own self development, and don't worry about #2 at your age.

<comment><USER8> I agree with boolean here. Moving to a different part of the world will push most people out of their comfort zone, but that won't necessarily happen if you go with someone you know.

A year in Thailand sounds like a great adventure and a great chance to "find yourself" (please forgive me for the cliche). If you're gonna do it, then do it right.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there room to compete in domain backordering? - <AUTHOR> Is there enough demand for a domain backordering service that doesn't sell your information to hundreds of people who spam you about web development via email and SMS as soon as you win and cost a small fortune? <comment><USER2> Is there enough demand... for what? Presumably you mean for you to create the service, but you need to be clear about this.

To answer the question, this is not a particular pain point for me. I would not be likely to pay for it.</comment>


Weird Tweet by Patio11 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1241551327743770624 <comment><USER2> If you're living in another country and you don't want to get deported for embarrassing that government with observations about how they're catastrophically screwing up, but you still want people to know you recognized the catastrophic screw-up as it was happening, then you might publish a cryptographic hash of your observations.

But since many lives are at stake, you'd only do that if you believed the government was so impervious to public exposure of their screw-up that nothing you publish could get them to change course or mitigate the severity of the impending catastrophe.

<comment><USER3> That's a good guess but why even do it? The idea of pointing out the government faults is to either help them correct their policies or rally up people. If it comes later it kinda defeats the purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> eh, he does this once in a while. He did it for his own amusement of predicting things. He did a prediction about a Bitcoin scam or something at the end of last year. He maybe predicting something about COVID. or something else. Socially constrained maybe his way to say "I'm predicting something on my own grounds. If I say it in plain, people will argue and I don't have time for that. I just want to put as proof that I have formulated this prediction by this point in time.".

</comment><comment><USER5> He's tweeted another clue:

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1241553311024603140](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1241553311024603140)

</comment><comment><USER6> The main problem with this "prediction" is that nothing stops him from simply not revealing the file after 1 month.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps he was shocked in to studying the situation further after being surprised by his credit drying up. Other people saw that coming. [https://mobile.twitter.com/patio11/status/124135212329342156...](https://mobile.twitter.com/patio11/status/1241352123293421568)

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, what are your guesses?

<comment><USER9> I'm going with :

1) He is materially wrong about the most consequential thing he's "had to" have a view on in 15 years. We should probably degrade our estimate of his ability to think through complex problems.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the most unnerving things I saw on the internet today.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't get it. He posts some SHA of a file and says to come back in 1 month because he's "socially constrained" from publishing a file which perhaps proves we saw "something" coming? Such as the covid pandemic?

This guy is some engineer at stripe by the looks of it. Not sure how he'd have access to any interesting files related to covid19.

<comment><USER11> He's also considered a heavy-weight commentator in a variety of fields.

The 'social constraint' aspect could be _inciting panic_ or some such.

Edit to add: currently third in the top ten here on HN [https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Classic Clickbait.

Let's all post a 128 hex char string. Somebody out there must know the true meaning of life.</comment>


Show HN: Filldunphy.com (image placeholder service) - <AUTHOR> http://filldunphy.com/ <comment><USER2> Similarly, an adorable image placeholder service (so you can choose the most appropriate images for your project).

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

<comment><USER3> well, it becomes painfully obvious I ripped off that design. I am bad with css/html. There is also [http://lorempizza.com](http://lorempizza.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The best "dad jokes" on TV are on Modern Family. I got a good laugh from this Dunphy as a Service.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is so awesome!

</comment><comment><USER6> Hahaha amazing, simply amazing. Well done.</comment>


When it comes to Programming, a "Little" Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing - <AUTHOR> http://a1.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-it-comes-to-programming-little.html

<comment><USER2> something i've always liked about ObjC, is that it's generally obvious when to use capital letters, and also, (at least if you follow the apple coding guidelines) arguments, types, variables and selectors don't ever differ by less than quite a number of chars.

of course, code can sometimes lack brevity - it does seem long winded to write something like

        NSMutableDictionary *mutableArgMap = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] initWithDictionary:argMap];

but i'd choose that over java most times ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there a good ObjC library for Android? :-)</comment></comment>


The Iliad as Lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20120528122510/http://www.raikoth.net:80/atreus.html <comment><USER2> I laughed, I cried. This was epic.</comment>


Zappos's Website Frozen for Two Years as It Integrates with Amazon - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/10/7/zapposs-website-frozen-for-two-years-as-it-integrates-with-a.html <comment><USER2> One day they will teach about this at universities. How not to approach IT problems.</comment>


Minimizing Downtime in Windows Update - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/11/14/minimizing-restarts-after-automatic-updating-in-windows-update.aspx

<comment><USER2> This is a good direction, thanks MS.</comment>


Apple hardware changes alter Microsoft "Hunter" ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/24/apple-hardware-changes-alter-microsoft-hunter-ads/

<comment><USER2> Pfeh. This reads as a story written purely to arrive at the "and that's why 90% of computers sold over $1000 are apples" conclusion.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not to say that the ad campaign is a winner, but this conclusion is dubious logic at best. A bad ad campaign is responsible for the revenue drop you say? Nothing to do the with the deep global recession and plummeting consumer spending? This type of stuff makes me hate pageview driven publishing.

<comment><USER4> The implication is that non-Mac PCs have had a greater share of high-end sells before the campaign, but it's not stated (some other places seem to back this up [http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of- ma...](http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Apple-has-91-of-market- for-1000-PCs-says-NPD/1248313624)).

The particular stat used (% of 1k+ sales) seems to correct for the recession; my expectation is that sales would decline evenly.

I would agree that this could be unrelated to ad campaign; I don't see any reason they have to be related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I liked the CD bin analogy. Another good one is the clearance rack at clothing stores. Even though it's the same stuff that, a few months prior, was given lots of floor space and displayed nicely on models--it just seems crappier. And even though I know what's going on, I still totally fall for it. Them's some powerful forces, apparently.

<comment><USER6> _Another good one is the clearance rack at clothing stores._

That's pretty interesting, because I buy the majority of my name-brand pants, polos, shoes, and shirts from discount stores like Marshalls, TJ Max, Nordstrom Rack, etc...

Do you pay full price for your clothing from all the designer stores?

<comment><USER5> No, I go to the discount places too (I was just in a Ross the other day). But I hate clothes shopping, and the discount stores do take more effort. Sometimes I feel it's worth it to not go discount just to be in and out of there faster.

Incidentally, I don't have the same "bargain bin" problem in the discount stores...because it all looks pretty bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm amused that Microsoft now needs to defend itself against apple. What's next, a commercial saying you should buy Microsoft instead of Linux?

When you are the underdog, just having the 800lb gorilla notice you exist is a huge victory.

</comment><comment><USER8> I thought this was going to be about Ratners:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner#The_speech>

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't really get the point of this article. Different tools for different jobs. I have both a dell latitude E6500 and a white macbook. They are both really nice machines, but not really "apples" to apples.

Do research on what software you need, what you want to get done, and... Well I guess I'd better stop preaching to the choir.</comment>


Legalize Airbnb - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/06/is_airbnb_illegal_why_hotels_are_so_upset_about_you_renting_a_bedroom_to_a_stranger_.html <comment><USER2> What the internet is doing is taking our private lives and making them public.

If I sell an apple to you from my lunchbox, am I a food vendor and need to get a license? What if I sell 100 apples? A thousand?

Government has created these boxes around what it considers employees, restaurants, hotels, businesses, and so forth. Then the industry has waddled up to the trough and helped create a web of laws that prevent just any random schmuck from getting into one of these official categories. Now that we have this ton of innovation, expect a lot of pushback. This article only scratches the surface. If you are acting in the capacity of a hotel, should you have health inspections? Carry a certain kind of insurance? Or are you a landlord, but just for a day? In that case you have all sorts of tenant rights and landlord responsibilities to consider. And the key question behind all of this is: do we want government to apply the same kinds of broad solutions we needed to safeguard consumers in 1850 (I exaggerate for effect) in the hotelling business to one guy who rents his house for a couple of weeks a year? If not, what is the difference? We're going to have to choose: either accept massive government intrusion into every small detail of our lives (monitored by the internet) such that we still fit into this concept of a 1950 economy or deal with a world where these risks we used to not have to worry about are commonplace.

Like I've always said, SOPA and such are just the beginning of the battle. Lots more to come. It's not just big industry protecting it's turf; there'll be a lot of that. It's the problem that the structure of the governmental system doesn't match up to the actual way people are beginning to live their lives. That's a much more fundamental issue.

I don't think legalizing AirBnb is going to help internet entrepreneurs any more than brandishing a squirt gun is going to save you from an armed robbery. The best it will do is cause an imperceptible delay in the oncoming storm.

<comment><USER3> I think your dichotomy is a bit too stark, and the result will end up having to be some mixture of traditional regulation and exemptions for small-scale activity. With AirBnB, the guy renting his house a couple weeks a year I agree is not a model that makes sense to shoehorn into 1950s hotel regulation. But what's causing problems is that a number of AirBnB renters _are literally unlicensed hotels_ , of the slummy, bug-infested, inadequate-fire-escapes sort that the original hotel regulation was intended to put an end to. They're not any sort of new 2012 problem, but exactly the same 1950s problem (and in NYC, often quite literally in the same old buildings).

The problem isn't you or me renting out our apartments, but the guy in NYC who's converting an apartment block into a full-time commercial hotel without meeting the proper safety/health standards. So far, I think this is a minor problem on AirBnB _except_ in NYC, where slum-hotel listings are starting to proliferate, often dishonestly listed as if they were someone personally renting out their private apartment (though the review system does help limit this after the first few people are fooled).

<comment><USER4> "I think your dichotomy is a bit too stark"

Kids are getting their lemonade stands shut-down by cops. Traveling vendors are getting shut-down in cities because they're competing with established restaurants. The Amish are getting raided by feds for selling raw milk. I can keep going if you wish.

<comment><USER3> I agree, and I think that's why there will need to be exemptions for small- scale independent vendors. You didn't address my point about the continuing need for regulation of large-scale vendors for essentially the traditional reasons, though. Does the fact that we should let kids run lemonade stands without being hassled _also_ mean that full-scale commercial hotels in Brooklyn should be unlicensed and not subject to health/safety inspections? On the latter point, I don't see the situation as much different than the 1950s: if someone is trying to convert 30 apartments in a building to a de-facto hotel, that's the use-case that hotel regulations were put in place to address. The new 2010s phenomenon is the person who's renting out their personal apartment intermittently, and which current regulations are too inflexible to accommodate. So I think a more flexible range of policies are needed.

<comment><USER4> You're asking me if we should dictate to the entire population which risks are acceptable to take. I would say there is no logical methodology to accomplish this.

It's okay to drive a motorcycle, but not okay to buy lemonade from a kid? It's okay to smoke cigarettes, but not okay to sell unregulated securities?

Risk should be legal and honestly disclosed. The only crime should be intentionally misrepresenting risk -- and this can easily be done in contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What if we continue this trend of just doing technically illegal things on a massive scale?

New sites we can make: food2u - browse local bored people with kitchens and have them make then deliver food to you; movr - rent (unlicensed, uninsured) people with large vehicles to transport your stuff; qwikcut - find people who cut hair at home; friendzzzz (four Z's) - substitute someone bored instead of a licensed home care nurse; bugoot - find people with excess bugspray to treat your residence; talkerr - find a non-licensed person to share your problems with instead of a school'd therapist.

I wouldn't be surprised if half of those are billion dollar companies waiting to happen.

<comment><USER6> > _"What if we continue this trend of just doing technically illegal things on > a massive scale?"_

Judging from history: the wronged-customer stories will pile up until the public demands some form of regulation.

Keep in mind that the laws that make airbnb illegal, are the ones that were created as a _reaction_ to business operating in the prior regulation-free environments. Building codes and fire safety regulations exist as a result of a history of preventably-tragic fires and building failures. Food safety regulations exist as a result of a litany of preventable food-borne illnesses, ingredient fraud, etc.

<comment><USER5> Key words: _massive scale_

Regulations/rules/laws require oversight. You can fine a giant hotel. You can verify conditions in restaurants. You can ticket illegal food trucks. Can you stop a guy from making experimental taco flavored cereal at home then delivering it to people who ordered it online? That's a horrible example.

The new rule of startups seems to be: We'll do what we want. You can't stop us.

<comment><USER3> You can't stop small-time, independent cottage industry, and traditionally many governments turn a blind eye to it--- people selling small amounts of baked goods and such is not a new thing, and prosecuted rarely enough that it actually makes the news when it happens. What's new, and _is_ much easier to stop, is centralized brokers turning at-scale aggregation of such cottage industry into a business plan. It's hard to stop me from privately arranging to sublet my apartment for $30/day with someone I met online, but it's much easier to shut down AirBnB doing it with thousands of properties.

Basically I agree that the internet will change much of this, but I disagree that there are billion-dollar companies waiting to happen, unless they get the law to (at least tacitly) go along with them. Billion-dollar companies are juicy targets that can't sneak under the radar in the way that individuals can.

<comment> excuse-me Google "cops close down lemonade stand" 165,000 hits

<comment><USER3> That's what I mean by it being so rare that it makes news. And _big_ news... one incident in Georgia in 2011 produced hundreds of news articles, including in major national newspapers, significant television coverage, and thousands of blog posts. You wouldn't expect that if cops were shutting down a dozen lemonade stands a day.

<comment> excuse-me Good point. Although you have to wonder how much of the ubiquitous `anti- terrorism` web tracking is going to be used to report ebay/craigslist/amazon to the IRS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing that has always puzzled me about AirBNB is that there's no mention anywhere about taxes. All this money changing hands without being taxed sure seems weird. Renters usually pay taxes for the rent they get, shouldn't people doing this on AirBNB do the same?

<comment><USER8> This is no different. The onus is on the person renting out their property/room to declare rental income and remit the appropriate taxes.

On a side note, it breaks my heart to read "all this money changing hands without being taxed sure seems weird."

<comment><USER3> What's a bit gray-area about it is that unlike someone like Craigslist, AirBnB isn't just a matchmaker, but has inserted themselves directly into the commercial transaction as the point of sale: they, not the property owner, are the ones who not only advertise the property, but complete the booking and charge the credit card. Whether that means they're responsible for filing the taxes is murky, and probably depends on which taxes and which jurisdiction.

<comment><USER9> No, that makes it _less_ of a grey area, because Airbnb issues 1099s for the money it disburses, and Craigslist obviously can't do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "But letting people stay temporarily in unoccupied rooms or houses is the > opposite of harmful"

Until some of those guests get murdered, raped, videocammed in the shower, have their possessions stolen, etc etc etc.

We have regulation on this type of thing for a reason. Allowing anyone to just suddenly decide they are now a hotel, is a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER11> I've first hand experienced bait and switch scams, thieving cleaning staff, and made up fees in cheap hotels from around the world. NYC hotels are particularly bad offenders even though they are thoroughly regulated.

If anything an AirBnB host infinitely more trackable and accountable than a hotel you book directly or through an oblivious intermediary (travel agent). Not to mention the countless minimum wage staff working for these hotels that are also much harder to thoroughly vet and trust individually than a single host.

Just because something is more familiar (hotels) doesn't mean it's safer.

<comment><USER12> Ah, the "Republican" argument: _If regulation is so great, why hasn't it been perfect? Clearly the solution is less regulation._

<comment><USER11> I'm not making any blanket statements about regulation, I'm simply stating that in this particular case the safeguards provided to guests by the structure of AirBnB's business are superior to those provided by municipal hotel operation regulations. If you'd care to address this point directly I'm all ears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great, allow my neighbors in my shared hallway apartment to rent out their rooms to strangers on the Internet. Glad I am not a single female.

<comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure your neighbours can already rent out their rooms to strangers on the Internet.

<comment><USER15> Actually, more likely they cannot. Most renters contracts I've seen explicitly forbid this.

<comment><USER16> "Heh look! Craigslist still takes my ad for my spare room even though my lease says I can't do this!"

<comment><USER17> "Hey look! My landlord just evicted me for leasing out my spare room in violation of my lease!"

There is nothing stopping you from putting an ad on Craiglist. However, if you violate the terms of your lease, you can get evicted. Moreover, these sorts of violations are usually _not_ covered by tenant protection laws, so you would not be entitled to the normal eviction procedure protections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> AirBNB isn't illegal -- it's analogous to the "personal services" sections in newspapers that are almost certainly including advertisements for prostitution.

The problem is, the people renting out their rooms on AirBNB are in many cases violating local law, lease terms or insurance contracts. They're also in moral hazard -- they are paying for homeowners/renters insurance while running a roominghouse.

AirBNB's legal position has to be "buyer (ie. landlord) beware". But their marketing position is that it's easy to cover your expenses by renting out your apartment. That paradox is a variation of Napster's old "people are just sharing music like they always have" line.

<comment><USER19> One of my family members in Charleston, SC was making $30k+ annually with Airbnb, until the city threatened her (and everyone else in town offering space on Airbnb) with steep fines and even jail.

She chose to pull her listing, and most others in town did as well.

<comment><USER17> Ironically, it would have been acceptable if she had used a normal VRBO service (like HomeAway), as those services usually take care of any licensing and taxes associated with renting out one's home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I missed is a clear anser to the question wether AirBnB is illegal or not. And if yes, in which countries.

The only constraint I see in Germany come from your rental contract in case the room / appartment you rented out via AirBnB is not your own property. In this case technically you would need the OK from your land lord. If it's owned by yourself, you would have a legal contract with the person staying over. But I'm not a legal expert on that.

EDIT: What puzzles me are some of the comments here. I rather expected them to be along the line of "of course it is, WTF are you thinking it souldn't be???? And "how I like it, great product". But maybe it's just me, I really had a... weird day today! :-)

<comment><USER21> Hotels are regulated at the state and municipality levels, so the answer is different in many thousands of different jurisdictions.

In most cases it isn't that "AirBNB is illegal" it's that people using AirBNB aren't complying with all local regulations.

<comment><USER19> Another comment makes a great point re: insurance. If a tenant burns your house down, or floods your basement, or invites someone over who falls and breaks their leg in your home, you may be in for a world of hurt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does a broker of services have an explicit legal responsibility to monitor tax issues of the clients? Wouldn't that put an absurd onus onto services like craigslist?

<comment><USER23> No, because Craigslist is not a broker. They're an advertiser. AirBnB is a broker because all the financial transactions go through them so their legal and tax responsibilities are different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I haven't used airbnb but after reading some of the comments here, I looked up the airbnb site to check if they have tools/features which try to address the "I am renting to a total stranger/I am renting a strange place" issue - <http://www.airbnb.com/safety#reputation> \- I guess these tools could be improved/enhanced.

But, just because something doesn't follow an established pattern, doesn't mean its illegal. It would make sense if a community decided to add a "no airbnb" clause to their bylaws/rules - but the govt picking and deciding what is abuse of resources and what is not doesn't sound practical - esp when the resource usage of an airbnb unit is no different when it is rented out versus the owner(s) occupying it themselves.

If there can be things like credit-default-swaps, I don't see why the insurance industry should not come up with instruments for this kind of a market - where there is a market, there must be a way.

<comment><USER18> The issue isn't that an unconventional pattern is illegal. The issue is that the risk models of residential mortgages, many apartment leases and insurance are designed for people living in a home.

That distinction is important, because people generally treat their home with more care. And insurance/mortgages are priced accordingly.

An apartment tenant generally doesn't leave the door open or unlocked -- they don't want their stuff to be stolen or destroyed. But a hotel guest or AirBNB renter has no skin in the game. Have you ever worked at a hotel? People routinely leave patio doors open or prop entry doors when they leave the room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder what is the impact of AirBnB on rents. If landlords see that (despite their leases prohibiting them) their renters are making money through AirBnB, they would want to jack up rents to get a piece of the action.</comment>