AngularJS is amazing, and hard as hell - <AUTHOR> https://coderwall.com/p/3qclqg

<comment><USER2> As someone actively rolling their own JavaScript framework (more as a learning exercise than for anything else), I second the opinion that AngularJS is uniquely hard/blackboxed compared to other JavaScript frameworks (which I frequently refer to in order to guide my own efforts).

For instance Backbone is pretty much what would happen (give or take) if all the JavaScript books on how to program OOP and MV* got together and build a JS framework. It's not fancy, it's not "magic", but it is very approachable in terms of advanced standard/best/popular JavaScript programming practices.

AngularJS left all that stuff behind and built their own little world. It might even be a great world, but on the surface or to the implementation-level developer has little to do with "regular" advanced JavaScript programming techniques/patterns.

To me it's a bit like the JavaScript version of Drupal, which gives you a ton out of the box, but is just it's own whole world of conventions etc, that has little do with anything seen outside of itself.

<comment><USER3> "JavaScript version of Drupal"

Ouch, but accurate.

<comment><USER4> Wow, this could not be further from the truth. Angular is much more similar to Rails than Drupal. Like Rails, it magically takes care of some of the more routine and annoying parts of front-end development like DOM manipulation and testing, but beyond that you're just writing javascript without having to worry about making sure your views are being updated. To extend the analogy I would compare Backbone to Sinatra. It's much smaller, allows the developer to make more choices, but takes care of less details.

So if you prefer Sinatra over Rails, you'll probably prefer Backbone over Angular or Ember. If you like all the magic Rails has to offer, you're probably going to feel right at home with Angular. But comparing Angular to Drupal is ridiculous.

<comment><USER5> Actually, I would compare AngularJS to Node's Express or Ruby's Sinatra. Because by and large it's actually a set of highly reusable and composable blocks that make very few assumptions about what you're trying to do (aside from something vaguely DOM related). It's a fairly pure look at the MVVM metaphor and does not even assume you're trying to do CRUD or RPC or whatever. Heck, you're not even tied to using client-side routing.

<comment><USER6> Please don't compare it to Express. Express is a beautifully simple, and clean framework that strives to always have the least magic possible. You can see that goal reflected in the simplicity of its documentation as well. You can build on top of it with any other node modules you want exactly because it doesn't make strict assumptions about your code. If you were to compare Express to any front-end framework it would be Backbone.

Angular is not simple in any since of the word. (Especially if we're talking about its documentation.) And it's components are only reusable inside the Angular bubble.

<comment><USER4> Plus isn't express server side anyways?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We've been using it at [https://starthq.com](https://starthq.com) for about 6 months and I have to agree. Angular is so hard that even the core committers sometimes struggle to keep it together.

I gave a talk recently on our experience with some tips that may be of interest, here's a link to the slides: [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13_tqIGJYJo7CxLvgZlUQ...](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13_tqIGJYJo7CxLvgZlUQ0RpkXEnxJxZKrhBChoP6w4w/edit?usp=sharing)

If this comment gets enough upvotes, I can upload a slidecast with the audio as well ;)

On unrelated note: Are there any web apps out there for creating slidecasts apart from Slideshare?

<comment><USER8> Can you expand on your experience with IE8 and Angular?

<comment><USER7> IE8 is a second class citizen in Angular and Angular UI, so some things that should work, don't. We've spent a fair amount of time patching it up and trying to get our patches merged into master. Here's a list of things we fixed: [https://gist.github.com/olegp/f564ad1a17cadf269d44](https://gist.github.com/olegp/f564ad1a17cadf269d44)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hard as hell? Nothing to be proud of. Main reason that keeps me from buying into the Angular hype is that apparently even after a year of practice in production, no one knows what the hell is going on.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. In a post-rails world how can poor developer ergonomics even be an acceptable thing?

<comment><USER10> Damnit, I wish Shit HN says was still updating.

<comment><USER3> Haha. Is this better?

HARD IS NOT GOOD, HARD IS STUPID

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> AngularJS is a level of abstraction above the old JQuery and Backbone style of app. It frees the developer from worrying about the tedious details of updating the DOM. For example, a typical old style app would do something like this:

      function updateCheckoutButton(cart) {
        if (cart.length === 0) {
          $('#checkoutButton').addClass('light-blue');
          $('#checkoutButton').prop('disabled', true);
        else {
          $('#checkoutButton').addClass('dark-blue');
          $('#checkoutButton').prop('disabled', false);
        }
      }

And in the HTML:

      <button id="checkoutButton"></button>

Compare that to how it would be done in AngularJS

(In the controller code)

      scope.isCartEmpty = function() {
        return cart.length === 0;
      }

(In the HTML)

      <button ng-class="{'dark-blue':!isCartEmpty(), 'light-blue':isCartEmpty()}" ng-disabled="isCartEmpty()"></button>

The AngularJS style has the following advantages:

1) Code reduction - The C language was invented to be an abstraction above assembly. Assembly code has a lot of low level details of moving values from registers, adding them, etc. The C language abstracts that away. In a similar way, AngularJS abstracts away the low level details of DOM manipulation.

2) Data binding - In the first example, it's important that updateCheckoutButton() is called wherever it's necessary for it to be called. Otherwise bugs could appear when the button is not updating when it should. AngularJS simplifies this to just listening for changes in the scope. It's possible to achieve the same thing using events, but again that's a lot of low level details of managing events and event propagation.

3) Declarative UI - <button id="checkoutButton"></button> tells me nothing about how this button behaves. The AngularJS example is immediately obvious on the button's behavior.

4) Unit testing - I can write a unit test to ensure that the value of scope.isCartEmpty is updating correctly. This test can be pure JS without any DOM support. It's much harder to test the DOM manipulation code style.

</comment><comment><USER12> I see AngularJS as a general purpose framework, conceptually, similar to .NET, JVM, Node.js, although limited in scope to front-end web development.

What I mean is that there's still room for someone to build another framework on top of AngularJS, with common features such as authentication, authorization, breadcrumbs, rich controls (grids, combos, autocomplete), etc.

I also find it harder to grasp than other frameworks like ASP.NET, RoR, Django, probably because you have to do so many things from scratch and because it introduces many concepts not commonly found on your typical MVC framework.

<comment><USER13> For me, even though it's PHP, ProcessWire consistently models data in a human way. I've put the out-the-box backend CMS in front of people that interact with computers very little and they instantly "get it". All data is simply a node in a hierarchy, and is easily movable and editable. I don't understand why more frameworks don't copy this basic structure.

If you watch "The mother of all demos"[1] the structure is almost visually 95% the same.

I look at Angular and it's looks complicated - the article is about how complicated it is. Surely we should be striving for tools the everyday man can pick up and play with?

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv- zdhzMY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY)

<comment><USER14> > _I don 't understand why more frameworks don't copy this basic structure._

Lots of problem domains are difficult to model as trees because often, a node can be logically assigned to multiple parents, but the tree model requires it be physically assigned to only one.

Recently I bought a prepaid SIM card for a trip I am making to the USA.

In my bookkeeping system, I could enter it either as a transaction against the "Telephone & Internet" expense account, or I could enter it against "International Travel". What I can't do, because trees require mutual exclusion, is enter it under both. That breaks the model.

If instead Renaissance accountants had understood sets and relations, I might be able to log it against _both_ and then derive whichever view of the data was necessary.

And that's the problem with hierarchical data. It privileges _one and only one_ view of the problem domain. As soon as you need some other view, you are in trouble. If your project management system organises by project, then getting per-staff reports is now much harder. If your class hierarchy views A->B as the natural order of creation, what happens when you come up with cases where C->A but not C->B? You can't: you have to introduce complicated workarounds.

Hierarchies are simple to understand on their face. But they quickly come apart when faced with the real world and ad hoc queries about the state of the real world.

<comment><USER15> Sets and relations are indeed the most richest metamodel but most of the time a dag (directly acyclic graph) is enough : object can be connected to many parents but it keeps most the hierarchical organisation, which is easier to model.

<comment><USER14> What can be modelled as a graph can be modelled as sets and relations and vice versa; they're both equally powerful. But just as any two Turing-complete languages are equally powerful, the discussion doesn't end there.

It's still the same problem: you have mixed the logical model and physical structure of your data together. You are privileging one view of the data over all other views.

I consider switching to a full graph model a complicated workaround for the limitations of trees. You now introduce new and exciting paradoxes and you will need to litter your code with special cases (B means C, but only when A is not an ancestor, otherwise it means D). Ask C++ programmers about the joys of multiple inheritance.

In some cases the logical model _is_ a graph and in those cases you should absolutely model it as a graph. But modelling _all_ problems as a graph is inadvisable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Angular is yet another programming technology made by people who think that this:

          ...
          ...

Is in some way easier or better than this:

        if(foo == bar) { ... } else { ... }

It also has this weird retro stuff like dynamic scopes and reactive programming. It's also really slow, because it implements reactive programming with dirty checking.

Still not sure what problem it's trying to solve.

<comment><USER17> Few problems with your argument.

1) The first example is a template/view. It is reactively updated automatically when the values referenced are updated. It maps to markup on the page. The second example is a basic control structure that does nothing.

2)

<comment><USER16> Yeah, I'm not saying that Angular literally replaces javascript "if" syntax with SGML syntax.

However, it does fit in with a long line of tools whose premise is "Normal programming with normal control flow is an insufficient tool for the unique problems of ${DOMAIN}. We need to create a new programming model with its own syntax and exotic control flow to make things easier."

The appearance of the "if-statement-in-markup" (or "if-statement-in-flowchart- diagrams", etc.) is to me a sure sign of a certain kind of misguided system.

<comment><USER17> You mean like literally every other template language for the web?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I worked in web dev 3 years ago, then I moved to WPF. Recently, the place I was at decided to try some web development. Being the only guy with experience in it, i landed the project.

It is blowing my mind, how in 3 years the environment is so different. I'm sure these things existed on the fringes, but its very mainstream now.

When I left, JQuery was the in thing, it was pretty rad. Today i'm doing MVC, unit testing, and code coverage WITH JAVASCRIPT!

ASP.NET MVC is pretty slick too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Angular reminds me a lot of enterprise java. Lots of its own conventions, inversion of control and lots of magic.

That being said, I love working with it. It's definitely cumbersome feeling at times though. Despite that, I like the idea of self contained modules, the html binding, and all of the semantics that go with it.

It's definitely an acquired taste though. There are many things that you can do with it that you probably can't take to other javascript frameworks though.

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's similar to some Java technologies, especially Spring or Guice.

<comment><USER18> Ironically why I like it, as bloated and silly as the technologies are, it's what I cut my teeth on (let's just say my first boss was a former IBM guy)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> it isn't that hard... it's actually simpler than Ember to grok.

it is the right thing to learn right now anyhow, as the concepts naturally leads to web components, which will probably be the future of app development (cue polymer [http://www.polymer-project.org/](http://www.polymer- project.org/)).

<comment><USER20> AuraJS is another project to check out along the web components track: [http://aurajs.com/](http://aurajs.com/)

<comment><USER19> cool, i'll check it out, thanks cookrn :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Angular's dependency injection is literally magic. Someone who has never used javascript before would probably have the advantage over a seasoned js-pro when reading the code.

That said; once I realised what it is doing, I quite like it and it has led to some of the cleanest client-side code I've written.

<comment><USER22> As you say - once you know what's going on it's not that magical at all. It literally looks at the text source for you function definition and injects the arguments you ask for. Certainly, when I first looked at it I felt the docs didn't explain that little nugget so you sort of wonder how your arguments are injected. More of a doc problem than an obfuscation issue, I think.

<comment><USER6> Careful, that's a pretty easy (read: tautological) way to justify all magic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Am I the only one making AngularJS apps without writing a single test? The examples given are usually "test that this custom math function is doing what it should" but how often do you have those in a real app?

<comment><USER24> I dont either.

<comment><USER22> Me either - but I feel guilty about it. I get away with it as the sole developer, but it's really not a great practice.

<comment><USER25> we should form a support group -- i too feel guilty about our lack of test coverage. but honestly, i dont think its much of a problem. we know from user feedback that none of our big issues are bugs in our Angular code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> We're using AngularJS for the second time on a project, and it's great. While I found the basics easy to pick up, some of my team struggled a bit more (but they've also spent less time doing heavy client-side JS development).

The biggest problem AngularJS has is documentation. Some of it is missing, some of it is poorly explained, all of it should have examples. The developer guide and API reference both need a rework/rewrite. I think the team should focus on this after this major 1.2 release.

What comes out of poor documentation is that best practices are not immediately obvious, because if you're trying to guess things from just the API and just picking a random way to achieve your end result, chances are you're going to do it wrong. This has been identified at [https://github.com/angular-ui/community/issues/1](https://github.com/angular- ui/community/issues/1) so hopefully it's going to get better.

The major thing which I think almost everyone gets wrong at first are the relationships between templates, scopes, controllers, services and your actual data. If you get this wrong you'll either end up writing a bunch of tricky workaround code, having memory leaks or subtle data binding bugs.

I highly recommend everyone watches the best practices video from the AngularJS team at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhfUv0spHCY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhfUv0spHCY)

</comment><comment><USER27> Let met tell you why angular is hard. It is because most of us are not familiarized with the concepts. The docs are hard to read and some stuff is buried deep within the language, but once you understand the concepts it's very easy to get started. We have introduced angular here and are using it in several production apps, and everyone is very happy. We had one team member learning it in a week (granted, he could learn very fast because he could ask someone when he had doubts), and already wrote 2 or 3 apps in the next weeks. An he isn't a "javascript" guy.

In fact, most or all of angular concepts can be found elsewhere in other frameworks such as spring/guice(IoC), any decent ORM (dirty checking, "digest cycles"), WPF (directives/code-behind,declarative, whatever you want to call it), etc.

Although I feel that its source code is hard to read sometimes, I'm happy to let the framework do its magic and allow me to write apps without getting in the way. I can write modular components and test them with the angular/grunt/karma combo. If I need tabs, modal or whatever I can pull some libs and get it working quickly. If size/speed's a serious concern, I'll write my own lib/directive/etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> I decided not to go with AngularJS, mainly because I want to reuse as much client side logic as possible in future native apps and Angular seemed very tightly coupled to browser apps and the DOM. With Backbone find it easier to separate the UI specific code so that I can swap it out and control native UI elements instead, running the js in a hidden WebView. Anyone tell me if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER4> Angular makes front-end development much more like native development because it gives you true MVC. Meaning, the views are automatically updated based on the current value of the models. In an Angular controller, you really don't care or even know about the view other than the fact that you're sharing scope with it. The controller just makes sure the models are in the correct state and the view handles the rest automatically, perfectly decoupled.

In my experience, this is much closer to how native development works. In an iOS app, you have your view controllers which are responsible for responding to user input and making sure the models are in the right state. The views just automatically update themselves based on those models, much like Angular. So if you're writing your Angular apps correctly, they should be very similar to your native apps.

<comment><USER29> genuely curious : how do you manage to keep your views automaticcaly synchronized with the model in IOS ? It seems that your controller's in charge of the two-way data binding, and that it is clearly NOT automatic... contrary to angular.

<comment><USER4> Check out uittableviewcontroller or uilistviewcontroller. With those you specific a data source and the views automatically render based on that data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I haven't used either one, but can anyone who has used both shed some light on how ember.js compares WRT to ease of use / complexity?

<comment><USER31> I have learned and used both within the last few months with the most up to date versions of both and I settled on Angular for our CRUD business applications.

Angular is more mature, well thought out, better supported, much better documented, is logically consistent throughout, supports the concepts of MVC properly (unit testing is a breeze), much easier to use with REST backends I could go on and on.

There simply is no comparison.

Ember, even after the major changes recently, feels like someone's idea of how MVC should be done without consulting any existing standards or ideas about MVC or REST or any related technology and just throwing in things without thinking them through.

Angular feels far more trustworthy and serious to me than Ember by many orders of magnitude.

Neither though are even close the level of documentation and support and widespread relevant reference apps as I was used to in the .net world (for example), but Angular is the more solid choice in my opinion.

I would recommend Angular over Ember at this point in time unreservedly for making actual applications versus websites.

<comment><USER32> really it seems like other people argue the other way, I only know Angular and prefer it over Ember but I have legit heard that same argument coming from Ember "Gurus"

<comment><USER31> While everyone's needs and background are undoubtedly different I'm coming at this from the perspective of developing business software that is used globally for over two decades now and I have a pretty good handle on most technology in this area.

I invested a decent amount of time now in both Ember and Angular (also Meteor) writing a proof of concept app for the next major release of our business software.

Frankly most of the negative comments I've seen here either way are low on actual knowledge and high on axe grinding and emotional reactions.

It's interesting when you see a post here that is in your domain of expertise and then see the reactions to it. It really makes you wonder about all the other stuff that you might not know so much about and how much you can trust what people post about those topics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I found Angular to be almost trivial (even more trivial than, say, Ember, due to being more explicit), except for a bit messily structured documentation and the constant need to monkey patch or duplicate some internals to make them do the right thing (like removing broken sanitization with ng-bind-html, etc.)

<comment><USER34> Can you read and understand AngularJS source code? can you explain in detail how does the digest cycle works ? and how datas are updated during this cycle ? if yes congratulation , if not , stop saying AngularJS is trivial ,it is not, past the exemples on the homepage. Doesnt mean it's a bad thing , but let's call things "trivial" when they are not.

<comment><USER35> Bingo. That is kind of my benchmark of "should I use this?". If code is too arcane and hard to understand (especially when docs a slightly lacking) I usually pass it up.

It could reflect on my density and stupidity (can't read code too well) but so far I've had good track record.

I tried understanding and learning Angular.js but got lost in directives, dollar-sign prefixed identifiers, services and other custom terminology.

One way to make sense of it is to look at the source, and that was pretty painful.

Anyway so far it fails my smell test so I'll pass it up. Maybe later will revisit.

<comment><USER33> Very good point. The terminology is exactly the thing that's (in my opinion) is weird with Angular.

When I had a first glance on it, I didn't really get it. Only after several hours reading the docs and experimenting with code I got what they were talking about things became somehow clear (lots of aha-moments "ahh, the service is just a fancy name for an angular-managed singleton, now I see...").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Yesterday on ng-torronto meetup I saw picture with graph of AngularJS learning steps - it was like up-n-down function and I absolutely agree :) Many times I felt "it's hardest thing" but after understanding all these things looks pretty simple and powerful. Last most challenging issue was with recursive directive (tree) - it took 2 days, but I understand directives much better and other issues looks trivial now :) But I think it was not last puzzle :)

In my current web app I have a lot of work with collections, and each change should be reflected on UI - without directives and bindings it would be hell. With AngularJS even code is clean.

</comment><comment><USER37> I love angular.. I use it more and more every week.

Ironically, angular speeds up lots of things, but also makes me unproductive in others. Yeah, the end resulting code is usually shorter and cleaner. But I waste so much time with hard-to-understand errors that it's often not time wisely invested so far.

Still, I use it and as I become more proficient with it I expect these random hard to find errors to slowly disappear. (Hey, if one time in my life I was good enough to parse C++ template error messages, I can do it for angular ;-)

</comment><comment><USER38> "Hard". All of egghead takes maybe 3 hours to go through. And then you're done. The the price of 1 lecture you're maybe 85% of the way there to angular use.

<comment><USER39> That's only true until you have to stray away from the happy path.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> My coworker just posted this today: [http://f.cl.ly/items/3R3C3S3j2R2Z2U072E24/skitched-20130926-...](http://f.cl.ly/items/3R3C3S3j2R2Z2U072E24/skitched-20130926-143446.png)

Angular is certainly a platform. I'm usually skeptical about platforms like this, but after using it for a while there are enough wins to justify the weirdness.

</comment><comment><USER41> When I read things like this coming from experienced smart engineers a little voice in my head starts yelling "incidental complexity." When I see engineers who are building web applications discussing the nuances of type theory and the complexity of Javascript frameworks I wonder how much time they have left to solve the actual problems their users have.

</comment><comment><USER42> AngularJS is more powerful than any other Javascript framework. That's reason enough to use it, unless the application you need to write requires more than Angular offers.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm still not convinced that forcing the client-side to build DOM elements is the right way to go; especially in the mobile sector where CPU cycles are at a premium.

</comment><comment><USER32> I didn't find it too hard to learn but there is like 10x way to do the same thing, finding best practices, best library's, etc. is more time consuming

</comment><comment><USER44> That font is absolutely unreadable on an iPad.

</comment><comment><USER45> Yup, you need to know your stuff, I freaking love AngularJS.</comment>


Survival of the Richest (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1 <comment><USER2> Iain Duncan Smith, former Tory secretary for Work and Pensions in the UK, has just suggested that the retirement age should be increased to 75. Problem is that in places like Glasgow men have a life expectancy of 73, so the majority of them are expected to work till they die. If this isn't class warfare and "survival of the richest" I don't what else is.

<comment><USER3> When pension funds are not actuarily balanced, there are 3 options: raise the retirement age, reduce monthly payments, or borrow from future generations.

It seems most countries go with the obviously wrong, yet politically plausible option 3.

<comment><USER4> The other two are also "obviously wrong", since people paid into the retirement scheme on the assumption of receiving particular benefits at particular times.

<comment><USER5> There's just not much you can do about it. You could argue that these programs shouldn't have been implemented in the first place, because they weren't going to be sustainable, but those decisions were already made. Somebody's going to get the short end of the stick here.

<comment><USER4> Remember that "sustainability" unavoidably depends on long term predictions of the future looking somewhat like the past.

The value of my pension depends on economic growth between now and 2050. Hopefully we can continue average 7% equities growth as in the past, but everything from climate change to Brexit will have unpredictable effects on how that turns out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food > supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of > some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as > guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

From the 1950s to today, it means that in mere 60 years, the optimistic view on the future has done a full U turn, and now everyone is believing we are headed for the worst (maybe with good reasons). Still this is such a radical change, in such a short time frame.

<comment><USER7> The thing is that the only people who can do anything about it are the people who are the most unwilling to do so because it would jeopardize their wealth.

There are more than 2000 billionaires in the world right now. If only the richest elite of those got together tomorrow and decided to put an end to industrial pollution, they could do it.

However climate change is a direct consequence of capitalism. Halting pollution would ruin the economy. Factories would have to be shut down, entire categories of products could no longer be produced, masses would become unemployed. The global financial system would tank. Surviving this change would require abandoning capitalism.

So a naive hope might be that some of the billionaire "preppers" are planning for exactly this scenario and intent on causing it once they've set up their little luxury bunkers to ensure their "quality of life" once their money becomes worthless.

A less optimistic and more realistic view would be that they know capitalism is unsustainable but want to make sure they still get the most out of it and ensure their comfort outlasts the civilisation they're helping destroy, i.e. "screw you, I got mine".

<comment><USER8> > However climate change is a direct consequence of capitalism. Halting > pollution would ruin the economy. Factories would have to be shut down, > entire categories of products could no longer be produced, masses would > become unemployed. The global financial system would tank. Surviving this > change would require abandoning capitalism.

I believe this also. But the consequences are even more profound than they might appear: it's not just the pointless excesses of capitalism we would likely have to do without (e.g. new car on finance every 3 years, food flown halfway around the world for processing then back again, 1 zillion brands of shampoo in the supermarket) - but also many of the things we no longer view as luxuries i.e. modern housing, healthcare and medicine, choice over what we eat etc.

<comment><USER7> I didn't say it would be comfortable. But most "climate-friendly" policies already affect consumers (and often much more so than they affect industry, making them entirely pointless).

Keep in mind capitalism not only means producing excess junk. It also means producing unnecessary excess junk: overproduction and shredding/landfilling the surplus because selling it would harm the desired price point or create unwanted market dynamics (i.e. people waiting to buy at a discount later).

"Modern housing" often means tearing down existing McMansions in order to build new ones on top of them. "Choice over what we eat" often means importing produce that would be available locally but is currently out of season, or producing ready-to-eat meals only to throw them out at the end of the day, always stocking hundreds of an item in dozens of variations just to give an illusion of choice, etc etc.

And that's only the immediately obvious harm of "consumerism". Industry also means shipping parts around half the world to process them with cheap labor, then ship them all the way back so you can add a sticker to the finished product saying it was "made" locally. And with "just in time" production this means repeating that process dozens, hundreds and thousands of times with individual packaging, repackaging, shrinkwrapping, unwrapping, loading and unloading -- a simple cardboard box can end up going through three different factories (being itself unpackaged and repackaged at every new location) before being thrown out after a single use for, again, transport of other goods.

Recycling and renewable energy are bandaids. The current production levels are unsustainable, especially if we seek to lift the developing world out of poverty to similar levels of comfort as the average person in the West.

Sure, it'll suck for the average person and society and economy will have to change drastically. But it'll suck even more for the billionaires because their very existence is subject to maintaining the current status quo.

We can't sustain the "consumerist excess" of the middle class, but we certainly can't sustain that of the very rich. And they know this, which is why they would rather let "the Event" happen rather than give up their luxuries and join the rest. Because even if they have to protect their rusting food bunkers with armed slaves wearing shock collars, at least they'll still be better off than the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is fiction.

We have lived in a creator-based morality ever since behavioural modernity (50-70,000 years ago). Teaching, trading, inventing, etc - because two heads (perspectives) are better than one. Small, isolated societies stagnate. Over time, "societies" have grown larger, more open, more inclusive.

Over time, the larger open society beats the small closed one. (even if that larger group isn't recognized as a "society", it need only communicate, share ideas and build on them).

So we needn't fear a tiny billionaire society, even with a head start (at least, not in the long term...).

> What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader?

Historically, this is a hard problem ( _et tu, Brutus?_ ). It's easy to keep the masses in check; just create a "nobility" who also benefit from subjugation, all the way down. Resource them, health, education, training, armoury. Propaganda that they are better (fairy tales, clothes, etc). But hard to be safe in that inner circle... Power is a problem.

> if they can't get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

After the worst possible imaginable apocalypse, Earth will still be far more habitable than Mars.

<comment><USER10> > Over time, the larger open society beats the small closed one. So we needn't > fear a tiny billionaire society, even with a head start (at least, not in > the long term...).

What happens when all societies have been essentially merged into one, largely run in a coordinated manner by sociopaths and useful idiots who control what facts the bread and circus obsessed citizens are allowed to consume?

This is one of my largest concerns with globalization - integration and optimization indeed increase efficiency and material wealth, but in doing so reduces redundancy and diversity. Evaluating these risks and making a calculated decision to proceed is one thing, completely ignoring it is something else entirely.

<comment><USER9> The source of wealth is creativity, which requires diversity (not optimization). Present globalization does not prevent competition between different parts, with competing levels of homogenity.

For example, China has had spectacular long-term growth but now that it has caught up, it must instead create, which is a different game, requiring different approaches and institutions. I think China will either open further (which it's been doing) or stagnate.

For a dsytopian total globalization that controls everything (like _The Matrix_ )... I think it's literally impossible long term, because (1) people are smart (including every one of the masses); and (2) reality is open and infinitely complex and textured.

While specific facts about a society can be hidden, misrepresented, drowned out, not all facts about reality can be. This is perhaps a slim hope in the short term (and has been in totalitarian states throughout human history), but will win out eventually - because reality and intelligence cannot be controlled totally, and they inevitably cause change. The more perfectly optimised the State is for one situation, the less adaptable it is to another.

<comment><USER10> > The source of wealth is creativity, which requires diversity (not > optimization).

Creativity requires diversity? Optimization does not create wealth? Could you share where you learned this?

> Present globalization does not prevent competition between different parts, > with competing levels of homogenity.

Well sure, you can literally try to compete with companies paying their employees a few dollars an hour, and operating in environments with little environmental or workplace safety standards if you'd like. You will obviously lose, but you are not technically prevented from competing.

> For a dsytopian total globalization that controls everything (like The > Matrix)... I think it's literally impossible long term, because (1) people > are smart (including every one of the masses); and (2) reality is open and > infinitely complex and textured.

Of the new wealth created in the world, how is it distributed? From everything I've read, it mostly goes to the top <10% of people. Do the "smart" masses not desire wealth?

> not all facts about reality can be

There's no need to conceal all facts.

> because reality and intelligence cannot be controlled totally, and they > inevitably cause change

Is that so? What's your sample size?

Lots of things have been declared impossible over time, until suddenly they weren't. As the saying goes, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminded of this classic Bob, The Angry Flower: Atlas Shrugged, One Hour Later.

[http://angryflower.com/348.html](http://angryflower.com/348.html)

<comment><USER12> That is a subtle misreading of Rand; and all the more interesting because it precisely misses what she was trying to say. The sort of people who cook in return for pay or who operates machinery to till soil were the core of the world that Rand was envisioning. The vision wasn't anti-labour, it was anti- redistributive-policies. Philosophically there was a great deal of support for people who worked hard and earned a wage. If I recall correctly, its been a while, the condemnation was for the sort of people who said "I don't think you need this, so I'm going to take it and do a better job with it because you aren't moral enough".

Obviously Atlas Shrugged is a work of fiction, a community as small as was in the book couldn't match the productive output of city with a large labour force and not everyone is going to buy in to a capitalistic utopia. But the idea was never that the rich should dominate by virtue of being rich; the philosophy was that people should become rich because others agree that they are creating wealth. And the method for determining what people think should be a free market, and everyone should be left alone apart from that.

<comment><USER13> I'll argue that textual evidence supports the opposite conclusion.

Look at when Rearden finally decides to bail of society. He takes his top / mangers / engineers with him. What about all those other workers in Rearden Metal? The most of them are shown as hard working. But that's not enough. They (along with the d'Anconia's employees, etc, in a more explicitly cruel fashion) get left in a society that is purposefully being put into apocalypse mode in order to prove why certain people should get what they want. They get left there because they have to be. The Randian-moochers, would probably never humble themselves to ever invite the exceptional back. It's only going to be the impoverished workers who are going to have to throw off the yoke of the moochers and acknowledge how the world should be. So without the honest hard workers of the novel in such a position, the central conceit doesn't work.

People like Galt start as mere workers but only so their exceptionality can be established by their ascendancy.

The common worker is cannon fodder.

In the world of Ayn Rand, the worker only exists to acknowledge the superiority of the exceptional.

<comment><USER12> Some of these points are convincing, so I shall slightly modify my argument.

If Galt's Gulch had taken in the hardworking labourers as well as the management Ayn would have basically been writing a parable of the US vs the USSR. She might have been happy to do that too, but with Atlas Shrugged she clearly wasn't satisfied saying "Capitalism is better". She wanted to say "Communism doesn't work, and the driving idea here is really bad and should be rejected".

So although horrible things did happen to the workers in the story of Atlas Shrugged, it wasn't at all because Ayn's message was anti-labour. Her point was that if the power of labour was being directed by people who wanted to redistribute capital based on need/fairness/something-other-than-ability-to- use-capital then the story would not go to a good place.

Her philosophy had nothing bad to say about people who worked hard and earned money. It had a lot of unkind things to say about people who worked hard to support involuntary redistribution, and stood idly by without understanding that power was shifting away from the capable people.

> In the world of Ayn Rand, the worker only exists to acknowledge the > superiority of the exceptional.

If I look around my room, I can't really name a person who could create any item in it except some of the technical writings. If I could, it would be the very small fraction of my acquaintances who are not clerks, office workers, administrative types or in the health or service sector. I rely pretty heavily on exceptional people of superior creativity to myself. I suspect most of the people on this forum do too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My guess is that the article is fiction, or a highly modified version of the truth to make some point.

It is interesting to think about societies that can handle strong shock. Looking back, my guess is that the modern West doesn't have that capability built in. A proven model is one of a very strong hierarchy (monarchy perhaps) with strong social glue.

That isn't to say that you shouldn't go on extended vacation at your estate in Spain when a slave rebellion starts up near your place in Capua.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the article hits the nail on the head. The problem with climate change and the threat to humankind is not about technology, nor politics.

It's about values. It's about consciousness. It's about understanding that we humans are still a part of nature, not apart from nature.

</comment><comment><USER16> Alternate fee free

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/survival-of-the-richest- the-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/survival-of-the-richest-the-wealthy- are-plotting-to-leave-us-behind.html)

<comment><USER17> Damn thought this would've been the link to the advice on how to stop my robot guard from being installed with a virus via radio waves and slitting my throat at night.

<comment><USER18> They'd probably just go with a hunter seeker like Dune given drones and CV

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not sure what are they so worried about. Las Vegas exists in an environment totally dependent on the outside. Paying guards is trivial when you pay them out of providing another service.

If they were actually in a bunker because of nuclear fallout, just be the guy with the promises a few can believe in, and use them to keep the others in line. It's not a few guards with guns that keep prisoners the world over from revolting, it's hope.

<comment><USER20> Recap: Hedge fund managers asked Rushkoff for thoughts on how to "hire" loyal people during the doomsday. His answer was something like "treat them and their families nicely".

I thought the answer was obvious: Start a prepper cult. Or buy your way into the upper tiers of an existing cult.

Quakers are a reasonable bet. Mormons are the best available bet. Plus you get your own planet to rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guess it's nice to know that these super rich guys think about exactly the same stuff as I do when I'm taking a stroll.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a really good article. I fail to understand why it does not create huge discussion forum on HN where people seem to actively promote climate change discussions.

Because its an old article ?

<comment><USER23> Maybe because:

> You've completed your member preview for this month, but when you sign up > for a free Medium account, you get one more story.

Not gonna happen.

<comment><USER24> Anonymous mode? Alternatively, this URL has the exact same text: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/survival-of-the-richest- the-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/11/survival-of-the-richest-the-wealthy- are-plotting-to-leave-us-behind.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> eh saying the "others" are the enemy is as old as civilization. If you think people wealthier than you are the enemy just wait until you hear about people less wealthy than you.

<comment><USER26> >If you think people wealthier than you are the enemy just wait until you hear about people less wealthy than you

what? one of these groups has the power/influence to systematically rig the law in their favor and the other... doesn't. how can you possibly compare the two?

<comment><USER27> To those less wealthy than you, you are part of the category "those more wealthy than me" \- that is, part of the enemy. They aren't joining with you to fight against the people richer than you. They're intending to fight against _you_. (At least, I believe that's chasd00's point.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you even think thoughts like "... making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival" you are unworthy of your wealth in my eyes. Apparently they are also unworthy in their own eyes, I mean they have very little faith in their ability to reason with people and get a fair (micro) economy going based on fair capitalistic principles without any coercion of free minds. These are not people you want around when rebuilding society and not people that have an intrinsic feeling for the "golden rule". I have the feeling the author met a particular small group of rich sociopaths. I wouldn't want to insult any social rich people by grouping them with this kind actually.

In any case, someone will kill you while you are putting that collar on someone else.

<comment><USER29> I think it's because for the most rapacious capitalists, the human experience is solely governed by 'might makes right'. For them, the only reason people cooperate or do something kind, is either for some reward or to avoid punishment. These are the people that got to the top by being ruthless and/or immoral, so their world view is built on naked self-interest.

Without governments to enforce the law or money to keep people in line, they believe that things will immediately revert to the law of the jungle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Tell me, how does one get 85k claps on medium?

</comment><comment><USER31> eat the rich

</comment><comment><USER32> I can't defend billionaires proposing having their employees wear shock collars, but I still think the article is unfair in 2 important ways.

1) The capitalism he decries is making the poorest people in the world much, much better off. Here's life expectancy: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy- globally-...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-globally- since-1770), but if that doesn't appeal to you there are lots of other L-shaped charts showing good things happening in poor places in the last 50 years. There's an argument that middle class people in wealthy places are worse off today over the last 50 years, but there is not a credible argument that poor people are.

2) I completely understand the discomfort of being around billionaires speculating about how to save themselves when everything goes to hell, but it doesn't mean they want or expect things to go to hell. Investors are trained to think about the effects of plausible worst case scenarios, separately from considering probabilities. If you have a billion dollars it may be worth spending a million dollars preparing for societal collapse, even if that's a very unlikely outcome. The sad fact is that societal collapse is normal in human history- most currency that's ever existed has become worthless, most governments that have formed no longer exist. Rich countries since 1950 are an exception to this rule, but accepting that it's possible they will collapse doesn't mean it's any more likely now than it was 50 years ago. I think a billionaire spending some time thinking about how he would handle societal collapse is reasonable, even though focusing only on their individual survival rather than how they could help society is not especially admirable.</comment>


Amazon Launches WriteOn to Compete Against Crowd-Writing Sites Like Wattpad - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/03/amazon-launches-writeon-to-compete-against-crowd-writing-sites-like-wattpad/

<comment><USER2> Fine Print? Amazon's other supposedly pro-writer initiatives all have clauses whereby they own your content.</comment>


Employees should be masters of their own time - <AUTHOR> http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/03/employees-should-be-masters-of-their.html

<comment><USER2> eh. Any time someone uses a phrase like "is in the best interests of the company" I think of the movie "Office Space".

You see, every company has a culture, and culture is much more than slogans. If from the very beginning the employee felt like he couldn't speak up "because it was not in his job description" then there's something deeply wrong about the culture, slogan or not.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was hoping to find an article about giving your employees more autonomy and letting them work on projects that interest them. The title was slightly misleading to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work at a company where this ideology is implemented. There are no "managers", and we are expected to manage ourselves.

The company has divided itself into 2 camps: 1) Design guru - this person does not need to collaborate with anyone (i.e. the mechanical engineer is perfectly competent at designing electronics) because they already know everything. They don't speak to anyone else in the company until they mess something up, at which point they just ask someone else to fix it for them.

2) The other group is perfectly capable of collaborating and working with other people. This group gets things done elegantly and efficiently.

In other words, if group 1 and group 2 were given the same task, group 1 people would end up with a kludge that took twice as long to design than group 2.

So what's the balance? When interviewing job candidates, how do you determine what kind of employee you will be getting? What do you do about the people you already hired?

</comment><comment><USER5> The problem is that many good people are just as confident and stubborn about subjects they know nothing of as about subjects they know a lot about. Sure, having a company full of people who know themselves is the best answer, but that's hard. your field is much wider if you can deal with arrogance.

I have had the problem of good technical people asking me to rewrite my business plan.

One way of dealing with that kind of arrogance is to have upper management that lets each person make the decisions they know the most about. It requires good management, but it means that you can hire people who do not modify their confidence level based on their experience.

</comment><comment><USER6> _in any situation it is your responsibility, using your best judgement, to do what you think is in the best interests of the company._

Including firing your numpty colleagues and terrible customers: <http://www.christopherhawkins.com/06-13-2005.htm#78>

?</comment>


Want to get Productive? Stop Multitasking - <AUTHOR> http://rameshjha.com/2013/06/06/want-to-get-productive-stop-multitasking.html

<comment><USER2> "We can not multitask (that's how our human brain works)" - On the biological/neuronal level our brain works by doing multitasking (paralell processing of events), but our consciousness doesn't as studies suggests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh! thanks for correction, I'll update the post.

Edit: updated!</comment></comment>


Against the backdrop of the crisis, the surveillance state is set to expand - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/157693/congress-may-hand-bill-barr-keys-online-life <comment><USER2> Why stop with monitoring people's online activities? Why not require always on microphones, cameras, and location tracking on our phones/baby monitors/alexas? Future history books won't talk about the death of human freedom in the late 21st century because such books will be censored by future governments that have a million times more power to control their populations than was historically the case.

<comment><USER3> The thing is, what happens then ?

What do these people in power do all day ? Sounds like it would be a rather drab situation no ?

<comment><USER4> You don't get it. It's not about just the people in power directly. It's about power. Power in the West is very limited, even with high office. That's what they want fixed "because they're powerless". Powerless to fix drugs. To fix youth disturbances. To fix jobs "stolen". To entice their enforcers. To ... It's about letting the people the government employs interfere to an ever larger extent in your life. What you eat. Whether you smoke. Who you're with (contact tracing, except not just for covid-19, but for crimes in general).

The thing is, the powers of the government, in reality, are pitiful. The vast majority of crimes go unsolved. 80% in the best of places. For murders, a little over half (BUT, keep in mind that most murders are passion murders. Unplanned, heat of the moment, at least somewhat unplanned. E.g. someone brings a weapon to extort someone, but ends up killing them not-quite- accidentally-but-certainly-was-trying-to-avoid-it. "Real", planned, thought out murders mostly go unsolved).

Once we start talking theft, solve rates drop below 15%, and drop fast. It's also just not worth it to anyone to pursue those. Not that you get your stuff back if the police does solve the crime so I'm a bit unclear why anyone would _want_ the police to solve most crimes. It doesn't help victims except perhaps in the revenge department.

And of course, this is actual, physical, what some people would call "real" crimes. Many other types of crimes ... An example: when it comes to tax evasion (sales tax evasion in California, for example, which is definitely illegal) they essentially catch 10 culprits per year, no more.

They want their power to actually apply, and ask the police brass how to do that. The answer is predictably: more surveillance, more automated access to private info for the state, more ways to attack individuals, more ways for the police/state to "do something" while avoiding the court system (or going through a court system without any rights for defendants, like youth courts. Did you know, kids can get legally locked up for decennia (yes, plural) for a crime they can prove they didn't commit).

For example, now there's a solid 30-40% of people flouting covid-19 restrictions. But in general people totally disregard most laws most of the time, especially youths (never mind that that's allowed for most laws: as long as there's no damage to anyone you're actually allowed to violate the law, or at least cannot be punished for it).

Everybody in the police force, justice system, FBI, NSA, ... wants these statistics to change drastically. They never do. Everywhere the police steps up enforcement, people immediately want them to stop. So the police brass wants automated enforcement, automated gathering of evidence. They want contact tracing so they can just charge the nearest suspicious individual and have _something_ in court, like location. Or that "the suspect lied" about location to the police, for instance. Never mind that this can be defeated by someone planning a crime with a level of ease that's absurdly low.

They want a spy state so they "solve" crimes (that means they have an arrest, and a conviction, they do NOT mean solve, and certainly do not mean making victims whole, anyone with half a brain knows that criminals as a rule cannot make victims whole, and certainly cannot do so with the american justice system imposed on them).

Furthermore, under the table, they want to present these systems as a reward for their people, the people they hire, people in their department, etc. Ideally just for them to be "cool" (and not, like keeps happening, to enable police officers to stalk and rape their ex-girlfriend for years). They want to use it to get rid of "disturbances" (people that live close to "nice" people who act weird, or are noisy, but within the law, or ...). They want to use it to punish people who don't do things the right way, e.g. making a lot of money without a "proper job".

And of course they want to use this for racist purposes.

Surveillance is just one component of this. They also want ways to convict and lock up people without having to go through proper justice channels, where actual proof is required, and there's 10 layers checking if what people "in power" do is entirely legal. They want protection for themselves, and government itself, against the justice system (just look up damages and punishment for locking someone up with a wrongful conviction ... does that seem reasonable to you? Now compare to a private person imprisoning someone they don't like ...)

These people want power. So their "superiority" cannot be challenged in any way whatsoever, to enforce it using brutal violence. And the big problem always turns out to be the same: they're not actually superior. And then some kid born to a divorced ex-drug addict mother has a commercial success and seriously threatens the "decent" business interests of the local politicians ... Or has a relationship with their daughter "that will destroy her". Or ... That's what power is for.

<comment><USER5> There does seem to be a type of person who just wants power due to some deep psychological drive, and won't or can't look at the bigger picture to consider the cost to society for them to get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> we, the people of the united states, need to forcefully push back on this encroachment. we lost the advantage when politicians fell all over themselves rushing to grab emergency powers, and the timid majority not only did not take pause at this, but begged for more.

instead of allowing millions of entities the freedom to tackle the crisis from millions of vantage points, we let politicians collapse that down to essentially a few dozen governmental entities in charge, amassing power in people who have adverse incentives to the populace. we willingly gave up most of our optionality and diversity in tackling the challenge.

the better configuration, imho, is a set of governments primarily organized around gathering and disseminating crucial information openly and transparently for all (which they currently do as well). as the nexus of critical information, those governments would then also focus on connecting people and businesses who can advance the democratic goals of the polity. politicians are leaders of their departments and representatives of the electorate, _not the other way around_ (as currently acceded).

<comment><USER7> I wonder if the same people that are out, armed, in front of state capitols just so they can get their hair done or go out to a restaurant will show up, equally armed, equally angry, and equally willing to vote against politicians invading their privacy by requiring electronic surveillance on every part of their lives as a condition of opening up again.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands The debate about this bill has been going on for a while now.

Riana Pfefferkorn of CIS did a lot better job objectively addressing the issues (sans the overt political cheap shots) in her article. It lays out why it may be unconstitutional on several grounds. I'd recommend reading it if you want more detail on the bill:

THE EARN IT ACT: HOW TO BAN END-TO-END ENCRYPTION WITHOUT ACTUALLY BANNING IT:

[http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how- ba...](http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/01/earn-it-act-how-ban-end-end- encryption-without-actually-banning-it)

<comment><USER8> Thank you for posting that link. That post was far more informative and, as you mentioned, avoided "cheap shots". This subject is best discussed without politically partisan language; all of us are affected, regardless of how or even whether we vote. Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> We need more decentralized software, like skype was originally, where there is no tech company with access that would have to 'earn it'. Taking away our right to privacy while telling me your are saving children makes my skin crawl - I can't think of a more anti-american act.

<comment><USER10> We have tons of decentralized software already. We certainly don't need more. We need to get people to use it.

<comment><USER9> Examples?

<comment><USER10> Off the top of my head. OMEMO running on good old XMPP. OpenPGP running on older but gooder SMTP, the only decentralized system that ever got really popular. Heck, OpenPGP running on XMPP for the mashup.

All with lots of implementations both server and client. All more or less ignored. Before suggesting we need new systems you pretty much have to figure out what isn't working with the ones we have ... and real stuff, not unlikely technical reasons that no one cares about ... and no, it isn't just bad user interfaces. People will overcome any user interface if they actually care enough.

<comment><USER9> Its really about usability for most people. OMEMO is a protocol not end-user software. Can most people securely exchange PGP keys?

Skype took off originally because it was easy to use, even if it didn't always work well. I still think we need better/new software.

<comment><USER10> OK, but this always happens. There are always problems with the old stuff (different problems for each) and all we have to do is overcome those problems and everything will work. But identifying what is wrong with something does not let us know what we should do going forward.

So what about the new thing: Matrix? What do we need to do there to make it so it does not fall into obscurity like everything else?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how this will affect American tech companies, will they relocate their HQ out of USA? I guess every company operating in the USA will have to implement this, I'm thinking about regionally dividing my customer base just to leave Europeans higher amount of security with encryption but this is costly for me as well.

<comment><USER12> Massive surveillance will be a boon for the big tech companies. They already do everything they can to get as much data as possible. Even better, if it's government sanctioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is the proverbial line in the sand for me.

I am willing to riot and destroy things over this loss of freedom.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ron Wyden for president 2024

<comment><USER12> That's one thing I don't get. There are a lot of very impressive people like Wyden out there but when it comes to running for president it seems the best the country can come up with is Biden or Trump. Is running for president so unpleasant that anybody halfways sane will not do this to themselves ? Or what else is going on? How could the Democrats come up with a washed up 78 year old and skip a lot of very capable younger people?

<comment><USER15> Tulsi seemed cool. It's weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought this said "Bill Burr", and that probably wouldn't be so bad.

Edit: original title was "Congress May Hand Bill Barr the Keys to Your Online Life"</comment>


Show HN: Trello Compact Mode - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pennyapp/trello-compact-mode <comment><USER2> I think I would love to use this, but since my computer has memory problems, this causes Trello to be even heavier than it already is -- because it has more cards now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, that's surprising to me, since all the cards are loaded into the DOM regardless of whether or not the extension is active. The only memory footprint should be from the extension itself, which should be minimal since the code is so simple.

In fact, you might even observe a speedup because fewer elements are being painted, but the difference as a whole should be marginal.

Are you experiencing actual slowness from using the extension? I'd be really curious to know.

<comment><USER2> Yes, huge slowness.

I don't think all the cards are loaded anyway. I think Trello loads them as they are needed. Since the extension reduces the size of cards, it is as if the list was scrolled down, then more cards are loaded. Is that a possibility?

<comment><AUTHOR> How many cards do you have in your list? I have a list of 75 cards and I'm not observing the lazy loading you describe.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


HN Review: Turn your Blippy into a Charity Fundraising Machine - <AUTHOR> https://swipegood.com/blippy

<comment><AUTHOR> We started SwipeGood to make it super simple for people to give without having to decide when/how much etc...you would simply sign up with your credit/debit card and round up every transaction you do to the nearest dollar and donate the difference. We are currently working on integrating different ccs/banks and thought Blippy might be a cool way to start...looking forward to what you guys think :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Very simple but great idea. Making doing good easy is definitely the way. People want to give - if it is not a big hazzle. And little sums simply sum up!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great idea! Makes it so easy to decide when, how and how much to donate. I love the concept that whenever I spend money I also contribute to a cause.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love it.</comment>


SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Released - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/sql-server-2016-service-pack-1-sp1-released/ <comment><AUTHOR> SP1 seems to _kill_ the editions. All features are now available in all editions, including Express Edition.

Thus the explanation marks in the blog title are very accurate :-)

<comment><USER2> Not quite all features. AlwaysOn Availability Groups is still limited to two hosts in Standard, and Standard doesn't have Transparent Database Encryption.

Even so, this is an exciting change!

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server- editio...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-editions)</comment></comment>


Study: Strong net neutrality rules could cost you $84 a year or more in new fees - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/12/01/study-strong-net-neutrality-rules-could-cost-you-84-a-year-or-more-in-new-fees/ <comment><USER2> $84/yera to be free of subtle corporate "guidance", and the stupidity that would come from walled garden "internet"? Also new startups services would be available faster than lumbering dinosaurs like Cox, Comcast, Centurylink and Verizon could provide, supposing they could even think of a new service? I'll take the $84/year in fees, thank you very much.</comment>


Modern Lisp (with support for concurrency) based on Java Virtual Machine - <AUTHOR> http://clojure.sourceforge.net/rationale.html <comment><USER2> BTW, he'll be speaking in NYC on Tuesday:

[http://groups.google.com/group/jvm- languages/browse_thread/t...](http://groups.google.com/group/jvm- languages/browse_thread/thread/2a84a48130a89dd5?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER3> So modern it makes you do the compiler's job of marking your tail calls.

<comment><USER4> Without looking too deeply into it, this might be due to a limitation in the JVM: it has no "tail call" instruction (Sun's claim is that it would mess with the security manager, though the workaround for this is pretty obvious), so this Lisp probably has to use an exception trampoline, which imposes a significant performance penalty. So, it was probably made manual to give the developer a choice.

It doesn't make it any _better_ , per se, but that's probably why it's like that.</comment></comment>