Chrome is a Google Service that happens to include a Browser Engine - <AUTHOR> https://ha.x0r.be/posts/chrome-is-a-google-service/ <comment><USER3> Chromium Ungoogled repo [1] made it to the `top30` some days ago. I too have switched back to Firefox with the release of Quantum and have been very pleased.

Frankly, I am amazed every day that Ungoogled Chromium, Firefox, & DDG.co are as good as they are. (aka: slightly inferior to Google regarding product polish, but truly "good enough" 98% of the time - without selling my future data down the drain)

(edited: to fix typos)

\- [1]: [https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled- chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

<comment><USER4> I really want to use Firefox on Android, but I need a couple things:

Desperately need the scrolling in Firefox to feel like scrolling in the rest of the apps.

And I would very much like easy tab switching by swiping across the title bar thing, and the new tab/new incognito/back button behaviour.

Pls Moz pls

<comment><USER5> Given that Chrome on Android doesn't support extensions and thus no ad/privacy blockers, it might as well not exist and Firefox is for me the only game in town due to supporting uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

Scrolling is irrelevant for me.

<comment><USER6> By any chance have you noticed Google serving ads on Firefox? I use ublock origin on firefox and I have been getting ads occasionally on search.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This update really broke a lot of things. There are a lot of services that rely on the first logged in google account. I used to log into chrome with a personal account, and log into gmail/etc first with my business account. That way, my bookmarks and history would stay with me personally, but things that I use a lot, work email/google cloud etc would open as default under the work account.

One common issue is some sites (google's gallery.io even), only really associate based with the first account logged into chrome, or the OAuth flow breaks.

Now if you log out of google, to set the base login to your work email for example, it logs you out of chrome also, so there goes your password manager/bookmarks/cookies etc.

I'm still figuring the best strategy, currently I just made a second chrome profile to separate but it's super time consuming/annoying.

I feel like it was a major change without any heads up.

<comment><USER7> Also meaning you need to manage two piles of bookmarks, on new devices, add the second profile, go through 2factor login processes twice during setup etc. There doesn't seem to be a central, personal identity any longer, separate from google services, which they didn't really think through.

The thought of switching between two windows just to copy a bookmark or a note from another browser add on, seems crazy in 2018. You can't have tabs from different chrome profiles in one window, which is understandable, but wasn't really a concern before this change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many years ago I shared that I browse across several browsers, separating usage depending on the site I am visiting.

\+ Gmail, Drive, Google Calendar = Chrome

\+ Sites I trust = Firefox

\+ Sites I do not know or trust = Firefox Private browsing (or Firefox Focus on Android)

This involves cautiously copying links from browser to browser, and if I make a mistake I have a scorched Earth policy of the history and cookies.

The only thing that is consistent is that they all have Pinboard so I can bookmark as I go along.

Over the years this feels more and more like the safest thing to do, to compartmentalise according to trust, and trust Google only with whatever you want tracked.

<comment><USER9> I used to this do exactly, but switching to Firefox containers made Chrome redundant. Chrome uses too much memory to leave it running just for few websites, and Google including analytics script as builtin library was the last straw.

<comment><USER10> > Google including analytics script as builtin library

Wait, what? Do you have a source for this?

<comment><USER9> My bad, sorry, I was shown wrong in the below submission which I stopped checking few days after I posted it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16657472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16657472)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had an instinctual gut reaction against this, because it really does feel like it crosses a line between browser and content that shouldn't be crossed.

BUT -- I know a lot of regular (non-technical) users who are terrified of logging into shared/public computers with their Google accounts, because they can't tell the difference between logging in/out of Gmail and logging in/out of Chrome, and they've experienced/heard horror stories of people leaving one logged in when they log out of the other.

I just tried it, and logging out of my Gmail also _clearly_ logs me out of my Chrome (with a big message), which feels like a big win for peace of mind for most users.

So as much as it bothers me as a "power user"... I actually think this is a big improvement in conceptual simplicity for the average user. (And power users can figure out how to use multiple profiles for multiple Google accounts.)

There was a story [1] here just a few days ago where the culprit seemed to be that Chrome Sync had been set up with the daughter's EDU account and it was saving passwords for the parent's banking account, and presumably this will help avoid that kind of mix-up.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18023737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18023737)

<comment><USER12> "terrified of logging into shared/public computers with their Google accounts"

I'm terrified of logging into _any_ site on a public computer.

<comment><USER13> It will cost you around $5 each month that you actually need to use it (mostly because of the Microsoft RDP license), but with AWS AppStream with an image with a browser, you are not leaving any traces of your browsing on the local computer.

<comment><USER12> This would help somewhat, but all keyboard input could still be logged, as could all screen activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some of the Twitter threads and related links on this:

 _Wait, logging into a Google site on Chrome now logs you into the browser?!!!?!_

[https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/10432883138834513...](https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/1043288313883451393)

[https://mobile.twitter.com/x0rz/status/1040537928127135744](https://mobile.twitter.com/x0rz/status/1040537928127135744)

 _Google calls the feature "Identity consistency between browser and cookie jar" and a Chrome representative on the official Google Chrome Help Forum confirmed that this is the intended behavior._

[https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out- link-...](https://www.ghacks.net/2018/09/08/disable-the-sign-out-link-between- chrome-gmail-and-other-google-services/)

Earlier HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942723)

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't like that different Google services are linked together. It would be fine if Youtube would remember what videos I prefer, but I don't want Google to save my search phrases to the same account, don't want Google to know what sites I visit (using Google Adsense and Google Analytics that are present on most sites). That would be too much information and I don't want to share it with Google.

So when I need Gmail or Google Maps, I have to open it in a private window. Not very convenient, so I don't use them often.

By the way, if you use Chrome and haven't changed the default search engine from Google, then your browser pings Google every time you open a new tab. You can check it yourself with Developer Tools: a new tab page is loaded from Internet and it sends cookies. It can be fixed by creating and choosing as default a new search engine with Google's URL, but using other name (for example, Gogol instead of Google). Then Chrome will load its start page from disk, not from Internet.

</comment><comment><USER15> The new Google Chrome design with version 69 marked the beginning of a new era – Google wants to portray Chrome as something that is way more than a browser. They want you to see it as the primary interface of the web.

This is what the average user wants. All complex functionality has been put in the background. Cross-platform integration has been perfected.

Give it a year and users around the world will no longer think of Chrome as a browser, but simply as the interface to the (Google-)Web.

With Chrome Google has succesfully defeated Apple, MS and Mozilla.

And Google will continue to do everything to make people stop thinking of Chrome as a browser. They want you to think of it like a window into your online life, a window that is the same no matter where you are or what device you use.

<comment><USER16> That might all accurately describe what they'd like to achieve, but fortunately we still live in a free market society where there's room for competition (and if there isn't, regulators often step in).

I don't find Google to be the best search experience anymore. It gives me too many ads and partnership deals. I use searx.me and it gives me good old fashioned organic web search with results that are just as good.

Plenty of alternatives exist to their other services as well which only get better every year. I'm now convinced Google has a hard fight ahead of them just to keep what they've already got.

<comment><USER17> searx.me - I like, but no URL's for SERP's and browser navigation (back- button) doesn't work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > [googlers] were wondering why the new behaviour might feel abusive to some > people.

That says something about how out of touch Google is at the moment.

<comment><USER19> I daresay this comment might apply more to us than to Google. To 99% of people, these features are useful and helpful, with the downsides being mostly philosophical or theoretical.

<comment><USER20> > To 99% of people, these features are useful and helpful, with the downsides > being mostly philosophical or theoretical.

There is something there that makes it comparable to the early nature conservation movements. Fast forward a couple generations and nearly 99% of the population is pretty convinced on climate change and that we've messed up quite severely - but not enough to stop messing up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Chrome is a platform for client-side Google services.

As the article says, the web browser is the most obvious component, but it also includes Google Cloud Print [0], Google Talk/Hangouts [1], Google Earth [2], Google Music [3], Gmail Offline [4], etc.

In some sense it's the spiritual successor to Google Desktop [5], which used to fill a similar role.

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

[1] [https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2014/10/notification- re...](https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2014/10/notification-re-google- talk-app-for.html)

[2] visit [https://www.google.com/earth/](https://www.google.com/earth/) in a browser other than Chrome

[3] [https://support.google.com/googleplaymusic/answer/4627259](https://support.google.com/googleplaymusic/answer/4627259)

[4] [https://support.google.com/a/answer/139154](https://support.google.com/a/answer/139154)

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

</comment><comment><USER22> I am seriously considering rolling my own browser by embedding the Chromium Embedded Framework into my own GUI (or WebKit, or Gecko).

A browser should just render pages (incl. JavaScript), and save cookies if you need it to. Beyond that, there's nothing else it needs to do. Round about Netscape 4 and IE6, browsers were functionally complete. Since then they've just been gilding the lily and creating an artificial 'features race' between the browser vendors.

Sometimes, simpler IS better.

<comment><USER23> With ya. Started modding suckless surf to my liking, got sidetracked but I plan to keep working on it: [https://github.com/jakeogh/glide](https://github.com/jakeogh/glide)

Still trying to figure out how to control animated gif's in webkit2.

<comment><USER24> I liked the idea of those minimal vim like browsers, but webkit2 lib they all used was always hopelessly out of date, insecure and slow.

I've been keeping an eye on qutebrowser[1] though which offers either up to date [2]qtwebengine or webkit (qtwebengine is the browser engine of chromium minus all the google services and other garbage).

[1] [https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser](https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser)

[2] [https://wiki.qt.io/QtWebEngine](https://wiki.qt.io/QtWebEngine)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The obvious problems and conflicts here are multiple.

1\. People may wish to not have activity on multiple services connected or associated. This was certainly true for me when I found that G+ and YouTube accounts, independently created, though sharing a common email address, were conjoined.

2\. Google is put in a position of advantage as regards online identity. This persists across several dimensions:

a). Google apps and services share an authenticator with the browser itself. Other parties must implement their own authentication schemes, unless ...

b). Third-party applications utilise the Google Chrome authenticator, in which case

i). Those third parties leak user identity, activity, and all but certainly fraud and abuse detection, including both false negative and false positive determinations, to Google.

ii). Other browser venders, including Mozilla, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Opea, and others, are rendered as second-class citizens from an authentication standpoint.

iii). Consequences of a loss or freeze of an account now extend to multiple third-party services.

c). Loss or freeze of an account locks people out of their own web browser and all that entails; cookies, bookmarks, history, extensions, configurations, extensions-related data (say; Zotero).

3\. The centralisation, stakes, and attractiveness of attacking people's Google identities rises yet higher. Data exfiltration, access to browser and local system state, denial-of-access attacks, and more.

The privacy, anti-trust, security, conflict-of-interest, general risk, and other implications simple boggle the mind. That this was quietly rolled out with no apparent announcement or consideration tremendously reduces my already greatly-diminished trust in Google, its leadership, and its stewardship of critical Web infrastructure and protocols.

Chromium is likewise affected.

What were they thinking?

 _Were_ they thinking?

<comment><USER25> This is very bad. There are so many reasons why I want to be able to use Gmail without having google track all of my activity across search and maps.

I have been a loyal Chrome user since pretty much launch, because it was the fastest browser and mostly seemed to stay that way over the years. I understand why Google is doing this from a monopolistic "control all the things" perspective, and this will probably increase engagement in the near term, but I think this is a very poor strategic decision given the rising tide of trust issues surrounding Big Tech these days. Privacy is such a hot button issue now. Facebook is rightly getting raked over the coals in front of Congress for its rampant neglect/abuse of privacy issues. Apple is crushing it with its privacy-first positioning and hammering FB and Google publicly on their tracking-based revenue models. I understand that Google can't change its underlying business model overnight, but why double down on more enforced tracking? It makes them an even bigger target just in time for an oncoming storm.

Time to start shopping for a new browser. Thanks for everything, Chrome.

<comment><USER26> > This is very bad. There are so many reasons why I want to be able to use > Gmail without having google track all of my activity across search and maps.

But I don't think this Chrome release changed anything with regards to that? It's been the case for more than a decade that if you're logged into gmail you're also logged into search, maps, apps, etc. And if you log out of one, you log out of all of them.

Whatever workflow you've been using to keep logged into gmail while avoiding being logged in to the other Google sites would still work exactly the same way. (E.g. I'm always logged into gmail and chrome, but do 99% of my searches and Youtube watching from incognito windows, so they don't get associated with my account).

<comment><USER27> The problem is that even most devs (I'm just gonna assume and pull this assumption outta my ass) don't have the time or energy to put into such jailed browser windows. I think I used to a bit, but sometimes I'd forget and log into a service in my non google windows, etc. It got to be too much work. There has to be a better way to manage this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Switched back to Firefox with container tabs half a year ago and I'm pretty happy with it.

<comment><USER29> Agreed. Mozilla has a special container just for Facebook and I use that. Other people have made similar special containers for Google, etc. but I don't trust them as much as Mozilla.

So I use one container for Google properties (gmail, YouTube, etc.), a different one for social networks other than Facebook (Twitter, Reddit, etc.), and a third for shopping (eBay, Amazon, etc.)

You can teach Firefox to always open certain URLs in a particular container so smile.amazon.com brings up the shopping container, twitter.com brings up the social one, and so on.

I've been a little sad about losing some of the old Firefox extensions but Quantum has been great.

<comment><USER28> Multi-Account Containers is from Mozilla too.

As far as I know, Facebook Container is just more comfortable to use.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/multi-account- co...](https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/)

<comment><USER30> For MAC you are responsible for curating the decisions about what's inside each container.

That's a bunch of work. The more complicated or fast changing the sites in a container, the more work.

Facebook Container comes with the curation done by its maintainers. This is probably less trouble than it might be because it's not as though developers who use Facebook are unheard of.

<comment><USER28> You can pin every domain to a container. This is a one time action.

After one day I had it up and running.

\- Google \- Facebook \- Work \- NSFW \- Misc

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2765944?hl=en&co=GE...](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2765944?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop)

Let Chrome scan your computer for malware? I wonder what is the cost for a free malware...

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm very upset at this.

I use an ad blocker to block analytics and advertising beacons.

I want to be signed into gmail and google properties, but not Chrome. I don't want my history to be sync'd to Google's servers for advertising.

Now you can't use Chrome if you want your privacy anymore.

<comment><USER33> Even worse: did they surreptitiously capture the browsing history of everyone that has intentionally avoided signing into chrome over the last few years? I'm glad I switched to firefox a year ago and have auto update on chrome disabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not totally true, you can pretty easily have a logged-in Chrome profile that you use for Gmail, and an unauthenticated Chrome profile you use for everything else.

<comment><USER35> This is speculation on my part, however given the sophistication of their tracking capabilities I would imagine they could correlate the source to (at a minimum) a grouping of related users, if not the primary user.

(Edit: remove double negative)

<comment><USER36> Yes, they certainly could, but this change doesn't change that at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Increasing complexity in the browser and a number of other projects has put it out of reach of small open source teams, it can now only be done by a well funded corporates. This is a huge loss because now we can't have viable alternatives put together by open source teams who don't need millions of dollars to exist.

Without competition ultimately the user does not have choice and you get invasive and arbitrary behavior like this, all pushed under the guise of 'helping' some mythical average user and it will keep getting worse.

There are professional security fud mongers always pushing 'no alternative' solutions that somehow always end up benefiting centralized corporate interests. The simple fact is the tech community have lost control of the web, standards, privacy, user interests either by naivete or collusion to adware and spyware companies masquerading as tech companies.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seeing its provenance, I have never considered Chrome or Chromium an option for daily use. The same way I have never been tempted to create a Gmail - <USER2> indeed any kind of Google - account.

Still mystified why such huge numbers of people - also among the well informed - find it a worthwhile trade handing over the generality of their life to this monolith in return for some perceived marginal gains in speed og useability or whatever.

No, I don't use the search either, and I block their Analytics snooper, whichever guise it appears in (font, tagmanager, gstatic etc. etc.).

It's eminently doable. So call me a luddite.

<comment><USER27> Interesting. Do you mind sharing your browser setup (Firefox?) and extensions setup , workflow?

<comment><USER38> My setup and workflow are unremarkable and will bore you to tears. Linux & Firefox on all my desktops. Firefox uMatrix'ed to within an inch of its life, and with one of those extensions that kill all cookies from a given tab as soon as you close it.. Every now and again I have to temporarily allow one access or another - some sites break if not allowed use of Google TagManager, for example. I keep a seperate profile for a few known sites which I occasionally must use, and which absolutely refuse to function without live access to all the evil empires of the world. My searches go through DuckDuckGo, with a detour to Startpage whenever things don't work out. Oh, and Youtube videos. I never stream. I go there, often via proxy, and I download the thing before watching. For mail, I run all the boring stuff via FastMail, and some personal correspondance through my own server, running on an old discarded thin client with a usb stick for storage. It's a good thing I don't really like the Go language, or I should find myself in a dilemma.

<comment><USER27> No, it wasn't that boring. Highlights were the email server running on a thin client with usb stick for storage LOL. Proxyign YouTube manually rather than vpn seems a little hasslesome though. Interesting setup, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd strongly suggest people create separate users in the browser, one for daily, one for Google, one for Facebook.

This way in my regular browsing there's no Facebook or Google cookies reporting on what websites I visit.

It's really easy and doesn't impact at all on workflow, if you want your Gmail you just click the user button, and click Google. You could even set that user's homepage to Gmail.

<comment><USER39> Same browser and connection means those multiple accounts most likely share more than enough of a fingerprint to beprobabilistically joined together.

<comment><USER4> True, I think it's almost impossible to be really anonymous without something like Tor, and I suspect not even then

But if you want to be signed out of fb and goog in your regular browsing, I think it's the way to go

That and I hear Firefox has a Facebook container, which is probably the same approach

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I feel like there's some implied assumption here that this change lets Google do something evil that they couldn't do before, but I don't really see what.

If you're logged into Google properties (independent of browser), Google can already track you across most of the internet, via their Ads and Analytics embedded in a rather large percentage of web sites. If you don't want Google to track you on non-Google web sites, then you really need to use separate browser profiles (or separate browsers). Have one profile for Google properties and a separate one for other things.

Ironically, Chrome has really good multi-profile support. It's easy to have different Chrome windows running different profiles, each of which has all its own settings, storage, login state, etc. Give each one a different theme to make it easy to tell which profile you're using.

Firefox has a concept of profiles but AFAICT you can only run one profile at a time. :(

<comment><USER41> Firefox has containers that allow you to effectively run multiple profiles at once.

<comment><USER40> Oh, nice! I failed to discover "containers" when I searched for "firefox profiles"; maybe someone should add a link from [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager- create-...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-and- remove-firefox-profiles) and [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Mul...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Multiple_profiles) ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Chrome lost all my browser history, bookmarks, settings and extensions when I let someone else log into chrome and log out again. I now try to use Firefox for non Google services but still use multiple gmail/docs accounts in chrome for performance.

Even if I hadn't already had a terrible experience with their login feature, it is a privacy violation. I haven't agreed to have my browser history and other private data uploaded to an advertising company. The argument that most users want this is flawed: many would object to giving Google access to this without permission. Maybe the EU will step in?

</comment><comment><USER43> Years ago I sniffed packets sent by Chrome and found that it sent loads of data to Google servers when it was completely unnecessary for it to serve its function (as a browser). Haven't used it ever since.

</comment><comment><USER44> I've been using Brave on Android for some time. It's great, like a slimmed down, privacy conscious Chrome.

After this latest folly from Google, I may replace Chromium with Brave on the desktop too.

</comment><comment><USER45> I assume multiple profiles still works? If so, could give Google its own profile and only use it for Google stuff.

(And while you're at it, do the same for Facebook.)

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't really understand the outrage at this change. I happily and regularly use Safari, Chrome, and Firefox simultaneously for different things.

If you don't trust Google, don't use Google services. If you need to sign into different Google accounts, use a different browser.

Apple makes Safari to sell its Macs and iPhones.

Microsoft makes IE/Edge to sell its Windows licenses.

Google makes Chrome to sell its advertising.

</comment><comment><USER47> Actually, you don't need to believe that to have incentives to move to Firefox. Read more about some of Firefox benefits here (besides, obviously, the ungoogle side of it): [https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs- chrome.txt](https://fiatjaf.alhur.es/entulho/firefox-vs-chrome.txt)

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm going to need to check whether this behavior is overriding the group policy we put in for a client to not log into the browser. We previously hadn't bothered with that until someone almost got fired after signing into Chrome with their shared family account. Someone else at down at the shared desk and saw a porn video in the bookmarks.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm very happy with Vivaldi:

\- It has amazing features like tab stacking;

\- super fast and lightweight;

\- also uses the Blink rendering engine;

\- is compatible with most of Chrome extensions; AND

\- takes privacy seriously.

Give it a try: [https://vivaldi.com](https://vivaldi.com)

</comment><comment><USER50> Is it possible to run Chrome in a sandbox on Linux? I no longer trust Google enough to run with regular permissions. I'm only using Chrome for testing web apps anyway, and haven't been using it for web surfing for almost three years now.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Firejail. I actually run Firefox in it as a security measure, but it works for containing almost anything with a little tuning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Using Brave and DuckDuckGo on Mobile for a long time now.

Converted a friend too and I am anoying some other people to start using it.

</comment><comment><USER52> You can disable this behavior in chrome://flags/#account-consistency.

</comment><comment><USER53> Can someone explain what does "logging into Chrome" mean? (I'm not a Chrome user.)

<comment><USER54> You can login to the Chrome browser (think profile) using a Google Account. Doing so allows you to sync bookmarks, settings, passwords, etc. as well as remain always logged in to Google sites even after deleting all cookies (which would normally log you out obviously).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> My only concern is how fast security updates are released.

</comment><comment><USER56> What's the flag that disables this behaviour? Because I would really like to keep using Chrome.

<comment><USER57> chrome://flags/#account-consistency

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Syncing Chrome across devices has long rendered the point moot. If you wanted syncing you were already logged in to the browser. If you didn't want syncing, there was no reason to use Chrome.

<comment><USER59> And yet Firefox has sync too.

<comment><USER60> I'm actually kinda upset at firefox, because I wanted to switch, but when I tried the syncing (from one firefox instance to another) it didn't seem to work for like 90% of my bookmarks, history, passwords so I kinda gave up.

<comment><USER27> Firefox and Firefox focus come with the anonymous stats tracking enabled. That kinda pissed me off, but as long as that's the only thing they are doing to track, I'll move back to Firefox over chrome happily.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FOHO: Fear of Helping out in the Philly tech scene - <AUTHOR> http://areatech51.com/foho-fear-of-helping-out-in-the-philly-tech-scene/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps the scroll-jacking is making me overly critical, but here are some thoughts:

* FOMO is not a SV term; it's ubiquitous in investing.

* Providing assistance doesn't imply a quid pro quo. If you expect acknowledgement, be up front about it. It's certainly good manners to give credit where it is due (and nearly always makes you look better for doing so) but I question your motives if you expect it.

* You think a more altruistic tech scene benefits you. Perhaps you have a better 'vision' than others, or perhaps people just see things differently.

* I don't think pile-of-money clipart is ever going to add anything to an article.

* I'd be hesitant to associate advertising my services with a post that basically denigrates the tech scene in your area, and specifically people you've helped with before.</comment>


Talking Points – Ethical Licenses - <AUTHOR> https://talkingpoints.kemitchell.com/ethical-licenses.html <comment><USER2> >> It's perfectly possible to publish code for all the world to see, but license under terms that don't permit all uses. GPL does that.

No, it doesn't. GPL _does_ allow all uses. From the GPL FAQ:

"I'd like to license my code under the GPL, but I'd also like to make it clear that it can't be used for military and/or commercial uses. Can I do this?

No, because those two goals contradict each other. The GNU GPL is designed specifically to prevent the addition of further restrictions. GPLv3 allows a very limited set of them, in section 7, but any other added restriction can be removed by the user.

More generally, a license that limits who can use a program, or for what, is not a free software license."

Source: [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl- faq.html#NoMilitary](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NoMilitary)

As the FAQ states the GPL _does_ add additional conditions regarding adding restrictions that would restrict usage rights for the original or derivative works. That is not the same as prohibiting use.

You are welcome to use GPL-licensed code in your commercial product, provided that you follow the terms of the license.

>> The politics of free and open source are hackable. We're engaging in that process. We expect others who disagree to, as well. But the hood is not welded shut. The phrase "open source" isn't proprietary to anyone.

You are free to debate all you want, but attempting to redefine the commonly accepted meanings of what constitutes "open source" and "free software" amounts to the corruption of the principles that those movements were founded on, more especially for "free software".

If eroding freedom for profit is your goal, fork off your own license and give it a distinguishing name. For example, it could be called the "Ethical Software License" (EthSL) with one or more acronyms that represent what non- ethical uses are restricted.

For example: EthSL-NoMIL (Non-Military), EthSL-NoICE (Non-Immigration / Customs Enforcement), EthSL-Animal (No use in endeavors which harm or exploit animals), EthSL-Eco (No use in endeavors which harm the environment), etc.

<comment><USER3> > GPL does allow all uses.

GPL does not allow use of GPL-licensed libraries and frameworks to build nonfree applications. If you do that, you violate the GPL.

The "use" versus "build" distinction is pure semantics. And those semantics are pure post-hoc politics. For a sense of their weakness, ask: Which of the four freedoms covers building software with unmodified GPL libraries? The four freedoms say "run", not "use". It's only specific verbs, which don't clearly covering everything people do with software.

> You are free to debate all you want, but attempting to redefine the commonly > accepted meanings of what constitutes "open source" and "free software" > amounts to the corruption of the principles that those movements were > founded on, more especially for "free software".

Commonly accepted is a big reach. We may both be familiar with deep cuts from the FSF.org philosophy section, but the vast majority of programmers aren't.

I don't know why you mention profit. Selling exceptions to ethical licenses is legally possible, but I haven't heard anyone asking for an ethical license term bring it up yet. If you have links to folks exploring that, do share! I'm genuinely interested, and would be genuinely surprised to see that become a common model.</comment></comment>


Wall Street Rescue Deal Blocked - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7636943.stm

<comment><USER2> I thought the "Ask YC: How bad is the economy?" thread was pretty good, but I don't think we need a play-by-play update on every piece of economic news.

For the next year or so I'm going to just wake up every day and assume there's some bad economic news which I won't bother to read. When the news starts getting good again, I'll pay attention.</comment>


A Phone Call That Links Lee Oswald to Military Intelligence? - <AUTHOR> http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/Raleigh.htm <comment><USER2> From the page:

 _Hurt admitted … that he was drunk, and had made what was, in effect, a crank phone call._

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a non-story.</comment>


The Eternal Novice Trap - <AUTHOR> https://feoh.org/2019/12/27/the-eternal-novice-trap/ <comment><USER2> I know intelligent people who fell into this trap and can't get out.

I know a guy who is seeking enlightenment writing web frameworks. He is streaming new frameworks at ever increasing pace. Unfortunately, he never gets around to supporting what he has created, thus, he never learns how to make something that actually makes life easier in the long run. His frameworks are pure zen, but only to him. The rest of the team while their days trying to convince management that their high regard for the guys capabilities is completely misplaced.

I know a bunch of people that spend their entire time learning new technologies. New frameworks, languages, patterns. The learning is typically shallow as it ends the moment the person knows how to do anything with it or when he/she finds some kind of huge disadvantage. Then there is a switch to another language/framework/library/tool/paradigm and the eternal cycle repeats.

Stick with a project/problem until completion. Don't be satisfied with first 80% and neither with second 80% of the task. You need to go all the way. Try to learn everything there is to learn about it. Try to figure out all different ways to improve it and then try to figure out why those might not be the best ideas. Go discuss with your team, your architect. Listen to their problems, then figure out how your ideas do/do not help solve them. Understand why.

Try to make things so simple everybody can understand them. Try to be able to explain every decision and how those decisions interact with each other.

<comment><USER3> This is great advice and would be even better, if our industry was not that hype driven. Tell someone, you are a JavaScript expert and you had great success in the past with jQuery and knockoutjs. People will reject you, you won't have a job and no money.

And if you are one of these poor fools, who depend on work for income, than good luck not at least partially follow up on trends, them being silly or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FWIW this is my post. I didn't post it here because I'm not really involved with this community very much.

Any feedback would be very much appreciated.

<comment><USER5> It's well written and pretty much spot on. The difficult thing with advice is that one first needs to figure out where one is in the spectrum before determining whether it's applicable - i.e. overweight people could benefit from eating less, underweight people could benefit from eating more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> To avoid the "eternal novice" trap, learn computer science fundamentals. If you can, choose projects and jobs which don't force you to burn time learning superficial material which will become obsolete in a few years.

I agree with this post (except for swearing allegiance to any specific programming language): learning programming languages is a poor way to prioritize. Learning algorithms, or math, or operating systems, or compilers, is more effective — and will make it easier to pick up a new language when you need to.

<comment><USER7> That won't teach you how to build maintainable software in the long run though. It will give you a lot of groundwork, but one of the major issues I see in eternal novices is the fact that they never had to maintain software beyond 2-3 years. Maintaining software in the long run demands certain discipline so it doesn't bite you in the ass and many developers simply never had to deal with something like that. Even the ones styled with "senior" titles.

<comment><USER8> I'm just learning this now. I have built lots of stuff over the years but I have always had to balance my time between actually coding, managing the coders, and running the business side of things.

Now, over the last few years we have actually experienced a lot of growth and our code has started to require some scale and I have had time to focus a bit more on the code.

I feel like I have learned more in the last 2 years than the 20 before that.

I've had to focus so much more on actually architecting the system, thinking about how the data is stored in the DB, creating a smooth developer experience, creating maintainable code, and actually tracking and logging tons of detail about the app so we can find and diagnose bottlenecks before the become a problem.

So in my case, it hasn't been so much about having to maintain it for more than a few years (I have projects I have maintained for 10 years now), but the fact that this one is experiencing some real scale has really laid bare my bad (and good) decisions and forced me to learn about and start making better more informed decisions.

<comment><USER9> A lot of it is just encountering new challenges you haven't faced before.

Learning to scale an application was certainly one for me. Another was writing a webapp where accessing the primary datastore was a 50ms round trip. Another was writing warehouse software that had to interface with hardware. And another was building a somewhat complex multi-system application that ran an ecommerce business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes and no. I'm very glad that I followed the Pragmatic Programmer approach early on in my career. It's partly why I learned Ruby back in 2003, and was exposed to Lua and Haskell and others around the same time (and built pretty neat production software in all of the above languages)

Over time it becomes less necessary to deep dive on new languages, but that doesn't mean you should altogether stop, it just means that you're more of an expert now and learning a new language to the point of mastery that you are used to in your day to day work is a lot bigger task.

What the author describes is the dilemma with any kind of knowledge acquisition. You always need to be learning more, but you have to balance that against being productive with what you actually know. As an expert or senior or whatever, I have a pretty good understanding of what the knowledge landscape looks like. As a junior there's a lot more utility in doing a broad survey before diving too deep.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think this sort of misses the point of the Pragmatic Programmer's advice: you should learn a new language every year for exposure to the ideas that language has (e.g. Prolog to get a sense of how logic programming works, J for array programming, etc.). This doesn't necessarily mean learning the language well enough to write production code and it certainly doesn't mean switch your primary go-to language every year.

<comment><USER12> > you should learn a new language every year for exposure to the ideas that > language has (e.g. Prolog to get a sense of how logic programming works, J > for array programming, etc.)

But why? what does that give you?

<comment><USER13> I can only assume this is revealed in the process or not at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been a musician for far longer than I've been a programmer. During the first 3-5 years of playing, I'd play for many, many hours. At my peak, I'd practice for up to 8-10 hours a day. Before school, during school, after school. I had my trusty one guitar, which worked for everything I needed.

Then I started earning money, and began purchasing stuff. This avalanches into a full-blown addiction of constantly chasing / trying out new stuff. My playing suffered, my practice routines died, my creativity went to shit.

Even though I was still quite skillful, I found myself playing/noodling the same stuff, caring about pretty much everything BUT the actual playing/music.

I'm now back to owning a couple of guitars, and focusing on what's important. Writing music, getting ahead, and improving.

And for some reason, that mirrors my experience with programming, too.

I'm not sure, maybe some people are just prone to that kind of stuff? Getting caught up with the superficial things.

<comment><USER15> Well I have an anecdote that works as a parallel:

During my first few years of surfing, I would try (and buy) lots of different surfboards. Also happened to me that as I earned money, I spent more and more on surfboards.

I moved countries a few years ago and sold all my boards back at home, and just got two boards here (one for small waves, one for larger waves). That turned out to be so much better for me. I don't spend so much time looking at every detail of the surfboard, instead I just go surf. I try new things on the surfboards I have, and it tends to be about techniques and less so about the boards themselves. Occasionally I will try my mate's surfboards and I think that they're nice, but not enough to justify spending more money on another board.

I don't believe it's 100% about proneness to get caught up in that kind of stuff. I guess for me it was more just trying to get the most out of the experience. Ironically enough I wasn't surfing as much before moving to a different country, whereas where I currently live I surf 2-3 times a week. Maybe there's some parallels there? As in the more you actually practice X, the more you're likely to find the subset of tools that actually work for you?

That said, I do still believe (and agree with the link) in a few times a year testing out new languages, frameworks, etc, so see what the fuss is about, and in the process learn new things that I might bring back to my current project or toolset.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tangentially related Is the idea that we should not eat any more learning curve than absolutely necessary during a project.

The technical risk of integrating some fresh technology has bigger, sharper teeth than most risk predators seeking to devour our success.

<comment><USER17> It's done probably because that's how the authors are making time to learn new things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> For a long time it was fashionable to write server side java using POJOs and Spring running in Tomcat or Jetty, and you could get very far just being very good at Java and Spring. You still can.

With the advent and surging popularity of multiple server-side alternatives to Java such as Javascript via Node.js, Python, Go, and others, Java is now viewed as "slow to startup" in comparison and therefore less suitable for cloud-scale deployments that must spin-up instances very quickly to handle the massive bursts of traffic that cloud-scale platforms have been designed to service.

I'm curious what people think is the best alternative to Java for cloud-scale deployments. Javascript - ala Node.js? Python? Go? Something else entirely?

<comment><USER19> I believe Go is eating Java currently.

If you look at companies they're all quite different though. Apple uses a lot of languages. Google uses a lot of C++. Facebook is a combination of things, but AFAIK their main platform is still written in Hack. Netflix is probably still mostly Java. Uber is Python + Go.

I honestly think Java is going to come back in fashion at some point after all the recent updates, along with all the newer JVM languages ala Scala, Clojure, and Kotlin.

If you're asking this for "what language should I learn?" I think knowing anything typed + Python is an extremely strong combo.

<comment><USER20> These days I don't think you can get away with not knowing JavaScript, unless your thing is pretending to be a luddite, in which case you shouldn't actually be using computers if you're actually a luddite.

<comment><USER19> What would you call "knowing JavaScript?"

I've written some greasemonkey scripts for automating work-related tasks, and done some very basic editing for helping others with visual stuff. I've fixed some folks node code, but that was just reading docs and applying the few lines of change.

There are a lot of positions that never really touch js. My most recent project was working a lot with Chef, which is just ruby all the time.

<comment><USER20> That's part of the spectrum of "knowing JavaScript" that I mean, since you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. But some "linguistically pure" programmers hold themselves above it all and refuse to learn it out of pride because it's deeply flawed and they don't want to sully themselves. Well guess what: every language (and CPU architecture) is deeply flawed and riddled with historical baggage, and programming is about getting your hands dirty and dealing with it anyway. Even if you're programming in Lisp or whatever your idea of the perfect language is, there's still a lot of tedious shit work and hacking you're never going to be able to avoid if you want to get the job done. The people who wrote the compiler that translates your favorite perfect language into x86 instruction codes had to get their hands really dirty with deeply flawed technology, and you have to respect them, because they didn't boycott the x86 because the PowerPC was more beautiful.

It's hard to outweigh the advantage of using the same language in both the client and the server, and right now, JavaScript is the only universally practical choice on the client side, so it rules both sides now, in spite of all of node's and npm's problems. WebAssembly will loosen JavaScript's monopoly as it gradually matures, but right now all other languages but JavaScript are second-class citizens on the client side, and it will be that way for a while.

<comment><USER18> Transpiling TypeScript to ECMAScript5 using Webpack (as is done in Angular and React) seems to be how folks are solving this. It does strike me as a rather convoluted solution, but it's a solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's all in the definition of "learn" in the sentence "learn at least one new programming language a year."

If you calibrate the definition of "learn" appropriately for your skills and goals that advice is great.

<comment><USER22> There's no way to properly learn a language in a year. Even for an advanced programmer who understands many concepts, getting up to speed and understanding idioms takes notably longer. I'm talking someone who has a few years of in depth experience which is usually focused practice, not coding the same thing over and over or playing around. You cannot learn those things at work nor doing algorithmic challenges - maybe someone can actually make a set of such exercises.

The advanced programmer in other language can fall into many traps and produce non-idiomatic (usually overcomplicated) code.

Goes the same when learning a big enough framework.

<comment><USER23> There is definitely enough time to master a new programming language in a a year. This is not rocket science, programming languages are purposely designed to be easy to grasp. I'd say less than a month for most languages, perhaps only more if it's a family change.

Most people can learn to speak a new (human) language from the same "larger family" (e.g. french from english) in less than 25 weeks.

<comment><USER24> You can be reasonably competent quite quickly but "mastery" is something else and takes much longer. I have done C# for a decade now but I still discover new stuff all the time or finally understand things I knew about but didn't really get.

Same with languages. You can be conversational pretty quickly but to truly understand a language takes many years.

<comment><USER25> Bear in mind that all programming languages are not created equal. The surface area for a language with a lot of history like C# is much larger than the surface area for a younger language like Go, for example. I've been writing production Go for about three years now, and I feel like I have a solid grasp on it. I've been writing production Python for more than twice that long, and I still learn new things every few weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I separate my "learning" into deep and broad. At work, I'll take on new categories of assignments (broad) while maintaining a portfolio of profitable, hard problems in my domain (deep).

Personally, I'll study new languages or cultures or technologies or games. But I'll also develop—and necessarily, ditch—ones I've previously learned.

It's easy to get caught up in learning lots of basics. Right after the basics is the hard part of integration, which leads to deeper understanding. It's also easy to do the same thing every day, tricking yourself into the illusion of mastery, and risking becoming the best in a dying field.

</comment><comment><USER27> > THE BRIGHT, SHINY, INFINITE RABBIT HOLE

Wow, what an apt metaphor.

</comment><comment><USER28> Key insight IMO:

> You can talk the talk like a champ, and be up with the latest buzz, but in > some corner of your mind you may recognize that your basic skills are > fundamentally lacking.

Learning for learning's sake is admirable, and it's easy to snub practical application. But it's much like how you can only read a few thousand books in your life -- the modern world is so full of novelties that you must carefully choose what you learn. There is an inherent opportunity cost in all learning.

My personal razor for deciding what's not worth learning is: if I can't justify teaching others what I've learned, it's probably not worth learning.

<comment><USER29> I find it so hard to choose since almost everything is fascinating to me. I'm terribly afraid that if I commit to any one school of anything I will miss the truth buried elsewhere. I find it easy if I have a fixed end goal to pick the most pragmatic options but outside of that I'm lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems to be a curse of the Javascript world. Every few months there's a new "framework".

Also, for each new language, there's a new build system, with a different directory layout.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the main issue with trying to learn too many languages is that it is exceedingly taxing on your memory capacity. Being a regular developer in a language comes with a lot of context that you have to keep in mind. This gets hard to do if you are constantly switching between languages/frameworks all the time.

So there's definitely some balance that is good to strike between learning a greater number of concepts and paradigms vs going deeper into fewer languages/frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't see this being a trap to anyone working in a real company doing software developpent for a living. Managers won't let you recode the same thing over and over in various languages, and you'll somehow have to maintain the software you've developped, optimize it, debug it, etc.. and that means go pretty deep into one technology..

</comment><comment><USER33> I have this problem. The OP talked about languages but didn't mention frameworks, tools, cloud vendors, programming styles etc etc. It sucks because you go to interviews where they only care about one language and one framework and you dont know it all that well - same as the 99 others.

</comment><comment><USER34> Can totally relate. I just stopped doing this recently.</comment>


The Question to Ask Before Hiring a Data Scientist - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/08/the-question-to-ask-before-hiring-a-data-scientist/

<comment><USER2> FTA:

>Is your data scientist producing analytics for machines or humans?

This is a really interesting question that I had not considered before. I think it is an important one not only for those hiring, but also for applicants to ask during an interview in order to determine if the position is a good fit.</comment>


Linux Observability with BPF - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/linux-observability-with-bpf/ <comment><USER2> As someone who has gone through the ipfwadm -> ipchains -> iptables history, I would generally be pretty meh about another firewalling change. But, I have high hopes that it'll give me the ability to do reasonable traffic shaping in Linux.

I once set up a FreeBSD box to do shaping for an ISP's entire DSL customer base, and it was a couple commands and worked brilliantly! By contrast, I've dabbled with Linux shaping for ~2 decades, and the best I've gotten is one recipe that works well for one limited use case. Maybe it's just me, but I've never been able to make it do my bidding, despite several occasions sitting down and giving it the old college try.

For other kernel paths, I'm really interested in using it to monitor for file modifications in the way that inotify is not very good. And I often resort to strace to figure out low level what is going on, it might be really good for that too.

Looks like an interesting book!

<comment><USER3> Wondershaper [1] should make it easy on Linux. On *BSD there is AltQ for this which also has PF integration (or well, back when I looked into this in 2004).

I'm curious to hear which use cases didn't work out for you.

Regarding BPF, is it possible to convert IPT rules to BPF for backwards compatibility?

[1] [https://github.com/magnific0/wondershaper/](https://github.com/magnific0/wondershaper/)

<comment><USER4> Be wary of poorly-designed wrappers around tc. They often make very wrong decisions: [https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Wondershaper...](https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Wondershaper_Must_Die/)

sqm-scripts is generally a much better option than wondershaper derivatives: [https://github.com/tohojo/sqm-scripts](https://github.com/tohojo/sqm-scripts)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been a fan of dtrace for a long time and so I've been meaning to learn BPF to get similar functionality native to the linux kernel. I may pick this book up.

<comment><USER6> I suggest taking a look at bpftrace ( [https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace](https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace) ). The features and stability are getting quite good and better over time.

<comment><USER7> hey! Do you know if anyone is working on getting bpftrace to use BTF yet? Looks like one of the final chunks landed in Linux 5.2

<comment><USER8> See Bpftrace for Linux 2018:

> > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18168137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18168137)

pzakah asks:

> You've mentioned that we do have BTF now in Linux 4.18. I've tried to find > if it was leveraged in bpftrace, but it looks like it isn't yet.

Brendan responds:

> That's the old repo (we should add a note to it pointing people to > [https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace](https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace) > instead!)

Alastair added struct support for kprobes yesterday, based on the functionality in bcc (which bpftrace uses). That was the final missing piece, and why I'm posting about it now. See the last example here:

[https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace/blob/ma](https://github.com/iovisor/bpftrace/blob/ma)

\--- ....

I took a look and according to the last example mentioned they have not added full struct support yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's an advertisement for a book. Cilium is on there and that's a name I associate with blogverts.

There are eleven exclamation marks on that page.

BPF is the new paradigm for synergistic application of strategic opportunities in the use of acronyms.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for sharing Jessie! I am definitely going to order this book :-)

EDIT: Why did I get down voted? I am not affiliated with this book, the authors of the book, or the OP in anyway. It just so happens that I will find this book very useful, so I thanked the OP for sharing.

It is sad we live in a world where there is so much manipulation that we are suspicious of each other's sincerity. I guess I understand where the downvoter was coming from :-(

<comment><USER10> This sort of comment isn't looked highly upon on HN as it doesn't really add to the discussion. It's what the upvote button is for.

<comment><USER11> And in addition, from the guidelines:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, > and it makes boring reading.</comment></comment></comment>


Switching windows within same application in Mac OS X - <AUTHOR> http://www.techiecorner.com/230/how-to-switch-window-within-the-same-program-in-mac-os-x/

<comment><AUTHOR> Not that on my computer (OS 10.4.8 with a PC keyboard) it's Apple/Command key and backslash (right above it) that you press.</comment>


Ask HN: What language do you use for programming Job interviews? - <AUTHOR> I was taught C++ in school during 2010 and in my undergrduate(till 2014). However I have been coding in Ruby professionally. Now I am in a bit of dilemma as to whether I should code purely in Ruby for interviews as well? I could brush up my concepts in C++ anytime. But it would be an overhead and introduce plenty of ways of making things go wrong(memory mgmt, pointers, bulky code, STL knowledge etc. Do I just stick with Ruby for everything where I can code comfortably now. <comment><USER2> Stick with what makes you happy. If you want to work in Ruby, target jobs that are Ruby/Rails oriented and keep on coding in Ruby. Unless you are interviewing for an engineer position that require C/C++ you're most likely better off sticking to Ruby jobs.

On the other hand I've had job interviews where they used a language I wasn't proficient in (Python, Scala) but they allowed me to craft the solution to problem in Ruby but expected me to port it to the other language. Employers these days seem to be flexible, especially when the candidate is intelligent and picks up technology easy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont mind a non Ruby job at all. Its just that since I have no real C++ experience, just picking it up for interviews (which I had done so far) doesn't seem like a good idea somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For interviews just go with what is most comfortable to you. Honestly, do you really want to be coding during an interview and have to worry about when you call `malloc`, when to release memory, how many `*` to put in front of your pointer?

I'm not criticizing C++, but for an interview you should go with the simplest language that makes you happy.

</comment><comment><USER4> English?

<comment><AUTHOR> I meant programming Languages. Duh!!

<comment><USER4> Sorry - I was being annoying. I do find the use of Duh amusing tho. It reminds me of my children and then me adding duh to the end of their names - that's very annoying but it cured them of their affliction. ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Play Asteroids in Chrome - Thanks to HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript  - <AUTHOR> http://www.thechromesource.com/play-asteroids-in-chrome-thanks-to-html5-canvas-and-javascript/ <comment><USER2> The arrow keys and space bar keep scrolling the page up and down in addition to controlling my ship!

</comment><comment><USER3> doesn't work in the ipad

<comment><USER4> Because of the lack of touch interface, or because of some missing standards support in mobile webkit?</comment></comment>


How Dave Eggers Is Making Learning Fun - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110501/social-entrepreneurs-how-dave-eggers-is-making-learning-fun.html

<comment><USER2> You don't need to make learning fun. Learning _is_ fun. The only real problem is to stop making it not-fun.

Of course the Tom Sawyer principle comes into play here: "Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do." I don't see a great way around that.</comment>


Caught in the net - <AUTHOR> https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/return-fire-vol-4-supplement-caught-in-the-net?v=1501280195 <comment><USER2> I relocated my family down from Atlanta to Mexico City a couple weeks ago. We're living in a beautiful neighborhood, in a flat. And we love it here (Condesa) -- it's amazing in practically every way imaginable. As I was reading the linked article, it struck me that one of the reasons that we are enjoying our honeymoon period is that we are less isolated in this urban setting than we were in our suburban "cabin in the woods" in Georgia. We stroll outside, and meet the neighbors and enjoy the plentiful street cafes. And Tacos!

It also struck me that one of the main sources of stress and arguments since moving here is that our internet provider, who is selling us 300MBps fiber service, installed their router/wifi access point in one of the bedrooms, surrounded by glass and thick concrete walls, meaning that the signal did not propagate to the rest of the apartment very well. We have literally moved countries, and are not proficient in the language or culture, and the main thing that has pissed everyone off (myself included, no doubt) is that we Facebook videos stutter or don't work at all while we're sitting on the toilet.

Don't fret about us though! Yesterday, I finally had some network technicians over and put in a fine new set of wireless access points. One in the back of the apartment, and one in the front. Cutting-edge technology, and now we can get 200+ MBps connections practically anywhere in our flat. Even the toilet.

<comment><USER3> I lived a couple of years near La Condesa. Great food!

Best tacos in the area IMO are El Kaliman and El Farolito. There's a poblano called Las Chalupitas that you gotta try for authentic mole and such.

In El Parque Mexico there is a small place with no name that makes the best tortas de pierna in all Mexico.

[https://www.yelp.com.mx/biz/tortas- jard%C3%ADn-m%C3%A9xico-m...](https://www.yelp.com.mx/biz/tortas- jard%C3%ADn-m%C3%A9xico-m%C3%A9xico)

I moved outside of El DF but I loved living there as along as I didn't have to leave the zone (La Condesa, La Roma, El Valle, etc). Once you have to move to the South or North it can become a nightmare at peak times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A man is teaching his friend's son the finer points of the Queen's Indian Defense. Three teenagers are planning a camping trip, scouring every detail of the map to find the perfect site. Two old friends reminisce about their days in the navy. A young girl hears Maisky playing Bach's Cello Suite No.1 and starts to wonder where she can get a cello from. A Syrian man is learning how to say "I love you" in German.

 _What are all these zombies doing, staring at their phones?_

</comment><comment><USER5> The thing is all of them probably think its a good idea to do what they are doing.

That is probably so cause it worked for them, one way or the other.

So in conclusion all will stay the same until something better comes around and shows it is better. Technological progress.

</comment><comment><USER6> Even the best conversationalists of yore would be hard-pressed to provide temporally scalable entertainment on demand 24x7x365 with personalized attentiveness, then momentarily fold down in to a pocket-sized container when no longer required.

It's no wonder that mobile devices are harvesting brain time ... people on the whole are still mentally weak, predictable, ego-first primates seeking the next neurotransmitter hit: anarchist theory be damned.</comment>


Which billionaires are doing the most good? - <AUTHOR> https://billionaireboard.com/ <comment><USER2> Are the metrics for this described somewhere? I find the top two surprising. From their numbers, Dorsey has donated $1B (26% of his current $3.8B net worth), while Gates has donated $36B (36% of his current net worth).

So....Gates has donated more as a share of his net worth and SIGNIFICANTLY more in raw numbers. What justifies putting Dorsey ahead of him?

<comment><USER3> > Top donors this month

Is the (admittedly quite small) heading.

Also I noted that Brin (only one I clicked on) is in last place/#29 at $0 this month. So (and to find out was the reason I clicked) this is 'how much have these 29 billionaires donated this month'; not 'who are the top billionaire donors, all listed are big donors'.

<comment><USER4> Donations this month is a meaningless metric.

Total % of net worth would be the obvious metric, wouldn't it?

Is this only US billionaires? There are 614 billionaires in the US according to Forbes[0], there are only 29 listed here, ~5% of the total.

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/](https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, %net worth would be more meaningful, but I still think monthly is odd. Why should it look bad if you donate nothing for 11 months and then drop a big one, because that's what you do every Christmas or something.

Assuming accurate monthly data is even available, I think a 12mo moving average would make more sense. In addition to the %net worth you suggest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is often the case that soft social pressure is the best way to enforce desirable behaviors amongst people.

Within friend groups where there are no formally established laws or codes of conduct, there are certain implicit standards of behavior people are expected to abide by, and part of why they do is because of the threat of social ostracism.

In a broader scope, in ancient societies social ostracism was often used to deal with those who violated the norms of society; in Athens ostracism was an official punishment.

I'm not saying we can or should literally expel billionaires who don't put their liquid wealth towards philanthropy, but far too often we focus on formal, legal means of compelling the super wealthy to part with their money, such as through taxes that are easily avoided.

Social pressure put upon the super wealthy using tools like this could be more effective than people expect. There is the threat of social ostracism, but also the reward of social approval granted to the patrons of philanthropy.

<comment> munk-a > but far too often we focus on formal, legal means of compelling the super > wealthy to part with their money, such as through taxes that are easily > avoided.

Taxes are easily avoided only because they're designed to be easily avoidable. Simplifying[1] the tax code costs a lot of political capital due to entrenched interests but is technically trivial - ask a seven year old to design a fair tax system and it'd be less of a trainwreck than ours.

Deductible expenses need to be significantly curtailed and capped and alternative minimums could be introduced to be a stop-gap against any loop holes that were missed. Then you just start playing whack-a-mole with various tax credits to cut out targeted and unjust programs like child-credits and mortgage relief.

1\. Actually doing this, not just granting a bunch of money to corporations like the GOP did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Rather misleading.

For example it has Jeff Bezos donating 10 billion to a new 'Bezos Earth Fund'.

However it hasn't yet issued any grants so as of today, he has merely moved money from one place he controls to another one I assume he still controls.

<comment><USER7> Good feedback. I'm going to make the pledges into funds count for less, and make it more obvious which $ has been pledged vs deployed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm assuming this isn't factoring in the _harm_ they're doing. How much do Bezos's donations to homeless services offset his union-busting? Is there a formula for that?

<comment><USER9> Well in Seattle, their homeless charity money is less so far than the money they have spent against the politicians trying to do anything about homelessness besides passively asking for business to "be responsible".

<comment><USER10> Trying to do something about homelessness and actually doing something about homelessness are two different things. Many of the policies that those trying to do something about homelessness in Seattle are trying to implement are similar to those policies that were enacted in San Francisco that made homelessness worse such as rent control.

<comment><USER9> The left politicians I'm referring to have their hands completely tied by the centrist majority who won't act on this, and people who profit from high rent turn around, point to the lack of political action they caused, and say it means the politically blocked proposed solutions are "unviable".

Also you're just incorrect about rent control. SF has it in a tiny fraction of apartments. Of course rents elsewhere are skyrocketing.

<comment><USER10> > Also you're just incorrect about rent control. SF has it in a tiny fraction > of apartments.

That's flat out wrong.

"San Francisco has a roughly thirty-five percent homeownership rate. Then 172,000 units of the city's 376,940 housing units are under rent control. (That's about 75 percent of the city's rental stock.)"

source: [https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf- housing/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/)

Please point out a solution from these politicians on the left that won't make things worse.

<comment><USER9> taxamazon.net/about

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Public's perception of Warren Buffet is really puzzling to me. He seems to largely escape the scorn for billionaires, even looked at as a 'good guy'. Whats his secret?

We seem to hold CEO of coke more culpable for filling oceans with plastic than coke's shareholders like buffet who profit more from it than the CEO. Really bizarre phenomenon.

<comment><USER12> I think some of it is that he doesn't really live like a billionaire in a lot of respects, takes anti-wealth political positions (he's an opponent of California's Prop 13, for example pointing out that he pays less in property taxes for his Malibu estate than people with much more modest properties in California), is explicitly not forming a money-based dynasty in his family (he has given his kids "just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing") and intends to give away his fortune to charity. There's a pretty good summary of his views and actions in the Wikipedia article on him.

<comment><USER11> Not sure any of that offsets funding and profiting off of obesity epidemic and filling oceans with plastic.

Coke is killing ppl with coronavirus by causing massive obesity crisis in america.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not impressed in the least. Donating some money is easy if you own more that you can ever spend in a lifetime. Would be way more interested in which billionaires are doing the most harm.

<comment><USER7> I didn't want to make a site centered around shaming / punishment / anger.

I think it's a valid thing to make that data public though.

Lmk if you build the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure how they can be considered to be doing much, or any, good, when effectively they are passively siphoning off profits and despite all the "good" they do, as a class they get rapidly richer every year. That has always been a conundrum behind Bill Gates' charity. Of course, it's not really a conundrum. The charity is just tax-advantaged PR or tax-advantaged complementary investment masquerading as goodwill.

<comment><USER9> Also the idea that a significant amount of billionaire wealth is moved by "inspiration" rather than naked financial calculation is incredibly naive. Unless they somehow lucked into this, they are billionaires for a reason: naked financial calculation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd be interested to see this as a percentage of net worth or income as well. If a person with $1B gives it all away in one months that's about as philanthropic as you can get - much less so for someone with another $50B to spare. Tracking this on a "last month" basis with no information over time is just ridiculous too.

Also, the descriptions here seem pretty varied, and highly slanted.

eg. Balmer joined Microsoft when it was still a start-up, and just gets credited for the CEO years, rather than as helping grow it along the way.

Sergey Brin just has "Immigrant" for the second sentence. Martha Ingram "Author of three books". Neither of those provides any insight into the value that provided.

Overall that just makes the whole page look especially suspect, coupled with picking these 29 (or "About 30" as the About page puts it).

There's so little rationale here it makes the whole site look like advertising for something I can't work out.

<comment><USER7> Creator here -- didn't know I was posted to HN! I was planning on doing a Show HN tomorrow. Oof.

\- Totally agree. I have all the data on doing percentages. The "score" actually normalizes across their percentage. Will add this more visibly.

\- The "last month" is just to give any billionaire a chance to get to the top spot. Also open to making it more.... "last 3 months" or so? We had a lifetime ranking at first, but then the site felt too static and cast a lifetime judgement on people instead of giving them the opportunity to attain a top spot.

\- Agreed on the descriptions. All the data was crowdsourced, so we can go through and improve these.

\- Suspect in terms of what exactly? We definitely launched early (as one does). Open to more feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since the angle this website introduces itself with is:

"These are the world's most powerful people. Let's track their impact & inspire them to do more good"

This doesn't seem like a good motivator, because doing something for the sake of reputation doesn't directly incentivize solving a problem in an effective way.

And w.r.t. the title of the post, it seems like there are a few steps critical steps being omitted in the relationship between money donated and "doing good". For instance, not all organizations are as effective as others; if the motivator is to increase the $ count of donation, then what's the point in thinking about "doing good"?

Can I be ranked as "doing the most good" by contributing more money than anyone else in the list, while still doing measurable damage to parts of society that aren't being included in the metric?

See, if this website were neutral -- if it just showed the damn numbers without injecting it with an arbitrary value judgement, this would have been great. Instead, this serves to create anxiety to those who view it to do something for the wrong reasons.

The more I think about this, the more banal this site seems to me. I'd appreciate being pointed out if I'm missing something, but otherwise this website tells me more about the mindset of the authors than anything else.

<comment><USER7> Thoughtful perspective!

This is the v1 of the site and I'm looking to improve it.

\- How can I make it more neutral? \- Is it sometimes worthwhile to simply accelerate the deployment of capital? Can you combine the two incentives?

My mindset, to be clear, is that we want more people to strive to be like Bill Gates with their wealth. Even determining who that is right now is extraordinarily difficult. Making the data public is step #1, and then figuring out how to help them leverage philanthropy effectively is step #2.

<comment><USER15> "How can I make it more neutral?"

Just show the numbers. If there's something you'd like to show what the numbers mean, then be careful about explaining that. Make clear distinctions between metrics and goals. Think about all the metrics you think will tell you that you're approaching a goal; then find all the ways they will break. I already said how your metric-of-choice is broken and cheat-able.

"Is it sometimes worthwhile to simply accelerate the deployment of capital?"

Is this what you believe your role is?

\---

"My mindset, to be clear, is that we want more people to strive to be like Bill Gates with their wealth."

You're going to burn yourself out by trying to find human levers to change the world. Some of us will be there to welcome you to the club, but I know some people who haven't made it. I'm not one to say whether you should hop on or jump off that train. Usually, there's something else that's going on in my life that leads me to that kind of mindset.

There are contradictions in our language and value-systems, and it's total bullshit, but we chose to pretend to believe them because that's what you need to do to get in for the ride. Lots of people forget that they are pretending, and some of re-remember it in adulthood or something.

So the difficulty in determining in "who that is" might be one of those contradictions popping up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Which billiaires have donated the most money this month" is a more accurate headline. That any of their donations are good enough to offset the evil of having so much wealth concentrated in the hands of a single person is pretty doubtful, or at best controversial.

</comment><comment><USER17> Are they though? I don't want to spread baseless hate and I actually respect many of those people. But if someone would calculate total absolute positive and absolute negative for each of then I'm not sure that total would be above zero line. I talking about widespread and increasing economical inequality in all countries since last world war ans each billionaire is partially responsible for this process which I consider more negative than positive. I'm not advocating for some forceful wealth exchange but I think it is possible to at least discuss the issue.

</comment><comment><USER18> For anyone interested in this topic I highly recommend the book _Winners Take All_ by Anand Giridharadas and his various media appearances and upcoming TV show on Vice as food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting site but they frequently use those donations for tax purposes and moving money around in particular ways to get it back (outside of just taxes).

<comment><USER7> Do you have real data on that?

I see that argument everywhere, but haven't found substantial proof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Something feels almost PR spin about this. "No, look, see, billionaires Are doing good!" I can't help be feel suspect about this website.

<comment><USER7> What would make it feel less like that?

I was at first making it a lifetime-oriented ranking, but that felt like "shame these specific people!"

I think there's a middle-ground between celebration and shame that I'm trying to hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think a better metric would be which are the most effective for X.

It's up to whoever put in the work to have the ability to contribute, decide what cause they support. As long as most of the top causes get support we're in good shape. If they're being ineffective toward their chosen goal, that's something I'd like pointed out.

</comment><comment><USER7> Creator here - didn't know this was posted! Was going to launch tomorrow lol.

Anyways, here's the launch blog post: [https://www.zachtratar.com/introducing- billionaire-board.htm...](https://www.zachtratar.com/introducing-billionaire- board.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how the ranking would look like if we use the total amount donated in proportion to net worth. (not saying it's not. looks like multiple factors are involved)

A person donating $10 when his/her net worth $20 is different from a person donating the same amount but the net worth of, say, $1000.

</comment><comment><USER23> No one should have a billion dollars

<comment><USER24> I think a better way to put it is that nobody should have a billion dollars more than another person. The wealth isn't the problem if it's distributed evenly. The problem has always been inequality. It would be a fantastic world where everyone could do anything they wanted and have as much agency over their lives as possible.

<comment><USER25> > The wealth isn't the problem if it's distributed evenly.

Isn't that what these billionaires are doing? Giving their money away. The more billionaires donate, the closer we get to your world where everyone has as much agency over their lives as possible. (Including the donors, of course.)

<comment><USER16> Are they? Is wealth inequality decreasing?

Those are rhetorical questions, of course. The answers are no, and no.

If billionaires overall do tend to donate significant portions of their wealth, then the fact that wealth inequality is increasing in spite of that practice is hard evidence that individual charity is an ineffective means of lifting people out of poverty. If the converse is true -- that they aren't donating their wealth -- then that too suggests that something like a state is necessary to force their hand.

<comment><USER25> In all seriousness, the way wealth inequality is measured wouldn't tell you that in the first place. You'd have to look at _consumption_ inequality, which would include stuff like Larry Ellison's yachts (on the "high inequality" side) and perhaps poor people's final consumption resulting from these donations (on the "low inequality" side).

<comment><USER16> I never considered this as a potential measure, but it would be really good to track. Is this something you came up with or has there been any other work done to explore this notion of consumption equality?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just tax them.

<comment><USER27> True gifts are freely given, not forcibly taken.

<comment> munk-a That's sorta the crux of the matter - paying into society isn't a "gift" it's a debt. We all live together and support each other and nobody needs to get showered with glamour for doing their part according to their ability.

I don't want Billionaire to feel forced to give "true gifts" through social pressures or otherwise - I'd prefer if their wealth was properly utilized through a just level of taxation.

<comment><USER27> >properly utilized through a just level of taxation

Why'd you need so many words to say "taken?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is hilarious and pathetic at the same time. They should be paying tax.

</comment><comment><USER29> * Donated last month * Donation amount: 0$

[https://billionaireboard.com/billionaires/jack- ma](https://billionaireboard.com/billionaires/jack-ma)

<comment><USER17> He is probably busy banning github pages criticizing him and simply forgot to donate. We need to be more tolerant to our Great Leaders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Jeff Bezos should not be on any list championing charitable donations. He gives out the minimum possible for looking good on a PR release about it.

</comment><comment><USER31> This just looks like PR for the benevolent feudal lords.

Rather than "giving back", maybe these people should stop taking away in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is so cringey

<comment><USER7> What would you like to see different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Those that take an upper middle class salary and give away the other 999.9 million dollars. Funny how much that shortens the list.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not sure why this post was flagged or taken down. It follows the guidelines and is something I made.

Feeling quite bad about this situation.

</comment><comment><USER34> Surprised to see jack above bill

<comment><USER3> It's monthly. I'm not sure how confident the author can be about getting accurate data that quickly, or how significant it is even if it is accurate.

A moving average of last 12 months, if you really can get monthly data, would make more sense to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The ones who are properly taxed?

</comment><comment><USER36> Charles Koch, ranking 24, is definitely not doing any good and instead is doing a lot of bad: he contributes massively to crazy right-wing candidates, which ends up making the world a much worse place.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't like rankings like this. I'm not saying all of them, but at least a few made their money off of the backs of others, being ruthless in business, etc. How gracious of them to give money to people they hurt in the first place. I'm glad they are doing good, but let's not pretend they were completely altruistic.

Also, a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes, and the money was invested and growing. Its good we have it, but the "we gave away all this money" is an insignificant impact to them for multiple reasons.

<comment><USER38> >a number of these people donated money years ago to avoid taxes

This isn't how taxes work. If you donate money then you've only reduced your taxable principal. You "avoid taxes" in the sense that it's as if you never made that money. You don't magically reduce your burden any further than that.

People won't take your otherwise fine point seriously if you include this commonly made error.

<comment><USER37> Except for the fact that they are at least partially in control of the fund either through a DAF or their own charity. You're right they can't spend it on anything they want, but they have the ability to direct in many specific instances with few exceptions. Often if it's their own foundation, to further almost any goal they want. So yeah, they get to not pay taxes on their money and at least spend it partially how they want.

<comment><USER38> A DAF is just donating to a charity with an extra step, so let's put that aside.

They can't further "any" goal they want, it must be a charitable goal. Bill Gates can't take money from the B&M Foundation to buy himself a yacht. I don't really see what your point is. Anyone that donates money is avoiding taxes to spend money on something they want, where "something they want" is a charitable goal.

<comment> munk-a By running a charity and notably donating to it those people can get clout though and further raise themselves in the eyes of their peers while not paying very much for it. Additionally they can get some other soft benefits from the charity like hosting events with money they paid no taxes on, or, if they're Trump, just buying things they want with their charity fraudulently.

<comment><USER38> My original point was that a benefactor that stays within moral and written rules is not avoiding taxes, as kemiller2002 suggested. Breaking those rules is tangential to that point.

It's a common mistake that bothers me because it often is used to dismiss (or even demonize) what is, in the majority of cases, an altruistic act.

<comment><USER37> My point is that it's not necessarily an altruistic act. It's giving someone the choice of either paying the government or sheltering the money to be used within a limited set of circumstances at another time. Yes, in most cases they are putting in more money than they would pay in taxes, but they are maximizing their ability to influence a charitable instance at some point in time in the future. Also, you notice in that list it has their names? They could have made anonymous donations, but they didn't. They benefit from it, just not in a direct monetary sense. Cynical? Yes. True? In a number of cases also yes.

<comment> munk-a I would add that charitable donations can often be accompanied by strong obligations that hampers the efficiency of that aide - if a donation is made that requires none of the benefits to the homeless goes to people with a past history of drug use then resources need to be diverted to investigate the recipients and ensure that the accounting works out. Sometimes these obligations are burdensome enough that organizations will stop servicing portions of the population altogether or even refund a donation.

Chartiable donations can also come with requirements around evangelism which I personally find aborrent and, as has otherwise been pointed out, yes it's an absolute reduction in take home but abuse of the system is rife and the income reduction mechanic makes this really attractive to some folks if they're hit with a particularly hard year.

In Canada I've actually been pleased to discover that your retirement is mechanically a charity - investing into an RRSP (registered retirement savings plan) counts as a direct income reduction which can mean that swing years when options may be cashed out or other windfalls happen - can be put profitably towards your own future well being while also ensuring you don't become a burden later in life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> chizhik-pyzhik seems like a contradiction</comment>