Ask HN: Anyone else planning to head back to Microsoft? - <AUTHOR> With Microsoft's improvements in how they do business and greatly improved understanding of open source I'm really starting to think more seriously about heading back into their technology realm for some years and see how it works out. <comment><USER2> Not a chance. Once bitten twice shy.

Switching to an all-open-source ecosystem did not come without costs but now that I'm there I'd have to make all those costs again _and_ run the risk of another repetition.

Open source software is about as stress free as it gets and less stress is a good thing in my book, a factor they never mention in those 'total cost of ownership' graphs.

Stuff usually just works, usually works good enough and if it does not you can change it, it's like building things from clay rather than from blocks that won't fit together unless they were intended to fit together from day 1 (and they usually aren't).

You couldn't pay me to switch back to either Microsoft, Apple or any other closed source software provider and I try very hard to stay away from SAAS components for much the same reasons.

<comment><USER3> I was bitten too and I'll probably avoid their products & platforms in the future. What I see very positive from them is the act of contributing back. Perhaps they are maturing...

Nonetheless, you can be a SOB of a profit and world domination seeking corporation and embrace open source at the same time. Think Oracle or Google (and many others).

Also I fear this new wave a little bit more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When Windows 10 comes out I'll probably pull the trigger and get a Microsoft Surface for testing, but I don't think I'll ever leave OS X for Windows.

(to name a few) 1: Recently helped a friend install a new hard drive in a Lenovo Edge 15 only to find out the laptop has problems with Crucial SSDs (it brought back to many driver / hardware compatibility issues from my past jobs)

2: Features like Dashboard, Expose, Notifications have become real workflow time savers in OS X and I've never seen as good implementations in Windows.

3: I've never seen a PC laptop with a touchpad as good as on a Mac

4: the BSD / *nix base of OS X is to valuable to be without

5: Web development tools are just hands down better on OS X - Transmit, Sublime Text, color pickers, etc... theres just no equivalents on Windows.

6: Handoff in OS X with my iPhone is such a great convenience.

and to many more... I think Apple has lost they're way a bit and really need to focus on making OS X better; in recent years, iOS has received to much focus (IMO), but things are fine for now (so long as it doesn't get much worse)

And I can always throw Windows into a VM or bootcamp - it's much more difficult to put OS X into a VM on a PC.

<comment><USER5> > 3: I've never seen a PC laptop with a touchpad as good as on a Mac

I've customized mine with touchegg (made for GNU/Linux systems) and it does everything I've seen Mac users do and more. Need no Apple for that one, and there are probably Windows tools as well though I wouldn't know which.

> 6: Handoff in OS X with my iPhone is such a great convenience.

I don't know what "handoff" is, but regarding interoperability, a rooted Android phone running GNU tools (e.g. Linux Deploy app) is a dream when you have a GNU-based laptop/desktop operating system as well. I can browse my phone like a network drive and getting a shell is as easy as connecting to any old linux server.

This doesn't make your other points less valid, by the way. There is surely a good argument to be made for OS X.

<comment><USER6> Handoff lets you continue your current task on another device, from where you left off (it hands off the task). So if you have a text document open or you're writing an email on a mac, it will let you continue doing that on an iphone, with the text you entered on the mac already being there.

You can also make calls or send texts from a mac if your iphone is nearby.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.apple.com/ios/whats- new/continuity/](https://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/continuity/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nope. The Unix underpinnings of OS X are way too valuable for me.

Powershell is (imho) a verbose mess and is the current best attempt at making a working scripting language for Windows. I use Powershell all the time but its..inelegant. Give me bash scripting any time.

MS is always flirting with new technologies and sexy R&D, but at their heart they're never going to change.

<comment><USER9> Not only the base Unix underpinnings, but the sheer lack of support tools on Windows vs. Mac is frustrating. \- network problems? just try a quick curl (not on Windows) \- did a file transfer properly? do a quick md5 hash (not on Windows) \- need to do some quick data manipulation? write a quick Perl, Python, or Ruby script (not on Windows) \- connect to one of our remote servers? bring up terminal and ssh (not on Windows) \- move files around with sftp (not on Windows) \- remove all files in a directory tree older than 60 days? bring up terminal and do a quick find... -delete. (not on Windows). \- etc, etc, etc. Yes, all these tools can be installed on Windows, but they are on every Mac by default.

<comment><USER10> I have pretty much all of those tools on windows and all I needed to do was install Git for Windows, which is super easy.

It was a bit more work to set ansicon + Console2/ConsoleZ (although cmder might be an easier option), but now I can use standard bash scripts and do most of what I need easy.

In addition, this process was a one time deal. It's not like you have to set it up each time you want to ssh somewhere.

Why do I really use windows (vs some linux, I have no interest in Mac)?

Play most games (not on Mac or Linux)

Anything else that cygwin can't get me, I have Vagrant and VirtualBox.

Windows isn't that bad.

<comment><USER11> Git and Console2 are the first things I install after Chrome on Windows, but Git Bash only gets you so far. You quickly run into a wall because Git Bash is not Unix.

Although my opinion of OSX has soured with each new unstable version, it's hard to give up the Unix underpinning + mainstream app combo (Office and Creative Suite). PowerShell with Unix aliases aren't the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was playing around with a Surface Pro in a store a while back and genuinely loved it - I can imagine being very happy with a docking station at my desk that turns it into a full machine and just carrying it around as a tablet the rest of the time.

Two things hold me back. One is the lack of a POSIX console - I know that there are some possibilities to bring equivalent functionality to Windows, but I don't yet know enough about them to know if they're sufficient. The other much more significant issue is that testing on iOS devices is essential for my job, and something tells me Apple aren't about to release the iOS Simulator for Windows.

It's disappointing because when I switched from Windows to OS X (back in 2006 if I recall) it was a giant breath of fresh air - the OS felt so much simpler and cleaner than XP. But these days it's the reverse - every release of OS X feels messier and less reliable.

<comment><USER13> I would suggest playing with Cygwin - I use it all the time for access to Unix command line tools.

I work exclusively with Microsoft at work (MS Gold Partner consulting firm BI focused and also app dev). Thus, anything I build for a client or internal use won't be Unix-based, but I have to do a good amount of ad-hoc text munging and data transformation (a good number of CSVs and log files in various formats as data sources) where I can use any tools I need. I appreciate the strength of Unix tools for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes. I'm not about to leave Apple entirely but can see myself placing OS X, Linux and Windows on even pedestals in 2016. I went into OS X wholesale in 2004 and didn't look back until now. Windows 10 and the new direction they seem to be taking code-wise (wrt VS, IE/Edge, git & more) is appealing. What's also appealing is the wider range of hardware. I've bought almost everything Apple releases and am starting to feel like they really don't care for pro users or regular buyers, the new MacBook release was such a mess - it's all about being a mass market media company now.

The main thing that still bugs me about Windows though is the hideous text rendering (I know it's switchable with hacks, but hopefully 4K will resolve the default for me).

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm idly curious about whether Microsoft will ever "pull an OS X".

In my imagination, they'd drop their whole legacy OS except for an emulation layer, and port their Windows Store stuff to a new platform.

The new platform, as I imagine it, would be based on Linux and focus primarily on web apps and games. One part web-based cross-device UI runtime, one part serious gaming support.

The idea of Microsoft embracing Linux on the desktop is, I think, a popular April's Fools joke, but from my naïve perspective, it seems like a pretty reasonable idea.

I thought OS X was really cool in 2006, and since then I've become gradually more and more annoyed with it. I'm more and more confused by why I need to use this complicated operating system... I feel like its whole paradigm is dated and tedious.

Like when I run out of hard drive space. OS X will tell me with some ugly alert box that "you're out of space." No clue why. I have to download some external software that can figure this out by scanning my drives. Junk keeps accumulating in weird folders that I didn't know existed. I feel like I'm dealing with a huge bureaucracy.

And when I open Finder, for some reason I am presented with a (rather slow) list of, like, all files, in an intimidating and overwhelming way. Of course I know how file systems work, but in the shoes of an everyday computer user, the whole thing is unfriendly and weird.

Then there's the issue of all the overlapping windows that I'm always fidgeting with, resizing, moving, maximizing and unmaximizing. For some reason maximizing and unmaximizing feels like an extremely heavy task for the computer. I don't know why it takes more than a millisecond. It all adds up to make my user experience annoying and like I have to do unnecessary work.

Not to even mention iTunes and the App Store... Jeez! It's enough to make me question the whole narrative of technological progress. I think Microsoft could pretty easily make something convincingly better than all this.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Said "emulation layer" would basically be Wine. I'm afraid this whole MS-Linux speculation is just nonsensical, far fetched fantasy.

Dropping Windows entirely is certainly plausible, but they'd probably do it in favor of the Midori OS their research lab has been working on based on the managed runtime aspects they've been learning from Singularity.

 _Of course I know how file systems work, but in the shoes of an everyday computer user, the whole thing is unfriendly and weird._

If you consider this to even be a problem, then switching to Linux will not help with this. At all. It will only exacerbate it.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, I didn't know about Midori.

Yeah, it is fantasy. I don't know enough to say whether it's far-fetched. I don't think it's obviously nonsensical.

Linux of course has tons of advantages. A huge community, lots of hardware support, open source, etc. Microsoft has been talking about how they "love Linux." Why wouldn't it be a reasonable base for a new platform? Like how Apple went with XNU/Mach/BSD?

I'm not really talking about "switching to Linux". I'm talking about building a new operating system that uses Linux as the underlying kernel. Since it's my fantasy, I declare that this new operating system has a very clean and well- organized file manager...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've already been on the ASP.NET MVC stack for almost 2 years now and haven't looked back!! The tooling is just EXCELLENT!!! and honestly having used so many different languages, C# is hands down the best I've used. It just feels like they cherry picked the best features of all languages and packed it into C#. And Win8.1 (defaulted to desktop mode) on my new ThinkPad X1 Carbon is pretty damn good too!

</comment><comment><USER17> I'll get Surface 4 Pro if it'll ship with powerful enough processor and 16 gigs of RAM.

As for developing side, I already switched to C# and am very happy. It's clean, fast and reliable. LINQ is a beast.

</comment><comment><USER18> I know several people who love the tight integration that Microsoft's tools have, from the .NET environment (and multiple languages) to their cloud tools to their database integration. If you buy into their way of doing things, it seems to be a pretty great work environment all around. Granted none of this really has anything to do with their "improved understanding of open source" or "how they do business", so take it for what it's worth (anecdotal evidence).

</comment><comment><USER19> Nope. As long as we keep deploying on Linux there is no point in developing on Windows. I'm perfectly happy to use Ubuntu as my desktop, most people around me use Macs. A VM for testing with IE will be enough and there are web services for that.

With the open sourcing of .NET we're probably going to see .NET applications running on Linux servers too. So Windows clients get less and less valuable. Remember that there is also a reduced version of Visual Studio for OS X and Linux now. Chances are that MS is sacrificing Windows (for developers) to increase the market share of Azure (Linux servers there).

The general public will keep buying whatever they find at the mall.

(Edit: typos)

<comment><USER20> Visual Studio Code (for OS X and Linux) are glorified code editors, not full- blown IDEs. They appear to be well done, and a similar experience to Visual Studio for editing code, but Visual Studio as an IDE is much more than an editor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Last I checked, running a unix environment was still a difficult experience without running a VM. That's a deal breaker for a development platform.

Good games, though.

</comment><comment><USER22> I maintain a 250 Gb partition on my Mac that's dedicated to Windows. While I primarily use it for gaming, I also intend to install both Windows 10 and VS2015 on it. Bootcamp was a key selling point to me for purchasing a Mac when I was in the market for a new desktop.

<comment><USER23> This is actually a really good point, and perhaps one _against_ OSX. I'm not really a Windows guy, but I can keep a partition with Windows super easily for the things I do need Windows for. I can't do that from Windows to OSX. That's not Windows fault, because Apple prevents you from doing so, but if you're on Windows, you can't (concurrently) run OSX.

<comment><USER24> Well not officially. There are easy workarounds though and I'm running a OSX VM right now on my Windows box for example.

<comment><USER23> Fair enough, I guess I was only referring to "official" channels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I initially read this as returning to work for Microsoft.

I actually never left their tech realm. Even though both my work and home machine run flavours of Linux, I fell in love with Windows Phone back on WP7 and haven't been able to go back to Android of iOS since. If the integration between phone and desktop are really as tight as they look to be in Windows 10, I may consider converting my home machine to Windows, but at work running the same OS on my box as I do in prod is way too valuable.

</comment><comment><USER26> I built a PC -- my first in ~10 years -- because I want to follow what will be going on with Windows 10. I won't get rid of my Mac anytime soon, though, but I do agree with the sentiment that Apple has lost its way in parts. I don't feel the level of excitement for OS X as a couple of years back.

<comment><USER27> I don't think that's Apple losing its way, more just the operating system having matured. They're still adding some cool features (Continuity being the latest major new thing) but for the most part, it doesn't change much.

The same is happening on iOS really. It's becoming more and more boring - in a good way. It's reached a point where it's pretty much complete and now they're just tweaking bits, adding a few new features as things become possible, etc.

Windows 8, on the other hand, was really exciting - but not in a good way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> No, because every time I interact with something they make, it's a crappy experience. Documentation is awful. Everything they do is crazy verbose and feels overengineered and underengineered at the same time, somehow. Windows is unpleasant to use every single time I dip my toe back into it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've been flirting with it. I've been a Windows desktop user throughout, but the big appeal to using their platforms more is that Microsoft always makes it's "cloud services" features optional, rather than strongarming people into storing data on their servers.

</comment><comment><USER30> I might get a Surface or a Yoga or something to play with, but I'm sticking with Arch Linux for my actual desktop because it best suits what I do.

</comment><comment><USER31> Not really, if any I would migrate to Linux (Ubuntu). But OSX apps really spoiled me.

I only use Windows for Steam. Boot, play, logout, hand sanitizer, back to OSX.

I just hate Windows UI, that metro thingy. The explorer and button layout is just a mess. Buttons with icons, difference sizes.

eg:

[http://media.askvg.com/articles/images3/Windows_8_Explorer_R...](http://media.askvg.com/articles/images3/Windows_8_Explorer_Ribbon.png)

vs

[http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac- os-x-...](http://cdn.osxdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/mac-os-x-finder- column-view.JPG)

I really hope windows 10 cleans that mess.

<comment><USER32> Yep, i have one windows partition on one machine to run steam. My macbook runs linux, not in a vm, wiped osx off the drive and installed linux in is place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Has anyone gone through the horror of doing things like installing python or mysql on a windows machine? Maybe it's easier nowadays, but last time I tried installing python I had to follow multiple tutorials, one of which actually worked. Installing mysql was a little more pain-free, but still too much work.

Also the lack of a linux/unix/whatever shell in windows? There's no way to measure the infinite utility in having a shell at your fingertips on a mac. I use the shell everyday, not sure how anybody could get on without one.

<comment><USER34> I would be really curious to hear what issues you have had installing Python on Windows? As far as I can remember it has been just clicking through wizard and nothing more.

<comment><USER33> Last time I did was at least several years ago. The experience was terrible enough that I ran and never came back. To be honest I don't remember what exactly I had to do, but it wasn't as simple as following an install wizard. Lot's of little hack-ish type stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Many people have been burned by Microsoft's grandiose promises and biting the bullet early on. See Kinect, Surface RT adopters, Windows Phone 7 adopters (no WP8 update), Windows 8 adopters (with the promise of 100,000 apps in the first 90 days), HoloLens which I'm sure will disappoint many after they buy it and they see it's nothing like what Microsoft showed on stage, and so on.

The best advice is to wait a few years and see if Microsoft is _really_ following through on its promises instead of just buying its hype.

<comment><USER36> Besides products that get killed, Microsoft has a decades long history of documented bad behavior in every arena they operate in. I'm not about to reverse my distrust of them this quickly. I'm open to changing my opinion, but as of _today_ , this feels like an abused spouse asking their friends to forgive their abuser because of an empty promise and a relatively short term change of behavior. No. If they can keep up the good work for like 5 or 10 years, then maybe the ship has really turned around, but right now this feels like a company feeling irrelevant doing anything they can to bring attention back on themselves.

edit: Thanks for the downvotes on a Ask HN.

<comment><USER20> There's a really good chance this is a "new" Microsoft. Gates and Ballmer were the "old school" Microsoft that only thought that obstructing the competition was the best path to success. The new CEO Satya Nadela built the Azure platform, the most "open" technology that Microsoft has. His mantra is "mobile first, cloud first". This outlook is the opposite of Ballmer's, which was to drive everybody back to Windows.

Microsoft is now a multi-device, multi-technology company that is focused on getting their software and services on as many platforms as possible. The cloud and their services are their future, if they cannot make the transition to interoperability, they will collapse. Prior to this, Microsoft was structured in such a way that everything depended on their OS, so Microsoft declared war on OS/2, Linux and MacOS.

Windows sold Office, and Office and NT sold the enterprise market.

Now, any platform sells office, mobile and desktop. Windows sells Microsoft's cloud services like OneDrive and Office 365, but so does OS X now. NT drove enterprise revenues, but now it's Windows Azure running Linux or Windows, either way Microsoft makes money in hosting it. For consumers, Windows licenses were a cash cow for Microsoft, but Apple has set the price of Operating Systems to $0 with their upgrade policy, now Microsoft is following with free Windows 10 licenses for a year. My guess is that they will bundle Windows licensing as a service that gives you access to Office , XBOX Live and other Microsoft properties, so it will is less of a Windows license and more of a Microsoft Experience license. Either way, if you use Microsoft's services on any platform, Microsoft will still earn their revenue.

To sum that up, Microsoft's interests are no longer in opposition to the rest of the computing market, it is in alignment with it due to their multi- platform strategy. They are in a position to more easily do things to earn your trust, as those things will also add to their revenues.

<comment><USER36> Ok... but we've seen this new, better Microsoft behavior for like 2 or 3 years while they've been in a pretty down or leveled position after a history of bad behavior dating back to basically their inception. Have they genuinely changed or are they just being forced by their new market positions to behave better? None of your examples point to a MS doing things for the right reasons and trying to regain trust, they point to a MS that ran out of options. I don't trust a dog to not run away while he's locked in a kennel, I trust him to not run away because _he has no choice_.

What happens if they gain a dominant or monopoly position in something again, are we just supposed to trust that they won't behave badly once their market pressure is gone? A new CEO and a company the size of MS won't magically change their company culture overnight (especially with a CEO who was previously a longstanding MS employee who participated in past wrongdoings). Rebuilding trust takes more time than this.

<comment><USER20> Well, I said they are in a better position to do the things to earn your trust, I didn't say you should necessarily have it yet.

Microsoft picked Satya because they were backed into a corner, but everything I've seen from this man tells me he's the real deal and believes that a multi- platform strategy is the right then and the best way to earn revenue. However, as with any company, expect them to have a bias towards things that will make them the most money. At the present time and the foreseeable future, for me, it appears that the interests of Microsoft are in alignment with the interests of users of all platforms.

If they gain the dominant or monopoly position in something again...what would that be, and in what decade do you suggest it will happen? If holographic computing somehow takes off, that appears to be the only place where they are positioned to lead a market in the near future.

If it's a question of Apple or Microsoft, Microsoft appears to be the good guy these days, as Apple is still building their walled garden. Microsoft is being a major contributor to Open Source code though. Everything on the new Microsoft stack is getting open sourced as quickly as possible. They make the best commercial software tool in the world for making software (Visual Studio), and it is particularly adept at deploying .NET software, so they are opening that up to the world to get .NET in as many places as people want it. They are also opening up Visual Studio to a variety of languages, and making it a development tool for cross platform development for iOS and Android. They want to sell Visual Studio.

Trust takes time though. Keep your eye on them and compare Microsoft to their peers, you may be surprised by what you see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> nope, cant say ill ever trust a corporation like Microsoft to do my thinking for me, i doubt theyll ever outlive their legacy for being the mcdonalds of software, and i really cant ever imagine software development being better in any Microsoft environment that it is in a linux environment.

<comment><USER38> Well, I haven't found anything as good as Visual Studio on either Mac or Linux. I work at a games studio and everyone works on Windows. Back when I was a CS student I would swear by Linux for development,but nowadays I would rather not bother - everything just works for us on Windows.

<comment><USER32> Anything by Jetbrains, i use phpstorm and clion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'll happily use their open-source tech if it is compelling (e.g. TypeScript). That doesn't make me want to leave OSX as dev platform though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Once Windows 10 is released, I'll be clearing out my HDD and upgrading. While my "main OS" is Elementary, I still have a partition available for Windows so I can play games with my friends. And if the future Surfaces are as pleasant to use as the Surface 3 is, I may save my pennies and buy one. We'll see.

</comment><comment><USER41> THe one killer product that microsoft still do is AD.

I'm 100% linux, however if I ever want to do any sort of centralised user database, AD is the key product I'd use.

Unlike most other things, it just works. It's also really simple to integrate with OSX and linux (assuming you bind directly with SSSD, and don't do any silly translation.)

</comment><comment><USER42> I always try to keep a few fingers dipped into a current Microsoft system. I'm not a 10xer, my value to a company is in being able to communicate with my coworkers, smooth edges, give ideas, et cetera. The better I can understand what other people are working with, the more valuable I can be. I'm not a "windows person" but I am still able to get around because I can bring my unixy debugging stuff as a general technique.

Knowing some Windows is basically like trying to stay current with which "sports" are being played - my coworkers know I'm not really into either, but being able to follow along reduces the impedance mismatch significantly.

</comment><comment><USER43> I only use Windows for gaming and it's going to stay that way unless OS X completely drives me away. Each person's preference is different when it comes to OS, and I am not loyal to any (have used Win/Mac/Linux and they all have their strong points). When it comes to day-to-day use, though, I prefer Mac OS by a long shot. I just prefer the aesthetic, apps, and other small things it offers vs. other platforms. It's not necessarily "better" it just fits my preferences more than any other OS.

</comment><comment><USER44> No. I don't play games, and I don't use any high end platform specific software, so I have no reason to even consider it. Also, the thought of using Windows again makes me cringe.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm forced to use Windows for the moment, and even with their current change in direction, I'm still headed towards full-time GNU/Linux as soon as possible.

</comment><comment><USER46> Never left them in the first place. Great products actually.

Also lots of hardware available, everything is upgradeable. Not like MBP with soldered RAM, soldered SSD, weak ventilation system, no LAN and just 2 USB ports. Can buy a laptop or assemble your own desktop workstation.

Linux I don't know. It still looks ugly and no great apps available for it. Visual Studio for Linux? Adobe tools for Linux? Of course not. Just amateur toys and fonts with ragged edges. Thanks but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER47> What puzzles me is that MS refuses to get away from the OS in many many versions: Home, Pro, Enterprise, Education, Mobile and Mobile Enterprise. You would think that they would have copied Apple on OS and Server and be done with it.

source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Editions_and_pricing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Editions_and_pricing)

<comment><USER48> Most people only need Home. That changes when you need to log into an Active Directory, but suffices for most personal use. This differentiation allows Microsoft to sell two different SKUs and makes Windows more cost effective for 90% of households. For most users, the question will be Home or Pro. It also shouldn't be a surprise that for the last several years you can buy a Pro Pack for Home that will upgrade your system to the Pro SKU for about the same cost as the difference between Home and Pro.

If you need one of the other SKUs, they are special circumstances and you probably already know which version you need, and you also will be getting those licenses through non-retail channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I may pick up the next iteration of the Surface with Windows 10 once it's released. I may also install the Windows 10 beta on an old laptop...

</comment><comment><USER50> > With Microsoft's improvements in how they do business and greatly improved > understanding of open source I'm really starting to think more seriously > about heading back into their technology realm for some years and see how it > works out.

I never completely left it, especially not at <dayjob>, but I certainly feel more _interested_ in it then I have for a while.

</comment><comment><USER51> No matter how great Windows becomes, until there's a machine with a trackpad on par with the Macbook, I won't be switching.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm already there. Considering the moves MSFT is making towards open source, I think their future is a lot brighter than a lot of people might think. We could very well see a total renaissance for the .NET stack, with MSFT ultimately delivering cross-platform development tools that will run on Linux just as well as they run on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER53> No the best UI. Not Unix. Not a major mobile platform. Dominates a huge but dying market. Why would you do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I always over time consider options, Microsoft doesn't have Gates running it any more so maybe they really are turning over a new leaf. It was heavy on my mind this week and lead to the question, not making any hasty moves.

<comment><USER48> Gates hasn't been at the helm for a decade as he's been working on his foundation ... until recently -- now Gates is actually back but not running things. I think you meant Balmer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Over the next year, I'll be switching to a 2015/2016 Surface Pro with windows 10 and a desktop tower dual booting win10 and ubuntu. If necessary, I'll continue to buy second hand Apple laptops for iOS development.

</comment><comment><USER55> enjoy powershell

</comment><comment><USER56> no matter how hard they try, it's still a Microsoft vs Sillicon Valley fight. very few ppl will bet on Microsoft.

<comment><USER57> Who developed the language Angular 2 will be using?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Nope :)

</comment><comment><USER59> on it its so much fun on sp3</comment>


Show HN: Gitcase.io – Showcase your GitHub repos - <AUTHOR> http://gitcase.io/

<comment><USER2> Hm, that's not bad but at it's current it doesn't give really anything else than a _cleaner_ look for the not-so-technical user to see your repos and everything.

Maybe if you add additional info from the users profile and some sort of user related stats (languages, lines of code, etc.), combined with a CV-like structure might turn into something useful.

I liked the visuals btw.

</comment><comment> 97-109-107 I'd suggest adding a field like 'please input your username' [go]

so there's less hopping around the url bar.

</comment><comment><USER3> This would be an awesome service, almost something like the Heroku Deploy button or Codepen's demo tool, but I think the website is down!

<comment><AUTHOR> That was weird, it just died. It's up now again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not seeing much added value over one's GitHub profile page. If there was a way to reorder, and maybe some other features

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, this was merely a stress test of our servers and a sneak peek at what's coming. We are currently focused on adding the possibility for users to rearrange / make changes to their pages by logging in with GitHub.

<comment><USER5> That would be interesting, as well as some additional features around influencing the look and feel of the page, listing sources before forks, removing repos, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


Aging Parents with Lots of Stuff, and Children Who Don't Want It - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/your-money/aging-parents-with-lots-of-stuff-and-children-who-dont-want-it.html <comment><USER2> It's definitely a generational thing and younger folks have never seen a repair and retain society or scarcity that drives that hoarding attitude. And unless they collect or inherit vintage equipment (survivor bias aside) they haven't purchased anything designed to last many years much less decades.

Before anyone accuses me of slagging on Millennials I don't mean it that way. I mean since we have a manufacturing base that is in my opinion far more aggressive about planned obsolescence than 50+ years ago and several generations used to cheap, low quality goods manufactured overseas why would they want or need anything else? We value the novel and inexpensive over the durable.

<comment><USER3> In the context of this article I'm not sure if it has so much to do with repair and retain as opposed to simply not wanting to own a bunch of stuff that will take up space and never get used. Fine china, silverware, crystal, etc.

<comment><USER4> I've always been annoyed by "fine China". If something is so fragile that it can't be used, then it is worthless to me.

On the flip side, it's kind of interesting that products made in china are now synonymous with "cheap crap", while at one time we held finely made, fragile cups from China on display in our homes.

<comment><USER5> Fine china is fun. There is an endless and very cheap supply of these things on the fleamarket, so one can use them with abandon. If they break, just get more.

<comment><USER6> This is my opinion too. You can eat off great china for next to nothing.

Low-end auction houses are also great places to pick up whole sets on the cheap. At the very worst these are a lot more interesting than plain white junk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It is true that culling the volume of things owned by parents can be a nightmare. I had to do this for my grandmother years ago and am starting to help parents with the same. It is amazing to me the volume of things they have held onto all these years for no discernible reason.

Years ago I committed to reducing the clutter in my life. It was such a pivotal moment. It was no longer necessary to move things from here to there in order to put up Christmas decorations, etc. I do think that overall we see value in things that truly have no monetary value all while keeping this item of "value" in the attic or in a box without seeing the light of day for decades. Things take a great deal of time and energy and for me personally, there seemed to be a connection between a disorganized living space with a disorganized mind/life. I cleaned all of that up and found I had better health, had time for the things I enjoy most in life, and was far happier than I would have imagined by having "less."

<comment><USER8> Came to a similar epiphany when I had to move out on short notice. Since then I follow what I call the "1 suit case philosophy" \- If I can't fit all my stuff into one standard size suit case and fly, then I have too much stuff.

<comment><USER9> That will last until you are married and have children.

<comment><USER10> You move to a 2 suitcase per person philosophy, but I think it's still a valuable approach.

Even if you keep around some stuff that are not vital but 'nice to have', maintaining a restricted set of things that are enough to live your life if the whole family had to move without notice helps for peace of mind.

<comment><USER11> What if your wife does not agree with your philosophy? What if your children don't?

Of course, YMMV, but in my experience life is generally less simple once you share it with other people.

<comment><USER12> If you truly embrace that philosophy you will not be able to marry someone who does not also follow it. It's like a religion and your SO's things will be a daily affront to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know how it is in the US, but for me in the UK part of this is space in the house.

I make more money than my parents ever did, and I didn't move into a ridiculously overpriced city, but there's no way I'll ever own a house as large as they did.

I remember growing up in a variety of houses that had, get this, a dining room that _wasn 't_ just a table in the kitchen, a living room, _and another room_ that was just kept neat and tidy for visitors. A whole room in the house on the ground floor, used only a couple of times a month. It was a big room too. Enough space for a half-dozen people to sit down. The amount of space my parents had in their houses is just amazing in retrospect. Of course, in a number of countries that's still pretty standard. Like having a place to put a washing machine and associated; us suckers in the UK think it's normal to put that lot in the kitchen, jammed in with the tiny cupboards. I mean, my parents had a dryer AND a chest freezer just kept out in another room. Well, my future sure looks a lot more depressing now that I've thought about this :)

<comment><USER14> The house I live in now was half the size and had a family with 5 kids living in it originally (Old school neighbours informed me)

I share it only with my wife and now it's in a big city with facilities (Back then they were rural) and it's the smallest house of all my friends.

Did your parents live in a city the size you currently live in, the same distance out from the entertainment district? Same hospital access, same standard of schooling etc?

I have no idea of your case but people often forget how little their parents/grandparents really had compared to what we've come to expect.

<comment><USER13> Looked up the last one I could remember the address of; looks like it would go for about 15 to 20 times the median UK full-time salary today. Between them, when they bought it, they probably made about three times the median UK full- time salary of the day (so about 50% more than average - well off but not rich). It's not anywhere special; it's just in a town.

Space was cheap when my parents were buying; I don't think there's any doubt abut that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I just don't want any more stuff.

I came to a realisation that much of what our society is about is focused on getting people to buy more stuff.

I don't want it. Minimise the stuff.

edit: I'm still surrounded by piles of it. Getting rid of stuff is hard. There's a sense of "value" attached to stuff even if you'd never miss it if you never saw it again.

<comment><USER16> I once made a comment like this to my father. His response was: "that feeling is a luxury of having grown up with a plentitude of stuff". And I think he's got a point. It's really easy to get rid of stuff if you know that you can replace it (or at least replace its function). If you travel to places where "stuff" is not plentiful, people cherish their belongings (stuff) more

<comment><USER17> 100% the truth. My family had below-average income and all I sought to do was augment my life with stuff through my early 20's. As I've grown older I totally understand that it didn't make me happy (quite the opposite), but that realization doesn't set in until you've had the stuff in the first place. I saw much the same pattern with other poor kids I grew up with who went on to make good money.

<comment><USER18> This is overgeneralizing par excellence. For a counterexample, I grew up with not very much money and now make good money, and I'm far _less_ into getting and having stuff than all of my born-rich friends. My slight tendency to hoard is more than balanced out by the fact that I don't feel nearly the need to or comfort with acquiring unnecessary things that all my friends do.

<comment><USER19> Put of interest, what do you hoard? I'm similar - I don't spend much money, but I do (at times) find myself surrounded by crap or tools or the detritus of 'hobbies' that I tired of. Had another clear out lately and feeling great for it, though likely need another round or two...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't really see this mentioned by anyone, but mobility is also a big factor. There are a lot of people who no longer live anywhere near where they grew up or where their parents or extended family live now. Great solid furniture (or anything 2+ states away from your home) is expensive to move. My parents may have a great desk that I'd love to have someday - but probably not if it means I have to arrange to ship it from Arizona to Chicago and wonder if it's still going to be so great after the stresses of moving. I still have some of the things they left behind when they moved like the head and foot boards for my childhood bed - taking up space in the garage, maybe to be useful if having kids had been part of my lot in life. As it is, they'll end up in the trash when I get around to cleaning the garage or move.

A lot of the place in the world for family heirlooms went the way of the family homestead.

<comment><USER21> Always check to see if a place near you will accept furniture items as a donation. (Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.) If nothing else you get a tax credit for the donation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was a minimalist before it was cool. But I'm also wabi sabi. I would rather have something used. Not only do you get more for your money, but the history gives it character. That being said, it has to be well made and my style.

So I probably don't want my parents' curtains, but I will see about their table, dresser, old household tools like scissors, etc. A recent visit to a restaurant decorated in a style called rustic chic has me rethinking even my narrow style requirements. I used to be zen minimalist. Like my silverware has no engraving, it's flat and plain. But the restaurant had these old plates, forks, and knives. None of them matched but there was an overall similar style, and they were probably expensive when they were new. So I might consider my parents' old china or crystal, but instead of locking it away I would try to use it every day.

And books and photographs can be shelved or wall-mounted, taking up negligible volume --- up to a point, but still I would have hard time parting with even a single old photo.

<comment><USER23> I find it funny that someone who calls themselves a minimalist would keep physical books.

<comment><USER24> Minimalism isn't about having the least amount of stuff possible. It is about only having stuff that you need or deeply care about. Books can be one of those things. So is art. Or specialist tools.

<comment><USER25> >It is about only having stuff that you need or deeply care about.

Couldn't anyone be a minimalist by that logic? I suppose a vague term like that can quickly become meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I moved to a house this month. First time in a house since I was at my family's home. I had a twilight zone moment last week when I realised that literally nobody else on my street uses their garage to store their car. Every garage is just full of stuff. How do you accumulate that much stuff that you need what's essentially a storage locker at your home?

When I was younger I had a moment where I was sick of my computer cable hoarding. Every device gives you cables and you never know which one of your ball of 200 you're going to need. I eventually concluded that re-buying things is cheaper than the cost to my happiness by having to store these things forever, not knowing which you'll actually need.

<comment><USER27> OK, this is a very specific point to comment on, but - I'd disagree with you about the computer cables.

I occasionally get annoyed by my Big Box Of Cables: I used to work in digital filmmaking, so I've really got a LOT of cables in there. And it's a pain to have to wrap 'em, store 'em, and periodically cull 'em (I think I can safely chuck out the SVideo cables now...).

But whenever I need a cable whilst working, I can check that box, and after a bit of digging, it's usually in there. 5 minutes lost max.

If I don't have a cable in that box, I either have to go out to buy one - total time loss between 25 min and 2 hours depending on whether I need to journey to Maplin or can just get it locally - or buy from Amazon, which could be a day lost if the task I need the cable for is on the critical path for whatever I'm doing.

Local storage is sometimes more efficient.

(Having said that, I did make one change a while back. Unless I'm really, really sure I will need more, I only ever keep 2 of a specific cable type. At one point the spare cat-5 was threatening to take over the house.)

<comment><USER28> The key is to wrap them up somehow (I put mine in freezer bags) so they don't get tangled while in storage. The parent post's comment about a ball of cables suggests they don't do this. That can make storing lots of cables feel like a much worse idea than it actually is.

If you have them in freezer bags or whatever, on the other hand, you can just chuck them all in a box or bag, put it somewhere you can't see it, and you're done. When you need a cable or adapter or widget that you're certain you've got, rummage through your collection until you find it.

You're also less likely to lose any little caps or adapters that these things sometimes come with.

<comment><USER27> That's a really clever idea, and I am absolutely going to do that from now on.

(I just wrap 'em neatly currently. The film industry is good at techniques for cable control. But I've not heard the "freezer bag" idea before! )

<comment><USER28> Go forth and spread the word!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also germane: [http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html](http://paulgraham.com/stuff.html) . Try doing "The Possessions Exercise:" [https://jakeseliger.com/2010/02/13/the- possessions-exercise-...](https://jakeseliger.com/2010/02/13/the-possessions- exercise-according-to-geoffrey-miller/) and you may find interesting results.

<comment><USER29> I don't understand why he holds on to books? I have a couple of books that I hold on for frequent references, but the rest I just donate when I'm done. I'm sure my house makes it look like I don't care about books, but I would rather my shelves are a TODO list of things to read, not a dust gathering collection of things I've read in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> When my great-grandparents died I was part of the family that went through and made the decisions on what to keep and distribute in the family and what to ditch. When we couldn't find any takers for some clearly dear items (to my great-grandparents), into the trash or donation box they went. There simply wasn't time or interest to sort through two lifetime's worth of sentimental mementos that really only meant something to them.

Of both of them, the things anybody really kept fell into two camps: practical, furniture, bedding, that sort of thing and small tokens of general family interest like my great-grandfather's WW2 dog tags, or photos of distant relatives for the genealogy enthusiasts. There was some grumbling over having to take some of the furniture.

In a few years, I'll be dealing with this same situation again with my grandmother, my father and then my mother (if they go in that expected order). I'm trying to convince them to have a plan for what to do with all their collected stuff, because I don't really want any of it outside of again, a few general family items -- I definitely do not want their furniture.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's amazing how little the household stuff is actually worth. Maybe a few cents on the dollar.

<comment><USER32> This is what I recommend to people moving into a new place: Check your local classifieds toward the end of the month when leases expire.

Tons of stuff for cheap since everyone is trying to get rid of things, but nobody is buying.

My best deal was when I got them to help me carry over a coffee table, mini- dining table and 5 chairs. Of course I paid full price.

P.S. if you mail a lot of things, you can usually buy old stamps on Ebay for ~65 cents on the dollar from collectors whose stamps aren't valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you go to Montreal, you'll see the solution adopted by rural people when they moved to the city in the first half of the 20th century: backyard sheds. I don't know about the US, but here in rural Quebec, people in my parents' generation tend to accumulate stuff in part, I think, because my grandparent's generation lived in relative poverty, and poor people tended to hang on to stuff just in case it could be useful at some point; for instance, when you got a new car, you'd keep the old one behind the shed so you could strip it for parts.

</comment><comment><USER34> I hear this pride in having few 'things' from some folks - but it seems like it frequently comes from people who aren't creative, enjoy making things, or have non-computer related hobbies.

<comment><USER35> Good point. Reading this thread I was wondering what of my crap is pass down able.

Tools (lots of them), art, and furniture (we buy mid-century designer).

Everything else is trash. Why do we keep trash? Why do we buy trash?

<comment><USER36> _Why do we buy trash?_

Because the sad simple truth is that buying trash, using it until it breaks and then buying a new one often makes more financial sense than trying to buy quality.

<comment><USER19> And not only that - buying trash today when you know that you'll be moving soon and possibly have a better income next time you buy. We are putting off major purchases because we can - because there is that option, and the user value of of 'trash' is 80% of that of the version that costs 10 times as much.

<comment><USER36> Also, at least in the home electronics space, there is a good chance that the 'trash' in 3 years time will be better than the quality product today (in short term functionality if not in longevity).

12 years ago I bought the best quality TV I could afford. And while it still works perfectly, it's objectively worse in just about every way then a current TV costing 20% of what I paid for it. However since it was so expensive and still works I cannot really bring myself to replace it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> We're going through this right now with my grand parents. They lived a life in the country, for decades in the home they built (or started building but never actually finished), buying and selling antiques and other... stuff. It's hard. They want to downsize to a small apartment, but telling my grandfather that it means we have to sell his dozen tractors, in various states of disrepair or disassembly, because none of their children or grandchildren want them, breaks his heart.

</comment><comment><USER38> 1\. Huge majority of stuff I used to have in 'volume' is now digital - Books, DVDs, CDs, records of certification, documents in general.

2\. Technology stuff I had is far smaller (think transition from CRT to LCD screens).

3\. I cant afford anywhere NEAR the size property that my parents would have so the number of actual furniture items I can own is already significantly reduced, and this in turn includes available storage space.

</comment><comment><USER39> In part that could be because new generation can't hope to make money by owning their homes - rapid appreciation of homes was one-off thing and it hit their limit - homes aren't affordable for too many people now so they just can't appreciate more.

So, they don't want to own big homes, or at all. Smaller homes (probably condos) means less stuff.

<comment><USER40> Homes are definitely still appreciating - probably more so in the last decade than any time before. The problem is that they've increased to a point where most can no longer afford to enter the market. Someone, somewhere _is_ capturing that wealth, though.

<comment><USER41> If people can't afford them then there must be an upper limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think another aspect of this might be that our prized possessions are increasingly digital and take up approximately zero volume in real space. If my apartment burned down right now, the only thing I'd consider truly irreplaceable is the data on my hard drives.

Well, and my dad's old circular slide rule from his college days.

<comment><USER43> No offsite backups?

<comment><USER42> I don't have the upload bandwidth for offsite backups. But I do have my computer syncing to an external disk every 15 minutes, which I can grab and leave with at any time.

<comment><USER43> You should rotate that disk every week or so, and keep the rotated one somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Reminds me a recent story: a friend's girlfriend, in her 50's, recently took off a month off to help move her widowed mother, in her 70's, down to a new retirement place in Florida. She took all her stuff from a 3000 sq ft house.

My two observations:

1\. The economic price for someone to take a month off to move and rearrange a sizeable household is nontrivial.

2\. That someone would desire to spent the rest of their days in a big house full of stuff is foreign to me. _This_ is the generational divide.

The formation of a estate filled with physical possessions is a prime driver for a lot of older folks. The younger set isn't so interested in that.

My ideal retirement: a bed, a desk, and a laptop in a small flat on the left bank in Paris.

This is going to have a big impact on several industries. In the future, fine furniture and china manufacturers are going to look like furriers today.

</comment><comment><USER45> Yeah, one doesn't need "stuff". Then try replacing the light bulb, connecting washing machine, assembling your bed, or preparing the meal without "stuff". Softening the ground for a new rent-to-own startup? Poverty industry FTW.

<comment><USER46> This post is really bad but I like the idea of needing a special tool I inherited from my parents to change a light bulb

<comment><USER45> Ladder might be useful.

<comment><USER47> Stand on a chair? Unless you have wicked high ceilings I guess

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> My wife's parents got stuck cleaning out my wife's grandparents house when they moved to assisted living. It was enough of an eye-opener that they did a huge purging when they got back home and ended up moving into a sparsely- furnished garden home. Even after slimming down, they continue to divest themselves of things. We are very grateful to know that we won't have a nightmare on our hands when it is time for us to help them move.

My family is another story. My dad is a collector of all sorts of things: vintage toys, LGB trains, 1930s radios, fine guitars... He has a 40' long storage unit just full of stuff. I dread the day we have to deal with it all.

<comment><USER49> I have so much stuff. It's not hoarding, really. I get rid of junk. I just have several houses and a few storage units. I've scads of music gear, tools, vehicles, etc.

My kids jokingly lament the need to go through it after I die. Meh... At least it is organized. I kinda like the idea of leaving them a giant task. Much of it is nominally valuable. They will be busy for quite a while. This makes me smile. Knowing them, they will enjoy it as well.

<comment><USER50> It's really interesting to watch that TV show, American Pickers, because you can see in different episodes all sides of this equation. Some people are just straight up hoarders. Some people have very meticulously cataloged collections, they're just _big_. And sometimes you have people who have been left one of the above by their parents, and invariably just want to get rid of it and find it extremely emotionally trying.

Take that last one to heart, and think of how it's not just a big task for your kids, but it's a really emotionally difficult and painful one for them as well.

<comment><USER49> Oh, I want it to be a big task for them. It's well organized.

I'm leaving them significant wealth. They might as well do something to earn it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> My soon-to-be-80 father is very cognizant of this. We never had much stuff to begin with. Four of us - mom, dad, sister and I -- live in an 800 sq ft rented home all our lives in India. Even then, he's been mercilessly shedding all the little things he has, that he doesn't use anymore, for the past 2 years.

So much so that he even dumped old baby photos of me and photos of my Grandfather -- served in the British Indian Army during World War II in Burma -- and many other rare family photos.

I was pretty mad at him for that, but I guess this means I don't have to deal with "stuff" when he passes, esp. given I live in the US and he lives in India.

<comment><USER52> That sounds really tragic, about the pictures. Its great he got rid of stuff, but those pictures would have been priceless from a historical standpoint. I wonder how many such treasures are in cupboards all over India, their owners not realizing how important they may be...

<comment><USER53> I think we should focus on preserving digital content instead since most people today are taking pictures with their smartphones and never bother backing them up, either in the cloud or in physical form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> My father became aware of this and started shipping stuff to myself [and presumably my sibling] in order to clear out his in-home crap sitting around when he died.

So far, I've been thankful. I've been going through my own backlog of crap and it's been great. I have to imagine it's been similar for my father and my sister.

My father's goal is no have as little bullshit for me and my sibling to sort through as possible when he dies. To me, this is great. Not that I hate my father or whatever, but that he wants as small a Death Footprint as possible. So do I for other reasons.

Such conversations are good to have.

</comment><comment><USER55> When my dad passed away about 8 years ago, my mum had this cathartic episode where she gave away virtually _everything_ that she and dad owned, which even surprised us (my sisters and I). She even gave stuff away to strangers who came around to help her pack stuff to move to a smaller place.

In one way, it was great that we didn't have to sort it all out and deal with it, but in another, there were some things (like my dad's golf clubs and the family piano) that I would dearly have liked to hold on to because of the intense good memories those items represented to me (mum taught me to play piano on that particular instrument, and I have very cherished memories of playing golf with my dad when he used that set).

Now I am in the same bind, as I look around at all my stuff, including a collection of 30+ guitars that I have built up over the years. I've told my sons (who are both musical by the way) that they will inherit them when I am gone, but NOT to hold on to them as obsessively as I have. I explained to them that if it will help them to pay for studies, or buy a car/house etc. that they need, they should feel no hesitation in selling any and all of it as they see fit - there is no emotional obligation to them to hang on to 'stuff' unless they actually feel an emotional connection to do so.

At one stage, I even considered being buried with one of my favourite guitars, but then I thought 'No', it would do much better service above ground if they can use or sell it instead.

<comment><USER56> Why not just sell it all now when you're alive instead of making it a burden on them after you die? I'm just getting a dumpster over to my dads house and chucking everything when the time comes.

<comment><USER55> Good point - but a lot of these are rare and vintage guitars, and I actually still enjoy playing most, if not all of them, on a regular basis.

I suppose if the time came when I could not play any more due to age/illness etc. then I might do that, and give them the chance to choose a couple that they might want to keep after I am gone (they are both good guitar players in their own right).

<comment><USER57> Nice sentiment, but liquidating can add compounded stress after the loss of a loved one. My step-father collected vintage guitars, old school amps/speakers/mixers and had a fully operational cabinet shop he refused to deal with when Stage 4 was diagnosed. It was a PIA to blindly price, identify/fix deficiencies and find buyers after his passing. Several strangers benefited greatly from our lack of knowledge and time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I don't think I'd want to keep much of my parents stuff either. But my sister and I were thinking back to all the cool shit that was in my _grandparents_ place back in the 80s and 90s... they had all kinds of cool furniture, art, tools, and objects. The sort of stuff that hipsters now pay a fortune for.

So maybe the answer is to put everything in long-term storage, then skip a generation and wait till it becomes cool again :)

</comment><comment><USER59> A suggestion for the current and next generation. Collect experiences rather than things.

[http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/want-happiness-buy- experienc...](http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/want-happiness-buy-experiences- not-more-stuff)

Some quick tips:

\- Pictures with people are much more fun to look at later in life than landscapes, unless you're an amazing landscape photographer of course!

\- Get off the tourist bus when visiting foreign countries. Walk the city. Pop your head into a local shop. Try that weird doughy thing, it might be tasty. Be almost late for your train - very exciting.

\- Climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower (ugh, it's tough, but I remember it) then have wine and cheese in the park on the lawn to cap it off.

Relating to too many things, I have 5 large moving boxes of photo albums from my parents along and a few trinkets here and there. Fortunately me and my siblings had no arguments in the distribution or tossing of just about everything. The photo albums are being scanned slowly but surely.

</comment><comment><USER60> Dreading this. Parent live in a massive house. Meanwhile I've lived the last half year out of a suitcase (biz travel).

Think I need to drop some subtle hints...

<comment><USER13> You'll have to cut a deal; I'll take on all your stuff, no charge, but you've got to throw in the current storage facility with it.

<comment><USER60> haha no. I'm on the other side of the world.

Plus they're cool parents...they wouldn't want to burden me. I'm just conscious of the fact that they plan to move from a very big house to a not big house. Meanwhile there are boxes that haven't been unpacked from the 2001 move. They're not hoarders...they just have too much crap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Woo what a subject.

Where I grew up we had space to grow out. This means our two stall garage became a place for storage, pack ratting. Some of it good but a lot of it.. Eh?

I have to admit this meant that there was never a shortage of tools but this also meant that during my father's passing I had to decompress and sort all of it. Some of it is packratted in my own three stall garage now.

Having a trait to collect myself it is hard to tell when you are going overboard.

Some things like early Nintendo games paid handsomely to keep about. Others like well worn copies of B rate VHS movies? Not so much. The advancement in movie quality made from very high grade studio masters was easy to see if you had technical knowledge in that area but the growth in perceived value for other things is hard to gauge. Growing up with the room to store what you like meant a lot of oddball stuff got packed away.

I'm trying to be more selective with what I pack than my father before me.. But hell, some things I'm going to keep just cause I like them.

</comment><comment><USER62> Most of my "stuff" is clothes (which I actually wear), books, and hobby- related equipment. There is nothing in the garage but my washer and dryer, and, occasionally, my car. I have no desire to clutter up my apartment with more, though I am thinking of putting a workshop in my garage and just parking in my driveway.

<comment><USER63> and... how old are you?

<comment><USER64> This wasn't my comment but it may as well have been. This describes my material posessions exactly, except for no garage. I'm 32 and live in a one room warehouse art studio with a shared bathroom. I can't find reason to get a legal home because this works perfect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I wonder how much of this was brought on by the Cold War and constant headlines of one-ups-manship by nation-states and maybe that sub-consciously fed into US culture.

The only reference points and influences people had were socializing with others and 3 TV channels. No internet, facebook, instagram or twitter.

In todays culture you can find nearly any group you want to associate with online. You won't feel like an outcast and if you live in a populated enough area you can probably find like-minded people. I think with this available, if you see your neighbors have new fine china (new fancy car, or whatever) and that isn't your thing, you pretty much don't care.

</comment><comment><USER64> My grandparents entered the antique business in their retirement. They did well for themselves and passed away in the same year, about 5 years ago. My family is faced with just forgetting about all the energy they have spent trying to get money for the items. Of course, a few things had surprisingly high value but 99% was more trouble than $.

My grandfather was a uranium physicist for the Atomic Energy Commission and I grabbed as much related memorabilia as I could. They are currently stored in a secure barn attic but I want to get them out. But, actually do want to test them for radioactivity lol. Anybody know about this?

<comment><USER66> > But, actually do want to test them for radioactivity lol. Anybody know about > this?

Perhaps buy a radiation tester? [https://smile.amazon.com/GQ-GMC-300E-Plus- Radiation-dosimete...](https://smile.amazon.com/GQ-GMC-300E-Plus-Radiation- dosimeter-monitoring/dp/B00IN8TJYY/)

<comment><USER67> Or a can of film?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> My old man was talking to me the other day about this.

He was telling me that self-storage will be great investment, with all the old people moving to smaller retirement homes and villages, they need a place to store all their stuff.

</comment><comment><USER69> About 20 years ago,I looked around the back yard of an uncle born in the early 20s. Back by the fence, there was a patched gas tank from a pickup truck. There were also four or five rusted out hibachis, which were neatly nested together and leaning against a tree. A cousin to whom I mentioned this suggested that it was the effect of a childhood during the Depression.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm also convinced that we've come to value immaterial goods more than a plentitude of physical widgets.

I also believe that we're instinctively attracted to the act of fiddling; while yesterday we needed a lot of physical things to appease this instinct, we can content ourselves with an App store, with grooming our computers, phones, emails, social profiles, etc.

</comment><comment><USER71> This is the problem I will have with my parents and in-laws.

I hope to find a charity who would take everything and use what they want/can and get rid of the rest. There are valuable things and non-valuable ones, I do not want anything (I love my parents but am not attached to material things and do not like souvenirs)

</comment><comment><USER72> I've wondered where this stuff ends up after donating to charity. Is there a set of less fortunate people that could really make use of these things? Are there people eager to add more of these items to their "collections?" Do the charities end up discarding large percentages of this stuff?

<comment><USER73> A lot of US charities actually ship clothing to Africa because they get so many used t-shirts and the like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> If the stuff you have is collectible, and in new/gently used condition then try completeset.com/sell - they are a TechStars grad out of Cincinnati that sell the items for you on consignment. Easy way to have some "found money." They even pay for shipping.

</comment><comment><USER75> I've been working to reduce amount of stuff I own lately. Now I can fit it all in one carry-on and one luggage bag - I literally moved to another country a couple of months back without paying anything extra or shipping anything. And I never want to go back to own more.

</comment><comment><USER76> My dad, my sister and I don't like to keep stuff around that is not being used. We will keep the stuff we have as long as it makes sense to but we don't believe having more stuff is good. We think living a minimalist lifestyle is the way to live.

</comment><comment><USER77> So tired of paywalled nytimes links!

</comment><comment><USER78> I think the article should have been in the Onion, not NYT</comment>


Extracting Secret Test Cases from the Google Foobar Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mfe5003/extracting-secret-test-cases-from-google-foobar-challenge-6b0a0bea61c4 <comment><USER2> > It turns out there are 48 exceptions, which means I can get 5 bits of > information out of a single test run that raises a coded exception...

Oh my. Well done, sir. But wait, I'm not particularly familiar with Python, but could you not create new types of exceptions and grow the error space?</comment>


A neuroscience experiment failed to build a connectome for a 6502 chip - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/03/atari-chip-set-off-bitter-war-among-neuroscientists/ <comment><USER2> Original author of the paper here, happy to answer questions. It's a little strange refreshing HN and discovering new popular press about your paper.

<comment><USER2> Also in the time-honored tradition of HN, the title isn't quite right. 1. we didn't build the connectome, the visual 6502 team did. 2. It's such a good connectome that we can simulate everything perfectly -- a Hansonian "Em", if you will. 3. It's still hard with total visibility to use contemporary techniques to achieve understanding.

<comment><USER3> What's the basic point of a connectome? What understanding did anyone _expect_ to achieve from making one? Sure, maybe you can emulate the device, but unless you're a very ardent philosophical connectionist, you're not understanding much. And if you are a very ardent philosophical connectionist, you're claiming that knowing the connections gives us all there is to understand, with no deeper principles than synaptic weights being available.

It's as silly as expecting to get a good theory of artificial intelligence by studying artificial neural networks.

(I'm aware of the irony in the above statement, but stand by it earnestly. An excellent engineering artifact whose functioning we can't explain is _not_ scientific understanding. An excellent engineering artifact whose functioning we _refuse_ to explain is bad philosophy, too.)

<comment><USER2> I think many in the neuroscience community would agree that there's a lot we can learn from connectomes, and there's a lot of value from just having a canonical, authoritative map of the underlying neuroanatomy. Every year there are a few new neuroanatomy papers that say "surprise, area X projects to area Y!" and that's sort of embarrassing given that many people have been studying an area for 30 years and the sudden appearance of dopaminergic projections upsets all their previous models.

Also, there exist brain areas and regions where we do in fact have a few good good models, and connectomics has the potential to help us resolve them -- see [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7461/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7461/full/nature12450.html)

<comment><USER4> Even in these apparently simple feedforward sensory networks, connectomics haven't been the anticipated panacea. There's been a flurry of follow-up papers to Takemura et al., essentially refuting the suggested model.

Turns out, even where they should connections don't constrain circuits to a sufficient degree.

<comment><USER2> Awesome, do you have a good cite for that? The last time I paid attention in this space was a year+ ago, when the vision people were trumpeting these results, so I'd love to know more about the current thinking. It's been my go- to example for "connectomics will help with some things", but I'm not a sensory physiologist.

<comment><USER4> Try this: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26234212](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26234212)

I guess the key lesson is -- don't rely on a single approach, because its limitations may well lead you astray. Applies to connectomics, physiology, modelling, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the title's quite accurate. It sounds like they had no trouble _building_ a connectome for the chip, they just couldn't then reverse engineer the chip's functionality by applying standard neuroscience techniques to said connectome while it ran in a simulator.

It's basically saying that even IF we had a full connectome of the brain that we could run in a simulator (and presumably produce a simulated personality) that we'd be no closer to actually understanding how the damn thing works.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately, producing a working simulation of the brain doesn't mean the simulated brain would actually... work. Humans aren't created full form with personality and behavior ready to go, they learn over years. A brain in a vacuum would have none of that input.

<comment><USER7> I think there are a few instances of medical science bringing back persons from comas that may help with identifying what would happen to a fully formed brain that was completely shut down for a decent period of time. Presumably, reproducing the physical structure of such a brain and giving it similar inputs would lead to an experimentally similar result.

The question I would like to see answered is what happens if we do this to someone with a grown brain and wake them up in a simulation of a space ship that traveled to a far away planet. Again presumably, the person would need nutrition and care and education for some time, but then would they be able to carry out significant advances on behalf of humanity. Would they even want to? What if they feel betrayed by their fate and creator? Then again, who doesn't? Someone write a book about this.

<comment><USER8> That's not the criticism he's making. He's saying to get to a functional adult brain you must have a few cells that work together, then a fetus brain, then a baby brain, then an infant brain, then a toddler brain, etc all the way to an adult brain and all the care and learning needed in those stages to make it all work.

You need the morphology and structures that happen in nature to get the structures and functionality needed to properly simulate a brain. We simply don't know about enough about learning, development, brains, and consciousness to just plug into a simulated adult brain and make it all work. We can only follow the path nature has laid out.

I'm sure you can skip some parts like fetal stages, but we develop language at a very specific range of ages using specific techniques. We can't skip the language acquisition stage and then expect our simulated brain to magically know language. We can't skip the angry "me" stage of a toddler and expect the mind to have self-assertiveness. We can't skip the sexual and social awakening stage of teenhood and expect the mind to understand complex social concepts and sexuality, etc, etc.

The only scenario I can imagine out of this problem is a per neuron copy of a working brain on the cellular level. I imagine this isn't, or won't ever be, in the cards for practical reasons. Or if you could someone divine the algorithms that create consciousness, assuming this is even possible on a transistor based machine, then that would also be a work-around. Right now we can't do either, so following nature's approach is the probably the sanest way forward.

I wouldnt be surprised if the first AI ends up being more a biological 'computer' than anything having to do with x86 instruction sets and transistors, but that's just a guess on my part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A microprocessor is admittedly a poor metaphor for a brain. However, I think the article still makes a strong point, which is that neuroscientists use many experimental and signal-processing techniques whose utility hasn't even been demonstrated _in principle_ , much less in practice. To me that's the largest take-away from this article.

To use a set of techniques to investigate the operation of a device whose function we fully understand, and still fail to draw meaningful conclusions, raises serious questions about the usefulness of those same techniques in a much more complicated and less-well-understood domain.

<comment><USER10> and yet we know alot. Hippocampal damage causes deep amnesia, prefrontal damage leads to poor inhibition, introspection, etc. I could go on.

<comment><USER9> We do know a lot, but I would argue that much of what we know is _not_ a result of the techniques used in this article. The things you mention are results of lesion experiments or observations, which are decades (or more) old.

Most of what you mention is sort of negative information - what happens when the brain breaks. How it works is a fundamentally different question, and I suspect we'll only get real understanding by building computational models that are able to do similar computations to those the brain does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think the IC/brain comparison is particularly revealing. One of the key differences I see is that an IC will stop working (or at least very severely malfunction) if you disable a transistor. A brain on the other hand will probably keep working even if a sizable amount of neurons die. So little to no useful info is gained by suppressing a transistor, while lesioning a part of the brain could still produce insight if you observe behavioral changes.

That being said disabling neurons sounds a little crude and may not help much in gaining a finer understanding.

Then again I know nothing about neuroscience :)

<comment><USER12> A processor also operates with a high level of indirection. The 6502 doesn't have transistors dedicated to jumping or shooting; it has transistors dedicated to 'add value to accumulator', an instruction that might appear hundreds of times in the game code even on a 6502, with a different purpose each time. If they instead tried the lesioning approach on _software_ , i.e. nopping out one instruction at a time, I think they could relatively easily identify the function of various sections of the code. Alternatively, if they analyzed a video game implemented directly in hardware rather than using a CPU (say, the original Breakout), that would probably work better too.

Of course, nobody really knows how much indirection is used by the brain, but it's probably closer to a direct hardware implementation than a CPU. One respect in which it differs from both, of course, is plasticity; neither hardware nor software created by humans is given to constant self- modification.

<comment><USER13> > neither hardware nor software created by humans is given to constant self- > modification.

Of course it is. A VM running on a CPU is basically just constantly self modifying data with the help of modular hardware. I'd hypothesize, the brain has inert structures at it's core, too (which is why we are all alike), and the rest is the data of a state machine (an IC being part of _the rest_ , from a phenomenological point of view). Of course the complexity might be beyond a state machine or linear bounded automata, i.e. deterministic (think quantum).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One question to ask is then: what method is useful to figure out the function of an unknown microprocessor? The engineers sometimes reverse engineer chips with electron microscope, with a perfect understanding of electronic principle, a rudimentary idea of how the microprocessor works, what the high- level function of the chip is, etc. And even equipped with this knowledge cracking a chip still takes a lot of effort, and may not succeed at all.

The tools of a neuroscientist would be laughable in comparison, yet neuroscientists have cracked the auditory code (and you can have an artificial cochlea now), the lower visual system is close to be cracked, we have a pretty good understanding of hippocampus and how space is represented in the brain, and many other accomplishment. These are all results from the laughable tools we have for investigating brain.

Having a full connectome of the brain, and running the brain in a simulator will be a huge step of understanding it. We don't know how to use the data now simply because we don't have the data yet, and therefore no effort is putting on interpreting the data. However the usefulness can be glimpsed from neural structures where the connections are clear: the peripheral system, spinal cord, midbrain, and lower sensory and motor regions in the brain. We understand them far better than regions we don't even know where it connects: claustrum comes into mind.

A simulator of the brain, I imagine, will be similar to the human genome project: nobody will understand the whole thing quickly, but it will hugely prop neuroscience forward, sometimes in ways we cannot imagine now.

</comment><comment><USER15> Title needs to be changed. As mentioned by the author elsewhere in this thread, the connectome (map of connections) was so good that they managed to build a perfect simulation. The point of the article seems to be that in this simulation, typical non-connectomics techniques used today in Neuroscience (highly specific lesions which in the real brain are created by things such optogenetics) were not able to elucidate how this simulation worked.

</comment><comment><USER16> I get it the point they were trying to make is that you cannot understand the software by looking at the hardware. But I also agree that the analogy is very weak.

</comment><comment><USER17> There's a big input/output issue here. Which they address, but nonethless which makes the project failure not surprising.

The inputs and outputs for a brain/neural network, e.g. pictures as inputs as recognized object as outputs, are clear. They are not clear for a chip- restricted view where your input binary stream is a post-transformed signal from an Atari joystick, and the output is a pretransformed signal to a display where the pong paddle moves. These complex transformed inputs and outputs at the chip-restricted perspective tremendously reduce the likelihood of making sense of anything.

If we know the adaptor functions for the signal to the first layer of neurons in a simple convolutional neural network, for example, and the output layer is indentifiable, it might be easier to track which neurons track which features, etc.

But there might be no clear intermediate output layers to a brain, so you might have a look at inputs and outputs wrt various subnetworks to see which is most likely to be the true functional subset corresponding to some definitely-occuring function (another obstacle to define). Or assume a function is occuring and see which neurons classify it under the most circumstances. But with so many connections that sounds like a big rough game to play too.

I can see how this project if successful would be another step to creation of the sentient robot overlords but I'm curious as to what people see as the more immediate medical applications would be. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in brain health in the last 20 years have been about getting rid of clots (current best is arguably manual labor) and immune modulation and new biochemical drugs whose effects would require excruciatingly sophisticated and accurate biomolecular connectomic models to model and may be a long time away.

</comment><comment><USER18> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11780565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11780565)</comment>


A Shot in the Arm: How Job Lock Hurts Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0905.gruber.html

<comment><USER2> This seems to me to be self-evident. Before we got (expensive) group health insurance, we lost a large portion of our most promising candidates over health insurance concerns.

I say this on HN constantly because it bears repeating: if you want to understand the problem with the current health insurance system, assume that a normal family of four cannot get private health care coverage at any reasonable price, or in some locales _at all_. It doesn't matter how much extra you pay your employees. There are many reasons, a bunch of which devolve to "we don't want to cover women with functioning uteruses", why a typical family cannot get covered outside the group coverage system.

<comment><USER3> The situation varies from state to state--if you decline maternity coverage you have a lot better luck. Of course, you also better not have kids (or save up for them when you do have them!), which is morally/emotionally difficult in the edge case that you get pregnant.

This approach is also more compatible with the concept of "insurance" to begin with! I have never seen any sense in paying an insurance company to pay the doctor for your own routine care--shouldn't it be cheaper to just pay the doctor yourself? You buy insurance to level out the variance on unpredictable costs. Having children isn't some type of unpredictable medical emergency we buy insurance against, it's a voluntary decision with a relatively predictable cost. There's no sense in buying or selling maternity coverage.

Group coverage is just a way for those of us who don't have kids to subsidize those of us who do.

I think a mandate for insurance companies to ignore preexisting conditions, traded off against a mandate to buy health insurance, would be a sensible tradeoff for all parties. I think allowing competition between states would provide a better environment. I think there are good reasons for reform. I don't think maternity coverage needs to exist, I highly doubt it makes financial sense for insurance to cover routine care, and I don't think insurance should be bundled with employment.

<comment><USER2> Pregnancy isn't the only issue, and it wasn't the issue in our case. You'll forgive me for not getting into more detail here. It is not as simple as "we don't want to subsidize pregnancy" (I sympathise with that). It's "women of childbearing age are more expensive to cover for a variety of reasons".

Despite a total lack of chronic medical problems in my family, declining maternity coverage would not have helped us. So let's lose that red herring.

Do I agree that the government shouldn't have to pay for routine predictable medical expenses? Of course I do. I understand the concept of insurance (to avoid catastrophic losses from rare events), and I also understand how totally distorted our health care system is because of the twisted incentives and lack of transparency in the private employer-funded health insurance system. I'm not wishing for the NHS, but I'm also not naive enough to think that one regulatory tweak (guaranteed issue) is going to solve our problems.

Finally, if you have a problem with the idea that the young, healthy, and fortunate are subsidizing the old, infirm, and poor, you need to revisit the entire concept of insurance. People who avoid acquiring insurance in their 20s --- all of whom will certainly try to get coverage in their late 30s --- are free-riding.

<comment><USER4> The twentysomething "freeriders" are overwhelmingly the source of startup founders. If you want to force them to subsidize older people, that's fine, but it's not going to have the effect of increasing entrepreneurship, which is ostensibly the point of the article.

<comment><USER2> Did you read the article, or do you just have strong opinions about health care? Either way is fine, but the point of the article is that one of the reasons twentysomethings are a huge fraction of startup founders is that they aren't locked into jobs by health insurance.

(It is also, by the way, simply not the case that twentysomethings are overwhelmingly the source of startup founders; what they do seem to be is an overwhelming source of YC company founders. Go make a list of 10 VCs, read their portfolios, and go look at the "Management Team" sections on their websites.)

<comment><USER4> Having re-read the piece, I don't see anywhere that he defines his point as being that "one of the reasons twentysomethings are a huge fraction of startup founders is that they aren't locked into jobs by health insurance." I'm sure from your personal experience you think this is the case, but the author doesn't assert that it's the case, or try to provide evidence that in countries with universal coverage there are more older entrepreneurs.

I personally think that health insurance is pretty far back on the list of reasons older people are less likely to found startups than young people. I'm willing to be convinced there by some sort of evidence. Regardless, in order for it to be the case that "[u]niversal health insurance, far from suppressing entrepreneurship, could be a boon to it," it would have encourage more older entrepreneurs than it discourages among the young.

<comment><USER2> _Which brings us back to entrepreneurship. Some of tomorrow's potential entrepreneurs are today's employees at firms that provide health insurance. They may have powerful new ideas that will build the firms of tomorrow. But if they leave their current job to work on those ideas they may find themselves without access to reliable health insurance. If they are very young and healthy, this may not be a major impediment. But for older entrepreneurs who have developed ideas through years of working for others, the fear of losing health insurance when they go out on their own can be a barrier to taking that leap._

You're right, though. I used the word "the" when I should have used the word "a".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a citizen of a country with universal health care, I can tell you that health care didn't even enter my head when I elected to become self employed and start my own company.

1\. I don't need health insurance if I'm happy to be covered under the public system. Nobody goes bankrupt from healthcare costs in my country. 2\. Because of universal coverage, purchasing private healthcare for my family costs about $200/month, and it's a personal policy, not an employer based policy. 3\. If I employ someone I don't even have to have a discussion with them about healthcare. It is assumed they will sort out their own health insurance, the same as they sort out their own car insurance.

There is no doubt that health insurance has an effect on entrepreneurship and new company formation when it is one of the highest startup costs, that needn't even exist. I mean, before I started reading threads like this in HN, the thought never even entered my head.

<comment><USER6> If you employ someone you should really consider a form of group insurance, as both theirs and your rates would be cheaper.

<comment><USER5> No, I don't think you read my comment correctly. I don't need group insurance because the rates any employees would be perfectly capable of electing whether or not to have private cover, and most likely will have an existing policy not tied to any particular employer. The whole point is disconnecting jobs and health - there is no logical reason to connect these. I wouldn't expect my job to pay for my house insurance, why would I expect it to cover my health insurance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here, actual proof - from an MIT economist - that health care is hurting entrepreneurship. Money quote:

"Americans who have an alternative source of health insurance, such as a spouse's coverage, are much more likely to be self-employed than those who don't. Wellington estimates that universal health care would therefore likely increase the share of workers who are self-employed (currently about 10 percent of the workforce) by another 2 percent or more."

</comment><comment><USER4> This is only a good point if you assume that the current proposals magically provide free health care to you when you quit your job.

"Universal coverage" as currently being debated just mandates that you purchase coverages and penalizes you with a tax if you don't; even with a "public option" you still have to pay for said option.

If you want to argue that tax-supported single-payer systems give you more freedom to quit your job and start a startup, fine, but nothing currently proposed in the US does that.

<comment><USER7> You obviously have not experienced how bad the situation is. For many people it is _literally impossible_ to get health care coverage if their job does not provide it.

The difference between paying $0 and $200/month (especially when the first option is tax-subsidized) is _trivial_ compared to the current situation where any "insurance" individuals are graced with being allowed to purchase can be revoked arbitrarily.

So, please, get your facts straight.

<comment><USER4> I have experienced it, because I quit my job and got my own health coverage to work as a freelancer.

If you think that $200 a month is what mandated insurance will cost a family of 4 who aren't Medicaid-poor, I don't know what to tell you.

<comment><USER8> Curious, could you please share how you are covered and the cost? COBRA, Freelancer's Union, something else?

<comment><USER2> Tangent: COBRA is a really bad idea too. First, COBRA is probably more expensive than health care you acquire yourself, because most employers acquire highest-common-denominator coverage and hide the expense in payroll and benefits accounting. Second, COBRA has a ticking time limit on it, which is exactly what you don't want with health insurance (and why you never want month-to-month or temporary coverage). You might as well not insure yourself if any catastrophic event is as likely to bankrupt you with insurance as without it, which is what happens when something bad happens in the latter part of your COBRA term.

<comment><USER9> COBRA is a ticking time bomb. But it does have the nice property that it keeps your "continuous coverage" which is very important in the face of any pre- existing conditions. That can be a very big deal.

<comment><USER2> We had COBRA coverage when we started Matasano. Continuous coverage or not, insurance company beaurocrats refused coverge for us. I'm not sure what continuous coverage does for you once you obtain coverage, but in Illinois it doesn't do a thing to help you get it in the first place.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mainstream advertising is still showing up on polarizing and misleading sites - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/ads-from-mainstream-businesses-are-still-showing-up-on-extremist-sites--despite-efforts-to-stop-it/2018/10/03/6932974e-c326-11e8-8f06-009b39c3f6dd_story.html?noredirect=on <comment><USER2> Notice that these "polarizing" and "misleading" sites are all right-wing sites.

Note only do people like that get free money from the Koch Brothers but they make a huge amount of money from ads because the oldster who visit those sites are natural born clickers.</comment>