Insomnia 3.0 – A simple and beautiful REST API client - <AUTHOR> https://insomnia.rest/ <comment><USER2> Nice, one thing that gets me paying for [https://paw.cloud](https://paw.cloud) is the ability to chain requests

ie. GET /things -> GET /things/{things.first.id} -> PUT /things/{things.first.id} -> DELETE /things/{things.first.id}

<comment><USER3> Postman can do that and a lot more as it has a proper scripting runtime. The runtime can be executed outside of Postman too so you are not tied to the GUI want to automate things (with build systems etc.). Chaining as a feature in itself is something we are working on along with speeding up workflows around variables (environments, globals etc.) [Postman founder here]

<comment><USER4> I guess it's a matter of choice, but we see Paw as a visual tool that makes it easy to setup a request (or a set of requests) to iterate quickly when developing an API or discovering a new one. Because of that, we try to keep actions intuitive and keep scripting as a last resort (JS scripts & extensions are available in Paw too, btw).

I know from experience as an iOS developer (then Python backend guy) that when working on a given project, our mind is already full of business logic. We don't want to add another level of complexity due to the tools we use. And we're writing enough code elsewhere to not want to write code in an app.

As of scripting used for "unit" testing, we have thought about it many time for Paw. And while we will do something somewhat related in the near future, it's a slippery slope. A robust API should have unit tests written with mocks and be part of the server code, not a few assertions made in a 3rd party app. We're quite biased here: many users want this feature, but we don't want to encourage bad practices (as it may be interpreted by some as "ok let's not write proper tests, there's Paw for that").

Anyway, that was to share my point of view as a Paw guy :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since everybody's piling on their favorite alternatives, I have to mention HTTP Prompt [1]. It's obviously in another league than Insomnia and such, but I find that it strikes a sweet spot: much more convenient than curl or HTTPie, yet not a big mouse-driven GUI tool.

[1] [https://github.com/eliangcs/http- prompt](https://github.com/eliangcs/http-prompt)

<comment><USER6> Pretty cool, but I wonder why it doesn't preserve history by default between sessions.

<comment><USER7> Is there a way to make it do so?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems cool - I am going to download now and try it out.

Tip: I suggest removing the 'pricing' menu option on the top of the web site. I saw it immediately the first time I went to your site, and I assumed yours was a paid product, so I stopped there and closed the window. It was only when I went back later and scrolled through, I noticed the current version is free for now. Removing the 'Pricing' link may make other people stick around longer to take a look...

<comment><USER9> Conversely, pricing is one of the first things I look for (on the assumption that good tools cost money but provide value).

If you're always going to have a free version, great put that on the pricing page along with any premium options, but don't make me go hunting through your site to find what paid options you have.

<comment><USER8> Just to clarify my position - I run for profit web apps too, and have absolutely no objection to any developer putting a price on their products or services.

It is just that in this circumstance, I am already a happy user of the (free) Postman API testing app, and whenever I see anyone talk about a new API testing tool, I am keen to check it out. However, if the other product is a 'paid for' product, then it has to be VERY compelling indeed to make me switch from the free one I am already using.

For instance, I (and many others) think that Paw is worth the licence fee. It sounds a great product and is well worth the money. But for me, I didn't see any solid reason to switch to Paw from Postman unless I came across an absolutely killer feature that I could not live without.

In Insomnia's case, I was ready to dismiss it because I read about the simplicity of the interface, and I saw a 'Pricing' link on the web page. I immediately assumed it was a paid licence product, which meant that it immediately fell outside any compelling reason for me to even trial it.

Later, when I saw that it was an always free piece of software, it immediately went back on my radar as something I should check out as a possible replacement for Postman.

If it is as good as others say, then I do sincerely hope that the author finds some way to monetise it via some sort of Pro subscription etc. in the future.

My point is that the presence of a Pricing page (which I admit is one of the first things I look for when I visit any app or service page) could mislead people into thinking it is a strictly paid-for app, when in fact it is not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of people here have been mentioning Postman but my personal go-to has been Advanced Rest Client [1]. It's open source, has Google Drive integration, and seems to have a pretty impressive development rate. For me, it's a definite plus that there isn't a paid tier so the developers don't have any incentive to limit the free product. That said, Insomnia looks like a nice contender and I look forward to giving it a shot. The reuse of variables across requests and the automatic generation of boilerplate request code both look like really nice features that ARC lacks!

[1] [https://advancedrestclient.com/](https://advancedrestclient.com/)

<comment><USER11> Ya, ARC is a pretty good one! Have you heard how the developer is handling the announcement of the shutdown of Chrome apps in 2017? Curious if they'll hop on the Electron bandwagon too.

<comment><USER12> As an author of the ARC. I'm considering using electron and move to native apps and discontinuing Chrome integration. But right now I'm not focusing on it. At the end of last year when I started moving the old app to new packaged apps platform I already knew that some changes are necessary and I started to modularize the app into web components (using Polymer framework) to be able to relatively fast move to another platforms with minimal change in the code. So UI components are using web only features, app logic only javascript and non- chrome related APIs and finally Chrome related components that can be easily replaced by other platform's implementation. So eventually (this is ongoing task) I'll be able to move pretty much any web environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice to see some competition for Postman. Even though Postman works quite well I never really liked it. Lot's of common actions are pretty tedious, like changing an environment variable and lot's of small annoyances like it automatically following redirects etc.

A while ago I took a stab at building my own Postman alternative, Pragma [1]. What I found was that getting the basic functionality going is obviously not that hard, but building a good and useful UI requires quite a bit of effort.

[https://github.com/pascalw/pragma](https://github.com/pascalw/pragma)

<comment><USER4> I cannot agree more on this :) The first time I saw Insomnia last year, I found it already very well designed. It had a smooth UX on most basic actions and, I have to say, a fun use of the ".rest" domain name!

I'm the founder of Paw [https://paw.cloud](https://paw.cloud) and I can safely say that building a good UI is a lot of work. While Paw is built on native Cocoa/AppKit (OS X app framework), the challenges with web are different, but the amount of work is always here. Each custom control, tweak on the text fields and other sorts of custom behaviors are taking a lot of time to imagine, design and implement. But it's a lot of fun too!

Clearly Insomnia is one of these apps where by just landing on the website you know that it's made my someone who has a good taste and who pays attention to details. As of the app, most common Mac shortcuts are working. And the fact that you cannot open the Chrome console (Cmd+Shift+I) or select text outside of user inputs are a proof of a well polished product.

It's often hard to make a point about polished UIs because it's highly subjective and it's common to see people wanting to compare only "raw features" between two products.

I'm not a big fan of Electron apps, and Paw and Insomnia are somehow competing (one native, full-featured with extensions and dynamic values, team syncing…the other being a more lightweight version), but I must admit that Insomnia is nicely made! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hi, is this a native (objective c / swift) OS X or just a web frame?

What are you main goals as far as being different from Paw, which is what I use and love thus far?

*edit: oh and congratulations on getting your app out there :)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the question! Insomnia is an Electron app built with with a mix of React and Elm. As an independent developer wanting to reach all platforms, Electron was basically the only option for me. And, as a web developer, it's been a super productive development environment.

The goal for Insomnia is to build a REST client that's easy to learn and a joy to use. I looked into other REST clients before starting Insomnia and found them to be cluttered and complicated. Paw was my favourite, but I needed something cross-platform so was unable to use it.

<comment><USER15> > As an independent developer wanting to reach all platforms, Electron was > basically the only option for me.

I'm not saying you made the wrong choice, but why do you say that, given the various options for cross-platform development (Qt, Mono, etc)?

<comment><USER16> I think he meant _the only option as a web developer_. Maybe he doesn't know C++ and C#, and it's not that easy with a web-oriented mindset to start writing desktop apps in C++ (it's not easy the other way either, I had a friend who after years of programming in Delphi started with the web by absolutely positioning every single HTML element).

When someone asks in which lang should he implement a webapp/SaaS/whatever, the first comment is to use the tech he knows the most. Why so much hate when the same principle is used for desktop app development?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Yes! I've been using Insomnia since it was a Chrome extension and the new 3.0 release is an amazing upgrade. I strongly agree with the developer that tools like Postman are quite bloated and complex for normal development tasks. Insomnia is very lightweight and refreshing!

</comment><comment><USER18> Sorry I am just going to shamelessly promote a similar CLI tool I wrote: [https://github.com/manishtomar/crest](https://github.com/manishtomar/crest). Help in [https://github.com/manishtomar/crest/blob/master/usage.md](https://github.com/manishtomar/crest/blob/master/usage.md). Please do try it out :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Any plans to open source this? Considering that (a) it's cross-platform since day one, (b) it's an HTTP client for developers, and (c) it's apparently built with the JS ecosystem, seems like the kind of app that should be open source, and honestly I'm surprised to see no Github link.

<comment><USER11> I've been considering it. I want to wait until development settles down a bit, but open sourcing it definitely in the back of my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I keep hoping one of these clients will add IPython/Jupyter style notebook specifically for REST calls.

I would love to produce a tutorial that has well formatted URLs with params, bodies, headers and pre-saved results that could also be rerun against local server.

<comment><USER21> I think you should be able to get pretty far by just writing Python code that uses the API; using requests that should be as readable as anything else?

Which brings me to: I just use Python snippets if I want to test a REST API quickly. What am I missing out of by not using these tools?

<comment><USER20> Yes and no.

If I am writing a tutorial using REST calls, wrapping them in Python syntax is less than effective as a presentation. It also requires Jupiter backend running, which could be a burden to host for a popular multi-user tutorial.

It is something that O'Reilly is experimenting right now with their interactive tutorials, but even for them, it is early days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I do not see any feature in Insomnia that's not already in Postman. Am I missing something?

Edit: I do not mean to undermine the effort, just wondering if Postman users have any incentive to switch.

<comment><USER11> Great question. Insomnia is still pretty early, so the feature set is limited, but all the basics are there. Most users coming from Postman comment on the great UI/UX of Insomnia.

<comment><USER22> Agree, UI/UX does look more pronounced and simpler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting, I've been using paw for years and love it but i'm always on the lockout for new and better tools

<comment><USER24> I wish paw team had "paw light" \- free edition with limited set of features for folks who cannot afford $50

<comment><USER25> We have considered a Paw Light, if it were to come it would be a little diffrent from Paw. More focusing of throw away requests than building large projects. If we put work into it we would like it to still bring value to our Paying customers. But currently we have a lot on our plate to bring Paw to a feature complete state.

(matthaus, backend dev on [https://paw.cloud](https://paw.cloud))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> How is it compared to Postman?

<comment><USER11> I covered this a little bit in the comments below, but one of the reasons I created Insomnia was because I found other tools (including Postman) to be hard to learn and use. So, for me, the main advantage is having a clean and simple (but still powerful) interface. Insomnia also has a Linux desktop app, which makes it one of the only REST clients to support all three major platforms.

Insomnia is still in early stages, so if you have any feedback or suggestions I'd love to hear!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been using Postman/Newman for testing and really liking it overall. One thing I'd love to see in one of these apps is the ability to use web sockets in tests.

<comment><USER11> Great suggestion. Websocket support is definitely something I've been thinking about adding later on. I'd love to hear any suggestions you have on what a websocket testing workflow would look like.

<comment><USER28> I would be happy with very basic support. Just something that can save messages and connection urls. A nice JSON viewer/editor like you have already would be very helpful to me as well. The current options for websocket testing aren't that great.

<comment><USER11> Awesome, I'll keep that in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'd like to see an API client that generates a API docs from a project / workspace.

<comment><USER30> Swagger UI seems to do a pretty decent job. The thing I like about swagger is you create one canonical description of your API and model and then generate postman collections, API docs, and client/server stubs all from the same source.

<comment><USER31> Swagger is now OpenAPI with backing from many major corporations. We use it to deploy APIs tailored to each customer, as we can adapt the view and still reuse controllers and models. Documented and maintained.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I use Google chrome + Postman ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman/fhbjgbifli...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman/fhbjgbiflinjbdggehcddcbncdddomop?hl=en) extension URL), this seems good but makes me wonder how much of a work it is for Postman to now run there app on electron.

<comment><USER33> Unfortunately, Postman's native apps don't handle NTLM authentication, which basically makes them unusable for me. Have to stick with the chrome extension for the time being.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I find the visual design appealing, and at a cursory glance, the list of features decent. A few questions:

\- Is there a way to override the cookies of a single request? Or do you have to edit the cookie jar and the corresponding cookies get auto-sent (ie. no override)

\- For authorization, do you have built-in support for OAuth 2.0 access/refresh token flows? What about OAuth 1 ?

\- Do you support HTTP/2?

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the compliment! Having good UI/UX was my first goal for Insomnia so I'm glad to see it's working.

\- there is no way to override cookies per request yet, but that's good feedback :) \- I'm working on OAuth support soon so keep an eye out for that \- HTTP/2 support isn't in the works yet, but is on the roadmap

Thanks for the comment!

<comment><USER35> OAuth is on my requirements list as well. Especially OAuth2 - client_credentials

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I found this [https://github.com/S2-/http-client](https://github.com/S2-/http- client) open source client quite good. It uses chrome in the background to make the requests (you can see it by hitting f12), so proxy settings and all the other stuff works fine.

</comment><comment><USER37> We've been using Postman [https://www.getpostman.com/](https://www.getpostman.com/), and it's been working great for our team. The sync and export features are killer. But I like the dark theme and the vertical split in Insomnia, will give it a try.

<comment><USER11> Sync is coming for Insomnia in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that. Also, be sure to reach out and let me know what you think could be improved :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Perhaps a stupid question, but why not just use something like NodeJS to test your REST APIs? To me this seems more flexible, and more powerful, and simpler to manage (because the scripts are just files on your local computer). And by writing a handful of library routines you can make it even more smooth.

</comment><comment><USER39> Congratulations on making something great.

<comment><USER11> Thanks you! Let me know if there is anything I can do to make it even better :)

<comment><USER39> Insomnia seems to be stuck in an "Install update" loop. Each time it opens I get prompted to update and restart. I update and restart and then get updated again. The cycle continues.

I'm uninstalling and re-downloading it but just wanted to let you know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Tried out the Chrome plugin when RESTClient stopped working in Firefox. It stuck, and now I believe all of my small team uses it. I've been on the stand- alone version since release.

I use it for testing, but also more as a diagnostics/control panel for a software suite that we expose via a growing HTTPS API - saving the requests and payloads makes this easy.

One thing I miss from RESTClient is the formatting. We have a small JSON DSL that we exchange data with, so those strings have to be escaped going up, and of course they come back with all the escapes. In RESTClient, you could view the response "formatted", which would un-escape those strings. This made for easy copy and manipulation.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm a bit confused. Installing this on archlinux from the AUR I get version 3.3.1; however the post itself seems to be for 3.0beta (judging from the announcement halfway down the page). Which is the actual current version?

<comment><USER11> Version 3.3.1 is the latest release. The "3.0" in the post is just used to differentiate it from the existing Chrome-based application (1.0 - 2.0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I would love to see a general purpose API client that works similar to the Elasticsearch client Sense [0]. A simple, free-text scratchpad style client that allows for easy editing and firing of requests. Maybe it's hard to support all the advanced functionality this way, but I find Sense absolutely invaluable when working with Elasticsearch and would love to use it on other API.

[0]: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/sense/current/introduction.h...](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/sense/current/introduction.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> I really love the UI! I'd find it useful to have a pause/disable button before params and headers, not near the delete button though, it would be too easy to accidentally click in the wrong place.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm hoping that one of these products (I use Paw at the moment) will eventually add support for GraphQL servers, so that I can switch from using GraphiQL to something a little more pretty and powerful.

</comment><comment><USER45> This seems great. I used Postman for a while but I never got along with the UI, found it poorly structured and cluttered. While this is obviously still very young, it shows a lot of promise.

Using environment variables in headers or request params was a bit disappointing though. The UI keeps replacing the reference with a copy of the current value when input field is moved out of view. Is this the intended behavior?

<comment><USER11> Hmm, that is a bug. Let me fix it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've been using [http://mmattozzi.github.io/cocoa-rest- client](http://mmattozzi.github.io/cocoa-rest-client) for a couple of years, I just tried Insomnia and I think I'll be switching: having the ability to call frequently used API requests without having to re-enter JSON data will be very useful. Nice app, thanks gschier.

</comment><comment><USER47> I've just replaced Postman with this. The UI seems much cleaner. The fact that I can run this as a command, instead of relying on an opened instance of Chrome, makes it very convenient for me. Also, it has a much better startup time. I don't miss any Postman feature, I only make quite basic POST and GET requests, and I suspect I'm not the only one. Great project!

</comment><comment><USER48> It's nowhere near the features and look of Insomnia but a pet project that I work on my spare time it's [http://github.com/jsargiot/restman](http://github.com/jsargiot/restman). The initial need was because Opera didn't had an extension of such kind.

</comment><comment><USER49> If anyone is reading this, being able to write consumer tests would be wicked! The overwhelming majority of bugs I have to squash are because the API deviates form the contract either in my mock implementation or in the back enders implementation.

A frictionless way to write tests on the fly would really speed up spotting these deviations.

</comment><comment><USER50> I just installed and ran a request, seems the response xml format was not available as nicely formatted. I just saw a junk of xml as result. Is there any configuration available for the auto formatting with indents for the sub- elements. I believe postman does it by itself.

<comment><USER11> Adding formatting for response types other than JSON is on the list of things to do :)

<comment><USER50> Thanks for the response, I cannot pitch-in with my team unless they see this formatting, that too testing team will abject to the core :(

<comment><USER11> :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This is lovely. I wish I knew about it earlier so I could ask IT to install it on our lab machines for students to use when i teach web concepts. The Postman plugin is nice but I had trouble working with it on my own, and sometimes it's nice to have a separate app.

<comment><USER52> What kind of problems did you face with Postman?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I've been using Insomnia since the beginning and I really appreciate how receptive gschier is to feedback and how the support side of things are handled.

I'd love to hear what you're planning on working on next and how you plan to monetize (if you're going to) :)

<comment><USER11> Insomnia is still in the early stages, so talking to users is something I spend a lot of time and effort on. It's the __only __way to make a good product :)

My current plan for monetization is to add multi-device sync (almost ready for beta) then team collaboration features shortly after. There are also some advanced features left to implement like OAuth support, scripting (settings environment variables from response data), and a few others.

Thanks for the comment!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Are there any plans to support importing postman collections or something like Swagger?

</comment><comment><USER55> Hi, I definitely like the UI/UX of this over ARC. I haven't used Paw or Postman.

It sounds like you're taking suggestions so my only one would be configurations that make working with OAuth simpler like OAuth signature generation.

Great work!

<comment><USER11> I'll make a note of that, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Already downloaded. Wondering this has file upload feature

<comment><USER11> Not at this time, but it's something I want to add.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I'm not sure how important this is to you, but on the iPhone 6s the word "blog" is cutoff at the top of the website when in portrait mode

<comment><USER11> Thanks, fixed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Looks really good! Are there any plans for custom authentication or pre- request hooks? Asking because for my API I need to be able to sign requests.

<comment><USER11> Thanks! No plans for custom auth in the short term, but I've been thinking about implementing a scripting layer which should make things like custom auth possible (although maybe not that enjoyable).

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> A small nitpick: The generated Go code omits error handling and doesn't escape quotation marks when adding a header value containing a space.

</comment><comment><USER60> Interesting - the pricing page is not done.

I think developers have a tendency to prioritize things like pricing below the technical features.

<comment><USER11> Insomnia is still in early stages so the paid plans aren't entirely worked out yet. The goal with the pricing page was to put something up early to gauge interest.

I wrote a bit more about pricing in a past comment if you're curious [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12433260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12433260)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> The Windows installer is 60MB and it's 64-bit-only? It has a nice fancy GUI and all, but am I the only one thinking that's just a tiny bit... excessive? Especially when it claims to be "A _simple_ and beautiful REST API client". The Mac OS and Linux versions are a bit smaller, but still not quite what I consider "simple".

Also, did anyone else instinctively try decoding that Authorization header in one of the screenshots? :-)

<comment><USER11> It's based on the Electron framework ([http://electron.atom.io/](http://electron.atom.io/)) so the installer contains an entire copy of the Chromium browser. I agree that it's large, but it's basically the only option for an indie developer to write a cross- platform app. Also, 32 bit support is possible, but is a bit of work and demand hasn't been high enough to spend time on it.

P.S. All the data in the screenshots is fake :P

<comment><USER61> When I think "cross-platform app", I think of Java. Maybe I'm getting old...

 _P.S. All the data in the screenshots is fake :P_

I've seen a few instances where the data would decode to something like "if you can read this, we're hiring".

<comment><USER62> SoapUI is a cross-platform Java REST/SOAP, etc testing tool.

Was originally open-source, there is now a paid version but an OSS version is still available.

[https://www.soapui.org](https://www.soapui.org)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> It's still manual testing, I pretty much stopped using those and just write test files for REST testing.

</comment><comment><USER64> that url is going to be disappointing for people looking for help with insomnia

</comment><comment><USER65> Is it possible to import my Postman collections ?

<comment><USER66> i do need this, i've a collection of 100+ calls and i would like to import it without the need of rewriting everything

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> What a name. Almost misread it for jsonmia. :)

</comment><comment><USER68> Looks great and works as expected. Cheers

<comment><USER11> Glad you like it! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Executionable which won't run on my machine (Fedora) and not open source, guess I will be staying with Advance Rest Client then.

<comment><USER11> Hi there. Could you reach out to firstname.lastname@example.com with details? I'd love to help get this running for you. The linux build uses [http://appimage.org/](http://appimage.org/) which should support Fedora out of the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Good job, very nice UI!

</comment><comment><USER71> I've used Insomnia in the past when I was evaluating various REST clients. At the time I was using mainly Burp and sometimes Postman. I did not stick to it mainly because I could not find some features that I needed for my work. From what I can see on the website, the new update is around the client apps built specifically for Mac, Windows and Linux, which in my mind is a welcome addition.

That being said, I will definitely have a look to see what is new.

Since everyone is putting their favorite REST client - here is my own (disclosure I am the author). I've built it to fit my own needs and combine essential features from other clients which I find useful. I looked mainly at Burp, Postman and of course Paw for inspiration.

The tool is available at the Chrome App Store here:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rest2/oiikfajocfme...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rest2/oiikfajocfmeodfknhfdccmpacdkkcbb)

You can also access it directly from here:

[https://rest.secapps.com](https://rest.secapps.com)

It is a work in progress but it has some features I am yet to see in other web-based REST clients, such as:

* Dynamic fields and variables that are re-computed on the fly. * Built-in text transforms that allow me to recompute a value in its original form. * Support for constructing multi-part requests with data and files easily. * The ability to modify file names and file types in multi-part requests. * Handle all headers (even those which are marked private in the Chrome and Firefox APIs). * Works in both Chrome and Firefox - on problem. * Locally cached for offline use. * All requests originate from your own machine - the tool runs locally. * Pretty-print everything including JavaScript, CSS, XML, HTML and many more. * Pretty-print any type of form and request payload. * Automatic code generator.

The reason it is a work in progress is because the current online version is at leas 3 versions behind from the libraries we use internally. We have scheduled some work to bring it up to date and we will be adding local storage and remote storage support very soon.

The tool is 100% free and it is part of our new tool stack at secapps.com. I need to say that we are revamping our current business model so that we can provide all of the tools free of charge to the larger community. These changes are not reflected on the site yet but I will as soon as the new stack is completed.

And if you are interested in these kind of stuff, here are a few more tools also free of charge:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/httpview2/nnkpnmkd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/httpview2/nnkpnmkdilaaoakiihhbbgnkgjokjfgk) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/encoder2/hlmjgnklm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/encoder2/hlmjgnklmnjhaefamejmkdbimambmmlb) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfold2/lmgdfkfedk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/unfold2/lmgdfkfedkpmiegpchfnkagjnipmehoh)

Apologies for intruding into this post but I thought there is a good opportunity to suggest some alternatives as I've seen other people do.

Insomnia is still great though and I am sure some people will prefer its looks over other clients.

</comment><comment><USER72> Thats an instant download

</comment><comment><USER73> Your app is a web view running inside a copy of Chrome.

That is not a "native" app.

<comment><USER74> Is this a general objection to apps being web views run inside of Chrome? Insomnia's website does not make any claims towards being native.

<comment><USER73> > Insomnia's website does not make any claims towards being native.

From [https://insomnia.rest/pricing/](https://insomnia.rest/pricing/)

"Native app for Mac, Windows, Linux"

<comment><USER11> I agree with the word "native" not suiting Electron apps well. I Updated the pricing page wording to reflect this. I think I originally used "native" because the Electron landing page does [http://electron.atom.io/](http://electron.atom.io/)

<comment><USER73> Thank you. As I've said previously I don't have any issue with the term 'desktop app' for things like this, so I think this was the right choice.

Good luck with it!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Growing evidence Uighurs forced to work in China factories-report - <AUTHOR> https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/growing-evidence-uighurs-forced-work-china-factories-report-200302155812327.html <comment><USER2> "Telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said it has read the report and is looking into the matter."</comment>


Show HN: Team Lead 101 – Manage and Grow Engineering Teams in Small Startups - <AUTHOR> https://dmitryshvetsov.com/team-lead-101/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

Team Lead 101 is a book for software engineers who have been entrusted to lead their teams but haven't received a guide on how to do this. It's perfect for engineering teams of 3-8 people in small startups, where the structure of startups is flat with at most 3 levels: developers, leads, and C-level executives.

Right now the book is 50% off (at $14) until August 9.

Sample Chapters:

* [https://dmitryshvetsov.com/what-a-good-team-lead-does-and-do...](https://dmitryshvetsov.com/what-a-good-team-lead-does-and-does-not-do/)

* [https://dmitryshvetsov.com/one-on-one-meetings-the-most-impo...](https://dmitryshvetsov.com/one-on-one-meetings-the-most-important-tool-for-engineering-team-leader/)

* [https://dmitryshvetsov.com/how-to-speed-up-code-review-proce...](https://dmitryshvetsov.com/how-to-speed-up-code-review-process-and-improve-the-code-review-process/)

Thank you for checking out my book! I'll be around to answer any questions.

<comment><USER2> Why should I take your advice? As someone who has never heard of you before, this is information I was looking for. Not to say you don't have some good advice to give, but with so many articles and books like this out there I want to know what your background is, what motivated you to write this book, and what mistakes you made or witnessed that shaped your idea of what a good team lead is.

Please don't take this as an insult, just some constructive criticism from a potential reader.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point! I would not take advice from someone I don't know too or with whom I would not want to change places.

Let me introduce myself and let you judge if you want to take advice from me.

I'm Dmitry. 12 years in IT, 7 of them as a software developer. I was a Head of the Security department at a branch of a state telecom company in Russia (let than 1 year). Lead developer at small consulting Ruby On Rails shop also in Russia (about 4 years). Last March I joined a Silicon Valley startup and in October I become a Team Lead one of four teams.

One of my mistakes was to think that leadership should be shown. Another mistake was trying to think that everyone would follow my advice because I have more experience than others. There were also mistakes that destroyed the teams in which I worked: the imposition of decisions, the desire that everything was done "right", lack of trust in the team members. I also went to the other extreme and protected the team from tough deadlines and pressure.

I made many mistakes and learned from experienced people with whom I am fortunate to work. I like to try, experiment and see what gives results. I am writing a blog and newsletter about soft skills [https://dmitryshvetsov.com/articles/](https://dmitryshvetsov.com/articles/), 142 subscribers at the moment, stated this March.

I have shared my thoughts on how best to hire developers, how to get rid of the routine and other concepts from this book with friends and colleagues, and have often found a positive response. To shape my thoughts into clear ideas and approaches, I decided to write a book on the basics that will help a budding team lead.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Whats the best alternative to Inbox? - <AUTHOR> This week I read google are closing down Inbox by gmail. Curious to see what alternative everyone are considering or is everyone simply going to use gmail. <comment><USER2> Shutting down Inbox was the last drop in an already full bucket of Google failures that pushed me to start migrating everything Google that I am using currently to other services. For email/calendar/contacts, I am currently evaluating Fastmail. I like it for now, simple and fast and I like the multiple domains and aliases feature that I need. I also like how they represent them, they are just providing service for the money, nothing else is happening with our data, no ads, etc..

<comment><USER3> I migrated to Fastmail from Google Apps a couple years ago. When Inbox came around, I moved everything back to google. While Fastmail is a wonderful service, I don't think it has the features that Inbox provides. so I'm not sure it'd be a good alternative to Inbox.

<comment><USER2> What will you do now when Inbox is dead?

<comment><USER3> Not sure. I'm like everybody else looking for good alternatives here :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suspect I'm in the minority but the biggest draw of Inbox for me is the UI. I have used gmail with Stylish rules to eliminate most of the default UI, but it breaks periodically with CSS changes (not to mention Google banned Stylish recently, I have yet to look into alternatives).

IMO the Inbox UI is miles ahead of default gmail, and all of the other graphical email clients I've found on web and desktop mimic the traditional email UI.

It seems like I'm left with changing gmail's CSS or using a terminal email client, but I'm not relishing it as it seems like a step backward when all I'd like is a simple webmail client with a nice UI.

<comment><USER5> Stylus is a fork that (supposedly) doesn't track you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love how Inbox just mostly hides emails I'm not bothered by.

For example, right now in Inbox I see two bold email subjects within the promos section - very minimal, makes it look like everything has been read.

Whereas in Gmail, I have four bold emails spread across the page making my inbox look messy and that I may have missed something important (I haven't).

I know I can change the inbox type to improve it, but just out of the box Inbox does such a great job at hiding it whilst still letting you know it's there.

<comment><USER7> This doesn't answer OP's question.

<comment><USER8> And neither do all the other replies saying "use fastmail" or "use gmail"

At least this one is furthering discussion

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am using Spark for a while now, [https://sparkmailapp.com](https://sparkmailapp.com). I like the Smart Inbox and notification feature. You should try once before moving to anything else.

<comment><USER10> It looks like this is the best alternative. But what is their business model? I just gave them access to iCloud and FastMail and gmail. Are they now scanning everything and selling it?

<comment><USER9> Their Privacy Policy says

You have a wide array of rights that we respect. Among those the right to:

\- Require access to your personal data;

\- Require rectification of your personal data (this is less relevant since otherwise we could not provide you with the service);

\- Require erasure of your personal data;

\- Withdraw consent to processing of your personal data, where applicable;

\- Lodge a complaint with your national supervisory authority (in the EEA) if you believe that your privacy rights have been breached.

[https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_9](https://sparkmailapp.com/privacy#privacy_9)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I host my own postfix server on FreeBSD and use the Evolution IMAP client on Linux. I haven't been in a situation where I need web access to mail in years so for me it's equivalent.

I started out about 6 months ago with this great guide:

[https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server- guide/](https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/)

The cost of a convenience like having a free email account is participating in the demise of the protocol-based networks that we have replaced with centralized products. There's many other great IMAP clients and maybe some of the features of Gmail/Inbox can be recreated using server side rules and scripts.

<comment><USER12> While this is still email, this arguably stretches credibility as a suggested alternative for someone looking to replace Google's Inbox app!

Classic hacker news "just roll your own email server"...

<comment><USER13> Every time an email client is mentioned here there's this classic and repetitive comment thread under it that goes like this:

\- I run my own postfix, dovecot, mutt, emacs, gnupg, gpg, pfsense yadda yadda (on OpenBSD!) works great ...

\- Email is too tricky to run yourself nowadays

\- Works fine for me for the past 100 years (OpenBSD vry stble, much solid)

\- ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been using [https://superhuman.com/](https://superhuman.com/) for a while. It really is as fast as they say and with their focus on keyboard shortcuts, you can fly through your inbox(s).

It's not free but then again, that's a good thing I hope. Implies they plan to be around for a while!

<comment><USER15> Is it Gmail only?

<comment><USER16> Yep, Gmail and G Suite for now at least

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You'll need to be specific about what features you are looking for. For me - Inbox bundles are the killer feature although it's part of a complete workflow so there's probably some other aspects that I'm (ahem) bundling together that are also key.

Your use-case might be different so something that's an adequate replacement for you might not be for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just finished obsessing over the same question for the last few days. I'm switching over to gmail (in the hope that some of the features will migrate someday), and adding Todoist ([https://todoist.com](https://todoist.com)) as a replacement for the reminders system.

But I'm still angry.

<comment><USER19> How do you find todoist vs other to do list products? I've been looking around for a while for one to settle on. What is your usage like?

<comment><USER2> I tried every todo app on the planet Earth. I settled for 2DO. Todoist has several limitations that I dislike and 2DO is one time payment vs monthly.

<comment><USER19> Interesting. What do you find to be todoist's limitations? I'll check out 2DO

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Left Gmail for FastMail a few years ago and never looked back. Well worth the money.

<comment><USER21> What do you like about it, besides just not being Google?

<comment><USER22> Much faster interface than gmail. No tracking, no ads. Actual support.

<comment><USER23> What support have you required? Will they tell me why an email for marked as spam? Because it marks my domain which clears all ham tests as spam...

<comment><USER24> Yes, our support can help with that. In most cases, what we'll do is actually something that you can do yourself: the spam filtering goes through SpamAssassin, with the standard rules and a few extra ones of our own, so you can normally do a good job of figuring it out by looking at the X-Spam-hits header, though figuring out what an obscure rule actually _is_ can sometimes be tricky—the documentation of them is often quite poor. That will commonly lead to things like: "the sender is in this blacklist, and the IP address lacks RDNS, and the message didn't include a meaningful text/plain part, and the text/html part lacked the <html> and <body> tags (which spammers often omit but real senders almost never do), and it did this other weird thing that spammers commonly do; and if you fixed one or two of them it'd stop being classified as spam".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm just going back to Gmail. It has most of Inbox's best features.

<comment><USER26> Apparently, Bundles will be added as well to Gmail.

<comment><USER17> Do you have a source for that? I would quit most of my whining if I knew that was to be the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Your own mailserver running on your own hardware on your own premises routing to your own domain with an MX backup routed to someone you trust who is on another provider - you can do the same for them. Add a web mail client if you want to have web access (Roundcube has served me well for many years now, the Nextcloud/Owncloud mail client also works but lacks some features). Do this and you never have to worry about being left out to hang because of some company dropping a product or going bankrupt. Maintaining a mail server takes about 8 hrs/year which - if translated into billable hours - might be more expensive than using a commercial alternative but it also gives you far more flexibility and freedom in how to handle your mail. Make sure to route outgoing mail through a reliable smart host to avoid it being blackholed by the likes of Google and Microsoft.

Source: personal experience, I've done this for about 23 years now. There are many others who have detailed their experience running their own mail servers on this site...

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=run%20own%20mail%20server&sort...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=run%20own%20mail%20server&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

...and elsewhere.

<comment><USER2> Sure, let us just replicate yours 23 years of experience and knowledge in a few days..

<comment><USER27> What a silly remark, with that attitude you'd never start anything 'new'. Of course you do not need to 'replicate 23 years of experience ... in a few days' to run a mail server. There is plenty of information on the 'net on the subject of running one of these, it is far from rocket science and something which I assume the average HN reader can handle with ease. Don't take my word on it, just read around a bit and ignore those who decry the foolishness of doing something yourself when you can pay people to do it for you.

<comment><USER28> That's a lot of assumption, there. You assume we all have an extra box lying around to serve. You assume we all have the DIY attitude--or the time--to set one up. You assume that all E-mail users are smart enough to do this. And you assume (for my case, at least) that setting up AND maintaining a premise e-mail server is something we all WANT to do (after, you know, a long day of tending to company servers and equipment). And, finally, there's the assumption that the irrelevance of this avenue (as it IS outside the scope of the OP's question) is warranted or welcomed feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I switched back to Gmail a few months ago. Used boomerang for snoozing until Gmail added the feature itself. The biggest benefit for me is the auto filtering of primary/social/updates/forums. I've yet to find an alternative that does that. Otherwise I'd love to use something like FastMail. Not sure how I'd get through my inbox otherwise without this filtering.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're after an android email client, try FairEmail[1]. It has some inbox- like features, plus it's open source.

[https://email.faircode.eu/](https://email.faircode.eu/)

</comment><comment><USER31> I would be interested to know if there are any free alternatives to g-suite/custom domain email. I'm not sure what Inbox was, but I've been using gmail/g-suite for many years without any real issues. I'm only using it because it's been free, however the free edition is no longer available to new signups. I've been recommending FastMail or Office 365 depending on who's asking me for advice, and I really would like to have a free option as many people I talk to are non-profit, charity, or simply resource limited.

<comment><USER32> I just use my domain providers email forwarding service to forward to Gmail (or whatever) and then change the from and reply to addresses to my domain email address. Should work with just about any service to get your own domain email and be able to move on to another provider at a moment's notice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm using paid accounts on both Fastmail and Protonmail. I have settled on Fastmail now for primary use.

Its not as feature rich as some services, but it covers what I need. Multiple account fetch, simple identity management for sending from those accounts, and a basic calendar to aggregate work and personal schedules make it just handy enough.

The idea behind Protonmail is interesting, but Fastmail was just a bit more convenient. The calendar is a differentiator for me.

I'm apparently one of the few that did not prefer Inbox.

</comment><comment><USER34> I dumped Inbox for ordinary Gmail, because Inbox felt just smart enough to be neat, but dumb enough to screw up a lot. Most of the mail I receive is not in English, which may be part of the problem for Inbox.

Later I completely dumped Gmail for a reputable hosting provider and a personal domain name. Full cPanel setup and Roundcube webmail does what I need.

<comment><USER35> I receive mail in English, Spanish - and occasionally French - and I've been so impressed by the categorisation, and even auto-reply suggestions in both English and Spanish (too small a sample to say on the auto-replies with French). Maybe there are other languages it's not hot with, but these at least I'm happy with. On the plus side, this is a feature that's made it to Gmail already, so if they can handle hiding non-critical messages till the morning, I'll be happy to switch back.

<comment><USER34> Danish probably isn't a huge priority for Google, unlike world languages like French or Spanish :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My personal choice, personal email hosted by a well-know provider (around 20 euro/years) sync-ed locally via mbsync and sync-ed to my desktops via muchsync (to sync tags&c). For webui Roundcube or Mailpile.

IMVHO the era of "free" mails is ended.

</comment><comment><USER37> Centask is a task manager integrated with Gmail inbox. You can hide emails by scheduling them you can also group emails, to-dos, links and files under the same task.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> funny enough after posting this I went to gmail after a long time of not using it to see what its like. Got prompted to upgrade to a new UI early. I said yes and most of the inbox features I used are there. Just not as nice looking. So now I understand why they want to shut it down as most features added to gmail and I wouldnt be surprised if the rest of the features move over too.

</comment><comment><USER38> Zoho suite is a very robust alternative to GSuite. They have all services that GSuite provides and then some more.

</comment><comment><USER39> Check out [https://newtonhq.com/](https://newtonhq.com/)

<comment><USER40> [https://blog.newtonhq.com/goodbye-newton- ae6b506fd94f](https://blog.newtonhq.com/goodbye-newton-ae6b506fd94f)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Thunderbird on desktop, K9 on Android.

The only time I ever use webmail is you search for an old message.

</comment><comment><USER42> Are there any open source email clients that are as polished as GMail?

<comment><USER27> Roundcube [1] does a good attempt of mimicking the likes of Thunderbird, Rainloop [2] has a more 'modern' look and might appeal more to those looking for such.

[1] [https://roundcube.net/](https://roundcube.net/)

[2] [https://www.rainloop.net/](https://www.rainloop.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Fastmail, hushmail, and ProtonMail are among the better Gmail alternatives.

I'm not sure anything out there strictly replicates the exact feature set that Inbox or Gmail had/have

</comment><comment><USER44> Superhuman.

<comment><USER45> I was going to switch to this, but they don't have integrations for my companies email. I really can't wait to try this out though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Yes. It's Gmail.

</comment><comment> swingline-747 For multiple users: Anyone use Kolab? Zimbra per-chance?</comment>


JS widgets in Haml/Sass/Coffeescript/Ruby/Mustache w/ the Asset Pipeline - <AUTHOR> http://ryanangilly.com/post/58611388385/building-javascript-widgets-in-haml-sass

<comment><USER2> that is insanely complicated, dude. i'd award you points for drawing attention to how complicated the current stack is for deploying something that should be relatively simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the points man! I'd love to hear your ideas for improving it.</comment></comment>


Amsterdam's coffeeshops are closing - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2017/01/economist-explains-man <comment><USER2> Our Dutch softdrug policy was extraordinary 30 years ago but since then has become completely gridlocked in politics.

Producing is illegal. Selling and using sort of legal.

This crazy policy has our police force waste all their time chasing a never ending line of illegal production facilities and kept the production in the hands of criminals.

We need a completely legalised product chain for softdrugs so it can be safely produced and legally traded, bought and used.

<comment><USER3> I often complain that the US has a mindset of "We're different, so what works in other countries couldn't possibly work for us!". In this case, I'm finally proud to say the opposite: It does work for us, so why couldn't it work for them?

I've only been to Amsterdam once, and I don't pretend to even begin to understand their culture or politics, but legalization here in the US has been great. We've got a lot of people looking for reasons legalization has destroyed our society, and they are coming up empty handed. Meanwhile, we're making a ton of money on taxes. Is there anyone who knows why they couldn't/shouldn't follow our example?

<comment><USER4> "We've got a lot of people looking for reasons legalization has destroyed our society, and they are coming up empty handed".

Most people looking for reasons to oppose legalization are actually not saying anything in the like of "This is going to destroy our society". If you want reasons why legalization is a bad idea. Here goes one :

Legalization leads increased usage of pot amongst adults [0]. Combine this with the fact that usage (not abuse) of cannabis leads to permanent damage to the brain structure. Which negatively impact memory and cognitive abilities [1]. No one here is saying that by legalizing marijuana our society is going to the middle ages. I just don't think that it is wise to legalize one more substance that has _known_ and _proven_ irreversible long-lasting effects on cognitive abilites of people who are most likely going to live longer and longer. Ageism of the general population is a challenge in itself. Ageism of a population that is going to suffer from symptoms of partially altered brains on top of the cognitive challenges naturally coming with age is even more difficult.

[0] : [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/18/colorado- mar...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/18/colorado-marijuana- law-report-adult-usage-increases-not-kids)

[1] : [http://www.pnas.org/content/111/47/16913.full](http://www.pnas.org/content/111/47/16913.full)

<comment><USER5> good point. So lets... throw people in jail?

I'd say prohibition has destroyed our society. The onus should be on prohibitionists to defend the status quo.

<comment><USER4> I don't remember writing anything about jail. Legalisation and penalisation are two very different issues.

<comment><USER6> While I'm pro-legalization of cannabis, this is a fair point. Portugal's drug policy is widely lauded, yet we only decriminalized consumption; even pot is still illegal, and being caught selling is a crime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article has… too many puns.

      > A report by the Bonger Instituut, a criminology think-tank named after a professor at the University of Amsterdam, is blunt

      > But as fewer coffeeshops are expected to cater to ever larger groups of stoners, that approach could leave them out of joint.

<comment><USER8> I hate this sort of ubiquitous, juvenile attitude about cannabis. It is completely annoying.

<comment><USER9> Articles in The Economist are always full of puns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mostly-non-toxic and non-habit-forming drugs that have the potential to change your values are dangerous to the status quo, and therefore morally reprehensible.

Alcohol and cigarettes, toxic and dangerous to users and bystanders, don't change your values, and enable control of a population.

The only reason this continues its farcical conflict in modern societies is the moral majority shout louder (and have more money) than potheads do.

<comment><USER11> Marijuana while generally not physically addictive can be habit-forming though. How else do you explain stoners? I'm not bashing pot but I know people who were different people before adopting "pot as a lifestyle." I'm drawing the distinction here between recreational user and non-medicinal multiple times a day daily user, with "stoner" being the latter.

<comment><USER10> You're right, I misspoke, it is habit forming and non-addictive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been to Amsterdam 6 times over the past 10 years and every time it gets harder to find a coffee shop. Pubs galore, obviously.

<comment><USER11> I was there recently. In the Canal District they looked very abundant still.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was there a few days ago and it wasn't hard to find the coffeshops, but it's was often really hard to find available seating.

Thankfully quite a lot of pubs that sell alcohol (but not weed) allow/encourage people to bring and smoke their own joints (as long as they don't contain tobacco, which is banned).

<comment><USER12> The tobacco thing is only really enforced if you ask them if it's allowed. We roll with tobacco and at the most they'll come ask you to hide your fag packet/filters in case the police come in.

<comment><USER13> And the weirdest thing is that the prerolled joints are 95% of the time rolled with (a lot of) tobacco. And those are perfectly fine to sell and smoke in the coffeeshop!

<comment><USER12> Are they? I've only ever seen them mixed with that incense stuff.

<comment><USER13> Huh, not as far as I know. There certainly are a lot that are sold with tobacco. Maybe it depends on whether or not the coffeeshop has an isolated smoking room, which means they could have tobacco inside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I visited Amsterdam almost 20 years ago. I'm very square. I struggled to find a place to just buy a coffee!

Re: Comments about crime, things may have changed but I found it to be very safe. Perhaps not as safe as Tokyo, but better than the South side of Chicago or the tenderloin in SF.

<comment><USER15> I think Amsterdam is safe, in the sense that I don't feel there's much reason to fear for your physical well-being. However, when I visited (mid 2000's), the main train station's PA message loop included warnings about pickpockets.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, Amsterdam is very safe. But there has been an influx of pickpockets in Amsterdam as well as many other cities. Even cities like Utrecht (close to Amsterdam, but still a relatively small town) seem to have significantly more beggars and homeless these days. I also noticed an increase of beggars in the trains, leaving notes and packs of gum or whatnot at every table in the cabin.

It worries me slightly, not because I'm bothered by it but because I can imagine it having significant effect on the rise of populism.

<comment><USER17> Is it safe even for muslims?

<comment><USER16> Yes? I'm not sure what you're getting at...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash This is what happens when you take two bad ideas - illegalization of victimless vice and overregulation of industry - and make them sleep in the same bed.

The coffeeshop model was a cute Dutch experiment in the beginning but it is groaning with scale. The model has to be scrapped and re-thought, or it will continue to be manipulated by "well-meaning" laws that shutter coffeeshops becaue _they just happen_ to be located within the prohibited radius of schools, even if such schools only teach hairdressing to adults.

Petty-internet-argument-deflection-shield: soft vices like marijuana are victimless when safe and legal. Criminalization puts it in the hands of criminals.

</comment><comment><USER18> last time i checked there was still a street next to the Dam with ten or so of these operations. They're not going away anytime soon. But you have to realise pot stinks immensely. it is no fun to have a street smell of weed. So some restrictions in the center of Amsterdam are in order, else the inner city will be clouded in pot-smog.

<comment><AUTHOR> Weird, I've never heard anyone describe the smell of weed as stinky. It's strong and distinct, sure, but not bad smelling.

Anyway, you have it backwards. Because the coffeeshops are getting overcrowded people are basically forced to smoke outside instead, which is obviously way more smelly than people smoking inside coffeeshops (which can be odorless outside if done properly).

<comment><USER19> Weed has always smelled to me of skunk spray. By potheads it's been described to me as "gods vagina" smell, which doesn't seem much better. If one had sensitivity to scent, a cityscape reeking of weed would be fairly unpleasant.

<comment><USER20> I think it's an "acquired taste" kind of thing: it doesn't smell nice... until it does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> And that is why San Francisco and LA are going to EXPLODE with tourist. Snapchat central, here we come. The Kids are running the show now. Amsterdam was cool, but that's kind of last year.

LA is rocking! :-)

<comment><USER22> Question from someone who hasn't been to the US in 2 decades:

Is the MJ culture of the US where it's legalised (Colorado, LA, etc.) such that you get coffeeshops like the Netherlands, or is it more a dispensery style arrangement where you buy it for consumption in a private premises such as your home, or both?

<comment><USER23> Dispensary style. Public consumption is almost universally outlawed AFAIK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do they serve coffee at these shops?

<comment><USER22> Yes. They cannot serve alcohol but otherwise they can serve snacks and other non-alcoholic drinks. I enjoyed a decent espresso coffee and some juice.

Culturally, it's a place where people come to e.g.: play a game or three of chess with some mates and just chill and socialise. Barring alcohol, the rest of what you can purchase more or less aligns with what you'd expect people would want in that sort of situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> People go to Colorado now instead?

</comment><comment><USER26> The Economist is up to turning Dutch economy hotter. Nice PR piece.

</comment><comment><USER27> Honestly Amsterdam has in many ways become a place for British tourists being super annoying. If closing coffeeshops is what it takes for the place to become more enjoyable for the rest of us I'm not mad.

</comment><comment><USER28> Fascinating from the perspective of someone who lives just outside of Washington DC, where marijuana has essentially been legalized. My friends who smoke tell me that, while it's illegal to sell weed, it's not illegal to give it away. So there are now shops that sell old newspapers for $50 each, but you get a free bag of high-grade weed along with it. It will be interesting to see the effects this has on other crimes and illegal drug use in a few years of study.

Having toured Amsterdam on a business trip, I was surprised that, even with the easy access to weed and prostitution, taxi drivers would not take me to certain historical sites in the city because they were too dangerous. The "safe" section of the city was fairly small, with the rest of it overrun with harder drugs and crime. With more American states legalizing and decriminalizing, we'll soon get to compare with the Dutch experiment.

<comment><USER29> Small side note, Amsterdam has it's issues here and there with crime, for sure, but saying there is only a small "Safe" section is complete nonsense. Most historical sites are completely safe, except maybe for pickpockets, like any major tourist congregation.

The major problem in Amsterdam is the taxi drivers. They refuse to take you somewhere because the distance is not enough for them to make some money on (even though this practice is illegal). They are aggressive, do not know their way around town and are general assholes. The market was deregulated, i.e. everybody with a roof light is now a taxi, they even have fake signs from "reputable" taxi companies.

TL;DR Amsterdam is safe Amsterdam Taxis are crazy bad.

<comment><USER30> Yes, Amsterdam is safe, especially within the ring.

Those pickpockets though - rapacious and bold. Much worse than Rome or Paris for example.

<comment><USER13> >Much worse than Rome or Paris for example.

Anecdotally, I think the opposite is true. There are far more noticeable scammers and pickpockets in for example touristy areas of Paris, or even its metros.

It's surprisingly hard for me to find concrete data on this, however. I'm curious to know.

<comment><USER30> Scammers yes worse in Paris, but not pickpockets in my experience. Might have been lucky.

TBH probably depends what time of the year and where you go.

What really annoys me is the acceptance of these cities with their existence. Amsterdam trams will warn you whether there are pickpockets on board (zakkenrollers). So they're easy to spot by the locals. But I've never seen real policing. I have seen pickpockets do almost full body searches on unsuspecting tourists on crowded trams.

And they get very menacing when they know that you know what they're up to.

<comment><USER13> What can they do? It's obviously in the city's interest to squash the pick- pocketing as much as possible, but it's not easy to police against. It's like bike theft. Bikes get stolen all the time but there's little that can be done to stop it.

I tend to avoid areas where they'd congregate and I don't especially look like a tourist, so there's probably some confirmation bias at play.

<comment><USER17> What about using surveillance cameras?

I presume that pickpockets aren't going around wearing masks, so it should be possible to identify them from surveillance camera footage, no?

<comment><USER13> Stations and even heavily trafficked parts of the RLD are already covered with cameras, so they're clearly only so effective.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Introducing KA Lite, an offline version of Khan Academy - <AUTHOR> http://jamiealexandre.com/blog/2012/12/12/ka-lite-offline-khan-academy/

<comment><USER2> Congrats, Jamie and team! As a Khan Academy developer I can attest that this was a substantial technical undertaking.

"While it's possible that within, say, 10 years, internet access will have reached near global ubiquity, that shouldn't stop us from actively finding ways to work around its current limitations, to reach populations in need; waiting 10 years means letting already disadvantaged communities fall another generation behind, perpetuating the global digital divide as we move into whatever its next instantiation may be."

++. Kudos for highlighting (and tackling) the compounding nature of inequality.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is a little ridiculous, three discussions on the same exact topic on the home page at once? you can't tell me all of those votes were legitimate.

<comment><AUTHOR> The links are to three different blog posts, by various people who worked on the project, talking about their (our) experiences.</comment></comment>


Announcing OpenShift Enterprise – an On-Premise PaaS from Red Hat - <AUTHOR> https://openshift.redhat.com/community/blogs/announcing-openshift-enterprise-paas-from-redhat

<comment><USER2> Here's the accompanying blog post for the announcement: <http://red.ht/WtuFRJ>

</comment><comment><USER3> What does this really buy you over and above installing your own OpenShift Origin cluster?

<comment><AUTHOR> Enterprise support, tested and validated packaged software, security and bug fixes, stability of APIs and ABIs, certifications, and Red Hat Open Source Assurance program.</comment></comment>


MSSQL Server Now Available on Linux – What You Need to Know - <AUTHOR> https://www.morpheusdata.com/blog/2016-06-09-mssql-server-now-available-on-linux---what-you-need-to-know <comment><USER2> This isn't the original link, but I found this from 2016-03-07: [http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/07/announcing-sql- se...](http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2016/03/07/announcing-sql-server-on- linux/)

Edit: The actual product page: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server- cloud/sql-server-on-l...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/sql- server-on-linux.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nope, nothing there. Is is actually available?

</comment><comment><USER4> ??? Gone?</comment>


Algorithms, A Dropbox Challenge and Dynamic Programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.skorks.com/2011/02/algorithms-a-dropbox-challenge-and-dynamic-programming/ <comment><USER2> That is a very complicated way to code this. Here is the quick and dirty technique that I have been using on lots of Project Euler problems:

      def subset_summing_to_zero (activities):
          subsets = {0: []}
          for (activity, cost) in activities.iteritems():
              old_subsets = subsets
              subsets = {}
              for (prev_sum, subset) in old_subsets.iteritems():
                  subsets[prev_sum] = subset
                  new_sum = prev_sum + cost
                  new_subset = subset + [activity]
                  if 0 == new_sum:
                      new_subset.sort()
                      return new_subset
                  else:
                      subsets[new_sum] = new_subset
          return []

(I could easily make this more efficient.)

<comment><USER3> You obviously missed this part:

       Just like with any dynamic programming problem, we need to produce a matrix

very nice code, I found it much clearer than the blog post

The key intuition is that by considering the items sequentially, you only care about being able to reach a given sum rather than caring about all the subsets that can reach that sum. So the performance is linear in the number of different sums rather than the number of subsets.

<comment><USER2> No, I didn't miss that part. I just didn't believe it.

See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#Dynamic_pro...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_programming#Dynamic_programming_in_computer_programming). You will find that having a table is only one of several options. The approach that I took fits the description of the second class of technique there, going bottom up.

<comment><USER3> I was kidding :)

seriously though, what's up with the sort() call?

<comment><USER2> _what's up with the sort() call?_

The spec for the problem he was actually trying to solve said that you needed to provide the set of activities in sorted order. The list is generated in no particular order, so I sorted them before returning them. (A Python array sort sorts the array in place.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The challenge was:

\---

We get a list of up to 50 activities and an associated calorie value for each (either positive or negative), we need to find a subset of activities where the sum of all the calorie values is zero.

\---

Did anyone else here immediately think to write a function hard coded to return the empty set?

<comment><USER5> Hehe yes, and I feel kinda bad for that. I think it's some permanent damage that I picked up from pair programming using unit tests and my desire to troll my pair partner into doing all the actual typing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I did a very similar investigation 5 years ago, to find the optimal way to fill-up a DVD from a set of files of various sizes (more than a DVD's worth). Have a look:

<http://users.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~ttsiod/fillupDVD.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> Here is my Perl code for the diet puzzle, as well as sorting it splits the set into positive and negative subsets: <https://gist.github.com/805894>

</comment><comment><USER8> So, for the problem, we are given some positive integer n and, for i = 1, 2, ..., n, numbers a(i).

So, we seek x(i) to solve

         min ( x(1) a(1) + x(2) a(2) + ... + x(n) a(n) )^2

         x(1) + x(2) + ... + x(n) >= 0

         subject to x(i) = 0, 1

So this is a 0-1 integer quadratic program with one linear constraint.

So for a reasonably practical solution, omit the 0-1 constraint and attack the problem as just a quadratic program.

Then for the 0-1 constraint, do standard branch and bound.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a proof that P=NP, but the margin is too small to contain it</comment>


Facebook Wants You to Have Privacy, Just Not from Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-07/facebook-is-getting-more-invasive-as-it-brags-about-privacy-gains <comment><USER2> Isn't deriving more value from your users while limiting the ability of your competitors just vendor lock-in? Said another way, finding a rich gold vein and buying the mining rights to that vein prevents your competitors from capitalizing on it.</comment>


Android APK 4.2 teardown shows Google getting serious about security - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/android-apk-4-2-teardown-shows-google-getting-serious-about-security/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29 <comment><USER2> ??</comment>


The Scottish Scoundrel Who Changed How We See Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-scottish-scoundrel-who-changed-how-we-see-data <comment><USER2> Fascinating story and provides a window to how modern scientific methods/world-view were constructed during the industrial revolution.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my new product (startup) - <AUTHOR>

We are a web agency startup (langoor.com) who recently launched a mobile website building tool:
www.langoor.mobi
We would love your feedback on the tool and whether you think it is useful for SMEs. Thank you! <comment><USER2> One piece of feedback on the 4 step process that you highlight on the homepage, shouldn't steps 3 and 4 be flipped? I'm finished and published everything on step 3 but on step 4 I have to add code to my site still?

</comment><comment><USER2> and on the Pricing page, I'd remove the "Popular" tag on the $300 plan and replace it with "Best Value" or something along those lines there. I mean, is it really popular now? didn't you just launch? Would someone just sign up for a $300 plan from the start? Some will, but the popular choice will be the free/$9 version

<comment><AUTHOR> Great insight - thanks for your advice. It all makes sense.</comment></comment>


God Or Science? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081215121559.htm <comment><USER2> "But if they are both ultimate explanations, at some point they have to conflict with each another because they can't possibly both explain everything."

I quite disagree. It's quite possible for there to be two ways something can happen. And just because only one did happen doesn't mean the other can't.

And on top of that this study didn't seem to study much of anything. You could have chosen any two concepts and done this and gotten much the same results.</comment>


Startup Scene in New Delhi - <AUTHOR>

What is the startup scene in delhi? Any hackers around here from delhi? Are there regular hacker meetups or conferences? <comment><USER2> There are quite a few meetups/conferences in Delhi - Proto.in, barcampdelhi.com , tienewdelhi.org etc</comment>


The Fun Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.thefuntheory.com/ <comment><USER2> First thing I read: "See how Volkswagen uses the Fun Theory"</comment>


Ask HN: Do many people use PRWeb.com? Is it effective? - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking of promoting my startup via PRWeb, and have heard plenty of rave reviews about it, but remain somewhat skeptical. Anyone here used it? Is it effective, and what did you see as a result? <comment><USER2> Yes, I used it. Can't say if it is effective or not but looks legit to me, not like other spammy PR distribution websites/</comment>


Dear Powerball Winner: Take Our Advice and Take the Annuity - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/upshot/dear-powerball-winner-take-our-advice-and-take-the-annuity.html <comment><USER2> The only good argument here is the self-control one; if you don't trust yourself not to burn through the money foolishly and then end up penniless within a decade, the structured payment is probably a good idea. The one that you'll end up with more money in the end, though, is not. It should be trivial to find investments that can bring you more than three percent a year.

Set aside a single-digit percentage of the lump sum for some immediate fun, then invest the rest and live off the returns. As long as you have the discipline to rarely, if ever, dip into the lump, you're good to go.</comment>


Full Complaint of Yahoo's Suit Against Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/116161693/Complaint

<comment><USER2> Really perplexing. While I was at Yahoo! they bet the farm (so to speak) on Facebook integration across their sites. Of course it was more or less a flop. I guess the next best thing is litigation?

If you can't beat them, join them. If joining them doesn't work out, sue them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm worried, can I click on the "like" button underneath the document without infringing on a patent?

</comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr

Yahoo is a social network. Facebook did not get there first.</comment>


Motorola To Split Into Two Companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/industries/technology/article/motorola-split-companies_534005_12.html <comment><USER2> Does anyone think that this new Mobile Device unit will be able to innovate and focus following this move?</comment>


Ask HN: Where's Greplin? - <AUTHOR>

There was such a buzz/hype about it, what happened? (genuine interest in learning...) <comment><USER2> [http://blog.cueup.com/announcing-a-new-name-new-free- service...](http://blog.cueup.com/announcing-a-new-name-new-free-service-cue)

<comment><AUTHOR> And how is Cue doing since?</comment></comment>


Software Devs Forming Space Companies - <AUTHOR> http://jedsundwall.com/interview-with-chris-radcliff/

<comment><AUTHOR> In the next decade I think we'll see an explosion in private engineering, not only in aerospace but also biomedical (companies like Halcyon) and materials (RepRap, Makerbot, increasing DIY) similar to what happened with the internet industry.

I love this: "…somebody who has maybe been a secret space nerd all their life, made their money in software development, [then sits down and says], "You know what? All these other secret space nerds now have rocket companies. Why don't I have a rocket company?" And they form one!

So there's a lot going on right now, and I think it's building on itself now to the point where honestly I give it two years in which we'll see the first paying passengers to go on these spacecraft, we'll see the launch of the first private space station, we'll see a government lease a private space station for the first time, we'll see the first private astronauts."</comment>


Joost Meerloo - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo <comment><AUTHOR> "And yet one day men will have to grow up. Compared with the long ages of human existence on earth, our civilization is in its infancy. Sooner or later we must be ready to leave the dreamland of childhood, where imagination finds unlimited scope, and take our place in a world of limited freedoms. That world however, can in the long run give us something better than any vision conjured up in childhood." – Total War and the Human Mind, 1944.

HN discussion of his book "The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing, 1956" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10400678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10400678)</comment>


Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris as his running mate - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/11/politics/biden-vp-pick/index.html <comment><USER2> I'd love to hear any theories about how/why this decision was made.

If it aids the discussion, here's a list of her policy positions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Kamala_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Kamala_Harris)

<comment><USER3> It's pandering to identity politics. Biden explicitly said he was picking a female candidate. With the riots, picking a black female is a natural(but risky) extension.

<comment><USER4> People downvoting you but it's the truth. Watch how media is lying about her being African American. She's Indian and Jamaican and family owned slaves - doesn't matter to me but it does matter a lot to the current left.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget that she was also the top law enforcement officer for California aka 'Top Cop', which to some on the left find unforgivable. (see ACAB (All Cops are B*stards)

<comment><AUTHOR> And the right didn't care for her anti-gun policies either.

In California, she doesn't have a lot of fans on either side of the isle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who do you think will win the election and why?

I think gerrymandering and the electoral college allocation will give one of the sides a distinct advantage.

<comment><USER7> > I think gerrymandering and the electoral college allocation will give one of > the sides a distinct advantage.

Which election? For the Presidential election, gerrymandering has very little potential impact, though electoral college allocation is a big factor. For the Senate, neither of those factors is in play, though something like (and, indeed, the source of most of) the electoral college distortion is in play. For the House, gerrymandering is a big deal, but the electoral college distortion is not a factor (nor is anything much like the electoral college distortion, except the chaotic effect of granularity on small states).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am sort of disappointed. Susan Rice would have been an excellent choice given the current relationship of US on the international stage. Rice would work with our allies and fix the damage Trump/Pompeo has dished out.

If we didn't have to pick a woman, Bernie Sanders would have been a major step forward for America.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I am sort of disappointed. Susan Rice would have been an excellent choice

I agree Susan Rice would have been a much better choice. Harris already had her chance in the "limelight", and was rejected.

She was a very unpopular primary candidate - why would she become more popular now?

> Bernie Sanders

Realistically, Bernie's platform is at odds with Biden's - so that doesn't seem to be a natural fit really.

<comment><USER8> Bernie has had two shots at it, but I think he would bring his decades of experience in politics, his unwavering stance on corruption/lobbying, his plan to reduce wealth disparity and a relentless push for climate action.

The man that fought for decades, still has the same message he did in 1981! [1]

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

<comment><AUTHOR> You may be right - but there's a healthy amount of American's that don't agree with Bernie's priorities our outlook on government. I guess this is evidenced by his failed bids at the presidency - although I admit he was far more popular than Harris has ever been.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin Arbitrage Tool - <AUTHOR> http://bitarb.herokuapp.com

<comment><USER2> It doesn't look like you took transaction fees into consideration.

Also, remember that a lot of orders on exchanges are superfluous and can be removed anytime. This might leave you with a loss on a few trades. Liquidity is another issue to consider, especially with fiat markets.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's also really difficult to be profitable with arbitrage under the new tax laws for bitcoin.

Not to mention each of the steps you list take time, and any step involving USD takes a LOT of time.</comment>


The Olympics didn't stumble because of Millennials, but because of NBC - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@brentonhenry/no-bloomberg-the-olympics-didnt-stumble-because-of-millenials-it-stumbled-because-of-nbc-17435801e8#.d1u79uspd <comment><USER2> The article makes a good point that cable-cutters have to do some extra work. Another separate issue is that MSNBC's (or the General Electric News Network, as I call them) really did a poor job on the coverage. I thought that a few of the announcers were consciously dissing on non-USA athletes. Isn't the Olympics supposed to be about good will and respect for athletes from around the world?

Another issue was in the choice of which events to cover. MSNBC would sometimes play USA athletes' performances over and over. Once would usually be enough, to make time for showing more sports venues.

This isn't just my opinion. Literally everyone I have talked to about the Olympic coverage did not like MSNBC's coverage.

<comment><USER3> Good will? That's why they have competitions based on country to beat each other with elevated podiums displaying they are better than the rest (gold, silver, bronze)? The good will is allowing every country to compete, the competition itself is not for goodwill.

<comment><USER4> > That's why they have competitions based on country to beat each other with > elevated podiums displaying they are better than the rest (gold, silver, > bronze)?

They also start the Olympics with the walk of nations. Maybe not as many people care about that, but I love to see each team walk down the way in their national garb waving to the crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes! I had a similar reaction to that Bloomberg article. My wife and I wanted to watch the Olympics, but were unable to do so because we're not cable subscribers (we mostly use our Roku).

This quote from the article was just so tone deaf:

[CEO of Time Warner's Turner division] Martin said, "I wonder if there was less content available -- and people felt more compelled to tune in to the traditional network -- whether that would bolster ratings."

</comment><comment><USER6> Totally agree. I love the Olympics but couldn't bear to watch it on NBC. I went on vacation to the Czech Republic and the coverage was so much better - fewer adverts, actually real-time, and a good cross section of sporting events. My kids loved it, especially the Mongolian wrestling controversy. So sad NBC are looking to blame someone else for their out-dated and over commercialized offering.

</comment><comment><USER7> #nbcfail

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nbcfail](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nbcfail)

</comment><comment><USER8> What's amazing to me is that even with broadcast TV, theoretically the medium that they have the most experience with, they still delivered an abysmal product that the author was kind in describing as "tolerable".

<comment><USER9> Ha, Author here - I believe I had originally typed "tolerable at best", but must have rephrased it at some point for some reason.

To me the whole thing felt like an awful extended episode of The Today Show. Watered down to make it just digestible enough you might put up with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Similar experience, in Canada.

Couldn't figure out how to legally watch the Olympics, using any available device.

If a provider can't be bothered to supply a legal, payed option using tools available to a large segment of the population, perhaps their marketing department needs an overhaul.

<comment><USER11> Was CBC not streaming through their app and website? I didn't watch the opening ceremony, but I was able to watch events through the app. I also do not have a cable subscription and CBC worked well for me.</comment></comment>