Please copy and paste the text of the error - <AUTHOR> https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabflavor/article/please_please_please/ <comment><USER2> I initially attributed this kind of omission as originating from laziness or just not knowing how to copy-and-paste* into their email client. Now I think it actually stems from a much bigger problem: the average computer user's inability to understand cause-and-effect, and their belief that there is just " _the_ error", with a corresponding " _the_ solution", because they think there is only one reason (and not really a real "reason", as it seems to be only understood by "neckbeards") that a computer error could occur.

Thus, it's not laziness, just something that logically follows from the erroneous assumption that there is only one kind of error, and thus, a competent programmer should automatically know the one solution to it.

* In terms of people not being able to copy-and-paste...just because they can do it in Word doesn't mean they realize that function exists in other apps. Take Google's finding that 90% of users didn't know how to use Ctrl-F ([http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/crazy-90-percent-of-people-dont-know-how-to-use-ctrl-f/243840/))....just a couple days ago, in the final week of my programming class, one of my students was amazed when I did a Ctrl-F in the terminal.

<comment><USER3> I originally wrote this when I worked at Facebook. The intended audience (who were submitting these reports at the time) was professional software engineers.

<comment><USER4> As a professional software engineer I can confirm that many of our rank have some sort of blind spot when it comes to error messages.

Many time someone has commented "I don't know why this build is failing!", and a quick search for "Error" in the build log reveals the exact cause.

My current pet peeve is an error message that reads "This application requires <dependency A>. <Dependency A> can be installed from <url>". If I had $1 for every time someone said "I don't know how to fix this".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of users have been trained by viewing years of essentially meaningless error messages: "Program has encountered a problem and needs to close", "Error!" or something which actually useful, but its by no means understandable to non-programmers.

Maybe people complaining about not being sent errors should make the errors themselves more approachable.

<comment><USER6> Or just make the programs automatically send error reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a programmer I think it's our duty to gather errors, it's not the user job.

Some thoughts:

\- Write everything in log files

\- Include a big button "send error to the programmer" which sends the log file

\- If you really need to display codes, make them short (like yourinteger.to_s(36).upcase in ruby)

\- Write friendly error messages that are informative and constructive, if possible write a solution in the message. NO: Cannot write file. YES: I was unable to save your document because your hard drive is full. You may delete unimportant files to gain space (like downloads) or you may try to save the file on another device (external drive, network drive…).

<comment><USER8> This is the right answer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most error dialogs I see on Windows/OSX systems are not text that can be cut and pasted. You have to take a screen shot.

<comment><USER10> Which will most likely be sent to you as a Word doc...

<comment><USER11> or pasted into MS Paint and then emailed as a 4Mb bitmap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it possible to make these titles just a little bit more descriptive of the content? I enjoy reading hackernews but increasing see these completely vague titles that tell nothing about the link. Some of us are pressed for time.

</comment><comment><USER13> The error is meaningless to the user (else they'd fix the problem instead of asking for your help), so it's no shock that sending the (meaningless) text to you is not the first thing that comes to mind.

That said, computers (and other complex machinery) have been integral to modern life for some time now. It's unfortunate that we're still graduating people from school that don't know how to make a useful bug report.

<comment><USER14> > The error is meaningless to the user (else they'd fix the problem instead of > asking for your help), so it's no shock that sending the meaningless text to > you is not the first thing that comes to mind.

That's a good point, and implies that the better the error message, the dumber the support requests you'll get about it because they're the only ones left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sadly, the people who will see this are not the people who need to see this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now you have something convenient and funny to show to the people who need to see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you can display an error message, you should be able to record it too. If a network error occurs and prevents the client from phoning home, log the error and send it later.

<comment><USER17> I'd much rather the tools I use on my computer _didn't_ phone home to report every time I use them incorrectly or they emit an error for whatever reason.

Edit: you could say "record the error and give the option to report it" but that's a whole lot of extra complexity, both UI and code. Especially for a bunches of single-purpose composable tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Even better track every error your app or web app or whatever shows a user. Even if the user doesn't tell you anything, at least the app or web app or whatever will.

</comment><comment> martin-adams While it is extremely valid to say that the error message should be more meaningful to users, they should. I often find myself in situations where people are asking me for support (co-workers not customers) on related tools and products which I have no control over.

In this case, please, please, please copy and paste the error message or send a screenshot.

And for those using TortoiseGit 'git did not exit cleanly (exit code 128)' does not count as an error message. #ScrollUp

</comment><comment><USER19> In case anyone is interested, this is normally what I send to my users so they properly document issues for me:

[https://github.com/backticks/issue- documentation](https://github.com/backticks/issue-documentation)

Feel free to fork and stylize as you want.

</comment><comment><USER20> Sometimes I think that we should really reconsider the way we allow people to use computers. You need a license to drive a car, and IMHO perhaps it should be the same with computers - at least the more complex systems - this would solve a lot of issues.

Just my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER21> The same thing applies to searching for the cause/resolution to a problem. I don't know how many times I've had to encourage my parents to just Google the text of the error message they see, and read the first few results.

</comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me of Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions" guide.

[http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart- questions.html](http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> The last two lines of the post :D

Subject: Irony

There is a spelling error in the error message I received.

</comment><comment><USER24> Please.</comment>


Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist - <AUTHOR> http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this has been on here a twice a few years back, but never had a single comment. Here's to breaking the trend.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5814769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5814769)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6346156](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6346156)

This is from the same site, from the title looks to be prior work on the same topic, also submitted previously (6 years ago) with no comments:

[http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic- gro...](http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/)

<comment><USER3> It's too challenging and bleak. Beneath the light tone, it mercilessly drives home the truth that all of modern society exists in a _temporary_ historical juncture that is not stable over a timespan of mere centuries. Instead of the smoothly increasing "better everything" over time that was practically a secular religion in the latter half of the 20th, we're told that things _will_ change drastically in the not that distant future, and _not_ in the manner we've believed.

<comment><USER4> Nobody belongs anywhere, nobody exists on purpose, everybody's going to die.

How about saving the existential dread for your therapist? Let economists focus on economics.

<comment><USER5> Economics are driven by people. People have emotions. Failure to grasp this leads to disaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This concern about economic growth in 1000+ years is entirely academic. The more relevant question is whether exponential growth (at whatever rate) is feasible for the next few decades and even centuries, and to me the answer to that question is yes, just using the examples from the article. So we can build appropriate policies for the present and near-ish future. Our descendants can decide for themselves at that point whether it's reasonable to continue economic growth, based on knowledge and science and experience they have gained.

I mean, how many physical theories can be argued to work into the _infinite_ future? Does quantum mechanics or GR hold past the end of the universe? It's not even a meaningful question. Why hold economic models to the equivalent standard, when all that is needed is whether they hold in the relevant domain?

I feel that this question and argument is often used to try to draw the conclusion that we must stop trying for economic growth NOW, because _infinite_ growth is impossible. Maybe it is impossible, but I don't think something happening or not happening at infinity or even in a thousand years has any bearing on what _we_ should be doing _now_.

<comment><USER2> From what I got out of it, they were talking about smaller timescales, on the order of a couple centuries. The 1400 years was a sort of upper limit (our planet consumes as much energy as the sun, hotter than the sun). 400 years was where the atmosphere reaches the boiling point. Those of course are the steady 2%-3% increase numbers though, and assume there's actually enough energy to reach those states, which there probably isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> AKA: "physicist frames discussion with economist in terms of things he is intimately familiar with but economist isn't, feels smug about his own perceived superiority". Probably a reflection on his frustration with feelings of being so much smarter than those 'economists' yet not being taken half as serious. The fact that he thought this was even worth spending 2-3 hours on writing up shows more about his lack of understanding of what economics is, than what he probably thinks is an "exposure" of the inadequacies of economics as a field.

(not an economist, but broad-minded enough to recognize someone who has spend so much time in his own field to be completely rigid-minded about it. An affliction rather common to CS types too, I'm sad to say, since as a software engineer in research I spend quite some time around those)

<comment><USER2> It can certainly read like that, but there is a note before the exchange begins that explains his representation will be naturally biased, if by nothing else than by his remembering his argument better than the opposing argument. Additionally, he does concede some ground at the end.

That said, I'm not sure it's a _real_ exchange. It feels somewhat manufactured to me. But that's somewhat irrelevant to the point, as long as the arguments each side presents are conceivable for their professions and the current prevailing beliefs within them (which I'm not qualified to judge).

In the end though, that's all irrelevant. The real question is whether you find the _facts_ of the argument compelling and whether it changes your view on anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I apologize for not sticking it out until the end of the article, but it got really painful about a third of the way through.

I am tempted to save this and put it under a file titled something like "why scientists should not be economists" but I'm afraid it's a little too involved for that purpose.

I mean no disrespect to the author: these all seem like good and reasonable questions. To understand why this form of analysis does not work is to cut to the heart of what the difference between economics and hard empirical sciences. I will give a couple of examples, but I fear that folks who missed it the first time around will not get it this time.

First, note that no matter what period in human history this conversation occurred, it would follow the same pattern. "Here is a chart of the rate of fishing from the pond near our Roman village. Certainly catastrophe awaits us in just a few years", or one that actually occurred, "Population growth will stagnate and we will have famine when the 1900s come. Why? Because we will have ran out of grazing land for all the horses we will need"

Growth lines can't continue forever. Seems obvious. Yet somehow it always turns out the thing you were measuring wasn't the important thing all along. Sure, you can only fish so much -- but there are other ponds. Yep, can't have that many meadows -- yet meadows aren't a constraining factor.

The reason why such analysis fails is that science is always seeking a constrained and known system. Given controlled conditions, the falsifiability and reproducibility of science says that given these inputs, these outputs are likely to occur. Economics, because it deals with what people want, is under no such constraints. Let's say you give everyone on the planet all the food, shelter, and healthcare they need. End of money, right? Nope. People would trade Justin Bieber concert tickets, or autographs of Elvis Presley. People always want stuff they don't have, and they always like trading for it. That's economics.

If economic systems were the same as physical systems, wow, we'd have a lot of physicists who have made fortunes playing the stock market. We do not.

</comment><comment><USER9> OK, so I'm neither a physicist nor an economist. But I don't get why aggregate economic value couldn't grow indefinitely. For example, consider software.

Poorly written code might not be very valuable, because it's slow and crashes often. Well written code would arguably be more valuable. It would also waste less electrical energy, and produce less heat.

Indeed, code could do entirely new things, using less material and energy inputs, that are worth much more. Maybe I'm missing something, but that seems distinct from increasing efficiency. There's a limit to efficiency, but no limit to value.

<comment><USER10> You're not missing anything.

The author seems to be (accidentally or intentionally) part of an ultra- heterodox economic school that believes that all economic value, across all times and places, comes from the consumption of energy.

They base this mostly on that graph near the top of the article that shows that energy consumption was growing exponentially during the industrial revolution.

He then goes on to imagine that 3% economic growth means that in 200 years we'll all have 400 times as many cars and refrigerators (or maybe just one car the size of a luxury yacht), eat 400 times as much food, have houses 400 times as big, etc.

<comment><USER11> > The author seems to be (accidentally or intentionally) part of an ultra- > heterodox economic school that believes that all economic value, across all > times and places, comes from the consumption of energy.

Ultimately all life is based on exploiting energy gradients. Economic value without using more energy is ultimately an _efficiency_ improvement, an investment of past energy which is proving beneficial.

<comment><USER12> On top of that you get Jevon's Paradox.

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

Basically that improvements in efficiency leads paradoxically to more usage, as new uses becomes feasible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A economic blogger's retort from a few years ago:

[http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.nl/2012/11/murphys- law.html](http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.nl/2012/11/murphys-law.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Sure there's a physical ceiling to energy generation but I feel like there's a great degree of oversimplifcation in his argument.

Take for example solar: right now, pretty much all of that energy (sans the work performed for propelling ocean currents and production of future fossil fuels via photosynthesis of plants) is irradiated back into space anyway. Using more of that energy to perform work on surface of Earth won't change a thing from global thermodynamics perspective. That energy is already on the books.

Or consider hydro (a consequence of solar itself): the moving water already carries energy and performs work. Re-purposing that energy in the form of electricity would have no impact on the overall energy budget.

Granted the energy growth is theoretically limited, but the limit might not be as near if we consider that much of energy generation could be essentially energy conversion.

<comment><USER15> Consider this: a) at some point our energy budget will exceed total Sun radiation reaching Earth, and b) indefinite "re-usage" of energy is impossible (entropy).

<comment><USER14> I actually considered this, making a disclaimer at the beginning and the end of the post :)

My point was that the timeframe would likely be quite different, e.g. millennia instead of centuries. From theoretical perspective doesn't change anything, but perhaps makes the argument a bit less dramatic.

<comment><USER12> What he did was to take the economists golden calf, the 3% growth pr annum, and run with it in physical terms. Demonstrating how, if economists managed to maintain that growth curve, the energy requirements would be staggering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't waste your brain cells on this, people, move along.

To the author: you scoot off to /r/badeconomics. Sure. OK. Economic growth cannot continue to look like it currently does forever. Gasp, some economists may not have ever pondered that particular limit case, given the importance to their everyday lives. I know that it was super thrilling experience for you ("That should not have happened!" as if the economist were a debate club champion and superhuman?) but trapping a man in a word game over dinner is does not mean you've shattered his profession - not even if he falls into your clever trap. The whole discussion has no bearing on what economics is or what economists do.

To be more concrete: what economists do involves more data, accepting that there is a use to building mathematically tractable models with limited domains of explanation even if it means some implausible assumptions in limit cases, and it certainly involves less worrying about what the world will look like 2500 years from now. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about the ultra- long-horizon future of humanity. I'm sure there are some smart people working on those issues, but econ departments are not where people do it. There are no data, no way to establish causal links that far out, no arguments that could make it into a respectable economics journal.

<comment><USER16> Did you just say that research about our far out economic future is not supposed to be a job of academic economists?

It doesn't have to be a main research area for all of them, but it _should_ be for some. And all economists should know the basics (physical limitations, ...) about this area of economics.

P.S. Always interested in some decent reading material about this one!

<comment><USER4> I said there is very little that can be said scientifically using economic methods about the distant future. You may as well be talking to Singularity crowd, global warming scientists, asteroid impact researchers, or SETI. GDP growth researchers should follow Wittgenstein's advice.

There's far too much that we don't know about the economy right now to include wild speculation, even if it's mysterious and thrilling, in the category of economic knowledge.

<comment><USER17> It sounds like just the type of thing that has no use until one day it suddenly does. Ideas like these need a long time to gestate - better to do that before they're needed rather than after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Impracticality of physical economic analysis aside, I'm now curious about the engineering problem of cooling down a planet overheating from sheer exothermal industry. Can you pack enough waste heat into a canister that launching it into space is a net decrease in energy? Can space elevator tethers be used for evaporative cooling into the vacuum?

As I recall, in Niven's books an alien race moved their planet away from its sun in order to deal with the problem, but I assume that wouldn't even buy us an order of magnitude in planetary energy dissipation capacity.

</comment><comment><USER19> Those discussions always seem to miss the point. I think it is really obvious that our economic system struggles with stagnation, but really seems to break if an econmy (god forbid) shrinks for whatever reason.

If not for that constraint i guess economies in western countries would have already shrunken quite a bit due to automatisation. For me the cause seems to be to a fundamental bug in our intertemporal trade system.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is very unlikely to be a real conversation. A real economist would note that the economy can grow through provision of services that require very little energy relative to the value they add. Consider Google, for example. Sure, they use some electricity, but relative to their revenue that's extremely limited compared to a factory.

So this whole "discussion" is totally wrong-headed.

<comment><USER2> He goes through pains to explain why that doesn't really matter for the argument. Punting the football a few decades down the line does not solve the underlying issue he's trying to illustrate.

<comment><USER20> The dialogue is about energy sources, but that's irrelevant when there are whole lines of economic activity that consume very little energy. A service economy can deliver economic growth while energy consumption falls.

This whole dialogue is utterly wrong-headed, and I don't for a second believe that that economist is a real economist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If some technology analogous to a Mr. Fusion is ever developed, then perhaps the economy could reach a point where energy is free, but heat pollution is heavily taxed.

The outcome would be that people start migrating into space, where heat can be rejected more freely.

<comment><USER22> Heat can only be radiated in space. Also, think about it, earth is in space. Heat is only ever radiated or temporarily dumped into sinks such as planets, which eventually radiate it.

<comment><USER23> Note that for satellites, 100-200W /m² is about the peak radiation rate as well. _Radiators_ for space-based power would be a massive cost alone.</comment></comment></comment>


Prediction.io Classification Template Engine Step-By-step Guide - <AUTHOR> http://kafechew.com/2015/05/22/prediction-io-classification-template-engine-step-by-step-guide/

<comment><AUTHOR> PredictionIO is an open source Machine Learning Server for developers and data scientists to build and deploy predictive engines. This is a step-by-step guide for newbie those are interested to try Prediction.io but feeling the official documentation is too confusing.</comment>


No thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/No-thanks-Google-we-ve-got-Ubuntu/0,139023769,339297306,00.htm <comment><USER2> The author seems to see Chrome OS as just another linux distro, and asks why not to take Ubuntu and make it better. But I don't think that's the case. They will just take the Linux kernel and build browser-based OS, which will be quite a different product from Ubuntu.

I am looking forward to this. It seems to me, no offense, that Linux just didn't win against Windows, and that doesn't seem to change in the next few years. Even on netbooks, most people preferred Windows Xp for $50 to a free Ubuntu, and Win7 is supposed to be even better. It seems to me that Ubuntu is just a niche product, while Chrome OS could have bigger appeal.

<comment><USER3> What I find more troubling is this notion that variety (or fragmentation as they call it) is bad.

They very clearly state it is an OS geared for low-resource netbook style computers, where browsers are up and running within seconds of pressing the on button. We don't have one of these yet, afaik.

Why not work with Ubuntu? It's geared to be the Windows of Linux, an all-round competitor and jack of all trades. In my mind, this would be stupid. That's like the original Ubuntu developers getting grief because they weren't building on some other distro, which may have been built with a different use in mind.

I like using Unix for my server, Win7 for my home laptop, and hopefully giving a stable version of Chrome OS a swing down the line on my girlfriend's netbook. If anything, it sounds like they want to build "down" from ditro's such as Ubuntu, not up. I'd rather not use a baseball bat in a game of tennis. Variety is a good thing.

<comment><USER4> Isn't this browser OS concept essentially what the Crunchpad aims to be?

Edit: Of course, the crunchpad is also the hardware component, making it more all-in-one.

<comment><USER5> The Crunchpad aims to be _a browser_. Specifically: a finger-friendly one.

GoogleOS would still be dealing with things like USB devices, a variety of internal hardware, offline processing, keyboard/mouse UI, desktop-class apps, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is why the open source movement is so interesting, we're seeing competition and innovation in Operating Systems like never before.

The cost of taking world-class components (like the kernel, filesystems, windowing systems) is so low that it makes sense for people and companies to experiment, as we're seeing now. Chrome OS would be prohibitively expensive to develop if they weren't able to take so much off of the shelf.

<comment><USER7> On the same note, without Open Source, netbooks may never have gotten a start. Microsoft could have charged a prohibitive license fee to sell $350 laptops. They could have refused to continue XP. Windows 7 for netbooks would never have been necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _You can email Linus Torvalds or Mark Shuttleworth directly and get answers to your Linux questions, sometimes within minutes or hours._

I call BS. At best, maybe _you_ can get answers like that because you're a already a Linux wizard. Linus and Mark are not going to help me set up my network printer with Ubuntu.

<comment><USER9> If you need help with setting up your network printer with Ubuntu you can find dozens of avenues where you can get that answer (you could email me for instance, I'd be happy to help you ;) ), also, last time I did this myself the process was completely painless.

I realize that you are speaking tongue in cheek but it is a less than fortunate example.

Oh, and the offer to help is serious in case you really have that problem.

<comment><USER8> Hey, every OS has support forums (and Ubuntu's are above average), but "I can just email the kernel developer" is not a rational way to deal with set up and support issues.

Support isn't the real issue anyway. You can always buy support (it's not like the support you get with Windows is anything special anyway).

Ubuntu (and Linux generally) is great as a server. I gave up on Ubuntu on the desktop. It was very hard to set up and configure. Sleep/resume was flaky on my Thinkpad. On my desktop it took several days of trying different drivers and hacking xorg.conf to get my second monitor to work properly, and my cheapo webcam is flat-out not supported by any driver I could find (and I really looked).

Yeah, these are mostly driver issues that aren't really Linux's "fault" -- but who cares. In Windows everything _just worked_ out of the box.

I think Google will have the same problems. People aren't going to be happy if they buy a Google PC and nothing happens when they plug in their ancient, oddball plotter printer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Mozilla Firefox is completely independent and not pushing anyone's agenda_

I'm not sure that this is strictly true. The majority of the revenue from Firefox comes from the search deal with Google.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends- lucrati...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrative- deal-with-google-for-3-years/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Indeed the same argument could apply to _any_ new distro - why not drop your ideas and go make Ubuntu better.

Answer: because that is not the point of Open Source.

<comment><USER12> I logged into make that point _of Ubuntu itself_. Ubuntu was a new distribution at one time, launched in the face of existing popular options. If Ubuntu is wonderful, is it wonderful in spite of not rolling its ideas into the popular distributions at the time? Or is it wonderful precisely because it was able to decisively forge its own path?

And if so, why shouldn't that same logic apply to Chrome?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Using the Linux kernel in GCOS is not intended to compete with mos Linux distributions, rather it is to keep the lights on.

<comment><USER14> Similar with Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I shudder to think what ubuntu would run like on an arm with 128 meg. Ubuntu is cool on by daul core 4Ghz. Much less cool on my old 500Mhz PIII (even the XFCE edition).

Why not just say ubuntu is for big computers, chrome/os for small ones and not try to shoehorn any one thing onto everything?

<comment><USER16> Ubuntu Netbook Remix runs faster than Moblin & Windows XP on an Intel Atom - the primary CPU for netbooks. When they say ARM they mean something that can compete with the Atom, not some of the lower level ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For an example of what the chromeOS might end up like, take a look at this:

<http://www.thinkgos.com/index.html>

Ironically, its called gOS which implies strong google connections and thats reinforced by the integration of all the google apps.

I think it boots up in a few seconds, only has a chrome-like browser running and custom launcher for certain apps.

<comment><USER18> I was thinking about that as soon as I saw this. I think Google's strategy is a little bit different in that Google will be a browser first an operating system second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If google sees a need that isn't being met by the community, then it doesn't make sense to partner with an existing effort that already has its own people, mission, biases, and agenda. Ubuntu is very different from the Chrome OS.

It sounds like the author is angry at Google for competing with a product that he is emotionally invested in. While I can understand his emotional investment, I think it is foolish to get angry at companies for innovating and providing the world with new technologies.

</comment><comment><USER20> > The growing dominance of Ubuntu (at least on the desktop, the server room > seems to have been won by Red Hat)

Not my server room, for certain. Debian is doing very nicely there.

Desktop yes (along with Win XP and OS X), but I could go to Debian there, if I wanted to.

</comment><comment><USER21> See, but it is not a one size fits all kind of thing. If you have an iphone or ipod or a mac, you also have freebsd. If you have other cellphones, you have another os. And his thinking is influenced by the system administrator point of view.

</comment><comment><USER22> Users do not run OS. They run Applications. Hence it is rational to compare Usability, Performance and Functionality of GNOME/KDE/FOSS/Google Applications with Microsoft Applications.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great news for ARM, I guess.

<comment><USER24> I would prefer a desktop-like OS for ARM-based devices.

If the mainstream go for simpler OSs for those smartbooks, there will be little demand for a multi-gigabyte RAM with real hard-disk class of non-x86 machines.

I love my Acer Aspire One and use it as my main development system, but I have no need for its Windows compatibility and would trade it for longer battery life any day.

And a cache-heavy 4+ core ARM with decent FP capability would still need less juice than a single-core Atom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the author raises a valid point.

Back in the days, when Microsoft was the big, bad guy which everyone feared, not _a_ monopolist, but _the_ Monopolist, the One That Had To Be Stopped(tm), the current state of affairs was as following:

      * Microsoft controlled the OS
      * Microsoft had a Office suite
        (and defacto control of interchange file-formats)
      * Microsoft had a web-browser
      * Microsoft has a mobile platform
        (with support for the Office file formats and little else)

Now let's take a look at Google whose ass everyone seems collectively interested in kissing:

      * Google controls the majority of all web search
      * Google controls the majority of free web-mail
      * Google apps not only makes it their software
        but they also control your data
      * Google also has access to your local data
        albeit only if you use Google desktop search
      * Google tracks users everywhere on the web
        Google analytics lets them know what you are doing and why
      * Google has a browser
      * Google has a mobile OS
        Oh! And it in ties closely with all of Google's services
      * Google has a closed platform for application hosting
        Again they have total access to all your data

And now Google wants to make a desktop OS to further make sure they control every part of your daily activities.

But I guess it is entirely unproblematic that they can track your every activity wherever you are, on whatever device you are and whatever platform you are using. They are the good guys, right?

And it's not like they have lock-in on the file-formats you use, they just have lock-in on your actual _data_. I mean who cares about that?

After all they are using _web-standards_ to do the stuff they do, so it can't be bad, right?

Edit: Posts like this makes me wish HN had markdown support for unordered lists allready.

<comment><USER26> There is no lock-in with Google, and that makes _all_ the difference.

Switching to a different provider of search, email, website statistics, ads, browser, etc, is not only possible — it is effortless.

Google haven't made alliances with other vendors to make it hard or even uncomfortable to use a competitor's product in either market. Quite the contrary, many of their services provide means of _exporting_ my data, unlike many of their competitors.

Google does not dominate either one of those markets due to having leveraged dominance on another market, forcing the end-user's choice. I do not have to use Gmail just because I use Google for searching, it is _just as easy_ to use any other email provider instead. Same thing goes for ads, browser, etc.

As long as Google's services continue to be free of lock-in and either one are easily switched out for a competitor's product, I'll be comfortable using their various services in spite of dominance in various markets.

<comment><USER27> Effortless?

You are currently using 1794 MB (24%) of your 7345 MB.

How can I "Effortlessly" move my 18,000 emails to another provider?

How can I "Effortlessly" replace my need to cater to Der Googlebot for the assurance of keeping happy my largest source of traffic?

All I'm saying is... if 3/4 of all toll free phone calls to American businesses were routed thru a single provider, that company would be regulated by the Government. I don't necessarily thing Google should be regulated, but I do think you are naieve if you think the existence of Google circa 2009 isn't as dangerous as Microsoft circa 1999.

<comment><USER28> They provide pop3 access that lets you download all 18000 of those emails. You can then do whatever you want with them. Certainly set up your own webmail system on a server, say.

Oh store them locally in mail-client-of-your-choice. Or import them into any other webmail service that supports importing from pop3 (none come to mind, but it would be fairly trivial to implement.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu and we want more options.

Better options.</comment>


Palantir Has Raised $880M at a $20B Valuation - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/23/palantir-has-raised-880-million-at-a-20-billion-valuation/ <comment><USER2> After all these years, I'm still not really sure what Palantir does exactly.

<comment><USER3> CIA contractor. On a side note, they were involved with HB Gary in an attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks.

<comment><USER4> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7294743) and Thomas' reply. That's the extent to which Palantir was "involved" with HBGary Federal. (And while it should go without saying, I'll say it anyway: There was no attempt to infiltrate and destroy Wikileaks. Just a lot of hairbrained talk.)

<comment><USER3> Why should it "go without saying"? Have the facts been laid out and proven in an exceptionally clear and public way? I don't think so.

And "hairbrained" is an strange adjective to use for a company that is almost 100% engineers from top schools, pulling in a billion in funding, and working for the CIA.

All I know is the contents of the leaked presentation that laid out the plans against Wikileaks. I will ignore any PR and damage control about "hairbrained talk".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it's unlikely that they'll go public, how _do_ the investors hope to get their money (and more) back? I know there are other ways, but I don't have a feel for which kinds of arrangements would really be likely.

<comment><USER6> Out of curiosity, why wouldn't they go public ? Major govt contractors are public, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc.

<comment><USER5> I don't see why they wouldn't, but the OP says this:

"Palantir's next step isn't likely to be filing for an IPO as founder Alex Karp hasn't been keen on that idea in the past"

After $2.32B in funding it hardly seems likely that the plan is to go another round and _then_ IPO. Why would Karp be any keener on it then than now? That leaves the possibility of no IPO at all . . . hence the question.

<comment><USER7> That induction does not hold. Karp hasn't been keen on an IPO for the same reasons why many other private companies have been of late -- because it's easier to focus on growing the company without the ever-increasing overhead of being a public company. That in no way implies (or even suggests) that they never want to IPO. I used to work at Palantir, and I've never heard anything to indicate that they want to remain private forever. Even early on, Karp talked about not wanting to IPO (or sell out) too quickly. His plan was always to aggressively grow Palantir into an incredibly successful (and valuable) company, and only then to exit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> oooh duodecacorn :-)

Palintir is one of those companies that strikes me as one that really never goes public. If someone ever built The Machine, I would expect it to be them.

<comment><USER9> E. M. Forester?

[http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html](http://archive.ncsa.illinois.edu/prajlich/forster.html)

<comment><USER8> Person of Interest -- [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839578/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Check out their $1M job [https://angel.co/palantir- technologies/jobs/95978-deployment...](https://angel.co/palantir- technologies/jobs/95978-deployment- strategist?utm_source=profile_module_job_listing)

<comment><USER11> Just a typo. That position pays 100-150K + equity.</comment></comment>


GDPR in Plain English - <AUTHOR> https://blog.varonis.com/gdpr-requirements-list-in-plain-english/ <comment><USER2> So, if I understand this right, a dating website cannot ask you your sexual orientation, hobbies, religion, or really anything that might be useful in finding a match. Am I missing something? Can personal health forums not exist for EU residents, since it's not "legally required" to collect health information from forum participants? Either I'm not getting this, or it's insane.

<comment><USER3> From what I understand, a website can ask you for anything but they need to explicitly get consent (unlike say cookies policies) and they need to inform the user what the data is used for.

In your dating example, the user agrees the company can use the data to get a match. The company can't use the data for other purposes.

<comment><USER2> Well, that's not what Article 9 says, at least according to this source.

"Unless required by some other law (employment or real estate) – don't collect any data about race, politics, religion, union status, health data, sex life or sexual orientation."

<comment><USER4> That's an oversimplification. You can collect it, but you have to be very careful about securing it and not misusing it.

In the real world, those collecting this data are in fact generally misusing it or storing it insecurely.

<comment><USER2> That makes more sense. Thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you remove "anything that you could conceivably use" to identify a user from the data, is it exception to GDPR?

What if you store only unidentifiable data and enforce pseudonymity? There would be still ways to connect data to a person using forensic techniques like text analysis, but that would be hard.

<comment><USER6> There's always grey areas with everything, and something like this would likely come down to a court decision.

Was the person who removed the PII acting in good faith and to the best of their ability?</comment></comment>


Firefox 5 Beta is available for download - <AUTHOR> http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/5.0beta/releasenotes/

<comment><USER2> When a new version of Firefox comes out, I always like to find the oldest bug that it fixes. It looks like the winner this time is a 12-year-old bug affecting MathML: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21479>

Also fixed is this 7-year-old bug that has annoyed me for years: <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=254714> (When you open a link in a new tab, the new page's URL doesn't appear in the Location Bar until the page loads.)

<comment><USER3> Wow, thanks for pointing out that second one. That's bugged me for some time too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The state of PDF support in Firefox on OS X has me stuck at FF 3.6, and it doesn't look like that'll be changing for a while (unless I want to experiment with random xpi's and running FF 4+ in 32-bit mode, etc).

Until that's resolved, all the fancy CSS tweaks in the world won't mean a hoot.

<comment><USER5> On OS X, there's possibly the best PDF viewer ever, in Preview. I'm curious why you'd want so strongly to avoid using it?

<comment><USER6> I prefer opening a PDF in a tab until I've had a chance to see if it's something I want to keep. With download-and-open-in-Preview I'm filling up my Downloaded Files folder with a lot of PDFs that I don't want to keep, and I'll have to delete them manually.

<comment><USER4> Indeed, I'm surprised this had to be said.

<comment><USER7> As a linux user I am surprised. When I download to open in my reader the pdfs go into /tmp. This is fine, because since /tmp is a ramfs it just goes away when I turn off my computer. If I want it I just save it to a permanent location.

<comment><USER5> Unlike m_eiman and cemerick, I regard dumping debris into my Downloads folder as a feature. I basically never clean it out; it's just a convenience place to keep stuff that I have a low probability of ever wanting again, auto-sorted by how likely I am to want it (most recent first, in other words). Since I almost never bother with more than the first few items in the stack display of Downloads, it didn't occur to me that cleaning it out might be a chore, or even desirable.

<comment><USER6> It's desirable when you're using a laptop with a 120GB SSD that for some reason fills up all the time :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Actually the first beta of FF5 is available for almost a month on their ftp here

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/5.0b1/

<comment><USER9> That wasn't really a real beta. that was simply a copy of then Aurora to the beta channel to test the process and the channel switching utility in Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hm, still no win64 build available.

I mean they don't have to promote it through their website, just put it on the ftp. Take advantage of the dev-channel for some testing. Yeah, I know, I don't need Flash ...

</comment><comment><USER11> Why do we have version 5 already?

<comment><USER12> Firefox is moving to a more Chrome-style of version numbering, to try and get enhancements out to the web quicker.

<comment><USER13> If I wanted Chrome features, I'd download Chrome. The reason I use FF is /because/ I don't want to use Chrome. If FF just copies from other browsers, why have FF at all?

<comment><USER14> It's about faster release cycles not copying features.

<comment><USER15> That doesn't explain why we have Firefox 5 rather than 4.1. It must be that the Mozilla marketers were worried that the major version numbers were too low compared to Chrome and IE, so by bumping them up every few months they can catch up! I'm so impressed!

<comment><USER16> Trye, but unfortunately no one can match Chrome teams ability to rapidly ratchet version numbers. Chrome is is in a weird spot where they "had to" rapidly catch up to MS, but now it is awkward to shoot ahead to version 20 or 30. Presumably his is why they started downplaying version numbers once they caught up.

I wonder if Google is now committed to never break the Eextensions API now. To their credit, Android has done a great job with API compatibility over versions, not breaking old apps. Maybe Chrome can too, and dropping version numbers has raised the bar for software quality, just like forcing auto- upgrades has.

The whole thing is a bit silly.

This post composed in emacs 23. (Not really)

<comment><USER17> Emacs has followed a similar idea, essentially they just dropped the 1. (or was it 0. - can't remember!), so emacs 23 is really v1.23. Chrome is similar – why use endless non integers for main builds?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unless they have the quick, silent updates of Chrome AND the (so far) perfect quality control of Chrome, these quick releases do more harm then good.

<comment><USER19> I JUST downloaded FF4 and now I see 5 is coming out.

Version-less updates of browsers makes sense, and they should be seamlessly, silently, updated in the back-ground. This is getting crazy.

I install Firefox for friends and family who I want off IE, and this actually embarrasses me a little. If I have to keep telling them to update, they will quit - or end up using REALLY OLD versions of Firefox and we'll have an IE6 situation all over again soon but with Firefox.

I'm starting to install Chrome now. At least I can say that their browser will always update, and they have nothing to worry about.

<comment><USER20> Firefox 5 is not coming out. It's a beta. You shouldn't bother friends and family with it.

<comment><USER21> Actually, my Firefox it's advicing me to update. And I'm not on the nightly, developer or beta channel.

<comment><USER20> Strange, mine (4.0.1) doesn't. There's something broken either in the update routine or in your Firefox. The beta is not supposed to be recommended to users of a release version.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I'm also very confused. While I think it's a good idea to be pushing relases more often, this is way too often.

Here's the about Firefox dialog <http://i.imgur.com/cDbN1.png> and the update request <http://i.imgur.com/4SYRI.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> IndexedDB?

</comment><comment><USER23> Use it if you want break all the working addons for nothing.

<comment><USER24> The list of bugfixes is hardly nothing: [http://www.mozilla.com/en- US/firefox/5.0beta/releasenotes/bu...](http://www.mozilla.com/en- US/firefox/5.0beta/releasenotes/buglist.html)

<comment><USER25> Still, there's no reason to break bugfixes. Heck, a lot of them still work, if you flag some "developer mode", but you don't need to do that in Chrome.

Who care's if Mozilla has more extensions? They cause too much trouble when you upgrade.

<comment><USER26> I don't think it really counts as an "upgrade" if you opt-in to a beta.

<comment><USER16> True, but unless FF adds a "re-version-tag my addons based on feedback from testers" feature, we will get bitten when FF5 final comes out and disables all existing deployed extensions.

<comment><USER27> In actual fact, they've changed the process so this generally won't happen:

[http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on- compatibili...](http://blog.mozilla.com/addons/2011/04/19/add-on- compatibility-rapid-releases/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Tailscale Works - <AUTHOR> https://tailscale.com/blog/how-tailscale-works/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the blog post. I am following the project closely since Brad announced working for you.

My main concern currently is the coordination server which does not fit the zero trust claim.

I know that the traffic between peers is end-to-end encrypted and you did a good job designing your DERP protocol. However, the ability of the coordination server (login.tailscale.com) to add arbitrary nodes to my private network without my consent scares me.

Maybe you can use Wireguard's PSK to add an additional pre-shared-key to all nodes that is not managed by the coordinator (and never transferred to it)? This would make the setup slightly more difficult (you need to login to tailscale.com AND you need to provide your PSK), but it would at least ensure that the system can never talk to foreign nodes added by the coordinator itself (because the foreign nodes do not know the PSK).

If you already use the PSK for something else, another passphrase/key-file that is never transmitted and is XOR'ed over the PSK will do the trick. The firewall configuration that is pushed to all clients should be probably signed by a local key too, since it is rather critical.

Another possible attack of the coordinator would be if he pushes a configuration with correct VPN IPs and correct public keys, but changes the mapping between them. Since the IP within a wireguard network is usually used as an identity, this might be a huge problem.

<comment><USER3> Well, this just listed out my concerns pretty well and I spent the last hour installing this on my devices. Specifically, how do I explain to a fortune 500 IT department how this is secure in a few simple sentences?

<comment><USER4> Large companies that want to remove us from the trusted group should run the coordination server on-prem.

We have considered other certification options, but so far they boil down to running a part of the coordination server on-prem. Still exploring the space though.

(I work at Tailscale)

<comment><USER2> Sure, large companies can easily run a on-premise coordination server. But large companies usually also have a network department and several other SDN and VPN solutions already. They are probably using highly tuned and standardized ipsec tunnels with hw accelerated AES encryption and special devices from different vendors.

I think tailscale could become the #1 solution for personal users and small / mid-sized companies (some of them might not even have an IT dept). At least the easy installation, the single process design (no separate IKE service etc.) and the opinionated modern cryptography - that deliberately does not allow any configuration at all - would make it a really good candidate for those use cases.

This users can probably rent a cheap $3 VPS easily and use it as an on-prem coordination server. However, this increases the installation effort considerable and trusting the cheap $3 VPS to be an essential part of your cooperate network might be a deal breaker. Many of those users might not even have a dedicated team for server maintenance and might not apply security updates regularly.

So, please add an (optional) additional PSK (or key pair / certificate) to each node that is not shared with the coordination server and can be used to sign / verify the configuration on each client. Users that do not care don't have to specify anything (they just have to log-in and everything works). Users that do care would have to login and provide the PSK on each device.

(And to be clear, the problem is not that I do not trust you. I am sure you are doing a great job and I would really like to use your service. But you are an US based company and with the new data protection laws within the EU it might not be easy to convince all customers that potentially sending all their data to a third-party company within the US is necessary.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice, UX looks good. Other alternatives are Zerotier [1], Pritunl [2], and Slack's Nebula [3].

1\. [https://www.zerotier.com/](https://www.zerotier.com/)

2\. [https://pritunl.com/](https://pritunl.com/)

3\. [https://github.com/slackhq/nebula](https://github.com/slackhq/nebula)

<comment><USER6> I was coming here to say that it looks a lot like ZeroTier. The main differentiator as far as I know is the support for SSO and MFA.

With ZeroTier, the client connects to the network using a private shared key and then needs to be approved on the control plane independently.

<comment><USER7> ZeroTier original (and still main) author here. Objectively speaking another difference is the ACL scheme which seems perhaps less powerful than our own rules engine but easier to use. The ACLs are closer to intents while ZT rules require some TCP/IP knowledge (like raw iptables or pf).

We have plans to address this ourselves more with a higher level UI to build rules from intents and common patterns. Also have more auth integration planned, but the list is long.

<comment><USER8> Do you have any news to ZeroTier 2.0? I'm really looking forward to it and being able to deploy my own controllers easily!

<comment><USER7> Significant performance improvements in the core, reworked CLI, crypto improvements, professional security audit of both design and code, easier root server federation, easier DIY controllers, better multicast, and of course bug fixes.

The firm doing our security audits is an extremely well known one. Don't want to reveal the name quite yet.

It's possible that some of that won't land fully formed right away in 2.0 but will follow shortly thereafter, but the performance, auditing, crypto, and multicast will be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not clear from the docs. Can a two node Tailscale setup connect to each other when both sides are behind a IPv4 only CGNAT(Verizon/AT&T LTE)?

There is mention of STUN, but CGNAT is a whole new level of ugly and there is often NAT behind the CGNAT.

If not, do nodes that can get incoming connections become relay "super nodes?"

<comment><USER10> (Article author here.) Yes, this is what DERP is for. Nowadays automatically designating nodes as supernodes doesn't work as well as it used to, since many devices are battery constrained and cloud devices tend to have metered bandwidth. We might someday have a way to add your own DERP relays for your domain (since the DERP code is open source anyway). The tricky part is guaranteeing reliable delivery in that case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like these guys have done their homework (from a distributed systems PoV, I don't know much about the security side).

IIUC it's an application of one of my favorite design patterns: "this part needs CP, the rest is more flexible".

It's remarkable how far this gadget can take you.

<comment><USER7> Do you mean least privilege/ minimal centralization? I wrote this rant-ish post on the concept a while back.

[http://adamierymenko.com/decentralization.html](http://adamierymenko.com/decentralization.html)

It describes a route whereby I got to the concept, but I doubt I'm the first one there. Everything gets reinvented over and over again in this field.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tailscale looks really cool. BUT for a modern zero-trust solution I would like to also see a way to connect Load Balanced Applications in addition to devices.

Seems like I would need to setup a bastion device (virtual machine / container / other) with port forwarding for each Load Balanced Application since ACLs are set on the device level. The bastion would then be a single point of failure. Is there another way?

<comment><USER4> We have been thinking about load balancing as part of a general concept of services we want to roll out. Totally agree we need something. If you want to discuss it further, want to file an issue on github?

(Tailscale co-founder)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was wondering, does this work with any domains that advertise (for example) OpenID Connect, or does it require one of the well-known providers?

<comment><USER4> It can, though right now we only expose a few well-known providers. For business customers we can add providers, send us an email!

Hopefully we can make this self-serve at some point. It's on the TODO list.

(Tailscale co-founder)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seems a bit like TINC-VPN

[https://www.tinc-vpn.org/](https://www.tinc-vpn.org/)

<comment><USER15> Tinc is really quite excellent, but it lacks the central authority to dynamically handle authentication and key management like tailscale.

I think the ideal case is Tinc continuing to manage the control plane for mesh networking, integrated with Wireguard as the actual VPN under the hood (given its rapid emergence as the de-facto "Linux VPN"), combined with a (currently absent) central identity management system like what tailscale provides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have what I think is a probably pretty common enterprise use case.

Windows Server with file share behind a sonicwall firwall. Large (now very large) number of remote users need to access file share.

Currently users connect using a VPN that terminates at the firewall, with access rules allowing access to file share.

Is this use case supported with tailscale? Ie, run something on server, allow users to run something, they can then connect to file share?

Anything to do on firewall to make this all go faster / easier?

As others have mentioned - we cannot let third party add nodes to our network without approval. Adding a PSK or something to let us lock network down a bit more would be good I think.

Edit: Installing at home (google wifi for router) and work machine (behind sonicwall) - can't get RDP/Remote Desktop to connect but client install / login is great and would be much easier than current approach if it worked.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there any page that describes how to actually get VPN work end to end with tailscale?

I am a newbie and would like to understand.

<comment><USER4> Install the client on two devices and log in with a Gmail account. That's it.

They'll be assigned IPs and can reach each other.

(I'm a co-founder of Tailscale.)

<comment><USER18> what's local networking got to do with gmail?

<comment><USER19> There needs to be a mechanism to distribute keys to nodes / authenticate nodes / associate nodes.

Tailscale offers a centralized server to allow nodes to provision themselves. It bootstraps that trust/account system of of logging in with some account, such as via a google oauth login.

<comment><USER18> Right! That makes sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have need to connect all of my developers to multiple AWS accounts and have them work from hotels, home and company sites. AWSVPN only works for single account and needs certificates to be distributed to everyone. I like the way your solution is described but am unclear whether it will work for us?

</comment><comment><USER21> I tried to use it for creating a mesh network of my family's computers, but switched to zerotier.

I use ansible to keep all our computers up to date and maintain an ldap server for some basic information; my parents are old and not tech savvy, so I do my best to make it easy for them.

Initially I set up tailscale, but the lack of an android client and the difficulty of setting up the raspberry service made me to switch to zerotier. Thing is, I really wanted that to work, as the ping with wireguard between the mesh instances was so low that surprised me.

Oh well, zerotier achieves what I want for now and it has the added benefit of letting you choose the private IP range that you like. I'll definitely keep an eye out for tailscale in the future though.

</comment><comment><USER22> Oh man, I have a PoC of something like this written up in Python. I was more targeting a OpenVPN replacement than a mesh network, but it'd literally just be changing the central server's backend with something like etcd.

Good job on open sourcing your work and best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great post! Can Tailscale be used to create a network between 10,000 IoT devices and a few servers? Is it scalable enough to support 10,000 peers on each node? Is it possible to script the registration of each IoT device to the control plane?

</comment><comment><USER24> Is Tailscale SDWAN for edge VPNs?

</comment><comment><USER25> Great write-up, when I checked out TS a month or more ago, documentation was severely lacking, and the repo wasnt out there. Lot of docs confused things as they talked about some logging services (pivoted product??).

In any case the one concern I had was the coordination server being able to add new nodes as another commenter mentioned. Indeed when I first set it up, they added some dev node for chat to my peers by default! That worries me a bit. You basically have to trust their coordinator is super secure. Otherwise if someone can abuse it, they could add nodes to your very private network.

</comment><comment><USER26> Add UDP relays and TCP hole punching and it'll finally be a better take on Hamachi :)

[https://swapped.cc/hamachi](https://swapped.cc/hamachi)

<comment><USER27> If you read the article, it seems like it has both of those features, though I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "UDP relay".

<comment><USER26> It has neither.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a good post,answered most of my questions. Is it free though? It seems I can't find out the price without signing up.

My first concern was how it will be abused by malware and blocked by different networks. For example ngrok.io is classified as "proxy avoidance" which means if I use it and go to a client site that blocks it,it will create an awkward situation. But I think requiring 3rd party idP might solve this issue with tailscale.

</comment><comment><USER29> How much of a drop-in replacement is this for a Remote Desktop Gateway connecting through to users' workstations via RDP? Our users love RDP, but i'm more in love with the security that something like this could provide.

</comment><comment><USER30> A more relevant question for me is What is Tailscale? Didn't get that from either the article or really from the start page. Is it a VPN with "networking features"?

<comment><USER2> I guess you can call it that. You can start it on all your devices (e.g. laptop, PC, phone, tablet, Docker containers, etc.) and it will assign a fixed IP to each of them. Using this fixed IP all those devices are able to communicate securely with each other, no matter where those devices are located at the moment. Tailscale discovers the fastest, direct route between each device and routes the packages accordingly.

Example: Start it on all your devices and you can always access the shared files from your PC at home on your phone or tablet, no matter where you are. If you happen to be at home, no packages will be sent over your internet connection (so you can easily use it to stream 4k movies for example), but the way to access those files is always the same (fixed IP) and always secure.

An additional advantage of Wireguard (which is used behind the scenes) is that it maintains a strict mapping of IP addresses and identities. Therefore, you can usually restrict access to services by IP (instead of using TLS certificates or complicated authentication mechanisms).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Really fascinating work! I enjoyed reading this article. Do you actually have tunnels between every device? Wondering, how does this scale?

<comment><USER4> Tunnels are created between any two devices that try to talk.

It scales great, not concentrating connections makes it easy. Tunnels are very lightweight and the only machines with lots of tunnels are servers that are already provisioned for talking to lots of machines.

(Tailscale co-founder)

<comment><USER31> Interesting :) Follow up, trying to cement my understanding here. If two devices may talk to each other (as defined in the ACL), only then they get to know each other's public keys, right? If so, how would this ACL be negated later- do the devices forget eachother after this disallow?

<comment><USER4> Yes, you only get the public keys of machines you can talk to. Later the server asks the client to forget the key if they can no longer talk.

Additionally, we rotate keys. For security sensitive users we can rotate these keys daily.

<comment><USER31> Thank you! Fascinating work. Easily readable, yet highly informative article. Hope you are the ones that kill off VPNs!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> from where can I learn the fundamentals on this topic. I tried searching for data plane but most of them are k8s specific and few of them were pointing to layer3 of OSI model but I couldn't understand maybe my fundamentals are not too strong.Any reference such as books or articles will be much appreciated

<comment><USER33> This could be too high level, but I stumbled onto the founder's (crawshaw) website and found one of his blog posts very helpful for understanding basic fundamentals of the product (i.e. Zero Trust networks and microsegmentation)

[https://crawshaw.io/blog/zero-trust](https://crawshaw.io/blog/zero-trust)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can i use tailscale to access the internet as if i was in another country?

</comment><comment><USER35> Is there an open source version of this?

<comment><USER36> tailscale is open source: [https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale](https://github.com/tailscale/tailscale)

update: apparently, only Linux client is open-source. My bad.

<comment><USER37> That is only the linux client?

<comment><USER4> Tailscale co-founder here: that's the guts of all the clients. (It almost works on macOS too as is, just a little more work to do.) We are still open sourcing our code, there's more to come but we haven't found the time to clean it up and get it ready to release. Soon hopefully!

<comment><USER38> Is the client the important part of the software, or is there a server side?

<comment><USER4> The client contains our most sophisticated code. It's also the most important from a trust perspective, it is responsible for securing your data, our servers cannot see anything of yours because of the client. So it's vital the important parts of it are open source.

That said, I'd like to open source a server. We need a reference implementation of our control protocol so it can be properly analyzed by security experts. Not sure what form that should take yet, but I'd like it to be usable.

<comment><USER39> It is, admittedly, impossible for me to be unbiased in this discussion (coauthor of Nebula, hi), but I strongly disagree that your client code is your most important component, from a trust perspective.

Your coordination server tells every node about every other node and distributes the keys for the entire network. Everything on a tailscale network implicitly trusts your coordination service.

If an individual client is compromised, code or otherwise, the effect is more limited than your coordination service being compromised, in which case the entire system's trust is broken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Any else getting a 500 on the blog?

<comment><USER41> Our FD limit was misconfigured on our new blog. Whoops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does this work well with IPv6?

<comment><USER23> WireGuard fully supports IPv6. So I guess Tailscale should be able to support it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 500 internal server error

</comment><comment><USER44> Nice job

</comment><comment><USER45> HN promoted Tailscale worth of million dollars of advertising so far for free. This is really disgusting and the biggest proof that relations >>> product.

Rename this website to Tailscale News.

<comment><USER46> I mean... the people that founded the company have been long time contributors to the site. You've probably read a hundred of Avery's articles here.

What are you doing that's interesting? Post it here and you can get the free advertising too.

<comment><USER45> When every Wireguard post gets immediately hijacked to become a promotion for this company, when at least 2 threads get to the HN frontpage each week then something is totally very fishy. I understand they are popular and have strong connections with many powerful people here. But at least this systematic promotion should be mentioned as promotion and not some innocent thread because it's totally organized and intentional.</comment></comment></comment>


CS 294 Deep Reinforcement Learning, Spring 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://rll.berkeley.edu/deeprlcourse/ <comment><USER2> Quickly glanced through the syllabus and this seems like it covers mostly the advanced aspects of Reinforcement Learning and assumes you know the basics concepts such as MDPs, and training models etc.

For those interested in this, would strongly recommend David Silvers intro to RL[1] before beginning with the above course.

1\. [http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.silver/web/Teaching.html](http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/d.silver/web/Teaching.html)

<comment><USER3> Everything you say (including the David Silvers recommendation) is already stated on the course website under "Prerequisites".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks really cool.

I recently hit a roadblock when trying to implement the original DeepMind Atari algorithm [0] with TensorFlow. They don't mention this in the paper, but the network wasn't trained to convergence at each training step (maybe this would be obvious to people more well-versed in deep learning, but it wasn't to me coming from a classical RL background).

As it turns out, TensorFlow's optimizers don't have a way to manually terminate training before convergence. That meant I was getting through several orders of magnitude fewer training steps than the DeepMind team did, even when accounting for my inferior hardware. This might not be a problem in some learning cases, where training more on certain examples lets you extract more information from them, but in games with sparse rewards it's bad.

Of course, TensorFlow does let you do the gradient calculations and updates by hand, but I wasn't prepared to go that far at the time. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll dive back into it.

[0] [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.5602.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.5602.pdf)

<comment><USER5> > As it turns out, TensorFlow's optimizers don't have a way to manually > terminate training before convergence.

I don't know how you determined this, but the optimizer minimize op definitely only does one step, equivalent to doing the gradient update yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Will non-Berkeley students be able to participate in the discussions on Piazza?

If not, for those interested in following this course online, we might want to start a slack channel study group around this to help each other out. PM if interested.

<comment><USER7> Please post details on where to join the slack :)

<comment><USER8> Seconded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be great if cleaned-up demo code for many of these models/algorithms could be shared in a single "deep RL quickstart" repo.

Various implementations (sometimes of dubious correctness) are already scattered around Github, but having a single library of code to build from when booting up a new research project would be a boon to people who don't have such great access to collaborators' codebases.

Thanks for sharing these resources.

</comment><comment><USER10> will assignments be posted?

<comment><USER11> Yes.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do in Portland? - <AUTHOR> I'm going to be in Portland, OR for about 10 days or so, starting on 11/3.
I'd love to meet up with any hackers in the area. If you're thinking about applying (or have applied) to YC, I'm also happy to answer any questions / share my experience. (I'll buy the beer.)
Also looking for recommendations of things to do, groups to check out, etc. <comment><USER2>
        • Powell's Books (and Technical books)
        • 23rd Street and NW Portland area
        • Voodoo doughnuts
        • Rose Garden
        • OMSI
        • the Pearl district
        • Hawthorne district (around the Bagdad theatre)
        • Events in Pioneer Courthouse Sq.
        • Hit up the dozens of microbrews
        • peek in the offices of weiden+kennedy
        • shows at the doug fir lounge
        • kennedy school
        • take the OHSU tram once (weird and fun)
        • some fun stuff around Alberta St. and the Hollywood district
        • parks! (I like laurelhurst, the arboretum, and forest park)
        • washington park zoo, if you like zoos. (really great for kids)

<comment><USER3> Resident here: this is a great list, except I would not bother with the Rose Garden this time of year (kind of boring outside of May-July when flowers aren't in bloom), and instead would hit up the Japanese Garden (just next door), or Chinese Gardens downtown.

<comment><USER4> +1 for the Japanese Garden, which was awesome. I need to go back to Portland just to see that again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are 2 things that Portland does best. Strippers and beer:

<http://www.devilspointbar.com/> <http://www.sassysbar.com/welcome.html> <http://www.luckydevillounge.com/> <http://www.unionjacksclub.com/>

<http://www.hopworksbeer.com/> <http://www.rogue.com/> <http://www.mcmenamins.com/> <http://www.rockbottom.com/>

Have fun, and bring your umbrella

<comment><USER6> I was just thinking that mention of strip clubs was noticeably absent. Beer is nearly unavoidable. Strippers, less so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lived in Portland for 7 years (went to school in SE, Reed College). Hence, nostalgia dump:

When I left for the bay area a few years ago, NE Alberta and North Portland were picking up inertia. If you're into coffee, try Albina Press.

The lucky lab on SE Hawthorne (close in) is a Great pub and I'm not much of a pubgoer.

Eat street food. The Portland street food scene makes the mission district look behind the times.

Get some tea in the teahouse in the Chinese gardens (right downtown). It's often overlooked by Portlanders, but the Chinese gardens are really quite wonderful. The tea menu is run by the Tao of Tea, which is one of the better tea importers in America.

Check out the nickel arcade (wonderland, I think it's called) on SE Belmont.

Powells & Powell's Technical. If you're a book person, set aside at least half a day for this. Read some books in the cafe. Hang out a while - there's no better book store in America (including the strand - nyc, moe's - berkeley, serendipity, etc)

I know I'm disagreeing with other posters, but avoid the pearl like the plague. It's the least "truly portland" and is for people from other cities who are looking for shiny glass highrises and warehouses. Everything is more expensive and upscale. Similarly, NW 23rd and 21st have a distinctly "east coast haven" flavor. Go to NYC or SF for that, enjoy portland for what it does best — the quirky stuff that you can't get elsewhere, and there's plenty of that.

Speaking of quirky, get a doughnut in the middle of the night at voodoo.

Check out the saturday market (sat and sun), if it's running when you're in town. Another uniquely portland experience, but you probably won't buy anything.

Beers: Hair of the dog, rogue, lucky lab. Try something on cask or nitro if you haven't lived in a place that really geeks out on beer.

<comment><USER7> Oh: ride public transit. Notice that it runs on time, is fairly easy to understand, and is clean. There's a sky tram, a light rail, a streetcar, and an extensive bus system. Everything is free downtown in the fareless square.

<comment><USER6> >Everything is free downtown in the fareless square.

Sadly, not anymore. "Free Rail Zone" is the Newspeak for Fareless Square. Buses now cost you.

<comment><USER8> To be fair, it was changed to "Free Rail Zone" after the addition of two new rail lines, and the buses now pass through downtown noticeably faster without the free passengers (or I may be imagining things).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mt Tabor Park (beautiful views of city)

[http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?Propert...](http://www.portlandonline.com/parks/finder/index.cfm?PropertyID=275&action=ViewPark)

Japanese Zen Garden (awesome woodwork, one of the largest in the States)

<http://www.japanesegarden.com/>

Nuestra Cocina (superb Mexican cuisine)

<http://www.nuestra-cocina.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> Resident here. These are off the top of my head, so I'll miss some.

Food: I recommend the following two food carts for eating lunch downtown: "Ziba's Pitas" on SW Alder and 9th Ave (try the ajvar), and "KOi Fusion", whose location is posted via twitter at <http://www.twitter.com/koifusionpdx> . Voodoo donuts is open 24/7 and conducts wedding ceremonies.

Tech: I second the recommendation for <http://calagator.org/> . Powell's books is also a must, the technical store is now across the street from the main store which is convenient.

Science: Your timing is unlucky in a sense, you won't be able to go to OMSI after dark (Oct 27, <http://www.omsi.edu/afterdark>) or science pub (Nov 1, Nov 16, <http://www.omsi.edu/sciencepubportland>). I'd say OMSI is one of the top five science museums nationwide, and the best science museum on the west coast.

Art: On the first Thursday of every month (Nov 4), there are a bunch of art galleries and stands that open up in NW Portland starting in the afternoon and picking up in the evening. <http://www.firstthursdayportland.com/> The Portland Art Museum is also excellent. <http://portlandartmuseum.org/>

Parks: Japanese gardens, rose gardens.

Neighborhoods: SE Hawthorne ST and NW 23RD AVE are interesting places and friendly to explorers. The vicinity of NE Alberta ST has a disproportionate number of cool parties, but good luck figuring out when / where / whether you need an invitation.

Music: The Doug Fir, Berbati's Pan, Jimmy Mak's, Someday Lounge, Backspace, Satyricon are just a few examples. The Doug Fir stands out, especially if you like indy rock. Go to Jimmy Mak's if you like jazz.

Random: "Ground Kontrol" if you like arcade games. It is also a bar. (Someone mentioned Wonderland, which is cheaper, but Ground Kontrol has the classics and I don't think they serve beer at Wonderland.)

Hmm, you've convinced me to take my precious savings (unemployed at the moment) and go out.

<comment><USER8> Oops, I almost forgot. I'd like to mention "Japan Night" on Mon, Nov 8 at Portland State University's Smith ballroom. It's a big annual event put on by the Japanese Student Society. I think tickets are $10 for non-students. Support the local university students! (Disclosure: I am tangentially involved in the event, so I feel the need to advertise it.)

<comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, what does "Japan Night" entail?

I'm flying into PDX right around then to do some on-site work, and one of my Bachelor degrees is in Japanese (though not from PSU).

<comment><USER8> It's kind of a showcase of Japanese culture: food (included in ticket price) (reputed to be good bentos, unfortunately as I am involved I won't get any), dance, fashion, music. I haven't been before, but it's a popular event (~400-500 people) and I've been to the annual Luau put on by the Pacific Islanders club (which is a similar event) and it was a blast. Tickets should be available through the PSU box office, though I don't have better details with me.

The JSS (student club putting on the event) has a lot of Japanese exchange students as well as anyone interested in Japanese culture, and has "contribute to world peace" in the mission statement. (I also saw "we are not the anime club" in some of the literature they had, if that gives you a better idea of what the club is about, and what kind of event they'd put on.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Chuck Palahniuk's sole foray into travel literature is called "Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon". This is the author of Fight Club and Choke.

[http://www.amazon.com/Fugitives-Refugees-Portland-Oregon- Jou...](http://www.amazon.com/Fugitives-Refugees-Portland-Oregon- Journeys/dp/1400047838)

</comment><comment><USER12> Check out PIE, the startup incubator housed at Wieden+Kennedy. Drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com if you'd like an intro.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just emailed - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey come hang out at PIE. There are bunch of startups that are working there (UrbanAirship, Mugasha and Bank Simple) send me an email if you want to drop by.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to. Just emailed.

<comment><USER14> I'm a PIE guy too. We can hook you up with a desk and wifi if you need to set up shop. We could also do a geek meetup afterhours at PIE if your down.

Here's the PIE website: <http://piepdx.com/>

My email is in my profile.

Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds awesome. :-) I'll email you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Powell's books, and don't forget the separate technical books location: <http://www.yelp.com/biz/powells-city-of-books-portland-3> <http://www.powells.com/locations/powells-technical-books/>

Great coffee: <http://www.yelp.com/biz/coffeehouse-northwest-portland> <http://stumptowncoffee.com/>

Fun bars: <http://www.dougfirlounge.com/> <http://www.rontoms.net/>

Cool neighborhoods to explore: \- SE Hawthorne \- Pearl District \- Northwest

<comment><USER16> so powells technical moved up 2 blocks (just across the main store on 10th and Couch) and is now called powells 2. as of last month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet: <http://dorkbotpdx.org/> It meets every other Monday at Backspace(on NW 5th Ave just north of Burnside). So, for your time window that will be at 7pm on November 8th. You will at least get a chance to meet the originator of the wiki(Ward Cunningham) who is a regular. The crowd ranges from artists, electronics & robotics enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs who have hardware and software products in all stages of development. It is a very informal beer filled atmosphere with live demonstrations of projects and discussions of topics common on HN.

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://calagator.org/> is your friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I just spent a week in Portland last month, and agree with everything posted so far (also agree Voodoo is overrated, but I'm a health nut so it was difficult to stomach the maple-bacon donut without dreading the aftermath).

I haven't seen anything about Multnomah falls to the east or Cannon beach on the coast -- both are beautiful places to check out if you're renting a car and like nature.

Here are some pictures I took on the trip, since they might give you a good idea of some of the places others have mentioned: <http://www.jasoncazes.com/photos/portland/>

</comment><comment><USER19> I visited earlier this year and here were my highlights (YMMV):

      - Fuller's Diner
      - Powell's Books and Technical books -- a few blocks from each other IIRC
      - Pearl district in general
      - Tender Loving Empire (I went to the SW 10th St one)
      - Sweet Masterpiece (awesome chocolate + wine/coffee pairings!)
      - Saturday (weekend) market
      - OMSI (first time in a planetarium since the mid-90s)
      - Portland Aeriel Tram
      - Portland Art Museum
      - Japanese and Rose Gardens, Oregon Zoo

</comment><comment><USER20> I really enjoy going to Powell's when I am there. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell%27s_Books>

<comment><USER21> Powell's has a great technical bookstore a block away from their main store. Budget plenty of time to take it all in.

If the weather permits I would recommend riding a bike and taking public transportation to get around. Portland is much better than the bay area in this respect.

If you are into postgres be sure and say hi to the folks at Rentrak if you can. They have some great query / analytics technology built on it.

There are some fabulous farmer's markets there too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Rentrak looks like a cool company - I'll try to get in touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was there in August (Australian, spent a month on the West Coast with my wife). Went to a great Japanese restaurant called Hiroshi, hit a few pubs/brewpubs and did a walking tour which was actually pretty interesting. Stayed at Kennedy School which was great too. With more time I would've checked out the Japanese garden and (were the timing better) got to a Blazers game.

</comment><comment><USER23> In addition to the many great suggestions already made, here are a few more:

Rent a (road) bicycle and ride a nice 2-hour loop along the waterfront (starting at OMSI and going along the Springwater Corridor)

Rent a (mountain) bike and bike in Forest Park (near NW 23rd)

Go to Council Crest Park, the highest point in Portland. Great views of the city and, if the weather is clear, at least 4 glaciated peaks.

Attend the farmer's market at Portland State University on Saturday mornings

Walk through Washington Park (head up Burnside to NW 23rd and then enter the park). From here, you can access the rose gardens, the Japanese gardens, Hoyt Arborteum, and the zoo.

Go skiing at Timberline lodge (they open for the season this weekend).

Go surfing at the coast (you can rent everything you need, including a warm wet suit, at Cannon Beach)

Go hiking on the coast: Saddle Mountain or Neahkahnie Mountain is good

Go hiking in the Gorge: numerous options of varying difficulties, consult Google

See Multnomah Falls, and take one of many numerous hikes in the area

See a movie at the Bagdad, a neat theater, and walk around the neighborhood there

Hike in Forest Park. The Wildwood Trail goes on for 30 miles. Pittock Mansion is cool. The Audobahn Society is a convenient stop.

See Mt. St. Helens. I'm not sure if the visitor center is open.

Drive to Hood River (can be combined on a long day trip to Mt Hood)

Drive to Mt Hood and hike up to the glacier

Go wine tasting in the Willamette Valley (numerous vineyards available)

Attend free art show on First Thursday

Rent a kayak and paddle the river, or go on a river cruise

</comment><comment><USER24> The Portland Saturday Market has some nice arts and crafts, and it's a nice place to hang out by the waterfront. It has a nice food court as well, good food and variety.

<http://www.portlandsaturdaymarket.com/>

Most of the rest seems to have been covered, enjoy your trip!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thirding <http://calagator.org/> Specifically, PDX Hackathon is a pretty good time and happens every Thursday night at the Luckly Lab on SE Hawthorne. Show up, hack on a project, talk with other hackers about whatever.

</comment><comment><USER26> Street food!! And if you like Thai, hit up Pok Pok in SE then hit the Mcmeniman's pubs in the area.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you have a chance to get out of town a touch try the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, home of the Spruce Goose, a Titan II missle, SR-71, B-17, a few space capsules, and various other goodies for aero-nuts.

The collection is fantastic but the knowledgeable volunteers really put it over the top. All are friendly and the level of detail was incredible. One gentleman walked me around the J58 (from the SR-71) and knew temps and pressures at various stages, cruise airflow etc. It was pretty damn cool...

<http://www.sprucegoose.org/>

btw... Voodoo is an experience, but the donuts aren't that fine.

For beer I'd recommend the Tug Boat, right downtown. Cool little pub with lots of crazy old books stacked to the ceilings...

</comment><comment><USER28> Coffee! In Portland it's practically religion. There's at least a dozen microroasters and hundreds of coffee shops. My favorites: Spella (5th and Washington) Stumptown, and Barista (you choose the beans for your drink!)

</comment><comment><USER29> Pearl district is the place to be. Also if you like coffee, check out Barista.

</comment><comment><USER30> Kenny and Zuke's - The best reuben you will ever have. They make their own pastrami. About 2 blocks from Powell's. <http://www.kennyandzukes.com/>

<comment><USER30> ...which is next to Stumptown...which is next to Ace Hotel...which is next to Clyde Common. Man, what a block.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Portland Startup Weekend (<http://portland.startupweekend.org/>) is the weekend of Nov 12-14, if you're still in town.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool. I should be able to make it on the 12th.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Tons! Just emailed you. Would love to show a fellow HN'er some of the goods that this place has to offer. Just moved here a few months ago and loving every minute of it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just emailed back - looking forward to meeting you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Take a day or an afternoon and drive east along the Columbia River out to Hood River. Take the "fruit loop" through the orchards between the town and Mt. Hood, drink some microbrews after. (Bonus if it's beautifully sunny while there and pouring rain on the drive back like it was when I went.)

<comment><USER34> And visit some waterfalls on the way to/from. There is a whole sequence of waterfalls along the south side of the Columbia. Multnomah, Bridal Veil, and [I forget the others' names]. All that rain's good for powering the scenic wonders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Some good links/ideas here.

<http://linuxfund.org/portland/>

</comment><comment><USER36> Before my long-winded reply: I am in North Portland and haven't had a decent technical conversation for a while, so hit me up if you want to grab a beer and nerd out, or possible go climbing weather permitted. email@example.com

A huge part of Portland is the beer, and there are a few different styles of brewpubs. The first I'll address is the style I like the least, which are the annexes of larger distributors. These include Rogue, Widmer, Bridgeport etc. They don't have any charm to them, they are just restaurants attached to a beer label, and there is better beer to be had. Also, McMenamins has cool locations but their beer sucks and so does their food, prices and service. If you like drinking in cool buildings (old church, old elementary school with lots of bars inside) then check them out, otherwise don't bother. If you are going to go to a McMenamins, make sure it's the Kennedy School, since that one offers the most redemption. As far as the good places to go: Hopworks makes damn good pizza and damn good beer. Their red and their IPA are both fantastic, and the bar is really freaking cool. Lucky Lab is another place with good beer, but their vibe is completely different - if you don't like dogs and a big open cafeteria style game room, then don't bother. Right now my favourite place to grab a beer is the Fifth Quadrant (a Lompoc brewery location) - they have the best burger I have yet had in Portland, and Tuesdays they offer $2.50 pints. Their c-note IPA is great! Haven't had a bad server yet, which is saying something.

Unless you want a seedy experience, avoid the strip clubs. I am not a fan but have been to a couple over the years. I think it takes a certain person, and I can say it's easy to ignore someone when they say "but this one is really good!" - there's nothing special about portland strip clubs except the sheer number of them, so unless it's your thing don't bother.

Some of the best things about portland have nothing to do with portland itself, but rather the proximity of cool shit nearby. The gorge is gorgeous (haha), lots of cool stuff around mount hood as well. The coast is something else - if you haven't been to a northwest coast, it's a must. Don't expect nice weather and fun, but rather intense scenery, weather and wind. Head straight to either Astoria (see the Goonies house), or Manzanita for a cool small beach town feel.

If you are a rock climber, there are cool things to climb within a reasonable distance. I am happy to get some climbing in if you have some experience and want to tie into a rope, though I can't promise nice weather or warm hands.

Something that could be fun for around portland is one of the many pedicab routes offered. You can get a basic tour, or they have specialty tours going on for things like whiskey tasting among others. <http://pdxpedicab.com/> and look for their pub tour and distillery tour.

<comment><USER37> If you want more tech conversations, there's NoPoCoNi every Monday night at the new(ish) Lucky Lab on N Killingsworth.

<http://twitter.com/nopoconi>

<comment><USER36> I'll check it out soon, thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Also: \- Saturday Farmer's market near PSU \- Burnside bridge market \- Food carts \- Southeast Portland's many nice restaurants. \- 1 hour drive to the coast (Cannon Beach etc.)

</comment><comment><USER39> Get a tour at FreeGeek (5pm daily, but google it to make sure).

<comment><USER40> The Freek Geek thrift store is worth a trip, if only to view The NEXT cube they have on display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Last time I was in Portland I followed my friend's Gowalla trip. See it here: <http://gowalla.com/trips/15349>

</comment><comment><USER42> Ping me. email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, just did!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I lived in Beaverton (very close to Portland) many years ago. I highly recommend the Gorge (Multnomah fall in particular), Crater Lake, and Cannon Beach.

</comment><comment><USER44> Saturday Market: <http://www.portlandsaturdaymarket.com/> Good stuff to browse and buy.

</comment><comment><USER45> Great Portland promotional video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1B2_r6Azvg>

</comment><comment><USER46> Tongue in cheek:

The strip joints there have quite a reputation.

<comment><USER36> My favourite locals story was hearing how a guy got rolled by two large prostitutes outside Mary's. He walked out, was offered a deal, declined and walked away. Next thing he knows he's on the ground - one of the two cold clocked him in the head with a rock and the other stole his wallet. Go strip clubs!

<comment><USER47> There is a taqueria adjacent to Mary's Club and I noticed two signs on the back wall of the taqueria, "Restrooms" and "No Minors Allowed". I had to use the restroom mid-meal, and I suddenly found myself surrounded by strippers in Mary's Club.

Pro Tip: I also noticed that the 1337 Mary's Club patrons just walk through the taqueria to avoid the door fee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Rent real Dutch bikes at Clever Cycles (call ahead to reserve)

<http://clevercycles.com/>

</comment><comment><USER49> Gallery Zero (34th & Burnside; www.thegalleryzero.com). Big show 11/5 (free beer/wine).

</comment><comment><USER48> Food carts!

<http://www.foodcartsportland.com/>

</comment><comment><USER48> It's true, Voodoo is overrated. It's fun but not wait in line for 45 minutes fun.

</comment><comment><USER50> Eat! Best food in the country. I like Ping in the international district.

</comment><comment><USER51> Is everyone's suggestion really just bars and restaurants?

</comment><comment><USER52> Voodoo Doughnuts Ground Control PDX Japanese Gardens OMSI

</comment><comment><USER53> Walk down NW 23rd.

</comment><comment><USER54> Voodoo donut!

</comment><comment><USER55> Aren't there entire websites and books already dedicated to answering this question?</comment>


Dropbox is randomly restoring 5 year old deleted files - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bergmayer/status/822065962786684928 <comment><USER2> Yup, hit this problem last night. It's very upsetting, as these files should be long gone. Dropbox is yet to respond.

</comment><comment><USER3> My guess is that these are not unique files that exist in other accounts/shared folders etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't this constitute a serious breach of confidentiality?</comment>