Serotonin may not be a major factor in depression, study suggests - <AUTHOR> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/281645.php <comment><USER2> Quote: "New evidence has put into doubt the long-standing belief that a deficiency in serotonin - a chemical messenger in the brain - plays a central role in depression."

Let's summarize this issue:

1\. Big Pharma has sold billions of dollars' worth of SSRI-based drugs, drugs whose mode of action is to regulate serotonin to control depression. Tl;dr: big influential companies, big sales, a gullible public who think psychiatry is an evidence-based medical field.

2\. Studies show that the above drugs do not work for the majority of patients. In a meta-analysis conducted by the FDA that combined the results of published _and unpublished_ studies, "antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, _the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance_." Tl;dr: _these drugs do not work_.

[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0050045)

3\. The linked study shows that serotonin has no clear correlation with depression in an animal model. Tl;dr: because serotonin levels and depression aren't correlated, _SSRI drugs could not possibly work_.

Guess what effect these studies, this science, is having on the sale of antidepression drugs? None whatever. The reason? Psychiatry and psychology aren't sciences, and (unlike in real medicine) ongoing drug therapies don't hinge on evidence for effectiveness.

This is why the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM, psychiatry and psychology's "bible", may no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals -- not surprising, it has no scientific content.

[http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i- m-h](http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i-m-h)

Let the downvotes begin.

<comment><USER3> Ooh, here come the Scientologists!

I'm as skeptical of big Pharma as the next guy, but to say with such grandiose broad-stroked generalizing that psychiatry (or, perhaps you mean instead/also neurological pharmacology) is not science is simply untrue.

Anyone with Google at their fingertips can find a dozen peer-reviewed articles about serotonin's _link_ to mood and behavior.

EDIT: accidentally a word or two.

<comment><USER4> > _Anyone with Google at their fingertips can find a dozen peer-reviewed > articles about serotonin 's link to mood and behavior._

And a ton of "peer reviewed" articles are crap too.

Peer review aint what it used to be.

<comment><USER5> Still, it's what demarcates the boundary between "blog about your idea, show it to some smart folk" and "proper science". And we like clean demarcation lines, they allow us to categorize without actually investigating (which is infeasible if you want to get broad knowledge).

<comment><USER4> I'd say avoid "peer reviewed" papers like the plague if you want to find out what's actually "worth investigating" and " get a broad knowledge".

Instead, wait for 2-5 years to see what still floats from all the crap that has been published.

Better to read slightly behind the times, but solid, university guidebooks and published books that stood out, than to read the hot, but crappy, steam of published research.

<comment><USER5> Is waiting 5 years always an option? Is 5 years always enough to distinguish good from bad science? Then, you still use the "peer reviewed" filtering, just add "test of time" to the pipeline. Which is fine, as long as the topic is of level of importance to you at which being 5 years behind the trend is ok.

Unless you really mean that being peer reviewed is bad. I don't want to delve into that option...

<comment><USER4> > _Is waiting 5 years always an option?_

If your goal, as stated above, is to get a "broad knowledge", then yes.

If you want to know recent research trends, or are doing research yourself, then no, go read current papers.

> _Is 5 years always enough to distinguish good from bad science?_

No, sometimes you have to wait even more. Just gave it as a delay period to counter the "read the peer reviewed papers" notion.

> _Then, you still use the "peer reviewed" filtering, just add "test of time" > to the pipeline._

No, I'm saying "forget the peer reviewed" in themselves, go for items that not only have stood the "test of time", but have also become succesful and well regarded books and/or university guides in their domain.

In essense, I'm saying that a journal's tiny "peer review" team is BS, the majority of the scientific community agreeing on matured material is better.

> _Which is fine, as long as the topic is of level of importance to you at > which being 5 years behind the trend is ok._

It's not a matter of "importance to you", it's what you want to use it for.

A subject could be extremely important to you as a study subject, and you could still avoid losing time with the current, unfiltered, papers as they come in.

It's only when you want to take advantage of recent research (e.g because you are a researcher yourself, or an implementor and needs a new solution etc) that you have to have the latest research -- which I think is different than "importance". Let's call it "business importance" if you wish...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone have experience with atypical depression? That's what I have, and SSRIs seem to do almost nothing for it. Prozac made me feel spacey, and it didn't fix any of my problems (except OCD), so I quit it. I've since read a lot of articles in psychology/psychiatry journals and it appears that MAOIs (nardil, parnate), are much more effective for this condition, although they have strong side effects and dietary restrictions. MAOIs were the original antidepressants used in the 1950s and 1960s. A lot of articles indicate nardil is particularly effective for social anxiety, over SSRIs.

Atypical depression is characterized by excessive sleeping, extreme rejection sensitivity, leaden paralysis (heavy limbs/fatigue), and the ability to feel happy in response to a positive event. This last characteristic is a distinguishing factor from regular (endogenous) depression, where even positive events won't make someone feel happier.

<comment><USER2> You know what? I'm not either a doctor nor a psychiatrist, but what you've described sounds like chronic fatigue syndrome, not depression. Or (second vote) hypothyroidism, which also can create some of the symptom set you describe.

Both depression and CFS have no known causes, which makes their diagnosis problematic and their treatment even more problematic. But overall I would suggest that you look at CFS -- IMHO it seems to be a better fit to your symptoms.

Again, I am not a doctor and this is just an off-the-cuff opinion.

<comment><USER7> CFS and depression can complement each other. Also the one can lead to the other.

But I second this: get a check of your thyroid gland, if you thyroid doesn't work properly, medication won't work properly!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Even with all our advanced modern knowledge we still barely understand how the brain works much less what happens when it doesn't "work" and even that depends on how you define "doesn't work". I suffered from a major depressive time about 12 years ago and taking a drug helped me get out of it and it hasn't returned. But there is no way to know what went wrong much less prove that the drug had any actual clinical effect; at least it appeared to make life possible again. Some day we might actually understand enough brain chemistry to know the exact mechanisms. Today it is still a lot of guesswork.

<comment><USER9> It makes me wonder if we'll even have much more understanding of the brain in 100 years than we do now. At least, understanding at a level that lets us effectively stop the root cause of many complex mental disorders without deleterious side effects.

<comment><USER10> <disclaimer > This is a general statement, I do not intend it to be 'in response' to your comment in particular, your comment just provides a logical space to precede mine.< /disclaimer > . I don't understand this negative, defeatist attitude of people with regards to our 'current' understanding of anything. We certainly know a lot more about everything in this world, including the brain than what we did in the year 1914. Why then is there a doubt that 100 years hence we'd understand lesser ? Is there really a proven 'law of diminishing returns' in the field of scientific research. Also, in reference to the parent comment, sure there isn't possibly a way to be 100% certain that the drugs did indeed help but the reasoning behind manufacturing them were presumably sound scientifically speaking based on the knowledge known at the time of their creation and the experiments conducted then. Development occurs not by discarding prior knowledge but by refining it or in the worst case scenario, eliminating the factors that make it obsolete. So, in summary, I think we are in the 'discovery phase' of medicine these days, similar to what the 1600-1900s were for physics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's important to note that they are using the word _major_ to substantiate. It might not be major, but I think the word _important_ would be justified. Saying there might be other chemicals or components involved in depression seems to be obvious given our limited understanding of the topic. We just have a currently useful tool to help, SSRIs. Maybe with these type of studies we'll see more accurate medicines.

<comment><USER2> > We just have a currently useful tool to help, SSRIs.

Yes, but the quoted study shows that serotonin and depression aren't correlated. If that is so, if the study bears up under scrutiny, then SSRIs cannot possibly work. The prior FDA meta-analysis shows that SSRIs don't work for the majority of patients, this new study explains why.

> Maybe with these type of studies we'll see more accurate medicines.

Let me suggest an alternative -- instead of searching for a better _description_ of depression, we should seek an _explanation_ , like in science. Armed with an explanation, we could treat depression's causes, rather than its symptoms.

But we can't do this with psychiatry -- psychiatrists aren't scientists and have no respect for evidence.</comment></comment>


Who knows something about starting an open source project with funding channels? - <AUTHOR> Looking to build out a startup as perhaps an open source tool - as it is extendible, and has a wide use-case/demographic spread. At a high-level it will be dealing with TLD's/Automation. Let me know if you wanna join me on this fun project! https://www.instagram.com/urlmelt/ <comment><USER2> What license are you thinking of?</comment>


We are Alpha Print and we 3D print homes & communities - <AUTHOR> http://alphaprint.tech <comment><USER2> Do you have examples of buildings that you've printed as a demonstration? What kind of printing device can operate on this scale?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope thats why I specifically said any help to get to an MVP or website feedback. Good to see everyone thinks it's a scam website though kind of silly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That website looks like a scam to me. Built with GoDaddy builder, dead links everywhere. Strange unrelated links to amazon books.

It might be legit but way too many red flags for me to give them any money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope thats why I specifically said any help to get to an MVP or website feedback. Good to see everyone thinks it's a scam website though kind of silly. Not sure where the dead links are. Some book titles are not yet published. Some are through KDP thats why theyre amazon links and the items are recommendations from the books or unique items we thought would be nice to link. not sure the links in the shop let you purchase anything yet still linking payment account and there's legal stuff to deal with before we can actually accept anything besides donations or sales of tertiary products we want to go with the homes. we wanted to just see what people thought of the pricing really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I went to the "SHOP" page and it lists several things, including:

\- Logo sticker for $2.95

\- Pre Order Now! for $40000.00

That "pre order" is for a 3D-printed house.

I can't decide. They are so similar!

<comment><USER2> Sounds a little like Tesla, where you can get a keyring or a wall charger adapter

[https://shop.tesla.com/](https://shop.tesla.com/)

... although I was going to say you could also get a flamethrower, but apparently that was The Boring Company rather than Tesla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Videos? Demos? Walkthroughs? Testimonials from real people? For $40,000, they should be inspiring much more confidence with their presentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> duly noted. just wanted reactions to pricing. good feedback thank you. we need funding to build the robot and print the first house or the "MVP" so yeh need lots of funding to get to an mvp obviously.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We are Alpha Print and we 3D print homes & communities.

Hoping for feedback and if you're interested in helping us out lets us know. We are seeking funding and donations to help us get to an MVP as soon as possible. Our technology will help solve several issues especially with all of the fires happening right now people need this more than ever.

<comment><USER6> Is this legitimate? The website suggests that you aren't serious or focused.

I see a page of affiliate links, a library of books you're selling on Amazon (only 3 of which appear to be available), and an energy drink with a very unprofessional product description.

I also don't see _any_ evidence of prototyping or any reason to believe any of your other claims.

Can you please provide any evidence or reason to trust you beyond ability to set up a scammy godaddy website?

<comment><AUTHOR> you can try one of our books? theyre mainly tools for startups, companies and personal home use. amazon takes pretty much all of the money with KDP we get barely $1 a book that gets corporate taxes taken on it so yeah not really a money making thing it's more of a nice to have thing before investors try to kill the ideas off before we've fully worked out what we want for the company. it's focused on the 3D printed home and what we want to go with the home. so even if you cant afford to buy a home you can still buy our furnishings and publishings and support us that way. yes the energy drink is an inside joke but a serious product we wanted to make later on for fun. We are veteran owned btw. those claims are from already established metrics from the field of 3D printed homes. standard material deposition rates and curing times. we dont have a prototype? we need funding to build the prototype. so if you know anyone who would be interested in helping to fund us we would greatly appreciate it. and for a "scammy website" godaddy is terribly expensive i must say so if you have better hosting suggestions or templated websites besides godaddy or square im all ears $300+/year is not cheap when youre just starting so yeah any help there would be great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Spam site check the links.

<comment><AUTHOR> not spam but if you want ill add it in the recommended products section.</comment></comment>


138 Billion Units (Apple's Cash Position) - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/100-billion-units-of-strategy

<comment><USER2> This post is not quite right in its understanding of how these securities are classified.

Securities held by corporations as assets are shown both by type of instrument and by "intent" of the holding. In this case, the types of instruments shown on the latest 10-Q [1] are, as the post describes, cash and cash equivalents, short-term securities and long-term securities. But that only applies to the security itself, not Apple's intent: a 30 year government bond would be classified as "long term," but it could easily be sold tomorrow in one of the most liquid financial markets in the world.

Under GAAP, what is also relevant is a label on the "intent" of the holding: trading, available-for-sale, or held-to-maturity. According to the same 10-Q, all of these securities are classified as available-for-sale. The original post conflates these two ideas and mistakenly assumes that the ~$67B of long term securities will be held until they mature. Were that Apple's intent, they would likely be classified as held-to-maturity, rather than available-for- sale.

(The classification as to intent matters, as it affects how unrealized gains/losses from the securities held flow into the income statement in any given period.)

It's a technical point, to be sure, but the post's conclusion that long term security != ready cash is not quite right.

Regardless, Apple's numbers amaze me every time I look at them.

[1] [http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-12-...](http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1193125-12-23398&CIK=320193)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I have updated the post with a quotation and link to your comment here.

I think the central point of my article stands because the tax burden associated with bringing Apple's significant foreign investments (about 60% of their cash, reportedly) back into the United States would be prohibitive and restrict any kind of heroic or crazy deals from being announced tomorrow. And Apple's investments are not in cash.

If anyone would like more information about the structure of Apple's investments, see page 7 of the most recent 10-Q: [http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/1738322915x0x536...](http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/1738322915x0x536523/381559d7-04a1-40d5-8e2a-236e3f867158/AAPL%20Q1FY12%2010Q%2001.25.12.pdf) The parent commenter is correct that the vast majority of holdings are in things like us treasuries and corporate bonds, which can be liquidated immediately.

<comment><USER4> There are non-US companies they can buy. I've heard that was a main driver in MS' purchase of Skype. They didn't want to repatriotize assets, so they just bought a foreign company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apparently, Steve asked Warren Buffett what he thought Apple should do with all of the cash a couple years ago: [http://www.cnbc.com/id/46540227/Warren_Buffett_Steve_Jobs_Di...](http://www.cnbc.com/id/46540227/Warren_Buffett_Steve_Jobs_Didn_t_Take_My_Advice_to_Buy_Back_Apple_Stock)

</comment><comment><USER6> netflix as a very likely acquisition target? really?

i can't see why. does netflix have a lot of exclusive content deals that apple can't get? it seems like most things that are on netflix are already on itunes. also, netflix is popular because it's available on all kinds of devices which doesn't seem to be a policy that apple is likely to continue. if apple doesn't need netflix' customer base or content, why would they purchase them?

<comment><USER7> Netflix has a pretty solid architecture for streaming video. It's definitely better than Apple's. Their content deals are also for subscription streaming where Apple's are for one time streams and downloads. I'm not sure if that actually matters or not.

Apple could buy them just to be anticompetitive and block all the competition from having it (which would be huge imagine if the Apple TV was the only way you could stream Netflix to a TV). I don't see the government allowing that though.

<comment><USER6> >Apple could buy them just to be anticompetitive

could they really? i thought there were laws against that.

<comment><USER7> I don't know if they can or not. They can certainly try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think they will announce a small-ish one-off dividend, a long-term dividend yield target, and a stock split.

For context, Microsoft had $43B in cash when it issued its first dividend, which was a total of $900M (it also split its stock at the time, which Apple may also do). It paid another dividend a year later, a bit larger, and has raised their yield a few times (not moving the stock much). Cisco's first dividend was when they had $40B in cash and it was also only worth a couple of points.

For dividend distribution purposes, Apple has $100B+, 66% of which is not in the USA (not bad, it is 90% for Microsoft and Cisco). They can easily afford a one-off 2-3 point dividend tomorrow and then announce a regular dividend yield of 2-3 points again without repatriating any cash.

I doubt it will be larger than a few points, which means that the stock will likely fall sharply tomorrow (as it did with both Cisco and Microsoft) as it seems that the market is expecting a much larger dividend.

Note: it is possible to issue a larger dividend without repatriating overseas assets by borrowing against those foreign assets, but I doubt they would do that.

</comment><comment><USER9> The thesis of this post is incorrect.

As hncommenter13 pointed out, the breakdown of long term securities vs cash is very wrong.

Additionally, even if it were correct Apple could easily borrow billions of dollars in cash either from a bank or by selling bonds. They'd have no trouble getting the money, which makes the "$10-30 billion dollars" limit pretty artificial.

I'm not convinced it matters anyway - there aren't a lot of things worth more than that which Apple would be interested in.

Looking at a list of the most valuable US companies[1], I guess the following _might_ be interesting:

Intel, Verizon, Cisco, HP, Qualcomm, Walt Disney, Comcast.

Realistically, I think Walt Disney is the only real possibility there (and there are other media stocks that could be interesting - Time/Warner, News Co etc). The other possibility is an unlisted company: Facebook (but I don't think Zuck would relinquish control).

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/perfo...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2011/performers/companies/biggest/)

<comment><USER10> Why would apple want to get into content creation?

<comment><USER9> Apple could replace cable TV (if they chose to. I don't think they will, but it is possible..)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do most of the reports I have seen list apple's cash at 96B?

<comment><USER4> Because the market is liquid enough that Apple could probably convert those investments into cash relatively quickly (and without damaging their value).

Assuming trustworthy partners, if you have a cheque to your name for $100, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that you have $100 cash.

<comment><USER11> There is no way this jives with any accepted accounting practices...

<comment><USER4> Well what "reports" are you talking about? Blogs? Articles? Apple isn't reporting that it has "$96 billion cash."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Vizio seems unlikely to me because they're a bargain brand. If Apple bought them it would only tarnish Apple's brand. Could you imagine buying an Apple television set that was of Vizio quality? Even if they completely started from scratch and only used their factories, their would be enough people saying "This is really a Vizio" that it would look bad.

<comment><USER12> I don't know what experience you've had, but every Vizio TV I've used has been fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apple is a company that _vertically integrates._ What they're missing from their verticals is _content._ They already have a content provider, iTunes, so I don't think they'll buy Netflix or Hulu.

I expect Apple will make a move on a content provider soon (Disney? HBO?), but not tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER14> It is sad how tax dodging schemes by the uber wealthy are considered normal business procedure instead of the low-life thing it is. Hey Apple, in case you hadn't heard you have a ridiculous amount of money, you can afford to pay the taxes that you owe.

<comment><USER15> Via index funds, I own a bit of Apple stock, and I'm not uber-wealthy.

Uber-wealthy people are those that have/earn "zillions" of dollars.

<comment><USER14> You're not the one making the tax dodging decision, some multi millionaire Apple executive is.

<comment><USER15> The point you're missing is that taking money from Apple takes money from plenty of people who are not wealthy.

If you want to tax redistributively, you should tax the people who actually have the money, not companies. If the company mostly belongs to the "uber wealthy", then they'll get taxed anyway. If it's mostly in the hands of grannies of modest means with a few shares each, then they won't, which is a lot fairer.

<comment><USER14> I wasn't arguing tax philosophies, I was talking about dodgers of current tax laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting post, but there's a lot that's wrong here. For example, it's really not true that Apple tends towards vertical integration.

<comment><USER3> Really?

\- Apple bought a semiconductor design company and brought that in-house.

\- Apple does all software design, hardware design, industrial engineering, etc in house.

\- Apple develops its own processes for manufacturing their computers (unibody).

\- Apple built a chain of retail stores to sell directly to consumers.

Those are just a couple examples; the trend is very clear to me.

<comment><USER16> Well I was thinking of the major counterexample that they own essentially none of their manufacturing. They don't produce any of their components -- even the processors they design get built by (I believe) Samsung.

As far as I've been able to tell, design and engineering get hauled in because they want to control it. I guess you can add the stores, too.

But buying something like an LCD panel maker? Or a flash maker? Or Foxconn? I'd be shocked.

<comment><USER17> Well they already did buy a flash maker, Anobit. That said, Anobit is fabless just like PA Semi was.

If I am not mistaken, there were reports that Apple provided at least some of the capital for both Samsung's upcoming fab in Texas and the newly opened Foxconn factory in Brazil. I guess they have decided it doesn't (yet?) make sense to own manufacturing facilities outright, but they seem to be making actual investments in their manufacturing partners rather than just purchasing services. I would say that is indeed further evidence of a tendency toward vertical integration.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scientists Just Found Half of the Missing Matter in Our Universe - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.05024 <comment><USER2> See also e.g. [http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2017/10/everybody- knew-...](http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2017/10/everybody-knew-it-had- to-be-there-missing-half-of-normal-matter-in-the-universe-has-been- detected.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> So, barely visible gas and not dark matter?</comment>


Rio Tinto, China and Australia - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304370304575151612455202950.html?mod=WSJ_hp_us_mostpop_read

<comment><USER2> Money quote, the final paragraph:

" _Everyone doing business in China should be clear by now on the rules—there is no rule of law. Deals can be done on the basis of mutual trust, which creates some level of certainty. The four Rio Tinto executives may be guilty of corruption, but the real reason they are in prison is because that trust broke down._ "

</comment><comment><USER2> Use this to get the full article if you don't have a subscription: [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22but+also+in+the+global+com...](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22but+also+in+the+global+commodities+trade.+Some+of+that+is+China%27s+fault%22+site%3Awsj.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that</comment></comment>


Free hyperlocal IP-database - <AUTHOR> http://www.glimr.io/api <comment><USER2> I'm curious why things like this use 188.8.131.52 as an example. It's a horrible example. Because it's anycasted, the result will be almost always wrong. Eg, this page puts it in Sweden. For me, it's in Dublin.

</comment><comment><USER3> hyperlocal = city level ?

The example json shows a three digits fraction. So how precise is the geo location ?

<comment><AUTHOR> For 90% of the traffic the IP is mapped to an exact long/lat so a response for our office would be - Latitude":59.32556915283203,"Longitude":18.068561553955078 or geohash - u6sc7pvh

<comment><USER4> Looks like it's over quota and the sign up process wasn't finishing successfully. Tried to check it out but can't.</comment></comment></comment>


GreatAgain.gov - <AUTHOR> https://www.greatagain.gov <comment><USER2> If we're going to upvote these things on Hacker News, can we try to stick to comments that are less butt-hurt and more constructive? Yes, the technology industry is reeling from the fact that the preferred candidate did not win.

However, we are supposed to be hackers here, not some whiny intelligentsia. Please take off your sad hat and put back on the hacker hat. Bend the rules. Enact the change that you can from the position you are in. Get involved in any way you can. We cannot change the results of the election, but we can work with the framework and try to improve it for the better. Embrace the suck, and let's step forward in any way possible.

<comment><USER3> Was going to post something similar myself. No offense, but a lot of my liberal-leaning colleagues/friends/HN users sound like whinier Republicans when Democrats were in power.

Progress used to be made in the US through _compromise_. I want one thing, another person wants another, we sit down and bash out what's acceptable to both of us _and the country is the better for that negotiation_.

There are Trump policies that I will fight possibly to my death should they ever be attempted, but there are also a non-zero number I think might be good for this country.

As micaksica suggested, hackers act on the world they _have_ , not on the world they _wish existed_.

<comment><USER4> Hi! Former Congressional staffer here. Ten years in DC working on the Hill. There is no more compromise. Period. From any party, from any politician. Every single day is spent doing whatever is necessary to disagree, disparage, obstruct, and humiliate the other party. Compromise be damned: It's all about power, staying in power, and forcing the other part out of power. This is why I left.

The two parties have personally and vindictively attacked one another for so long that nothing gets done. The next 2 years will be spent with Republicans ramming their agenda down the throats of Democrats, precisely the way Democrats did it in 2007-2009. Then, it was payback time. Now it's payback fro the Republicans.

There is no more compromise in Congress, this is why it's so dysfunctional, and why nothing gets done. It does not appear to be changing any time soon, no matter the party in power.

<comment><USER3> _> It does not appear to be changing any time soon, no matter the party in power._

Curious, would you agree or disagree with the statement that a majority of this is driven by the primary process, fundraising requirements, and the political media industry?

If so, those seem like tractable problems we can _absolutely_ work on.

<comment><USER4> To a certain extent. House elections being every 2 years is a migraine that never ends. House members of both parties fundraise like crazy, and they're constantly dialing for dollars. This means they're constantly a target by the opposing party. Certainly if House members did not have to spend so much time watching their backs, dialing for dollars, and campaigning, it might help.

Curiously the Senate has something of a more collegiate body, even by those who despise one another, they tend to be more polite and respectful behind the scenes. I think this is because they know they have six years to drag things out, fundraise, and build relationships.

<comment><USER5> Do you think some kind of public financing scheme could help? How much would it have to be to have an effect?

I've heard it suggested that an Australia-style "everyone must go to the polls" system might ameliorate some of these issues by removing the need for GOTV campaigns and requiring candidates to persuade the middle since everyone will be showing up to vote. Any thoughts on this from the inside?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those wondering how this got done so quickly, both campaigns had transition offices in DC--funded in part with federal dollars--that got started months ago.

The modern presidency is so complex that a transition can no longer be accomplished effectively in the time between November 8 and January 20. So a bipartisan project created the concept of multiple transition offices that get government funds to operate.

Obviously the Clinton transition office is in the process of winding now right now, and the Trump office is expanding rapidly.

<comment><USER7> I wonder if anything is done with the losing candidate's transition office.

Like, do they put together a two-page list of the most important, nonpartisan conclusions they reached and hand it off to their counterparts? I'd like to think so, but I'm hardly optimistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seeing the .gov really makes it hurt.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone know if anything from Digital Service and 18F will get transitioned over? I'll be extra sad if making America great again also means making all the websites ugly and unusable too.

<comment><USER10> My cynical nature tells most people were only at 18F because of Obama. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them leave because Trump was elected.

<comment><USER3> That seems a bit petty. I can understand not feeling plused about replumbing EPA web infrastructure if the agency has been executively neutered, but it doesn't make the work, benefit to citizens, or cost savings any less important.

And honestly, with a President who seems (perhaps overly) inclined to break things, there may be new opportunities for dragging aging digital infrastructure into the modern era.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The page on Tax Reform[0] seems... interesting. Here's the first paragraph:

> Anyone who fills out a tax form knows how harmful the U.S. tax code is today > – punishing hard work, savings, and investment. American frustration with > the tax code has prompted two decades of Washington, D.C. blue ribbon > commissions and detailed plans to reform the code. These efforts have not > changed the tremendous burden Americans face in complying with the U.S. tax > code. If a tax code were designed to punish hard work, thrift, and > investment, the current U.S. tax code could serve as a blueprint.

Autosummarizer[1] summarizes the first paragraph as follows:

> If a tax code were designed to punish hard work, thrift, and investment, the > current U.S. tax code could serve as a blueprint.

Good times, America.

[0] [https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/tax-reformeconomic- vision....](https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/tax-reformeconomic-vision.html) [1] [http://autosummarizer.com/index.php](http://autosummarizer.com/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is the section on Immigration, [https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/immigration.html](https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/immigration.html)

First point: "Build a Wall on the Southern Border"

<comment><USER13> As an Immigrant, the list depresses me. It is evident that the person who came up with the list does not consider immigrants as people.

<comment><USER3> Hopefully take some small solace in the fact that half the country is very pro-immigrant, coupled with the truth that most of the vitriol from the other half is economic rather than personal.

If rural America wasn't hemorrhaging livable jobs, then I daresay we'd see next to no anti-immigration sentiment.

<comment><USER14> Also, I haven't heard anyone say they are against immigration entirely. Just that they want people to go about it through the proper legal channels.

<comment><USER13> Immigration in the US is broken on so many levels. I am afraid nothing will be done to resolve that. a personal example is the number of years it takes for someone from India/China to be legally a citizen is vastly different than other countries. I don't think a government that is so vehemently talking about american jobs and workers is going to care about the legal immigrants who are working here. I think it is unfair to the many many people who are paying taxes like citizens without the same rights and benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This focus on the person instead of measures is very, very concerning. Seriously, there's a video feature prominently called "My Dad". Pictures of him everywhere.

I'll stop making fun of North Korea.

<comment><USER2> Do you remember the Obama campaign? Some cult of personality always exists around charismatic leaders. Fairey's "Hope" poster was an epitome of personality-driven political propaganda.

<comment><USER10> > Do you remember the Obama presidency?

ftfy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So you can submit ideas here I see. I submitted a plea to embrace climate change from an economic standpoint - "renewable energy technologies will be in high demand, and there is a huge opportunity for whichever nation is first to market." Perhaps the prospect of making zillions in solar panel sales can give them pause.

<comment><USER17> What's that headline right now? Tesla had more revenue than all of American oil/coal combined?

Edit: Found it: [https://electrek.co/2016/11/10/tesla-made-more-money-last- qu...](https://electrek.co/2016/11/10/tesla-made-more-money-last-quarter-than- the-entire-us-oil-industry-made-last-year/)

<comment><USER16> This is the sort of argument that has a chance of succeeding with the republican majority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The certificate is dated October 31. Assuming Hillary had something similar waiting and ready, I wonder what it was...

<comment><USER19> The Clinton campaign policy priorities were right there on the campaign web site. They were voluminous, and well thought-out, and written/backed by serious domain experts, and thoroughly ignored by everyone because emailz.

Seriously contrast the stuff there with the pablum here, which boils down to junk like "education is important yo" and "we're going to eliminate excess regulation about, like, stuff".

I weep.

<comment><USER20> The same was true in 2008, during the primaries. Clinton's site had actual policies, Obama's had hand-waving.

<comment><USER3> It's all hand waving until it's on paper and going through the legislature's machinery, unless we're talking about executive actions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That was fast. I'm actually impressed.

Edit: not from a technological aspect. They probably had the site ready to go already. But from a human coordination standpoint.

<comment><USER19> Probably because you didn't read the text. There's literally no content here, even less than he had on his campaign website. You're "impressed" with some web geek throwing together a demo site. This election in a nutshell.

<comment><USER21> No. Technologically it's not all that impressive, it's the human element that is. They moved on this really quickly. It's surprising the coordination to get this done can be done in a day.

<comment><USER19> Probably half the commenters on this very thread (not me, I don't do web stuff) could have produced a site as good or better in half the time. Are you serious?

<comment><USER21> Like I said, it's not the technological aspect that is impressive. It's he human aspect. How quickly they coordinated this.

<comment><USER19> Gah, WHAT human aspect? All this is is a mediocre distillation of junk said on the campaign page. There's no new content. Nothing. You're seriously cheering on an organization that can write a boring summarization of some text in 36 hours (which they didn't, as mentioned the cert is more than a week old).

I can handle fact that he was elected, I guess. But this kind of celebration of mediocrity by his "supporters" who really should know better is just too much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't imagine people were happy to sign off on this domain name.

<comment><USER23> From what I understand a large portion of people would be happy to sign off on that domain name, another large portion wouldn't, and a final large portion would not fall into either camp. Of course the reasons for each are diverse, contradictory, and surprising.

<comment><USER24> You're assuming these specific people were representative of the nation as a whole.

<comment><USER25> If people wished to be represented, they would have voted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now that it's finally over and people won't be able to push for their preferred candidate, can someone shed light on what the email ruckus was all about?

Sure, personal server was used, etc. However, this is a community of tech literate people. We know that email is not and cannot be a secure medium. The only ways I can think of to transmit secure email messages is by making the medium irrelevant (encryption), or by using something else (ie. private 'secure' email-like mechanism).

Had the emails been encrypted, it wouldn't matter if they were stored on top of the hollywood sign. So what gives? Does that mean that the US transfers classified information through totally insecure channels?

<comment><USER6> To answer your specific question, the federal government deals with the same security vs. convenience dilemma that everyone else does. There are classified communications systems but they have fewer client devices and are harder to use.

Quite a few of the emails in Clinton's inbox that contained classified information were drafted by other people in other agencies (including CIA, NSA, etc) who either did not realize that a particular piece of info was classified, or who wanted to get it to her quickly through the most convenient medium--they did a risk/reward calculation and hit send.

The other thing to know about classified information is that it does not get unclassified just because it's public. So if I email you a NYTimes article about a classified drone strike program, you now have classified info in your inbox. Again, that explains some of the emails she had in her inbox-- forwarding news stories around.

Finally, the amount of classified information is staggering and detailed. Like everyone knows that the government flies U2 planes for surveillance, but their maximum altitude and endurance might be classified. So it's possible to have an email that is mostly fine but includes a few classified details. This complexity is why it has taken so long to review and release all her emails. Every single one has to be reviewed by relevant experts.

In short, people hear "classified information" and immediately think of something like the "NOC list" of covert agents from Mission Impossible. The reality is that immense amounts of information are classified, and it's easy to screw up. There is a reason the FBI said that no prosecutor would bother prosecuting Clinton.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the detailed answer, that's very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone find the part of the web site that explains how everything will be paid for, especially the tax cuts?

<comment> brian-armstrong The standard response you'll get to this question is that tax cuts will, supposedly, cause so much growth that they're revenue neutral

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Share your ideas

[https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory](https://apply.ptt.gov/yourstory)

> President Elect Trump has promised to change Washington, DC and that will > start with identifying and recruiting the finest men and women from across > the country to serve in his Administration. Any individual who wishes to > serve the Administration should utilize this online application in order to > participate.

[https://apply.ptt.gov/](https://apply.ptt.gov/)

<comment><USER28> Race dropdown...

<comment><USER29> That is very normal in the US. Race seems to be atop many forms. Just today I had to rewrite a medical history form being used by a canadian government agency (mostly a 'do you suffer fainting spells?' type of form). They had adopted a form obviously written for a US audience and "race/ethnicity:___" came just after middle names. That's just not asked in Canada without a very good medical reason, for which this agency had absolutely none. It was a rush job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Did previous presidents run similar websites where they'd list the stuff they want to change?

Also, from [https://www.greatagain.gov/meet-president- elect.html](https://www.greatagain.gov/meet-president-elect.html)

> "Donald J. Trump is the very definition of an American success story, > continually setting the standards of excellence for real estate, sports and > entertainment"

How humble.

<comment><USER31> Obama had change.gov during his transition, but it no longer exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> "meet the future first lady". hadn't even considered that until now!

</comment><comment><USER33> Is the following normal? Genuinely curious:

[https://www.greatagain.gov/news/help- wanted-4000-presidentia...](https://www.greatagain.gov/news/help- wanted-4000-presidential-appointees.html)

<comment><USER34> Yes, Obama also opened up a jobs portal on his transition site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Looks like a great way to crowd source popular policy ideas.

</comment><comment><USER17> For everyone flagging this and trying to pretend it doesn't exist, that's a pretty significant part of why Trump won in the first place.

Engage with it. Understand it. Stop attacking ad hominem and learn to find common ground. You don't have to like it, or even remotely agree on all points, but if you want to see any of the progress you're looking for over the next 4 years then you have to get involved.

</comment><comment><USER36> I've already started applying for citizenship in my mother's country. Just in case.

<comment><USER37> Just in case... _what_?

<comment><USER36> In case I feel like it's time to get out of the country.

<comment><USER37> And I think that is certainly your right.

Families who saw what was happening in Germany in the 1930s and decided to leave were likely criticized at the time by those who stayed; in hindsight, this was a smart move. Conversely, if somebody moved out of the US because Reagan was elected...well, that decision probably looks a bit silly now.

I have no more gift of foresight than anybody else here, so I can't say if such a move now would be right or wrong.

But I am left wondering what facts would lead to such a decision today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is real.

This will be a true test of America's design. Remember, America is a decentralized set of institutions. In _theory_ DC should have very little effect on my life here in California.

Join with your local communities and make sure your voice is heard. Fight to protect the vulnerable.

We can't sit back and watch this happen to our friends and neighbors:

[https://www.facebook.com/shaunking/photos/a.799605230078397....](https://www.facebook.com/shaunking/photos/a.799605230078397.1073741828.799539910084929/1194283823943867/?type=3&theater)

[http://jpupdates.com/2015/11/11/florida-home-defaced-with- sw...](http://jpupdates.com/2015/11/11/florida-home-defaced-with-swastika- graffiti-on-garage-door/)

</comment><comment><USER39> .gov damn it, makes me sad.

</comment><comment><USER40> That favicon of the White House in front of a red background seems to send a wrong message scaled down to that degree. I hope they fix up some of the design work.

</comment><comment><USER41> The 'Download video' option under 'My Dad' hit me hard

</comment><comment><USER42> This was on the front page then disappeared. BIAS JOURNALISM AT HN?

<comment><USER17> I'm almost certain it was mass flagged and removed automatically.

<comment><USER43> Most likely it triggered the flame war detector.

(moderator comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792030))

Otherwise, it would have a "[flagged]" in its title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is the whitest web page I've seen in a while.

</comment><comment><USER45> As great as it was wheeeen...?

</comment><comment><USER29> Well, it should soak up some of the more annoying dos traffic. That's a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER46> Where's that IoT bot net when you need it.

<comment><USER47> Ah yes, Ddos ing websites of government officials that you disagree with.

So tolerant. Much liberal.

<comment><USER46> Take a joke. I was not actually advocating for anything.

<comment><USER47> Cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is actually going to happen, isn't it?

I need to expedite this british citizenship process

<comment><USER23> Please don't. If you are coming over here because you can't stomach your country and not for any great desire to contribute to mine I don't want you here.

<comment><USER49> You realize that most people don't emigrate with the express desire to become a public servant in their new home, right? This person could easily be leaving due to the rhetoric that affects people of color, or women. Sorry that isn't a noble enough of a reason to leave, but that's how it is for some. People don't want to remain somewhere they're not welcome. Related, could you share some of your contributions to your country? Perhaps they can do the same, if you illuminate the opportunity?

<comment><USER23> A public servant isn't the only or the best way to contribute to your own country, unless you show a special talent for it of course.

And in regards to my contributions to my own country? I find it rather presumptuous for you to demand mine without providing your own, however I will give them. They aren't much but, at 23, I am still building the foundations.

Most of my time is currently focused on our small company where we have been building a loss prevention solution for rural areas (we are now hiring, practical data scientists and developers in Hampshire, UK. Our stack is C, PostgreSQL, NodeJS, and some Java. If you have the right to work here and want to, send your CV + intro to firstname.lastname@example.com . Note that our main website is currently slightly out of date as we have, over the last year and a half, performed a significant pivot into the incredibly useful TelemetriCop system).

I spend portions of my spare time volunteering at a local animal shelter, and managing a debate group, I used to do more but my actual work is now more intense (and I feel contributes more to our society by mitigating the effectiveness of those who seek to detract from it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I was really devastated on Tuesday (and still am) but submitting ideas here makes me feel a little better. It's likely that there _are_ ideas you have that can be supported by a Republican President so get to work.

</comment><comment><USER51> How did Trump even got this domain before he was President-elect? .gov is limited for only the US government, nothing else. Before the elections, Trump was not part of the government. But the certificate dates from 1 November 2017.</comment>


Web Giants Consider 'Nuclear Option' Blackout to Fight SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://www.talkincloud.com/web-giants-consider-nuclear-option-blackout-to-fight-sopa/ <comment><USER3> It amazes me how many commenters here seem to be missing the point. The point is not to take these sites offline in a kind of "do what we want or you can't have our services" move, but to bring the issue to the attention of everyone who is unaware that this may affect them. These sites have the eyes of millions of americans who are completely unaware of the SOPA threat and turning the sites off for a day, or even showing a "stop censorship" notice will spread the awareness that previously was missing.

<comment><USER4> Do I think that SOPA and PIPA (please don't forget about mentioning PIPA - Google, Facebook, etc!) are so bad that a complete blackout would be appropriate? Yes, I do.

But I also think that a call to action is even more important, so hopefully they don't just go offline, but present the visitors with an overlay or a widget or something to call their representatives, and with some clear explanation in layman terms of what SOPA and PIPA do.

<comment><USER5> From the second paragraph:

"If these companies were to take this route, all of these sites would go completely dark save for a message of opposition to SOPA censorship and instructions on how to contact your local representative."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dont like the term "nuclear option". The fact that there is no "mutually assured destruction" if they follow-up with this makes this so called "nuclear option" much less scary. Besides it is never been done before, so no one even knows what would be the result.

Saying "Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy" and doing it would be way more effective

Speaking of "nuclear options", one of the reasons the bombs were dropped on japan in WW2 instead of just sending an "or else!" telegram was that threats would not have been taken seriously until the effect was confirmed - an there were even some doubts on whether it will work at all as designed. Unfortunately it did.

<comment><USER7> One theory for why two bombs were dropped was to intimidate Stalin into thinking there was a production line of such weapons -- ergo, he should stay out of western Europe.

<comment><USER8> I always thought it was because little boy was made if uranium which japanese intelligence had a pretty good idea of how much the US could produce in a year. Fat man was based on the more readily available plutonium but the detonation was more uncertain. Thus the test bomb produced by the manhattan project was also a plutonium bomb trying out the implosion detonation mechanism. Although never tested before the physics ov achieving supercriticality for a uranium bomb where never in doubt.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I didn't know that. As usual it's probably a mix of factors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I understand the negative response to calling this a "Nuclear Option", but I don't understand everyone's negative reaction to the idea. How many 12 - <USER2> year old kids have any idea what SOPA is? If for the next two weeks all they saw was a "simulated SOPA" on facebook and google, how many do you think would complain to mom and dad? I'm sure plenty of kids of wealthy people have gotten things changed just in the name of shutting them up.

Why hasn't anyone suggested boycotting the media industries? Perhaps I missed it, but are we that materialistic to where no one even considered it? Stop going to theaters, buying from iTunes, cancel netflix. You vote with your dollars.

<comment><USER10> Education is required before a boycott could possibly be effective. As it stands, a boycott would amount to a headline resembling:

"Hacker News Boycotts Media over SOPA." When questioned, [media exec] responded "We didn't Notice a thing - as a matter of fact, sales were up for the week. Who the hell is Hacker News? Sounds like the group of pirates we're trying to protect ourselves from."

Once everyone understands what SOPA actually is and how it could affect them, a boycott would make sense.

* Fixed Typo.

<comment><USER9> Education is required before a boycott could possibly be effective.

I understand this completely. A boycott isn't actually a boycott unless the company knows why you are boycotting them, but that is what exactly I'm suggesting. It shouldn't be in the name of anything i.e. "Hacker News". It should be a movement for citizens, by citizens. SOPA is a huge violation of constitutional rights and that should be all the reason needed to initiate a boycott.

Instead of a black out, perhaps every other page load will display an "educational" message for five minutes. Business continues but it's annoying enough to be effective. I'm also not suggesting that google or facebook encourage a boycott as that is just asking for trouble. That's why it needs to be a "civil rights" movement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> All these services have huge audiences. Audiences that money can't buy.

Every one of these services should have a splash page that every user sees at least once. It should explain in simple terms, what SOPA is, why it is on the verge of wrecking the US internet economy.

Time is running out. If these services don't act, they'll eventually be taken down by the political class who can't stand the fact that their power has diminished by the next wave of technology.

No one needs to black out anything, or "go nuclear". Just spread awareness. ASAP

<comment><USER12> This is what I don't understand. Are these companies so short-sited that they cannot see the potential of their own user base as a massive lobbying arm? Do they secretly support SOPA?

If the main stream media was threatened with a similar type of legislation they would mount an non-stop campaign through their editorials and choice of headlining stories so that their audience was aware of what was happening and how bad the legislation was. This is the reason Rupert Murdoch has so much power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was disappointed when Time magazine named "the Protester" person of the year for 2011. A blackout of major web services would amount to little more than a stunt. Sure, the mainstream media will run the story for the first day...but for how long will these services remain willfully unavailable? Who will cave in first and go back online without resolution?

It seems to me that the popularity of activism and protesting do little to affect change, whereas more commonly yes than no they simply represent an inconvenience to everyone else who can't be bothered with another struggle/burden in their lives. There must be more mature and effective means of defeating SOPA than having a group of web services throwing a temper tantrum.

<comment><USER14> "It seems to me that the popularity of activism and protesting do little to affect change…"

What makes you think that? Most major shifts begin with activism and protests. These are the ways that the populace makes their voice heard in large masses, much like lobbying is typically the way corporations have theirs heard. Sometimes protests go unheeded, and sometimes this leads to revolutions. Other times, the protesters disband without having achieved anything. The protester was named person of the year for 2011 because of the clear effects that protesters _did_ have in 2011—from the Middle East to Europe. The true effects have even been felt here, in the form of the Tea Party, though that was before 2011. Occupy has had less success in achieving concrete change, but plenty of success in achieving shifts in the media narrative.

Moreover, what is immature about this? A temper tantrum? What makes you call this a temper tantrum? Temper tantrums are, by definition, uncontrolled. This is an extremely controlled and planned response. This is law we're talking about. A law that threatens these businesses, and, through them, their customers. But most of their customers have no idea this law is even in the works, or don't really get how it could affect them. What better way is there of telling them the effect beyond... Well... Telling them?

In a functioning representative democracy, there can be no more effective means to defeating a law than informing the public and getting the public to contact their representatives and inform them that there is a problem en masse. This is a means to achieve that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In 1996, many websites turned black to protest the community decency act. It was passed but invalidated by the supreme court. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_World_Wide_Web_protest>. Far fewer people were on the internet then, so today, something like that would have a far bigger impact.

</comment><comment><USER16> I keep seeing talk about this, but it never seems to go beyond talk. It doesn't seem necessary to disable services entirely to get people's attention. Just adding a banner or link would have a _huge_ impact. Consider the impact of adding a link to Google's front page or the Facebook top banner, or even a modified logo, with a link to a page which makes it easy to contact Congress (and which can handle the load).

Why does this require so much talk and so little action? Why do we keep seeing headlines of "consider", rather than the headlines we hope to see of the action taken and the resulting impact?

<comment><USER17> And with Google Ads Google has a mechanism to very efficiently injecting the message into a plethora of websites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> First, construct a phase 1-blackout. Where any users sees a large screen with info to contact their reps (and then allows them to proceed to the app).

The outcome of this less-abrasive approach may be enough - and if not, Plan B can then be implemented; a complete blackout.

</comment><comment><USER19> Seems pretty reasonable to me. It's obviously bad business to get involved in politics, but for these companies it's either "Take ourselves offline for temporarily or face the chance of getting put out of business forever."

<comment><USER20> _It's obviously bad business to get involved in politics_

Quite the opposite; each dollar spent on lobbying usually produces more than a dollar in government subsidies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd like to see it if nothing else I think it would force those of us who have been to lazy to do something that day... as in "Well I was going to browse around for an hour before doing actual work but with all my sites down guess I'll do this SOPA letter to my representative thing that's been on my ToDo list"

</comment><comment><USER22> We plan to have a splash page up Jan 23rd with info on Sopa and explaining why it's so vital people call their congressional rep.

Site5.com frontpage will be gone for a 24 hour period for it, Thanks, Ben

<comment><USER22> Would be awesome if someone built a WP Sopa plugin that did this for any WP blog, basically a splash page with how to contact your rep and what sopa could do to the net.

If anyone can build this let me know, we can help you host and get publicity and I'd be willing to pay you for your time if you think it's possible -> email@example.com

It would need to be made soon so it can go to users asap to prep for jan 23rd, Thanks, Ben

<comment><USER23> I sent you an email. (email@example.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a rehash of old news, without actually providing anything new.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would definately support a permanent blackout of Paypal. Please turn off and don't come back.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does <http://netcolation.com> look fishy to anyone? It has no formal list of members, but instead claims to "represent" Google and others without elaborating as to what this means. It also looks like a part-time operation run by a pair of lawyers.

I am all for a coalition, but this looks odd at best and may easily backfire. If they _are_ assigning themselves to be Google's representatives on the matter, then Google will have no choice but to distantiate from this entity, and this will inevitably be picked up by the media as "Google breaks away from anti-SOPA coalition."

<comment><USER27> Corrected Link: <http://www.netcoalition.com/>

<comment><USER26> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> That's the equivalent of USA blowing up an USA base with nuclear bombs to defend against the invaders. Please take it to them, blow up the invaders in their own bases.

Instead, promote Internet Freedom to replace and outlaw SOPA, DMCA, PROTECT- IP, COICA, CEST, OPENA, ACTA and more.

The pacifist nature of the SOPA movement sucks because it targets one bill, when there's a tsunami of anti-Internet bills.

<comment><USER29> A scorched earth policy like you describe is bad for both sides, but sometimes the only viable option. Russia used it to thwart both Napoleon and Hitler

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> When I read about this "Nuclear Option", I can't help but feel that it is nothing more than a PR ploy. How much money would be lost by companies like Amazon, Google, etc. by shutting their sites down for even a single day? Even more, this sort of stunt would be a Customer support nightmare for any of these companies. Though an interesting threat, it comes off as completely impractical from every angle.

<comment><USER31> Plus they obviously wont pull down paid services like google apps or AWS, etc.

<comment><USER32> But why not? I mean if this bill is really passing, like everyone claims, then where is the official information on how the actual language of the bill "changes the internet " as we know it.. I hate SOPA but it does not seem like anybody is doing anything to really stop it. I mean Google, Facebook, etc should stop all activity, shut down for a month and use all its resources to fight this thing with speeches, commercials, cold calling, blah , blah, blah.. If nobody does that then they really don't care or this bill is not as bad as they (Google,FB,etc) say it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> FWIW, OpenDNS will not ever shut down our service and I doubt most of those other sites will either.

I keep seeing this "nuclear option" story and it's annoying. We will keep fighting against SOPA, but we won't shut down our service in protest, that would be far worse (and not effective).

</comment><comment><USER34> They shouldn't do a blackout, they should "flag" links to/pages/accounts of politicians who hasn't pledged opposition to SOPA. If they are in favour of destroying the Internet, they shouldn't enjoy the privilege of having Google and Facebook assist their campaigns.

<comment><USER35> No, they should do a blackout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I really don't think this will work because the Government will see it for the empty threat that it truly is.

A Google or a Facebook prove they have the guts to throw their off-switch for anyone to take this seriously.

<comment><USER37> The goal is to raise awareness. For example, every cable news program in America would cover it as one of the day's top stories. You can't buy that with money.

<comment><USER38> Technically you could, but you'd need lots and lots of money.

<comment><USER29> I'm guessing it would be on par with the money they'd lose being offline for even a day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I, for one, would love to see a day (1) without Google. Almost like a moment of silence to realize how far the internet has come since '96. Would bing suddenly gain mass users? Would we rediscover dogpile?

</comment><comment><USER40> They could also just block all SOPA voters from access to there services. Most of the pro-SOPA companies have knows IP-ranges.

</comment><comment><USER41> Instead of a blackout, why not have a period of "IPV6" only?

<comment><USER20> Because combining two unrelated ideas is confusing (e.g. it would lead people to the false belief that upgrading to IPv6 will negate the effects of SOPA).</comment></comment>


Atom chip demand redefining Intel - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10065879-64.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... What Intel appears to like most about Atom is what it calls "margin characteristics." In other words, it's a low-cost processor, but it yields better margins than typical inexpensive chips like the Celeron ..."_

The Netbook is the new Notebook ~ [http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2872451270/in/set-72157607...](http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/2872451270/in/set-72157607402416589/)</comment>


Binggate is Bullshit  - <AUTHOR> http://www.kludgecode.com/?p=24

<comment><USER2> No, it's not. Harry Shum admitted this morning that the behavior was due to using users' clickstream as a signal.

[http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/20...](http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/02/01/thoughts- on-search-quality.aspx)

Here's where Bing is wrong: Bing should not be using clickstream data from Google searches as a signal. The core offering of Google search is getting used by its competitor, without any citation. That's wrong.

If you were to take the core asset you're supposed to produce, source code, from another developer and pass it off as your own work, would that be right? Oh, but you didn't know it came from another developer? Doesn't really matter anymore, as you've been called out on it. Admit that you were wrong and fix the situation.

<comment><USER3> Google's search engine serves up content from other people's sites. And advertises against it.

Is that right?

I'm handing this one to microsoft. They found a simple, elegant source of improving their results. Tough shit that it's at google's expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The English wikipedia has a redirect at [[Torsoraphy]] that was created hours ago. [1] Google observed this behavior months ago.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Torsoraphy&old...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Torsoraphy&oldid=411505089)

<comment><USER5> See also the revision history [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Torsoraphy&act...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Torsoraphy&action=history)

(cur | prev) 03:03, 2 February 2011 Nihiltres (talk | contribs) (26 bytes) (;))

The commit summary is ;)

Just another wikipedian causing mischief.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> oh, for the love of god! "gate" is not a goddamn suffix! you do not add it to things to connote scandal! this is not an acceptable practice; it's down there with "irregardless" and "should of". stop doing it!

</comment><comment><USER7> the whole story seems pretty odd and odious. two giant corporations having a catfight, even a catfight on twitter

I have no idea why would Microsoft "stole" results from anyone. their statistics research goes too far, but theft seems like a way too stupid action

are handwaving and odious flame wars part of a new Google's "startup" strategy?

</comment><comment><USER8> Great observation about Wikipedia's behavior. Wow, it turns out that Google isn't the only one who can correct spelling errors! Who knew?

<comment><AUTHOR> According to the Searchengineland.com story, the smoking gun is that Bing does not offer a correction for "torsoraphy" yet returns the Wikipedia article. [http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating- copying-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our- search-results-62914)

But the difference is really in what they do after they get the results from Wikipedia. Google searches for the term returned by the Wikimedia engine and offers it as the intended spelling. Per the screenshots, Bing returns the Wikipedia page, a page related to it's contents (long island surgery) and the results from Amazon (plus whatever else isn't shown).

Bing appears to offer broader searches when faced with ambiguity, whereas Google takes the results of the Wikimedia engine as gospel.

<comment><USER9> I don't think either google nor bing searches for the term in wikimedia. I think google spent time finding this misspelling, and bing is sitting on the shoulders of a giant, capturing the same effect with their clickstream analysis.</comment></comment></comment>


Abolish the CIA and FISA - <AUTHOR> https://americanmind.org/essays/abolish-the-cia/ <comment><USER2> From the article: "Intelligence officials abuse their positions to discredit opposition to the Democratic Party, of which they are part."

Ummm....

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you refute the statement or do you just find it troubling? I know the trope is that Intel people are all crew cut conservatives, but, like most Hollywood stereotypes, that is utter codswallop. The American University Complex churns out left leaning specialists, and the intelligence agencies hire exclusively from the AUC. It is not a very big leap at all. Stztrok and Page are very representative of modern IC.

<comment><USER2> I find it troubling,in that it indicates that the author believes the FBI are already politicized just the wrong way, but also I think it's kind of not true.

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

[https://www.theguardian.com/us- COINtelnews/2019/aug/08/fbi-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/us- COINtelnews/2019/aug/08/fbi-oregon-anti-pipeline-jordan-cove-activists)

[https://theappeal.org/the-fbi-used-a-made-up-category-to- jus...](https://theappeal.org/the-fbi-used-a-made-up-category-to-justify- surveillance-of-black-activists-what-else-is-it-doing/)

> Stztrok and Page are very representative of modern IC.

How do you mean? Aren't Strzrok and Page institutionalists at heart? Also, how do you think you know this?</comment></comment></comment>


How Do the Yellow Pages Still Make Money? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thumbtack.com/blog/how-do-the-yellow-pages-still-make-money/ <comment><USER2> Because Google does a horrible job when you need a business in a rural area. It gives businesses hundreds of miles away first. The yellow pages still have its uses.

Heck, Apple and Siri are worse. Whoever did the location part of maps missed a lot.

<comment><USER2> To give a simple example:

"nearest gas station" \- Google gives 3 in the next town over, but skips the tribally owned one (which is $.05 cheaper) that you pass on the way to the ones listed.

Siri gives one station 10 miles away that you pass 4 stations to get to.

"nearest grocery store" \- Google gets this one correct listing the two on the reservation and the closest one in the next town.

Siri skips both on the reservation and directs you to the one in the next town. You need to drive by one of the two on the reservation to get to it.

Phone book yellow pages has all of them listed.

This is the easy stuff. Asking about oil changes and tires is pretty bad.

// Siri and Weather.app on iOS is actually incapable of finding the town by zip code or name and give results "Not Found" or more bizarrely a town in New York state even though it correctly interpreted North Dakota. It also gives Fargo listings for Jamestown. Google keeps giving the college location I work at as in a town 40 miles from here.

<comment><USER2> I have one more to add. I had to drive from New Rockford ND to 4 Bears Casino in New Town ND on Friday. I know how to get to New Town[1], but have never gone to the casino[2]. I search Siri for "4 Bears Casino New Town North Dakota" and get nothing. I then type its address (which I am confirming as I post) "202 Frontage Rd, New Town, ND 58763" into Maps.app. It then shows a place in Connecticut (different state and different zip code).

1) do not go through Minot no matter what the GPS says

2) a lot of meetings are held at various tribal casinos since they all have a lot of conference rooms and are convenient to the hotel that is almost always built next to the casino.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jay-saint After a new controller came into our company we conducted an audit of all existing expenses. Turns out we were paying $277 a month for multiple full color Yellow page listings. The owners set these up well before we had a marketing department and just kept paying for years. We did not even have a copy of the Yellow pages in our building to see what our ad looked like. We have since cut this ad to the most basic listing, but are stuck paying the high rate until the new book is published in February 2016.

My point is that this is how they are still making money, thousands of business customers that are just used to paying them forever.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've tried and failed to get my house excluded from their distribution. They hire a bunch of low wage people to just toss one on the lawn/porch of every house, and don't seem to pay any attention to the houses that have asked to not get one.

This irks me because, when I travel on business, having one of these sitting on my porch is a nice indication that I haven't been home all week, so please rob me. You can stop your mail, set up light timers, etc, but just try keeping the yellow pages away.

Sigh,

<comment><USER4> In a just world that would be considering littering, but somehow they get away with it.

<comment><USER5> I've wondered about filing a criminal complaint against them, if I could find out who is doing the delivery.

<comment><USER6> The article addresses this: some cities attempted laws against YP deliveries, but they were thrown out on free speech grounds.

<comment><USER4> That would be a novel defense of littering... Free speech should not mean you can throw 1000 pages of ads on my stoop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Try looking for some business with Google, and then a Yellow Pages search engine (like the Canadian one: yellowpages.ca).

Dig through reams of spam, irrelevant references, review sites with misleading info, and non-local results? or scroll through nothing but business names and links?

No contest.

Just to find the opening hours of some business can be a hassle with a search engine.

<comment><USER8> What's funny about your comment is that yellow pages uses google search and maps to compile it's results. Why not skip the cruft and go right to the original source?

<comment><USER9> I just did two identical searches in google.com and yp.com, and the results I got on yp were entirely different than those on google, and more numerous.

yp.com has a ton of listings directly submitted to them. They may use Google as one of many data sources, but they're by no means the original source.

<comment> at-fates-hands This is one way YP.com is transitioning to more online marketing. They have started to bundle their yp.com offerings with their print offerings.

If you buy a print ad, you can get a cut on the .com ad and placement depending on how much you're spending. I also noticed yp.com has the first 8-10 listings are paid ads, which go right below the fold. If you don't scroll down, you'd never notice the non-paid listings.

It's pretty sketchy to me, but I guess they're doing what they have to in order to survive

<comment><USER10> That's actually the opposite direction of where they're moving. yp.com has little, if any, relation to the print business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to work in agency media and one of the reasons I got out was because these companies are starting to cannibalize that industry pretty heavily.

They'll put a half-page ad up for $500 a month, but then also cover all of your digital media (advertising, website, making sure you're on Places and whatever then Bing equivalent is) for free.

They're nailing down these companies who see the web work as a value add for the yellow pages ad, when really it's the other way around. The yellow pages ad is relatively worthless, and they're massively overpaying for their web presence.

<comment><USER12> Absolutely - one business I work with is essentially paying YP $900 a month to run a $300 a month AdWords campaign. They throw in a bunch of other "premium YP listing" but analytics shows no more than 12 referrals from YellowPages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This opens up my mind to a lot of possibilities. Some poignant conversation starters for your local lunch group:

\- What kind of investment returns did the stock of those bankrupted yellow pages make and at what cycles?

\- What does it really take to kill an old technology?

\- Is there a way to compete with established dying tech companies at their own game, or is it purely by trying to advance their users to your new tech?

\- What does this say about transitional companies that possibly offer both the old AND the new techs, like the yellow pages that offer online versions? Are they going to move forward or are they just delaying their deaths a bit?

\- What kind of talent is needed to sustain these kinds of businesses? It's going to look very different from the talent that grows new business, but I can't deny that they're both forms of talent.

Lots of food for thought.

</comment><comment><USER14> They're making big money on their online listings -- particularly from small business owners who know no better. A product I used to develop was a direct competitor to them (listings for a niche business market) and the sales team would tell horror stories of the aggressive sales techniques YP uses. They would basically bully small business owners (primarily in the older demographic) into paying exorbitant rates for a templated ("Custom!") web site with unreal promises of traffic and leads. These charts really seem to support that target market. It's one thing, if that's what your clients are actually using to find your business, but it's disgraceful when using your brand recognition to extort businesses. Reminiscent of the alleged Yelp shenanigans.

</comment><comment><USER15> "Yellow Pages Ltd. is cutting 300 jobs by November in a corporate "realignment" designed to make the company leaner and free up dollars to invest in its digital ventures as it continues to move away from print directories."

[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/yellow- pag...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/yellow-pages-to- cut-300-jobs-in-corporate-realignment/article26714341/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've seen people use the Yellow Pages as a filter before. For example, a website doesn't take too long to get up these days with templates, but a two- page color ad in the yellow pages costs thousands of dollars. If you can afford the Yellow Pages ad, you're also likely insured, etc. I personally do not use them, and I recycle them when they're delivered.

</comment><comment><USER17> It makes sense, but I gotta say that I don't even take them into my home anymore—they go straight into the dumpster.

<comment><USER18> Not that I use the local YP much, but it probably depends to a large degree on how often you need local services like plumbers etc. To be sure, even as a homeowner, you tend to compile your own rolodex (to use an anachronism) of local service companies to use but every now and then you need something different that may not be easy to find on the Web. (Web presence is still very [EDIT] hit or miss for a lot of local companies.)

<comment><USER19> This is true and happened to me just last week. I used to belong to Angie's List, which helped a lot, but I so rarely used it that I dropped the service. I wished I kept my Yellow Pages last week when I wanted to look something up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Specific applications are usually better than their generic competitor. A gerneric web search might be able to find some of the same information but the service yell and yellow pages provides is really vastly more effective. I genuinely couldn't find a stationary shop locally using google and maps this week a task I completed in 30 seconds on yell.co.uk.

I am not looking forward to the inevitable death because I dont think there is a viable alternative right now and certainly not one with the quality of data that makes yell so useful. Local business searches are just awful everywhere but on yell which is why its still alive.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its like what my 7-year-old asked me the other day, "what is a phonebook?"

<comment><USER22> It's what you sit on when you have dinner with the adults!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> These days I use Google Maps scoped to my neighbourhood and do a search that way. Trying to do the same with web search is an exercise in frustration.

The one nice thing about the yellow pages is that it does provide a results filter, in that you're going to find local businesses willing to pay money to show up in a book.

Having a filter for "serious, local-only businesses" is a useful thing to have. IMO online yellow pages doesn't have that. Yelp and the like are sort of close but their UI and search-locality aren't as tight as they should be to serve this purpose.

</comment><comment><USER24> Loves getting the yellow pages: it's the best way to get cheap paper for firing the charcoal grill.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you want to stop phone books from being delivered (and you're in the U.S.) start with [https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/](https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> A lot of sofas need an extra leg.</comment>


Ask HN: Cheap ($300ish) netbook/laptop recommendation for a college student? - <AUTHOR>

I built a beast Gaming PC this summer, and with some sidejobs I can afford a better netbook for the next few years of college.
Any recommendations for a decent netbook? This netbook would primarily be for note taking at school and light programming/web browsing. OS doesn't matter, as long as I can boot a *nix distro, but windows is fine too.
I'm a junior in CS for all that matters as well. <comment><USER2> How about a used Lenovo x220? Around 2-300 on ebay. Old Thinkpads have good keyboards and are reliable.

<comment><USER3> +1 for lenovo x220 / x230 or if want fancy screen check toshiba chromebook 2

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you prefer a larger display ? if so i heard that dell recently released low-cost , large screen ~14"/15" laptops .

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a perfect screen size - anything from 13" to 15.6" is fine with me.

I'll take a look at Dell. I've seen a lot of Lenovo recommendations for what I'm looking for but after Superfish, I'm not keen on a Lenovo.</comment></comment>


When Pan Am Promised to Fly Us to the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/airlines/a26557979/pan-am-moon-flights/ <comment><USER2> Here's a real opportunity for one with the appropriate skills. It's very likely that the copy for this article has been run through a spell-checker (although that's not certain) and yet we have this:

        If you think about people
        who have lived through that
        pace of chance ...

Clearly that should be "change" and not "chance". So there's a place for a "spell-checker" that would catch this kind of error.

Or does it already exist, and I've not seen it ...</comment>


Ask HN: What email service do you use for personal accounts and services - <AUTHOR> Trying to do some digital cleanup and after writing down all the services i'm using it's a bit of a mess.
Different services uses different email accounts. In an ideal world it would all be consolidated under one email, but that seems impossible at this point.
Interested in your setups. Do you use Gmail or another service to sign up for stuff?
Bonus question: How many email accounts do you regularly use? <comment><USER2> I recommend setting up an aliasing service no matter which provider you ultimately use. Blur or Anonaddy (sure there are others..) will give you a burner email unique for each new service you sign up for which forwards to your real email, and if one day one of them gets spammy or is sold to a data aggregator, you can just get rid of it entirely.

If I'm going to be actually corresponding a lot with an address (these days this is the exception in my email usage) I'll skip this middleman and make an alias/sending identity in fastmail.

To more fully answer your question, I believe I now have hundreds of unique email addresses in use. But it doesn't feel that way.

</comment><comment><USER3> I moved everything to Fastmail. Sometimes I'll create an alias if I want to easily control a funnel of emails, but usually the one email address rules them all.

The big thing is to use an email address at your own domain so you can switch to new email providers in the future. Using an @gmail address is being unnaturally chained to one company.

</comment><comment><USER4> For 20ish years I ran my own mailserver, on a Debian box. All my mail was accessed directly via mutt/lumail, from beneath ~/Maildirs

Last year I trialed fastmail, but didn't like it, so now I'm paying for GSuite. I have two users setup - a domain admin, and my own "real" user.

I've been using unique addresses at my domain ("email@example.com", "email@example.com", etc) so I had to setup an address-map to get around the alias-limits. But that niggle aside I've been enjoying the way it all works out.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just don't forget that email is generally used for password resets, so if you have the same email for everything and someone gets access to your email, they may be able to reset _all_ your passwords.

I'm in the process of switching all my services to a domain I own, so I will be a little less screwed in case google decides to randomly shoot me (like they do sometimes).

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using [https://mailbox.org](https://mailbox.org) and really like it.

I only disclose my actual email address to a few people. For everything else, I set up specific addresses such as shopping@, health@, bank@, etc using a domain I own, and all those forward to the Mailbox address and get filtered accordingly.

</comment><comment><USER7> Started using fastmail about six months ago. Very happy. One account for a handful of different domains and addresses.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have two main emails - one for actual correspondence and one for signing up to services and such.

I also spin up new emails for trials and such every once in a while, and delete/abandon them afterwords.

I do most of this through ProtonMail. You can't use your own mail client with them without paying, but their webmail is fine enough.

</comment><comment><USER9> G Suite. Gmail is great IMO. I only use one account, and I have my own vanity domain.

</comment><comment><USER10> Newsletter subscriptions + other random stuff = Gmail

Bank + stock investing account + other valuable stuff = own domain powered by O365 "Essentials" mail for ~$2 pm. Working well :). Didn't want Google snooping on these. So..

</comment><comment><USER11> I gave up on self hosted mail about a year ago. It's one of the best things I did for my nerves. Now I use Microsoft hosted mail. It's $5 bucks a month, and it's (probably) not as data mined than Google.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use protonmail with a custom domain, and simplelogin.co for throwaways

</comment><comment><USER13> I run my own server, using different addresses at the domain for each service I sign up with and also for each person I communicate with; all of them are set up as aliases to one account.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have been using Fastmail for many years and make good use of aliases to allow recognised items to be delivered into a identifying folders.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use the one provide by my domain name registrar. I get 5 email accounts for free with Gandi.

I regularly use 2 email accounts, one work, one personal.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have one email for everything and use Fastmail.

Don't make life complicated by using multiple emails.

</comment><comment><USER17> G-Suite though moving to Office 365 is in the backlog.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use burnermail.io</comment>


Ask HN: Should we build apps with React Native now? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have had a production application live for almost a year that uses React Native. It has been a pleasure to work with, and I would recommend using it. So far zero crashes have been logged, no performance issues reported, and it has quite a few active daily users.

Feel free to ask any questions! I'm happy to answer.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Here they go:

1) How much native code did you write?

2) Are you using native plugins? For what?

3) Are you being able to update RN versions?

4) Are you developing on a Mac / delivering on both platforms?

I've been hesitating because simple stuff like Charts has little options for now. And because FUD.

<comment><USER2> 1) I did not write any native code.

2) I use quite a few plugins containing native code. Older versions of react- native didn't handle this well, which required manually setting up linking for Android and iOS. This was painful. Thankfully, they added the "react-native link" command, which started doing this automatically. Since then, I haven't had any issues.

3) Upgrades from early version were also painful. I gave up the first time I tried, since the benefits didn't seem to outweigh the time it took to upgrade. Once they improved the upgrade process, I bit the bullet and upgraded. Since then, upgrades have worked flawlessly, so I've upgraded whenever they released features that replaced third-party libraries.

4) I develop on a Mac, and I release the application on both Android and iOS. Only one component differs between the two platforms: the header. I show a "Back" button on iOS, whereas I disable it on Android since it's unnecessary.

Early on, I also found some discrepancies in styling. Text boxes, for instance, showed default fonts on Android, while they showed my custom fonts on iOS. They also included underlines, and tapping outside buttons with a visible keyboard required tapping twice. These turned out to be bugs, and I was able to hack around them pretty easily. I believe they have since been fixed.

React Native definitely lacks a good charting solution, or at least it did when I wrote one. I haven't checked since then, since my custom solution solved my needs. It ended up working out well, since I was able to reuse my charting library to generate SVG-based charts for the web dashboard. If detailed charting is a requirement for an application, it will require some effort to get working on React Native, but it's not an insurmountable task.

Overall, React Native definitely had some rough edges when I first released the app, but they have fixed all of the issues that annoyed me. It has improved significantly, and if I were to build another application, I would use it again.

<comment><USER3> Are you mixing npm and yarn? Or which do you use? Just hit a small problem with npm.

<comment><USER2> I use NPM on this project, and I haven't had any issues.

What problem did you run into with NPM?

<comment><USER3> After installing react-navigation, react-native run-android stopped working :|

(But with yarn everything works so ok)

<comment><USER2> When "run-android" fails to boot, I usually start by checking the device simulator logs. If nothing shows up quickly, I switch to a different library. I know that's a cop out, but I have very little patience for issues like that. It has only happened once.

As far as that specific library goes, I haven't used it, so I can't really give any better guidance. Sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> depends on what you want to build. In my experience it's great for simple prototypes. I see more and more people using it for bigger projects. Also you can always gradually move back to native if needed.

<comment><USER3> Very good point - maybe even if FB even showed that, more people would use RN and not even go back to native. So much FUD everywhere. The only FUD that doesn't exist is "try to make two apps in Java and Swift and fail"

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you have entrenched native mobile programmers, they will likely resist moving to React Native. It won't be worth the effort to convert an existing, large native iOS or Android (or both) app to React Native.

However if you're just starting to move to mobile, React Native is the way to go. For new projects, its definitely worth a look if you don't have a strong dependency on the underlying native hardware.

</comment><comment><USER6> maybe.

<comment><USER7> great answer</comment></comment>


multitalk: 2-dimensional presentation program (ZUI like Prezi or VUE, GPLed) - <AUTHOR> http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~dmi1000/multitalk/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anybody know comparable (preferrably free) ways of doing this?</comment>