How I'm Predicting Baseball Outcomes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zachschnell.com/post/50397273741/the-braves-tomorrow-and-in-october <comment><USER2> As someone who has written 10k+ loc on simulators, markov chaining, and done tons of analysis on baseball projections... I don't know where to start.

I honestly don't. (You are very, very far off the correct methodology.)

But maybe this is a good place, I guess.

<http://www.oakton.edu/user/4/pboisver/AABaseballMath.html>

I am not trying to be a jerk. But ask yourself: If it were that trivial, why wouldn't it be a snap to crush online sportsbetting?

<comment><USER3> [http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet...](http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/2935/meet- the-worlds-top-nba-gambler)

Just a random article. I've met him through poker. He had a radio show for a while, and he stated that if you have a 2% edge over a bookie, you can easily make a million dollars a year. Anyone who thinks they have an edge and isn't also very wealthy is simply mistaken.

<comment><USER2> 2% is enormous and can't last for very long, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather than waiting for data from future games, you should backtest on old data and see how it performs (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backtesting>).

You might also be interested in checking out the book The Signal and The Noise by Nate Silver (He runs the FiveThirtyEight political/data blog that notably predicted last year's election results with great accuracy.)

<comment><USER5> More relevant--before he did statistical analysis of elections, he was a leading figure in sabermetrics, the statistical analysis of baseball. His program is still one of the best.

<comment><USER2> And before that, he was an excellent online gambler. Or was it during that time? ;)

PECOTA is alright, but not really his anymore. cwyers took it over at BPro. It's also tough to say if it's one of the best for any number of statistically boring reasons (read Phil Birnbaum's blog for more info).

<comment><USER6> Yeah, PECOTA isn't one of the best at all, it just has ranges for variance, which is an imprecise metric as no one knows what he's saying a percentile is under the model. What is luck and what is skill?

Birnbaum is one of the best bloggers on advanced stuff. Tango's blog is the best period as anyone good participating in the "open source" movement so to speak is there pr shows up when they write good stuff. Until you're aware of the work to date, you will be spinning in circles with awful biased errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My bet is that your model is no better than (weighted) chance to predict the next game. Just run the model on the years before 2012 and you'll see what I mean.

<comment><USER8> On my phone right now so I can't put this analysis on paper, but this feels a lot like looking at the associative property of addition.

i.e. the author regrouped the data to come up with the same result

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a guy who spent years on contract work on sports prediction, i can say this is so naive that even don't worth to be discussed.

To start with, you can't 'predict' result of a single game. You can have some advantage (or more likely, disadvantage) over the quality of the betting like a bookie gives you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't this an example of the gambler's fallacy, that previous outcomes impact future outcomes?

<comment><USER11> If game results were independent, yes. But lots of things in baseball aren't independent: teams play the same opponent repeatedly in short series, runs of home or away series occur, pitchers rotate, players get injured, teams may slack when overperforming or intensify their efforts to avoid extended losing streaks, etc.

Most of all: baseballers are fairly superstitious. They believe in streaks, lucky rituals, jinxes, and the gamblet's fallacy (being 'due' for a win or a loss). So some serial correlation could be a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Still, I'd expect tons of other available team stats to outperform the last N game results in predictive power.

<comment><USER6> Baseball players believe those things, but no one can prove they actually exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you want a broader dataset, check out the data from Retrosheet (<http://www.retrosheet.org/>). You can get box scores and play-by-play data from many years back to dive really deep into stats. You can use Chadwick command-line tools (<http://chadwick.sourceforge.net/>) to parse the data into SportsML or other formats.

</comment><comment><USER13> See also: <http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Lahman/index.html>

Baseball stats pre-molded into a nicely workable form, available from your handy R interpreter.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver said: "Momentum? Momentum is the next day's starting pitcher."

Baseball fan in me says that is correct but statistician in me would like to see more models like yours to quantify it.

</comment><comment><USER15> What, this is just streak-based? Do streaks even exist in baseball?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah for now... They're most definitely a thing, though I have a documents worth of baseball elements I hope to incorporate

<comment><USER16> Are they?

        jerf@jerfhom:~$ python
        Python 2.7.3 (default, Sep 26 2012, 21:51:14)
        [GCC 4.7.2] on linux2
        Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
        >>> import random
        >>> 94.0/(94+68)
        0.5802469135802469
        >>> winp = 94.0/(94+68)
        >>> games = []
        >>> for x in range(50):
        ...     games.append('w' if random.random() < winp else 'L')
        ...
        >>> ''.join(games)
        'wLwLwwwwwLwLwLwwwLLLwLwwLwLLLwwLwwwwwLwwwLwwLLwLLw'

In my full simulation of 162 games, the longest streak was a 7 game _losing_ streak, despite the higher win percentage. Of course you'll get different results each run; my next run produced a 9 game winning streak, which some quick Googling suggests is in line with what happened in 2010.

Combine this with the fact that real play is not drawn uniformly (you may play a much worse team against which you have a much better win percentage for several games in a row) and I don't see much need for some sort of meaningful, statistically-predictive "streak" to explain game results.

<comment><AUTHOR> The 2012 data I used as the basis of my program actually had the same thing you describe – the longest streak was an 8 game losing streak despite having more wins than losses overall.

And I understand exactly where you're coming from. This is very preliminary, and if anything it was good coding practice for me. Though I very much intend to incorporate more significant factors like the lineup, the opposing team, and their history.

<comment><USER6> First improvement: do this for every team ever. Then combine for all teams, first in an individual season, then try basing the win% iteratively based on more history.

Based on these models, you should have some good examples of selection bias, and see how the model changes based on what you are not testing for, but what is implicit in the data (since data is merely a set of samples of data generated by one iteration of the (unknowable to some degree) true talent functions for each team (player, lineup decision, injury, close call by an ump, etc.)

If you're interested in going down the rabbit hole, there's tons of people who can show the way (and they're nice! At least tangotiger is way nicer than he should be in listening to people who have put no effort in understanding what is good and what is beginner's blind bliss)

Hot and cold streaks are just random variance, so is whether balls are hit within reach of fielders or safely out of reach, given a certain contact quality (ground ball, fly ball, infield pop up, or line drive all have vastly different tendencies to fall for a hit - line drives ~.600-700 babip if I recall, FB ~ low .200ish, GB ~ .300, pop up 0ish?) point is these are all known, to se degree, given the historical data.

If anyone wants to explore this stuff further let me know & I can point you to the right spots to help a specific interest?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> google tangotiger and then read his book. baseball prediction has been done to death by the sabermetrics community but this guy is one of the absolute best.

<comment><USER18> tango is awesome, but saying he is the best is misleading. He is just one point of view, albeit a fairly wise and proven one. There are many other people with other opinions, using other techniques, and they have gotten good results- He is a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to modern statistical techniques and machine learning.

edit: sorry, misread "one of the" as "the"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not baseball, but for the college football <http://winningformula.espn.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://fangraphs.com>

<comment><USER6> Replying to myself since I hit enter on mobile - this is a great site with data, analysis, and win expectancy charts in real time during games based on Score and run states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I could make a better program:

\- check bovada.lv for the line

\- guess that as the winner

\- fin.

(crowdsource ftw)

Streaks from last year's team? Seriously?

</comment><comment><USER21> see also: <http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/wpa.shtml>

<comment><AUTHOR> Their data is excellent – thanks for sharing. Interesting when they take into account so much more than streaks. I would love to dive into the relation of more of that data in the future.</comment></comment>


What happened to SourceForge? - <AUTHOR>

I was going to download elementary OS beta 2, but SF.net showed me the message:
The sourceforge.net website is temporarily in static offline mode. Only a very limited set of project pages are available until the main website returns to service.
This message appears after search or clicking any links from the frontpage. For a second I notice hitting URL http://sourceforge.net/#!/Testing then redirect to sourceforge.net/error-404.html.
I'd be grateful if anybody could provide me with more information, thanks! <comment><USER2> It's up

[http://sourceforge.net/projects/elementaryos/files/unstable/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/elementaryos/files/unstable/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This usually happens when they are doing infrastructure or software updates to the site.

It will be back online soon.

You can also check there operations page

[https://twitter.com/sfnet_ops](https://twitter.com/sfnet_ops)</comment>


Chinese Buyers Replace Canadians as Top Foreign Buyers of U.S. Homes - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-buyers-replace-canadians-as-top-foreign-buyers-of-u-s-homes-1434580337?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> It's interesting to note that China's capital controls make it illegal for any Chinese national to purchase greater than $50,000 in foreign currency per year without explicit government approval, and thus many of these purchases require illegal asset transfers and money laundering (although some domestic banks offer legally murky services [1])

Popular methods methods include Macau casinos and high-end art.[2][3]

By some estimates, between $1 trillion and $4 trillion in untraced assets have left China since 2000.[4]

Chinese buyers are also the largest group of foreign investors in residential property in the UK and Australia.[5]

[1] [http://www.scmp.com/business/banking- finance/article/1550351...](http://www.scmp.com/business/banking- finance/article/1550351/bank-china-laundering-money-would-be-emigrants-cctv- reports)

[2] [http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/20/news/economy/china-art- laund...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/20/news/economy/china-art- laundering/index.html)

[3] [http://qz.com/19712/how-chinas-elite-illicitly-move-their- mo...](http://qz.com/19712/how-chinas-elite-illicitly-move-their-money- offshore/)

[4] [http://www.icij.org/offshore/leaked-records-reveal- offshore-...](http://www.icij.org/offshore/leaked-records-reveal-offshore- holdings-chinas-elite)

[5] [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fcc2d346-bcd3-11e4-9902-00144feab7...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fcc2d346-bcd3-11e4-9902-00144feab7de.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I work in real estate and am privy to the behind-the-scenes details of some of these all cash, foreign buyer deals, in markets like SF, NYC and Miami. There's nothing new about it: money laundering has been around for a long time. And that's all it is, money laundering. Chinese families are moving assets out of China and into real estate in Western countries in order to evade taxes, evade lawsuits (often for obvious theft) and/or protect themselves from political crackdowns. In Miami, it's South American families doing the same thing to flee unstable or unfavorable regimes in that part of the world.

If I were a law-abiding millennial trying to buy a house in one of these markets I would be extremely frustrated. The playing field was a little uneven before (young versus old) but the influx of foreign money has taken it to the next level. The domestic political challenge is that current homeowners have no incentive to stop it because they receive a net benefit from rising home prices. And of course the real estate machine (agents, appraisers, contractors, etc) are all incentivized to ensure it continues.

Most economists seem to agree that the best long-term solution is a high land value tax (replacing various other taxes). Let the foreign owners pay 3% of home value each year to local governments - it will encourage them to invest elsewhere, or at least discourage letting properties sit idle. But in the short term house prices in areas like California would fall.

<comment><USER4> Why not just add a tax for homes that aren't your primary residence? Foreigners will not do this since they would need to pay income tax as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Easy to game the system.

2) Why? Somebody is already paying 100% of the property tax without putting stress on the roads, the schools, police and fire services, local parks, libraries, and other services that local governments are hired to provide. The neighbors get more bang for their buck, leave alone financial stability that property appreciation brings.

<comment><USER5> Those people also put nothing into local economy through their spending. You get the vancouver effect. No incomes or jobs, but high housing prices.

A high tax for unoccupied residences would be a better one. It would increase housing supply so the double whammie of buying a house and leaving it unoccupied wouldn't effect the housing supply nearly as much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've seen this, anecdotally, in trying to buy a house in the bay area. I've lost two serious bids to "foreign investors" who pay 10% above asking price, 100% cash, with no contingencies. I've heard stories of these properties going vacant, as well. It's frustrating.

An acquaintance who works as a wealth management consultant made an interesting point: there are hot markets in other areas of the country, but SFO is right here. The bay's accessibility could be exacerbating our problems, ironically.

He is advising his clients to pull out of real estate in California right now - not so much because of a potential bubble, but because the market is so bizarre.

<comment><USER7> This is commonplace in London too. Streets of empty properties. London already has a housing crisis which can't be fixed by ordinary means because the population growth far exceeds the property construction, despite it having been ramped up. What would help of course is Land Value Tax, but that is less desirable the higher up the social pyramid you are.

<comment><USER8> Another way would be forcing empty properties to be let, and fine owners who don't

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone post a link thats not behind a paywall please

<comment><USER10> sure thing. [https://archive.is/g4PKD](https://archive.is/g4PKD)

<comment><USER11> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I didn't see a link to the actual report which I believe is this[0]

[0] [http://www.realtor.org/reports/profile-of-international- home...](http://www.realtor.org/reports/profile-of-international-home-buying- activity)

</comment><comment><USER13> It took me three tries to buy a house this summer. I lost the first two to overseas buyers with all cash.

One of the properties was vacant and owned by a Taiwanese citizen. I guess they really don't care about ROI.

</comment><comment><USER14> China has an authoritarian government that produces pollution that threatens the entire world, uses the great firewall to attack tech companies in other countries, prints up to 282% of GDP [1] in order to buy their way into other countries real estate and companies, ignores human rights and free speech, creates artificial military island near neighboring countries, and supports dictators in Russia and Africa. If China gets anymore powerful, the world is doomed. We need to curb commerce with China.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/11/c...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/11/chinas- increase-in-debt-is-massive-and-unsustainable/)

<comment><USER15> This comment seemed familiar, so I looked at your comment history. You've left this comment over and over on different stories. In general, it is preferred you leave comments specific to the stories your are commenting on.

</comment></comment><comment> o0-0o This story is playing out all over the world. A while ago, the Chinese figured out that by pegging their money to the USD they could simply print more money, pay people more, and their citizens would flourish. It's a great strategy if you're an up and coming solution. Unfortunately, the ending has played out before. Crash and burn. With the burn part being a bloody conflict or war.

<comment><USER16> > the Chinese figured out that by pegging their money to the USD they could > simply print more money, pay people more, and their citizens would flourish

This isn't correct. By maintaining a low exchange rate, people were paid less (the government acquired debt in lieu of a higher exchange rate) resulting in China (the people in China) having a lower international purchasing power.

Wealth would have no doubt similarly been accumulated by those that owned the factors of production, but a lower exchange rate deflated China's, and it's citizens', purchasing power, from foreign holidays to domestic essentials, such as oil, and even the price of corn, beans and rice (produced domestically, but prices set largely by international demand).

Why? The government was petrified by unemployment. Closing down government enterprises meant people had to be employed somewhere. Better to have someone working hard all day providing for their family and seeing economic progress (obstensively the East of the country) than back on the farm with too much spare time.

Something different is happening now - from my perspective the East is 'developed enough' and bitterly complaining about pollution. The inner regions, comparatively much poorer, complain about lack of wealth more than pollution - so move some production there (despite significantly increased logistics costs), mainly for the now much larger domestic market, and let development in the East slow (or, slightly, contract - cool the bubble that does exist).

For housing costs - surely things like the EB-5, which for a modest investment can grant a green card for you and your family are a major driving factor.

<comment><USER17> Better to see someone working hard to provide for their family than with enough time to protest inequality or otherwise take interest in their political fate.

The main issue is that wealth is very unequal in China. That low level official making 5k rmb/month is pulling in 20, 30, 40k rmb in grey money. They have to stash it somewhere, and overseas is safer when the government can make you an example at any moment.

Also, there are so few investment option in the mainland that if you do have money even from purely legit sources, buying a house overseas is probably much more sane than investing in extremely bubbly local real estate or stocks.

<comment><USER18> Plus, many Chinese cities have caps on the number of apartments one family can buy.

<comment><USER17> Those caps went away quickly as soon as the market showed a little bit of weakness. I think they only remain in Shanghai and Beijing, and even then....

A lot of apartments are owned and vacant even in first tier cities; rents are incredibly weak compared to sale prices. I pay 7500 rmb/month ($1100?) for something that would go on the market for $700k! Top that off, volume in 2nd hand real estate is pretty low even here in Beijing (you hear "I would sell one of my apartments, but no one would buy it for the price I want" \- doh!).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Teaching: Convergence and Divergence - <AUTHOR> https://blog.getify.com/teaching-convergence-and-divergence/ <comment><USER2> Fantastic article, really makes concrete a lot of things I've internalized over the years(and the strife that can come from trying to find those global maximums).

The end takeaway really drives this home:

> Bottom line: we need to be strategic about our divergence (distribution of > thought and assumption) and tactical about our convergence (seeking to build > consensus for pragmatic reasons).

There's very much a time and place for both, knowing when to tow the line and when to set of in a new direction is something very worthwhile of focusing on.</comment>


Auth0/sharelock: Securely share data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/auth0/sharelock <comment><USER2> Is this similar to One Time Secret? I worked somewhere where the security team spun up a self hosted instance of it and we used it to share secure data like this. Sad thing is, it hasn't been updated in a while and I can't seem to get it to work. Wondering if anyone else has used sharelock, or knows of another service like this I can host for work?</comment>


Xi3 Chromium PC Will Be World First Desktop To Run Chrome OS - <AUTHOR> http://www.technobolt.com/2011/05/23/xi3-chromium-pc-will-be-world-first-desktop-to-run-chrome-os/

<comment><USER2> Site's down and I can't find a mirror or cached copy.

[http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/xi3-chromiumpc-first- des...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/xi3-chromiumpc-first-desktop-pc- to-run-google-chrome-os-due-in-july/5879) is another article.

<comment><USER3> The site worked fine for me just now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not clear to me, why you would need to swap boards in order to run another OS on the ChromiumPC.

<comment><USER2> That is pretty weird, yeah. At a guess, I'd say it has the OS as firmware to make the bootup really fast, and you'd be replacing that firmware board with a BIOS board.

<comment><USER4> ChromeOS netbooks include an actual ROM (not eeprom) that starts a boot chain that cryptographically evaluates each next step for signed google code. It does have a dev mode feature where unsigned code can be run, but it makes it a slow and somewhat annoying boot so that the user understands they aren't running a blessed chromeOS. If you really wanted to run something other than chromeOS all the time, you'd likely not want that feature.

<comment><USER3> Hmm, so like some recent Android devices from HTC & Motorola, ChromeOS devices use a signed bootloader. Got it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Safety Nets for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/the-entrepreneur-state-safety-nets-for-startups-capitalism-for-corporations/253211/ <comment><USER3> The problem with a safety net is that somebody has to weave it. If a person want to live the life of a start-up, that's fine. Go for it. Just don't expect me to pay for your essentials just because you want to spend a couple of years of your life building a social network or recipe exchange. Sorry, it's just not that important to me or to most other people.

Life is not without risk. I can minimize it by being smart about things. I could get hit by a car when crossing the street. So I look both ways and then hustle across. I want to start my own business. So I read books and running a company for awhile. I find a problem to solve. I come up with a plan. Then I attempt to execute it. I may fail, but that's life. I learn. I get a job to pay off any debts I ran up. Then I try again.

The one thing I can say I did agree with is the need to stop favoring large established companies over smaller ones. These laws and regulations need to be tackled at all levels of government: federal, state , and local. But to do that requires a fundamental attitude change about risk. Small companies are risky. Big companies are not as risky. Ultimately it needs to be about people educating themselves and deciding accordingly.

<comment><USER4> good points. but i think the notion of having society help provide a safety net for startups exists in the context of, and in comparison to, all the other things society is currently forced to spend money on. personally i'd rather my taxes go to help provide a safety net for an entrepreneur than a truly lazy welfare parasite (important: i'm not saying all welfare recipients, i'm making a generalization to illustrate a point). and i'd rather my tax money went to help entrepreneurs than to fund overseas military adventures. i'd rather subsidize a couple taking a chance on starting a family business than to subsidize a gigantic multinational oil company. And it's not about choosing an ideal world, just one that's perhaps a little better or pragmatic than the alternative.

<comment><USER5> If you think about it, if jobs are a huge concern, then enormous international war campaigns are guaranteed to give a lot of people employment.

Obviously I'd much rather have that same money spent on making life at home better, but at least you're creating jobs either way.

<comment><USER6> War campaigns do not create structural employment, only demand shock employment. Id est, we don't need 10e6 jobs next year, we need 10e6 jobs for the next two decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Safety nets for startups? Please. We need safety nets for people who work for wages 40 hours a week, not for people who went to Stanford and have their parents' money fuelling their dreams.

<comment><USER8> That's a pretty narrow minded view of entrepreneurs. There are far more companies started by people who didn't go to Stanford and aren't working off their parents dimes than companies that are.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but those companies aren't called startups. They're called _businesses_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see the health care issue as being pivotal. Many people can't find insurance on the private market at any price.

<comment><USER3> The way I see it, the health insurance problem is the result of different people having different ideas on the "right" amount of health care and insurance to provide. Example... if somebody has a potentially fatal disease and $25000 worth of treatment can solve the problem, then go ahead and do it. But I don't want to pay to have some hypochondriac go to the doctor every time they get a sniffle. Other people believe all medical care should be free. Some people oppose measures to prolong life, some oppose pulling the plug. I haven't even started to touch the controversial stuff in the news recently. In order to fix health insurance availability, these decisions have to be made, because ultimately any "solution" will require government subsidizing somebody, whether its the person buying insurance or the insurance company or by providing the insurance directly.

<comment><USER11> Agreed, mostly. We don't use car insurance the same way as health insurance, demanding $5 "co pays" for oil changes and tire rebalancing - you just pay for the services you need. For 'catastrophic' car stuff - body work after accidents, etc - yes, you have auto insurance to help cover those major expenses. Since we've had so many layers between medical users and providers over the decades, there's very little in the way of 'market forces' at work.

My own health (and that of my wife) isn't perfect, but it's reasonably good enough that we can afford our own private health policy, but only reasonably as a high-deductible variant of $5k or so. And... while it's not great to have to deal with large bills now and then, it's still doable.

We had $3300 in premiums last year, and $4300 in out of pocket expenses (roughly). That's $7600 - divided by 12 is $633/month. But we only had $3300 in premiums the year before - $280/month. That's the nature of insurance - <USER2> take some risk. Not everyone can do it, of course, but I have friends who are chained to jobs partially (mostly) because of employer-provided healthcare. For a family of 5, high-deductible insurance may be something like $600/month, with a potential extra $5k+ out of pocket, but that's a risk. Instead, they're usually paying more than that in premiums (either they are or the employer is sharing it), so that money's getting definitely being spent either way, instead of only _potentially_ being spent.

What might be interesting is to get employers to start offering high- deductible plans, but putting x% extra in to a pool, then sharing a portion of that as a bonus each year to employees who don't use it, but it's there to help if employees need to access it - perhaps something like 50% of your out of pocket deductible could be paid by the company.

But... that's just really confusing over time, imo. Just make it easier for people to buy insurance in the open market - get away from employer-sponsored health insurance. We've moved away from employer-provided retirement packages - make the same move on health insurance.

<comment><USER12> What I've seen (and really like) is doing a great High Deductible Health Plan (i.e. HSA-eligible) -- something where you get top quality coverage for extreme things, and get access to the best doctors, and negotiated prices for everything from the first dollar each year, but are on the hook for the first $5k or so of costs.

Then, your employer gives you $5k/yr tax-free into your HSA account; if you don't use it, it's basically equivalent to a Roth IRA. It's actually better to spend cash out of pocket and then leave the full amount in the HSA, since it can be invested tax-free forever, and all gains are themselves tax-free. You can easily end up with a few hundred thousand dollars extra.

This accomplishes the useful goal of getting people to be price conscious for their medical services, but doesn't impoverish them. The one thing it might do is promote time shifting expenses (if I know I'm over the $5k limit in one year, I'll get all my other elective stuff done that year), but it's not a big deal otherwise.

IMO, the HSA thing was one of the best reforms in health care in a long time, and one of the (few) good things GWB did.

<comment><USER3> My current employer does this. Deductible is 2400/year for a family. Then they give us 200 per month into the HSA and we could contribute more. The insurance companies like this because it gets people to be more cost conscious. It is cheaper for my employer to offer the high deductible plan and give us the deductible than it is to give us a no deductible plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In Sweden there are, in some cases, so many government subsidies and incentives to open a McDonald's or other business that the business can run for years without ever turning a profit.

I don't think that is a good thing. We frequently discuss here on HN to fail fast and try again. That seems to be the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting article - but I don't think the writer gets it.

"We should focus on minimizing the downside of losing so that startup roulette feels less risky. After all, startups shouldn't just be for rich kids who can afford to take a chance on a big idea."

If more risk averse people began starting companies - would the ratio of success to failure change? My guess is that it would. Who knows in which direction.

There's always some BS stat in these articles about the percentage of entrepreneurs that succeed. Without a definition for what a successful entrepreneur is. How is that defined?

<comment><USER15> Starting a startup is not equally risky for everyone. Some people have their own safety net (family, saved up money, etc) while others don't, making it too big of a risk to start a company.

Most entrepreneurs I know didn't take any crazy risks. They knew they'd be ok if their startup failed. Many people don't have that luxury.

<comment><USER5> Part of being an entrepreneur is resourcefulness. The idea is that if you want success bad enough, you'll find a way to save enough money to quit and give your idea a chance. That's the theory at least, I'm sure in practice a huge chunk of the population will never be in such a lucky situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the idea of policy incentives that encourage entrepreneurship, but referring to such a framework as a "safety net" is a misnomer that hurts the author's argument.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're going to be working 40+ hour weeks for a boring soul-crushing job, then you might as well get a few perks out of it, such as health insurance.

I don't see the govt supporting people who don't want to get a corporate job and instead choose to chase their dreams.

It'd be great if things were different, but they're not going to change anytime soon. Why would anybody put up with dead-end jobs if they could just work on their passion their entire lives?

<comment><USER17> > If you're going to be working 40+ hour weeks for a boring soul-crushing job, > then you might as well get a few perks out of it, such as health insurance.

Part of the problem is that health can even be thought of as a 'perk' in the first place. Most of the safety net effect could be achieved simply by removing the link between health cover and employment. Just do what most of the rest of the world does (where employment status is irrelevant to health cover) and a major disincentive to innovation is removed.

Unless of course, the objective is to entrench dependency to large organizations. In that case, the present system works just fine.

<comment><USER5> I completely agree that it would be great, but it's not going to happen in this country. As you said, making people's lives dependent on working for large organizations is simply too convenient for the folks in power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the general idea. :) A first step would be getting rid of government policies that favor larger companies at the expense of startups. At least europe is full of those policies.

</comment><comment><USER19> There can be a safety net for startups - college. If colleges could be refocused from teaching psychology to creating tech businesses, then student loans could be the financing. Anyone, including middle aged or seniors could go to college from 1-5 years, learn tech skills while creating a company from day 1, and have the current student loan industry finance it all. Olin College in MA and Waterloo University Independent Studies Program, Ontario, Canada, are two such examples that are close to the description (although not completely, because they focus on projects and not projects with business plan attached).

<comment><USER4> i like your idea. arguably the recent rise in incubators and accelerators is doing something close to what you've described. i do think as a society we need to stop throwing huge piles of money at universities "teaching" fuzzy make-believe or peripheral things and instead spend less, or more tactically, on core subjects and more practical skills. universities have become essentially just expensive resorts for middle/upper-class twenty-somethings, in many cases. there ways to educate and filter and certify folks that are much faster, cheaper and more egalitarian, and thankfully there's a growing movement to make this more mainstream.</comment></comment>


Apple's OS X: Why Mavericks is a move against the open web - grey-area http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/22/apples-os-x-why-mavericks-is-a-move-against-the-open-web

<comment><AUTHOR> More importantly it exposes the patent hypocrisy of the apple marketing strategy:

> "Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all > open standards." [1]

They killed flash not just because of the technical issues but because it was a rival to their all encompassing applications platform. So is the web, but they know the web delivery mechanisms embodied by html5/css/js are not quite there yet and now is the time to make a land grab for the areas it will occupy in the next few years.

They don't want people accessing their Map infrastructure on non apple devices. They have made a trade off that Google took the opposite view on. Google decided to make money from the users making use of their maps and by careful monetisation of that data. Apple have decided to make money from the devices because that is what they have been doing to date... and attempting to make the devices compelling enough to grow an expensive application marketplace. The opposite to what is happening on Linux and Windows up to 7. Microsoft will presumably try the same approach with Windows 8. (In fact to me the windows 8 platform spread is if anything the same as Apple's errant approach)

1 - [http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on- flash/](http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Why should Apple be suddenly forced to abandon their platform and create their apps on the web just because they connect to online services? Maps.app is a great smooth, native experience. Google's new WebGL maps are equally smooth in Chrome, which is impressive (the old ones didn't come close), but they're not native, and they're not what Apple has so much expertise with.

(I'm not so sure about iBooks, though; while anyone not on one of Apple's preferred Maps platforms can just use Google Maps, iBooks hold purchased content hostage with DRM. This is why I don't use iBooks. On the other hand, it's not like a "open web" app would be a good solution to this, since it would be just as annoying as the app to anyone wanting to customize their reading experience; getting rid of DRM would work better and make it pretty much OK for Apple to ignore other platforms. Maybe someday...)

Note that Apple is working on iWork for iCloud, so it's not ignoring the web entirely.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article seems to make the assumption that a web browser and the open web are the same thing.

Personally, I've always wished more sites would just publish raw data without markup and allow me to determine how I read it, to me that's more open.

Really, if there's a sudden up-shot of apps on OS X for displaying 'web' content, it could go either way - lock-in or a more data-centric, less markup driven web. I'd welcome the latter, guess we'll have to wait and see.

<comment><AUTHOR> You mean everything should be RSS?

The popularity of sites like readability, pocket and several others show some people agree with you. They strip the content down as though it was published in a semantic markup and people (including me) see that as added value.

<comment><USER3> No. Map data wouldn't be very useful in an RSS format :)

I mean more services and sites should provide APIs to provide access to the DATA.

While twitter have somewhat recanted on this recently, the ability for anyone to create a twitter client and use/display the data provided by twitter opened up things far more than just using "open formats".

The key point is, that there's a difference between DATA and DISPLAY - and I think this article missed that point.

However, it's concerns are valid

EDIT: Whoops - replied too fast, just saw your full comment after edit, everything except the flat 'no' still stands :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What FUD. "Oh no, an application doesn't use the web! This must be an attack on the open web!" What a crock. Hyperbolic click-bait. The article does not fulfill the promises of the title, the byline is completely unsubstantiated, and the author's conclusions, such as they are, are completely unfounded. At most, the only correct points of the article are that A) Apple is attacking Google by having a Maps desktop app, B) a desktop app can be a better experience than a web app, and C) information may - and often more by design rather than by technical limitation - flow less freely through native apps than web apps.

From that to "Apple is making an attack on the open web, accelerating its walled garden strategy..." is an illogical leap that someone trying push an angle or sell ads could make.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. There seems to exist a strange, crazy fetishization of the WWW, as if it's by its nature unquestionably superior to other delivery methods. Even morally superior in some sense (i.e. if you make a native application instead of a web based one, you're a horrible, sinister person). It's just nonsense.

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady So Apple is against the open web because they built a Maps app instead of a maps website?? Maybe they did it like this because most stuff Apple does on the web sucks? They have more expertise in building native software. And maybe, just maybe, their customers prefer it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I bet an awful lot of the open web will be built on systems running Mavericks. So there's that to consider too.

Our "trucks" need upgrading too. Making attractive trucks that have all of the powers of creation you want (and a shameful caveat, without perfect secrecy) seems like a boon to the open web to me.

</comment><comment><USER7> Right idea wrong arguments - Apple has always hated their users having experiences they could not control. So the open web is indeed a threat for them especially with browsers (sadly slowly) turning into universal runtimes it could threaten their iOS model and they are pushing OsX into that direction too. So in the long run expect as much tightening as they can get away with on the browser front. "Think of the security" is the new "Think of the children".

But apple maps don't have a reason to be web site - there is google maps that they could not match, so they are forced to go a different route.

</comment><comment><USER8> I tried to venture into web dev , being a desktop coder and frankly I came back. Foremost most of the so called "web technologies" are just desktop software which includes anything that goes inside your web browser. And to be even more frank Web is against Web , a lot more than Desktop is against Web. Web is a mess, why would Apple or any coder that takes design into serious consideration be part of the web ? Its a big pile of mess that will take a long time to be shorted out. I am macos user myself, an Apple fan, but I prefer using cross platform open source tools (currently coding in Pharo) so as a developer I don't care about Mavericks or anything that locks me to a specific platform.

For everyone that is ready to tolerate the shit that hogs your computer offering you no substantial improvement I will have to say go for it, I am sure web development will be waiting with open arms. Desktop is not without its kind of flaws, but lets say I am so glad I am not a pro coder so I don't have to follow nonsense overhyped crap in the name of making a living.

Not having javascript or browsers forced down my throat is not a disadvantage its actually a huge advantage. Ask me again when Web reaches the state Desktop really is. If it does then I will be 100% behind it. But until then, open web ? Hell no !!!

</comment><comment><USER9> What utter rubbish. Apple have their own proprietary mapping data and are exposing it through a Mac App. In what way is that anything to do with the web?

In no time flat I can think of a handful of reasons why Apple has exposed their mapping data through an app rather than a web site. Firstly they probably can't expose it on the web even if they want to due to licensing restrictions on the data they have sourced. I wouldn't mind betting they signed for non-web rights. Secondly by having the data in an app on iOS and OSX they can integrate the two via iCloud such as with shared pins, shared routing info, etc. Finally if the mapping app is local, it can integrate better with other local OSX apps such as iPhoto for displaying geo-tagged photos.

Meanwhile, Apple releases a bunch of fully native web versions of their iWork suite, because it makes sense to do so. Honestly, I expect much better than this from the Guardian.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, there's no reason you couldn't share pins with a web app, as long as you're logged into iCloud on the web. Of course, once you have the map kit so iPhoto can display maps, well, why NOT make an app out of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nothing about this article convinced me that "Mavericks is a move against the open web". Instead, I'm pretty convinced the title is just as sensationalist as the article linked at the bottom of the page: "Why did Apple name its operating system after a lethal surf spot?"

That said, a Web-based Apple maps would be lovely. I'd like to point out two things that make this whole article seem a little premature:

1\. Google Earth (a desktop app) preceded Google Maps

2\. Apple already had a lot of the code in place for a native maps app. I can imagine porting the iOS app to the desktop is a pretty trivial task compared to developing an entirely new Web-based solution.

</comment><comment><USER11> This article is basically about the fact that "APPS" are coming to the desktop.

"APPS" are "applications". And before the internet, there were only "APPS"!

</comment><comment> grey-area I'm not sure I entirely agree with the premise of this article or the narrow focus on Mavericks, but thought it might trigger an interesting discussion on where the line is drawn between web and native, and what the future holds for these competing ecosystems.

I do think it raises an interesting question - will the web ultimately supplant native apps, or do they still have something to offer consumers?

</comment><comment><USER12> This piece is just silly. No app on an OS with 7.5% market share is going to threaten the open web. Also, when did Google Maps become open?

 _But if it pulls it off, it could lead to a rush of programs in the Mac App store from other developers._

Let the gold rush begin!</comment>


Angular Announces AngularDart - <AUTHOR> http://news.dartlang.org/2013/11/angular-announces-angulardart.html <comment><USER2> If you don't like Dart, don't use it. Nobody is taking away your AngularJS. Google has a right to promote whatever language it thinks will give it a competitive advantage. You have a right to be revolted by it.

However, the hyperbole surrounding anything that even remotely, several years down the line, may threaten the monopoly of JavaScript on the client side web is ridiculous. Language competition is good - it ultimately will make for a better JavaScript.

Personally, I think there are a lot of people deeply invested in Javascript who fear anything that even remotely, one day in the super future, may threaten their skill set. That's understandable - it's the same way MS developers scoffed at learning Objective-C when the iOS ecosystem blew up and the Windows monopoly didn't matter as much.

Let's inject some reality - Dart is no threat to JavaScript for the foreseeable future. AngularJS is not going anywhere. Dart can't be forced down your throat, because no consumer browser even supports it natively yet. You don't need to use it, you don't even need to think about it. Let the people that like it be.

<comment><USER3> Just because it can't be forced down our throat doesn't mean it's not uncomfortable that Google's trying.

<comment><USER4> When did Google try to force Dart down your throat? Just because Angular is being ported to Dart? Seriously? Are you saying that Dart developers don't deserve Angular?

<comment><USER3> Way I see it, _no one_ deserves the misfortune of Angular. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I look at Dart vs JS (JavaScript), I see a lot of parallels to Java/C#. The Java language stagnated for a long time under Sun. The language was usable only through the heroic efforts of tool vendors (Eclipse, IntelliJ, etc.) Even with these tools, Java is just barely good enough.

C# is technically a superior language to Java. Combined with an excellent IDE (VS), the .NET platform is probably technically superior to the Java platform. However, .NET did not destroy Java. And it's because Java is superior to .NET in many non-technical areas (such as a better open source community). And other solutions appeared to help the Java platform with the language stagnation issue (Scala, Clojure, Groovy, etc.). Now Java itself is somewhat catching up (Java 8) and the JVM platform remains a powerful and thriving community.

The situation with Dart and JS seems to be similar. The JS language has stagnated for a long time. Google is trying to be like MS with C# and created Dart to fully replace JS. And Dart is probably technically superior to JS. But just like Java vs C#, I don't think technical superiority will be enough.

The JS platform is addressing the language issue with CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and others, just like Scala and Clojure appeared for the JVM. And JS itself is improving slowly (ECMAScript 6) just like Java 8. And the JS open source community is very very strong (all the web related libraries and frameworks and now additional strength from Node.JS) and it's unlikely Dart will have a comparable community. I think that Dart may achieve some success like .NET/C# did. However, I don't think it will destroy JS like Google hopes it will. The JS platform is just like the JVM platform. Has so many flaws, but is good enough.

<comment><USER6> Not a good comparison.

Java and C# are both well designed server side languages. C# has the simple advantage of being younger and learn from Java in the real world.

JavaScript in the real world is not even close to Dart. JavaScript is currently trying to solve problems Java never had to begin with.

In almost every category Dart is technically superior. Shouldn't be a surprise, they took their time and learned from more than a decade of dealing with JavaScript. They are also not done yet, they are planning to inject binary code directly into memory.

Just look at Lars Bak's history, he is the right guy to create the Java/JavaScript successor for the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Sigh_... I knew this was going to happen. :-/ This is part of Google's strategy to push Dart in the browser. Soon they're going to start developing Angular primarily in Dart, and 'back-porting' features to JavaScript.

Sadly, this is the nature of so-called "Open Source" at Google.

<comment><USER8> First of all, this was already announced months ago, so it already happened.

Secondly, Google is a big company and some teams within it wanted to use Dart, whereas otheres want to use vanila javascript and Angular, so now you have both.

Thirdly, Angular is in the process of being broken apart to modular components for 2.0, it also now cross-pollinates with another Google-y called Web Components.

In future, the equivelent of directives (Your own <x-thingy> tags) will be a native web standard, Mozilla is also working on it.

This all amounts to a sort of polyfill to the future and most of the core of Angular will be thrown away if things work out. You won't need it.

These are all good things. I don't understand your need for FUD.

<comment><USER7> You're able to regurgitate bullet points off a slide deck. Good job.

Edit: [source & details redacted]

This 'FUD' comes directly from the Angular core team.

<comment><USER9> You just outed your source.

Edit: still too many details.

<comment><USER7> Better now? ;-)

<comment><USER9> Yup. I improved mine as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm so confused by the comments here. Did I miss a line where they say AngularJS is being discontinued for AngularDart?

<comment><USER11> It's normal; wait until you see something about Google Reader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm excited for this. I have a fair sized angularjs app that is getting unwieldy, and having a compiler that yells at me about type problems sounds great. Even if dart doesn't get supported by non-Chrome browsers, I think it could still provide lots of value to developers: it has the same useful type checking as typescript, with some other needed features. It is possible that the transpilation to JS will cause problems, but overall I think it'll be a better dev experience producing better software.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I started making a chrome app for my own use and it's starting to get to a point where if I don't work on it for a while, I spend a bit too much time making sure I'm not creating bugs interacting with old code

Also, Chrome apps seem to be a great use for this even if no other browsers embed a dart VM (if it gets to that). I'm just not seeing why this is so bad

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I like both Angular and Dart, so that's good news.

One thing I noticed though: transpiling a .dart file with just the import statement for AngularDart (import 'package:angular/angular.dart') generates a non-minified 5MB .js file with almost 150 kloc. Every code change will create a new version of it, invalidating previously cached versions. :/

<comment><USER15> Are you sure you are using the latest version? Angular was an early user of mirrors (reflection) which (more or less) disabled the tree-shaking of dart2js. This was recently improved.

Tracking the size of AngularDart: [https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart- js-size](https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart-js-size)

<comment><USER14> Maybe I'm missing something, but yes, I think so. Dart version 0.8.10.3_r29803.

pubspec.yaml:

name: test1 dependencies: browser: any angular: git: [https://github.com/angular/angular.dart.git](https://github.com/angular/angular.dart.git)

test1.dart:

import 'package:angular/angular.dart'; main() => ngBootstrap();

dart2js launch => builds test1.dart.js, about 5MB, 142,749 loc.

<comment><USER16> Yes. You need to add a @MirrorsUsed annotation in your main.dart file. See [https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart-js- size/blob/master...](https://github.com/jbdeboer/angular-dart-js- size/blob/master/main.dart) for our current best practices.

You should get ~173KB gzipped, minified dart2js output.

<comment><USER14> Beautiful. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm really starting to get tired of the cynical and snarky negativity on HN.

Whoever thinks this is part of some grand plan to force Dart down our throats clearly has no clue whatsoever about how Google works.

Standard disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer and these opinions are my own and don't reflect those of my employer.

Google is a really large company with >10,000 engineers. A lot of what we do starts as grassroots efforts. Honestly, getting 10,000 engineers to act in a coordinated fashion is probably like trying to herd 10,000 cats.

AngularJS started as a side project that became Google-sponsored and it grew organically. Being Google-sponsored simply means some team somewhere has dedicated some engineers to working on it. That's it.

Likewise a group of engineers separately started Dart due to dissatisfaction with JavaScript being the lingua franca of the Web. The idea was that Dart can be implemented as a VM within a browser and get faster performance that way. Likewise, it should compile to JavaScript for browsers that don't support Dart in the browser (which is all of them except Chrome). Also, Dart shares a lot of the philosophies of GWT in sharing code between client and server.

Now my personal view is that I honestly don't see the point of Dart. I mean no disrespect to the team or their efforts but I don't agree with the premise or the design philosophy of Dart.

Optional typing seems to me to combine the worst of both worlds. If typing is useful (as the static typers will argue) then be statically typed. If it's not be dynamically typed. Dart's type system is basically just the Closure JsDoc system used by the Closure compiler. That's it. To me, there's no real innovation there.

Dart is really just another Coffeescript and I don't see the point of Coffeescript either.

One of the benefits of development in JavaScript is you can simply refresh your browser and it just works. I'm a huge fan of this fast iteration cycle in development. It's the same reason I'm a fan of Python, Ruby and even PHP.

Additionally, as soon as you add a translation step from something to JavaScript, you introduce potential bugs in that translation (eg I've seen bugs with the Closure compiler incorrectly removed code it thought was dead and that was JS to JS let alone the issues with, say, GWT's Java to JS). Even if there aren't bugs, tracing issues back to the source becomes more difficult.

Rob Pike through Go seems to believe this too (not that I claim to speak for him) because he's repeatedly mentioned that the simple syntax of Go and fast compilation is a deliberate feature, a philosophy I agree with 100%. It's also one reason I detest C++: slow compilation kills productivity (IMHO).

So AngularDart is nothing more than another group of engineers (perhaps there's a crossover with the Dart folks) wants a modern Web framework for client-side Dart so they created one.

The idea that this is part of some grand strategy is quite frankly ludicrous.

Google puts their effort behind a lot of experimental projects. Some work out, many don't. Will Dart succeed? I don't presume to know. But while I don't agree with the premise/philosophy it makes me happy that the company I work for is still prepared to experiment with such efforts and devote resources to them.

If you work at Google you'll often see three teams working on roughly the same thing, typically without knowing about the existence of the others. They may consolidate or compete (if they have incompatible philosophies that the teams feel strongly about) or something in between.

This happens because so many efforts just start out as a single engineer or a small group of engineers just trying something out or they want to solve a problem they see (and in an organization this large it's rare you're the only one who sees a particular problem and wants to do something about it).

So, please, can we discuss this on its merits rather than the new norm of seeing vast conspiracies or simply seeing things as some collusion with the NSA. It's really tiresome.

EDIT: added a paragraph about the issues of bugs and translating something to javaScript.

<comment><USER3> There might not be a formalized 'grand plan,' but Dart doesn't have the open, cheerful intentions of CoffeeScript.

It's being designed as a javascript replacement. Google's overbearing intention is obvious.

You're right: Dart is, functionally, another CoffeeScript, but that's _despite_ Google's plan--ok, 'experiment'\--not by design.

>So, please, can we discuss this on its merits

Your criticisms are shared. That's what causes the friction: resentment that a pretty flawed language is being pushed. Dart _does_ take time away from other more worthwhile projects.

None of the cynicism is over wishing that Google would stop experimenting with technology, it's over Google's waste of time.

Edit: Actually, apparently there _might_ be a formalized 'grand plan,' reading nateabele.

<comment><USER18> What are "open, cheerful intentions"?

Open? Dart has been open-sourced for 2 years now - only having its proof-of- concept done in-house before the announcement.

Cheerful? Not sure how one language that compiles to JS is more "cheerful" than an other, but we're really a cheerful bunch in person. I'm sure you could have a beer with us if you'd like :)

As to the your and the OP's point about Dart being another CoffeeScript, this is really far from reality. CoffeeScript is just syntax changes, and that's not sufficient for fixing JavaScript major problems - which come form its semantics, not it's syntax.

Dart and CoffeeScript are actually quite far apart on the spectrum of compile- to-JS languages: Dart tries to keep a similar syntax and fix the semantics, CoffeeScript tries to keep the semantics and "fix" the syntax (I personally find CoffeeScript very hard to read). Claiming that Dart is another CoffeeScript, to me, shows a real lack of knowledge about one or both of the languages.

<comment><USER19> There is one major difference between Dart and CoffeeScript: The Angular team didn't have to take a 3 month holiday to make Angular work with CoffeeScript. If Dart was just another compile-to-JS language, then they wouldn't have to bother at all.

Yet, CoffeeScript is not just a different syntax - for one, it changes declarations and scoping rules. That's a pretty big semantic change (comparison operators etc. follow).

<comment><USER20> Please show me this 3 month break AngularJS took in the Github activity log: [https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulse](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulse)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like Dart. It's fun to write. I don't understand all the vitriol directed towards it.

<comment><USER22> I don't either, although while I think dart is an improvement over javascript, it also is basically just like java. I'd prefer a runtime that multiple languages could easily compile to, but until then there are several languages that can compile to javascript, treating it like a runtime (including dart itself): [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of- lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages- that-compile-to-JS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Oh got no please no... I use Angular freakin "JS" extensively.

At some point, I believe I will come to a position not to touch anything that has even a remote connection to Google. Just a couple of years ago I worshipped Google, now I feel they are always taking my toys away.

<comment><USER24> For those of us who don't have the benefit of your experience, could you explain why you think Google is doing something wrong here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good for Dart users. And competition is healthy.

Javascript needs some challenge, just like Flash forced HTML to evolve.

So this is a good thing. Congratulations. And devs should know this, nothing is set in stone on the web.

</comment><comment><USER26> As if the javascript version was so good that it doesn't require anymore work.

<comment><USER20> False dichotomy. Work on the the JavaScript version has actually increased. Google grew the team, not split it. [https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulse](https://github.com/angular/angular.js/pulse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> How is this anything but a good thing for AngularJS?

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't know much about Dart. Is there a way for Dart code to call/use Javascript libraries? Like could I use D3 in Dart?

<comment><USER18> Yep, we use d3.js on Dart projects internally.

Check out the dart:js library, which is pretty new, and the article that _ak linked (which needs some updating).

[http://api.dartlang.org/docs/releases/latest/dart_js.html](http://api.dartlang.org/docs/releases/latest/dart_js.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> When is AngularJs 1.2 stable release coming out anyway?

</comment><comment><USER30> If someone creates egghead.io for Dart, I will pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm using AngularJS. But this Dart news is a dark cloud. I will never use Dart, or anything that locks me into Google's walled garden. I view Dart as a major negative.

Hello Ember.

<comment><USER24> "I will never use Dart"

That's quite a sure statement. Why don't you think Dart will ever be natively adopted by Firefox at some point in the future?

<comment><USER32> BrendenEich said this of Dart, 2 years ago on HN, and might help explain OP's sentiment:

 _For the record, I 'm not worried about JS being replaced by a better language. I am working to do that within Ecma TC39, by evolving JS aggressively.

The leaked Google doc's assertion that this is impossible and that a "clean break" is required to make significant improvements is nonsense, a thin rationale for going it alone rather than cooperating fully.

The big issue I have with Dart, which you seem to consider inconsequential, is whether Google forks the web developer community, not just its own paid developers, with Dart, and thereby fragments web content.

A Dart to JS compiler will never be "decent" compared to having the Dart VM in the browser. Yet I guarantee you that Apple and Microsoft (and Opera and Mozilla, but the first two are enough) will never embed the Dart VM.

So "Works best in Chrome" and even "Works only in Chrome" are new norms promulgated intentionally by Google. We see more of this fragmentation every day. As a user of Chrome and Firefox (and Safari), I find it painful to experience, never mind the political bad taste.

Ok, counter-arguments. What's wrong with playing hardball to advance the web, you say? As my blog tries to explain, the standards process requires good social relations and philosophical balance among the participating competitors.

Google's approach with Dart is thus pretty much all wrong and doomed to leave Dart in excellent yet non-standardized and non-interoperable implementation status. Dart is GBScript to NaCl/Pepper's ActiveG.

Could Google, unlike Microsoft ten or so years ago, prevail? Only by becoming the new monopoly power on the web. We know how that story ends._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2982949)

EDIT: updated to the long form quote, for additional context.

<comment><USER33> And here we are 2 years later, TC39 is still nowhere in sight, Javascript is still, in the eyes of anyone with an ounce of taste, a terrible language for large scale development and Dart continues to iterate while offering all of it's advancements as it compiles to JS.

I honestly don't even care if Dart doesn't take off, maybe clojurescript or something similar will instead. But my god something needs to happen in this space because the JS standards body has spent almost 2 decades aggresively doing nothing about the many gaping, egregious flaws in Javascript. Its 2013 and we don't have lexical scoping as standard, but hey let's dick around in committee for another year packing in generators, etc, etc, etc.

I would honestly put a lot more weight in Brenden Eich's words if the state of Javascript and web dev wasn't so absolutely dismal and if he wasn't trying to crap on a project actually working to do something about it.

<comment><USER34> > TC39 is nowhere in sight

Uhhhh TC39 meets bi-monthly. If you meant ECMASCRIPT 6, it's targeting finalization next month. Furthermore, future releases are set to be much, much faster than previous ones.

<comment><USER33> Yes I meant the standard produced by TC39, of which Ecmascript 6 is the new version. My apologies for loose use of terminology.

I would be somewhat happy if ES6 was finalized next month, but if it slipped (again) I would not be surprised. You'll also have to forgive me if I am skeptical of claims about the increased speed of future standards. The burden is on TC39 to prove this to me and I reserve the right be skeptical based on prior evidence until I see otherwise.

<comment><USER35> ES6 features are already shipping in many browsers. [http://kangax.github.io/es5-compat- table/es6/](http://kangax.github.io/es5-compat-table/es6/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." ~ Albert Einstein</comment>


Steelcase creates a new chair for new postures - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCmkKMBRZKI&feature=player_embedded

<comment><AUTHOR> this may be interesting, but the closing line they say "when you feel it, you'll get it".

I feel that if they didn't create an ad that was pure buzzword bingo, and actually took the time to talk naturally about their creation, we wouldn't have to see it to get it.

When will we see the end of these sorts of horrible advertisements?</comment>


Current record-shattering temperatures are shocking even to climate scientists - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/mar/21/current-record-shattering-temperatures-are-shocking-to-even-climate-scientists <comment><USER2> How exactly they are shocking to climate scientists?

It's my understanding that climate change is advancing pretty much just like climate models predict and there is no surprise here. Variations from year to year can be large.</comment>


China's most-wanted TianAnMen dissident offers to turn himself in. (bilingual) - <AUTHOR> http://wuerkaixi.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is Paul Mooney's (famous reporter, recently banned in China) article in English, about Wuerkaixi flying to HongKong, to turn himself in.

He is accompanied by Albert Ho, the HK lawyer who assisted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

[https://www.facebook.com/mooneychina/posts/423190837807287](https://www.facebook.com/mooneychina/posts/423190837807287)</comment>


I miss Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://cfenollosa.com/blog/i-miss-facebook-and-im-not-ashamed-to-admit-it.html <comment><USER2> This article reminds me of a complaint I've had about online gaming. I'm 36 and I remember when all online FPS games were played on centralized servers. If you logged on at the same time of day, you would see the same players you saw yesterday. Over time, you would develop relationships with those people and perhaps you would eventually meet them in real life. I have 2-3 very good real-life friends that I originally met online because of centralized FPS servers.

Nowadays, you can jump on an online FPS whenever you want and have a full server of players. But the chances you'll play someone from yesterday are very slim unless you deliberately 'friend' them. I feel sorry for kids growing up right now that are missing out on finding your own 'people' online.

<comment><USER3> FWIW I have made many friends in Destiny 2 and I have plans to meet some of them in person.

Many games do not foster this, but I think destiny does.

<comment><USER4> MMO games still allow for this as you (generally) select one larger, persistent server at character creation, and remain on that server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hits the nail on the head.

For me the main uses of FB are now:

1) Rolodex of friends, with reminders from the ones who actually use it.

2) Bad version of stumbleupon. Seriously large amount of unuseful content, but it does kick up something interesting now and again.

3) Reasonable funnies stream. There's always someone with a good meme.

There's no real content though. All the news commentary is simply terrible. Loads of people trying to be funny. An enormous number of flamewars. Very few people who know anything at all, not just in politics but science as well. The actually insightful comments are drowned out completely.

Other things:

\- Loads of comments are just people tagging a friend so they see an article. FB could fix this very easily, I don't really care if Richard Head wants his friend James Smith to see some article.

\- Autoplay videos are annoying

\- Obvious parasite accounts aren't dealt with. I know my dad hasn't started a new account with the same pic and added me. Do something about it.

All in all, I'm not sure FB would have become FB if its product was what it is now 10 yers ago.

<comment><USER6> Nice alternatives for (3) are 9gag and imgur. They got the 'typical':

connect.facebook.net, google-analytics.com, googletagservices.com, gstatic.com, imasdk.googleapis.com, scorecardresearch.com, platform.twitter.com, amplitude.com, amazon-adsystem.com, googletagmanager.com

but once you block them with Privacy Badger and/or NoScript (or add them to your hosts file), they are an endless source of memes and other funnies.

<comment><USER7> I don't want to sound like a snob, but 9GAG and Imgur are pretty awful communities with content taken from Reddit–which itself "steals" content, but it's less horrible about it. Both of these communities are heavily moderated and most users don't actually realize where their "fresh memes" are coming from: 9GAG's moderation team actually sways voting to control what hits the front page and immediately bans accounts that mention "Reddit" in any way.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I don't disagree, but ... should I care? I personally don't care where my funnies originated, only that I get them. If 9gag is a nice skin over ripping off reddit but preselected, why shouldn't I use that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> IMO Facebook has three useful features left: the personal rolodex, event planning, and groups. I truly think that a large number of users would migrate over if someone replicated those three. No large info collection on your profile, no wall or posts, just a friend/messaging option, the ability to create events, and to organize into groups made by users to make posts there only, not in public. You know, to actually make and support communities that would actual exist in physical space.

With the troubles of Facebook and the alternatives, many just don't use Facebook anymore, even if those features aren't broken. If it's a fresh service with no ties to Facebook, I think you'd see something interesting.

<comment><USER9> Those were the same three features that were a core part of thefacebook before they introduced the News Feed. If it was the same site that it was in 2005, but with more people, I'd still be using it. But now, it's mainly a machine that turns other people's content into dollars.

<comment><USER10> Groups was launched in '08, I think.

<comment><USER9> Not possible. One of the things I did in the week after the News Feed was launched was to join a rather large (for 2006) group protesting the News Feed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I miss IRC, for a lot of the same reasons the author misses Facebook. Being above 35 like the author, I think it's more the fact that people just aren't chatty anymore. It's anecdotal of course, but if I look at myself, I'm really not that chatty anymore either. I too used to have late night chats about random stupid things, but right now, I can even remember when I last saw 3AM unless it was to feed a baby or clean up after a sick child.

So when I say I miss IRC, it's probably more true to say that I miss the freedom that comes with having almost no responsibilities. Maybe I should work on making more of my time, mine though.

<comment><USER12> As a twenty year old, the problem is not that _people_ aren't chatty; it's that the people you interact with aren't chatty. For any niche topic you can find a Discord server or a Telegram channel or a Signal group chat or a Slack server or a whatever, where people are chatting about it 24/7\. It's the same model as IRC, although it is unfortunately now siloed.

<comment><USER13> How was IRC not siloed when you've always had different networks managed by different people?

<comment><USER12> It's siloed by technology now when it wasn't before - you could connect to any irc server with one client but you need a different client for each network now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't miss Facebook. I just weaned myself off Facebook about a week or two ago.

I realised that I needed to get off Facebook because it made me feel depressed. When I was on Facebook, I would look at the feed and become poignantly aware of how boring my life is. (I don't travel. I don't do any "fun" thing. I don't go to parties.)

So one day I decide that I have had enough and I just uninstalled Facebook from my phone, closed all Facebook tabs in my browser sessions, and turned off all notifications (including the e-mail one that tries to drag you back in). The only notification that I leave enabled is account/security notifications. I haven't outright deactivated/deleted my Facebook account because I may still need it someday for some stupid reason.

Anyway, as soon as I took those steps, I freed myself from the reminder of my misery. I'm not actually having any more fun, but at least I'm no longer constantly comparing my life with those of my "friends".

So what about people who may want to reach me via Facebook? I've decided that if someone can or know only to reach me via Facebook, then they are not my real friend anyway and I don't need them in my life.

Quit Facebook. It can be done and it _should_ be done.

<comment><USER15> Same for me. I've kept my account, but I only log in once every few months or so when I feel really bored.

Whenever I do, it only takes minutes before I start to feel bad, mostly for the same reasons you do. I then realise that literally just sitting in your chair, staring at a monitor that is turned off, is a better use of your time than going to Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article reminded me of what Facebook was and the fact that I did actually like it when I first joined. The major complaint I see is usually centered around politics. But for me, I never saw any of that. The main reason I've stopped using it is simple: I used Facebook as a tool to see what people were doing in a passive way that I wouldn't have otherwise. But now the feeds are geared towards the advertisers, not what my friends are doing. Therefore it is no longer a good tool. It's bad software, plain and simple. I really wish there was a better alternative. I know a lot have tried, but they don't seem to "get" what Facebook was for some reason. They all seem to be Twitter alternatives rather than Facebook ones.

The number one feature about the way Facebook works is simple: I can share something on someone else's wall/feed/timeline and all of their friends can see it and comment. No other site/network seems to have that feature. Google+ didn't have it, Mastodon doesn't have it. Everything is post on your own page.

<comment><USER17> Aside from the stuff mentioned everywhere else, my biggest complain was ephemeral nature of the feed.

If I saw something interesting I had to act on it at that percise moment or never ever see it again. No scrolling, no page reloads, no "I'll do it in a sec". Once something was out of my sight the Facebook fold seemed to devour it forever ;p

If I recall correctly the feed wasn't always like this, but once it became like that it took only a couple of frustrating months for me to start truly hating FB.

Nowadays, just because of that, I use FB only maybe once per month and usually only when I have to. Hell, maybe that ephemeral nature of the feed did some good afterall? ;P

<comment><USER18> Yes, this is frustrating, especially with the "Top stories" feed which seems to quite randomly choose something interesting occasionally and when you go see it again it's buried by something else.

The "Most recent" feed at least tries to stay coherent for a while I still see posts that I can't find later unless I spotted who shared it and where, and then go look that up — and I still might not find it.

However, the "Most recent" feed is also quite short: you can easily hit the bottom which makes you realise that you probably saw 1% of all the "most recent" posts. This isn't the only case, though.

I have a custom list that includes all of my friends so that I could see their posts, hopefully most if not all of them. Guess what? I only get maybe ~20 posts until that list runs out of items.

So, it seems that it's quite impossible to get to see what's happening in your friends' lives by using a Facebook view into their posts. And this is why I started using Facebook in the first place.

It wouldn't be technically impossible to dig up the last 7 days of posts from the couple of hundred people I have as friends and sort them based on likes and amount of commentary. I could then consume that list to the extent I want. But that wouldn't be good business, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This really hits home. So what ruined Facebook?

The Wall was replaced by an algorithm which sunk original content below a flood of ads, fake news, and externally shared content "you might like". We stopped seeing original content. Then, people stopped sharing personal stuff, as nobody interacted with it.

<comment><USER20> I quit Facebook many years ago, but one of the reasons I stopped engaging with it was after they started creepily sharing interactions made on the site. Seeing "Pam liked this photo" or "Dave commented on this post" in my feed - almost certainly without them knowing I was seeing it - made me very hesitant to interact with the site at all. I'm sure they have a ton of metrics proving it increases engagement for the majority of users, but it was enough to turn me off the site completely.

<comment><USER21> This is exactly what made me stop using it. I didn't post anything for a few weeks, and I started getting these fake "notifications" that had nothing to do with me. It felt like Facebook was some sort of stalky overly clingly ex, trying way too hard to get me to engage. So creepy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am from approximately the same age group as the author. I remember FidoNet and PhpBB forums. I remember blogging, and LiveJournal. But I completely missed the Facebook craze. The first time I logged into Facebook — after having used LiveJournal for several years — I was shocked by the unfamiliarity and unintuitiveness of the interface, and the total absence of formatting options. I looked around — and then ran back to the familiar internet tools and services.

It's weird. Seeing stories pop up lately about how people get disenchanted with Facebook, I keep wondering what the big deal was.

 _(And another source of wonder and cognitive dissonance is how a company with what seemed like such an unappealing product managed to attract so smart engineers and to bring about a number of significant technical innovations.)_

<comment><USER23> LiveJournal was, for my money, the correct balance of text to image content. You could upload photos and other media, but it was a bit of a pain. And in 2006, people didn't necessarily have the ability to play media anyways, at least not without a few false starts. Consequently, people wrote. Their thoughts weren't always that interesting. But they were at least original and the product of real effort. It worked fairly well, and was a lot more appealing to me than memes and viral marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I love this article. Sums it up perfectly. Back during my school days, everyone was on Facebook. Like as if your friends were always with you. However, lack of moderation, the decrease in content quality and endless walls of meaningless excess really kills the value prop. For me, it's not necessarily privacy - it's more about trust. And I know that's one thing Facebook has lost.

</comment><comment><USER25> I share the feeling. I too am in my mid-thirties, still know my ICQ number by heart (8 digits by the way), was on IRC and used Facebook in the early days.

Nowadays I often wonder if my sentimental feeling about the social networks of yesterday is just a function of me getting old.

The world changes. It is probably neither better nor worse. It's just different.

<comment><USER26> I had a 6 digit ICQ number and I'm about the same age... someone deleted my account using my unlocked computer and I was never able to get it back...

<comment><USER27> >someone deleted my account using my unlocked computer

Strikes me as insane that they'd allow account deletion without entering password for confirmation.

Also, what an asshole, whoever did that to you.

<comment><USER26> She did worst... but I got her back, somewhat. I just wish that ICQ would have been willing to undelete my account.

BTW, at that time, almost noone required passwords to make major changes to your account if you were logged in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Back when Facebook changed to the Newsfeed algorithm I knew it wasn't good and I didnt like it. In retrospect its definently when it all started going downhill for me as a user of the platform. Now, I haven't posted anything in 3 years....

<comment><USER29> Exactly this. It used to be a real-time showcase of what my friends and family were up to. Great to keep tabs on everyone I care about lives. Now it's just ads and the same few posters. I don't even read the newsfeed at all any more. I go directly to a few people's pages to see updates on a few close friends, nieces and nephews and that's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Everything that he mentions he misses is now in a group chat for me. A group of 20 or so friends have a Telegram group where we spit out random thoughts, talk about news, day to day life, spontaneously throw together plans to hang out or go for dinner, post candid/embarrassing photos of stuff we're doing, etc.

Some days only a few people are active, other days you'll open it up to hundreds of unread messages from everyone.

It's not public, but it doesn't need to be. In fact we end up having more entertaining and honest chats since it's private.

<comment> frosted-flakes I feel like everybody I know is part of a private group chat with their family. With some, it extends out to all the first cousins (40+ people), but for me it's just my siblings and their spouses and my parents. Baby pictures, jokes, vacation pictures, random questions--stuff that Facebook was known for, but not like Instagram at all. There's no posturing, since it's all family and close friends.

We used to use WhatsApp, but recently switched to Signal.

<comment><USER31> If only Signal had reasonable multi-device support.

I don't use Facebook, but the rest of my family uses it for group chat. It honestly makes sense as it's more usable. We also have a Signal group, but it's fallen out of favour.

The other thing that I know people like about Facebook is groups (different from group chat). If Signal also had the equivalent of that, it would be much easier to get people to switch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I am not sure the "niche" Facebook used to fill even exists anymore.

The social landscape has changed for the worse. People no longer want to connect with friends, they want to show off how better/popular/wealthier they think they are.

Even if someone relaunched that era's Facebook without all the crap I wouldn't be surprised if today's society still manages to make it toxic.

<comment><USER33> > The social landscape has changed for the worse. People no longer want to > connect with friends, they want to show off how better/popular/wealthier > they think they are.

It is the gamification factor. People is optimizing their behavior to get more likes not to get better connected.

"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" summarizes quite well the situation.

<comment><USER34> So we need to remove likes from Facebook? It definitely was a different place prior to the feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> There was a period when the internet was new for everybody, and everybody was discovering it at the same time. It was like the first few weeks of college, except it was the entire world. And that's not going to happen again. Somebody will come up with a new social media app that solves the problems of the current platforms, and it will have some of the old magic. But the rush of the early days of the internet / blogging / social media, was a one time thing.

<comment><USER36> Eternal September is finally over...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Perhaps the writer misses their 20s now that they are 35, like almost everyone.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi I'm 36, I agree with the article to the last comma and I don't think it's just an age thing. I enjoyed IRC and ICQ a lot, met a lot of people there, some of which are now very important in my life. I loathed when they were replaced (in my country) with MSN messenger. I didn't like Fotolog, but I enjoyed the very early days of Orkut and then the Facebook golden age mentioned here, and I hated when it became an ad feed and people migrated to Instagram.

So (for me) it's not just a downward slope where older = better as I become crankier, it's that some particular services at some particular points in time hit a sweet spot that others didn't. For me, important qualities are protagonism of text (networks with protagonism of images like Fotolog or Instagram are posturing tools, as the author says), thematic groups/channels (I like to discuss topics like politics, philosophy, videogames, learn languages, etc.), and ways to actually meet people (MSN didn't have this).

Facebook was great in its peak as it ticked all these boxes, with the added value that you could find real-life acquaintances and follow them - no social network has ever been that strong at letting me know about my old classmates' weddings and children, which is a cool thing IMO.

Today, the widespread social tool that comes closest to my ideal may be Telegram groups, but the discovery and meeting people part is only so-so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you really struggle with configuring it, and ignore the right hand column entirely, you can still sort of track what your friends are doing. But I stopped looking at Facebook much a few months back. Maybe twice a month now.

Remember, sharing is spamming.

</comment><comment><USER39> I assume that I'm fully outside any influential demographic now since not only am I not on Instagram but I don't know anyone on Instagram. My friends who don't do Facebook do either email or Discord (and a good portion of my friends do do Facebook).

Honest question, is the division of the world into distinct social networks an expression of increasing social stratification around the world? I know little about Instagram but it sounds a lot like a place for people aspiring to wealth.

<comment><USER40> > is the division of the world into distinct social networks an expression of > increasing social stratification

i think it is more about the level of need for social signaling. affluent people probably dont need it , except the narcissistic ones, while signaling seems to be very important for the middle classes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I agree. I've tried using FBPurity to hide things that aren't my friends creating text or pictures themselves, or more simply, setting "friends feed" to be the default. That used to help, but not so much anymore. The problem is most of them have stopped, or greatly cut back posting.

I remember when I first decided to create a Facebook account. I had previously avoided social media. I wasn't motivated enough for Livejournal, and Myspace seemed like a useless vanity page. After watching over some friends' shoulders as they used Facebook, I saw that it was a genuinely useful communication tool.

The share button was the worst thing to happen to Facebook from this user's perspective. It actually did exist before I started using Facebook, but most people didn't press it often. Facebook is not a very good place for news stories compared to Google News. Facebook is not a very good place for cat pictures compared to reddit. By trying to be the place people go for things like that, Facebook has ceased to be good at the thing it _was_ good at: keeping up to date with an extended group of friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER42> I miss 2005-2007 era Facebook. It was so different before the Newsfeed was introduced. It was a really different concept when it was limited to college students. You could add your dorm or class and see other students in the same groups. It was really useful for making friends.

Now it's just shameless bragging or political shouting and Zuck has become a quasi-villain which makes using it more unsavory.

</comment><comment><USER43> I never think positively about facebook these days, but one author's point rings a bell:

there's a point before and after society rerooted itself over internet (jobs, businesses), which caused a huge change. Everything is a business in disguise now.. no more freedom

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm Facebook free for more than 10years. It's hard, as a lot of information is considered as delivered once it's on Facebook (like community updates on my neighborhood).

But anything becomes nostalgic. I still remember my own BBS joining fidonet so it was able to provide email service (once a night from a Hub BBS). I still remember the ping-pong virus. Or even Google not being evil.

I guess in a few years will see a post "I miss iPhone" :)

</comment><comment><USER45> I miss the News Feed back when it showed mostly information about my friends' lives. At some point I feel like their algorithms started showing me more links to clickbait and other time-wasting bullshit. After a while it gave me almost nothing I actually cared about, which induced me to install the "News Feed Eradicator for Facebook" Chrome extension. I visit FB very rarely nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER46> I also use Facebook only for the positive things it brings me. I refuse any conventional "news" stories I see there.

</comment><comment><USER47> > I miss knowing how my online friends are really doing these days. Being able > to go through their life, their personal updates, the ups and the downs.

What? That was horrible! The simpletons talking about every mood change, or publicly plotting juvenile retribution against an ex-lover, or a respected keynote speaker who was previously isolated to that role now inviting you to Mafia Wars

I deleted my first "everyone I met everywhere" Facebook in 2008.

Allowing a new bare bones one in 2012 which is merely deactivated now.

This article is a mere nostalgic highlight reel, ironic how it complains then about instagram

Yeah ok, people in their 30s complain about selfies, selfie sticks, pictures of food, ephemeral stories, vertical videos, and older people using social media. They're lost in between a dichotomy demographics that do not care and who these current networks are made for.

I would say the delayed gratisfaction is bigger component to the prior experience: planning, coordinating, and uploading just a few photos from different sources much later. The next day even, if your friends were tech savvy and had fast connections. The dopamine of social interaction coming in bursts, and the anticipation of the possibility having its own allure.

</comment><comment><USER48> I've been without it for the better part of a decade. The only time I missed it is when I realized I couldn't purchase facebook ads.

</comment><comment><USER49> My solution was to create a fake account with a fake name on FB, never download the app to my phone, never share my phone number, never upload any contacts, never use a real picture, and only add close friends who know who the fake profile is.

Makes me pretty much impossible to look up on the system, I value my privacy and not being listed is important to me. This gives me the best of both worlds. I can join all the interest groups I want, follow all the events, without having to share my identity.

<comment><USER7> I'd expect it to not be very hard to find you, from the perspective of someone willing to put in a bit of effort, based on who your friends are associated with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> As soon as Facebook became a widespread thing I knew it was going to become a shitshow, and Zuckersnuffles was such an obvious snake I couldn't even consider empowering him by turning over personal info. I've never had a real account, and even my fake dev accounts fell into disuse as I rejected more contracting gigs involving FB integration. I feel somewhat vindicated, though we have a way to go when even many 'ethical' NGOs still require FB for engagement.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why was the title of the submission changed? The original one was the same as the blog post's

</comment><comment><USER51> I feel that we need a Facebook, but without pictures, just text

<comment><USER32> Pictures are good, as long as they are _original_ pictures and not reposted memes & other garbage.

Facebook needs _original_ content. Not links to outside crap, no clickbait, no memes. That alone would make the platform much better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I have 4 Facebook accounts... I don't miss Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is precisely how I feel

</comment><comment><USER54> Facebook is designed to be addictive and pervasive. Missing it does not mean you need it back in your life. Stay strong.

<comment><USER55> After reading the article, better phrasing would be "I miss what Facebook used to be". It may be addictive and pervasive now, but the feeling is that it no longer fills the niche it used to.</comment></comment>