Okay, kids, play on my lawn (Roger Ebert responds re: video games and art) - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html

<comment><USER2> This is what I posted as a comment there. I have no idea whether or not it will be approved, so I'm putting it here as well.

\-----

A key part of your opinion seems to be that "Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices."

However the most famous piece of artwork in the world is the Mona Lisa. The most distinctive feature of that painting is that it can be experienced in two very different ways. In one she is is happy, but not in the other. This is exactly the opposite of an "inevitable conclusion."

So this characterization of what art must do fails even when it comes to the most static of all possible media. The Mona Lisa has been sitting absolutely still for centuries. Yet only sometimes does she smile.

<comment><USER3> His view seems aligned to the mainstream way of storytelling form of art, which has long history of development (Alistotle said the plot structure was the essential.) But even in storytelling, there are other forms; e.g. Brechtian epic theatre deliberately avoids involving audience into the 'emotional journey', and also avoids presenting one conclusion.

<comment><USER2> I'm also reminded of the mid-80s movie _Agnes of God_. The entire point of the movie was that you could figure out all of the events from either a scientific or religious point of view, both were consistent, yet they disagree on the interpretation of every single fact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Gracefully back-pedaled.

As he admits, he put himself in a lose-lose situation, and when that happens, there's not much one can do besides back-pedal. As gracefully as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> He still arrogantly refuses to admit any kind of possibility of being wrong on the overall topic, though.

> I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are > best kept to yourself.

I'll admit that it's better than nothing, but the tone didn't seem very apologetic to me. He does concede a few points, and I admire him for that, but things like the screenshots really rubbed me the wrong way.

<comment><USER5> He doesn't have to apologize for his opinions. He doesn't have to refuse to be wrong. That's not arrogant; thats a human right.

I get it; many disagree. He comes off arrogant because he's famous.

<comment><AUTHOR> > That's not arrogant; thats a human right.

He's certainly allowed to have his opinion, and you're right; he doesn't _have_ to apologize.

I'm also not required to not think he's a bit arrogant when he disparages something that millions of people enjoy, and uses his cultural position to damage their reputation. Without ever having partaken himself.

<comment><USER5> The 'damage' is imputed; did he say this was a problem with video games?

His cultural position IS to discuss what is art and what is not. Regardless of how many millions enjoy it.

<comment><USER6> I think maybe his cultural position is to opine how well a specific piece of art from a particular class of artists is, rather than being a critic of every artistic medium.

At least that's all of the respect I give to him and his position.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Arguing about what art is has got to be one of the biggest wastes of time there is. I think enough "artists" have created "art" in the medium of human waste to settle the lower limit once and for all.

<comment><USER8> At the risk of the getting into that "biggest waste of time" confusing medium with the artwork seem to be core cause of this particular debate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game."_

Yes, and you can live in a cathedral. People get so dogmatic about separating form from function. I prefer Scott McCloud's far more inclusive definition ([http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible- Scott-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott- Mccloud/dp/006097625X))

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a strange bit of snark that he's interspersed his paragraphs with screenshots from some of the most derivative and stereotypical games of recent vintage. And yet it's perhaps softened a bit by the addition of a shot from perhaps a comparable title from his home medium.

I don't quite get it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fine, video games aren't art, but then neither are movies. After all, what's a video game other than an interactive movie?

I think the problem is that Ebert just sees the Skinner box nature of video games only, without noticing that movies are also a Skinner box of sorts.

<comment><USER5> Not an interactive movie, not by a long shot. A movie is much closer to a painting, in that its essentially static - exactly what the artist put into it an no more. Carefully crafted for a particular experience.

<comment><USER12> Games are more or less essentially static. Sure there is a little more freedom of motion than in a movie but I would say it is a similar progression still to motion picture, motion picture to motion picture with slight control. You can't get something out of a video game that wasn't put in in the first place. Trust me people who make video games consider and craft the experience the player is having.

Rather than compare them to movies I would compare them to theater, where the player is an actor in the play. The lines and locations are the same every time, but every performance is slightly different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if he would agree that a single instance of a video game having been played could be art. A specific playthrough. Therefore not open-ended.

EDIT: I'm thinking about famous games of Go that are now considered (by some) to be works of art. And I'm making the tenuous jump to video games, where the final 'work' of art is a collaboration between the player(s) and the designers of the game.

<comment><USER5> That's the point: I agree a Particular game can be art. The artist has to be present in art.

Undeniably many video games Contain lots of really cool art. But so does my bedroom.

<comment><USER13> I don't know that it makes such a big difference, but I'm trying to figure out what's going on in Ebert's brain. (Personally, I disagree with his thesis.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most video games have a pretty strict narrative: Finish the story or die. The ending of that story is often firm: I've rarely come upon a video game that actually has different outcomes based on the user's behavior/history.

</comment><comment><USER15> People should stop recommending games to him. Any example you give can be easily shot down as "not art". You can probably do the same thing with any art that is on the fringe of whatever definition you subscribe to.

It seems to me the only difference between a movie and a game is that there is some assumption that the "gamer" controls some aspect of the movie. I would ask Ebert this:

* what would you think of a movie where the viewer could control the volume? Can it be art? * what if the viewer could control the color tint? Can it be art? * what if the viewer can switch between two different camera views at will? Can it be art? * what if the viewer can control the camera completely but the action is on rails? Can it be art?

etc… you can see where this leads. He obviously has watched an artful movie and been in control of the volume so you can see that he would have to draw a line. You can then create an artful "game" that crosses his line and you're done. Of course, he will refuse to believe that it is art because it will challenge a deeply held prejudice of his.

It is at this point (or hopefully before) that you will realize it is useless to try.

Get off my lawn you damn kids!

</comment><comment><USER16> some rules of art taken from an Art Appreciation class last semester:

1) Art is what the artist says it is. If the artist (developers/designers/game team/whatever) decides it's art, who could claim otherwise and qualify their statements.

2) Art is what the patron says it is. If a user says it's art, then, at least to some person it is now art.

Now for my opinion: When it comes to fringe cases of "art," it's still art if the creator says so. However, as is the case with modern art, art is an expression. And when artist reproduces somebody else's expression, I loose respect for that work. Like Jackson Pullock's spray paintings, when people do the same thing, I'm like, "Really? Wow, you are great at expressing yourself like Jackson Pullock!"

As for video games, as a whole, it depends. But aspects of video games like level design, UX, UI, they are definitely art forms. Especially when done well.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why do video games have to be art? Why can't they simply be games? Too many games have a fatal flaw in even attempting to be art--they have graphics and music and writing and so forth, but the game qua game is an afterthought. "First-person shooter" is basically one game, and aside from updating the graphics and storyline there's no evolution. Because everyone wants video games to be "art", or to be like the movies. RPG's are even worse.

Forget the art and make a good game.

</comment><comment><USER18> He should go play Passage: <http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/>

There's a work of art that simply can't be experienced in any comparable way in any other medium. He could play it in 5 minutes.

<comment><USER19> I second this! Passage is what convinced me of the possibility of Art in games.

Art as defined by Ebert in this post, not beautiful visuals or anything like that - which is kind of the wrong way to seek art in games, IMO.

> that simply can't be experienced in any comparable way in any other medium.

This is the crucial bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ebert likes to present himself as an enlightened liberal who keeps his mind open to facts as opposed to blind belief - but what he's doing here is proudly choosing willful ignorance because he's too lazy/stubborn to collect his own facts. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER21> How much time did it take him to write those two essays? He wasted thousands of hours of humanity just for his big ego, and can't even be bothered to play a video game for 10 hours? I guess he is famous (?) but I sure hope I'll never read any of his thoughts again, ever.

</comment><comment><USER22> For God's sake, someone _please_ install Braid on this man's laptop.

<comment><USER23> Braid has some good puzzles, but aside from the "plot twist" of the final level, its "art" aspect is pretentious and overwrought. _Shadow of the Colossus_ was a good recommendation, though I'd pick _ICO_. Really, though, if he doesn't want to play a game, I don't see why he should have to. Just bow out of the conversation and leave it at that -- which is what he's just done.

<comment><USER22> In addition to the narrative and the "twist", Braid is also viscerally beautiful, with the music and visuals creating an emotional experience that makes it hard to deny the label of "art". It's also highly approachable for someone who doesn't play many games, though a casual gamer is not likely to make it through to the end.

> Really, though, if he doesn't want to play a game, I don't see why he should > have to.

Oh, I agree. He didn't fully backpedal, though; just state that "maybe someday" a video game would come along to prove him wrong. Even if he admits that his opinion has no relevance, he still clearly holds the same opinion about the current state of games.

(And admittedly, none of this actually matters. It's just good old-fashioned "Somebody is _wrong_ on the internet!" :P)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> My earlier refutation of Roger Ebert:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1389149>

Maybe this is all just a subtle linkbait (unintentional?) for the Chicago Sun Times? (We'll see if game companies start advertising there.)</comment>


Apache Flink: Juggling with Bits and Bytes - <AUTHOR> http://flink.apache.org/news/2015/05/11/Juggling-with-Bits-and-Bytes.html

<comment><USER2> Flink is pretty neat and it didn't feel like an "all or nothing" monolithic chunk when I played with it.

The page based inner loop makes it very predictable when it does data operations - they were doing this early last year and this mechanism made it very cpu cache friendly & didn't trigger the massive GC pauses.

I was playing with Flink a bit earlier, because Flink can be integrated into Tez, so that Tez could do DAG scheduling while Flink ran with its inner loops on turbo.

That inner loop can edge out even hand-written java code I wrote for page-rank (delta iterations are nice).

</comment><comment><USER3> Great post detailing how Flink is managing data within the JVM and implementing internal operators (hashing, sorting, ..) working with that serialized data. I also like the performance analysis in the post.</comment>


Cluster SSH – Manage Multiple Linux Servers Simultaneously - <AUTHOR> https://www.putorius.net/cluster-ssh.html <comment><USER2> This is where Saltstack really shines, IMO. Once you have the minion installed, you have a ZMQ command channel on each of those boxes.

        salt -G "roles:whatever" cmd.run "blahblahblah"

Easy to target by any number of things - name, OS, IP subnet, custom metadata, etc. Very powerful, and makes intelligent administration of a fleet a lot easier.

For example, I recently used this to audit our fleet for vulnerable PHP+nginx installs, regarding the recent CVE:

        salt "*" cmd.run 'ps ax | grep -q "[p]hp-fpm" && ps ax | grep -q "[n]ginx" && dpkg -l | grep -P "ii.*php"'

While we'll upgrade PHP on any systems it's installed on (also easy to find), this gave me a high-priority hitlist of all machines that needed PHP upgrades because they were running active php-fpm + nginx combinations.

<comment><USER3> Yep, salt has the best of all elements. You want simple remote execution? Got it. Agentless? Sure, use salt-ssh. Event bus? ZeroMQ and RAET included. Automation? Sure, reactors cover that. Integration with other systems? Got that too, state, pillar, mine, external events, all included. Even a REST interface.

There isn't much of a point any more to use bare SSH, heck, you can even use proxy minions to control systems that only have telnet or outdated SSH (like SSH1 or SSH2 with unsupported ciphers), or plain web interfaces with no API.

<comment><USER4> I've been using Chef for many years and have been pretty happy with how straightforward everything has been, but I am always open to other solutions. If you've used Chef, Puppet or Ansible, how would you say Salt differs from those?

Your comment has already inspired me to look deeper into Salt, but I am hoping you can lay out some general pros and cons as well. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> I've used all three in the past.

Chef was the first I used, many years ago. It's...complex. Despite being Just Ruby, the DSL takes quite a lot to learn, and I don't like that Chef is imperative rather than declarative. It also just seemed crazy verbose. It felt like it took ages to get my configurations right. For example, here's a community cookbook to install and setup NTP: [https://github.com/chef- cookbooks/ntp/blob/master/recipes/de...](https://github.com/chef- cookbooks/ntp/blob/master/recipes/default.rb)

I tried Puppet after Chef. It was better, but I always seemed to be spending more time fighting it than actually getting stuff done with it. It suffered from the inability to push states to boxes at will. It's probably more pure to do it periodically via cron, but when you have stuff to get done, sometimes you just want your state applied to a machine. Configuration was less complex than Chef, but still quite verbose. Because box state is "all or nothing" you end up with a pretty slow management system that felt really subject to bitrot. On the subject of complexity, here's the community NTP module: [https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs- ntp](https://github.com/puppetlabs/puppetlabs-ntp)

I like Ansible a lot. No real complaints about it, except that Salt is "Ansible++" with the command channel, reactor system, etc.

Salt's just YAML, like Ansible. You have minimal logic available in YAML via Jinja, but it's discouraged by design; your state declarations are meant to _describe_ the state of the system, rather than to execute a series of explicit steps. Salt figures out how to bring them into compliance. You aren't meant to program in it, you're meant to describe in it. This makes states very straightforward and easy to interpret.

By comparison to the first two, here's a similar formula for Salt: [https://github.com/saltstack-formulas/ntp- formula/tree/maste...](https://github.com/saltstack-formulas/ntp- formula/tree/master/ntp). Terse, simple, straightfoward. ntp/init.sls is the whole state that gets run - it just installs the package, marks the service as enabled, starts the service, and if there's a config defined, installs it. Templates can be colocated with the state definitions. Nothing too fancy, just yaml and plaintext configs. I can apply just that single state to a box (salt mybox state.apply ntp) or set of boxes (salt -G "os:Ubuntu" state.apply ntp) or I can do a pull from the box (on mybox: # salt-call state.apply ntp). I don't have to run the 479 states that apply to the box in sum; this makes incremental management of boxes very quick.

You can use salt like Ansible via salt-ssh (shells into target box, executes states), like Puppet or Chef (operating in master mode, with agents that connect and execute states), you have the active command channel to your fleet, and you can do event-driven stuff with it, too. For example. we provision and renew LetsEncrypt wildcard certs on our Salt master. We have a Reactor set up that that watches for when a cert (on the master) is updated, which finds all machines subscribed to that cert and executes our `ssl.certs` state, which pushes the new cert out and executes any service reloads necessary to get the renewed cert into play. This lets us keep a small set of certs/renewals in a centralized location rather than having to worry about a bunch of scattered LE renewals all over the fleet. When we have to provision a new machine or a new service, we can just subscribe to the desired cert and we're off to the races - no need to do the LE provisioning each time we salt a new box.

There's a lot to love about it. It's not without its bugs, but the Saltstack project and team are very active, and the project itself is Python, which is easy to read and write. I've had to debug things a number of times, but it's never too difficult.

Been using Salt for years now, and I still think it's the best in class out there.

<comment><USER4> Many thanks for your extensive reply! There's even more to consider now <3

EDIT: Can you vouch for the ease of use when configuring Windows machines as well?

<comment><USER3> Windows is supported as well, at least as a minion (a 'target'). You can run cmd and ps1 commands remotely, but there is no SSH support. This will be added later on when MS makes SSH a 'normal' integration and then salt can implement that as well.

There are a number of Windows-specific states and if you have a universal state (i.e. making a directory in a specific place) the documentation will supply you with the things each OS does and doesn't support. For example, you can't set POSIX permissions on Windows, but if the FS is NTFS you can set an NTFS ACL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've used clusterssh in the past, but nowadays Ansible is simply a better choice. clusterssh is rather brittle.

I don't much like Ansible either (I have _opinions_ about using YAML as a programming language), but for ad-hoc maintenance of a bunch of servers, it works okay.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Ansible can't do interactive sessions, though, right?

<comment><USER6> I think there's a valid argument to be made that anything you would use an interactive session for on multiple servers at once is better done as an interactive session on one server, formalized into some rules of what to do (even if just a bash script with a bunch of grep and sed commands), tested on another server, and _that_ should then be run on lots of servers at once (or better yet, batched into groups of a reasonable amount to check nothing went wonky).

In the words of the venerable DevOps Borat[1], "To make error is human. To propagate error to all server in automatic way is #devops."

1: [https://twitter.com/devops_borat/status/41587168870797312](https://twitter.com/devops_borat/status/41587168870797312)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to use tmux to do this. Split the screen half a dozen times. Connect each pane to a separate instance. Enter `setw synchronize-panes on` and you are now running commands on 6 instances simultaneously. From there you can run `htop` to see resources being used on all instances on one monitor, run `apt- get` commands, etc.

<comment><USER8> How do you split the screen into so many panes? tmux told me my panes were too small and refused to split further.

I guess I'd like to split it in groups of panes and maybe switch which groups is currently visible?

<comment><USER7> I had fairly large high-resolution monitor. 27" mac monitor, IIRC. I never ran into tmux telling me that I couldn't split further and could have upwards of 50 panes. Might be a new "feature"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Years ago I wrote this tiny script:

<run-on-all.sh>

      #!/bin/bash

      clusterfile=$1
      cmd="source /etc/profile; $2"
      ssh='ssh -n -A -o BatchMode=yes -o ConnectTimeout=10 -o LogLevel=quiet'
      #add "-o ConnectTimeout=x" for timing out the ssh connection after x seconds

      #redircting stdin for ssh command to /dev/null (using switch "-n" for ssh) since otherwise ssh command breaks bash's "while" loop
      #reference: http://www.unix.com/shell-programming-scripting/38060-ssh-break-while-loop.html

      echo

      while read  line;
      do
       echo "@</comment><comment></comment><comment>==@ running on $line @</comment><comment></comment><comment>==@"
       echo
       echo
       $ssh $line "$cmd"
       echo
       echo
      done < $clusterfile

      echo
      echo
      echo "</comment><comment></comment><comment>==> FINISHED RUNNING for $clusterfile <</comment><comment></comment><comment>=="

All one needs to do is call it like so: ./run-on-all.sh /path/to/cluster/file/list-of-servers-here.txt "sleep 60; reboot"

<comment><USER10> this is good for a few servers - but its sequential nature will become onerous if for example you needed to run something that took 10 minutes on 100 hosts.

ansible ad-hoc commands do almost exactly what you do but in a more scalable fashion

[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_adh...](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_adhoc.html)

<comment><USER11> <list_of_hosts xargs -I {} -P 0 -n 1 ssh {} hostname

<comment><USER12> Here's a more polished version of just this idea: [https://github.com/michaelkarlcoleman/ssssh](https://github.com/michaelkarlcoleman/ssssh)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm seeing a lot more love for ansible than any of the other competitors in the cluster/pool management sphere. I didn't know HN had reached a (rough) consensus on this, is ansible well-enough-accepted as the configuration management tool of choice when not integrating into a larger cluster management system (e.g. Kubernetes)?

<comment><USER14> Ansible has not taken the sysadmin world completely. Google uses Puppet, many companies still use saltstack/chef or even just bash scripts via jenkins. Ansible is a very very very useful tool. Even for kubernetes management.

<comment><USER15> Some companies are still using CFEngine as well -- especially at large scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel like often people forget about the small to medium setups run by "The IT guy." I'm a jack of all trades technologist in a major theater. One hour I'm configuring our half dozen Linux servers. The next hour I'm creating AutoCAD drawings, the following hour I'm changing SNMP settings on our 2 dozen Cisco switches, and after lunch I'm designing the electronics for a new stage prop.

I don't have the hours and days to learn Ansible, and it doesn't make sense for such a small environment. And it's Yet Another Service my successor will have to learn in what is already an incredibly niche position.

However doing the same half-dozen steps on a half-dozen servers takes up real time. Tools like cssh, that take 15 minutes to learn and have an IMMEDIATE time saving payoff, are invaluable. And my successor can easily skip using the tool and just do things the hard way until they do have the time to learn more efficient tools.

<comment><USER17> > I don't have the hours and days to learn Ansible

Really? Are you that filled or you don't want to use a minute of your weekend?

I've set up a few ansible tasks for occasional use like updating servers but I think it's worth learning. It's especially good when installing a new server. Run and it's to your usual state in no time.

The good part about task runners is that it is self documenting of your repetitive tasks and easy to share. You could create a shell script with comments but ansible is probably more portable.

<comment><USER16> It's hard to overstate the breadth of skills necessary for this position.

Is Ansible worth learning? Possibly. But there are 100 other things worth learning too, the majority of them not even in the IT space. My time and mental bandwidth are finite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I used clusterssh in the past and it is really good at sending commands to multiple machines. However for any real work, I would strongly recommend keeping the typing to a bare minimum and do all your work inside a well tested script. Better yet, use ansible or something like it to manage multiple servers

<comment><USER19> While developing such ansible scripts, or prototyping, you usually need to run the commands manually, so this becomes useful.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h For that, do you really need to control more than one machine at a time?

<comment><USER19> Sure if you are prototyping a cluster with various types of nodes.

<comment><USER10> just run the playbook on a test cluster?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wrote a similar tool[1] for a cybersecurity competition I was helping to red team for. It would try a dictionary of username and password combos against a list of hosts generated from the results of a masscan[2], once it logged it it would run a bash script on the host to set up our persistence.

From there it would keep a session open on each host and allow you to run commands on a single host, a subset of hosts, or all hosts.

The advantage of this over hydra or some other SSH brute forcer is that it allows us to run our persistence tooling right away after finding a login and keep that SSH session alive so we can re-use it even if the password is changed.

The code is a tire fire, but it worked well for what we needed :)

[1] [https://github.com/sdshlanta/ssher](https://github.com/sdshlanta/ssher)

[2] [https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan](https://github.com/robertdavidgraham/masscan)

<comment><USER21> It'd be neat if it attempted to lateral as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is plethora of similar tools (cssh, pssh, dsh) but Ansible ad-hoc mode superseeds these ones at any real task involving "simultaneous" management of Linux boxes.

<comment><USER23> Why is Ansible better? I've considered it for maintaining a bunch of workstations and servers. However after reading some tutorials it seems not to be worth it.

It involves a whole new level of indirection, I now have to check up on what's new in new versions of Ansible, perhaps adjust a bit on the syntax, Google problems, find relevant Github issues or SO answers that work around the inevitable weird quirks and bugs etc.

I think Ansible would have to provide a lot of value (i.e. time savings) compared to, say pssh or cssh to be considered for a busy sysadmin who just wants to get stuff done with as little effort as possible (CV padding is not a consideration, playing with new toys is not a consideration). Doing things directly with shell scripts is a much more robust approach in terms of being understandable to other people, who don't know Ansible, and it will stay understandable even after Ansible is gone.

There's also a proliferation of such tools. Do I need Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Terraform, Salt or another one? Will Ansible die in 2 years and be superseded by X?

Unless you do this job as a full-time sysadmin, the overhead and potential headaches seem to be more than to be worth it. I may be wrong though.

<comment><USER10> the commenter here is talking specifically about ad-hoc commands:

[https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_adh...](https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/user_guide/intro_adhoc.html)

these are pretty easy to understand.

Also chef, puppet and ansible are becoming very niche tools these days now that we have kubernetes and docker, all we really need them for is provisioning out k8s infra if we run bare metal.

Terraform is a different tool entirely working at a different level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> mpssh and kash are also good. kash is part of the kanif perl project, but the one thing about it I really like that I don't see other projects doing is that it will aggregate similar output before it spits it back.

Thus if you run it to check for a package version on 300 servers, you can get maybe 2-3 sets of output grouped by host based on the output vs 300 lines of output.

[https://github.com/ndenev/mpssh](https://github.com/ndenev/mpssh)

[http://taktuk.gforge.inria.fr/kanif/](http://taktuk.gforge.inria.fr/kanif/)

<comment><USER25> clush does exactly this with the -b or -B switches.

<comment><USER24> Ah I didn't know this...Thanks! I will check this out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If you're using a linux distribution, then the `terminator` terminal app supports multiplexing as part of its built in feature set and has been my default terminal of choice for a while (tabs, splitting, etc...)

<comment><USER27> I use tmux for this. Create multiple panes with ssh sessions in them and do:

        set-window-option synchronize-panes on

I have defined a keyboard shortcut for this, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I want to add a note to this - if you're using something like this to manage linux servers you're almost certainly doing it wrong. At a server level use ansible, puppet or chef.

</comment><comment><USER28> One should be thinking of using terraform and something like chef/puppet/ansible or even better yet moving to kubernetes if you find yourself having these kind of problems.

</comment><comment><USER29> Shouldn't you be using Ansible (or other) to manage your multiple servers rather than ssh into them?!

Far too risky

<comment><USER30> Yes, but sometimes you can break your configuration management in such a way that it can't recover and need a rapid way to fix things or see the state of the world. It's very handy to have a tool ready to go that can assist. Sure, it's very dangerous when operating on an entire fleet, but break glass in an emergency.

It's also rather handy when you want to run ad hoc queries on your machine, e.g. which kernels are out there, is this leftover rpm installed somewhere, etc.

At a past job we had an in-house tool like this that also logged all of the commands anyone had ever ran with it and saved the stdout/stderr output in a webui+cli output. If you suspected somebody did something clowny, you can go look at exactly what they did, when, and what the result was. This logging was very important, imho and tools like it should have it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Managing servers using parallel ssh is a way old school (and powerful) technique I don't recommend doing unless using it as a transport mechanism for a config management tool.

A company I worked at developed a custom SSH tool that would tie into your CMDB, kind of like a home rolled ansible you could use to blast commands to whole a PoP or even the whole network at the same time. The thing was insanely powerful, but using it was like wielding a machete through a delicate garden.

Ansible is really great in this regard since you have the ubiquity of SSH but sane management, not some difficult to maintain shell script.

At scale parallel ssh performs poorly in comparison to message queues. As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, SaltStack defaults to using ZMQ for communication which has much lower overhead than SSH (with trade offs as well).

</comment><comment><USER32> Folks are acting like the only use case for this is sending commands for deploying software or something. Even in fully automated environments at scale I used Cluster SSH extensively in my past life for things like grepping local logs on all members of a cluster at the same time, or querying local status. It's immensely helpful when troubleshooting issues in large environments.

Of course you shouldn't be redneck deploying stuff with Cluster SSH when you could write an Ansible Playbook or deploy Chef/Puppet/Salt. But to troubleshoot issues and manage host/OS level functionality on multiple identical systems at the same time, it's invaluable.

</comment><comment><USER33> Also an alternative: polysh [1]

[1] [https://github.com/innogames/polysh](https://github.com/innogames/polysh)

<comment><USER19> Another alternative, for AWS nodes:

[https://github.com/carlsborg/dust#parallel-ssh- operations](https://github.com/carlsborg/dust#parallel-ssh-operations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not sure why there's such an Ansible yankfest going on - Ansible is a solution for problems many of us would rather simply avoid - but it's starting to make me believe that there are too many fake accounts used for marketing purposes. We know they're on Facebook, we know they're on Reddit, but Hacker News?

<comment><USER35> Do you actually have any evidence that such a conspiracy is real?

I mean, I've seen plenty of people jumping to wild assumptions and invent all sorts of conspiracy theories just because they are faced with the fact that other people have different opinions and tastes, and for some reason that is impossible unless there's a vast conspiracy to push ideas that don't match their personal whims and tastes.

I've used Ansible in the past. Ansible sends python scripts over SSH to hosts and runs them remotely. Users specify the state they want the system to be in and the little python scripts run all the checks and apply all changes. Does it take a conspiracy to prefer this approach over simply multicasting SSH connections to multiple hosts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I can't believe `pdsh` isn't mentioned. Dead simple "run this command via ssh on these hosts" program

<comment><USER37> good man!. pdsh has been my tool of choice for years!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's neat and useful for clusters with a few nodes. I'd suggest using Ansible or Salt instead.

Also, for the small clusters, I have a tmux script that splits the windows, ssh's into each box and sets keyboard sync. It's relatively trivial to generate such a program from a list of nodes you want to connect to.

</comment><comment><USER39> it's proprietary, but SecureCRT works awesomely in that sense.

You can decide to just write commands in the common panel and relay those commands to all ssh connection in the current window. When you're done, you can just stop the relay and it becomes back a regular tabbed ssh client (with a lot of features).

<comment><USER13> No need for any proprietary tech: as mentioned in other comments, tmux can do this out of the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I _really_ like cssh...

Yeah... I have tmux, _all_ my infras are on Ansible, etc, etc, etc... But there are times where I _need_ to log to several boxes at once and when the time comes this tool is invaluable!

</comment><comment><USER41> Ásbrú Connection Manager has clustering too : [https://github.com/asbru- cm/asbru-cm](https://github.com/asbru-cm/asbru-cm)

</comment><comment><USER42> I posted this a day or so ago, glad to see it is now trending on the front page. Cluster SSH looks very useful and reminds me of what Salt Stack tries to do.

</comment><comment><USER43> Surprised ansible does not do this

</comment><comment><USER44> Available in homebrew as well!</comment>


User Experience: Learning from the Pros - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/user_experience_learning_from.php

<comment><USER2> I've started going to my local ACM CHI events (link of chapter lists in U.S. and globally below) They periodically sponsor interesting speakers who talk about UX. It lets me see how the other side (functional/UXD) thinks. Fascinating at times because I believe the more design aesthetic you can incorporate in your work, the better your projects will become.

<http://sigchi.org/local-sigs/></comment>


Ask HN: Do you reveal all of your code to contractors? - <AUTHOR> 	Hey SAAS founders and CTOs, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on whether you trust the people you hire enough to share all of your codebase with them?
I believe for employees that is no problem so my question is more related to contractors. Contractors in the US vs. East Europe? Do you sign agreements with them? Have you had issues happen?
Interested in hearing your opinion and experiences. <comment><USER2> We do share the part that is relevant for the work to be done. We try to isolate it as much as possible and only share that.

We require some paperwork to be signed beforehand and we obviously do not share any production secrets or database information.

We usually have some database stub with fake data that they can work on / spin locally.

<comment><USER3> We tried doing that but it ended up being more effort isolating the part that they would work on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just don't give them access to all your git repos. It's pretty easy with github/bitbucket

</comment><comment><USER5> I get access to code, but I have to sign an NDA beforehand, in most cases.

Reputation is _everything_ to me, so I'm not about to do something that'd abuse that trust. It's just not worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi i am working in Accenture in Europe as a contractor, i have pretty much access to code on the project as anyone else on the team.</comment>


Hydroxychloroquine study shows no benefit, more deaths in VA Covid-19 study - <AUTHOR> https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-more-deaths-no-efficacy-of-malaria-drug-found-in-coronavirus-study-20200421-v4k45zwp5zc57dobqsa4xqexea-story.html <comment><USER2> Thus emphasizing the importance of controlled trials and regulatory bodies. It's not just the concern that it might not work - we can almost live with releasing that to the public accidentally. Its that it could actively cause harm. Thalidomide wasn't removed from the market because it didn't work, it was because it caused harm.

I know that people are desperate for anything to work during times like these, but that's also why healthcare has always attracted snake oil salesmen peddling their panacea. We build strong regulatory bodies and adopted stringent scientific standards to make sure we do no harm. Relax those restrictions at your peril. And however tempting it might be to feel hopeful because someone seems to have found a solution to a terrible disease, whether a pharmaceutical company or the president of the USA, wait for the data. Always wait for the data.

<comment><USER3> > Thus emphasizing the importance of controlled trials and regulatory bodies.

Funny, you give the results study that did not used controlled trials to justify emphasizing the importance of controlled trials. Even further, this study was not non-peer reviewed, or published (see [https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine...](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/21/health/hydroxychloroquine- veterans-study/index.html))

All they did here was to review charts of people already treated and try to base their conclusions on only that. Even the study itself admits ([https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf)):

 _However, hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease, as assessed by baseline ventilatory status and metabolic and hematologic parameters. Thus, as expected, increased mortality was observed in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine, both with and without azithromycin._

There are a lot of people right now, including the MSM, dismissing of HCQ. I don't think that is warranted at this point. And I hate to see the media, who is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, who has a interest in preventing a cheap treatment from being widely used, downplaying HCQ and the public going along with it.</comment></comment>


Renesas M16C Microcontroller LCD Display  - <AUTHOR> http://dev.emcelettronica.com/renesas-m16c-microcontroller-lcd-display <comment><AUTHOR> The G1 doesn't officially hit the streets until tomorrow, but the 3rd and Market store in San Francisco will begin selling the first Android device starting today at 6PM PDT.</comment>


Ask HN: Web Components for production? - <AUTHOR> Hackers, I'd like to use Web Components (&Polymer 2.0) to build an e-commerce PWA. Do you think that's a good idea?<p>Moreover, what should I use for Business logic? The SHOP demo by the Polymer Team is pretty dope but it lacks a backend (something I have no experience with.) In fact, I want to build the application with guest checkouts only. I'm also inclined towards Aurelia but I haven't seen a SHOP like demo for reference. <comment><USER2> Regardless of what framework you choose you will still have to use some backend.</comment>


Wanted to learn Vue.js, built a 100% serverless app: Quarantine Notes - <AUTHOR> https://quarantinenotes.com <comment><AUTHOR> People all around the globe are in quarantine right now due to this pandemic situation we're facing.

These days can prove themselves to be quite lonely. Building a board for people to write their thoughts (anonymously if they want) seemed a good personal project for me to start learning Vue.

I would like very much to know your opinion on this. It is not rocket science, but it was fun to build and I think we could use it to share our notes about the situation we're living.

This was my side project in the past week, I used Serverless, DynamoDB, Flask, and Vue. take a look at the detailed post about it at: [https://www.grott.me/programming/python/flask/serverless/dyn...](https://www.grott.me/programming/python/flask/serverless/dynamodb/vuejs/quarantine/covid19/2020/03/29/quarantine- notes.html)</comment>


Microsoft, UW demonstrate first fully automated DNA data storage - <AUTHOR> https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/hello-data-dna-storage/ <comment><USER2> From the paper:

"Our system's write-to-read latency is approximately 21 h. The majority of this time is taken by synthesis, viz., approximately 305 s per base, or 8.4 h to synthesize a 99-mer payload and 12 h to cleave and deprotect the oligonucleotides at room temperature. After synthesis, preparation takes an additional 30 min, and nanopore reading and online decoding take 6 min."

Also the amount of data that can be written is very small in general for oligosynthesis. The most high throughout methods are microarrays by Agilent and others (not used in this paper). You can buy about 32 megabits for $6000 ([http://www.customarrayinc.com/oligos_main.htm](http://www.customarrayinc.com/oligos_main.htm)). The actual cost of synthesis is maybe $2000 as a guess.

So currently DNA storage would be good for small datasets that you would like to store for a long time. Physical density is useless most of the time if you can't efficiently generate a lot of data to begin with.

We would need several orders of magnitude increase in the write capacity, which is slowly being worked on. Typically people would like to compare synthesis costs with Moore's law, using Carlson curves ( [http://www.synthesis.cc/synthesis/2016/03/on_dna_and_transis...](http://www.synthesis.cc/synthesis/2016/03/on_dna_and_transistors) ).

However there hasn't been as much progress in synthesis as in sequencing. Why? My theory is that Theres not a very big market for DNA synthesis, so the big investments needed haven't really been there. Maybe storage on dna could be that market, but it would need to show quick and easy wins (eg stepping stones of practicality like what early integrated circuits had).

<comment><USER3> From a biology perspective, the value in DNA synthesis has plateaus. (I'm curious about analogies to other commodities?)

If you can build small runs (<50base pairs) you can make small mutations to dna, or read particular sections of dna. If you can make dna larger than the average protein (~2000bp) you can invent new proteins from scratch rather than modify existing protein sequences. If you can make dna longer than a plasmid (~10,000bp) you can creatively invent a minimal viable replicable and deliverable unit (a plasmid (bacterial virus)). If you can do millions if base pairs you get to chromosomes and can invent Eucaryotic-transmissable storage.

But until you leap those plateaus, you can likely saturate the intervening market. So even if there's massive pent up theoretical demand for the wholesale invention of genes, there's no way to really demonstrate it in the current market.

This inability to estimate demand may make it a tricky spot to invest in.

<comment><USER4> Can the replication process that occurs when a cell divides be used for data copying? It seems like this, if doable, would be a huge boon for DNA storage.

<comment><USER2> It's already used: look up Polymerase chain reaction.

Copying isn't as interesting as de novo synthesis, being able to specify an arbitrary sequence and have it synthesized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find a few different articles about digital data storage in DNA but they don't seem to tell me why more data can be stored in DNA than classical medium? Maybe I am not phrasing the question right.

""DNA can store digital information in a space that is orders of magnitude smaller than datacenters use today.""

Would this DNA also exist in the same conditions as the data center or does it need more things?

<comment><USER6> Not only is DNA chemically stable and can last for years, has internal redundancy, but it is remarkably compact. DNA is an evolutionarily optimal data storage medium.

To put it into context, each cell in your body contains 6 billion base pairs of data (two copies of your genome). Each base is one of 4 bits, so that's 4^6000000000 of data in each cell. Your body has ~37 trillion cells [1]. A person is about the size of a rack (well, maybe 10-15U by volume), so that's 3.7e13 * 4^6e9 bits per rack.

A petabyte is 8e15 bits.

That's a lot of data storage capacity in a small space. Moreover, there is the potential for introducing more synthetic bases to increase the 4 to 6.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23829164/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23829164/)

<comment><USER7> Minor correction: each base pair is one of 4 _values_ (A, T, G, C), so each base pair is equivalent to 2 bits of data, which gives a number half of what you quoted.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I misworded it and gave the wrong numbers. I gave the number of possible combinations in a genome, which is 4^6e9. That's obviously not the number to compare (and a slightly embarrassing mistake).

With 6 gigabases per cell and 2bits per base, the storage capacity is 12 gigabits (1.5 gigabytes) per cell. And with 37 trillion cells (3.72e13) in a human body, that's 3.72e13 cells * 1.5e9 bytes per cell which is 5.58e22 bytes per person or 55 zettabytes. This seems like a more reasonable number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >The team from the Molecular Information Systems Lab has already demonstrated that it can store cat photographs, great literary works

The meme is true

</comment><comment><USER9> What are the potential applications of this tech?

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know how they ensure read order? Since it's a fluid that's moving around I'm having a hard time to grasp how they make sure they read the DNA in the same order it was written in.

<comment><USER6> You wouldn't. The read order would be encoded in the "file format". Kind of like a Unicode byte order marker.

You'd have to deconvolute the signal first, then computationally determine the strand you actually read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41228-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41228-8)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41228-8.epdf?shar...](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41228-8.epdf?shared_access_token=hKl- Uc- bfmBPLILRELu0JtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NFgcYtKWpJFonOk61x1LvZXKBaDAXo0NDCb3HBoSQVUQ0TgSFJhLJ4T56BwcRtBONZHQRuFWlVpywak1IE4YFa4PeX- odE_VJn8jnt5psfSA%3D%3D)

</comment><comment><USER12> Wouldn't any other copolymer work equally well for this purpose? (I know nothing about chemistry or biology, so this is probably a stupid question.)

<comment><USER13> In principle sure, as long as you use a different polymer with similar biochemical stability, but a lot of money and tech development has gone into reading and synthesizing DNA in particular. Why reinvent the wheel, so to speak.

<comment><USER14> In fact it might be even better with DNA, since you can use much bigger "alphabet" for this purpose, than nature gave us. Would tremendously increase storage capacity.

<comment><USER2> There are already xenobases being developed, eg Romesburg. Those add extra bases beyond the 4-5 seen in nature.

<comment><USER14> I know and was referring to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope they write the data after performing encryption, so hackers can't find biological exploits should they exist.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is it feasible (in the future) for the human body to host these DNA storage medium/devices?

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't put exogenous nonsense DNA into my body. That's just asking for a bad time.

<comment><USER18> Computer viruses are about to converge with the biological ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This could bring a whole new meaning to the words "computer virus".

</comment><comment><USER20> There are so many science fiction novel to write using this as a starting point...

<comment><USER21> Yeah, like owing "blood rent" to the descendants of proprietary works that pass their copyrighted material to their offspring. Or land rights, or special social privilege. Or the answer keys for professional and entrance examinations. Or classified data. Suddenly you have to have your genome sequenced to walk through the airport and documented status is conferred by blood.

I'm not being a luddite here on purpose, but over long time scales there's a tremendous potential for this kind of technology to push towards a kind of class differentiated society in the way most of us would despise.

Some technologies are leveling, like roads or mass transit or vaccines or industrially produced consumables. I don't see public institutions putting libraries in the seeds of apple trees as a civilizational fail safe, whether that's centrally planned economies or democracies. But maybe you could get an ethnostate like Israel to include the talmud in your cells or your microbiome when you settle on occupied land. Best case scenario with body horror is that it becomes like tattoos. I await the forthcoming Atwood book with that slightly alarmist slant.

<comment><USER22> We were supposed to have annihilated all of human life in a nuclear firestorm. But somehow we did manage to survive. Sure, the Great Firewall and China's potent surveillance system does alarm me greatly. But as long as the people who create these technologies also work in a society which places responsible limitations on their use, we might just be able to get to being an interplanetary species at some point.

Once humanity becomes capable of living and thriving in different planets/outer space without the mother planet is when things will start getting really interesting.

<comment><USER23> I would not rule out nuclear catastrophe just yet. The technology has only been available for 75 years. So far most of the weapons have been in the hands of nations with stable command and control structures. That may not be the case in the next few decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Anti-Growth Sentiment, Reflected in Zoning Laws, Thwarts Equality - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> It's not so much that urban development kills "character", it's that current urban development methods are ugly. They have no class to them. The "not in my backyard" argument will always be brought about by people who's previously beautiful surroundings are replaced by brick rectangles with evenly spaced windows. The trick is to make urban areas attractive but not gentrified.

<comment><USER3> In Europe people go to the park to have solitude with nature and go home to interact with people [on the street by the house].

In the US people go to the park to interact with people, and go home to have solitude [hopefully with nature in their backyard, but even if not they want a quiet apartment without lots of people near them, or at least the illusion of it].

Some people prefer the US way, some the European way. But you have to build the city to match what people want.

The ugly urban cities are a result of a mismatch.

<comment><USER4> The European way, in many ways, was a consequence of geography and, to a lesser degree, climate.

The US is a car-centric culture that is fueled by (relatively) cheap gasoline (energy prices).

Take for instance shopping malls. Shopping malls in Asia (usually in urban centers) build up vertically while in the United States they are build out horizontally with acres and acres of parking spaces.

Some of the best US cities have European-like features (NYC with Central Park and its other parks like Union Square, Tompkins Square, traffic shut down on some streets or at least seating that takes up part of the street).

<comment><USER3> > Some of the best US cities have European-like features

Careful with calling it "best". Not everyone likes that kind of thing in a city.

I don't. I hate those types of cities, I feel very stressed and oppressed ("squished" if you get what I mean) when I go to cities designed in that way. I can handle it for a visit, but I would never want to live there.

Different people like different things, that's why we have a variety of cities in the US, you can live in a place that matches what you like. But don't call it "best" just because it happens to be what you like.

<comment><USER5> The problem is we don't allow a variety of cities anymore. We have effectively outlawed the denser European-style cities. The only ones that exist are those that are old enough to be grandfathered in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They should just repeal zoning laws entirely. Maybe make an exception for polluting heavy industry, or for people using government money or government- backed loans. It should probably even be a constitutional amendment.

People who want quiet suburbs can pool together a corporation to own a planned community. That limits the scope of their NIMBYism to just their community, and as shareholders they could vote on whether to get paid for selling their land to Walmart or Google or the people wanting to set up high-density apartment complexes. Plus they have an even stronger voice in their immediate community, so they can do things like build walls to keep the homeless out. I think getting bought out as a shareholder would warm them to the idea; if Walmart buys the land next door you just want to complain, but if you're getting some of the money you might be in favor.

The government should only have the power to prescribe structural integrity rules, fire safety codes, building codes for number of exits, etc.

<comment><USER7> The "corporation" you've described _is_ a government. Literally.

A government (in the United States) is just a mechanism for an area's resident citizenry to express their collective will. Whether you call it "government" with "citizens", or a "corporation" with "shareholders", it's the same thing.

<comment><USER6> They fill similar conceptual roles, but the details are different.

<comment><USER8> ...and those details are?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I feel that in many of these discussions, it's beneficial to see NIMBYism as a response to an incomplete insurance market, as described in [0].

This is not to say it is a complete or normative defense of NIMBYism, but rather that a lot of knee-jerk SJW sort of reaction is missing the point and failing to address, or even really attempt to understand, where NIMBYs are coming from.

Part of me wonders if this could be solved by tech, particularly insurance products that offer homeowners protection against the variety of ways that seemingly-great expansion projects can go wrong. I'd enjoy working on that sort of problem, except that so much of the current interest in this entire topic is political, and politicians have some incentive to maintain zoning- like systems because it offers them (the politicians) great opportunities for rent seeking, by being the gatekeepers of an approval process that should instead be more straightforward and just hedged by homeowners in the form of custom insurance products.

[0] "Why are there NIMBYs?" William Fischel, < [https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF](https://www.dartmouth.edu/~wfischel/Papers/00-04.PDF) >

<comment><USER10> The problem is, it isn't an insurable problem if housing prices decrease when the new construction goes _right_. You would just put the insurance company on the opposing side of the development instead of the homeowners.

The source of the problem is that people started buying homes as investments, overpaying for them because there was insufficient supply, and now that they've got a mortgage and they don't want to end up underwater, so they have to make sure everybody else overpays too.

Probably the solution is inflation. Build more housing and at the same time print more money. Then real housing prices go down while nominal housing prices stay the same, so your house doesn't "lose value" compared to your mortgage but housing still becomes more affordable for new buyers. This would also help by devaluing everyone's student loans and other debt. Call it the banks' punishment for 2008.

<comment><USER11> Why do you think nominal housing prices will not increase with the new money? I can understand why housing prices would be sticky when going down, but I've never heard that they are sticky when going up.

<comment><USER10> Increasing the housing supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to decrease. Increasing the money supply would tend to cause nominal housing prices to increase. Do them both at the same time and they cancel.

<comment><USER11> Ah, reading comprehension failure on my part. Wouldn't the effects of the inflation be out of proportion with the housing supply increase, though? Printing money will affect many prices, but the housing supply only affects the local housing market.

<comment><USER10> Sure, the nominal prices of everything else would increase, as would wages so that purchasing power would remain largely unchanged. Moderate inflation is basically harmless -- in a lot of ways it's beneficial. It's effectively a tax on money (especially on lenders), which makes it extremely progressive. (That is one of the reasons _de_ flation is so catastrophic. The other is that deflation makes cash an investment, so people would hoard cash instead of investing in actually productive activities.)

And the government can use the new money in place of normal tax revenue, which helps the economy.

It's possible to go too far and have hyperinflation. It becomes problematic if prices double every day and nobody will accept your money because it will have lost half its value by the time they get to the bank, as is often the case in failing or mismanaged countries. But if we had e.g. ten percent inflation per year for several years, the effects would be a rather large net positive. It's basically a wealth transfer from lenders to borrowers, where "borrowers" means the taxpayer (national debt), people with student loans or car loans or credit card debt, etc. And homeowners with mortgages, canceling the reduction in housing prices that would otherwise come from significantly increasing the housing stock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live in Manhattan with its very high housing costs.

As Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, Economics Nobelist Paul Krugmann, Financial Times columnist and an economist Tim Harford have been saying, the issues are politically induced housing scarcity through the use of zoning density restrictions and also overuse of historic landmark status. The use of politics to create artificial scarcity to create market inefficiencies is called "rent-seeking" in Microeconomics.

Another example was the NYC limit of 13,000 Taxi medallions which lead to a market value for medallions of $1.2 million. Then Uber/Lyft came along to disrupt the market and provide more transportation in NYC and the value of the medallions dropped to less than $700 K.

I believe that Congress is looking into the zoning form of "rent-seeking" with the understanding that zoning is not necessarily local but might be federal to override this inherent unfairness where older people housing expensive and scare for younger people.

For more info: Edward Glaeser: Build Big Bill (Mayor of NYC) [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1.1913739)

Tim Harford: The Undercover Economist. [https://www.amazon.com/Undercover- Economist-Revised-Updated-...](https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist- Revised-Updated-Exposing/dp/0199926514)

Creating these politically induced market inefficiencies are what create an inherent transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy and from the young to the old and of course is a major contributor to financial inequality.

</comment><comment><USER13> In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the middle class.

If zoning were de-regulated around San Francisco, I doubt that many of you would pay much less than what you'd pay now for housing, assuming you're not making less than the AMI.

San Francisco had an Area Median Income in 2014 of $83,222. Those who make below this qualify for affordable housing. If you want to imagine what kind of housing policy the bay area would implement, look to what the DelBlasio administration is doing [1]. In 2015, the AMI for a family of four in New York City was $86,300. According to the DelBlasio administration's plan, "there will be affordable housing available for each level of income from "Extremely Low Income" to "Middle Income." The middle group, "Low Income" will benefit the most, receiving nearly 60 percent of the 200,000 projected units. Each of the other levels of income will receive eight to 12 percent of the units."

So, given that you wouldn't qualify for affordable housing, you'll end up buying new property at market-driven prices. If developers were to flood the market with thousands of additional units, how would that affect prices? If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your investors? With that given, developers would collude. They'd roll out new, optimally priced units over time. They'll make excuses to policymakers as to why projects are delayed.

Today, the middle class can't even get a chance to buy something that it can't afford. With de-regulated housing, the former constraint is lifted and new homeowners will be heavily debt-burdened with super-jumbo non-conforming mortgages. However, you'll have somewhere to live.

[1] [http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new- yo...](http://www.amny.com/real-estate/affordable-housing-in-new-york-city- mayor-bill-de-blasio-s-plan-explained-1.11761817)

<comment><USER10> > If you were a developer, wouldn't you try to maximize profit for your > investors?

Selling 1000 units at $2000 is more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500. Moreover, collusion is a) illegal, allowing us to smite them with the Hammer of Antitrust Enforcement, and b) assumes there are few enough developers that they can actually do that without anybody defecting, which seems unlikely.

> In a realistic scenario, de-regulated zoning around San Francisco would > benefit developers and lenders while worsening the financial burden of the > middle class.

Your proposed alternative to increasing supply once to reduce prices is to keep supply constrained and subsidize rents forever.

There is no way out of the fact that increasing the housing supply is the only real solution, and that requires zoning regulations to be relaxed so that it can actually be increased. If you then have other problems with increasing the housing supply, you fix them, because one way or another there needs to be a lot more housing.

<comment><USER14> Selling 1000 units at $2000 is only more profitable than selling 500 units at $2500 if those units cost nothing to build. That's very far from being the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> These things are not so simple. Even in that places where they build baby, build! There is inequality. Brazil, China, etc. Brazil is diverse, China is pretty homogenous, both have large inequalities. It's not a one dimensional problem.

<comment><USER16> That's a rather poor mischaracterization of the argument. Of course it's not a one dimensional problem, everyone knows that equality is a complicated problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The lost opportunities for development may theoretically reduce the output > of the United States economy by as much as $1.5 trillion a year

We should also do away with National Parks and Forests, which are nothing more than zoning laws at the Federal level.

For that matter, state and local parks get in the way too.

How much lost economic output are restrictions on real estate development in Golden Gate Park costing the city of San Francisco?

How many more people could be housed there if the city simply got out of the way and let the developers build twenty or thirty thousand new units in there?

Why does Federal law even allow a local community like San Francisco so much control over its land?

<comment><USER18> You are thinking about things in exactly the wrong way.

For every 1 story increase in building height in a San Francisco apartment complex, there is 10 less houses that have to be build in Suburbia.

10 parcels of land that can now be converted to national parks, and public spaces.

People need a place to live whether you like it or not.

We can either make room for them in the cities, by increasing density and building height limits, or we can stand by and watch as urban sprawl continues to destroy our environment.

<comment><USER19> But not everyone wants to live in an apartment/flat there are serious downsides to lease hold property's.

A co worker was on the residents committee for a block of flats (london UK) that had to have the roof replaced not cheap and the original contrcator did it wrong and they had to sue them and have it redone.

<comment><USER20> Yes, and?

But living in your own house means you have your own roof, that can just as well needs maintenance, and you also can pick a bad contractor, and so on.

There are trade-offs. And there are external costs. Having your own backyard means usually having and using a car, taking up space close to downtown (because fuck commute times, right?) for just a family (and taking up road capacity too). These are currently undervalued.

The whole housing calamity in the Bay Area (and in London and Berlin) is manifestation of exactly this. (Plus idiotic zoning laws and height restrictions, and of course grafts, bribes, corruption, and the usual.)

<comment><USER19> Its the difference between a £250,000k Job and a £10k one ogh and coordinating 50-70 different lease holder to pay their share.

Even more extream if your looking at a listed building - which I did when I was looking at buying a ex alms house listed in Pevsner (one of only two buildings of note in my home town)

<comment><USER20> In my experience the paying the lease (or whatever the money due is formally called) is the least controversial part of it. You'll have more problems with the owners of the apartments. (So all the problems of the dreaded HOAs, exist for every building if it's owned by a group - which is quite usual in Europe.)

But these are very low-level problems, and they tend to sort themselves out pretty quickly (in ~5 years, let's say, if the building needs a renovation and the owners were not too keen on participating and saving for it beforehand).

<comment><USER19> Try getting a mortgage on a property with a short lease <60 Years it can be hard and expensive to extend the lease to make it practicabel.

<comment><USER20> If you are getting a mortgage, you usually buy it.

Also, if you want to get a mortgage for a lease, you can, if the mortgage repayment deadline is before the lease expiry. When it comes to property banks only care about getting a notarized mortgage contract and getting on the property's land registry sheet in a first position. (And this latter part is interesting, because most land registries - as far as I know - don't really have the concept of expiring records - so you can't record the fact of your lease.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The only viable solution, keeping both sides happy, is to have a kickass public transportation system.

I live in SF. Some of the working class people I meet live as far away as Richmond, Vallejo and Gilroy. They spend hours commuting back and forth; but they have no choice. It kills the 'quality of life', but what can one do?

If, for example, it was possible to get from Richmond to SF in 15 minutes at any time of day or night, it would make a world of difference. The pressure to live in SF would be eased, knowing that any time you wanted to enjoy the city life, it was a quick 15 minute ride away.

Communities hate more development, because people don't want to disturb their little paradise, which they worked so hard to create. And these days, it is much easier for people to move; heck, many people live nomadic lives, spending months here, and months there.

Something else to think about: an influx of residents has second-order effects: more schools, more police, more fire, etc. etc. Who'll pay for that? The taxes will flow over decades, but these things need to be built right away!

<comment><USER22> Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to a segregation problem. We could just repeal the laws that are hurting families with less wealth. The controversy on this issue should be a huge red flag: we've allowed the power of our governments to be wielded on behalf of the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, and our political culture finds that acceptable. Fix the culture. Repeal the segregation laws.

<comment><USER21> > Shipping people in from economically segregated exurbs is not a solution to > a segregation problem.

That is not the idea. The idea is to let people live where they want to live, without the weight of the commute hanging over them. And even if someone chooses to live far away, they should still be able to maintain a decent quality of life.

There is no denying that dwellings closer to the city centers are in higher demand, and hence cost more. I posit that it is primarily due to a mediocre transportation system. If the Bay Area had a world-class high-speed system, the demand would be reduced, lowering the prices and benefiting everyone.

<comment><USER22> I'm with you: let's build better transportation infrastructure. But we can't keep using our laws to segregate by income. Some income segregation is inevitable, but we shouldn't encourage it by making the good life scarce. More homes is good for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This article has gotten a fair bit of attention here in Santa Monica. We have the highest rents in LA, possibly one of the strongest anti-development communities, and aggressive rent control.

This fall there will be an initiative on the ballot called "L.U.V.E." which will require any development over two stories to get voter approval. It's actually split the anti-development activists apart, as some of them think it goes too far.

It's a beautiful city, but part of me feels like it's a ticking time bomb due to lack of education in society. Much like there was broad rejection of vaccinations here, there's rejection of the concept of supply & demand (some calling it a "Republican conspiracy.")

</comment><comment><USER24> There must be massive opportunities to manage these things in a smarter way as illustrated by the $1.5 trillion a year mentioned in the article. For example in SF they could build aesthetically appealing tall buildings with much of the profits going to the government rather than private developers and use some of that to build better accom for the homeless who clutter the streets. Everyone wins pretty much - you could give a bit of compensation to people next to the new buildings who might be a bit inconvenienced.

Maybe someone could do a startup to sort this stuff. I've been thinking about it but not cracked it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't think liberal zoning is the problem. I've seen my city go through massive changes in the last 30 years, top of the list being a radical increase, a liberalization, of zoning. They are allowing more and bigger developments. Multi-story and multi-unit developments are everywhere, but that isn't making housing any more affordable.

A piece of land with a liberal zoning is worth more. It is a target for redevelopment in order to max out the zoning. The net result in my local is the steady replacement of anything old (ie 10+ years) by newer ridiculously large replacements. Apartments and other attached units are now so expensive, and prices rising so steadily, that the logical thing to do is let them sit empty. The pittance one might claw back in rent pales in comparison to rising prices, and who needs pesky tenants anyway.

So... liberal zoning --> rising land values/prices --> redevelopment is better than renting --> fewer rental units = higher rent. It's true up and down the west coast. Now if a government told owners that no, they are not going to rip down that apartment block to replace it with luxury living, all-one-level, condos (ie for old/rich retirees) then perhaps prices might stabilize, sending more units into the rental market and so also stabilizing rents.

<comment><USER26> > Apartments and other attached units are now so expensive, and prices rising > so steadily, that the logical thing to do is let them sit empty.

I highly doubt this is going on over any long period of time. If there's a bubble like this, it'll pop.

Why do you think these new apartments are luxury apartments? It's because living in your city is a luxury that people with enough money are paying for. If they didn't exist, people would be paying even more for living spaces that _do_ exist. So, build new apartments and prices go up. But don't build new apartments, and prices go up _more_.

The most reliable way to get affordable housing (besides a lottery or waiting list, which doesn't solve the problem) is to have built new housing 30 years ago.

<comment><USER25> Luxury has some scientific definitions. Top of the list is size for a single- family dwelling. My city has liberalized zoning for size, but kept limits on number of occupants and such for fear of impacting infrastructure. The result is ever-larger units. New houses seem less like houses and more like diagrams of local building codes. Property line minus ten feet, there's your wall.

Luxury apartments can also be defined during zoning as units that the city assumes will rarely be occupied. It is often easier to get a permit if you can claim that the people in your development aren't going to contribute to traffic problems. I've even seen the pre-selling to overseas investors trotted out as justification for not upgrading traffic connections to a development. So-called "elder living" units also fit this scheme.

As for rents, the standard has always been that yearly rent should be around 1/20th of the unit's value, the "20-year" rule. But with property prices rising so quickly, some units are renting out at 1/50th their value. Once you get into those areas, rent becomes irrelevant and you run into the paradox that many units (houses and condos) are worth significantly more without tenants. You don;t want to bother asking tenants to clear out so you can show the unit. So investors planning to flip something in the next couple years don't bother with rent. Only when they think that they may have to hold on for a while do they consider.

<comment><USER26> If the problem is that overseas investors are buying the houses, sure, that's a problem that decreases the amount of living space. But how would restrictive zoning fix that problem?

And I still don't think the flipping is relevant in the long run. It's pent-up demand sorting itself out. They can't keep flipping forever.

<comment><USER27> > But how would restrictive zoning fix that problem?

Not only does restrictive zoning not fix the problem, it only makes it worse. Part of why you have investors buying properties in places like SF is that housing is such a hot commodity due to the restricted supply. If it was easy to make lots more apartments and condos there, it would be less attractive as an investment, which would mean less speculation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone really think that once they own property in a certain area that they are gonna believe in the 'anything goes' mentality? 'Growth' is subjective. "Hey look at all the great businesses in my neighborhood bringing in taxes! I mean sure they are all pot pharmacies and bars that my kid gets to pass on his way to elementary school but you know GROWTH!"

<comment><USER29> I think the issue is, everyone believes they should be able to become a stakeholder in a resource that is, by definition, naturally constrained. Only so many people get a say in a geographic area, and the stark reality is that once you reach a certain critical mass, you're incentivized to protect your quality of life over allowing for more people to join you.

Strangely, its thought of as acceptable for tech workers (with their new found purchasing power due to disparate wages compared to traditional workers) to displace long-time residents of a community, but those same tech workers are aghast when communities would prefer they not come.

"We don't need one more job in Boulder," Mr. Pomerance said. "We don't need to grow anymore. Go somewhere else where they need you."

Indeed. It seems I'm a bit late to coin the term "tech privilege".

<comment><USER30> What's strange about this at all? The pro-growth mentality is consistent: anyone can come, if they can afford it.

The anti-growth mentality is incoherent: it was fine for me to move here 20 years ago, but how dare tech workers try to do the same thing!

<comment><USER31> Bryson made the same point about anti-immigration forces in the USA (and the same applies elsewhere, like Australia where I live).

"Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it stopped."

<comment><USER10> > "Immigration was just fine for my grandparents, but now it's about time it > stopped."

That's a mischaracterization though. The fundamental equation for immigration is to make sure the immigrants don't bring down the average. When your grandparents came here the average was lower than it is now.

Which is why it's a lot easier to get a green card if you have a masters in engineering than if you're a farm hand. It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take citizenship and become eligible for social assistance.

<comment><USER31> > It fundamentally has to be that way if you want to have any sort of a social > safety net, otherwise the majority of world population would take > citizenship and become eligible for social assistance.

I agree entirely, which is why the (if there is a 'the') Libertarian position on the matter is a combination of open immigration and private charity instead of socialism.

[http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is- fundamental...](http://pc.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/immigration-is-fundamental- human-right.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Jiro's Dream - <AUTHOR> http://karrisaarinen.com/jiro

<comment><USER2> I watched this movie on a flight home recently and loved it. Loved the man, loved that he found a calling and stuck to it, loved that he never changed a thing and won worldwide acclaim because of it.

Then I got home and read Ebert's review. This paragraph hit me like a punch to the stomach and put it all in perspective:

 _"Even at the high prices of his premium fresh ingredients, you realize he must be a rich man. But to what end? The existence of his sons are an indication that he has a wife, although we never see her. He must have a home, although we never visit it. There must be hours when he cannot be at work, but the film indicates no amusements, hobbies or pastimes. The idea of his courtship of his wife fascinates me: Forgive me, but I imagine that even while making love, he must be fretting about the loss of valuable sushi-making time."_

[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120404/REVIEWS/120409996)

<comment><USER3> Ebert's comments were a surprise? One of the major themes of the movie is the incredible cost of perfection/mastery. Everyone wants to be the best at something, but so very few are willing to give everything to perfect their craft.

<comment><USER2> They were a surprise because I got suckered in by the direction of the filmmakers.

Here's Jiro. Jiro is successful, and let's explore what he does. It's so freaking simple when you look at it, right? He practices and practices. He's meticulous, he's a perfectionist. And wow, look at those Michelin stars. And look at how people line up months in advance to eat at his restaurant.

I was so dazzled by the simplicity and success of Jiro that I totally forgot there could be _any_ cost to this. And the filmakers _never_ took us there. Like Ebert points out, we never got to meet his wife. And what other damage was caused by this drive to success? Was there any at all? Again, something that fully deserved to be explored. Or was the movie just a tribute to the success of Jiro?

My CEO will never be Jiro. He may think he's Jiro. Hell, he also thinks he's Steve Jobs. But when I hear him on the phone again for the nth evening telling his son he won't be home because some VC term sheet has an incorrectly-crossed T...I just have to sit back and think _it's not fucking worth it. EVER._ No matter how much we worship the IPOs and fuck-you-money-level-exits on HN, there are thousands of kids sitting at home wondering if their parents will be home to tuck them in that night.

<comment><USER4> I think that is a major question the documentary should make you ask; is it worth it? I mean, it makes it pretty clear that to achieve that level of greatness requires huge sacrifices that come from complete devotion to a craft. Missing that point takes away a lot from what he achieved and also puts it into perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why I collect screenshots of UI elements and Web pages I think look good (several thousand in the last 10 years). I was the typical "I can't do design!" developer for years, but if you pay attention to and record your tastes then your skill level will slowly begin to close the gap.

<comment><USER6> It's been posted countless times but Ira Glass (radio personality and host of "This American Life") has very similar advice: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY>

<comment><USER5> I knew I was summoning up my taste-vs-talent terminology from something I'd read/heard but couldn't remember what. That's exactly what it was - thanks! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am now $120 poorer thanks to this 'free' movie.

After watching this movie you may be tempted to find your nearest high quality sushi restaurant, sit at the bar and ask the Chef to make you whatever he sees fit. This is a delicious but very expensive idea. I did get to try a number of dishes that I would never have ordered though ... all thanks to Jiro.

<comment><USER8> Ha! The exact same thing happened to me.

If you are in DC I highly recommend the tasting menu at Sushi Taro. Very similar experience to the film - 10 courses of amazing food (although it includes some non sushi items as well).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 99% Positive with critics on Rotten Tomatoes: <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jiro_dreams_of_sushi/>

Available for free streaming with Amazon Prime: <http://www.amazon.com/Jiro- Dreams-of-Sushi/dp/B008ODZEQ0>

Or streaming for Netflix subscribers: [https://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi/7018...](https://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Jiro_Dreams_of_Sushi/70181716)

</comment><comment><USER10> "But just when you think you know it all, you realize that you're just fooling yourself... and then you get depressed."

\--A Fish Vendor

<comment><USER11> The look he gives the camera after saying that is priceless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tangential, but I just ate at Sukiyabashi Jiro last week and it was incredible. They were much friendlier than sometimes portrayed too.

<comment><USER13> Was it worth almost $400 per person? Or $19 for each piece of sushi?

I'm not surprised that they were very friendly. Most of the people in the documentary stated that Jiro has a "stern" appearance when he's making sushi. From my experience, I find that people often mistake concentration for anger.

<comment><USER12> As with many things it's diminishing returns, but I can easily say it far exceeded any other I'd had (and I used to live there). Whether it's worth the money is up to you. It was for me, though I won't be coming back for the same omakase again. I'd go back for a few individual ones that stood out. The omakase course is IMO the right way to get the full experience your first time.

It also wasn't as rushed as I've read, though it wasn't a full house when I went. The course lasted at least a half hour, then we were seated at a table with watermelon and tea and however much time we wanted to wind down.

<comment><USER12> Some notes if you want to visit: They seem to require you make a reservation from a Japanese number. They will direct you to their (lesser or at least much different) Roppongi branch if you're not a fluent/native speaker, so get a friend in Japan to do it for you. You can only reserve for the following month, so do it on the first day of the previous month. This means that you'll probably have to plan your trip around the reservation you're able to get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you have a master of a trade in your family, you will know the weight of the title master, and the respect that comes with the excellence in detail. You will also know by example that a master is a person of search and tinkering not unlike a child, while knowing the depth of the trade from both experience and learning from others. Jiro is lucky that he can continue his trade at age 85. We are lucky to observe a real master we can look up to.

</comment><comment><USER15> Coincidentally, I watched "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" this evening, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see it on the front page of HN. I was absolutely fascinated by Jiro, and I couldn't stop thinking about how his advice is applicable to honing you software development skills. Jiro never stops trying to improve in all facets of his craft, including the seemingly minor details.

I agree with the Roger Ebert quote that it's clear he sacrificed much of his family life to obtain this mastery. Jiro even admits that he wasn't a good father. However, if you love what you do, as he does, then I can't fault him for it. We'd be so fortunate to have that kind of passion.

<comment><USER16> Jiro Dreams of Sushi was probably on the front page for more than couple of times. Here's one just 2 days earlier: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4462539>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "75 years rule" is the new "10,000 hours rule".

<comment><USER17> If life extension pans out, imagine how awesome it would be if experts easily could spend 75 years perfecting their craft without dedicating their entire lives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I agree with the OP, but the most important part of Jiro's philosophy is his believe that one must choose a craft and dedicate one's life to perfecting it.

If this is the mindset that you take towards your work, you will naturally seek out the best in your field and learn what they do best to incorporate it into your own approach.

<comment><USER19> Is there such a thing as craft in programming? Our industry changes so fast that it's difficult to imagine anyone becoming a master craftsman.

<comment><USER5> Yes. At least, a lot of people claim there is: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_craftsmanship>

I'm not particularly a fan of the "software craftsman" moniker/movement but I think there can be craft to it. Technologies come and go but programming language paradigms, core algorithms, and fundamental ways of working with code _tend_ to remain similar across the decades.</comment></comment></comment>