How to encrypt files on Google Drive - <AUTHOR> http://www.syncdocs.com/2013/07/google-drive-encryption/

<comment><USER2> Interesting tool, but using tools like HTTPS everywhere, Syncdocs to encipher Google, or Truecrypt or EncFS for local volumes might just attract attention from the NSA.

It is better not to stand out from the crowd and be targeted.

[http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/from-encryption- to-d...](http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/from-encryption-to-darknets- as-governments-snoop-activists-fight-back/)

<comment><USER3> Totally disagree. Protect your privacy. There is strength in numbers.

<comment><USER2> I hear what you guys are saying. But perhaps by targeting those who use encryption, the NSA is trying to intimidate us into not using it and make their lives easier?

<comment><USER4> How would they intimidate you? Send you an e-mail? Call? Show up at the door? If they would do the latter, would you have to let them in?

Small disclaimer: I'm not an American (which is why I'm even more pissed off at this whole situation than I'd be if I were an American -- I've lost complete respect for the US government over this) so obviously the NSA has no interest in showing up at my door. And if they would, I seriously doubt that I'd be doing anything wrong by slamming the thing shut in their faces.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Music-Sharing Network for the Unconnected - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/a-music-sharing-network-for-the-unconnected.html <comment><USER2> Wonder if these replaced the bootleg DVD vendors.</comment>


EU Copyright (ACTA2) directive passes – 348 votes to 274 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/MehreenKhn/status/1110509604176384000 <comment> phoe-krk Already discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19490869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19490869)

</comment><comment><USER2> I would really like to see now all of the major companies block Europe. Youtube, twitter, facebook, google. Just a total immediate blackout. I'm an European with self defeating tendencies.

<comment><USER3> Let them block the European market for a few hours or days and nothing will happen, except that they lose advertisement revenue. Let them block for months, and European competitors will emerge.

But why on Earth would they do that? And why should they?

<comment><USER2> I think if you blocked Facebook, you'd have million people in Brussels tommorow making democracy very personal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This makes me feel much better about the Brexit situation in the UK. A hard Brexit with no deal is now the best option.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if the British internet is any better... [https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/13/17349910/uk-newsstands- po...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/13/17349910/uk-newsstands-porn-pass- age-verification-digital-economy-act-2017)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 26 March 2019, the Day the Internet Died.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope you aren't right ...

<comment><USER6> So do I.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Suing 10year old kinds singing songs on Youtube in 3, 2, 1...

</comment><comment><USER8> Hope Brexit comes quickly</comment>


Slack down? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> How can a billion dollar startup not get their status page right? It says "Smooth Sailing", when obviously nothing is sailing over here.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, most billion dollar startups update their status pages post-hoc -- specially if the incidents last <15 mins.

[https://status.slack.com/2018-01/d8cf1517de9ecfa8](https://status.slack.com/2018-01/d8cf1517de9ecfa8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yep, worldwide it looks

[http://downdetector.com/status/slack](http://downdetector.com/status/slack)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How do you guys handle it? We just use hangout, but it is horrible for a team of 20, I can imagine a nightmare for bigger teams.

</comment><comment><USER5> Worth opening a thread ?

</comment><comment><USER6> It certainly seems to be

</comment><comment><USER7> Yeah down for us

</comment><comment><USER8> Very.

</comment><comment><USER9> slack down.

</comment><comment><USER10> slack down</comment>


How much time should be given to a start up to succeed? - <AUTHOR>

If after 2 years your site does grow just a little, but stays around 1,000 daily users, would you call it quits? <comment><USER2> Easy - as long as you can stomach. Longer if you or people you trust still think there's any way at all to succeed.

With stagnation - don't call it quits, find out what your users want and give it to them. Completely redesign your product if you need to.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) What do you (and anyone else involved with the site) want out of life? (could be enough money to camp on a beach in Thailand or your own private jet, bringing satisfaction to people, starting a media empire, having money taken care of so you have time for family and friends, etc)

2) Does this site provide that for you?

3) If it provides some but not all of your needs/wants, could you continue running it on the side while you start a new project?

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen It varies from case to case, but you should keep doing it as long as it's the best option. Though it's hard to gauge, if the expected outcome is better than what you'd get for starting a new startup or working a desk job, then you should keep going at it.

1000 users is pretty good, in my opinion. They could help you morph your startup into something better. But don't give up on the startup, just change it around a little.

</comment><comment><USER4> There's no reason that you can't keep your site going, and start another one. Monetize the site a bit, so it pays for it's own hosting, and give it another go. I say fail early, fail often.

If you're spending all your time nursing a site that just isn't gaining traction, there are other ideas that you could be pursuing that could gain traction and make you more money.

</comment><comment><USER5> wouldn't call it quits but would do a serious review of your goals, product, and current user acquisition methods. It sounds like you are looking for more growth and more users (duh). After 2 years you have a solid baseline to draw conclusions from and now need to review usage stats - talk to users (pick up the phone)- find out what they love and what they don't love. Make a plan for updates - relaunch- and set a time line for this second stage - if your at the same spot in terms of users then that is a good signal for moving on.

</comment><comment><USER6> Depends on the growth trend, and the money it's bringing in, and the founders' needs.

</comment><comment><USER7> It varies.

From "why not to start a startup":

"If you start a startup that succeeds, it's going to consume at least three or four years. (If it fails, you'll be done a lot quicker.)"

I'd say that's accurate. If you're not going to make it you'll know within a year or two. But don't expect instant success.

</comment><comment><USER8> If the startup's original market assumptions haven't changed and it can stay in business then I'd say it's ok. Unfortunately startups often don't notice what's happening to their expected market until it's too late.

 _If after 2 years your site does grow just a little, but stays around 1,000 daily users, would you call it quits?_

What were you expecting 2 years ago? Are your expected users still out there for you or did they all go to Facebook in the meantime?

</comment><comment><USER9> Assuming that you are going after a big hill - I think you need to figure out the following things:

1\. Is it a big hill after all - your customers might want something else. If it is not a big hill then figure out what a big hill is and reorient-realign- refactor.

2\. If 1.is true then figure out that your value proposition solves that big problem or not. For this you can sit with a target customer and figure that out. If your value proposition is not good enough then figure out what could be a good value proposition.

3\. If you are convinced that it is a good value proposition then it is just a question of how you deliver it to the customer. And the most important thing is that you have to be convinced whether it is a good value proposition or not - and if you are then hang in there for as long as it takes and figure out a delivery method.

Having said that, I think the only time you need to call it quits is when you want to - and if you not want then there should be a way to make it fly, you just need to figure out how.

..just my two cents

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The thing that really amaze me is to see the site have no growth but still it seems a some people return, how is this possible? You have a site that manages to have users visit again and also get some users from search engines, but at the end of the day you still have the same total of users as the day before? it is not logical! (It is a site about cars).

</comment><comment><USER10> Investors look for milestones being reached. Perhaps you should make yourself some milestones, and begin doing what you have to do to reach them. Give yourself a time table, and if you fail to reach those milestones, and fail to see things you could change to reach those milestones, then your startup has failed and it's time to change direction (possibly including shutting this one down and doing something else).

One important thing to keep in mind: Don't repeat the same actions and expect different results. Two years is plenty of time to know that what you're doing isn't working.

Also...1,000 daily visitors is practically comatose for a site that isn't selling something. An ad-supported site needs hundreds of thousands or millions of visits per day to make you rich.

</comment><comment><USER11> 1,000 daily users isn't too shabby, not able to make an income off that?

</comment><comment><USER12> Are you working on this full-time or part-time? Either way a 1000 users a day in 2 years is not worth your time. You time is best spent on identifying an opportunity that has the potential to be huge.

It takes the same amount of effort to do something which is tiny than to do something big. Leave this behind, so something different and huge - you have valuable experience now. You have to decide is this worth the effort?

<comment><USER10> This reminds me of something a couple of old oil prospectors told me a few years back. It went something like this:

"You're going to bust your ass, no matter what. You might as well bust your ass for $10 million, instead of $10,000."

That's stuck with me. If you aren't working on a huge opportunity, then you're probably selling yourself too cheap. The thing I've been surprised to find is that no matter how small a market is, you'll have competitors and you'll be dividing up the spoils. You might as well work in a field that is huge, so that the percentage of the market you can capitalize on equals millions rather than thousands in revenues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Depends on how important it is to you.

If after 2 years, your kid still isn't walking, would you quit trying to teach him?

<comment><USER14> The Romans allowed abortion until a child started speaking. Before then, they weren't really considered human, I suppose.

<comment><USER10> That's not abortion, that's infanticide. But, still relevant, I suppose.

<comment><USER14> Semantics... but yes you're right. I think the perceptions that allow for abortion or infanticide are similar (though that might be something I'm "not allowed to say"). If it doesn't seem real to you, you can control and/or destroy it.

Zygotes killed by contraception are similar. Very few people consider a single-celled zygote a human.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Have you tried different avenues of reaching out to new users ? Have you tried to take and accommodate feedback from your users ? Have you tried different features ? If you think you've done your best and can't do anything more than it's time to quit. Is it worth putting in cruise control ?

</comment><comment><USER16> The real question is: how the heck are you not making money off of 1000 daily users? Don't tell me this is some social networking BS. If so, just quit now and get half a business plan before starting your next one!

<comment><USER10> 1,000 visitors daily to an ad-supported site is practically nothing. Maybe two or three bucks, tops. We get more than that to our documentation wiki site (which has no ads, and I wouldn't consider adding them because I believe it would cost us more in credibility to include them than it would make in revenue).

If the site is selling something, then 1000 a day can be a good start. A one man shop selling some sort of digital goods could do very well with that many visitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, it depends on how much individual work the site takes. If you can get it to go on auto-pilot then keep it around. You might consider finding ways to put it closer to auto-pilot and work on something else.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes. Doubly so if you're asking the question.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good question, what does everyone think?</comment>


NYPD's Twitter photo contest backfires with images of aggressive police force - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/22/5641266/nypd-twitter-photo-contest-backfires

<comment><USER2> Wow, even CNN Breaking News @cnnbrk: _NYPD, of all people, should know better than to leave a loaded hashtag out here_

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the fact that they even started this campaign without thinking that it could turn negative for them implies a great lack of empathy on the part of the NYPD management team.

I know cops get the empathy drilled out of them (lest they be reduced as effective enforcers of law) but I think at this point, if you're involved in this organization, you should be asking yourself just exactly what you can do to improve the people you serve. This is definitely not it.</comment>


How startups can slay giants - <AUTHOR> http://entrepreneur.venturebeat.com/2010/03/23/5-ways-startups-can-slay-giants/

<comment><USER2> Seems useful, but is this true?

"Face it, no sane person wants to buy software (or any other service, really) from a startup."

I've read plenty of stories that claim otherwise, but they were just stories. Seems like the world would be a pretty bad place for startups if it were so.

<comment><USER3> It's the typical early adopters/mainstream/laggards split (see Crossing the Chasm). Basically employees at BigCo get a smile and a pat on the back if a decision they make goes well, or they get punished, demoted, or fired if it goes badly. Since they're not writing the checks and have little upside, they're inclined to go with the boring, conservative choice.</comment></comment>


Engineering the Organization - <AUTHOR> http://www.atomicwang.org/motherfucker/Index/A8AAC709-C166-4069-BA93-DF22D46032A9.html

<comment><USER2> This article was quite confused and incoherent. What is he trying to say? What does he want people to do?

Seems like a personal, not very well structured rant without a point.</comment>


Why They Were Able To Raise Money - <AUTHOR> http://jasonlbaptiste.com/venture-capital/why-they-were-able-to-raise-money/ <comment><USER2> I have GOT to stop reading these sorts of articles.

 _They_ make it big because _they_ are networked with the sorts of people who have money to spend (either by being a former employee of an acquisition-happy company, or being pre-vetted by a group like YCombinator). Based on other articles of this type, _they_ also make money because they are young, they are pretty, they went to Stanford or MIT, they live in Silicone Valley, they had a good idea, they were able to pivot in just the right way, they have no other commitments -- no spouse, no kids, no mortgage -- or ties, etc...

Sure, _they_ "worked until they endangered their health".. but _they_ were also the lucky 0.0001% that had everything else line up so that hard work was all they needed.

Reading this sort of thing is a drag for those of us who do not have any of those advantages. Who try year after year to support a family and also find a business that can actually work out. (got another idea last week... looking to feel out some potential customers ... wish me luck!)

So, uh, yeah.... I should stop reading these kinds of articles

<comment><USER3> He isn't wrong though. That is a pretty good list of reasons why a large funding round may have happened. They aren't requirements, but they do all help.

The good news is that none of those things ensure a large funding round, and also that large funding rounds aren't needed for a startup to succeed. I don't think anyone would suggest that you shouldn't start a company if you can't check three of those boxes. But you probably shouldn't start a company that needs a $20m Series A just to have a shot.

<comment><USER4> Also depends on what you consider 'startup success'.

Many of the startups we hear about being acquired doesn't really mean they succeeded. Only means the founders/investors were able to make a quick buck from someone willing to buy it.

It must be quite a 'hollow' success to cash out selling an unproven business model to some bigco.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ya, but what I don't get is why an iPad app needs to raise $8 million or why Slide.com that just sold to Google for $180 million raised $87 million. I must be missing something? Does most of the funding go to marketing, engineering, what?

Will someone shed some light on this?

<comment><USER3> There are a number of factors.

1\. As PG points out, startups are sorta pass or fail. If you could raise $1m for 25% of your company, or $8m for 25% of your company (which, btw, is a realistic possibility when comparing angel vs VC investors) you would take the $8m because your business has much less chance of going broke. Clearly I'm simplifying here, as there are a lot of other relevant factors (who the investors are, terms, the needed valuation for an exit afterward, etc.) but you get the point.

2\. They probably have a lot of ambition. In the case of Flipboard, my guess is they're not thinking "we're just making an iPad app." They're probably setting out to change the way people interact with social media, and the iPad app is just the first step along a very long road.

3\. Peace of mind. As an entrepreneur I can tell you, there's something very nice about knowing you're not going to run out of funding for awhile. Everyone breathes easier, and it lets you take bigger gambles when not every product has to be a winner. If you're already wealthy from a previous startup, and you're shooting for a massive exit, your path will involve hiring a lot of people and possibly a large marketing budget. To not have to worry about money requires raising a lot. (This is one of the primary advantages, for first timers, to raising angel money. They don't need an IPO increase their net worth by a factor of 100.)

4\. It's what worked for them before. The companies that merged to become PayPal presumably raised a lot along the way. I know TellMe had one $47m round. When people raise a lot of VC money, then have an enormous exit, they're probably going to tend to do the same again. It's what they know, and they have empirical evidence that it can work.

5\. Because they can. That shouldn't be a reason, but it definitely is. A big VC round is the startup equivalent of a trophy wife.

<comment><USER6> Another reason could be this:

My understanding is that most PE/VC funds typically have a "2 and 20" compensation structure. 20% of profits, and 2% annual fee on _committed capital._

That incentivizes, regardless of performance outcome, committing as much capital as possible.

<comment><USER3> That combined with taking board seats (which is why it's better for a VC to put $20m into one company than $10m into 2) is why VCs want to fund big rounds, but founders don't have any such incentive to take them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its the wrong answer as to why digg was able to raise money. While Kevin's reputation may have led to growth (given that he was a cable tv host at a just purchased network that was going through multiple rounds of layoffs, I would find that suspect), the real reason was traction. Growth was crazy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. It was meant to be one of many reasons Digg raised money with "Intense Growth" being the main one. I feel the reputation was exactly what you said: what lead to growth /started the fire.

<comment><USER7> Actually upon further thought, you're sort of right, but you got the wrong person. Jay Adelson had already produced a big exit, and his reputation was probably key in raising money.

<comment><AUTHOR> To sum up Digg:

Jay brought: great track record with equinix and strong reputation amongst investor community.

Kevin brought: strong reputation in the tech community that lead to intense growth.

<comment><USER7> I somewhat disagree with the Kevin's "strong reputation" - he had an audience for sure, but I think his reputation wasn't wholly positive. He'd done startup type things before that went nowhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting that none of these criteria directly mention 'they built something useful'. Shoot for building a useful thing. If you pull it off, you'll be namedropped in blog posts like these for all the wrong reasons.

</comment><comment><USER3> I didn't really care for Flipboard very much. It's really nice looking, but it just makes the information I want much harder to get to.

<comment><USER9> I agree. It's fun to play with at first, but besides looking cool, it doesn't help with navigation at all. I would be interested to know if they are seeing a drop off in traffic yet. Besides, they'll likely get smacked down hard for scraping content. They did a great job getting press for launch (I wonder how much they paid Scoble?) but I can't see them returning that $10 million unless someone acquires them.

<comment><USER3> It's VERY hard for even a paid iPhone app to make enough money to justify a large enough sale for people who invested $8m into a company to give the go ahead. Maybe impossible. A free iPad app is orders of magnitude away from that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting to show a picture of Kevin Rose in this article without mentioning him beyond one paragraph. I re-read the article trying to find which "checkboxes" allowed Digg to raise so much money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I almost linked to that article. I always found that picture from 2006 was the poster child of: "holy crap this web stuff is so easy, and so is that fundraising stuff!"

<comment><USER10> Note to self: never let a press photographer put earphones on you, turn your hat backwards, and suggest you give double-thumbs-up. You'll never live it down.

<comment><USER11> I was in that article as well. There was a lot of lying all around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do you think that cultural or socioeconomic issues play a role at all?

</comment><comment><USER11> there are negative reasons, too. deals get overheated all the time. vcs patternmatched too hard. etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Another home run. I'm really taking a liking for Jason Baptiste's style.

Having said that, I'd be interested in more articles on how to gain traction. The last one ([http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/if-you-build- it-...](http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/if-you-build-it-they-wont- come/)) was incredible, and it definitely left me wanting more.

Thanks, Jason.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome josh :). I sincerely love writing this stuff (more than startups themselves sometimes). I was thinking of doing separate posts on PR, Marketing, etc. for startups. Some I know myself and that which I don't I'd heavily research further. Open to suggestions.

<comment><USER13> That sounds great. Maybe focus on the topics you're more knowledgeable in and then expand upon concepts you're not 100% familiar with? I would certainly love a series on Marketing & PR. Specially for startups at pre-launch stage.</comment></comment></comment>


Slack Taps Goldman Sachs to Lead IPO - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-slack-ipo-exclusive-idUSKBN1O62FR <comment><USER2> Fun fact, Goldman built a Slack-like chat service in house that they've spun off into a company called Symphony. It's pitch is that it's more compliance- friendly for heavily regulated orgs like banks. Also, it sucks.

<comment><USER3> The funny thing about the whole compliance thing is, a lot of traders were using AOL Instant Messenger before it shut down, to the point where I believe Bloomberg Terminal even integrated AIM. Some traders ended up moving to Discord, which is nearly as strange.

<comment><USER4> I think if Discord ditched some of the gamer aesthetic (or had a pseudo- internationalizion setting to replace the meme-y loading screens strings with a reminder to turn in my TPS report by Friday) they'd get a lot more use in corporate environments

<comment><USER5> That's not their market though, and they seem to be quite fine with that. Their latest feature: buy games through the Discord client[0]. They know who they want using their product.

[0] [https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en- us/articles/36001265609...](https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en- us/articles/360012656092-The-Discord-Store-and-Nitro-Games)

<comment><USER6> It's kind of silly though that it's not their market. It would cost them very little to create a brand for Discord-Enterprise that uses the see technology but markets at companies.

<comment><USER3> I really think they're doing the right thing. It is unfortunate given how universally useful it is as an application, but way too many services and companies try too hard to be all things to all people. Discord has had a single direction and a strong vision, and it's really hard to have that if you just want to be the world's best chat app. (Telegram feels like it tried to do that and well, it really hasn't gone as well as it feels like it could've.)

Splitting it in two is of course possible, but that comes with its own set of caveats in my opinion. Enterprise users have quite a different set of priorities from gamers...

Either way, I've worked at companies that don't know what they want to be, and it frankly sucks for many reasons. Good for Discord to know what they want to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What does Slack need to raise capital for? They have their niche and are doing great in it, I don't get why they'd want to be publicly owned with all the headaches that brings. I don't get why a lot of companies do it when they could just as well bootstrap and stay private.

<comment><USER8> I don't know anything about their shareholder distribution at this point, so this is all conjecture.

Since they took capital, the funds associated with their prior fundraising rounds ($1.2B total) likely have 10 year horizons. Investors are looking to recoup their investment during that window. Having the company stay private means that they either need to raise a new round to buy out their old investors, or they need to return sufficient profit over a short window (just a few years) that their investors are happy with the dividend.

Not to mention, there are tons of advantages in having access to the public markets. It's definitely a headache and work, but it's not without its benefits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Slack is competing against the likes of Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Teams, Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google Hangouts Chat and Cisco Systems Inc's (CSCO.O) Webex Teams in the so-called workplace collaboration market

How is Webex competing with Slack? Slack is for chat-based collaboration with people in your workplace. Webex is for scheduling video calls.

Is there some overlapping use-case of either one that I'm missing?

<comment><USER10> Webex Teams includes what used to be called Cisco Spark. Spark is a Slack clone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worry this will lead to a further reduction in privacy for average users, as Slack is pushed toward "enterprise" features which are basically just giving your boss the ability to read all your private messages.

That said, I think it's naive and foolish to have an expectation of privacy on your work slack. Should you have privacy? Yes, absolutely. Do I expect it? No, not at all.

<comment><USER12> Why should an employer not be able to read messages that employees send to one another for the purpose of doing their job?

<comment><USER11> Perfectly fair question.

I view it much like having a conversation in the hallway or by the watercooler. It would be creepy and weird, and unexpected, to have microphones and cameras all over the office so the boss can record your conversations and eavesdrop whenever they like.

It also _screams_ micro-management if the boss needs to drop in, even if you are just using it "for the purpose of doing [your] job."

I tend to feel that if you trust your employees so little, then you should just fire them. Conversely if my employer trusted me so little, I should probably quit.

Where I would probably make an exception would be if one of the employees filed an HR complaint or something, then I think looking at the existing record would be fine. But, it should be limited in scope to that incident.

<comment><USER13> I personally do not think it is a right of an employee to have privacy when having a discussion with another employee, over a work medium, about a work related matter.

Just because using the ability to read private messages screams micro- management, it doesn't mean that it's not occasionally necessary to discover instances of harassment or abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe after he becomes a billionaire, Stewart can finally retire and actually release a game.

<comment><USER15> I'm hoping he'll do it the other way around next time. He should try to create a useful service and then discover that there was a great game inside it all along.

<comment><USER16> He's playing the long game, just you wait.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Feels like this might be one of those IPOs that end up being fishing expeditions for a higher acquisition price, like happened with Qualtrics last month (bought out by SAP week before the IPO).

<comment><USER18> I doubt it. The founders the company saw Flickr starve to death after its acquisition. Surely they don't want the same to happen to Slack.

Side thought: I wonder if Flickr could have become what Instagram is today if not for the acquisition!

<comment><USER19> Chat apps (even "enterprise" chat apps) are commodities. Here today, gone tomorrow. The same is going to happen to Slack inevitably; an acquisition (or, really, any financial exit) at least get something for the founders.

<comment><USER20> There are high switching costs.

Once everyone in your 1000+ company is using it, its hard to get them all to switch to another chat product. You got saved conversations, workflows, integrations, etc.

<comment><USER21> There is no switching costs involved. I am in one of the big corporation who's gone through 5 different chat clients. It could decide overnight that one of them must die and it wouldn't matter.

It's one of the lowest switching costs. A few weeks lost to redo the integrations that really matter. That's about it.

Zero benefit in the end, they're all a basic chat with some fanciness of top. It's just time wasted for all the users who hates change and have to learn a new tool for no benefit.

<comment><USER22> Do you think Slack or Github has higher switching costs?

<comment><USER21> Slack for sure. All the employees are going to be pissed off for months and lose a lot of productivity while they learn the new UI.

Git only impacts developers, a smaller user base, who can figure out how to use a new website.

That being said. They are both easy switch. Just need to update the URL to the new tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Slack feels so lacking compared to Facebook's Workplace.

<comment><USER24> Except for the fact that very few large companies are willing to give Facebook their data. That is any kind of data besides their social ad campaigns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've heard a lot of people talking about MS Teams. Is it as easy to use as Slack?

<comment><USER26> My team at my job is pushing Teams over Slack (which the rest of my dept uses). As someone who has to use both, I find Slack to be wayyyy more useful.

Teams treats each message as if it is a "post" that is meant to be "commented" on and is extremely oriented around thread-based communication. Each "top- level" message gets borders and huge margins and padding in the UI. As a result, you can see fewer messages on the screen at a time. By contrast, Slack _has_ the feature of threads, but defaults to being focused on the general flow of conversation, with more messages on the screen at a time.

Some people probably like the thread-based communication model Teams uses. I do not count myself among them.

<comment><USER27> I guess Yammer became in some form Teams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Google should buy them.

<comment><USER29> Or Microsoft. With that, GitHub, and VSCode, Microsoft will have effectively subsumed the entire average developer workflow again.

<comment><USER30> Teams is actually not bad at all (sans linux/skype annoyance), but yeah.

<comment><USER31> Teams is super slow. Searching for past messages takes forever. Keyboard shortcuts are awkward... the list could go on. I cant say it compares well to Slack.

<comment><USER28> Nobody has email or chat search right, not google nor slack.

<comment><USER32> I find Google's email search to be pretty fantastic, to be honest. It's never failed me, even when I had to search years and gigabytes of emails.

<comment><USER31> Only if you know exactly what you are looking for... sometimes going thru years of emails can be super painful.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Experiment in Homelessness - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/homelessness <comment><USER2> I found this profoundly depressing.

I'm also surprised by the number of crimes the author admits to committing.</comment>


Plex Cloud discontinued - <AUTHOR> https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-cloud-to-be-discontinued-nov-30-2018/306986 <comment><USER2> Well, that's sad news, but not unexpected with all the things going on.</comment>


Opera Neon concept browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.opera.com/computer/neon <comment><USER2> This made me realize how little innovation there is in the browser space today. Opera used to innovate extensively before the sale, and it looks like at least they're trying to keep doing it. I'm also hopeful for Vivaldi. Chrome and Firefox are completely stagnant, unfortunately.

<comment><USER3> Ahh, the paradox of being the market leader.

Remember when Chrome tried to innovate with how we use bookmarks? [1]

People cry out for innovation, but then freak out when said innovation happens. This is why disrupters are so successful - they can do something crazy and people will try it out and think - this is amazing. Because the mindset/psychology is that this is something new. But the market leader implements exactly the same thing and people won't give it a chance because it's a change and they can't handle change.

But I actually disagree that they are stagnant. They may be hesitant to change the UI, but there is a lot happening under the hood to make them more secure, faster, standards compliant, stable etc.

[1] [http://www.omgchrome.com/new-bookmark-manager-chrome- disable...](http://www.omgchrome.com/new-bookmark-manager-chrome-disabled-how- to-get-it-back/)

Edit - Adding an example of recent Firefox innovation being rejected [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/hello- status](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/hello-status)

<comment><USER4> Why does it have to be constantly changing? What some see as stagnant, others see as completeness

Honestly I don't want new features on Chrome or Firefox. They are fine how they are -- though I wish Mozilla would take out the value-added services they just had to add. Release security updates and that's it

<comment><USER5> With that attitude we would never see any progress with software though.

<comment><USER4> How much "progress" is really necessary?

<comment><USER6> asked the first human in a cave..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am generally pretty hesitant to change browsers, but I actually really like the feel of this. It's super clean and the keyboard shortcuts are the same as what I'm used to so it seems like it should be an easy switch. Definitely something worth looking at. I'll probably try this out over the next few weeks.

My only gripe so far is that when I click command+w, I want it to default to closing the window when I am on the blank search page (i.e. where the browser goes by default when you open up a new window), but it only seems to close the window if you have a page loaded.

EDIT: This isn't a big deal. You can close the window in that case with command+shift+w, but the behavior feels inconsistent to me (that the window closes with just command+w when a page is loaded, but otherwise you need shift).

<comment><USER8> One thing that bites me occasionally with the current browsers is when I'm closing a lot of tabs with cmd-w but go too far and accidentally close the last one and loose the window. Windows close with cmd shift w so this behavior makes sense to me.

I like your attention to those shortcuts though I think we have similar standards:)

<comment><USER9> Command shift T will bring back a window that has been closed (at least of Mac, I'm sure there's some macro on Windows).

<comment><USER10> It's CTRL-SHIFT-T on Windows but same idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK, I'm giving it a roll. First impression: very positive. It's notably great on touch screens. The "tabs" and buttons are nice and big - no more accidentally closing a tab I meant to open by fat-fingering it. It brings back a bit of the UX goodness that was IE11 on Windows 8 (before you snark, IE11, despite its terrible engine, had a fantastic fullscreen mode in Windows 8 with fantastic UX for touch, which got removed in Windows 10).

It doesn't seem to support extensions so I can't replace my normal Opera with it - that's a shame, I would've.

The fluffy floaty icon bubble is a great start screen. Remove all the advertised nonsense sites and pin your favourites there (it was easy to discover how) and somehow I find finding stuff easier than it was in Opera classic's Speed Dial page. On first impression, at least.

The chrome does take a fair amount of screen real estate though. Not sure I'd need the address bar to be so big and present.

<comment><USER12> The full-screen IE11 experience on early-generation Surface models was fantastic. Yes, IE11 had a meager JavaScript engine and several rendering quirks, but it was exceptionally quick at plain HTML, CSS, SVG. It used GPU acceleration for rendering earlier than other browsers; animation and scrolling were silky smooth. And that tablet-oriented UI was top notch.

It's a shame it was removed in Edge on the desktop/tablet. I would figure Edge could provide it as an option and maybe even optionally enable it when Windows 10 is switched to its "tablet mode." Maybe some day.

Incidentally, the same touch UI still exists in Edge on Windows 10 Mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Split screen mode is such a good idea and I wonder why other browsers haven't implemented that yet. Would make devices like Chromebooks a lot more productive to me.

<comment><USER14> window management is the operating system's job, not the browser's. you can do split screen in any browser by putting two windows beside each other.

<comment><USER15> That's true but there are counter examples:

For instance, I'm very thankful that my text editor and terminal allow me to split panes within their window rather than through multiple instances handled by the OS. I seem to prefer having panes/tabs vs window instances when alt- tabbing. Especially if I have two browsers splitting my viewport and a couple full sized browsers. This makes it very annoying to alt-tab only between the two half screened browser windows. On OS X anyway.

I actually tried using OS X's full split screen, but that creates a new virtual desktop. And even with reduced motion (which helps a lot avoiding headaches when working on multiple windows), it's still too slow/animated for me to switch between my virtual desktop with split screen browsers and other virtual desktops with editors/terminals etc.

Finally, what's nice about split panes vs window instances is resizing. Resizing one pane resizes the others. Whereas resizing one window does not resize the others (at least not on OS X's default floating windows. But even something like Spectacle. Someone knows of a tiled window manager that resizes all windows when resizing one btw ? Looking for something like dwm for os x)

<comment><USER16> Isn't that an argument for better window management, not redoing it in a slightly different way in every single application?

Of course, putting better window management in the OS would require the OS to offer hooks for 'new tab' etc, and then all the applications would have to be changed to use that facility instead of their own, which isn't particularly likely to happen any time soon.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, sounds what he really needs is i3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really like the concept, and I want to use it in full-screen mode (to make it feel more like a first-level OS experience even if it isn't), but sadly once you open a website in full-screen, the rest of the browser chrome goes away. Of course there are times when I'd want it that way, but there should probably be a separate option for full-screen _with_ the browser chrome.

I know this is basically just an early prototype, so I can't really be critical. If anything, it's just such an effective and impressive prototype that I already want to adopt it for daily use :)

<comment><USER19> So this is my problem too but somehow I've managed to do it.

I've went into the Mission Control state and dragged the Neon app into a new screen. It was a pleasant full-screen experience with only the app full-screen and not an individual tab, which is what I expect from the full-screen mode.

Problem is when I tried it again, it didn't work. Not sure what's wrong but this is a newly released software so I'm sure they'll fix it.

Apart from that, it's really amazing. I especially LOVED the media control features.

edit: Got it now. Go into the full-screen mode when there no active tabs. Works perfectly after that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For anyone hoping for a Presto revival it's Chrome under the hood:

        Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_12_2)
        AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko)
        Chrome/53.0.2785.21 Safari/537.36 MMS/1.0.2459.0

<comment><USER21> Opera moved to webkit in 2012 (2013?) and then to Blink soon after googles announcement.

<comment><USER22> does this mean they are using webkit, chrome and mozilla under the hood for rendering pages? All 3?

What is the benefit? If a page is designed for Chrome then Opera could render it as intended and not how Webkit might render it, which could be wrong?

<comment><USER23> No, it means that they're using Blink.

User agents are confusing things now. Everyone says they're Mozilla, and have done since pretty much the dawn of the web (Netscape, IE, everyone). WebKit claims to be Gecko. Etc.

Why? Because many websites used to look at your user agent and serve you a different version of the page to try and give you the best experience. So new browsers, or improved browsers, started pretending to be other browsers so that they could get these versions of the pages and not the one for their release from three years ago.

Eventually you ended up with a mess because everyone claims to be everyone else.

Which is why friends don't let friends sniff for user agents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In a hilarious twist, when trying to download Opera Neon for Windows with Opera for Windows, the download is blocked:

[http://i.imgur.com/5kIyxzw.png](http://i.imgur.com/5kIyxzw.png)

<comment><USER25> Isn't that your local antivirus? I know that's how that works in chrome.

<comment><USER24> That's from Opera. See [http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1781/en/private.html](http://help.opera.com/opera/Windows/1781/en/private.html)

"If you are browsing on an encrypted connection ([https://](https://)), Opera checks to ensure that all parts of the site are encrypted. If Opera detects that any live elements of the page, for example scripts, plugins, or frames, are being served by an open connection ([http://](http://)), it will block the insecure content. This means parts of the page may not display properly.

Opera advises against allowing insecure content to load into an encrypted connection. The best way to protect your sensitive information is to interact only with secure content. When Opera detects insecure content and blocks it, a warning will appear in the right side of the combined address and search bar.

If you do not care about the security of your connection with the site, you can click the warning to show an Unblock button. This button will allow the blocked content to be loaded onto the page, and the security badge will change to show an open padlock, reminding you that you've allowed insecure content to display on an encrypted connection."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Opera 12: [http://i.imgur.com/ItevlTB.png](http://i.imgur.com/ItevlTB.png)

Just saying...

</comment><comment><USER27> I switched from Chrome to Opera a couple of weeks ago and I don't see myself switching back. Little details make the difference: Better ram and battery consumption ( for now ), better tab management, integrated ad blocker and turbo mode when I'm using my phone as a hotspot ( living in a country with awful internet, it's really useful for basic browsing ). And as it's chromium inside, it's compatible with Chrome extensions.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting bubbly new browser! Just the blog post says: "Some new features you won't have seen in a browser before: (...) A vertical, visual tab bar on the right side of the browser window that makes it easier to distinguish between tabs." Really? I use it everyday in Vivaldi Browser :)

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi And it was in "their" own Opera 12 as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> So should one be concerned about private data ex-filtration since Opera is now owned by a Chinese consortium [0]? This is a major reason why I gravitate towards Vivaldi inspite of being an Opera power user back in it's heyday.

[0] [http://tech.eu/brief/group-chinese-firms-acquire-opera- softw...](http://tech.eu/brief/group-chinese-firms-acquire-opera- software-1-2-billion/)

<comment><USER30> Probably in the same way you should be if you're keeping your files on Dropbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was beginning to like Opera (again) right before it got acquired by a Chinese company. But then I saw how they ruined the Opera Max [1] app, and so I expect the same to happen to the Opera browser in the near future.

[1] [http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/31/opera-max-turns- nagw...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/10/31/opera-max-turns-nagware-now- prompts-users-re-enable-every-12-hours/)

If you want to experiment with a new browser that also uses Chromium and has native ad-blocking, try Brave:

[https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

<comment><USER32> I don't understand why everyone hates add so much, I understand that excessive adverts are bad, ads are the reason that the Internet is what it is now, if we hadn't had ads to monetize content, then everything would cost money + be inside paywalls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a really neat concept that seems to be inspired by some of the mobile browsers out there. Flynx, Flyperlink and Link Bubble all use the (facebook- chathead-style) bubbles that sit over other apps and the UI. They are very convenient on mobile and allow you to do other things, while pages are loading. In my opinion, this browser consumes too much screen space with the browser windows being smaller windows inside the Neon container. I would prefer if they ditched the outermost container window and let the bubbles handle the hiding/moving of the browser, like the mobile browsers I mentioned above. Maybe there is a bubble that lives in the top right that sucks up and hides all browser bubbles and interface elements, then invokes them all when the user wants to show the browser again. I welcome any experimentation and innovation in the browser space. I do really like the idea of easily-tiling browser windows. In the future, I would love to be able to adjust the size and padding of the bubbles to allow more viewing space in the browser windows.

The original Opera had cascading, individual windows within the browser, before switching to tabs. They have sort of come full circle.

I currently use opera as my primary browser, but I really miss the tab spaces that Firefox had. I feel like the bubble concept provides a great opportunity for pinned bubble groups that contain groups of websites that I use together. I could have a meta bubble for sites that I use specifically for work, or for my favorite news sites.

</comment><comment><USER34> I thought it was interesting that they specify the Desktop Wallpaper is free.

I wondered if anyone had ever paid for desktop wallpaper: apparently people do [http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=desktop+wallpaper&LH_Com...](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=desktop+wallpaper&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc)

I wonder if I could write a script to sell royalty free wallpaper on ebay, if all the sellers have the rights to the images they are selling, and what kind of person pays for wallpaper.

<comment><USER35> > what kind of person pays for wallpaper.

Non-technical users. I think that technical users often forget how lucky we are that we can make the assumption that often good, and sometimes even the best, tools are free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> No source, no deal (let alone no Linux support). With projects like Vivaldi and now this, are we really heading back to the dark ages of non-portable closed source browsers?

</comment><comment><USER37> Before leaping to vehement criticism (as I almost did), recall that Opera's market includes televisions and video games. A physics engine for browser chrome and a name-recognizable designer actually make some sense here.

Still missing the old Opera though - I use neither televisions nor game consoles.

\-- [http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/devices/giving-g...](http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/devices/giving- gamers-two-windows-to-the-web-the-opera-browser-for-nintendo-dsa)

<comment><USER38> Opera's embedded browsers still use Presto. I wonder if this is an attempt to replace that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I like how this feels, but sadly without 1Password and AdBlock I can't consider using it for now.

It looks like it's running pretty much on the same tech as normal opera and chrome. Here's to hope that extensions are coming soon!

/edit: looks like extensions is still available in the menu, it just doesn't resolve to anything.

</comment><comment><USER40> Why for Mac? It seems to be available for Windows too, at least?

<comment><USER41> When on the download page for Mac it doesn't mention Windows download anywhere. I assume OP doesn't realise it's available for Windows, I didn't realise at first either.

</comment></comment><comment> V-2 Very basic (no extensions and thusly no adblocker, no LastPass, no mouse gestures etc.), but it's a concept version, I get it. Certainly worth considering as a light-weight browser number 2 for me. I like it as a fresh take at browser UX design that's been more or less settled for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is what Microsoft Edge should be doing (innovating) and not just trying to cram in Microsoft services like OneNote. Honestly Edge is still such an awful browser and it is the default browser in Windows 10 which has been out for 18+ months now. Shocking.

<comment><USER42> I wouldn't call it horrible, but starting from their promised solution (IE without all the crap; lightweight + innovative) not much is delivered. The browser feels buggy and slow and I do not see much innovation.

<comment><USER43> SVG brakes badly in Edge , I check all the time , they'll run fine in Chrome and Firefox but not Edge !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I see a lot of C++ books in the background :)

</comment><comment><USER45> So many of these new features seem like really they should be window manager features. I am a user of tabs but I occasionally think they also should really be a feature of the window manager and not the browser.

</comment><comment><USER46> If you want to download it while using another OS you can actually use their download link and just edit the last part of the URL string with the destination OS name.[1]

I've actually tried from windows using the 'mac' parameter and it actually downloads .dmg extension, I don't think there's a linux version at the moment.

[1]: [http://www.opera.com/computer/thanks?ni=stable_neon&os=mac](http://www.opera.com/computer/thanks?ni=stable_neon&os=mac)

<comment><USER47> Yes I read their blog about it they do not release linux version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well this is kinda cool. I wouldn't use it (in its current state anyway), but it's cool. It seems like they're trying to turn a browser in to a type of desktop, kinda like Chrome OS I guess. My first impressions though are the left sidebar is incredibly unresponsive, and both the left and right sidebar need to be able to be hidden so the browser window isn't so small.

</comment><comment><USER49> A closed source browser owned by the Chinese? No chance.

<comment><USER50> Completely agree even if it's downvoted

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I use Opera as my main browser right now because I want a webkit browser without google using it to spy on me. Glad to see they're still innovating

<comment><USER52> Does Opera collect data on users?

Also, what about Brave?

<comment><USER51> Maybe Opera collects data on users, I don't know. Probably. Maybe I'm naive but I trust them more than Google.

I'd forgotten all about brave since the launch, must try it out.

Both brave and opera have built in ad blockers. I admire the effort but in practice the opera one is not as good as ublock. Ublock blocks ads but also blocks trash like taboola, which is not technically advertising, but is far more insidious.

And ublock is available for opera, not sure about brave. Must try it today

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It reminded me of LinkBubble, and android application to open links in a background webview, see the loading progress and have them accessible as a floating bubble while doing something else.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.linkbubble...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.linkbubble.playstore&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER54> The in-browser split is good. The tab -> home too. The presentation is sub par to me, wasteful and cut for no reason.

Good ideas, pretty sure all browsers could copy that quickly but still, good ideas from Opera.

</comment><comment><USER55> Mods, can we get the title changed? It's for Windows too (and maybe Linux, I can't verify that).

I downloaded it. It's... interesting. It may be a few days before I have a real opinion of it, though.

</comment><comment><USER56> Tried it out, app stopped responding within two minutes of use. Had to force quit. I think I'll wait for it to mature a bit before trying again.

</comment><comment><USER57> They should bring this to tablets! Tabs on the side would be a natural fit -- your fingers naturally rest near the side of the touchscreen.

<comment><USER11> Or just get a Windows tablet / 2-in-1 :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I just want a browser that I can use without taking my fingers away from the home row, but I guess I'm in the minority of users.

<comment><USER52> This Firefox add-on helps with one such issue, navigating tabs:

* Single Key Tab Switch

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-key- ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-key-tab-switch/)

I configured mine to use Vim navigation keys (h for left, l for right). As long as the focus isn't in an input field, it works great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I like the screen-cap utility. All the rest seems useless, knowing that people already litter their desktops with a million icons.

<comment><USER60> But why duplicate the screen-cap utility already available on your OS (which works exactly the same way)? Do I not get it?

<comment><USER61> It does save the original URL with the screenshot, which I guess is convenient. I prefer Firefox's version which lets you snap individual elements precisely, but it's hard to use. ("Inspect element", then right-click the node and "screenshot node".) They do have an experimental first-party extension called Page Shot that makes this easier to use, and adds full-text search to boot! [https://testpilot.firefox.com/](https://testpilot.firefox.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I don't understand vertical tab bars at all. Why not give an option to change it to horizontal?

Also, seems quite resource heavy.

<comment><USER63> The line length of readable text is quite limited, yet our monitors are wider than they are high. Since websites still contain a lot of text they profit more from getting the full screen height than from getting the full screen width. Hence vertical tab bars.

I'm not a fan of the giant pictures they use as representations of tabs when my tab bar fits ~40 tabs in one screen height. But I guess that heavily depends on user preference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Snap-to-gallery is an awesome feature addition for casual users, and I'd use it but-for having a Snagit license.

</comment><comment><USER65> This doesn't make sense until the browser and the OS shell are combined into one thing.

</comment><comment><USER66> They didn't use the Macbook pro with the touchpad in the video :P

</comment><comment><USER67> Try clicking on the lock icon in the address bar, very neat!

<comment><USER41> That's default Chromium behaviour :)

<comment><USER67> I don't have site specific permissions showing in the other chromium based browsers I use, like this:

[http://imgur.com/a/ApCfK](http://imgur.com/a/ApCfK)

That's new to me

<comment><USER68> That's been in chrome for a quite a long time now I believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Very nice ideas on this!! I love it!

</comment><comment><USER70> Neon is fast compared to Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER71> Funny how they are using Mac in their demo video, while the browser only supports Windows.

<comment><USER72> The browser supports both platforms, just shows you a OS-specific site based on what you're on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> That logo is BRUTAL.

</comment><comment><USER74> The caption to [https://www.xkcd.com/934/](https://www.xkcd.com/934/) is finally coming true.

</comment><comment><USER75> Wow. You can open websites with icons. And you can take screenshots.

Pretty amazing.

(There might be more to Neon, of course, but if there is, the video is horrible in showing it off).

<comment><USER76> Why start with snarky sarcasm if you admit there might be more to it than the video? There's also a bunch of copy on the page if you scroll past the video.

* The tabs are represented by little screenshots; nice for navigating. Yet to determine how this scales with MANY tabs (I see, it scrolls vertically... hrm)

* The split screen is pretty cool; many times I need to work between two tabs and alternating between them in Chrome is generally a pain

* Videos can be played outside of the tab; cool if you want to continue browsing while having a video visible (think tutorial while visiting documentation pages)

* All the dev tools are seemingly available – sweet

* The page URL and title are big and nicely visible

* It looks awesome for touch. I don't have a touch laptop though :(

* Screenshots ... meh. I use OSXs built-in tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> On Windows, the page title is "Opera Neon concept browser for Windows".

Maybe rename to [for Mac and Windows]?

<comment><USER77> Or maybe take out the operating system

<comment><USER78> If you look at the page with $OS it looks like there is only a version for $OS available. I can see how that might lead to headlines like this. I also initially assumed it was a mac-only app.

<comment><USER79> In Chrome on Linux it reads "Opera Neon concept browser for Windows"

<comment><USER80> ... with no mention of Mac. So the point is still valid.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Benchmarking Nginx with Go - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/hgfischer/7965620 <comment><USER2> For nginx http proxying try enabling backend keepalives.

In the upstream block add:

          keepalive 60;

In the server (or location) block add:

            proxy_http_version 1.1;
            proxy_set_header Connection "";

</comment><comment><USER3> Overhead is not negligble because you are only printing hello world, the only I/O here is writing to repsonse socket. When you do other I/O, where the requests depend other sources, the overhead will be neglible because your http requests will be actually waiting for some other I/O to happen, which is the case of almost every program. Plus, you will have nice features with Nginx, where you don't have them in plain Go.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm wondering how this works for real world situations in which the HTTP server must slowly trickle responses back to the client. In the past I've seen major speed ups by using a store and forward proxy.

Since this server always prints hello world it would stand to reason that Ngnix should be caching the result.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi, I'm the author of this post.

The initial purpose of this test is to compare the different ways of connecting Nginx to Go.

It doesn't makes sense to test against a heavy task in Go instead of this single static string. Nginx in front of Go will not perform better under this circumstances. It will only perform better if static content is being served directly by Nginx or if caching is enabled, which is not the purpose of this test.

Following what some folks suggested, I also made some recent changes, like swapping ab for wrk and tuning nginx to disable gzip and enable keep-alive connections.

The results are very different now.

</comment><comment><USER6> I also did some benchmarks previosly, for the nginx alternative that I wrote in Go, boxcars: [http://github.com/azer/boxcars](http://github.com/azer/boxcars)

comparison of nginx and boxcars: [https://gist.github.com/azer/5955772](https://gist.github.com/azer/5955772)

</comment><comment><USER7> ab needs to die. Yesterday, if possible.

<comment><USER8> what's your favorite alternative?

<comment><USER9> Wrk [1] is my preference. Time-limited tests. Average and standard deviation on latency. And now with Lua scripting.

If you must use an ApacheBench-style tool, at least use the multi-threaded clone named WeigHTTP [2].

With high-performance servers, ApacheBench is a limiting factor.

[1] [https://github.com/wg/wrk](https://github.com/wg/wrk)

[2] [https://github.com/lighttpd/weighttp](https://github.com/lighttpd/weighttp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I will take the advice provided the day I deploy a Go app that prints a single static string to the stream. In other words, absolutely never.

This is the core problem with such benchmarks - that 'overhead' quickly becomes proportionally irrelevant when you're actually doing something worth doing. But with Nginx in front, suddenly you have so much flexibility without reinventing the wheel, including load balancing, mixing server technologies with ease, not dealing with static junk in your go code, proxy caching (recently used this to really good effect with a Go service, putting zero caching in the Go code and instead using standard http expiration headers to allow Nginx to do the magic), anti-DOS, streaming compression, security, SPDY, and on and on.

As fair disclosure, I have written on this before - [http://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2013/08/07/ten-reasons- you-...](http://dennisforbes.ca/index.php/2013/08/07/ten-reasons-you-should- still-use-nginx/)

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure how big the issue is, but I would add the ability to run your Go app as an restricted user.

Using Nginx or another webserver in front of your app means that you won't have to deal with privilege seperation yourself. Just run the Go binary in a chroot as an restricted user and let Nginx deal with the binding on port 80/443.

<comment><USER12> If all you want is binding to port 80/443, then it's simpler to use iptable port forwarding than Nginx.</comment></comment></comment>


One Kind of Diversity Colleges Avoid - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-kind-of-diversity-colleges-avoid-1459464676 <comment><USER2> I've never heard of a single institution specifying the kind of the diversity that they want. Just "diversity". What about intellectual diversity? Why doesn't Harvard accept people from a diverse range of SAT scores? It makes me wonder if these institutions actually accept the ideology they claim to embrace, or if they just use buzzwords and do the bare minimum so they're not labeled bigots.

<comment><USER3> >Why doesn't Harvard accept people from a diverse range of SAT scores

They do

[http://features.thecrimson.com/2015/freshman- survey/makeup-n...](http://features.thecrimson.com/2015/freshman- survey/makeup-narrative/)

"Respondents who identify as Asian, but not including South Asian, reported higher overall SAT scores on average, with an overall best score of 2300 out of a possible 2400. The average best overall SAT score reported by white respondents was 2218; 2174 for respondents who are Hispanic or Latino; and 2149 for respondents who are black or African American."

<comment><USER2> A range of 2149-2300 doesn't quite strike me as diverse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To save you a click: the kind of diversity in question is "political or ideological diversity" with a focus on conservative politics and ideologies.

<comment><USER5> Conservative ideology is focused around defining _progress_ (a term somewhat at odds with conservatism itself) as a return to a previous state of affairs (that may have never existed in the first place). That our civilizations apotheosis is somewhere in the past, not the future. This does not seem a compatible _perspective_ with the idea of the university, which was handed down to us from the ideas of Socrates: to probe the universe, to find the answers to misunderstood and perplexing phenomena; to search for the truth. To a conservative ideologue, the truth lies behind us. To the rest of humanity, the truth lies beyond us.

That's not to say that history doesn't have an important role to play for the forward-thinking. On the contrary. We'd like to get the record straight or as close to right as possible. This often flies in the face of the imagined past conservative thinking seems transfixed upon.

<comment><USER6> This strikes me as a vast generalization. I think that the author of the article is also including people who have conservative economic views (he calls out libertarians as a marginalized group, who are socially liberal and economically conservative). Surely there's nothing about economic conservatism that flies against progress or probing the universe.

While I am not conservative, I believe there is a lot that can be learned from those with a conservative viewpoint.

<comment><USER5> Libertarians are in a special category. They are the ultimate utopians in the sense that they believe, perhaps in the complete absence of understanding of the role of the state in the creation of markets, that a market is purely a point of exchange between two or more individuals. There has never been such thing in history. Not in the sense that we understand civilization (for better or worse) as it is today.

<comment><USER7> Libertarianism and Conservatism doesn't make sense, as you said. Discourse of these ideologies should be banned from university grounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects; In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings." [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/)

</comment><comment><USER9> paywall

<comment><USER10> Use the "web" button above

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The advocates of diversity in higher education claim that learning requires > the robust exchange of ideas, which is enhanced when students and faculty > have the greatest possible variety of backgrounds. They argue that exposure > to people from different backgrounds breaks down unfair stereotypes and > promotes understanding of those who come from different circumstances than > oneself.

Huh. I thought that the advocates of diversity in higher education were saying that it is fundamentally wrong to have an applicant pool and a worker pool that is biased on some aspect that has no known scientific reason to be intrinsically biased in that way, no plausible hypothesis for why it would be intrinsically biased in that way, and plenty of known reasons to be extrinsically biased. You could say it's fundamentally wrong because it's morally unjust, or you could say it's fundamentally wrong because it's losing you out on a large fraction of qualified candidates, but either way it's not because of second-order effects like these people bringing new viewpoints and ways of thinking.

I would imagine, for instance, that if a hypothetical Harvard noticed that most of its current and prospective faculty were Boston Brahmin, it would primarily look to diversify its candidate pool because there are tons of other good candidates that they must be overlooking. There's probably also a secondary effect of diversity of thought, and there probably _is_ a bit of explanation as to why it's easier for well-established, well-connected families in Boston to produce Harvard professors, and a tiny bit of that might even be genetic intelligence. But it seems implausible that a well-functioning recruitment process would primarily attract this crowd, and the conclusion would be that the process is poorly functioning, not merely that it is poorly accomplishing some secondary benefit of diversity.

If you accept this reasoning, then it's pretty clear why Prof. Hasnas' experience -- as the "executive director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics, whose tripartite mission is to produce high- quality research on matters related to the ethics of market activity, improve ethics pedagogy, and educate the broader, non-academic community about ethical issues related to the functioning of markets" \-- involves a lot of discrimination on political viewpoint, and there is no contradiction or hypocrisy in wanting discrimination on political viewpoint for a job in such an institute but not wanting discrimination on genetics. Candidates applying for such a job probably have an extensive _academic history_ of expressing opinions on markets and ethics, and whether they are libertarian in those forums is absolutely relevant to the recruitment process. (Their political opinions they yell on Facebook is of course a different thing and much more off-limits, but I don't believe that's what the professor or his committees were referring to.) A well-functioning recruitment process for such an institute _should_ be biased on what those candidates have written on these topics and what viewpoints they've argued in favor of.

</comment><comment><USER12> Once I opened the link, I found that the kind of diversity he was talking about was political (although I couldn't read it since it was behind a paywall). As an academic, my first thought was, "bullshit. There are tons of conservatives in business schools." Imagine my surprise when the author is a professor in a business school: [http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Newindex.html](http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Newindex.html)

Imagine my further shock when I find out that he is associated with the Cato Institute: [http://www.cato.org/people/john- hasnas](http://www.cato.org/people/john-hasnas)

Of course the fact that it was on the wall street journal editorial page should have been my first clue about its subject matter.

<comment><USER13> _As an academic, my first thought was, "bullshit. There are tons of conservatives in business schools."_

Huh? That's it?

The only place for conservatives at a University is in its business school?

That clearly illustrates the point the article was making!

<comment><USER12> I don't think I wrote that the only place conservatives are found is in business schools.

My point was that arguing that there is a lack of diversity in political thought is just plain wrong.

The author does not want diversity at all. He is a conservative is wants more conservatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it's fair to discriminate (in the literal sense) based on factors people can affect or change, like political affiliation, but not based on factors that people can't change, like race. [1]

That said, if you're touting your commitment to diversity, you really should be seeking out, y'know, _diversity_. Including lots of different kinds of people is a multifaceted endeavor.

[1] I know it's not legal to discriminate based on religion, which is kind of similar to political affiliation, but I'm talking about my personal ethical framework, not the law.

<comment><USER15> Imagine if the keys to academic success were that you needed to believe that blue is the best color. There is nothing intrinsic about blue being the best color, and a good argument could be made that green is the best color. But, everyone who holds the keys to the kingdom of academic success think that blue is the best color, and won't let anyone in who thinks green is the best color.

Do you think that system is "fair"? Or a good one?

<comment><USER14> This is a false equivalency because no intelligent adult believes that any color is inherently superior, whereas many intelligent adults do believe that certain political beliefs are inherently superior.

<comment><USER15> Blue is obviously superior because of its wider variety of uses. Blue is a much more popular color for cars than green. Blues are much more rare in nature than greens, because blues are harder to recreate due to their superior qualities.

Perhaps these intelligence adults aren't that intelligent after all. If you think you are so smart think that you and 50% of other people have figured it all out, and the 50% of other people are just idiots, then maybe you aren't that intelligent after all.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to avoid getting sucked in too deep by Node.js? - <AUTHOR> Every time I start a new project the easiest way seems to be a node.js backend, and then by default of course I use Javascript on the frontend.<p>How do I avoid falling into this trap and never learning anything new? <comment><USER2> Pick a different type of project. If you keeping doing projects where node and js are the best solutions, it will feel unnatural to use something else.

Try embedded systems, or real time audio processing or something interesting like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried a bit of C, and recently I started playing around with Rust, so yes definitely want to do something like real time audio processing with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this a problem? If you are trying to launch a prototype or even a first version of a product and you want to be as productive as possible use what you know. I love Node.js (and React for front end) and don't see how I would benefit from switching to other frameworks I've used in the past. It's not like it's hard to learn something else, as long as you understand the fundamentals of server/web/client it's the same stuff done slightly differently.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, it just seems like there might be downsides to only working in one language. Even though the upsides of Node and React are great.

<comment><USER4> It's good to know other platforms and languages so you can adequately answer, for example, whether or not those upsides of Node and React are worth the downsides. If you have nothing to compare to then what do you base your opinions on?

But, that being said, there are downsides to trying to _work_ in more than one language/platform. The main one is that you only have so much brain capacity. You simply can't be an _expert_ in every platform out there all at the same time. So if you have a language/platform that you know really well and is suited to task you're doing then you really aren't doing it wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Get outside the JavaScript bubble ASAP. Learn some other languages, preferably ones that are statically typed, and/or at least have sane ecosystems with a robust standard library.

Do something as a hobby project that's way outside your normal groove. Play with some 3D graphics with OpenGl or DirectX or Vulkan, or try building a native app.

</comment><comment><USER6> This question can be applied to any familiar tools. Usually we're in a hurry to get something done, so we grab the tools in easy reach which we are most familiar with.

The counter to this (for me) is the "grass is always greener" desire for _the perfect tool_ for the job. Maybe it's a personality thing, but that causes some of us to be broad generalists instead of specialists.

Do you ever find Javascript or Node work tedious? Do you (like me) find screenfulls of NPM blah blah a turn-off? If so, I'll bet you can find some alternatives that promise great increases in one of the following: speed of getting things built, elegance of your code, ease of long-forgotten return and maintenance, mental strength building, etc. etc.

Try Clojurescript. You'll still have familiar reach to your JS stuff, but your brain will expand greatly. Or check out Elm. Or go "old school" and see what Elixir/Phoenix can do for you with Erlang OTP as your back-end. Different world, but one full of interesting cool "freebies".

Now, if you want $$$$, don't change a thing. JS will probably never die. If you aren't bored off your ass or annoyed until you want to scream every time you see ({ and }), then stay with what you know. You'll be a deep expert who can walk into the right situation and burn a trail to success (and income).

Remember, there are COBOL programmers out there earning HUGE contracting rates still. Someday future generations will say the same thing about Javascript programmers.

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it really a trap? What's the value of being different on the backend? Node.js is a rich ecosystem, and it's not like you're digging a career hole (at least not at this point in the lifecycle). Once you really settle in, that's when you can put your energy where it belongs: solving business problems, not learning a new set of tools.

I say all this not as a Node fanboy; I've spent most of my career in ColdFusion and Ruby. I get the same doubts when I start something in Ruby (which is certainly further along in the lifecycle than Node). I'll jump off into something new and sexy, get a little stuck in the learning, and realize I'm doing my customer/employer a disservice. I'll go back to Ruby, and find that I end up with a more elegant, well thought out solution based on my experience in that space.

For instance: I recently had a hairy problem that I was convinced a fancy microservice to manage concurrency etc would be necessary to solve. I then found out that using my existing application, and using the connection_pool gem already in Sidekiq, gave me a better solution in a fraction of the time than I was planning on building.

</comment><comment><USER8> Try TypeScript or ReasonML or ScalaJS. They all compile to JS and have dead- easy FFI so you can still use the ecosystem stuff you're used to, but you learn something new. In the case of ReasonML and Scala you get to use them later with different backend ecosystems too.

TS will give you a nice balance between learning new stuff (types) and sticking to what you know (most JS patterns are supported), whereas ReasonML and ScalaJS would be a bit more adventurous.

Also try playing with dotnet languages (F# maybe?) via EdgeJS: [https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge](https://github.com/tjanczuk/edge) (but I don't know if thats production-stable)

</comment><comment><USER9> Figure out what's more important, learning something new or building a project.

I think there's a point where you're experienced enough for it not to be a trap. Concepts, patterns, and structures repeat and once you've started to accumulate enough experience, learning a new language or framework is just implementing things you've seen elsewhere. Then it becomes a choice of productivity and what does the project benefit from most.

If you're not there in your career yet, focus on learning something new. I promise it'll be a level up one way or another. For your project, it might delay it a little, but it'll help your resume and round you out as a developer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Even after several years, I would not presume to know everything I can do with a platform. You learn something new every day. Also, a skill one language and frameworks can translate to experience in other languages and frameworks. The discipline I got from being a Delphi developer taught me how to handle UI messages, threads and IPC, which are the exact skills I used in order to write a native Java application for Android from scratch. So no, nothing is lost. Just be world-class in your chosen platform and you are an expert in many others automatically.

</comment><comment><USER11> If Javascript satisfies you as a developer, you have nothing to worry about. I'd look into Typescript because that's the future of the Javascript ecosystem, other than that, just enjoy the ride :)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's only a tool. Look at lumberjack, does he ask how to avoid using chainsaw ? He uses chainsaw when it's convenient for him and he feels it's a right tool for the job and he uses axe or other tools when he thinks that other tools are better. Learn about other tools and maybe one of them will be a better fit in future. If something works for you then it's great, don't just jump on bandwagon saying that node.js is evil, it's a tool. I use different tools and languages and I also use node.js where it fits.

</comment><comment><USER13> I always say pick the best language for the type of problem that you are trying to solve. If your problem is heavy IO, than I recommend NodeJS, as that's the forte. Instead if the problem is a CPU-bound issue, then NodeJS is not appropriate. Within the NodeJS ecosystem, you can use Typescript, as well as use webpack to have an optimized build. There is always something to learn.

</comment><comment><USER14> In your spare time [if you still have the energy and disposition] try to build small projects using other languages that are in demand on the job market such as Java, Scala, Kotlin, Go, Python etc. If anything at least you will gain a better perspective about what are the alternatives and what are be the strengths and limitations of Node.JS.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I want to thank everyone for a great response to my first post here. This is a really interesting community for sure!

</comment><comment><USER15> write your backend in Go. Minimal fuss, no ceremony, easy syntax, far fewer foot-guns than Node.

I'm not suggesting one language is superior, but Go is fun and interesting, in addition to being a hot market commodity (also I think it will overtake Node in the times to come, but that's a pretty silly claim)

</comment><comment><USER16> i think you're fine. if you're worried about not learning anything new, than i would suggest learning an entirely new stack. otherwise, i would suggest you try to create a product and see how easy that is. odds are, you will learn a lot from that.

</comment><comment><USER17> >How do I avoid wanting to learn a new framework and actually finish my project?

</comment><comment><USER18> The main trap to avoid is intermingling of the client code with the server code. This almost always leads to very tightly coupling of server/client code with all the pain that brings.

</comment><comment><USER19> Your entire backend doesn't need to be all Node

<comment><USER20> This is a good point. It's often easier to get started with a new language by writing small parts of an app in it, than by starting an entire project with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Learn Golang.</comment>


The growing size of firms may help to explain rising inequality - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21646266-growing-size-firms-may-help-explain-rising-inequality-bigger <comment><USER2> I think this makes a lot of simple sense.

Say you are a service company.

You have 20 employees, and one manager. The manager makes twice as much as the employees, because customarily managers make more than their subordinates.

In a small business, the manager is the owner, and his salary is twice as much as the average worker.

Now say you are a bigger business, and you have multiple outlets in the region. Your regional manager manages 20 outlet managers, the 20 managers each manage 20 employees. Your regional manager makes twice as much as the outlet managers because managers make more than their subordinates.

Now say you are a national business, and you have 20 regions each with 20 outlets per region. Your national manager manages 20 regional managers. Your national manager gets paid twice as much as the regional managers.

And say you're an international business, and you have a presence in 20 countries each with multiple regions with multiple outlets. You manage all of the national managers, and so you get paid twice as much as them.

The small business has a situation where the business owner makes twice as much as the employees.

The international business has a situation where the top of the management chain makes 32 times as much as the employees.

That's using a really simplified model, but the larger the business, the more layers of management will likely exist, and we have a system where management expects to get proportionally more money than those they manage. That's discounting any human or sociological factors that might contribute.

I think the biggest change that could correct this issue would be to do away with the idea that your boss makes more money that you is just a given.

<comment><USER3> With public companies it's more a case of what a remuneration committee - itself composed of multimillionaires - has to take all this into account when approving the salary package when their preferred candidate for CEO has requested an additional $X million

If the less preferred CEO candidate is marginally less efficient in maximising profit it costs the firm $XX million. A botched acquisition costs $XX-XXX million. Misguided strategic changes could cost $Xbillion over the next few years and be irreversible. If the markets disapprove of the less-preferred CEO candidate their appointment might even wipe $XX million off the share price overnight, before they've even had a chance to act.

How much the lower echelons of staff able only to affect the performance of their own department earn doesn't even enter the calculus, except perhaps to note that the new CEO can certainly justify $X million more if he's really good about identifying which areas those staff need to be cut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is one piece of received wisdom in this article which is particularly problematic: "But managing a multinational firm such as Walmart requires a different—and much rarer—set of skills than that required to run a corner store."

This is simply not true. Executive skill is very highly overrated. There is no "magic" these overpaid executives have that uniquely enables them to run large companies. This received wisdom probably comes from the efficient-market hypothesis, in the sense that if executives are paid so highly it must be that there skills are amazing and valuable. This need not be true. It may very well be due to a mix of cronyism, posturing, and self-promotion.

Let's end this nonsense of executives being the crème de la crème of intellectual superiority.

<comment><USER5> Oh please, everyone thinks they could do a better job until they actually end up on top.

90% of being a leader isn't necessarily having a specific skill or specific domain knowledge, it's about having the courage to make unpopular decisions, dealing with the fallout alone, and leading by example when the going gets tough.

<comment><USER6> >90% of being a leader isn't necessarily having a specific skill or specific domain knowledge

So you're saying there's a broad class of people who can do the job well rather than a tiny clique?

<comment><USER5> You didn't read the second half of that sentence, did you?

<comment><USER7> In many cases, the second half of the sentence never really happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well. If the average size of firms has gone up so has market concentration. Market concentration brings market power, market power brings arrangements that favor those who hold that power.

In general, markets with low concentration are defined by competition while markets with high concentration are defined by power. For measures of concentration see the HHI or the concentration ratios.

[0] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herfindahl_index) [1] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_ratio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_ratio)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've wondered if 401k plans and IRAs have held back small businesses because people could have spent the money to start their own businesses; it is horribly difficult to beat an S&P 500 index fund, but the popularity of those funds mean a lot of people are spraying money at them.

<comment><USER10> Do you think they've displaced a significant amount of savings?

(They've displaced things like pension programs, but those are even less flexible)

<comment><USER11> The hidden fees of 401k plans have been displaced to Wall St firms unbeknownst to most participants because they don't show up on statements, and because the balance that people see on their statements give an inflated sense of how much they have saved, even though they still need to pay taxes when they withdraw.

It also diverts money away from more conservative long term investments in tangible wealth like real estate and into the stock market, so people are less diversified and lose out when the markets go down. 401k's really only let you take long positions, while financial firms can take either side of the trade... you can reason out who the winner will be in that situation.

<comment><USER12> Those things aren't significantly different compared to pensions. In a pension your pension fund will be paying wall street fees. You have even less control to be able to do things like invest in real estate with a pension. At least in a 401k plan you can potentially invest in mutual funds that are proxies for real estate.

I have an IRA through my employer (which happens to be my own company, but that's irrelevant). I can bet against the market via ETFs if I want in my IRA. Your employer just chooses a plan for you with crap flexibility.

I think the biggest change has really been the social acceptance of massive consumer debt. I cringe so hard every time I hear someone say something like, "I paid down my credit card a bit so I could buy that new XBox." People didn't used to live that way and the removal of pensions had nothing to do with that. I would still put a lot of blame on Wall Street there, but not because of fees on retirement plans.

<comment><USER11> I agree with you... my statements were actually specifically about 401k's, and whether or not they contribute to capital misallocation. Almost all 401k plans are much more restrictive than IRA accounts. Personally I think that a self- directed IRA is a fantastic vehicle where you can buy actual real estate etc, but they are so far outside the norm that they almost don't exist when speaking in generalities.

I also agree about the social acceptance of consumer debt. They say you learn from your mistakes, and boy have I done a lot of learning. Resolving to get and stay out of debt is a life changing decision for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find it enormously ironic that when I went to this link it popped a modal with a Rolex ad.

</comment><comment><USER14> Someone from the top 5% is more likely to hold their a wealth in equities, then the Average Joe from of the 50%. The top percentiles may be paid more, but they are likely to make far more in the long term on their investments anyways.

In this sense inequality is unavoidable fact of life. Much the same as some people are gifted with genes making them more likely winners in a long distance running contest. Unequal but hardly unfair as long as a fulfilling life is possible regardless of such deficiencies. The problem should be phrased in terms of opportunities and social mobility, instead of inequality.

</comment><comment><USER15> I often wonder if the world would be a better or worse place if (somehow) companies were limited to something like 5,000 employees. Is there a threshold which allows diversity and efficiency but restricts dominance?

</comment><comment><USER11> Well duh... is it really a surprise that the consolidation of wealth and the consolidation of firms owned by the wealthy is correlated? Next you're going to try to tell me that this is correlated to their undue influence over the political system...

It is ironic that a publication owned by the Rothschild family is espousing these views.</comment>


Exercise Boosts Academic Performance, Especially for Girls in Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-exercise-boosts-academic-performance-especially-for-girls-102213

<comment><USER2> _moderate to vigorous intensity PA (MVPA)_

Aka, Sport. Has to be one of the most reducilous acronyms ever,</comment>


A computer scientist looks at ICBM security - <AUTHOR> http://www.crypto.com/blog/titans <comment><AUTHOR> I grew up in an area populated by Minutemen Missle silos. While in High School, the Airforce took several of us on a tour of one of the control centers. It was rather sobering to see the sites scattered around the farmland.

And there was a little recruitment for the Academy going on at the same time as well.

They are all decommissioned now, of course.

<comment><USER2> There are still 450 Minuteman III missiles deployed!

<comment><AUTHOR> Right--the sites I visited are older generations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Fascinating read, thanks For the share. Pretty sobering to realize how thin our survivability is today with the threat of nuclear destruction quieted but not forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article also contains a link to a detailed discussion of PALs - "Permissive Action Links" - that control arming and detonation, and guard against tampering. See: <http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/nsam-160/pal.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> I am perplexed why this kind of information is not classified.

<comment><USER6> re: "I am perplexed why this kind of information is not classified."

I speculate that it is mis-information: half-truths.

What is described is an incredibly involved maze launch procedures and potential elaborate security violations leading to launch. It looks like a big maze of "attack here!" signs. So, if you are assigned to work in one of those bunkers, but deep down you are actually kind of unhinged... the design encourages you to show your hand early by aiming for a false vulnerability, with lots of ways to catch you waiting in the background.

I would bet that there are trivial bypasses to all of the security, but that the nature (even existence) of those bypasses are a secret some guys are going to take to their graves. That is, I would bet the most trusted "missileers" could single-handedly launch one of those puppies by first disabling or agreeing with the other guy in the room then opening up an access panel and, more or less, crossing two wires. It would be less safe to build it any other way than "launch at will, though you might have to kill another guy first although he stands a 50/50 chance of killing you first". Why make a more complicated game of it than that? The only things to really guard against are take-overs of a silo (capturers should have no clue what wires to cross) and not-yet-fully-trusted missileers. Meanwhile, the failure modes of control and command have to fail gracefully and, in this case, that means putting the bombs fully under the control of a few trusted guys who are relied upon to exercise good judgment.

I'd bet those things could be launched in less than a minute, more or less by flipping a disguised switch. After all, that's what the Soviets did:

[http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_dea...](http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for that link, that was a very interesting read.</comment></comment></comment>


What's is wrong with BDD? Mock Abuse - <AUTHOR> http://bparanj.blogspot.com/2014/04/growing-test-suite-screencast-review.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Paying attention to design that you end up with is far more important than blindly doing BDD.</comment>