Ask HN: What are your favorite board games? - <AUTHOR> Can you recommend some great board games, along with a little about why it's great? <comment><USER2> Go. Not modern except as an application of ML. I like to play on the KGS Go Server which also has a bot library/interface. I might use that as an opportunity to try out Rust or some other low-ish level language. I started one in Go (the language) but since I already know it probably isn't worth the laugh.

What impresses me about learning to play Go is that even if I take break of a year and come back to it, I've improved because my ability to organize and think at a higher level has been developing elsewhere. Similarly, when I first started playing the game as I progressed through levels I could see changes in how I approach situations outside the game.

It's been really interesting following the advancements in game research where I could beat any of them to where the Monte Carlo ones got better, then of course AlphaGo and AlphaZero happened. I haven't plateau'ed so long that I lost interest but not near the dan levels yet so don't know if/when that will happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Forbidden Desert is one of my favorites for groups of mixed skills. It's a teamwork exercise hidden in a game; you don't necessarily have to know anything esoteric to win the game, but you do have to work together. It does a lot better job of preventing one player from dominating the game than its predecessor, Forbidden Island.

The randomness of the tiles/parts and also the player jobs keeps things fresh.

I personally like Dominion a lot, though it's a card game, not a board game. Deck-building games like that push all the right buttons in me: memorization, statistics, strategy-building, and sheer competitiveness.

For two players, I also really like Jaipur because it pushes a lot of the same buttons and is incredibly simple and a quick play. It's so much simpler and general than Dominion that I feel ok introducing it to people who haven't played card games before (that is, I feel much less like a fox in a chicken coop).

<comment><USER4> +1 for Forbidden Sky as well, which I think is the sequel to Forbidden Desert. I don't play many board games but had a fantastic time with it recently. It does a good job of making everybody feel included and engaged until the end, whereas most competitive games I feel like it can become clear within the first couple minutes who's going to run away with it.

<comment><USER5> I just don't like the Forbidden series, I'd try it at a friend's house before you buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hanabi is absolutely fantastic, with surprisingly deep gameplay given how simple the rules are.

Basic gist of it: each player has a hand of cards that they hold facing outward so that everyone else can see them. The goal is to work together to play as many cards as you can in each color, in order from 1 to 5. Each player takes turns either giving a limited quantity of hints (indicating all the cards in another player's hand of the same color or number), discarding a card to regain a hint, or attempting to play a card in their hand.

</comment><comment><USER7> As much as I'm a fan of meaty strategy games like Diplomacy and Game of Thrones, the best games are the ones you actually take out of the closet to play!

Usually I find myself playing in groups where some people are unfamiliar with a given game, so I also prefer games that are fun for new players. For me, those games are:

Pandemic Original or Legacy: one of the best cooperative games I've played. Fun for groups or just two players. My wife and I had the best time playing Legacy Season 1 over many months. There's something so magical about a game that changes AND self destructs as you play it.

Acquire: easy to learn and set up, with the right blend of luck and strategy so that players of mixed skill levels can enjoy together.

Carcassonne: same positives as above with slightly higher learning curve.

Puerto Rico: quite a bit more complex than the above, but relatively accessible and quite fun once you learn the strategy. Takes a game or two to really enjoy.

Blokus: a fantastic informal game for a lunch break. Easy to learn with deep strategy. Quick game best for 4 players.

Eight minute empires: fast paced and easy to learn civilization building game.

<comment><USER8> +1 for Carcassonne. Easy to learn and good balance between luck and skill. Good to bring while traveling.

<comment><USER5> +1 for Carcassonne, a great board game, they have an iOS app too that is well done, has been slow to match up with other players lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love playing The Resistance with friends. It's great because you're talking the entire time. It provides a good balance between logical problem solving and persuading people around to your (potentially nefarious) way of thinking.

New to my collection is Azul which has been growing on me because of how well made it is and how oddly competitive it gets despite the player interaction being actually quite limited.

<comment><USER10> The Resistance is awesome, but it's too easy to go postal after some games with some people.

<comment><USER11> I feel like that's true with _all_ social deduction games. One reason I don't tend to play a lot of them, even though some members of my gaming group love them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a bit of a niche recommendation, but Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 is a fantastic game. For those not familiar, Pandemic is a cooperative game where you work with other players to travel around the globe and stop a global pandemic.

The legacy variant adds new elements of the game which unlock and change the board, characters, and rules as you play. On my opinion, it's best best played with the same group of four people over the course of several months. (Each session takes a couple hours and there will be 12-24 depending on how the game progresses.) I can't speak to the quality of Season 2 as I haven't found a crew to play with yet.

</comment><comment><USER13> Star Realms is a 15-20 minute deck building game where you build from a shared pool of cards, the standard library. It has a lot of the appeal of games like Magic the Gathering but is much simpler to teach and is a 1-time purchase (though I hear that there are new expansions, which I haven't played.)

Monopoly is an old favorite, I've played it for years. The game is very engaging especially once you've memorized the board, the best properties, the costs, etc. because either you get to play with a massive information advantage or if the other players are equally familiar then you have a really interesting game.

<comment><USER14> As much as I loved it as a kid, monolopy has been a terrible game as an adult. 9 times out of 10 the "decision" to make when landing somewhere is "buy". There is almost zero strategy, heavily weighted on luck. And due to the nature of its mechanics the game quickly spirals out of control in favor of one player.

And to add insult to injury the game is decided long before it ends, and it's just a bunch of players watching the winner accumulate more while they inevitably go bankrupt.

Yes it has nostalgia, but it's not a good actual game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm an avid, avid player. Multiple times a week, helping run a local meetup, with a multiple-hundreds-games collection that has rapidly expanded to take over my whole living room. That said, there's seven games I've ranked a 10/10:

* Cosmic Encounter -- a zany, crazy game of negociation and dynamic alliances where you can work with your best friend on one turn and find yourself forced to attack him the next. Some of the most hilarious moments of my gaming career have been induced by this game.

* Sidereal Confluence -- a zany, crazy game of trading and engine building where the game is "just" building cubes according to equations on cards ("2 blue cubes and 1 green cube gives you 5 orange cubes") that can then be traded for other cubes with other players. Sounds dry and boring... but manages to turn even deep introverts into a mix of slick used car saleswoman and deep south auction runner.

* Deception: Murder in Honk Kong -- a simple game of social deduction, with 5-12 people trying to find who amongst them is guilty of a horrible murder. Simple mechanics, simple game, another one that turns even introverts into, in this case, strongly opinionated detectives.

* Yokohama -- a Japanese, thinky, planning game involving moving a president meeple on a randomly built map about trading resources in the city of Yokohama. Love the puzzle, the theme and the mechanics.

* Teotihuacan -- a recent release, also thinky planning game involving moving dice instead of meeples, on a less randomly built map about using resources to build the great pyramids of Teotihuacan. Not entirely dissimilar to Yokohama, that one also hits on theme, mechanics and puzzle to solve.

* Clash of Cultures -- the civ board game of connoisseurs. Sadly, requires a deeply out of print expansion to truly shine -- one of the rare civ games with a map, a tech tree, player conflict that can still be played in 2-3 hours and explained in 20 minutes.

* The Colonists -- a city building game that can last 10-12 hours even at just 2. If you've played that way back, its theme is akin Colonization (the game by the Civ team based on colonization of the Americas).

I'd also give honourable mentions to Hanabi, Power Grid, Android: Netrunner, Istanbul, Innovation, Chinatown, QE, Dune, The Mind and Trade on the Tigris.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cutthroat Caverns: looks like a cooperation game, at the beginning. But since there can be only a single winner, the goal is to start betraying at the right moment. And if it's too soon, everybody can loose

Explosive Kitten: fast-paced card playing games. A lot of randomness, but great fun

Evolution, the origin of species: just played it once, but I liked it a lot. Everything is about card combination

Unstable unicorns: another card game, the goal is to reach a stable of seven unicorns. Each round, one can add a new unicorn to one's stable, if one has a unicorn card. Of course, interventions by other players will make it hard to win the game

</comment><comment><USER17> A while ago I was on a quest on the perfect board game for me. One which involves very little luck and a lot of strategy. For that reason did I scrape all of them from a page which did rate them and made it possible to sort and filter by that properties.

It is publicly accessible here: [https://app.link.fish/#/collection/6B/list/entries/extended](https://app.link.fish/#/collection/6B/list/entries/extended)

<comment><USER17> Ah btw. will not work properly on a mobile device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One Night: Ultimate Werewolf is always popular with bigger crowds. It's streamlined version of Mafia game, with convenient phone app that acts as moderator.

One match lasts no more than 10 minutes, but no one ever wanted to stop after just one game. The game never gets old. There are different roles and variants to mix things up, but even with same setup the player strategies will evolve and develop.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hanabi - co op solitaire where you can't see your own cards. ~45 minutes, up to 5 players. It is a thinking game - how to give good hints to other players and how to interpret hints from others - did they give me this hint to play this card or do I need more info

Azul - relatively recent game. Tiling game where you take tiles from the center and place them on your own board.

Others that are good and can be played in under an hour: Splendor and if you like Splendor, try Century Spice Road.

7 Wonders

Fleet - bidding on fishing licenses, fishing for fish.

Magic Maze - up to 8 people - 4 meeples exploring a mall to find the items to steal and then escape the mall. The catch is that each player can move any meeple in only one direction, and you can't talk. It's a race against the clock and there are no turns - everyone can move any meeple at any time.

6nimmt - good filler game that can fit up to 10 player with a round taking about 15 minutes. Can be good while waiting for more people to show up.

No Thanks - 30 minutes up to 5 people.

More complex:

Settlers of Catan Russian Railroads - worker placement where you are building out a railroad and/or advancing on a science track

Power Grid - building powerplants and powering them - 3 hour game

Thurn and Taxis - map of Germany and you are building routes thru cities

Suburbia - taking tiles and building out a city

Yellow & Yangtze - only played once recently but liked it. Placing different leaders on the board and tiles and fighting other leaders.

See [https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame](https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame) for a list of boardgames. See their ranking but also see their complexity rating.

If you're looking to try new games, there may be some boardgame meetup groups(on Meetup.com etc) where people will bring different games and split up and play (and teach) those games.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not really a board game, but Once Upon a Time is really fun. You tell a fairy- tale-esque story with your friends using a deck of places, things, events, etc. If your friends are creative, it's a whole ball of laughs and you might even make some nice in-jokes to tell each other.

</comment><comment><USER21> Chess

<comment><USER22> A bit off topic, but here's a chess variant: piece demotion.

The rules are the same, except when any piece moves to one of that player's original pawn squares, and they have less than all of their pawns on the board, they have the option to "demote" that piece to a pawn.

<comment><USER23> I can't imagine when demoting a piece would be a good thing to do. Hmm except now king + 2 knights wins against king etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Secret Hitler! It's fun to play with a group consistently and watch the meta evolve over time. Also, yelling at people and telling everyone they are a fascist gives a special feeling.

<comment><USER25> A very close group of programming friends had years-long fun meta gaming and what not via a similar game, Avalon. It's a King Arthur re-skin of resistance.

Every year, at every Ruby on Ales, the same group of us organizers, speakers and friends would gather at a house and play Avalon for hours and hours after the conference. So many good memories and wonderful friends were made through that game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> good intro game - Smallworld - It's easy to pick up, the combat is so common you don't feel ganged up on and you go through boom and bust cycles consistently enough everyone feels like they're doing well at some point.

Intense game - Game of thrones board game, For those enthusiasts of the show/ and board games. Be prepared for a steep learning curve and be sure to 5 committed friends or family that are totally okay stabbing each other in the back for 4 hours.

<comment><USER7> If you have a dedicated group of players, like a group at work, one fun way to play Game of Thrones is to only do one round per day (usually about 30-60 minutes, perfect for a lunch break). It actually breaks the game up well, and builds the intensity. Up to you if negotiations are allowed away from the table!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Powergrid is my favorite free for all game at the moment. If you have enough people together then Scotland Yard is a great 1 vs many game to play as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> Race for the Galaxy. Wonderfully deep and strategic card game. Learning curve is quite steep but once your in you'll never get bored.

</comment><comment><USER29> Citadels: A game of repeatedly drafting different secret roles while trying to puzzle out what your opponents have taken. I don't know how to describe it in a way that makes it sound exciting, except to say that it can be very tense and interactive. The box says 2-7 players, but I don't recommend it with more than three.

Codenames: A fun word association party game. The play area is a grid of 25 words, and two teams compete to identify their team's words based on clues from their "spymaster". It's a good game for large groups, and has lead to many amusing stories we still talk about months later.

Bohnanza is a classic trading game. You're trying to plant beans, and to do that best, you want to play multiple copies of the same bean card in a row. The hitch is that you must play cards in order, and you can't rearrange your hand. You need to trade with other players to wind up with a workable hand.

Sol: Last Days of a Star: This game has some really cool mechanics. Honestly I think it's probably the most exciting euro of the decade. You launch "sundivers" to build infrastructure and exploit the resources of the sun. But your infrastructure can be used by all the other players, who share with you some of its benefits. Your mothership from which your sundivers are launched is constantly moving. You need to carefully time your actions so your sundivers don't waste time flying across the map, or sit idle in the hold. And the game's clock is controlled by players. The deeper you move into the sun, the faster you bring about its destruction, and the end of the game.

Brass (Lancashire) is another mid-heavyweight euro with a cool shared infrastructure mechanic. You're all industrialists in the English midlands circa 1800. Your build factories and mines. What's cool is that these industries do nothing until you can find a market for them, and that market is often generated by the other players. You can build a coal mine, for example, knowing that everybody is soon going to need lots of coal for their railroads, or corner the market in ports and profit when other players go to ship their cotton. But it's also possible to misjudge demand, or be to late to market, and find that your developments are completely worthless.

High Frontier is my favorite simulation-type game. It's about industrializing the solar system. You can build all kinds of rockets (chemical, electric, nuclear, solar heated steam, solar sails, mass drivers...) to fly factory components out to asteroids, moons, or planets, possibly stopping to refuel along the way, if your rocket is equipped for that. The rocket equation is modeled, along with different efficiencies for different kinds of thrusters. The map is innovative in how it presents the trade-offs between delta-v and time for various missions. It's also gorgeous:

[https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2585121/high-frontier- third-...](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/2585121/high-frontier-third- edition)

</comment><comment> a-saleh I have many, so in no particular order:

* KingDomino, simple, relaxing, can be played with 4 year old, as well as two tired parents in around 30 minutes. It is a simple game, resulting map of your kingdom can look nice and it has cute art on the tiles :) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/204583/kingdomino](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/204583/kingdomino)

* RailRoad Ink, everybody has a little whiteboard map and every turn somebody rolls some dice to see what kinds of railroad tracks will you need to scribble into the grid of your map. It is a nice puzzle, you score points for connecting pre-printed railroad exits on the edges on your map, but you only know four pieces of the railroad grid at the time. It is quick (after seven rolls of four dice, you are done), and if you are lucky, your map can look really nice in the end. Only drawback is, that everybody solves the puzzle on his own, and I do like boardgames where you interact a bit more :) Second drawback is, that the puzzle itself is too complicated for my 4 year-old :D [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/245654/railroad-ink-deep...](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/245654/railroad-ink-deep-blue-edition)

* Carcasonne, a classic. Another tile-laying game, where you slowly build up a map dotted with many walled cities (hence the name :) You can claim an unfinished city or road or a field with your meeple to claim points, but if it happens i.e. two unfinished cities belonging to two players are connected to form a single whole, the player that has more meeples in the city scores points. This creates a fun dynamic of complicated city take-overs (because you can't just invade, right, you build next-door and hope for a city- connecting tile) My wife managed to get the big box, with several expansions, and even though it is longer than other games we use to play, we play this fairly regularly. And the map at the end of the game can look really nice (I am starting to see a trend :P) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne)

* PatchWork - a slightly abstract puzzle, reminds me of tetris a bit, playable in 20 minutes for two players, but it still retains the "Don't you take that tile, I need it for my board!" that can be fun :)

* Hero Realms - a reasonably quick deck-building card-game. I use it to scratch my magic-the-gathering itch :) And when you get a good card-combo going it can be really satisfying :) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/198994/hero-realms](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/198994/hero-realms)

* Colt Express - a wild-west-train heist game. Weirdly we found it fun only when playing as two players or more than four :D With several players, the game devolves into comedy of errors, you everybody trying to get the best of their foiled plans. With two players, the experience is much more tactical, as you play as a team of two thieves on the train, giving you bigger chance to plan and anticipate the oponent. Feeling of actually executing your plan in this game is amazing :) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/158899/colt-express](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/158899/colt-express)

* Hive, probably the last game we actually get to the table at home, a interesting, chess-like game for two players. Unfortunately, the first player seems to have a big advantage? We still like it :-) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive)

* Ticket To Ride, that we no longer have at home, but if I ever make space for the big box, I might get it again :-) Connecting USA with rails is fun, hoping your oponents don't snatch the one route you need is exciting, and scoring points for your networked cities you were tasked to connect is rewarding. Only thing I don't like that much is the way you build the tracks by collecting cards of the same color, that can take too long. At least it is simple enough to play with casual board-gamers. [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride)

* SmallWorld, the game I enjoyed the most while still at high-school (even though we played Bang much more) It is really well balanced for all the numbers of players and the gimmic of trying to choose the most overpowered race available is fun :) [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world)

* PowerGrid, probably the heaviest economic game I have played. Trying to power half of germany with you electric company can be a mind bending puzzle, then you add a layer of trying to out-bid your opponents to get the _good_ power-plant, and moment later you realize you bid too high, you won't have resources to _run_ the power-plant and your opponent could get his plant really cheap :D [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid)

* SecretHitler, the game we played the most at the office at my previous team? Reasonably quick, rules are simple and hidden-role games are nice for large groups of players [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188834/secret-hitler](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/188834/secret-hitler) (runner-up would probably be Coup [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131357/coup](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131357/coup))

* GalaxyTrucker, the epitome of "Loosing is fun". You cobble together a space-ship and then you fly through various hazards and in the end your ship is barely standing, but hey, you survived :D If you liked FTL and don't mind randomness, it is a great game. Only drawback is, that if build too good of a ship, the game stops being fun. We tried to solve this with my cousin by limitting the time you have to build the ship even more and then we even hacked togegether a PVP phase where we destroy each other's ship with all those weapons you'd usually use to defend against pirates and asteroids :D And it does scratch my itch of "look at all these tiles laying besides each other, my monstrosity of a sip is beautiful" :D

Man, almost a 1000 words just listing some of my favourite boardgames. And I might keep going. I should probably start a blog :D

</comment><comment><USER30> I use to be taught this game with different kinds/colors of rice/porridge beans, by my mother's youngest sister, that year's later I came to find was actually my older sister.

It was similar to what later I came to discover was sold as Hasbro Mastermind[1]. Some border smuggling at the top of the cold war gave me access back then to this other game aswell, that I enjoyed playing with my sisters and we still sometimes remember it to this day: Supremacy[2]

1- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_(board_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastermind_\(board_game\))

2-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_(board_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_\(board_game\))

:How could I forget this one,that's is not exactly a board game, but is perfect in a spree of fun to get everyone's drunk with a shot of takju everytime someone looses, and you play with regular playing cards, as I always did, not necessarily buy the expensive branded one that I found years later(again?) to exist, But try to keep your clothes on.

3-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uno_(card_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uno_\(card_game\))</comment>


8aweek and RescueTime - <AUTHOR> http://leavingcorporate.com/2008/03/04/8aweek-and-rescuetime/

<comment><USER2> I commented on da blog, but I'll repost here for good measure:

Amen to that.

I'm always blown away about how many people focus on their competition-- in 3 person startup like RescueTime, any attention we give to our competition is taking away attention from our users. That doesn't mean we don't care about differentiation-- it just means that we have an army of excited users with GREAT ideas and that's what we need to focus on... Almost exclusively, for the time being.

I think you're spot on with your compare/contrast. RT is a "knowledge" tool with a bit of behavior modification/feedback thrown in. 8aW is a "behavior modification" tool with a bit of knowledge thrown in. We're both making people more productive-- we're just taking different paths.

I would add that one of big differences I see is that RescueTime focuses on online and offline activity. We're even playing around with the idea of data from phones and calendars. 8aWeek focuses on the browser, and honestly does a much better job at shaping browsing habits (and always will).

"A rising tide raises all ships"-- I think competition raises awareness and that's a good thing.

FWIW, I've never heard anyone say, "I'm leaving 8aWeek for RescueTime" or vice versa. I think they scratch fundamentally different itches.

<comment><USER3> That's it. I'm leaving rescue time to use 8aWeek.

Just kidding. I agree with you - conversely, a complete lack of competition is probably a bad sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like I had heard of RescueTime many years ago...could that be possible?

<comment><USER5> Only if we end up so successful that we're one day able to build a tool to go back in time. Er, I mean... yes. :)

In all seriousness, though - the original RescueTime coming soon page was put up a little less than a year ago. It did land on TechCrunch, which is where you might have seen it so long ago.</comment></comment>


The Aaron Swartz Prosecution & Plea Bargaining - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130117/02090421710/carmen-ortiz-releases-totally-bogus-statement-concerning-aaron-swartz-prosecution.shtml

<comment><AUTHOR> This quote was pretty powerful, for me:

"In this hypothetical scenario, those 10 years in prison would, practically speaking, have consisted of six months for his original crime (the sentence Ortiz actually thought he deserved) plus a nine-and-a-half-year prison term for exercising his constitutional right to a trial."

</comment><comment><USER2> Plea bargains are weird when used as a weapon to intimidate someone.

There's something vaguely similar with people (at least in the UK) wrongly convicted and sent to prison. To qualify for early release they have to atone for their crime, which means accepting guilt and feeling remorse. But you cannot feel guilt nor remorse for a crime which you did not commit, and so they don't get early release. "Say you did it; do the time; you'll be out soon enough."

See also Japanese police and courts - suspects are held for much longer than in the UK; they're bullied and intimidated; and once things go to trial there's a > 90% conviction rate.

Here's a 24 minute BBC radio documentary about forced confession in Japan:

([http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/...](http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20130103-0100a.mp3))

Sometimes they have multiple confessors to a single crime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Makes a very good point. And it is exactly the same reason why torture is illegal: a sufficiently scary threat will make anybody confess of anything.

The plea system is institutionalized torture.

<comment><USER4> As I've been finding myself thinking lately, US lawmakers and prosecutors need to re-read Beccaria's _Of Crimes And Punishments_. After its publication in 1764, the framers of the US Constitution were persuaded by its reasoning to amend the Constitution to include a prohibition on "excessive fines" and "cruel and unusual punishments".

Someone please explain to me how the threat of 50 years in federal prison and a million dollars in fines for downloading a bunch of academic papers can be considered to be anything other than "excessive" or "cruel and unusual".

<comment><USER5> I truly doubt that Aaron really thought that 50 or even 35 years was a realistic sentence to be honest. Mitnick was charged with wire fraud and illegal possession of computer files and 23 other charges and did 5 years and change. All other hackers that have been convicted by the US have done from months to 4 years, and most have even gotten the supervised release with no computer use null.

Also I really don't see the cruel and unusual here. It's the same procedure that everyone else gets. He should have taken this opportunity to help shape a movement for the change of CFAA and ITERA, enter the list of "elite hackers" that have been wronged by their country (for a great PR boost nonetheless), and bring to the spotlight his main cause of information liberation. He probably didn't take that route and opted for suicide because he was depressed or had some mental issue that was aggravated (but not caused by, I make the distinction) because of the pressure of his conviction and the existing (though very low) possibility that he might actually do hard time.

Don't get me wrong. I'm on Aaron's side, but all the fear mongering and hyperbole lately is unbecoming. We as a community are right now grasping at straws trying to make Carmen Ortiz as this horrible monster, when she was basically just a woman doing her job. She's not Charles Manson. Let's battle the CFAA and try to get things to change instead of focusing on a little woman who will most probably never suffer any repercussion for this, and seriously it's doubtful that she deserves any either.

<comment><USER4> > It's the same procedure that everyone else gets.

That was also true of torture, flogging, stocks, breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, the heretic's fork, knee splitters, the rack, thumbscrews, and the other various sadistic forms of punishment that every European civilization routinely used on its prisoners before they were condemned as barbaric and banned.

They were not regarded as "cruel and unusual" because they were uncommon, but because they went against contemporary ideas of fairness, civility and efficacy as legal tools.

I would argue that the threat of 35 or 50 years in a federal prison for a victimless act of civil disobedience is similarly "cruel and unusual" against today's ideas of fairness, civility and efficacy.

<comment><USER5> My point is that he was not going to serve 50 nor 35 years. There is a lot of precedent already regarding "cyber crimes", and in most of them the served time is but a fraction of the maximum penalty. This happens each and every day and is the reason that plea bargains, judges, and juries exist.

On another point, you mentioned a plethora of violent punishments, which the topic at hand isn't. First it wasn't a punishment _yet_ , second it wasn't violent, third it isn't unusual at all as it's the same process used for almost every criminal trial specially in an accusatory trial, and fourth cruelty is in the eye of the beholder. On this last point I'd like to make one distinction: cruelty is mostly referred to in two different contexts: 1) Physical pain: in which case there was none to speak of here, and 2) Disregard for the suffering of others (irregardless of physical pain): in which case she is both crueler than you and me because she prosecuted a bright young man with all means available to him to the point of having an influence in his death, and as cruel as both of us because we've all been in a position in which we have not cared about the suffering of another human being, either because you're (not directed to you, just trying to make a point here, don't take offense) not interested in middle eastern politics and international conflict, or because I didn't want to give my last dollar to that poor homeless man on the corner with arthritis.

<comment><USER4> > My point is that he was not going to serve 50 nor 35 years.

 _If_ he pleaded guilty, he was offered a high likelihood of serving only a short prison time.

I will set aside my contention that even a day of time in a federal prison is disproportionate for what amounts to a TOS violation, and instead focus on the fact that a short prison term would only come with a guilty plea.

The prosecutor used the threat of 35-50 years in prison to get Aaron to accept a guilty plea. If he chose to plead not guilty and attempt to defend himself, it would cost well over a million dollars in legal fees, and if he were found guilty anyway, the judge would be strongly predisposed to make an example of him by giving him a very long, punitive sentence.

A prosecutor forcing someone to admit guilt by threatening a life-destroying cruel and unusual punishment if they do not admit it - why, that is the very essence of using torture to extract a confession!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coincidentally, Aaron Swartz himself describes exactly his prosecutor's behavior:

<http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/semmelweis>

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a pretty good paper comparing United States plea bargaining to Germany.

[http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532&context=fss_papers)

<comment><USER8> It's been linked and discussed here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059044> Please keep in mind that the paper is about as old as I am (34 years) and some things have changed, most notably that germany now has a plea bargaining system, though it's quite a bit different from the american one. See [http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/07/german- bu...](http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2009/07/german-bundestag- passes-plea-bargaining-law.html) for an overview (linked from the discussion).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Has the plea bargaining system ever been challenged in court?

<comment><USER9> Yes. And it has held up.</comment></comment>


How to "Ask for the Order" - <AUTHOR> http://redeye.firstround.com/2008/05/how-to-ask-for.html <comment><USER2> Putting an NDA as a click-wrap? That seems really sleazy to me. Especially since nobody reads them and (IANAL) they are of dubious enforceability.

But it is interesting that the form something takes can change its perceived cost.

<comment><USER3> I'm more likely to accept a click-wrap than a physical document I have to sign, _because_ I believe click-wraps are of dubious enforceability. That's why the perceived cost is different for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their enforceability depends on how they are presented to the end user. On the extreme, if you are forced to scroll it, click a check box, click continue (with a cancel/no option as well), then it is almost certainly enforceable to the extent it would be if it were on physical paper (at least in the US).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's say you want to sell something to a business. You use your connections to get a meeting with someone who works in the company, but who isn't necessarily the person who would make the final decision. Here is the general list of questions you might want to ask after giving your pitch:

Do you like the concept? why or why not?

What are the obstacles that would prevent implementation?

What metrics would you use to judge the effectiveness of our product / service?

What does your decision cycle look like?

Who'd be involved in making the decision? In other words, who would we talk to if we came back, or what parts of the organization?

What would they be considering?

Do you foresee any difficulties? Do you have any other suggestions?

If the decision maker likes the concept and the sale is potentially feasible, how would they evaluate it? What metrics would they use? What would they charge end users? What profit targets would they need. How would they make their decision?

Can we talk in the future?

Unfortunately one of my startup advisors for a previous business idea gave me this list and I forgot to write down their name so I can't properly credit them. Really good stuff though.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's a good lesson. I'm converting my EULA's now: By reading this document, you [THE CUSTOMER] agree to give us your first born, and some cool stuff.

<comment><USER6> Be sure to make it non-editable.

Every editable EULA I've encountered has promised to buy me a pony!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mistitled post if there ever was one.

I was expecting some good sales advice (which we always can use).

Instead, we got a "gimmick" to facilitate a transaction.

The gimmick may work but the title is still misleading.

</comment><comment><USER8> The other thing I would like to add to this understand the _real reasons_ a client buys from you, it's usually different for different customers; and more importantly ask _why_ when a prospect says no.</comment>


Ultra High Security Password Generator - <AUTHOR> https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm

<comment><USER2> "Every time this page is displayed, our server generates a unique set of custom, high quality, cryptographic-strength password strings which are safe for you to use"

This is comedy gold.</comment>


A simple way for NASA to get massive news coverage in this mission. - <AUTHOR>

It could make a big deal of the (apparently minor) tile damage, send the rescue shuttle to take all astronauts except one who would land the damaged shuttle.<p>Doing this would likely get massive news coverage and get people interested in the space program again. <comment><USER2> and if it were to ever leak out that it were just an overblown PR mission that burned millions (billions?) of dollars in a recession, they'd get their proverbial asses kicked by the government.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't get people interested in the space program, it just makes them think they can't do their jobs competently. The space shuttle is a disaster of a project.

The reason people aren't interested in the stuff NASA is doing is because it's not interesting. The whole space shuttle and IIS are complete boondoggles that derailed the space program. People care about the Mars Rover or when actually experiments take place that discover something, but just doing your routine job isn't new anymore.

IMHO, NASA should no longer exist, perhaps a new organization could replace it (hopefully privately funded) that could be allowed to take risks and try new things without the massive bureaucratic overhead and political games.

<comment><USER3> Also, I say this a strong supporter of space research. I can't wait till we can travel to distant planets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> NASA in 1969 was run by engineers and put man on the moon. In 2009 it is run by bureaucrats and career managers and have lost two shuttles to date. Only three left and two more worn out than the Challenger was when it exploded.

We need a NASA 2.0 ! return of the technical brilliance and daring that started it all ... with VISION & PASSION !</comment>


Due to a (catastrophic) hardware crash, this site will be closed - <AUTHOR> http://acm.uva.es/ <comment><USER2> I've noticed in the past on Hacker News comment threads about Amazon AWS, or other cloud services, that a common theme is that "EC2 is expensive, just buy a dedicated server from OVH/Hetzner!"

This is why some use EC2: it is trivial to snapshot and backup block storage, it is cheap to store snapshots, and recovery from a catastrophic hardware crash will take minutes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate to be that guy, but this time I can't help it:

Anyone has any insights as to why something this mundane could make HN front page?

</comment><comment><USER4> what was that site about ?

<comment><USER5> Looks like the UVA online judge system, a practice website for ACM ICPC competition questions.

Sucks if they lost data, a lot of people are very proud of their account history on there. It says closed for "a few days" though, not forever.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Anyone with insight on what happened exactly?</comment>


An Efficiency Comparison of Text Editors Used in Academic Research - <AUTHOR> http://mjambon.github.io/vim-vs-emacs/

<comment><USER2> Note: This is satire. The author took a paper with the same title from PLOS ONE (which compared Word and LaTeX), then changed the abstract.[1]

1\. [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0115069)

<comment><USER3> That explains why I was so confused at "GNU Emacs is based on a principle called "What you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG)".</comment></comment>


Ask YC: crowdfiltering business case - <AUTHOR>

NewsYC, Digg, Reddit are top of the top crowdfiltering services, and I think that they get more visits because they are designed to bring change/news more often than a regular blog.
Also, the final result it's better news for the visitor.
Do you have more information about this pattern?
I'm building an engine to run sites like this, with the same features that reddit or digg has, and would like to put it in production soon, but need research about how benefits a community to put a site like this online. <comment><USER2> Think about allowing multiple existing communities to run their own local crowdfilter as an add on to an existing website. The single sites grow and end up with "lowest common denominator" issues. You don't mention slashdot, but they did a lot right early.

</comment><comment><USER3> Be sure to implement an oust_trolls method.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of our redesigned website? - <AUTHOR> http://agilezen.com/?r=hn

<comment><USER2> The screenshots on the front seem poor to me. They're very light and empty -- not exciting at all. Four seems like too many. I didn't even realize you could click them at first, maybe add a magnifying glass in the corner?

No obviously call to action on the front page. I didn't feel like there was an obvious next page to click on to.

Overall nice, but being honest: a bit generic/standard/derivative.

<comment><AUTHOR> Re: call-to-action, it's between the signup button and the video tour. I might try to make the video tour link stand out a bit more, though.

The product itself is (intentionally) sparse and understated. This leads to (we think) a great user experience, but doesn't result in very good screenshots. :) We also didn't really want to overwhelm the user with a complex display of features, because our value proposition is being simpler and easier to use than our competition.

Good points, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A suggestion on the video tour: Put the "start here" video on the tour page itself. In typical user fasion, by the time I got to the page I forgot why I was there, so it didn't even occur to me to look for a video until I went back and remembered I clicked video tour. Then I went back to the video tour page and wondered why there was no video on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm on the fence about the tour start page, with the four summaries (<http://agilezen.com/tour>). I might just ditch it and funnel users directly into the first step of the tour. The summaries don't add enough to risk bouncing people before they get to the videos.

<comment><USER3> Or even just show a typical video link with screenshot from video and play button in the middle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks good, but move your javascripts out of the head and place them last before </html> that way you can avoid the page stalling and being white before showing content, it's a bit laggy now and flashes white for half a sec or so. When firefox (and some other browsers too, I think) encounter javascript they stop rendering until they have parsed the javascript.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's funny, I knew that, and then somehow I still put it in the header. :) Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> When we originally launched our public-facing website for Zen in May, the product was still under heavy development, and we had very few screenshots. Now that the product has stabilized, we've redesigned our marketing site to try to showcase the product a little better.

Any feedback is most welcome!

</comment><comment><USER5> Good overall look. But IMHO 4 screenshots at the front-page do not provide enough detail. It took more than a minute to figure out that those 4 thumbnails are meant to be clicked.

I think I also liked the site design that was up ~1mo ago. Plus the product itself is also very nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I might try to funnel visitors towards the video tour more, since that's where the product is really showcased. The screenshots are just meant to grab your attention. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it looks good. The only thing that jumped out at me was how much vertical space you're giving up for the logo and banzai tree. This is pushing valuable information down below the fold. Also, on the home page you might consider pulling your signup button up above the fold.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I typically don't believe in the fold, but we are using up a lot of content area for the "splash" artifacts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looking good. It is nice and clean. However I would really like to see something to describe the four screenshots. Maybe underneath them a little black box that spans across the width of the 4 images that has a little arrow overlapping right on the bottom of each screenshot describing what it does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Captions would help. I might also see if there's a way I can direct users to the associated part of the video tour from the screenshots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That is a great design, very nice work.

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks awesome, really clean and simple.

</comment><comment><USER10> The free pricing plan seems too restrictive. If I'm going to evaluate it's usefulness for a team, I'll need to get buy-in from at least one other person and see how it works when several people are contributing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's tough to find a balance with freemium pricing. The restrictive free account is one of the reasons we introduced the 30-day money-back guarantee. It's actually baked into the software, so if you cancel your account (or downgrade to the free plan) in the first 30 days, it automatically refunds your money.

We have considered adding one collaborator to the free plan. We've taken the stance of starting with it very restrictive and then sizing it up if necessary, because it's much harder to go the other way and take things away from users. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know what it looked like before, but this looks good!

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks great. But the big green pricing/plans button was below the fold for me! Can you move it higher?</comment>


Instapaper's Arment: Seek Money From Customers, Not VCs - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/03/03/instapapers-arment-seek-money-from-customers-not-vcs/

<comment><USER2> While I don't disagree with his point, instapaper isn't a great example of this, as it started off free. It had a quite sizable following of devoted users before money changing hands ever came in to the picture. Had he charged money from day 1, the dynamics would have been different. Not saying it wouldn't have made money or been successful, but I don't think it would have been the exact same outcome.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if Tumblr would be where it is today if it took that approach.</comment>


Is it okay if I quit(as a Co-Founder)? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I have gotten myself into a complicated situation and would love to hear the public opinion.
So here is the problem:
I started a company with two partners but since I did not bring enough value to the company I was not included in the stock distribution in the opening of the company.
I was promised that I would get 10% (in options) of the company when the options plan opened.
Now we are a year in with over $1m in investments and 10+ employees and I have still not received my 10%.
I am underpaid and the reason they are refusing to raise my salary is because I "have" 10% of the company.
I keep bugging them to give me the options but that does not seem to be happening.
After a lot of thinking I think the right thing to do is to quit. If I do quit I will kill the moral of the company as well as get my investors mad at me and ruin future potential partnerships.
I am unhappy in the company and although I am a team leader I am disappointed in the CEO's poor management of the company.
What do you guys think I should do? Any answer will be appreciated! <comment><USER2> I'm sorry you're in that situation. Do you have that promise in writing? If so you are in a much stronger position and if it comes to that an attorney may help.

Regardless, I'd bring the stock and the concerns about the CEO to the board/investors if you think it will help but don't waiver in your convictions.

It sounds like they don't have their stuff together, are deliberately trying to screw you or both. In that case you don't owe them anything and you'd be doing yourself a favor by getting out now.

Their behavior is a big red flag. I've made the mistake of ignoring those in the past because I've wanted it so badly and had things drag out and cost me a whole lot of time and money.

<comment><USER3> Remember to talk with _your_ lawyer, not any lawyer and definitively not with the _company_ lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should I talk to the lawyer before I quit of after?

<comment><USER2> Talk to them right now before you do anything. Take all the paperwork you can get your hands on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the only concern the 10%? If so, I would stay.

If not, I would go.

</comment><comment><USER5> if you really started the company, you should be getting actual stock, not options.</comment>


Tumblr: Serving 1 billion pageviews per month - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/04/1-billion-pageviews.html

<comment><AUTHOR> He also quotes that there are only 57 websites in the world that have >1bn pageviews/month - anybody has the full list?</comment>


Microsoft is considering a free version of Windows 8.1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/177583-microsoft-is-considering-a-free-version-of-windows-8-1-to-increase-market-share

<comment><USER2> This would be interesting to see as long as the free version isn't hobbled to the point of being unusable. A majority of Microsoft's income comes from the corporate space, so I imagine they could make room for this in the consumer market.</comment>


6 Things I Learned From Not Drinking For 1 Year - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/af4d4987ce04

<comment><USER2> Nice post. While I abuse caffeine, I manage to limit alcohol to a drink or so every few months.

My completely unscientific take: I feel noticeably grouchier ever since I've started doing this, but the physical benefits have been pronounced in terms of better performance, recovery, and appearance.</comment>


Ask HN: Stupid question: Why not just order people to wear masks in public? - <AUTHOR> ... and give masks to people free of charge.
Wouldn't that prevent most infections and allow us to keep the economy going?
And wouldn't that be orders of magnitude cheaper than the > $1T being spent globally on bailouts, stimulus and QE (which, of course, still doesn't address the underlying pandemic problem). <comment><USER2> At the beginning of the crisis I was under the same impression and hoped for the government to provide masks here in Europe. Then, I learned some aspects I can't fully verify, but that changed my thinking about everyone using masks:

Masks give a false sense of protection for ordinary people without education about the correct usage. Most of the masks are used wrong and they do not protect eyes (which are touched frequently) nor hands (you'd need to wear gloves as well, but putting them off without potential cross-infection is even more complicate for untrained people). Masks need to be changed frequently (else they even collect more potential infected material), used masks need to be disposed safely. According to some experts, using a mask in the wrong way and too long even makes it more likely to get infected. As others have pointed out, masks can lead to touching your face more often if the mask feels uncomfortable. And there are simply not enough masks available and the current production is needed for medical staff. And have a look at videos from China and SG: Most people do not use FFP3 / N95 rated masks but simpler ones not really giving full protection for COVID-19.

All that changed my view as masks for everybody. Of course, you should definitely use a mask during every human contact if you have symptoms or are worried you could be infected yourself.

<comment><USER3> Having lived in areas that commonly use masks to control yearly influenza, I have to disagree.

Even if the basic instruction of 'don't touch the front' is ignored, they still reduce exposure. The contaminants stuck to the surface of the mask are less dangerous on the mask (even if you touch it), than on your face or in your lungs. Even if the mask is changed infrequently and reused. Viruses on droplets stuck to the mask are dying remember, and hastened by just sunlight. Or a washing machine for cloth masks or improvised masks like scarves. And personally I found wearing masks to reduce face touching, as they serve as a reminder and reduce tickles like hair brushing your face.

I'd much rather be surrounded by people reducing their chance of being infected, even if 'ordinary people' incapable of following basic instruction and completely lacking common sense. Reduced exposure means slower transmission and fewer people infected at any one time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's not a stupid question at all. From what I've read and understand, the 'standard' masks (the cheap ones - surgical masks) are not a 100% protection, however it's in the >50% range. Probably enough to greatly limit the R0 and change the expontential curve to a linear one (I may be wrong - definitely not an expert).

I'm too amazed by the magnitude of the measures that are being taken as opposed to less invasive and technical solutions.

Adding other stupid questions: \- why we can't just decide to test everybody - what's the bottleneck ? \- why we can't just produce the n95 respirators in sufficient quantites and distribute free of charge to everybody - not even making it mandatory to wear in public - if enough people wear it, the virus won't spread

<comment><USER5> When I hear about the testing fiasco and the order not to use masks, I wonder what outcome certain people really want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure of the source for this, I've been reading a lot this week...

Someone with more knowledge could expand on this, but I understand that wearing a mask in south east Asia is a social signal that the wearer is aware that they are contagious and are using the mask not for their own protection, but for those around them. This makes sense with surgical masks that are designed to keep things _in_ not out.

Culturally this is counterintuitive to the west where we typically value the individual over the collective. (Probably an over-broad generalization)

</comment><comment><USER7> > Wouldn't that prevent most infections

I don't think it would. People would intentionally or unintentionally take off their mask, sneeze on their hands and then touch surfaces, shake hands, prepare food, etc.

</comment><comment><USER8> There's a limited amount of masks and they should be reserved for medical personnel and the most vulnerable. It's not full protection - people can still touch something tainted and rub their eyes. Or eat food served by someone infected. Gloves? That just puts the germs on the gloves and not the hands.

As far as throwing money at the problem goes, the most cost effective might be to test everyone periodically, and not fight blind. But that's impractical too.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure there's a couple companies that manufacture masks that are lobbying for this sort of thing right now.

Assuming you're referring to the US federal government, them forcing its entire population to wear an article of clothing or use a medical device (whichever way you choose to view it) would be an unprecedented breach of civil rights - not that breaches of civil rights with precedents are any more legitimate.

<comment> lone-commenter So... being forced to wear clothes _at all_ when in public is a breach of civil rights, too?

<comment><USER9> Well, technically, yes.

<comment> lone-commenter This made me think of a joking short poem by Galileo Galilei, "Against the Donning of the Gown".*

A passage:

        I now conclude, and turn to you, signior,
        And force you to confess, against your will,
        The Greatest Good will be all clothes to abhor.

        Think, if you please, of happy times gone by and
        Of times when malice and deceit were still unknown,
        And things under the stars went hand in hand;

        You will then see that, not only when alone,
        But all the time, in rain and weather fair
        Man went unclothed, both young and fully grown.

        Nothing at all, no knickers did they wear,
        So that, what good there was, but also what of bad,
        Was well exposed, out in the open air.

* The translation is by Giovanni Bignami

<comment><USER9> I like it, but I suspect we weren't to take that poem literally. :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Aside from the fact that it doesn't prevent most infections (maybe reduce), manufacturing a billion of them in a short timeframe seems unlikely.

<comment><USER3> I could manufacture a mask right now using my dirty underpants. It might not be N95 rated and suitable for use by health workers in an infection ward, but it would certainly reduce my exposure when I need to go shopping.

Over here, existing manufactures are tripling production (3 shifts instead of 1). I've heard very high numbers, but useless since the delivery time frames were not mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My understanding is that even cheap masks keep more of your own germs in (by catching your exhaled liquids) That seems like a valid reason to wear them even if they don't keep other germs out.

I agree this seems like something that should be enacted to reduce the spread

</comment><comment><USER12> Most people you see wearing masks are wearing the wrong kind that don't actually help too much. And there's likely a massive shortage of enough masks. People probably reuse them a terrible amount too.

Don't give them a false shield that emboldens their actions. Keep them indoors.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure they could manage that "give masks" step. Most of the supply still seems to be diverted to health and emergency services.

</comment><comment><USER14> That combined with hyper-aggressive tracing and testing is what has has allowed e.g. SG/TW/SK to win [in the initial response].

It's too late for that in EU/US though. All of our governments screwed up the initial response in January.

SG/TW/SK learned from SARS 17 years ago, we didn't.

<comment><USER15> No one has "won", certainly not at this point. SK especially has been impressive in how efficient they've been but we don't actually know how effective each strategy is yet and we likely won't for a year still unless there's a vaccine or miracle drug before then.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I guess I should have qualified that: They won at how they handled the the initial response. It will be a long journey.</comment></comment></comment>


Get remote linux desktop for under $3 a month  - <AUTHOR> http://www.ruchirablog.com/ubuntu-remote-desktop/

<comment><USER2> Be very careful running VNC server on the open Internet. I like xrdp because it uses RDP protocol and windows clients are available from microsoft. There are clients for different operating systems. And windows server includes a 2+1 connection RDP server for administration.

<http://www.xrdp.org/></comment>


Distrusting git - <AUTHOR> http://benno.id.au/blog/2011/10/01/git-recursive-merge-broken <comment><USER3> The real problem here is:

... "and I was getting ready to commit a series of important changes" ... Before doing so, I want to merge in the recent changes from the remote master, so I do the familiar git pull. ... "maybe I'm going slightly crazy after 3 days straight hacking" ...

Do I interpret this correctly as that the author has not commited any changes for 3 days?

With SVN there may be an excuse for this, but with Git the right way is to commit as often as possible, and then squash your commits before pushing them. With such a workflow the problem would have been a non-problem - just use git reflog and checkout your previous version.

Of course you wouldn't use a git pull then, but just rebase your local commits on top of master.

Learn how to use your tools, instead of complaining about them!

<comment><USER4> How is it relevant how long it was since he last committed? It sounds from the description like this could happen if he'd committed five minutes before.

It's _still_ not cool to clobber work like that.

<comment><USER5> Of course it's not cool. It's a bug, and it was fixed. But the relevancy is to the title and summary. When you say "git destroyed my data" it _sounds_ like you're saying that git lost commited data in the repo.

What actually happened here is that the working tree got clobbered. That is a _vastly_ less problematic situation. Working trees get clobbered all the time: rogue "make clean" changes, system crashes, someone-stole-my-laptop, errant rm -rf, forgetting which tree your changes are in... I've lost working data to every one of these, and I never felt the need to blame my tools in a blog post.

So yeah. It's a bug (and a pretty embarassing one). It was fixed. Is there anything more to say? Move along.

<comment><USER6> If "make clean" clobbered a source directory without me making an error in my make file, I would be rather miffed.

 _"All software has bugs, but bugs that destroy data are pretty devastating."_ It's hard not to agree with this...

<comment><USER5> The point was more that if you've ever written a "make clean" rule, you've probably blown away your source tree a few times trying to do it. The software development working directory is the wild west. Bugs that destroy data here, frankly, don't rise anywhere near "devastating" in my book, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article isn't as anti-git as the title might lead you to believe. I enjoyed the article for the research and up-voted it. I use and like git, but the ideas of silent data loss is scary (as it spreads).

Long story below.

However, if you want real fun try out what one centralized repository did for me once. I was (against my will) using Visual Source Safe in the 1990s (ick ick ick). Visual Source Safe at the time represented its data on a server with two RCS style history files (called a and b). When you committed both of these were updated (no idea why there were two) and then as a matter of policy Visual Source Safe re-wrote your local content from the repository. That is on a check-in: it wrote back over your stuff. Fast forward to the day the disk filled up on the server and a single check-in attempt corrupted a and b (so even if redundancy was the reason for 2 file, it didn't work) and the the server stayed enough up to force overwrite my local content. Everything lost for the files in question (no history, no latest version, no version left on my system, forget about even worrying about recent changes). Off to tape backups and polling colleagues to see if we could even approximate the lost source code.

</comment><comment><USER8> My ears perked up when I heard that it involved renames on OSX. I don't know about the exact issue he had, but I recently found out the hard way that OSX's HFS+ is a case-insensitive* filesystem. You can get subtle issues by importing multiple files with the same case (such as "README.txt" and "ReadMe.txt") into the same repository; this isn't specific to git.

I had a similar issue with Perforce on Windows - Perforce was case sensitive, Windows wasn't, and thanks to CamelCase, there were two files that had the same letters but different casing. (I don't remember the names.)

* Technically, "case-insensitive but case-preserving", which in practice seems to mean, "case-sensitive, _except when you need it to be_ ".

<comment><USER9> yeah, or it can be sensitive. It's got various options that you can tweak depending on needs.

<comment><USER8> I didn't know that. (Some info here: [http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2003102722460311...](http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031027224603111))

I still think it's a terrible default, though. I'm coming to OSX from BSD and using it _as_ a Unix. Retrofitting case-insensitivity onto a Unix is bound to lead to ugly corner cases.

<comment><USER10> > Retrofitting case-insensitivity onto a Unix is bound to lead to ugly corner > cases.

It generally works well, but the other way around does _not_ work: many OSX software (most prominently — as usual — adobe's) play fast and lose with casing, and _will_ break down on case-sensitive HFS+.

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure it hoses Norton's "security" software, too. Of course, if you can't handle documented file system options, I don't trust you to detect exploits….

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "OK, so the bug never trigged in 16,000+ Linux kernel merges."

If your team is avoiding a tool with a 1 in 16,000 chance of failure then they'd probably also want to avoid flying (1 in 20,000 chance of death by failure), large bodies of water (1 in 8,942) and run terrified from cars (1 in 100) (source: <http://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html>.

The car stat seems rather high, and git won't kill you, but the general point is that a 1 in 16,000+ chance of losing a few hours of work is "s--t happens, find a workaround and get over it" odds.

<comment><USER13> Actually though, there was a 0% chance of this happening to anyone who uses git properly and commits before merging, and a 100% chance of it happening to this guy.

<comment><USER14> If this is how you properly use Git then why do they allow the improper way to do so? This seems like broken UX if you allow people to do something that will 100% cause catastrophy -- unless there is virtually no way to design it otherwise (but it's obvious that this is not the case with Git).

<comment><USER15> Because you should have read the man pages.

Right?

Right?

No, of course not, and your point is obviously clear. "Blame the user" is still in vogue in some circles, though.

<comment><USER16> In this case the git pull man page is relatively clear that:

"If any of the remote changes overlap with local uncommitted changes, the merge will be automatically cancelled and the work tree untouched"

<comment><USER17> ... which git failed to do properly. So the git-pull man page is clear that it won't clobber your uncommitted changes. Except in the (buggy) case when it will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Before doing so, I want to merge in the recent changes from the remote > master, so I do the familiar git pull. It complained about some files that > would be overwritten by the merge, so I saved a backup of my changes, then > reverted my changes in those specific files, and proceeded.

Yikes. git stash / git stash apply. Pulling into a dirty working tree is asking for trouble.

git losing data is Very Very Bad (and _massive_ kudos to the author for tracking down the bug rather than just bitching about it), but if you're following a proper git workflow (pull to clean working trees, save often), you shouldn't ever be in a position to trigger this bug. That's not an excuse for git to break like that, but the reason that it was likely never seen in the 16k Linux commits is that it's not the "right" way to do things.

</comment><comment><USER19> To quote: _OK, so the bug never trigged in 16,000+ Linux kernel merges_ —kernel developers are probably sane people quite proficient in git so that's quite unlikely to happen. That's probably the reason the bug was out there for a year, nobody ever bumped into it. I would bet some money on none of them kernel developers ever having git-pulled into a dirty working tree. (Most of the newbies around the world who probably bumped into it didn't understand git was in error there—excluding the author.)

I can't explain why the opposite happens. Most of the people I know intuitively commit or stash their local changes before merging. They have this intuition even if git is relatively young piece of software. But then there are always a handful of people that I imagine who could do something like that. And I'm not quite sure _why_.

One possibility is that it could come down to the level of trust in computers. I don't think I _could issue_ git-merge without git-stash/git-commit first—probably because I don't instictively trust programs to handle complex operations too well in the first place. Operations such as handling unsaved data or letting random commits from different place three-way merge themselves into a single branch. _Or both._

This mechanism of distrust might be similar to how drivers who think they're bad drivers are, in fact, the best drivers. They underestimate their capabilities enough to assume everything won't always go right, and then they're a few steps ahead when something goes wrong.

</comment><comment><USER20> For anyone that's interested, the version of git that fixes this issue (1.7.7) has just been released:

Download: <http://code.google.com/p/git-core/downloads/list>

Announcement: [http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/ANNOUNCE- Git-1-7-7-tc6849424...](http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/ANNOUNCE- Git-1-7-7-tc6849424.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm really late to this party but I want to stress a. Point that doesn't get mentioned often enough:

Do not use "cp". Please.

Copying changes to save them and reapply later is nearly guaranteed to quietly lose changes, reintroduce removed code, or otherwise screw up your work.

If you want to move changes stash them or commit them and then apply them elsewhere. Using cp throws out all of git's ability to help you do what you mean and not what you say.

Also, the data corruption was caused by a bug, yes, but the cp based workflow being used will result in a nasty suprise sometime in the future.

</comment><comment><USER22> That's kind of an odd response to a bug - not adding a new test, but just noting that it didn't hit one particular project. Is Git's entire test-suite just 'the Linux kernel changelog'?

</comment><comment><USER23> Even if you choose to keep three days worth of changes uncommitted, you're still doing local backups of your machine anyways, right? He'd be facing the same amount of information loss if his hard drive died.

If you're on OS X, Time Machine will get you back to where you were recently (except if your home directory is encrypted, then it backs up on logout). Or use Dropbox/SpiderOak/other to keep the last _n_ versions of your changes.

</comment><comment><USER24> At first, it seemed that this was another rant about a misbehaving piece of software.

But I was impressed that, unlike so many others (myself included), the author went beyond just complaining. He actually made a real effort to identify the conditions under which the issue occurs. But I was blown away when he actually examined the source code and identified when the bug was introduced. Great work!

</comment><comment><USER25> Its good to know that my 'feature development' git flow would make sure that this bug would be avoided or at the very least easily worked around.

My favorite git flow in 143 easy to remember steps

1) git checkout -b MyFeatureBranch # create a feature branch

2) Code/Hack/Fall Asleep on Keyboard

3) git commit -am "Wow finally done with this tiny feature"

4) Go back to to 2 if needed

5) git checkout master

6) git pull # get all the latest changes

7) git checkout MyFeatureBranch

8) git rebase -i # squash commit comments if neccessary

9) Fix merge conflicts, git add, then git rebase --continue

10) git checkout master

11) git merge MyFeatureBranch

12) git push

13) PROFIT!!!

This is borrowed from [http://reinh.com/blog/2009/03/02/a-git-workflow-for- agile-te...](http://reinh.com/blog/2009/03/02/a-git-workflow-for-agile- teams.html)

<comment><USER26> Not to mention this "microcommit" approach in your feature branch allows you a fine level of control over your working branch without polluting the master branch (because of the squash). We use this one at work, and I do on my own personal projects as well. Never have I been happier with a VCS than I am with git after moving to this workflow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I suspect that certain types of people (including myself, at times), actually want continuous backups being taken on the state of their working copy prior to actually performing a commit. Bugs or not, Git doesn't do very well with unversioned changes: an accidental 'git reset --hard' can easily blow out lots of work (happened to me), even if that was exactly what the command was supposed to do. The correct thing to do is commit early and commit often (git commit -am "Wibble"; git reset HEAD~ works well for me) but from a user experience standpoint this ought to be automatic.

<comment><USER28> Yes, it would be nice to have the assurance that the WC state was stored in the reflog before every git command that could possibly change it. This would probably be a relatively easy patch to write, although it could also slow git down too much to be accepted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I admit I skimmed through the article, but, "git destroyed my data" .. hum ... how come ?

Git is a versioning system that doesn't free you of making backups of your central master. And by master I mean the global central reference repository or whatever you call it.

So you screw up your repository using an unconventional workflow and now you and your co-worker don't trust git anymore ?

Well maybe you shouldn't have blindly trusted it in the first place. It's a better tool than many but still is just a tool you should use with care. As any tool. It has bugs.

That said, I feel your pain. Finding bugs in other tool can be a very frustrating experience. Well, shit happens :-)

</comment><comment><USER30> Git can be a beast conceptually speaking if you don't learn it the right way. This was undoubtedly a bug but the author's story surfaced some suboptimal git habits.

</comment><comment><USER31> The way I avoid problems like this is: 1 - Always do new work in a branch off whatever branch you plan to commit to eventually. 2 - commit often 3 - <USER2> rebase -i to squash commits when everything is looking good 4 - Use rebase parent-branch to replay your commits on top of whatever new stuff is in the parent and resolve any conflicts 5 - Only then go back and merge the working branch back into the parent-branch

</comment><comment><USER32> have a habit of doing "git stash save" before any pulls if you have uncommitted changes. problem solved.

</comment><comment><USER33> cool article about tracking down a bug in git.

But this is really a small corner case and I can see how it went unnoticed for a year.

I almost never use 'git pull' (I do git fetch and then "git merge" or "git rebase" depending on the results), but more importantly I never ever use pull when I have changes in my current working repository. I commit, and _then_ I pull or pull --rebase etc. This way I'm _really_ sure that my data is safe as git has a lot of safety features for committed stuff. all files are stored as objects and there is a reflog to help if you loose track of rebased branch etc.

Another thing that I sometimes do is 'git stash' before pull/merge/rebase etc. git apply later is also a very safe op.

</comment><comment><USER34> The biggest issue here is not committing before pulling. Always commit all of your changes before updating your history (either through git pull, git fetch/merge or git pull --rebase).

</comment><comment><USER35> have my working copies inside of dropbox. Of anything goes wrong with git, i can still go back to older versions of any file using dropbox.

<comment><USER36> Likewise, I keep all my git repos backed up to Time Machine. As long as I'm at my desk, I can never lose more than an hour's worth of work. I don't think I'll ever understand git well enough to solely rely on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Personally, I always stash or commit my files before merging with another branch. I feel like not doing so is asking for trouble.

</comment><comment><USER38> The article has a serious character set issue. It contains stuff like "doesn't" instead of "doesn't".

<comment><USER39> Your browser -- and my browser -- did not autodetect the character encoding correctly. Switch to Unicode (UTF-8), and it should look fine. I used Firefox.

<comment><USER40> The reason our browsers don't autodetect the character encoding as utf-8 is because that page doesn't say it's utf-8. In that case browsers are allowed to assume it's latin-1.

<comment><USER41> Actually, it did say. In line 1.

        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

Perhaps your browser and mine disagree on when that declaration is acceptable.

For reference, [http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-html- encoding-d...](http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-html-encoding- declarations)

<comment><USER42> If you want to get pedantic about it, the content is being served as text/html (as opposed to application/xhtml+xml) which means the XML declaration isn't valid.

<comment><USER43> Well, I'd like to know why it doesn't work. If that's pedantic, so be it.

Edit: I think people took this the wrong way. I mean it's not pedantic to find the real problem. We're all better off because the poster I'm responding to showed us the real problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's not cool that the guy lost some data, but as he points out - all software has bugs. This is just one more reason to make your commits as atomic as possible - which it sounds like he wasn't doing at all.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well, at least thanks for the reminder to update git :)

</comment><comment><USER46> Two lessons here:

1\. don't do what that guy was doing. asking for trouble

2\. upgrade to git 1.7.7+. just to be sure.

</comment><comment><USER47> tl;dr: User still hasn't learned that committing early and often is a good idea. User blames tools for his ignorance.

<comment><USER18> While he could improve his workflow, git had a legit bug in this case. If he was complaining that "OMFG, git reset --hard wiped out my changes!" then we could laugh at him, but git did a Bad Thing here by any reasonable measure.

<comment><USER47> I appreciate the replies but down-voting is silly.

Look, I have to deal directly with co-workers that misuse git. When I see them doing something bad, I tell them about it. The biggest resistance has been from those that refuse to change.

Here's a real-world example: "git messed up my merge again". What? I go to look into it -- well it turns out they don't understand git and work around it by copying files out of their sandbox, run "git pull", and then copy stuff back in. This is such a recipe for disaster (it easily can and will lose others' changes) that _not_ telling him to "improve his workflow" is disastrous for the project as a whole.

Yes, git messed up his merge. But as others have noted, so could have a bad Makefile rule. All I'm suggesting is that by improving his workflow (committing early and often) then there is no chance of work getting lost, ever.

<comment><USER18> I don't think anyone takes issue with the "fix your workflow" part of your statement; bad workflows should be fixed. They aren't an excuse for bugs in the software, though. A version control system should never unrecoverably wipe out data unless you explicitly ask it to.

<comment><USER47> Heya, yes, bugs are completely unacceptable. Trust me, the git project completely understands this.

Sorry if my comments seemed rude or snarky. Actually, I tend to dislike "tl;dr" comments altogether. I don't think my comment added much to this discussion. If I could I'd delete it. cheers</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you even trust your phone? - <AUTHOR> I have this Android device with a few apps installed (mostly the essential Google services, Whatsapp, Firefox and a few games), and I try to avoid unknown apps as much as I can. And even then, I don't trust my own phone to be secure. I have this huge worry because it's not receiving any updates from Samsung anymore (it's a GS6), so I kinda treat it as a semi-untrusted device: I will never install apps from banks/investment (lol Robinhood), I try to never do too-sensitive things from it. The only sensitive thing I keep on it is my main email, and it always worries me. I do use it for 2FA.
What is your take on this? Do you share the same constant anxiety that your phone may be insecure? Do you take any specific steps to help mitigating those fears and reducing the probability of being compromised?
News such as the Agent Smith one we saw today makes me even more nervous. Now I'm considering switching phones again, but the reality is that I simply do not need a new phone (my hardware works just fine!), it's super expensive, and I would end up doing this simply because of software updates for the OS. <comment><USER2> No, I don't trust my phone, but I'm not paranoid about it being used to spy on me.

I have an old iPhone 5s with only a few apps installed. No Facebook or Instagram, and Siri is turned off as much as possible.

Like you, I don't want or need a bigger or more powerful phone, and I won't be getting one until mine is obsoleted.

My desktop is a late `09 Mac Mini with the RAM maxed out and an SSD drive and it still works great for me. Can't run the latest Mac OS but there's nothing there I need or want.

I have several email accounts but only use one on my iPhone and I forward emails I might need to the iPhone when necessary.

My biggest problem with my iPhone is my sweet wife and daughter used my iCloud account to set her phone up and she downloads all kinds of silly apps that appear on my phone as soon as she gets them. I just delete them when I see them, but if I had known better I'd have insisted they set up an iCloud account for her.

Luckily I set up a separate email account for her on my mail server. Last I looked she had over 10,000 emails from crap she's signed up for and she never deletes any of them. Mixed in with those are emails that are important to her, so one of these days I'll have to clean that mess up too.

So for me these phones are a bit of a PITA, but not a source of anxiety.</comment>


Show HN: Hot or not meets Twitter - <AUTHOR>

I am working with a couple of friends on a new concept of social network / blogging platform.
The idea is simple: we ask users to vote other users' messages in order to get points and use these points to post new messages.
The idea is similar to hotornot.com in that the user has to vote other users' content in order to have his content delivered into the system and receive feedback from others.
The idea is similar to twitter.com in that this is a micro blogging platform, where messages are limited to 500 characters.
The website is still in its alpha status. We don't have any design yet, many things are still basic and some of the messages posted so far are in Italian (yes, we are from Italy).
If you have time and if you would like to help, please take a look at the website, sign up and play a little with it. We would love to get your feedback, any kind of feedback.
Thanks in advance.
The website's address:
http://www.milanfreelance.com/frames/ET/ <comment><USER2> I really think you need to simplify the registration process. Just ask for the bare minimum email & password. I saw the form and ran away. I think I understand the idea from your description but there is no way I would have got that from seeing it. You should make it very obvious as to what exactly people can do here.

Ciao from Utah ;) My mother is from Milano. I also lived there for a few years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ciao, thanks a lot for your feedback. You are right, we have to simplify the process. There are some additional fields that we would love to add, such as sexual gender, interests, etc. but I agree with you that we should avoid asking these questions right at the signup process. Maybe we could ask them later or allow the user to update her profile whenever she wants to do so.

Btw, send "un caro saluto" (a dear greeting) to your mom! I am from Milan but I moved to the US four years ago...I miss Milan :-)

Thanks again for the feedback!</comment></comment>


RIM might sell handset business to Amazon or Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/24/rim-selling-handset-business/

<comment><USER2> I don't think a sale to Facebook makes much sense at all. While FB wants their own phone, they don't even know if they can be successful with it, and I don't think they want a hemorrhaging phone business on top of that.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I delete my HN account? - <AUTHOR> A few posts that have made it to the front page, mostly the article about the developer in San Francisco complaining about the homeless, have really turned me off to HN. No, this isn't a quick/rash decision. And, no I don't believe HN is turning into Reddit. I simply wish to delete my account and subsequently remove my comments. How can I go about doing this? <comment><USER2> As far as I know, there's no way for a user to delete their own account, and your postings and comments never get deleted (because other users' comments are dependent on them). You can contact the moderator at email@example.com to confirm this.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no automated method. Write email to 'email@example.com'. A very advanced AI (he pretends to be named Dan) will likely accommodate your request.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why bother? Just sign out and stop using it.</comment>


U.S. Wins Bid to Limit Disclosure in Kim Dotcom Extradition - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-01/u-s-wins-bid-to-limit-disclosure-in-kim-dotcom-extradition.html

<comment><USER2> "If suspects were entitled to extensive disclosure of documents on the basis that they wished to challenge the evidence at the extradition hearing, the procedure would lose much if not most of its efficacy," the Court of Appeal said in a summary of the ruling on its website today."

Only if you're in a hurry to turn over your own citizens to another country.</comment>


Wii games are still being made in 2019 because people are using it - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2019/6/20/18662890/just-dance-2020-wii-hospitals-families-xbox-one-stadia-playstation4-nintendo-switch <comment><USER2> Just Dance has had yearly releases since 2009, and the Wii has always been included.

The marginal cost of continuing to support Wii is negligible, since their engine has always supported it and needs minimal upgrades-- it just needs to play background video and perform platform-appropriate motion tracking and interpretation.

I guess middleware support might be an issue, and Just Dance historically used Scaleform, which appears to be entirely discontinued at this point, but presumably they have a perpetual license for it.</comment>