Analysis of Today's CenturyLink/Level(3) Outage - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/analysis-of-todays-centurylink-level-3-outage/ <comment><USER2> There was the finals of The FIDE Chess Olympiad going on between India and Russia when this outage started. 2 Indian players lost connect to Chess.com at this time and ended up losing their games on time. This ensued a lot of drama. In the FIDE ended up declaring both India and Russia as joint gold medalist. Russian players were not happy. Also Armenia had forfeited from tournament as they had faced similar disconnection issue against India during quarterfinals.

Here are a few links if you want to follow the drama:

BBC: Chess Olympiad: India and Russia both get gold after controversial final [1]

YouTube: Joint Gold for Team India and Russia at the Online Olympiad 2020 | Full [2] story

FINALE!! INDIA vs RUSSIA CHESS OLYMPIAD LIVE STREAM [3]: Actual live stream of the final. The actual incident starts around 01:56:00

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53965748](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53965748)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgZAVOUmWcg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgZAVOUmWcg)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJLyFSVuRnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJLyFSVuRnk)

<comment><USER3> I don't know how these events are conducted, but I'm assuming that it is _not_ simply each player playing from home unsupervised. That would make it way too hard to prevent cheating. So I assume that there is a tournament official onsite at each player location watching, just like there would be for an in- person tournament.

If that is the case, there are a couple of reasonable ways to handle this.

One is to bring back something that used to be common in high level chess: the adjournment.

This used to be common when most championships used time controls that were slow enough that you often would not finish the game in one play session.

The way it worked is that at the end of the play session, the arbiter calls for an adjournment. When the player on the move decides their next move they write it down on a piece of paper rather than actually making it on the board, the move is sealed in an envelope which is kept by the arbiter, and play stops.

When it is time to resume, the arbiter opens the envelope and plays the sealed moved on the board and starts the clocks.

Both players are free to analyze as much as they want between play sessions, and can get outside help. For world championships, especially back when it was Fischer vs. Spassky or Korchnoi vs. Karpov and the match was serving as a proxy for the cold war, each player would have whole teams of top GMs to help analyze during an adjournment.

The player who sealed the move has the advantage of knowing for certain what position will be on the board when the game resumes. On the other hand, the other player is going to be the first one to have the move after several GMs have pulled an all-nighter analyzing it for them so any inaccuracy in the sealed move is much more likely to be punished than it would have been without adjournment.

Or get a freaking modem. Exchanging chess moves does not require high bandwidth, and most of these internet outages do not take out phone service.

Do a mini-adjournment (seal the move, but keep the players on site), establish a dial-up connection between the playing sites, and then unseal the move and resume.

<comment><USER4> Generally in professional online tournaments there is not a tournament official onsite. Players are competing from their homes. Instead, tournaments require several Zoom sessions from multiple angles in an attempt to verify that the neither the player's computer nor a secondary device are being used to cheat. These Zoom sessions are monitored by tournament officials.

On top of this, commercial chess websites have extensive anti-cheating measures that are used to analyze the games after the fact. For example, one of the major players has 5+ engineers and several strong chess players on their anti-cheating team. These teams have caught professional players cheating a surprising number of times. Being caught results in a lifetime ban from the chess website and there are often consequences for the player in real life as well.

I don't really buy the idea of an adjournment. Are you supposed to have one every time a connection problem happens? Historically players knew at what point in the game an adjournment would happen. Having them happen at random throughout the game would change the whole dynamic.

Your idea of a cellular connection as backup is an excellent one. I think the first commercial chess website to implement a turn key way for players to utilize one will see huge returns from that investment.

<comment><USER5> Every time this conversation comes up, I'm reminded of a world-building subplot in one of Vernor Vinge's first books. Instead of banning computers in chess, let the competitor use a computer that they built themselves, so it's one augmented human versus another augmented human.

In his world, there were no supercomputers elsewhere, so you didn't have to worry about covert channels phoning home to a much bigger computer. I suppose you could put everyone in a Faraday cage...

<comment><USER6> which book is this? and would you recommend?

<comment><USER5> I'm fairly sure it's The Peace War, which has a sequel (Marooned in Realtime) where the concept of The Technology Singularity in introduced.

I get a little salty about Ray Kurzweil getting the credit for a concept that Vernor Vinge had already published in 1986.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Google networking SRE here (my team runs ns[1-4].google.com among other services).

Regardless of original intent, the blog doesn't land well with me. It could have provided the background on flowspec, using their own past outage as a case study, without any of the speculation or blameyness that came across here. The #hugops at the end reads quite disingenuously.

We see other networks break all the time and we often have pretty good guesses as to why. But I personally would never sign off on a public blog speculating on a WAG of why someone _else 's_ network went down. That's uncouth.

<comment><USER8> I think you're stuck on the politics. Level3 is their competition but initially CF was blamed. CF owes it to their customers and investors to explain to them why they had an outage and how they responded to it, and they do not need talk in detail about an unrelated past incident (just because it was related to flowspec does not mean it was a similar outage), and they certainly should not wait for Level3's investigation.

I would expect Google to have a similar explanation if a significant number of GCP customers faced an outage.

You should know, it wasn't just someone else's network that went down, that network brought down a big chunk of the internet with it. I think technical honesty comes before political appearances. The #hugops and mention of their past experience with a flowspec outage is clearly there to signal that the blogpost is not there for blaming or making L3 look bad.

<comment><USER7> The politics is exactly the point of my comment.

The professional way to write a blog post like this is from your own perspective. Identify the proximate cause (the peer), name names if you must, talk about how awesome your own systems are, show some of your monitoring if you like, and talk about what you'll do in the future to be even more resilient to this class of problems.

That's all to the good and much of Cloudflare's blog was exactly that. Would've been fine if they left it like that.

Acknowledging there is no postmortem (yet) but then pointlessly speculating about what it _might_ contain is what I have a problem with.

I don't speak for Google but if I found out we had written a post like this, I would speak up and advocate to change it.

<comment><USER8> There is nothing professional about avoiding a topic for the sake of appearances. Level3 put out details knowing others in the industry will discuss and speculate based on that information. They could have witheld details such as flowspec and edge routers bouncing but they did not, it's perfectly professional to discuss speculative details of someone elses outage that affected your customers based on details they chose to make public.

In infosec for example, it's extremely common to speculate about a vulnerability based on details in the CVE. Entire news articles are based on such speculation. Like I said, you are giving too much weight to optics and appearances. I would like to see anyone actually at Level3 complain about this post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> sometimes people remark at how extensive ancient civilations became with such simple technology, yet here we are. billions of people being served by things like BGP and SS7.

as i get older, i become more and more concerned with humanity's lack of fault tolerance.

brett weinstein clued me into this as an evolutionary phenomena. if a gene activates a short-term solution and long-term problem, that gene is likely to be favored.

how do we transcend this problem that seems to be inherent with existing? a first-principal problem?

<comment><USER10> If anything, these kind of issues we see popping up here and there are proof of the high availability of the Internet and specifically how protocols such as BGP helped on making it what it is today.

It is not that we have built the Internet despite BGP. We have built it thanks to BGP. If we didn't have BGP we would have to invent it :)

<comment><USER11> Isn't the point that BGP is great in the same way as the Model T was great? No one is saying it wasn't needed or - to a certain extent - doesn't do the job, but given recent (and not so recent) improvements to technology and security standards, maybe we need a BGP 2.0?

<comment><USER12> BGP 2.0, like self driving cars, are five years away.

For the last 20 years..

<comment><USER13> This makes total sense because humans are inherently lazy. Hurd would be out in production in 199x if not for Linux. But it's still being worked on in 2020.

<comment><USER14> > humans are inherently lazy

> Hurd would be out in production in 199x if not for Linux.

I think Hurd is not a good example of this. Hurd being sidelined seems to me to be a result of bikeshedding (which microkernel to use) and realizing that Linux (as a kernel) had more effort being poured into it because it had more mindshare.

> But it's still being worked on in 2020.

At more or less a leisurely pace as a passion project more than the end goal being production, precisely because the social goal that it was trying to achieve has been mostly achieved by the Linux kernel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I love Cloudflare's writeups and Cloudflare in general, and while this was again well written and excellent analysis, it contained a tad bit too much speculation for my taste.

<comment><USER16> This is probably as good as it gets for outside analysis. I doubt we will learn much more until CL/L3 posts their own post-mortem with all the data.

<comment><USER15> Didn't say it wasn't good— it was that. I just think it was slightly on the inappropriate side in terms of vendor relationships. I mean obviously CF was kind of making a point to CTL with the article, I get that too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Horror thought: if the internet ever "breaks" enough that all access to StackOverflow is lost, no one will be able to fix anything to get it back up, and we'll be back to the stone ages to start again.

Kidding. Mostly.

<comment><USER18> As a teen in the early 90's, who was self taught, there is only one correct answer for all questions, RTFM. lol. Man that sucked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Did other providers have similar issues to Cloudflare? I only noticed cloudflare sites being particularly down, not other CDNs, but maybe that was selection bias?

<comment><USER20> I couldn't connect to anything in the US (I'm in the UK) which broke a large chunk of the internet mainly due to being unable to access Cloudfront.

<comment><USER21> That's surprising given CloudFront has a decent number of Points of Presence in London/Europe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That technician who pushed this rule... Man, what a story he will have to tell to his grandchild.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wish we could read an analysis from CenturyLink. Their status page doesn't have anything useful: [https://status.ctl.io/](https://status.ctl.io/)

<comment><USER24> That's CenturyLink Cloud (formerly Tier 3) - doesn't really have anything to do with CTL/Level 3 backbone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> BGP and its associated tools is beginning to look like a national, actually global, systemic risk.

</comment><comment> _-___________-_ Typo in title

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed!

<comment><USER26> I still see "Cloudlfare".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Bit off topic. Does anyone know the reason why Centurylink doesn't operate in California?

<comment><USER28> CenturyLink "residential" is limited to territories where they are the ILEC.

CenturyLink "business" is everywhere in CA and a large provider.</comment></comment>


Good News for Young Strivers: Networking Is Overrated - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/opinion/sunday/networking-connections-business.html <comment><USER2> The article gives example of Justin Bieber and Adele. For those two examples, there are hundreds who got where they are just because they knew someone important. Miley Cyrus, Jaden Smith, Charlie Sheen, Ben Stiller, Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton. Actors/singers make very poor examples for this given that most of them mostly get to where they are by networking more than anything else.

Lets say there was an absolute master of his profession that nobody knows. Compare that to someone who knows enough to get by when it comes to his profession but knows most people there is to know in the industry. In general, which one is more likely to get hired? Who will have better references? Who is likely to know about vacancies before they are announced? Are companies willing to hire someone because he answered more question in a test even vs who did OK but has a lot of good references from respectable people, some of whom they personally know?

Someone who only cares about a better paying job should spend 90% of their time in networking and 10% on honing their profession because networking is all that matters. Someone who absolutely loves their work will happily do their share of work for a lower pay.

<comment><USER3> I would add that many of the very best artists owe their careers to knowing the right person at the critical moment.

In a recent interview, composer Randy Newman explained how childhood connections got him into the business:

 _" Newman started writing songs because his childhood friend Lenny Waronker, who later became the president of Warner Bros. Records, suggested that he try it. "He knew who Carole King was and stuff. His dad had started a record company," Newman said."_

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/randy-newman- co...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/randy-newman-contemplates- the-universe)

He is brilliant, but might have gone unnoticed if his best buddy had not been a second-generation record company executive.

<comment><USER4> The funny thing is that people get angry when the same logic is applied to tech legends.

Wozniak would have stayed in HP and probsbly remained fairly unknown if Jobs had not convinced him to start Apple with him.

<comment><USER5> And vice versa. Jobs got where he was by (not likely coincidentally) finding a person with Woz's combination of genius and gullibility. Woz didn't get a remotely fair shake from Jobs, and there are not a ton of guys dumb enough to ride that ride and smart enough to deliver what Woz delivered.

<comment><USER6> Woz isn't dumb, just had different priorities in life. If you sum up the total happiness over the course of Jobs and Woz lives, Woz might come out ahead.

<comment><USER5> An excellent point. Who's the smart one at the end of the day? Woz seems to have all the money he needs and all the fame I think he can stand. There's a lot to be said for quitting while you're ahead.

<comment><USER7> Fame does not bode well for some archetypes. Some of us are really better off actively avoiding the spotlight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: _" It's true that networking can help you accomplish great things. But this obscures the opposite truth: Accomplishing great things help you develop a network."_

This is something that I wished I had understood way earlier in my career. Basically that cause and effect are often inverted when people talk about the network effect. People who do some thing well, or are passionate about, often will accumulate a network of others who are interested in that same thing. And because they know a bunch of people who are also interested in that thing, when they hit a roadblock or a problem they have people they can reach out to for help or insights.

What is hard is _discovery_ which is to say that the greatest programmer in the world who sits in his shack and writes perfect code that is beautiful and functional, is invisible.

There is a joke about the guy who complains "I make no money at all from stocks." and the friend says "What stocks do you own?" and the complainer responds "Oh I don't own any stocks, have no use for them, I just want money from them."

Attention and focus is like 'money from stocks' if you share what you're doing and your understanding with people you give them some advantage and perhaps some new understanding. That advantage comes back in the form of referrals or opportunities that you were not present to see when the person you shared with recognizes an opportunity as something you would be interested in. It also allows you to be "discovered" two or three hops down the road when someone says "Oh I know someone who is interested in that ..."

<comment><USER9> For most people, it's typically difficult to accomplish great things without mentorship and support. Which, in turn, typically require a network of some kind, whether it be family, teachers and classmates, or professional contacts.

<comment><USER8> I completely agree with this statement:

       >  it's typically difficult to accomplish great things
       >  without mentorship and support.

And this is how I have seen it play out as I've mentored folks. When someone talks with others about the great things they are _trying_ to accomplish (as opposed to people talk about great things they _say_ they will accomplish) and listens for useful feedback, they not only develop a network of mentors, but they advance in their understanding of the task at hand.

When I was president of the local robotics club we asked people who were building robots to tell us what we wanted them to accomplish. In my case I wanted a robot that would respond to a voice command for a Diet Dr Pepper, go fetch it, replace stock if the refrigerator was low, and bring it back to me. When I started that quest in the mid '80s it was a pretty tall order. Some people just said "you're crazy, that is too complicated for a robot to do." But the people who were worth listening too asked good questions like "Is it important that the refrigerator is general purpose or can you modify it to make it easier for the robot to access?" That led to ideas like the "Giant Tube of Sodas" refrigerator idea where soda was put into the tube at the top, the tube is wrapped in cooling coils, the bottom is easy access for a robot gripper. The questions and the mentorship I received not only taught me about some of the things I didn't know (like inverse kinematics for robotics) but also how to ask about what the real problem was versus the apparent problem (using a "regular" fridge is a lot harder problem than a custom fridge for example).

The people who are successful, and incidentally develop strong networks, are the ones that share what they are trying to accomplish and listen to the feedback; while not being discouraged by the "that's a stupid goal" type feedback.

<comment><USER10> Building on that even, the most fun I have had at "networking" was listening to other developers talk about some of the problems they are working to solve in their jobs/areas of interest. Half the events I enjoy going to are partially motivated by "I wonder if so and so found away to fix x issue"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Technology used to be a bit more immune to cronyism in the past, now it's epidemic for anything above grunt positions - for grunts grueling interviews are in place, for higher ups it's now totally who knows whom and who does something for whom. I want to throw up every time my organization posts a new job position at a higher level and I get bombarded by managers inquiring if their friend or two can't get in there, bypassing whoever would be deserving the spot by working at a lower level - frankly, I don't understand how those people can look into a mirror...

<comment><USER12> Its not about what you know.

Its not about who you know either.

Its about whom you can trust to solve problems and decide wisely -- It always has been and until there is a clearly rational way to evaluate trustworthiness to do an ambiguous job, it always will be.

<comment><USER11> It's always about who shares your own biases or persuades you his simulation of what you expect is adequate to fool you a'la Faceless Man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After giving some examples of very poor networking efforts (if those can even be called that) the author moves on the the banal conclusion that networking is important, too, but you have to have something to say.

Nowadays, when I get a chance to mentor younglings my main point is that networking is a HUGE part of success (other important point being not to waste time on a PhD, but that's another topic). As with any effort you have to learn how to do it, of course. Harassing people for their contact info, etc. is a networking anti pattern.

<comment><USER14> I agree: the article may well be right that a cold-calling style of 'networking' doesn't do much, but it doesn't seem to have anything to suggest that the good oldfashioned "having the right parents" kind is no good.

<comment><USER15> I think that's about right. I periodically get something along the lines of "I'm one of the 50,000 people who went to one of the same schools you did and I'm interested in a job at your company." I might exchange some info but I'm certainly not going to bat for someone I have a very peripheral connection with.

On the other hand, every job I've gotten since school has been very directly through someone I had worked with in some manner and knew well. In none of the cases did I go through a standard application process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shotgun networking, where you go to meetups just to get as much facetime and intro's as possible but with no real connection to people, is overrated.

But thoughtfully targeted networking where you're able to identify a small number of people who have something of unique value to you, and then bring something of similar value to them, resulting in a potential mutually high- value collaboration, is not overrated.

</comment><comment><USER17> The author conflates networking with shameless self-shilling. This makes for a pretty thin strawman.

Networking, in the sense of maintaining strong professional relationships and having a presence at professional events, creates a strong passive upwards pressure for someone who is talented. If you "spring to mind" as someone I can trust to "do X," or if you spring into the mind of the person I task with finding someone to "do X," then you are that much more likely to be offered the opportunity to "do X".

You may find the same kinds of "do X" opportunities through other means, but as X becomes increasingly specialized and requires more trust, networking becomes more and more important. For example, I can mass broadcast an ad for entry-level Java developers. I cannot do that to find a systems architect to design a high uptime, low latency, massive throughout web service. I'm likely to go to a short list for the latter and avoid interviews completely, if at all possible.

Obviously accomplishments are important. Accomplishment one of the foundations of a strong professional identity. Without evidence of your abilities, networking won't put you on anyone's short list. That's a catch-22, and you also need luck and the ability to inspire someone to take a chance on you to get your foot in the door. Both of those are improved dramatically by networking.

<comment><USER18> > _The author conflates networking with shameless self-shilling._

I found the same. Cold-calling and party tricks (like dropping businesscards into bags) is not 'networking'. It's one aspect of it, yes, but a minor one.

Not to mention that plenty of us know people who are awesome at their craft, yet never seem to get anywhere with it. Arguing from outliers like major pop stars means nothing for the 'real' people below them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The thing about networking is that good networking is extremely important, but that's not what "Networking" is.

In every job I have, I try to grab lunch with people everyday so that I can talk to them and get to know them. I also try to regularly meet new people in my field and get to know them. I've found that to be extremely valuable.

However, I've found going to networking events to be an extreme waste of time. The people who go usually aren't the successful professionals, which is who I want to meet. I've found going for drinks with friends- and their friends- to be much more valuable.

<comment><USER20> So how does one break out of this catch-22?

How do you become a successful professional if you're never given the opportunity to earn trust where it is also visible enough to develop a strong network?

<comment><USER15> Basically you start with people you interact with naturally and move outward from there. Schoolmates, co-workers, ex-co-workers. Present at events if you can create an opportunity to do so. Blog. And so forth.

It actually seems as if it's much easier today. At my first job in the tech industry, which I had for a long time, there were fewer opportunities to talk about what I was doing outside the company. (Although my next two jobs still came directly from people I met at that company.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't agree with the article's titular thesis or the rather extreme examples it uses. I attribute the majority of my career success thus far to my ability to make conversation and present my (often highly technical) ideas in an engaging and compelling way. Raw technical ability is excellent, but it's an inefficient method of capturing opportunities.

This article opens with a strong claim and several distasteful examples of desperate behavior associated with networking. But I wouldn't consider those "networking" in the general sense of the word; rather they are one stunt-based manifestation of it. Contrary to the article's point, you do not need to abandon networking to focus on being so good that you're attention getting. The examples given - Bieber and Adele being "found" through raw wow factor - do not resemble the way that networking organically occurs in the real world, and are very dependent on luck. Bieber and Adele would still be impressive successes if they had networked for it, and indeed the article concedes that many successful startup founders had a pre-established network _in addition_ to their skillsets.

I think there's too much baggage attached to the idea of networking. You don't want to try and network as though it is a high-pressure sales tactic. Instead, focus on developing social skills and charisma. You also don't need to wait until you are extraordinary to network with people. There's no guideline for networking because there doesn't need to be one, it arises organically if you talk with people who have the same interests. There's another principle I have found with regards to networking - it is better to prioritize network quantity instead of quality. You want a minimum "quality" per contact, for sure, but you will find that access to extremely high quality contacts emerges in your network once you've hit a critical mass of people you can email on a first name basis (for example). If you're constantly trying to "collect" high-impact contacts without bootstrapping your way towards it organically, you'll be more pressured to pull the inane antics the article talks about.

In other words, and for practical advice: people seriously overthink networking and these examples of e.g. pitching a VC at an open mic event are not examples of organic networking. Just talk to people for the sake of talking to people. I have had incredible opportunities come to me and met awesome people because I wrote insightful Hacker News or reddit comments. Whenever I can I try to email someone who is talking about something I'm interested in.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Networking makes us feel dirty — to the point that one study found that people rate soap and toothpaste 19 percent more positively after imagining themselves angling to make professional contacts at a cocktail party."

Really? If you're around unpleasant people, sure, but I at least have typically enjoyed meeting new people in the industry. "Networking" is just another word for "having a conversation."

The implication of this piece is unclear to me. Most people, by definition, are average and aren't going to suddenly pop out masterpiece whatevers that bring them fame and fortune. You'd think a little networking wouldn't hurt. It's better than staying at home and staring at the TV, right?

</comment><comment><USER23> _Networking makes us feel dirty — to the point that one study found that people rate soap and toothpaste 19 percent more positively after imagining themselves angling to make professional contacts at a cocktail party._

Tip for writers: if you can use the same data to just as reasonably arrive at the opposite conclusion - "we want to feel clean and presentable before impressing other people" \- then don't present your vague conjecture as fact. The article started to lose me as soon as I read this part. It was like a red flag of bad journalism went up.

People who have something to show for themselves find networking easier than people who are faking it? Sure, I believe that, but that's hardly news.

</comment><comment><USER24> The author uses several musical examples, and I've worked as a professional musician for a long, long time.

Waiting for a music exec or manager to somehow hear your work is a terrible strategy. On average, if you wait around to be discovered, you'll be waiting a long time.

In music, networking is hugely important to being successful. Going to people's gigs, meeting others, and similar was hugely important for me to establish myself as a working musician when I moved across the country last year. But, effective networking is most necessary and productive in "gig" type economies.

In tech, meetups and such aren't always great networking opportunities because the way most technical people collaborate is in the work environment, and most people change jobs rarely. Contrast this with most musical relationships, where it's much easier to exchange information and call a new person for a gig, which happens many times per week usually.

I'm sensitive to this because early in my music career, I severely undervalued the value of networking, and watched many of my colleagues (all of whom were excellent at networking) get good gigs and opportunities. As soon as I realized I was undervaluing networking, I made a correction, and subsequently have had a much more satisfying life as a musician.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've just written a book. (It's about social implications of a technology.) Pretty much all the sales I'm making are networking, one way or another. It's a good book! People who read it love it! But it's self-published, and I haven't worked out how the heck to get people to write about it, and so my sales are all word of mouth from happy readers. It's just become a college textbook (!!) so I'm doing at least _something_ right ...

Writing it was the same. I posted the whole draft to my Facebook in chunks, and this improved it _amazingly_ , because my friends, like yours, are querulous nerds, and my goodness a querulous nerd given permission to be as querulous as they like, _well._ But I'm 50, and I've spent a few decades accumulating _hundreds_ of contacts who are smart people who are experts in things that I'm not. And I totally relied on them to make this not suck.

I'm a huge nerd. But even my beep-boop sysadmin day job is, frankly, 50% public relations and getting people to do stuff because they feel they should because I asked nicely. Networking.

When I started, I too was bereft of network. But my first IT job was courtesy ... networking! And my second. And my third.

tl;dr _Do your damnedest to be a social supernode. Make sure you know everyone, such that if you don 't then you'll know someone who does._ And keep in touch with them. It'll pay off _big_ down the line.

(I went through Facebook last week and visited the pages of every one of the 1000+ people I have friended, to say hi and see what they were up to. Don't trust The Algorithm to maintain your relationships.)

<comment><USER26> What's the name of your book?

<comment><USER27> Looks like if you look at his profile it's linked there. I've put it below for simplicity.

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073CPP581/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've worked almost a dozen jobs and internships. Starting from mowing lawns in high school, every single one was at least partly attributable to knowing someone.

</comment><comment><USER29> I can attribute a lot of my professional value to my professional and even personal network. I've found they key is to network before you need to network so you're not always looking for something. That way you can look for ways to provide value and serve your network. That's how you build solid relationships.

</comment><comment><USER30> Networking is like smoking, people like doing it and when people like doing things they start thinking that it is actually beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER31> Isn't this just math?

Networking is a system for making connections. Desirable connections are relatively rare. The pool of people networking is full of people trying to make desirable connections but has a small amount of people whom are desirable to network with. The more people there are "trying to network," the fewer desirable connections as a percentage of total connections there will be, assuming an even remotely chaotic coupling.

I've met a lot (a _lot_ ) of people who I would have no interest networking with. I'm sure for more valuable targets, the number is orders of magnitude higher.

</comment><comment><USER32> > "And don't feel pressure to go to networking events. No one really mixes at > mixers. Although we plan to meet new people, we usually end up hanging out > with old friends."

Well yes, if you choose to. I wish the article could keep the focus of the positive effects that creating great things leads to, and not try to position it as an opposite of networking.

Networking is gold. Networkers that also produce extraordinary things will get even better results.

</comment><comment><USER33> Some of the other comments here focus on the poor examples of networking.

What about the larger point: that networking is an effect of achievement, not a cause.

If the author is correct, even "good" networking is not as effective as making something worth making. (I assume that this "maker" bias is intuitively appealing to the larger HN community.)

<comment><USER34> Not necessarily. You can do great networking without having built anything.

Say you are a student. Some startup founder starts a business where she targets college students. You like her business. You then reach out to her telling her you are emailing all students in your dept via internal dept email list or FB groups to let them know about her startup.

That's great networking. That person will help you in future for sure. And you haven't really built anything yet.

<comment><USER33> Will they help you for sure? Or only if they know you are good at what you do?

<comment><USER34> I think if you put some effort to help people, you will get help regardless of your skills by many of them. But that help will not be that useful in the long run if you don't have the skills to take advantage of it.

Stupid example: if you have helped me in the past, and then ask me for a referral at my company, I will certainly do it regardless of your skills and I will get you an interview. But then it is up to you to pass the interview. Networking opens up opportunities. It doesn't make you successful. If you randomly meet me at a conference and ask for referral, I won't do it.

And that's really the kind of networking 95% of people are looking for. It is not meet the #1 investor in the world or similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From one of the sources of the article: [1]

>> In Study 1, White and Asian nonnative speakers using the same scripted responses as native speakers were found to be significantly less likely to be recommended for a middle-management position, and this bias was fully mediated by assessments of their political skill.

>> Nonnative speakers were found to have a significantly lower likelihood of receiving new-venture funding

That's an interesting bias, I wonder if/how it varies by accents, as those can be quite different. Are foreign accents from countries where English is still a major language like U.K., Australia, India, ..., perceived differently than foreign accents from non english-speaking countries?

[1] [http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-28924-001](http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-28924-001)

</comment><comment><USER36> This is a very interesting piece and true as well but with a catch.

The article seems to advising students not to Network and just focus on building a product or a solution that is worthy of attention. But if you read it carefully, it actually not saying so. The title itself says that Networking is overrated, it doesn't say it's useless.

To build a strong Network a combination of three things are needed:

#1: Character - How you treat others #2: Competence - How good you are at something #3: Consistency - How are you able to stay connect with your network

This article is about the second element of competence, it not reducing the value of other two, rather is advising students not to reduce the value of competence.

All three have equal weight and if students start to rely just on networking, they may struggle. That is a fair point.

Good piece.

Paritosh Pathak Strategic Networking Coach

</comment><comment><USER37> If anything, this article only highlights the fact that it's very difficult to get the attention of investors. It demonstrates how important networking has become but I do understand the point about 'empty connections' \- I've tried the cold approach in the past.

What it says basically is that you have to be really talented first and have done a lot of work... After that all you can do is wait and hope that you get lucky; try to network slowly but don't try too hard to the point of scaring away investors.

In my case, I started an open source project, it's somewhat popular within its niche - To most people it means nothing at all but on a few occasions I met people who knew about my project and when I told them about my work their eyes lit up and they treated me quite positively (E.g. they try to hire me).

</comment><comment><USER38> I agree about networking being overrated.

What's better than networking is being good at your job, enjoying it, and enjoying working with those around you.

If you do those things, you'll have the network you need.

If you don't, get serious about finding it.

</comment><comment><USER39> Tldr, networking is not overrated, just poorly implemented by many.

Poor choice of title for a good article. If you enjoyed this article and like to learn to implement value added techniques I suggest Ramit Sethi's blog iwillteachyoutoberich, not the scam it sounds like lol.

Building a network is important to increase opportunities. It's much easier to be on the receiving end of people wanting to connect with you once people know you can provide value/you have accomplished something they are interested in.

</comment><comment><USER40> Networking is Marketing for humans, and most here understand how the Product- Marketing relationship works for apps. There isn't much point in marketing if you, the product, have no value to the customer. Also it follows that some people's product is their ability to market. These are the anomalies to the title, and these are the ones we see networking all the time, the schmoozers.

</comment><comment><USER41> Networking, when defined as a competition of who can speak the most about themselves has little value.

Networking, when defined as a practice of always adding value first, and seeking other similar givers to build your network around is invaluable. Takers are everywhere and learning to recognize and filter them as needed is a critical skill.

</comment><comment><USER42> From the world of politics, and government relations, it is nearly impossible to get anything done, or rapid career advancement (save getting elected to public office) without networking. My world is built on who you know, and being able to reach other people you don't know when you need to.

</comment><comment><USER43> Confucius said it better and shorter 2500 years ago:

Instead of being concerned that you have no office, be concerned to think how you may fit yourself for office. Instead of being concerned that you are not known, seek to be worthy of being known.

</comment><comment><USER34> Horrible article. Networking doesn't mean asking someone for her email address or exchanging business cards.

Networking means creating meaningful relationships based on mutual benefits. If you are in a position to help someone, help her. She will then help you back later on when she can. And this is by no means overrated. If anything is underrated.

<comment><USER44> Perhaps. But you should experience some of the "networking" advice that is foisted on the average job-seeker, fresh out of college or otherwise.

One reason it is difficult for some people; it reeks of superficiality if not insincerity.

<comment> et-al Yeah, there are explicit "networking events," which are generally horrible because there's no subtlety to them.

Then there's tech meetups or conferences, where you and I might nerd out over common problems we've had to solve, and in the process realise that we _might_ enjoy working with the other person.

The thing is, one has to put in the work _and_ put themself out there. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

<comment><USER44> Yes. But college/university career counseling staffs and unemployment bureaus of various sorts and the like leave a lot of people with an early, negative impression of networking.

People who may have had a lot of opportunity in their life/careers and who tend to fall into productive and interesting networking scenarios, should at least know that for a lot of the... well, I can really only speak for the U.S.... by dint of experience, "networking" \-- at least as a formal and promoted activity -- is a dirty word.

And having quickly looked at the OP story, I also recall some very uncomfortable feelings, watching someone aggressively pursue a senior executive's email or phone number. E.g. this fellow or gal comes to a friend's purely social event, and ends up having to handle undesired and poorly couched attempts at professional connections.

And the few times I've been talked into attempting to "work the system" in such a fashion? Still make me shudder.

P.S. Or the person who's picked up their license as a mortgage broker, and the conversations you attempt to dance around whenever your own looming home purchase comes up. And...

Even at the everyday level, a side of "networking" that's kind of a pain to deal with.

Anyway... I mostly agree with the article. Have something they're genuinely interested in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Correct, avoid people they will suck your time and energy. Be very selfish with your time, you will never get a nano-second back

<comment><USER46> Um. I guess it depends on what you are optimizing for?

<comment><USER45> In my case I need time for my family, time for my friends, time for my work as a developer, time for research, time to complete work to get paid. I get requests for work that I have to turn people away so you are correct it isn't what I am optimising for, Networking is very far down the list ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I hope all my competition believes as much.

I can't tell if the author has identified a straw man or a weak man, but I don't think serious, accomplished people give out the advice that successful networking = acting like a pest and creating hollow relationships.

Maybe we need a better way to describe networking, right now we use the same work to describe establishing credibility and rapport with like minded people and attempting to become a barnacle / remora on a successful person.

I don't know if I've ever consciously networked, but seeking out like-minded people and engaging them with interesting discussion / ideas has served me well. Though I work in a technical capacity and it does seem as though people- management is qualitatively different but not completely divorced.

I've seen talentless hacks rise up (or fail up?) but the success was never sustainable and for some reason, all those people never saved enough money for the inevitable rainy day: they blow something up or lose a game of executive musical chairs, leave, and can't swindle their way into a comparable job.

However, it's been my experience that the vast majority of executives who have held onto their executive position for longer than 2 power struggles are very deserving of the position. Sure, a lot of them let off the gas relative to the performance that got them into their role. But they're extraordinarily capable people.

The only way to really sustain positive career trajectory is through accomplishment (and unfortunately, accomplishment isn't a guarantee of a successful career). And if you can't do that, you have to skate by on 'luck'.

Cronyism seems to ebb and flow, I think there's a lot of it right now because most businesses aren't that competitive. But if we get some creative destruction going, we'll see the balance of power shift more decisively towards makers and doers.

One trend that I've seen in the past 3 years that I like a lot is more salary growth opportunity for technical employees. 5 years ago, I saw a lot of companies stall people out, "if you want to make more money you have to become a manager". But a lot of companies lost a lot of talent and now they're correcting their dumb policy.

How is this related to network? It's just a consideration and optimization problem (and maybe a problem that maps well to your sociability) but networking shouldn't be a 4 letter word. If you're not enjoying it, you'll probably be well-rewarded to find a way to make it more enjoyable and that's pretty easy if you enjoy some element of your profession.

I'm reminded of The Last Psychiatrist's article, "This Is Why The American Dream Is Out Of Reach". It's also about a NYT article.

[http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/this_is_why_the_ameri...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/08/this_is_why_the_american_dream.html)

there's a deeper problem: people see personal connections and favors as key path to prosperity. Sure, they help. But the most lucrative opportunities aren't the chance to meet someone important, the most lucrative opportunities are those that involve solving a problem. How much time do parasites put into networking? I bet it's more time than they put into starting a new business or doing something.

</comment><comment><USER48> What no one likes to admit is that the benefits of networking are highly dependent on your demographic. Young white dude with excellent credentials? Great! There are plenty of other white dudes who will hear you out. Older lesbian Latina from an unknown school? Not so much.

Therefore, if you're more like the Latina and less like the young White dude you should focus on technical ability more and networking less. That being said, everyone should maintain their relationships at a minimum, for no amount of technical excellence can defeat irrelevance.

People will definitely try to shush this blatant reality, but anyone who's not White will definitely tell you for themselves. For what its worth, it's less about being White and more about the fact that all of the incumbents in this particular industry are White. For basketball you could easily replace "young White" with "young Black"

<comment><USER49> Being non-default makes someone more memorable. Over time people tend to remember only the good so if you're already memorable for some other reason you need to put less effort into networking.

If people already remember you for whatever reason (like being the old lesbian) then you have to work less hard advertising your value compared to someone else who's not so inherently memorable.</comment></comment>


Is there a good English wordlist with common words, for free download? - <AUTHOR>

We are doing entity extraction for documents specific to a domain. Unfortunately our domain specific index contains many common English words,  and we would like to take them out or weigh them much lower.<p>I'm trying to choose between WordNet, Google Ngrams (too big!), and Moby Wordlist from Sheffield University. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Look at the file named "eign" in the GNU troff distribution. I use it as a "stop word" list and it seems to work pretty well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, had never heard of this. This looks good for extremely common short words. The version I have has only 133 words though. I'm looking for something in the range of a few thousand words at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How about:

[http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/volume5/lewis04a/a11-smart-...](http://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/papers/volume5/lewis04a/a11-smart- stop-list/english.stop)

Also, see previous discussion at:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218335/stop-words- list-f...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1218335/stop-words-list-for- english)</comment>


UBC quietly changes references to Taiwan amid sensitive political climate - abc-xyz https://www.ubyssey.ca/news/taiwan-references-changed/ <comment><AUTHOR> The simple rule that nobody seems to follow is to never become dependent on somebody who isn't very nice. All the trade between the world and China is making it impossible to stand up to their policies and our own companies are censoring and punishing us now for not promoting their propaganda.

Next I expect to see massive Chinese companies buying large stakes in news and media agencies while promoting their sale to Chinese markets. Once everything is entangled enough, everything will be pro-Beijing

<comment><USER2> Are we "dependent" on China, or merely taking their bribes (in the form of investment money and low-wage labor)?

In this case, the change is due to a dependency on Workday, which has a dependency on the ISO standard, which is dependent on the United Nations.

cf, Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names of Countries.

<comment><USER3> The cursed ISO 3166 standard for country names is truly everywhere. Just to point this out in case anyone here is still using ISO 3166: please take a look at the Unicode CLDR data [1]. It is just all-around better.

[1] [http://cldr.unicode.org](http://cldr.unicode.org)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's Taiwan? I heard a younger person ask this recently. The One China Policy is going along extremely well when American youngsters never heard of Taiwan.

<comment><USER5> I mean, good luck trying to get a typical American to point out Kansas on an unlabeled map of the United States. I know I can't.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, I am unsure whether I could complete this challenge for Kansas, but I can for Taiwan.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: User Documentation solution? - <AUTHOR>

I have to make a "microsite" under my application with documentation about it.
The concept must be very similar to any "programming project" style.. (codex.wordpress.org, guides.rubyonrails.org, docs.shopify.com/themes): I have to teach users how to do some tasks.
I started generating Markdown files and parsing them as html but I realized that the scope is a bit larger: I have to handle sidebar links, breadcrumb navs, translation support, etc)
Is there any tool/service/project for that? What is the best/common practice to solve it? <comment><USER2> You probably want to look at help desk SaaS apps. Or bite the bullet and roll your own - FYI you can just render Markdown directly pretty easily in Rails/Sinatra to avoid pasting HTML :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the recommendation, in fact I am doing it now :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> daux.io perhaps?

<comment><AUTHOR> I tested it but I would like to know alternatives because it requires PHP and my project is under Ruby.</comment></comment>


New US law requiring registration for all drone owners - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/16/us-wants-registration-for-all-drone-owners-.html <comment> atom-x How about the enthusiasts that build their own drones from parts?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> No problem with having a dozen unregistered guns but one drone and you'll be in trouble.

I wonder if quadcopters will be grandfathered before the law starts.</comment>


Peek Inside Apple's First Brooklyn Store - <AUTHOR> http://fastcompany.com/3062314/tim-cooks-apple/peek-inside-apples-first-brooklyn-store-complete-with-exposed-brick/5 <comment><AUTHOR> Submitting to point out inaccuracies.

"This weekend Apple will open its first Brooklyn store, located in a restored warehouse in Williamsburg."

It was actually a bagel shop and a health food shop. There was a local pharmacy (Kings) in the same building, although I'm not sure if Apple is using that part of the building. There were loft apartments above, but I wouldn't call it a restored warehouse. I also wouldn't say those apartments were decayed any more than most old housing in NYC.</comment>


Create lean Node.js image with Docker multi-stage build - <AUTHOR> https://codefresh.io/blog/node_docker_multistage/ <comment><USER2> Seriously this! I've seen so many developers build giant unwieldy images because there's been no easy way to manage build dependencies that didn't end with bloat. This is a big win for Docker.

<comment><USER3> > I've seen so many developers build giant unwieldy images because there's > been no easy way to manage build dependencies that didn't end with bloat.

Uhm... What? No, there was, around two decades older than Docker itself. It's just that developers avoid using tools that were written for sysadmins.

If you build a binary package with your application and another one with your application's dependencies, you avoid all that bloat you mention. Though it's not sexy, because it's an old method and uses things already present in operating system.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Something else great about multi-stage builds is that you can actually put all your unit tests in as part of the build flow. It should make CI more portable.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great writeup. I know this post is just about Node but the implications for every language are pretty huge.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the great ideas in computing? - <AUTHOR>

Alan Kay has said that "the computing profession acts as if there isn't anything to learn from the past...it's very characteristic of a pop culture. Pop culture lives in the present; it doesn't really live in the future or want to know about great ideas from the past."
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Alan-Kay-The-PC-Must-Be-Revamped151Now/
So what are some of the great ideas of computing?
Where/how does one go about finding them? There is so much trash and "pop culture" in the majority of what's been written in our field (both popular and research works), that I don't know how to find the important ideas. <comment><AUTHOR> I'll start with one way I've been trying to find some of these ideas: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award>

Yes, awards always have a component of politics in them, but it's useful to look at these for a zero'th order approximation of at least some of the important ideas in our field. I've been working through each laureate's important works to try to find the key ideas. It's slow going, but yielding some good results so far...

</comment><comment><USER2> "Turtles all the way down."

check out vpri.org (Alan Kay's current organization) and Newspeak, the programming language (see Room 101, the blog).

</comment><comment><USER3> Look at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_All_Demos> to see how much of what has recently become mainstream dates back to 1968.

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_important_publications_in_computer_science)</comment>


What Happens When A Twitter Client Hits The Token Limit - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2012/11/16/twitter-being-a-dick-again <comment><USER4> *The effective rule, therefore, is even simpler: "Don't build anything for Twitter."

Exactly, that's precisely the message they wanted you to have.

What's wrong with using the twitter.com on Windows8, do we really need a special client just for Windows 8? This is exactly what the web is supposed to do.

I don't get anyone is surprised, it's Twitter's ecosystem and if you're duplicating their functionality then it's perfectly reasonable of them to not make any special exemption. If you wrote a client that exposed twitter to new markets or something that added value to Twitter then they'd likely give you a higher limit, but that's not the case...

<comment><USER5> > What's wrong with using the twitter.com on Windows8, do we really need a > special client just for Windows 8? This is exactly what the web is supposed > to do.

Native > Web, if you do it right. Web has a lot of UX limitations native apps don't have.

<comment><USER6> That's why we (LiveLoop _) think Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, etc. will all grow to encompass Web Service in the application itself, rather than being replaced wholesale by Web apps the way Google wants you to.

_ LiveLoop is our PowerPoint plugin that makes presentations real-time collaborative without ever having to leave Office -- available at <http://getliveloop.com>

<comment><USER7> The line between web apps with offline capability and native apps with online functionality is non existent.

Unless by native you mean written in a language that only works on a single platform.

<comment><USER5> Of course the line is existent and it is clearly visible: the browser as a general sucks in UX compared to what can you easily do with native API of your platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Twitter: Don't build core-feature Twitter clients, we probably won't approve them.

Atta: I built a core-feature Twitter client!

Twitter: Sorry, we're not approving your core-feature Twitter client._

Who is surprised? How is this news? Were you expecting them to not apply their own rules? It seems like a clear-cut case, and concluding "don't build anything for Twitter" is just throwing a temper tantrum.

<comment><USER9> >concluding "don't build anything for Twitter" is just throwing a temper tantrum.

Not really. They led people on, over the years, into building on their API. People spent a lot of time and money building Twitter clients. Then they pulled the rug out. Why would you build anything using an API that could get arbitrarily locked down in the future?

<comment><USER10> The thing I don't get is: why build a Twitter client? Doing anything remotely useful with Twitter involves building something really substantial on top of the stream of tweets and users.

<comment><USER11> Hardly. I find Twitter's official clients' UIs atrocious, and happily paid for a third-party's implementation with roughly the same functionality (TweetBot, if you care). I don't find data mining of mostly-mundane content terribly interesting, with the exception of people posting photos of their debit cards (<https://twitter.com/needadebitcard>)

<comment><USER12> WTF? Why do people post photos of their debit cards online?!?

<comment><USER13> Haha, glad to see I wasn't the only one shocked by that. That's pretty incredible actually.

<comment><USER11> That's nothing compared to when one of the issuing banks @replied to the person doing it, telling them to remember to set up online account access.

Yes, I'm serious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sort of amused by the wording in this line:

> It does not appear that your service addresses an area that our current or > future products do not already serve.

How can your future product _already_ serve an area?

<comment><USER15> Shouldn't the real news today be that Twitter has invented time travel?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've watched this from a distance with interest. Developers have a special place within the overall Internet ecosystem. As a non developer, everything Twitter has said and done in the last 12 months or more tells me "We don't need a healthy 3rd party ecosystem and we don't want one. Hobbysits can stay filling odd niche requirements and here's our cap. Everyone else though? Sorry" I have no emotion around this as I'm not a developer. I feel as though many developers can't wrap their mind around this concept of not being wanted. They're used to being very wanted initially and then at best still wanted but with a few controlling parameters around activity (see "all App Store/Developer discussions"). I suspect it might be a slightly over exaggerated sense of self importance that's meant it's taken a long time for the obvious to set in. Perhaps that's why Marco only just connected the dots? (as usual I'm not talking about all developers - I've seen many who got it right from the get go)

<comment><USER17> I think "over exaggerated sense of self importance" is far from the crux of this issue.

Developers are pissed off at Twitter for two main reasons:

1) Developers helped build Twitter as it exists today. With their hard work, sleepless nights and toil, they created the ecosystem that allowed Twitter to grow into the giant they are today. Now that Twitter is big, they are saying thank you by more or less shutting down their API for any serious Twitter integrations.

2) Twitter said, "we'll work with you" regarding API limits, but they didn't mean it. People that built things in good faith are now realizing that Twitter didn't act as such. If you put a lot of effort into building an app that utilizes Twitter's API, you'd be rightly pissed about this too.

I agree that it may have taken a long time for "the obvious" to set in with regards to Twitter not caring about their 3rd party developer ecosystem. Hopefully, as the OP points out, its pretty obvious you'd be a fool to build anything on Twitter anymore.

<comment><USER18> > Developers helped build Twitter

There were warnings about the fate of sharecroppers well before Twitter existed: [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePla...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace)

Quote: _"It's a lousy position to be in, because you're never going to make much, and if the land's owner finds something better to do with the land, you're history."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You know, back before APIs were all the rage, people wrote clients for web services by scraping. Twitter really wouldn't be able to do anything about a Twitter client that pretended to be IE9.

<comment><USER20> I've had a bot blocked by Myspace when I resorted to that. They started redirecting all my requests to " <http://google.com> ". And I was just working on an old Thinkpad running Ubuntu server in my dorm room, so I have to think blocking me was an automated response.

I'm sure Twitter knows how to block crawlers, especially ones that they're actually aware of.

<comment><USER19> I'm sure Twitter would block bots doing unuserlike things. But isn't the point of a Twitter client to do userlike things?

<comment><USER20> I suppose, and I suppose if the client used a user's IP they couldn't block them the same way. But wouldn't a client that scrapes the full HTML to get the data you want be horribly inefficient, and hard to maintain? API's are all the rage because they give you just what you want. Think about bandwidth.

<comment><USER21> Having written scrapers in the past, I can tell you that changes are usually pretty easy to deal with. And if you write your scraper nicely, many small changes won't even matter.

Since the client runs on the user's machine, performance isn't really an issue, either. (Trying to do it for all users on a server is a different story.)

APIs are indeed "all the rage" because they're easier and don't change as much. But when given no other option... You do what you have to.

<comment><USER22> I think the obvious solution is to have the client first check for updated scraping rules from a server operated by the client's creator. The client could check for these scraping rule updates every time the client starts up or on some interval (or maybe after certain errors even) and only pull down the whole thing when the cache is invalidated. Then, as you suggest, the client could do the actual scraping which would make it harder for twitter to block.

Not as straightforward as an API to be sure, but not impossible by a long shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> While I've disagreed a lot with a lot of Marco's blog posts, gotta say he's totally right on this one. Actually this is bigger than Twitter, as any new platform that comes out that wants Devs to develop for their API needs to be treated with a certain cynicism: if the platform gets big enough, they'll likely cut you out.

I wonder if this trend between FB, Twitter, etc. is going to ruin the ability for new companies and new platforms to attract free development by third parties?

</comment><comment><USER24> If my salary depended on the Twitter API right now I'd be scared shitless.

<comment><USER4> Unless you work for Twitter, I'd say you're right, and rightly so. Don't depend on someone else's API, how many times must history repeat itself before this message sinks in.

<comment><USER25> That's an unreasonable position to take. Almost all third-party software products ever created rely on some other third-party APIs, and to suggest "Don't depend on someone else's API" as a strategy would be akin to saying "Don't write software for a living."

The challenge is to determine, in advance, if the platform you are writing for will maintain some reasonable level of access to the API, both now, and in the future.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps "don't depend on someone else's API unless you're paying for it" is a better attitude. Depending on someone else to keep giving you something for free is problematic at best.

<comment><USER25> That's not correct either. There are lots of free APIs that are reliably stable, available, and profitable. Think about how many tens of billions of dollars have been made writing to the win32 API. Likewise, the community of GNU/Linux APIs (Perhaps the first time I've ever felt it was appropriate to write GNU/Linux in a sentence :-) - glibc, etc...

The question you have to ask yourself is how much leverage the third-party has over you if they decided they want to screw you over. Even still, you may want to write for that platform if the $$$ is there. Look at iOS platform - <USER2> totally owns you. Or, even better, look at the PS3/Wii/XBox platforms - <USER3> owners of those APIs have even more control over what you can do - but still very profitable platforms to develop for.

At the end of the day, a judgement call has to be made. No easy rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's so sad to watch such a lively lovely service remove the fun by destroying the values that made it great. Meanwhile we are sitting here saying "charge us money, you fools", and they are deaf to us. Twitter: your online site is usability hell, your own clients are dated and painful. Above all we have one question: why? Why are you intent on this path of foolishness based on placing customers and developers last?

<comment><USER27> Because their customers are advertisers, and their users are people who follow Ashton Kutcher and Justin Bieber. It's not the same service as it was when it started, when the API was important to them.

<comment><USER28> If Twitter charged to send tweets (like Facebook is now doing) then they wouldn't need to crack down on third-party clients.

<comment><USER27> But who wants to pay to tweet? With the business and culture they've built, they don't have a way to go back. They have to stay free for everyone, they have to show ads to make money, and they have to kill 3rd party apps to make sure the ads get seen their way.

If you want Twitter-that-was, ADN is your best bet at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Aside from pissing off Twitter, and possibly getting a cease and desist, what's preventing developers from building a translator that sits between Twitter's web layer and their native application client? Couldn't something be developed that loads Twitter into a hidden webview that's locally scraped for the purpose of re-display however the developer pleases on their client? This implementation wouldn't require the tokens, and wouldn't be constrained by their arbitrary limits.

But I suppose they'd just wind up getting sued.

<comment><USER30> > But I suppose they'd just wind up getting sued

You answered your own question. People seem to be under the impression that just because something is accessible with a web browser it no longer falls under copyright and you can use it how you want. This has never been true. Any web site can make a terms of use (and most do) that prohibit you scraping their data.

<comment><USER29> So what about user style-sheets? They modify the appearance of the data, but I've never seen anyone sued over it. Nobody sues IE for rendering HTML differently. In this case it'd just be another 'browser'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Goddamn, I've never seen a clearer example of the colloquial term "butt hurt". Twitter is a company, they built something, they support it, they have the right to control it, and they have arbitrary rights over it. More tellingly, they have a very good point.

It reminds me of the craigslist haters, and my response to them. I don't hate craigslist for stopping third parties from using their data because, frankly, it hurts their brand if "druggycriminalroommates.com" starts syndicating their apartment ads.

That said, don't think that I'm some sort of right-wing capitalist fascist. No, I don't think everything should be privately owned and controlled. There are some things that should remain public: internet infrastructure being one of them. My personal belief is that the only real egalitarian, open system is one that relies on that infrastructure, and ONLY on that infrastructure. This vision requires that people either a) run their own servers, or b) pay money to someone else to run servers (or parts of servers). (Other possibilities for payment exist, of course, such as bartering information for service, etc.)

I mean, twitter is free to control, the OP is free to complain about that control, but the solution presented (don't develop anything for twitter) is ridiculous and immature.

<comment><USER32> A company builds an API and encourages lots of developers to use it across a wide variety of projects, and they do. After achieving almost unprecedented success in user adoption, the company decides to unilaterally change their terms to say, "From this day on, not only do we want you to use our API only in ways that drive value to us, we're not really down with you getting any value in return beyond whatever value being able to say 'you can post to Twitter from our app!' brings you." And they _are_ really down with screwing over existing developers to bring them in line with the New Reality.

I'm pretty sure that I would, at that point, _not_ be keen on developing anything that used that API, even if it complied with the new rules, because the company has at that point demonstrated that they _will_ knife me in the back if they think it's going to further their own business goals. How is that reaction ridiculous and immature on my part?

<comment><USER31> I don't know, I think it's stupid to allow any private company to control the worlds data, as Twitter, Facebook, and to some extent Google are attempting to do. To expect these for-profit companies to act in any way other than "unilaterally" is naive. If you think that they violated the terms of service, then you should sue them for fraud - or if that's too expensive, make it clear that you think they are engaging in fraud.

Actually my message is this: build for the open web, and only the open web! There is a lot of room in that space. Personally, I think that Twitter will go bye bye and Facebook is going to get eroded by it. But that's my personal belief.

<comment><USER33> I blame Wall Street. Endless growth ($), forever.

I like the open web you allude to. However, bills gotta get paid.

<comment><USER31> Well, Wall Street is a totally different problem - one that is essentially an expression of systemic moral hazards that are present in our legal and banking systems. Wealth = responsibility and yet people are content to just put their money anywhere the return is highest. The result is Wall Street.

The open web is not at all anathema to making money! You say, "I like the open web you allude to. However, bills gotta get paid" but would you have also said, about interstate highways, "I like the highway system you allude to, but bills gotta be paid"? No, of course not. Highways enable gobs and gobs of business to be done. Twitter and facebook have built slightly more usable highways alongside the public ones, called them free, and people have gone there in droves. But once the true cost becomes realized, I think people will go back to the public highways - especially when this means that can go anywhere they want, however they want. Twitter is limiting clients, FB is limiting reach. Both companies are merely very expensive usability innovators on how users like to interact with the public web, in my opinion.

<comment><USER33> I like your words. It's not a different problem. Doubly said "expression of systemic moral hazards" leak into these successful platforms. They get fat and then formally hire 1000x more inhouse devs, biz, and design folks when they could ad hoc pay the people who were there from the beginning. Or new people who spring up and bring the platform forward. It's creativity in contracts the status quo is lacking.

I am curious - where are the "public highway" equivalents of Twitter or Facebook? Who owns the infrastructure all this data is passed through? It's definitely not publicly owned. In my opinion, your analogy is mismatched.

<comment><USER31> TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP is the major part of the internet's virtual infrastructure (although you might say that there are others, such as router configuration protocols). The physical infrastructure is rather complicated, and owned by large ISPs which connect to each other and smaller ISPs that connect to one or more large ISPs. The 'last mile' provider collects money for access to this infrastructure.

Free physical access is provided in the US by public libraries. De facto free access is provided by a wide range of retail businesses, such as coffee shops.

With your own device connected to the internet you will have a NAT'd IP address from which you can request anything you want. Unfortunately, until IPv6 becomes commonplace, one has to jump through hoops to expose the device - the most common being some form of dynamic DNS.

At the coffee shop the packets that your computer sends are travelling around the world on de facto public infrastructure. It's true that a bad actor can shut down routes, but the internet is rather cleverly designed to treat a shutdown or reduction as "damage" and simply use a different route.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wait, you mean you can't just wrap someone's service in a fancy UI and then sell it as your own? OH THE HUMANITY!

What happened to innovation? All I see these days is a derivative of a derivative of a derivative. Hell even the memes these days are derived from other memes.

<comment><USER35> > _just wrap someone's service in a fancy UI_

I thought we got over the "no value in UIs" bias when Apple made more money than some small countries.

> _then sell it as your own_

1) Tweetro doesn't say "look at this great real-time messaging service we made!" They built a UI. That's their value proposition.

2) Less importantly, Tweetro is free.

> _All I see these days is a derivative of a derivative of a derivative._

How is that uniquely "these days"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder why something like "If you want more than 100k usernames, either pay us $x per username or use our advertisement API and put whatever tweets/ads we push where we tell you to" is not an option.

It would be refreshingly honest and for some people/clients it could work, plus it could earn them some of the needed cash.

<comment><USER37> This doesn't work for them because Twitter has had 1.16 billion dollars in funding.

Getting money from teeny little twitter apps is not the sort of plan they are going to make that money back with. Imagine if they charged a buck per username per year.

This would probably be enough money to put tweetro out of business (say 100k dollar per year), but it would not come close to the amount of money they need to make.

Even if something makes you good money, often you have to scrap it if it isn't or even endangers your core product.

<comment><USER36> True, you'd be left with "do the app like we tell you to" option, like offering an API where's mandatory to show the sponsored content in specific, Twitter approved ways.

It would probably be a nightmare to implement well.

A pity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > Now we know: "work with us directly" means "die".

Very good summary by Marco. It's really annoying when these companies have secret policies that have to be discovered rather than are clearly stated. It just wastes people's time to try to discover the policy, having to do costly time consuming experiments to find out what the policy is as if this was an unknown branch of particle physics.

</comment><comment><USER39> When you have to find 1500 monthly pay checks, I suppose you have to get the money somehow.

[http://bijansabet.com/post/35849228202/the-first-photo- the-t...](http://bijansabet.com/post/35849228202/the-first-photo-the-twitter- team-prior-to-our)

Found via

[http://threads2.scripting.com/2012/november/howTechCompanies...](http://threads2.scripting.com/2012/november/howTechCompaniesGrow)

Seems a sensible position to me (old guy, non-coder and won't use twitter or fb).

</comment><comment><USER40> If you build a company around someone else's free API, you're either a high stakes gambler or a moron.

<comment><USER41> Or out for a quick buck without any expectation to build a lasting business.

<comment><USER42> How does this hold up when you're talking about web development, especially javascript-heavy or -only applications? You live and die by the browser API don't you?

<comment><USER43> Don't develop for the quirks of any particular browser.

<comment><USER42> Except for when the browsers implement standards differently, e.g. appcache, localstorage, etc.

<comment><USER44> I didn't know that different browsers implemented those things differently, aside from the default and maximum amount of space given to localstorage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The problem with _core-twitter_ limitation is that twitter's own product sucks and has basic features missing or implemented very poorly...years after launch.

This is just shitty all around. Sometimes I wish I could buy 1,000 twitter tokens for some price and use it in some "core-feature" 3rd party app because twitter sucks at implementing the very core features.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is really idiotic. What are they trying to do? Make sure that all the top users flock to App.net or somewhere else?

<comment><USER40> Considering that I don't know a single real-life person that is on app.net, I wouldn't consider it an alternative to anything.

<comment><USER47> The same used to be true of Twitter.

<comment><USER48> Yes but early-days Twitter did not have to compete with current-day Twitter when it was trying to grow.

<comment><USER49> It had to compete with general ignorance of its value. Many would argue that's a more difficult hurdle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I agree with the "Don't build anything for twitter" motto (and it would look good on a t-shirt), but part of me wonders if twitter could get by charging 25 cents a token past 100k, so developing apps is still possible, and twitter still gets its slice of the pie.

Although, it still kills the advertising cash cow.

<comment><USER51> I've always wondered why Twitter doesn't do something like this. Why wouldn't they change their rules to something like: Once you have more than 100k users you pay us 5-10% of every copy of your software sold. If your app's free then you don't pay anything.

I'm pretty sure developers would agree to something like this and Twitter could get some extra money that they're not getting right now.

<comment><USER33> Yea, that's not a bad idea. But who knows what their actual revenue or capital situation is. Just like Facebook, transparency is an issue.

I participate in these services, but I know full well whatever I post is market research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This is the inherent problem with building your product _with dependencies on other products_. You are tied to their system in such a way that your existence relies on the faith that they keep doing what they do and do not change to a system that blocks you or inhibits your functions.

I see the need/desire for hackers to make things useful and unique in a way that they envision things but you will never hear me apologize for my remarks on this subject. If you are building your business or product depending on someone else's and are not a form of contractual _partner_ you can be kicked in the ass down the line and there's no accountability to you they owe.

</comment><comment><USER53> I liked the Internet better when we had things like irc and news to talk with that weren't controlled by any single corporate entity.

</comment><comment><USER54> It is surprising that their response does not include a call to action with respect to their business development team. Why isn't there a 'click here to sign up to by a 10,000,000 token' link in that email? Now granted the result might be the same, people not developing for their API but at least they could get value pricing information as part of the transaction.

</comment><comment><USER55> Now that it has the userbase, it's milking its situation. The talk in the beginning was "How are they gonna make money out of this?" and the answer is gradually unfolding. Kudos to them or starting the way they did, shame on them for closing out the very things that brought them to where they are.

Late arrivals like identi.ca might not be as polished, but they offer a similar product, with open APIs. Being based on open and federated standards like status.net, it's extremely unlikely that identi.ca will ever get the ego trip twitter got, and in fact is much more likely that it will be more open over time, and more useful even if other competition arises. What it doesn't have, and what we (consumers as well as devs) can help with, is by heading over there and giving them users and status and content.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I still don't understand why everyone is getting angry about this. It doesn't affect clients made before they introduced the new rule. The only people who get hurt are the idiots who ignore twitter and build a business which uses their API in a way they have said not to.

</comment><comment><USER56> Not exactly. Twitter doesn't want you to build anything that will take a single eyeball from them. There are still services that can be built that don't fall in that category, though, such as sentiment analysis.

At least, for now. Twitter has shown they are willing to be hostile towards their developers. Even if I fit in the "don't take their eyeballs" category, I wouldn't build on their platform because I don't trust them.

</comment><comment><USER57> How would you compare the Twitter ecosystem to how the Facebook ecosystem is doing lately? Seems that Facebook sign on/identity is doing well. Seems that the Facebook hosted apps are increasingly less relevant than apps just getting sign on and possibly newsfeed flow? Twitter ecosystem seems pretty much destroyed. Tweeting and Facebook newsfeed seem to be doing fine.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm amazed we haven't seen some developer say screw it and build thing using Twitters own keys. There have been multiple instances of them being published over the last couple of years, and I'm having trouble seeing what incentive a dev has not to just use them.

If you're working against Twitters interest already then why not go for broke?

</comment><comment><USER59> > that our [...] future products do not already serve

wat?

</comment><comment><USER60> Tweetro should be happy that Twitter is not blaming them for using their platform in a way they prohibit. They want to use what Twitter has worked hard to build, make easy money, and then also want Twitter to spend extra to help them do it (by allowing more API calls etc) - why don't they build something original?

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned yet that Windows 8 has built-in Twitter integration that works very well.

Why do you need another client? Just go to the People Hub and click What's new. Need to reply or retweet? The buttons are right below the message. Need to see mentions or replies? Click Notifications.

</comment><comment><USER62> So, based on their guideline, if we made and sold Twitter ID BiLLYS which are custom made wooden signs for the or office (and BTW makes for a cool present), would Twitter have a problem with this?

</comment><comment><USER63> It seems to me this is an issue of pricing. Reach 100,000 tokens with demand to spare? Congratulations, you left money on the table. Charge more next time.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'd like to see what would happen if a third-party client just started to use the API token extracted from the official client. What could they do?

<comment><USER65> Technically nothing, I think. It will be nice to see clients with an option "Use you own tokens" and the official client token widely available for use.

For instance, I'm thinking about this for my integrations -- that's a token Twitter will never ban or throttle.

</comment></comment><comment> why-el Does anybody know of any Facebook apps that sort of do the same thing, i.e. recreate the Facebook newsfeed experience for users?

<comment><USER66> Shameless plug: <http://picaapp.com>. There are a few things we can't do due to the API not available for 3rd party apps

<comment> why-el Oh you guys are doing great work. I had a similar idea for a long time now, so its good to see it executed. :) Quick question: Does the API allow you to do interesting things with the newsfeed elements like tags and saving/searching?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I think some people might call this "biting the hand that feeds you". Or at least the hand that got you started.

<comment><USER42> Others might call it "getting big-timed"

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I don't understand why people bend over backward and provide also the grease to FB, Tweeter, AppStore & co?

</comment><comment><USER69> If developers are prohibited to develop apps with Twitter APIs, so why they build the API?

</comment><comment><USER70> make the twitter api a paid api, and everything will be clearer.

Businesses that rely on twitter will have a contractual relationship with twitter , meaning less uncertainty ,less competition ( since you'll have to pay upfront to access twitter's data , less clients ).

That's the solution that makes sense , instead of this half baked situation twitter api developers are in.</comment>


CodeOrgan.com: Translates any webpage into music - <AUTHOR> http://codeorgan.com/

<comment><USER2> When I type in a website and press start the page doesn't do anything...</comment>


Germans fall out of love with wind power - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/d8b9b0bc-04a6-11ea-a984-fbbacad9e7dd <comment><AUTHOR> > Growing opposition and lack of land spark collapse in construction of new > turbines

> "For the fight against climate change, this is a catastrophe," said Patrick > Graichen, the director of Agora Energiewende, a think-tank in Berlin. "If we > want to reach the 65 per cent renewables target we need at least 4GW of new > onshore wind capacity every year. This year we will probably not even manage > 1GW."

> The problem was two-fold, he said: "The federal states have not made > available enough areas for new wind turbines, and those that are available > are fought tooth and nail by local campaigners."</comment>


Disappointment with 2016 Macbook Pro pushes Apple loyalists to alternatives - <AUTHOR> http://betanews.com/2016/10/30/macbook-pro-2016-disappointment-pushes-some-apple-loyalists-to-ubuntu-linux/ <comment><AUTHOR> Could be submarine marketing, but I'd never heard of System76 until here on HN right after the Apple event... says on their twitter they're seeing > 4x their usual traffic. ([https://twitter.com/system76/status/793133162327003136](https://twitter.com/system76/status/793133162327003136)).

Between this and Michael Tsai's absolutely scathing collection of negative responses from all kind of big influencers ([http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/10/27/new-macbook-pros-and- the-s...](http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/10/27/new-macbook-pros-and-the-state-of- the-mac/)), it seems like Apple really did it this time...

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm sitting on a 2014 Macbook Pro and waiting for a 32GB model before I'd upgrade. Touch bar is neat and all but I don't care about saving a bit of thickness and losing my USB ports, and losing my SD card slot, and especially above all else losing my beloved MagSafe power interface.

Bring back MagSafe and I'd be okay with dongles for everything else. That interface has saved me from countless accidents.

</comment><comment><USER3> So what's the battery life for these laptops?</comment>