Direct Primary Care - <AUTHOR> http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/01/direct-primary-care.html <comment><USER2> The premise of this post is straightforward once you remember how insurance works from an economic standpoint.

One thing that people often overlook when talking about health insurance is that, economically, "health insurance" is really the combination of two completely separate products, only one of which is actually insurance.

Insurance is about pooling risk. It smooths risk across states of the world (e.g. the universe in which your house burned down, and the universe in which it didn't but your neighbor's house did instead). It reduces the variance between those states, and in exchange, it charges a premium for making the outcome more predictable. _It is not there to save you money_. The expected value of all insurance is negative, and that's intentional.

By a true insurance model, routine care and elective surgery would be priced the same with insurance as it would without, because there is no risk involved. The reason it isn't it because we want to subsidize these, to enable people to obtain care they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford. We use "insurance" as a vehicle for this, but really, that's not insurance at all. It's a redistribution.

So it's perfectly understandable that a primary physician who is dealing with routine care and doesn't accept insurance would be able to charge patients less (and still walk away with more money) than one who uses insurance.

The reason you don't see this everywhere, though, is that policies are making it harder and harder for physicians to run private practices entirely (whether they accept insurance or not). The majority of physicians are now employed, largely by hospital networks which are required to accept insurance (in some cases legally, and in others by virtue of the fact that they need to cover their Medicare losses[0]).

So, the place you are most likely to see the direct care model are with physicians who are catered to the incredibly wealthy. That's not to say that a direct care model couldn't work for people who aren't, but the way our system is set up doesn't facilitate it.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13356442](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13356442)

<comment><USER3> _> The expected value of all insurance is negative_

Only if you ignore non-monetary costs and benefits. Risk reduction/mitigation is a benefit and has a value. If it had no value, people would not bother buying insurance. When that benefit is taken into account, the net expected value of insurance is positive for both parties: the insurer makes money (assuming it has done its actuarial statistics properly) and the insured buys risk reduction/mitigation at a cost that is less than its value.

Your point about "health insurance" combining two separate products, only one of which is actually insurance, is valid, though, and very important.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure it holds for all health insurance products though - you're very specifically talking about the US model.

For the first part you're assigning a value to a thing beyond it's market cost and saying everyone is in fact a winner, and that's a little strange. Risk pooling via a private insurance company is negative sum because someone makes a profit beyond their costs. That should not then be taken to mean it's a bad deal (it isn't).

<comment><USER3> _> you're assigning a value to a thing beyond it's market cost and saying everyone is in fact a winner_

Of course. If that weren't true, people would not buy insurance.

 _> Risk pooling via a private insurance company is negative sum_

If you only consider monetary costs and benefits, yes. But this ignores the (non-monetary) value to the insured of not being exposed to the risk (because that risk exposure has been transferred to the insurer).

 _> That should not then be taken to mean it's a bad deal (it isn't)._

I agree that it's not a bad deal; I'm just saying that the reason it's not a bad deal is that people consider more than just monetary costs and benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this is a loop hole. Can anyone point me to a reference?

Source: I just spent months trying to figure out how to buy truly catastrophic insurance and avoid the aca penalty with no luck.

<comment><USER6> Many are combining Direct Health Care with a Healthcare Share. It's a co-op model that's not really "insurance" and is meant to be drawn from for only serious issues. So kind of what you'd expect to cover with a high-deductible plan. It works more like a community who reviews and decides whether they want to contribute to your bills.

One of the biggest advantages of these healthcare shares is that they're ACA exempt. Meaning, no fine. But there are other requirements to be accepted. Especially with the religious healthcare ministry ones. But they are very affordable.

For example, I know people who use [http://www.chministries.org](http://www.chministries.org) with a local (AZ in this case) DHC such as [https://www.arkfamilyhealth.com](https://www.arkfamilyhealth.com)

<comment><USER5> I came across those before. If I could feel confident t they would be garunteed to cover serious issues I'd do it. But it seems like there's no garuntee so you're taking a big risk?

Other issues I didn't like is that they're not eligible for an hsa? And what's the Guarantee you get the Aca exception?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My understanding is that one of the biggest issues that we can actually improve is inflated billing. It seems that something like direct primary care could help with that issue.

But maybe we could just create a law that resets things so that they cannot simply inflate the bill and then certain groups pay only a small percentage of the amount? Because it makes it so we can't tell what the real costs are at all, and then people who don't have insurance or the right insurance are screwed by these giant basically fraudulent bills.

That is the really stupid part about it.

Then another idea is, I think that some health care costs just really are quite high. This is because of scarcity of high-tech medical machines or doctors or specialists. Maybe the solution to that is to push for greater volume of high tech medical machinery or medicines and a greater volume of medical professionals.

Maybe by supplementing with advanced AI we can relax requirements for certain types of more general physicians or nurses rather than researchers, etc. Maybe just finding ways to reduce medical education could help.

Then one other idea is the realization that more and more mainstream researchers are having that A) the majority of medical problems have some significant component that is related to aging, or where aging increases risk, etc. and B) we are now in fact able to start investigating and have hope for treating the actual causes of the various system degradations referred to as aging.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is not particularly novel. There are already integrated HMOs, like Kaiser Permanente and Group Health Cooperative, that function in a similar way. Kaiser is a little more complicated (there is a "Kaiser Foundation Health Plan" that acts as insurer, while physicians work for the "Permanente Medical Group") but they have integrated systems so physicians are not spending time dealing with claims--and besides, the physicians do all their work for this one health plan, so there's no web of insurance companies.

<comment><USER2> > This is not particularly novel. There are already integrated HMOs, like > Kaiser Permanente and Group Health Cooperative, that function in a similar > way

Integrated practice is distinct from HMOs, though they might appear to be similar. Kaiser us an integrated practice and also provides and manages an HMO, but not all Kaiser patients belong to the HMO

> they have integrated systems so physicians are not spending time dealing > with claims--and besides, the physicians do all their work for this one > health plan, so there's no web of insurance companies.

Not exactly. Kaiser physicians still have to do all the work of coding and billing, except for them, the billing is all reconciled by a single entity and managed internally.

That's different from direct care, in which the billing step literally does not happen, because the patient self-pays, usual in-person.

<comment><USER9> Kaiser does have a PPO plan, but it must not be very common because the one Kaiser doctor I mentioned this to was very surprised and had never heard of Kaiser offering a non-HMO plan before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious how it would work at the hospital level, or even at the hospital network level. Pay the network a monthly fee, and then when you get sick, all of your care is already paid for. I suppose this is the idea behind HMOs, but the execution hasn't been there.

<comment><USER11> All the little hospitals and clinics in our area have been bought up by one of the two healthcare networks in the five-county region, and I'm fairly shocked they haven't done this.

Maybe it's illegal for a hospital system to offer insurance in NY? I don't know. You'd think they'd be happy to cut out all the fuss around handling insurance approvals/rejections and pocket the 20% middleman cut.

<comment><USER12> I don't have a ton of first-hand knowledge, but I know that being licensed to provide health insurance in NY specifically is no joke. Todd Park (former US CTO, AthenaHealth founder) once told me that he didn't pay much attention to Oscar early on until he found out they had gained an NY license, at which point he dove into it.

More broadly, many hospitals and hospital are getting involved in the ACO (accountable care org), which gets at some of these goals, but it's not 100% clear that an ACO model can be successful (financially or for patients), and it doesn't cut out all the relevant middle-men.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For anecdotes: I've had a HDHP before ACA, started at about $45/mo now up to about $60/mo with an outrageously high $12.5k or so deductible.

I've had two different DPC, one about $45/mo, now with one about $30/mo.

Both combined are still less than I would pay in any marketplace.

It's nice to be able to just see your doctor without worrying what it might cost. A large list of simple procedures are covered, and tests cost next to nothing. It's a health subscription to an actual doctor who can be just as cost-conscious as you are while still incredibly knowledgable and invested in your health.

<comment><USER14> I pay 780$/mo for a plan with a $13k max out of pocket. Where on earth are you getting 45$ ?

<comment><USER13> UnitedHealthcare -- though my plan may have been grandfathered in to be acceptable under ACA.

<comment><USER15> What state and how old are you? That seems insanely cheap compared every plan I've seen (high deductible or otherwise).

<comment><USER13> <30 midwest

<comment><USER16> Is this health insurance purchased via your employer? If so, is your employer subsidizing it?

Double digit premiums sound ridiculous, even for a male in their 20s. As a data point, I'm a <30 male, never been to a doctor with no health issues that I can tell, and my HDHP premium is $310ish, last year it was $275ish, but that's using healthcare.gov so completely unsubsidized, and I have a deductible of $1,500/$2,500 and out of pocket max of $3,600/$6,550 for their tier 1/tier 2 providers, respectively (whatever that means).

<comment><USER17> Note that GP had a _much_ higher deductible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So I'm a little confused, because it states that you can combine DPC care with an HDHP to satisfy basic coverage and skip the penalty, but wouldn't the HDHP plan satisfy that? Or is the simple possession of an HSA combined with DPC good enough? (The second case would seem weird, since there's no "insurance" for high risk situations; it's just a savings account. And in most cases you wouldn't have an HSA unless you already were on an HDHP.)

Nothing against DPC, I'm just unclear how this works in with the individual mandate.

<comment><USER19> IANAL, but the HDHP would be your ACA plan and the DPC would eliminate a lot of the expense of the HDHP for routine visits.

<comment><USER20> I can appreciate the appeal of DPC, but in my experience routine visits (at least anything that qualifies as preventative) are generally 100% covered by the high deductible plans. Maybe that's a requirement from ACA?

Maybe the DPC cost savings is in the non-preventative minor occurrences which are almost routine. Like a kid's broken bone for example, things you don't expect to happen but aren't exactly a surprise either, and not catastrophic.

<comment><USER21> Right, the HDHPs have to cover preventative care for in-network doctors. However, you still have to be careful. I have seen doctors bill for a non- preventative visit if you ask any questions at all about specific ailments during a preventative care visit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > They see their patients more frequently

This is strongly linked to several forms of harm. Over-testing, over- diagnosing, and over-treatment are dangerous. (And, in some places, expensive.)

[http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer- news/press-r...](http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/press- release/2016-04-06-public-dont-understand-overdiagnosis)

<comment><AUTHOR> In the US, it is a huge problem that physicians spend so much time dealing with insurance, they have to churn through patients and can't establish a real relationship to them. It actively undermines the quality of care. DPC allows physicians to escape a horrifying hamster wheel of running faster to just stay in place. It allows them to take the time to get to know their patients in a way that was normal when I was growing up, but is very rare these days.

It allows them to see the same patient for thirty minutes or an hour a few times a year and actually remember who they are instead of having some insanely low amount of time per patient per year, like seven or ten minutes. It has a track record in this country of stopping the insanity and improving care.

[http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical- economics...](http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical- economics/news/physicians-chart-new-path-direct-primary-care)

[http://aapp.org/2016/01/08/why-you-should-transition-to- dire...](http://aapp.org/2016/01/08/why-you-should-transition-to-direct- primary-care-and-how-you-can-make-the-process-easier/)

[http://www.dpceugene.com/single-post/2016/07/06/Why- choose-t...](http://www.dpceugene.com/single-post/2016/07/06/Why-choose-the- direct-primary-care-model)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What happens when your appendix bursts?

<comment><USER24> I think this is applying a "car insurance model" (sorry in advance for the car analogy) to healthcare. Ignore third-party insurance for the moment as it's not really applicable to health. You don't generally make an insurance claim for something like an oil change, 30/60/90k mile checkup, or something like that. On the other hand, if a tree fell on your car and smashed the engine, that's when insurance kicks in: for the catastrophes.

<comment><USER25> I understand what would happen for routine check-ups and serious accidents.

How would such a model handle predictable-but-expensive medical needs, like hip replacements for the elderly and monthly prescriptions for HIV and cancer patients?

<comment><USER26> The hip replacement can be covered under another policy like a home warranty. At the same time, without coverage, the prices have to come down. If they don't, all of those expensive doctors are bringing in near $0. Such an economic position is untenable.

The other two are probably going to be fixed through direct market forces. If the people of America can only pay $X, then the makers of the drugs can only charge $X + small premium to have a market. Since they would face a similar price pinch abroad, they'd have to adjust their prices.

We've seen the inverse of the price pinch with the epi-pen scandal. The makers knew the price could go up since insurance would absorb the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Except that if you have a HDHP, your costs towards routine care also go towards your deductible, so if you have emergency care that year, you only get hit with your max out-of-pocket for the year. Instead of paying your max for the year AND whatever your paid directly to your direct pay provider.

So these types of services are a gamble - you come out ahead if you have no emergencies. And come out behind if you do. For a family with kids, I'll pass. If you are young and healthy and do not have kids, and do not do a lot of outdoor activities that risk injuries, this might make more sense.

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't you hit the out of pocket max if you have an emergency? As long as you have that much cash, HDHP makes sense to me.

<comment><USER28> That is a fair point - any major hospitalization and you're over your deductible anyways. But the insurance statistic is that about 87% of people with a 3k deductible will reach that in a given year and <95% of people with a 5k deductible will reach that in a given year.

Which means, families are paying more than $1000/mo or 12k/year for a risk thats rarely over 5k. Which means they can decrease their insurance coverage, save $500/mo on their premiums, and save more money each year than their increased deductibles would be.

Plus, our direct care models saves them on the majority of care most people need in a year.

i've been a direct care doc since 9/2010 and happy to answer any questions. to (quickly) define the model: $10-100/patient/month for unlimited home/work/office/technology visits, no copays, any procedure we can do in the office is included free, and wholesale savings on medicines, labs, imaging, pathology of up to 95% (yes!)

We can then take all of this value and go back to an employer and help decrease insurance costs by 30-60%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > It achieves lower costs in large part by cutting out the middle man of > health insurance for basic services.

Is it _actually_ lower cost? The cash fee for a PCP visit and what insurance _actually_ pays are drastically different. If you're paying a membership fee just to get the same sort of rates insurance pays out at, there's no win here.

> A little known provision of the ACA makes Direct Primary Care a kind of > legal loophole. When combined with a high deductible health plan or health > savings account, Direct Primary Care can meet the requirements for basic > coverage, thus getting you out of the tax penalty for not being properly > covered.

That's not a loophole. That's "pay extra". You'd still need at least a Bronze plan, and any visits that bill against your DPC won't count towards your annual deductible or out-of-pocket caps.

<comment><USER2> > The cash fee for a PCP visit and what insurance actually pays are > drastically different. If you're paying a membership fee just to get the > same sort of rates insurance pays out at, there's no win here.

You don't want to get the same rates that insurers pay - those are actually the inflated rates.

Billing is complicated. In short, part of the problem is that doctors who take public insurance (Medicare/Medicaid) actually take a loss on those patients, because Medicare reimburses about 7% less than the direct costs of services, in the aggregate. It's one of the reasons you see very few private practices which cater solely, or even primarily, to Medicare patients.

The way providers make this work, since they can't negotiate rates with Medicare, is to charge higher rates for private insurers. This ends up as an effective subsidy from private insurers to Medicare.

A doctor who doesn't accept any insurance whatsoever doesn't have to manage this indirect subsidy, so the amount they charge a self-paying patient could be a lot less than what another doctor would bill a private insurer for.

<comment><USER20> I would like to learn more about this. Some people here (who claim to be intimately involved with the actual financial aspects of running a clinic) say it's the opposite -- that Medicare actually pays the bills so the clinic stays open because the private insurers are so effective at getting out of paying anything.

Surely there is a reliable source that can confirm one way or another how this works in practice? I get that it is probably arcane and difficult to understand, but in a country as vast as the US there is probably someone who understands it well enough to summarize for a layman.

<comment><USER29> Medicare reimburses some smaller facilities at a higher rate than other facilities.

"critical access hospital" is a good search term. Basically every small town hospital that has an ER.

Another term is "rural health clinic"

<comment><USER28> to help clarify this -- they pay 1% more than the normal rate. to CAH's

[https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/critical-access- hospi...](https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/critical-access- hospitals#benefits)

<comment><USER29> The 101% of cost reimbursement is a different payment model than used for bigger hospitals (Prospective Payment Systems [https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service- paymen...](https://www.cms.gov/medicare/medicare-fee-for-service- payment/prospmedicarefeesvcpmtgen/index.html) ).

And no one else pays anywhere near 100% of 'reasonable costs' (they pay more, or in the case of Medicaid, less). So I wouldn't call it the normal rate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't take your cellphone or laptop to China - <AUTHOR> http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/02/13/0158207/best-practice-travel-light-to-china

<comment><AUTHOR> Normally I don't submit Slashdot articles, but there were three interesting links from the one article.</comment>


Looking for old YC post... - <AUTHOR>

Fairly recently there was a post on how all the different YC startups do their design. I mean to save it but forgot and now I cant find it. Can anyone post the link? Thanks. <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134703> ?

</comment><comment><USER3> you can use <http://www.searchyc.com/>

It helps when you're looking for stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> hey, is this it?

<http://www.paulgraham.com/newthings.html>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yeah xirium that was it, thanks!</comment>


Zulily: Fresh, Fast, and Worth $1 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/billionaire-club-zulily.html

<comment><USER2> I don't want to be negative, but this seems like a 100% puff PR release. I've never heard of this company and without doing additional research I feel like I still know nothing. Nothing is explained - what exactly do they do (online retail?), how it's different from competition, do they make money & how is this valuation justified? I seriously can't tell if it's a parody or a real piece.

<comment><USER3> I know of this company through my wife and her sister. In the last year, my wife's sister has purchased over $1k worth of goods and my wife has spent close to $400 for our new baby. Zulily is taking mom's by storm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Without going into too much detail, the guys that work there are really good at what they do. They purposely avoid PR, and for good reason, they don't want too much information revealed about just how successful they really are.

If anyone knows anything about Flash sales, they'll know that Zulily is one of the top contenders in the space.</comment>


Linux kernel 2.6.34 adds scalable Ceph filesystem - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/05/linux-kernel-2634-adds-scalable-ceph-filesystem.ars

<comment><USER2> Ceph looks very interesting. Anyone here using it already?

<comment><USER3> Interesting is an understatement. It looks like the holy grail of distributed storage - if it works as advertised.

Looking forward to see more of that. They say it's not yet ready for production, but the kernel inclusion seems to suggest they're at least reasonably sure that this _will_ be made work in the foreseeable future.</comment></comment>


Who Needs Advanced Math? Not Everybody - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/education/edlife/who-needs-advanced-math-not-everybody.html <comment><USER2> Why? He doesn't like Common Core and wants to lower the bar.

Everyone needs logic and philosophy, abstract thinking, and the ability to prove (or disprove) with facts or evidence.

This guy, more than anyone else, really really needs to read, comprehend, and understand 'Software is eating the world' to understand exactly how wrong he is. But at 86 years old, I doubt his ability to grok anything that doesn't fit his predefined narrative and views.</comment>


Abolish the TSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/12/02/tsa-department-homeland-security-patriot-act-column/3796127/

<comment><USER2> Maybe I shouldn't be surprised, as this is a USAToday article, but how disappointing that this is just a rant without any meat to it. Sure I agree, abolish the TSA, but the article itself is just a waste of words.

</comment><comment><USER3> People need to get over themselves. The TSA are normal high school graduates that want a higher paid than 7.25hr. Let them work and stop getting butt-hurt when someone touches your genitals, in my world that usually constitutes for a good day.</comment>


Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980405.html

<comment><USER2> Mentioning a specific year in this "law" really kills any timelessness you might otherwise associate with it.

<comment><USER3> At the end of the article he updates the charts with datapoints to 2008 and says that his original premise is still true.

<comment><USER4> Yes, and those "datapoints" are merely when the author buys, or claims to have bought, new equipment.

Not a very scientific proof for this law, in my opinion.</comment></comment></comment>


PHP 5.4.0 Built-in Web Server DoS PoC - <AUTHOR> http://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/18665/

<comment><USER2> Nice but it's already been fixed and the built-in webserver is for development.</comment>


How to Evaluate Your Startup Idea Part 1: The Basics - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2012/03/01/how-to-evaluate-your-startup-idea-part-1-the-basics/

<comment><USER2> A very solid list of the intellectual side. The other equally important side is the emotional.

I would at least add: #8 Expected Long-term Passion

I have _tons_ of startup ideas. I think my current list is around 50 and those are just the ones that I write down because they're nagging at me. Just about any of them _could_ be successful to some extent. Most of them would make it over this list.

The thing that would prevent me from work on 98% of them is my own self- awareness. I know that I couldn't sustain my motivation to work on them over the long-term.

Any sufficiently ambitious startup idea is going to be a 3+ year commitment to fully execute on. That means you have to be deeply and genuinely be interested in the problem enough to sustain your for _years_. That's a very high bar that very few ideas make it over.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about something like #8. It's a legitimate concern for sure. I just tend not to naturally come up with ideas that I wouldn't like working on. I don't feel I can judge very far in advance how much I'll like something 3 years down the line, and most startups are dead or evolved into something else by then anyway.

<comment><USER3> The idea is very different from the work you'll be doing to implement it. So this #8("Expected Long-term Passion") is a REAL requirement.

For example: you love adventure sports and want to create a marketplace for adventure sprots. The truth is you WILL NOT be doing any adventure sports during the next 3 years. You'll be doing marketing, getting partners to give discounts, sales etc ... On top of that you might have to pivot to doing something only slightly related.

OR for another example: you want to create a nutritional tool that will help people lose weight. You think it will be getting together great nutrtional content and showing it to users is a meaningful way but instead it could involve creating better image recognition of foods.

Also as soon as you take money, your locked into the idea and need to see it through or your never going to work in this town again. Investors hate one thing more than anything else - low effort.

I've just been through all this so I've finally reazlied that "passion" is VERY VERY VERY necessary.

So in addition to all of the above requirements for an idea, it should also satisfy the following :

"If I do this and it fails - I'll still be VERY HAPPY that I spent the last 2 years of my life doing this."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great list Matt, thanks for sharing.

One test I now use is this: Is the core feature, without any additions, enough to cater to a big market? I've noticed that some of the best startups solve one really important problem and are able to ride that for a long time. Examples include Google, Dropbox, Facebook, and now Stripe.

If no one gets really excited when you show them the most basic version of your idea, then padding it with more features is probably not going to help.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I think an MVP should be exciting for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My new favorite that I use now almost immediately is simply, "If I were to give the core product away absolutely free, would people take it? If so, how enthusiastic would they be about getting it?"

It sounds ridiculous, but I have found it brings a quick dose of reality to ideas that I come up with on a whim that are subject to my own bias. For a grossly simple example, if I were to start a restaurant, there is a safe bet that it COULD be successful because anybody would accept food if it were given away for free, especially if it were of high quality. The rest of the process of building a successful restaurant is fairly complicated, but without a product people would be happy to receive for free, there is no business. The level of enthusiasm the people show for the core product is a good indicator of how much they would pay.

Contrast that with a lot of software/internet businesses and that question gets very murky. With a lot of the sites that I start work on I think "if I offered this product for free, would people be excited to get it?" and very often I realize my idea, while perhaps creative, just isn't solving a real need.

</comment><comment><USER6> No future posts/parts necessary.

Just put a price tag on your idea and give it some time; an idea worthy of strangers' money is validated.

</comment><comment><USER7> Good article, but question -- why is the 'WTF' linked to Sleep.fm?

<comment><AUTHOR> An Easter egg for anyone who has been reading my blog for 5+ years. It used to be my example of the dumbest idea around. It was back at a time when "social" was the big buzz and people were trying to apply it to everything, including, apparently, the alarm clock.

It's original incarnation, if I remember correctly, was some software that you ran on a computer in your bedroom (with your speakers on) that allowed your friends to wake you by changing your alarm time. The new incarnation looks just as bad. But they did mix in mobile and Twitter and Facebook!

<comment><USER7> Ah I see, that's funny. Whats interesting is that I personally know the guy who made that, and worked next to him at Dreamit Ventures years ago (Dreamit's first class) during a whole summer. So you can imagine my surprise to find the link on your site. For the record, very nice guy.

I agree completely though, 'social' was all the rage. Much like 'Big Data' today.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Messenger builds in Uber integration - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/16/facebook-messenger-transportation/ <comment><USER2> >alerts those in your chat thread that you have indeed grabbed a ride…instead of you lying that you have whilst still in your pajamas

Is this actually an issue for anyone?

<comment><USER3> Yeah I think I will find it incredibly useful. Coordinating large groups of friends to meet up is a hassle and I think those alerts will be very helpful. "Oh man, Matt grabbed an Uber. I'll call mine now.", etc.

Of course, we'll see in practice how useful the alerts turn out to be.</comment></comment>


GitHub is rolling out a feature to add your bio - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/settings/profile?focus_bio=1 <comment><USER2> See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11808743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11808743).</comment>


1000-year simulation shows space debris will become 'uncontrollable' - <AUTHOR> https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/12/1000-year-simulation-shows-space-debris-will-become-uncontrollable/ <comment><USER2> Spoiler: 200-year simulation failed to predict catastrophe so they ran it for 1000 years

<comment><USER3> I agree. It's a problem of the simple security rule that is good enough for now and a simple model for satellites, that is good enough for the next 200 years.

If they extend it to 1000 years they get a catastrophe, but the model is too simple. Let's imagine what model they had 1000 years ago (for carriages in roads, or sail boats, or something) and how applicable it is to the current world.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: As a developer, how much paperwork do you do? - <AUTHOR>

In my new team, the developers are having to take on a lot of paperwork. By that I don't mean development related notes or documentation. I mean all the Fortune 500 red tape, from funding requests to putting in change requests, each filled with its horde of three letter acronyms. Also spending time even understanding what you're supposed to be filling out and how to do it, to tracking down product managers to get their paperwork pieces, etc.<p>It seems a lot of time spent on doing non-development related work. Wondering, especially for those in the enterprise setting, as a regular developer if you're seeing the same or not? <comment><USER2> Wow that sounds awful. I don't think I could handle that to be honest. I don't do any paperwork at my work. But I am still fairly junior here. But our managers would handle all that paperwork either way.

</comment><comment><USER3> The most I do is filling out my timesheet on a weekly basis, and help desk service requests for myself as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like nothing gets done there.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot of delay in getting projects out the door as people are pulled away to do paperwork for this part of the project or some other project.</comment></comment>


France could nationalize big companies if necessary: finance minister - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-nationalist/france-could-nationalize-big-companies-if-necessary-finance-minister-idUSKBN2141AO <comment> Funes- Most of them were originally national companies, like BNP Paribas or Renault. Those two were privatised in the nineties. It's the same thing in Spain, and I reckon all around Europe. A shame, if you ask me, that many of them were providing essential public resources (telecommunications, energy, food, banking, etcetera) and eventually underwent a very sketchy privatisation process.

<comment><USER2> The problem isn't national vs private companies. It's monopolies vs true competition. Any monopoly or oligopoly is inefficient by nature, and tend to become corrupt over time. National companies are monopolies. Incorrectly privatized national companies is just transferring a monopoly from one party to another.

Privatization done right can work. But you need to break up the big national companies into smaller regional companies that should be incentivized to expand into each others regions, thus providing competition.

<comment><USER3> Natural monopolies can be efficient.

Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient.

By your reasoning the government is always becoming more inefficient by nature. Odd because the standard of life keeps going up and the % GDP taken in taxes remains steady(ish).

<comment><USER4> > Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power > delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient.

That's never the case. Power is separated into producers, transmitters and retailers (you only deal with retailers who compete in service and negotiate with producers.

Telco's lease line from national company, negotiate peering and retail to you.

Exception is cell telcos... these pay so much in spectrum auctions that almost undoubtedly few millions end up in polichickens pockets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The French government (as with most European governments) has a closer relationship with industry that we see in the Anglosphere, so this is not quite a surprise.

That said, it's good timing on the announcement because it's more a signal than anything.

'We will not hesitate' is pretty strong language, indicating faith in those institutions that are, at least for now 'too big to fail'.

<comment><USER6> I would really like to see new laws (or deleted old ones) in order to increase safety for such unexpected conditions.

It feels something is terribly wrong with the world and the basic laws of capitalism, now that it turns out many companies don't pile on stuff, and go out of business in a matter of weeks when supply is lagging behind.

<comment><USER7> > _It feels something is terribly wrong with the world and the basic laws of > capitalism_

But this _is_ the basic law of free markets at work. If you can run on a leaner supply chain, you'll outcompete those that can't. It's regular market competition that makes systems extremely fragile - all redundancy is considered as waste, fat to be cut off.

<comment><USER8> Thats only true if regular crashes aren't allowed to take place.

<comment><USER7> No. Most companies do that and they do crash because of that. The market doesn't care about survival of any individual company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can anyone here say to what degree EU state aid & competition law is going to help or hinder governments over the next few weeks, as they try to shore up rapidly collapsing national economies?

<comment><USER10> National emergencies are an exception to state aid rules (and a lot of other rules and laws).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a far, far better response to bankruptcy of essential industry than the bailout of 2008.

<comment><USER12> Can you expand on that?

Nationalization to me isn't that different from a bailout, the government (and thus taxpayers) foot the bill. With nationalization I guess the government can exert greater control over how the company is run, but is that necessarily the best way to provide oversight?

<comment><USER13> No, Venezuela is a poignant example of what nationalization does to companies and industries. They simply bog down in eventual corruption and massive inefficiency to the point of stopping or limping along.

The counter opposite example is China and their industries, but that implies an even worse kind of relationship that greatly exploits people and their labor.

<comment><USER14> You really can not compare Venezuela and France like this. I love both countries but they are worlds - ok, continents - apart in how they are governed and to what degree corruption is prevalent.

<comment><USER15> OP's argument is so cheap... "Nationalization failed in this corrupt country, therefore nationalization is terrible!".

It's like saying Ford are shit cars after a drunk driver crashes one..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is goverment helping small and medium sized companies in someway?

<comment><USER17> Yes, at least in France. They passed (or merely announced?) a number of measures so that SMEs don't collapse due to treasury problems: postponed/cancelled taxes and contributions, paid time off for the staff without the usual delays, etc.

As I understood they took example on what Germany did in 2008, and learned from what worked over there. Whether all countries do the same is another story altogether, but at least in France they might save a good number of jobs (by inflating the public debt, but that's a separate issue).

<comment><USER18> > postponed/cancelled taxes

If a business loses 2-3 quarters of revenue/profit due to COVID-19, how will they "make it back" to payback their previously postponed taxes (from the quarter they made little to no money in)?

<comment><USER19> French business owner here. The current goal is to prevent companies from failing to avoid mass unemployment:

\- If you need to suspend your workers contracts, they are covered by the state. No need to fire them.

\- all tax collections have been suspended

\- your credit lines with commercial banks are covered by the state, so you can suspend payments or increase them if needed

\- The BPI (Public Investment Bank) has an emergency loan available for companies that could run out of cash due to the situation.

They are not talking about the aftermath yet but these efforts cost a huge amount of money. My guess is that they will recover money by raising taxes for several years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Any Western country can do this.

</comment><comment><USER20> France is very known for this. It's not surprising. Doing businesses there can be very fishy sometimes cause of this.

</comment><comment><USER21> Please stop downvoting arguments you disagree with.

There are a few bad posts, simply calling someone an idiot, etc. Good: downvote.

But a lot are being downvoted because they express arguments that are disagreed with.

<comment> Funes- >But a lot are being downvoted because they express arguments that are disagreed with.

In my experience, that's always going to happen with voting mechanisms on comment sections. I tend to have disagreeable or extreme views on most subjects, and while I try to be considerate and not show any rudeness in my comments, I still get a lot of downvotes from time to time.

<comment><USER22> I know this opinion gets thrown around a lot but after coming back to HN after a few years away the discussions have changed a lot. I feel in the past the downvote mechanism was used less frequently and debates were possible without them. It's still far better than a lot of discussion boards and like all communities growth creates change but as a heavy user in the past (I think I hit the top 100 users at one point) it's definitely much more 'reddity' now depending on the subject.

<comment> Funes- I honestly don't know why there's a downvote function to begin with. I cannot downvote (yet?), but I wouldn't use it if I could. In the case that I disagree with someone and I happen to be knowledgeable on the subject at hand, I'll write them a reply if I have the time to do it. What downvoting does, instead, is fostering polarization and bias, on top of silencing controversial comments that could very well be absolutely sensible and truthful.

<comment><USER23> I downvote things that seem poorly thought out, poorly argued, incendiary, or in general seem to be adding noise to the conversation without adding anything meaningful. It seems like there has been a rise in this sort of low-effort posting in the past few years, and I think downvoting is helpful to combat it.

When I downvote something, I usually write a comment explaining why I think it's not useful, although I don't always have time to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> this is a step too far... bailouts are preferred to this but if France wants to shoot itself in the foot I guess let them?

<comment><USER25> If the government is competent the nationalization can be good. French govt already took control of their face mask supply. Ensuring at least more face masks to healthcare providers. It's hard to argue this specific action hurts the French society. People need to analyze whether specific actions by the government are good or bad for society not if it fits into your ideological narrative

<comment><USER26> > French govt already took control of their face mask supply.

I don't know about that. What I know is that they sent all the production to China and Iran a month ago and now that we critically need masks there are none to be found even for medical professionals deemed 'not essentials'.

We're talking about a government that allowed elections to happen 3 days ago then quarantined the whole country today ...

<comment><USER27> > What I know is that they sent all the production to China and Iran a month > ago and now that we critically need masks there are none to be found even > for medical professionals deemed 'not essentials'.

That may wind up being the right call. China's ramping up production dramatically; the goodwill engendered may be to France's benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> For the US:

Pump money into Amazon/FedEx/PostMates delivery services.

Keep restaurants open and tap them into the food supply chain.

Close all stores except to delivery services.

UBI and universal health care starts now.

</comment><comment><USER29> Government motors worked out okay for taxpayers in the USA. Not sure France is going to relinquish control though. They seem to like central planning / high unemployment over there.

<comment><USER30> Taxpayers _and_ GM workers and pensioners.</comment></comment>


Square IPO Postponed Indefinitely - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2014/02/28/square-ipo-postponed-indefinitely/?cmpid=cmty_twitter_fb

<comment><USER2> Congratulations to Square for making people that it was in the mobile payment business.

Square is typically the kind of Company with a great initial product that raises too much money for its own good and end up chasing 500 battles because they have the team do so. Fab comes to mind as well.

Square has a significant problem: their product is mostly used by merchants with low average selling prices (ASP) and their pricing model (flat 2.7% vs. the usual X%+0.3) kills their margins at this price point. On the other hand, their POS, which could/should allow them to sign more sophisticated retailers or restaurants with higher ASP does scale with businesses because it does not have any of the workflow management features that are necessary.

Overall, they are stuck with an unprofitable customer base and with a (beautiful product) and are trying to throw things on top of this to create a consumer product (like the failed Pay with Square thing).

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate? My understanding is that most merchant accounts are in the 2% + .45 range. Are you suggesting that merchant margins depend on a 1% margin?

<comment><USER4> 2% can have a big impact. Many business have a gross margin of 20-30%. If you take Square's 2.75% from $100, that's $2.75 off a $20-30 gross margin – or 9.2% to 13.75% of the gross margin. That is a very large cost for a service seen as a commodity.

<comment><USER5> That's not how this works.

Square gets 2.75%. They pay their acquirer (I think Wells Fargo) Interchange+maybe a small fee. For example a swiped (card present) debit card purchase at a retail store is 0.80% + $0.15 (an example - this varies wildly). On $100 that's $0.95. They get $2.75. That's a 60% or so margin. It can also go down quite a bit depending on the type of card used which they really have no control over. For example it could drop to 20% on a corporate rewards card. I would say overall they probably have a very good margin.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you understood my comment. The 20-30% gross margin refers to the business using Square, not Square.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "The mobile payment industry is saturated with competition"

No. No it isn't. The mobile payment industry is saturated with a lot of average products and tons of opportunity to do things better.

<comment><USER7> Square's products lately have been amazing. Have you seen Square Cash?

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

I'm pretty much a Square fanboy at this point. I'm sure they could improve, and are actively working to do so - but I wouldn't label Square's products as average.

<comment><USER8> Given that they don't make any money on it, isn't Cash really just a fantastic marketing tool for them?

<comment><USER9> It has < 50k downloads since its launch (almost half a year ago now), I wouldn't call it fantastic if the main function is to spread the word. (not that it is not a great product, the app is awesome!)

<comment><USER8> You don't need the app to use the service (cc: email@example.com or email@example.com). We have no idea how many people are using the service.

Remember that for every single person that uses it, they gain another user on top of that. Even more potentially with request@. I consider that a fantastic marketing tool since it must effectively cost them very little to run the service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> '"private-market valuation could not be substantiated by their revenues as a public company," said one person with knowledge of the company's activities.'

<comment><USER10> Hasn't been a problem for Salesforce... /snark

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm also guessing that they now have to figure out how to redesign their product for C&P, post-Target. That's going to be expensive, as it'll change the backend as well as the reader - and require significant certification as a two-part system.</comment>


The apt command: Combining apt-get and apt-cache and adds a progress bar (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/ <comment><USER2> I've never understood why debian insists on having these be different commands. It would make sense if install, search, upgrade and uninstall were all discrete, but the way it is today feels half implemented.

<comment><USER3> Only one of them requires readwrite system administrator privileges (eg sudo). _apt-cache_ can be run by any user as it doesn't expose any secret data and can't be used to make changes. apt-get can install and uninstall software as well as download packages and thus needs root privileges in the classic UNIX model.

<comment><USER4> On CentOS, I can do "yum search something" as a regular user, while "yum install something" or "yum upgrade" require root privileges.

I think it's similar with the pkg command on FreeBSD.

<comment><USER5> and same with pacman on Arch (and derivatives)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's another thing about apt that's bothered me: apt-cache search isn't a very good search engine. Its most common use case is finding the exact name of some library/framework package, ie, "apt-cache search someframework". For common frameworks, this produces hundred of search results for packages that _use_ the framework and mention this in their description, while the framework itself is in the list but very difficult to find. The --names-only flag fixes this, but it's not the default so it's one more thing to worry about.

<comment><USER7> I have this problem too. If I did myself shelling out to grep with pcre flags to find a simple library then there's a UX issue.

<comment> iam-TJ Search uses regular expressions so generally no need for grep unless you need more complex filters; --names-only has the -n short-form:

      apt-cache search -n <regexp>

More generally apt-get and apt-cache are designed to be backward-compatible for use in scripts whereas _apt_ is not[0]:

      SCRIPT USAGE AND DIFFERENCES FROM OTHER APT TOOLS

           The apt(8) commandline is designed as an end-user tool and it may change behavior between versions. While it tries not to break backward compatibility this is not guaranteed either if a change seems beneficial for interactive use.

[0] [http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/en/man8/apt.8.htm...](http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/en/man8/apt.8.html)

<comment><USER7> Great tip thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Will it take twice the amount of time with the progress bar enabled?

<comment><USER9> I can't answer specifically for `apt`, but many commands take significantly longer if you let them display to stdout versus piping their output to a file or `/dev/null`. cf.:

      $ time ls -R /usr
      real    0m7.570s
      user    0m0.104s
      sys     0m2.286s

      $ time ls -R /usr > /dev/null
      real    0m0.193s
      user    0m0.036s
      sys     0m0.154s

(edit: when will I grok HN markup?? _cough_ support markdown _cough_ )

<comment><USER10> Did you run those two commands in sequence? Did you account for disk-cache effects? Try running it 4 times, alternating the versions and see what your last 2 times are ...

<comment><USER11> You can actually show different speeds in different terminals - the speed of terminal rendering affects the duration of the test. In the tests below, I have no custom terminal prompts or similar (no git status lines etc) - they're all distribution defaults running bash.

        # all the below run in the same MATE desktop
        # lxterm (from lxde - is easiest on my eye)
        $ time ls -R /usr
        real    0m19.974s
        user    0m0.860s
        sys	    0m0.832s

        # gnome terminal
        $ time ls -R /usr
        real    0m19.902s
        user    0m0.800s
        sys     0m0.776s

        # xterm (yes, it really is 10x the speed)
        $ time ls -R /usr
        real    0m1.872s
        user    0m0.856s
        sys     0m0.800s

        # rerun in the first terminal, and the time hasn't changed - still 19s

        # now in lxterm redirecting to null
        # (and xterm gives similar results here)
        $ time ls -R /usr > /dev/null

        real    0m0.418s
        user    0m0.256s
        sys     0m0.156s

All that prettification and rendering takes time; if you want raw speed, use xterm... or pipe output to /dev/null.

Interestingly, 'time' on gterm and lxterm had tabs between the above field:value pairs (I had to reformat to show them nicely), but xterm used spaces. I don't know enough about the terminal underpinnings to guess as to why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> also don't forget apt-file (very useful to find out which package contains the library/binary you want to install) and dpkg -L to figure out what a particular package installed on your system.

I switched to debian some time ago and it's interesting so many different commands are used for package management, this said I personally have an alias ap=sudo aptitude -t jessie-backports alias and use that as a command line interface for search/install, and run the full aptitude gui only when doing updates

<comment><USER13> Yes to apt-file, and 'apropos' seems to fit in there too (searches for keywords in package descriptions).

<comment><USER13> Replying because can't edit: "apt search $keyword" works like apropos but isn't in the tab completion on my Kubuntu 15.10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> v1.1: [https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/apt-1-1-released/](https://mvogt.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/apt-1-1-released/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I've already been using wajig for years now. It combines these two and about a dozen other utilities into one command.

<comment><USER16> Wow, I've never heard of this, pretty neat! Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wonder how it compares to aptitude? Used to be (10 years ago), aptitude was better and not orphaning packages on removal. Been using ever since..

</comment><comment><USER18> Really cool. Somehow I had missed the introduction of this but it's a friendlier interface and already on my Ubuntu systems.

<comment><USER19> Same here, I can't believe we're a few years late. Much better than the apt- get / apt-cache stupidity.

<comment><USER20> Harsh, this must have really upset you.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps not upset, just intolerant of really lame, unintuitive crap software?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If you'd like to try this right away (not have to wait) on any version of Debian/Ubuntu (just need pip) try this script I wrote several years ago:

[https://pypi.python.org/pypi/apt-wrapper/](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/apt- wrapper/)

No prog bar but it handles all common tasks, ppa's, and elevates with sudo automatically. For example:

        > pip install apt-wrapper
        > apt in foobar

</comment><comment><USER23> Here is my "apt-upgrade.sh"

        apt-get -y update
        apt-get -y upgrade
        apt-get -y dist-upgrade
        apt-get -y autoremove

I run that everyday.

<comment><USER24> [https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades](https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades)

<comment><USER23> Thank you a lot!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I love this, but its terminal magic isn't working properly for me. "apt install stuff" places a progress bar at the moment, then prints some misaligned stuff and then finally manages to clear the screen (!).

Any terminal settings I need to adjust? I'm using OS X's Terminal.app, terminal declared as xterm-256color, via SSH, under zsh.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why not just alias apt=aptitude?

<comment><USER27> apt has colors, aptitude doesn't… ?

<comment><USER28> aptitude has a nice curses interface, though, which is great for resolving conflicts or other changes that require planning

<comment><USER29> It also usually seems to be slower to start (at least in my experience) -- I tend to not like to use it except for resolving broken packages (since it's the nicest way to do that).

<comment><USER28> The latest version in Debian unstable (0.7.7) seems to have brought some improvements in startup time. Generally the recent progress has been very nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I had no idea about this and I maintain (only) Debian and Ubuntu based clients everyday..

</comment><comment><USER31> Is this installed by default on Debian? If not, then this is a deal-breaker for me. I might as well install aptitude which also provides a similar command line interface.

<comment><USER32> It's provided by the same package as e.g. apt-get and apt-cache, so yes.

<comment><USER31> Thanks for the info, appreciate it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> i like the recent changes in debian. finally most of the use cases are covered

</comment><comment><USER34> Finally! why has this taken so long? Common sense people</comment>


JARR: an aggregator based on Flask, asyncio, SQLAlchemy and React - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/JARR-aggregator/JARR <comment><AUTHOR> You can deploy it on Heroku: [https://elements.heroku.com/buttons/jarr- aggregator/jarr](https://elements.heroku.com/buttons/jarr-aggregator/jarr) or use this instance: [https://jarr.herokuapp.com](https://jarr.herokuapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> This actually looks pretty cool. Screenshots would be useful for passersby.</comment>


Keeping an Eye on Online Test-Takers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/technology/new-technologies-aim-to-foil-online-course-cheating.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1&

<comment><USER2> March 2, 2013. Earlier submission of this story:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5312551></comment>


Need a caffeine fix? Just inhale. - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2012/02/08/caffeine-inhale.html

<comment><USER2> This just sounds dangerous to me. I wonder how long it will take before some kid decides to take 10 of these and dies.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for an Alternative to Jira - <AUTHOR> I've been using Jira on a Starter licence since I was in university. Over time I've found that it's become steadily more bloated, heavy and costly. Several key features which were previously built-in are now plugins with a fairly high aggregate cost.
I've been out of the open-source bug-tracker loop for way too long. Are there any good alternatives to JIRA?
Essentially I need a bugtracker which can handle multiple projects and separate the bugs out on that basis. Custom workflow support would be good, but not essential (as nerdy as it sounds, I sometimes use JIRA as a digital to-do list). <comment><USER3> You can try Taiga [1] it supports kanban style or scrum style development with a very beautiful interface. It has all you need built-in with issues, epics, tasks, sprint or just a kanban board.

Both front-end and back-end are open source. It can be customized easily and can be integrated with video conference, IRC, slack, CI, Gitlab, GitHub, kallithea-scm or just with git and mercurial easily.

Backend is built using Python Django framework with celery and front-end as SPA in angularjs. Give it a try I think it's also a very good example production system in Django with angularjs to learn from.

[1] [https://github.com/taigaio](https://github.com/taigaio)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've noticed a lot of people mentioning Taiga in the comments, and it looks like it's got everything we'd need.

I'll have a dig and see if there's a Docker script to run up a test/eval installation. I might have tried to install it before, but the separate "backend" and "frontend" made it look quite complex to install.

Python is a big plus, I know how to make that decently performant on our VPS (half our tech stack is Python based).

<comment><USER3> My team had built a lxd image to run it as lxd container. It's easy to do.

It also has great documentation check at [http://taigaio.github.io/taiga- doc/dist/](http://taigaio.github.io/taiga-doc/dist/)

You can look at installation setup production system. It has a built-in script which can automate installation too with systemd service setup.

Obviously forgot to mention you can have it as SaaS if you do not like to do self-install. Check [https://taiga.io/](https://taiga.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If your source repositories are on Github, please consider Github issues. You'll need to setup a lot of labels to handle the different status, priority and component fields that you'd normally get in JIRA, and you'll have to use Github "projects". You'll also have to use issue checklists instead of subtasks. I'd do it myself if our organization's process wasn't so deeply integrated with JIRA.

<comment><USER5> Any issue tracking system is only as good as your ability to act on the information in it. Github issues' apparent simplicity is to your advantage here so I'd stay away from trying to recreate Jira with it.

Kanban boards are a great visualisation tool but the lack of screen real estate limits their effectiveness - more than two screen of information and you end up not being able to see the forest for all the trees in the way. Github projects help a lot with this as you can usually break a project down by structure (modules) or time (milestones). On a given Github board you can easily move cards between projects so the system becomes quite scaleable - within reason.

Kanban boards (if you can keep them manageable) are also a great customer- facing tool. The structure is simple enough to comprehend easily and the customer, product manager, etc. can visualise progress much more easily. They are a great communication tool as they deliver a certain amount of empowerment to the customer.

Checklists are infinitely better for subtasks for similar reasons as the boards - all information and all progress is forced to be on one card - <USER2> means it has to be readable and understandable by everyone.

The only limitation I have found with Github issues is that the screen real- estate in the editor is relatively limited. If they had a more complex editor along the lines of Google Docs then it would be possible to achieve the Holy Grail of Issue Tracking where all tickets were well written and had all the information in one place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We've settled down with YouTrack (by JetBrains). It doesn't look pretty buy it's designed by (and for) people that uses it. Its command management is AWESOME. It's also quite cost effective compared to other solutions. Couldn't find a more productive tool that that one if you want to have something more organized than trello (eg. timetracking and customizable fields)

<comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely love Youtrack from a feature perspective but it still has the same dealbreaker problem as JIRA -- it's Java-based and needs a fair amount of CPU/RAM resources.

Sadly that's one of the big reasons we're moving away from Jira. The full set is:

* We don't have the money for a 10+ licence * It's slow (our VPS is underpowered and we don't have the money for a faster one) * Too many features are now part of pay-for licences, which pushes the aggregate cost over our self-imposed "how easy is this to justify to our attendees?" limit.

In the end, it boils down to the aggregate cost to get what we want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can give a try at Redmine. I've used it and I think the differences might be pros for some and cons for others. The UI is, in my opinion, bad, and it lacks some features from Jira. That being said, since it's open source (coded in Ruby), you can personalize it, add your own features (or others that are already out there) and host it yourself. At the same time there's a lot of hosting companies that do that for you if you don't want to play this kind of game. Using hosting services usually makes it a lot more complex to add your own features though!

<comment><USER8> +1 for Redmine, as it can be self-hosted and doesn't need to hand out your information to SaaS ones like Trello or Taiga

<comment><USER9> Taiga is open-source and can be self-hosted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can get reasonably far with Trello, if all you're doing is item tracking. If you're trying to do anything more than a free-for-all workflow, or wanting to do reporting, it's less good.

<comment><USER11> [https://restya.com/board](https://restya.com/board) is open source Trello alternative

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the link to that -- I've been looking for something like this too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few years ago we migrated from Jira to Gitlab. To use their project-planning features (Epics, etc) they take a massive preḿium if you're not interested in the other features.

Still, the basics are sound, and even without epics and a few of the other neat but expensive features, it goes pretty far.

<comment><USER13> > massive preḿium

That massive premium bothers me too. I don't mind paying for those premium features, but as a small company (less than 20 employees) the cost is not justifiable.

We already use GitLab's community edition as a self-hosted package combined with MatterMost, and we love it. We are not using its issue tracker, only the git repository hosting and integration with MatterMost.

However, having to go to enterprise tier just to get epics is not an option for us. I really wish GitLab would price their tiers more appropriately for small businesses.

Also, what on earth are you doing with that acute accent on that poor m?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Checkout gitlab. They have issue tracker and wiki along with everything else DevOps.

You can also have a look at [https://clubhouse.io](https://clubhouse.io)

<comment><USER15> For me, Clubhouse has the best UX ratio of personalization, features and simplicity... Hopefully it will continue to be only improved and not extended

<comment><USER16> Agreed, we've been using Clubhouse for the past few months and it really hits the sweet spot. Not as complicated as Jira but more features than Trello.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Clubhouse. It's genuinely brilliant [https://clubhouse.io/](https://clubhouse.io/). Basically super trello, has epics, projects, milestones, GH integration etc, but doesn't feel bloated.

<comment><USER18> How do you work with bug triage in Clubhouse? So far I've found categorising a bit difficult, especially for long-term tracking of issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Azure DevOps is pretty good - [https://azure.microsoft.com/en- gb/services/devops/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/services/devops/)

Comes with a full suite of Agile project management tools with Kanban boards, Wiki etc. and then integrates with pull requests etc. through its Git repository hosting system.

<comment><USER20> DevOps has a horribly confusing and slow interface, IMO.

<comment><USER19> Seems fast on my machine. It seems to be constantly improving. I've only recently started using it but it's quite god.

<comment><USER19> * good

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Did you try the "New Jira"[1]? It has been pretty decent for us.

[1] [https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-software/the-new-jira- be...](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/jira-software/the-new-jira-begins-now)

<comment><USER22> Atlassian has a major flaw in their understanding of how a lot of developers work and it is evident by all heir "new" versions of stuff. They've made simple editing harder (WYSIWYG only, which often makes bad assumptions), made drastic changes to the UI, broken workflows, removed keyboard shortcuts and made it impossible to open an issue full page by clicking a linkbun the web app without first loadingbit as an overlay. They are, hands down, the worst offender of "if it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is" that I've ever seen. I'm constantly advocating for anything else in every org I work with. An issue tracker doesn't need to be full of sugar, it needs to be simple and consistent. Atlassian fails magnificently at both of those.

<comment><USER23> It absolutely feels like a tool for managers, not developers. I just want to see what I'm supposed to be working on and push them to the right person when I've done my part, and all of the rest is noise to me.

Jira puts issue management first (and even fails a bit with that IMO), and makes getting work done more painful than necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would suggest you to take a look at Tuleap [https://www.tuleap.org/](https://www.tuleap.org/), an all-in-one 100% open source tool for agile management and development tool. You have a panel of modules you can choose to work, with by project. It supports Scrum, Kanban, waterfall-oriented approaches. It provides a powerful issue tracking system with hight level of workflow customisation options. It integrates finely Git, Gerrit, Jenkins and Test management as well as Document Management.

Disclaimer: I'm fan of Tuleap as I'm member of the Tuleap team :-)

</comment><comment> grey-area Which are the key features they've made paid only which you miss?

I'm currently working on an alternative to Jira at present with an issues list and roadmap combined - very early stages as yet (just about to launch the issue tracker product), but I'm really interested in feedback and happy to offer discounts/free use in return for some feedback. It's at [https://projectpage.dev](https://projectpage.dev)

Please get in touch at kenny at projectpage.dev as I'd be really interested to get your perspective on this and let you try it out.

</comment><comment><USER25> Linear [http://linear.app](http://linear.app)

Beautiful design, extremely fast, keyboard shortcuts. Still in private beta for now, but you can request access on the site.

</comment><comment><USER26> [https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/](https://www.phacility.com/phabricator/) I loved using this with my friends.

<comment><USER27> +1. Phabricator is great and such an underrated software!

It's much more similar to Gitlab than Jira, though, so you might want something more specific. That said, I quite like the way Phabricator handles Tasks and Projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> By far the best I've used and administered (self-hosted) is: [https://bestpractical.com/request-tracker](https://bestpractical.com/request- tracker)

Killer feature for me: "Seamless Email Integration". As a client or a provider you never need to open the web interface. Just the managers do.

<comment><USER29> I spent two years using and then administering two RT servers.

I arrived with effectively no real PERL knowledge but a high level of Linux sysadmin competency

I hugely enjoyed working with the system. It was productive, flexible, and never gave me unexplained errors.

Even scripting on the perl api was an excellent experience.

Moreover the devs were extremely helpful in their irc channel (circa 2014-2016 at least) and walked me through a manual upgrade caused by the previous admin customizing the database schema in an unsafe way

Would highly recommend

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've used Phabricator ([https://github.com/phacility/phabricator](https://github.com/phacility/phabricator)) for years. It's a bit rough around the edges, but it's robust, straightforward and well maintained.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually tried to get Phabricator up and running not long ago -- the main issue I have with it is that it seems to need a server (at least a database server) all to itself. It's probably a resolvable issue using some kind of container, but it scared me off a little bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I cant beleive nobody mentioned Redmine (foss). Its the best tool for that purpose out there that can run hundreeds of projects with thosands of users without a hitch. You can customize it to extreme with plugins to look whatever you like but even clot instance is very capable. Its extremelly stable and secure too. Cant recommend it highly enough.

Gitlab iz alternative too but most of it is complete DevOps platform with lots of opionions you may not want or like many of which are not customizable. Redmine has thousands of plugins and its focus is project management, not necesserally development projects too, you can even use it as service desk for end users.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ended up evaluating bunch of different Saas services last year and the best I found for the team and our use cases was Wrike. The UI was quite slick and didn't come between the developer and the task too much. Had quite good reporting and support for project hierarchies etc. Wasn't the most expensive but wasn't the cheapest.

Currently using Jira with "next-gen" project. It's slicker (but still slower to use than Wrike) to use and admin but lacks lots of useful features and is buggy. This morning our project lost epics for few hours without any explanation. Fffuun!

But yep, almost everything is better than Jira if you have the possibility to switch.

</comment><comment><USER33> Gitlab (issues+board), Github (issues+project) and Azure DevOps (free up to 5 users).

I used JIRA also, and it is huge indeed, well combined with bitbucket also as code repo. I'd say stay with what goes well with your repo (what integrates well).

</comment><comment><USER34> A self hosted option I developed - [http://duetapp.com](http://duetapp.com)

Actively working on it now, so if there are any specific features you need, definitely let me know so I can add them

</comment><comment><USER35> Huge fan of Asana. One feature I've only ever seen in Asana is the the ability to have a single task added to multiple lists with the ability to independently drag to prioritize on different lists. You might be ordering your list by customer priority including marketing and sales tasks, I can order mine by the order I'll tackle them in including unrelated devops tasks. We can have different priorities without breaking things and it's still one task so if either of us marks it as done the other sees it as done.

</comment><comment><USER36> We use Zenhub with Github issues. Zenhub adds more structure over Github project. It hit the sweet spot for small teams, not too basic where we can't use it to run our processes, yet not so bloated where we need a manual for doing things. The tight integration with Github is a big win for us. But you can't customise things so when the team gets bigger we expect to move.

[https://www.zenhub.com/](https://www.zenhub.com/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Since nobody mentioned it...

I spent a number of years running and customising Trac ([https://trac.edgewall.org](https://trac.edgewall.org)) in a multi-project environment (400+ repos, etc.).

It's not pretty and has some strange abstractions, but it can be customised to a surprising extent.

Edit: also [https://gitea.io](https://gitea.io). The issue tracker works, even if it's very streamlined.

</comment><comment><USER38> Give Trello a try,really. I've been using Jira for small and medium projects for years with custom workflows and similar cool features, but i've slowly became tired of the extra complexity, which i could understand was needed for some projects, but wasn't my case, so gave it Trello a try, and yeah, lacks lots of stuff, but honestly, it's simple and fast UI will help you find workarounds for your needs

</comment><comment><USER39> We have built a lightweight alternative to JIRA - [https://zepel.io](https://zepel.io)

Our primary focus is to help product teams plan and track their features. We support bug tracking and cross-functional collaboration as well.

It's under active development. Check it out and let me know your thoughts.

</comment><comment><USER40> If your project is really small you might get away with "Microsoft Teams" which for most business people comes free with Office.

It integrates directly into your Office 365 users and supports some very basic features such as custom swim lanes, multiple channels, tagging (only a few colours available), due dates, calendar view

<comment><USER41> You mean Azure DevOps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Used PivotalTracker a while ago and liked it much more than JIRA. Trello will get you pretty far. If you're using Github, Github issues and all their PM tooling look feasible and I like the idea of code/PM living in the same place/tool.

</comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone tried: Freshrelease [https://www.freshworks.com/agile-project- management-software...](https://www.freshworks.com/agile-project-management- software/jira-alternative/)

<comment><USER44> It's buggy and not production ready

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Mantis Bug Tracker might be worth a look for you. It handles multiple projects well, and you can get quite far customising it via the config file.

[https://www.mantisbt.org/](https://www.mantisbt.org/)

</comment><comment><USER46> You should give Taiga a try, it is self-hosted but it is seriously fast and fun to try.

<comment><USER47> We had that in my previous workplace and it worked like a charm for us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> \- Try clubhouse.io

\- If Jira is settled in the org and there's virtually no way of getting rid of it, then use tools like go-jira. I was skeptical at first, as it turned out - Jira's UI is bulky and slow, its API is not so horrendous.

</comment><comment><USER49> I would highly recommend GitLab for your use case. It is open source, it can be either on-prem or use their cloud offering, and features the GitLab Issues which is a neat issue tracker.

<comment><USER50> The free version of GitLab has very limited support for issues, though. Things like 'related issues' are only available in the paid offerings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I would suggest [https://notion.so](https://notion.so). It's not an open source product but I like their UX approach

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned bugzilla so far.

</comment><comment><USER53> Our product owners happily switched from jira to clickup: [https://clickup.com](https://clickup.com)

</comment><comment><USER54> We use Scrumwise. This is focused on Scrum and Kanban, and also supports issues to a certain amount. The staff is very responsive.

</comment><comment><USER55> Some free alternatives: 1) Trello (already mentioned) 2) Remember The Milk (free for 2 people) 3) Todoist 4) PivotalTracker

</comment><comment><USER56> GitLab works perfect for my needs. Using it for planning work, version control and CI/CD. No complaints.

</comment><comment><USER57> [https://wekan.github.io](https://wekan.github.io)

</comment><comment><USER58> has anyone tried [https://monday.com](https://monday.com)? I've not tried them yet, but I've seen lots of ads

<comment><USER38> yeah i did, its quite cool, JS heavy UI though, and you may end tired of so many tables but has a lot of nice features!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Gitlab onpremises is a really good option.

</comment><comment><USER60> just stumbled upon [https://quire.io](https://quire.io)

</comment><comment><USER61> I just use gitlab's issue board</comment>


Gravity Minus Dark Matter - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/ <comment><USER2> Off topic, but science is in need of a naming committee. Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbess had the right idea: [http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/03/26](http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2013/03/26)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great. Take something we don't really understand (dark matter) and say that it's really an effect produced by something we understand even _less_ (dark energy).

I mean, if it's true, it's the way forward, even if we currently understand it less. But this can turn into a just-so story, ascribing magical properties to dark energy...</comment>


Ask HN: What's your desk/workstation of choice for hacking? - <AUTHOR>

I'm putting in a nice chunk of my change to set up a suitable work area for my several startup projects and am stuck finding a decent desk. Office stores don't have large work-area desks and it's tough finding anything online that's not too cheap or too expensive.<p>What desks does HN use? Do you like it? <comment><USER2> I got fed up with crappy desks from office stores and decided to make my own desk instead - its basically just an 8 foot long piece of wood, about 2 1/2 feet deep. Its not only really cheap, but it has room for my two monitors plus my laptop plus lamps/papers/etc.

It doesn't have the frills that seem to come with desks from stores, but I never used those anyways (I never understood building CD racks into desks). Plus since you build it yourself you can customize it - I put lots of holes in the back to run cables, with hooks underneath to organize them. For drawers, Ikea sells plastic ones that attach with a couple of screws for like $2.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking of buying a 30" wide door and attaching some metal pipes as legs and calling it a day. I you said, it can be customized later and it will be more than large enough to hold all of my papers, screens, etc.

My father also suggests buying some architecture drawing surface and laminating it on top to provide a smooth writing surface.

<comment><USER3> If 2-drawer filing cabinets are the right height, they would make useful and stable drawers. (If you do this, I would recommend spending the money for good filing cabines with ball bearings: I started with the cheap ones and hated them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I went cheap with the desk: Ikea $80 But, I splurged on Ergotron Montior arms: <http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000959.html>

They are truly one of the best workspace purchases I've ever made. Really, they're very, very nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been considering getting two of these for my monitors: [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824183...](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824183124)

It's an addition I'll have to add on later, but I think having the space available will be very worth it.

<comment><USER4> They are so worth every penny. I love mine.

I actually cut a hole in the middle of my desk, so I can recline in my office chair, and swivel my monitor out over the edge of the desk and face it down at me. It really helps with neck and back strain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've got an ikea desk with two tier sort of thing for the monitors and keyboards and pull out wings you can stick things on, I've had it for years, it's survived two house moves and has many more years ahead of it and I wouldn't part with it.

I've got another desk from an auction which is a great place to check out, if you can deal with the fact of where the desk has been before (a failed business usually, pre disasterised i think of it as)

</comment><comment><USER6> Avoid any chair with arm rests which stick out to far foward and don't allow you to get close enough to your keyboard without having to lift your shoulders/elbows.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wanted a thin surface (relatively) with legs and no drawers or gimmicks. I ended up buying a dining room table from West Elm which fit the bill perfectly. Later I added two small raised shelves (which my speakers and various doodads sit on) to the desk which I built by using Ikea kitchen cabinet legs and some random Ikea file cabinet drawer fronts.

It's simple and it works great.

</comment><comment><USER8> Last time I had to pick out a desk for an office I chose this one (sadly I doubt they'll ship to you):

<http://www.jkhopkins.com.au/showproduct.asp?webno=1>

Sitting in the middle gives you a lot of surface area within reach.

</comment><comment><USER9> My work set up is the following:

1\. Aeron chair

2\. Pair of trestles and a large piece of wood on top of them.

#1 cost $$$, #2 cost next to nothing. I bought cheap trestles from a hardware store, and a nice piece of flat wood which was prestained and edges smoothed off.

</comment><comment><USER10> This one from ikea is pretty ideal. Flat surface but some shelving on top for storage of books and whatever else: <http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/60111123>

</comment><comment><USER11> What's wrong with too cheap? Generally the advice for furnishing a startup is "expensive chairs, cheap desks." If you don't want anything used Ikea is a reasonable, convenient place to look.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm all for very affordable desks, but what I meant was the materials that seemingly fall apart from normal every day use. Cheap quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a "desk" which is an old dining room table (and is a few inches higher than ideal); but I do most of my coding while lying in bed. I like my laptop. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you find your wrists/arms starting to hurt while using the table? I've had two desks in the past I felt were too tall because the strain it put on my forearms and carpal tunnel. Lately my hands and arms have been feeling over- strained; a large motivation behind revamping my work setup.

<comment><USER12> No, I just adjust my chair very high -- which is fine except that it results in my feet not being flat on the floor.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using a folding metal chair for the past year, which is probably the largest cause of said pains. I'm currently shopping for a much more suitable chair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A reclining sofa with comfy cusions.

<comment><USER14> Until you get RSI.

<comment><USER13> For me, a sofa is far better than a desk. How many positions can you get into on a chair at a desk?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Biggest, smooth-surfaced desk that will fit in the room without blocking the door.

</comment><comment><USER16> I want a tall desk so I can stand while I work.</comment>