Show HN: Fed up with WebEx, so we built a way to screen share in under 20 sec. - <AUTHOR> http://www.screenleap.com/ <comment><USER3> Nicely done, but there are few issues from the top of my head.

1\. Security - this should really be going over SSL. In fact, the whole site needs to be SSL'd.

2\. P2P - I bet you are not P2P, and you won't be able to be P2P if you keep the viewer in the confines of the browser. However, the client-to-client traffic really needs to go peer to peer. It's an absolute must. This is what keeps the cost of running the service low and this is what allowed LogMeIn to grow like a fire and eat Citrix lunch. You keep pushing all data through yourselves, your bandwidth usage and infrastructure upgrade bills will likely to kill you. Scaling a server-relayed service is a bitch of an issue, don't underestimate it.

3\. Java dependency for sharing - you'd be surprised how many locked-down corporate setups have no Java (not that they are your target audience). I personally don't have Java installed either (and again, I am probably not your target user either). A fallback to Flash would make a lot of sense. Also the screen _sharing_ on iPhone/Pad/etc would require a native app, which effectively means that you are on your way to replicate join.me.

4\. Patents - I'm sure the easiest way to knock you down is through a patent litigation. Be mindful here. Try and build a bit of a defensive portfolio if you can.

All in all, good luck. You are entering a crowded market littered with failed startups... and interesting acquisitions ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) This is in the works.

2) We are currently not P2P but that is one direction that we are considering for a future complementary product. We have done some calculations and believe that it is possible to make service economically viable (even with free basic usage) but it remains to be seen if we are right.

3) Unfortunately, it is not possible to implement a sharing application purely in Flash because it does not provide the necessary calls as far as we know. Our goal is to remove the pain from viewing so an iPhone/iPad/Android version would fit in with our goals.

4) Thanks for the pointer.

Thanks for all the feedback!

<comment><USER4> I think Adobe has a flash screen sharing service that uses solely flash. I forget if you have to install a client or not.

<http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html>

<comment><USER5> Yes there is a client

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please ditch the generic stock photo of a lady on a broken laptop on the beach. It makes your site look like a cheap travel agency.

Go for a home computer setting or even an office setting.

Like one of these or something.

<http://us.fotolia.com/id/28015494>

<http://us.fotolia.com/id/35919645>

<http://us.fotolia.com/id/27612067>

<comment><AUTHOR> We would love to get in touch with any great designers out there that can help us with this.

<comment><USER7> I'm a designer and I think I'm great.

<http://www.andrew-rose.com/>

<http://dribbble.com/andrewfelix>

<comment><USER8> Just to let you know that if I have javascript disabled (noscript) on my browser, most of your links for the portfolio don't work. Don't know if it matters in the real world, but just a heads up.

<comment><USER9> It doesn't matter in the real world.

I'm pretty sure no one even bothers checking if javascript is disabled. I know you can't access Facebook without it (or at least with Lynx); doesn't that exclude basically every web app?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Just to give you some feedback. The biggest issue I have with the site is that I'm not sure if I can trust you.

How do I know my privacy is protected?

How do I know you're not a phising company trying to steal personal data by spying on screen sharing sessions?

Those are some of the questions I ask myself. And it's also the first impression I get when I look at the site. Also, I don't see a phone number anywhere on the site I can call to speak to somebody, or to even verify that you're a real company. There's also no real explanation of how the technology works, and how the tech could protect my privacy--if it in fact does.

I'm not trying to be harsh, just giving you my honest opinion. You have to find some way to make me trust you, if you want me to use your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. We wanted to get a MVP out as soon as possible so we can start getting feedback on the idea. Unfortunately, we haven't had time to add all the information about who we are and how to contact us. We will correct that in the coming weeks.

<comment><USER11> How do I report a security vulnerability to you guys?

<comment><AUTHOR> Please email us at support (at) screenleap.com.

<comment><USER11> Just sent

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Join.me has been my goto replacement for webex.

This operates exactly like join.me - however I like join.me's shorter URLs - <USER2> would suggest copying a format similar to theirs.

However I really like the "share whats in the rectangle" feature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion on the URL. When we eventually support accounts, we plan to allow you to start a screen session by simply clicking on a name from your buddy list so hopefully the longer URL will be less of an issue for frequent users.

<comment><USER13> Convenience is what you should be going for. If you're able to generate a short url for convenience, the chances of someone signing up later rather than saying "Signup just to try? fuck it" are higher.

Hell, when generating the url, just make a call to the api at <http://tweak.tk> so that you can display the short one side-by-side with the long one. Provided your codebase is well formed, a change like that should not be astronomical.

(P.S. Tweak.tk is really awesome. At least check it out.)

<comment><USER14> If you are going to use an URL shortening service, please go with one that is universally recognised by most tech people, such as bit.ly. I've never heard of tweak.tk and I've never seen it come across my Twitter feed.

<comment><USER15> The cool thing about tweak.tk is that it's operated by the .tk-registry and you're getting a free generated .tk domain instead of just a page on the domain of the shortening service. Jdyk56.tk instead of bitly.com/jdyk56

<comment><USER16> Wow, that's simultaneously cool and means I'm not going to use it. <http://ddpor.tk> looks too much like a link to a scam site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Three thoughts:

1) Can I safely assume you're working on a way to share desktop control, for things like tech support? Seems like the next _semi-major_ logical step.

2) Out of curiosity, how do you plan to monetize this beast? Freemium, with a more feature-rich paid version (voip, desktop control, etc)? Or...something else?

3) Very cool. Great job guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) We want to really nail the screen sharing experience first and make it work reliably for everyone. Remote desktop control and live collaboration are follow-up ideas that we are definitely looking into.

2) Freemium is one option that we are considering. We want to keep focusing on reducing the time it takes to share a screen and see what kind of use cases emerge before deciding on how to monetize it. Besides freemium, we think there might be possibilities for integration with other sites for support or enhancing the browsing experience. For example, a clothing site could have a stylist available that could walk users through the site and help them pick outfits that they might like.

3) Thanks!

<comment><USER18> Have you tried using PNG or GIF compression? The presumably JPEG compression right now has many artifacts.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's something we are looking into. We think that there will be different optimal image formats depending upon the use case (i.e., are you sharing an illustration or a photo). We want to see what those use cases are before optimizing.

<comment><USER19> How do you see what the use cases are? Are you asking .. or watching? I'm kind of serious here, because as others have stated, this has the 'untrusted' sticker on it for now.

Otherwise: Congratulations. From my day to day 'support the in-laws' sessions: This could be very helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll definitely be asking. The trust of our users are very important to us. If you have an interesting use case, please let us know.

We wanted to soft launch something now to start getting feedback about the product. We'll be doing a formal launch in the next couple of weeks and will have a lot more detail to share about us and the company then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> One privacy enhancement which would be nice would be to see a list of IPs viewing the screen. Not sure how easy it would be to implement, but would give me total peace of mind to know only 1 IP is viewing (if that's what I'm expecting).

Stellar job though - no barrier to use whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER21> Beautiful product, dead simple and I'd use this over Join.me which I see as your closest competition for quick screen sharing.

GOOG & Skype are also getting a lot faster on their feet in this space.

I'm intimately familiar with this landscape as we're preparing to launch our FREE webinar platform, <http://www.MeetingBurner.com>, in the very near future after ~1yr in beta.

Our target is the "webinar" space which includes all the trimmings like registrations, invitations, bundled conference lines / skype / telephony, analytics, pay walls, etc.

But we have a solid contingent of users that just want screen sharing 90% of the time and I love your focus on "2 clicks to start a meeting" etc.

Elegant solution and good luck.

<comment><USER22> Please let your marketing folks know that there is a silent (ok, not this time) constituency of people like me who cringe at the term "webinar". Some of us even filter such terms from appearing in our inboxes.

Please call it what it is: a seminar. When people share their slides online they don't call it a "websentation" because it would be so goofy as to be insulting. Why should a seminar be any different?

<comment><USER21> Interesting, I never had those connotations myself but see it repeated a few times in this thread

When we set out to put together our media plan / SEO we researched all the varieties of keywords / etc and were surprised to see how far out ahead "webinar" is from "online meeting" / "online seminar" / "screen sharing" / etc

eg:

[http://www.google.com/trends/?q=webinar,+online+meeting,+onl...](http://www.google.com/trends/?q=webinar,+online+meeting,+online+seminar,+screen+sharing&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is a Chrome extension by Google that allows quickly share screens without needing to install Java.

It works on Linux as well.

Here is a link to the extension [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp)

<comment><USER24> Some users face problem as it uses 5222 port and this one is blocked at many places e.g. in our college only 80 and 443 are open.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So I had more than 110 viewers at one point, and also screenleaped into someone else who was screeleaping my screenleap: <http://yfrog.com/z/oe15628524p>

The product was effortlessly easy to run. Obviously there was a usage overload but otherwise, people were able to watch me Tweet and screenleap into other people's screenleaps in real time (and also watch me scroll through cat gifs). Extremely well done, bravo!

</comment><comment><USER26> I wouldn't use this over join.me because of the compression artifacts. I use join.me to lead webinars and a professional appearance is critical.

However, I am glad to see another competitor in the space. The killer feature, IMHO, would be adding a VoIP / Telephone bridge so people could get audio either way. Webex and Gotomeeting do this, but they are clunky in other areas.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have some optimizations in place so that if your screen doesn't change, the screen shot quality will progressively improve. As we improve the compression, we plan to increase the default image quality too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cool, but I couldn't close the java 'ScreenLeap' dialog without using chrome's task manager to kill the java plugin.

(I'm running Ubuntu 11.10, and chrome 16.0 if that helps)

Also, I feel "No downloads, installs" is a little disingenuous - just because it's not installed as a full-time application doesn't mean that it's not downloaded or installed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Point taken on the "no downloads or installs". We wanted to convey how easy it is for someone to view your screen but I can see that it doesn't accurately describe the process for sharing your screen. We'll work to improve the messaging.

<comment><USER28> I would be cautious about changing your marketing based on feedback here. While we understand you are really downloading an applet, 99% of the people in the world won't even care that distinction exists. A/B test on your target market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow, that's really slick! Any plans to license the software for use in other products? It would make a great addition to some help desk software...

<comment><AUTHOR> That is definitely a route we want to consider. If you know someone in the space, we would love an introduction.

<comment><USER30> > If you know someone in the space, we would love an introduction.

I do - my email address is in my profile. Let me know your preferred method for getting in touch?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Looks interesting, but I do not run java on my machines so this wont work for me.

</comment><comment><USER32> This looks nice. Is there any way to switch who is sharing their screen among participants? We have weekly meetings for product demos and WebEx allows us to trade of who is the presenter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Presenter swap is almost done. We should have it available within the next two weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Two things: 1\. It was odd that you can't resize using the top and left borders. 2\. I'm using 2 monitors (laptop + monitor) and I can't move the rectangle to the secondary monitory.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have been using <https://join.me/> and pretty happy with it.

How is this different from <https://join.me/>?

<comment><AUTHOR> For join.me, you need to have Flash installed to view someone's screen. Screenleap allows you to view from any device with a web browser, whether it be a PC, tablet, or smartphone. In the same way that you don't worry about what email program someone is on before sending them an email, we want to make it so you don't have to worry about what device a person is on before showing them your screen.

<comment><USER35> How do you plan to compete with LogMeIn once they have an HTML viewer? Which they either already have or will have and very soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just tested this. Ok so it works. Very cool! Now chances of someone correctly guessing a permutation of three 3-digit numbers are 1 in 901^3 = 732 million, but still, is that the only form of security ? I can call someone over the phone & give them my screen key ie. 3 3-digit numbers. Someone else can overhear that & also go to screenleap and enter those 3 numbers & suddenly my screen isn't private anymore...

<comment><AUTHOR> Once we support accounts, we plan to add privacy controls so that sessions are secured from accidental viewing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Nice - but I can't stop sharing my screen. Even if I click "Stop sharing screen", even if I _try_ to close the popup window with that button in it.

</comment><comment><USER38> I need these to be dead simple as I use them to help walk my Mom through simple tasks on the PC from 2000 miles away.

Thank you for helping keep the hair on my head

</comment><comment><USER39> Just wanted to add, I just used this to show some work to a friend, and it worked really well. Had it up and running quickly, he joined easily, was able to see everything I did.

Only gripe, the window re-sizing wasn't working properly. Once I re-sized it once (width-wise), it didn't let me re-size it any more, only move it around.

Otherwise, very easy to use product

</comment><comment><USER40> If I hadn't found <http://join.me> a few months ago I'd be jumping up and down right now. This is just as effortless, great job there. I'd suggest making the two options: share a screen, and join a session stand out even more from the rest of the homepage.

<comment><USER41> Join.me attempts to serve me a .exe file when on my GNU/Linux computers. Useless.

<comment><USER42> Horror!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Ah, the joy of product marketing.

The VIEWING is from any device, but SHARING is not.

Ability to view on iPad in the browser _is_ a step up from join.me, but it appears to be the only major difference. Am I missing something? I am a long time LogMeIn user, so I am probably right smack in the middle of your target audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> We eventually want to support sharing from any device but it won't be as painless as viewing from any device.

Being able to view from the iPad or smartphone without any install is the major difference right now between Screenleap and join.me. For future direction, since the viewer is HTML/JavaScript-based, we think there may be opportunities for deeper integration with other products to make it even easier to get a screen sharing session started. We also think that it may be easier for us to provide a branded and more customized screen sharing experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just tried it. Works pretty well. I especially like the share rectangle region feature.

I have been using <https://join.me/> since it allows me to control the other person's screen as well. The setup is just as simple but it requires you to run a downloaded file.

</comment><comment><USER44> Its like the Stripe for screensharing , I love it.

As for monetization, I think a good strategy might be something like the first 3 are free, and then you pay $5 for 30 screenshares afterwards. Atleast for me, I'd be willing to pay that and it seems like a straightforward/fair way to price it.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER45> My boss works in a different city, and we're on the phone all the time. The simplicity of this is priceless. I especially appreciate that the viewing side requires no setup. That makes it much preferable to WebEx or Skype when I'm dealing with less tech-savvy folks.

<comment><USER12> You'd like join.me as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Great product. Am I alone in thinking the design could use a refresh? Is this in the works? A really distinctive visual identity is what would turn this from "cool thing I saw on HN" to a solution that I'll remember long enough to reach for it next chance I get.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'd like to check it out but it asks me to download java which I already have. However the java plugin does not show up in FF for me. Any idea how to enable it and could you include those instructions too ? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER48> I love this. How feasible would a Chrome/Firefox extension be? An icon by the URL to start a share without going to another URL would be amazing(and something no one else does as far as I know).

Great product. Best of luck! :)

</comment><comment><USER49> Best/easiest screen-sharing implementation I've seen so far, great work!

</comment><comment><USER50> Awesome job. Screenr.com uses the same java method to record my screen and it _never_ works, this was up and running in lessss than 20 seconds. Would love to see a recording featured added.

</comment><comment><USER51> That is such a great app! I love how simple it is to share the link and there's no need to download anything.

Are there any plans to share the screen of an android phone? I think that would be pretty fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We eventually want to add support for sharing from iOS and Android devices, especially tablets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Two questions:

1\. Right now my screen share app of choice is TeamViewer. You could own this space if screen control was added, very easy to setup and use.

2\. Monetization strategy? Are you looking to monetize this app?

</comment><comment><USER53> Very nice, worked flawlessly when I just tested it with a friend (other than having to kill the java process by hand in the end). Thanks in particular for supporting Linux!

</comment><comment><USER54> Great product.. This disrupts all of the clunky screen sharing products I have used in my tech life. Dare I be bold and state this may be the Dropbox of screen sharing.

</comment><comment><USER55> Doesnt seem to work on my Lion with the latest Java installed

<comment><USER56> Me either, exact same setup. This happened to me on <http://keepvid.com> as well; that site runs on a java plugin as well.

I'm happy that it isn't just me (I was actually scanning the comments to see if anyone ran into this problem), but I really would like a solution to this. If anyone finds one, let me know!

<comment><AUTHOR> Please email us at support (at) screenleap.com and we'll try to help troubleshoot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is a great idea and very well implemented. I too would like to see an API of sorts. Maybe a white-label screen sharing service. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER58> TeamViewer (free) is not bad but it times out after some time and you have to relaunch the meeting with a new code. Will give this one a try.

</comment><comment><USER59> Nice! I just shared a screen from a Linux laptop to a phone with the Dolphin browser and it Just Worked. Pretty high latency though.

</comment><comment><USER39> Mind sharing what your particular frustrations with WebEx are? (Not that I'm defending the product, just curious)

<comment><AUTHOR> For us, the main frustration was showing your screen to someone who you didn't frequently collaborate with. If they didn't have WebEx installed, you would have to ask them to download and install it, create an account, and then get invited to a meeting. The whole process can take more than 10 minutes which is more than enough for most people to decide that it's not worth the trouble, especially if it's for something like a sales demo.

We want to make it as easy to share your screen with someone as it is to instant message them. If we do, we hope people will start using it frequently throughout the day for all sorts of ad-hoc collaboration.

<comment><USER60> Really? It's more like "Here's a link, click on it and enter your name and e-mail address" then accept the java applet. Takes maybe 2 minutes.

<comment><USER61> I think the difference is, you don't need the java applet to view, only to share.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Does it allow me to only share a specific applications? I don't want to show everybody my email and other stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now, you can limit what is shown to what's inside a rectangle. The rectangle is movable and resizable although that is currently not obvious from the UI. We want to eventually allow you to select the application that you want to share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Great job guys. I love the simplicity.

How are you guys streaming the images down? Any interesting technologies or methods used?

</comment><comment><USER64> Any chance at offering this through SSL in the future? Or does the transmission already go through SSL?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we plan to support SSL in a future release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Is it typical for tablet and smartphone browsers to have a java run time environment? Mine does not.

<comment><USER65> Oh, I see. The java plug in is only required for sharing. So I can still view on my blackberry.

Tested and working well. This will come in handy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> This is a very usefull website with great potential. And nice and clean interface. Good work.

</comment><comment><USER67> "No installs" - first thing it asks me to do is to install a Java plugin. No thanks.

<comment><USER68> Java is shown in the instruction screenshots, but it would be nice if it was clearing saying "share your screen _if_ java is installed". I have Java disabled so this doesn't work for me, nor does it work trying to share my Android screen :-)

I had expected something like a cross platform browser plugin that isn't Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> It's not safe to assume that everyone has the java plugin installed anymore.

</comment><comment><USER70> Looks promising. I'll be using it in a meeting I have right now. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER71> You built that in less than 20 seconds?!!! Damn, you guys are good.

</comment><comment><USER72> Wow, this is effortless and works well, just like Dropbox. Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER73> I was able to view my PC screen on my Droid 3 stock browser.

</comment><comment><USER74> Great Product ! What about the API ? And Screen recording ?

</comment><comment><USER75> wow. i was curious if this would work on my networked machine and it did. boom! that was pretty quick. a+ guys

</comment><comment><USER76> Awesome, works on Windows Phone.

</comment><comment><USER66> this is a very usefull website with a fantastic opportunity to become big...

</comment><comment><USER77> Great Job!

Do you have an API?

I just dropped you an email :)

</comment><comment><USER78> Thank You

</comment><comment><USER79> Awesome product!

</comment><comment><USER80> Scary!

Works well, and yes, effortless. Impressive.

</comment><comment><USER81> It requires Java. Enough said.</comment>


Monkeys wake from anaesthetic when region linked to consciousness is stimulated - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/anaesthetised-monkeys-were-awoken-with-zaps-to-the-brain-hinting-at-new-coma-treatments/ <comment><USER2> The crazy thing about anaesthetics is that we have no idea how most of them work.

Xenon is an anaesthetic, but it's a noble gas and shouldn't be reacting with anything in the body. How does that work?

Chloroform has been available and known about for 150 years, we only have a possible process for it to work.

Laughing gas works by doing something to ions in nerves. Or rather by doing loads of things to different ions one of which might be the thing we are looking for. So the exact mechanism is "not fully know".

People with ginger hair take about 20% more anesthetic to actually block pain. That's both for local and general anesthetics.

Im always amazed people don't see this as a huge hole in medicine and biochem etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article says it all about biological research. The brain is a network and yet a big deal here is how the researchers recorded several areas of the brain simultaneously. Really?! Such an obvious thing is considered 'original'. And then, "None of this helps much with the big questions around what consciousness is on a more philosophical level, and of course drawing conclusions about our own species based on non-human models is also problematic." Yes. Biology is not a science. Ugh

</comment><comment><USER4> Direct link to the paper: [https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(20)30005-2](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273\(20\)30005-2)</comment>


History for Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/opinion/08brooks.html

<comment><USER2> 1\. The limits of charlatanism are sooner reached in STEM than in the humanities (or, a fortiori, in newspaper op-ed writing). Yet having said that, I think the humanities are very much worth studying.

2\. Do the student tours emphasize labs? I was on a a few tours in 2006 and 2007, and I'm fairly sure we saw all the libraries, but I don't remember labs.

3\. Could the proportional decline of the humanities owe something to the multiplication of majors?

4\. Ah, analogies. The use of bad analogies from the 1930s (late for the right, early for the left) has had a very bad influence on all sorts of thinking since. It's not just finding analogies, it's finding ones that make sense.</comment>


Computer programming is somewhat like getting an imbecile to play bridge - B-Con http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2013/01/24/teaching-an-imbecile-to-play-bridge/ <comment><AUTHOR> I was once talking with a professional negotiator (and a great story-teller) and when trying to explain what was so hard about programming, I said that it was like getting a nearly unlimited amount of incredibly stupid people to work together to do exactly what you need.

He then told me the story of his brother with Down syndrome who was once weaving a carpet and who happened to make two black spots right in the middle of the big white center of the carpet. When asked why he made that mistake the brother proudly proclaimed that it wasn't a mistake at all, ran to his pattern book and showed the pattern.

It was perforated on those spots.

</comment><comment><USER2> Ah something I have personal experience with: I was taught bridge in fourth grade. I'm sure my teacher then would make a great programmer :P.

That said, I'm not sure I would use this analogy myself. "Imbecile" evokes the image of somebody either making bad decisions or not cooperating with the teacher. The computer does neither--in essence it makes _no_ decisions and cooperates _too much_. After all, the problem with the computer is not that it does something you didn't tell it to or something you told it not to but that it does _exactly_ what you told it to do.

Do you know how some people sometimes act passive-aggressively and take everything you say completely literally? It's annoying. That's what programming is like.(Except, of course, I usually don't find programming annoying.)

<comment><USER3> "Go the store and pick up a jug of milk. If they have eggs, get a dozen."

 _Programmer returns home with 13 jugs of milk_

<comment><USER4> Seriously? An ancient programming joke, with a gratuitous off-by-one error?

<comment><USER5> It's not gratuitous. One jug + one dozen = 13 jugs.

<comment><USER6> jugs = 1; if (have eggs) { jugs = 12; }

Get a dozen, not a dozen more.

<comment> T-hawk

      cart.addJugs(1);
      if (haveEggs)
        cart.addJugs(12);

Now the cart has 13 jugs.

<comment><USER7> I'd say that "get a dozen" implies "jugs = 12" and not "jugs += 12". If you wanted to get a dozen more, you'd say "get a dozen more"

<comment><USER8> This is why we don't program in English.

<comment><USER9> And why it is so hard to write a good specification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A rather unpleasant and inaccurate metaphor.

<comment><USER11> s/imbecile/idiot savant

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Has anyone read the book the quote came from, "Data and Reality"? It looks intriguing.

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935504215/>

</comment><comment><USER13> That's why higher level languages are so important, as computers always get faster (but not smarter) it's up to languages and libraries be smarter. Anyway the old debate 'fast languages' vs 'high level languages' will never die.

<comment><USER14> Evetually it will, around about the point that either (a) speed becomes the norm in high-level languages or (b) we're forced to concede that the two are allies: Higher-level languages are implemented using lower-level languages, and the main thing you do with lower-level languages is implement higher-level languages.

(For the latter option, especially if you use the word language somewhat loosely - e.g., a TCP stack isn't a programming language, but TCP is a somewhat higher-level abstraction, and it's best implemented using lower-level languages.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If someone is curating a list of brilliant CS quotes, this should be added...

</comment><comment><USER16> >It can be done, provided you know how to exploit the imbecile's limited talents, and are willing to have enormous patience with his inability to make the the most trivial common sense deductions on his own.

Well this leaves out one critical piece that is a big draw to programming. Unlike the imbecile, the computer will do exactly what you tell it every time.</comment>


Getting Boxes of T-shirts printed up? - <AUTHOR>

Getting boxes of T-shirts printed up?
We're going to be presenting at an industry trade show this August, and we're looking to have some apparel made up for giving away to attendees.
For the show, we're interested in finding the cheapest reliable vendor possible, so we can crank out the shirts, and give as many away as possible.  Hopefully we can give away a few hundred one-color logo shirts as freebies.
After the show, we'd like to sell shirts from the website, but these will probably be through a vendor who can print up nice multi-color shirts, as well as handling the inventorying for us and POD.
If you have any experience with getting shirts printed up, either van loads of cheap ones or expensive nice ones for sale, I'd love to hear it. <comment><USER2> Back in a previous life, I used to work at a silkscreen T-shirt factory. There was a decent one-time set-up charge, to cut the screens-- but once this was done, the per-shirt charge was pretty reasonable (pricing depended on the quality of the shirt and the number of colors), and the screens were kept on file in case there were repeat orders.

Any vendor should be able to send you samples, so you can check out the quality of the printing.

I'd suggest you try to find someone reasonably local, so you can pick up the shirts yourself and avoid the shipping costs, and can check out the quality in person. Plus, many shops have designers in-house, who can help you if you don't already have a finished shirt design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Very good point. I hadn't been accounting for how bad the shipping might be.

We're boston-based, so QRST might be a decent option. Do you have any other direct experience?

<comment><USER2> Well, the place I worked for (about 25 years ago!) is still going-- Original Design Company (<http://www.originaldesigncompany.com/>) in North Woodstock, NH-- just a trip up 93 from Boston. I have no idea how their prices are these days, but they are good people, and do great work. (Or, at least they did a quarter century ago...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My Uncle has a promotional products business (anything that could be printed on, really). The website is a little antiquated but the quality is great.

<http://allamericanmarketing.com/>

They also have a special inkjet printer to do images and other things that couldn't be done with traditional silk screens.

The great thing is that they'll also do pens, mouse pads (does anyone even use those anymore?), hats, etc, so you can do more than just shirts all from only one supplier.

They're located in Valencia, CA so I don't know if it's too far for what you want.

</comment><comment><USER4> On a sidenote, have you considered giving away some other items? I only mention this because I have about ten million tshirts and pens from conferences and trade shows that I don't really want that are taking up precious room in my closet.

What I love are bags, although they're probably more expensive and are also overdone. Lately I've seen a resurgence in reusable general purpose (not messenger/laptop type) bags. With Whole Foods not having their awesome plastic bags anymore (that I like reusing, mind you), I always use the bags to carry around random things and groceries. I only wish they'd be handed out more often.

<comment><AUTHOR> Normally we would, but the convention in question is GenCon, the largest gaming convention in the United States.

I know that a lot of people are tired of shirts (I know that I have several from companies that ceased to be), but at Gaming convention goers in particular people are more likely to than average to wear T-shirts rather than white dress shirts.

It also means they need to pack less clothing for the trip.

Also, note the success of sites such as StartupSchwag.. People are willing to Pay for random branded T's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For the record, Microsoft's T-shirts are printed on Fruit of the Loom shirts (very good quality).

Mine says "Microsoft Genius" and was a prize from the 2003 Imagine Cup.

Maybe this is a sweatshop problem? Still, it's a nice T-shirt and I like wearing it when I have an appointment with the bank manager.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm also getting new shirts printed up so I'm looking for a printer here in the bay area. Anybody have a favorite, preferably in the south bay (I'm in Mountain View)?

A good one in Austin is Vreeland Graphics...not super cheap, but reliable and great quality prints.

</comment><comment><USER7> Stay away from anything that uses a printer, like Cafepress or Zazzle. The quality is horrendous.

<comment><USER6> And the cost is very high.

<comment><USER8> Do you know any alternatives to these services? I've used cafepress in the past, to print 6 color shirts and they came out pretty good. They were pricier than I would've liked, but I wasn't purchasing a quantity where I could find cheaper alternatives.

<comment><USER6> As far as I know, the cost is determined by the process and the quantity. Screen-printed shirts start out expensive, because you have to make one screen for every color (at $60-$180 per screen, I seem to recall, though it's been a year or more since I last got shirts), but get cheaper as the quantities increase because the screen is good for hundreds or thousands of shirts and it's really fast to do. The lifetime of screen printed shirts is much longer than the inkjet style printed shirts, I believe, as well. But, realistically, I'm not sure how precise screens can get--really intricate designs are out of reach of that process, I guess (I dunno, all my shirts are two color).

I believe there is a new multi-color process (a few years old, which is bleeding edge in the print industry) that apparently does high color prints at high speed, but I don't know how many providers actually have such a machine, or if the costs are competitive with screen printing.

I'd be curious who prints the shirts for the Mozilla Foundation. I love my Firefox shirt. It looks great, has at least four or five colors, and has held up well.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, you're actually better served by Cafepress (at least in terms of price) in small quantities. I think a lot of the reason ours were so bad was we used a lot of half tones and the ink didn't take well.

It did fade rapidly too. Luckily we only got a handful of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just remember to make your design at 300dpi or higher (in photoshop). I imagine vector art is better, but when I went we just had to make sure to be at 300dpi. I was making shirts for a bike race. We broke even on the shirts.

</comment><comment><USER10> my co-founder also founded a t-shirt design/print company. He can do the sourcing, design, and printing for your apparel, and you'd be helping a fellow YCHN member:-). He is based out of Portland, ME, so pretty local to Boston. He recently did a couple of projects for Dana-Farber for the Boston Marathon. Send me an email if you'd like to talk to him about your project. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to work with these guys: <http://www.astropress.net/> Worth a look.</comment>


Ask HN: How many/which app accounts do you need to create for a new team member? - <AUTHOR> For us it's about 10 apps we have to add a new dev to (GitHub, Harvest, GSuite, Gusto, Slack, Clubhouse, Notion and a few others I'm forgetting).<p>I'm curious what the list looks like for everyone else. <comment><USER2> We manage this through a service, so it's not something we need to do manually for every new employee. New folks get added to one or more groups and use SSO to get access. It also varies by team, but for an engineer on my team it's something like 15-20. At my previous company it was done by hand, and was slack, aws, github, email, pagerduty. The list grew as the company grew.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome. What service do you use?

Or do you mean a custom webservice your company built?

<comment><USER2> Okta; it's an external service.</comment></comment></comment>


Hong Kong gets 1 Gbps broadband service for $26 a month - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/news/hong-kong-gets-1-gbps-broadband-service-for-26-a-month-20100420/ <comment><USER2> I'm resigned to the US never having speeds close to that. Never. I've heard everything from "it's market forces" to "it's the government's/FCC's/President/your mayor's fault" to "we're too far apart" to "the people don't want it so they don't ask for it". Which is it? Or is it a combination of all factors creating some "perfect storm" of awful service and slow speed?

I don't even bother streaming HD on Netflix or youtube because of the burps and buffering.

I wonder how things can get done so seemingly fluidly in terms of technology and broadband adoption in other countries, where it's either super-socialist or statist (like Nordic countries) or mythical in its backroom, nepotistic corruption (like apparently Asia, including HK). How does anything get done in other countries if its so galactically hard to do so in the US, even in places with aboslute population density like NY and LA?

Is it really the federal government? Or is it local government? I'd hate to think it is. I mean that HK 1Gbps line _has_ to be somewhat funded or subsidized by their government, either by funding the laying of fibre or some other thing.

What's more, our wireless speeds are bad, too. I mean, my brother was recently in Vietnam and he said their 3G connection consistency and speed blew the US equivalent out of the water. Of course, 3G adoption is likely not as high as here in the US, but the point stands.

<comment><USER3> It's the NIMBYs. No one wants their property torn up to install the stuff. Same for the wireless providers. People get pissed when a large cell phone tower is placed anywhere near their home.

I pay $45 for 25/5 FIOS and never have a problem streaming Netflix in HD to my TiVo. That's over 802.11G wireless too.

<comment><USER4> FIOS is the happy exception to the rampant crappiness in the US broadband ISP field. Unfortunately, it never seems to be available. My parents in rural MD have had it for years, but it hasn't been available in my past three apartments in NYC, two in the Bay Area, or one in the LA area. Instead, I've been stuck with inconsistent on-and-off service from cable providers who are all basically the same except in name.

<comment><USER3> We seemed to have lucked out with FIOS in MD. Just about the entire central part of the state is covered. The exception seems to be Baltimore city.

FIOS has also helped to push competition with Comcast here too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just chirping in:

In Slovenia I'm paying 20 euro a month for 20/20 unshaped, uncensored and uncapped FTTH. There are Gbps lines, but that costs something like 200 euro a month, which is completely unacceptable.

<comment><USER6> Hah, a 1gb line here in mountain view, a few blocks from google still costs around $3000 a month from at&t.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm from Hong Kong and I think it's unfair to compare the US with us. Hong Kong's just a city in China. If anything, compare with New York, say...

... or compare US with China. I know which one I prefer :D

<comment><USER2> "compare with New York, say..."

Last I checked, NYC has nothing even resembling 1GBps speeds, not unless you're willing to pay for an OC12 line, which I think is in the US$100,000-200,000 per month.

<comment><USER8> > Last I checked, NYC has nothing even resembling 1GBps speeds

I think that was his point: NYC has the same population density as HK (higher, actually, by close to 10%) but you'd be hard pressed finding an ISP offering 1Gbps for $30.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whenever I hear about foreign currency translated into USD, I get nervous...

Is that $26 a month merely a direct translation at the going financial rate (about 200 HKD), or is that taking in to account the general wages of Hong Kong in general?

For example, when you're paid $3000/month, $26 is nothing, but if you're only paid $800 a month (like many in Hong Kong), then that 200HKD is no longer comparable to $26. It's more like $98 a month.

Living in Japan, I get a lot of comments about how expensive video games are here (6000yen or 71USD). The fact is 6000 yen is more like 60USD, as long as you're living and working in Japan. Just because the USD is in the crapper, doesn't mean that all of our products suddenly got more expensive.

</rant>

By the way, we have 1Gbps here in Japan as well... I believe it's only 70-100USD a month?

<comment><USER10> I live in Hong Kong, and the people I know get paid roughly what they would get paid in the US. Most goods and services cost roughly the same as they do in the US as well. Some things are cheaper (taxis) and others are more expensive (imported beer).

There are a lot of people working for way less than what they would get in the US though -- domestic helpers are a prime example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492984>

I posted this on HN a while back when I was looking at a new internet provider. I didn't choose the 1Gbps but got a 100mbps instead with a bundled package. Using speedtest.net to a HK-based server I get 60-70mbps download and 30mbsp upload fairly consistently. Love it. HK-hosted sites load like they are on a local server.

</comment><comment><USER12> Canada can never have anything like this, since the CRTC has proven that they will defend Bell's write to keep a stranglehold on last mile connections to consumer homes. Even if a startup did want to provide the ridiculously high speeds, the 'cost' of convincing Bell to let you compete on their copper will be prohibitive.

<comment><USER13> Counter-datapoint:

I'm in Canada (Toronto) and have fiber to the home, and have had it since about 2002. If you see more of this sort of thing in Canada, I suspect it will likely be brand new neighborhoods in metro areas, large scale condo projects, etc.

[EDIT: speed test: <http://www.speedtest.net/result/1145884475.png> ]

<comment><USER12> Do you pay $13 a month for it? I'm going to assume no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> <https://epbfi.com/>

Chattanooga, TN USA currently has residential speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps. As far as I can tell it is still the only place in the USA where you can get some of the fastest internet speeds. HOWEVER it's 349.99 for that speed [see <https://epbfi.com/you-pick/#/> ]

Has anyone else heard of any other place in the US that offers speeds close to any of this?

</comment><comment><USER15> Since this is almost a year old, some previous discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1277000>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1492984>

(I still think the title should be tweaked -- 'gets'?)

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't _need_ 1GBps connection or even 100Mbps connection, but I do want to be able to get at least 3Mbps for a reasonable price. Last time I checked, it was $35/month + $240 installation fee. The way I see it, this area has no real competition. It's mostly AT&T plus some cable company (usually Comcast).

<comment><USER17> When you have it you'll find good use for it. With that bandwidth you can start using cloudservices for backup and storage for starters. Currently I'm dumping photos on amazon once in a while as my sole backup, but once I've routed some cables from my new 100Mb line I plan on taking more advantage of the cloud and in the process throw away a few annoying external harddrives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Prague, Czech Republic: 30/30 Mbps $30, 50/50 Mbps $45, 100/100 Mbps $55. I was on the middle deal for 18 months, it's uncapped and unshaped even on the uplink.

</comment><comment><USER19> I just can't seem to figure out why we supposedly live in the richest (if not that atleast in the top 10) and can't even compete on internet speed?

God help us.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the way they did it in Japan was really good. Obviously, any industry that leverages legally enforced right-of-way or geographical exclusivity is _already_ regulated, so it makes sense to try to do a good job regulating.

They've done that here, although it is hard for me to imagine the government in the US doing nearly as good a job. Pipes are essentially scarce, whether fiber or DSL or cable, and so pipe owners are required to make them accessible to different providers.

I just recently switched from SoftBank YahooBB fiber-to-the-buiding service (synchronous 100Mbps, I'd get 10MB/sec downloads) to NTT fiber-to-your-router service (200Mbps down, 100Mbps up, now getting slightly over 20MB/sec downloads). This is about $50 per month, and I had my choice of something like 40 different providers to choose from when they installed the new fiber terminal in my room. (1Gbps "business" service was also available, but that cost $400 per month and my future wife vetoed the idea.)

It was a similar deal in 2005 when I had fiber installed here at a different Tokyo location, though. That time the fiber was owned by the electric power utility, and I got various competitive offers for IP service.

For work I have also set up connectivity at a few US locations, all DSL or cable since fiber isn't widely available. The problems with Internet service in the US are mainly political, not technical. Regulations create artificial oligopolies where you usually must choose a.) the local telephone monopoly, b.) the local cable monopoly, or c.) an esoteric solution like a leased line or some kind of wireless service. There are often reliability issues or huge costs associated with that last one, so in many/most US locations it is a choice between two monopolists whose respective pipes are protected by government regulation, but which are not under the sorts of regulatory obligations that they are here, which create real competition in the market.

Without real competition, there is little incentive to make major infrastructure investments and so you end up with the US being a pathetic backwater banana republic in terms of Internet connectivity. (For that reason, I hate trying to work in the US almost as much as in mainland China.)

</comment><comment><USER21> I have HKBN at one time. It is a lot less exciting than it sounds. I picked cheapest package at only 100M. It is a large pipe but the problem is I'm only getting trickles from it. The actually speed don't even match my unglamorous ADSL in US. It seems the Transpacific network has only very limited bandwidth. So if you are watching video served by a CDN in Hong Kong you will be fairly happy. But 95% of internet connection I'm making, such as to my company's VPN, is to the US. And the bandwidth is pathetic. Forget about 1Gbps. If I can get a guaranteed 3Mbps I'll be fairly happy.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder what are the real speeds, because true unmetered gigabit link certainly costs more than $26 (and even more than $260).

I believe it's that you would get a peak speed of about 1 Gbps, but I'm certainly sure it's impossible to have a constant 1 Gpbs speed over long time. In one possible case, you'll divide the ISPs' uplink with other users, so if ISP has a total uplink connectivity of 100Gbps - which is extremly rare case - and there are 1000 users, they'll all get less than 100Mbps. In another case, if you'll hit some sort of a bandwidth cap, your connection will be shaped down.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here in Jamaica, the equivalent of USD $38 gets you 20 Mbps down/1.5 Mbps up. You can get 50 Mbps down for USD $105, and 100 Mbps down / 5Mbps up for USD $129. It's not bad at all, all things considered.

</comment><comment><USER24> In Brazil I pay 90 bucks for a 5Mbps(and this is a GOOD one) connection ):

<comment><USER25> You forgot to mention the upload is 10 slower than the download. Literally.

<comment><USER26> My upload is about 10 times slower that download - that's the A in ADSL.

As it's about 2.5Mbps up and 25Mbps down I'm not hugely bothered - we have 100Mbps symmetric fiber connection at work and it's generally only noticeably faster when you do multiple gigabyte downloads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Canada gets 7.5 Mbps for $47 a month

<https://store.shaw.ca/pages/main.jsp?top_active=inet>

<comment><USER28> with a whopping 60GB cap! Think of all the midi files you could listen with that kind of bandwidth!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hong Kong and Singapore have a huge advantage over the States in that the population there is extremely concentrated. A thousand households there is a single (albeit large) apartment building, while here it's a small neighborhood. I don't know how much cheaper it is to wire a single building than 20 blocks of single houses, but I imagine it's several orders of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER30> In reality these are beauty contests. We should pay attention only when Hong Kong creates startups that makes use of the 1Gps.

On the other hand, I enjoy the meta discussion about monopolies and barriers to entries that exist in America. If anything, it is a pointer to a more general malady that befalls every aspect of doing business in the U.S.

</comment><comment><USER31> Lived in HK for a while in 2009, they had this same 1Gbps package, but more expensive. I talked with a few people working for the firms offering these packages and they all mentioned to me that this 1Gbps speed is guaranteed only within the Hong Kong area. If you made connections to say US, they would not guarantee that speed.

</comment><comment><USER32> Hong Kong is also the world's most expensive place to buy a home, welcome to Hong Kong. ([http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-28/hong-kong-is- world-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-28/hong-kong-is-world-s-most- expensive-place-to-buy-home-on-property-shortage.html))

</comment><comment><USER33> I envy you guys. In the Philippines we have 2 mpbs for $47.

</comment><comment><USER34> What about the issues with entrenched infrastructure and the technical cost of switch over? Are there any studies on that?

</comment><comment><USER35> Singapore is kicking everybody's ass too!! With 4G all over and fiber cable speed internet throught

<comment><USER36> How much in US dollars do they pay for that?

<comment><USER37> One provider's traditional Cable as well as Fibre broadband plans: <http://www.starhub.com/broadband/athome.html#tabcontrol-1>

1USD ~ 1.3SGD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ireland has 24Mbps for €24 per month (approx. $32.40) if you are a business.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here in Hawaii I pay $50 a month for 5/1 mbps....

</comment><comment><USER40> Not only is 1Gps $26 a month, it gets connected the same or next day.

</comment><comment><USER41> _sigh_

One day we'll stop comparing city-states to continental countries.

How about an apples-to-apples comparison. Hong Kong is part of China. How's the internet compare between the US and China? Average speed? Broadband penetration? Choice of ISPs? Freedom of access?

I come from a different continental-sized country also full of internet-speed whiners, and boy do they love pointing at tiny countries and outliers and making it sound like these are the norm. Huh, fancy that - South Korea is an order of magnitude ahead of everyone else in the world. Clearly we /must suck/, because we don't match that hypertech'd outlier!

<comment><USER41> So _that's_ how you do italics here. How baroque!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> There are some things that a 426 square mile country can do that a 3,717,813 square mile country really can't. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_outlying_territories_by_total_area))

I suppose we can hope for better coverage in the highest population density areas, but even there the US population is just much more spread out than most of the civilized world.

<comment><USER8> This claim is bullcrap:

* There are places in the US with even higher densities than HK (NYC), they don't get the service

* There are a number of states with densities in the ballpark of european countries, or South Korea, or Japan, they don't get the service either

* Service in the sticks in the US is crap _right now_ , it's not like cities get awful service because everybody gets the same thing, DSL speeds in rural areas are _advertised_ the same speed they were a decade ago in France, and for twice the price. And the US still have a significant population of dialup users (>10%, I believe)

<comment><USER43> To be fair, unlike NYC, a lot of Hong Kong's area is actually uninhabited, so the effective population density is higher.

That's not to say this excuses the North American internet service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This sounds cool but will have an impact on the Internet. We all want more and more bandwidth but it comes at a hidden cost. Today's computer is so much more powerful than just a few years ago. These computers in the hands of novices coupled with extreme amounts of bandwidth create the perfect environment for hackers…not hackers like us but the botnet credit card thieving type. The average home user doesn't know how to secure his/her machine. In years past a sluggish computer might have been a good sign you had a virus/Trojan/malware. Today these machines can send millions of emails, portscan servers or participate in DDOS attacks and the user has very little if any noticeable performance hit.

In short more!=better.

<comment><USER2> Isn't that the equivalent of saying "because people can't drive, no one is allowed to have a sports car"?

<comment><USER44> No, no its not. I am not saying people shouldn't have 1g connections. My point is the majority of these users will have no idea how to handle it..like giving the keys to your Ferrari to a 16 year old. If everybody had this type of access and they continue poor security practices there will be an impact.</comment></comment></comment>


As Restaurants Cut Salt, Some See Reasons to Pass - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/science/some-restaurants-reduce-salt-but-critics-call-moves-unnecessary.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The article explains the reason that it will be hard ever to have clear science on this issue:

"There is little debate that people already suffering from hypertension should back away from the salt shaker. But because measuring sodium in humans is difficult, requiring constant urine collection over days, it is nearly impossible to stage large-scale studies that might establish a connection between high sodium and lethal events.

"'Large-scale trials of sodium reduction on hard outcomes, such as heart attacks, strokes and deaths, in general populations are impossible, for logistical considerations, and will never be done,' said Dr. Lawrence Appel, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and chairman of the salt committee for the 2010 United States Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines."</comment>


Ask YC: What to do if burned out, and have dozens of deadlines for tomorrow - <AUTHOR>

Just wanting to ask for your advice, on how you deal with this problem. I pulled an all-nighter yesterday in order to meet with my deadlines for today, but have a dozen more for tomorrow. I can't seem to find the focus and concentration needed to get something done due to my lack of sleep. What other options do you think I could opt for besides going to bed and missing those deadlines? <comment><USER2> Sleep or take a shower, and slip into something comfortable. See if you can do it listening to music.

If that fails, re-evaluate your life and introspect how all these deadlines mean that something is ending, giving you an opportunity to either do something better or just give you more free time/sleep.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are too tired to work effectively, first sleep, then work. Set your alarm clock very early. Then hopefully the adrenaline will help you work. If you still miss your deadlines, be honest, apologize, and try to work something out.

</comment><comment><USER4> What city are you in? Go get some Yerba Matte, the loose kind.

But about 1cm of it in the bottom of a french press, and about 2cm of milk in the bottom of a 20oz glass. Mix.

Then add a few squirts of peppermint. (like 4 squirts).

I'm serious, this concoction has gotten me through more all-nighter-afters than anything else ever.

</comment><comment><USER5> When my roommate gets stressed he has 4 glasses of Carlo Rossi and passes out. Does the trick every time.

In all seriousness though, just take a nap and realize that in the grand scheme of things what you're working on is probably not that important. I always recall one particular chapter in Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" where he outlined the fact that the human race somehow survived something like 7 extinction periods. That always puts things in perspective for me.

Just be happy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is finding help possible?

Living with a pair of hackers, I frequently run about asking technical questions or getting them to review bits of code. It makes the process a lot faster, and speed helps getting things done.

Good luck to you, mate. I would keep working and only refresh this page every hour or so -- only other people with insane workloads are still up ;)

</comment><comment><USER7> If it's a once (or twice) off:

* Go for a run.

* Then take a cold shower.

* Then dose up on caffiene of your choice.

But please don't do stuff like this often - if you're always working like that - then just go to bed.

</comment><comment><USER8> Getting off of HN and any other news site would be a start.

</comment><comment><USER9> Get drunk or stoned. A solution will come to you!

<comment><USER10> That actually works like a charm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Take a nap, feel better, then triage. Do things in priority order and don't stop working on item #1 until it's finished or you're blocked.

In your spare time, read Getting Things Done. Even if you don't like the book, it's decent advice.</comment>


Binctr: Static, unprivileged, self-contained containers as executable binaries - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/genuinetools/binctr <comment><USER2> I worked on something similar for Windows for nearly 10 years, called Thinstall (acquired by vmware and renamed to Thinapp). I love the idea of something like that for linux.

We put a lot of effort into being able to run an application directly from a compressed single-file binary, you have a small executable with a big payload attached to the end of it. The payload essentially contains a mountable filesystem, however because windows doesn't support doing anything like that from an unprivileged account we had to emulate many things Windows normally does, including execution of binary images.

We did some tricks where executable data was stored on disk in a format it can be directly memory mapped and run without reading anything - this allowed us to launch most applications over a network without extracting anything to disk locally and achieve millisecond launch times. Pages would get pulled into local memory by the OS as needed while the application was running.

The end result was that you can create a single EXE file could contain things like python + script, or more complex like photoshop & Word. Just go to a new computer from a guest account, launch the EXE and you instantly start using that app.

I haven't been involved with it for the last 6 years, but I believe vmware still offers it.

<comment><USER3> Or, you know, you could just uncompress the application in a newly-created subfolder of C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\ and launch the binary that is to be run afterwards (which of course is conveniently named SETUP.EXE). The way it's always been done.

<comment><USER4> How do you stop the app from permanently writing stuff to the registry or filesystem?

<comment><USER2> Thinapp solved this by presenting a synthetic view of the filesystem and registry to the app. This view merged the contents of the real system with the contents of the package, so the app thought everything was were it expected when it runs. In addition, we provided a copy-on-write sandbox of this view, so any writes would be redirected to a local folder without the app knowing about it. If you delete the sandbox, the app goes back to it's "first run" state.

<comment><USER5> It sounds a lot like how Flatpak and friends work. Would be interested if there were a few detailed blog posts about it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see that it extracts files into `/tmp/...` inside the container first before running it. It'd be better if it could read the files directly from the image, say, like a self-executable squashfs image.

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't in-place decompression for a "self-executable" squashfs require one to disable NX for that binary? That seems like it would be a terrible idea from a security perspective. (Even for pure data, in-place decompression seems like it would heavily interfere with e.g. demand paging of such data into RAM, using the binary itself as backing store. Disk space is so cheap these days - I don't think things like squashfs should be used nowadays unless truly necessary.)

<comment><USER7> NX does not need to be disabled[1] for the binary thanks to W^X[0]. As long as pages are never mapped as writeable and executable at the same time, you don't lose any protection.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%5EX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%5EX) [1] AFAIK, on Linux NX isn't something that is enabled or disabled for individual programs anyways, it's up to the userland whether or not it takes advantage of the mmap(2) mapping flags

<comment><USER8> In general, you lose some protection, as a two-stage exploit might write some data in W state then flip to (or wait for) X state for execution. That being said, a self-decompressing binary would only do this at startup, before it consumes untrusted input, so given a way to drop map-executable permissions that wouldn't be a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Well judging by the original GitHub issue about unprivileged runc > containers, the largest group of commenters is from the scientific community > who are restricted to not run certain programs as root.

Which is why we use Singularity[0]. Apologies if I'm missing something, but to me this problem they're trying to solve, has already been solved. As stated in the README:

> Singularity is an open source container platform designed to be simple, > fast, and secure. Singularity is optimized for EPC and HPC workloads, > allowing untrusted users to run untrusted containers in a trusted way.

Singularity 'requires' root or elevated privileges to create and modify containers, but running them is done in the user's namespace with that user's permission set. And privileges can't be elevated during the containers runtime as there are kernel level catches that prevent sudo and su from working inside the container.

In terms of the 'static' part, Singularity uses SquashFS to produce a single binary image, and uses the SIF (Singularity Image File) format to define applications, their dependencies, and runscripts. On top of being able to run anything inside the container with the `exec` subcommand.

You can also create sandbox development images that are just a directory on disk for testing things out and installing/building tools manually, then convert it into a SIF container after for cluster deployment. Or be nicer and port your process into a recipe/definition file.

Most scientific/HPC related centers have started utilizing Singularity for their container workflow. Tools like Docker are essentially banned because of their perma-root privileges[1].

[0] [https://github.com/sylabs/singularity](https://github.com/sylabs/singularity) [1] I'm an admin who reimplemented Singularity on our university's cluster. With a heavy need on filesystem integration (which Singularity solves with great configuration options), containers which run with root privileges would be a massive security vulnerability.

<comment><USER10> I started the rootless containers project and have had long email threads with the Singularity folks.

> Which is why we use Singularity[0]. Apologies if I'm missing something, but > to me this problem they're trying to solve, has already been solved. > Singularity 'requires' root or elevated privileges to create and modify > containers,

Well, Singularity came out at the same time as runc's rootless containers support was developed -- so at the time it wasn't solved at all. It required (and still requires for several operations and features) root privileges in order to work (such as suid helpers in addition to explicit root requirements).

It's not acceptable for a usecase where you cannot run anything as root (not even installation scripts). That was the use-case, and rootless runc (and now thanks to Akihiro and Guiseppe, rootless Docker and Kubernetes) in theory can now work without the need for any suid helpers -- though these days there is an increasing usage of newuidmap and newgidmap (which isn't mandated for the rootless runc implementation).

At the time, LXC's unprivileged containers was the closest thing and it had a few (mostly optional) suid binaries -- I wanted absolutely none.

> but running them is done in the user's namespace with that user's permission > set. And privileges can't be elevated during the containers runtime as there > are kernel level catches that prevent sudo and su from working inside the > container.

This last part really isn't revolutionary at all. All it really takes is a syscall and three files to write to. The hard part is getting everything else to work without root privileges.

<comment><USER9> Are you a dev on binctr? Is so, the following statements are based off an assumption of yes.

> Well, Singularity came out at the same time as runc's rootless containers > support was developed -- so at the time it wasn't solved at all. It required > (and still requires for several operations and features) root privileges in > order to work (such as suid helpers in addition to explicit root > requirements).

Alright, but I wasn't asking about a "back then" scenario, I was mostly trying to figure out what this offers _today_. From a Singularity end-user's perspective, there's only one function that requires elevated permissions, and that's building.

> It's not acceptable for a usecase where you cannot run anything as root (not > even installation scripts). ... At the time, LXC's unprivileged containers > was the closest thing and it had a few (mostly optional) suid binaries -- I > wanted absolutely none.

Now I understand what this offers and it's overarching goal is. In my specific situation (which is the angle I'm looking at this from), that's not really a big deal due to the way we handle global and local software installation. I understand this is not a universal situation.

> This last part really isn't revolutionary at all.

I don't think I made it sound like it was revolutionary, I was just sharing what a commonly used tool in HPC does for a security measure.

Based off of the binctr README:

> Create fully static, including rootfs embedded, binaries that pop you > directly into a container. _Can be run by an unprivileged user._

My main confusion stems from that. In comparison to Singularity, it doesn't seem to offer anything new or noteworthy that would make me take a second look at it. The first phrase just makes me think I'm saving myself a few keystrokes as I wouldn't have to type `singularity shell <container>` to shell into my container of choice. It just looks like yet another container solution. I still find these things cool (and their above my head in dev terms), but it feels like programming languages, a new one popping up every so often.

I'm primarily looking to see what advantages (or differences in approach) this offers over Singularity, Shifter, or Charliecloud, etc for my context. At least in terms of security and efficiency.

<comment><USER10> > Are you a dev on binctr?

No, but I'm a maintainer of runc and implemented all of the core features that binctr uses (or rather, that Jessie hacked together for a proof of concept). I've also implemented rootless support in quite a few other tools to the point where now an unprivileged user can download, extract, and run a rootless container. In addition, I'm working with some other folks who joined later to get Kubernetes (and Docker) to be completely rootless.

> From a Singularity end-user's perspective, there's only one function that > requires elevated permissions, and that's building.

(Most forms of) execution still requires setuid binaries, which means that you have to have root permissions in order to install Singularity. You can use rootless containers as a __completely unprivilged user __(meaning that if you have unprivileged shell access to a random box you can use containers). Singularity cannot do this.

> I was just sharing what a commonly used tool in HPC does for a security > measure.

My point was that basically any container runtime can do what you described.

> I'm primarily looking to see what advantages (or differences in approach) > this offers over Singularity, Shifter, or Charliecloud, etc for my context. > At least in terms of security and efficiency.

Many of those tools require setuid binaries that are developed as part of their container runtime -- which means that all of the security is contingent in no vulnerabilities in their setuid binaries (something that is hard to do _even for the developers of programs like sudo_ ).

Rootless containers are a project that requires __absolutely no privileged codepaths for any container operation __(though these days you can optionally use standard setuid binaries -- by default they are not used). This is something that none of the projects you listed (as far as I 'm aware) can do.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for piping up.

Charliecloud specifically doesn't require setuid, but many HPC systems won't have user namespaces enabled. (It removed the setuid component which allowed it to work on RHEL6, for instance.) You can also easily build a root for it under proot, for instance -- and proot itself is probably OK for running computationally-intensive work. HPC systems already have a privilege escalation mechanism available from the resource manager, but I don't know there's a problem using it for this sort of thing. Shifter controls the images, so you're not at risk from malformed filesystems, at least.

Definitely setuid in Singularity should worry people. It has a non-stellar security record, and has been less than transparent about issues. The last time I looked at the code for instance it still had many calls unchecked for error returns (including all mallocs), and wrote uninitialized memory to image files. It was a mistake to get it into Fedora, and HPC people should be a bit more circumspect. That said, resource managers probably provide most attack surface in HPC systems, in some case completely trivially.

By the way, it's often possible just to run programs from an unpacked filesystem of another distribution just by setting PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

<comment><USER9> Not sure when you last looked at Singularity's code base, but it was completely re-written this year into Go, so some of the issues you saw may have been solved. Not sure, just letting you know if you haven't been following its development.

> It was a mistake to get it into Fedora, and HPC people should be a bit more > circumspect.

I never installed it from EPEL, as building from source was relatively easy in 2.x (trivially easy in 3.x) and allowed buildtime configurations specific to a cluster. If you pay for support you get custom repos, but that's up to the cluster maintainers to decide.

<comment><USER11> I know it's been re-written, but I don't know why that would restore my faith in it and Sylabs (for multiple reasons). It emphasizes the point about inclusion in Fedora (and other distributions?) for which there's some expectation of security and stability, even if you don't care about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The container revolution appears to have come full circle and reinvented static linking.

<comment><USER13> Which language produces statically linked binaries that embed their own root filesystem?

<comment><USER14> Smalltalk, which distributes code as a vm.

Java jars aren't far off from having their own rootfs included along with the compiled class files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why does the Linux kernel/Posix make sandboxing so difficult?

<comment><USER16> It doesn't, really. Since there are umpteen ways to do things in GNU/Linux, developers often end up with less-than-ideal implementations for what they are trying to do using a single user account.

The single-user approach creates clashes between the network devs who want to build empires of containers they "own", and the stack-level bare metal purists who want the system to be as clean and secure as possible by isolating things where they should be isolated (to a single user instance for that purpose alone). This is not a new problem, nor a very well thought-out solution.

Containers are __always __a less-than-ideal implementation for people running Linux natively. The ideal way to sandbox in Linux is create a user account, download and test whatever code, see what breaks or infringes with its unique notion of "privileges", and delete the user when done.

But because you can't switch users on the same kernel when you're not running Linux natively, we have containers and all the messes they create. [https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/12/29/018234/linus-...](https://developers.slashdot.org/story/12/12/29/018234/linus- chews-up-kernel-maintainer-for-introducing-userspace-bug)

<comment><USER17> I have to admit that I'm quite confused about this comment. Are you saying simply running a command under its own uid is enough to provide the same isolation that containers do, and that the latter were only created because people are not running Linux natively?

<comment><USER18> I think he is saying there are a lot of 80% solutions like user based isolation that could have been made more secure, but instead people invented a new solution that has its own problems, and that the fractured landscape of solutions we see now is due to the freedom of open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Strongly reminds me of UML: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User- mode_Linux](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-mode_Linux)

<comment><USER20> I used UML to do this very thing 15+ years ago !

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So basically a full circle on running single binary executable processes, a multitude of them, as was done on a UNIX system back in the '90's, only with more complexity (this effort is an attempt to reduce that complexity, which in and of itself is telling).

And still nowhere near the flexibility, security, the power and simplicity of illumos zones and SMF.

<comment><USER22> Well, you can't statically link bunch of python scripts. With this one you can do it easily (relatively).

<comment><USER23> Yes you can: eggs and wheels.

<comment><USER24> Still needs Python itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm not too excited about embedding the data (rootfs) within the image. Have a .preinit_array section that runs a seccomp-bpf filter, unshare, etc with filter, unshare, etc data in their own sections (this allows zeroing a section to get original behaviour)

</comment><comment><USER26> how does this compare to:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_(software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_\(software\))

<comment><USER14> Requires set-uid, it's not fully unprivileged containers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The same idea two years ago: [https://github.com/bfirsh/whalebrew](https://github.com/bfirsh/whalebrew)

<comment><USER10> This project was written in 2016 too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The advantages of this are kind of like two security features recently added to OpenBSD: pledge & unveil

</comment><comment><USER29> Isn't CNAB doing this (and more) and is going to be more widely adopted?

[https://github.com/deislabs/cnab- workshop/blob/master/conten...](https://github.com/deislabs/cnab- workshop/blob/master/content/01-what-is-cnab.md)

<comment><USER30> Context: [https://cnab.io](https://cnab.io)</comment></comment>


The Vintage Windows Media Player Collection - <AUTHOR> https://www.windows-media-player.com <comment><USER2> Wow! it's looks like the Computer Museum of History. Thank you for the link.</comment>


"Learn To Code, Get a Job" According To CNN - <AUTHOR> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/12/2339202/learn-to-code-get-a-job-according-to-cnn <comment><USER2> Catch 22

We want and need innovative programs to train the technically illiterate. Yet we're critical of any "learn to code in 30 days". There is plenty of low end javascript work out there.</comment>


Chapter 2 of ANSI Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://sep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/paulgraham/acl2.txt?t=1589141937& <comment><USER2> Are you going to post links to every chapter? I'm a huge Lisp fan, but this seems like an obnoxious and perhaps lazy attempt at amassing points.</comment>


Enterprise Software Is Dead - <AUTHOR> https://capiche.com/p/enterprise-software-is-dead <comment><USER2> No, it is still alive. Processes for approving outside software still exist as is convincing stakeholders. Also, I don't think its a good idea to rely on startups for larger businesses because of the very fact they get acquired / acquihired or simply close down and you are left with no alternative. If it is a open source project with a company that offers a service and support contract then maybe but there are really large companies where Enterprise software still reigns.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately most SaaS companies today have got on a bandwagon of offering "enterprise" versions of their products which alienate those which brought them bottom up into a corporation in the first place.

You can see it in the "pricing" page that goes exponential on the "enterprise" offer and requires calling a sales organization that takes days or weeks to respond (vs filling in a form and providing credit card details). Usually it looks something like this;

\- Free: $0 but limited

\- Private: $5 / month for some extra features but limited collaboration

\- Professional: $49 / month / user ... includes collaboration up to N users

\- Enterprise: insane pricing that needs board level approval and will cost your company $millions / year

Free to Professional level I can kind of understand but in terms of scaling, the Enterprise is dumb. If you make me - a developer / designer / PM / etc have to kick off board level meetings to pay for this product, you already lost.

SaaS companies need to keep their pricing scalable so that as their product goes "viral" in an enterprise, people with purchasing control up to $10000 / year in departments and groups across the corporation can keep paying by credit card without needing to get additional approval. Stop making work for your supporters

<comment><USER4> Some enterprises justify the astronomical increase in spend because of the overhead required to consummate the commercial relationship.

<comment><USER5> Not sure why you are being down voted. We started integrating with a company everyone knows. Our $80/mo package totally suited their initial needs. They said they couldn't budget for such a small line item and required that we increase the price.

<comment><USER3> That's a fair point for _some_ corporations but that shouldn't mean having to block the others where they just want to keep growing incrementally

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a crap article--a rant. It presents no convincing evidence of the premise. If enterprise software is dead, why am I seeing its use all around me? My anecdotes hold just as much weight as the author's. Oh, and the author has something to sell, too.

<comment><USER7> As my former startup now subsidiary is being forced to abandon working products for inferior ones in the name of "enterprise" or some box checking version of "security" I also agree that this notion of enterprise software going away is a bit silly. They tried to hook some new enterprise ready expenses tool in and force us to use it. It exposed the entire pay structure of the company to anyone who wanted to know. We were back in the old product that worked before the official launch of the new one. We have had numerous people leave because of literally arbitrary policies like buying a meal at an airport is covered but buying a water or snacks is not a covered expense. I.e. your always forced to the most expensive option and in the same breath being told to reduce travel expenses. There now my rant is anecdotal too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As long as companies use CRM and ERP systems, enterprise software is going to stick around. That's just a fundamentally different proposition than one team starting to use Slack or Twilio.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree with the part about SaaS taking hold in the enterprise. ServiceNow, Workday, O365 and being pushed by hard by KPMG/Accenture and all the other consulting vultures. I've been cleaning up the SaaS messes left by consultants for the last 5 years.

Developers do have a voice now but in my experience it is quickly over looked by VPs and above, especially if consultants are around.

Slack is a better product but the VPs and up are already paying for O365. To them Microsoft Teams is much more attractive (and a worse product). Microsoft knows this and has been pushing it hard.

Don't agree with this rant of an article.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Twilio pioneered the concept of "developer evangelism." They hired engineers > for the sole purpose of travelling the world and meeting developers at > hackathons and meetups. Their goal wasn't to sell Twilio's products—it was > to help developers with whatever they were building, give away swag, and > spread love in the developer community. Instead of shmoozing executives and > analysts, they celebrated developers and the things they were building.

I don't think this person met any Twilio developer evangelists. The goal was to sell Twilio's products - they'd give a talk at JSconf eg showing off that you could send SMS reminders or validate phone numbers with Twilio. Yes this would help developers with whatever they were building, and yes Twilio is awesome, but the goal was clearly commercially motivated 'be awesome using our stuff' rather than just 'be awesome'.

<comment><USER11> Developer evangelists are the social media influencers of the development world. Since the phrase "influencer" is viewed somewhat negatively, maybe guerilla marketer is a bit lighter.

In theory, it's a low-tier dream job -- imagine if someone paid you X figures/year to build and show off cool stuff with technology Y (with the caveat that you own none of the IP). This kind of plays out as evangelists often build cool stuff or work on open source projects that massively benefit the relevant communities. In practice, however, I find that I am very skeptical of talks/articles created by evangelists because of the inherent bias and knowledge that it's just their job, and sometimes the content just isn't that good -- you're not hearing from the person that spent the last 5 days struggling with an obscure kernel bug, you're often hearing about plugging one or two technologies together to do some buzzword-heavy task.

It's like corporate blogging/brand management that is common these days (my own personal blog is no exception to a certain extent, I do actively market myself through it) -- "Here's 5 awesome ways to use tool X that we either developed or consult for" \-- most of the time you know the other shoe is going to drop and something is going to try to "convert" you somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reads great at face value, but is literally just content marketing. Author took some observations from the last decade (I guess Salesforce is big now, huh?) and added some VC Twitter blurbs about "consumerization".

Listening to VC Twitter is funny though, turns out they're money lenders first and foremost, not in the business of actually writing and selling software. So it's a game of telephone, with a 8-12 months delay, but high dose of posturing.

The main distinction between SMB and Enterprise is not the software itself, hasn't been in a looong time.

It's sales.

And there, enterprise is alive and happy, getting even more centralized, globalized and thereby different. The main driver for this? Security and Compliance. CIOs will get fired if: They allow a Maersk-style ransomware disaster OR They don't have their shit in order when the GDPR-style audit rolls in.

Marketing automation got concentrated into 2 cloud players now (SFDC, Adobe) for that reason. The new enterprise. And SMB that operates internationally now buys whatever the big guys are having.

Yes, enterprise is dead - for anyone trying to sell into it with SMB techniques. Slack has strong headwind because of it, their enterprise plan is a) insanely priced and even worse b) backed by a totally inept sales team when it comes to "enterprise".

</comment><comment><USER13> What has changed is that it is now possible to make chat and video apps in the browser and ppl take advantage of it. There's also a lot of money thrown in startups, and an SaaS for every tiny bit of workflow. Let's see if this "wave" is sustainable without a VC bubble.

<comment><USER7> Short answer no. No business is sustainable without startup money from somewhere. The problem is the wealthy have so much money and there's not enough money at the ground level to buy the new products so without dumping money into crazy new ideas they can't ever grow their money at the top. It's a self limiting factor of capitalism, for the system to function properly money must be evenly distributed amongst those with needs to be fulfilled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Enterprise software" to me is anything huge bought by a huge company or government authority to run their business. Like a bank, airline or insurance company that have enormous bespoke ERP/CRM deployments. Something that typically runs on either a mainframe (back in the day) or now more likely an in-house datacenter with machines running Oracle and SAP and all that.

The article is right: employees hate these systems. Always. But there are few ways to replace a bespoke CRM/ERP system with a few "loved" apps.

I _don 't_ consider the "enterprise version" of a simple do-one-thing app as being "enterprise software". That's just end-user/consumer software with unlimited whatevers and an expensive support contract.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's just the cycle of history.

This already happened in 2000 with wifi and department servers: people would buy wifi access points (apple really accelerated this) and hide them from I/T in the suspended ceilings. They'd buy file servers and hide them under secretaries' desks. I/T eventually wrested control of that infrastructure and it all became an Enterprise sale.

Oh, actually earlier: analysts would buy their own Apple IIs with Visicalc and simply compute locally without having to deal with I/T. Eventually I/T figured out how to co-opt them and Microsoft's tales team rode to victory.

etc.

</comment><comment><USER16> Only on the merry land of hipster coffee shops.

Enterprise software is the only way to get paid for delivering developer tooling.

</comment><comment><USER17> Having software choices foisted upon you from on high is a huge red flag IMO. Same thing with dress codes. Speaks to a culture of mediocrity and concern with things that don't matter. I've worked at a few such places. Never again if I can help it.

</comment><comment><USER18> It is? If so, the same market dynamics not are pushing people to pick service X by amazone/google/microsoft. Its a fools aren to compete with Atlassian on developer productivity software. Think you can find a better offering then their suite

</comment><comment><USER19> The rumors about enterprise software's demise have been slightly exaggerated. Unfortunately.

</comment><comment><USER20> I would like to challenge this article on several points

> a stark distinction existed between enterprise software (targeting Fortune > 2000 companies) and the rest of business software (targeting mid-market and > SMB).

Not true. SMBs often use ERP systems which have all of the features mentioned next

> Enterprise software was generally bought by CTOs, CIOs, and CEOs. They'd > make a choice largely based on what the analyst firms told them, and were > incentivized to make the safest possible choice, not the best choice.

It didn't matter much if their employees liked or hated the software, because they had no other choice. It didn't matter if the software got less-than-ideal results, because the decision-maker was shielded by consensus.

> First came the cloud, then came SaaS. SaaS—with its monthly billing cycles > and lightweight implementation processes

Maybe the implementation process for Capiche is simple, but it looks like a reallly narrowly focussed CRM tool. But a Saas ERP is still a huge undertaking for a business. In fact whether to have it hosted on or off site is quite frankly a very small part of the complication.

> First, and perhaps most significantly, he days of central IT making the > buying decision for every person in a company started to fade away.

It started with a trend called BYOA (Bring Your Own App)

Yes I see teams using Slack, Trello and Basecamp themselves. But these are nothing like the scale of an Enterprise application. It is equivalent to suggesting that since the marketing team managed to sign up to facebook themselves, why not let them do a Netsuite or SAP installation.

> Today, all it takes is a few people in an organization to abandon WebEx for > Zoom in a few clicks.

> Twilio pioneered the concept of "developer evangelism." They hired engineers > for the sole purpose of travelling the world and meeting developers at > hackathons and meetups

Sure, in a technology company this can happen. In the rest of the world you need _support_. When Zoom doesn't work with the conference room hardware noone calls Zoom, they call IT. When a client wont install on a PC because of the software execution policy they call IT.

> It also means that the days of "set it and forget it" enterprise contracts > are gone. After a vendor closes an enterprise customer, they no longer can > count on years upon years of lock-in.

Again, only with small add on tools like Slack, not with CRM or ERP. When you move to an ERP you are expecting to pay out a load of money for a 10+ year project. With Saas there is slightly less upfront, and a lot more on-going cost.

I'm afraid the writer either has no understanding of what enterprise wide software does, or is just twisting the facts to get a blog out of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> off-the-shelf enterprise software may (or may not) be dead.

But enterprises now increasingly ARE software. They make it themselves, as their own secret sauce.

</comment><comment><USER22> I can save ya even more time and you can just call business software: software.

It's 2019, software is the business. There's no need for the redundant "business" prepended to it.</comment>


'Twisted' fibre optic light breakthrough could make internet 100 times faster - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/24/twisted-fibre-optic-light-breakthrough-could-make-internet-100-times-faster <comment><USER2> Any news on better latency?</comment>


Java: The Programmer Environment That Has It All - <AUTHOR> https://deprogrammaticaipsum.com/java-the-programmer-environment-that-has-it-all/ <comment><USER2> For me there's one big deal breaker: Oracle.

I just don't want to deal with a company like that.</comment>


How to make decisions, stick with them, and be productive - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dennybritz.com/2015/08/28/how-to-make-decisions-stick-with-them-and-be-productive/

<comment><USER2> great read. Pomodoro really works quite well if one can stick to using it regularly.</comment>


What If We All Just Sold Non-Creepy Advertising? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/opinion/facebook-google-privacy.html <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/e3oMI](http://archive.is/e3oMI)</comment>