Web-mode.el – an Emacs major mode for editing HTML templates - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fxbois/web-mode <comment><USER2> I was looking for a less-complicated alternative to nxhtml/mumamo and html5.el (which requires xhtml syntax). I've played with web-mode for a few minutes, and it seems great. Handles html, css, js nicely.

Only concern so far: javascript variables with underscores do not highlight correctly.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are still some bugs, but the author is fast at fixing bugs. I have been working on razor code, and found a bug on Thursday, he fixed it on Friday.

What I like the most is the speed. nxhtml/mumamo is too slow and sometimes it is even unusable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Something I was looking for for a time! For now I used html-mode with mmm-mode (to encode largish javascript chunks in javascript mode.) Looks like I won't be needing it anymore

</comment><comment><USER4> I use this almost every day, and I love it. It really does "just work", even when you throw it files that can be a hideous mix of PHP, HTML, Javascript, inline CSS and whatever else. I actually wrote a quick script that uses Emacs and web-mode to auto-indent collections of files, and it does a much better job than any of the alternatives I've tried previously (even if it can be a little slow on larger directories).

It's also now included in bbatsov's Prelude[1] by default, which is nice since it eliminated the needs for the little hacks I was using to disable whitespace mode.

All in all, awesome project, and thanks so much for all the work you've put into it!

[1] [https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude](https://github.com/bbatsov/prelude)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been using multi-web-mode for HTML, CSS and JS recently. This simply switches to a nominated mode when you're inside a block of HTML, CSS, JS, etc.

[https://github.com/fgallina/multi-web- mode](https://github.com/fgallina/multi-web-mode)

Quite simple and elegant. But something that can work well with Jinja2 would be welcome. I'll take a look at web-mode.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been fighting with various modes trying to find a usable solution for php/html/js for some time. This is a godsend.

</comment><comment><USER7> thanks for all those kind words. If you need compatibility with any new template engine, do not hesitate to submit a specific issue on github.

</comment><comment><USER8> I keep getting:

Search failed: "<"

whenever I try to indent into a <script> tag. I also don't see any highlighting on the HTML, it's all grey. I guess installation failed for me. (I used marmalade.)

I was super excited as xhtml has a large set of problems and I've been looking for a replacement. Did anyone else have similar issues?

edit: html is suppose to be grey (I'm not a fan.) and the indentation failure on a script tag still remains. There's a work around, add a newline after the <script> and then indent.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check the FAQ here: [http://web-mode.org/](http://web-mode.org/)

It might be a problem with othere modes: "Syntax coloring does not work

Do not enable rainbow-mode or whitespace-mode with web-mode (see above). Moreover, some users might report issues when using themes that not play nicely with web-mode. Tip: when using emacs in a terminal, always try to enable 256 colors compatibility (xterm-256color)."

Update: Fixed some typos.

<comment><USER8> The only mode that is enabled is Web-mode. I'm using [http://emacsformacosx.com/](http://emacsformacosx.com/) with an empty .emacs file to test this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The source is a nice example of pretty clean looking elisp.

</comment><comment><USER10> I keep meaning to figure out why this isn't working for me, because trying to use nxhtml-mode along with any sort of templating or embedded script tags is an exercise in frustration.

But web-mode (installed via ELPA) doesn't seem to be working at all, and any number of bits of my .emacs.d/ cruft could be to blame. Time for some -Q next reboot, perhaps.

</comment><comment><USER11> Awesome! This is exactly what I need for my daily work with Emacs! (tried mmm before, but it was crazily unstable and slow).

</comment><comment><USER12> Just found this the other day. Been working like a charm for HTML and some ERB templates.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just installed it and I'm trying to edit my views in PlayFramework that contain scala code as well as javascript in script tags.

It seems to be getting confused with the braces in the scala bits and the javascript code.

<comment><USER7> Can you post an issue on GitHub with a big template example (on gist.github.com). I'll be happy to add scala compatibility

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks great - going to give it a try tomorrow.

I'd love to hear about how you made it, did you generate any of the elisp with another program?

</comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know of something similar for Vim?

<comment><USER16> use evil-mode for vim-in-emacs won't find anything simmilar in vim.

</comment></comment><comment> 4dl0v3-p34c3 This is kinda against the REST architecture, so I'll stick stick with my customized org-mode script.

</comment><comment><USER17> I code Django sites and definitely recommend this for Django templates.

</comment><comment><USER18> niiice. perhaps make some edits at the emacs wiki so more people will know there's an alternative to mmm &/or nxhtml?

<comment><USER19> > perhaps make some edits at the emacs wiki...

It's a wiki, go for it ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> ot feedback: the font aliasing looks strenuous to look at. Maybe reconsider your settings.</comment>


Performance Insight into PHP7 (faster than HHVM 3.7) - <AUTHOR> https://www.zend.com/en/resources/php7_infographic

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they finally got it faster than HHVM by about 5% which is rather impressive.

Sure hope that is a fair comparison against HHVM with a warm jit cache.

Oh geez, they removed mysql_* from PHP 7.

That's going to be a showstopper for hundreds of thousands of sites not being able to upgrade easily. That's a real shame.

Oh wait, all is not lost, the PECL extension in theory can be compiled into PHP7 [http://pecl.php.net/package/mysql](http://pecl.php.net/package/mysql)

<comment><USER2> mysql_* functions have been deprecated since 5.5, so no big surprise here... [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12859942/why-shouldnt- i-u...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12859942/why-shouldnt-i-use-mysql- functions-in-php)</comment></comment>


The melting pot of JavaScript (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://increment.com/development/the-melting-pot-of-javascript/ <comment><USER2> I really like the kind of sanity that TypeScript brings to JS, super well designed and usually a pleasure to work with. That said, I've worked in many languages and I can't see any reason you would willing write your backend in JS or TypeScript.

Java, C#, Rails, and to some extent Python are much saner choices. The massive churn of the JS ecosystem bleeds through to the backend, hard.

JS could use a little more of the cruft and process that makes Java and C# especially so "uninteresting".

Java especially is kind of a joy to work in if you ignore the cruft. Everything is generally well documented, the libraries are mostly very solid, code is almost always backwards compatible, there isn't a zillion ways to do everything, frameworks tend to live for a decade or so.

And it's faster than JS, and uses way less memory, and mostly solved dependency hell and bloat over a decade ago.

Java feels like it was designed, not grown. Everything follows similar convention so it's easy to pick up new libraries. The advantages are many. The drawbacks are few as long as you use things like Lombok and code generation liberally. By the way; code generation using agents, annotation processors, and bytecode manipulation is pretty much standard and a godsend for doing interesting things (and getting around the cruft) .

In java, I can write code on the fly at runtime, or even during compile time using standard tools. Js barely even supports reflection. This is a huge underrated shortcoming of js if you're doing anything complicated

<comment><USER3> > Js barely even supports reflection. This is a huge underrated shortcoming of > js if you're doing anything complicated

Can you explain what Java offers with regard to reflection that JS doesn't?

My feeling is that reflection is almost moot in JS since you can inspect/mutate objects at runtime however you like. But maybe I'm missing the point of reflection.

There is a Reflect object with a bunch of static methods on it in ES6. It mostly just replicates functonality that already exists in the language, and my suspicion is that it's mainly there so it can be extended at a later date without breaking backwards compatiblity.

<comment><USER4> > Can you explain what Java offers with regard to reflection that JS doesn't?

Among hundreds of other things, getting the return type of a method and getting the input parameter names (+ types) in a way that doesn't revolve around literally parsing the functions toString() representation.

Oh, and typeof checking that isn't disgustingly broken.

<comment><USER5> > getting the return type of a method and getting the input parameter names (+ > types)

Type information literally doesn't exist at runtime, though. Isn't it kind of ridiculous to compare languages like that?

<comment><USER6> > Type information literally doesn't exist at runtime, though.

Correct if I'm wrong, not all types get erased in Java. Doesn't type erasure only happen for generics? Say I have a non generic, plain Java class and want to inspect one of it's method's return types at runtime to see if it returns class A or class B. I can do that, right?

<comment><USER5> I was talking about JavaScript. In JavaScript there are no typed functions or arguments, so that information doesn't exist period.

<comment><USER6> Right, so I guess I'm not understanding your point about why comparing two languages like this is ridiculous. Java has a full blown runtime reflection system (it's "types exist at runtime"). JS doesn't. So Java wins in the reflection category.

<comment><USER7> But in JS, reflection is pretty much not needed... I don't need to use reflection to see if an object has a quack method, or that I call it with the right types... I just call instance.quack() ... It's up to you as the developer to keep your interfaces and composition in line.

It's actually _WAY_ easier than with C# or Java. Since the use-case of reflection itself is largely unnecessary.

<comment><USER6> Calling a method and seeing what happens is not a substitute for reflection. You can do that in Java too btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dan Abramov wrote a brilliant post here, IMO. So much here. Unix Philosophy, yes please. Considering the cognitive load of tool options and configuration knobs, and the impact of the JS ecosystem for beginners. "A tool should work with (almost) no configuration." Amen. "Mind your output" from tools (errors must be helpful and sort the important from the unimportant); I've felt this pain and have abandoned tools at the start because of incomprehensible errors. Love the idea of toolboxes w/r/t dependencies. Read the post for the details. Great work Dan!

<comment><USER9> > cognitive load of tool options

First time I hear options are bad. Many options and competition lead to best products. There are enough posts and people who tell you what you should use.

Or just use npmtrends or npmcharts. 1 second later you know what is going on and what module you should pick.

Why are people criticizing something they have never used?

<comment><USER8> My point here on this one is simply that it's investing to _think_ about this factor. For beginners (which I am not), too many options can be confusing. That said, setting reasonable defaults for detail options so things work well without needing to configure then to start is a nice way around this. Deep options exist and can be adjusted as needed but a solid default configuration is set out of the box. "There are enough posts and people who tell you what you should use." \-- sure but what if opinions very widely? There's the cognitive load or put another way friction-to-first-use.

<comment><USER9> who said that JS is for beginners?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very nice points here. I've always been struck at how the JavaScript community never really adopted the Rails ideas of convention over configuration and optimizing for developer happiness. While it's easy to roll one's eyes at the marketing lingo, these principles do truly make Rails a charm to use. Right now, even setting up the most simple Webpack-Babel-Node config requires writing a whole lot of config and set up for very little gain.

<comment><USER9> In JS there is a lot of convention but on a micro level. The times of monolithic Rails apps which have strict conventions are over and it's good: Too much magic and strict conventions often forced devs into patterns which didn't match the use case. Even experienced Rails devs tried to solve every problem the same way.

You also confusing matters. You need Webpack, Babel etc for the frontend not the backend. And even in the frontend it got abstracted away by things like creat-react-app. So you shouldn't them see them too often.

<comment><USER10> First, Webpack and Babel are totally used for backend. If you look at a lot of Node libraries, they use ES6 modules in their [docs]([https://github.com/graphql/graphql- js](https://github.com/graphql/graphql-js)). While you could use mjs for this, it's still experimental.

I do think create-react-app is a good innovation in the JS world. However, I've never found a good equivalent on the back end. Setting up even the most basic CRUD REST API requires a whole lot of typing for very little reward.

As for convention, I think JS could do with more of it. I find that when I talk about adding more convention, people take it quite literally as "we need to reinvent Rails in JS". That's not at all what I mean. Convention can be something as simple as Rack, which is a consistent, useful interface between servers. Convention does not and is not tied to monoliths or MVC or any other aspect of Rails.

<comment><USER11> > I do think create-react-app is a good innovation in the JS world. However, > I've never found a good equivalent on the back end. Setting up even the most > basic CRUD REST API requires a whole lot of typing for very little reward.

This is where services like Google Firebase Functions become useful.

I went from having never written a REST API in my life, to up and running in under 20 minutes.

First time I went to create some endpoints on my own server, wow, that was a pain.

<comment><USER10> Firebase is a dream. It's almost a shame they got bought by Google because it's such a fantastic idea. All of the things I used to dread setting up (auth, deployment, serverless) are automated and dead easy. The documentation is clear and caters to the common usecases. I managed to set up a Sendgrid email that sends on database writes within an hour or two.

<comment><USER11> > The documentation is clear and caters to the common usecases.

I wouldn't quite say that, but I'll agree with your other points. :)

(More than once the docs have been out of date, or just flat out wrong, costing me many hours of development time...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I personally think that the JavaScript community is doing a great job with its tooling and approach. Compared to other language environments I've worked with (C, C++, Python), most common JS tools work in predictable, user-friendly ways...also they frequently have good documentation and "getting started" tutorials.

It is good to see that the community is open to introspecting and improving even further

<comment><USER13> Ten years ago, JavaScript was my go to when I wanted to expose others to coding. It still is today, but now that comes with the caveat that the most popular libraries and framework require a significant amount of prior knowledge to understand and to start using.

I haven't done this exercise in a long while, but the last time I tried to start a project from the "most current and stable releases and recommendations", I ended up not being able to get anything running. In the end, I had several hundred megabytes of libraries downloaded, a complicated configuration, and a non-working application.

Today, there are toolsets to get you started with everything and produce a running application, but it's almost totally opaque. I'm afraid to use them because the first time something breaks, I don't know if I would be able to resolve the issue.

I would still rather have a decent understanding of how things connect.

<comment><USER14> JavaScript is _still_ what I use to introduce programming to new people, because for people who haven't done their dues learning how to use a command- line, the hardest part of getting started with programming is getting your computer set up to do it at all. And since everyone already has a browser, getting started with coding only requires showing them how to open the developer console.

<comment><USER15> Fair, but most stacks including the previous infamous ones are two or three lightweight installs away. The VSCode/Atom/Sublime generation of IDE replacements made that possible.

I come from an environment (.NET) where setup was a day or two of work but now is a matter of 10 or less minutes).

<comment><USER16> 10 minutes is still two orders of magnitude longer than "<ctrl-shift-c>."

<comment><USER17> And? Is 10 minutes so damning?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I welcome the slow transformation of Javascript into Ruby. Every single thing in there is already a thing in the Ruby ecosystem. Convention over configuration. The careful, but automatic dependency management. Principle of least surprise.

All things I didn't know how much I relied on until I moved to NodeJS and found them non-existent.

<comment><USER19> What you said could be true of Java or any other modern server languagae.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just wrote a proposal for my team today as to how the front-end tooling has changed recently and why we'd need to adopt them in our workflow.

[https://writer.zoho.com/writer/open/0y4wx08838bdbcf954b1398c...](https://writer.zoho.com/writer/open/0y4wx08838bdbcf954b1398c28f7020a3a523)

With confidential details masked, it's still a pretty good read for the rest of the Internet. Outlines why JS fatigue is not really bad but just improvements and what exactly is stopping us from adopting those improvements.

Resonates a lot with Dan's write-up. Excellent piece by Dan. A much needed one. I'd probably link this along in my proposal.

Note: We've built a pretty fat browser app with plain vanilla JS, strictly ES5 only, crude bash scripts for building a bundled js & all such ancient methods.

<comment><USER21> Really curious what is actually wrong with "crude bash scripts for building"?

I had experience with both types of projects - the ones with home made crude build tools (in Python, not bash), and the ones with modern javascript build pipelines. The first build never broke. The second build would break every couple of months for no obvious reason without us touching the project structure.

<comment><USER22> Maintenance. Because seems they are usually written/owned/optimized by some build brainiac that becomes a bottleneck or leaves at some point.

<comment><USER23> The equivalent "modern" workflow is written, owned and optimized by build brainiacs with turnover on the order of weeks. I'd say that maintenance of "crude shell scripts" is much less difficult and expensive than keeping up with the latest webdev "standard practice".

<comment><USER24> You'd be wrong. I'm not arguing that Webpack is a deeply confusing system, but there are tens of thousands of people out there figuring it out too. Almost any question has an answer a Google search away.

Your bespoke bash script has no such community.

<comment><USER23> But my bespoke bash script has longer shelf life, which is the entire point here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> c-smile JavaScript was designed to be a glue language - to connect output of one native function with input of other native function. And do all of this in UI event handlers.

And it was almost perfect (modulo hoisting, semicolon omission) for that.

The trouble has started when Web, as a platform, has failed to provide safe alternative to JS aimed for extendable way of delivering and running high- performant code on the client.

Ideally we should have something like <script type="binary/bytecode"> with something close to JavaVM and HTML DOM exposed to it. At least 15 years ago. So we would have a lot of compilers, static compilation and code analysis.

Instead we have tons of weirdest possible solutions: Web "threads" with code that need to be downloaded and compiled before running, that ugly WebAsm, transpilers-of-something-into-JS. C++ code "transpiled" into JS, in whose nightmare that bright idea was born?

Yet we have crowds of talented people wasting time of writing about how to really HACK the platform that was not meant to be used this way.

Create bunch of problems to ourselves just to overcome them heroically. Far from being productive.

<comment><USER5> > something close to JavaVM and HTML DOM exposed to it

> ugly WebAsm

WASM isn't fully functional as a standalone alternative to JS in the browser, yet, but you can essentially use it that way with things like wasm-bindgen in the Rust ecosystem. And it performs essentially what you're describing, being a VM running bytecode in a sandbox.

<comment> c-smile > but you can essentially use it that way

"Essentially" is a nice word. You can use it for example as JavaScript is a programming language, essentially, yeah.

W3C DOM was defined initially in terms of Java interfaces.

Where we would be now if we were allowed to run Java bytecodes in browser directly from the very beginning?

<script type="binary/web-bytecode" src="myapp.class">

Today we might discuss -strip-dead-code option in your favorite compiler of XYZ language. Instead of fighting with would-be-linker npm.

<comment><USER25> > Where we would be now if we were allowed to run Java bytecodes in browser > directly from the very beginning?

We'd be ranting at JVM for not having the features necessary to compile high- perf C code into it, for one.

Which is why Wasm is fundamentally a better approach. It's that one case where it makes sense to go as low level as possible (while retaining cross-platform support), to allow as many future possibilities building on this foundation as possible.

<comment><USER17> Are you not forgetting something? Java is to this day several times faster than JS and sources for that abound on the net (including [0]).

No, we wouldn't fight for how to compile C in it. We would very likely fight to make the payloads and bootstrap times smaller.

[0][https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/...](https://benchmarksgame- team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/faster/javascript.html)

<comment><USER25> Faster than JS doesn't make it fast enough. Look at how it fares versus C in those same tests.

<comment><USER17> Fair, but do we really need C levels of performance on the web? That's madness. They are mostly CRUD apps for God's sake. They don't have to be able to run liquid simulations at 200FPS.

IMO the level of Java / Erlang performance is, and should always be, plenty enough for the web.

<comment><USER25> For CRUD apps, JavaScript is plenty perf-wise already. The reason why there have been many attempts to push things further is precisely because people are trying to build web apps that need more (including 3D games even).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I never got the idea of nodejs or javascript for backend, tried it a few times and eventually returned to python and java. It's much easier for python/java to add event-loop and/or restful framework than making javascript looks like python/java one day as far as backend goes.

In 2019 I still have 0 interest in javascript/TS for backend, the thousands of modules under node_modules alone is enough for me, and not all real world product need async/promise/callback/SPA, javascript is over-heated too much, not fun at all.

<comment><USER27> You don't get to just add an event loop and start writing async code in Python or Java. It opens up its own can of worms now that you're straddling the sync and async worlds. Compare working with Netty (async) to Jetty (sync). It's certainly not trivial.

That Javascript is async-everything is one of its best and often overlooked features in these comparisons.

I think this snippet encapsulates a lot of why Javascript is actually very pleasant on the server:

        const results = await Promise.map(urls, (url) => process(url), { concurrency: 8 })
            .then((results) => postprocess(results))

<comment><USER28> I don't think it _is_ overlooked. JavaScript doesn't scale, both in terms of code complexity (callback hell) and across cores, and the "gold standard" these days is microservices, which has a ton of issues.

If you want to look at bolt-on async working, check out C# or Rust. They've basically taken JavaScript's new async/await and added threading (at least Rust has, not sure about C#). You can write an async app and have it run in a thread pool without much fuss.

I don't know what the story is for Java, but seeing as C# is effectively the same thing, it's not hard to imagine adding async being easier than adding threads or performance to JavaScript.

<comment><USER29> FYI, async/await (a promise type + async function decoration + await expressions) was actually invented by C#. It was designed to operate seamlessly with .NET's concurrency framework, the TPL, which uses a thread pool. So it was actually the case that _Javascript_ took async/await and _removed_ threading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it unfair to say that some of these problems are caused by a lack of awareness (or an unwillingness) to learn from other communities (like, Ruby, Java etc) that have solved these some of these problems already?

<comment><USER15> No. And that is also why JS is successful. Newbies with little oversight create new tools. Of thousands of them, one or two become popular because of non-functional reasons (right blog post, right fit, easy use, ..).

Welcome to the mess :)

<comment><USER31> Tech pop-culture... Navigating these technology growth explosions is like searching for solid reference architecture in a booming shantytown. Some parts of these settlements eventually get things like running water, working sewage, urban planning.

<comment><USER15> Do not disagree to that. My comment is not a compliment to JS just a brutal analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Let's say you'd like to write front-end code in a language that hides as much of the problems with JS as possible, preferably one that comes with a standard library, has elegant (or at least ergonomic) JS to <lang> interop and bridging, simplifies async code, and has a simple, integrated toolchain for targeting JS (all these amongst other things), what would you suggest? Basically what's the best language to write Javascript in : )

Dart? Elm? Clojurescript? Objective-J?

<comment><USER33> ReasonML

<comment><USER32> Oh I forgot about Reason. Does it have a standard library that obviates the need for pulling in things like lodash, etc?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Unpopular opinion time: I understand why people prefer TypeScript/CoffeeScript but for me personally it just destroys the incentive of a scripting language and I am a fan of keeping deployment as simple as possible and to me transpiling is equivalent to compiling. Packaging is bad as it is.

True, maybe everything is different in large scale applications but I hate it if I find something interesting implemented in TypeScript and in 95% of cases I will just move on.

Javascript is not a beauty and any superset just seems like a facelift. The result looks like old and used car tires.

disclaimer: I am no web dev but somehow come in contact with JS frequently.

</comment><comment><USER35> You never really learn javascript, you learn frameworks. I was a js developer about 7-8 years ago and dabbled with jQuery , dojo and the likes and then moved over to backend and mobile development. I tried getting back into javascript again and realized that I just could not get in and start coding. There are a lot more frameworks now that I have to learn to get started and I'm sure that a few years down the line, these will become obsolete too.

<comment><USER36> Interesting. I stopped touching frameworks on my second year in. It's the same problem I have with trying to develop within the constraints of someone else's work: I find it confusing and anxiety-inducing.

I'd rather write my own stuff, unless I'm woefully unequipped to to begin with. (Cryptography, authentification, credit card handling...) I feel like I'd learned quite a bit of JavaScript, specifically – especially with the help of someone like Angus Croll [[https://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com/](https://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com/)].

I'm not that clever a JS developer – or a programmer, for that matter – so his `compose()` and `curry()` sound magical to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> save</comment>


U.S. Post Office Makes Stamps Cheaper for the First Time in 100 Years - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/04/07/usps-post-office-stamps/ <comment><USER2> > _While the price cut will be a boon for many consumers, it's bad news for > collectors and investors in so-called "Forever stamps," the generic stamps > valued at whatever the current postage rate is no matter when they were > purchased. Since Forever stamps were created in 2007, Americans have scooped > them up as a way to hedge against future price hikes that seemed eternally > inevitable. But that strategy has now backfired: As former Fortune columnist > Allan Sloan put it in a 2014 column, "If stamp prices somehow were cut, > millions of Forever holders, including me, would feel cheated."_

Collectors don't care. They aren't buying for face value. "Investors" are idiots if they invested heavily in forever stamps. Stamps have generally tracked pace of inflation. You could put your money almost anywhere else and do as well or better.

I buy forever stamps because it used to be so damned inconvenient to buy (and remember to add) 1 and 2 cent stamps every time they raised prices. The fact that they're lowering the price by 2 cents does not make me feel cheated.

<comment><USER3> yeah and one price drop, people who hoarded forever stamps from 2007, they send a letter, they still saved money from today. They just gained a little less for once. Still a gain if you think of it that way. I'm not in that space, of stamp collecting but investments have a short term gain / loss and a long term gain or loss. it's not that difficult to understand.

<comment><USER4> And it's not like it's not going to go up again. Hang on to the forever stamps, and buy the cheaper stuff now as needed.

I mean, people weren't buying US $10000 worth of the damn things, were they?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So long as Congress micromanages stamp prices, the postal service can never be fairly expected to meet its obligations without losing money. Personally I'd be happy to let the price of mailing a letter double or more. The service provided is incredible when you think about what's involved. Getting a letter from your _house_ to nearly any address in the entire country in a few days at most is worth a lot more than 47 cents.

<comment><USER2> I've never understood why congress does this. The USPS is undercharging. Deutsche Post charges 80 cents (USD) to deliver a letter within Germany. 70% higher rate to cover only about 4% of the land area.

<comment><USER6> At present, just about everything they do with regard to postage or the pension fund has to do with damaging the post office's bottom line in the interest of union busting.

<comment><USER7> Yes, how dare they be required to fund their pensions rather than taking the risk-shifting approach of "oh, we'll have the money later", as employed by GM, Bethlehem Steel, ec.

<comment><USER8> You should try not being sarcastic, it just makes it look like you have a weak argument and are overcompensating.

Factually, they're being required to overfund it, to the tune of 75 years in advance, which is money that they can't reinvest. No business should accept being run that way.

<comment><USER7> Actually, they _wouldn 't_ have an arbitrary n-year cutoff for discounting obligations, and would probably be in jail if they hid liabilities this way.

<comment><USER8> I clearly struck a nerve, since you wouldn't just post a longer version of 'no' and not support your argument otherwise.

<comment><USER7> I explained how, if you were correct, it would have a less probable implication. (That's how a lot of reasoning works: "if you were correct about oxygen absorption spectra, the sky shouldn't be blue.")

Here, the improbable implication of your claim that I highlighted is that businesses are normally allowed n-year cutoffs (for some value of n) for discounted future liabilities.

It was not simply a reassertion.

If you need another reason your claim is implausible, it would suggest that, should a business issue a zero coupon bond with 76-year maturity, it should log that as an increase in book value (with corresponding tax liability). But obviously a loan should not itself increase tax liability!

<comment><USER8> Perhaps if you made your point without sarcasm, you'd be able to more clearly express yourself. But here we are.

Regardless, it's impressive that you can't handle being corrected. I get that you think you're generally the smartest person in the room, but sometimes you'll be wrong. Calm down, take a step back, and think critically in the future (especially if you think you've made a logical point.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much does the USPS make from first class mail these days? I find it somewhat strange that people are bringing up the fact that e-mail has killed old-fashioned letters while ignoring the fact that online shopping has led to a dramatic increase in the number of parcels shipped. Is the profit margin on parcel delivery really that much lower than that of mail? If so, then how are FedEx and UPS able to make a go of it?

<comment><USER10> There are a number of reasons which I'm sure others will go into, but one point to mention is that FedEx and UPS can charge what they like and ship where they like. USPS must deliver to every address and, to my knowledge, isn't allowed to charge more to deliver to some addresses than to others.

So FedEx and UPS can make money by doing a large volume of deliveries in cities, and not delivering to rural areas (or charging through the nose to do so). USPS doesn't have the same freedom. In practice, this means that shippers go with UPS or FedEx unless those places don't go to the address, in which case USPS gets saddled with the unprofitable business.

<comment><USER11> First class is fixed, however other services are prices based on zones:

[http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/notice123.htm#1152653](http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/notice123.htm#1152653)

<comment><USER10> Thank you, TIL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This headline completely passes over the reason why stamps got cheaper: there were price hikes after the recession so the Post Office could recoup some of the money it lost in the Great Recession. Given this information, the article isn't very noteworthy.

</comment><comment><USER13> From this chart, the total 2015 volume was 154.2 billion pieces. Of that, 80 billion was advertising pieces (51.8%).

Every Wednesday I get a mailbox full of the equivalant of Sunday paper ad inserts.

[https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of- fac...](https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of-facts-and- figures.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> Deflation.

<comment><USER15> Deflation would be if they wanted to lower it. They don't. They want to raise it more, but they can't, because they are one of the most bizarrely-regulated entities in the US.</comment></comment>


Google Patents DEVIL TOY Which Will BRAINWASH KIDS - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/24/google_patent_evil_robot_child/ <comment><USER2> I was expecting the patent [1] to describe some kind of Amazon Echo, stuffed into a teddy bear with responses and a personality.

Instead, it seems to turn the toy into a glorified TV remote that sends "media device commands to a media device, instructing the media device to change state".

Shame about the click-baity article, I though this had potential for an interesting discussion about AI around children.

[1]: [http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20150138333&IDK...](http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20150138333&IDKey=1EF5AB92E988)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sergey Ruxpin [https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7750/17817390518_249abb34a7_o...](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7750/17817390518_249abb34a7_o.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER4> articles in the register are unreadable because of their overly sarcastic tone</comment>


Can Starships Survive the Journey? - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/can-starships-survive-the-journey.html

<comment><USER2> The future of space colonization is not finding other worlds, unless we get warp drive. The future of space colonization is man made structures orbiting our sun, gathering resources from nearby planets and shuttling them here. The sun is our battery and leaving it for extended periods of time will take mammoth amounts of technology and risk to leave it for thousands of years.

A civilization that travels between the stars will have one of two things, either (1) a complete mastery over their own biological/technical processes which enable them to live in the first place (so they can repair themselves and make changes as needs and resources change when they pass from galaxy to galaxy). Or (2) they will have some sufficiently advanced technology to go many orders of magnitude faster than the speed of light.

Maybe our galaxy is a spaceship, kind of like a big spinning petri dish and we just lost contact with the head honcho deciding where we are going. The sun we are currently feeding on was charged up at our origin, and we'll acquire more of them at our destination.

<comment><USER3> > will take mammoth amounts of technology

With 1970's project-Orion type technology, we can get to alpha centauri within around 5 or 10 years (from the travelers' time-perspectives, hundreds of years from earth's perspective).

<comment><USER4> Orion was great, but not quite that great. Alpha Centauri would have taken around 45 years one-way for an advanced ablation-cooled one-megaton pulse drive. Since it wouldn't get any faster than 10% light speed, time dilation would be negligible (I assume you were thinking about time dilation, though the distance to AC doesn't really permit the kind of difference you describe).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\)#Interstellar_missions)

<comment><USER3> Well, the accelerations involved here would cause the most significant time dilation, right?

I was going off of memory of the chapter "Saturn by 1970" in Dyson's "Disturbing the Universe".

I probably mixed this up with something else; traveling at 1G acceleration to Orion (not _in_ orion =P), would take 30 years--3100 years would pass by on earth.

<comment><USER4> The article I linked has some interesting specifics and discussion of Dyson's two interstellar Orion designs.

In general, 1g for a year gets you fairly close to light speed, and time dilation really starts to have a noticeable effect. If you can accelerate at 1g indefinitely, then longer journeys are proportionately more reduced.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Lays Off Double Click Employees who fail entrance interview process - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/04/02/google-doubleclick-layoffs-tech-ebiz-cx_bc_0402goog.html?feed=rss_technology

<comment><AUTHOR> I am baffled that someone ten or fifteen years out of college would have their college grades given more weight than their work accomplishments. There are certainly "late bloomers" and "street smart" folks who make a strong contribution who didn't shine in college. A startup mimicking this aspect of Google's approach will be missing a number of strong candidates.</comment>


FCC net neutrality rule upheld on appeal - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/net-neutrality-and-title-ii-win-in-court-as-isps-lose-case-against-fcc/ <comment><USER2> Full opinion: [https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2016/06/net-n...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2016/06/net-neutrality-dc-circuit.pdf)</comment>


Kotlin's hidden costs – Benchmarks - <AUTHOR> https://sites.google.com/a/athaydes.com/renato-athaydes/posts/kotlinshiddencosts-benchmarks <comment><USER2> Summary: most stuff is within 5-10% of Java. In performance sensitive code be careful of the spread operator and foreach on ranges which have higher costs.

<comment><USER3> Except the parts where Kotlin actually beats Java.

<comment><USER4> It was still within 5-10%, just on the other end of the scale!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I recall correctly kotlin by default compiles to bytecode of Java 1.6. So o be afair comparison you should enable kotlin to compile to 1.8. as it is bytecode anyway I would expect very similar performance. But comparing 1.6 with 1.8 it is obvious 1.6 would be slower.

<comment><USER6> The bytecode differences between 1.6 and 1.8 bytecodes are mainly invokedynamic and methodhandles.

If Kotlin doesn't take advantage of them when targeting 1.8, the bytecode version won't do any difference.

<comment><USER5> My point is that kotlin by default targets 1.6. You need to specify to target 1.8 if you want to use it. So for me the experiment is broken. You should either compare java 1.6 with kotlin or set up kotlin to use 1.8 to compare with the same java version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Over time Kotlin's performance numbers will improve. For most applications though the small performance cost will be outweighed by the increased time to market and improved null handling.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, that's the go-to answer for slow runtimes...

In this case, "5-10% just isn't that much" may be the better excuse. Since Kotlin runs on the same jvm, it is a subset of Java, and therefore impossible for Kotlin to create code (and achieve speeds) that Java couldn't match.

In practice, Kotlin should asymptotically approach the performance of best- practice Java code, with possible performance improvements when it can correct unoptimised code, or implements new Java features without requiring any manual refactoring.

<comment><USER9> I agree with your conclusion, but it actually could be possible for kotlin to be faster than java for practical purposes, despite running on the JVM. For example, it might be more expressive, allowing the user to give the compiler more information for better optimizations. We see this when C++ is sometimes faster than C.

<comment><USER10> Kotlin code can be and sometimes will be faster than the equivalent Java code because Kotlin does lambda inlining on the frontend and does not rely on the JVM to do so.

That probably helps a lot, because it takes significant machinery in the profiling and JIT compilers to automatically eliminate the overhead of higher- order functions and the JVM can't always do it due to a problem called "profile pollution". Kotlin pushes a bit of the thinking onto developers, albeit aided by type hints, and then does the inlining itself in many cases. Especially helpful on platforms with weaker JVMs like older Androids (the upcoming Android update appears to have improved ART so significantly that it's now a serious competitor to HotSpot).

Whilst the article doesn't show any difference in lambdas I wouldn't expect it to show up in micro-benchmarks like this one because the profile pollution problem wouldn't occur. In any real app it would show up though.

Also when Kotlin inlines on the frontend it can also use reified generics in a few cases.

Finally, Kotlin provides features that developers can use to write more efficient code, I'm thinking about how easy it makes lazyness in particular. Whilst you always _can_ write equivalent code in Java, it takes more effort to do so, meaning developers probably won't always bother.

<comment><USER11> "Finally, Kotlin provides features that developers can use to write more efficient code, I'm thinking about how easy it makes lazyness in particular. Whilst you always can write equivalent code in Java, it takes more effort to do so, meaning developers probably won't always bother." -> Agreed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Excellent news, Kotlin is getting to be a real option on the JVM.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've never had to program so efficiently where this kind of thing would matter - only ever optimizing for readability and correctness in terms of bugs.

For people who do, do you enjoy performance optimization or does it get tedious?

<comment><USER14> Bit of both. I don't have to do it often and when you really need to press all the performance you can get out of some code it can be really maddening when there is no "obvious" reason. Quite often it is just an accumulation of many very small slowdowns which together are significant and then the measure, change, measure, change, measure ... loop can be very tedious. Sometimes, there are interesting things like changing the whole algorithm to something which performs better or reading up on bit-fiddling tricks which make some code remarkably faster (Hacker's Delight is not for the faint of the heart, but an interesting book nonetheless).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Really wish the author labeled the axes. Took me way longer than I care to admit to figure out what the graphs meant.

<comment><USER16> Isn't the relevant thing the relative value? What information are you getting from the absolute value which is the only thing you'd need a label for, given the author says taller is better? (We'd assume linear unless otherwise specified.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I write performance sensitive code in Kotlin. Most of those issues are common to Java8 and be worked around easily.

</comment><comment><USER18> if it's still faster than javascript / nodeJS, we're in a good place.

</comment><comment><USER19> Clickbait.

It's the same.

Unless you care about a particular use case, when it isn't.

Measure, profile, refactor....

<comment><USER20> The title is a response to another blog series called "Exploring Kotlin's hidden costs". He is benchmarking the claims in those blog posts. Title Gore, perhaps. But not clickbait in this case.</comment></comment>


People with ADHD, how do you build lasting habits? - <AUTHOR> While I've always been able to succeed at the things that interest me or naturally motivate me, I've begun to realize that starting new habits –while difficult for nearly everyone– is extremely difficult for me. ADHD seems to make it much harder to obtain the behavioral building blocks of new habits (repetitive behaviors, scheduling, rigor). I know that discipline means doing things I don't feel like doing, and I genuinely want to be disciplined, but it feels like I am climbing with Teflon gloves. Medication does help me stay focused on momentary tasks that I already have some motivation to accomplish (on the scale of hours) but does little to help me build that motivation. (Also, I can't be medicated daily in my career.) What could help? <comment><USER2> I think the problem is that you associate discipline with punishment when in actuality you are rewarding your future self. You need to start thinking of the person you will be in one day, and in one week, but nothing further ahead. For people with ADHD, they grow bored when results are not achieved at the desired time. Instead, you must eliminate the expectation of finishing and learn to enjoy the process of improving yourself.

<comment><USER3> "For people with ADHD, they grow bored when results are not achieved at the desired time"

This is really well articulated. At least in my case, this hit the nail on the head. The difference between me being bought in vs not is almost out of my hands. If results aren't happening at the rate at which is expect, I feel like I can enter an "autopilot" mode. Where I get things done, but I become overly complacent.

On the opposite end, when growth/results are exceeding my expectations, I feel an overwhelming urgency to push even hard, and more frequently.

In both instances I can feel like I get burnt out. Burnt from boredom or burnt from overworking. On some level, I think this contributes to a bit of anxiety (especially as it relates to work), but it's something I feel like I've learned to manage better over the past couple years.

<comment><USER2> I also have ADHD so I resonate a lot with what you're saying. One thing I have found that always tends to bring me back to homeostasis is exercise. The stress of work caught up to me and took its toll mentally and physically. The best thing I did was hire a personal trainer for 6 months or until it became a routine part of my life and I knew I wouldn't quit. Excercise does incredible things for the minds wellbeing

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems to help quite a few people a lot: [http://www.habitbull.com/](http://www.habitbull.com/)

It gives you a bit of a dopamine hit every time you check the box and really helps build good habits over time. The system is remarkably flexible for different kinds of habits.

(I am not the developer, just a happy customer)

One last thing, the best thing that seems to make a difference is to schedule your day hourly and maintain a rigid sleep/wake/exercise/eating schedule. Don't skip any of these and things will get better.

Mindfulness also seems to help but only if you practice it regularly, for ADHD folks that may mean scheduling a class and going to it every week to have the enforced practice.

Lastly, there is no quick fix, you are already motivated to get better since you asked the question; you now have to be motivated to be consistent and not let small failures make you give up.

</comment><comment><USER5> Writing things down helps me (but I'm also very mathsy.) Everything I've track everyday before I go to bed I generally get a bit better at - so far being diet, exercise and savings in these monolithic spreadsheets. Interesting enough as soon as I got an IoT fitbit scale which automatically uploads your weight to fitbit.com I stopped losing weight, I think recording the habit is very important - for me anyway.

</comment><comment><USER6> ADHD = Breadth First Search

ADHD + meds = Depth First Search

One is not inherently better or worse than the other.

I also do not think that it is healthy nor meaningful to ask questions like how do people with ADHD deal with XYZ, where XYZ is something that has little to do with maintaining concentration on a particular task.

People with ADHD build lasting habits in much the same way as everyone else.</comment>


PHP Creator Asks, Is Facebook's HipHop Just a 'Nifty Trick'?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/02/03/03readwriteweb-php-creator-asks-is-facebooks-hiphop-just-a-90057.html

<comment><USER2> Rasmus made a bunch of reasonable comments and the Times article cut and spliced them to try to stir up some noise.

i.e., he described the project as a "nifty trick", not "just a nifty trick", which is an important distinction.

Also, he advocates -- _shock_ \-- tuning your PHP code before turning to tools like this.

...Somehow, that turned into him asking if it was "just a nifty trick".

This should probably be flagged, it's nonsense.

</comment><comment> w-ll Who said i didn't like nifty tricks.

As someone who can proudly admit to loving PHP (she makes me $) im fairly interested in HipHop. I've been thinking about this problem in PHP for some time, and was this || close to doing exactly what facebook has done.

The ability to write PHP and have it transformed down to C++ and compiled is pretty sweet. Its PHP with out the PHP. Sure its brand-spanking-new so we all need to watch and see whats to come. I mean; code is still not released.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Noting the amount of hype he's seen lately about the new runtime, Lerdorf wrote, "I'd love to see those same people get excited about basic profiling and identifying the most costly areas of an application. Speeding up one of the faster parts of your system isn't going to give you anywhere near as much of a benefit as speeding up, or eliminating, one of the slower parts of your overall system._

Good advice, and one that I've been guilty of myself. Often I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time on the fixes and enhancements that are unlikely to yield a huge improvement, instead of focusing on larger issues, because they're harder or just because everyone is talking about the new shiny tool.

Not to take the analogy too far, but I think a lot of entrepreneurs do this in a business sense as well, focusing efforts on the new shiny things (Facebook, Twitter) instead of the more boring, but proven tools (phone, email). The bottom line is that you should be strategic in where you spend your time, instead of chasing whatever the cool kids are talking about.

</comment><comment><USER4> gotta love the NYT completely taking things out of context like a tabloid.

"My "nifty trick" comment to RWW wasn't meant to be negative or belittling of HipHop PHP in any way. Check the comments <http://bit.ly/cH1qyV> @rasmus

<comment><USER5> This is actually ReadWriteWeb, being syndicated by the NYT. Here's the original:

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rasmus-lerdorf-php- hiph...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rasmus-lerdorf-php-hiphop- facebook.php)

The RWW version has the video that the NYT version mentions but does not include.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One drum I've been banging is that profiling PHP with XDebug is a lot more effort than it should be. If I'm on a headless web server, why do I have to transfer the massive cache grind files to my local machine?

Happily Facebook have an internal lightweight profiler they've open-sourced called XHProf:

<http://mirror.facebook.net/facebook/xhprof/doc.html>

It provides a web-based instant view of the results, and while it's not as extensive as XDebug, it's perfect for 95% of my investigations. Just a shame no one's ever heard of it!

</comment><comment><USER7> Sure, a lot of people do not profile and optimize, but has anyone considered the environmental aspects of this? Faster code (as a result of profiling an compilation to C++ and then to machine code) = much closer to the metal, which means more efficiency and less wasted electricity and more space in a rack somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/53-HipHop-PHP-Nifty- Trick.h...](http://toys.lerdorf.com/archives/53-HipHop-PHP-Nifty-Trick.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> It is amusingly typical of Rasmus that he included a long list of flaws in RWW's own website :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> Some day it will actually appear on github so we can all judge for ourselves.</comment>


Write your shell scripts in JavaScript, via Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.2ality.com/2011/12/nodejs-shell-scripting.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted in the blog comments:

Isn't the callback juggling just cognitive overhead given performance is less often a consideration with shell scripts and that they are frequently IO heavy?</comment>


Thoughts on React license by an IP Attorney - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/react-facebook-and-the-revokable-patent-license-why-its-a-paper-25c40c50b562 <comment><USER2> Thanks for explaining the License. Though this needs more attention.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for writing. I enjoyed your post.</comment>


Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is leaving Twitter for Obvious reason - <AUTHOR> http://www.greyreview.com/2011/06/29/twitter-co-founder-biz-stone-leaving-twitter-for-obvious-reason/ <comment><USER2> i wonder if he wishes he had been turfed out of Twitter so he had more time to invent Square?</comment>


Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Letters 2010 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2010ltr.pdf <comment><USER3> On his frugality and practicality:

>> Airlines have often jacked up prices – sometimes dramatically so – for the Berkshire weekend. If you are coming from far away, compare the cost of flying to Kansas City versus Omaha. The drive is about 21 ⁄2 hours and it may be that you can save significant money, particularly if you had planned to rent a car in Omaha

<comment><USER4> If someone else said that, he'd probably get panned. If you are a BH shareholder, odds are that the added five hours of driving cost you much more (time, effort, risk) than the difference in ticket prices, especially if you are flying in for a weekend.

<comment><USER5> That's definitely not the case. This isn't your usual shareholder meeting. 40,000 shareholders (I'd call many of them "fans", really) showed up last year and many of them have more enthusiasm than wealth. You can get tickets just by holding a mutual fund that owns Berkshire and calling up the fund.

(My mom and I among them. "At Berkshire, our time horizon is forever." And he pretty much means it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Thanks for posting this. There are some amazing quotes from that:

"Money will always flow toward opportunity, and there is an abundance of that in America."

"Commentators today often talk of "great uncertainty." But think back, for example, to December 6, 1941, October 18, 1987 and September 10, 2001. No matter how serene today may be, tomorrow is always uncertain.Don't let that reality spook you. Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War – remains alive and effective."

Is it any wonder I want to move to America ASAP?

-Jaded kid languishing in a publicly funded Canadian chill out(University) forced to educate himself because the kids in his crew don't get it.

<comment><USER7> Hey, if you want to chill out instead of studying, that's your call. Don't blame it on the country.

<comment><USER8> _...forced to educate himself..._

He wasn't referring to himself with 'chill out'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love Buffet's response to anyone concerned about America's future:

> The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is > certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for > unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two > centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War > – remains alive and effective.

<comment><USER10> >> "the American system for unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War – remains alive and effective"

as feel-goody as that might sound to patriotic american ears, you also have to take into account that america pretty much had the playing field (much) to itself for a long time. there was competition of different systems and it turns out the market-based system is best. good.

now that everybody has learnt that and is busy implementing that system (more or less gradually), there is no obvious reason why america should remain special.

turns out human potential is great everywhere, and in the brief period after world war 2, i'd say germany, japan, korea, etc. have done a mighty good job catching up and even surpassing the us in many areas, measured by social as well as industrial metrics. now comes china et al.

if i was american, i wouldn't take anything for granted. you guys were lucky to live in the winning system, other than that, there is nothing special about you.

<comment><USER11> >>Human potential is far from exhausted

At no point did Buffett say American Human potential.

And yes - the system that worked is the system Americans chose to implement, sure - it's ok to be proud of that.

>> there is nothing special about you.

Your post comes across as spiteful - almost resentful. I am sorry for whatever hardships you've had to deal with - if that motivates you, great. But the inferiority complex jumps out astonishingly in your writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate the positive outlook expressed in these letters, and it's helpful to reflect on progress our society has made in so many areas.

Coca-Cola's performance is striking. In 2011 you can still make a fortune, as Steve Jobs put it, 'selling sugar water to children.'[1] Does Mr Buffett care about, or even consider, the public health and social costs of the success of Coke and its products?[2]

Philip Morris has traditionally had strong financial performance as well. It's safe to say drug dealers can be financially successful. Should we be celebrating that fact?

I admire Mr Buffet's modest, down-to-earth style. He seems proud that his investment in BNSF will promote the greater good. I wish he had that goal for all his investments.

[1] Jobs was referring to Sculley's work at Pepsi, of course. <http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part3.html> [2] Lustig, Sugar, The Bitter Truth <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

<comment><USER13> Coca Cola's performance is about the brand and the distribution, not the product. They also own and successfully operate much healthier product lines. At this time, they aren't what the market wants for the most part. Most place a higher value on the extremely low cost and good taste of sugary fizzy water. When that changes, whether for cultural, regulatory or other reasons, the Coca-Cola company will still be in an excellent position and possibly make even more money from its healthier products.

Also, as a private consumer, I don't really appreciate attempts to protect me from myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some of this year's jewellery for those that need the motivation to begin reading it:

>> Throughout my lifetime, politicians and pundits have constantly moaned about terrifying problems facing America. Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was born. The prophets of doom have overlooked the all-important factor that is certain: Human potential is far from exhausted, and the American system for unleashing that potential – a system that has worked wonders for over two centuries despite frequent interruptions for recessions and even a Civil War – remains alive and effective. <<

>> Coca-Cola paid us $88 million in 1995, the year after we finished purchasing the stock. Every year since, Coke has increased its dividend. In 2011, we will almost certainly receive $376 million from Coke, up $24 million from last year. Within ten years, I would expect that $376 million to double. By the end of that period, I wouldn't be surprised to see our share of Coke's annual earnings exceed 100% of what we paid for the investment. Time is the friend of the wonderful business. <<

>> The highlight of 2010 was our acquisition of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, a purchase that's working out even better than I expected. [We] are enthusiastic about BNSF's future because railroads have major cost and environmental advantages over trucking, their main competitor. Last year BNSF moved each ton of freight it carried a record 500 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. That's three times more fuel-efficient than trucking is, which means our railroad owns an important advantage in operating costs. Concurrently, our country gains because of reduced greenhouse emissions and a much smaller need for imported oil. When traffic travels by rail, society benefits. Over time, the movement of goods in the United States will increase, and BNSF should get its full share of the gain. The railroad will need to invest massively to bring about this growth, but no one is better situated than Berkshire to supply the funds required. However slow the economy, or chaotic the markets, our checks will clear. <<

>> The fundamental principle of auto racing is that to finish first, you must first finish. That dictum is equally applicable to business and guides our every action at Berkshire. Unquestionably, some people have become very rich through the use of borrowed money. However, that's also been a way to get very poor. Companies with large debts often assume that these obligations can be refinanced as they mature. That assumption is usually valid. Occasionally, though, either because of company-specific problems or a worldwide shortage of credit, maturities must actually be met by payment. For that, only cash will do the job. Borrowers then learn that credit is like oxygen. When either is abundant, its presence goes unnoticed. When either is missing, that's all that is noticed. Even a short absence of credit can bring a company to its knees. [We, at Berkshire] have pledged that we will hold at least $10 billion of cash. We customarily keep at least $20 billion. By being so cautious in respect to leverage, we penalize our returns by a minor amount. Having loads of liquidity, though, lets us sleep well. Moreover, during the episodes of financial chaos that occasionally erupt in our economy, we will be equipped both financially and emotionally to play offense while others scramble for survival. That's what allowed us to invest $15.6 billion in 25 days of panic following the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008. <<

<comment><USER15> > Yet our citizens now live an astonishing six times better than when I was > born.

By what metric? From everything I've read the income disparity in America has increased steadily since the 1950s. Are we 6x happier? 6x Healthier? 6x More free?

<comment><USER16> You honestly have to ask this question? In the 1950s a significant percentage of our population was without civil rights. Beyond that:

Life expectancy at birth: 69.9 to 77.9 (we live longer)

Infant mortality: 26.0 to 6.7 (less of us are dead on arrival)

% of population over 25 with 4 yrs or more of college education: 7.7% to 29.5% (access to education has improved)

Estimated Hourly Wage PPP, 2009 USD: $16.87 to $25.31 (we are making more money)

Real labor productivity index (in 1960): 100 to 172.8 (we are more productive)

<comment><USER17> As overdue as it was, women and blacks being able to vote is not "6 times better".

60 years to 80 years life expectancy is not "6 times better".

26 to 7 infant mortality is not "6 times better".

8% to 30% college graduation rate is not "6 times better".

Estimated hourly wages have actually fallen drastically, when estimated apples to apples (i.e. adjusted for inflation).

Labor productivity is mostly based on advances in technology, and in any event, working harder is hardly the same as being "6 times better" off.

In other words, let's stay within the context of what is actually being argued. Plus, it's rude to open your argument with, _You honestly have to ask this question?_ If you have something to say, you can say it without implying that @samtp is too dumb to see the obvious.

<comment><USER16> If you want to quibble about his use of the "6 times" figure, go ahead.

The fact remains that we live much better today than in 1930, when Buffett was born (during the Great Depression).

<comment><USER17> If you don't want to "quibble" about it the why do you keep posting? If you think this thread is immaterial, you are free to leave.

<comment><USER18> I bet the internet makes your life at least 6 times better than what it would have been in 1930.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He is a creature of fiat and baby boom population expansion.

Since Charlie Munger's "suck it up" comment and WB's heavily profiting from TARP, I have developed a jaundiced view of what the real business is that BH engages in... he is less free market than he would have you believe.

</comment><comment><USER16> My favorite quote:

"The Flat Earth Society probably views a ship's circling of the globe as an annoying, but inconsequential, anomaly"

</comment><comment><USER8> Also available from Berkshire's website:

<http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html>

</comment><comment><USER20> "We can afford to lose money - even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation - even a shred of reputation."

</comment><comment><USER21> A couple more gems copied from Buffett's Memo to Berkshire Hathaway Managers at the end of the letter:

"If you see anything whose propriety or legality causes you to hesitate, be sure to give me a call.However, it's very likely that if a given course of action evokes such hesitation, it's too close to the line and should be abandoned. There's plenty of money to be made in the center of the court. If it's questionable whether some action is close to the line, just assume it is outside and forget it.

As a corollary, let me know promptly if there's any significant bad news. I can handle bad news but I don't like to deal with it after it has festered for awhile. A reluctance to face up immediately to bad news is what turned a problem at Salomon from one that could have easily been disposed of into one that almost caused the demise of a firm with 8,000 employees."

</comment><comment><USER22> A good little snippet:

 _Charlie and I hope that the per-share earnings of our non-insurance businesses continue to increase at a decent rate. But the job gets tougher as the numbers get larger. We will need both good performance from our current businesses and more major acquisitions. We're prepared. Our elephant gun has been reloaded, and my trigger finger is itchy_

</comment><comment><USER23> BOO: This is so NOT what I read HN for.

<comment><USER24> Sorry to hear that. It should be obvious that 100% of the articles/sites/documents posted won't appeal to 100% of the HN community.

That said, I encourage you to actually read this letter, or at least skim it. At the end of the day, Warren's letters aren't so much about investing and returns as they are about good customer relations and transparency - <USER2> things everyone from startup hackers to billionaire executives should find interesting and refreshing.

<comment><USER23> I read it before I posted. It's interesting, but not technical or appropriate.

Off I go to delete my HN account. I think that's it for me.

EDIT: If I could figure out how to delete my account.

<comment><USER25> You can't.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Soviet Posters - <AUTHOR> https://www.sovietposters.com/ <comment><USER2> Some of them are quite dark and powerful

[https://www.sovietposters.com/showposter.php?poster=871](https://www.sovietposters.com/showposter.php?poster=871)

I remember seeing that growing up in a history book somewhere. It's just an image your never forget.

There is also something completely unsettling with the "here is how the dead mother and the crying child would look against your mid-century modern furniture" on the website.

Site was flaky sometimes returning 500s so I archived the page [https://archive.is/ujUpy](https://archive.is/ujUpy)

There is also a terrible and shameful one I had never seen before, "Everyone to the Polish front". Do the owners know what they are posting there?

[https://www.sovietposters.com/showposter.php?poster=85](https://www.sovietposters.com/showposter.php?poster=85) ([https://archive.is/DvQLY](https://archive.is/DvQLY))

These might seems artsy and cool to some how haven't had their family members suffer during the wars there or who were sent to labor camps. But to those who have, these symbols and images carry a lot of significance.

<comment><USER3> >There is also a terrible and shameful one I had never seen before, "Everyone to the Polish front". Do the owners know what they are posting there?

it isn't really more terrible/shameful than the rest of Revolution and Civil War related. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War) \- The Red Army was trying to get to Germany to support the Revolution there. It was along the ideology of sparking worldwide Revolution. It is just happened that the path was through Poland who wasn't a part of Russia anymore - it was a young independent nation state which has finally just got it independence back after more than 200 years of it being lost, and who had their own big plans [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermarium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermarium), and didn't want to be steamrolled by Russia again. Polish were very enthusiastic in that war and tore the Red Army/Bolsheviks a new one. Btw, Stalin was one of the main commanders of that invading force. In the history lessons in USSR schools those events were kind of muted and/or pretty much lost from the narrative together with many other events/facts which would be hard to fit into the supposedly glorious story of Revolution and Civil War victory by Bolsheviks.

<comment><USER2> Very good background, thank you for replying.

They tried to capture Warsaw. Budyonny's thugs were brutal as well. But it is interesting that somehow Budyonny managed to be a hero in the end after technically losing the war.

Another aspect of course is that it set the stage for Russians try to "recapture" Poland, and made a deal with the Nazi Germany to "split it" between themselves in 1939. That's when the Soviet secret police committed a lot atrocities there.

<comment><USER4> Well eventually they do take all that territory and more in their "liberation" of Poland and more from Germany though they love to have the world ignore the annexations of Latvian countries and attempt to take Finland when they opened WW2 with Germany. So of the two aggressor states that started WW2 they gained a lot of what they were after and left the world with decades of oppression.

<comment><USER5> Oh, it's very convenient to forget the fact that Poland has occupied Czechoslovakia territory in 38 as part of the Munich Agreement supported by the "free" world. "Hyena of Europe" is a really good description in my opinion. Even before WW2 Poland has shamelessly invaded Ukraine and Belarus during the civil war in an attempt to implement its Intermarium imperialistic vision. You reap what you sow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you ever have the chance to see parts of the late Ruki Matsumoto's vast collection of Soviet posters, then I highly recommend going! Seeing them in person was (imo) much more interesting than seeing them online. The sheer size of some of them really adds a lot to the aesthetic.

I got to see some of them at an exhibition at Liljevalchs in Stockholm in 2018 [1]. My favorite was probably this one [2], which was encouraging workers to not be lazy. Design-wise I think this was the best one [3].

I apologize for the poor picture quality, but if you're interested then there are some more photos from that exhibition here [4].

[1] [https://www.liljevalchs.se/utstallningar/sovjetisk- affischko...](https://www.liljevalchs.se/utstallningar/sovjetisk- affischkonst/)

[2] [https://i.imgur.com/5l9t83s.png](https://i.imgur.com/5l9t83s.png)

[3] [https://i.imgur.com/fh1mv63.png](https://i.imgur.com/fh1mv63.png)

[4] [https://imgur.com/a/FfMOSA5](https://imgur.com/a/FfMOSA5)

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems down to me, however [http://web.archive.org/web/20200602043034/https://www.soviet...](http://web.archive.org/web/20200602043034/https://www.sovietposters.com/)

<comment><USER8> Yup... too many visitors from Hacker News maybe? Or maybe they somehow angered the Russian hackers?

I'm getting a good ol' PHP/MySQL error (EDIT: with credentials in clear text, I removed them):

 _Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory' in /home/sovietpo/public_html/db.php:17 Stack trace: #0 /home/sovietpo/public_html/db.php(17): PDO->__construct('mysql:host=loca...', '[REDACTED]', '[REDACTED]') #1 /home/sovietpo/public_html/showposter.php(6): include_once('/home/sovietpo/...') #2 {main} thrown in /home/sovietpo/public_html/db.php on line 17_

<comment><USER9> That's unfortunate for a store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a child I got to play around with a war surplus shortwave in the 50's and 60's. The English language Radio Moscow signal was very strong, even in Texas. The stories, vignettes and takes on the news were an interesting and sometimes confusing contrast to my essentially Ozzie and Harriet existence. Later, as an art student, I also became fascinated with their visual propaganda. It was not too dissimilar from our WPA stuff:

[http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&co=wpapos](http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?st=grid&co=wpapos)

</comment><comment><USER11> I've often been intrigued at the sense of fascination, cultural and technological, directed towards the USSR on HN. I share the fascination. It may stem from an appeal to see engineered works from a system far different than our own both on the technology front as well as cultural engineering/propaganda front; there may be some appeal in the notion that the USSR is historically contained/bounded in some sense and can be isolated and studied; also, the political message of focusing national efforts on progress/technology in some sense would resonate with engineers (though communist policies impeded innovation and no doubt industrious politicians stood to gain more than industrious scientists/engineers at most junctures). Would be interested in others' thoughts.

<comment><USER12> My views on the Soviet Union have shifted over the years, when I learned about Stalin's offer of a unified Germany in the 1950's which was rejected, for example, and you realise the USA also was guilty of prosecuting the Cold War.

The technological progress made was impressive, although I thought it was made largely at the cost of the people and workers, rather than in co-operation with them. I am a socialist, (anarchist) and anti-Bolshevik. The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history. That said, despite the brutal methods employed to reinstate managerial control of the factories and so on, the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to an advanced manufacturing state.

The same can be said of China, which in 1948 was developmentally on the level of say India or Africa.

<comment><USER13> > The October revolution was more of a right wing coup, which came after a > true broad based revolution according to my interpretation of history.

It was a coup from some socialist against others. Only an anarchist could call it 'right wing' and by that standard essentially 99.9% of history is 'right wing'. Seems kind of a useless way of using words.

> the country did progress from an impoverished, illiterate state in 1917 to > an advanced manufacturing state

This is mostly nonsense. People regularly underestimate the Imperial economy. If you actually look at the Imperial economy and the war economy they had during the war, it was quite impressive. The efforts by socialist to call it some medieval economy is just plane nonsense. Growth during the last 30 years of Imperial was quite good, among the best in Europe.

Arguably the Soviet economy was never as dynamic. And only the Stalin industrialization drives produced more industrial growth at a cost the Imperial government wouldn't pay.

Check out this set of lectures on Imperial Russia, it includes a lot of insight on their economy and industry:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQ...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEETkM6vwQPHJHhXinsuQN7jahEjbUPPY)

<comment><USER12> Well if you look at their actions, they were anti-worker, they had to recapture the factories from the soviets (worker councils) and reinstate managerial control. This meant fighting the most dedicated revolutionaries and socialists, a real tragedy IMO.

in 1917 the country was 90% illiterate. It was also mostly foreign-owned, kind of like a 3rd world country.

<comment><USER13> You can't just declare those you liked as the 'most dedicated'. They put workers in control of those factories, and only because of that did they have any chance at to win the Civil war and making Soviet Union as such possible. So who is really the 'most dedicated'.

> in 1917 the country was 90% illiterate. It was also mostly foreign-owned, > kind of like a 3rd world country.

The point is not that Imperial Russia is some kind of paradise, but that there is not fundamental break between Imperial and Soviet, no matter how much propaganda wants to 'start history' in 1917.

The land was the most productive asset in the country, and that was not foreign-owned. In fact it was mostly owned by the peasantry themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There was a Soviet poster exhibition at The Tate Modern several years ago. It produced a great book and they reprint some of the posters. [http://www.victoriasadler.com/russian-revolutionary- posters-...](http://www.victoriasadler.com/russian-revolutionary-posters-tate- modern/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Can anyone recommend a good source within Russia to buy Soviet reproduction posters (I live in Russia)?

<comment><USER16> Maybe a museum, like in the frame story of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBnCo2SKafU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBnCo2SKafU) ? (for context, the soviets didn't have separate boy and girl scouts — they were all young pioneers together. So today's russians apparently go clubbing in "sexy pioneer" outfits on 80's nights, much like Halloween in the US is the time for "sexy nurse")

Yandex just gave me [https://yandex.com/search/?text=ссср%20Плакат%20купить&lr=10...](https://yandex.com/search/?text=ссср%20Плакат%20купить&lr=10520) 5 pages of hits...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Both Russia and the US have a strong tradition of "demotivational posters", shared online.

I've assumed this is because both countries had the non-lamp shaded version first.

Do any of you all live somewhere that has demotivational posters as a common meme, but never had the propaganda poster?

<comment><USER17> Hispanic countries didn't have them (some were Russian backed) but we love the demotivational posters. Dark humor is pretty commmon in spanish countries.

<comment><USER18> I might have been too young to see/notice the motivational posters, but here in Australia both the motivational and DEmotivational posters became unironically popular at around about the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Notable in this context is the band Franz Ferdinand:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Ferdinand_(band)#Music_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Ferdinand_\(band\)#Music_and_art)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's missing a lot of space themed posters that you can find on AliExpress

</comment><comment><USER21> >Soviet posters have always kept pace with the times. They created images of role models for generations of Soviet workers and soldiers, exposed international warmongers and fought for world peace.

Ah yes, the peaceful non-imperial USSR, fighting against those international warmongers. That's the Soviet Union I know and love

</comment><comment> kalium-xyz Site has been hugged to dead.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200602042013/https://www.sovie...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200602042013/https://www.sovietposters.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> I am very surprised to see this post come back from the third page back to front.

</comment><comment><USER23> Slashdot'd

</comment><comment><USER24> seems to have gone offline</comment>


Ask HN: Building tech stack for a dozen Realtor franchises - advice please - <AUTHOR>

I have been asked by a trusted contact to implement a complete technology solution for over 15 real estate agency franchises he is acquiring. They all run on their own ad-hoc systems at the moment so they are basically 15 different systems. The goal is to get up and running with a robust platform that can cover the following and expand as and when new offices open:<p>- managing all customer data (crm functionality)<p>- storing all documentation centrally and securely (contracts, documents etc for each office plus shared documents provided by the master franchiser)<p>- email with calendars, blackberry support etc (I think hosted Exchange?)<p>- managing property listings, photos, floorplans, data sheets, flyers etc<p>- a shared collaboration space like MS sharepoint but I personally don't think SP is useable for the target audience, likewise wiki might be too technical<p>- conference calls, video conference (is Skype viable for business use?)<p>This is a lot more low tech than the usual HN startup but I wonder if the good people of HN could share their thoughts or recommendations. Thanks. <comment><USER2> My advice, is just tackle one problem at a time and move through them pretty quickly. Accepting that as they begin to use it new use cases will emerge and you'll have to make adjustments. This doesn't mean just don't care what you select, it is just that in my experience this user base will have a hard time articulating their needs. And even if you have a ton of experience they will still change requirements as they start using it. So it is the start fast, adapt as needed methodology. And I would just communicate it to the client that you are going to solve one need at a time, and expect that you will need to revisit them over 2-3 months as people begin using each solution. The advantage to this, is some of that is really low hanging fruit that you could show him immediate benefits from, and have low risk to change. Like moving all email/calendar to Google Apps, or pick your cloud solution there.

Also, I personally feel this approach is being realistic and respectful to the staff that it is hard to articulate all the needs until a user gets their hands dirty with the solution. I also try not to use the word requirements with non-technical clients, instead opting for "Needs", "Wants", "Dreams" or something along those lines.

None of the project sounds hard technically, but it will take time and have some frustrations I imagine.

But I could easily see a Salesforce + Google (email, gdrive, calendar) + FreeConferenceCall (or something similar) + Skype. Most of that is low hanging. If they don't want to use the Cloud providers though, then you have a much larger and tougher task, not to mention way more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER3> This doesn't sound like a big deal to me. It's a lot of work for sure, but assuming your getting paid for this work, it's doable.

A Rackspace cloud server or 2; a CDN for the documents; I prefer to use Google Apps for email / calendar but thats me.

You could try BigBlueButton for the conference call / video or take parts of it and modify it to fit your needs.

Probably looking at 3-6 months of work if you have a decent plan put together and your not waiting on much from the client.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like you need a consultant with experience rather than just some free advice, IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think for 80-90% of that you could use BaseCamp etc from 37 Signals. I'd custom build as little as possible.</comment>


Ask HN: What is one thing that got worse since the Internet Age? - <AUTHOR> There are things like Fake News and other misinformation that spreads much quicker, but I'm  interested in more mundane things, like how I stopped reading books at the library, or how the existence of GPS essentially prevents me from remembering roads/highways nowadays, making me miss exits. <comment><USER2> The quality of written prose. Compare a speech by Roosevelt to one by even someone like Obama.

</comment><comment><USER3> Global warming.</comment>


Quitting Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://ryanbigg.com/2015/11/open-source-work/ <comment><USER2> Good for you man, those other things are priority too!</comment>