Roam: Why I Love It and How I Use It - <AUTHOR> https://www.nateliason.com/blog/roam <comment><USER2> I like the author's enthusiasm for organizing personal information. That was me from about 15 years ago to about 3 years ago.

I stopped spending time and effort when I realized how little I used my organized notes. Specifically, I used Evernote and had my personal information wonderfully organized, but rarely used it. Now I use something simpler:

For work: about 20 Emacs org-mode files for various topics. I use grep to find stuff.

For personal: at different times I have used Apple Notes or Google Keep to maintain todo lists, shopping lists, notes on present and future writing projects, planning travel, etc. Both support search. I spend very little time writing these notes and they are useful. A few times a year, I spend a few minutes deleting notes I don't need anymore.

Anyway, thinking about cost/benefits, not spending much time organizing my own information makes sense to me.

The turning point was spending months of part time hacking writing my own Evernote's clone in Clojure in the backend, a Firefox plugin, and a web app. It was a fun project, but mire fun writing it than using it.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly me with Evernote, and my same thoughts reading this.

I wish Evernote had some sort of stats on notes: I'm sure I would find that 90% of my notes have never been opened. _Some_ of them (e.g. warranty numbers, etc) are there just in case they're needed, but the majority will never be opened. I probably use the same 2% of my notes (< 30 notes) 90% of the time. (Lots of invented stats here, yes.)

The article describes an incredibly easy content-creation system, but one where you can easy create much more content than is useful. (It reminds me of the ease of taking hundreds of photos a day with smart phones, particularly if you're a new parent.)

Even when you want to find the information, I think this lack of structure makes it hard to do so. For example, the author has a note that looks like this:

        * Had a really good [[Super Tuscan]] [[Red Wine]]
          * [[Dogajolo Tuscano]] from [[Tuscany]]

My understanding (from looking at the other examples) is that if he went to the [[Red Wine]] page (presumably to look up a nice wine to buy), he'd see

        December 3rd, 2019
          * Had a really good [[Super Tuscan]] [[Red Wine]]
        Some other date
          * Bought a [[Red Wine]] for [[so-and-so]]:
        Yet another random note about other stuff:
          * Buy some [[Red Wine]] for [[whats-his-name]]

Even the links that point to useful information don't have the information right there -- you have to click through for each link. And some of the references may not have anything to do with a good wine recommendation at all. So you have to edit the [[Red Wine]] page to make it a useful list, but that's what we do with Evernote already, and the linking part wasn't that useful.

<comment><USER4> You can shift-click them to open them in sidebar (where you can edit them the same way as in main view). You can open unlimited number of pages/blocks in the sidebar. And if you find that they're not useful for you anymore then you can simply remove or unlink them. Without ever leaving Red Wine page.

It's funny how almost everybody here tries to compare it to other things. Yes, you can do everything even on paper! Zettelkasten was done first on paper, GTD was done first on paper. But this is new kind of software, which promotes new workflows and ideas about using your thoughts and data, and if you want to compare it to existing solutions then you should compare it to TheBrain or ConnectedText. It's not your typical markdown editor / outliner with some new features - you can start using it like that, but you will change your workflow after few hours or days in ways that you can't simply imagine right now :)

I hope we will have more software with such flexibility in the future, competition is always good, I might even reimplement this myself as my private hobby project, because it's so useful and I can't imagine going back to normal note editors if something happens to Roam dev.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps this is all true. My main point, which was lost in my example of [[Red Wine]], was more about it being _too_ easy to create new pages.

In Evernote, I've tried to get away from creating notes on every random new thought, and started towards maintaining more useful large notes -- a list of books I want to read, instead of 50 pages that mention a book all tagged with "#books-to-read", for example.

To me, this seems like moving back the other way -- it encourages you to create those 50 pages, because they all can be "linked" to each other.

I guess I'd have to try it to know, but I feel like, for me personally, information would be lost.

<comment><USER4> It will not be lost. Don't only give it a try, but force it to work for you and it will. I changed my process of writing in Roam multiple times, each time it was more optimised for me and weirder to explain for other people. I have GTD system that finally, after years of trying in every other existing software, works exactly like I want. It looks way different than any example of "GTD in Roam" I found so far - those examples could be reimplemented in Dynalist/Workflowy/other outliners - mine can't, it requires these mentions on the bottom and editable block references from other pages in my main dashboard page. But I didn't design it, it created itself. Explore and you will find your own ways. If you like simple lists then create simple lists without any links, that's perfectly fine, you can always change things later. I'm personally doing way less linking than author of that blog post, I don't feel like I'm forced.

You can do there much more than that blog post describe and Roam docs also sucks in explaining what else than writing you can do so it might be a good idea to look for videos in Youtube, Roam dev created some demos and was also interviewed with demo presentations.

<comment><USER5> One of the devs here - totally true, our help docs and landing page don't really show half of what you can do. Help docs have a lot if you dig around though.

Heres a link

[https://roamresearch.com/#/v8/help/page/1wnq- ZAAN](https://roamresearch.com/#/v8/help/page/1wnq-ZAAN)

Really appreciate users like pps who do the work of figuring out how to make Roam work for them at this early stage.

<comment><USER3> (1) How close are you guys to a mobile app?

(2) What's the monetization strategy?

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm intrigued by Roam, but I can't see myself using it as long as it's browser & cloud only. Also, good typography and visual design is critical in any kind of note taking app, but in Roam that barely feels like an afterthought.

Something like this but as a plain text based, native Mac/iOS app with stellar typography... that would be a dream.

<comment><USER7> Ditto. I was actually thinking of trying Roam until I read there was no mobile app. I like the idea of a "second brain", but for me that has to be something that never gets detached from my first brain. It has to be accessible at all times, for both reading and writing. I currently make do with Apple Notes, but I'm interested in finding something more organized…

A second brain should also be as private as my first brain – ideally end-to- end encrypted, which I guess Roam is not if it's a webapp. Too bad. (Apple Notes isn't end-to-end encrypted either, but that's another reason I'm looking for an upgrade.)

<comment><USER8> Even though it's a webapp it can be end-to-end encrypted. Fortunately, they are planning to do it, but I am not 100% convinced that all the function will work on e2e notes.

<comment><USER9> Just in case the NSA is keeping special tabs on your favorite recipes and approaches to meditation.

<comment><USER10> The NSA, or, y'know, the app's creators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From privacy policy - "As a condition of your use of the Service, you grant Roam a nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, sub-licenseable license to access, use, host, cache, store, reproduce, transmit, display, publish, distribute, modify and adapt and create derivative works (either alone or as part of a collective work) from your public Content."

So "public content" on Roam is considered essentially "public domain content"?

<comment><USER12> It's not public domain; only Roam gets the permission.

<comment><USER13> They demand an irrevocable worldwide license, with the ability to transfer the license and to sublicense according to to the text in the post you're replying to.

<comment><USER12> That's still not public domain, though. I doubt Roam will sublicense to me (for example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> drevil-v2 Maybe I am from a different time but I simply cannot imagine entrusting my private thoughts and knowledge to a cloud service ( aka someone else's computer) without end to end encryption.

<comment><USER14> I personally think it depends—there are multiple levels of knowledge that you can store in a notes app. I personally would love something that could store my lecture notes and provide me the freedom to take them any way I want to.

I wouldn't care if a company had access to those things. But yeah, definitely not personal data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For Windows users who prefer native apps and control over their data, Connected Text (paid, closed source ultimate kitchen sink with 30 days trial)[1] and WikiPad (free, open-source wiki engine)[2] are good alternatives to Roam.

Personally, I use TreeSheets [3] for note-taking and try to organize them as nodes in yEd [4] when I want to gain insight, but that quickly grows out of control and becomes unmanageable. Auto-linking and graph overview are extremely powerful features in this regard, but my gripe with e.g. Roam's approach (judging by screenshots) is that you can't visually filter out all the nodes at ones and "walk" the paths in a filtered graph -- that's why I consider switching from yEd to VUE [5], which has more decent filtering/search/layering/grouping options.

In general, [6] and [7] have good coverage of existing note-taking and mind- mapping tools.

Does Roam have any data export options though? If so, I might give it a try.

[1]: [http://www.connectedtext.com/](http://www.connectedtext.com/)

[2]: [http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/](http://wikidpad.sourceforge.net/)

[3]: [http://strlen.com/treesheets/](http://strlen.com/treesheets/)

[4]: [https://www.yworks.com/products/yed](https://www.yworks.com/products/yed)

[5]: [http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm](http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm)

[6]: [https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/category/software/note- tak...](https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/category/software/note-taking/)

[7]: [https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/category/software/mind- map...](https://pauljmiller.wordpress.com/category/software/mind-mapping- concept-mapping/)

<comment><USER5> Co-founder of Roam here. Also huge fan of treesheets, do recommend.

We export to markdown and JSON.

<comment><USER15> Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was very interesting for me to read. I am a heavy user of Notion and recently documented my own knowledge management practices [1].

I understand some of the Notion criticism, but I think you can get around most of it. Instead of relying on the tree structure, I organize pretty much everything in databases, which can have relations to each other. This way, you can have bidirectional linking and the user experience for creating these links is very good.

[1] [https://tkainrad.dev/posts/managing-my-personal-knowledge- ba...](https://tkainrad.dev/posts/managing-my-personal-knowledge-base/)

<comment><USER4> No, it is completely different experience to do that in Notion and (have it automated) in Roam. I was heavy Notion and Dynalist user, now I'm completely sold to Roam. Try it for a month with some hobby project and to log your daily life, it's crazy good, after few weeks of use I'm still in awe and I find new, better workflows every week.

<comment><USER17> > I was heavy Notion and Dynalist user, now I'm completely sold to Roam.

What scares me about this comment is that, in there lies the possibility of a better notes app coming along, and having to deal with porting the data from one place to another.

<comment><USER18> I've jumped around between a whole bunch of different note-taking apps and methods (Markdown notes in vim or ST3, Evernote, Keep, gdocs, Nuclino, etc.) and have mostly settled on Bullet Journalling. The act of writing itself is helpful for memorization, threading and indexes helps with information location, and the mobile app lets you take pictures of your notes and link them to others (across notebooks, etc.).

I am tempted to try Roam regardless because of tagging, but the lack of some way to sync with my more important physical notes kind of turns me off of the effort, as minor and specific as it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A very interesting read, but I can't shake the feeling that Roam is "just" a better wiki. Which is probably all that is needed to have a product that works, sometimes the littlest changes make for the best tool. Another wiki that is pretty interesting is [https://tiddlywiki.com/](https://tiddlywiki.com/), although Roam seems to have a easier to use interface.

<comment><USER5> TiddlyWiki is great, was one of many tools I used before starting to work on Roam.

Lack of easy collaborative option and the speed of organizing sets of intersecting sets of notes were some of main reasons I needed something else.

<comment><USER19> > organizing sets of intersecting sets of notes

Could you please be more specific ? I'm curious about what this is exactly and how Roam solves it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This clause from the privacy policy is not very encouraging:

> We may terminate or suspend your account and bar access to the Service > immediately, without prior notice or liability, under our sole discretion, > for any reason whatsoever and without limitation, including but not limited > to a breach of the Terms.

<comment><USER21> I think that's a lost battle now -- the Terms of Use / Privacy Policy of pretty much every online service, important or otherwise, says the same thing. For example, from HN's own terms of use:

> You agree that Y Combinator, in its sole discretion, may suspend or > terminate your account (or any part thereof) or use of the Site and remove > and discard any content within the Site, for any reason, including, without > limitation, for lack of use or if Y Combinator believes that you have > violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of these Terms of > Use.

<comment><USER22> The battle is not lost. Just don't use this kind of crap. There are alternatives.

<comment><USER21> I think literally every online service has this sort of clause, and in the absence of language explicitly stating the contrary, a cautious approach would be to assume they mean exactly this. Pragmatically speaking, you should have a local backup of everything you've placed online.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Trusting my "personal knowledge" to a proprietary tool seems like a fundamentally bad idea to me, and no amount of clever features is going to fix that.

<comment><USER24> I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to encrypt your data.

If you do any sort of public writing, you could use it for your writing process since that info would be private eventually anyways. Or you could expand that idea and include anything which you would be okay with being public.

For example, I may not have a reason to share a snippet from an article, but I wouldn't be bothered if it became public. I may also not be bothered if notes on that snippet were shared. And maybe if I did some writing for myself for understanding a subject, then that might be fine as well.

That's pretty much how I use the app.

<comment><USER25> > I believe the founder mentioned that they will eventually allow you to > encrypt your data.

Well, as soon as the encryption comes this product will be usable. Giving my personal data to a non open source note taking project without any encryption capabilities is a big no.

<comment><USER5> Use nvalt till that ships then, import will be easier, and you'll start to taste power of very fast two-way links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> IMO "easy" linking to other pages should be doable, but part of Roam's power is creating those pages by just making the link.

The linked references block I think could be extremely powerful in Notion. Bidirectional linking helps to associate data better than anything else I know, and if that can be handled semi-automatically it would blow people's minds.

Also, yeah, opening other pages in a sidebar would be amazing for being able to reference data without context switching and literally losing sight of what you're working on.

Personally, I'm using Notion for structured data, and Roam for unstructured, freely associated data. They're both pretty awesome in their own ways.

<comment><USER27> > _but part of Roam 's power is creating those pages by just making the link_

This is exactly how MediaWiki (and clones) have been doing it for years.

<comment><USER28> Not exactly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in MediaWiki (and others), you need to click the link, (optionally) type some text, and hit "Save" or the page doesn't actually exist yet.

With Roam, the page is automatically just there when it's mentioned. A subtle difference but I'm finding it quite useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In the last few years I repeated the same cycle: register, start of use, enjoy, invite my family, get the announcement that it has been bought, export my data when they announce they shutting down, rinse and repeat.

The first one was google reader. One day it was shut down and however I could exported my feeds, I was following a few people and read some really amazing article at least once a week which I could not find by myself. Also people I was following started to use 3 different platforms each with limited set of funcionality.

I've been using an email client which was bought and killed by google. Online diary app I used is gone now. My todo app was bought and "integrated" into their product by Microsoft. (However, Kudos at the same time, I still can open the doc files I created in 99). Calendar app gone.

About 90% of the mobile apps I bought on my iPhone 3G is not usable anymore (some of my favourite games gone forever).

Even some of the software I bought for my business (and paid double price for the business license) is now gone or not usable because of lack of upgrades (I would have been happy to pay for the upgrade license).

I'm really, really tired of the fact, that no matter if it is a website, a mobile app and from time to time, I need to do another cycle of exporting, finding a new tool for the same task, setup, import, etc.

I'm privileged, because I can setup my own hosted tools for myself and my family, and my current job is also consist a serious amount of "tinkering". I would be seriously be happy to pay if I don't have to do the same cycle again and again and again and wasting my time doing instead of spending my time away from the keyboard. Currently there is no startup which can be trusted that they will be around in a year.

So whenever anybody is asking to invest time and effort to start using their product, which has no clear plan about their revenue streams nothing about how they going to sustain their business is a huge red blinking no. When I hear the expression serial entrepreneur (I throw up in my mouth), it says to me, stay away.

(And lets forget about privacy, because that is another massive can of dragon sized worms)

Edit: business stuff added

<comment><USER30> The crux of these points is one of the main reasons I'm reluctant to put _any_ amount of time in to new applications.

And, unfortunately, the more of us that feel this way, the less companies get invested in the space, and (it seems) the further we get away from real long- term solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Other than the interface (which is a big "other than"), I'm trying and failing to see how this differs from a managed MediaWiki. Even most of the syntax appears to be similar.

MW would also solve some of the complaints about a lack of mobile support (MW has mobile skins), APIs (MW's is robust, for better and worse), scaling, and aliases (redirects).

<comment><USER5> Play in the Sandbox on the help db for an hour and see if you still think this.

<comment><USER32> I did - it's slicker with better UX for sure, but technically what's different?

<comment><USER33> It looks like the main differences are the bidirectional links and the automated creation of those links.

<comment><USER34> Bi-directional links are visible if you go to the What Links Here [0] section of a page. Notably though it doesn't include "unlinked references" (as Roam refers to it), which is quite useful.

[0]: [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:What_links_here](https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:What_links_here)

<comment><USER31> You can still fish that up if you need to either from the UI's search or the search API, but in poking Roam that felt like a potential anti-feature around ambiguous terms, for instance with no clear way to flag a particular reference as not relevant to a term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This looks an awful lot like nvALT ([https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/)) or Vim-Wiki or any Wiki software for that matter.

It can be easily replaced by MediaWiki for the backend but to it's benefit the UX is very good and is a very good choice for people who don't want to muck around with MediaWiki.

But given the current state I cannot use it long term due to non-availability of non-desktop use, no encryption and no good PRICING or an idea of pricing.

Having said that I'm keeping this in my radar and shall revisit periodically.

</comment><comment><USER36> Trillium Notes have been mentioned before [0]. Provides similar functionality with a lot more power.

It's open source and self hostable.

It's possible to script additional functionality into it from the UI itself. I find it quite powerful.

[0] [https://github.com/zadam/trilium](https://github.com/zadam/trilium)

</comment><comment><USER37> This looks awesome! I've been wanting a personal knowledge store for a long time. Between bookmarks, random notes and lists that I throw away, cool quotes I find, and even thoughts that I ponder and get distracted from, I feel like there's so much interesting stuff I've found that remains inaccessible or was lost or is just laying around uncatalogued. It's just that all the usual data- cataloging systems seem so clunky or have a whole "system" that intrusively proscribes how to use it.

Roam looks like a pretty interesting solution to this problem. Simple but capable flat document system, especially the very nice tagging with automatic bidirectional linking to organize everything with. Pretty UI, maybe a little more customized than my tastes, but still nice to interact with.

My only reservation is the reason why I haven't tried any of the other big proprietary solutions: I really don't want to switch away once I'm on it, and I don't want to ever worry about losing access to it. I.e. I'll want to self host it. Don't get me wrong, I would still be quite willing to pay for such an app, but I also need it to be open-sourced and have a simple open data model.

To that end, it seems like this UI on top of Perkeep's API [https://perkeep.org/doc/overview](https://perkeep.org/doc/overview) might be pretty nice combination.

</comment><comment><USER38> He doesn't seem to understand tags and links in evernote. Evernote can absolutely be structured as a flat graph in the way that he describes as a big benefit of Roam.

That said, as a long-term evernote user, I've been wanting to leave for a while and move to an OSS/self-hosted solution. It might be joplin but my few attempts to use it I haven't yet had enough time to evaluate whether it would be a viable long-term solution.

Edit: I'm also seriously considering just using [https://github.com/Alok/notational-fzf- vim](https://github.com/Alok/notational-fzf-vim) and only doing note-taking on my laptop (not on mobile). It's extremely fast and basically zero friction. This would have a slight downside in that I quite often want to consume notes on the go so I may need to find an option there (eg serve my notes up using a private server or something).

<comment><USER5> Problem w evernote is that file is bad unit of organization.

In a meeting with 4 people, discussing three big ideas, related to two projects, what file do you put the note in?

In Roam that's not even a question you have to ask, all info in each paragraph goes to all the right places

<comment><USER39> But in the current state of the app sharing a note shares your entire DB, its an awesome tool but I'm unable to find a way to create a secondary DB without creating a new account.

<comment><USER5> Capability is there, but UX sucks for both sharing single pages and creating seperate workspaces.

Been working on both this week.

<comment><USER39> could you point me to the doco

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This actually looks very interesting! I have been trying to get all of my immediate family to coordinate on a shared google document to try and capture a lot of our family history, but the unstructured nature of memory snippets and anecdotes is challenging to organize coherently.

For example, I want to be able to easily capture the fact that we owned a dog. Oh wait, but what about all the other dogs we owned over the years? What about the time I got bit and had to get stitches? what about the other times I had to get stitches? What about the times that other family members got stitches? I find that memories oftentimes don't bubble to the surface until they are sparked by other memories.

I want to be able to easily organize everything in a connected graph, but also still map it to a timeline.

I'm definitely going to have to give Roam a try. I wonder how well it works when it comes to collaboration between different people?

</comment><comment><USER41> I've never managed to find Roam's pricing. As most apps have a link to pricing right on the landing page, I take it as a bad sign when I don't see it.

<comment><USER42> Founder mentions on twitter pricing tbd though hopefully this year, considering $30/mo with a discounted annual plan. Discounts/scholarships for students, non-profits, and low income. Also mentions a $10k lifetime plan with a potential "code escrow" should they cease to operate (though acknowledges not expecting to get many of those—mentions expecting 10, ever).

<comment><USER43> $30/mo seems insanely expensive for a note taking app. I guess I'll stick to the local vscode on top of a notes directory that takes advantage of local access and indexing and runs on a synced folder.

<comment><USER24> It's insanely expensive if you are comparing the price and functionality to existing apps. I would expect a "me too" app to have "me too" pricing.

The reason people are talking about Roam is because it's not like other note taking apps. People who use the app will need to extract a break-even $30 / month worth of ROI just like you might from any other piece of equipment or tool which extends your capabilities.

I find Roam compelling enough that I believe I can reach that point. If I'm not reaching that point, then I need to adjust my efforts.

I feel pricing shouldn't be a sticking point. I try to keep my consumption to a bare minimum, so that my focus is on high value activities. If the tooling can't return the investment, then that activity and the related tools aren't for me. It's not that the tooling is bad, it's just that my efforts are best pointed elsewhere.

I believe the founders operate on this idea and it's refreshing. Yes, it will be expensive for many. Potential users will walk based on the pricing. And I wish more developers would be willing to create something different and charge proper pricing for the effort.

<comment><USER44> Despite what the article claims, I really don't see much new in what Roam does over any other note taking app or wiki. --Whether they have more or less structure, they all let you link pages together, so hierarchies are generally up to you to decide if you want more or less of.

I use OneNote since I already have O365 anyway. To convince me that I should pay more than 3 times what O365 costs, you'd have to be able to show amazing improvements, and Roam just doesn't.

<comment><USER45> Seems similar to Mindforger ... Mindforger I think uses ai or something to 'link' internally between docs. Just found it the other day, but it's free. so -- I'll probably stick w/ that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Hi, I wrote this! Thanks for sharing yarapavan.

Happy to answer any questions about how I'm using Roam.

</comment><comment><USER47> Minor nitpick. His whole description about how "fluid information" works and how it's so much better than rigid/siloed hierarchy:

Really it's tree-based vs tag-based organization [1][2].

Tag-based organization turns the collection into a graph. Simple as that. IMO it's the superior way, since a graph is kinda like a superset of a tree, but there is nothing novel that was done by Roam here. You could have tag-based file systems too [3].

Note: when you have tags, it has to be capable of multiple-tags (not just one), otherwise it's not much different from a tree structure.

[1] [https://www.nayuki.io/page/designing-better-file- organizatio...](https://www.nayuki.io/page/designing-better-file-organization- around-tags-not-hierarchies)

[2] [https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-tags-and- labels/](https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-tags-and-labels/)

[3] [http://web.mit.edu/6.033/2011/wwwdocs/writing- samples/sbezek...](http://web.mit.edu/6.033/2011/wwwdocs/writing- samples/sbezek_dp1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER48> Actually going to look into this - given up on Evernote, don't like Apple Notes and Bear writer just didn't click....but did anyone else get put off by the whole "casually going to show off my notes on Prepping and Bugging Out as they're totally normal and chill things to be across". Undermines the credibility of the writer.

<comment><USER49> I thought it added to the credibility as it positioned them in my mind as a longer term thinker than myself.

By the way, I've been bouncing between bear and Ulysses and I've decided that I just love the Bear experience more than any other editor. There's something really elegant about it....

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's crazy to me that someone could have so many notes that they need to do all this tagging just to be able to find them. After 2000+ notes in Apple notes I've learned that the notes I go back to most often are nonfiction book notes and certain periodically updated lists, and any other notes I just find through the search bar.

</comment><comment><USER51> I've been through a hundred note apps, in the end, taking notes is for the brain to help remember. The app is your brain. Generally now, I through stuff in Google Docs and move on. It's searchable, good enough.

</comment><comment><USER52> can't store work confidential data on it because its not a local app.

</comment><comment><USER53> At first glance it looks somewhat like MediaWiki (the wiki software behind Wikipedia), which also supports creating pages implicitly by linking to them. The markup style also looks similar. Does anybody know how it compares? The MediaWiki interface looks clunkier and you probably will need extensions for some of the stuff Roam does (e.g. like Semantic MediaWiki).

</comment><comment><USER54> Have been using Roam for a while now. Very powerful potential. I'm excited to start a second database and use it as a personal CRM

</comment><comment><USER55> I wrote about this idea ("Zettelkasten") on our blog. Here is the link in case you missed it:

[https://emvi.com/blog/luhmanns-zettelkasten-a- productivity-t...](https://emvi.com/blog/luhmanns-zettelkasten-a-productivity- tool-that-works-like-your-brain-N9Gd2G4aPv)

</comment><comment><USER56> Stupid question - but I can't tell if this can be used by multiple people as part of a company KB. For me (and for many) sharing knowledge within a company is a bigger win than my personal KB (which I happen to use workflowy for). The perk of this it seems to support images & videos which workflowy does not.

<comment><USER46> It can! You can share your database with people and all collaborate on it. I've been debating doing that for my team to replace our Notion wiki.

<comment><USER56> Is there a "team" or "company" specific version? Or is it like workflowy where you would have to explicitly share at different nodes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I made the switch to Roam for a week and put my thoughts into a new post on comparing to Notion.

Notion vs. Roam: Which Tool For Productivity

[https://www.austinrileygray.com/articles/notion-vs- roam](https://www.austinrileygray.com/articles/notion-vs-roam)

</comment><comment><USER11> This has me really intrigued and I've been on to workflowy and a smattering of org-mode for over a decade now. Consistency is more important to me than optimality and workflowy has served me well for that. Reading on interestedly ..

</comment><comment><USER58> I worry for my data. If I invest a lot of time to build a repository of information, how can I archive it, extract it out of the platform. It is in early release, and they seem to avoid the question about pricing.

</comment><comment><USER59> What data structure would be best suited to implementing this set of features?

</comment><comment><USER60> You can't even sign up for Roam if you use a pihole for DNS, since it redirects you to a blackholed site. Okay. A good reminder of the commercial interests I don't want in control of my notes.

</comment><comment><USER61> I just read about this and find it interesting. Two questions:

1\. Is Roam text only? I haven't noticed any images in the examples I have seen so far.

2\. What is its business model? I didn't see any pricing information.

<comment><USER24> 1\. Yes, you can upload images.

2\. The co-founder has said he's looking at charging $30 / month when it's ready.

[https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1214867422496165888](https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1214867422496165888)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> This looks like a gui vimwiki.

</comment><comment><USER63> Does anybody know what Roam's business model is?

</comment><comment><USER64> i used 'tomboy' a while ago which has support for links between notes

<comment><USER24> So do lots of other apps. You can link between files. Even just plain markdown would allow you to link between files. You could just include a build step and edit MD files and read HTML.

But ROAM also allows you to reference sections. Links you create leave references at the bottom to show you which sections link to this particular page or section. That gets to be a slog with plain text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> sign up with google didn't work it takes me back to sign up screen.

<comment><USER43> I have that problem with many sites that use that. It's usually because of privacy blocking so I just use the regular login.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> so popular, i love it

</comment><comment><USER66> TiddlyWiki has many of these auto tagging and page creation features. I enjoyed using it for a time. It's a self-contained portable file.

<comment><USER67> Its homepage is an excellent demo of the software itself: [https://tiddlywiki.com/](https://tiddlywiki.com/)</comment></comment>


SPIR-V Compression - <AUTHOR> http://aras-p.info/blog/2016/09/01/SPIR-V-Compression/ <comment><USER2> Such specialized filters can improve compression a lot. For instance, the e8e9 transform converts relative jumps to absolute jumps in x86 EXEs, increasing compression because lots of jumps actually point to the same address.

[http://mattmahoney.net/dc/dce.html#Section_571](http://mattmahoney.net/dc/dce.html#Section_571)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting experiment, I'm always curious about data-class-dependent filters that affect compression.

In this case, I must say that it's not really exciting to see that, after all this work, zstd level 20 is comparable. If I were to choose, I wouldn't add a complex filter (which might even bring bugs) for a 1% final gain, but YMMV.

<comment><USER4> The table says Zstd 20 gets down to 339.4 kB without the filter and 226.7 kB with the filter. This seems like a very good result for the filter.

<comment><USER3> Ah thanks, for some reason I misread the table. Yes indeed, very good results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat mis-leading graphs since higher-quality zlib compression levels weren't evaluated. Zstd is DOA thanks to Facebook's patent poison pill.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was a fun read for sure. It's always inspiring to see someone take on a new domain, learn something and produce something functional.</comment>


Google as magical learning machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n19/daniel-soar/it-knows

<comment><USER2> On June 6, 2015 at 3:23 PM Google became self-aware and immediately destroyed Skynet. Very interesting to see how Google works. They could very easily become evil. Here's hoping they stay on the straight and narrow. Its strength lies in its multipronged positive feedback loop. But while it may be easier to thwart incremental advances from competing companies as was the case in the GPS kerfuffle, unlike with most industries a giant leap forward overnight can happen in the Internet age. That would easily put them in a negative feedback loop which they may not be able to recover from. That's what's best about the Internet, there is very little distance between a good idea and implementation to consumption by the masses. The roadside is littered with previously high- value tech companies who were devalued overnight by a competing idea.</comment>


Craigslist has been Redesigned - <AUTHOR> http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/

<comment><USER2> Well, it seems as though the listings area was centered... I see no other changes. A real shame really. Craigslist could use some aesthetics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here you go naysayers. You said this day will never come - but it has. Next - the Messiah!

</comment><comment><USER4> more like dusted.</comment>


Zuckerberg apologises to European Parliament for 'harm' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44210800 <comment><USER2> We've moved most comments to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17127930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17127930).

</comment><comment><USER3> Hope that apology isn't taken at face value and they get hit with more regulations along with punishment.

<comment><USER4> Almost certain it is not. EU is way more consumer friendly then USA _and_ FB is an American company.

<comment><USER5> Its also toothless and has no powers to speak off.

The HOC and HOL can do you for contempt if your really piss them off and if the HOC select committee say Mr Zukerberg is not a fit and proper person that would have major consequences - see how even Rupert Murdoch went before them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A tad too late to be sorry, Mark.</comment>


Know How to Get a Free SSL Security Certificate on Your Website Forever - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXQnpK4bWGM <comment><USER2> There are quite a few more ways. 10+ Ways To Get Free SSL Certificate : [https://key2wp.com/free-ssl-certificate](https://key2wp.com/free-ssl- certificate)</comment>


Software Exploits Aren't Needed to Hack Most Organizations - <AUTHOR> http://www.darkreading.com/operations/attackers-playbook-top-5-is-high-on-passwords-low-on-malware/d/d-id/1326667 <comment><USER2> I totally agree about "[attackers] prefer to use system weaknesses over software exploits" for the reason mentioned (if you use someone password chances are no alarm will ring, if you scan every port on every possible network.. meh, you may get noticed).

I've seen a growing number of systems tracking the fingerprint of the user not only the password (e.g. salesforce), I think that is the way to go because it is very difficult to train users against every possible social exploitation.</comment>


UPS was founded by 2 teenagers, 1 Bicycle, and $100 borrowed from a friend - <AUTHOR> http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/ups-was-founded-by-two-teenagers-with-one-bicycle-and-100-borrowed-from-a-friend/

<comment><USER2> FedEx also has an interesting story:

"In 1962, Smith entered Yale University. While attending Yale, he wrote a paper for an economics class, outlining overnight delivery service in a computer information age. Folklore suggests that he received a C for this paper, although in a later interview he claims that he told a reporter, "I don't know what grade, probably made my usual C", while other tales suggest that his professor told him that, in order for him to get a C, the idea had to be feasible. The paper became the idea of FedEx (for years, the sample package displayed in the company's print advertisements featured a return address at Yale)."

Smith used his time in the military to get insights in how to refine his idea:

"As a Marine, Smith had the opportunity to observe the military's logistics system first hand. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam, flying with pilots on over 200 combat missions. He was honorably discharged in 1969 with the rank of Captain, having received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, and two Purple Hearts. While in the military, Smith carefully observed the procurement and delivery procedures, fine-tuning his dream for an overnight delivery service."

link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Smith>

I thought it was pretty interesting. Found it because I've been spending a lot of time seeking companies that have the following attributes: (1) extremely high barriers-to-entry, (2) good growth potential for the next 15+ years with little obsolescence risk, (3) a high quality management team, and (4) a good balance sheet. FedEx was one of the companies which met all the above categories.

<comment><AUTHOR> What other companies did you find fit those attributes?

<comment><USER2> Not a whole lot.

Sysco (SYY), the food distributor. Fiserv (FISV), they do a lot of payment processing.

But, those two benefit from having business models which are more resilient to economic downturns than FedEx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not completely fair to contrast with FedEx, which had one of the largest startup costs of the time because they were different types of delivery services but:

> Smith supplemented a $4 million inheritance from his father with $91 million > in venture capital to get his idea off the ground.

[http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FedEx- Corpo...](http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/FedEx-Corporation- Company-History.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> There was just a HN story asking about non-developer success stories (sorry don't have the link, writing this using the HN iPhone app) this is a perfect story for that discussion.

A large % of companies were started by non-coders, and this is a good example of one. Not to say anyone can solve hard technical problems but just because you can't code doesn't mean you can't start something great.

There is nothing wrong with starting a business in a traditional industry, the most important thing is doing something you love and want to do.

</comment><comment><USER5> "UPS developed software that routes trucks such that they minimize left turns in their deliveries. By doing so, they reduced their annual fuel consumption by nearly 51,000 gallons in Washington DC alone. The reduction in fuel comes from drivers not having to sit idling at red lights waiting to make left hand turns."

I wonder if mapquest, google maps et al do that.

<comment><USER6> Probably not. UPS trips involve a lot of points the truck has to pass, so they do a lot of turning. Most trips I've planned with Google Maps and friends seem to be "get onto the freeway, go near your destination, get off the freeway".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> $100 back then would be a fair amount of money today. Nice story though, the big thing to notice is that opportunity and timing + determination made it work, age, capital and so on were secondary.

<comment><USER8> _$100 back then would be a fair amount of money today._

It would be about $2400 today (<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=100+1907+dollars>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting story. I actually have worked for a small package delivery service between high school and college. That was a fun job.

My UPS connection is an old friend whose first job was data entry at UPS. And I see on Facebook that she still works there 29 years later. God I'm old. :-)

</comment><comment><USER10> I did IT at a UPS call center. I had to take a test after orientation that included knowing company history.

Another interesting tidbit: even in a call center/office we had to adhere to the same "grooming standards" as drivers (hair, facial hair, etc).

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a wonderful thing what persistence and vision can do. Still, that was back in the day when your could execute an idea based on vision and business prowess alone.

Not saying that it's impossible, but the rise in status of developers over the last few years is a result of the increasing technical difficulty of managing a business and growing it to size.

Make note of history, learn from the present, execute on the future.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's a question I hope someone else can answer. I get the whole idea of the underdog seeing a niche and taking it over.

What I don't understand is the progression from 2 kids, a bike and $100 into a 50 billion dollar multinational corporation.

How does that work?

Thank you in advance.

<comment><USER2> You do the same thing, over and over again.

If you look at some of the most successful businessmen in history, you'll see that a lot of what they did was find some kind of unexploited area of the market and take advantage of it.

Usually it starts in their home town, but it can often by replicated and expanded outside of that area. And when they do that they generally get to take advantage of the economies of scale. Along the way, if they iterate and refine on the process -- they get stronger and stronger till they become the $50B MNC you're talking about.

Looking at the history of UPS, this seems pretty apparent. They started doing deliveries in Seattle > California > West Coast > New York > East Coast > Midwest > Canada > Europe.

Walmart and McDonalds kind of did the same thing. In every instance there is a certain level of innovation that keeps them ahead of the pack.

<comment><USER13> yeah i think that's basically it. Find a business model that works and repeat it over and over in different geographies or markets. Or even: do it once, sell, do exactly the same again (e.g Hutchinson Whampoa with Orange (sold to France Telecom) and now 3).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 1907 - 1962: Jim Casey does UPS-work.

Moral of the story: make sure you are doing what you love if you're trying to start a business, _right now_ , because you'll do it _for frickin' ever_.

</comment><comment><USER15> lesson: start a biz now. then 60 years later retire very old and rich! success! i'm only half-kidding.

<comment><USER16> With the piffling matter of having a sustainable idea and a business model, _and_ being able to execute, in between all of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > In the early days of UPS, the United States Postal Service was their biggest > client. UPS handled delivering all USPS special delivery mail in Seattle.

Bet USPS regrets that now!

Just kidding :)</comment>


CodeEval's technical screening tool now free - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeeval.com/screen-technical-candidates-for-free

<comment><USER2> So this is just going to filter out all the candidates with real experience. Is this aimed at body shops or something?

Or put another way, this only measures quantitate skill. Which ramps up quirky at a young age. Qualitative skill builds over time.

<comment><USER3> I assume you mean that it will filter out people who have real skills because they won't bother with such a test.

I think only the rockstars are going to do that. They're the only ones who think their name means enough that they don't have to prove they can code.</comment></comment>


How Bitcoin's Technology Could Make Supply Chains More Transparent - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/how-bitcoins-technology-could-make-supply-chains-more-transparent/

<comment><USER2> Why would any business want to use a system like this? I don't think I would want everyone knowing all of my suppliers, especially my competitors.

On top of this, it could bring un-needed attention to something you have absolutely no control over. I don't want random groups of social justice warriors nitpicking everything in my supply chain and boycotting my business..and neither will anyone else running a business.

Anyone that does use a system like this will have their business pulled out from under them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Google could have a field day with blockchain metadata. Even easier than scraping data ("Now on Tap") from Android apps.</comment></comment>


Caps Lock Key Has No Place on a Modern Keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.camsaul.com/2013/03/caps-lock-key-has-no-place-on-a-modern-keyboard/ <comment><USER2> Nonsense!

The average person uses CAPS LOCK a lot more than those function keys at the top, or the scroll lock or pause/break key or the insert key.

I use it when typing addresses for shipping labels or sometimes the column names for excel spreadsheets or serial keys or case sensetive captchas. I know it's not much but it's still a lot more than the function keys, pause/break, insert, or scroll lock.

I've never in my life used F1-F3 and F5-F11. (alt+F4 closes windows and F12 is for full screen, those I use).

Perhaps Capslock and Backspace should be switched?

<comment><USER3> >I use it when typing addresses for shipping labels

>the column names for excel spreadsheets or serial keys

Why would those need to be upper-case?

<comment><USER4> The USPS still recommends addresses be entered in upper case: "We recommend that you write addresses in all uppercase letters." [1]

This apparently used to be a bigger deal back when the USPS relied on OCR more heavily for bulk mail delivery, but barcodes have become the method of choice.[2]

[1] [http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?create=kb%3...](http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?create=kb%3AUSPSFAQ&view%28%29=c\[c_usps0910\]&varset%28source%29=sourceType%3Aembedded)

[2] [http://smartystreets.com/kb/faq/should-addresses-be-in- upper...](http://smartystreets.com/kb/faq/should-addresses-be-in-uppercase)

<comment><USER5> ... oh ya, the USPS is relevant. When did snail mail drive the modernization of anything?

<comment><USER2> Oh really? So e-commerce (which uses snail mail) is irrelevant? So the millions of products that are sold online from all over the internet just... magically teleport to their destination huh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course it does. Any draftsman worth his salt will tell you that many standards dictate all drawing text to be in caps - in fact, I cannot think of any proper design drawing that does not use full caps. Even drafting calligraphy used on hand drawn design drawings uses a very specific writing style that is all-caps.

Why would you permanently hold down shift for that? You have to type:

\- general notes

\- welding notes

\- the bill of materials

\- title block text, names, etc.

\- dimension / tolerance info

\- much more

all in capitals. There's simply no reason not to use caps lock.

On this point, it's also useful to note that the shift key allows the user to shift capslock off temporarily. This is the use case of all draftsmen I know, as the only time lowercase is used on drawings is for some dimensions (eg: the unit for millimetres is 'mm' in lower case). So that functionality as part of capslock is necessary too.

<comment><USER6> In fact, I think this is a good example of needing to fully understand all use cases of a particular feature before making judgements on its usefulness. An integral part of working on a system is fully understanding the needs of all of the users, needs that may not have been intended during the primary design of the system.

I know I've fallen in to this trap before, where I've proposed a design change to a system and had a prototype manufactured only to have the workshop floor staff immediately explain why it's useless, because it cannot reproduce some unintended but now-important function of the original design.

Conversely, it's also good to look at unintended uses of previous designs. I've used equipment for functions it was never designed to do, but nevertheless proved to be a simple and effective solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> On Linux it's possible to simultaneously map caps lock to both escape and control with xcape [1]. On short presses without any other keys depressed, escape is fired. On press-and-hold with other keys, control is fired. This is great for vim, emacs, and any other application with control shortcuts.

[1] <https://github.com/alols/xcape>

<comment><USER8> This! For the same functionality on OS X, I use KeyRemap4MacBook (terrible name, great program).

Edit: sbader beat me to it. His link is where I originally got the idea, and is definitely worth a read--to some extent I think a lot of it is very thorough yak shaving, but... sometimes it's fun to shave some yaks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like the MacBook feature where you have to press the caps lock key for some time (a bit longer than the accidental "tap") to activate it.

<comment><USER10> WTF. I had no idea it did that, and so I would press the key a bunch of times in a row until it "took". Sometimes 20 or 30 times. Drove me nuts, I just thought my keyboard was intermittently broken. _grrrrrrr_

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ummm... I don't get it. What is wrong with caps lock?

What if I want to type, let's say, some longer name of a constant that are usually IN_ALL_CAPS_AND_WRITTEN_LIKE_THIS?

I don't want to hold shift on all these letters. I LIKE CAPS LOCK AND I LIKE IT A LOT.

<comment><USER12> If you're using vi you can do something like this:

nnoremap <c-u> viwU

To use it just type the word in lowercase, hover your cursor over any letter in the word, and press Ctrl-U to highlight it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > I can't think of a single time when I've ever wanted to use it

That's because you know how to type. Watch your parents or someone that doesn't type often use a keyboard, you'll notice they only ever use one finger at a time; you can't use one finger at a time with SHIFT. Caps lock doesn't make sense for someone that can type well but makes perfect sense for people that can't. oh and also people with one hand.

<comment><USER14> I get your argument about a person with one hand, but anyone who types with one finger can easily (and usually does) use their other index finger to hold shift.

<comment><USER15> Not everyone who types with one hand has two hands.

<comment><USER16> That's pretty much the target group for the capslock key then?

<comment><USER17> Still not necc. if the shift has stickykeys behavior, which is configurable on almost any modern OS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My personal remap of caps lock is backspace. The usual one, which I hit a lot (y'know, we type, we make mistakes), cranks my wrist, whereas the capslock key, which lives on the home row, is zero stress.

</comment><comment><USER19> I mapped capslock to control, and I think I use it more than any other key.

<comment><USER20> Exactly. Mapping it to another key makes way more sense than just disabling it entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For normal people that I observe, caps lock is used a lot. I get asked quite a lot where the "caps lock" is on the iPad on screen keyboard[1].

I could agree with the post if it was qualified for modern developers (RPGers would disagree).

1) push left and right shift at the same time

<comment><USER22> I've mapped caps lock to control on my keyboard but I like to use caps lock when I'm typing on a phone. For acronyms and such it is useful and the inability to hold shift on an iphone makes caps lock a better option. However, on a keyboard when it is trivial to hold shift, it is useless.

<comment><USER21> > on a keyboard when it is trivial to hold shift, it is useless.

I take it you are a touch typist and/or don't suffer from any motor skill problems?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> In OSX, instead of setting caps lock to "no action", I set it to be another control key. I have never been able to hit the pathetic little excuse for a control key on Mac keyboards without also tapping fn or option.

<comment><USER24> I do the same thing. This is a lifesaver for using Screen, which was frustrating as a longtime PC/Linux user - the crtl+a escape sequence becomes even easier to hit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Unlike most keyboards which have the ctrl key on the bottom left corner, MacBook Pro keyboards for some reason have the useless fn button at that location, and the ctrl key to the right of that. This makes text navigation with the emacs keybindings (eg, "ctrl+n" and "ctrl+p") even more awkward than it usually is, given that touch typing requires you to stay close to home row.

The solution to both this problem and the uselessness of the caps lock key is just to set the caps lock key to act as ctrl.

<http://stackoverflow.com/a/162907>

</comment><comment><USER26> #include <def.h> and many C defs and libraries(notably Gtk+ with so many constants), macros, and constants... This applies to C++ and Java as well.

I rest my case, from a C programmer.

</comment><comment><USER27> There are actual use cases for the caps lock key. For example, drafters working on any kind of technical drawing will extensively use capital letters.

</comment><comment><USER28> As an engineer, there are a lot of technical documents and drawings that often require 100% caps. I wouldn't be able to do my job without Caps.

There are also a variety of applications and situations that I have used it, as simply a home user as well.

Not including being spammy or 'shouting' it Once you get past the 'Someone is yelling' in all CAPS. Most of the time ALL CAPITALS IS EASIER to read for many people. It prints more legible.

<comment><USER29> Studies have shown that all caps text is significantly harder to read by the vast majority of the population. Engineering and drafting documents that have an all upper case convention should change their convention. It's a hold-over that's been going on too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> People using Windows (I don't know about Linux) think that Caps lock is Shift lock. Wrong. It's _Caps_ lock. And that's pretty useful.

On OSX French keyboard, Shift-é would give 2, Caps-lock+é gives É. That key gives straight and easy access to uppercase diacriticals: é-É, è-È, à-À, etc. And when "UNTEL ACCUSE" means "some guy accuses", "UNTEL ACCUSÉ" means "some guy accused". It's pretty important.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't see why the author would set the key to "No Action". I find Control to be a great replacement for Caps Lock.

<comment><USER32> Escape is also a good choice, especially for vim use.

<comment><USER33> Control-[ functions as Escape, in Vim.

If/once you remap Capslock to Control, this should be even easier to hit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have to say, replacing the caps lock with a "search" (super) key is one of the best design decisions on my chromebook. It automatically brings up my Gnome3 app menu/search, which I used to have Gnome-Do for.

Needless to say, the "search" key is the first one pressed every time I boot up.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have my Caps Lock mapped to Control on OS X (10.6.8). Since the last update, the mapping disappears randomly. I googled and there're other people with the same problem, but no solution yet.

Figured I'd ask here if anyone found out how to fix it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Complaining about the caps lock key has become somewhat cliche.

As a Vim user, just map it to control.

</comment><comment><USER37> What would be an alternative to the caps lock key? When I type final and/or static variables that are more than a few characters I don't want to be holding shift the whole time like a neanderthal.

<comment><USER17> On most editors, I can type, then select ( opt-shift-rt-arrow) the word and apply a case change - it's often faster than remembering to use the capslock and then remembering to unlock afterwards.

Also doing the double-shift = capslock can be useful if you're not double- shifting often (ie, gaming).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This person has obviously never programmed a day in his life. Caps lock is very useful for typing uppercase CONSTANTS.

This is not relevant for hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER39> You've never been angry on the Internet?

<comment><USER15> An old joke: MY NEW KEYBOARD ARRIVED FROM AOL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me, the caps lock key is that thing that i keep hitting by accident when i reach for shift+tab.

</comment><comment><USER40> if there was no caps lock key, what would i remap to ctrl? =p

</comment><comment><USER41> I use it for my password. A _lot_ of muscle memory attached to it, though I'd like to retrain myself to use it as a Ctrl key.</comment>


Namecheap vs. Facebook on Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.namecheap.com/blog/the-secret-fight-for-your-personal-information/ <comment><USER2> I read this article twice. I still have no idea what's happening.

Is facebook trying to get access to namecheap's user info on the grounds that it might help them get trademark infringers?

Why does facebook think this will help them?

Are the trademark infringers really just phishers publishing fake "facebook" sites that look like facebook but aren't?

<comment><USER3> "We found that Namecheap's proxy service, Whoisguard, registered or used 45 domain names that impersonated Facebook and our services, such as instagrambusinesshelp.com, facebo0k-login.com and whatsappdownload.site" via: [https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/domain-name- lawsuit/](https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/domain-name-lawsuit/)

Facebook thinks they have a "legitimate interest" to know who put up these domains, Namecheap does not. As generally unsympathetic as I am to Facebook, I think they are in the right here. Those domains are obviously designed to confuse people into thinking they are accessing Facebook products or services.

<comment><USER2> Thanks this is hugely helpful. While I agree that those domains should be taken down I don't think facebook should be the one to do it. If there isn't a federal agency who has the legal authority to prosecute such things one should be created.

<comment><USER4> The FBI...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone have a link to the court docket?

edit: looks like [https://dockets.justia.com/docket/arizona/azdce/2:2020cv0047...](https://dockets.justia.com/docket/arizona/azdce/2:2020cv00470/1235765) but I don't have a PACER account.

</comment><comment><USER6> Previous post on the matter: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22497391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22497391)

</comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for sharing this. I hadn't heard about this latest apparent over-reach from facebook. I didn't see that the article clarified whether facebook wanted domain registration for all users, for a particular domain that fb claimed was somehow fraudulent against facebook? Is it a fishing expedition that could be used to later request info on random people so they can expand their surveillance capitalism or is this really just a one off request?

I am very glad that namecheap is pushing back on requests like this.

</comment><comment><USER8> More self-serving excuses on behalf of a Namecheap, a company that provides bullet-proof domain registration and hosting for every manner of criminal gang imaginable, from illegal drug sales to phishing to malware hosting, and who hide behind the American constitution when confronted with their criminality. The sooner Namecheap are sued into a smoking crater and every one of their executives is behind bars the better.

<comment><USER9> Huh. I use them and are in none of those categories. You sound kinda mad.

<comment><USER8> Just a couple of things:

1\. Namecheap are the top domain registrar for botnet C&C servers, and have been for years [1]. At one point they were over 65% of all botnet domains. They didn't get and hold that position by being responsive to complaints.

2\. The US Justice Department had to sue Namecheap in March over a scam outfit called coronavirusmedicalkit.com [2]. Namecheap happily supplied service to this blatantly criminal fraud.

3\. Namecheap have a reputation for ignoring complaints about spammers on their site. [3][4] In my own case, when I reported drug-dealing spammers to them they gave my email address to the spammers in a bid to intimidate me into silence.

As for your apparent interpretation of my remarks as saying that everyone hosting with Namecheap must be a criminal, that is so ludicrous a leap as to merit no further attention.

[1] [https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/798/spamhaus-botnet- th...](https://www.spamhaus.org/news/article/798/spamhaus-botnet-threat- update-q1-2020) [2] [https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files- its-...](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-its-first- enforcement-action-against-covid-19-fraud) (See PDF attachments for name of defendant) [3] [https://smartypants.com/index.php/news/article/update-on- spa...](https://smartypants.com/index.php/news/article/update-on-spam-support- websites-hosted-by-namecheap.com) [4] [http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200312-namecheap-eff-and- the...](http://www.circleid.com/posts/20200312-namecheap-eff-and-the- dangerous-internet-wild-west/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm trying my best to understand what is zuck building. But I can't do far. A global surveillance machine will serve what purpose, and how does he benefit from it? The guy has everything bar being liked.

<comment><USER7> To sell people better targeted ads and make more money.</comment></comment>


Given a Shovel, Americans Dig Deeper Into Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/business/20debt.html?em&ex=1216699200&en=860e3a210d31bb13&ei=5087%0A <comment><USER2> It's OK. The shovel I bought was a deal. I got no money down and no payments for 12 months.

</comment><comment><USER3> And now these articles are starting to come thick and fast.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is the lady portrayed in this article supposed to be the average American or an extreme case of cluelessness? I don't know anybody who is in such a hole (or at least admits to).

<comment><USER5> I have.

They are the same people who read _The Secret (power of wishful thinking)_ (<http://www.thesecret.tv/>), believe in astrology and faith healing, but don't believe in the moon landing. They are out there, and there are more of them than you think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 27.7% interest rates. Holy shit :-)

But that's america I guess. The richer get richer by exploiting the poor. There should be laws on the maximal interest rate!

<comment><USER7> Not true at all; wealth is not zero sum.

Additionally, there should never be caps on interest rate as long as the lenders are _forward_ about their effective rates. High risk people should always have to pay higher rates, otherwise no one would lend to them in the long-term.</comment></comment>


Tax hike on California millionaires would create 54% tax rate - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/30/tax-hike-on-california-millionaires-would-create-54percent-tax-rate.html <comment><USER2> As always, tax rate is applied to dollars earned, above thresholds. In this case, any dollar earned in California over $5 million a year, would be effectively taxed at 54 cents on the dollar - thanks to combined state and federal tax rates</comment>


A tool to execute docker containers in systems without root privileges - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/indigo-dc/udocker <comment><USER2> Why isn't this the way docker works?</comment>


What A Startup Founder Should Be Able To Do [infographic] - <AUTHOR> http://www.attendly.com/what-a-startup-founder-should-be-able-to-do-an-infographic/?fb_ref=.T9rEhmUqkZA.like&fb_source=home_oneline <comment><USER2> I stopped reading at "set up an EC2 instance". That is in no way a requirement for a startup founder by any stretch of the imagination.</comment>


'I was paid £27 for the saxophone performance on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker St." - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/8241031/I-was-paid-27-for-Baker-Street-sax-solo.html <comment><USER2> The rules around who gets copyright and royalties is a bit abitrary in many fields, so I have some sympathy, on the other hand I like the quote from famous session guitarist Tommy Tedesco on this topic (can't locate the quote so paraphrasing from memory):

"I never gave my fee back if the song flopped either"

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a human sentiment, carried over from the plains of Africa, that compensation should be decided by percentage (a fair share) and not by a fixed amount. It's been the cause of bad feelings ever since.

</comment><comment><USER4> So what?

I got paid $0.05 per paper I delivered as a child... and the newspaper company charged $10,000.00 for a full page advertisement... I'm not complaining.

Business is never fair. It's competitive.

<comment><USER5> That's not the same, takes years and talent to play a saxophone.

I'd definitely pay him better if he was featured in one of my tracks and I kept getting that sort of royalties a year.

It's all a matter of respect for the art and not simply handing pizza flyers, as some people may think.

He also said that the cheque bounce anyway, so he wasn't paid, plus "If I had received pots of money, I wouldn't have known what to do. It might have destroyed me."

To complete, he played a tribute to the guy who died.

Hopefully you'll hand some flyers out when your ex boss dies too right.

<comment><USER2> Though in context, since Rafferty is one of the prototypical rich ex-rock star, burnt out, alcoholic recluses, that may well be interpreted as a pointed insult. Similarly calling your tribute to a dead person "forgiveness" is a bit ambivalent.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask News.YC: Proposed experiment to test "The PG bias" - <AUTHOR>

It has been frequently commented by people outside the news.yc community that news.yc is too pandering to PG. To test this, I propose the following experiment which requires PG's co-operation. I propose that PG also post comments / submissions etc under some other username and then compare the average upmods for posts under the "pg" username vs the random anonymous username. This can be started at an unspecified time in the future and run for lets say 1 month. Only PG will know what username he is using other than pg.
I also propose the same for nickb and other prominent users. It may turn out that people upmod stuff from more recognizable names when they might have left it at neutral if some other user had submitted the same content.
Well actually it may already be the case that they are  posting under multiple names.
Might be an interesting social experiment.
edit : Or is it already underway? nickb is pg :P? <comment><USER2> I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet. If you are going to do this experiment, it needs to be _double-blind_. Meaning PG cannot know which username his post is going to show up under until after he has written it. Same goes for all the comments he writes (if you're going to measure those too).

If PG knows before hand what name his content is going to show up under there is a high likelihood of a bias on his part which he would be _unable_ to ignore even if he consciously tried. This is standard psych experiment stuff.

<comment><USER3> This is easy to protect against. Just obscure pg's real name from a portion of the YC userbase.

This is really an extremely easy test to get right if we think for a minute.

<comment><USER2> That's a great idea. I think it would probably work, but I can think of one potential case where it would introduce some complications.

If user1 sees 'pg' as the submitter and user2 sees 'blah' user1 might comment something which gives away that it is actually pg to user2. Now user2 might realize this and act on their pg bias.

Can you think of a way to prevent this?

<comment><USER4> Way:

group1 that contains user1 should be isolated from group2 that contains user2. They can't see each other's replies.

But I wouldn't want such things to happen here except on Apr 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"... Only PG will know what username he is using other than pg. ..."_

Unfortunately I suspect more than a few will recognise his fist. Just like old school morse signallers can recognise individuals by listening. I'm pretty sure individual writing styles are recognisable.

My idea would be to make user names invisible on submissions to individuals, until after you vote. Only then revealing who they are to the person who votes.

</comment><comment><USER6> An idea I just thought of would be to keep the poster anonymous until the post achieves a certain rating - after that show who the poster is.

If there actually is favoritism this might solve that issue somewhat and yet give people credit where it's due.

<comment><USER7> yes, but sometimes the reputation is valuable. Given a poster's prior probability of intelligent comments, you have more information on which to vote.

<comment><USER8> You also allow him to relax his quality while enjoying his automatic points. Plus group-think lock-in for free.

I can only reducing this making the overall quality here improve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Persistent identity is an important building block in community formation. Clay Shirky goes into some detail on this in "A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy" <http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html>

"If you were going to build a piece of social software to support large and long-lived groups, what would you design for? The first thing you would design for is handles the user can invest in. [...] It's pretty widely understood that anonymity doesn't work well in group settings, because "who said what when" is the minimum requirement for having a conversation. What's less well understood is that weak pseudonymity doesn't work well, either. Because I need to associate who's saying something to me now with previous conversations. The world's best reputation management system is right here, in the brain.[...] If you want a good reputation system, just let me remember who you are."

I am not sure what the problem is that you are trying to solve, but full anonymity will undoubtedly cause the HN community much more headache than whatever you believe is afflicting is now. Whether there is a "PG bias" or not, he is accountable for his words because they are associated in a persistent fashion with his login.

One final point, I don't know about a pg bias, but I certainly have a positive nickb bias, because he has submitted so many good articles, I will normally follow whatever he posts even if I am not thrilled about the title. Doesn't mean I vote him up no matter what, but making the submissions anonymous would remove an important signal/attribute.

<comment><USER2> I think you raise an interesting point. There are actually TWO problems here. One is that there is possibly a bias based on the content submitter/creator.

But the other is that, people who are followed will naturally get more votes, just because they get more views. Is that a bad thing? I dunno. But what if it got to a point where there were enough different people being followed that the only way onto the first page is by being one of them. That kindof sounds like a problem too.

<comment><USER10> I understand that some of Digg's changes relate to this second concern. Their issues (I'll admit to limited understanding, so feel free to correct me somebody) relate to their rating algorithm being linked to how 'popular' a contributer is. This naturally weights power users more and pushes their contributions to the front, where they get more views, more votes, and therefore more power.

My (similarly limited) understanding of the HN ranking system is that it's more a factor of time and votes - ie, the question of who contributed is not relevant to the ranking system, only to all of us users who decide which articles to read and vote on, which brings us back to the original question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Might be an interesting social experiment."

It's not an interesting experiment unless you learn something from it. There's virtually nothing that can be learned from this.

Plus, I like being able to follow the comments of pg and others on their threads page.

<comment><USER12> Being able to follow pg on his threads page is part of the bias too. He gets more votes because his comments get read by more people.

<comment><USER2> This is true. But the experiment could take this into account. It could only count the votes which occur directly from the main page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just because people upmod more recognizable names, it doesn't mean they are pandering.

For example, I will be more likely to read a comment if it was written by any user that I recognize. If I'm more likely to read a comment I'm more likely to upvote it as well.

<comment><USER8> But voting like this is screwing up the entire merit system we have here and enforcing group-think.

It's like movie stars getting elected to political office just because they are more recognizable...

<comment><USER14> No, it's like movie stars being paid more based on past performance. People go with brand names and things they recognize whether it's clothes, fast food, detergent or people. Always have and always will.

<comment><USER8> ...which is detrimental. They won't if we don't let them.

<comment><USER14> Actually, most the time it's not detrimental. As the post above mentions, it's a very useful heuristic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here are the users with the top median comment scores:

      ("pg" 4)
      ("theoneill" 3)
      ("mechanical_fish" 3)
      ("garbowza" 3)
      ("kkim" 3)
      ("paul" 3)
      ("cperciva" 3)

If there is a difference, it's not huge.

<comment><USER3> You fail at statistical analysis.

<comment><USER16> If you think average would be a better measure than median, say why. You might possibly be right, but given PG's track record re. Bayesian filtering, "You fail at statistical analysis" just doesn't seem like the right response. It also sounds like attacking the person rather than the statement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When browsing through <http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg> I notice that his comments won't make sense without knowing that it is pg who is making them.

Most are clarifications as Hacker News Maintainer and Furry Investor. (or Furry Capitalist?)

Knee jerk vote-ups I am guilty of are for: edw519, mixmax, rms, pg and nostrademons. But I'm very sure I'd have voted those comments up even if I didn't know the commenter's id. ID gives more context... it is like I hear it in a particular voice.

<comment><USER17> +1, knee-jerk vote-up. :)

No, actually it's the phrase "it's like I hear it in a particular voice". Precisely correct. Sites like this one aren't collections of anonymous robots talking to other anonymous robots.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, lets forget careful thinking and just support whoever had a good record previously regardless of what they say today.

<comment><USER4> The experience of reading a comment knowing the commenter's id makes up (a little bit at least) for the lack of face2face. For example, based on a previous discussion, I know that mixmax had sex with a porn star :) When I read his comments now, my brain does some signal processing magic using this. Please note that I don't give him a +1 coz of this history. But this knowledge puts warmth in an otherwise cold place (cold = place filled with strangers).

<comment><USER18> I should never have written that - how can anyone here take me seriously now?

:-)

<comment><USER4> :-) IMO your words carry more weight because of it... (more knowledge, experience etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not entirely sure what problem you're trying to solve. Are you trying to "fix" the impression that PG-pandering is present so more outsiders make their way into the community?

I don't particularly care if PG gets tons of karma. I love the submissions, comments and community here.

I think it's best to just let it be exactly the way it is, even if there's some pandering.

</comment><comment><USER8> It could be made so that a nickname is automatically selected per-page. This way threads he comments in could be followed. A small pool of 5 or so names could be reused so that he couldn't be exposed by finding the user that has just been created.

Example implementation:

         unames=['bob1','bob2','pg']
         lu=len(unames)
         secret_seed=309580435

         from binascii import crc32
         def hash_eq(number):
             return crc32(str(number),secret_seed)

         def get_uname(page_id):
             return unames[hash_eq(page_id)%lu]

A checkbox for manual override could also be added.

<comment><USER20> Why stop there? Why not have a week where _everyone's_ user id is displayed as a randomly generated syllables based on the hash of their current user id and the current topic id?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Find a psychologist, or even a psychology major with enough classes under their belt, and they can tell you that there is most certainly a bias towards upvoting those with a familiar name.

I don't recall the name of the principle, but doing some googling around about Robert Cialdini's work should get you all the information you need.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would _hope_ that, if PG and I wrote exactly the same words about (e.g.) Lisp, his post would be upmodded an order of magnitude higher than mine. PG knows what he's talking about as a Lisp programmer, and we all know that. (The published books, the reputation, the history with Yahoo Store, and the existence of this site are big, big clues.) I don't know much about Lisp beyond SICP, and if I claimed I did you would have no way of knowing whether or not I'm telling the truth.

Context, in the form of background information about the author, makes a post more valuable. That's a no-brainer.

<comment><USER22> That's an argument from authority, plain and simple. Whether or not you know anything about lisp, your comments about it should be judged on their merits alone. If you truly don't know what you're talking about, it should be apparent to those who do know what they're talking about.

A master and a novice might sometimes come to the same conclusions, but seldom because they followed the same thought process. And I sure hope you aren't upmodding posts that don't share any of the thought process behind what they're saying, the reasons why they conclude what they conclude.

Knowing context might make a post more valuable, in the sense that you understand better how it fits into the wider world, but it won't generally make the content any smarter, more valuable, or more correct.

<comment><USER17> _That's an argument from authority, plain and simple._

Have you ever wondered why, thousands of years after the ancient Greek experts on rhetoric noted the existence of the "argument from authority" fallacy, we're still awash in authorities? Are we all hopelessly stupid, that we cannot learn to avoid this mistake?

Perhaps. But another problem is that argument from authority is almost never "plain and simple". There's no bright shining line between an argument from authority and an argument based on an overwhelming accumulation of evidence. At some point it comes down to a judgement call.

Suppose a mythical person named Graeme Paul (let's call him "GP" for short) arrived here on news.YC and submitted a one-sentence essay: "Most of the smart programmers that I've met would rather work in Lisp than in Java." My reaction to this would be straightforward: GP is a troll. A very boring troll.

Now let's suppose that GP's post is a bit longer: It begins with his autobiography, in which he talks about his young days as a programmer, and his first encounter with Lisp, and describes the various things he has built in both Lisp and Java. He then gives a detailed, prioritized breakdown of the design of the Java language, comparing Java's features with analogous features in two or three different varieties of Lisp. During this discussion, it becomes clear that GP understands the technical compromises, that he's seen the insides of many real-world Lisp and Java projects, and that he's a gifted explainer. Finally, GP wraps up by summarizing his personal discussions with the designers of Scheme, Java, Ruby, and C.

GP is no longer a troll. He's now making a serious and detailed argument, with many facets, that goes on for pages and pages. He may still be wrong -- history is replete with examples of obsessed experts who were wrong -- but he's got a much better argument.

Now let's suppose that, instead of typing all that information in one monolithic 193-page post, GP spread it out over several hundred blog posts and news.YC comments, posted over several years. At the end of that time, he comes along with a one-sentence post in some language-war thread: "Most of the smart programmers that I've met would rather work in Lisp than in Java."

Because this single sentence is a summary of a long-standing, well-established series of arguments from GP, I might (in the right context) mod it up. Then, no doubt, I would be accused of "not judging this sentence on its merits alone".

The puzzle question here is: Since GP's huge body of published work arguably establishes him as "an authority", is my deference to GP an "argument from authority"? Well, if I've never read any of GP's work but I upmod him anyway because he's famous, the answer is "yes". If I've read GP's earlier work and know that it backs up his latest claim, the answer is "no". Can you, gentle reader, tell the difference between these two cases? Not unless you know _my_ reputation, and/or ask _me_ to provide up to a dozen pages of rationale and clarification.

And there's a huge grey area: If I've read GP's writings on Lisp, and he comes out with a statement about (e.g.) Ruby, how shall I value his expertise when weighing the credibility of his latest statement? It's a judgement call.

<comment><USER22> _Are we all hopelessly stupid, that we cannot learn to avoid this mistake?_

Many of us are, though I wouldn't say it is necessarily only stupid people who do it.

I consider it a good principle that the words in a reply in forums like this stand by themselves. If you or pg or anyone else wants to say something about lisp, you got to back it up. If you have already backed it up in "several hundred blog posts and news.YC comments, posted over several years", it should be easy for you to reference some of this material in support of your views.

You saying that the exact same argument, presented word-for-word the same, is not worth as much as the same thing when it comes out of an authority's keyboard, is an appeal to authority. However, if this other person has already defended this view, all he has to do is reference it to make the post worth more. But then the posts aren't word-for-word identical. Then one contains a reference to a justification and one doesn't.

Your example involves a question of how much to trust a person. This is one of the cases where it matters who's making the comment. It's a straightforward question of whether you want to trust that the person who says "Most of the smart programmers that I've met would rather work in Lisp than in Java" is speaking the truth or not, and it's clear that a habitual liar isn't as trustworthy as someone known for their honesty. It's not even an argument, it's just a truth claim.

However, the moment it becomes an argument (e.g., "lisp is better than java"), trusting it on authority becomes a fallacy. If Paul Graham wrote, "Lisp rocks", his comment is not worth any more than your comment if you wrote the same. But if he wrote, "Lisp rocks, for reasons I have detailed in this essay here: <...>", it would be worth more. But then it would no longer be "exactly the same words".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hey, who the hell cares? I come here because of good articles and intelligent community, that's all that interests me.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anonymity defeat the purpose of social bookmarking (and social networking in general)?

I agree that it would be an interesting social experiment, though I'm not concerned if people are pandering to pg, nickb, or anyone else.

<comment><USER24> Submissions could be made anonymous for a few hours. I think you would get more interesting items on the front page.

<comment><USER10> I agree - look past who posted something and judge it on merit.

If the pandering is a problem, you'll still get some of the same sites being voted up (paulgraham.com, techcrunch etc), but some other more interesting ones might break through.

Still, I would hope most of us look past those things anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Even if you implement this experiment, I bet there will still be an inherent bias for PG-related material, most notably his essays.

I really don't have a problem with it... that's what this community is all about. Hacker News is PGs world, and if you don't like it, then go somewhere else.

<comment><USER15> _Hacker News is PGs world, and if you don't like it, then go somewhere else._

I don't think this is true. I certainly don't want it to be true.

<comment><USER3> Wishing and ignoring amounts to nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I admit I am guilty of this. Often I realize it after I clicked vote up, but alas, by then it is too late.

<comment><USER27> Yes, the ability to undo a vote would be useful. Shouldn't be that hard to implement, either, given that the site already keeps track of who has upvoted what.

I have also noticed that pg's comments have unusually high ratings, whether or not the actual content was unusually good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > It may turn out that people upmod stuff from more recognizable names when > they might have left it at neutral if some other user had submitted the same > content.

I think when it comes to social interaction, the ability to build relationships of trust is a feature, not a bug.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think the PG bias was proven when a picture of "asterisk man" made it to the top of _Hacker_ News...

</comment><comment><USER30> Easiest way to test this would give the class 'user' to links to users. Folks could tweak their browser's CSS with a.user { display: none; } real easy.

</comment><comment><USER24> Also interesting would be to see whether users who have had an application rejected/accepted vote up pg as much as people who have not applied yet.

</comment><comment><USER31> Ok, guys. isn't it working as intended? People build a reputation over time and are judged according to it. It's nothing untoward or unexpected.

</comment><comment><USER32> It would be a good idea to quickly delete this and email pg directly about it, so few people are aware of the experiment.

<comment><USER33> Ah, I thought security by obscurity was out of fashion by now. I'm admittedly out of touch with the "real" world.

<comment><USER32> I thought good experimental design involved not telling people what you're testing if they have any means of altering the test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Posts & discussions like this make me cringe a lot worse than actual praise of pg.

</comment><comment><USER35> all the accounts here are bots. Theres like 3-4 real people total. ;)</comment>


Trouble Makerv2: overload/kill services to test stability on-demand - <AUTHOR> https://keyholelabs.com/2017/02/22/troublemakerv200-released/ <comment><AUTHOR> Note: Trouble Maker is a platform-agnostic tool that randomly takes down services to test stability. It also provides an ad hoc console to produce common troublesome issues in your platform so you can test durability on- demand.

Trouble Maker v2.0.0 introduces a new UI and specific performance improvements implemented with Spring Boot and Java Websockets. The new user interface was built from the ground up using Angular 2.</comment>