Programming in 2018 - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to get into Web development. I've learned somethings about PHP and Javascript just never really made anything.
Read a bunch of books and online courses. What does one need to learn in 2018 to become employable as a Web developer? any advice would be useful. Thank you
I'm thinking starting with HTML, CSS first but there is so many new things in the Web is hard to know what to study or order to do it in. Everything is always changing <comment><USER2> I think that HTML, CSS and JavaScript (ES6) could be considered to be the foundations upon which the various other technologies are built. I think it is important to understand the boundaries between these areas and how they interact.

In my experience you will probably need to understand the trade-offs between using JS or CSS3 for certain effects. Another key understanding is to really understand the boundary between JS and DOM. JS (as an implementation of ECMAScript) treats DOM as a collection of external objects. And of course, those DOM objects do have variations between browsers and their interactions with CSS.

I think it helps to understand JS as a programming language, e.g. in a NodeJS or Duktape environment.

IMHO PHP is less relevant in a 2018 context. There are many frameworks out there (I'm no expert on them) which provide far more useful abstractions for building WebApps, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.freecodecamp.org/](https://www.freecodecamp.org/)</comment>


Ubuntu 10.10 – What's New? [Screenshots] - <AUTHOR> http://digitizor.com/2010/10/10/ubuntu-10-10-whats-new-screenshots/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or is this release treading water? There doesn't seem to be anything beyond minor UI improvements and a few features scattered here and there.

<comment><USER3> Not really - they blog post specifically said they would only look at the visible changes, so there aren't going to be that many changes.

And the concept of paid apps are pretty damn nice, seeing as this a great way for canonical to make money and might make money for a few developers too.

<comment><USER4> > And the concept of paid apps are pretty damn nice...

I've got nothing against paid applications, but I'm rabidly against non libre applications. So this is definitely not good as is.

<comment><USER3> Ubuntu has a lot of stuff that isn't free: unrar, java, flash, etc.

You are free not to use it, but personally it doesn't bother me too much, as long as the data formats are open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The installation process looks slightly different, and there are some changes to the software centre, now with a proprietary section. It will be interesting to see what happens with the proprietary stuff.</comment>


This American Life retracts their Apple/China story - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

<comment><USER2> _I pressed Cathy to confirm other key details that Daisey reported. Did the guards have guns when you came here with Mike Daisey? With each question I got the same answer from Lee. "No," or "This is not true."

Daisey claims he met underage workers at Foxconn. He says he talked to a man whose hand was twisted into a claw from making iPads. He describes visiting factory dorm rooms with beds stacked to the ceiling. But Cathy says none of this happened._

I must say that while listening to the story some things seemed a little exaggerated, and the his whole style didn't seem very objective. But I didn't suspect that he made things up from whole cloth.

</comment><comment><USER3> Site is unresponsive... This is the whole of the retraction text:

"Regrettably, we have discovered that one of our most popular episodes was partially fabricated. This week, we devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,[1]" Mike Daisey's story about visiting Foxconn, an Apple supplier factory in China. Rob Schmitz[2], a reporter for Marketplace, raises doubts on much of Daisey's story."

[1] [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/454/m...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory) [2] <http://www.marketplace.org/people/rob-schmitz>

<comment><USER4> [http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed- ap...](http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-apple-critic- made-details)

...decent text details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who has worked in manufacturing in China and the US, the safety standards across China are extremely variable. The closer you get to the coast, the more Western standards are applied. My understanding is that Foxconn and other similar caliber manufacturers in Shenzhen exceed standards of many American manufacturing facilities.</comment>


Looking for Beta Tester - <AUTHOR> https://foodio.network/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, need help BETA TESTING v1 my solution and recommendations. All kinds of support are welcome.

<comment><AUTHOR> www.foodio.network is the url</comment></comment>


Lean hiring tips - <AUTHOR> http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/01/lean-hiring-tips.html#comments

<comment><USER2> why the #link directly to the comments? I don't care much for scrolling</comment>


F8 Preview: How Facebook Plans to Take Over the Web - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/04/20/facebook-takes-over-the-web/ <comment><USER2> They're gonna take over the web with a toolbar and checkins? Nope.

Compare to Google's web browser, phone platform (Android and Google Voice), operating systems, web platform (App Engine), app marketplaces and fiber.

I like Facebook and depend on it. They will happily be a top destination on the web for a long time to come if they keep doing what they are doing: run a pleasant, useful and fun website for keeping in touch with people.

But Facebook is a web app, Google is a technology empire. There's no comparison right now. Twitter and Yelp should be scared, but not Google.

<comment><USER3> google should most definitely be scared. they make something like 90% of their profit from advertising - advertising based on your search query or the context of the page you're reading. facebook's ad platform has the potential to destory them, given they know your so much more about you, your friends, interests etc.

is it hard for facebook to launch a search engine, with rankings tweaked via the social graph? not really.

is it hard for google to catch up with fb's graph? yes very, but they're trying.

<comment><USER4> The difference is the last mile. Google's ads target someone looking for something (which is much more likely to result in a sale) whereas facebook's ads target someone looking to check out his friend's pics from last night's party or the profile of a girl he met recently.

Vastly different contexts.

Maybe, in the future, facebook will be able to change this, but it's doubtful. At least not on the facebook.com property. There's a very good reason why social network CPMs are consistently the lowest in the entire industry.

<comment><USER5> > There's a very good reason why social network CPMs are consistently the > lowest in the entire industry.

That's the whole point of the article in my view - Facebook is looking for ways to increase that CPM. If they can do that then they would stand a chance of 'taking over the web'. Yes they probably would have find a way to 'target someone looking for something'. I would estimate that the average user of Facebook is more naive and influence-able in their purchasing than the average Google user which could be a useful advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dear everyone, please move to the next freebie online platform and kill facebook so that their plans to use you fail. Please repeat once every 5 years.

This is good enough to keep our privacy for now.

<comment><USER7> Keep dreaming. Facebook is here to stay.

I mean, even my _mom_ uses it for god's sake.

<comment><USER8> I think that's part of the problem, though. Once your parents, coworkers, and old acquaintances have littered your friends list it is no longer a fun experience. To me Facebook just feels like such a chore.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. Facebook has already become a giant contact list for me, I don't feel like I can "be myself" there b/c of the varied audience (from kid cousins to random ex-coworkers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "To those who view it as the 21st century version of the online ghetto called AOL"

That's really the question. Is Facebook poised to be the 21st century AOL, or something as fresh and new (and useful) as Google was when it first appeared? This will be an interesting set of developments, especially if discerning users of Facebook can mostly free-ride while doofus users do most of the monetizing for the company.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Daddy, where were you when privacy died?" "I was on hacker news commenting through facebook connect."

On the one hand, I don't have to use facebook. On the other hand, I worry about the immense asymmetry of information that facebook has about me even if I don't join. If I'm a hole in the social graph (because all my friends use it regularly to post pictures, etc. of me), it doesn't take much effort for them to fill in the data on me.

<comment><USER12> It would take a hell of a heuristic for facebook to fill in holes in the social graph. Without some very intelligent fuzzy name matching, facial recognition, and textual analysis of your friend's profiles and walls (if you ever are mentioned), not having a profile ID basically means they have nothing on you that can be extracted in an automated fashion.

A human investigator, however, would be intelligent enough to build a profile on you from your friends' submitted information, so there still is some cause for concern. But at least you are safe from datamining.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I will be greatly annoyed if Facebook becomes the default login on other websites.

<comment><USER14> Funnily enough, I don't mind logging in with my Twitter credentials, but Facebook? That's a no-go.

<comment><USER15> why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I submitted this 2 hours ago but without the trailing slash; HN considers those unique URLs?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1280902>

<comment><AUTHOR> That is strange...sorry for the duplicate submission, you were first on it indeed :) From the gigaom.com homepage the article link had the trailing slash and it went through as a unique URL.

<comment><USER16> No worries, I was just confused :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A facebook toolbar at the bottom of webpages?

Just a quick reminder: [http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2040/1924189728_668c4bc4e2.jp...](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2040/1924189728_668c4bc4e2.jpg)

<comment><USER18> Those are all at the top, so this shouldn't be a problem ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Facebook check-ins mean one thing to me:

The next version of Facebook for iPhone will pop up a "Facebook would like to use your current location" every time I open it, to which I will select "Don't Allow" each time, at last encouraging me to stop using the app and thus stop using Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm still kind of wondering how Facebook continues to thrive, after time and time again showing the Internet it does not do so well with customer service (in more direct terms: has a very hard time listening to its users).

I'm sad to admit the only reason I haven't deleted mine a long time ago is that a good 80% of my friends are completely lost without it, even though they have working email addresses and phone numbers.

<comment><USER21> s lot of people play the games on facebook. did you see the recent article about 7.4 million people on farmville?

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure the number is closer to 80 million. Yes, you can climb back into your chair now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here's the thing...I don't trust Facebook to have this much power on my web. They simply haven't consistently shown themselves to be trustworthy when protecting their users conflicts with making money. It would only take one such incident to make me hesitant; and there has been more than one such incident.

</comment><comment><USER24> I always wonder if people really paranoid about online privacy apply the same fears to their offline lives. That could include always using cash to avoid being tracked by retailers, wearing hats/sunglasses to make yourself harder to identify, making sure no one is looking at you when you go shopping so they can't make a judgement over what you might buy, using fake names whenever possible, wearing gloves to avoid possible finger print traces of your presence, keeping a safe distance from your friends & family in public to avoid any possible observers from noticing you are socially connected. I kind of doubt it. Not sure what to make of that.

</comment><comment><USER25> Facebook has good chances of taking over the social web for the same reason Microsoft took over the desktop 15 years ago: they target the non-technical majority of the population. Techies usually demand more transparency, flexibility, quality and minimalism, while non-techies, paradoxically, generally fall for interfaces with lesser degrees of freedom, which makes them more comfortable with it. Less freedom translates to "ease of use" for non- techies.

This is why Facebook somewhat intuitively reminds Windows and will most likely share its faith - not exactly dominance, but pretty close to it.

</comment><comment><USER26> So that explains the timing of that xauth announcement from google.

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting to see Facebook has reached that stage in every big tech company's lifecycle where they waste a lot of resources on Things That Obviously Won't Work.</comment>


How Do I Cassandra? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/rbranson/how-do-i-cassandra

<comment><USER2> Attended Rick's presentation last night. It was _so_ choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend taking one in.

The md5 hashing to shards around a keyspace ring and the read/write quora were particularly interesting. Definitely going to be browsing the Reddit source (<https://github.com/reddit/reddit>) for ideas on how to use Cassandra.

<comment><USER3> You should read the Dynamo paper: [http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.h...](http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.html)

The ring is first explained in Section 4.2 Partitioning Algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI -- the presentation says "temporal data" is a bad use case for Cassandra, but that's a misuse of the word temporal. "Ephemeral data" is a better way to say that.

</comment><comment><USER5> << META COMMENT >>

I'm always surprised when someone's raw slide decks, for an interesting presentation make it to the front page of HN. I get so little from just an 85 slide deck, especially decks with a slide like

DATA MODEL

I gotcha column family ratttt heeeeyyyaahhh!

<comment><USER4> Yup. Slides are best used as an illustrative tool.

<comment><USER6> I got a lot out of your slides. Sometimes it can be difficult to discern the point of the slide without audio, but I felt that your slides communicated the point pretty well. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does Consistency in Cassandra require client clocks to be in perfect sync?

Y u no vector clocks?

<comment><USER4> Timestamps were chosen over vector clocks intentionally.

"...the primary use case for classic vector clocks of merging non-conflicting updates to different fields w/in a value is already handled by cassandra breaking a row into columns."

See <https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-580>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Finally, I get it! This go around, the ideas of ColumnFamilies stuck. Thanks for the slides. Any chance the video is available to go along with it?

</comment><comment><USER9> Is there an audio or video archive of this presentation available on the web perchance?

<comment><USER10> No. Unfortunately audio/video recording equipment seems to be sparse in the Memphis user group communities. As far as I know we only have one group that does it regularly. <http://www.justin.tv/launchmemphis>

If anyone has a good, cheap solution for recording/streaming user group presentations, please share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm used to attending and giving presentations that are a bit outlandish, but this is gimmicky enough that I started losing track of actually learning anything out of this.

I'm sure it's better in-person or with a recording though.

<comment><USER12> I was at the talk, and it was very good in person... I really wish we'd recorded it :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How does the ring range work with nodes going down and new nodes being introduced into the cluster. As per slide 38, it appears to be a static range.

<comment><USER4> The ranges are assigned by a per-node token. With 4 nodes like the cluster shown in the slides, you'd space the tokens apart appropriately for 25% of the range on each node.

When you add a node, you need to decide if you want to rebalance the cluster by moving every node's token a bit so that every node's range consumes 20% of the keyspace, or if you just want to quickly alleviate load by splitting a single node's traffic in half by assigning the new node's token half way into an existing node's range.

Decommissioning a node works the same way, but in reverse.

More detailed info: [http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.0/operations/cluster_manageme...](http://www.datastax.com/docs/1.0/operations/cluster_management#adding- capacity-to-an-existing-cluster)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Y U NO SPEAKERDECK?

Seriously, it's a much more pleasant slide-consuming experience for your great slides.

</comment><comment><USER15> You don't, if you're smart.

[http://chip.typepad.com/weblog/2011/08/why-cassandra-is- unfi...](http://chip.typepad.com/weblog/2011/08/why-cassandra-is-unfit-for- production.html)

<comment><USER4> That's a 24-hour-news-network-pundit grade straw man he's created there. The replication strategy used by Cassandra is sourced from the Amazon Dynamo design (shared with Riak and Voldemort) and is intentional. It's not a bug; it's the way it's supposed to operate. There are many large scale distributed systems built on this replication strategy that have excellent durability track records -- Amazon S3 is one of them.

The back pressure argument is laughable. In Cassandra, a write consistency of greater than ONE will ensure the data is replicated to more than one node before acknowledging to the client.

<comment><USER15> You use argument from authority ("It's based on Dynamo, which is made by Amazon, so you know it's good!") while accusing me of a strawman for reporting my own personal experiences.

Good thing there is no god, or you should have to watch out for lightning.

<comment><USER4> Actually, this is empirical evidence of the validity of this approach gained through observation of successful, real-world implementations. I'm not saying it's good purely because it's from Amazon or because any one person said it was good, but that there are many successful large-scale systems built using these principles that do not suffer the durability issues from your hypothesis.

While not proof in the scientific sense, this type of evidence is used as a basis for scientific theories that explain much of what we know about the world.

However, I still look forward to your detailed, rigorous rebuttal of my arguments in the previous comment.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: NoMoreSurge – automatically avoid Uber surge - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.habosa.nomoresurge

<comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. This is my first project with the Uber API, which is really nice to use. This is all in a WebView so iOS is coming soon as well. Would love feedback on any part!</comment>


8 Traits of Successful Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/253166/8_traits_of_successful_entrepreneurs.html Do You Have What it Takes to Go into Business for Yourself? <comment><USER2> Was immediately put off by the awful design of the website. Why does someone put irrelevant links on the left half of a web page forcing a visitor to scroll to the right? Very annoying.

The reason why PG's essays rock is not just that they are insightful but also that the content is well placed to the left of the page with minimal and unobtrusive links on the left border.

The title of this article should read "How not to design a website"</comment>


Voyager's Golden Record for Aliens Now Available on SoundCloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com/now-you-can-listen-voyager-golden-records-soundcloud <comment><USER2> Direct soundcloud link: [https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record- sounds-of](https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-sounds-of)

I'm shocked at the extremely low fidelity. It sounds almost like 8 bit crush on top of POTS bandwidth filters. Some had nearly as much noise as signal to my ears -- I never noticed any laughter in #17 _Footsteps, Heartbeat, Laughter_. Any footsteps were indistinguishable from heartbeats.

<comment><USER3> That link is 'Sounds of Earth', there's also 'Greetings to the Universe': [https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-greetings- to-...](https://soundcloud.com/nasa/sets/golden-record-greetings-to-the)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I sometimes think (maybe hope) that the purpose of sending Voyager into deep space is to, some day, give someone an excuse to make a quick detour to pick it up and bring it home.

<comment><USER5> Imagine that it becomes a museum some day. Fly out there and look at it, undisturbed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shame this doesn't have the 90-some minutes of music that the original record had on it.

Fun fact: Carl Sagan was in charge of the committee that selected these sounds.

<comment> TD-Linux When aliens eventually stumble on the probe, the music will probably still be copyrighted.

<comment><USER7> Then we'll have a good excuse to destroy them all for copyright infringement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish we lived in a world as optimistic as that world back then :(

<comment><USER9> Well contrast that with Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner's $100m initiative to search for alien life[1], and I'd say that we're still pretty optimistic about that. We're basically searching for aliens who would've had the same idea as we had with Voyager :) almost naive now that I think of it...

[1] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-hawking-russian- billiona...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-hawking-russian-billionaire- yuri-milner-search-alien-outer-space/)

<comment><USER10> Well, more precisely, aliens who are transmitting something akin to the Arecibo message:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message)

Except we only sent ours once in 1974, so aliens who didn't happen to be listening in the right direction right then are out of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I modified the galactic map of the golden record and have an updated version tattooed across my back.

</comment><comment><USER12> the pictures : [http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html) [http://webodysseum.com/art/116-images-of-the-voyager- golden-...](http://webodysseum.com/art/116-images-of-the-voyager-golden- record/) Carl Sagan's girlfriend eating grapes in a supermarket : [http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image077.gif](http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/images/image077.gif)

</comment><comment><USER13> Favorite song on the album: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNj2BXW852g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNj2BXW852g)

</comment><comment><USER14> Correct me if I am wrong, I think these records were publicly available before because I distinctly remember hearing a few of the greetings.

<comment><AUTHOR> They were, but not assembled in one place.

<comment><USER14> Precisely. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We really need to recall this thing before it gets us all killed</comment>


New decentralised internet - <AUTHOR> http://maidsafe.net/

<comment><USER2> This is a bad description of what the project is about. I've been working with the Mastercoin people and have met the Maidsafe people at a Hackathon and they're doing some really neat research.

Basically they're creating a service that lets you monitize your unused resources such as unused hard drive space or CPU cycles.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has been tried before and it'll be tried again; I can't see it happening anytime soon on a large enough scale for it to become popular among a large amount of users.</comment>


The State of HTML5 Development in the Enterprise - <AUTHOR> http://www.sencha.com/blog/the-state-of-html5-development-in-the-enterprise/

<comment><USER2> Exciting findings confirming that there is an increasing number of mobile developers targeting web apps. Also, in the latest Developer Economics Report, Vision Mobile published for the first time that HTML5 overtook iOS in App Developer mindshare (a regular second position in Europe and North America, with Android on top) in South Asia, South America and Middle East & Africa.

Suggest further reading here: [https://medium.com/p/53e4de6c1630](https://medium.com/p/53e4de6c1630)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is starting to takeover my mind too. My next app will be definitely in html5. There are many good articles and videos explaining how to manipulate the DOM efficiently (which is the main bottleneck of web apps I think). [http://wilsonpage.co.uk/preventing-layout- thrashing/](http://wilsonpage.co.uk/preventing-layout-thrashing/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: When do you code? - <AUTHOR>

I can't seem to get any code written during the day, just too hectic.
My favorite time to code is between about 10pm and 3am when the world is asleep and there are few interuptions.
So, question: When do you code?
Extra Credit: What do you do to give yourself more time to code during other parts of the day? <comment><USER2> I am most productive after feeding my damm cat's. After gorging themselves on diet cat food one falls asleep on my lap, and the other just to the left of my laptop, usually on top of my phone, which is always set to vibrate.

That gives me a few hours of productivity, then when they wake up begging for more food way before dinner so I kick them outside for a couple hours so they realize that life isn't all that easy, and sometimes it's a bit tough, because I'm busting my ass to keep them living what appears to me to be the perfect life. (except for the fact that they have no balls)

</comment><comment><USER3> I code when I feel the groove. I'm one of those people who code until I'm done with what I wanted to achieve or my head spins and I must stop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel this groove: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTBDsGzm1IU>

My gf sent it to me a while back. It's a Swollen Members song called "Deep End" talking about rappers who like to work at night cuz "that's when the tracks come out right..."

Good song...

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I'm coding now I'll enjoy it later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather surprisingly, my most productive time is the 2.5 hours commuting on caltrain everyday. No internet access, nobody around from work or home = no distractions. It's been 4 months at this job, so it's unlikely to just be a honeymoon period (knock on wood)

I feel cheated on the days I accidentally get on an express.

This would be impossible if I was still hacking in C/C++ like a year ago. Then, it would take me 2 hours just to get in the zone. Hacking sessions less than 4 hours were simply useless. Now my unit tests make the zone super-easy to find. It's been the biggest epiphany of 2008.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ever since losing my job (3 months ago), moving back in with my parents, and returning to college to complete my degree, my sleep habits have been dramatically altered and would now describe myself as either a B-person or night owl. I get most of my work done from 10 pm to 4 am while maintaining/establishing freelance contacts from 2 pm to 4 pm.

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting thread. My best hours are late at night, when the world is quiet, and there are no distractions.

But... Recently I discovered that this also works if I rise early, _very_ early. This month, I've been waking up at 3am and accomplishing a LOT, until about 10am, when the outside world comes alive. It's nice because my mind is sharp -- I get to wake up and do something I love. I'm not racing against the urge to fall asleep, like when I code at the end of my day.

The downside is that I go to bed at 6pm every night... But apart from that, I really like this sleep cycle.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, same here. During the day I usually only get small things done, if at all. Only after 10pm, sometimes closer to midnight, I really manage to zero in on a task and work it through. Most of the time I'm either done or get tired at around 4am. Sometimes I'll churn through till 9am without even noticing.

This style of work tends to occassionally push my sleep cycle around in funny ways. After intensive "sprints" it's not uncommon for me to have a week where I wake up at 6pm in the evening. That seems to be my recovery mode then, I don't get anything done in these weeks.

But sometimes, towards the end of such a recovery week, I notice the same thing that you mention. As I slowly adjust my cycle back towards the accepted norm there is often a period where I get up between 2-4am and many of these days have turned out amazingly productive, too.

Sometimes I wish I could just sustain either one of these rhythms (either getting up very early or getting up midday and working late) but for some reason I'm always slipping towards the "recovery state" after a few weeks. I guess that's my body's way of telling me when to stop...

<comment><USER6> That's exactly how I discovered the über-early cycle... I stayed up later and later, one day 8am arrived and I wasn't even slightly tired. I knew I couldn't sustain that sleep cycle (waking at 4pm feels grim) so I pushed my sleep cycle forward, living 26-hour days.

I'm drifting forward (woke up at 7am today), I may be cursed with an inability to sustain a healthy rhythm at one specific time. Not sure yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Github's punch card graph gave me insight on my hours.

<http://github.com/quad/moxie/graphs/punch_card> for example.

<comment><USER9> I must be a workoholic: [http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rVJcTSk8x1mNm6ewL4lImQ?...](http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/rVJcTSk8x1mNm6ewL4lImQ?feat=directlink)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I can isolate myself from distractions, I can code anytime.

<comment><USER11> Well, I think that the whole thread is all about that "if".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Same here. Between 11pm - 4am. I'm not sure why, but I just feel much less distracted at night. Maybe it's the feeling that it's calm everywhere or maybe because daytime at office, with low cubicles, is full of noise and movement. Even with my noise-canceling headphones, I can never escape the feeling of movement and noise around me.

Sometimes, I sneak into an empty conference room when I've to really focus during the day.

<comment><USER13> > Even with my noise-canceling headphones, I can never escape the feeling of > movement and noise around me.

If you are anything like me, the root cause may not be the noise and movement. It may instead be the anticipation that the noise and movement is someone who is about to pull you out of your flow. Even if it doesn't happen that often, the psychological jolt that occurs every time it does is enough to make my mind resist concentrating when potential distractions are around. Noise- canceling headphones do nothing against a tap on the shoulder.

<comment><USER12> Ya, I think that's what I fear as well. I get into a sort of tunnel vision when I'm focused. Some of my colleagues have mentioned that they have stood at my side for a minute or so(I have a slight reputation ;) ) and I don't feel that there is anybody there. When they finally do tap, it's all the more jarring.

<comment><USER14> I'm well known for jumping about a foot in the air when tapped on the shoulder. I despise workspaces where people can walk in behind me. (Hello cubicle!) When I'm in the flow though...

Aggh, I'm getting paranoid just thinking about someone walking in behind me now. Working when nobody else is around and no phones can ring is the best kind of work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Right now I'm going through quals so...

I come into work at around 9. Sit away from the rest of my lab and code until my battery dies. Then I let my macbook fully recharge while I try to get through as much of my reading as possible.

Rinse and repeat.

</comment><comment><USER16> I get to work around 10:00am, but actually start coding at around 5pm and code for about 2 hours and accomplish more than I did from 10-5. I feel like all these people around me are just trying to cause some kinda intelligence vacuum.

</comment><comment><USER17> 10pm to 3am also, but I think it's just that there are no distractions.

</comment><comment><USER18> It goes in bursts, and depends how interesting the thing I'm working on is. My sleep schedule shifts a lot, (I think I was meant for a 25 hour day) so right now I work from 7pm to like 5am.

<comment><USER19> The circadian cycle that regulates sleep (amongst other things) has a 25-ish hour period for most people, in the absence of natural time signaling stimuli (i.e. sunlight and noise). In natural conditions, sunlight in the morning readjusts your body clock in roughly +/-15m increments.

Recent research points to a faster way to adjust your body clock:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199394>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Being a student I've learned to pack it in between the classes as well as during some classes. However this semester I've managed to get myself a schedule where I have no classes on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

That said, I tend to get up and work out in the morning and if its Tue/Thu then I'm coding till lunch, coding till dinner, then on and off in the evening unless the g/f objects. MWF its just whenever I get time. In between classes and so on. Sat & Sun is hit or miss. Just depends on my plans.

</comment><comment><USER21> Through trial and error I've figured out what times of the day I'm 'switched on' - for example, I'm not a morning person so I leave all the mindless stuff for mornings (answering emails etc).

My best time of day to code is around 2pm - 9pm actually, I find I get more done during those times. I find that I read better later in the evenings and that I'm more of a cheerful person from late mornings to early afternoon - which is when I do most of my phonecalls.

</comment><comment><USER22> Both in the early evenings and early mornings. I have to work all day, so I'm up at about 430 to take care of my dogs and then I start coding before I have to leave for work at 7. Then I get home around 6, hang out with my wife and dogs for a bit, then we usually each get on a computer, she does her thing and I code till about 11 when we go to sleep. Works well, and I get a ton done.

</comment><comment><USER23> From about 8AM to 11PM with meal breaks on the Empire Builder between Chicago and Seattle. Unfortunately, that's only four days a year for me. The lack of Internet is both a curse and a blessing. I can only do certain types of work without the Internet.

Normally, I work in the afternoon in my home office with no one around.

</comment><comment><USER24> Most preferably, 8pm - 2am or so, but I rarely actually get to spend those hours programming.

</comment><comment><USER25> Typically either late at night or very early in the morning.

Few distractions/noise, plus you can't make noise yourself so you end up banging away at the keyboard for a while.

</comment><comment><USER26> actually one of the best times i find is between 4 and 8 before going to work!!! (problem is during my luckiest days i wake up no earlier than 5)...

the world IS quiet, you are just fresh from a good sleep (even if it is only 4-5 hours) and man the zone is like there never before... ofcourse if you are NOT a morning person then it wont be for you (lucky for me, i can be a morning or a night person when necessary!)

</comment><comment><USER27> My good zones are 2-5pm and 9-11pm. I try to fill the other parts of the work day with administrative stuff or studying existing code, when possible.

</comment><comment><USER28> I feel more productive in the morning and I use headphones to isolate myself from external world. I also turn off skype and other IM.

</comment><comment><USER29> My best hours are all the hours of night. 5-2ish. I just loose track of time and end up getting sooo much done.

</comment><comment><USER30> 10pm and 4am.

</comment><comment><USER31> Between 10am and noon. I can do it again around 3pm to 8pm (or later if I'm in the mood).

</comment><comment><USER32> like you, i tend to get distracted, so i try and make it easy for myself to sit and go when the mood strikes.

i tend to be most focused around 10-noon and 7-midnight.

but then again, i have a circadian rhythm disorder.

</comment><comment><USER33> I code when and only when I've completed reading every article on Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER34> I code when I can, between meetings.

Offsite, it's when I can.

</comment><comment><USER35> I code usually between 3pm to 8pm. Sometimes 10pm to 1am.

</comment><comment><USER36> When I'm in the mood & have the boost.

</comment><comment><USER37> When I'm alive.

</comment><comment><USER38> pj, how old are you?

</comment><comment><USER39> I get in around 9:30 and usually zone out for an hour in front of my computer, but it looks like I'm working. I then zone out for another hour after lunch too. In fact, in a given day, I'd say I do fifteen minutes, of real, actual work.

<comment><USER40> Would you bear with me for just a second, please?

What if - and believe me this is a hypothetical - but what if you were offered some kind of a stock option equity sharing program. Would that do anything for you?

<comment><USER41> (psst: Paul, I think he's referring to Office Space.)

<comment><USER42> (psst: _whoosh!_ )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I code my best between 6 and 8 AM.

The world is asleep, the morning starts to pop up, I am totally relaxed and restored after a good night sleep.

Full brain speed, no distractions: greatest time.

The rest of the day is to run tests, write documentation and polish something here and there. [And to sleep: I usually take a nap between 8 and 9 AM, before getting out of home].</comment>


Woman jailed for trying to open the airplane door mid flight - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/chloe-haines-flight-stansted-airport-cabin-crew-trial-jail-sentence-a9331441.html <comment> drunken-serval Not sure why this is news. She assaulted a flight attendant, said she was going to kill everyone on board, and then attempted to do that.

I don't see how mixing alcohol and medication excuses her from consequences. Two years seems reasonable to me.

<comment><USER2> I can see that the outcome seems mundane given the crime, but the crime itself is a bit unusual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The news editor should get a physics book. Trying to open the door is hardly dangerous.

The woman committed several crimes and was dangerous, not just to the poor flight attendant but via that transitively to everyone else. But attacking the door...give me a break.

As for the fighter jets: how could they possibly help the situation? Shoot her?

<comment><USER4> > As for the fighter jets: how could they possibly help the situation? Shoot > her?

No. They were sent to try and get a visual account of what the real danger was. If it was determined that this was a terrorist act, they would down the plane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Jet2 claimed that the incident cost them £86,000.

Interesting, I'd love to see that cost broken down.

>Between 2007 and 2017, more than 66,000 incidents of air rage were reported to the International Air Transport Association (Iata).

I know there are countless planes in the air every second of every day, but 66,000 incidents of "air rage" over a decade still seems crazy high!

<comment><USER6> I'm surprised it isn't higher:

> The aircraft was forced to return to the UK when Haines tried to open the > door, forcing the RAF to scramble two Eurofighter Typhoon jets to intercept > it.

That might mean:

\- Fuel dump (max landing weight).

\- Crew over-hours.

\- Additional airport fees / take off slot.

\- Compensation to other passengers.

If anything $86K seems low.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, just the Typhoon's cost way more: UK accounts 70k pounds per flight hour (that includes depreciation, capital costs and all that, pure per-hour cost is probably closer to 20k)

[https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1384595](https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1384595)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can you actually open an airplane door mid flight?

<comment><USER6> At what altitude? At low altitude, it is theoretically possible (although some passenger aircrafts have a lock).

But even then it would still require significant strength, as there would likely be some air differential due to the aircraft's speed/air pressure against the door.

At higher altitudes it is essentially impossible for a human. You'd have to blow apart the door or equivalent.

The biggest thing is the pressure differential. And that varies based on speed/altitude/etc. At normal cruise in a jet aircraft, it just isn't happening.

<comment><USER9> I do not get it, sorry. The door opens out, and the pressure is higher inside. So how does the pressure difference prevent opening that door?

<comment><USER6> It isn't intuitive how aircraft doors work, but the door doesn't open "out" in the typical sense. It actually sits against the aircraft's outer hull, the larger the differential the higher pressure exist between the door and the skin of the aircraft.

When the door is opened, it actually slides in then out sideways rather than swings open.

See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_door](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_door)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: HTML placeholder trick – showing element when input has value - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/mjunaidi/pen/oNNwwer <comment><USER2> Alternative method using the input:valid selector [https://codepen.io/LoueeD/pen/mddwBpv](https://codepen.io/LoueeD/pen/mddwBpv)

:valid is supported by IE10</comment>


Elon Musk: Should Have 1000 Ventilators Next Week, 250k N95 Masks Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> https://cleantechnica.com/2020/03/21/elon-musk-should-have-1000-ventilators-next-week-250k-n95-masks-for-hospitals-tomorrow-cleantechnica-exclusive/ <comment><USER2> You gotta love the the extremes that I always hear about only from either the USA or China. I know that most of Europe will never have a self made billionaire making 250k n95 masks in a matter of days, but then again we wont have so many people dieing or going completely broke from a few visits to the hospital which is going to be very common with coronavirus. I considered taking a FAANG job in SV which I guess helps avoid most of the issues everyone has with the USA but I cannot imagine being middle class with all the issues we keep hearing about like hospital bills, guns and shootings, homelessness, prisons, civil forfeiture etc.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure they're not making masks, they just have a stock of them. Paint shops usually use alot of them. SpaceX might be able to help with engineering and manufacturing of ventilators.

<comment><USER4> Yeah no way they're making 250k n95 masks when China is only able to produce 600k of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With regard to the 250k masks, it sounds like they're just distributing the ones they already had, not manufacturing new ones.

</comment><comment><USER6> "The masks include the lightweight ones that people like to wear in the hope of protection against coronavirus"

Love the subtle way of suggesting the effectiveness of those.

<comment><USER7> Masks work. We will all be wearing masks for months when they can finally distribute enough. In the meantime make your own mask and save the medical masks for health care workers.

<comment><USER6> Oh they totally do - it's just that everyone is more protected by the masks other people wear not the one they wear themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> According to npr there is a shortage of melt blown fabric to make the masks, and it takes six months to build the machine to produce such product. I'm skeptical of all these places claiming to produce masks, that they are actually the quality and performance they claim.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/8149292...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/16/814929294/covid-19-has- caused-a-shortage-of-face-masks-but-theyre-surprisingly-hard-to-mak)

<comment><USER9> Melt-blown fabric is not a requirement. It's just what we have been using. It is good enough for the job, and it is really cheap if you already have the machines.

There are types of aerogel that are flexible. When created with embedded fiber for strength, it works great. Setting up the equipment would not be too difficult. The filtration is far better than with melt-blown fabric.

We have many more options if we don't insist on flexible fabric. Gas masks commonly use canister filters. With that style we can use a rigid filter. It could be sintered glass, sintered ceramic, sintered metal, metal foam, aerographene, aerographite, graphene foam, or diatomaceous earth. We could even go electronic, with a UV light.

Materials with high air flow resistance are usable if we add a blower. There is a doctor in China doing this in a makeshift way, with a HEPA filter on his hip and a plastic bag over his head. An advantage is that it protects the eyes, which are an infection path for the virus. Eye protection needs air flow to prevent fogging and because eyes actually require air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If there's one good thing that comes out of this crisis, it will be that the medical infrastructure will vastly be more capable of handling future outbreaks.

</comment><comment><USER11> Might trigger some rivalry with other prominent rich people and trigger more productive work and donations. Good for him.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just realized Musk is probably doing this, in part, to keep the factories operational and seek favor with the political powers that be. I have nothing wrong with that, per se, I just find it interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1241056851032043523?s=20](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1241056851032043523?s=20)

>>> That won't work for our auto parts suppliers, so, no, our US factory can't stay open

<comment><USER13> Humble words after the government needed to threaten police action before Tesla finally followed the shutdown order for their Fremont plant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope he doesn't force people back to work at his factories until they have the masks they need to paint cars etc. that he is now giving away. He will have a shortage as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somehow panic wasn't dumb</comment>


There's more than one way to exploit the commons - <AUTHOR> http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/41085.html <comment><USER2> [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819724](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=819724) is a bit scary.</comment>


Setup for Your Next Golang Project - <AUTHOR> https://martinheinz.dev/blog/5 <comment><USER2> Setup for your next Golang project should be an empty "main.go". Let the project grow naturally.

<comment><USER3> Yep, and a standard Makefile too.

<comment><USER4> What's wrong with starting out using go build, go run, and go test?

<comment><USER5> Nothing at all. But the moment you move past that it's a nice standard way of encapsulating tasks related to the project.

<comment><USER4> So there's no need to start with that is the point.

<comment><USER6> Faster to type make than go build.

<comment><USER2>
      alias b='go build'

`b` is even faster to type :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's important to note that this is a very opinionated way to set up Golang projects. It relies on a lot of tooling not explained in the post plus uses some processes that may or may not be standard (eg the version is one of many ways to do it). In future posts you might want to break down why you do things the way you do and explain why you chose those solutions over others.

For those interested in skipping initial page (which seems to be insanely slow), just check out the boilerplate repo: [https://github.com/MartinHeinz/go-project- blueprint](https://github.com/MartinHeinz/go-project-blueprint)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, this is quite opinionated solution, as everybody has their preferred ways of coding. The fact that not everything is explained in this post is because there are 4 parts, which are all linked at the top of README in the repo you linked.

The pages loads quite slow indeed, that's because of the traffic coming in right now... The 1GB RAM VM is having hard time serving all the requests...

<comment><USER8> Do you think it might be worth it to prod a moderator to change the URL of this submission to [https://towardsdatascience.com/ultimate-setup-for-your- next-...](https://towardsdatascience.com/ultimate-setup-for-your-next-golang- project-1cc989ad2a96)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would hardly say this structure looks "perfect". For a start:

\- Use of Docker is a serious problem. I have no intention of ever running Docker on my machine to build some random project for which I have the toolchain already installed. Wrapping Docker with a Makefile is even more irritating.

\- Use of "package pkg" to keep the version number in is bizarre - I've never seen that before. Some use `package version` _inside_ a `pkg` directory which contains other public packages also, and use of `package version` at the top level is also fairly common.

\- Multiple modules in one git repository presents many challenges for people who want to reference them at different commits in other projects.

\- `pkg app` under a `cmd` directory is sometimes fine, but if there is only one app and no library, keeping it in the root should be preferred so that `go get` works properly. Furthermore, other packages being nested under it is not often great, since they are highly likely to be reused by other `cmd`s in the same repository.

Personally for Go I've never needed a "starter" project, since not much needs configuring out the box as the toolchain is quite reasonable.

If I were evaluating a project structured like this as a potential dependency, I'd knock off major marks for the structure and investigate alternatives. I guess if things came down to the wire, the structure wouldn't be a deal breaker, but I'd certainly aim to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER10> > People often say "It works on my machine (and not in cloud)...", to avoid > this we have simple solution - always run in docker container. And when I > say always I really mean it - build in container, run in container, test in > container. Actually I didn't mention it in previous section, but the make > test really is "just" docker run.

I've had nothing but bad luck with Docker for Mac. It's been super slow. If any container is running at all, the com.docker.hyperkit process eats 160% CPU even if `docker stats` shows the process hovering near 0% CPU. This has been the case for our entire team, and we're in the process of moving away from it.

<comment><USER11> Docker, it works on my machine.

\---

But to add a serious note, why is every dependency on the environment so complicated that we just wrap it in some container to just get rid of it?

<comment><USER10> > But to add a serious note, why is every dependency on the environment so > complicated that we just wrap it in some container to just get rid of it?

Bad build/dependency-management tooling and non-perfect abstractions over system APIs probably account for most of the issue.

Containers are conceptually useful; it's nice to have ephemeral, isolated environments. But if it literally eats all of the CPU it can get its hands on, then it's not useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hmm, interesting I had assumed /cmd/ was used for cli-ish applications that use a 'command pattern'. I didn't think people also did this for http apis.

<comment><USER13> That is my understanding as well, and having a directory tree that goes like "projectname/cmd/projectlibrary" seems super weird and non-idiomatic to me.

<comment><USER14> pkg/cmd or just /cmd are rather popular in a lot of projects ([https://github.com/grafana/grafana/tree/master/pkg/cmd](https://github.com/grafana/grafana/tree/master/pkg/cmd) / [https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/tree/master/cmd](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus/tree/master/cmd) / [https://github.com/istio/istio/tree/c3e1824c5e3f3e51ceb4a80b...](https://github.com/istio/istio/tree/c3e1824c5e3f3e51ceb4a80b46aee9876be07131/istioctl/cmd) / [https://github.com/containous/traefik/tree/master/cmd](https://github.com/containous/traefik/tree/master/cmd) / etc)

<comment><USER13> cmd/ directories are normal. Hosting all the business logic for the whole package _under_ cmd/ seems less normal.

You kind of _need_ cmd/, because you can only have one main() in a package, and a package with a main() can't easily be imported into another package. That's why the directory exists, not (as I understand it) because there is some merit to burying code 3 directory levels deep.

<comment><USER14> my response was to your comment that "having a directory tree that goes like "projectname/cmd/projectlibrary" seems super weird and non-idiomatic to me"

<comment><USER15> I'm on mobile and didn't check all your examples, but grafana has pkg/cmd and traefik has cmd _next to_ pkg. That's not having the business logic below cmd. Whereas cmd/pkg is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > People often say "It works on my machine (and not in cloud)..."

That's definitely not a problem I have with Go. Building everything with Docker is wayyy overkill.

Also, why is everything under the cmd/ package? It doesn't make sense.

As for go modules, using `mod vendor` might not be the best suggestion as it requires using `go build -mod=vendor`. If you use go modules, just use go get and drop the vendor folder.

</comment><comment><USER17> For comparison, here's a popular standard:

[https://github.com/golang-standards/project- layout](https://github.com/golang-standards/project-layout)

<comment><USER18> It's neither necessarily popular nor standard. Despite the GitHub org name they have no particular accreditation from anyone.

<comment><USER19> 11.8k stars on GitHub doesn't qualify as popular?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> (Shameless plug): For those looking for a good dev container experience with VSCode that works with go modules: [https://github.com/michaelperel/docker- lock#development](https://github.com/michaelperel/docker-lock#development)

edit -- on mobile, scroll down to "development"

</comment><comment><USER21> I use the cmd directory for my main files, setups, etc... but use project root level packages for the bulk of the business logic. I kinda go the impression here that he uses cmd for all source.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thanks for sharing. I've been perusing your blog posts and GitHub repositories for a week or so. Very useful stuff :)

</comment><comment><USER23> page loads slow, so i cancelled trying to open this link.

<comment><USER24> Not only that but it seems to be loading the same HTML content 3 times.</comment></comment>


Over one billion searches were made on DuckDuckGo in 2013 - <AUTHOR> https://duck.co/blog/friends-newsletter-45 <comment><USER2> I choose to give people the benefit of the doubt regarding their own points of view, so I am forced to consider the idea that "Duck Duck Go is a good search engine" is a true fact to some people. That forces me to consider how this can possibly be true. I find it's not true for me because of all the ways I typically use Google, DDG does almost none of them. DDG doesn't have local results (search "Chinese" on Google and then on DDG). DDG doesn't have recent news (search "Earthquake" on Google and then on DDG). DDG does not have the coverage to answer a narrow technical question like "does a c++ derived class need to define its own destructor" (answer nowhere to be found on DDG; perfectly relevant stack overflow result is #1 on Google). What DDG _does_ have is plain old search results, albeit not with Google's quality and, of course, without any personalized input.

So for those of you who find DDG's generically mediocre retrievals sufficient, I am interested to know what you use for my other cases. When you want to eat Chinese food, do you always use Yelp? What do you use for recent event news?

<comment><USER3> You can prepend g! to your DDG searches if the native results are insufficient.

I don't want "personalized" search results. I don't want Google's algorithms second-guessing what I searched for. If I want current news, I'll read the BBC. If I want a stack overflow result, I'll do a search on SO.

<comment><USER4> Why the scare quotes?

<comment><USER5> Dunno if this a seperated by common punctuation thing, but to me, a Brit, I dont even know the term "scare quotes". To me, its just emphasis.

<comment><USER4> Here are some examples of how they're used:

McDonald's is the only "restaurant" in town that's open today.

My four-year-old is "helping" me build a table.

Please escort this "gentleman" to the exit door.

<comment><USER6> But sometimes, it's just meant as emphasis of the word, together with a nod to the fact that the specific word may have been consciously chosen by others, and you're reusing their label without fully endorsing it.

For example:

 _I don 't want the kinds of results Google calls "personalized"._

Using the quotes elsewhere alludes to that same sort of sentiment – referring to something that others do literally call "personalized" – but in not so many words.

There may also be a slight implication of a "scare" second-level of meaning – maybe when Google claims the results are "personalized", that's really just cover for "revenue-optimized despite what's best for me". But that sinister reading isn't _required_ by the quotes, just vaguely hinted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been using DDG as my primary search engine since June, 2013. That's not my first attempt to make a go of it, I took a couple of stabs at DDG over the past year or two, but found that the results were less than satisfactory: slow response, _no_ response, and often, poor matches on queries.

With the Snowden revelations and the abundantly clear trend of Google to aggregate as much personally-identifiable information as possible, I made a clean break in June, 2013. The performance and search quality are _vastly_ improved. And while I don't eschew _all_ Google products (though I'm making drastically less use of them, and as little as possible while authenticated), I find that using DDG as my first cut generally works.

For fallback, my usual scheme is DDG, !SP (StartPage, another proxying search aggregator making more full use of Google), and if I'm still not fully satisfied, Google itself.

There _are_ areas in which Google's search tools are still hugely superior:

⚫ Searching within a date range. DDG doesn't offer this option.

⚫ Some specialized search, in particular Google Books and Google Scholar. Where Google focuses on its core competency of providing _search_ and not on grabbing as much user data as possible, I find the company far more acceptable.

⚫ Some deep-site searches. Google seems to crawl sites more deeply and in more detail than DDG. I particularly rely on it for Reddit, whose own site search excludes comments.

As I've noted, Google's biggest liability is that, no matter its best intentions, it cannot provide any guarantee against a government-size advanced persistent threat, especially not one with the law (constitutional or otherwise) at its disposal: [http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1u356d/schmidt_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1u356d/schmidt_my_biggest_mistake_is_still_not_realizing/)

But overall, I'm hugely impressed with DDG.

For those who use console / terminal browsers such as w3m or links, the 'lite' version puts the "search" button one tab following the search dialog: [https://duckduckgo.com/lite](https://duckduckgo.com/lite)

And DDG's TTY mode (command-line interface) is teh awesomenessedness:

[https://duckduckgo.com/tty/](https://duckduckgo.com/tty/)

<comment><USER8> If Google can't protect its datacenter traffic from the NSA, or from the law, what makes you think DDG can operate outside the law or protect itself from NSA snooping?

<comment><USER7> DDG's policy is to not log personally identifiable data. Google's present business model is based on logging _enormous_ amounts of personally identifiable data. Your search history for at least 18 months. Cross- correlation between Search, YouTube, Gmail, G+, and other services. And on and on. I detail much of this in the blog entry linked.

DDG _could_ be forced to put an upstream intercept which would log searches by specific IPs, but that's outside their normal operational scope. It also applies only to data-on-the-wire, not data-at-rest. In Google's case, your aggregated history is sitting on their servers to be collected at any time.

If you don't trust DDG not to log your searches, going through Tor will give you yet another degree of separation (there are also browser extensions such as DisconnectSearch: [https://disconnect.me/search](https://disconnect.me/search)).

As sobering as the disclosures from Snowden, Applebaum, and others have been, the news appears to be that cryptographic methods _do_ work to protect privacy or at the very least _greatly_ increase workload for surveillance.

And another aspect is that by encouraging and promoting alternatives to Google, we're carving out at least a small niche in which privacy-focused entrants to a vastly concentrated search market (Google scores in the neighborhood of 85% of all search according to some metrics I've seen) might be able to thrive.

<comment><USER8> Since the NSA "Muscular" program was known to have compromised datacenters upstream, that's little consolidation if DDG has any multihomed datacenter support and is not encrypting their inter-DC links or if the NSA has compromised your hosting provider directly. Given that they have been shown to actually intercept and plant modified hardware, there's really no guarantee that they couldn't plant a tap. Point is, if DDG ever got a non-trivial marketshare, there's little confidence that your systems are more secure than Google's, regardless of capturing search history or not, or if they could not be compromised by the same court demands that other top level providers are under.

DDG's safety from the NSA is inversely proportional to its success in the market.

<comment><USER7> DDG uses https for its searches. I can't speak to its datacenter links, but haven't checked to see if they address that in their FAQ / info pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't you mean >1B searches were proxied to Bing, Google etc? Aside from being an anonymizing proxy, I don't see any real reason for DDG. Maybe i'm wrong, maybe the news meant you served > 1B searches from your own inverted index, but I didn't see anything that suggested that.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, would be interesting to see how many of those searches ended in "!g"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> And I'm happy to say that my searches where in this billion too :)

I still find myself looking at Google for some queries, but this seems to happen every day less and less.

Mostly local searches, as DDG is still very "english-centric". I don't know if they trying to "fix" this, but I sure hope so.

Overall I still find it an awesome search engine, thanks to the 0-click box, and the !bang syntax.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have DDG as my default search engine both at home and work now.

As a command-line junkie, I like it that I can access everything in one place. Admittedly, maybe 1/3 of my DDG "searches" are actually commands (I can type an address and then !map to go directly to the map for that address, for example, or a term and then !img to go to an image search for that term). I think of DDG more as a command line than a search engine.

The search results are generally pretty adequate, too. If you search for a simple term, you get relevant Wikipedia or IMDB results for that term, which is often exactly what I want.

And if I feel like Google would be more relevant, I can just slap a !g on there. I realize "ease of access to a competitor's product" is not a fantastic selling point, but for me it's enough.

100% personal preference, obviously, but it works for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm curious how this compares to the amount of searches on Google's platform. 1 billion searches in 2013 sounds like a huge number, but placing that into context might be a better way to announce this.

<comment><USER14> It's about 4 hours worth of Google searches, according to this: [http://www.statisticbrain.com/google- searches/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/)

<comment><USER15> Holy smoke. That's depressing and fascinating all at once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One underappreciated advantage of DuckDuckGo is that it doesn't censor results as Google does, which is really useful for finding, e.g., torrent sites.

<comment><USER17> You mean it doesn't respect DMCA takedown notices? Because I bet it does.

<comment><USER18> Is DDG US Company?

<comment><USER19> Yes. Startpage on the other hand is European, and so is Faroo.

<comment><USER20> startpage is just a google proxy to anonymize it, though, so it's not like they can add DCMAed results back in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> just to provide some perspective, a quick google search (oops) informed me that google sees 5.9 billion searches a day (about 2.16 trillion searches in 2013). Before the Snowden revelation, DDG enjoyed a slow but steady growth, getting around 50 mil queries a month, and rapidly increased to over 100+ mil after the leak.

[http://www.statisticbrain.com/google- searches/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/)

[https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> I was hoping for some snark, like: "Top search trends on DuckDuckGo for 2013: We don't know, we don't track your searches!"

<comment><USER11> They could, [https://duckduckgo.com/privacy](https://duckduckgo.com/privacy)

>We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "One billion" sounds impressive but it should be compared to over two thousand billion searches made on Google Search over the same period: [http://www.statisticbrain.com/google- searches/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/google-searches/)

</comment><comment><USER24> DuckDuckGo is a Good search Engine for English-speaking countries. I'm European (Greek) and whenever I need to search the Greek-web, which is quite often, I found DDG result's lucking very _basic_ staff.

To give you an example, say the government passed a new law (which happens every day), if I try searching at DuckDuckGo 9 out 10 I won't find anything _closely related_. If I search Google the most prominent newspaper headlines (along with notorious news-sites) pop-up and I find what I need.

I know that Google closely monitors my clicks (I own a Chromebook and Chrome is my default browser everywhere) and shows me different results than other users. But thing is, for non-English content it's too far ahead of the competition for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER25> For anyone reading this who doesn't know (because i didn't until someone explained and linked me) bang notation is amazing. [https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html](https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> I have been using DDG as my starting point for all desktop searches since 2011. I use Safari as my main browser and use the hosts file method to set DDG as my default search[1]. I wish iOS had an option for similar.

Using DDG started off awkward, but the bang syntax is muscle memory now. I would say my breakdown of providers is as follows: !g: 50%, !w: 30%, !gi: 10%, !az: 5%, !yelp: 5%

I never use DDG directly.

[1] [https://duck.co/help/desktop/hosts- file](https://duck.co/help/desktop/hosts-file)

<comment><USER27> Doesn't using the bang syntax invalidate any privacy or surveillance related reasons to use DDG?

<comment><USER26> Definitely. It is just a handy multiplexer - I have a habit at this point to append every query with a bang.

On the occasions I forget, the DDG results seem to be improving. However, ~90% of my Google queries are computer related, and DDG (and even the !so bang) are not as relevant as Google yet for me. As soon as this use case improves enough, I will break my bang habit and use DDG directly for most of my queries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 1,000,000,000 /365 = ~3m/day; Alexa suggests 5.6 pageviews/user so ~600k unique users.

<comment><USER29> alexa is the least reliable source for any type of metrics whatsoever.

<comment><USER28> It's just a guesstimate. 5 views/user/day seems like a reasonable mean for a search engine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was looking a JS library I'd seen mentioned on here, and couldn't find it with Duck Duck Go. Was about to start posting / tweeting asking if anyone knew where it was, but thought I'd try Google first. This library came up first result. I'd have looked like a dick if I hadn't tried Google first - "Google is your Friend" is powerfully socially enforced.

Now I use DDG mostly with the !g...

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm pretty sure most DuckDuckGo searches go straight to Bing.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm just gonna say that by far the best features, for me, are the "Goodies" (had to look that up[1]) which let you query other services through the same interface.

For example, `!wa ...` will query Wolfram Alpha, `!m {location}` will give me a map, `!w ...` will search Wikipedia, and `!g ...` will redirect me to a google search if DDG's results aren't comprehensive enough.

For 90% of my queries, DuckDuckGo gives me exactly what I need, or enough data to drill down and make a more effective query. And, more importantly, __it provides a single interface to all other major search engines __, making it a hell of a start page to have[2].

[1]: [https://duckduckgo.com/goodies](https://duckduckgo.com/goodies) [2]: [https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/)

<comment><USER33> 90%? Wow. It's less for me. But still, they got better, I now usually (60-70% I guess) get a result I want on the first page (compared to google where there are several useful results on the first page) and that together with the !keywords is enough for me. Now the only thing left I need to replace is google calendar and I'll be google free :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Interesting fact: [http://duck.com](http://duck.com) redirects to Google.com

<comment><USER7> And was registered in 1995. Though WHOIS doesn't return the full registration transfer history. We don't know who's owned it over the interim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Switched to DuckDuckGo for searches from the desktop a year ago. Just to give someone else a chance.

<comment><USER36> If you are giving chances try [http://www.plexisearch.com/](http://www.plexisearch.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I know this is a silly nitpick but I do wish DuckDuckGo had a simpler URL. It's so quick and easy to type in bing, google and even blekko. How's about some variation on DDG?

That aside, I especially love DDG's Goodies: [https://duckduckgo.com/goodies](https://duckduckgo.com/goodies)

I use it for simple password generation, lorem ipsum text, color code conversion, etc. I know Google has its extras but I don't believe it comes close to DDG's goodies offering

<comment><USER38> ddg.gg redirects to [https://duckduckgo.com/](https://duckduckgo.com/) .

<comment><USER39> Somehow I found duck.co easier to remember

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> We don't track searches,at [http://www.plexisearch.com/](http://www.plexisearch.com/)

And we don't have ads, so there is that too.

We want to make search better. Not out of the goodness of our heart, but because we figure if we do a good job someone will buy us, and then we will get paid, and the bad guys at Google or Bing will at least offer you better results when they are being creepy. That's what it is all about right?

We are about 1% the size of DDG.

<comment><USER40> I like the idea: "don't track searches".

I've visited your search engine. Looks like you call Bing's API to get the result. The catch is: you don't get the images back since Bing does not have them either.

So why shall I just use Bing instead? Perhaps you are stronger in the "News" search?

<comment><USER36> If you do a search we have never done you get bing. If you do a popular search, or the same search 30 seconds later you get better results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I tried GGG but I prefer ixquick.com or startpage.com

</comment><comment><USER42> I have been using DDG for sometime in my office, in fact DDG is my default in firefox. I don't miss google. DDG finds me whatever I need.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does anyone know the numbers from last year?

<comment><USER44> They have their data up here [https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html](https://duckduckgo.com/traffic.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Quick tip that's cool with DDG: just type in the URL bar something like "ddg.gg/things you are looking for" (providing that as soon as you type "dd" your browser will most likely auto expand it to "ddg.gg/", you need very few keystrokes)

</comment><comment><USER46> I use it in Firefox on the computer and only occasionally use Google. I raised a bug with Apple to request the ability to set it on mobile Safari. At the moment you can only use Google or Bing (or Yahoo-Bing)

File duplicates if you want it as Apple counts dupes as up votes.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I'd be interested to know what browser is most popular with DDG users. Are people who use it because of privacy concerns with Google still using Chrome? Or other Google products?

</comment><comment><USER19> By the way for people who really care about privacy, there's Epic Browser, which has some anti-tracking stuff built-in, and is based on Chromium:

[http://www.epicbrowser.com/](http://www.epicbrowser.com/)

I wish they'd allow people to change the Omnibox search engine, though, or offer DDG and Startpage as options, especially if they can partner up with them and take a cut of revenue, but I guess it's not a huge deal breaker.

<comment><USER47> People who really care about privacy are using Tor Browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> the best thing DDG could do is to simulate Google's UI as much as possible without getting sued. Think about it.

<comment> guard-of-terra Google UI today or Google UI a couple of years ago?

Current Google UI features every block with different margin and content which is neither trivial nor worthwhile to copy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> And I did hundreds of them.</comment>


Shor's algorythm - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shor%27s_algorithm

<comment><USER2> So, are there any public key algorithms that're either (1) proven not to be crackable to quantum computers, or (2) believed not to be so?

<comment><USER3> I don't know the answer to your question, but if we were able to develop quantum cryptography (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography>), then we would no longer need to worry about public key algorithms, since Alice and Bob could agree upon a key without fear of eavesdropping, and then use an uncrackable form of encryption, such as a one time pad.

<comment><USER4> We already have functioning quantum cryptography. In theory it should be unbreakable, but there are practical problems with it (distance... it doesn't work around the world) and still relies on humans to implement the systems.

Current quantum cryptography systems have already been cracked to some extent: [http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/it/quantum- cryptography-c...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/it/quantum-cryptography- cracked)

<comment><USER5> Actually, there are a number of possible attacks against a quantum cryptosystem; e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_cryptography#Attacks>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spelling!</comment>


Show HN: A customizable card deck to fight writer's block - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/mediatag/a-customizable-card-deck-to-fight-writers-block-efbed51b3e72 <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here.

This tool is something I built to scratch my own itch, as I like to experiment with unexpected ideas when writing screenplays.

Curious to hear any questions from writers hanging out on HN.</comment>


The Skills Poor Programmers Lack - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/justinmeiners/be4540f515986d93ee12ac2f1980631a <comment><USER2> The first example is interesting. Suppose we have a smart compiler that emits the same machine language code in both cases. Which version is better? Perhaps the first, which is more verbose but expresses the idea in a way that some readers might prefer.</comment>


Revealing the hidden links in the Monero blockchain - <AUTHOR> http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/04/19/monero-linkability/ <comment><USER2> Soon we can say that Zcash have done more research on Monero than on their own coin. That's a positive sign and I just bought more XMR.

Bitcoin had flaws in the beginning too but it's the people behind a project that make the difference in the long run, not the public promotion.

However, I can understand that Zcash is under pressure to create ROI for their initial investors.</comment>


Bighugewindow - <AUTHOR> http://www.bighugewindow.com/ Monetize your windows. Democratized outdoor advertising. <comment><USER2> Their copy is pretty bad, I can see exactly where they were headed with it and cite photojojo as an example of a company that does a great job of slight shock value with its tagline, however "damn" doesn't work.

I enjoy out of the box thinking but it could certainly use some tweaking

</comment><comment><USER3> I wholeheartedly wish this company a very quick failure. Thank you very much, but the one thing I really don't want is more ads shoveled down my consumer throat.

<comment><AUTHOR> In north korea they have no outdoor advertising, I hear it is a pleasant place.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if it's pleasant, but I can be fairly sure it's a ronery place to be.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhve8_team-america-im-so- ro...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhve8_team-america-im-so-ronery_fun)</comment></comment></comment>


Inside the British Army's secret information warfare machine - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-77th-brigade-britains-information-warfare-military <comment><USER2> Now how is this different from a Russian or Chinese troll factory? All these puppeteers playing political technologists, bother. Are they really thinking this stuff is changing hearts and minds over to the right cause?

<comment><USER3> From my perspective, as a British person, the difference is that this is being done by British people to support British interests. As a person who lives in Britain, and by extension the west, and who supports the general values on which my society is based, I'm not interested in relativist comparisons. If the information war must be fought, I'd like us to win it.

<comment><USER4> As another British person I'm unconvinced that "British interests" include the interests of most British voters.

Historically we've seen the British state infiltrate and influence organisations that it considers hostile to it.

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng- interactive/2018/oct/...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng- interactive/2018/oct/15/uk-political-groups-spied-on-undercover-police-list)

What stands out is the trivial nature of most of these groups, which surely fall squarely within a general democratic right to assemble and protest.

What also stands out is that right-wing groups don't seem to have had anything like the same level of oversight.

So if - hypothetically - the military and/or GCHQ ran a campaign to influence a British election, or a public referendum, would that align with "British interests" or not?

This isn't a hypothetical. It's obvious from the comment sites of most newspapers and also from posts on FB interest groups that industrial-level opinion-shaping is being attempted.

If it's originating from hostile foreign powers, the UK's cyber response seems inexplicably ineffectual. If it's originating from closer to the home, that's clearly a non-trivial problem for our "general values."

<comment><USER3> Some of those are appalling, especially spying on the trade unions and having workers blackballed. But most of them are loonies of the left or right, animal rights extremists, or have connections to Irish terror orgainzations. Exactly the people the police should be infiltrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> With the evidence pointing to vast numbers of state agencies around the world engaging in this type of information warfare, do you think it better that democratic nations do nothing in response?

What would be an alternative or more effective method of defending against the Russian and Chinese troll farms?

I'm not endorsing these tactics, and wonder if we are already in a situation where there is a threat of mutually assured destruction? Doing nothing in response seems to lead to even worse outcomes then the admittedly unsavory alternative.

<comment><USER6> > _What would be an alternative or more effective method of defending against > the Russian and Chinese troll farms?_

Not believing everything you read on the internet.

<comment><USER7> Yes, indeed. It might also help to understand how the operation works.

The method seems to be, based on my understanding of analyses in the Finnish media about how the "troll factory of Saint Petersburg" operates: 1. amplify suitable existing events/movements with fake accounts spreading supporting posts, 2. use advertisements or rumors to create suitable new openings for 1, then do 1.

The main purpose is to amplify messages that are aligned with the political aspirations of the Russian Federation.

Further legitimacy is obtained when a "serious news site" (usually other Russia controlled media like RT) publishes something about the subject. The idea becomes something more legit and more plausible, even though it might have begun as an intentionally fabricated lie.

The rest is taken care of by gullible people who absorb the message without much thinking and then spread it further, especially when the message fits their image of or desired state of the world.

So basically the Russian troll factory is an astroturfing organization, but instead of pimping a product, they pimp emotionally loaded social media sentiments that support political goals.

<comment><USER8> that's just media

<comment><USER9> 'just media'?

Media is potentially the most valuable conduit for information for the human race currently. Newspapers, social media, news organizations, tv, apps, advertisements, and a million others. There isn't a 'just' related to media because it's so powerful and pervasive. It's a pipeline into 7 billion people's brains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They are hardly 'secret' \- they have their own web site! [0]

[0] [https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions- brig...](https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions- brigades/force-troops-command/77-brigade/)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but they are no longer on twitter...Well, that we know of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think the scary thing about nation states trying to covertly influence each other is that many of these states are supposed to be allies, or at least friendly. They certainly are not at war.

I naively believed the Cold War was over, obviously it has only changed its methods, to where influence over a countries people is the weapon and it's being used widely.

<comment><USER13> Why do you say 'nation states'? The UK is the classic example of something which is _not_ a nation state.

<comment><USER14> Give it a few years and the UK will no longer exist. The largest remainder will most likely be called England and the rest will have broken away.

<comment><USER3> That's possible, but I don't think it's likely. Scotland voted to stay in the UK when given the choice. That choice is not likely to be given again in the near future. Wales wouldn't flourish on its own. Northern Ireland, maybe, but also unlikely -- plenty of Unionists will fight to the death to remain part of the UK.

<comment><USER14> > Scotland voted to stay in the UK when given the choice.

That was before the 'leave' vote.

<comment><USER15> < That was before the 'leave' vote.

And more specifically, it meant that the decision was a Scotland in (pre-EU leave vote) the UK an EU member state, whereas a then vote to leave the Union of the UK would also have meant leaving the EU (and having to apply to rejoin, without any guarantees.) No wonder it was more attractive.

What then happened was that the UK (primarily, England) voted to "Brexit" leave the EU - so the very electoral calculation on which a "remain in the United Kingdom and EU" scottish vote was made, was turned on its head. If the UK does finally exit the EU, the Scots can very well say they were cheated and demand another vote.

<comment><USER3> Scottish Nationalists can demand another vote, but they won't get it as long as the Tories are in power. In as much as you can take Corbyn at his word, he is not in favour either, and nor are many in the Labour party. It might happen if the Scottish Parliament votes for it, but it's still not a sure thing to pass. Besides which, it isn't wise: Scotland can't pay its way and depends on EU and British (English) money. Out of the EU, Scotland would be in a worse economic position if it leaves the UK, and there's no guarantee that it would be allowed to join the EU in the near future: many EU members with a veto aren't keen to encourage separatist movements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting that this comes out at the same time that a Russian journalist triggers a security alert filming outside their base of operations:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46420486](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46420486)

<comment> orbital-decay OP article came out a couple weeks before that happened. It's likely they followed a Wired article to dig up some dirt, or to add 2 and 2 and get 999.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given that it is very likely that the UK military seriously considered a coup in the seventies ([https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/15/commen...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/15/comment.labour1)) it seems foolish to place the job of political story placement and disinformation with them.</comment>


How to obtain a second passport - <AUTHOR> http://www.sovereignman.com/lifestyle-design/how-to-obtain-a-second-passport-10112/ If there were ever a case for a second passport, the Snowden situation is one. If you have the means and will to obtain a second passport, now is the time.
You can get purchase one for $135,000. This is what Derek Sivers did:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3944339
https://sivers.org/comfort
Or, it's likely you are entitled one via ancestry,
http://www.sovereignman.com/lifestyle-design/how-to-obtain-a-second-passport-10112/
And there's always the old-fashion way through immigration. <comment><AUTHOR> If there were ever a case for a second passport, the Snowden situation is one. If you have the means to obtain one, now is the time. Doing this is a prudent move - a lifeline if you will. Not only could it possibly prevent you from becoming a stateless person and save your life if your government goes rouge, it opens you up to more opportunity around the world.

You can purchase one for $135,000. This is what Derek Sivers did:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3944339](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3944339)

[https://sivers.org/comfort](https://sivers.org/comfort)

Or, it's likely you are entitled one via ancestry,

[http://www.sovereignman.com/lifestyle-design/how-to- obtain-a...](http://www.sovereignman.com/lifestyle-design/how-to-obtain-a- second-passport-10112/)

And there's always the old-fashion way through immigration.</comment>


Tell HN: Bash 'pwd' has different results from /usr/bin/pwd - <AUTHOR>

  $ mkdir tmp1 ; ln -s tmp1 tmp2
  $ ( cd tmp2 ; pwd )
  /home/user/git/install/src/tmp2
  $ ( cd tmp2 ; /usr/bin/pwd )
  /home/user/git/install/src/tmp1
 Apparently bash assumes the "-L" option by default, and coreutils assumes the "-P" option by default. So depending on whether you're running pwd from bash or shelling out to /usr/bin/pwd, you may get different results. <comment><USER2> > Apparently bash assumes the "-L" option by default > coreutils assumes the > "-P" option by default

To be fair, these aren't surprising because they're highlighted as such.

`help pwd` says

        By default, `pwd' behaves as if `-L' were specified.

`man pwd` says

        If no option is specified, -P is assumed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tangential: I'd actually like a protocol that allows a way for external programs to ask shells to change its directory at their exit.

I wonder if there are ant security concerns to this.

<comment><USER4> Aliases do that. I'm not sure a function or program can do that.

      alias mkcd='mkdir -p "$1" && cd "$1"'
      cd "$(something something)"

<comment><USER5> A function can. Coincidentally, I have a function with the same name and definition as your example. Actually, after doing a double-take on your alias, I see it can't work like you probably expect. You can't use arguments like that. It's simply substitution. If you do:

      mkcd someplace

that'd result in:

      mkdir -p "$1" && cd "$1" someplace

you want:

      mkcd() { mkdir -p "$1" && cd "$1"; }

Anyway, it's subprocesses that can't control the working directory of the parent process (or other processes for that matter). A process can only control its own working directory.

<comment><USER4> yup, my bad! I blame that on not having a shell at work...</comment></comment></comment></comment>