Show HN: Mongolar CMS Alpha Demo - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I have just setup a Mongolar Demo. The instructions for access can be found here:
http://mongolar.org/demo
For more information visit the repository README or the main website.
https://github.com/mongolar/mongolar/
http://mongolar.org/
Thanks, Jason <comment><AUTHOR> __UPDATE __

Due to much gnashing of teeth[http://demo.mongolar.org](http://demo.mongolar.org), no longer requires a login. Content gets reset at 50 minutes past every hour.

</comment><comment><USER2> clickable -> [http://mongolar.org/demo](http://mongolar.org/demo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you</comment></comment>


Consultants/Freelancers: What tools do you use to estimate project costs? - <AUTHOR>

What tools do you use to estimate project costs? i.e. pre-sales.<p>If you use spreadsheets and don't mind sharing, please share in your comments or send it to me at: [a n u p s h i n d e  (a t)  g m a i l ] <comment><USER2> For development costs:

If you are building an app, make a list of number of

1\. Views. A complex UI can have multiple views. E.g. the menu at the top, the menu on the side, the search box, the list of items shown are all different views which are integrated together.

2\. Make a list of all data models. Each type of user, each type of item stored in its own table or collection is a different data model.

3\. Multiply number of unique views by 3 and number of models by 10 and then add these numbers, to get total number of hours of development effort.

4\. For each mobile OS and the web the views will be counted separately.

5\. Multiple total number of hours by your hourly billing rate.</comment>


Could Google have caught the Norway killer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.blayneychronicle.com.au/news/national/national/general/could-google-have-caught-the-norway-killer/2241268.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Those "privacy hurdles" are a bitch, right?</comment>


Gwen Ifill has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/business/media/gwen-ifill-dies.html <comment><USER2> As a regular watcher of the PBS NewsHour and occasionally Washington Week, I'll miss Gwen's smile, sharp wit, and humor. RIP.

<comment><USER3> The baby boomers seem have TV news gigs monopolized to the detriment of the country.

<comment><USER4> Are you familiar with her work? I think she's was breath of fresh air compared with other baby boomers in the industry. I, for one, will miss her.

<comment><USER3> Quite so. But the point is more about path dependency in media appointments.

<comment><USER5> Could you elaborate? Apologies if i am just being dense, but I don't follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gwen Ifill was a legend in her own time and the world is worse without her in it.

</comment><comment><USER7> More than just a reporter, she has been the managing editor of PBS' two most prestigious news programs for many years. A dreadful loss.

<comment><USER8> Completely agree, I think she was the smartest and most insightful person on the NewsHour. She had a knack for asking penetrating questions that neither the viewer nor the interviewee saw coming. Just the sort of person we need more, not less of, in the Trump era. Very saddened by this unexpected news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's worth reading what appears to be her last piece, which provides some calm perspective that we could use right now:

[http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/end- sight](http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/end-sight)

It is titled _The End is in Sight_. I wonder if it had a double meaning? :(

</comment><comment><USER10> tangential question, may be there is some doctor here who can explain - i'm not a doctor and just from pure technical/mechanical point of view i don't understand why for example we can't just insert 2 thin, needle thin like, probes (similar to laparoscopy only much thinner and more flexible), one with video camera and LED and one with IR laser, ultrasound guide it to the tumor and burn the tumor small piece by small piece. Wouldn't it be better than radiation for example?

<comment><USER11> The issue with cancer is that it has the ability to metastasize - that is to travel to other parts of the body and grow there. Thus even if we completely remove that tumor that we see initially, but there could still be millions or billions of cancer cells that are now in other parts of the body but have not grown into tumors that are big enough to see yet. Also, in your scenario, depending on the type of cancer - you can actually spread cancer cells along the path of the needles when you remove them.

In addition, some areas of the body make such surgery tricky because the cancer cells are very close and intertwined with critical structures. This can be especially true in brain cancers.

But there are techniques like you suggest that are used in cancer. [http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html](http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v14/n3/full/nrc3672.html)

Thanks for taking the time to make a suggestion. Like many areas, one of the ways breakthroughs in medicine occur is that someone with a fresh perspective suggests something that the experts are too close to see. I hope that this will someday happen with cancer.

<comment><USER12> I'm not a doctor but have been dealing with cancer in the family. I think we will soon see much more use of fine-needle techniques in cancer treatment in novel ways.

Perhaps the next big thing will be an oil-and-gas engineer adapting drilling, guiding and visualisation technologies to the very small scale.

Directly killing the cancer cells is often futile because you can't kill them all, but we could also use this tech to:

* take samples of the the tumour and its microenvironment to analyse and guide treatment

* inject biological agents into tumours (e.g. T-Vec)

* inject "broad-spectrum" immunotherapies (ipilimumab, various cytokines) which may be too dangerous to use systemically

* insert radioactive grains or auger targets as an adjunct to enhance immunotherapy

* apply local electroporation to enhance the uptake of chemotherapy and breakdown of tumour cells, again to enhance the immune response (e.g. ImmunoPulse)

* take samples in order to grow personalised treatments in the lab for later injection (e.g. dendritic cell therapy)

* provide safer options for dealing with complications like pericardial effusions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I first became familiar with her work in the early 90's when she was writing for the New York Times. I loved her writing style and always read her articles. She was just as good on TV - sharp, intelligent dialog without the yelling you get on other shows. She'll be missed!

</comment><comment><USER14> She was a real talent in both print journalism as well as television on both Washington Week and The News Hour. Her and Judy Woodruff made such a wonderful team as co-anchors. This is very sad news. She will be missed.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure which shocked me more: Trump's victory, or this. Another bright light in the firmament has been extinguished. RIP, Gwen. You will be sorely missed, now more than ever.

</comment><comment><USER16> Gwen was one of the best journalists to ever live. One of the best compliments is after all these years I still can't be 100% sure I know what Gwen thinks about various issues.

It's an amazing achievement that she could be so objective for so many years. All others should learn from her example. What a tragedy, the world lost one of its best. RIP.</comment>


Keep wallet out after buying iPhone 3G. You're going to need new accessories, too - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/get-a-new-iphone-you-re-going-to-need-new-accessories-too

<comment><USER2> The title is mildly trollish -- I'd think only a very small portion of iPhone v2 buyers will be affected by this. In fact, the v2 iPhone is _more_ compatible with accessories, because Apple got rid of the recessed headphone jack.

<comment><USER3> No, he's right. For example, I use a dock at work so I can charge my phone and have it look decent. Well, the new phone doesn't come with a dock, so you have to shell out 30 bucks for a new one. By the by, the new dock does not include a cable, so if you were buying a dock as a second charge point, you're SOL.

I'm really disappointed with all of these cheap tactics this time around. I don't know that I'll be buying iphone v3.</comment></comment>


Run Your Own Website - <AUTHOR> https://zacs.site/blog/own-your-platform.html <comment><USER4> I do run my own site. Moreover, I do all the coding, styling, and layout manually and without any 3rd-party libraries or frameworks. Or even in-house libraries for that matter.

This works for me in terms of freedom. I can do interactive plots, quizzes, games and all kind of programmable things I can imagine. No restrictions.

In fact, I left Medium because I was restricted to text and images only. I want more. I want words and buttons: [https://wordsandbuttons.online](https://wordsandbuttons.online)

But it's not really aligned with the reasons from the post. It's not a resume. It would have been an awful resume. I wouldn't hire myself by this resume.

And keeping record is, of course, nice. But it has nothing to do with running your own website. You can keep record on Medium, too. In fact, it would be more effective since it works wonders for the small notes.

Still, I totally agree that keeping your own site is a fascinating experience and it's well worth time and effort.

<comment><USER5> FYI your font-size is uncomfortably huge, I can see maybe 25 lines of text on my desktop screen. It feels like I should step backward a meter or two.

<comment><USER6> Enormous fonts is a trend in modern web design for some reason. I browse most sites at about 66% zoom. Get used to the Ctrl+- shortcut.

<comment><USER7> My personal page has a front end font size range in 30s and 40s.

ive done that because mobile reading the page would see microdots instead of characters at 14 pt font.

i read and access at the ass end, the front is for mobies i havnt wanted to use JS to check and set font as i really dont want to build a JS site.

<comment><USER8> You don't need JS to get a website that behaves properly on mobile. Just add one meta tag to set the viewport scaling and text will scale properly:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

<comment><USER7> i did that for a while, ill have to look into finer details, there were issues with screen rotation breaking the formatting, so i might have to redo the CSS; im looking at gridding the pages, as this seems to be the direction to go for the next version of the page. I basically want to make the navigation UX a first person RPG themed frontend. so that the files are accessed by e.g. moving to the library, talking to the librarian for help or searching for a document etc. finding the sword of git! slaying the maldragon [not necessary but if you want to side quest for fun it would be there]

and thanx BTW

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At least own your domain name and be able to easily move your website content to whereever you want. I think for most people it's cheaper and more convenient to use a hosting service, and that's fine... as long as you can change hosting services.

I've had my personal site ( [https://dwheeler.com](https://dwheeler.com) ) since 1999. As noted in [https://dwheeler.com/aboutsite.html](https://dwheeler.com/aboutsite.html) my site has been hosted on 4 different systems, and I'm sure that I will move again at some point. Users won't notice - or care - because I can easily move to some other service.

<comment><USER10> > At least own your domain name

Serious question: _How?_ Aside from .onion[0], all TLDs I know of only allow you to rent a domain name, and will take it away if you don't keep paying their protection racket year-on-year. I would be happy to pay >1000$ to purchase a (human-readable, second-level, etc) domain, if I could actually find where to do so.

0: which is less "own" and more "conjure out of the platonic ether something that no one else is capable of using".

<comment><USER7> try out freedns.afraid.org there is a small fee for a premium private account, or you can ride on supermans cape for free and make a secondary domain on those who choose to make thier domain public.

<comment><USER11> That doesn't help you own a domain name. That just lets you configure DNS for domains.

<comment><USER12> it has free subdomains you can use

<comment><USER11> Yes, but that doesn't solve any of the problems that a1369209993 mentioned. Those subdomains can be taken away from you at any time. You have no legal ownership of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Especially given the number of things platforms like YouTube, Reddit and Medium are cracking down on/demonetising. For instance, your own host likely won't boot you off or interfere if you post cybersecurity related videos/articles, like YouTube started to do a few days ago.

Having your own site provides a backup in case the platforms you use to promote your work turn on/your industry.

And don't worry about the extra traffic a platform may bring. That's why you publish on your own site first, then syndicate your content to other services later.

[https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

</comment><comment><USER14> I can see why this article with a very basic premise is so popular.

* It's short, so the average reader here has enough attention span for it.

* It's obvious, so that leaves plenty of room for patting oneself on the back.

* It's simple, so one can reference their own writings about a similar topic or related to it in some way.

* It's about a topic that lets the commenter here show off their own website and bloviate about themselves.

This is nothing against the author, but against Hacker News and how so much interesting material fails to ever reach the front page.

<comment><USER15> This post reads of "Why are people liking what I don't like?".

This article might be stating the obvious to you. However sometimes people have to be reminded that things can be done simply without the nonsense of cloud hosting, CDNs, automated deployments and all the guff that comes with it.

This sort of article is pertinent in the days of many of the large tech sites being censorious (there was a discussion with 100s of comments about youtube censoring infosec channels), sites with megabytes of JavaScript and even many CSS libraries / frameworks requiring a build tools for styling.

Reminding people that it doesn't have to be this way is important and it doesn't need your approval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yup. People tend to assume running your own site is difficult but running a static webserver is dead simple. As long as you don't involve all the unneeded dynamic language and database it's secure and doesn't really need updating all the time either.

90% of people can run a static web server on their home connection and it would fulfill their every requirement (as well as solving almost all 'problems' that exist on the web). Home connections of a couple megabits are certainly fast enough for a personal site.

<comment><USER6> Mm, nah. Running a DNS server, choosing an HTTP server and keeping all the related software up to date is a lot to ask even of a techie. And that's not even getting into dynamic IP issues.

<comment><USER17> You don't need to run a DNS server, just some utility that updates the record when your IP changes. There are many, and are quite simple to use (basic text config, or simple GUI).

As for maintaining stuff updated, unattended-upgrades on a Debian or Ubuntu LTS system will keep your system patched for five years, and it's very rare that the infrastructure stuff breaks.

<comment><USER18> maybe that's the difficult part, finding the uncommon path among all the current trends, clearly distant from these "simple" proposals.

it might be easy to set up if you understand how the web works, but that understanding generally comes from some real work/experience we already have, which might not be so easy to pick up.

having 1000 simple ways to run a website could be much more complicated than having 2 tricky ways to run a website. specially if you don't know whether any of those ways are simple or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "your website as a record" resonates with me. I recently redesigned my website (which is online since 2001) and one new feature I added is a random button. Clicking it will open a random page which is often a blog post I wrote many years ago. It's easily the most fun feature for me personally as it makes me remember things of my life... I don't know how much other visitors use or like it. If you want, give it a try at [https://www.splitbrain.org](https://www.splitbrain.org) \- it's the dice in the menu.

<comment><USER20> A very nice website. It is rare to have websites of such character these days. Potentially everyone should be able to have a website that offers up some of their personality, yours has that, anyone can tell some effort has gone into it.

The only thing though is that in the contact details there is the 'I get so many emails that I will probably ignore yours' message. This I don't think is necessary. It sends out the wrong message. You could have a template or two to handle enquiries that you don't have time to reply to so you don't discourage that one person who does want to reach out to you but does value your time more than their own. Those that don't care about your time will ignore your 'don't bother emailing me coz I am too busy' message anyway.

It is crazy how we have all of these methods of communication but we have all put up barriers. There was a time when everyone had their name, phone number and address in the phone book. We used to actually use the phone in those days too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I totally agree with this. While running and maintaining your own website isn't trivial enough yet that _anybody_ can just up and do it, it's definitely something most anyone willing to spend a weekend can pick up and learn, with maybe a bit of help.

Been considering moving towards a static site generator setup myself, and is currently looking at Gatsby.

I'm curious though --- barring preference for language, which generator would you recommend? I keep hearing about Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc. but haven't really come across any objective comparisons between options.

<comment><AUTHOR> It comes down to how much time and effort you want to invest into learning a new system, which should depend on how many of the advanced features those systems enable that you will use. For me, that answer was as little as possible and zero. I just need a good static site generator. There are a bunch to choose from these days, but fewer back when I was faced with this decision in the early 2000s, so I wrote my own. If you don't need anything flashy, use something like my engine (First Crack: [https://zacs.site/projects.html#firstCrack](https://zacs.site/projects.html#firstCrack)) to build the site and GitHub Pages to serve it. If there's a certain feature you want that a combo like that does not allow for, find the simplest engine that meets your needs, learn to use it, then go from there. Most of the big names are pretty good these days, so you can't really go wrong no matter which you choose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The title made me hope for a quite literal way to run your website: using some kind of energy harvesting (bicycle?) used to power a small computer with a web server.

This is an issue that is quite simple to solve. Many podcasters (espescially Joe Rogan) like to talk about being afraid of getting removed from a platform without having your own hosting set up.

Most of the controversial big names of youtube and other platforms can and should stay as independent as possible. Twitter and others' aim is to lure as many people as possible to their platforms. Once you are big enough you should probably seek out an independent way to distribute content.

<comment><USER17> If you just want to distribute content, you're better off sharing bittorrent links. The problem is that those podcasters want the visibility and the ad money of those platforms. Which is valid, but not something that is solvable by self-hosting at home.

<comment><USER23> We need to transition to solutions for it though, and a "hybrid" approach would be a move in the right direction. i.e. you don't have to leave the platforms, just make your own website, _too_. Yeah, it's more work, but nothing good will come of just leaving it to the big players and what they come up with. To even have leverage, people can't just be completely dependent, that's a non-starter.

<comment><USER24> IndieWeb calls this "Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Everywhere"[0].

[0]: [https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Under my definition, you must have 1) total control over your content, and > 2) the ability to make it public or private at any time.

I run my own website ([https://saagarjha.com](https://saagarjha.com), naturally) but I can't guarantee either of these. My host (GitHub Pages) can take down my content at any time if I annoy them enough, and once I make something public I don't suffer from the misconception that I can make it private again. I can, however, rehost my content (crucially, _at the same "location"_), which I think is nearly good enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> For my personal websites, I only ever tried wordpress around 10 years ago before I built my own from scratch.

[https://idiallo.com](https://idiallo.com)

What I find interesting is that a swat of new developers thinks that the only options are:

1\. free hosting with lock-in platforms (medium, blogger, ...)

2\. Clever hacks (github, netlify, cloudflare...)

3\. Expensive hosting ($40/m+)

The alternative is to use shared hosting for simple content. Or cheap but excellent services like linode, digitalocean, or vultr. They set you back $5/m or less.

Host your own content, make local backups. If your provider complains, find another host, copy and paste your content and update the dns.

<comment><USER27> I use the "clever hacks" because I'm afraid of one of my blog articles getting linked to on Reddit. Even if there are no ads on my site, I want it to stay up and readable, and I don't want to suddenly get an egress-bandwidth bill in the process!

Also, despite having done ops for years, I don't want _my continued willingness to do ops_ (as with DO/Linode/Vultr) or _my continued usage of my small municipal ISP_ (or even _my small municipal ISP's continued existence_ , as these often get bought up, and their branding—including web-host domains!—gets blown away in the process) to determine whether my site stays up. I want my website to continue to exist, at the same URL, even if I retire and go live in the mountains with no Internet for the rest of my life. I want my works to outlive me!

There are "good" shared HTML hosts that have been around for decades and will likely be around for decades more—SDF.org is one; most universities with accounts for alumni are another—but these don't tend to be able to handle the bandwidth, so you have to combine them with a service like Cloudflare anyway.

But really, "slug-based static-site build-product hosting" like Github Pages and Netlify _are_ just shared HTML hosts as well—with some extra features, sure, but ones that you can ignore if you please. With GH Pages, for example, you don't have to use a static-site generator if you don't want to; you can just commit content assets directly to your github-pages branch. And the result has the same properties you list: if Github complains, I can take that same repo and push it to another site; or it can gracefully degrade to being a folder (that happens to have a .git dir in it) that I can plop into any public_html directory.

<comment><USER26> > I use the "clever hacks" because I'm afraid of one of my blog articles > getting linked to on Reddit. Even if there are no ads on my site, I want it > to stay up and readable, and I don't want to suddenly get an egress- > bandwidth bill!

I use DO. My site often gets linked on Reddit and hn and the $10 service handles it just fine. One article I wrote recently got 5 million web requests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> $12 + tax a year for each domain name. If you know a way around this, let me know.

Using a single dynamic IP address, if the IP address changes I manually point the domain names to the new IP address. It's a bit of a pain, but the IP address really doesn't change that often. I could automate this with a great amount of time and trouble. I wish the Domain Registrar didn't have such a crazy panel for configuring such things.

The ISP gave me a simpler version of their modem for what they call "bridge mode" that doesn't block ports. I'm paying for Internet Service, if they block ports they are not providing that service. The notion of a server is lost on me, there are packets being sent and received over the internet, if they block that they are not providing Internet Service.

Port 80 on the home router forwards to a Raspberry Pi. My outages are when the power goes out, the IP address changes, or the ISP goes down.

A Raspberry Pi 2 Model B / raspbian runs Apache, I've considered trying others like nginx. I don't need https and auto-renewing SSL certificates from Let's Encrypt, if you want to read something everyone can read it. If someone happens to modify the packets in the middle somewhere out there, so be it. I don't want you to login, and I definitely don't want your information -- if you have something interesting maybe I'll find it out there wherever and on whatever that might be...

<comment><USER29> For my home IP I use cname to a dynamic dns service provided by my router manufacturer.

There are free dyndns services, that integrate with many home router brands. Then you don't need to automate the main domain A/AAAA record changes, which can be cumbersome, depending on the provider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > _" <body style="...;display:none;" ...>"_

Please don't do this. If your website is your resume, and you intentionally obscure it from me, I'm not going to hire you.

</comment><comment><USER31> Any opinions on what are the best software choices for a single person to use in 2019 to build a website from scratch?

I'd be willing to learn something new if I knew in 2 years, I'd be extremely productive.

<comment><USER32> 0) Get a cheap virtual/dedicated machine.

1) Install docker and docker-compose

2) Setup traefik, a reverse proxy, in docker (good starting point: [https://docs.traefik.io/user-guide/docker-and-lets- encrypt/](https://docs.traefik.io/user-guide/docker-and-lets-encrypt/) ).

3) Run $docker container (ghost, wordpress...). I typically use one docker- compose file for each domain. "expose" is not necessary because the requests are proxied by traefik.

Here's a docker-compose sample for a website available under my-website.com:

        version: '3'

        services:
            web:
                container_name: my-website.com-nginx
                image: nginx
                restart: unless-stopped
                volumes:
                    - ./data:/usr/share/nginx/html
                labels:
                  - "traefik.docker.network=web"
                  - "traefik.enable=true"
                  - "traefik.basic.frontend.rule=Host:my-website.com"
                  - "traefik.basic.port=80"
                  - "traefik.basic.protocol=http"

        networks:
            default:
                external:
                    name: web

There are probably more elegant ways to do this, however I found it quite effective for my setup.

<comment><USER33> Nah, just use nearlyfreespeech.net

You get a bsd host with shell access for cheap.

<comment><USER34> WOW. You have no idea how much it makes he happy and encouraged to see that NFS is still making it. They were my first webhost, for price alone, and then overtime became my default because of the support.

Eventually moved on when my needs evolved and sort of...forgot about them until this comment.

<comment><USER35> I've been with them for about 10 years now. They've increased pricing and decreased support at the same time. They have introduced (probably 8 years ago) a static site option which is considerably cheaper.

But moving my static sites to S3 would be considerably cheaper.

<comment><USER36> Unfortunately, they discontinued the static site option 2(?) years ago. Now all sites are dynamic, but my static site costs have barely gone up, so its all good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Sheesh, 20 years ago I had a static IP, along with my own server running web, mail, and DNS servers, in my apartment.

Either things are more complicated these days, or I just got tired of running it. Probably the latter. Then again, doing something like putting a downloadable file on Wordpress is difficult. It was easy on my own server.

At least I still have a static IP and my old domain name.

<comment><USER38> While you can still do what you did, likely you wouldn't have a static IP - <USER2> least not here in the United States.

Most home connections have a dynamic IP provided by DHCP; now, usually, that IP won't change (probably tied to the MAC address of the modem or router) - but it can change. So what most routers provide is a way to report the IP to a service like "Dynamic DNS" ([https://dyn.com/dns/](https://dyn.com/dns/) \- which used to be free, and this is first I've learned that it's now an Oracle project - sigh) - which can then be pointed to as the DNS service for the site - so if your address ever changes, name resolution will still be available. Other settings in your router can do various other functions to route the traffic to-and-from your server.

Which is where it also gets tricky.

Most providers "look the other way" when it comes to servers, provided they don't get popular. They also block more than a few ports, so you have to work around that as well (mainly standard ports like 80, 25, etc). But technically, most TOS contracts with broadband ISPs forbid the running of servers, and they can pull your connection if they want to for that TOS violation.

The other option would be to sign up for "business class" service with an ISP. Sometimes you can get this with your current home ISP - for a massively inflated price (and usually a drop in speed if you want to keep the costs the same). But usually you are given one or more static IPs, and the ability to run servers is part of the deal. Not all home ISPs provide this service, but the big names (COX, Comcast, etc) I believe all do.

Some, though, might throw in another "catch": You can't have business service to a residential address. This will vary based on your provider; most have realized the idea of SOHO setups and the need/want for business class service for these home-based systems. But not all have. So you have to keep that in mind, as well.

Which is why, instead of going thru all of that hassle (and it really isn't a minor amount - on top of everything else you have to do to run a home-based server, plus security, etc) - most people will instead go with some other hosted solution, a cloud virtual server being the first choice for most today.

Shared hosting is still available, of course, but last I checked, you can't get use a letsencrypt certificate with these, depending on how they have things set up (you can still purchase and set up your own certificate - <USER3> that's more money out the door).

Colocation is still an option - but it tends to be (always has been) an expensive proposition for most, unless you're planning on using it for a small amount of shared hosting (friends and family?), or you run a business providing such hosting as part of a package (I worked for an employer who did this for his clients as part of the custom websites we built - but if they wanted to host it themselves or with another provider, that was an option). Or it might be that for certain needs it would be cheaper to build the server yourself and colo it, than trying to use virtual or cloud hosting for a similar system (or you want more control over the system - the ability to visit the data center to upgrade or fix issues can be useful).

So there are plenty of options out there for someone who want to run their own piece of the internet. Ultimately, though, aside from cloud virtual hosting services, they all require a fair amount of technical competence that keeps most away, and even those who have the knowledge sometimes don't want the administrative and maintenance headaches that come with the territory.

That can be true to an extent even with shared hosting. For instance, I personally have an old shared hosting account with Hurricane Electric; I was running a website using PHP and MySQL, and about a year ago (or maybe it's been longer?) they upgraded their servers to a new version of PHP that ended up breaking my website something horrible (my website was originally a way for me to learn PHP years ago, and it never got the love it needed ultimately). I put up a quick "site broken - sorry" page and left it.

But the truth is, I don't want to have to maintain even that; worrying about issues with PHP and MySQL, dealing with thoughts of potential attacks, making sure my stuff is secure, etc. For my site, for what I used it for, all that is a hassle. Which is why I have been thinking (but have yet to execute) about going back to a simple static site. If I need comments or discussion (which I don't know if that is necessary), then I can rig up something with an outside provider - but ultimately, my pages should just be simple static HTML and some javascript. Some basic CSS to make things a little responsive, and nothing else much. I've been giving thought to doing this on a DO droplet; it'd be much cheaper than my HE hosting, and give me a bit more freedom (plus I can use an LE certificate).

I think all of this is what holds people back, and makes them seek other simpler paths; they just want to get something up and shown to the world, they don't want to deal with all the technical issues, they don't want to have to worry about security, and they don't want to have to deal with other complexities. This is why sites like Medium, and other providers (QIX, etc) have been so successful; they have removed such strain from the equation. Of course, it has come with more than a few visible, and at times hidden, costs, that content creators (and users) are beginning to experience, and more importantly, understand what they have given up.

We're probably in the process - or right on the edge - of yet another shift in "content hosting" for lack of a better term. Between the censoring on platforms, and other reasons, there is some shuffling going on it seems. What I honestly hope comes out of this is a move to distributed content (so-called "distributed web", for instance) - but I don't think things are quite there for people to really use it (though some distributed platforms I have seen really seem to be right on the cusp for adoption - if they can just market it right).

<comment><USER37> It's a true static IP; been paying $12 extra each month since 2003. It's Consolidated Communications here in Kansas City, and never had an issue running servers. They actually still provide Usenet too. I keep it static as I have some SDR hardware I want easy access to.

The only thing that sucks is the way asymmetric 100/5 service. I could get 300/30 with Spectrum, but I don't want to deal with that headache, and they would charge me business class. Google and AT&T are dragging their feet on fiber. It's a few blocks away still. Seems they move a block every few years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > [...] Medium, for example, because the company owns all the content you > publish there.

Is this true? I am absolutely shocked if so.

I would assume Medium might get a license to display your content, but do you actually transfer your ownership to them by posting? If so, that's dastardly wicked.

<comment><USER40> [https://medium.com/policy/medium-terms-of- service-9db0094a1e...](https://medium.com/policy/medium-terms-of- service-9db0094a1e0f) says:

> You own the rights to the content you create and post on Medium.

> By posting content to Medium, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish > it on Medium Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing > it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). In > consideration for Medium granting you access to and use of the Services, you > agree that Medium may enable advertising on the Services, including in > connection with the display of your content or other information. We may > also use your content to promote Medium, including its products and content. > We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit > permission.

In practice this lets them do literally anything they want with your content. I'm not sure what lawyers would make of the bit about not selling your content to third parties, but I cynically imagine that all it takes is for them to classify such an arrangement as one of their Services and they're off the hook. Do note that they did _not_ include the word "non-transferrable", only "non-exclusive".

<comment><USER41> It looks pragmatic and reasonable to me. You give them the non exclusive license they need to publish it. You allow them to show ads. You allow them to use your content in ads. If they get bought, well their successor would have the same rights.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This type of post makes it to the front page pretty frequently, but I think the audience on hacker News vastly underestimates the difficulty of setting up a personal site for the general public. There is always the refrain of "but just use static HTML!", as if anyone even knows what that is, as if it's so easy to set up a domain and hosting, as if no one even wants a nicely designed site with images and JavaScript that's easy to maintain. Even as a technologically literate person, I find the hassle of maintaining my own static personal website far more onerous than it has to be. Platforms are not great, but they are the only way that most people will ever interact with the web.

<comment><USER43> So for most people that are in the situation you describe I'd say they would probably just spin up a WordPress instance, pick a theme they like, and start posting.

A static html site? Even easier. There are tons of services out there that will let you host your own content for very little money or even free.

You can set up a static site on a platform like 1mb.com for next to nothing and edit the html, css, etc. To your hearts content. JavaScript mostly runs in the browser unless you're doing something more complicated than hosting your blog.

I taught myself HTML by reading source code when I was around 12 (I'm not a coder by trade). It's not a super complicated language. Nor is CSS. And there's sites like CSS Zen Garden, w3schools, and template sites all over the internet that ease that transition.

You talk about that general public, but this is a site mostly of techies, so it's natural that topics like this would be present here, far more natural than politics or posts on gossip at least. For the general public it's still pretty easy with numerous site builders, hosted solutions, etc. that will do all the heavy lifting for you. If you're not willing to take the time to learn, there's always someone who will charge you for their experience and make sure you're set up well enough to do what you need to. It can't be that hard to do with the proliferation of crackpots, marketers, and homemakers who are able to set up their own sites effectively.

While I can certainly sympathize and empathize with the idea that as a community we sometimes don't realize the difficulty in some things, on this particular topic, I think that between the market and open solutions there's a wide array of options available for someone to host their own blog with a number of entry ramps of differing difficulty.

<comment><USER42> Home Depot sells a service where you can pay $100 to have a professional handyman come to your house and knock four nails into your wall to install a shelf. People pay this because the level of complexity of using a hammer is too high. I have seen the light go out of the eyes of people with a non- technical background trying to explain even the most basic of engineering concepts (most recently, why I can't get a 10lb meterlong brick to magically lift itself out of its packaging). HTML might be the most simple language we have, but it's not simple in an absolute sense, and nothing about setting up a website outside of the platforms really is. Ask your non-technical friends: I bet most of them are not even familiar with the concept of hosting a site.

<comment><USER43> I am abundantly aware of the skills of most people. I even addressed exactly what you said in my response numerous times. I specifically said you can pay someone to host your site using site builders, templates, etc. None of that prevents someone from hosting their own site. You seem to be conflating hosting your own site from building a site from scratch. Chances are if someone doesn't have the ability to even pay someone to host their site, they aren't the target for this conversation and your point is essential moot.

<comment><USER42> No, you're just not grasping the difficulty here. Every time you introduce a new vocabulary word, you add cognitive load to learn that definition. Google "what is hosting" and you will get even more confused when they start talking about servers. Then they add extras: privacy guard, mail, SSL, even just getting a domain. To complicate things more, if you ask anyone vaguely technical for help, they will start talking about how you're getting ripped off and recommend S3 buckets and FTP access etc etc. These are not simple things; and I'm not saying all that to say oh, there's some idiots out there that can't do it; I'm saying this because when I built my own website, at 17 years old and with absolutely no CS background, my personal experience was that it was a very big learning curve and I think the average person just will not make it.

With a platform, you just... write. And it just works.

<comment><USER43> I stand corrected, you have proven that it is impossible for some people to grasp even basic concepts when determined to do so. I yield that my front line support for end users of over 13 years provides me no insights into the average, or even below average user and that your experience setting up a website at 17 trumps everything. There's just no possible way with good support some people could set up their own website, blog, or otherwise despite the fact that so many actually do it every single day. Congratulations on winning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Anyone has interesting themes for Jekyll/Hugo? I liked the layout in this blog - [https://www.jotaen.net/](https://www.jotaen.net/) However, it is a custom template.

</comment><comment><USER45> I think this is great advice and I tend to agree with it.

However, TechLead has recently given me pause. He spun up his YouTube channel and then quickly monetized it by dropping Paypal links into the video descriptions. He later made a video talking about doing this and how he thought it was a waste for people wanting to sell dresses, for example, to build a site with a cart and checkout, etc, instead of just selling right where their audience already was.

At the size his channel is now, I think it's a bit crazy of him not to have a site, but he's had larger success as an entrepreneur than I have thus far...

</comment><comment><USER46> Every creator who relies on internet for income should have their website separately, there is no excuse, its cheap to get lots of storage , and most hosting providers are not hellishly censorious like social media. What we need is a wordpress-like system that allows uploading and tagging everything in a consisten format with itemproperties. Then, e.g. youtube could autoimport a videos from the feed when asked to. I dont know if such a system exist, but it seems pretty obvious that everyone who sells their content through social media should have an online fallback/backup.

</comment><comment><USER47> There are various platform like - usercv.com, about.me who provides personal resume website without coding.

github.io is already there who provides such thing if someone knows coding.

</comment><comment><USER48> I've been running this since 1995 - [https://www.wittenburg.co.uk](https://www.wittenburg.co.uk). Most of the stuff on it isn't public (lists, home photos, documents) and I can't imagine not having it.

It's super lightweight and yes, I still use HTML tables. Because they're easier to understand 5 years later than div tags.

</comment><comment><USER49> Don't forget one small nuance: own website requires much (MUCH) more time for initial setup, than any other solution as service which is suggested instead. Especially if it's not a simple static site. And probably for maintenance as well (but it's debatable). Even for tech guys (especially those, who's not in webdev).

</comment><comment><USER50> I run my website too (see profile). I use only Jekyll to compile it locally. I did my own CSS framework [https://github.com/meerita/utilcss](https://github.com/meerita/utilcss). I host it on a DO instance. I deploy it from a local terminal command.

</comment><comment><USER51> What I'd like to see is a geocities but with: database, server side scripting, caching, memcache, and https free for limited use with a performance and availability guarantee. What would it take to get this on a massive scale?

<comment><USER52> Where would the funding come from?

<comment><USER43> Cloudfunding? It's like Kickstarter but for projects that are nearly guaranteed to die. Kind of like how patrons supported art. Most of the stuff was just workday or average, but every more and then there were gems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This seems like a good place to ask. Are there any free and reliable services to notify you when your website/web service is unavailable?

</comment><comment><USER54> I do and pay about $10/year for my VPS... so about $20 per year with domain name (domain names are overpriced)... I'm thinking about going to IP only... that way it would not crap out when google's DNS goes down...

</comment><comment><USER55> And when you do, please consider limiting the width of your content to 60-80 characters.

<comment><USER56> and 25 lines max so it fits on xterm :)</comment></comment>


Is it annoying to have non-hackers on HN? - <AUTHOR>

As HN becomes more popular and mainstream, how do hackers feel about having more non-hackers on the site - favorable because it provides an opportunity to teach or irritating because it changes the dynamics and intent? <comment><USER2> Non-hackers who want to be hackers have to learn somewhere/somehow. Non- hackers that want to get information on technical subjects could do far worse than get their news here. Personally, I welcome anyone here as long as they understand the conversation here should remain technically focused.

I lament the people ("hackers" and "non-hackers" alike) that seem to try to convert HN into their other non-technical favorite discussion forum.

</comment><comment><USER3> As long as discussion stay focussed and commentors try to actually contribute valuable input I don't care about their profession/attitude.

</comment><comment><USER4> Preemptive edit:

There must be something I don't understand, because the thread cited below isn't in the front page results if I'm logged in, but IS on the front page if I'm not logged in. So I will leave the post because of the points related to liberal arts, but rescind my voting conspiracy mindset.

=====

Take a look at this thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8914678)

It's about reading, and literature. I commented on it when it was on the front page. Went back to view the thread later and it was nowhere in the first 600 results.

I don't know why for sure yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it had something to do with the liberal arts nature of the post offending some of the hardcore flag killers here.

Non-engineering disciplines may attract a significant number of down voters and haters that the answer to your question is, in the opinion of the masses and filtered through the editorial policy of the voting/flagging system: yes.

I disagree. I think every field has its hacking contingent, and the point of liberal arts is to find breadth and interdisciplinary connection, which produces equal, if not richer, insights than narrow specialization.

So my answer is no, it's not annoying to have non-hackers on HN. I'm here to learn and to form those connections across disciplines.

It is annoying to have shills, or black-and-white silo thinkers. But these are independent of the hacker/non-hacker dimension.

</comment><comment><USER5> I came for the free beer but stayed for the physics lessons.

</comment><comment><USER6> 'non-hackers' is a pretty loaded term.

While I don't have any doubt that more and more diverse users causes friction for those who prefer HN to cater to the sort of stories and culture they prefer, it's worth mentioning that the site is about 'anything that satisfies intellectual curiosity', not _hacking_ in any particular sense.

I'm not annoyed. Some of the most interesting stories i've seen here have had nothing to do with 'hacking' at all, whatever that means.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate this perspective - I agree that hackers/non-hackers is a very inaccurate label and I like the idea that it's for "satisfying intellectual curiosity".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, yes. But only if those non-hackers consist of people in industries I don't look upon favorably: marketers, advertisers, recruiters.

I come to HN seeking primarily technical discussion. Although tech is my primary interest, if your area of interest is as nerdy as tech (science, for example), you're more than welcome here in my eyes.

<comment><USER8> Marketers yes. Advertisers yes. But recruiters? I don't have a problem with a recruiter seeking to become more knowledgeable about the tech field.

Granted, I don't want to see HN become a morass of hiring threads, but if and when I have another job to apply for, I'd like the recruiter to have some idea of what he's talking about and reading HN articles isn't exactly detrimental to that end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have seen quite a good number of contributors here are non-hackers. As long as the post or comment stays relevant and constructive then it does not matter. Rather I have seen few hackers whose posts are nothing but quite arrogant and non constructive or a way to vent or show off.</comment>


KGO-TV's San Francisco "Sutro Cam", 11/25/1997 09:45AM - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/19971126032600/http://www.citysearch7.com/news/images/sutro_cam.jpg <comment><AUTHOR> There's nothing special _in_ this photo of San Francisco, but "Webcams on Wayback" is very interesting to me, and I found the URL for this one while exploring. There are a few even earlier samples from the same URL, but this is the first one with an explanatory caption.

The page here explains their software setup and has a photo of the camera, but the embedded photo wasn't archived on this page and that (to me) is the more interesting part: [https://web.archive.org/web/19961108144250/http://www.kgo- tv...](https://web.archive.org/web/19961108144250/http://www.kgo- tv.com/D/D3/D3.html)</comment>


Web application security for web developers - <AUTHOR> https://Shieldfy.io <comment><USER2> I think you should mention that you're only providing services for PHP applications. For example on your home page: "Real-time ___PHP_ __application protection "

<comment><AUTHOR> We are planning to add other languages (nodejs in development , ruby in the road map) so we don't want to brand ourselves to php only. but generally you are right we should mention it on the website (supported language).

By the way , which language you are using ?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi this is Eslam co-founder and CEO of Shieldfy , happy to answer anything regarding the product or web security in general</comment>


Using a ham radio, you could listen to a disembodied spacesuit circling Earth. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuitSat

<comment><USER2> For a very short time: _The last confirmed signal report from SuitSat-1 was the report of KC7GZC on February 18, 2006_ , sadly.</comment>


Am I Investable? - <AUTHOR>

Am I Investable?
I have been wondering lately "Am I Investable". Should I be focusing my attention on getting funding for my ideas or helping someone else. Finance or Wage?
There is a lot of advice on the net about startup this, and seed round that, and all sorts of blah blah blah about products and pivoting and something to do with hockey sticks. Most of it is plain common sense. But there is one recurring theme that cuts through all of it.
It doesn't matter what your idea is or how skilled your team is, when someone hands over a few hundred thousand dollars, they are investing in you, not your product. Sure, your idea is great, but can you "make it happen". In essence "You" are the product, not your idea.
So, my question is, would you invest in me as a product? I do have some prototypes. Should I just say screw it and blatantly ask rich people for money?
Am I investable?
Thanks for listening. Feedback is most welcome.
tl;DR
= Product features = Focused: Like a shark with a laser.
Pliable: Able to take direction and constructive criticism well. Feed me...
Tested: 20+ years making stuff work for users. From GrandMa to CEO.
Smart: Like, you know, like, really smart.
= Background = 20+ years making anything work for everyone. I worked mainly in the x86 PC and server world, making machines, fixing them, connecting them, training people and generally just making sure the alignment of the bones were in matched to the current moon phases. There isn't a problem I can't find the cause of or a workaround for.
= Current Activities = Learning the complete Web 2.0 stack. Aside from being able to build the machines for 20+ years, I can now install CentOS 5 in my own VPS running WHM/cPanel. This platform provides me with Web Hosting, DNS, Email and other funky stuff like node.js. Using those tools, I have now built 15 websites of which 5 are "Apps" running on Expression Engine and Bootstrap. They all include the basics: Analytics by two different services, Social Media, Search, proper Content Management and are responsive in mobile environments. <comment><USER2> First problem: you're asking us if you have what it takes.

If you show up to an investor with that attitude they won't spend a second with you.

Stop _asking_ us if you have it, and start _telling_ us that you have it (or at least act like you do).

You have to believe in yourself so much to a level where you can convince someone else to believe in you so much that they'll hand you their hard-earned money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very few investors will invest purely in an unproven team, YC and HackFwd are exceptions rather than the norm. Most investors would expect to see tech or traction in addition to a solid team.

As an individual with no product and no track record you have a minisiscule chance of raising investment.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comments. The post wasn't written as a beg for money. It's more of a commentary of how I feel about all the startup advice. I fully understand a working product backed by good research is the ticket to get in the door.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is no contact info in your profile.

Can you show some of your work?

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed. Thanks for reading..</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to ask for a raise? - <AUTHOR> I have been working as a junior software engineer in France for the past year for a consulting company. I have been integrated with 2 different clients for 6 months each.
I feel like I'm actually leading the projects I'm on and adding value.
However, since I depend on VISA sponsorship I have accepted a salary of 32K€ (before tax).
I have been working for a year and have ZERO savings, I can't afford vacation and I feel like I'm being exploited.
Should I ask for a raise? If yes, how?
PS: I work in the south of France[0] where most IT workers are depending on VISAs so companies are very aware of the situation.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis <comment><USER2> A 10% raise brings you to 35k, that very likely may be your roof for this year. A 5% raise only takes it up to to 33.5k, which doesn't really make that much of a difference unless you actually put away EUR 100 a month, which leaves you with 1.2k in the bank next year. Many people instantly spend the money once they have a bit more room to breathe, so that may not help much.

Regardless, I would definitely ask for a raise. To argue in percentages is something managers tend to do in your salary segment (where 10% sounds like a lot to some). That may come in handy later, though, when you've done this for a few years, where the same percentage will get you more substantial increases.

I'd ask for a meeting with your manager, and play the classic yes game. Are you happy with my performance? Do you feel I am contributing to the progress of the company? Things like that. And then end with a simple question that doesn't DEMAND more money, but simply states that you aren't sure what the career plan is, and having worked here for some time, you'd like to know what the next 3 or 5 years look like.

If things escalate, maybe ask him what his position looks like, does he get a raise from time to time? Don't say this in comparison to you, just to get a better idea of what long-term careers at this company look like. Framing is key, I think, and I'm just basing everything on imaginary situations here. You'll have a better feel.

MOST IMPORTANTLY THOUGH: Don't just demand more money. Make sure you do so with reason. You don't have to be extraordinary to deserve a raise. Your money is worth less every single year, your rent and food costs you more every single year (simply by inflation), so your company actually pays you less if they don't step your salary up with it. Mention all the things you are proud of, abuse this social phenomenon that your boss probably can't say much against it, as that would make it personal (I think I did a great job on this one project.... "no you didn't" isn't what he's going to say, is he). He may think nothing of you, but if he can't say it out loud, you'll have a chance at the upper hand. He'll say his budget is limited, people above him control the situation, etc. — just say: "what can I do, to help you get me on a career path that involves a progression of my salary?"

<comment><USER3> A nice explaination of a raise negotiation strategy you've written there. I like it very much.

<comment><USER4> Ditto. I think the positive framing you suggest is important.

It is possible that the supervisor is ok offering a raise but hasn't offered if he/she wasn't asked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend both of these:

3 minutes [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HqvbdOWpc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HqvbdOWpc8)

5 minutes (see from minute 1:20 - 4:30) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKVK5rTrOlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKVK5rTrOlg)

In short, figure out if you're an agreeable or disagreeable person and how that might play out when asking for a raise. Then when you ask for a raise, do it from a position of strength, which is to say, go into negotiations with solid reasons and a competing offer from another company.

</comment><comment><USER6> In france salaries depend heavily on your years of experience (Junior, confirmé, senior...) so if you are just starting your career there is a tiny chance your boss will accept giving you a rise, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and ask.

Seeing your colleagues doing same work and being paid more is definitely not a healthy aspect to live by. I was there.

You have two options: Ask for a rise, if you get it then continue working for the same company until you gain more experience.

If you didn't get it then change employer. Changing employer allowed me a rise of 20%

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think the yearly raise should be? (and should it be yearly?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _I feel like I 'm being exploited_

An important question to ask yourself is whether or not that would that change if you get paid a few thousand Euros more?

Chances are that it wouldn't. Really you're not looking for just a pay rise - you're looking for a promotion so you get recognition for what you're already doing. Talk to your boss about how you can make that happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe its because I see people doing the same or less work as me, are getting paid (and therefore appreciated) more.

I don't know what a promotion or recognition would look like, or how i might ask for one?

<comment><USER7> _are getting paid (and therefore appreciated) more_

I'd be willing to bet many of them feel exactly the same way you feel. They'll feel they're under-appreciated and unrecognised for what they do, and they'll think more money will change that. It won't. How much you're paid is not a sign of how well you're appreciated.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get what you mean. But I honestly think I'd feel at least a bit better if i was financially doing better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You have no leverage. You need to find and accept another (much better) offer.

<comment><USER9> I agree. Eg suppose you try to negotiate for a raise with your employer and they refuse to play along. What are you gonna do?

Probably better results to spend all your effort cultivating alternative options- who else would give you a job? How much would they pay you?

It's trickier if your visa is tied to your employer. Stating the obvious: that's not a great position to be in if it makes it much harder for you to switch jobs.

edit: it might also be useful to read about negotiation

e.g. the book "getting to yes"

"The Art of Letting Other People Have Your Way: Negotiating Secrets from Chris Voss" \-- [https://www.fs.blog/2018/01/chris- voss/](https://www.fs.blog/2018/01/chris-voss/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes, you should ask for one. Be straightforward when asking, and make the case that you're now a more valuable member of the company. Cite that you've become the de-facto project leader. You could also say you want a promotion, or at least a change in title, if you feel you are no longer in the junior role.

You may also want to take into account the political situation in your company. Who makes decisions on raises and promotions? Is there a process in place? Is what you do visible to them (and how could it be more visible)?

</comment><comment><USER11> It depends on where you're from. If you need a VISA I assume you're not from the EU. If you immigrated from a wealthy country, then go for it. Worst case you go back home. But if going back home is a problem, then you'll probably have to either bite the bullet and save harder (You can probably save 10k/year or more in france with that salary if you try hard enough) or "ask nicely" for a raise, but don't expect much.

</comment><comment><USER12> Patio11's podcast on salary negotiations might offer some insight on discussing raises, [https://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast- episo...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/06/03/kalzumeus-podcast- episode-12-salary-negotiation-with-josh-doody/)

<comment><USER13> Holy shit, patio¹¹, get sound dampening. Sounds like you recorded this in a 50-yard-long school hallway!

P.S. Thanks for the transcription.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, this thread has probably died, but I thought I'd inform you how it went.

Last night, I had my yearly meeting with my boss. I talked about all the progress I have made, my critical contributions to the project I'm in, and kind of hinted that the client would be stuck if I left the team in a short notice.

He straight away gave a number of 37K, I took it.

<comment><USER14> That probably means he could have gone to 40k with a bit of huffing and puffing :) but it's still a pretty good yoy raise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> IMO, €32k is decent for a junior position with 1 year experience.

Isn't that the average wage, generally?

<comment><AUTHOR> That translates to roughly 1950€ per month, before taxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You dont ask for a raise. You get exactly what you deserve.

Hear me out:

No one ever gets a raise before they start doing the extra work.

It is always a case of "wow, we better give Alice a raise since she's doing so much and it would suck to try and replace her with someone else at her current pay".

<comment><USER17> I disagree with this, if you start going above and beyond on your work consistently people/co-workers/the company will get used to this and it becomes your baseline. Why pay more for someone already doing the work?

Achieving above your pay grade for a long period can also place you in the tricky situation of management agreeing to a raise if you up X/Y/Z, if you're already performing to a high level without monetary recognition then you're in a tough spot.

All this leads into why lots of engineers struggle to get raises within the same company and then with a few career hops will instead double/triple their salary.

The cost of the lost productivity from domain knowledge within companies leaving with engineers who can't get raises must be far higher, especially as going out into the current hiring market means you'll probably have to pay equal or more for a similarly skilled but without domain knowledge engineer.</comment></comment>


Regolith Linux – A desktop with less visual bullshit - <AUTHOR> http://Regolith-linux.org <comment><USER2> Is there a way to disable gaps within Regolith? I have i3 with ubuntu and I love the extensions these guys have added to it. However i never understood the functional benefit of having them. My favorite part about a tiling wm is making use of space, not wasting it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi mastrsushi, super-+ and super-- interactively change the size of the gaps and they go to zero. You can edit the i3 config as well to hard set them at 0.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have added a screenshot to regolith-linux.org that shows a workspace without gaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks cool! But Gnome control center is kinda terrible. I'm on Ubuntu and if I want to connect to my bluetooth headphones I have to use bluetoothctl. The Gnome control panel is a joke and doesn't work. Same for wifi. The widget works but the control panel doesn't

<comment><USER4> Look into blueman; works great for me.

<comment><USER3> It's pretty good, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like the visual design of the desktop as well as the website for it. The choice of key bindings seems good too — I like that the app launcher is bound to win+space, because I've always mentally thought of it as being similar to apple's OS X finder. The documentation seems well written and should get people on their way. Hopefully this gets some people over the learning curve of i3 and into a place where they can enjoy its great power and minimalism.

</comment><comment><USER6> it's as if the heavens took pity on my recently jumping from debian flavors with desktop environments straight into arch flavors with tiling window managers, and decided to throw me a bone. baby steps.

i've had alot of fun with this for the past few days, i suspect i am not the only person who has used ubuntu almost exclusively since the buzz surrounding it bubbled up to the more normie/casual parts of the internet a decade ago. yeah i've played with debian proper on my pi, and i almost exclusively work from the terminal in ubuntu, but i still found something like the move to an arch distro, or manually setting up i3 to replace the ubuntu DE's, to be out of my grasp. extremely awesome effort here, and probably my new go-to OS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words! Really appreciate hearing that you like Regolith.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having been testing Manjaro because of its really nice defaults in the i3 version, this is also very nice config on Xubuntu. Perhaps enough to become a new Ubuntu variant, "Ibuntu" ?

</comment><comment><USER8> I freaking love the idea.

Raw i3 sucks, you spend half of your time trying to configure Bluetooth, wireless multi-screen support, etc..

Now I use Ubuntu Mate with i3wm support and it's awesome, will try this Insha'allah.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm a big fan of an i3(gaps) distro, but it's somewhat humorous to say "without all the visual bullshit" and have compiz included.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see your point. I guess my meaning was more about things on the screen, rather than a lightweight GUI stack.

<comment><USER9> Alright, that makes a lot more sense. Also I installed it this morning and I'm a pretty big fan. I really like the idea to have a hotkey to show the main hotkey commands. It's such a little quality of life thing that I think greatly lowers the learning curve of i3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is really exciting, and something I am definitely gonna have to try.

It's basically the custom setup I have right now, with a few enhancements (a better wallpaper manager, better settings management, and st instead of gnome- terminal, although never having tried st I'm not sure if that's an improvement or not).

Great effort by the creators.

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know if there's something like this, but with sway and full wayland instead?

<comment><USER12> Install Ubuntu minimal, build sway, install the packages they are using for system configuration and basically you're done

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm excited about this and am looking forward to giving it a try. I've been looking for a minimalistic Xubuntu alternative recently -- not unhappy with the latter besides minor grievances, but it's getting boring (perhaps a good thing).

<comment><AUTHOR> Great! Would love to get feedback on your experience!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One concern I have is that since I run my Linux instance in a VM inside Windows, I prefer super being mapped to Alt as opposed to Win. Is this possible in Regolith? Also are vim hjkl keybindings available for window management?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi addicted, yes you can do both of those things by editing the i3 config file. Details on the internals page of the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anybody knows how to set up the `Mod + ?` shortcut to bring the shortcuts? Do they use a script for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mod + / should bring up the shortcuts xisukar. The i3 config file binds to those keys and toggle launches conky. If it's not working for you please file an issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> huh? switching distros for a theme?

<comment><AUTHOR> While I agree that Regolith is mostly "skin deep", there are some aspects that transcend just theming, for example gnome integration. Regolith is not intended as a replacement for those happy and comfortable with building packages from source and hand tweaking configuration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm getting errors trying to add the repo to 19.04. Any updates?

<comment><AUTHOR> Follow this for updates: [https://github.com/regolith-linux/regolith- desktop/issues/5](https://github.com/regolith-linux/regolith-desktop/issues/5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Operating desktop of choice for the new Lunar Earth Defense Missile Battery,

[https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/201...](https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/20180227%20David%20L.%20Goldfein%20letter%20SC.pdf)</comment>


An open letter to Yelp's CEO - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a#.5lakumugq <comment><USER2> As an update, Talia has now been fired for writing this open letter asking for a living wage for Yelp/Eat24 employees: [https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/700862005834444800](https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/700862005834444800)

</comment><comment><USER3> Main discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11138086) (85 points, 12 hours ago, 29 comments)

</comment><comment><USER4> What a shameful and short-sighted way for a business as successful as Yelp to treat an employee.

</comment><comment><USER5> YC Research has found their first basic income candidate.</comment>


Formal Reasoning About Programs (2017) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://adam.chlipala.net/frap/frap_book.pdf <comment><USER2> The link provided seems down (hug of death?)

I'm guessing that this is the same material: [https://github.com/achlipala/frap](https://github.com/achlipala/frap)

<comment><USER3> Try [http://adam.chlipala.net/frap/](http://adam.chlipala.net/frap/)

It's a really great book as an introduction to semantics and proofs.

A great alternative is [http://www.concrete- semantics.org/](http://www.concrete-semantics.org/).

Concrete Semantics uses Isabelle, which is based on ZFC set theory. Whereas FRAP uses Coq, that employs constructive types.

[https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu](https://softwarefoundations.cis.upenn.edu) is also fantastic, covers some of the same topics, and proceeds a bit more slowly.

I'm betting formal methods will become more wildly used in the 2020s. It'd be interesting to see e.g. reinforcement learning used to automate proof discovery.

<comment><USER4> >I'm betting formal methods will become more wildly used in the 2020s. It'd be interesting to see e.g. reinforcement learning used to automate proof discovery.

Even though I think formal methods in programming would be a great thing, If anything I see evidence for it not happening. I got hired into a new job last year and I mentioned it as one of my interests and the guy literally laughed in my face commenting at how pointless it is proving a program to be correct.

What is it that makes you think formal methods will become more popular?

<comment><USER2> Sadly, I share your pessimism about formal methods. I suspect one of the headwinds is that there's a greater demand for _more_ software than there is for _better-proven_ software.

<comment><USER5> At the end of the day I think it's just a matter of cost. If it's cheaper to let a software fail and simply fix it when it does, there will not be much interest into proving it to be correct. If a failure will likely be vastly more expensive than proving correctness, then proving correctness will make sense. There are simply way less instances of the second category. I think one of the few "new" instances, which might be worth mentioning is smart contract programming, where failures can cause millions of loss and proving correctness is not too expensive.

<comment><USER4> With the amount of infrastructure focused around testing I think the opposite is true.

I think it's more ignorance and culture. Many people don't know about formal methods.

<comment><USER6> Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This book and the Coq proof assistant are what pushed me to learn Emacs. The 'coqide' application my class (CSE 505 at UW) used was not a good text editing experience. Emacs + Proof General by contrast were incredible.

It's important to have a solid on-ramp for beginners. I tried using Emacs for a Java project in my next class, but I never managed to set up anything as nice as the IntelliJ IDE. I'm sure setting up something nicer is possible, but first impressions matter.

<comment><USER8> There's also a nice VS Code extension for Coq I used when taking Adam's class.</comment></comment>


Building a Bank with Go [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/presentations/bank-go <comment><USER2> I had to click around to find the video, but here it is: [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/bank- go](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/bank-go)

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great presentation on use of Go to build large distributed apps. Good open source tech developed there (see [https://github.com/monzo](https://github.com/monzo)). Also -- They appear to be hiring (located in the UK): [https://boards.greenhouse.io/monzo](https://boards.greenhouse.io/monzo)

</comment><comment><USER5> i wish my company was using Go for it's SOA instead of node.js. so much less overhead to run that neatly compiled binary than the dependency hell which is node.js. probably because node.js is hardly a language and almost every basic function needs to be imported from some third party, which also feels not so safe, as a sys admin. go is also easy to use.

<comment><USER6> At least Node.js has a built in package manager and not Github link hell like Go.

<comment><USER7> npm isn't a built-in package manager. It's commonly packaged alongside node, sure.

<comment><USER6> It's separate to the language but there is actually an NPM version inside the Node.js repository if you build from source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hi, author here. Happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER9> For some reason [https://monzo.com/](https://monzo.com/) crashes in both Chrome and Firefox before the pages loads on my linux desktop machine. Never seen anything like that before...

<comment><USER10> Both browsers is unusual (I have the occasional Firefox crash sometimes though not on Mondo and not for a while).

It works on both here (FFDE and Chrome 58).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A bit off topic, but I'm delighted by the live updating of the slides below the video. This is something all conferences should be copying.

<comment><USER12> I play AV Geek sometimes; I think I first saw Defcon do this, only within the video. I've been trying this out, partially for laziness; it's much quicker to edit the video if you don't have to transition from the speaker to the slides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I met a couple of their team at Golang UK last year, some great tech leadership there by the sounds of things.

</comment><comment><USER14> I always dream of something that would make easier for foreigners to open an US bank account, I now people that went to the US as tourist and could open an account there, but there's no way to do that via internet without actually visiting a branch in person. Don't seems to be so difficult is it? Seems very much its just a internal political thing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can anyone recommend Go learning resources for someone coming from a c# background?

<comment><USER16> I'd say tour.golang.org is quite good. But the most important thing I feel for C# devs is to know that there is no Visual Studio like fancy IDE for Go.

People may be debate merits/demerits of this situation with valid arguments. However if you are in everything IDE camp Go might just not suit you.

<comment><USER15> Which editor do you prefer?

<comment><USER16> I use VIM or Sublime with Go plugin.

<comment><USER15> Any specific VIM plugins for Go you can suggest?

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/fatih/vim-go](https://github.com/fatih/vim-go)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any reason why you went then Kubernets as opposed to Docker Swam ?

</comment><comment><USER18> He didn't talk much about this, but I find it very hard to believe that they were able to make their own deposit application and get it certified for use (unless the UK has vastly different banking regulations than the US). 32-bit/64-bit systems have small rounding errors that are show-stoppers for banking from what I've heard. There is a reason why COBOL and Big Iron rain supreme in Finance.

<comment><USER19> I'm the Head of Engineering at Monzo. We don't use floating point at all in our core banking systems, which are all written in Go by our own engineering team :)

<comment><USER20> So is all the math just in cents and then you display it with the decimal if a user needs to see it?

<comment><USER21> That is typically how you handle it (in my limited understanding). If you're going to make an error, let it be in the presentation layer and not the actual math.

<comment><USER22> Warning: I don't program applications for finance. However... I'm not sure that representing things in cents works. Mostly because of exchange rates. These can have quite a bit of decimals and go beyond cent-precision.

My money's on BigIntegers: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.numerics.big...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/system.numerics.biginteger\(v=vs.110\).aspx), using some sort of subdivision of cents as the base unit (1/1000ths of cents?)

I'm probably horribly wrong and I hope someone who actually knows what he's saying corrects me :)

<comment><USER23> > My money's on BigIntegers: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- > us/library/system.numerics.big...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- > us/library/system.numerics.big...), using some sort of subdivision of cents > as the base unit (1/1000ths of cents?)

I was thinking something along these lines too. Would love to know what they used and the justifications behind their decision.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Singapore Urges U.S. to Accept China's Rise, Spare Other Nations - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/singapore-urges-u-s-to-accept-china-s-rise-spare-other-nations <comment><USER3> Isn't the ball in China's court here? I am not sure what is the expectation of US in this. China has a completely closed market while at the same time they are reaping the benefits of selling in markets of other countries with no penalties. How is that fair? Also, they force companies to share their technologies/IP if they are interested in coming into Chinese markets - <USER2> then they just steal it to undercut the foreign companies. This honestly needs to change. When China was smaller, these tactics were ok - but to expect the world will close their eyes on their practices at the current scale is fooling oneself.

<comment><USER4> China has done what every developing country should do (Edit: and what the likes of Japan and Korea did before them)

If you open your economy when you are relatively undeveloped and weak then foreign companies will immediately occupy your economy and you can forget about creating national 'champions'.

China is not a closed market but they are careful not to fall into that trap.

<comment><USER5> Yup, they've set it up so money can flow within their own system and their own economy can prosper, rather than money feeding out to Google or Facebook. Quality of life in China has exploded massively, and things like restaurant prices are reaching American prices, which is insane going back ten years.

And they remix the ideas of western tech and often improve upon it. WeChat is orders of magnitude more convenient than what the US has to offer. Everything is centralized and integrated, what Google tries to do, but adopted everywhere. Book anything, pay for anything, tap phone to pay for anything. I don't expect many places to take phone payments. In China, most _everywhere_ can take phone payments.

Their social networks also seem to do great at getting things naturally viral. I posted a random video without any boosting and it got like 1.5K views in a day.

<comment><USER6> I would just like to say that contactless chip cards are ubiquitous, do not require a battery, are more secure (no reliance on QR codes) and have been around for years in the West.

<comment><USER7> It isn't the same thing by any means, and doesn't really offer much over cards other than a slight improvement in convenience. Mobile payments in China are essentially peer-to-peer and universal. The closest equivalent is probably something like MobilePay or Swish, but that isn't as good or as widespread.

<comment><USER6> Peer-to-peer in the same way that PayPal is peer-to-peer. There's still a central entity somewhere holding all the money and data.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but cards are even more centralized.

The "feature" of WeChat is that it can be used for almost anything. It is a cash successor more so that a card alternative. Anyone can print, display or scan a QR code. Doesn't matter if it is a store, a friend or a random person. Doesn't matter if it is in the physical world, on a website or in a chat. And it is easy to do. And almost everyone uses it.

Contactless cards only matches WeChat in the same way something like Apple Pay does.

<comment><USER6> I am not seeing the value in being able to print QR codes unless your business is selling fruit on the street (to be fair, a lot of businesses in China are just this).

The more secure analogy comparable in price would be solutions like Square and PayPal Here. Smartphones are ubiquitous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _China is highly unlikely to undermine the U.S.-led global system given it has been one of its biggest beneficiaries, Balakrishnan said._

They undermine it every day they refuse to allow free trade. The US and others spent a lot of resources building the free trade system of the world... and China wants the benefits of selling into that global market, while reserving their own market for themselves.

Every day they are not confronted on this, they send out the message to every other country that free trade with other countries does not require you to open your own markets. They encourage the breakdown of trade and the closure of global markets.

Confronting China on this today is the US asking China not to undermine the global system that has helped enrich China. Not to burn the bridge after they're finished with it (that many countries have used to pull themselves out of poverty: vietnam, korea, taiwan, japan, and even singapore).

<comment><USER9> The "free trade" the US propagates is horrible for anyone not in the top 20% of society. Your manufacturing business has been decimated, many people outside coastal areas have been seeing declining standards of living.

Even the EU has many import tariffs to protect its own industries from unfair competition from China and others.

Why should someone who makes bikes in the EU compete with someone who does it for $0,50 an hour in Vietnam or who knows where?

Protecting your own markets is the sensible thing to do. Any country with a decent industrial policy does it.

<comment><USER10> Most peaceful era per capital in human history. Lowest percentage in poverty in human history.

<comment><USER11> Where have the biggest reductions in poverty taken place?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As others has observed the economies of USA and China are tied at the hip.

China sells goods cheaply to USA and takes the dollars it makes and invest in US treasuries. This keeps inflation low and keeps interest rates low. And allows the US to maintain an unnatural high living standard with low savings and asset price inflation.

The central bank may be able to compensate from the lack of Chinese buying but it is an unsustainable situation as the inflationary pressure from the lack of imports would be in full force.

Also notice that Singapore seems to be saying: Please don't ask us to pick sides ...

The US may have fewer friends in Asia than it assumes.

<comment><USER13> > Also notice that Singapore seems to be saying: Please don't ask us to pick > sides ...

> The US may have fewer friends in Asia than it assumes.

Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist and its people ethnically Chinese? It might be a mistake as viewing it too much of a representative of the rest of Asia. It sounds very similar to contemporary China, in many respects, so it may have an unusually strong affinity to it.

[https://www.hrw.org/asia/singapore](https://www.hrw.org/asia/singapore):

> Singapore's political environment is stifling. Citizens face severe > restrictions on their basic rights to freedom of expression, association, > and peaceful assembly through overly broad criminal laws and regulations. In > 2017, the country tightened the already strict limits on public assemblies > contained in the Public Order Act, which requires police permits for any > "cause-related" assembly outside the closely monitored "Speakers' Corner."

<comment><USER14> > Isn't Singapore political system famously authoritarian capitalist

Most of Southeast Asia is increasingly authoritarian.

> its people ethnically Chinese?

Mostly (this is a trivial Google), but importantly not entirely.

Singapore was the last country to recognise the PRC instead of Taiwan. This was for good reason. First, Singapore maintains internal harmony by pretending to be multiracial. (It isn't, obviously—the best candidate for the PM by far was ignored because "the people aren't ready for a non-Chinese PM", even though he was the most popular.) This involves insisting on English translators when visiting China, asserting independence, doing military drills in Taiwan, etc. Second, Singapore historically had to do the same thing to convince its neighbours that it was not a Chinese puppet.

But the crucial difference is that Singapore optimises for minimal oppression given a certain developmental outcome, whereas China doesn't. Repression in Xinjiang, the Tienanmen Square massacre, current crackdowns on liberal thinktanks, etc. are not necessary to secure the régime. No Singaporean government would bother. (That is why New Naratif is still around.) Singapore is in fact qualitatively distinct from almost all other authoritarian states in that it requires extremely little oppression in view of the outcomes achieved compared to any other state, where the tradeoff is much worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > we also want China to be able to assume its rightful place as it develops > and becomes a superpower in its own right,

Singapore economy is depending on trade and prolonged trade war will ruin Singapore with its unsustainable debt.

But how does China 'assuming its rightful place' should look in practical terms? Withdrawing US fleets from Pacific? Allowing East Asia to become China's vasal teritory? Tolerating growing economic and military threat?

<comment><USER16> > But how does China 'assuming its rightful place' should look in practical > terms?

> Allowing East Asia to become China's vassal territory?

Sure, in much the same way that it was in the past, and in much the same way that all of North and South America are vassals to the United States.

It is not realistic for East and even Southeast Asian countries to care more about what the US thinks than what China thinks; I don't understand how people can advocate for this goal with a straight face.

<comment><USER4> East Asia is vassal to the US at the moment...

I think countries like Singapore, Korea, etc do not want the US, Korea, to leave. They are between a rock and a hard place and want to balance the US and China in order not to become too dependent on one and to benefit from both.

Singapore, which is quite "China-friendly" is saying exactly that.

What I find interesting is that the West in general, and obviously the US in particular, indeed cannot seem to imagine or accept that their complete dominance of the world is coming to an end. This is a rude awakening.

Singapore, which has an history of promoting "Asian values" and is a former British colony with 70%+ ethnic Chinese is very well place to tell us things as they are.

<comment><USER15> > East Asia is vassal to the US at the moment...

Even if it were true I am not sure if people of Singapore, Korea, Japan, Thailand or Taiwan would like to swap places with people of Xinjang or Tibet..

<comment><USER17> They don't want to change places with people of Iraq or Syria either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be so much easier to accept China's rise if they weren't pulling a North Korea and imprisoning a million minorities with dystopian technology solutions.

I don't think China realized how that policy is going to backfire in terms of their relationship with the West.

We want to see countries with individual rights rise, not authoritarians.

<comment><USER18> Aren't the people they are imprisoning criminals that broke the law? For perspective, the US has 2.2 million minorities in prison.

<comment><USER14> There are 11 million Uighurs, and about a million in the camps. There are over 30 million blacks in the US, and under a million blacks in jail. (2.2 million is the total number of prisoners.)

The situation in Xinjiang is therefore much worse.

Most of the people concerned should not be locked up anyway—think of people who can't afford to pay fines in the US, or people who pray in Xinjiang. It is extremely rare that a population is so poorly socialised that it is necessary to imprison over a tenth of the population. Perhaps they are in some strict sense "criminals", but China can choose who to criminalise (as can the US), and it is clearly making unhelpful decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Please read about the colonialist-style policies openly being carried out by China in co-opting land and territory of poorer nations:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri- lank...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka- port.html)

Speaking personally as a citizen of a neighbouring nation - I would rather have a democratic and open nation like the United States as the sole- superpower of the world. China as an established super-power would be a tyrannical nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER20> As someone who watches the very unusual moderation of China-critical comments on HN (+3 one moment, -3 a few hours later) I'm wary of a political piece praising China hitting #1 on HN.

I also don't see the value of Singapore - which is openly anti democratic ([https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges- democrac...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/singapore-challenges- democracy_b_7933188)) providing advice here - as the same concerns about authoritarian corruption that apply to China also apply to Singapore.

<comment><USER21> it is up to each nation to choose it's form of government. it is not one size fits all

<comment><USER20> Saying the people of China have 'chosen not to choose' is bizarre and disingenuous - you are twisting the notion of freedom to imply Chinese people have chosen not to be free. The Chinese people have never in recent memory chosen the Chinese communist party to represent them exclusively.

<comment><USER21> as opposed to the illusion of choice provided in de facto two party "democracies"?

<comment><USER20> Yes, there's a world of difference between being able to choose from one option or 2.

As to the choice being an illusion because two parties often rule: tell that to the Whigs (one of the two parties that no longer exists in the UK), or to anyone that's held a balance of power in a coalition government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Singapore: Don't make us choose because we will choose China.

</comment><comment><USER23> Lee Kuan Yew had some interesting and prescient insights about China in 1967: [https://youtu.be/VexrmTacOAA](https://youtu.be/VexrmTacOAA)

<comment><USER24> You should read his book: One Man's View of the World

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18297494-one-man-s- view-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18297494-one-man-s-view-of-the- world)

It's very concise, written in fairly casual tone and in my opinion, spot on for the most part. One point he kept making throughout the book is Singapore will not stop working with a superpower because another superpower don't like it.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the suggestion, I will check it out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Many people are talking about Vietnam now, but without realising that they are dealing with the same Chinese factory companies who just expanded their business there.

</comment><comment><USER26> US should make policies that are good for its citizens, its factories and its companies, not Singapore.

Singapore can survive as a country with mostly trade, IP, high tech, low taxes, services. Singapore doesn't even have power plants, all from Malaysia.

But despite the dreams of some people, a big country like US cannot just be a service economy like Singapore.... so while I disagree with Trump on many other issues, I cam't really fault him here, and I hope next American democratic president will not soften its stance.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder why Singapore didn't say such things decades ago when the confrontation between US and the Soviet Union hit up? Because today confrontation still looks very much similar: between the free democratic bloc and a communist aggressive country (or bloc, maybe). Admittedly, the current conflict involves a lot of money and trade but most of all it's about geopolitical power, not soybeans or chips.

<comment><USER28> Because they didn't have nearly the developed economy that they do now? They probably also didn't have as much influence and maybe weren't really seen as a regional player?</comment></comment>


Facebook Announces Paper - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/30/facebook-paper/

<comment><USER2> I might have used that if it was made by a company like Twitter.... which advertises, but doesn't meddle with the content. But seeing that it's Facebook, most of the stories we see will be targeted towards our 'Likes' and the rest will be targeted ads.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope they don't put ads in this app. Or those sponsored posts from the newsfeed.

<comment><USER3> How else would they make money?

<comment><USER4> Just ask for money. You know, with a checkout button. It's a lot simpler than setting up a whole advertising platform and mining your users for data!

<comment><USER5> Considering how many are addicted to Facebook, a subscription with added value would be much better than ads and post-rank-paying.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>