Show HN: AirConsole – Now with WebRTC and 20+ Local Multiplayer Games - <AUTHOR> http://www.airconsole.com/#!exclusive=press <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone!

We have done some cool updates just in time for Christmas.

The last time we were featured here the community gave us valuable feedback about latency and controllers.

We worked together with indie devs to create games that take advantage of smartphones as controllers such as shake, tilt, swipe and more. The results you can check on AirConsole.

Another feedback we've addressed is latency. We've added WebRTC to our platform. You can find more info about how we bring latency to something between 1 and 10 milliseconds on supported devices here: [http://bit.ly/1m7fTo4](http://bit.ly/1m7fTo4)

I'd be happy to hear your feedback and also suggestions about how we can improve AirConsole.</comment>


Japan's Newest Technology Innovation: Priest Delivery - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/business/international/amazon-japan-delivers-priest.html <comment><USER2> Is this the first step towards the Electric Monk then?

"Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe. " -Douglas Adams

</comment><comment><USER3> I've personally been through several Buddhist funerals for my grandparents, and can attest to this murky and opaque "business" practice of traditional Buddhist temples. There are many additional "upkeep fees" that you're expected to donate to your family temple for years (at least 7 years after death iirc). As a westerner, I was quite befuddled.

But it's really a SaaS model of you think about it.

I really welcome the transparency this service will bring. Also, many people move to Tokyo from other regions and really don't have the "family temple" to turn to.

<comment><USER4> > But it's really a SaaS model of you think about it.

Spirituality as a service?

<comment><USER5> Soul.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Buddhist temples ought to be embracing this. Many of them are running out of money.

Frankly, Buddhism in Japan was run like a business since the 1600s, when the government made every family register with a temple ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danka_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danka_system)). This led to the development of "funerary Buddhism," in which Buddhist temples made most of their money providing funeral services and benefitted from legally mandated customer loyalty. The temples survived primarily on funeral income for a long time, and now that it's no longer legally required to register with a temple, the temples are having a pretty hard time. Most of them subsist mainly on tourism money and donations now.

<comment><USER7> it seems like the only recurring revenue they might receive comes from publishing books

<comment><USER8> If you have a family cemetery spot at the temple, you pay a yearly fee for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I understand the traditionalists hesitation (and fear). But it seems to me this is actually a good thing from the Buddhist perspective; it's increasing contact in an age of more secularism.

Customers like Mr. Kai in the article seem just as likely to simply not use a priest at all, rather than figure out how to negotiate with the local temple that they have no roots in, if the "on-demand" service was not available.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand Mr. Kai gave some portly dude 50 bucks to dance around his living room. Without community and roots, religion is a scam.

<comment><USER11> Religion is a scam in either case, so why not streamline it?

<comment><USER12> Sure, most of humanity participates in a religion of some kind, but they're all just fools getting taken in a con. I get that there are some well established problems that come up in conjunction with religion, but perhaps there's a little bit more to it than that, no?

<comment><USER13> Big (if not major) part of humanity are used to some kind of drugs too (alcohol, tobacco, sugar, coffee etc.), but we don't say there's something more to it. Religion is a drug for one's mind to make feel better and ease existential pain/uncertainty.

<comment><USER14> >Religion is a drug for one's mind to make feel better and ease existential pain/uncertainty.

Well if that's the case then Buddhism is pretty bad at it. It teaches that you have no self even when you are alive, much less after death.

It also does not promise reincarnation either, but rebirth, which is kind of an impersonal process.

<comment><USER15> Maybe let's not talk about Buddhism like we all know what it's really like as a religion. It IS a religion and there is much more to it than the average person seems to think.

Granted, like any belief system people are free to pick and choose if they want, but we don't base our judgement of a belief system's "religiousness" on people who have chosen the very least amount.

<comment><USER14> > Maybe let's not talk about Buddhism like we all know what it's really like > as a religion.[1]

Oh really, and why not?

Maybe some of us do know what it's like...

One could argue that "the very least amount" correlates roughly with Theravada buddhism which bases its practices on a set of very early talks given by the buddha that are believed to be the core teachings.

There are a _lot_ of theravada buddhists in the world, so you could say that many have chosen "the least amount".

Why do you come to HN if not to discuss things? Should we exchange credentials before being allowed to discuss things?

[1] [http://i0.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/582/861/e26...](http://i0.kym- cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/582/861/e26.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tangentially related, I saw the 2008 Japanese movie "Departures" recently and it was quite fascinating to see the funeral rites and general attitudes towards it, very interesting movie if you happen to catch it

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1069238/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Direct link to the detail page on Amazon (taken from the article): [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B018HVTR2U](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B018HVTR2U)

</comment><comment><USER18> So it's like... Bonze Uber? 1-800-DIAL-A-BONZE... if it were shipboard it would be... umibozu, no wait, that's a very different entity entirely.

Jokes aside though, this makes a lot of sense. I would guess that in a busy urban life, religion probably gets the "no time today" treatment. The ability to get a house call, on that basis alone, seems like a smart model to follow. When you add in the problem of Japan's elderly and young shut-in population, maybe it even makes more sense.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's interesting that the middleman taking 30 percent is a constant across countries and products.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think there was an actual church inside the Second Life MMO.

<comment><USER21> Quite likely. I knew of a shamanism-based group that had conversational and spiritual meetings within second life.

<comment><USER22> Many 'occult' groups met in Second Life, some charging money for attendance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Classic Japanese weird.

<comment><USER24> 'Japanese weird' is nothing but confirmation bias. Because you only hear about the outliers, stories strange enough to make their way all through the ocean. There are myriads of ultra-bizarre things happening around you, but most likely you view them as isolated events and don't have a label for them. Whereas you do have one label for Japan, and whenever you encounter something unusual you confirm this bias - while ignoring other things. Next time ask yourself questions such as: is this commonplace in that country? is this considered unusual by the locals as well? is this considered normal in cultures other than mine?

Most likely the journalist will not answer these for you - bad journalists often rely on stereotypes and biases to appeal to your feelings of shock.</comment></comment>


How do you hire engineers who are bad at interviewing? - <AUTHOR> How do you identify engineers who are extremly good when they work with headphones on in a semi-alone environment but bad at interviewing because they are surrounded by people watching them code and trying to get into their brains ? <comment><USER2> I definitely work better with my headphones on.

I remember going in for an interview and they gave me 3 sheets to work on:

1) Math 2) Logic 3) Programming Language

I am terrible at math and did not do well on it. It was like formulas, calculus, and trigonometry. I've never even used that stuff for the programming language they wanted to ensure I knew. I warned them too. But I did ace the logic and passed the programming language sections. Happy the company took a chance on me. Haven't had an interview like that since but I'd probably be the one who would fail most interviews where I feel I am under pressure.

To make up for this, if I ever did have to go in for an interview at a job, I've already prepared myself with a profile of web applications I've built and the Internet uses for their pleasure or business. Might not be perfect, but it at least shows I can do something. Hopefully the company hiring me would take that into consideration.

</comment><comment><USER3> Look at their portfolios or give them assignments to finish and then talk about their solutions.</comment>


Javascript lullaby - <AUTHOR>

var i = 0; j=15; setInterval(function() { i = i+0.1; if (j>0) j = j-0.05; jQuery("body").css({'-webkit-transform': 'rotate('+j*Math.sin(i)+'deg)'});  }, 100) <comment><USER2> How about a version that doesn't require jquery, works in Chrome & Safari, and doesn't pollute globally:

(function(){ var i = 0, j=15, body = document.querySelector('body'); setInterval(function(){ i = i+0.1; if (j>0) j = j-0.05;body.style.webkitTransform = 'rotate('+j*Math.sin(i)+'deg)';}, 100);})();</comment>


A Cruise car got a traffic ticket–GM says it did nothing wrong - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/a-cruise-car-got-a-traffic-ticket-gm-says-it-did-nothing-wrong/ <comment><USER2> When an automated vehicle get's a ticket, who pays for it? I never thought about this before, but I am really excited now for automated vehicles because the police will no longer be able to stop you for any (made up) reason. Pulled over for going over the speed limit? Just check the log.</comment>


The Free Network Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://thefnf.org/

<comment><USER2> Love freedoms 0 and 1 but don't buy freedoms 2 and 3. They're true as ideals, but I find those too dangerous to believe in when they don't exist in practice.

I know that, unless the whole network is completely trustworthy, any data I send to network may (and eventually will) be intercepted or modified in transit, either unintentionally or maliciously. And decrees "oh, yeah, it's a law - nobody will peek at your data or mangle it, we promise, go send it unprotected (and while we're at it, don't lock your car too)" don't make any trust.

I think it's better not (falsely) believe to have such freedoms on modern Internet at all, and do our best to protect our own data, than sorry when beliefs will met with reality. Trustworthy large-scale networks are coming right after the world peace.

(Yup, I sincerely believe in a technological solution to the political problem. But technological solution is well-tested and known to work when politics fail. Humans lie and math don't.)

<comment><USER3> Agreed on #2. Traffic analysis is possible even with encryption. Tor is a hack to resist, but at least some of the longer-lived exit nodes are either run by attackers or targeted for analysis.

#3 - the 'unaltered' property - is something we can add with signatures where appropriate and doesn't need to be a forced layer on every communication as its overheads may often be undesirable.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, concealing metadata is much more problematic than concealing the payload. However, the costs of attacks on sufficiently large mixnets is huge, as compared to costs of attacks on modern day mostly-cleartext Internet. Every serious router out there has NetFlow/SFlow support, but I believe there are no common ISP-grade products are capable of pulling off timing attacks, for example, on I2P or Tor.

I also think, the political solution should be explored in the area of government and corporate transparency and personal data handling laws, so we may have a better chance to know when a database containing our personal data is built. Maybe, explicitly legalizing ang encouraging whistleblowing about any databases containing personal data on more than a certain amount of persons, whatever secret status it may have... I don't know. The only thing I'm sure, is that a law that spies must not spy is going to be violated, for certain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What network should I use to sign up. Cause...</comment>


Jake Weary not jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Weary

<comment><AUTHOR> See the disambiguous at the top; helps if you say it aloud :)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I transition to be a systems programmer? - <AUTHOR> I'm a software engineer with around 10 years of experience but I've spent most of my time in the application space - building web applications, using languages such as Java, Scala, Javascript etc.
I'm really keen to move into a systems programming role where I can do things like build databases, work on middleware infrastructure etc but I'm really not sure how to make the switch or where to start.
There are projects like Netty and Kafka which use Java and Scala, do I need to learn C or another systems programming language? <comment><USER2> IMO, you should learn at least C and likely C++ if systems level programming is your goal.

That isn't to say that there aren't successful databases, queues etc written in Java or other managed languages, but there are serious tradeoffs both ways. Good C/C++ is safe and very performant, bad C/C++ is dangerous and can perform poorly. Good Java/C# etc is safe and performs well with experienced hands at the wheel, bad Java/C# is just as dangerous as bad C. People focus on memory management, but honestly that isn't the only thing to worry about, security holes come from lots of places other than just forgetting to deallocate memory or doing so unexpectedly. Hence, managed languages might help protect you from poor memory management to a degree but you can still shoot yourself in the foot and wind up with tons of security holes etc which make your system software worthless.

In the end it will depend on what your goals are really. C/C++ are both still very viable languages and are still the core of most system level programming, at least in my experience. And honestly, I wouldn't consider anyone a system level programmer if they didn't know, at least, C, doesn't mean they are actively working in it, but they at least know it and know the tradeoffs between C and other options.

I have been programming C/C++ since the early 90's, my most active language in the past 3 years has been Javascript (node.js) with C/C++ being very close seconds. C/C++ is dominating my work right now though as more people are wanting the raw performance and more IoT/embedded projects are out there wanting that skill. And I frankly love C/C++. At the same time though, I will fully admit that I am more productive for business level applications in C# or even node.js.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can write databases and other things in java/scala and people sometimes do so (though often use lower level languages for more control), but to do it efficiently you'll need deeper understanding of how whole stack works, including (at least) how it interfaces with operating system, how memory is organized and managed and what os and hardware can/can't do for you. I suggest to pick some project that interests you and get familiar with how it works, why it does so and how you could contribute. C/C++ are popular choices, though recently I am learning rust and that brings a tons of low-level knowledge with nice safety net (c is a language that preys on your mistakes, rust will not let you compile them).</comment>


Ask HN: How to monetize free content? - <AUTHOR> What are ways besides ads and affiliate links to monetize free educational content, targeted at entrepreneurs? <comment><USER2> Patreon. Product sponsorships from SaaS companies (I assume you mean banner ads). Paywalled content</comment>


Suse is once again an independent company - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/15/suse-is-once-again-an-independent-company/ <comment><USER3> Being owned by a Private Equity fund can really not be described as being "independent". Such funds have a typical investment horizon of 5-7 years, with potential exits being an IPO, a strategic sale (to a bigger company) or a sale to another PE fund, with the strategic sale probably more typical. In the mean time the fund will impose strict growth targets and strong cost cuts.

<comment><USER4> Im working for a company that was bought by a private equity in 2015 and taken off the stock market. Then introduced to the market again about two years later.

They left us mostly alone, and most things actually turned to the better. Maybe not having to answer to thousands of shareholders gave management the possibility to implement some needed changes. One example was a new salary/bonus/retirement structure giving a huge boost to most of us. So YMMV.

<comment> ui-explorer12 good point - there is far less reporting and PE has a much longer time frame than the 2 quarters everyone but Warren Buffet cares about

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't be the only one surprised with the $2.5 billion acquisition?

Suse basically fell off my radar a decade ago, I thought the next announcement I was going to hear about them was going bankrupt and being sold off for parts. Guess they've been super quiet achievers and have managed to accrue an Annual Revenue of 300M that I've somehow missed behind the release/announcements of flashier distros, but here we are with news of a 2.5B acquisition - congratz to the team.

<comment><USER6> For some weird reason Suse sees a lot of use in European countries with less English influence, but I haven't seen any exact numbers in years.

In my country (Denmark), most enterprise runs Redhat, but my personal opinion is that Suse would make more sense after the IBM purchase, especially for public sector usage.

<comment><USER7> I haven't used SuSe since version 4 or 5 I think.. do you see it as a viable replacement for CentOS?

<comment><USER8> First you need to distinguish paid vs. non-paid variants.

Suse has SLES and IBM has RHEL. I am not in the position to compare them.

The non-paid variants are OpenSUSE vs. CentOS. One big difference there is the support life. CentOS 6 with an ancient 2.6.32 kernel and upstart came out 2011 and is still supported. OpenSUSE releases are supported ~ 1.5 years. There are different opinions whether upgrading from one OpenSUSE release to the next one should be done or not. I typically prefer new installations because they result in cleaner systems. But I also upgraded once an it was painless.

<comment><USER9> CentOS is RHEL, just without the branding. SLES and openSUSE share the same core packages. So you get the stable, well tested enterprise stuff.

<comment><USER10> Correct. I'd say openSUSE is more akin to Fedora in that context as both base and development distribution for SLES, much like Fedora is for RHEL (which in turn then "becomes" CentOS).

<comment><USER8> There are 2 OpenSUSE variants, LEAP and Tumbleweed. Their release model has changed maybe 3 years ago.

LEAP is exactly the same package versions as in the newest SLES I believe. I would expect them often to be a bit older package versions than Fedora, but I haven't compared recently.

Tumbleweed is a leading/bleeding edge rolling release distro. The closest equivalent is Fedora Rawhide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Original announcement: [https://www.suse.com/c/news/suse-partners-with-growth- invest...](https://www.suse.com/c/news/suse-partners-with-growth-investor-eqt- to-continue-momentum-strategy-execution-and-product-expansion/)

Congratulations, SuSe!

Edit: The title seems to be a little mischaracterizing, SUSE themselves call it a "Sale to EQT". But I suppose there is no other possibility.

<comment><USER12> It's now owned by a private equity company. So their expectation is that it will grow and make money and they control the board, but the PE company itself doesn't have a technology business that will determine Suse's path.

If it were a tech company buying them, the assumption would be that the buyer would try to digest Suse and incorporate its components into the parent.

</comment></comment><comment> pi-victor openSUSE is a really good and modern linux distro, people complaining about here probably haven't used it in a long while. Whilst i worked in A&T we handled a few thousand+ servers running SLES 11 SP2 and it was solid.

I think they're biggest handicap is they're not from the US and while i worked there people acknowledge they have horrible marketing. Also being bought and sold a few times doesn't help, and with the HPE acquisition a few years back, a lot of employees (on HPE side) simply left.

The kubic project has developed the only viable alternative to CoreOS that's being phased out. Unfortunately where MicroOS falls short is SUSE's stubbornness for using BtrFS, which causes a lot of headaches and has been dropped from all major distros at this point. People in the kubic project have also been contributors to kubernetes, kubeadm, OCI, (they even contributed a lot of code to podman, from Red Hat) and they've been a significant driving force for rootless containers [https://rootlesscontaine.rs/](https://rootlesscontaine.rs/). It's weird they're not more often in the limelight with all the hard work they do, but maybe they'll take this opportunity to fix their marketing and steer into a better direction :).

<comment><USER13> btfrs is such a weird choice for an enterprise focused system where people mostly want reliability / set and forget, though maybe the bad rep is old now (I haven't used btfrs in years).

<comment><USER14> an engineering "teacher of teachers" I spoke with was able to corrupt btrfs with a few well-chosen strokes, as it was told. The implication was - <USER2> ready. This was three or four years ago.

<comment><USER15> I'm still reluctant to trust it, but there has been a _lot_ of work on btrfs in that time frame, particularly around reliability and durability. [https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=grep&q=btrfs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What a coincidence. Just the other day I was going to take a trip down memory lane and fire up a few VMs of my first Linux distributions. Then I realized Suse 7.3 (I had a physical box set) wasn't freely available in ISO format anywhere. Bummer.

Still going to hunt down an early Slackware ISO and might try the first versions of Fedora and Ubuntu again.

<comment><USER17> Anyone remember Yggdrasil Linux?

<comment><USER18> Yes, being sold via the Walnut Creek CD-ROMs.

<comment><USER19> Soft Landing Linux on a million floppy disks?

<comment><USER20> Boy are you guys sending me down memory lane. I remember all of these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am personally quite happy for this, I found SUSE in 2002 as it was installed on the computer I got at that workplace. I have never really left it since. Zypper, yast and Open Build Service are strong points, and lately I have used the Kiwi image creation tool. Solid too. I hope the best for this distribution.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is good news. With IBMs acquisition of Red Hat it's valuable to have one of their direct competitors be fully independent.

<comment><USER23> Canonical is also fully independent..

<comment><USER24> Canonical will be acquired by Microsoft. It's only a matter of time

<comment><USER25> The desktop side is problematic. Developing desktop Linux makes no sense for Microsoft, but acquiring Canonical and killing that part would look bad.

<comment><USER26> There isn't much left to kill there, given the massive reorg/layoffs in 2017; it's all outsourced to the community already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Still don't know how to pronounce it.

<comment><USER28> Can't Stop the Seuss-uh [0] demonstrates the pronunciation. They're a German company.

[0] [https://youtube.com/watch?v=A-Rn0iQEpc8](https://youtube.com/watch?v=A-Rn0iQEpc8)

<comment><USER29> That's a seriously well made parody.

<comment><USER30> How about that one? Not SUSE related. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYRlTISvjww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYRlTISvjww)

<comment><USER31> It's about SUSE kgraft, kernel live patching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> SuSE Linux Enterprise Server is by far the most mature of all GNU/Linux distributions. Their AutoYaST provisioning system with Kiwi imaging capability is conceptually identical to Solaris' JumpStart™ with compressed Flash™ archives and is technologically superior to Docker images because it is much more simpler, yet offers the same conceptual capability without the need for cgroups.

Their technical support is wonderful and they truly deserve to be the most deployed GNU/Linux distribution in the enterprise. I hope they succeed in stamping out redhat because they have a superior product with far more competent engineering and support.

</comment><comment><USER33> Wonder how this is going to affect Micro Focus' other products in the future, they have a lot of software inherited from Novell that relies on SUSE (some of which aren't even distributed as RPM's but SLES-based virtual appliances like ZenWorks).

<comment><USER34> It's probably not going to affect it very much. SUSE has a decent sized chunk of appliance/embedded Linux business.

Aside from SAP, another user that most people wouldn't be too aware of was VMware. Before they created Photon OS, they used SUSE Linux Enterprise for their vCenter appliances. They've been long-time SUSE customers.

In addition to that, a large chunk of point-of-sale systems are built using SUSE Linux Enterprise customized JeOS ("Just enough Operating System") appliance systems.

I think this is likely to be just fine.

(Note, not a SUSE employee, this is just based on my spelunking and research.. ;) )

<comment><USER35> Also, if you work at a larger company and have a Siemens/Unify IP phone on your desk, it's not unlikely that it's connected to OpenScape Voice running on SUSE. (Even if it's not an IP phone, it might be connected to a smaller sub- PBX which itself talks to an OpenScape Voice server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Loved SuSE forever..well at least since 1998.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if EQT's investment is interest in potential growth from Enterprise customers that may seek alternatives to IBM if their RHEL relationships change? Suse being the "other RPM distro".

<comment><USER37> EQT buying SUSE was announced before IBM buying Red Hat was announced. So it can't have been a reason at the time. Though I suspect it's a happy circumstance now for EQT/SUSE.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can someone explain the business model of suse and redhat ? Is it selling open source software ? How can that be worth billions ? How do you do practically ? Direct sales to enterprise !? Is there a lot of configuration and extra feature implementation, or does most enterprise run "vanilla" ? How do you brak into this market ?

<comment><USER39> Business models of all big software companies are identical and have not changed in decades:

You buy licenses, renew them yearly. With various levels of premium support to select from.

<comment><USER40> Subscriptions, not licenses.

Subscriptions give you access to different level of support, and access to updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "Few companies have changed hands as often as Suse and yet remained strong players in their business."

"Strong players"? What quantitative evidence exists demonstrating that SuSE has any more than a marginal and insignificant share of server or desktop installs?

<comment><USER21> I found this interesting:

"Not that surprising, SLE POS is one of SUSE's best selling products

For example, in the states, 70% of Fortune 100 merchandisers, speciality retailers, and food and drug stores use it

Including a few big names like Walmart"

[https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/b1cvdj/spotted_at...](https://www.reddit.com/r/openSUSE/comments/b1cvdj/spotted_at_my_supermarket/eiktvvw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> what does SUSE even do in the age of kubernetes?

<comment><USER34> They work on the core container engine stuff. Aleksa Sarai (who posts in here every once in a while as "cyphar") is the maintainer of runC, which is core to most popular container runtimes (containerd/docker, podman, cri-o/kubernetes, etc.).

They also work on building a platform for trivially deploying and scaling Kubernetes within openSUSE as Kubic[1]. SUSE has a variant of this as the SUSE CaaS platform[2] ("container as a service" platform) product. Kubic is analogous to Fedora CoreOS[3], while CaaSP is similar to RHEL CoreOS that's part of OpenShift[4].

[1]: [https://kubic.opensuse.org/](https://kubic.opensuse.org/)

[2]: [https://www.suse.com/products/caas- platform/](https://www.suse.com/products/caas-platform/)

[3]: [https://coreos.fedoraproject.org/](https://coreos.fedoraproject.org/)

[4]: [https://blog.openshift.com/openshift-4-install- experience/](https://blog.openshift.com/openshift-4-install-experience/)

<comment><USER43> In addition to all of the container work we do, we also still maintain a distribution and do a tonne of upstream work. While people seem to have forgotten about the purpose of distributions with the whole container thing, they still provide a few things:

* Continued upstream development of core system software.

* A host system that is stable and up-to-date (which you need to run your container manager).

* Container images which have up-to-date software, timely security patches, and reasonable security policies.

Distributions are the only members of the ecosystem which actually solve these problems in any meaningful way. It's a shame that we seem to be boring (or even vestigial) at this point despite all of this new software still requiring our work in order to actually run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm amazed that Suse has $2.5B to buy themselves. It's a horrible OS to work with. Anything not based on Apt as a package manager is a nightmare. What does Suse bring to the table other than pain? It's not as easy as Ubuntu, and not as well-known or well-supported as RedHat (which is also a pain in the ass, but at least a well-known pain in the ass). Who even uses Suse?

<comment> black-tea You only think apt is good because you're used to it and probably haven't used it very extensively. Portage is clearly a better package manager, have you used that?

<comment><USER44> Apt was the first package manager for a widely-used distribution (Debian) that handled dependencies well. I'm certainly biased, and haven't used everything available, but I have to be realistic about Linux distros in a professional environment. Your options at work are RPM-based distros (RedHat, CentOS, SuSE) or Apt-based distros (Ubuntu, and to a lesser extent Debian).

I'd never heard of Portage. Google indicates that it's Gentoo's package manager. It may be fantastic, but Gentoo is a hobby OS. Companies aren't going to use Gentoo. I'm not going to use Gentoo, because any benefits it has are going to be minimal, and it's never going to help my career.

There's a vast array of software out there that might be great for specific purposes, but I'm not going to swim upstream. So, while Gentoo and Portage may be fantastic, they're simply not on my radar, and certainly not on the radar of anyone I may work for.

I'm not disagreeing with you; we're just talking about completely different worlds at this point.

<comment><USER45> >Google indicates that it's Gentoo's package manager. It may be fantastic, but Gentoo is a hobby OS. Companies aren't going to use Gentoo. I'm not going to use Gentoo, because any benefits it has are going to be minimal, and it's never going to help my career.

>So, while Gentoo and Portage may be fantastic, they're simply not on my radar, and certainly not on the radar of anyone I may work for.

Google's Chrome OS is a Gentoo fork.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Paul Vixie on DNSSEC - <AUTHOR> http://serverfault.com/questions/708076/what-kinds-of-security-vulnerabilities-does-providing-dnssec-expose/747213#747213 <comment><AUTHOR> Quote from the piece: "But the truth is that today, DNSSEC is all cost, no benefit, and with high risks."</comment>


Solving Online Events - <AUTHOR> https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2020/6/4/solving-online-events <comment><USER2> >In other words, some conferences are built around creating a network in the hallways. If you take them online, there are no hallways.

There are no hallways. Also, there are no side conversations, serendipitious encounters, forming and disbanding groups naturally, after-sessions social activities, or meaningful ways to gauge attention or intuitively navigate turn-taking. There's no forcing function of being in the same time and place among people of similar interests.

Online is fine for content delivery, so presentations and slides easily transition from in-person to remote. However, the medium doesn't conform to how people make actual human connections. Online events can be deeply frustrating because the social instincts we've honed since childhood are suddenly useless in that context.

<comment><USER3> Well said - and any attempts to "mimic the hallways" feels contrived in the context of the internet/online. It is difficult to translate the multitude of social cues/contexts/interactions that real life offers. Nevertheless I'm sure we will see more and more coherent attempts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Call for startups: if you are innovating in that space, I want to hear from you. I'm passionate about that space.

<comment><USER5> I'm co-founder of Iterative.ai /DVC.org (open source tools for ML) and doing conferences/meetups is an essential part of the business for us (kinda marketing for dev tools). I would definitely recommend you to connect and talk to amazing folks from the [https://tulu.la/](https://tulu.la/) team. They are building (still in stealth) a product to run online events with experience as engaging as possible. I'm biased, since I know founders personally (and happy to be their friend!), but they started their company with this vision even before all this coronavirus stuff, they definitely have a big vision in mind for a long term and have been passionate about this space for years. An example would be this online conference they organized a while ago - [https://divops.org/](https://divops.org/). I would happy to connect you (and I'll send a link to this conversation to them).

<comment><USER6> I'm co-founder of Tulu.la. We're building a community first solution. A mix of twitch and discord but for professional events. Would be happy to share more details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Online social events just don't do it for me. The time delay is a small factor, but reducing social interactions to what I can take in to only two senses while everyone sits in a chair is just not what social events are.

Real life interactions involve every possible kind of stimuli -- we're just usually only conscious of a few of them. I must need to receive subtle scent cues, micro-gestures, voice interactions with the room tone around us, whatever else we don't know yet that influences us in order to enjoy video chat bullshit that is more than transferring work details. Video chat works worse for me, socially, than talking on phones ever did, though I don't know if the extra video information is 'blocking' what my imagination filled in while having a phone chat.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some things are just not fun online. Not everything is about efficiency, sometimes people just want to be around other people who are interested in similar things :)

For example, nobody says hm, I wonder how we solve night clubs, but online.

Although it could be that type of unusual thought that leads to something interesting :)

<comment><USER9> It's not safe right now to be inside, with a large crowd of people, doing strenuous physical activity. So; online, it goes. It's not a question of efficiency, but the entertainment industry serves a myriad of customer needs, and for those still stuck sheltering-in-place and meeting up with friends online, the question of how to have a better online night club experience comes up every weekend. Zoom's shortcomings become more and more glaring as time goes on. We all know it's not a substitute for in person interaction, but what can be done to make it suck less. Ideally, there's even a way to use the Internet to enhance the experience!

It might be possible to optimize latency for attendees to a digital event to those within, say, the same 10-mile radius than Zoom currently uses. That's not a use case that remote video conferencing is typically optimized for. Better speakers and video would also improve the experience compared to a laptop.

Then there's the music itself that gets played. The current challenge is that DJs moved to Twitch as the world moved online. It's pretty much the perfect platform except for one fatal flaw - Twitch isn't licensed for music online like a bar/club is. There's no online equivalent of the venue paying the yearly ASCAP license fee. So mixes come down as takedown notices are issued, since the music the DJs are playing are unlicensed. Many DJs are thus trying to find a new platform, possibly Mixcloud or Soundcloud. They have their own shortcomings, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice piece. Not the main point, but I deeply resonate with the brief aside on in-person meeting: "I sometimes suggest it would be helpful if we all wore banners". There is still low-hanging fruit for software to improve in-person interactions. Much of the small-talk dance is an attempt to find common ground between two people in order to catapult into a deeper conversation or more meaningful relationship. Software could do this.

</comment><comment><USER11> I actually think VR and events could be magic. You put it on and for 2 hours do a combination of keynotes and chose your own adventure experiences. If it incorporates interesting enough visuals with content I'd much prefer this to going somewhere in person for the week or sitting in front of a "online conference console" with streaming video and a chat window.

</comment><comment><USER12> This was a great read. I think what's going to be interesting to observe after the dust settles is events are going to be online by-default.

Not necessarily as insurance against a global pandemic, but rather due to the expansive reach that many event organizers are realizing.

I don't think offline events are going away, but (as the author alludes to) the incentives to attend online vs offline events are different; therefore it won't be a 1:1 experience. I don't think anyone in the event/event technology space actually figured out the secret formula to provide a great online AND offline experience for both the event organizer & attendees/vendors, but once someone does I think there's great opportunity to capture.

</comment><comment><USER13> > A long time ago Twitter took some of that role, and the explosion of online > dating also shows how changing the way you think about pools and sample sets > changes outcomes.

I like how his examples are the parts of the internet that the largest number of people hate with a comically fiery passion.

</comment><comment><USER14> One of the most interesting and efficient "network" (not really networking) events I went to was a after-hours meetup at a LGBTQ+ leadership conference. After a brief presentation about sexual liberation, everyone wrote exactly what they were looking for on a name tag. People put everything from "someone to have lunch with tomorrow" to "voyeur seeking exhibitionists."

Amazingly, everyone I talked to the next day to got more or less what they were looking for, whether that was something sexual or just a new friend.

<comment><USER15> I think your point is very pertinent: People literally advertising what it is they're looking for. I see only two problems with this:

1\. It _reduces_ serendipity. And that's the "hallways" thing missing in online interactions.

2\. As soon as I put my wants/interests out on the internet it's almost certainly going to become chum for spammers, dodgy recruiters, the GRAFT and so on. i.e. Repurposed to ends antithetical to my original intent.

Still, there's something in the notion... if we can say something about ourselves (online) in a safe way, then there's at least a chance we can get some serendipity/discovery happening.

<comment> vertex-four > As soon as I put my wants/interests out on the internet it's almost > certainly going to become chum for spammers, dodgy recruiters, the GRAFT and > so on. i.e. Repurposed to ends antithetical to my original intent.

This is likely true when the conference is open registration, but generally not true when it's a closed conference that just so happens to be on the internet - practically nobody who wishes to be part of the conference enough to invest time/money/energy into getting an invite are going to then sell your data on to spammers.

It's the same with random irc channels without public logging - while everyone _could_ be logging everything you say to use against you later, in practice this just doesn't happen in channels of 100-200 people.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript Creator Says the Language Wasn't Just Dumb Luck - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/07/javascript-was-no-accident.php

<comment><USER2> There are interviews to Eich and Zawinski in the "Coders at Work" book that tell a lot about the context were Javascript was developed. They are very interesting, and that book is almost obligatory read to anyone interested in the history and current state of sofware development.

Crockford is also interviewed there and asked about language subsetting and the thinking behind Javascript: The Good Parts.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder how many people who have disparaged JavaScript could actually win a debate with Brendan Eich.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't doubt they could win if it came to issues in JS. The problems I've seen with JS are real. Like implicit semicolon insertion just seems like a really bad idea.

People who disparage JS aren't attacking Eich -- in fact I'd hope Eich would agree that semicolon insertion is a mistake in retrospect (but if not, I'd love to know why). But as users of a language we can react to inadequacies we see in the langauge, even if we couldn't necessarily design a better one from scratch.

With that said, I feel like a dynamic scripting language makes sense. As an application language, I'd personally prefer a statically typed language, but that's an argument that no one will win (from either side).

<comment><USER5> The problem with implicit semicolon insertion is that (1) the rules for it are too complicated and (2) it's called "semicolon insertion", which makes it sound stupid. Lots of other languages — FORTRAN, Ruby, Python, Tcl, BASIC, sh, LOGO — use line breaks to separate statements without the problems that come from JS's too-clever semicolon-insertion rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As much as I love JavaScript, I can't help but curse the Date object every time I have to do something other than just instantiate the current local time and print it out.

<comment><USER7> Which is all thanks to java.util.Date... zero indexed months, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most successful people benefit more from "dumb luck" than they ever realize. But what makes most of them successful is their ability to take advantage of and benefit from random occurrences.

</comment><comment><USER9> A hacker news submission about a hacker news comment. Enlightening.

<comment> eric-hu Is there any place it's more appropriate than a site called ycombinator?</comment></comment>


Anki and Programming - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/anki-and-programming-ca8680fab2ae <comment><USER2> I didn't know you could add articles on the web to an anki deck. Is this done manually? Offline accessible? Anyone know? Good idea imho.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just use copy paste. A type of makeshift incremental reading with some custom intervals set on top of the original 4 that come with the SM-2 algorithm.

It seems to work because if you really don't understand something or find it boring, you can remove a paragraph, turn that into a card if it is valuable, and if not just keep reading or know that the article will be back.

It is offline accessible for sure. And you can sync to any of your devices.

<comment><USER2> Interesting usage. Haven't played around with creating custom decks much. Looks like I should. Thanks will try it out.</comment></comment></comment>


Pat's Guide to Running Events - <AUTHOR> http://freelancing-gods.com/posts/pats_guide_to_running_events

<comment><AUTHOR> Doing events at a cafe with a good barista and a coffee tab instead of a bar tab sounds awesome. As does the eradication of mediocre (or worse) food & drink, and useless bags of landfill.

</comment><comment><USER2> There are a couple of things on that list I'd niggle with.

* Single vs multi-track. Personally I like both kind of events depending on the what and why. You get a lot of energy by everybody being in the same place. Equally sometimes there's a lot to be gained by splitting things up so people can explore different ideas then come back together again. You can use multiple tracks to get folk to think about different things - then come back together to cross pollinate ideas. It can be very energising if done right.

* 30m or less is just wrong as far as I'm concerned. You can certainly have an excellent event that just has 30m or less talks - but that's going to exclude some topics and some methods of presentation. So you need to be aware of that. Instead I'd phrase it as make sure to get the right length for the content. Push presenters hard on how they're going to use that time. Sometimes you'll find that 90m workshop is better as a 10m lightning talk. Sometimes you'll find that 30m talk is better as a 90m workshop.

Other random tips that I'd add in:

* Think about accessibility issues for those with wheelchairs, crutches, etc. and stick something in the publicity about it.

* Provide space for socialising during the event. Not everybody will have the energy or the interest to go to every session. Have somewhere for them to hang out and talk.

* For tech events especially - have caffeine available mid-morning, lunchtime, and mid-afternoon. People need their coffee/soda fix. If they can't find it onsite they'll wander off to get it. Keep people at the venue.

* Plan for smokers. Some people smoke. Make sure you know where they should go, and how to let them know when the next sessions are kicking off.

* Give some space for people to decompress, talk and socialise between sessions. Schedule in more than change-over time between sessions. Allow space for people to get up, stretch, and talk. They come back with more energy and enthusiasm.

* It's impossible to please everybody. Whatever you do some people will like some things and hate others about how you structure an event.

* Follow up with attendees after the event. Try and figure out what worked and what didn't for next time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't forget to put vegetarians options for food, and clearly mention that is is vegetarian.

<comment><USER4> That's a great point - I guess part of me is blind to that because my diet is mainstream, but also, I'm surprised that there's still events that don't provide solid vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free options. Thoughtlessness at best, really.

<comment><USER5> As an event organizer of events at many different levels, I will always make sure to have a vegetarian option, but I usually stop there. It becomes increasing more difficult, expensive, and complex to try to guess how much of and many different diets may be represented.

That being said, I do usually push for healthier-than-average food. I also started a "War on Pizza" in Seattle to get other event organizers to stop serving Pizza at events...

<comment><USER4> What do you replace pizza with, and how does it compare cost-wise?

<comment><USER6> I started a thread about this exact topic on Quora, which has 26 answers now: [http://qr.ae/pcIQa](http://qr.ae/pcIQa)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Poster sessions in a large space?

Might help with 'socializing' and even the 'event party' aspect. Non- extroverts could use QR codes to find the authors of interesting posters &c and have a chat.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very good advice. And the large noisy bar scene for parties is a pet peeve of mine too. But that could be a side effect of not being 21 any more. :-)

</comment><comment><USER9> Pen and paper in a bag please</comment>


First serverless Python function with OpenFaaS - <AUTHOR> https://blog.alexellis.io/first-faas-python-function/ <comment><USER2> This looks really cool and is potentially perfect for something I'm working on at the moment. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Main discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15052192)

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool and all, but Blog posts are explicitly in the rules as not "Show HNs"

<comment><USER5> The blog post is by the author/maintainer of OpenFaaS, and the blog post seems like a more helpful place to link than the README: [https://github.com/alexellis/faas](https://github.com/alexellis/faas)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of a decentralize social media - <AUTHOR> I wrote this quickly. I'm not sure if anyone is interested. If this gets a lot of attention I'd be willing to write more specifies and a protocol spec that you all can share your opinions on
-----
They say social media makes roughly $6 per user per quarter. We all know a number of social media companies collect enough data to make us uncomfortable. In 2018 it was revealed that companies took that data and use it to swing elections in a number of countries to the biggest buyer. Data has real world consequence. After the reveal people haven't significantly decrease use of social media and globally it grew
$6 per quarter isn't a lot. With that money we can easily fund an open source decentralized social media. There has been a number of attempts but for one reason or another the average internet user has never used any of the open source. Some issues are lack or poor quality of web/mobile/desktop apps, no easy to use service to get start and lack of moderation to prevent abuse (scams, bullying, noise to distract and degrade performance or user experience, etc)
What I'd like is to fund a set of protocols (not specific to social media) and apps to improve programmers lives then see if we can proceed to repurpose some of them for a decentralized social media. The following is a list of what I think would be popular and I have a draft of each protocol if people are interested. Each of these should be usable from a command line app and from the web.
- Authenticate (with a discovery extension). Allow users to authenticate a device and give them per app permissions. ie my desktop may be a full admin, my phone will have read/write (but not overwrite/delete) on file sharing (so I can archive photos) and my raspberry pi may have read only permission on few apps and no permissions on others.
(continued in comment) <comment><AUTHOR> \- Friend Authenticate. Same idea as above but for giving permissions to users who are not you and authenticating/verifying the data that comes back as them/valid.

\- Event, file and SQL database. Apps running several device can publish/subscribe to events so they can synchronize with eachother. For example I may select a number of photos on my phone and 'share' it to my file server. It will also publish an event so my desktop can download them so I'll either A) have a copy on my desktop for fun or B) have a copy so I can start editing the moment I sit down.

This can be further optimize with a discovery protocol. If the file server is remote and your desktop is on the same network the desktop and phone start syncing via local network

\- Public event and database. Same as above (per app basis) but more complicated and restrictive due to it being shared with public/unverified users and friends. Your friends may have permissions to write comments and edit/delete their own but a stranger attempting it will have their comment/data ignored

\- Data discover: Your friend may have written a comment or review on a third party page. The third party does not want to moderate comments/reviews however the app supports it. This piece allows users to write about third parties and their friends to discover it

(This will be at a later stage) \- File Caching, balancing and a peer to peer extension: If a file becomes popular it may be cached on several networks and users may have better download speeds due to accessing a closer network or from pulling files from a less busy network. This may be more noticeable in places where internet access is slower outside the continent or if the user is on an island

Apps that might be built:

\- An RSS like feed so people can subscribe to eachothers blogs, podcast or to consume events \- A calendar app for teams or married couples that have different apps on the different OSes they used \- Sharing comments on an unmoderated video site (ie videos might be moderated but comments are only seen if your friends with the comment author or if their friends with the content poster) \- An email like system that uses the file sharing protocol to retract emails and attachments)

</comment><comment><USER2> All about it, we should pass a law (like we did with FHIR and healthcare in the US) to force these companies to be interoperable. Then we can separate the data/event tier from the interfaces and business model (there are complexities). This should lead to competition and natural breakdown (or not) via market forces. The key is to make it interoperable for real, so one can leave the platform without losing the network, and also merge their separate profiles. Which gets us to the bigger idea of self sovereign identity...

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't been on this site much. Any idea how I can post in a way that gets more attention? Maybe I need a better title

<comment><USER2> You can search here (or Google) there are all sorts of analytics about what does well when, but it probably changes with time and current events</comment></comment></comment>


Open Source Website Cookie Compliance Reporter - <AUTHOR> GDPR requires that all websites that provide services to European users must provide a complete report on the use of cookies to record user information and continue to use it with the express consent of the user.
There are several commercial Cookie Scanner online.
But we decide to make our implementation Open Source. Hope to help more people getting aware of the privacy problems.
Features:
1. Nice HTML or PDF report
2. Detailed cookie description (more than 10k cookie description in Open Database).
https://github.com/CovenantSQL/CookieTester <comment><AUTHOR> Cookie description data is crawled from [https://cookiepedia.co.uk/](https://cookiepedia.co.uk/)

And I put it into CQL Database for easier usage.

<comment><USER2> Good skills

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-l I tried facebook.com, the result is really interesting. Before login, there is NO cookie set in my browser.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really confused, some websites set Cookie before I click the "Accept", other set Cookie after I click the "Accept".

Some sites provide me a very very detailed cookie usage checkbox, others not.

So, what is RIGHT of GDPR compliance ????

<comment><AUTHOR> To be honest, I think most developers or App owner are not clear of that.

Maybe, we can just follow facebook.com: "Use with Consent"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 666</comment>


How do you manage / plan your life? - <AUTHOR> I think having the right priorities, and a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life.
But I often find myself using most of my efforts in vain, on unimportant problems. This is partly due to working on chaotic organizations, receiving an overwhelming amount of daily information to process and, ultimately, my incompetency at staying focused on tasks worth doing.
How do successful HNers manage their lives? What are some principles and methods that have made your success possible? <comment><USER2> _a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life_

Doesn't work like that for me though. I'd just be unhappy if I'd constantly be setting big life goals and not reaching them when planned, or at all. I don't do much long term planning at all. I just let things happen as they come by and manage fine with just shorter term planning (e.g. 'next week I'll work on that, week after that maybe on that'). I never planned for a job or a certain hobby or a girlfriend or a house. Yet I do have all of that. A lot of it due to mere coincidence. I thought of those things, of course, but never actively took up any long term plans to steer my life into some direction. That feels too limiting for me, I like to keep possibilities open. Which leads to me now doing and liking things I couldn't even imagine doing even a couple of years ago. No idea if that's a causal effect, but I also don't really care. And by society's measures I'm succesful. Though a bit weird.

<comment><USER3> > I'd just be unhappy if I'd constantly be setting big life goals and not > reaching them when planned, or at all.

This is key, I think. You need to have some acceptance that you actually have very little control over your life. Plan for and manage the parts of your life that you do have control over, and keep an open mind about the rest. Some of the unhappiest people I know are those with lofty goals that they either fail to meet, or have unrealistic expectations about what they will get for meeting them.

<comment><USER4> But this isn't true. You have a lot of control over your life. You just should keep your goals realistic, which is a completely different thing.

If you set a goal to be your own boss, to save money to travel the world, to reach financial independence / retire early, those are all "big" goals that can give purpose to your life.

You have a tremendous amount of control over your own life, to shape it and achieve happiness. It's just that many people are too busy with distractions to see the bigger picture and plan accordingly.

<comment><USER3> You could strike out on your own only to find out there's not enough of a market to support yourself with your skills and you have to get a job again. You could set a goal to save money to travel the world and have it all be depleted recovering from a medical emergency that leaves you disabled. You could invest all of your money for retirement only to see it vanish in an economic crisis.

These are more realistic but there's still an element of chance that could wrestle control away from you. If you use goals to give purpose to your life, what will you do if you discover that you absolutely cannot meet them? If it was the source of your drive, will you be able to laugh it off? What if you get there and discover that meeting your goal was not something that you even wanted at all?

My point was that you could instead focus on things immediately under your control: you could learn skills and network which may help you become your own boss, but it may also help you get a better job or start a new career if you'd rather. You could save money which would allow you to possibly travel the world one day, or it might allow you to indulge in some other nice experience or simply help reduce stress in your life. You maintain control over your life and can seize opportunities as they come, but you're not constrained by stuff outside your control, or even your past self who was setting the goals to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's the tech question and the choice question.

Tech: I use an open-source knowledge graph system, Semantic Synchrony: [https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki](https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki) It uses Neo4j, so it's fast and it scales enormously; it offers a true graph, not a tree; it offers full-text boolean search via Apache Lucene; it lets you connect public and private notes in the same graph, and lets you merge (some or all of) your graph with someone else's.

Choice: I believe in introspection and sharing, and not willpower. If I feel like I have to force myself to do something, it is because I am at war with myself. Instead I meditate, journal (using SmSn), do "knowledge gardening" of the earlier things I've journaled (using SmSn), try to talk to different kinds of friends, for different kinds of perspectives.

I studied economics, and it changed my life, and I recommend it to everybody. It's hard to make good decisions in the labor market, for example, without a deep understanding of it. But econ is not just about money; it's about constrained optimization generally, and applies to time management, reading, travel, love, literally everything we do.

<comment><USER6> "It's hard to make good decisions in the labor market, for example, without a deep understanding of it."

\- Can you provide an example? Last job I took I considered money, job specifics, hours, vacation, career growth, the usual stuff. No deep understanding of the labor market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't make the mistake of thinking life goals will play out the same as work/project goals. Setting deadlines on major life goals leads to increased stress and can make you feel like a failure. (I'm 30 and haven't started my own company! 28 are haven't started a family! 35 and haven't saved for retirement!) Forget all those types of timings. Do set goals. Do move towards them. But only worry about the direction you are going.

Life is both long and short. Live long enough, headed in the right direction, and you'll get where you want to be. But life can also end suddenly, unexpectedly. And will some day. So be happy on the path... because ultimately, you will live your entire life on your own path... and then die. Make sure you are enjoying the journey.

</comment><comment><USER8> Separate your life into things that give you energy, and things that take energy. For introverts, going out to a bar or party may take away energy, for extroverts, it may give them energy. It doesn't really matter whether something gives or takes energy, but it's important that you're realistic with yourself about it. Socializing with friends may be good, but it may be an energy-taker.

Once you know what gives/takes energy, create a mock schedule that provides balance between the two. Then, play with the numbers to create an ideal balance.

For me, work is an energy-taker, but it's essential so I can do things that give me energy, like play games, volunteer, work out, etc. I've found that when I work 50-60 hours per week, I really just need about a solid day where I can just do things that give me energy, so Saturdays I keep free to play, hang out, and only do things that give me energy. Sundays I balance my time with things that give me energy (like watching football) and things that take energy (like chores).

That's sort of the high-level planning I do. On the micro-level, whenever I do something that gives me energy, I devote as much time to it at once, in bulk. This allows me enough time to become bored with it (if it's video games or working out), and make me _want_ to spend my energy that I've accumulated.

When doing something that takes energy, I do the pomodoro technique, where I spend 25 minutes working, 5 minutes off. I do email, get some water, stretch during that 5 minutes, and then immediately get back to work. That essentially gives me 16-20 "buckets" of time to work on my projects (8-10 hours), so I break my work out into those buckets, and plan accordingly.

I'm an accountant, so this may be different. I know some people love their work and work gives them energy, so they could have a totally different style. But I'm happy :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I like the metaphor of gardening.

It's almost so literally applicable to everything that it seems like a fundamental principle.

By gardening, I mean something like... tending lovingly to a system of interconnected complex tree-like structures.

Is personal life anything like that? Yeah, because friends and loved ones are plants with roots and offshoots, subterraneously connected to one another yet also independent life forms, dependent on light, warmth, and nutrition to stimulate their growing complexity.

Is work anything like that? Well, look at GitHub and say it isn't a garden of interdependent tree structures.

There's growth but also death and decay, and both are necessary. My little palm tree always has a couple of leaves that are dying, and for its health, I have to rip them off. Programs too need pruning—and relationships too.

<comment><USER10> Hierarchy is everywhere, for this same reason I've found hierarchical note taking tools to be the most effective by far. No matter what you're doing, no matter how complex, it can be broken down into manageable pieces and executed on bit by bit.

<comment><USER9> I'm a little bit disappointed with the static hierarchies that organizational tools seem to encourage. Though I use org-mode lovingly, my system isn't yet to a point where it's fully sustainable...

I really wonder how to cultivate a notes ecosystem in a healthy way, and what would be the byproducts of that. I think it has to do with different temporalities: chats, threads, notes, essays, books...

It should also have to do with pruning, weeding, rearranging, combining... maybe the occasional forest fire...

<comment><USER11> I have been thinking of a knowledge system with two linked guiding principles:

1\. Every element is owned by a person. 2\. Every element has a "decay rate" or automatic time to be trashed.

I think this would make it a lot easier to track knowledge in organizations. When something becomes outdated, its owner can just let it die without having to go out and proactively prune every bit of old documentation. When a person leaves the company, his "knowledge items" can be flagged as "soon to not have an owner."

Ultimately I'd actually like to build code projects this way. It probably seems insane to a lot of people to think of the idea of letting little pieces of the code base die and stop functioning, but the benefit I perceive is that our systems would always be tied to some degree to a human understander.

<comment><USER9> Right on, I'm a huge fan of the idea of decay in information systems!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's really easy: You just need to get very lucky once - After that, the luck will keep coming on its own.

Before I got lucky, all my plans were essentially useless - But on 12 Jul 2017 at 12:35 PM I got very lucky and now good things keep happening to me.

Making plans and being good at something is not that useful. As Woody Allen would say "I'd rather be lucky than good."

<comment><USER13> I understand this is not in line with the hn planability mindset, but there is some truth to that stody. I am also follow this idea - you need ambitious projects which have a low predictability of success. But if you try often/hard enough occasionally one actually works out. To me this makes life a lot more exciting than working/achieving small predictable goals. Life is too short to play it save.

<comment><USER6> I agree. When they ask me where I see myself in 5 years, I answer that while I appreciate where the question is coming from, my life was so different since 5 years ago and the changes have been so unexpected, that I would lie to you and myself if I gave you the impression of having any sort of roadmap.

Being very competitive and quite unsatisfied is enough for pushing forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Most people focus on trying to fit more things into their day. The people I see who are massively successful are very good at choosing what things they _don 't_ do. Just like you have to remove items from your budget that aren't providing value, you must remove items from your schedule and commitments.

Winnowing your commitments in this way creates the space you need to learn, grow and try new things. Most of those new things will turn out not to be valuable and you'll drop them, but some may turn out to be immensely valuable. When you see people that appear to be very lucky, often they have a way of increasing their chances of discovering things they find valuable. Intentionally stopping things that fall below a certain threshold of value/importance is a great way to give yourself room to discover things that are above the threshold.

<comment><USER15> I like this answer. It's the same in essence as Derek Sivers 'Hell yeah, or no' rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't have a good answer to the big-picture question, but one trick I've had a lot of success with over the years is building my own suite of life-logging tools.

I have my own system for food tracking, TODO list management, pomodoros, chore reminders, clothing and stuff management, contact tracking, a mini-Wiki, link management, and many others. They all connect to and cross-reference each other in helpful ways. If you are a good coder and have a simple web framework, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to build a new widget, and in principle the benefit will accrue for years.

My theory is that off-the-shelf life-logging and productivity tools don't work very well because people actually have very different lifestyles, work habits, and so on. So to actually boost productivity you need something very closely tailored to your own life.

</comment><comment><USER17> My life whirls around in a pool of chaos and everything sort of lines up at the end via a galactic coincidence.

I tried managing and bringing order to it etc but it takes a lot of work and the outcome is the same anyway.

This doesn't stop you from achieving goals which is important.

Not defining a metric for success is important. Be happy with the small steps, not the large leaps.

</comment><comment><USER18> Someone to love, something to do, something to hope for. I keep lists that I add to when I have inspiration because I know my memory is faulty. I meditate on the knowledge that most success is hereditary, the rest is luck, luck favours the hard-working only a little, but it also favours the lazy. We can't all be everything we want to be, and happiness = satisfaction / desire.

</comment><comment><USER19> First, know who you are. What you like. Who you like. How you tick. Whether you like change or routine. Those are your first principles.

Then you build the tactics from there. The specifics should match your personal quirks and needs.

</comment><comment><USER20> Step One: Identify the thing you enjoy most in life.

Step Two: Arrange your life so that you can do as much of that thing as possible.

For me, that "thing" was climbing and traveling. So I got good at writing software and spent the time and effort to shift into contracting. That let me work short gigs in high cost-of-living places and sock away enough to travel most of the year, setting up shop at various good climbing spots as and when necessary.

Step Three: As your priorities shift, alter the above as necessary.

Eventually, having wives and kids seemed to also be a good idea, so we're living in a place where, in addition to having the best concentration of high quality bouldering in the world, they also have an international airport and good schools. (And patisseries).

Find the thing you want to do, then arrange life so you can do it.

<comment><USER21> Absolutely!

btw Fontainebleau rules! I have a couple of friends who are avid climbers earning money by programming, or like me, born with a VR headset on, and only getting back into the body by bouldering.

Good climbing and good coding require / nurture similar skill sets: choosing a problem wisely, working slow and steady, recovering from setbacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> At the end of every working day, I type up a short list of what I intend to achieve tomorrow.

When tomorrow rolls around, I divide my work into periods with a minor variant of the Pomodoro technique, using a tool that locks my screen every 25 minutes.

This has really helped constrain my tendency to become distracted by Interesting Things. It's a bi-hourly opportunity to mentally review what I've just achieved, and consider what I'm doing in the next timeslot.

This has proved incredibly valuable over the course of a working day. Since adopting it, my productivity has been consistently improved an order-of- magnitude w.r.t. my intentions.

I'm also better hydrated.

</comment><comment><USER15> A good technique is to design life so you're efficient by default. For example I live 2.5 miles from work on the other side of the city centre, so getting a bus takes an age, thus I run or walk everyday to and from, because it's the easiest, fastest option. It's a small thing but 5+ miles walking everyday keeps you relatively fit and because it's the easiest option it's my default.

Similar idea is to delete your newsfeeds and stop posting on social media. You'll find yourself looking for distraction and having nothing you do. So you'll get back to work. Or if at home you'll do dishes, read that book etc.

Another side of it is perception. As much as we try not to we compare ourselves with our peers we all do to an extent. A good technique to defeat this is to have hobbies or side projects completely unrelated to your main career. For me my career is engineering and my hobby theatre. If I'm ever jealous of a peer at work I remind myself that I can sing and act far better than them. On the flip side If I don't get a cast in a show I remind myself I have a great career, at one of the best employers in my city. Admittedly it's healthier to try not compare in the first place but if you do give into it that's a way to do it. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I agree, having the right priorities and a sense and constancy of purpose is key for a life that is more than asking yourself and other people what you are going to do this weekend.

It follows that if you keep your priorities straight, most of your efforts will be directed toward those priorities and won't be in vain. However, that is a neverending struggle against the desires of other people, society, and, ultimately, entropy.

Personally, I never used any pomodoro, GTDs etc., and I have been pretty successful in my personal and professional life. I think keeping your priorities straight is difficult enough and I trust that if I am successful there, everything else will fall into, more or less, the right place.

Let me add an example. Sports and physical activity have always been very important to me, in part because of my personality and in part because I believe prowess in both physical and intellectual activities make the person I aspire to be every single day. It means that, apart from once-a-year exceptions, 6 pm Mondays and Wednesdays are training time. Conflicts? I know where my priorities are and everything else will fall into place.

</comment><comment><USER18> Beware of False Hope Syndrome - if you don't break down your hopes/goals into realistic steps you won't know if they are achievable.

</comment><comment><USER23> At any given time I have goals for the next week, the next month, the next year, and the next four years. Periodically I'll spend some time reflecting and update the goals as new opportunities appear or major life transitions occur. Keeping the long-term goals in mind alongside shorter term goals is surprisingly helpful. So far this strategy has been pretty successful for me.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been using taskwarrior [0] along with some shell scripts allowing me to keep separate notes on tasks/projects as my "life management tool" for the past couple years, and it's helped tremendously. I don't follow any particular methodology, but since I'm constantly looking at my todo list, I'm constantly tweaking it, reprioritizing things, and removing unimportant tasks.

I think the most important principle for me has been to make sure that I capture new tasks or ideas immediately. If I do that, I end up interacting with my todo list so much, that prioritization falls out kind of naturally.

[0] [https://taskwarrior.org/](https://taskwarrior.org/)

</comment><comment><USER25> I use 2Do app on macOS for actionable GTD tasks together with Ship app for managing GitHub issues.

And finally I just write everything else I need to reference at any point in my blog and wiki.

Wiki : [https://nikitavoloboev.gitbooks.io/knowledge/content/](https://nikitavoloboev.gitbooks.io/knowledge/content/)

2Do app : [https://www.2doapp.com/](https://www.2doapp.com/)

Ship app : [https://www.realartists.com](https://www.realartists.com)

</comment><comment><USER26> While it's easier said than done, find what makes you happy. Most people think this means "find a job you somewhat like / don't hate", but I'd apply it much more broadly. Find a mode of earning your living expenses that makes you happy (work remotely; manage an AirBnB; do consulting work), everything else will fall into place.

</comment><comment><USER27> Wing it!

</comment><comment><USER28> Using Evernote: * I have a note for things I want to learn. * I have a note for books I want read. * I have notebook for school. * I create a new note for every project.

GDocs:

* Sheets for finances.

Trying notion soon!

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-0XEOGTvc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM-0XEOGTvc)

</comment><comment><USER30> > a constancy of purpose is key towards a successful and happy life.

Shouldn't your purpose have a meaning per se? You don't want to be Don Quixote.

<comment><USER31> > You don't want to be Don Quixote.

It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall Don Quixote as being particularly unhappy. If anything, he was significantly happier than those around him, because he had a purpose.

If you choose to make your purpose in life to solve a problem that matters and is in fact solvable, then perhaps choosing the right problem is a large part of your life's meaning.

<comment><USER30> Disclaimer : I never read the book, but it's so famous the character seemed to me like a decent analogy to what I was trying to say.

Don Quixote has a goal, but he's also completely delusional.

Is it ok to live in delusion if that brings you happiness? Shouldn't happiness be grounded in some sort objectivity?

Otherwise, what's to stop people from seeking a chemical path to happiness? Like with drugs, as with the soma in "brave new world"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Habitica (habitrpg.com).

</comment><comment><USER33> Bullet journal technique in a paper book.

</comment><comment><USER34> We start out playing, I don't think we should ever stop doing that.

If more knowledge was the answer, then all the super smart people of the world would have everything. But it's often total idiots who end up having the most fun.

But we're all idiots, nobody knows what they are doing.

All knowledge has a thread which goes back through history. For example, all this Bitcoin stuff is new and nobody knows what's going to happen with it. But the whole is made up of pieces which have a long thread of history. Each of these threads themselves contains key pieces and key people. Rather than reading that new best selling book, look at the sources and read those sources instead. Then follow the trail of sources to find the keys to the subject. Ignore all the surrounding noise.

Your brain can do maybe 4-ish hours of hard work and in maybe 1.5 hour-ish bursts. You will likely have a few times per day where your energy is high. Your day of productivity is that quiet burst in the morning. You only get one of those each day. You probably get another nice high productivity chunk in the evening. Maybe you get another in between. Make those periods your most brilliant creative periods. Take some time to play. Take some time to read from that key list you put together from the last point. Then fill remaining time with whatever.

Once you get the effort and the creative part right, then it's luck which does much of the rest. That's why idiots who create, play and put in the effort are able to have so much fun, they get lucky too.

You don't get lucky unless you fully jump in and just start trying things.

Constraints are good. Read into people who have done well with debilitating injuries. Read about people who have done well with lots of kids. If you are single and have a difficult time managing 16 hours of your day, imagine yourself as only having 4 hours per day.

Much of the problem with moving forward in the face of overwhelming information is just picking something. How many threads have you read in which someone is asking about Ruby vs Python. Months later this same person hasn't done anything because he or she still hasn't been able to make a decision. We can't move forward because we're afraid of committing. We instead might spend time on low commitment actions such as browsing news. The key is that it doesn't matter and that you should just get moving. The most important information isn't what you are looking at when you are trying to decide, but that information which comes when you are on the road. A heavy effort is a far better gain in life tokens than you lose by making the wrong decision. You will make wrong choices all the time, but you will overcome those decisions with a solid and consistent effort.

Just choose. Get moving. And have fun.

</comment><comment><USER35> Personally, that's note taking.

I've been using Evernote quite heavily over the last few years. Originally as a replacement for Google Keep and Pocket/SaveForLater. Lots of notebooks and an organised tagging system seem to be the key for me.

I use it for jotting random thoughts on the train, as well as a variety of journalling purposes (everything from tracking training courses watched to having little retros after cooking something - so I can memo tweaks to make next time). I also use it to help me internalise keyboard shortcuts of the things I use the most of the time. Random memories from childhood as they occur to collate and print, in case my memory isn't so great when I get much older.

More relevant to the question, I use tags like "#StartDoingThis" in a variety of contexts, which are different notebooks. Could be related to programming, household stuff, music, health - anything really. I set an alarm at the weekend to review the stuff that received that tag during the previous week.

Also tried using Evernote for a 'Return on the day' sort of note, where I jot down a few worthwhile things I'd like to have done by the end of the day to have felt there was some sort of gain.

Taking a quick glance, I also have notebooks for things I tried differently that made a noticeable difference, old habits that I should bring back that were better, resources I've noticed that have been overlooked (that book on Kindle, a saved training video), technical videos I saw on YouTube that made an impression. A list of positive things as they happen, to reflect on later and feel happy about... Activities that made me feel particularly enthusiastic or engaged, so I can dig that out and try the same sort of thing again if stuck in a rut.

I'm really into playing instruments and home recording, so if I hear a piece of audio I like, I record a ten second snippet of it, and put it in a notebook with tags detailing what I liked about it (arrangement, production, effects, bass part, groove, riff, solo, harmonies, technique) so that I can dial in on one particular tag and listen to all the clips if I need some inspiration.

All sorts of things, really. It's good to periodically drill down on a tag or notebook and see there's some worthwhile content or good insight there.

During my working day, I use a program called Marxico that's a great Markdown editor that stores notes within Evernote organised by notebook and one or more tags. I like it because it's based on the Ace editor, so the Vim keymap works really well. Writing well structured documents in Markdown is really easy now. When I start a new Scrum or Kanban story, I have a note associated with it. I first define sections for things like 'objective', 'reference notes', 'problems' and 'tasks', and use bullet points obsessively to structure hierarchies. I used to try and do this with mindmaps, but it's much quicker with Markdown and bullet points - especially when you're tearing around with Vim expressions. That task sheet really dictates how I work on a story, and it's incredibly quick to take quick screenshots and paste them into various levels of the document as and when needed. When the story's over, it will be automatically synced to Evernote for future searching. Really helps me to keep focussed on important details.

Will have to keep looking at some way of automatically backing it up locally in a neutral format, though, to offset the vendor lock-in.

<comment><USER36> >> Will have to keep looking at some way of automatically backing it up locally in a neutral format, though, to offset the vendor lock-in.

[http://nixnote.org](http://nixnote.org)

[https://cellard0-0r.github.io/whatever/](https://cellard0-0r.github.io/whatever/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I try to think about how my life goals and ambitions would look like in Material Design. This usually resolves all of my issues.

<comment><USER29> This is the most intriguing HN post I've ever read.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same here! It'd be great if Numberwang could clarify this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I try to focus on what I like doing and who I like spending my time with. I have found that doing things with the aim of one day being a better or different person than I am just leads to distress. You'll change anyway, but planning it out doesn't work so well in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER39> I abide by David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) method. I use OmniFocus as my tool.

I also think the ideas in Extreme Ownership are useful to stay motivated.

</comment><comment><USER40> I write unit, integration, and behavioral, tests that fail for their first dozen runs. Then I fix everything until the tests pass. Then I write more tests.

<comment><USER41> Did you misunderstand the question, or do you have an interesting take on "test-driven living"?

<comment><USER42> Isn't living test-driven _by design_?</comment></comment></comment>


Why You Should Charge from Day One - <AUTHOR> http://rocketship.fm/episodes/ep-79-rob-mueller/

<comment><USER2> Rob, I spotted this on the download page:

 _> "During this 15-year journey they were acquired, but subsequently bought the company back a few years later and are now wholly owned by the staff."_

Non-small tech companies owned by staff are pretty rare. Have you ever written anything about the experience? Does it work well? Is it structured like a co- op or similar?

(sorry for the barrage of questions, but I've always wondered about this)

<comment><USER3> Several companies on this list are household names; Avis was run as a typical corporation, W. L. Gore has no managers, and Springfield ReManufacturing is discussed in Jack Stack's book _The Great Game of Business_ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee- owned_compani...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_employee- owned_companies)

<comment><USER4> Thanks. Interesting to see Huawei on the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I ever start another company, I am definitely going to do this. The burden of supporting only paying customers is so much lower, and you can really focus on what's important to them.

<comment><USER6> You only really have the choice of doing this if you are running a bootstrapped lifestyle company. You are not going to be a VC "outlier" if you do things like charging people for your product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fact that we even have a discussion about this is amusing. Outside the tech bubble what business even questions if they should be charging customers or not [1].

1\. I am not saying that tech businesses are wrong to not charge (it is the most rational thing to do in many cases), but just pointing out how unusual tech is.

<comment><USER7> This really depends on who is considered to be a customer.

Imagine a street musician who wants every listener to pay money instead of few voluntary contributors. (Would fail - too little reach)

Or a shopping mall / water front/ etc. with an entry fee as an alternative to charging their retailers (without significant wow effect driving people in..)

<comment><USER6> A street musician is not a business. Shopping malls and the like are most definately businesses and they certainly charge their customers (the retailers) a great deal.

The whole reason that tech businesses can get away without charging their customers is their customers are not the people using the product. If you are cynical their customers are investors (and they certainly charge them). If you are less cynical the customers are some future user of the product. Tech is certainly an unusual business sector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I enjoyed hearing about the history of FastMail, but there isn't really much here about "Why You Should Charge from Day One". How do we know FastMail couldn't have had more success with ads?</comment>