The house I was born in sold for $4000 - <AUTHOR> http://baus.net/4000-dollar-house/ <comment><USER2> Maybe it's just a stupid statement made out of tv shows like 'extreme makeover home edition', correct me please if I'm wrong....

In US most of the houses seems to be made over a wooden structure, making them more fragile, easy to be renovated / customized / moved / rebuilt and, most important, cheaper.

Here in Italy (and AFAIK in the whole Europe) there's nothing like that: full concrete and a proper basement, basically no wood (except from roof).

I just bought my first flat and I've spent 168k euros for a 85 square meters flat 25 km from Milan. Despite the crisis, prices are stable and/or are decreasing very slowly.

You will never find, even in the worst zones of the cheapest cities an house at 10k euros here, neither a bunch of bricks will be sold for that. :)

<comment><USER3> Well you can find houses like that : the ones that have to be demolished (often in relatively nice locations too), and rebuilt. Of course, buying the property means that after that there's still 300k to be paid to build a new house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd really like to see a low-tax, low regulation part of the US (WA, NV, TX, or TN) where someone buys a few thousand acres and lets people build "temporary" structures (with power/fiber/wifi/etc.) for living and solo- working, combined with some more permanent structures for offices, meetings, socialization, etc. Essentially like a 2-5 year Burning Man encampment campus for various startup projects.

If someone's "personal burn rate", while living comfortably and efficiently, were $10-15k/yr (while still eating great food, socializing, medical care, etc.), it would make mostly-equity compensation as part of a founding team really viable.

The point would be to get the benefits of density without the costs of luxury.

<comment><USER5> Are you proposing we endorse a shantytown? History has shown us those go downhill fast, and I don't see how temporary shelters _won't_ turn into a shantytown (and amusingly enough become permanent, much like every piece of shanty-code I write)

<comment><USER4> A shantytown full of rich (at least, in earning potential elsewhere) startup/burningman type people which grows around convenient fiber might be different than one full of labor surrounding a mine.

<comment><USER5> I don't really buy it. The hallmark of shantytowns is everything is "half- assed". I can't see tech workers breaking out the saws and sandpaper and building quality neighborhoods in their spare time, and nobody will invest real money and labor into something you intend to bulldoze in 3-5 years. You will also get a domino effect; people with money and the desire for a nice place to live will automatically avoid your shantytown, filling it with people that don't mind living in squalor, leading to a more squalid shantytown- thus looping back on itself.

<comment><USER6> _"I can't see tech workers breaking out the saws and sandpaper and building quality neighborhoods in their spare time"_

I should have you over to my house sometime. I completely tore out the downstairs of my house. The guy that's helping me with the kitchen cabinets is an old cobol programmer. I think your experience with carpentry and people that enjoy carpentry might leave a little to be desired. (I don't mean any disrespect by this) and I'm not saying that just because you chose "saws and sandpaper" for what is needed to build a structure.

I am curious why do you think tech people would not be interested in building things using lumber? If you are looking for a book to read pickup "Shopclass as Soulcraft." I don't think its going to make you want to pick up a trade but I think it might give you a different perspective.

<comment><USER5> People keep thinking I'm saying technical folks don't like wood, or something. I just mean when everyone already has a day job, and no one has real training or worthwhile experience, you are probably going to have trouble getting good results in a reasonable amount of time.

IMO this falls into the ol' boat of engineers thinking they can do everything just as well as people who were professionally trained. "Drilling for oil? How hard can it be!"

P.S. Unless frames come precut or premade these days, how exactly do you plan to build a house without some form of saw?

<comment><USER6> It was the sandpaper part that sounded funny to me.

Speaking of framing, you know that aisle of 2x4x8s you walk past at home despot? They are not all 96 inches long. If you look close some are labeled "framing studs." They are precut to 92 5/8 precisely so that you don't need to cut down every stud when you are framing a wall.

<comment><USER4> I personally kind of hate stick-built stuff; my dream home is concrete and steel and glass, with textiles and strategic wood for sound and aesthetics.

<comment><USER7> You might not like New Zealand then - its 95% stick built (well, wood) and has a minimum of concrete. That was changing, but after seeing the Christchurch earthquake, this wobbly island isn't going to be allowing heavy stuff that isn't braced like a battleship anytime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Worth pointing out is that even $40,000 houses appear to have $1,800 a year tax bills. Treating that tax as a perpetuity you would need to invest 1800/.0357 = $50139 at mortgage rates to break even. It's still surprisingly inexpensive, but property taxes tell at least some of the story. A $4000 sedan that obligates you to $2000 in annual license fees is not a particularly good deal, even if it will run for another ten years.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is why I'm very reluctant to buy a million dollar shack here in Silicon Valley. What if the tech industry goes on the same trajectory as the automobile industry, and San Francisco ends up being the Detroit of the 2020's? Is there something intrinsically "magic" about the Bay Area, or is it just the coincidental clustering of tech companies that makes this place special?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Couple comments. I didn't research the exact numbers in the post. I heard the house was sold for $4k, and the point wasn't about the exact price, but my perception of life after growing up in an area of constant economic decline.

Also one of my goals for 2013 was to hit the home page of HN. I didn't think my first attempt would do it. Thanks!

<comment><USER10> I grew up there from 79 to 97. My mom was mayor and a ton of my friends live there. I've since gone to school and lived in NYC, LA and now DC. Jamestown is still one of my favorite places on the planet. Cheap housing is just a bonus.

It's incredible how far your money will go there: [http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes- detail/2055-Willar...](http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes- detail/2055-Willard-Street-Ext_Jamestown_NY_14701_M44508-69809?row=1)

The question is how to get the money... :) probably contribute to your community. Err I mean contribute a new app idea to the community of angel investors. Whatever. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post struck a chord with me as I'm from the central NY region, not too far from the OP. I get back to my hometown every year or two and the decline is more apparent every trip. Everything from my youth- the places I worked part-time, the schools I went to, the places I used to hang out at, the major local employers, they're all gone or in major decline. Many houses are boarded up, abandoned, and are being slowly reclaimed by nature. Most of my school friends have moved away, and most of those that have stayed around have basically wasted away. In my own lifetime I have seen long-term economic decline happen and it has scarred me in a way that is difficult to articulate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you liked it. I believe I (and other people from the area) look at the world differently than those from more prosperous regions.

There is a constant thought in the back of my head that this could all be temporary. Boom towns go bust. Industries go bust. But I also think I've left opportunity on the table because of my fear.

I've come to realize that the difficult part of life is balancing the upside with the downside -- knowing when to be conservative and when to be risky.

If I could give advice to anyone leaving school or home for the first time it would be: remain cognizant of the downside, but don't let it prevent you from taking advantage of the upside if it presents itself to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Homeowners of HN: how do you justify tying up a large percentage of your net worth in a home?

<comment><USER13> I own a single-family house on the San Francisco peninsula which I bought three years ago (and spent the summer of 2010 remodeling it and the summer of 2011 landscaping it).

What others have said elsewhere in this thread is true: owning a home limits your flexibility in terms of moving for another job. It ties up a lot of your assets, for most people, in a decaying pile of lumber that needs maintenance and upkeep and furnace replacements and driveway repaving and so on. Patrick.net, run by a SF bay area programmer-renter, is an able representation of this point of view.

For me, the benefits outweigh the costs. I'm in the mid-peninsula off the 280, so if necessary I can work at any job between and including San Francisco and San Jose and closer portions of the east bay. I was tired of renting and wanted a place that I could customize and run multiple Cat6 and RG-6 cables to each room, install a home automation system, etc. Plus single-family homes available for rental aren't as nice as the ones available for purchase. Finally it's a hedge against inflation.

Those are reasons why, to a first approximation, anyone in the SF bay area who plans to stay here long enough and can afford to buy a home does.

As bradleyjg said further down, the relative desirability of home ownership is also due in part to government subsidies. The first $250,000-$500,000 of appreciation in home value is not taxed when you sell. And mortgage interest is tax deductible.

<comment><USER14> | And mortgage interest is tax deductible.

In some jurisdictions. Not Canada.

<comment><USER13> Quite right. What's interesting is that the Canadian homeownership rate is similar to that of the U.S., last I checked, even despite the different tax treatments.

<comment><USER14> My theory on this is that the prices adjust to cancel out the benefit from the tax break. The out-of-pocket expense to the buyer is the same and the general taxpayer is subsidizing a higher price for sellers. It's a cash transfer from taxpayers to established landowners cunningly disguised as a legup for the middle class.

I think the prices must adjust in this way since the supply of housing close to the supply of paid work is limited.

If anyone can point me to a decent analysis of this, I'd be grateful. But this is my pet theory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm from the same town, and now live in the Bay Area. I still can not get used to the housing prices here...which have been increasing recently: [http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay...](http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=5138973)

When I visit my hometown, I feel like all the prices are in a different currency.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't think there were many other people from Chautauqua county here.

<comment><USER15> I think the only time I have met anyone from Chautauqua county out here was when I went to see a Bills games at the Northstar Cafe in SF. When I was reading your blog post, I actually jumped a bit, because I thought I recognized the house (the red-brick street combined with the Bills banner is a familiar sight).

<comment><AUTHOR> Contact me. Let's get a beer. I went to the Bills game in SF this year. We got killed, but it was still a lot of fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> OP neglects to mention if there were any back taxes or water liens owed. Or if the house had been condemned. All I could find was one lot (not house) under 8K.

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Jamestown- NY/pmf,pf_pt/...](http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Jamestown- NY/pmf,pf_pt/5317_rid/0-8000_price/0-29_mp/days_sort/42.180451,-79.108257,42.002366,-79.376736_rect/11_zm/)

<comment><AUTHOR> The point is that the house isn't worth even the back taxes on it. That is hard to imagine from a west coast perspective. Even after the bust in 2009, I don't think it got that extreme in too many places.

<comment><USER17> Not sure if it was 2009, unless the effects in that region were felt only years later.

I was having a look at another cheap house from around the area. Just check out the graph: [http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/23-Barrett-Ave- Jamestown-N...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/23-Barrett-Ave-Jamestown- NY-14701/29894630_zpid/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _The population of California has a perception of growth, while the Rust Belt has a perception of decline. This must effect the collective psyche to point where taking risk becomes less socially acceptable. Taking entrepreneurial or financial risk when you are gainfully employed is less tolerated when many people around you (and in fact entire industries) are struggling to get by._

I think there's something more subtle going on here. If the economy as a whole is doing well, risks tend to pay off; if the economy as a whole is not doing well, risks tend to not pay off. You don't even need any social pressure to make people in the rust belt take fewer risks than people in silicon valley; you just need people who use past performance as an indicator of future returns.

</comment><comment><USER10> My mom was mayor of Jamestown for a couple years. Most houses that were maintained have kept their value. We just have a twisted sense of how housing value should work.

Even around Chautauqua lake, where the best real estate is in that county, the max is probably around $3mil for houses that would make an $3mil house around here (DC) look like a cottage.

Location, location, location. I can drive there in under seven hours these days. Straight through central PA which makes central Jamestown look like London.

</comment><comment><USER19> More startup needs to move to low cost areas.

<comment><USER20> It's better for well established players to move to low cost areas. Startups need to be in places where there is abundance of talent. Engineering salary are extremely high as-is, it would be nigh impossible to make them move to the middle of nowhere.

<comment><USER21> In a world of PaaS and the cloud, and amazing communication capabilities like Skype and Google Hangout, why? What about CA or NY makes them more talented? They're there because the work is there, not vice versa. Also, you don't have to be in the middle of nowhere. There's plenty of large American cities where you can buy a nice house for less than $150K. I realize that the SF reality distortion field would suggest that everywhere else is powered by oil lamps, but I figure as long as you have high speed Internet and are within an hour of an Apple store, then you are quite capable to getting the work done from your home.

<comment><USER20> What you are saying makes total sense as a founder. But for an engineer there us no motivation to move to an area where there are not many opportunities.

<comment><USER21> I say that as someone who has remained gainfully employed for several companies, only one of which was local, over the past several years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> WTF?

If an _house_ can be built for $12000, why are flats selling for $100k+ routinely?!?!?

If it's just due to land value, then why not build ultra-tall skyscrapers to amortize it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think a house can be built for $12k. Houses in the rust belt routinely sell below replacement cost because demand is so low.

<comment><USER23> Right, and a house is a liability as well as an asset: at that sort of price, the main cost of owning the house is the ongoing maintenance, utilities, etc.

<comment><USER24> In NY state, I think the main cost of the house is going to be property taxes. I don't recall the rates, and don't care to look them up. But I do recall (when the subject has come up) that my sister-in-law in Alden, NY (small town 30 miles east of Buffalo) pays ridiculously high property taxes in comparison to what we pay here in Redmond, WA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> In his much-quoted column, Friedman says([http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman- ne...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman-need-a-job- invent-it.html?hp&_r=0)): "Every middle-class job today is being pulled up, out or down faster than ever."

Middle income families who rely on manufacturing has been hit hard, with no prospects of an exit.

<comment><USER26> yeah, well maybe all manufacturing will be superseded by 3D printing.. in which case you'd want to move into design rather than assembly.

I think eg. Foxcon is going to be a very temporary thing.

I always thought that at some point a robot arm will be cheaper than a human to assemble electronics.. but we may skip that stage altogether. Pretty soon you'll just print your iPhone, bypassing assembly completely.

<comment><USER27> 3D printing electronics from the transistor (or even IC) up is a _very long_ way away. Centralized manufacturing will exist for a long time. ICs are significantly cheaper in quantities of 10k+, and there's no way a 3D printer could generate a silicon wafer and etch a working circuit onto it, at least not economically. Chip fabs still cost 10 figures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is going to be an increasing issue and it's something that Western nations in particular just haven't had to deal with until now.

The West came out of Europe. Europe is small. To put it in perspective, the distance from SF to NYC is ~2900 miles. The distance from London to _Baghdad_ is ~3100 miles. So abundance of land is not a problem the West has traditionally had (not until colonization anyway).

Added to this, mortality has been high but population growth has been higher. The last century saw a dramatic rise in life expectancy (primarily due to a drop in infant mortality). The last 50 years has seen a dramatic drop in population growth (the lesson seems to be that the natural reaction to uncertain times by people is to breed more).

So the West is being crushed by the weight of supporting an ageing population from a system established at a time retirement was a rarity.

Add to this to overall trend of the last century has been one of urbanization.

And just to put the nail in the coffin, low-tech manufacturing has largely fled the West for the developing world where labour is cheap.

Our entire society seems premised on both population and economic growth. What exactly do we do when the population starts shrinking? This is a bridge we haven't crossed yet.

The experience in parts of the US seem to indicate the transition won't be an easy one. Cities with negative population growth have suffered from appalling crime and poverty that seems much harder to flush out in a city full of vacant buildings.

The ongoing story of Detroit is nothing short of surreal. That's a city that is slowly being reclaimed by nature, which is really what should happen. Half- empty cities are not healthy cities.

Now add to this the whole concept of home ownership. Home ownership is aspirational. It's political goal. Home ownership comes with a huge cost however.

\- The unlucky who buy in declining cities have a huge part of their wealth eroded leading to virtually impoverished retirement.

\- It leads to an inflexible labour market (people are unwilling or unable to move to where the jobs are).

\- It has a snowball effect, particularly in the US, where much of the funding for local infrastructure comes from property taxes.

I haven't been to upstate New York. I'm one of those living in NYC where half a million dollars for a studio doesn't seem that outrageous.

If there's one lesson from this is that everything is transitory. I believe one of the largest fallacies of the Twentieth Century was that the idea set in that everything was going to keep growing and keep getting better forever. The institutions you grew up with would last a life time.

Hell, this even applies to climate where we base our views on a ridiculously narrow band of Earth's or even human history.

Cities come. Cities go. Nations come. Nations go. To think that the USA or Europe will exist as they do today a thousand years from now is the height of hubris and/or naivete.

<comment><USER29> I had to google it, might be useful for others:

2900 miles = 4667km

3100 miles = 4988km

<comment><USER30> It could have read 2900 gribloops vs 3100 gribloops and, not knowing anything about gribloops other than it's a measure of distance between cities, the expected conclusion is the same: the two pairs of cities are roughly the same distance apart. Ergo, converting the units presents no additional information.

<comment><USER7> It put things into a frame I understand though.

<comment><USER31> You don't understand the concept of somewhat longer units of length than those you are used to?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> (This is more of a response to several of the comments posted so far.)

I'd like to come to the defense of low-cost living but also acknowledge that (expensive) city living has its obvious pluses that people already in SV might be taking for granted.

I created a low-cost living situation while living in a big (old/pretty) house in New Hampshire by renting out all of the rooms to friends. My rent is "free" and utilities are split 5 ways ($50 per person in summer, $150 in winter. Heating the house is expensive). If you can stand living with other people, I think this is one of the better ways to bootstrap "new job out of college" money instead of putting a down-payment on a smaller home that might not bring in any cash.

The house just so happens to be the house I grew up in, which my father sold in 2005 and foreclosed on in 2010 (ultra-conveniently, the year I graduated from college). It needed _lots_ of work, so instead of trying to (re)sell it for cheap I made a deal to fix it up while living in it for reduced rent. Three friends living there cover the rent.

The house may be worth more in the future than current rates, and certainly has its share of things-needing-fixing, and my friends pay below-market rent rates, so it seems like a good deal for everyone involved.

If I did not have such a house, I think I'd try to buy one and do the same thing. It's nice to have some communal society around after college. (I've planned other things in my life to try to re-create that, too, because I think its important and under-acknowledged.)

<comment>

It's worth noting that there are downsides to living in a lower-cost-than- SV/Major City area. I don't have _any_ programmer friends in real life outside of the people at my work (a _very_ tiny company, and no one is remotely near my age (24)). That becomes a little problematic. I'm reminded of a quote from John le Carre:

> Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: whether from > great personal success, or just an all-night drive, we are the sole > survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.

It's hard to talk about programming things and I think that's bad. I'm not around as many career-driven people as I'd like to be either and I think that's bad too. I end up spending a lot of time on the internet to talk about those areas of my interest. (And especially HN: I have a lot of affection for the repeated names in this place, even if we all tend to be a tad too negative. Consistent commentors still make a community and I'm thankful for that. Really.)

So it's a good setup. And while my salary isn't amazing it's more than enough for my area, and I love my walkable, lovable hometown in New Hampshire. But there's certainly something to be said for cities and high cost areas. I miss being around as many smart people as there were in college.

<comment>

On a note actually related to the article, when I drove around western NY - went to college at RPI, near Albany and headed west for Craigslist ventures - the places I saw just seemed surreal. Some parts of western NY, if you were just dropped there with no context, you'd think to yourself "A war must have happened here maybe 30 years ago". Strange levels of decay and halted-/de- construction

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I've seen your posts on this topic here before. I actually lived in a shared housing situation in a large victorian mansion in Epping, NH in my 20s. I really enjoyed it. I wanted to do the same thing when I moved to Tahoe as the owner, but couldn't afford a house big enough to make it work out.

If I was in my 20s and working in an area as engineer with a reasonable cost of living, I would seriously consider this exact thing. When you are just out of school it is actually nice to be able to share a living space and it makes economic sense.

<comment><USER33> Where I come from, it's so common we have a word for it: flatting.

Almost everybody lives in flats for at least the first few years after leaving home, and often much longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I zoomed in on google map, was hoping for streetview [ in which I fantasized seeing Jack Reacher walk past for some reason ]

From the OP, I assumed this would be literally 100 miles from the nearest drugstore/711.. but its bang in the urban grid of a small town.

Shouldn't some of the bailout money be towards loans for people to do up cheap homes like this? It would seem a good investment for the future at low cost to enable more people to pick up these low end deals. Are the banks now so stupid they cant get people into homes and paying interest.. instead of this foreclosure fire-sale nonsense ?

Assuming this place can get internet installed, it would make some family a great home which they could gradually renovate, after which they would look after the place and contribute to the town.

<comment><USER34> Such bailouts and programs for average Joe don't really work. When real estate price is in decline, housing becomes in time more affordable. In this conditions you may actually get a chance to buy a house without a loan. It's a natural evolution. Now suppose the government steps in, throwing easy money - what do you think will happen next? I don't live in USA, I live in Romania, EU. Here the real estate prices jumped threefold after the government started "the first home" (literal translation) - a program that wanted to support young families in getting a home. I don't say there weren't any benefits for involved parties - the program actually spurred a lot of construction around, the banks made a lot of profits, and some young selected couples had in the end the privilege to be supported in buying overpriced living places. For everyone else (most of us) the entire thing made the housing more expensive. I don't want to see such things happen again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I left Western NY decades ago, a small town 60 miles from Buffalo, because there was nothing there for me. It's not a place for software entrepreneurs. But now, as I struggle with costs in downtown Chicago, I wonder if there's some way to make something of the old place.

The answer is no, unless you can attract the right people there, and for that there has to be a good job and at least few amenities. Both can be created, but only if lightning strikes. It's a tough situation.

<comment><USER36> a) Chicago is pretty cheap.

b) Why do you have to be downtown? There are lots of suburbs and regional towns connected with good rail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Location is basically an extortion racket enabled by the economic collapse of the U.S. outside of a handful of star cities. With NIMBY policies, people in economically vibrant locations keep supply artificially low. This way, a class of people who've ceased providing value can still enrich themselves on a self- sustaining pattern of clueless talent rushing in for the gold rush.

What we see is that most of the country is dying-- that's why the real estate is so cheap in places like Jamestown-- but that's driving the costs in the few not-dying stretches to obscene levels.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that this is happening everywhere, not just the US. Everything outside the main cities is becoming more and more worthless.

That will switch when oil becomes cheap again. Of course, that may never happen.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sharingbuttons.io – Fast and easy social media sharing buttons - <AUTHOR> http://sharingbuttons.io <comment><USER2> People who like this also might like shariff, privacy enabled social media buttons by the german tech publisher heise: [https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff](https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff), [https://heiseonline.github.io/shariff/](https://heiseonline.github.io/shariff/).

<comment><USER3> While this is a good suggestion, shouldn't this have its own thread? This is "Show HN" \- a chance to startup owners to shine. Such a post steals their momentum...

<comment><AUTHOR> No hard feelings, sharingbuttons isn't a startup by a long shot, just a fun personal open source project! People should have choices :+1:

<comment><USER3> Sure, just talking overall. I see this trend starting on HN recently. I have seen few times when cool projects got hijacked even by owners of different, similar startups. Thus the comment. Good job btw.

<comment><USER2> In my opinion it depends. Here we are talking about really the same idea, and shariff is something I already used. It also is a few steps further, it has a backend to get vote counters and plugins for several frameworks, like Serendipity, Drupal and Wordpress (now, that is something which might have stolen the spotlight, and I opted to not mention that here).

But no, to your question, I don't think it is a new phenomenon or unwanted to mention related projects in comments. That's why I did not even consider that it might hurt op, thanks for chiming in. But yes, shariff should probably have its own thread, the ones I found are old and did get no attention. I'll re- submit it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's nice, but people love to see the number of current likes.

For one of my customers, I created a Facebook like area [0](visible on the bottom of the site) that shows the amount of likes. All required data is retrieved server-side and cached; to not expose end-users to Facebook tracking while still providing images and like count.

[0]: [https://www.bakkerij-emmerix.be/be](https://www.bakkerij-emmerix.be/be)

It uses the user-supplied images by facebook (square and banner) with the option to supply a larger-version than Facebook returns.

It's not rocket science, but it makes the site load a lot faster and does not expose the user to tracking.

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, how do you do the caching? How long is the cache valid for? Is it only triggered by a user request, or is it updated by a cron job or similar?

<comment><USER4> Website was written in C# (ASP.NET MVC); the data is cached in-memory on the webserver.

I have caching limit (Like Count = 3 minutes, Page info (name, images, etc.) = 1 hour).

Every time one of the resources is requested from the webserver; it's served from memory (initial retrieval on site start); and on access, it's checked how old the data is. If the data's older than the threshold, it's refreshed async and displayed on the next request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know if there's any data on how freauently people use sharing buttons? Do sharing buttons actually significantly increase sharing?

I don't remember ever clicking on a sharing button, except by accident, I always just copy paste the url, seems way more convenient.

Do you guys use them?

//In any case - awesome project!

<comment><USER7> I always copy/paste the URL when I want to share a website. That's what the URL is meant for. Heck, it's easier to copy the URL (using the keyboard) than it is to use the mouse to click on some button.

Sharing buttons are a nuisance more than anything. at best, I'd say they're a tool to enable spying on users and should be categorically blocked (as standard uBlock₀ filter rules let you do with a single click).

<comment><USER8> I can't believe Amazon doesn't have a "copy link" button. I guess they don't want too many "amzn.to" links floating around, but I hate to need to use bitly or an extension just to get the compressed link.

I think the ideal solution should be very similar to Android's sharing setup: One unified share button that can be sent to different apps or copied to clipboard. [http://www.androidpolice.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/nexu...](http://www.androidpolice.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/10/nexus2cee_Screenshot_2014-10-17-15-19-351.png)

<comment><USER9> I don't understand what you mean by this. Do you mean a button that grabs the current URL you're at? Do other websites have this?

I'm not challenging you, I genuinely don't understand what you're talking about.

<comment><USER10> A button to generate a shortened link. For example, when you click share on YouTube, you get a youtu.be link.

<comment><USER11> Why do you still need shortened links? For text messages, aesthetics, or ease of analog communication? Twitter, previously the main use case, no longer counts link length in tweets.

<comment><USER7> While I don't think the URL shortening matters too much, there's still another important attribute of using these shortlinks that manifests itself on youtube: They also omit irrelevant metadata like URL parameters that were specific to your session or the way you arrived at the site.

For example, youtube will often include extra garbage parameters for stuff like playlists - which the youtu.be shorturls omit, making them perfect for sharing videos.

<comment><USER12> These parameters are not apparent to those with whom you share the shortlink, but I'd wager that the site stores a mapping from the shortlink to the session in which it was generated. Which may be OK for you; I don't know.

<comment><USER13> the youtu.be link contains nothing but the video's identifier, so I don't see how they could store a mapping

<comment><USER12> Is the identifier unique? Does it have to be? Without switching to a different browser on a different IP addr and finding the same video again through a different search, would you even know?

<comment><USER11> Yes, the format is youtu.be/<video id> where <video id> matches the one in the long URL (youtube.com/watch?v=<video id>&extra patameters...) and is unique to the video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is fantastic, thanks for sharing it!

On another note, I'm a huge fan of small utilities like this. Sometimes cruising HN it's easy to get it in my head that a project isn't worth doing unless it's a scalable VC business ready to submit to YC, or a community- supported FOSS. It's nice to see a little web utility doing its thing online.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the love! Glad you like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice work - I just put them onto ind.ie' list of Stopgaps - [https://forum.ind.ie/t/a-nice-project-for-no-tracking- share-...](https://forum.ind.ie/t/a-nice-project-for-no-tracking-share- buttons-sharingbuttons-io/1286).

A while ago I made a Share Buttons WP plugin with no tracking as well - can be found here [https://github.com/privacore/sharebuttons- wp](https://github.com/privacore/sharebuttons-wp)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is an amazing idea, and I will be implementing this today. Great job. I haven't seen any rendering problems across browsers either.

The only change I would make is to remove the "Share on Twitter" text that is included with each large button on the website example. It's pretty much implied for the end user once they see the colors of the buttons and the icons.

For example, I shortened "Share on Twitter" to just "Twitter".

<comment><USER17> Along this point, I feel the 'medium' preset's removal of the logos is odd as it's not typically done. I'd rather see the medium preset be '[logo] Twitter' instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those actually sound like a brilliant idea! Would you mind submitting an issue so I don't forget it? (or submit a PR?) [https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io](https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io)

<comment><USER16> I submitted an issue mentioning both ideas. In fact, medium & large can be combined into one layout called "normal".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would love it if I could just opt out of sharing buttons altogether (without resorting to browser extensions).

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice work, there's just one thing, I'd change "share on email" to "share _via_ email".

</comment><comment><USER20> This is perfect. I wish I had known about this last week. I was volunteering for an event that my work place sponsored -- It was a "girls who code" thing, and I was helping them with HTML and they wanted something like this. All the ones I found didn't work out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER21> Oh WOW, actually embedding the icons as plain SVG. Color me impressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! _blush_

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Another great option is Open Share: [http://openshare.social](http://openshare.social)

</comment><comment><USER23> Acording to Gov.uk, which are actually quite good at it, these buttons don't really make sense:

[https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social- sha...](https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sharing- buttons-the-first-10-weeks/)

Edit: the website is really awesome though, I love how it looks/work.

<comment><USER24> Yes, but that's a governmental website, which probably has a much lower sharing rate because most of their pages are not that interesting.

<comment><USER25> Exactly. They are literally the most boring pages on the Internet.

<comment><USER23> Totally disagree, for the kind of content they are the best ones. They are even better than all blogs and tutorial about those topics that I found. Try to find the same info about ANY other country

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> These are really nice. If anyone's using Ghost and wants to see them in the wild, take a look at something like [https://wail.es/opendaws/](https://wail.es/opendaws/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oooh awesome!

Anybody else reading this who's using them, would love to see your sites!

<comment><USER26> BTW, the SSL cert is invalid on [https://www.pgpasc.org/](https://www.pgpasc.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, sigh. I don't have the time to maintain that anymore, I'm afraid, I haven't even found the time to properly shut it down yet…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hey Max! Awesome work with this one—will definitely try to use it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Nice! Would be awesome if you could add Hacker News :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't know HN has a sharing link! Would you mind submitting an issue with the link and I'll see if I can get to it? (or you submit a PR?) [https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing](https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing)

<comment><USER28> Will do!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just FYI: Your website needs a "doesn't work without JS" message, since right now it looks pretty lol with JS off.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I should add that! PR maybe? [https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing](https://github.com/mxstbr/sharing)

<comment><USER30> It would be nice to have a variant of the site that didn't have javascript or analytics.... like the buttons ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a the perfect use case for a small API… Sharing Links as a Service?!

<comment><USER21> Haha, I was actually under the impression that you made this in response to AddThis [1]. They basically do "sharing links as a service", plus analytics. It's not such a bad idea, since they were recently bought by Oracle for $175 million.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn son, maybe this IS a startup then. I revert my earlier comment![0]

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212911)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is cool–it should be a Jekyll plugin

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never written a Jekyll plugin! How would one do that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have those blocked everywhere.

<comment><USER21> I think these ones will not be blocked, because they don't use any JS, and there's nothing to identify them as sharing buttons. Even the icons are embedded as raw SVG tags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I hate these buttons on news sites, they slow down page loads considerably

<comment><USER34> That's the point...these ones don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> can someone make this a WP plugin? huge adoption potential -;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Help us out on making that happen! [https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io/issues/38](https://github.com/mxstbr/sharingbuttons.io/issues/38)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> why does mailto: open in a new window?

<comment><USER37> mailto links should be handled by your OS's default mail client. I just realized mine opens Chrome even though I clicked it from Firefox and Thunderbird should be my mail client anyway.

<comment><USER36> yes, they should be. and they are (Mail opens) - but my point is the link opens in a new window which is blank, then brings up the Mail

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> very cool, would be nice to support more icons including this site ;-)

</comment><comment><USER39> This is amazing, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER40> Funny how a website specialising in no JavaScript doesn't work without JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER37> Nice work! Now if you can just convince the world to use it.

I forget what it was, but I had the same idea while reading something on HN about a month ago, however, since I don't have an account on any of those services, I didn't bother trying to implement it. I was also a little pessimistic that some services wouldn't even have simple links like that so they could protect their interest in tracking, but it looks like they all have something. The only downside I can think of is that the URLs might disappear and a site owner would need to update their site to get sharing working again (assuming a new link is available). But I can't imagine that happening too often and it's not like anyone ever died because share buttons didn't work for a minute.

<comment><USER41> My idea was an app to send pictures to people, and having the app make it disappear after 10 seconds. Didn't bother implementing it though ;)</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Windows 8 Gamble Just Might Work  - <AUTHOR> http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2011/06/05/microsoft-s-windows-8-gamble-just-might-work.aspx <comment><USER2> I don't think the difference between multi and single (mouse) touch is a huge problem to overcome. There's no game-breaking technical challenges to develop solutions that bridge touch and mouse+keyboard interfaces. When you have a mouse and keyboard, you are using (at least) single-touch, and no onscreen keyboard is required. When you are on a smartphone or tablet, you have multi- touch and an onscreen keyboard may be required. It's not terribly complex, although some consideration may land on application developers (e.g. changing views when an onscreen keyboard is displayed, if necessary).

Windows 8 looks pretty great. It's nice to see stuff bleeding from mobile back to the desktop. The blurring of lines between mobile and PC is a good thing. Mobile is the true PC and the way we use our phones and tables should very much dictate the way we use our workstations. Mobile computing is the front line of HCI.

I think that having a shared experience across your phone, your tablet, and your home and work PCs is a great idea. Especially since they can essentially do the same things these days.

Forget "Cloud" computing, "Ubiquitous Computing" is far more exciting and relevant. In my opinion it's shared platforms that don't distinguish between hand-held and desk-held machines that will permeate our connected lives.

It's good to see MS take this kind of risk. Like many others I'm currently committed to their platform as a developer, and I believe they have a truly great ecosystem with .NET - but it's the company that pushes forward and tries new and risky things will always be most interesting. In this case it's good to see that it's the one who I've sunk time and effort into.</comment>


Git Is Simpler Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://itechtalks.blogspot.com/2011/09/git-is-simpler-than-you-think.html

<comment><USER2> Flagged. This is an unattributed reposting of <http://nfarina.com/post/9868516270/git-is-simpler>

Which was posted on HN and extensively commented on: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2970149></comment>


Graph of Netflix speeds shows the importance of net neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/

<comment><USER2> I know some websites (like ESPN3) only allow you access if you're on a subscribing ISP.

Could Netflix take a play out of that book and charge a different rate for Comcast customers vs others, and in particular, make it enough of a PR issue that other ISPs would be more willing to cave?

<comment><USER3> Netflix shouldn't have caved and should have displayed a simple graphic about the slowness in their player along with the number for Comcast support. Displace the anger and support issues around the slowdown to the proper party, the one that's at fault. Cost them some customers.

Of course, the problem with that is that Comcast has a monopoly in many areas they serve. Just like Time Warner does. And folks simply can't switch. So, even though Comcast's customer satisfaction rates are absolutely abysmal, they don't lose customers over it.

Your solution would make more sense. Netflix should charge Comcast customers more and itemize it on the bills as a 'Comcast Network Slowdown Tax'.

<comment><USER4> As a Comcast customer I would have called and complained. If enough people complained, it _might_ have had some effect. However, in my area, there's only two choices: crappy DSL from AT&T and Comcast. There's really no comparing the two services. I had the DSL offering for a few years and it was absolute crap. With Comcast I get amazing speeds, but when service is needed, it's Comcast. In other words, it's horrible. Here's what happens when you call them due to an outage:

You tell them you power cycled the modem. They make you do it anyway. You ask them to do a traceroute and they either say "I don't know what that is" or "I can't do that" or "Yeah, we'll get to that after a few other things".

Last time I called, 20 minutes into the call he does a traceroute and finds the problem is a few hops from my house. Yeah, he wouldn't do it it first thing, so he wasted a bunch of time.

Sometimes, if they won't do the traceroute, they'll send someone out, in a 4 hour window, only to tell you when they get there at the problem is not near your house. Or, the problem is fixed by the time they arrive.

It's one of the most frustrating customer service experiences you can have.

<comment><USER5> I agree that Comcast is horrible but you can't expect them to skip the most basic troubleshooting steps. That probably solves the problem for most non- technical users who call in.

<comment><USER4> A traceroute takes a few seconds. 99% of the time I call it's mainly to tell them to please track down the problem (outside of my home... only once over the years was it my modem) and fix it. To have to wade through 20 minutes of prelims, when a 20 second command could make it obviously unnecessary, that's just dumb.

The fact that you thought I was suggesting skipping the basics is bewildering.

<comment><USER6> I deal with the same issue on Verizon. I found that using LiveChat, the support there seemed to be more tech. focused. If I start by sending a screen shot of my traceroute, I usually can get what I need within a few minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The dependency of the Internet on a small number of ISPs is an anachronistic, unsustainable requirement. When the Internet was first starting, they were necessary to lay cable and maintain network infrastructure. As a nice consequence of building the infrastructure, the ISPs got to charge for routing traffic as well. But this makes no sense. Why should the ISP's have so much bandwidth routing power?

Routing inherently lends itself to decentralized algorithms, and the research is starting to catch up to the ISP's. Mesh networks are growing in popularity, and once they reach a critical mass they will be unstoppable. Expect to see a rise of reliance on mesh networking in universities and urban centers.

BitCoin is going to revolutionize bandwidth routing. In decentralized routing algorithms, payment for bandwidth is a difficult problem to solve because it depends on centralized components of the system. But BitCoin enables 1) micropayments, and 2) distributed transaction storage, which both benefit bandwidth routing research. Some point soon, routing will be completely decentralized, and the infrastructure providers will receive micropayments of BitCoin in return.

As my senior thesis, I'm researching "TorCoin," a proof-of-bandwidth cryptocurrency mined by transmitting bandwidth over the Tor network. This summer I am working to apply this research in a business environment. If any of this interests you, definitely reach out to me and we'll schedule a chat: firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER8> Planet Money recently did a really great show [1] about the ISP routing power in the US vs. other countries, and what led to those decisions. The irony is that they were doing everything they could to _not_ be anachronistic, and to plan for the future. The US chose poorly. Anyway, it's worth a listen.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-529-the- last-mile)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> IMHO I think the best response to that would be for Netflix to charge the ISPs that want to carry their service. Reverse subscription if you will. The demand is there, ISPs would be reluctant to alienate the customers even more.

</comment><comment><USER10> Or you know, not allowing more consolidation in the cable industry.

</comment><comment><USER11> Comcast's CEO seemed to indicate that Netflix did this on purpose. Yeah, likely.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is what happens when there is an effective monopoly and it is applied. But seeing as how Windows roamed free for decades, the US doesn't seem to have any problem with huge monopolies.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand what is "hilarious" about this graph.

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it me or the graph in the post doesn't say anything about actual speeds, just their changes since Jan 2013.. misleading title?

</comment><comment><USER15> That is the most irritating page layout I have come across yet. What is that red bar even there for?

</comment><comment><USER16> "The data are from Netflix."

Really, Washington Post?!

<comment><USER17> Is it actually wrong? Data is plural.

I kind of assumed it was one of those 'correct grammar' things like 'an historical' that looks wrong but isn't.

<comment><USER18> "An historical" actually is 'wrong' (for as wrong as anything can be in English, which generally isn't very). "Historical" doesn't make a vowel sound when read (which is the rule).

<comment><USER19> It does if your dialect has a silent H there. A lot of people that pronounce "an historical" do so with a silent H.

<comment><USER20> Maybe not silent, but definitely muted. It's a soft "H" and probably borrows its pronunciation from Spanish.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Password Manager (2017) - <AUTHOR> A handful of years ago I finally started using a pwd manager. Time passed and I am a bit unhappy about how they handle security and what they consider "secure".
This is a very discussed theme and there are plenty of options.
My main idea is to gather what are the best options currently and as a bonus if they fulfill a some requirements like: open source, browser extension, other easy to use solutions to fill browser forms, support integration with 2f apps,..
Let me know in the comments what you think is the best solution at the moment. <comment><USER2> I use 1Password. Not a security expert, but the site looks trustworthy and they have been recommended in various places. Extensions for all browsers, but not open source. Here's a discussion on this: [https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/22686/open- sour...](https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/22686/open- sourcing-1password-was-security-question)

<comment><USER3> I used to have a favorable opinion of AgileBits but I can't recommend them after they started their push to subscription-ware. And if you look at this URL:

[https://1password.com/sign-up/](https://1password.com/sign-up/)

it appears that they are still playing games in regards to letting people know that there is a regular version that you can pay for up front.

Personally, I would recommend finding an alternative.

<comment><USER4> Can't see the regular version no more

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been using pass[[https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)] for two years now and it works reasonably well.

Desktop "GUI": rofi-pass[[https://github.com/carnager/rofi- pass](https://github.com/carnager/rofi-pass)]

Android Client: [https://f-droid.org/packages/com.zeapo.pwdstore/](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.zeapo.pwdstore/)

Sync: Git+Manual download

All components are open source and actively maintained.

</comment><comment><USER6> I host my own ala, pass([https://www.passwordstore.org](https://www.passwordstore.org)), and qtpass on windows. It uses gpg encrypted files in a git repo. Pretty sure it's as safe as gpg is.

</comment><comment><USER7> KeepassXC with sync to dropbox or even better to keybase.io KBFS. There is Chrome and Firefox extension. Shameless plug I'm working on new kind of extension [https://github.com/mauron85/keepassxc- browser](https://github.com/mauron85/keepassxc-browser). There is alpha release already, but missing many features. My goal is to make it work in major browser and also with NativeClient version of KeePassXC [https://github.com/varjolintu/keepassxc](https://github.com/varjolintu/keepassxc).

</comment><comment><USER8> I use 1Password due to convenience. I'd happily go with an open source format and whatever implementations exist for different desktop and mobile operating systems, but these are often lacking in terms of ease of use and user experience and are therefore not the best option should I want my relatives to make use of them as well.

1Password passes the litmus test which is getting my wife to actually using the password manager that I installed her. I didn't have much luck with open source alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use KeeWeb both on desktop app and web app : [https://app.keeweb.info](https://app.keeweb.info)

I store my kdbx in my Google Drive.

</comment><comment><USER10> Lol I think I'm the only one here still using LastPass. I just started using a password manager at the beginning of this year and it really seems to work for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you use a Mac, I suggest MacPass: [https://mstarke.github.io/MacPass/](https://mstarke.github.io/MacPass/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I use KeePassXC for my password manager on Linux which is open source. I can't comment about web browser extensions. KeePass is the Windows version.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pass used git and gpg and works on every platform

<comment><USER14> Android and iPhone too?

<comment><USER15> I believe there are clients for all platforms. [https://www.passwordstore.org/#other](https://www.passwordstore.org/#other)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> KeePassXC for my Windows and Linux computers. KeePassDroid on my Android phone. All three are synced in Dropbox

<comment><USER17> Exactly the same setup here!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1Password, but it fails the open-source check. Otherwise it's great and even supports 2FA (though you might argue it's not really 2FA as your master password now protects both your password and second factor).

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are on a MAC go for 1Password. On a side note: I've read discussions here among very recognized folks that the windows version does not compare security wise.

<comment><USER3> That is a surprise. How is the Windows version less secure?

<comment><USER19> That's was not about 1Password. It's about the fact that the security models are different on the two OS. Also I remember that 1Password had a certain vulnerability on windows which is now fixed.

In any case a bad password manager can be significantly worse than not using any pw manager at all. So pick wisely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> KeepassXC + plugins + sync with gdrive

</comment><comment><USER21> keepassx sycned with cloud providers.

</comment><comment><USER22> Dashlane.</comment>


Show HN: A Collaborative Code Editor (like EtherPad with Syntax Highlighting) - <AUTHOR> http://snucode.com

<comment><USER2> So, one thing I _really_ like about this is there's no UI clutter - just an editor and a footer. That would make this sort of thing great for embedding into another app. Another thing I like is you can create a new document simply by navigating to a random URL. Again, great for embedding (where the containing app can just name files after a UUID or whatever).

The down side is I typed some stuff, then clicked reload and my text was a bit scrambled. So I'm going to say your operational transform implementation is a bit buggy :)

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Yes there are a few kinks. Especially if you type quickly and do mult-line replace operations. It also sometimes doesn't register newlines accurately. All this might have to do with the way my code talks to the editor.

Thank you for your appreciation! And I hadn't yet thought about embedding. Technically it actually could be a bit tricky to embed because you can't really mix websocket- with vanilla HTTP servers yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been looking for something similar for a long time. But this has a lot of issues.

Problems:

1\. You don't have any syntax highlighting for Java, C, C++, etc? These are very popular languages.

2\. My browser's (Chrome, OSX) spell-checker underlines everything in the editor, which is extraordinarily distracting.

3\. Some common text-entry keyboard shortcuts don't work (ex. Command+Delete)

4\. Needs some privacy and sharing options.

5\. From my experience with other collaborative editors, it also needs a way to download the document from the command line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, problems abound :)

1\. In fact, there is syntax highlighting for all the C-like languages, it's the mode called 'clike'. I guess that label isn't so very fortunate 2\. Oh actually, the underlining has been added by me as a means to do author attribution. I should add a checkbox to turn it on and off. Before I had had the text background in various colors but I found that to be an even worse distraction. 3\. The keyboard shortcuts are tricky. I'll have to delve into that a bit more (and test across platforms). 4\. So obviously for now it's just security-by-obscurity. For now you can take the sourcecode and host it somewhere private. I left out explicit user account management in order to get the first version out the door. 5\. Hmm. that's a very interesting thought! It should be fairly easy to build a small command-line tool to upload and download files.

Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER3> As a newb, I thought clike was an esoteric language I'd never heard of :) The underlines are a good idea for attribution, perhaps make them straight instead of squiggly, and drop the opacity? I'm not sure.

As for the CLI interface, I was just referring to wget/curl on a specific URL to download the file. If you add in passwords on documents, make sure this is supported in your wget/curl implementation. There was another site that I tried this on, and they hadn't considered this despite having access through wget/curl.

<comment><USER4> What browser are you using? In Chrome 19 dev, I'm not getting squiggly lines, I'm getting some sort of randomly dashed lines, which are very annoying.

If the underlines were less distracting, I think this would be really wonderful!

<comment><AUTHOR> OK I'll make them optional! Will take a few minutes because I do the colors by adding CSS-rules to the DOM on the fly. They look rather petite on my browser though :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Thanks for the input!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So I started building this as a coding exercise for an interview, I'd particularly be interested in getting feedback on my approach to Operational Transformation: [http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach-to- oper...](http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach-to-operational- transformation/)

<comment><USER5> When I did <http://collabedit.com> I used the approach outlined at: [http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/understanding-and- applyi...](http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/understanding-and-applying- operational- transformation?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+codecommit+%28Code+Commit%29) with an md5 hash for the "Operational Parentage" piece.

It was pretty tough to implement (for me at least). Especially when I got to using the "Bridger" and "Buffer" to transform.

Your approach seems much simpler. Do you retain the ability to "play back" the edits like etherpad did?

How big can a document get before you run into the precision issue you mentioned?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I actually cannot play back yet. But it's not hard to implement, it even would be relatively easy to selectively play back only certain edits. I believe in the worst case a few thousand edits would suffice (though it would be rather tedious on the keyboard to do: type - then go back one with the arrow keys and type again).

Collabedit looks nice and solid! (Hadn't been aware of it.) Did you roll your own editor or did you use something like ACE or CodeMirror?

<comment><USER5> I used EditArea [http://www.cdolivet.com/editarea/editarea/exemples/exemple_f...](http://www.cdolivet.com/editarea/editarea/exemples/exemple_full.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does it compare with Stypi?

<http://www.stypi.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Stypi is a more mature project with more features. Also they use the ACE- editor which arguable is more feature-rich (though poorer in documentation IMHO).

My project is open source: <https://github.com/werg/snucode> So it's also an example use of the Node.js websockets framework SocketStream.

Furthermore I do operational transformation a bit differently (presumably, not sure how they do it): [http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach- to-oper...](http://gpickard.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/my-approach-to- operational-transformation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Once it finishes loading it completely breaks my browsers back button.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly, I just noticed that in terror :) Am working on it... Has to do with the way Backbone.js handles pushState I think,, and the way I handle Backbone's router thingy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I put up a fix. Does it work now?</comment></comment></comment>


7 Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/207344/7_innovation_secrets_of_steve_jobs.html

<comment><USER2> PCWorld: "In other words: Stay in School"

Actually, I believe it's: "Stay hungry, stay foolish"</comment>


Functional programming in JavaScript is an antipattern - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@alexdixon/functional-programming-in-javascript-is-an-antipattern-58526819f21e <comment><USER2> Piling a bunch of redundant libraries on top of each other, becoming confused, and drawing the conclusion that functional programming was the problem? Okay.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was quite confused when reading. Semantically, Javascript is basically a crappy Scheme (first class functions, lexical closure, etc. but no macros, tail calls, call-cc, etc.), with lightweight objects and prototypical inheritance.

The functional/OO split in JS is basically whether to focus on the Scheme part and only use objects as hash tables, or whether to focus on the objects, methods and inheritance and avoid Schemey functions.

You don't need any libraries to do either. If it makes life easier to include a library (whether functional or OO or whatever) then include it; if it doesn't, then don't.

<comment><USER4> I thought tail calls were in the ES6 spec, just not implemented by all browsers or something. Node has a flag to use tail call optimization I believe.

EDIT: ES2015 specs [1]: "Some of its major enhancements include modules, class declarations, lexical block scoping, iterators and generators, promises for asynchronous programming, destructuring patterns, and _proper tail calls_." (emphasis mine)

[1] [http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0/](http://www.ecma- international.org/ecma-262/6.0/) (introduction)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article seems hopelessly tautological. One of the arguments for Clojurescript is that it "is a functional programming language," with the reasoning that this makes functional programming easier. The author then goes on to answer - and I quote - "Why isn't it popular?" with "Not popular enough." I am thoroughly enlightened.

</comment><comment><USER6> Functional programming in javascript is an antipattern instead use clojure. LOL if I were going to use a ??? -> js, I would at least use fable/reason. I have tried to get into lisp several times and then tried once to get into OCaml/F# and it was effortless.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Felt like the language was fighting me every step of the way

Welcome to JS programming.

<comment><USER8> That was my feeling exactly back in the 90s. I feel that things have gotten a million times better, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth.

<comment><USER9> Agreed. I was recently reminded about the broken scoping rules of old versions of IE. Also, the dev tools available today are insane compared to the ones we had in 2010 (and the ones we kind of didn't have in 2000).

<comment> maze-le Oh my, webdevelopment in the early 2000s. Back in the day we debugged with 'alert()' that was quite the experience... Compared to that the tools today are almost another world.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This student put 50M stolen research articles online. And they're free - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/this-student-put-50-million-stolen-research-articles-online-and-theyre-free/2016/03/30/7714ffb4-eaf7-11e5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html <comment><USER2> This appears to be the Napster of journal articles. And if that is the case, it will soon rightfully be sued into the ground but not before doing damage to the oligopoly of journal publishers. And then hopefully we will use the technology, lessons learned and newfound humility among journal publishers to make the Netflix/Spotify of journal articles. A service to which I would gladly subscribe.</comment>


CROBOTS is a programming game, for programmers (or aspiring programmers) - <AUTHOR> http://tpoindex.github.io/crobots/ <comment><AUTHOR> Since I've seen a few related stories on HN today, I thought I would share that I have finally released CROBOTS as open source. Enjoy.</comment>


Popping potassium iodide already? Really bad idea - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42135438/ns/health-health_care/

<comment><USER2> Of course it's a bad idea, jeez ... It's used in pesticides for something. [http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35...](http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35223) <http://radiationpoisoning.net></comment>


China Demands Dalai Lama Reincarnate After Death - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-10/china-attacks-dalai-lama-over-bid-to-cease-reincarnation/6296420?pfmredir=sm <comment><USER2> This is an excellent article. From the Wiki article on the Dalai Lama[0]:

>Since the time of the fifth Dalai Lama, his personage has always been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet, where he has represented Buddhist values and traditions.

This explains the interest by the Chinese Communist Party in wanting the Dalai Lama spirit to stick around. If he goes away, then political turmoil is sure to follow.

Also, this bit reminded me of an episode of Mike Judge's King of the Hill:

>They present a number of artifacts, only some of which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, and if the boy chooses the items which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama, this is seen as a sign, in conjunction with all of the other claimed indications, that the boy is the reincarnation.

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

<comment><USER3> I imagine that after the current Dalai Lama dies, the Chinese government will proclaim they have found his reincarnation in a boy that they control. In the linked article it appears they have already done so with the Panchen Lama.

Seems pretty obvious and a clumsy attempt by the Chinese government to subvert the religion. Maybe it'll work and prove me wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note, this is from 2015.</comment>


Why I stepped away from Facebook development - <AUTHOR> http://aymeric.gaurat.net/index.php/2010/why-i-stepped-back-from-facebook-development/

<comment><USER2> The author makes a good point about dependency on another company. Having your side project or startup completely at the whim of another company is not a good business model.

Might be good for a quick dollar, but it's not sustainable.

<comment><USER3> It's a double-edged sword. The big advantage of the platform is leverage: you get to leverage their technology and their existing user base.

<comment><USER2> That's true. I suppose you just have to be willing to keep up with any changes they make to their TOS. For instance, Apple limiting the development languages on their new Iphone/Ipad/Itouch OS.

<comment><USER4> This has been ok for a year or so but in the last 6 months Facebook has introduced a lot of breaking changes (ie: removing the notifications, and stream.publish)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Interesting write up on the pros and cons of developing for a platform like Facebook.

Is there any information on how much money Facebook apps usually make? What are the earnings like on free apps that don't charge subscriptions?

<comment><USER4> It is hard to answer this question, it really depends on the nature of your application and the mother tongue of your users.

Applications with english users tend to be much better paid than other languages.

But it is easier to be visible in a less crowded market like Indonesia, or the recently growing asian countries.

I remember that on my ads (targetting french users) I was getting an eCPM oscilating between $0.06 on a RPG game and $0.40 on a quizz application which is quite low in comparison to the english application standards.

It also depends on the ad network you use (some ad network performs better than others depending on your application).

There is no generic rule. You have to experiment all of them to see which one works better.

I was making 15000 euros per month with 50K users per day on a RPG game (as opposed to casual game) using various monetization strategy.

On a quizz application, with 1 million active users per day (20 millions page views) I reached $3000 a day without any direct partnership (simply by adding a basic ad from RockYou) with ads only</comment></comment>


Knock Lock – Unlock a Door with a Secret Knock (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://hackedgadgets.com/2009/11/04/knock-lock-unlock-a-door-with-a-secret-knock/

<comment><AUTHOR> Some previous discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=924237>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=927299>

I wonder how easy a similar set-up with a Raspberry Pi would be. The option to use the same hardware, but provide a web service to control the door as well, or other authentication methods would be cool to see.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently I missed the original as well! - it's at:

[http://grathio.com/2009/11/secret-knock-detecting-door- lock....](http://grathio.com/2009/11/secret-knock-detecting-door-lock.html)</comment></comment>


Apple Arcade - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/ <comment><USER2> From the stream:

Lauches September 19th.

Interesting approach: one subscription for 4.99/month (for "the whole family"), with a set of arcade-exclusive releases. Seems like a good way to generate continuous revenue, no?</comment>


How to Offer Google's Health Benefits on a Small Business Budget - <AUTHOR> http://blog.simplyinsured.com/how-to-offer-google-health-benefits-on-a-small-business-budget/

<comment><USER2> I'm a little dubious.

A significant fraction of our candidates demand a discussion of health benefits before accepting offers. They compare plans and copays with other jobs. They care about the level of benefits we provide, meaning that this pitch involves us (the employer) selling our candidates on the value of reduced health insurance benefits.

As I understand it, the full package of HSA benefits only kicks in if you're also on a high-deductible insurance plan. Meaning, to pitch a candidate on the idea of us funding an HSA, we also need to sell them on high-deductible insurance.

I have no doubt that most employees are better served by high-deductible + HSA. But that might not be a winning pitch for a candidate with a family; even if it's rationally the right move for those employees, it's still a complicated proposal.

Meanwhile, I'm very much not in love with compensation packages tailored for 23-year-olds.

Where am I going wrong here?

<comment><USER3> I'm actually in the middle of a job search right now (in Chicago). Employers ask what my current medical is (100% covered, myself and my wife, BCBS PPO). If potential employers don't offer a comparable plan, I ask them to make up the difference with cash (and, of course, cash costs the employer more vs something you can expense like health insurance).

The problem is that the game is rigged until health insurance can be completely decoupled from employment.

EDIT: Keep in mind, I can still want excellent healthcare but not be a wasteful healthcare consumer. I needed a non-controlled substance prescription that was very expensive in the US, even with insurance, but its offered inexpensively over the counter in Canada, Mexico, etc. Guess where I bought it from.

<comment><USER4> "The problem is that the game is rigged until health insurance can be completely decoupled from employment."

This is the biggest problem in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Want to discourage people who aren't healthy and 21 years old from joining your small business? Pick 'budget' health insurance!"

The difference in premium vs out of pocket expenses makes sense _in aggregate_. It wouldn't think it would be convincing to an individual who has the slightest current health complication, who has a family history of complications, or who has a family or is thinking about starting a family.

Of course if you allow employees to choose which health plan (and thus which premium) is appropriate for them, that is different.

<comment><AUTHOR> We do analyze the options from the perspective of individuals as well.

The most basic insurance plan available caps out of pocket expenses at $6350, which while is still significant but likely won't cause medical bankruptcy. Even the most "premium" plan only caps out of pocket expenses at ~$3000, yet would cost $3000-5000 more in premiums.

A premium plan would provide a nice sense of security, but might be the best option to minimize expenses for an employee.

<comment><USER5> > The most basic insurance plan available caps out of pocket expenses at > $6350, which while is still significant but likely won't cause medical > bankruptcy. Even the most "premium" plan only caps out of pocket expenses at > ~$3000, yet would cost $3000-5000 more in premiums.

are those caps per year ? per incident ?

even if they are per year, that doesn't make sense. you're asking me to believe that people have been paying $3000 more to cap their risk for the year at a number $3000 lower. It can't be that simple, or else people have been leaving money on the table.

<comment><USER6> It's not quite this simple, but I can tell you that people have been leaving money on the table. This year I finally sat down and worked out the spreadsheets and last year my family paid nearly $12k in premiums + out of pocket and yet we had only $6k in actual costs. We are now on an HDHP that costs $1500/year and pays for hardly anything initially, but caps our annual out-of-pocket at around $12k. The upshot is that we save $5-6k in a typical/easy year and in a worst case year we pay an additional thousand or two. Seems like a pretty good trade-off to me.

The part I don't like about it is I've been raised in a world where you DO NOT ask the cost of a service when your health is on the line -- you just do what the doc says -- but now it's sensible for me to concern myself with the cost since they are coming out of my pocket directly (until I hit the cap). Doctors in the US are not typically prepared to discuss specific costs with you. This patient attitude and doctor attitude are each partially responsible for our health costs bring so out of control, in my opinion, and it is going to be a while before I can ask, "how much is this procedure for my child going to cost, and just how necessary is it?" without getting a dumbfounded stare in response and feeling like a crazy penny pincher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case anyone is wondering, Google uses Blueshield of CA to process their insurance claims but internally pay with their own funds. Google ultimately has the final say on how claims will be paid (although they rarely deviate from Blueshield's plan configurations). A rare hybrid approach...

<comment><USER8> Self-funded health insurance plans are very common with employers. Third-party administrators (TPAs) that provide the claim processing are big business.

<comment><USER9> SafeWayHealth is one of those. They sell the, cash, price of healthcare procedures to large employers that self insure. This DRASTICALLY reduces the cost of healthcare (e.g. a company pays $800 cash for a colonoscopy, vs. $7,000 via insurance). The problem is they only sell this info to companies with 10,000+ employees.

This service needs to exist for everybody.

[http://safewayhealth.com/](http://safewayhealth.com/)

Source: [http://www.quora.com/Medicine-and-Healthcare/What-are- some-o...](http://www.quora.com/Medicine-and-Healthcare/What-are-some-of-the- most-mind-blowing-facts-about-US-healthcare/answer/Carlos-Tobin)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is an ad.

It's only vaguely disguised as a how to, even if it is something many HN'ers are dealing with.

</comment><comment><USER11> How much does google/apple/top tier corps pay their top engineers? I have some data points but I want to hear others.

</comment><comment><USER12> Spam Spam Spam</comment>


SICP Support for Racket - <AUTHOR> http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-sicp/

<comment><USER2> This seems obvious, but it's important that you follow the directions when installing it. I tried using it a couple weeks ago, but it didn't work. Turns out the last sentence of the last step (restarting DrRacket) is important to make it work.

</comment><comment><USER3> but what does it do? racket is a scheme, so should already work with sicp. what does this add?

<comment><USER4> There are some differences between Racket and the Scheme in SICP, for instance SICP Scheme is a little bit more "vanilla", and uses set-car!, set-cdr! instead of the set-mcar!, set-mcdr! and other mutable pairs stuff in Racket (disclaimer: I don't know Racket, I just fumble with it occasionally while reading Scheme books that use other dialects).

The best thing it adds though is full support for the picture language.

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-15.html...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-15.html#%_sec_2.2.4)

You can do things like

        > (right-split rogers 4)

And get the resulting image right there in the DrRacket REPL.

<comment><USER3> fwiw, that's another package it just provides (according to what i read on the linked page): [http://planet.plt- scheme.org/display.ss?package=sicp.plt&...](http://planet.plt- scheme.org/display.ss?package=sicp.plt&owner=soegaard)</comment></comment></comment>


Grooveshark Will Soon Be Destroyed - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5862026/grooveshark-will-soon-be-destroyed

<comment><USER2> Are there any alternatives for users in Germany? I'd be willing to pay. Spotify and Google Music aren't available here.</comment>


BitGo bug reveals patterns in Bitstamp transactions - <AUTHOR> https://blog.blocktrail.com/2015/05/getting-your-change-in-order/

<comment><USER2> Interesting - 6 months ago or so I was monitoring all transactions on a handful of altcoins' blockchains in regards to which transactions were going in and out of exchanges. Because the number of transactions per block were a number of orders of magnitude lower than bitcoin, it was far easier to keep an accurate index of which addresses belong to a given exchange without relying on a bug in BitGo.

I kept a running tally of coins in/out per hour, 6 hours, and day. I could with fairly high certainty predict most large dumps 5-30 minutes before they occurred (delay before deposit is confirmed) and then immediately sell myself while placing a buy order for 5-10% lower depending on the size of the deposit.

I also started tracking the exact deposit addresses being used - and more importantly, which ones get reused (a crazy high percent) - which let me correlate market behavior to an individual's actions. For example, address X just had a very large deposit. 6 blocks later, there is a market sell order placed for the exact amount deposited and this same behavior happens every time coins are deposited to the given address.

I can then basically add a trigger to automatically pre-empt the likely incoming dump with one of my own and then buy back for 5% less.

The biggest problem was the market cap and transaction volume was just too small to make much money relative to the risk. However if one could do this same analysis with bitcoin, it could be extremely profitable.

</comment><comment><USER3> CTO of BitGo here. I wouldn't call this a bug, per se, but it's a known issue that we plan to fix. The BitGo API is agnostic where the change output(s) are placed -- this is just an issue with the client-side SDK.

The primary reason we haven't changed it sooner is that BitGoD (which Bitstamp uses), currently relies on the change output being last to determine which output of a transaction is change when listing transactions. This was needed due to missing functionality in our back-end transaction indexer which has been remedied in the last few weeks.

The other reason we don't consider it a huge deal is that, until there is much more adoption of multi-sig, it's still going to be relatively easy to determine which output is change (it's likely the only one that starts with a "3").

<comment><USER4> > I wouldn't call this a bug, per se, but it's a known issue that we plan to > fix.

Most people call known issues that they plan to fix bugs.

<comment><USER5> Not quite. A bug is a known issue that was not intended that is planned to fix.

Known limitations are not bugs and fixing them is enhancing the program. Bugs must not be known to exist at the time of creation.

<comment><USER6> I would definitely consider unintended behaviour from limitations bugs, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So what is "the change bug"? This article doesn't really attempt to explain it.

<comment><USER8> It appears that the bug is that the change address is always the last one, which defeats the purpose of having a change address. You can see that this is what their commit changed:

[https://github.com/BitGo/BitGoJS/pull/12/files](https://github.com/BitGo/BitGoJS/pull/12/files)

A change address is designed to enhance anonymity on the blockchain (to anyone who says this doesn't exist, prove it and tell me which bitcoin transactions I've done). With a change address, whenever Alices makes a payment from address X, during a single transaction part of the money goes to Bob's bitcoin address Y and the rest of the money goes to another address Z under Alice's control. The idea is that people should not be able to tell whether Alice controls Y or Z, so it should make it more difficult to know exactly how much money Alice and Bob ended up with.

Of course, if you always know that Alice's change address Z is last, this whole exercise is futile.

<comment><USER9> >A change address is designed to enhance anonymity on the blockchain

Don't think that's actually true. A change address may help for anonymity, but the design of bitcoin (specifically, "outputs"), means that change addresses must be used. I doubt the idea was specifically to help anonymity.

<comment><USER8> No, change addresses are optional. The protocol allows transactions with one input and one output:

[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction#Principle_example_of_...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction#Principle_example_of_a_Bitcoin_transaction_with_1_input_and_1_output_only)

<comment><USER9> Yes, but that's if you want it all to go to one place. I don't see any specific design choice involving change addresses that seems specifically for anonymity.

<comment><USER8> Change addresses aren't part of the design at all. Multiple outputs are. By convention, an output to an address you control is called a change address, but it's just a convention on top of the protocol, not something the protocol is aware of.

And yes, their purpose is very explicitly extra anonymity. Gavin named a branch without change addresses a "noprivacy" branch:

[http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1629/why-does- bit...](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1629/why-does-bitcoin-send- the-change-to-a-different-address#comment2139_1629)

<comment><USER9> >By convention, an output to an address you control is called a change address, but it's just a convention on top of the protocol, not something the protocol is aware of.

I'm aware of that, it's part of what I was trying to say.

>Gavin named a branch without change addresses a "noprivacy" branch:

That branch apparently just sends it to the sending address.

There are other reasons not to reuse addresses unrelated to anonymity, see [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address_reuse](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Address_reuse).

So I still don't see a design choice that is specifically for anonymity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, let me understand this. Blocktrail noticed a similar problem in their application "several months ago." But they didn't post anything about it then. Instead, they opted to fix it quietly for themselves and not share that knowledge with the community.

Then, an opportunity pops up to take a shot at a competitor and they jump on it. Sure, Blocktrail submitted a pull request, 48 hours ago.

This doesn't look very genuine.

</comment><comment><USER11> While I am ok worth their not publishing this data, I would much prefer something on the lines of, "we will publish this data in 30 days once the waters have cooled down."

The data is in the blockchain. You can identify and fix the bug but this is still giving an advantage to the people who are going to compile this data for themselves.

<comment><USER12> But they need to buy a bunch of bitcoin and could use a quick dip in the current value.</comment></comment>


How I Built a Personal Knowledge Base for Myself - <AUTHOR> https://dnote.io/blog/how-i-built-personal-knowledge-base-for-myself/ <comment><AUTHOR> For one and a half year, I built and used a personal knowledge base that works in my terminal and a web browser. I have found some interesting things:

* if we go overboard, organizing, not learning, often becomes the goal in itself.

* searching is far more effective than organizing. My knowledge base became a buffer for my web search.

* a knowledge base needs to be local first and open source because learning is for life, and services and software come and go.

* we will never one day sit down and read our knowledge base.

* a personal knowledge base enables us to simply share a piece of knowledge with others. Doing so saves time when complex ideas need to be conveyed.

* adding ideas to a knowledge base is like committing to a source control, reducing my cognitive overhead.

Ultimately, having a personal repository of knowledge has helped me learn and save time.

<comment><USER2> > searching is far more effective than organizing. My knowledge base became a > buffer for my web search.

Searching doesn't with keeping a copy of the thing you need around.</comment></comment>


Vero, the new instagram - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-43208162 <comment><USER2> The co-founder's last business was Saudi Oger. Look into it.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-labour- foreign/aban...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-labour- foreign/abandoned-in-saudi-desert-camps-migrant-workers-wont-leave-without- pay-idUSKCN10T1M3)</comment>