Ask HN: Is anyone using the Windows 10 Subsytem for Linux? - <AUTHOR> So I recently got a new machine (Windows 10 PC) and I came across this reference[1] for downloading the Windows 10 subsystem for Linux. I downloaded and installed everything fine per the docs, but now my question is:
What are the limitations on this instance of Linux?
Can I use all my machine's resources (RAM, Disk, CPU)? Or are only a certain amount of these resources allocated for the Linux instance? I ask because being able to run Linux on this machine this easily sounds a bit...too good to be true. Any documentation references will be much appreciated.
[1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 <comment><USER2> It's cool, but it's not what you'd normally understand "Linux" to be. It implements the Linux kernel syscalls, so it supports most of glibc and some of the GNU userland, but misses a lot of the stuff that makes Linux, well, Linux. You can't use iptables. No namespaces AKA containers. When you get to userland, your session is just a bash login shell. There's no DBus, no systemd, no X11, no clipboard. You have to do some fairly ugly hacking to share an ssh-agent between two consoles. And so on and on and on. It's cool for some things, but not good enough for some other things, and I don't see it growing support for those in the future either.

<comment><USER3> X11 just requires a Windows based X-Server. Then you can use your favourite xterm emulator and worry less about your ssh agent woes.

No Dbus - because no drivers. No systemd - hurrah No proper init system - sucks, but at least you get fstab mounting drives.

I think we'll see a better init mechanism in future, and I hope loadable module support for filesystems / usb devices

<comment><USER2> (Well that was a _really_ subtle dig at systemd.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've used it a bit but not seriously/professionally. My biggest issue was that after installing NVM and node, startup of the terminal took literally seconds. It was so bad that I had to move the NVM init lines from bashrc to an alias and I only run it when I know I'm working on node stuff. Not sure if it was just me or everyone else too.

Other gripes include relatively little customization for the terminal window. You can customize colors and fonts. But I don't remember it even supporting tabs.

Also the disk volume of your Linux subsystem is relatively separate from Windows, so if you wanna have an IDE edit code in a folder and run such code in the Linux terminal, you have to cd into some strange volume path to get there. Can work around it by creating a symlink from your home dir.

Ultimately my opinion is if you want Windows/Linux and not buy into the Mac ecosystem, it's better to just dual boot Win/Linux and only boot into Windows if you need to use some software not on Linux.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also where can I find the dir for this Linux subsystem? (still a Windows noob)

<comment><USER5> In short ... DON'T!

Assume that your distro's are locked away behind a one-way wall - Linux can see Windows files, but Windows cannot (safely) use Linux files. More details here: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do-n...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do- not-change-linux-files-using-windows-apps-and-tools/)

And yes, we're working to close this gap in future releases, so stay tuned!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use WSL on a constant basis. I haven't had any problems with it so far. As others have noted, it can take a second or two for the terminal to start up. That's probably my only gripe so far. I usually leave the terminal running for long stretches of time, so that start up time is ultimately meaningless.

That said, I'm not doing anything unusual with it, I haven't installed anything out of the ordinary. As such I can't speak to the depth of compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm using it full-time, albeit not for anything esoteric - mostly for zsh & bash, all my commandline stuff, node/npm etc. For these purposes it's pretty much equivalent to doing the same on macOS (though if you're used to Linux, the core utilities will be more familiar on WSL than on the mac). By and large Microsoft have done an impressive job with WSL. Windows vs unix filepaths can be a pest for some things (particularly integrating commandline with GUI apps), but I don't think I've come across anything without a workaround so far.

I wouldn't really call it 'running Linux' \- for that you'll need to actually install & run Linux (either on the metal or in a VM). But for many of the purposes for which you might want to run Linux, WSL is more than adequate.

</comment><comment><USER8> I recently switched from Fedora 26 to Windows 10. I've been using WSL for the past 3 days for webdev and so far its been pretty smooth.

Feels pretty similar to doing web with a Macbook Pro. No issues with local servers or anything.

One odd thing is that the Linux home directory is different from your Windows user directory. If you use the terminal from within VSCode this is a none issue since it starts in the project working directory anyway.

Honestly, the thing I miss most from Linux / OS X is the dropdown Quake style terminal. Wish Windows had better terminal emulators.

</comment><comment><USER3> WSL does very well for me.

Lack of booting services can be irksome, no underlying support for docker, no KVM etc. (Not having to deal with systemd is a bonus IMHO)

However pretty much everything else I've thrown at it works.

Even running X apps (you need a Windows native X server, but that's fine.

You can use up all the disk space, other drives, as much RAM as you need ... It's all available.

The minor annoyance for me is the lack of specific file system support (fuse would do at a pinch) and maybe libusb support too. But those are easily solved with spinning up Linux in your favourite hypervisor.

<comment><USER5> We hear you re. disk perf, and Linux filesystem access from Windows - we're working on it. Bear with us.

Also, we added a decent amount of libusb support back in Creators Update: [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/10/bash...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/10/bashwsl- insiders-build-now-supports-usbserial-comms-and-mounting-removable-storage- network-shares/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I do use it on a consistent basis, after my MacBook had keyboard issues in May. I forced myself to create an entire web app on it over the course of 1 month to see how it felt.

Surprisingly, it was quite a pleasure to work with. There are certainly small little quirks that takes some getting used to and some keyboard short cuts that aren't present from my Mac setup. Nonetheless, WSL is good enough that I would happily recommend it to colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cygwin works _much_ better for me than WSL - it strikes a perfect balance between being a full-featured UNIX and, at the same time, being part of Windows.

<comment> le-mark Same here, Although I have yet to see a deliberate comparison between the two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> can't see the point sorry, i would just install linux as the base os and windows as a guest.

</comment><comment><USER12> You cannot use GPU for computation inside WSL. [https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt- con...](https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-console-bash- on-ubuntu-on-windo/suggestions/16108045-opencl-cuda-gpu-support) It's one of the most requested feature and not having that is a big negative for me. (I've used WSL and then switched to simply having dual boot Windosw+Ubuntu)

</comment><comment><USER13> \- Bash terminal in WSL is very limited in color support, no tabs. use ConEmu or X11 + Terminator \- Due to lack of good color support, themes like Airline dont render well \- Could never get ssh-agent to work fine, that literally sucks FWIW:

Coming from a Mac, it still did not gave me the UX that I was used. Everything seems to be patched on.

Due to KB issues, at this new job, I bit the bullet and tried to move to Win + WSL. Unfortunately, did not work out for me and I am going back to Mac (new 2018 ones).

<comment><USER5> Re. Color: Not true - Windows Console supports 16M 25-bit RGB colors since Creators Update (build 1703): [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/09/22/24-b...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/09/22/24-bit- color-in-the-windows-console/)

That said, yes, the Console cannot currently support font-fallback and thus cannot display glyphs that are not present in your currently selected font. We are, however, working on fixing this in an up-coming OS release.

Bear with us - lots of exciting things afoot with the Windows Console.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Note that it is _not_ an "instance of Linux". Microsoft's nomenclature for these NT subsystems is effectively to name the part that the Windows NT kernel substitutes for. There is _no Linux_ in the Windows Subsystem _for Linux_.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417059)

</comment><comment><USER15> Constantly. Good enough to have switched from macOS to Windows 10 + WSL.

Like one other commenter, I use it with ConEmu.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have a raspberry pi in my home network with an SSH server. I then just use Putty or Git Bash and ssh into the pi to do my Linux related work from Windows. I need to work a little more with systemd and block devices, so I didn't think WSL would cut it for me.

</comment><comment><USER17> Disk is _very_ slow. Phoronix did some benchmarks recently, check them. Virtualbox is faster for some stuff, and more convenient.

I don't recall performance comparisons with Cygwin, which is still my default shell for Windows.

</comment><comment><USER18> I tried it once a couple years ago. First thing I did was 'git status' in a large project.

I died waiting for it to finish and have since been reincarnated.

<comment><USER5> You should give WSL a try now - a couple of years ago would have been shortly after it was first released, when it was VERY early, and only barely able to run some of the more sophisticated tools you'd want/need.

WSL has come a LOOONG way since then, and yes, we are still working to improve disk IO perf.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Its damn good, I'd recommend it to anyone. Its missing a few features, but works as expected

<comment><USER20> Would you recommend WSL over a full linux distro, and if so, why? Not a rhetorical question. When I first heard about WSL, my first thought was: but why would people use this? I'm surprised it's so popular, and am just trying to understand what people find so compelling about WSL over the real thing.

<comment><USER12> I suppose it's good if you want to use windows applications and code inside linux at the same time. Other than that, having dual boot is probably better.</comment></comment></comment>


Welcome Daniel, Nicole, Stephanie, Steven and Tatyana - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-daniel-nicole-stephanie-steven-and-tatyana/ <comment><USER2> >> "Welcome Daniel, Nicole, Stephanie, Steven and Tatyana!"

While it's possible you'll never see this, nor that we'll ever meet, sincerely wish the best in your new journey with YC!</comment>


Saildrone: autonomous sailing craft with instruments for collecting data - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2018-01-saildrone-valuable-ocean.html <comment><USER2> Sort of sailing enhusiast here. Not surprised that they are trimarans, but surprised they are so small. AFAIK anything under 30 feet is a poor choice in many common ocean wave conditions. Self-righting is a nice feature if you can get it, but these things look like they would topple fairly easily even if they have a heavy keel, with no way to self-right.

(Update: Watched the video, which shows a diagram of the boat and its sensors and explains that the keel has a 250lb (113kg) instrument at the bottom)

<comment><USER3> According to this NYT article[1] the Saildrone is self-righting. There may also be some hollow space in the upper portion of the mast to prevent it from turtling, like how a Hobie Cat has the mast-blimp.

>Underneath the boat are both a rudder to aid in steering and a keel, which will right the boat if it is knocked over.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/technology/no-sailors- nee...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/technology/no-sailors-needed-robot- sailboats-scour-the-oceans-for-data.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do we avoid them while sailing? Does it have AIS? Standard port/stardboard lights? Aft lights? the mast looks low for reliable light or radio signal.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've always wanted to make an open source autonomous watercraft to collect data. I also think some open source uplink buoys would be sweet. Then your craft could offload lots of data to them (which would be pushed to the internet) instead of paying for satellite time or trying to coordinate picking up your craft manually.

</comment><comment><USER6> A CSIRO news article:

[https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/New- course-s...](https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2018/New-course-set- for-ocean-observations)</comment>


Ask HN: Tool to create animated welcome dialogs? - <AUTHOR>

I seem to recall seeing on HN a few months ago some tool or library that would allow you to easily create a sort of welcome walk-through for your web application. I think it used tooltips that would one-by-one show you different parts of the UX. My google-fu and hn-searching abilities are failing me however. Can anyone remember that or find the link? <comment><USER2> What you're looking for is commonly called a tour. Since it's web-based, it will be implemented in JavaScript. Searched HN for those terms, found this:

[http://usablica.github.io/intro.js/](http://usablica.github.io/intro.js/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Sometimes those regular word... usements... evade me. That is indeed the library I was looking for.

</comment></comment><comment> lost-theory Here's one I found a while back:

[https://github.com/usablica/intro.js](https://github.com/usablica/intro.js)</comment>


Andrew Yang's Data Dividend Project is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/22/21298919/andrew-yang-big-tech-data-dividend-project-facebook-google-ubi <comment><USER2> It doesn't work. There isn't enough money in the data for anyone to care. Your entire data load might be worth $100 a _year_. The only reason it funds massive industries is cost-effective aggregation by dirt-cheap computer power.

I ran the numbers on Facebook a while back: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19462402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19462402) It comes out that they're making roughly $17/yr in annual revenue per user. _Revenue_ , not _profit_. Cross checking my numbers against some other sources, it may be now more like $40 or $50/yr. Profits, the thing they could actually afford to share with you, look like maybe $10/year. So, what, Facebook is going to cut me a check for $5 every year? Google sends me another 5-spot, and a few other companies send me a dollar or less? What problem does that solve?

<comment><USER3> When I see these breakdowns I think I'd pay $17 per year for Facebook without all of the ads and tracking and data mining and knowing I was just getting a good service optimized for its customers.

Why not ban tracking and ad targeting and selling personal data, and force that business model to go extinct, and now they have to start charging for service and their users become actual customers.

<comment><USER4> I would not, I'd rather they target me with personalized ads like they are doing now. I hate paying for things, and I imagine neither would 99% of users.

Since me and the other 99% of people contribute most of the value to Facebook for you, would you be willing to subsidize the other 99% of people and pay $1700/year?

<comment><USER5> > neither would 99% of users.

That sort of statement requires data to back it up.

> would you be willing to subsidize the other 99%

That would just mean that facebook is an unwanted and unprofitable service which then wouldn't exist.

Which is not a problem at all.

<comment><USER4> > That sort of statement requires data to back it up.

On other social media websites that offer "pay to remove ads" versus "get personalized ads", like Reddit or Twitch, about 1% of users pay. Wikipedia asks for donations and very few people donate, percentage-wise. So I think if you want to show a substantially higher number, say even 10%, you'll need to provided evidence. Even if 10% of users paid, would they be willing to be $170/year?

> That would just mean that facebook is an unwanted and unprofitable service > which then wouldn't exist. Which is not a problem at all.

I don't see how you jumped to that conclusion, that it's unwanted. I want Facebook, and I want it for free with personalized ads. Same with Gmail, Yelp, Reddit, Google Maps, Instagram, Youtube, and a bunch of other web services. Not sure how that's so hard to understand, that this is the business model I prefer.

Same with newspapers. I don't want to pay the full cost of making a newspaper (probably $10 or so), but rather I'd purchase a very cheap subsidized newspaper with ads for $1. Or free apps with in-app purchases. Doesn't mean it's unwanted if people aren't willing to pay the cost price for it.

<comment><USER5> > On other social media websites

That sort of statement requires data to back it up.

> I don't see how you jumped to that conclusion, that it's unwanted. I want > Facebook, and I want it for free

If no one wants to pay for it, it's unwanted. I'm sure you'd also want a mansion, butlers, a private jet, etc. for free. That you want something for free means _nothing_ , and is entirely irrelevant.

Facebook in its current form also doesn't care about what _you_ want. They care about how they can please their _paying customers_ , with you being one of their many products they can sell.

<comment><USER6> > If no one wants to pay for it, it's unwanted. I'm sure you'd also want a > mansion, butlers, a private jet, etc. for free. That you want something for > free means nothing, and is entirely irrelevant.

The person you're replying to spoke directly to this by saying they want those services not merely for free, but for free with personalized ads. That is, by just saying "for free", you are removing an important part of the context. I suspect they would also sign up for a service that offered a mansion, butlers, a private jet, etc. for free with personalized ads, if anybody were offering such a thing.

I'm personally in the boat of preferring to pay for things that are important to me and hope to see more movement over time to subscription business models that work, but it does not make sense to write off people who want the opposite, who prefer to get things for free with personalized ads. The revealed preference in society seems to be that there are a lot more people who feel that way than people who prefer to pay for subscriptions. These people aren't just being duped, everybody knows how free services work because it is a very frequent and well publicized topic of conversation, it's just that they are ok or even happy with it.

I think what happens a lot, because I think it's what I experience personally very often, is that when we find ourselves with a minority opinion that we really think is right, that we conclude the majority with a different opinion from ours is just ignorant or being manipulated. But in reality, they are often just as knowledgeable as we are, but have simply drawn different conclusions. Speaking personally, this is always a bitter pill to swallow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm all for people controlling their data and being fully informed of how it's being used, but I just don't understand the idea that you should be paid for the data that you give to companies when you choose to use their products.

The payment that you get is the products. You don't get a check from Google, but you get to use Google, which is an incredibly useful tool.

I like Yang, but I think he's barking up the wrong tree. We should be focused on giving people control over their data and awareness of how it's being used so they can make informed decisions, not insisting they get paid for it.

<comment><USER8> I think there's a category error here around 'choice'.

Who is choosing? I can walk into a store and look around without making a commitment to buy a product. I may leave realizing that there is nothing for me here. I chose not to become a customer. Or I chose to be a customer and there was a ritual exchanging of gifts and information which is relatively clear to all parties.

Websites don't work that way. I can't 'browse' without them already tracking me. I haven't agreed to anything yet. The transition happens without my awareness. It's predatory.

<comment><USER9> You may be (un)pleasantly surprised by the amount of physical/real-world tracking of in-store traffic that stores are engaging in now. In many physical stores, you don't really have the option of "'browsing' without them already tracking me" either. Worse yet, there's not even a pretense of viewing/accept some Terms and Conditions when you physically enter the store (at least websites pay the lip service of having a T&C posted or a cookie consent pop- up).

One random example from 2018 (so, probably a lot more advanced and widespread by now): [https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project- ca...](https://www.adweek.com/digital/adobes-newest-labs-project-can-track-in- store-customers-in-real-time/)

<comment><USER8> I would characterize this as "the situation has been bad for so long in the online world that it has now metastasized into the physical world".

Could be I'm wrong about that, but how long do you have to embolden people before they do something truly brazen?

<comment><USER10> They have been engaged in that sort of marketing and tracking at least back when computers were big iron only - although to a lesser degree by watching customers and tweaking stores accordingly. Milk is in the back of the grocery store? Not because of insulation or anything like that but because people often pop into the grocery store for it and "running the gauntlet" results in them picking up more items than their initial goal. Not entirely comparable in capabilities of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Aren't companies already paying indirectly by providing free service? I am no fan of Facebook but I am using the service free of cost and in return company collects data for targeted advertising.

Shouldn't this be more targeted at cable companies which collect a monthly fee and again sell your data? And may be forcing Big Tech to provide a paid alternative which doesn't use data collected?

<comment><USER12> Facebook is also making money off of you by showing you ads. It's a question of how much is enough. Facebook is charging nothing, sure, but what if the value they take from us (our data, our ad attention+clicks) is more valuable than the value they give us (a free social media)?

<comment><USER13> Well if what they gave us was more valuable than what they took, they wouldn't be a very profitable company, would it?

<comment><USER14> The value of what they provide isn't necessarily it's cost.

That's the whole reason we trade. The value of a good is different to different people. If a book is worth £5 to me, and £1 to you, then if I give you £2.50 for the book we've both gained more than we've lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this is a great idea but measures would have to be taken to prevent Hollywood accounting from erasing payouts to consumers.

Establishing a value for each data point gathered and an ongoing payout from derived data (e.g. training a machine learning model using your search habits should not mean you get nothing if the original data isn't kept) is crucial.

Also, keeping track of all of those payouts would also be a huge burden for even Google, I can't imagine for a small startup. This also needs to be considered so that it doesn't stifle innovation.

Some napkin math: assuming 1 billion MAU for Google Search and around $30B in revenue for Q1 2020, that's $30 in revenue per MAU per quarter or around $120/year. This would be before costs of course and represents the ceiling of what they would be able to pay.

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

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/alphabet-googl- earnings-q1-2...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/28/alphabet-googl- earnings-q1-2020.html)

[https://techjury.net/blog/google-search- statistics/](https://techjury.net/blog/google-search-statistics/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I know it might sound like a minor ding, but the signup form doesn't allow apostrophes or accents in the name fields. Many people (myself included) have these in their legal names. I know this is US focused, but for an org that's all about data, this feels like a big oversight.

For starters, _most_ data-hoarding websites allow these characters these days, so it's just one more obstacle when trying to match and verify "my" data. I guess let's hope I signed up to every website with the same e-mail address?

On a similar note, it also rejected my 5-digit valid zip code as "invalid", so I'm unable to sign up at all.

<comment><USER17> This is another reason why I can't understand anyone who works in software of what is generally thought of as "technology" likes Yang. He does not understand. He likes to talk about "MATH". And while the numbers he uses may work out, I wonder how he acquires those numbers in the first place.

Also, it often seems like he needs "ENGLISH" more than "MATH". Because "technology" is a meaningless word. A carburetor is technology. A ramp is technology. Just about everything is technology in some fashion.

So. We already tax technology, if indirectly, through taxing goods and services.

Then there's the railing against the large targeted-advertising companies (I guess that's what they have most in common). There's technically been a trade already. Our data for their services.

And then there's the fact that he's now doing the thing he's complaining about: data harvesting.

And to top _all_ of that off, the issues you just mentioned. This guy can't even harvest data effectively or efficiently. Or identify people who can. And I'm supposed to trust him to create legislation affecting those companies? Or identify people who can? He has just blatantly demonstrated he does not have those skills.

<comment><USER18> > Then there's the railing against the large targeted-advertising companies (I > guess that's what they have most in common). There's technically been a > trade already. Our data for their services.

So for whatever service they offer, we give them data. And extra secondary income from every third party they pass that same data along to. And the risk of first party data breaches. And the risk of data breaches from any other party that gets access. And likely that same data getting scraped by aggregators just from being used.

The deal is by no means equal, and we the customer pay dearly.

I'm quite happy with the idea of making it expensive to retain any data that's not required by law or explicit operational need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This sounds like an enforcement nightmare. It's a nice idea, but how would it actually work?

So we would get some sort of commission from Instagram for every ad we view. And the government will need to track this for every Californian, then divvy up a couple dollars per person each year.

I know there are some Yang fans on HN and I don't want to get too political here but his ideas are too oversimplified, from the $1k UBI thing to this they feel like the left's version of "build a wall". They're simple ideas that are great for social media attention but ultimately oversimplify an inherently complex problem.

Again, I'm not trying to make a political argument either way here, just pointing out how social media seems to incentivize our leaders to oversimplify policy ideas.

<comment><USER20> > This sounds like an enforcement nightmare. It's a nice idea, but how would > it actually work?

The same way anything works. The largest players write the regulations, stand up a new regulatory body, require anyone that can be remotely considered a data collector or warehouse or whatever term they come up with to 'pre- certify' their operation at a 6 or 7 figure sum to crowd out any upstart players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I know this is well–meaning but I think it's ultimately misguided. The root issue isn't that people aren't getting paid for their data — it's that their data is commodified in the first place.

<comment><USER22> Forcing payment for the data will make some of these business model not work, and I'm all for that. It's not about users receiving a few dollars, it's companies having to pay all them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facebook is giving me much more real value than they could ever make from me in dollars.

<comment><USER24> hah love the sarcasm.

<comment><USER25> If it didn't provide value, no one would be using it.

<comment><USER26> I'd like to introduce you to an entire field of endeavor called "marketing". Non-industrial diamonds don't provide value, yet people are regularly buying them for ridiculous sums[1].

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ho...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how- an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/)

<comment><USER27> Diamonds do provide value in non-industrial settings, most commonly as an indicator of a person's appreciation for another person. They are in the same value class as cut flowers, although of course at a different price point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There are too many perverse incentives here. You end up with the most vulnerable people further their vulnerability.

What we really need is a data tax. The more data you collect, the more taxes you need to pay. You can even index it against company income and have a lower data tax bracket for small start-ups and a higher data tax bracket for large orgs.

User data needs to be treated as a liability, not an asset.

<comment><USER29> I think this is the right framing. Treat user data like pollution. If you leak it or accidentally share with others, put a big enough fine. Have strict rules around safe procedures and handling of the data, and sanction companies for violating them. Make the cost of keeping data high enough that they would stop frivolous collections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is a mistaken approach. The problem with data harvesting is the threat to future human freedom, not an injustice about paying people fairly

<comment><USER31> Economic inequality and freedom are closely linked

<comment><USER30> Having a few extra dollars a month doesn't prevent the government from punishing you for doing something they don't like. For example, Hong Kong is relatively wealthy compared to the rest of China, but participating a protest in Hong Kong can still lead to jail time (or far worse now). Paying them a few dollars for their data does nothing for them but potentially let them take one extra day off work per year to protest, although with the censorship and monitoring that China does, is that safe?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > The project's signup form asks for people to put in all of the email > addresses they use online to help identify how many platforms are currently > profiting off of an individual's data. It also asks for users to provide > their PayPal information so any money that could eventually be gained from > platforms could be deposited directly into a user's account.

This seems like a wild thing to be asking for at this stage in the project.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hey HN, I wanted to share this very related, but completely unaffiliated and independent initiative I've been a part of: [https://datadividends.org](https://datadividends.org) . To quote the website, we're "an ad-hoc team of scholars and practitioners (without any political affiliation) that formed to answer the questions: What are data dividends? Why should we have them? How should they work? "

Very coincidentally, we just presented on the topic of data dividends at the RadicalxChange conference two days ago ([https://www.radicalxchange.org/2020-conference/](https://www.radicalxchange.org/2020-conference/), VODs still processing) and launched a website with a summary of our report yesterday. Was very surprised (and excited) to see this very similarly named project launch today!

While we're very much interested in tackling the same core problem, I think the group agrees with many of the concerns raised in this thread (paychecks will be small, administrative challenges, etc.). We're also very concerned about the potential for "privacy as a luxury good" and the fact that a data dividend could exacerbate existing inequalities.

Our main philosophical difference is that we argue that this discussion should be framed around the idea that the data fueling profitable intelligent technologies is "our data", not "my data". As such, our ideas for "disbursing the dividend" are focused on promoting collective benefit, e.g. through programs well-known to reduce inequality, support for "data unions", and new infrastructure to support the sharing of data (and ideally, increase innovation, competition, etc.).

Overall, I think increased discussion around this topic is really great!

</comment><comment><USER34> No, not all users andrew. Pay the users that create content that gets popular, not people just for existing. Creating a data trail is not valuable IP.

I m actually surprised at the amount of content that people give away to these platforms, even here.

A major reason is that there is no legal mechanism for users to directly pay other users. Things like brave attention token are steps in the right direction

</comment><comment><USER35> In terms of assessing the value of one individual's data, shouldn't there be some consideration for the fact that it's worth nothing to that person on their own? I can't sell my data on the free market. It's a transaction over an object that has value in only one direction.

<comment><USER36> Is that really true? There are "customer research" apps that will offer you small, but non-trivial amounts of money for basically selling your personal information.

<comment><USER37> It's partially true. You can't sell most of your personal information. E.g., when your name, face, and weight end up in somebody's dataset it'll be because of the "free" social fitness app you used rather than because you were able to directly connect with anyone who cared about that data and work out a reasonable price.

<comment><USER36> So you're saying a marketplace hasn't been built yet. That's like saying your car had no value until Uber was built (only taxis have value), or short term rental homes had no value until Airbnb was built (only hotels have value).

Your data today has value. It's how you get access to Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc, for the monetary cost of $0.00. That is value, and yes, you can't cash that out to $ _yet_. That's because a marketplace hasn't been built yet, but maybe legislation could create such a market and give consumers a fair shake.

<comment><USER37> Kind of. I think we're talking past each other.

The ancestor comment said they "can't sell [their] data on the free market," and we contested that statement and each other a bit.

Bringing up that a marketplace hasn't been built yet and that the data still has value is somewhat irrelevant to the conversation I thought we were having. FWIW, I agree with you -- a marketplace hasn't been built (not that I'm sure it should be), and our data definitely has value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The project site was also posted ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23599774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23599774)), but we merged those comments hither because people were complaining that they couldn't view that page.

</comment><comment><USER39> This seems to be an area full of quandries.

If data is your property, then you can sell it to someone else permanently without royalty. Expect to see signup forms that say your first month of SaaS app is $0.01 and you will receive a credit for $0.01 for selling your data to them.

If data is Intellectual Property subject to royalty like other intellectual property (say, stock photos for example) then you can assign away the royalties and we can expect it to be assigned away in the signup form or EULA.

If data is a form of labor it will be subject to minimum wage laws and other employment law.

If data is intrinsic to the individual it cannot be sold or reassigned (like i cannot sell or reassign my other human rights).

</comment><comment><USER40> A divident, while logically possible, may be practically quite difficult to implement and regulate effectively. Not that we shouldn't try to do it, it'll just be hard.

I think there's a simpler way to solve this. This is just an exchange, you're getting a product, and you're giving away to them and all subsequent third parties all the rights to your data in exchange. That's your payment.

The problem here is that this is your only form of payment by default for that tier of product and that sucks.

In my opinion it should illegal to do that by default without first giving the customer the option to pay in money in exchange that exact same product.

And if I'm paying I don't want you sharing my personally identifiable information shared with no analytics, no tracking, no third-party consulting and if you can't pass a security audit or can't figure out how to anonymize/encrypt my information properly, I don't want you accessing it in clear form at all outside your company promises including from your remote employees. I think that's fair.

If you're startup and can't afford to pay for a credible audit, then you shouldn't be allowed to even know my first name. You'll have to use a secure and audited intermediary to provide you that in anonymized form and you figure out how to handle on your own.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'd be much more comfortable if I could pay Big Tech to _not_ share my data.

<comment><USER40> Me too, in exchange for a product I don't want to be confined to a form of payment which only allows one to give away rights to their data in exchange for the product.

I'd like the legal right to always be shown the option to pay money instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What is interesting is that in essence, our data is the payment that we make to use facebook, instagram etc.... So if companies are now taxed on data or required to pay people for the right to use their data this would seriously alter incentives which would also change the content that we, the users, have access to. These companies will not have the incentive to provide the same quality content and product as their profits have been slashed. Data is also used not to just send targeted ads but to conduct beta testing and software updates. Without access to free data, Facebook would start charging people for having an account and I'm sure many would rather not do that. This basically got me to thinking about how consumers can get a greater hold of their data without dismantling the relationship between these consumers and online platforms.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't want to get paid for letting big tech use my data. I want big tech to not use my data in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER44> I wish Facebook didn't exist. The sad truth is that if I delete my Facebook there are a couple hundred people I would never hear from again. Countless community events I would never be invited to because Facebook is all anyone uses to get the word out around here.

</comment><comment><USER45> "We are asking you to sign a written authorization giving DDP the authority to act as your authorized agent to exercise your legal rights under the CCPA."

OK, so first question - what is this DDP entity?

A "movement" doesn't tell me who or what entity I am assigning agency to, endorsing, giving money to, etc.

The article omits this key piece of information and nor does the website disclose on a cursory glance! Is it a gov org? nonprofit, for profit, coop, other? And equally important: who legally runs/owns it? Am I missing the obvious here?!

Without a clear and upfront answer to the basics here, I would not recommend anyone blindly engage with / opt into anything like this regardless of whose brainchild it is.

</comment><comment><USER46> Why would you pay for something people are giving you for free? If people are volunteering that information, I think it's fine to use it to finance the free product they're getting. I'm totally free to not use Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.

<comment><USER26> I would like you to explain to me how you could avoid using Google given that Google Analytics is present in some 70% of the top 10,000 websites and reCaptcha also has huge penetration.

<comment><USER47> Browse in incognito mode. It shouldn't give GA any tractable info. That's the easiest way without installing a browser plugin, but if you do a 2 second plugin search, you'll find many that block Google and the 1000's of other companies that are tracking you that you don't know about

This is completely a technical problem that can be solved in software

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-dude The information provided in this article is sparse; Yang discusses the vision of where this project was probably inspired by in his "Yang Speaks" podcast:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNCVHcZp5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNCVHcZp5s) episode w/ Jaron Lanier (re: data unions, brokers, etc.)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WuwG_fYJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-WuwG_fYJ4) pre-launch episode

Make sure to check out the FAQ and Privacy Policy of the project to get a better grasp of what legal framework and actions they are taking.

</comment><comment><USER48> In a weird way, this would be a regressive policy -- the data of the richest people is worth orders of magnitude more, so this would just make the rich, well, richer. Increasing corporate tax rates would help the poor much more.

<comment><USER49> This sounds wrong. The value of data is in the massive amount of datapoints. If I had a data company I would always pick the large masses and discard the outliers if given the choice.

<comment><USER48> If you want to target ads, which is where the majority of the money in 'data' comes from, personal data about rich people that helps target ads to them is a lot more valuable than personal data about poor people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> The online "user data" business model is identical to the highway, or the magazine, or the mall, or the airport business model. You create traffic by providing access at or below cost, and make money by selling ads to all the traffic you create. Should highways, airports or magazines pay users money from the revenue they generate by selling ads around their high traffic properties? Another consideration is about the proportion of an ad's cost that can be attributable to the data these companies have, which depends on the degree to which the ad is targeted or not. For example, are keyword-tied search ads and the money Google makes from them related at all to any data they may have on you?

Furthermore, any attempt to account for the "price" of used data (basically just something to id you online) should be matched by a valuation of the true value this companies offer in compensation. In the case of google: what's the value to users from having fast, accurate search; petabytes upon petabytes of free content (from the mundane to the educational) on youtube ($5 - $9/mo if you go by Disney+/Netflix prices); and entire office suite ($5 - $12/mo looking at many SaaS/Office 365) kept up to date; a quality email client ($99/yr for Hey); a free OS for your phone and computer (Android/Chromebooks); a high quality global mapping service w/ turn-by-turn GPS ($300 devices back in the day?); a Calendar ($3 - $9/mo looking at competitors), 15GB of cloud storage; unlimited storage for all your photos in the cloud (say the average user has 50Gb of photos, thats $3 - $9/mo).... and I could go on. In the case of Facebook I believe there is genuine value in having a directory of all your friends/acquaintances/family, and a repository for memories either there or on instagram.

I see the techlash and policies like this data-dividend as a very natural impulse from society to get a spoonfull from the honeypot these companies created. Just because it is natural doesn't mean it is right. Our economic model is premised on the idea that the fruits of your labor/property/ideas are yours to keep, however spectacular they may be. Keep in mind that this policy does nothing to change the way this companies operate, or question their overall effects on society.

<comment><USER51> The analogy between online ads and highway is very weak.

#1 highway is essential, they provide transport. Online ads on the other hand, is not. In the sense that most ads are for arousing consumerism impulse. (No I am not arguing ads is wrong or something, I was saying if they are not as essential ad highway)

#2 highway is physical and does not infringe privacy. Online ads are virtual, and blindly intrusive to privacy.

#3 highway is regulated as infrastructure, internet ads companies are not. And they are ferociously resisting being treated as infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> ... Anyone else having issues verifying their phone? I've never had such a buggy experience verifying my phone.

It seems like after you complete the application, the green submit button, as well as the text fields in the following sequences, are buggy -- single click doesn't seem to pick up the action, double click seems to upset it, tab into the button to press Enter doesn't work. This is all via Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER53> I foresee tech companies creating paid and non-paid versions of their products. If you don't want your data monetized, please pay $50/month for Google Search, GMail, Maps, and YouTube. If you are okay with the value exchange of ads and free services, then you are opting into a mutually agreed upon arrangement with no compensation.

<comment><USER54> This would create a weird paradox:

Advertisers want people with disposable income.

People without much disposable income get really targeted ads (they won't pay for the privacy).

People with disposable income pay for the privacy service and don't get ads or get poorly targeted ads.

It then becomes more like traditional ads that get broadcast to everyone.

So the policy shoots itself in the foot.

<comment><USER55> I think you overestimate how much people with disposable income value internet privacy.

I'm sure Google has good numbers on this from YouTube premium.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Yeh, this seems backwards, the users pay the companies for free products with their data and their attention. That's the business model. Why would Facebook and Google run those servers if they couldn't have profitably targeted ads.

If you want privacy honoring products you want the users to pay money for the service.

<comment><USER57> This argument makes perfect sense, the problem starts when companies like Facebook start tracking individuals who do not use their services.

<comment><USER56> Agreed, and that should be illegal. Having companies pay for data of non-users as part of Yang's proposal doesn't change anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> What we really need is a new amendment to the Constitution about digital privacy rights, end to surveillance without a warrant, digital documetns are the same as "secures in your papers" from a constitutional perspective, etc. Half measures like Yang's simply won't work.

<comment><USER59> Perhaps a "digital bill of rights"?

> Earlier in his campaign, Yang said that data should be classified as > property, and users should have certain rights over how their data is > collected and used by tech companies. Yang offers more insight on what these > rights would look like in Thursday's proposal, and he pledges to pass a > "Digital Bill of Rights, ensuring ownership of data, control over how it's > used, and compensation for its use" if he is elected president.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20964834/andrew-yang- dig...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20964834/andrew-yang-digital-ads- tax-elizabeth-warren-antitrust-tech-facebook-google)

And for a balance of opinion, a counter-argument on why this might be bad:

> Or let's take the central element of yang's proposal, establishing data as a > property right and allowing individuals to be compensated for the use of > that data if it is used by a big tech company like Google or Facebook when > selling to advertisers. This again is a bit of a problem as tech expert Gigi > sohn said on this show recently.

> Gigi makes a pretty convincing case there that actual ownership of your data > could have a lot of problems, while the core underlying concern is more > about data privacy. why not just tackle that instead?

[https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/470719-saagar-enjeti- yangs...](https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/470719-saagar-enjeti-yangs-plan- to-regulate-big-tech-misses-the-mark)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> This brings up a concept I never really thought of. Is it better to approach this problem from the perspective of privacy vs ownership. If it is not a tangible asset, ownership seems tricky. It's like IP law. Do you really own the observation of your behavior?

</comment><comment><USER61> This would have saved a lot of problems if proposed in 2008. Now that FANG has trillions in the back, if it's not a retroactive dividend, Ill-gotten gains get retained and this is not much more than closing the barn door after the cows are gone.

</comment><comment><USER62> Ironically they're using CCPA as an excuse to push this.

CCPA is supposed to help keep my data more safe. How exactly will my data be more safe upon giving Facebook some of my banking info and government id so I can officially receive payment for my data?

</comment><comment><USER10> The entire meme of "selling their data" is deeply wrong. They take pains to minimize the leakage - if it was all available they could practically DYI it when targetting customers losing only the hosted ads themselves.

</comment><comment><USER63> What a useless policy to spend time on. No one cares except the vocal geeks and if it did go through I'm sure people will be excited to get a $5 check once a month.

<comment><USER64> Your missing the forest for the trees. Unionizing workers isn't about everyone getting a penny more because they are organized. It's about restoring power balance by organizing the many who contribute more than the few.

If you get everyone who contribute data to Facebook, google, twitter etc. organized, then you can do a hell of a lot more than just get a couple of dollars for each person. You might even get them to clean up major parts of their act. Because a threat of "tomorrow we will request GDPR removal of all content from 1million users unless you do x" is much more of a threat than #quitfacebook will ever be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> It's ironic that they require you to input "as many of your emails as possible" in order to fight on your behalf.

Fighting fire with fire, I guess? Seems wrong though...

<comment><USER66> It's more ironic that they apparently can't be trusted with data because they geoblock GDPR-countries which you would only do if you know ahead of time that you can't deliver your website without datamining your visitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Beside the few penny, I want diversity of internet back ...

</comment><comment><USER68> An incentive for people to post a greater volume of shit to the web than they do already? I approve this acceleration toward total data anarchy.

</comment><comment><USER26> What I'd like to see come out of this is some way to evaluate the value of data collected so that it can be compared year-to-year. One reason the antitrust argument is hard to make is that the average Facebook user pays nothing and it's hard to argue that, for example, Facebook's monopolistic behaviour is harming the consumer. If we could track the "cost" to the consumer in terms of the value of data collected and observe an increase over time it would lend credence to a case for antitrust action.

</comment><comment><USER69> Funny, I'd consider it more valuable to me to not give FB my payment info than to accept whatever pittance my data is worth.

</comment><comment><USER70> Being paid means nothing if you don't have the power to negotiate, and declare it "not for sale".

<comment><USER71> A system that allows you to be the broker of your data really seems like the right way to go.

Similar to app permissions, users could choose which aspects of their data/profile to share with each company. The data could then be accessed via a federated API. With this in place, you could make it illegal for companies to store any PII themselves.

Of course whoever controls that central user repo would have great power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> So now I'm rewarded with $ for posting more crap people will blindly like?

So my data will now be even less about me?

</comment><comment><USER73> How about profit sharing. If you make money by selling my data, I should get a cut.

</comment><comment><USER74> It's his right to claim highly valued services for free and then cash compensation for when he uses them. It is also the right of every sensible corporation in the world to forward that audacious claim directly into the trash bin and not entertain it for another moment.

</comment><comment><USER75> how much would you pay monthly for Google ?

Im paying for Google Storage, Youtube Premium and would like one fee where I dont see any ads at all.

<comment><USER76> About a year and a half ago, the credit card I was using to pay for YouTube Premium expired and for about a day, I was subjected to ads on YT—it was _horrifying_.

Once you go ad-free, it's hard to go back. I'd happily pay for an ad-free version of every service I use.

Scott Galloway has been suggesting that Twitter move to a subscription model, with all accounts with less <5000 followers be free, subsidized by a progressive monthly fee for larger accounts based on number of followers above 5000.

This would serve dual purpose of eliminating a whole heap of bots and fake accounts, forcing them to be tied to a credit card. With Twitter earning recurring revenue from whales, along with reducing or eliminating personal data aggregation for ad-targeting, I can't see a downside.

<comment><USER77> I'm curious on how the dynamics would change in that system. Frankly I think it would make everything quite a bit worse. I think one of the only benefits of twitter is that it allows organic popularity. Once you add penalties for getting too popular, people will need to make up that cost. What will happen is large accounts will start to advertise in their tweets, essentially defeating the purpose of removing advertising.

Plus, you could then weaponize bots against smaller accounts on a large scale

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> your individual data is worth nothing alone. When aggregated with great many others, it then means something.

</comment><comment><USER79> The fediverse is already here and more or less offered a working solution to aggregated data abuse. Fediverse instances are mostly crowd-funded, the software is typically open source, and there are no direct paths to placing ads, which disincentivises data collection or selling. The only attack vectors are web scraping, really.

It's just a matter of educating the (boomer and zoomer) public, that "official companies" with proprietary services aren't the only legitimate platforms, and that the actual internet isn't 5 websites, but millions of interoperable and bustling websites and fediverse instances.

[https://fediverse.party/](https://fediverse.party/)

[https://joinmastodon.org/](https://joinmastodon.org/) (recomended) [https://pleroma.social/](https://pleroma.social/) [https://joinpeertube.org/](https://joinpeertube.org/) and many more.

</comment><comment><USER80> Instead of the lunatic, "lead balloon" BS like this (or UBI, for that matter), I'd rather someone worked on requiring US websites to honor "do not track" by law. Right now there's this idiotic arms race where browser vendors (other than Google, of course) are baking in more and more anti-tracking, and adtech companies are piling on more and more sophisticated tracking on the other end. Because the problem is asymmetrical, tracking always beats anti-tracking.

Ideally, I'd like to have a switch that would just disable tracking on everything, and if I find out I'm still being tracked, I need to be able to sue. The whole tracking bullshit will solve itself in no time at all.

And no, GDPR cookie warnings are basically deliberate sabotage of this idea, because presented with an option with lots of text the user always clicks "yes".

<comment><USER66> GDPR doesn't say you have to 'warn' for 'cookies' but that you have to ask consent for data processing before doing it and you can't deny people if they don't want that. If you happen to use a cookie to track a user for data processing then you may pop up a cookie-specific message.

In the end what needs to happen is exactly what GDPR is made for: don't grab people's data and track them unless they say it is OK to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> In all countries except Iran, the trade of human organs has been made illegal. Organ donation is legal, of course, but under strict regulation to ensure that it's being done ethically for everyone involved.

We had good reasons to prohibit the sale of human parts (even if the donor consents to getting paid for the transplantation). Now, we have very good reasons to protect personal data too.

Why not forbid the trade of personal data for the same reasons we banned it for our physical parts, and implement strong regulations (GDPR 2.0) to make sure that organizations only access and use our personal data for ethical, commonly-approved purposes?

</comment><comment><USER82> This is the kind of bullshit solution that results in class action lawsuits paying millions of people $5 each (only the lawyers win)

A better idea would be to give each user equity in the company. An even better idea would be give that equity voting rights.

Side benefit: platforms would have to KYC human beings and we'd kill off a lot of bots and other generated horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER83> If Facebook's abuse of everyone's personal data was as strikingly abhorrent as say, organ theft, Andrew Yang would write the policy to give me a $4.56 USD check while I lay bleeding in a tub of ice.</comment>


Ask HN: Why did Paul Graham stop posting essays on his site? - <AUTHOR> I notice the most recent was from November, not the others are about a month apart.<p>Does anyone know what's up? <comment><USER3> The most obvious reason is that pg writes an essay when he has an idea or an insight he wants to think and write about. New insights don't arrive on a fixed schedule.

If pg had been posting every month the HN thread would read: "Ask HN: is it just me or has the quality of Paul Graham's writing gone down?"

<comment><USER4> > _The most obvious reason is that pg writes an essay when he has an idea or > an insight he wants to think and write about. New insights don't arrive on a > fixed schedule._

And yet, they did somehow, for several years.

Not to mention insights are not like some divine illumination. You can get them and shape by the actual process of writing down your thoughts on a matter.

> _If pg had been posting every month the HN thread would read: "Ask HN: is it > just me or has the quality of Paul Graham's writing gone down?"_

Well, it's not like it has not, either. Last 4-5 years are nothing like the essays circa Hackers and Painters era.

<comment><USER5> Inspiration is in my view more like earthquakes then a continual shower - <USER2> need to wander around looking at the world and asking why is it like that? Eventually the pressure builds and builds and suddenly you know - and have to write about it. The first ideas out the door are the most powerful - I guess the comments about free and wild animals and entrepreneurs are just aftershocks.

The quake can release an awful lot of ideas that you can work through all at once or one at a time. But eventually the quake runs out of power and another must build up

Which basically all means "Be careful what you ask for" - another quake and we won't be able to stop him posting them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He's never been that prolific. I guess he writes when he's got something to say. Some of his previous essays reflect long-held beliefs, supply of which is clearly limited.

<comment><USER7> If you consider the time from when he started to publish essays on a regular basis ("Java's Cover" in April 2001) until November 2012 it is 143 essays in 140 months.

Given the length and quality of his posts I'd consider this incredibly prolific for a single writer. Otherwise I completely agree with you.

(Some time ago I made a table with the length of the essays vs time. I never published it, but if someone is interested I can do so.)

<comment><USER8> > (Some time ago I made a table with the length of the essays vs time. I never > published it, but if someone is interested I can do so.)

The answer to this kind of remark is always : please do so :)

<comment><USER7> Actually I misremembered, I never plotted the data against time, it's just a CSV with word count for all essays.

I put the CSV on Github[1], there is also one for codinghorror.com and the scripts that I used to create the tables. Some additional word count data (e.g. John D. Cook's The Endeavor) is on my website[2].

[1] <https://raw.github.com/weinzierl/length/master/wcpg.csv>

[2] <http://weinzierlweb.com/length>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I suspect it is something similar to the support issues for open source projects... you want to share your code, but the moment you do you find yourself having to support it at a cost to you (a good problem, you have people wanting to use the code)... but all you wanted to do was share.

His words have gone from mere thoughts and opinions that he's felt a need to share, to being received in some other way that it was intended and loaded with so much extra interpretation that then leads to that support cycle.

Writing is hard, but defending that writing when a large number of people will tear it to shreds, misinterpret it, over-analyse, take metaphors literally, and treat literal words as ambiguous... it can kill a lot of the desire to write and share.

He clearly cares about sharing his thoughts and views, but because of the above, I figure he must find far greater satisfaction and reward from sharing those things with his YC classes who probably really listen to what is being communicated and acting on it, rather than just debating and pedantically arguing over the choice of phrase.

I now expect to be downvoted for implying that we as an audience don't necessarily help him. And of course, I may be very wrong, it's just an opinion. I'm sure he'll pop up and say in a few hours time.

<comment><USER10> > _"His words have gone from mere thoughts and opinions that he's felt a need > to share, to being received in some other way that it was intended and > loaded with so much extra interpretation that then leads to that support > cycle."_

"Blessed are the Cheese Makers"

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Didn't he have a child or two in recent times?

They certainly take all your time away.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quality over quantity. He won't write an essay unless it offers real insight into something worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER13> Having a blog myself, I don't post for months, but then all of a sudden I have an idea and I push out a couple of thousand words within a few hours with a 100 likes.

Sometimes muse hits you and it just flows, sometimes it's on holidays for months. :)

<comment><USER14> Wow. A 100 likes. Stuff that matters.

<comment><USER13> More than many techcrunch posts :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I seem to remember reading he tends to write mostly during the fall months. Also, November was right before the previous class, which would explain why he got busy quick.

</comment><comment><USER16> Guy's pretty busy now.

</comment><comment><USER17> Could it be that he's busy helping other entrepreneurs get their startups going?

</comment><comment><USER18> I heard he only writes when someone sacrifices a goat in his name. That's your cue.</comment>


Comcast offers faster home broadband in some U.S. cities - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/14/comcast.internet/index.html?hpt=Sbin

<comment><USER2> _"...called Extreme 105. The name (which sounds a little like a radio station) comes from its ability to reach speeds of 105 megabits per second." ... "$105 for the Extreme plan, an introductory price that also requires the customer to have a bundle of television and phone service from Comcast"_

105 USD/month sounds to me like an extreme price for the Extreme 105. And adding television and phone (?) to justify aligning the 105 Mbits/s with 105 USD/month isn't funny IMHO.</comment>


I have 80,000 emails in my inbox and that's okay - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cgherb/i-have-80-000-emails-in-my-inbox-and-thats-okay-e3ad8ce88390 <comment><USER2> _spam emails_

edit: aww, you only know how to downvote and not respond to criticism.

<comment><AUTHOR> ?</comment></comment>


Take your Linux experience in Windows to the next level with WSL - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/take-your-linux-development-experience-in-windows-to-the-next-level-with-wsl-and-visual-studio-code-remote/ <comment><USER2> Kudos to the WSL developers. An excellent effort.

I thought WSL was great... until Microsoft decided to reboot my device and I lost all of my work. Stick with a native linux install. My shows linux box shows an uptime of 126 days, last booted during a 24 hour power outage.

Microsoft values their updates more than your work.

<comment><USER3> You don't do kernel updates or are you using ksplice?</comment></comment>


Dust: An Elysian Tail: One animator's 3.5 year quest to create his dream game - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/dust-an-elysian-tail-one-animators-3-5-year-quest-to-create-his-dream-game/ <comment><USER2> I used to hang out at Dean's forum some 8 years ago. My cousin was doing a lot of drawing at the time, and he had a bunch of printouts of Dean's drawings, so that's how I learned about him. He had an animated movie project going on at one time, based on the same theme as the game, but I don't know if he's doing anything with that right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> i am highly highly impressed, it's a very polished looking game with the animation and all. The gameplay looks very promising, all of this, from 1 developer? This reminds me of the original Prince of Persia, indie gaming at its best.</comment>