Show HN: Reminiscence, self-hosted bookmark manager and personal wayback machine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kanishka-linux/reminiscence <comment><USER2> I've needed self-hosted bookmarks for a while. There are some written in Java and PHP, but they just don't seem very approachable.

This is a great project. Here are some things I noticed that set this project apart from others:

1) Detailed (up-to-date!!) documentation for installation. Sometimes you have difficulties installing a project because either the documentation is out of date or just excludes important details. Not true here - you create the virtualenv and run the scripts. There is nothing esoteric about setting up this project to use.

2) It's on the latest version of Django. It can be a little discouraging to use a project that is running on a version of a library that is no longer supported.

3) It doesn't require redis or nginx to run out of the box. It works as expected without these things, which means I was able to test the project simply by installing the python dependencies.

4) The interface is simple to use.

5) Project can be scaled up with celery.

6) Full disclosures about problems one may run into with this project and how to address them.

It took me 1 minute to install this project. I didn't encounter any errors. THIS is how you get people to use your project.

The _only_ thing I can say is that the interface needs a little improvement, but this is so easy to over look with such a functional project.

Thank you kanishka-linux for creating this project.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was amazing feedback! Thanks a lot!

About user-interface, I agree it needs improvement. Especially inbuilt reader needs some work.

Can you suggest some improvements in UI?

<comment><USER2> Most of this is personal preference for me, so I would take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

There are some spacing issues here and there - the username/settings drop down next to the search input is not vertically aligned with the rest of the elements. The create new directory form and add URL form is pushed to the right a bit. I'd either center those or keep them aligned left.

One thing I'd try is making the create new directory part into a pop over. It would actually _increase_ the time to create a new directory (additional click/tab), but in my case it'd be okay since I would be creating new ones so infrequently. The idea is a "new directory" button with that form in a pop over when active.

I'd consider using list elements instead of a table for the directory listing and link listing.

For the directory listing, I'd experiment with replacing the links count/action dropdown with something right next to or immediately below the link to the directory. i.e.

        MyDirectory <link icon> 3 • rename • remove

With more emphasis (using styles) on the name of the directory. Hovering over <link icon> 3 could have a title attr that said something like "3 links in MyDirectory".

But the project works fine and the UI isn't really taking too much away from using it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty detailed suggestions! Thanks. I'll keep them in mind when iterating on next version of the project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A chrome extension would be necessary for something like this to replace Pinboard/Instapaper for me (I see that in the TODO already). But looks good otherwise. The only thing stopping me is the time commitment of hosting another app for personal use.

<comment><USER4> Why do you want to replace Pinboard/Instapaper? What feature do you miss?

<comment><USER5> I don't think they archive links. They only bookmark them. Am I wrong?

<comment><USER6> Pinboard has an archive option at a higher subscription level.

<comment><USER7> Where higher is still a ridiculously cheap $25/yr

<comment><USER8> And you don't have to care about disaster recovery, backup and upgrades? If I were half-serious about my bookmarks, I'd pay that much. I am not though and pinboard free account is enough.

<comment><USER6> Not just that, but also link rot. In five years how many of those URLs will still have useful info on them?

(I didn't even know pinboard had free accounts.)

<comment><USER8> IIRC, I paid a small fee once, 10$ or something, but even when the website changed to subscription only, I was never asked to pay additional fee.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is cool. I am going to try this out. See also webrecorder.io.

I want a record button in my browser bar that I can leave on!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I didn't know about webrecorder. It also looks cool. I'll look into it.

<comment><USER10> You might also be interested in [https://github.com/oduwsdl/ipwb](https://github.com/oduwsdl/ipwb), the author of webrecorder is a major contributor to this.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks quite innovative. I'll see if I can get some ideas from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Exciting! I'm still badly in need of a bookmark manager (and hopefully sync- capable) since xmarks shutdown. I'm looking at Shiori, ymarks, and Floccus. How does Reminiscence compare?

<comment><AUTHOR> Reminiscence has some advance features like auto-tagging, auto-summarization and archiving in various formats, which separates it from other bookmark managers. Few days back, I posted it on r/selfhosted and there one fellow redditor suggested to contact Floccus dev, instead to writing bookmark addon for every browser. Hopefully, I'll get in touch with the Floccus dev and will see if it can support Reminiscence in some form or other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love this and love that it's built in Python, but…

"Do not attempt to compete with Pinboard"[0]

[0] [https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious...](https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious/)

<comment><USER13> I like Pinboard and think it's a great service.

Personally, I don't like services for software. I like this model where I pay for my own hosting (which I do already) and run OSS software for free. To me, the DIY model is suitable and sustainable for user level programmers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> very cool. may also be worth mentioning the difference between this and projects like shaarli, [https://github.com/pirate/bookmark- archiver](https://github.com/pirate/bookmark-archiver) , etc.

<comment><USER15> Thanks fo linking bookmark-archiver here. I liked the sound of reminiscence but unfortunately it requires bleeding edge python and tries to integrate the webserver (and many other things that don't need to be). It's a matter of taste I suppose but I couldn't get it working. bookmark-archiver just works on all my systems, old and new.

<comment><USER16> How is 3.5+ bleeding edge? It's been out for more than 3 years, and is installed by default on most current OS releases.

I personally only support the latest stable release, so I only support 3.7.

Python is extremely backwards-compatible so there's never been any breakages for me, from 3.4 to 3.5 to 3.6 to 3.7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice. Are there plans to add saving of annotations (highlighting text and string to the link) like Diigo? Annotations seem to remain a elusive feature in a self hosted solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll add support for annotations in project's TODO list. It'll be a nice addition to any archiving solution.

<comment><USER17> Starred the project, look forward to it. This is the only feature that has me tied to using a hosted solution, instead of a self-hosted solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love the idea, but is this a little bit overkill if you just want to mirror your bookmarks? There's several simple spidering tools out there that you could change the User-Agent on in order to get mobile or desktop pages, and then you don't need to maintain or run any servers or special tools. I would export my bookmarks, run a cron job on them with a spider tool, and commit the result to Git.

<comment><USER19> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER20> Not really the same, as setting up Reminiscence seems to be fairly involved as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> HTTrack is something that has been around for years and can rewrite the pages it downloads to internal links to the archived webpage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think, wget is even better and much older than it.

<comment><USER21> Ah thanks. HTTrack would be easier for those not educated in the command line though.

<comment><AUTHOR> By the way, this application is not just about archiving. For regular archiving wget (and in your case HTTrack), are more than sufficient. Reminiscence has been developed for bookmarking, archiving, organizing and access from anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a ghetto version of this - I just print web pages to PDF, and then archive the PDF locally to storage. I have every website of interest to me I've ever read since 1997 saved this way - and can harvest a lot of data from the 16,000+ PDF files I now have.

Beats me why this isn't just a normal feature in the browser. No need for no stinkin' SAAS to do it ..

<comment><USER23> I like the robustness of this type of solutions, so here's a bunch of questions:

Do you also use a folder hierarchy for separate topics, and-or a file naming scheme?

And have you scripted the pdf generation to an extent, or is everything done by hand? (I suppose manual saving and pdf naming might work as a fairly nice "bullshit filter", at least for some period.)

How much time does it usually take for you to store a link that way?

<comment><USER22> Folder hierarchy: nope. Just 15k+ files in a sub-directory. There is a reason for this: its just so convenient to grep for a subject I'm interested in, thus:

        $ ls -l |  grep "hacker news"

PDF Generation scripted? Also no. This is just a print-to-pdf hotkey away, no need to script it. The PDF names come from the title of the web page, so its sometimes necessary to adjust this and make my own title, but only about 2% of the time.

Time to store? As much time as it takes to print most web pages to PDF - i.e. mere seconds.

And there is so much data to be harvested in the collection - best of all, its all mine. No third-party gets to see it, collate the data, see where my interests are, sell me things, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would love the ability to bookmark an entire site. Does this allow full spidering?

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently, it does not allow full spidering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> What do you do if the page has videos and gifs? Does this support those?

<comment><AUTHOR> About videos, I'm thinking about providing some way to add custom user scripts, so that users can use their favorite download manager to download media elements from site.

About gif, they are will be included in the archived page. Everything with 'img' tag will be fetched for archiving.</comment></comment>


GitHub vs. Gitlab - <AUTHOR>

If one has a server, Is GitLab better option than Github? <comment><USER2> we use it in work, it seems pretty good alternative especially if you don't wana spend any dime.</comment>


Prosecutors Have Prepared Indictment of Julian Assange, a Filing Reveals - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assange-indictment-wikileaks.html <comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18464358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18464358).

</comment><comment><USER4> A lot of people don't realize wikileaks had tons of dumps on Russia and conservative US politicians and refuse to accept the information in the progressive leaks due to supposed Russian or conservative involvement.

Also as far as I know people don't realize anything wikileaks ever released has been refuted or proven false. There are google DKIM keys on all the legally and morally incriminating emails.

<comment><USER5> Just to repeat myself one more time here for those not aware of this since this is the top comment.

Wikileaks has almost definitely influenced the result of Kenyan election in 2007 by releasing the Kroll report about vast corruption.

Assange even got an Amnesty International award for leaking information then. He was a hero back then but suddenly when the shoe is on the other foot, he's a villain.

<comment><USER6> He became the villain when he became highly selective with the material he releases, which turned him from being a provider for whistle-blowers to a propagandist.

<comment><USER7> >he became highly selective with the material he releases

That's a pretty big accusation! Do you have _any_ evidence to support this claim?

Why have there never been any leaks with an attached note calling out WL for failure to release?

<comment><USER8> Why don't you point everyone to the non-existent leaks on the GOP.

<comment><USER9> Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

<comment><USER10> That logic applies to leaks abkut you too? What have you been up to all your life?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The government filed a motion to seal a criminal complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia. [1] Such a motion, according to Local Rule 49B in this district [2] lays forth that such a motion shall include

(1) A statement as to why sealing is necessary, and why another procedure will not suffice;

(2) References to governing case law; and

(3) A statement as to the period of time the government seeks to have the matter maintained under seal and as to how the matter is to be handled upon unsealing.

The slip-up happened in the third condition: the period of time the government seeks to have the matter maintained under seal. In the motion, paragraph 5, they argue it "would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint", which implies that, at the least, the government has prepared an indictment against Julian Assange.

Could they have filed this motion without referencing Assange? Possibly - <USER2> another suspect is sought in connection. If they could have referenced another sealed criminal complaint? That I don't know, frankly.

[1] [https://pacer- documents.s3.amazonaws.com/179/399086/18919235...](https://pacer- documents.s3.amazonaws.com/179/399086/18919235200.pdf)

[2] [http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/localrules/localrulesedva.pdf](http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/localrules/localrulesedva.pdf)

edit: The motion was filed on 22nd of August this year.

edit 2: Could also be that they have made a copy-paste error. At that point you possibly cannot tell IMO if that is the case. There is the prosecution that says this was made in error.

</comment><comment><USER12> To everyone leaving comments, please read the article.

> _... suggesting that prosecutors had inadvertently pasted text from a > similar court filing into the wrong document and then filed it._

This was a copy-paste error from another filing.

Somehow it seems everyone is missing this fact in their armchair analysis.

<comment><USER13> If it was a copy-paste error from another filing, that means that there is another filing (sealed, as no previous public filing has) which relates to charges against Assange.

Either way, the same basic information is revealed by the error; the only way a copy-paste error changes the basic import is if it's from a dummy document, but then you have to believe the Justice Department uses "Julian Assange" as the name of the generic defendant in dummy documents.

<comment><USER12> Correct.

At the time that I posted this 100% of the initial 20+ comments were under the impression that this particular indictment was related to Assange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> if the NSA position is "you dont have to hide anything if you are innocent" why the DoS are pursuing the wistleblower who expose goverment secrets? wait, I think it works only one way.

<comment><USER15> Something to this effect is accurate. Assange aired war crimes commited by my country to the world that were purposefully and fraudulently classified. Rather than own up to the crimes commited, the politicans at the time chose to shoot the messenger and created an international incident.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Obviously we don't know all the facts here, but since this is linked to the Mueller investigation, we can make an educated guess that this is not to do with anything that occurred before Assange entered Ecuador.

Whilst we know a fair bit about his actions before (for which he was never charged), afterwards gets significantly more obscure but certainly he's been hanging out with some dodgy characters (including the one mentioned in the article) and appears to have been a sitting accomplice in a plot to destabilise the US.

So, whilst this disclosure is a huge cock-up, there's no reason to believe any of this has free press or free speech implications.

<comment><USER11> The motion itself [1] has zero reference to the Mueller investigation. It is in fact about Title 18 U.S.C. Section 2242b, which is states that

"Whoever [...] knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18 years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years or for life."

The defendant in this case is not Assange, but obviously someone who has some sort of connection with Assange in this matter, as stated in paragraph 5 of the motion. Could it be that it is something just the get him and then slap some additional charges onto him? Sure. But this motion does not tell us that.

[1] [https://pacer- documents.s3.amazonaws.com/179/399086/18919235...](https://pacer- documents.s3.amazonaws.com/179/399086/18919235200.pdf)

<comment><USER17> This brings to my mind the suspicuous dating site approced by UN that was used to attack Assange and UN declaration that defended Assange:

[https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics- government/electio...](https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics- government/election/article110904727.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And because a journalist wants to protect his source (aka. Seth Rich/his family) we have people calling him a traitor and worse. Sadly, this is one time I wish he'd put down his integrity and finally unveil who delivered him Hilary's emails.

<comment><USER19> In the "Collateral Murder" era, Assange seemed to be nothing more than a whistleblowing journalist with good intentions.

At this point though, it's very clear that Assange is a partisaned actor with a very clear and very biased agenda (the fall of America). Whether or not you agree with that agenda does not change the fact that it is anything but impartial and he can't be trusted to deliver fair or balanced reporting.

<comment><USER20> Being a biased journalist wasn't illegal last time i checked.

It's not "very clear" to me that Assange's agenda is the "fall of America".

<comment><USER19> Where did I say or imply it was?

It's very clear that his agenda is a destabilization of America rather than a unilateral revealing of the truth.

The former is not an agenda I align with, but the latter is (even if it causes the destabilization of America as a side-effect).

If you haven't seen how these leaks are very targeted in both timing and scope, you haven't been paying attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "WikiLeaks published thousands of emails that year from Democrats during the presidential race that were stolen by Russian intelligence officers. The hackings were a major part of Moscow's campaign of disruption."

So, his indictment, if it's happening, is related to the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election?

It also doesn't sound like we have clarity if Assange is going to be indicted: "It was not clear if prosecutors have filed charges against Mr. Assange."

</comment><comment><USER22> The message being sent seems to be that shining light on government things, a hero makes not.

I'm not going to compare Assange with Superman, but remember that Superman was Clark Kent and he would have also shown the world if someone did nasty things while publicly wearing a halo of virtue (government).

</comment><comment><USER23> Does anyone happen to know why the NYT are reporting Russia as a source of the democrat emails as a fact without any caveats? Is there any actual evidence for it at all?

<comment><USER24> [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/guccifer- russ...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/guccifer-russia- mueller.html)

<comment><USER23> Which is the part of that considered to be "evidence"?

The diagram in that story is just comical, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Where in the USA is Julian Assange?

<comment><USER26> Supermax in a few years. USA does not forget or forgive these things. The later moves to help Russia distribute emails that moved a US election are just the icing on the cake.

<comment><USER18> I've still yet to see any quantifiable data points which say how exactly the elections were swayed due to anything Assange was a part of.

<comment><USER24> There's loads.

Trump standing up on a podium and asking Russia for help and then retweeting the leaks.

It had such an impact one lunatic entered a pizza parlour with a gun and another posted pipe bombs to the clintons , Obama , Soros etc.

<comment><USER18> I suppose you're referring to pizza-gate. I'm also assuming you did zero digging into that narrative on your own. Keep eating that gov't cereal from the MSM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So sad to see all this effort to "kill the messenger" instead of first prosecuting the ones that committed murders and war crimes.

<comment><USER28> It saddens me to see so many people I consider "progressives" who are cheering this on like a crowd of mobs about to burn a witch.

<comment><USER29> At the end of the day,I think everybody knew or had an idea that how this is going to end.

Unfortunately, Assange and in effect WikiLeaks took a political and partisan position, and gave the moral footing for the authorities to that end.

<comment><USER30> What moral footing is that?

* There is no unbiased media outlet

* There are no laws against partisan media outlets

* It's not even clear that Wikileaks is partisan, despite rantings to the opposite effect

* Nothing wikileaks has released has ever been proven to be false.

<comment><USER31> I think it's pretty clear wikileaks has been used in a partisan manner in the 2016 presidential elections. I don't believe most serious journalists would have published most of Podesta's emails, if any. Especially considering the probable sources.

<comment><USER30> Why would they not publish these emails?

<comment><USER31> Because most of them are completely irrelevant and there is very little informational benefit to warrant this privacy violation. I mean... risotto recipes?

After wikileaks published the material journalists did cover some of it. And even so, they partly regret that, in light of what we know now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I thought he was already in the US, he promised he'd go there if Chelsea Manning was released?

</comment><comment><USER33> I remember when Wikileaks came out and Assange was cool; how they were the first (at least for a wide audience) to do secure drops for whistleblowers.

Funny thing; I can't seem to place when things changed for Wikileaks. The rape case in Sweden maybe or the manning leaks.

Now they appear to be outright operates for the Russian state.

</comment><comment><USER34> If the US wanted to punish Assange maybe the best way is to massively ignore him and get everyone else to do the same. He's an attention freak, so walking out of his self-imposed imprisonment to resounding silence would hit him where it hurts.

(Personally I think whistle blowers are an important part of applying transparency and checks to companies & governments, just some of the information merchants aren't the nicest of people.)

</comment><comment><USER35> NYT:

> _Mr. Assange has lived for years in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London and > would have to be arrested and extradited if he were to face charges in > federal court, altogether a multistep diplomatic and legal process._

Meanwhile, The Guardian:

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/04/julian- assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/04/julian-assange- wikileaks-arrest-friday-un-investigation)

> _Julian Assange is in arbitrary detention, UN panel finds_

Also from The Guardian:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley- mannin...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning- cruel-inhuman-treatment-un)

> _Bradley Manning 's treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules_

So, yes, simply "living" in the embassy. Nice dodge, NYT.

The USA are the bad guys here, and no amount of deliberate obfuscation by the CIA is going to be able to ultimately hide that. This whole thing is a national shame.

<comment><USER36> He can leave at any time how can it be arbitrary - trouble is Mr Assange fled bail which is an offence in all countries.

<comment><USER35> When he leaves he will be transferred to the US and tortured, just like Manning was. His trial will be a farce, just like Manning's (did you know POTUS—Obama at the time—declared Manning guilty prior to trial?). You, or I, or anyone would skip out on bail if appearing means you get given to torturers who will torture you without a trial. That's not his choice, it's the choice of the people out to physically harm him.

If he stays he will never receive a trial or be allowed to face his accusers.

Either way his human rights are violated. That's why it's arbitrary detention.

It's why his indictment has been kept secret; they want to physically grab him before they have to justify, legally, the charges against a journalist who published things in the public interest. If they weren't being shady about the whole thing, he could have been charged by now - but doing so would require them to be subject to legal scrutiny. They don't want that, because they don't have a leg to stand on. They won't tip their hand officially until he's already physically in their (or their allies') custody.

<comment><USER37> > When he leaves he will be transferred to the US and tortured

If that was the real concern and not merely the excuse, _why bother with Sweden_? The UK has an extradition treaty with the USA. Sweden's extradition treaty with the USA """prohibits extradition on the basis of "a political offense" or "an offense connected with a political offense.""""

<comment><USER17> In theory the treaty might prohibt that or torture, but in practice Sweden has extradited persons to USA who have been then tortured: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repatriation_of_Ahmed_Agiza_and_Muhammad_al- Zery)

<comment><USER37> Missing the point _that if the USA wanted him they didn't need to go via Sweden_.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why there's no such thing as a gifted child - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/25/no-such-thing-as-a-gifted-child-einstein-iq <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14846052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14846052)

And flagged.</comment>


UK phone masts attacked amid 5G-coronavirus conspiracy theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/04/uk-phone-masts-attacked-amid-5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory <comment><USER2> I could understand people being concerned about cancer or something. But to link 5G to Coronavirus just shows we have reached a new level of stupid in this country. (Which is saying a lot given Brexit, the previous General election result and how some people have reacted to the lockdown)

</comment><comment><USER3> I see the crazy is getting out. Conspiracy theory that 5g is responsible for the coronavirus.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good! I hope many people will follow.

<comment><USER5> Can you explain why you think this is good?

<comment><USER4> I don't want a smarthome, smartmeters and a future where every IoT device, f.e. TVs, is built with their own 5g modem to spy on citizens. This is going to be the fundament of a survelliance age of never seen, previously unimaginable, intensity. I certainly did not ask for 5g and many did not. I don't care about the claimed crazy high download rate, which obviously will even drop as more people use it.

<comment><USER6> Yeah me neither. Who even asked for being able to stream more videos while walking down the street or in the metro or whatever? People are already locked enough to their phones, why enable it even more ?

I just don't see any other logic in rolling in 5G than the hardware and telecoms manufacturers patting themselves in the back in selling people more useless infrastructure and hardware.

I mean, shouldn't we somehow try to alleviate the current situation of people watching their phones all the time, and not make it worse ? Part of me is happy that people are taking to the streets and destroying these high frequency emitting basestations. We haven't even tested what these do in the long run.

<comment><USER7> I really don't think these conspiracy theory led comments belong on HN at all, condoning uninformed/misled people destroying equipment is ridiculous.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Current Uptime:14 Years 69 Days 7 Hours 38 Minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.uptimes-project.org/hosts/view/150

<comment><AUTHOR> Anyone have any openVMS/cluster uptime war stories to share? I also found this:

<http://www.openvms.org/stories.php?story=03/11/28/7758863>

</comment><comment><USER2> I wonder if it's patched for Y2K. I remember at school, there were a couple of databases we were afraid to ever reboot because we weren't sure if they would turn back on.</comment>


Most of us are wrong about how the world has changed (especially the pessimists) - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/wrong-about-the-world <comment><USER2> Experiential effect? Most of visible debate in western ASCII media is people who feel net visible economic downturn and ignore the huge material improvement in emerging economies?

I've been lucky enough to travel worldwide for work, for the last twenty years. I think things are getting better and my experiential sense is fed by global homogeneous materialism. You can get a better flat white coffee in Kathmandu than in Quebec City.</comment>


Free Microsoft pro products and trainings for students - <AUTHOR> http://www.dreamspark.com

<comment><USER2> This is a great deal - bad headline and bad site but a good deal for startups and students.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you refuse to do stupid assignments? - <AUTHOR> Background:
I'm a systems engineer, back in a few weeks ago there was a wifi outage in several meet rooms. The incident has affected a few C ranking officers' access to the internet. The company president went outrage and CTO offered my manager to set up a few android pads to monitor the WiFi connection.
I told the manager that it's stupid thing todo and why in detail, anyway, he could not say no to the CTO. We eventually bought 10+ Android pads and placed them around the workspace. He setup a simple automation flow to log WLAN connection and disconnection events to a txt file, and each week we will have to manually fetch the file and put it into an Xls file.
Situation:
It's my shift this week. Should I say no to this kind os BS? Or should be quitting the job, this happens inclines that a lot of things that have gone wrong already. <comment><USER2> > each week we will have to manually fetch the file and put it into an XlS > file.

Could you just automate this bit? Please your boss and remove the manual task from your duties?

<comment><AUTHOR> I could but it's doesn't change the nature of the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We use PRTG with tons of sensors to catch situations like that.

Imho: The requirement to alert when WIFI is down is not stupid.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have snmptraps and rsyslog for monitoring, the management somehow don't believe things from the AC/AP, as they are data from the "vendor" or something.

<comment><USER4> All of that failed to prevent that outage. Someone failed to convince your management that the wifi wont go down again..

<comment><USER5> Monitoring can't possibly prevent outages. All it can do is alert someone when an outage happens.

Based on OP's description, it sounds like that alert will be up to a week late, because the connectivity data is aggregated manually.

<comment><USER4> His existing monitoring setup has snmp traps n rsyslog involved somehow? It didnt detect the outage soon enough for them to prevent the issue from escalating into...whatever it is now...

I mean...end user complaints is the cheapest kind of monitoring solution but maybe its not politically acceptable?

You could totally do redundancy and failovers and stuff. And perhaps automate some of that. And monitoring is there to detect the "down" to trigger some of these?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Um. Monitoring is not stupid. If you have a better solution to the problem. Thats not stupid either. Your problem is wifi availability. I think?</comment>


Twitter Ads Are About to Get More Relevant - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter-ads-are-about-to-get-more-relevant.php <comment><USER2> Important topic, crappy article. I can't downvote but I would if I could</comment>


Reddit Welcomes Michael Seibel to Board of Directors - <AUTHOR> https://redditblog.com/2020/06/10/reddit-welcomes-michael-seibel-to-board-of-directors/ <comment><USER4> A dumb but serious question: what powers does a board of directors have? In terms of day to day operations, engineering, product, marketing and so on?

<comment><USER5> Bear in mind that not all companies are quite as big as this lot. I don't know the actual stats for any country but I think that small companies are quite important in terms of additive scale. In general your small company has a nasty habit of hiring people, abiding by the rules and paying taxes.

So, I happen to be a Managing Director of a small company (UK) - we have 20 odd employees and a t/o of ~£1.5M. We are a private company, not public (more later.) We as a board have simple duties, largely decided by ourselves. We also have responsibilities that are dictated by the country: we have to file accounts on time to a proscribed format, pay corporation tax regularly, pay VAT returns on a regular basis etc. We also have to have a certain structure (two directors minimum) and hold regular meetings such as the AGM. There's a few other requirements but in general you do it how you like.

We also have shareholders who are not directors. These are employees who have served long enough (>four or so years is the general rule.) These are Class B shareholders (Me and the other directors are Class A). The difference is Class A stakeholders can vote on stuff - ie run the company and Class B can benefit from company profits but don't get to run my company.

Just to be clear: me and my partners (2) run the company but quite a few people get to benefit via shareholdings. If the shit hits the fan, me and my partners get to be kicked in the bollocks, shareholders only get tickled.

Oooh, SARS-CoV-2: We'll be fine for a while longer.

<comment><USER6> > shareholders only get tickled

So, how can we become shareholders of your company?

<comment><USER7> Get employed in their company, and after certain seniority and performance you'll possibly be able to negotiate share ownership.

<comment><USER5> Quite. We will never set the world on fire. No one is likely to become a millionaire but we all sleep at night and earn enough to be comfortable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I struggle to see any successful path for reddit that doesn't devolve into being more like Facebook. Godspeed to the new CEO and I look forward to hearing their vision for the company.

<comment><USER9> What more is there to do with reddit? All their new ideas in the last 5 years have been poached from other social sites that did it first. It will always be a cesspool in the same manner that twitter and facebook with always be cesspools but that's more a reflection on society than management. They will always be pawns in the bot game, political game and advertising/sponsorship game because they are conduits only. Nothing good comes out of reddit that is not put into reddit from the outside.

<comment><USER10> _> Nothing good comes out of reddit that is not put into reddit from the outside._

The good that comes from inside Reddit is the curation, as much as everyone likes to complain about it.

They have become more proactive about banning hate and grief subreddits and have a system for reporting and shadowbanning bad faith individuals. If anything one could argue they come down a little too hard on borderline controversial subs but it's such a tough line to walk.

<comment><USER11> "Curation"?

By five totally unaccountable mods, all pushing brands for money?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/gitwbo/pointing_out_how_much_power_few_people_have_gets/)

That curation is "The good that comes from inside Reddit"???

<comment><USER12> Dramatics aside, the best subreddits tend to be the ones that are strongly curated. /r/AskHistorians, /r/neutralpolitics, etc.

<comment><USER13> The reason those subs are some of the best is not just because they are strongly curated, but also because they are fairly curated based on well defined, sensible rules.

The unaccountable, power-abusing moderators that are being discussed in this thread remove posts and ban users completely arbitrarily. If these mods had a rule system like r/AskHistorians and applied them as fairly, there wouldn't be nearly as much concern over the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This could also be an excellent move if they're planning to expand RPAN into a proper streaming platform. There's definitely potential for it.

<comment><USER11> Right. With Twitch just having given in to copyright trolls and deplatformed all the DJs with multiple strikes against 2-3 year old content and no tools for the Twitch users to practically deal with the new punishments in a timely enough fashion to not get auto-permabanned? I cannot see "a proper streaming platform" happening under his watch. :sigh:

<comment><USER8> Not sure why you're being downvotted. Twitch is going through a DRM crisis right now that may make other comparable products impossible to build for other companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dear Reddit, for the love of Mike .. PLEASE treat reddit as a web-first platform.

You are killing the golden goose by trying to force people toward the app - <USER2> gradually removing features and usability from the mobile web site and constantly reminding people they "should" use the app.

I don't want reddit as an 'app', I want reddit to be readable/scrollable on mobile and web without any form of coercion.

<comment><USER16> I don't think they're killing it. Anecdotally, all my friends prefer the app and the redesign to the old web client.

I suspect this anecdata is supported by Reddit's metrics, otherwise they wouldn't be pushing so hard for it (barring some other long term goal)

Not that I like the changes. I much prefer the old version.

<comment><USER17> They're so hostile to their own users I'm not sure they get accurate results from their metrics.

\- They change you back to the new design every few days.

\- They constantly tell you to use the app (thankfully you can disable this at least).

\- The old reddit design has a sidebar with helpful content, but this is not automatically present in the redesign. If you're a mod you have to manually copy that content over to the redesign and keep both updated separately. A lot of mods don't seem to know this so some communities just don't have their community information in the redesign.

\- The new redesign on mobile web is so bad that those that don't know about how to get the old design will probably use the app to get something that works.

I'm glad old.reddit still exists, but I think if they just scrapped the entire new site it would be a better product. Probably worse for 'engagement' though because without infinite scroll, gifs loading everywhere, and other addictive hacks, people would just read what they wanted to and leave. The horror.

(Also r/hnblogs traffic has most people using the old design, but there's an obvious selection bias in that community.)

<comment><USER18> > new redesign on mobile web is so bad

The funniest part is plenty of 3rd party apps had been doing an amazing job already. All reedit had to do was acquire one of them on the cheap or steal design cues from the ones that were most popular.

Instead they created this monstrosity which till date lags behind many 3rd party apps in features and fluidity.

> old.reddit

RES is the only way to use reddit, and they can pry it from my cold dead hands.

<comment><USER19> > All reedit had to do was acquire one of them on the cheap or steal design > cues from the ones that were most popular.

They already tried this with Alien Blue

<comment><USER20> Why didn't they keep it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Posing the question to gain more familiarity with African-Americans in tech: who were the other candidates for this position?

<comment><USER22> There was a reddit announcement the other day that stated /u/kn0thing was stepping down from the board and requested that a black person fill his place.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/gxas21/upcom...](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/gxas21/upcoming_changes_to_our_content_policy_our_board/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

<comment><USER23> are boards not considered employees. feel like this would violate labor laws.

<comment><USER24> They are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is this related to resignation of one of the co-founders in the last week who said among other things "...I urge my position to be filled by a man of color" or is this an unrelated story? Just want to understand that context.

<comment><USER26> He seemed like the obvious choice, so, seems like a jerk move to blast out a virtue signal for yourself at his expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Canonical source: [https://redditblog.com/2020/06/10/reddit-welcomes-michael- se...](https://redditblog.com/2020/06/10/reddit-welcomes-michael-seibel-to- board-of-directors/)

<comment><USER28> Ok, we'll change to that from [https://angel.co/today/stories/reddit-names-y- combinator-ceo...](https://angel.co/today/stories/reddit-names-y-combinator- ceo-michael-seibel-as-alexis-ohanian-s-replacement-23521). Normally we don't move in the direction of corporate press releases, but in this case the original article has so little information that we might as well.

Also, the other article's title ("Reddit names Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel as Alexis Ohanian's replacement") seemed to be leading to all manner of misunderstandings in the comments, such as Michael becoming Reddit's CEO, or Reddit taking over HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was interested in comparing to what the previous welcome blog post was like:

> Reddit Welcomes Porter Gale to Board of Directors > May 28, 2019

[https://redditblog.com/2019/05/28/reddit-welcomes-porter- gal...](https://redditblog.com/2019/05/28/reddit-welcomes-porter-gale-to- board-of-directors/)

<comment> globular-toast Interesting. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Please get rid of the flow where it shows me other threads when I click on the comments of a current thread. I'm never going to switch to a new thread from the comments. I just want to read the comments.

<comment><USER31> Why don't we just tell it like it is? The majority of comments here reflect the fact that Reddit is a garbage site run by a garbage company. Used to be great, more garbage every day. They leverage network effect to abuse their users and to suck. I look forward to the day they fail and the free market replaces them.

<comment><USER32> I have quite an intricate system build up to get the most quality out of reddit as poossible —it's still quite bad, but it's better. I have been thinking of making a blog post or soemthing about it.

\- I have a multireddit with select magic the gathering subs

\- I have a multireddit with select tech subs

\- I have a multireddit with general high quality subs

\- My "all" feed has HUNDREDS of subs filtered off. This is a life long excersice. Whenever I see a meme on "all", i filter that sub away.

I have customized FB as well, removing every CS element on the site except the shortcuts list for groups on the left, where I can acess a few important groups.

My main problem is Twitter now. Why the fuck is every american news in the form of a tweet? The site is awful to use, and I really don't want anothet SoMe account.

<comment><USER33> Depending on what exactly you want, nitter.net is a fairly good twitter client, although you need to use an rss reader to follow particular accounts.

<comment><USER32> wow, thanks.

EDIT: here are ways to automate [https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Extensions](https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Extensions)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There is now a triangle between YC, Reddit and China via Tencent's $150M Series D investment in Reddit.

I wonder which YC startups form this triangle. Certainly having the CEO is a kind of a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER35> Why stick to the insular Silicon Valley club and not get someone who's devoted their life to civil rights? There are a ton of community activists who could actually bring a fresh perspective.

EDIT: I do not mean to question his particular qualifications or his commitment to change, only to comment on the fact that it could have been someone from a different walk of life. Tech leadership in Silicon Valley does not appear inclined to affect change.

<comment><USER36> Presumably the duties of a Silicon Valley board member would center on running a Silicon Valley company, which a Silicon Valley CEO would be uniquely qualified to do.

<comment><USER35> This is exactly my point. They brought someone in who presumably is going to see Monthly Active Users as the metric to live or die by when what the world needs from Reddit/Twitter/FB is a more social-good focus. It might be worth it to shed a few users and lose a few ad dollars to make positive change on their platforms but with a Silicon Valley CEO on the board that is unlikely to happen.

<comment><USER37> Let me know when you figure out how to build a social network that can profit from social good.

These days, profit and social good are rarely aligned.

<comment><USER38> This reads to me as a stunning indictment of social networks and profit more than it does a defense of Reddit's board choice and their potential motivations.

<comment><USER11> > This reads to me as a stunning indictment of social networks

Or more generally, going back to the grandparent post here, this reads to me as a stunning indictment of Silicon Valley...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Great success for all of us seibel's out there! There are dozens of us!

</comment><comment><USER40> Congratulations Michael!

</comment><comment><USER41> Good luck mwseibel!

</comment><comment><USER42> Congrats Michael!

</comment><comment><USER43> Serious question - since Ohanian has publicly stated that he urged the board to replace him with black candidate, is there a possibility that could face an EEOC charge?

Perhaps this doesn't apply, as there may not be "applicants" depending upon how their bylaws are set up - without applicants I'm not sure who would have standing.

<comment><USER44> Just because Ohanian asked doesn't mean they had to do it. One can therefore conclude that they still chose a suitable candidate and would have chosen a differently colored candidate could they not find a suitable black candidate.

<comment><USER45> Reddit publicly committed to selecting a director based on race.[0]

Hiring and firing in the US based on race is typically unlawful, even if the candidate is qualified. You can't use race as a qualification.

It's a challenge to the laws, and I assume Reddit(or Conde Nast) wants to raise it.

[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12337775)

<comment><USER46> Perhaps I am naive, but I'm going to guess that whoever Reddit's counsel is was briefly cleared on this.

<comment><USER45> Absolutely. It's a bet. Heads, it works. Tails, Condé Nast becomes known for litigation against the Trump DOJ, fighting against systemic racism.

For the lawyers, it beats mopping up Bon Appetit's editor in brownface.

<comment><USER47> So requiring to pay for a position only for a specific skin color is not actual systemic racism, as long as color is not white, because white people are racists and this fights against that, or am I completely missing the mark?

I'm sure people here are also well versed in silicon valley HR hiring practices regarding skin color based quotas.

<comment><USER18> I think OP's point has to do with the perceived value of their moral signaling vs the actual morals themselves.

It is a win-win for Reddit in terms of perception, whether they have to fight a case because of it or not. If anything, this would be an 'any publicity is good publicity' situation.

Now if it is actually inline with a truly moral stance...who cares. In this system there are only 3 morals. Money, money and more money.

<comment><USER43> I was explicitly not taking a position on the action itself. I'm honestly interested to see how this might open a company to litigation.

<comment><USER45> 1\. A director looks more like an employee post-AB5, so it could be employment discrimination in California.

2\. Independent contractors are protected against some race-based mistreatment in California.

3\. The Unruh Act prohibits California businesses from race discrimination in offering "advantages" and "privileges" to non employees.

4\. The next employee fired will have a much better case that their employment was terminated based on race — as Reddit openly does make decisions based on race.

Granted, there are responses to all of these. Maybe even constitutional defenses. Maybe they'll argue some other state's laws apply, but all US states have pretty broad non discrimination laws — for a reason.

<comment><USER48> Section 2750.3 of the California Labor Code was added by AB5, and specifically excludes board members as employees.

<comment><USER45> Like many things around AB5, that's not straightforward. They'd have to severely limit his actual involvement to avoid employee status.

[https://www.natlawreview.com/article/do-directors-avoid- empl...](https://www.natlawreview.com/article/do-directors-avoid-employee- status-under-ab-5)

<comment><USER48> A director of the company will easily pass the ABC test anyway. Especially given that he's a director at lots of other companies and has an existing full time job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I am sorry for him. I know as a fact that he's brilliant and fully deserves the position, but given the circumstances (Ohanian resigning and calling for someone black to replace him) he will always have to live with people having the reasonable doubt that he didn't arrive there for merit alone.

<comment><USER50> You could say that to any "first X to become/do Y"

<comment><USER51> Obama? How would that even work? Bush saying hey guys, I believe we should...

He got there on merit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm surprised anyone agrees to be CEO of Reddit these days. No matter who holds the position, they always end up being vilified by both Reddit's users and its detractors.

<comment><USER28> Board member, not CEO. The previous title seems to have created some confusions ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23483666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23483666)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Ohanian's polite request was worthless. Asking nicely for change doesn't work. Victories must be be seized, then held tenaciously at great effort and cost.

<comment><USER54> He got just what he asked for, so maybe this example doesn't work for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Being a republican, I'm scared of the leadership choices social platforms are making. Michael Seibel is a pro-Democrat and anti republican and anti-Trump.

For god sake, allow reddit to have free-speech and don't censor the voices of "silent majority" in the USA.

P.S 60M American citizens voted for Trump.

<comment><USER56> I don't see why Republicans can't just use another platform like gab or voat if they think reddit has become hostile to them. Reddit being a private company has every right to control what ideologies are promoted on their pages just as you have every right to start your own reddit clone and moderate it however you feel.

There's even an open source core with which to start from: [https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit](https://github.com/reddit- archive/reddit)

<comment><USER57> Payment processing and hosting aren't treated like phone companies; they're allowed to be discriminatory in who they do business with.

Is there a valid reason for that? No. Is the end result of there being no law forcing financial and manufacturers of modern printing presses like those to do business with everyone a threat to the First Amendment? Absolutely, and I'd argue the state has a compelling interest here to force them.

Until that changes, "just build your own platform" isn't helpful.

<comment><USER56> You don't have to use a hosting service; you can purchase servers by yourself and run your own datacenter without ever involving a third party.

Payment processors are not required; you can accept physical checks or digital currency such as Bitcoin without involving a third party processor. A bank isn't allowed to close your account unless you do something illegal, so aren't you safe there?

Modern day conveniences like AWS and Stripe are just that - conveniences. You can do what they do on your own. If you manage to find enough paying customers, then there is nothing stopping you from becoming your own manufacturer or payment processor. If you cannot find enough paying customers (in the form of subscriptions or donations), then arguably there is no reason for you to exist anyways.

<comment><USER58> Not sure what part of "payment processors can discriminate" you don't understand. Even if you purchased your own hardware, your ISP, the payment processor you use to pay your ISP, your registrar, the payment processor you use to pay your registrar, etc. are not neutral entities. That makes "host your own" meaningless.

<comment><USER56> The payment processor I use to pay my ISP and registrar like...my bank account?

To date I have never heard of anyone having their Internet cut off because their ISP did not like their political views. I am pretty sure neonazis are welcome to use all ISPs, from Comcast to Cox.

<comment><USER58> >The payment processor I use to pay my ISP and registrar like...my bank account?

Even if it's your bank account, you're still using a payment processor. Even if that's your bank, they can also decide not to do business with you.

>To date I have never heard of anyone having their Internet cut off because their ISP did not like their political views. I am pretty sure neonazis are welcome to use all ISPs, from Comcast to Cox.

Google what happened to Stormfront. Not that I agree with their views, but their ISPs, registrars, etc. told them to pound sand.

<comment><USER56> What happened to Stormfront was due to them being involved in egging on mass shootings. You are free to say whatever you want but you cannot incite violence. Is that not the system working? They were not banned for being racists; they were banned for being killers.

<comment><USER58> >What happened to Stormfront was due to them being involved in egging on mass shootings. You are free to say whatever you want but you cannot incite violence.

Promotion of hatred is not egging on mass shootings. Inciting violence is indeed illegal, but they were not taken offline due to that.

>They were not banned for being racists; they were banned for being killers.

Incorrect. They were not taken offline due to a order/warrant/etc. They were taken offline because it was politically expedient for their services providers to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> To be fair to Reddit, they've had non-white people on the board before. Like Ellen Pao (who drove me off the platform).

</comment><comment><USER60> This seems like a demotion. Nothing to celebrate. Reddit is cesspool of bots, disinformation. I find 4chan more civil and interesting.

This gentleman would have been better off turning them down.

<comment><USER28> Come now. Reddit is Reddit. This reminds me of Paul McCartney's response to people who don't like the White Album. "It's the Beatles fucking White Album".

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Who cares. They lost me when they made the site unuseable. Do people actully suffer through that abusive UI?

</comment><comment><USER62> Please influence the board to stop caving into censorship and let Reddit return to its free thinking roots. As ever expansive "hate speech" policies take root, the website is being co-opted to reflect just one worldview - <USER3> of the progressive left. This is dangerous and unwelcoming.

<comment><USER63> It would be great if conservative and progressive right wing could help to not let those communities devolve into prejudice, racism and eugenics. It is a problem when an ideology attracts the worst in human kind, as much as I hate the authoritarian left.

<comment><USER64> This is assuming it actually attracts those views instead of attracting false flags of those views.

One subreddit I've seen which seems to allow decent political discussion regardless of side has come under attack because they don't censor certain positions. The attacks are done by very blatant new accounts spamming extremely offensive content in an attempt to get the sub flagged. I've had the displeasure of encountering such posts on multiple occasions before mods were able to remove them. It would not be difficult for those posting such content to determine what is the most offensive thing that won't be removed and then focus on posting that content until either mods have to start censoring it or the subreddit becomes overran with that specific content. In the former case they just repeat until they are happy with the new standards on what are allowed. In the latter case the reputation changes and begins to attract people who are primarily interested in the flooding content, effectively ending the sub as being a place of open discussion. The mods are handling it for now, but that is likely to only be for as long as the flood of the targeted attack doesn't overwhelm them.</comment></comment></comment>


Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/environment/Whatever-Happened-to-the-Hole-in-the-Ozone-Layer-100505.html <comment><USER2> Articles like this remind me of a website idea I had: web-wide mostly human curated collections of articles on something, tracking the progress of something over time and giving a summary. I feel like it's too easy to see something interesting that you'd like to follow but then not have any reasonable way to do so. You can do things like Google Alerts, but you need to choose the right keywords and would probably get a lot of false-positives.

(My example is always an article I read about a decade ago about mouth bacteria which caused no or minimal cavities but could also overpower the normal bacteria, which if introduced would make it so you virtually never needed to go to the dentist)

<comment><USER3> I'd like to take this one step further and actually hold people who make big claims accountable. So part of the proposed website could have members actually contact the scientists (or journalists) every 5 years and find out if they're meeting they're predictions and if not, why not.

<comment><USER4> That's what Long Now's <http://www.longbets.org/> is for :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure people just don't know what to do about it. Those tons of aresoles that people released in the past decades are now in the ozone layer, and they act as catalysts for the decomposition reaction from ozone to o2, changing the equilibrium constant while essentially not being affected.

Unless people figure out some way to eat up whats already been released, there really isn't anything about it that merits news, other than the idea that as many people as possible should know.

<comment><USER6> >Those tons of aresoles

I initially read that as "those tons of arse-holes." Sort of half a Freudian slip?

</comment></comment><comment> rm-rf "Closing the ozone hole actually speeds up the melting of the polar ice caps, according to a 2009 study from Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research."

Unintended consequence?

</comment><comment><USER7> Down here in Argentina we haven't forgotten about it at all. Tourists heading to the far south in the summer are often cautioned to wear lots of sunblock because it's so easy to get sunburned there.

<comment><USER8> Really? An article I read back when the ozone hole was a big news story pointed out that at high latitudes, the sun angle is so low that sunburn is quite unlikely, ozone or no ozone. What are ultraviolet radiation measurements in populated places in the extreme south of Argentina compared to, say, measurements in tropical Central America?

<comment><USER7> Well, I don't know about the measurements - I'm just an ignorant programmer, not a climatologist. :)

But AFAIK you can get sunburnt in extreme latitudes, ozone or no ozone in fact.

[http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2006/04/bedroom- view-938-pm_...](http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2006/04/bedroom- view-938-pm_13.html) [http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/10/dayint...](http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/10/dayintech_1009)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not sure but it probably involves Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Virginia Madson, Michael Ironside and John C. McGinley, i.e the greatest movie cast _ever assembled._

<comment><USER10> You forgot Bruce Willis.</comment></comment>


Mirobot – a WiFi robotics kit for kids - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bjpirt/mirobot-the-diy-wifi-robot-for-children

<comment><USER3> Love it - treats kids as serious makers/inventors without dumbing down. Open design; no sealed units - all the parts out where you can see them. You assemble it yourself! Then program it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! It's what really got to me about existing robots for schools - <USER2> don't give you any insight as to how they work.

Hopefully this one will...</comment></comment>


When'll we see theoretical and mathematical foundation for deep learning? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/When-will-we-see-a-theoretical-background-and-mathematical-foundation-for-deep-learning-1?share=1 <comment><USER2> There seems to be a subtle misunderstanding. A focus on the mathematics, such as verification or high-dimensional convex studies, will show that there is some basis for WHY DNNs work. This would be equivalent to showing WHY Fourier Transforms work. It shows a sound basis for things like backprop and why iterated partial derivatives converge. It is interesting to know why kernels can flatten a higher space.

That is a far cry from WHY a DNN-based program works. That is like asking WHY I used a Fourier Transform, not why a Fourier Transform works. We will soon reach a situation where a self-driving car decides to suddenly slam into a parked car. Probably because the heat waves rising from the road made the telephone pole look like it "moved" and was "alive" so the car decided to avoid it, choosing the "inanimate" parked car instead. Oh, the joys of debugging THAT program... the weight on the third layer node 1273134 should be .077651 not .077650

There is a government Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) ([http://www.darpa.mil/attachments/DARPA- BAA-16-53.pdf](http://www.darpa.mil/attachments/DARPA-BAA-16-53.pdf)) that hopes to address this issue. It will be interesting to see if that research addresses the first idea or the second.</comment>


Ask HN: How to prevent bugs in your code? - <AUTHOR>

We're struggling with bugs. Of course they are a reality, but what are some ways to prevent and fix bugs quickly? <comment><USER3> The short answer is: You can't. But you can try.

Try doing the following to reduce bugs:

1.Write a lot of unit test cases covering all know scenarios that you have in your spec or mind. This only assures that there are no bugs in your set of test cases, however there could be bugs lying out side your test case set.

2.Before changing your code check if you have test cases written for the code. If not do step 1.

3.Have good logging for your code in action. If a bug is found later it will help you to root cause it.

4.If you are in object oriented programming try to replace if else codes with polymorphism. Its difficult but if you can it will either reduce logical bugs or help you find them quickly as they unfold.

5.Test for all if and else conditions. All if condition with complex logical arguments (using AND / OR) must be checked for all conditions.

6.Learn from your mistakes in coding and try not to repeat them.

That said, its easier said than done. I would follow this thread how other suggests and learn.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well it's actually quite simple - the amount of bugs depends on the amount of code - less code, less bugs.

To truly eliminate bugs, you either need to be able to see the future or have learned from your mistakes and from others' mistakes. (The latter being more common)

Depending on what you're doing, chances are if there isn't a clear separation of concerns and you're not following good/best practices (ia. solid, grasp, design patterns, ddd/tdd/bdd/*design) and - proper planning - there will be bugs.

Another thing developers generally struggle with is calling something by its name, ex. var a = 13 vs. var age = 13. That generally confuses even the developer himself after he went to take a leak.

I also agree on all Samikcs points - in addition to that there is really a lot of different ways to 'test code' ea, integration testing, unit testing, behavioral testing, requirements testing, deployment testing etc. - <USER2> software testers have to attend courses/study.

If you've read up to here, you will have realised there is no one answer. Programming isn't a task to be taken light-heartedly. Plan. Develop. Test. Verify. Repeat.

</comment><comment><USER5> Finding bugs: I'm a big believer in Linus' law - which basically says that the more people look at your code, the more likely you are to identify bugs.

In my experience, the single best way to identify bugs and other problems is to have a good code review process. Any at all is better than none. Code review can be frightening for the person whose code is being picked apart, but it is important to remember that it shouldn't be a personal thing. Even the best developers in the world write bugs - it's just the nature of the beast.

If you don't have a continuous integration process, think seriously about implementing one. It can be a pain in the arse to set up continuous integration after a project is already well under way, but do it anyway - because it will most likely save you a ton of time further down the road.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pass the code around to group-think.

Test-Cases!

Pray to Buddha to bring you a pony and a plastic rocket.

'Read' your code. Start at the top, draw your way (manually) all the way down through each line, each decision structure, until you have reached the end. Then go back up and do it all again but with a slightly different path. (Not for large code segments; more just for smaller, components.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, start with collecting statistics and see if there's a recurring theme in your bugs. You can't find a cure, if you don't know what the disease is.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Think carefully before you code.

2\. Then you code.

3\. Read what you just coded.

4\. Peer review before/after you checked it in.</comment>


Ask HN: Founders, if you had a time machine... - <AUTHOR> Question for startup founders: if you had a time machine to travel back to the inception of your company what kinds of things do you wish you had started doing then? Not "what do you wish you did differently?" but what stuff do you wish you had started doing so you could benefit from it later (i.e. now)? <comment><USER2> Seconded. Would also love to know these things.

Side note: Would definitely change the title as it comes across a bit...baity.</comment>


New study claims data harvesting among Android apps is "out of control" - <AUTHOR> https://www.techspot.com/news/77077-new-study-claims-data-harvesting-among-android-apps.html <comment><AUTHOR> > The biggest culprits are news apps and those aimed at children, both of > which tend to have the most third-party trackers associated with them.

I'm not sure which is worse. In a democracy it's not anyone's business what news I read.</comment>