It is time to unlink the "Backspace" – Browser Back shortcut (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=144832 <comment><USER3> Wouldn't something like an "This page contains unsubmitted form input. Are you sure you want to leave?", with maybe a configuration option to disable it, be far better than breaking a long-established and extremely useful keyboard shortcut? Instead the developers chose the easy way out, to pander to users who are apparently too stupid to notice that the focus is somewhere other than the text field they're entering into. Why not also remove the ability for spacebar/Enter to navigate to the currently focused link (or have they removed that already)? If you start blindly pressing keys on a page without looking, _it 's your own damn fault_.

In any case, this screenshot of Opera's keyboard shortcut configuration shows just how far browser configurability has regressed:

[http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/keyboard- se...](http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/keyboard-setup.jpg)

<comment><USER4> > to pander to users who are apparently too stupid to notice that the focus is > somewhere other than the text field they're entering into

I think you've just insulted a lot of people. I've run into the backspace behaviour multiple times and never on purpose. Here's a few reasons why it can happen, apart from stupidly mashing my keyboard, which I assure you, doesn't happen very often:

\- touchpad not registering a click on the text field

\- element reloading due to weird js and losing focus

\- tab switching properly between the first 4 fields, but then focusing some random button instead of the 5th input

\- broken custom JS elements which don't quite understand focus and editing

\- general keypress hijacking which doesn't do what you want

I don't look at the keyboard as I type and I don't always look at the screen either. I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I have to think about which possible, implicit mode I'm operating in, it's a bad design. Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where your cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there multiple cursors with fake focus, etc?

<comment><USER3> _touchpad not registering a click on the text field_

It's not hard to notice whether an element has focused, and especially if you know you have flaky hardware, be aware of that.

All your other reasons are the fault of the website, not the browser.

 _I expect the text actions (input and editing) to work on text. If I have to think about which possible, implicit mode I 'm operating in, it's a bad design._

You're implying that the computer somehow magically (telepathically?) determines exactly where your input is to go. That's not possible.

 _Or are you saying that before every keypress you visually verify where your cursor is, is it blinking, is the right window focused, are there multiple cursors with fake focus, etc?_

In a word, yes. It's seriously _not hard_ to see where the focus is. I usually have multiple windows open but there is only one cursor and it's the only thing that's blinking. Many others I've seen maximise their browser window, so there shouldn't be other cursors much less blinking ones visible (unless there is some strange bug which does cause this --- in which case that is definitely a bug to be fixed). If I'm at all unsure, I _make sure_.

Besides, if I'm going to submit some very long text, I'll write it all in a real text editor first and then copy-paste.

 _I don 't always look at the screen either._

That's like saying "I don't always look at where I'm going when I drive. Why do I keep crashing into things?"

<comment><USER5> You're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience, I have to say.

I'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth denying other users a more _forgiving_ user experience.

You're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes. What's "not that hard" to you on whatever websites you _happen_ to use may be a significant challenge for older people who are _forced_ to use terribly designed websites/webapps for work or other services.

<comment><USER3> _You 're extremely self-centered and dismissive of other people's experience, I have to say._

The same could be said of the developers who think they're always right.

 _I 'm sorry, but maintaining your little piece of convenience isn't worth denying other users a more forgiving user experience._

Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this shortcut.

 _You 're probably a twenty-something with sharp reflexes._

I'm much older than that. If anything it's the younger generation who are driving most of these unpleasant UI changes and dumbing things down. Reflexes have nothing to do with it. Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to what you're doing.

 _What 's "not that hard" to you on whatever websites you happen to use may be a significant challenge for older people who are forced to use terribly designed websites/webapps for work or other services._

That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and making it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training wheels".

<comment><USER5> _" Judging by the other comments here, I'm not the only one who uses this shortcut."_

So what? There's _a lot_ of people who actually lose data due to this "feature". Even if there was more of "your kind" (which I doubt), preventing data loss is more important than slight convenience. _You_ can easily change a setting or a commandline option or install an extension. A lot of other people would need to call tech support for that, because they're afraid they'll break their computer...

 _" Read carefully, slow down, and pay attention to what you're doing."_

For someone beyond their twenties, you're certainly a wise-ass, I have to say.

 _" That goes back to my original suggestion of having a prompt dialog, and making it configurable for those who don't want the "permanent training wheels"_

Your suggestion _doesn 't work_. It would literally break some applications and make others so annoying to use that the prompt would be the first thing users disable, bringing us back to square one.

The underlying problem is _unsolvable_ for a browser vendor. All that can be done is to _mitigate_ it by reducing accidental back-navigation. If that means people like you are inconvenienced, so be it.

<comment><USER6> I commented on the different points of view of the younger and the older at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287#11739659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287#11739659) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is being wrongly treated as a binary choice of:

      1. Disable the behavior.
      2. Let it remain, do nothing else.

Meanwhile the actual problem is being ignored completely, which is:

      Form contents are discarded on history traversal,
      even at reasonable depth.

The correct solution is to do what other browsers have successfully implemented already:

      3. Retain form contents on history traversal.

That way people who accidentally go back, can go forward again and keep all their input.

<comment><USER5> That's not the problem. What you're talking about _already works_.

There's numerous things that can go wrong, here's two common ones:

1) The page you are going back to is a login prompt, which immediately redirects you, overwriting your "forward" state.

2) Javascript. Everything can happen. Everything will happen. Your worst nightmares will come true.

<comment><USER8> Yes, saving input won't be possible. But generally, applications that accept user input and cannot save it for some reason ask for confirmation to lose it, so users won't lose it accidentally. Take a text editor for example, you can open it and close it and it won't bother you, but if you write a few words and try to close it, it will ask you whether you are ok losing the data. This is what users expect nowadays. Chrome team somehow doesn't understand/recognize that and instead of fixing the problem in a generally accepted way, tries to rearrange the interface to have fewer accidents, breaking UIs too much in the process and pissing off a lot of users. And that's bad.

<comment><USER5> _" But generally, applications that accept user input and cannot save it for some reason ask for confirmation to lose it, so users won't lose it accidentally."_

You'd think they do, but they _don 't_, at least not all of them. The problem isn't the properly designed webapps, it's the _improperly_ designed ones. That's what you somehow don't understand/recognize.

Also, the problem with the redirect happens on a certain popular bulletin board software that works _without_ Javascript (and therefore doesn't provide such a prompt in the first place).

<comment><USER8> I was talking about desktop applications, not webapps, because web browser is a desktop application and is expected to behave like one. Webapps don't have to do anything.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand your point, then. We _are_ talking about web apps. Is Chrome supposed to alarm you when navigating away from _any_ site with form input? How would it know if your changes are unsaved or not? (It _can 't_)

<comment> another-dave Chrome might not be able to, but the website can, surely? Why not leave it to developers to properly handle state within their application (e.g. by using history and 'beforeunload' functionality) rather than second-guessing it at a browser level?

<comment><USER9> Then the problem would ALREADY be solved, because all developers would already be properly handling state within their application instead of second-guessing it at a browser level. But they don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jay-anderson I fully support this decision (though the chrome team has made some really odd decisions - [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=377191)), but why is there a general move towards software not being configurable? In the past lots of software packages let you set the key bindings to your heart's content. It feels like more and more software is removing this ability. Are there architectural reasons? Is it a costly feature to maintain?

<comment><USER10> Yes, it's costly to maintain the combinatorial interactions between configurations. But 'make it a setting' has further costs- when you're supporting a customer and you can't figure out the exact state they're in, when you can't make sweeping product changes because 8% of users have some incompatible option set, when someone implements a bad feature and there's no strong way to keep it out if you can just 'make it a setting', or when a feature becomes obsolete but is kept around 'as a setting'. It relieves the product team from one of their most important responsibilities.

<comment> another-dave I know your numbers are only an example, but taken at face value — if 8% of your users have an option set, maybe it's because you've overlooked a user- case that's valuable to them. In that case, having a configurable app that can feed you in this data is like free A/B testing and is a boon to a product team, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is that why the Backspace key suddenly doesn't work on Chrome anymore? Annoying as hell. Who made this stupid decision?

Android has back key and home key that users hit accidentally all the times. That doesn't cause much problem. Why can't the Web apps save their state to better handle the accidental exit of the app? It's not just the backspace, Ctrl-R and Ctrl-W all exit the app.

Don't break existing functionality!!

<comment><USER5> Overloading backspace with "go back" was a stupid decision. Undoing it was way overdue.

 _" Android has back key and home key that users hit accidentally all the times."_

The back and home buttons are not overloaded with other meaning based on context. Android applications tend to handle accidental "back" presses gracefully. Accidental "home" presses are usually of no consequence whatsoever.

 _" Why can't the Web apps save their state to better handle the accidental exit of the app?"_

Who cares? They don't and they won't.

 _" It's not just the backspace, Ctrl-R and Ctrl-W all exit the app."_

It's _way_ less likely to accidentally hit those combinations. For backspace, it happens all the time.

 _" Don't break existing functionality!!"_

The functionality isn't broken, it's just that the few people who actually use this shortcut will have to use another shortcut now. Big Deal.

<comment><USER12> _The back and home buttons are not overloaded with other meaning based on context._

Surely you jest. The back button has seen significant overhaul in the time since it was introduced; it changed from activity-to-activity navigation along the single "back stack" to a confusing, circuitous path walk between applications, their "up" stacks, their "back" stacks, and everything else under the sun. It's difficult to determine when it will take you to the previous activity or to a page you haven't seen in the days since you last launched the application you just ended up on.

If you're in a browser, the back hardware key takes you back -- until it determines that you've reached a navigation root (which might not be the earliest page in the chain), and it pops you back to the previous application or the home screen. Perhaps it closes the tab?

If the keyboard is up, it dismisses it -- unless you're in an autocorrect action (* on certain phones). Maybe it opens the keyboard, too, because it took you back to a previously focused field.

It's far from "not overloaded with other meaning based on context". It is, in fact, "entirely overloaded with other meaning; much of which is based solely on context."

<comment><USER5> It may be confusing, but that confusing "back behavior" is _the one behavior it has_ , even if it has changed over time.

It is not _overloaded_. It doesn't start deleting characters depending on where your last tap may have (accidentally) been. Well, maybe _some_ app does that, but I hope you get my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a user: I really don't understand the reasoning behind this. Backspace is always easier to find, even on the quirkiest keyboards and useful for navigation.

As a Dev: If the user is in danger of accidentally loosing their work then this is a usability issue, which is easily fixed with window.onbeforeunload prompt.

Since the back button is now 'fixed', I wonder if developers are going to see a Javascript confirmation as a bad practice, leaving users who accidentally close press back or close a tab with no safety net.

This seems like a fix, for something that was never broken. I wish the Chrome team would work on giving JavaScript prompts and dialogs a much more modern look at feel.

<comment><USER4> > which is easily fixed with window.onbeforeunload prompt.

It would be nice, but realistically, you can't expect every single website to get everything correct. If you could force it on people to implement a correct onbeforeunload behaviour, backspace wouldn't be a problem. But you can't force it, and you can't force it to be correct. (webapps are pretty complicated these days "are there any unsaved changes" is not always a trivial question)

This way a class of errors has been removed rather than forcing everyone to think of it in many places.

<comment> another-dave I think it's just provided less incentive for developers to handle 'unhappy paths' within their app — there are still plenty of ways that you'd want a webapp to handle unexpected closure (e.g. user accidentally closing a tab, browser crashing, network connection dropping before save takes place). If an app is handling these states fluidly they will likely get the 'accidental back' problem solved for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> another-dave I think the argument against feature flagging this (that this reduces app complexity) seems a bit thin.

Normally you want to reduce the number of options in play so that you don't need to think about all the permutations when making future changes — if you introduce a feature in the future, you're not stuck supporting edge cases.

But the whole point of this change is that they _don 't_ want the backspace behaviour overloaded (if it's bad UX); so it seems unlikely this would interfere with changes down the line?

Annoying that adding the toast and creating a browser extension was probably more work than adding the feature flag would've been.

<comment><USER14> > Normally you want to reduce the number of options in play so that you don't > need to think about all the permutations when making future changes

Also to reduce testing overhead when you invariably don't think of permutations - which is now that much harder as you'll need to manually test with the feature flag enabled, since everyone else will probably be running with the defaults. You think all text manipulation code in and around the backspace functionality in Chrome is static? Seems unlikely to me. Also reduces refactoring overhead - less code, after all. To me, the question is which will happen first:

1) They remove the toast intentionally after everyone's muscle memory has adjusted.

2) They remove the toast accidentally by refactoring input logic and breaking the popup functionality without noticing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The "real WTF" here is that user interface should travel with the user. It shouldn't be under someone else's control at all in the first place. It should be platform-agnostic. Windows v. Mac v. Linux (v. Web Apps) and all their applications should all have the same UI: what the user wants.

As a first approximation imagine a JSON doc that specifies a mapping from standard input events to standard commands or functions; it can be extended with application-specific, uh, specifications. It's treated as a "first-class" entity, and respected by apps and Desktops as a matter of course.

Something like that would save all this trouble, no?

<comment><USER9> In other words, just write a browser in JavaScript and HTML, on top of the existing browser.

And then you just have all the same problems over again, only much, much slower.

And who exactly defines "standard input events" and "standard commands" and "standard functions"?

Those terms don't have any meaning. Such standards do not exist, and never will. Hardware and software developers are not suddenly going to stop defining new input events, commands and functions because some yahoo on the internet proposed a hypothetical standard and insisted that everyone rewrite all their programs to use it and nothing else.

<comment><USER15> Well, I think you know the particular windmill at which I tilt. You said it yourself: we're not going to stop changing things. My problem is that it's arrogant and rude to force the changes on the users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Backspace has been the Windows Explorer shortcut for backward navigation since Windows 95.

I use it all the time both in both Explorer and Firefox. And have never ever accidentally deleted text when trying to navigate, or accidentally gone-back when I'm trying to delete text.

Why is this suddenly an issue for Chrome users?

<comment><USER17> It's been Up since at least Windows 3.0. They might have changed it to Back recently.

It's not suddenly an issue; I've occasionally accidentally gone back since IE 3. Between fourth mouse buttons, alt-left, and touchpad swipes, Chrome devs are starting to think that backspace-as-back is more trouble than it's worth.

<comment><USER18> Anecdotally, I've hit my mouse's back button way more often accidentally than I've gone back accidentally by hitting backspace. And backspace _does_ have the benefit of being able to type it with one hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I actually use backspace a lot. I don't know of another hotkey on the keyboard that I can use to go back a page. If I space backspace it seems to alert me to do Alt + Backspace, but that doesn't function either.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting to note that quite often in these discussions the idea that _no other key exists_ comes up. In the 1990s, keyboard manufacturers started adding "multimedia" and "Internet" keys to keyboards, including keys whose sole and explicit functions were to move backwards and forwards in a WWW browser's navigation history (or in GUI applications in general).

These keys have obviously, even in this everything-in-the-WWW-browser age, _still_ not embedded themselves thoroughly in the public consciousness. There are clearly sizeable classes of people who don't yet regard them as the norm; and people who still first think of keys other than those _explicitly engraved for the purpose_ as the ones to use for it, or do not even know that such keys exist.

To those who are about to miss the point: Yes, _your_ current keyboard doesn't have these keys. You didn't regard them as the norm when you bought a keyboard/computer. They haven't become so established that you don't regard systems without them as deficient, as you very probably _would_ regard systems without (say) a "Super"/"Windows"/"Apple"/"Command" key. This, even in a world where doing many if not most things in a WWW browser is seen as the norm.

<comment><USER20> How many keys do you feel is sufficient? Already the number pad is an extension that is adding a few keys. And a lot of laptop keyboard are using a Fn (function) key to access additional keys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've become accustomed to using backspace as a Browser Back keyboard shortcut, though I can sympathize with the hate for such. More than once did I intend to go back, only to discover the cursor was presently focused in a text box, or conversely, intend to erase a minor spelling mistake only to go back and lose everything.

I think what I value is not so much having Backspace == Browser Back, but simply having a keyboard shortcut for Browser Back. So certainly, by all means, get rid of Backspace == Browser Back. But please leave a means of configuring at least _something_ as a Browser Back keyboard shortcut.

</comment><comment><USER22> Glad to see this fixed, overloading backspace has caused enough lost input on websites, the binding was a short sighted mistake, there's plenty of other key combinations that make more sense.

</comment><comment><USER23> Alt + left arrow is way more obvious than backspace. There have been countless times I pressed backspace inside a textbox and it went back to the previous page, losing all the written text.

<comment><USER11> Alt + right would restore whatever you were writing. What is the problem?

<comment><USER24> This has saved my text so many times and I'm happy it exists.

And I'm even more confused by the official justification for removing the backspace button functionality, as this prevents the problem they cite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> in a similar vein, I often close browsers with ^W, expecting to delete a word. Thanks Vim.

<comment><USER26> Wow I've been annoyingly using DE to delete a word.

Thanks for this.

<comment><USER27> FYI, this only works in insert mode, for the word you just typed (equivalent to ctrl-backspace, basically). And diw/diW (delete inner word, delete inner non-space-characters-word) may actually be faster depending on the context since you don't need to get to the beginning of the word.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This backspace as the back button in web browsers never worked very well for me, and only seemed to work when I was entering something on a webpage. It never bothered me that it didn't work, and I never found it useful, but when it did seem to work, it would destroy a long post. I support the removal, or disabling by default.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've already, three times at least, been saved by the fact that I'm on Canary builds where this is already active. Had typed into a form, the form lost focus, I hit backspace and Chrome popped a helpful, unobtrusive box telling me how to go back if I was trying to.

And there's already an extension that brings it back.

I hate seeing Chromium bug tracker links posted to HN or Reddit though. Just like Microsoft GitHub Issues. They just don't need more poorly informed knee- jerk trolls.

edit: Maybe I should clarify? I don't think that anyone is a troll for wanting to keep existing Backspace behavior. But when these bug reports get linked to from reddit/hn, they're invariably overrun by people making assumptions, posting memes and berating developers. It always wind up as counter- productive.

Also, previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287)

<comment><USER30> > Downvoted for pointing out how this change has helped me, nice. You just > stay classy as ever.

This happens on every news site. Point out something that disagrees with the mindset of someone and back it up with facts? Downvote. I thought Hacker News was better than this?

<comment><USER31> Sometimes you get sympathy upvotes. Had a -3 converted +11 the other day for a grouchy observation guaranteed to unsettle the kumbaya groupthink around here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 'Backspace' is a widely used interface, system-wide even, and removing it breaks UI consistency.

What they could have done is actually check whether there is a form with a user filled text on the page somewhere, warn the user and ask to press 'backspace' again to confirm. That's it, problem solved.

<comment><USER32> Where else in the system does "backspace" navigate back in history?

<comment><USER8> On Ubuntu everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Good decision. But there are other ways to lose text, for example hitting Ctrl + R instead of Ctrl + T. I am not sure if web standards allow to restore text in this case.

<comment><USER30> I haven't looked, but according to the Chrome devs, because of the way the browser is built, saving the entire state of the DOM, JS, etc. is currently impossible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've been highly critical of Google, highly critical of their UI/UX design generally, and highly critical of Chrome lately.

But Google and Chrome are doing the right thing here by disabling the backspace-as-navigation overloading.

I'm rather amused to see the shrieks and screams from those having to un-learn a keybinding. I understand the pain. Most of you will be over it in a few weeks.

This _is_ a very strong argument for _getting UI /UX right the first time_, as it's precisely that unlearning which is a major PITA.

There are people who seem to have difficulty understanding how anyone could possibly hit a backspace key unintentionally, or that the fixe should lie elsewhere (e.g., Website designes). To this:

1\. Losing user state is a Bad Thing. Composed text, lost, is a massive fail. Setting up an application and websites for failure is a Very Bad Idea. Sure, when the Web was created, browsers were, well, _browsers_ , not editing tools. That's no longer the case. Hasn't been for decades.

2\. Even evil space-alien-cat geniuses fall prey to this. I've been using computers for a few decades, occasionally get paid to manage, use, and/or program them, and seem to have most of my wits, vision, and motor control about me. I still get hit by this routinely.

3\. Not everyone's so lucky. I work with people suffering visual, motor control, and mental impairment issues. Intelligent people, who manage with their own lives. Most have been using computers themselves for decades, some longer than I've been alive. But yeah, when your body and brain start betraying you, it's a real bitch. Overloaded functions, particularly destructive ones, which act in ways you didn't expect, and worse, can't readily detect, are _really bad_.

Step outside your world for a minute.

And if you're designing interfaces, get that shit right. Because someone's going to be cursing your name in two decades.

If you're lucky.

</comment><comment><USER35> Just when users get used to some basic UI/UX element, some hotshot who's angry at his/her boss comes along and ruins everything...

One specific thing about web that bothers me is lack of keyboard support for most apps. Unplug the mouse and you can't do much else with the web (esp. if it's flash). Backspace and Ctrl+W are the two most useful bindings I love in a computer.

If you're going to unlink the "Backspace" because some "stupid" users accidentally press it, then you might as well "re-design" the whole keyboard, cause some idiot is going to press F5 by accident...

<comment><USER36> That's not really accidental. Sometimes I'm pushing backspace and some stupid JavaScript changes the focus and boom the page is gone.

<comment><USER20> Are those JS not breaking the default behaviour then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> They rolled this out on chrome recently. Annoying as crap. At least there's a command line option to go back with backspace now. Hopefully they don't remove it. I may have to use another browser if they do...

<comment><USER38> Or just install the backspace extension that reenables this behavior

<comment><USER37> And give some random developer access to "all my data on all websites". No thanks.

<comment><USER39> The author of that extension isn't "some random developer". It's provided by Google themselves.

<comment><USER37> Ah, they must have pushed that out after I was trying to restore this functionality a couple of weeks ago. Previously it was just some random that everyone was linking to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't know when it was introduced, but the sideways scrolling history navigation thing has caused me to lose form input several times now. I use a trackpoint, so it's really easy to scroll sideways instead of up/down accidentally (middle button + trackpoint). I guess that's a very niche problem, but I've lost a lot more input that way than via backspace.

At least Chrome shows a helpful "Use Alt+Left to go back" message when mashing the backspace key and expecting it to go back.

<comment><USER41> I just went back when writing this comment, and then forward again.

It was not lost. This is not the old Opera, but some nice things like that are back in the new Opera.

<comment><USER40> Yeah Chrome manages just fine on HN, too, but it sometimes fails on more complex websites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As usual, they have chosen the worst possible "solution": removed the shortcut, didn't add an option. They did miraculously have time to flash up the two-key shortcut for back though, when they detect you pressing backspace multiple times.

Instead of, you know, taking that opportunity to show a simple popup of "do you want backspace to browse back?".

So now everyone has to install an extension that in the usual Chrome fashion can "read and change all your data on websites you visit."

I think for the next kind of feature they remove this way I'll add an extension that initially works and then have it auto-update to redirect people from everywhere to a petition site after a random interval. Just to point out the insanity in pouring lots of effort into security, sandboxing and even SSL only to force people to install auto-updated untrusted extensions that can access everything to bring back a minor keyboard shortcut. This is the exact kind of annoyance that will see people click yes yes yes on all kinds of red flashing security warnings.

<comment><USER43> _removed the shortcut, didn 't add an option_

That's the right way.

"Never really remove anything, just wrap it in a default-off config option" is a horrendously bad way to build software. Every configurable option is an opportunity for bugs and an opportunity for misconfiguration.

<comment><USER44> > That's the right way.

It's the lazy way.

You're right that it adds complexity. Every line of code contributes to complexity, and increases the number of places a bug could manifest. That's just the nature of software development.

Most software doesn't exist in a bubble of strictly-defined use cases. Software such as web browsers target a huge (potentially the broadest) range of users. Driving towards the lowest common denominator, as Google have been doing with Chrome by stripping configuration options over the years, doesn't result in a product people _love_ to use. It produces software that performs adequately for the majority, and nothing more.

For features like "backspace to navigate back", throw them behind a flag. Make them default-disabled. Don't even worry about putting it in Preferences - <USER2> power users who need it where they can find it (chrome://flags).

<comment><USER43> If you want an infinitely-customizable web browser which has everything available in a config option you're free to write one; multiple high-quality open-source engines are available to build around.

Not every feature is good or widely-used, and removing the ones that fail, rather than trying to keep them around but configurable, is simply the right thing to do.

<comment> another-dave You say "removing ones that fail", but surely that's the point here — it only fails for users who don't know what's going on.

If I deliberately reenable backspace as 'Back in browser history', I've no right to complain if I lose web app state; and if I get burned often, I'll disable it again. If I use it without any problems, what's the lose on Google's side?

<comment><USER45> Exactly. Taking your thought a step farther... You can enable the shortcut yourself via extensions! That way, there's no loss in Google's side. :) they don't have to maintain an obsolete feature, and any problems are yours, not theirs. You seem to have made their point for them.

Less code base to cover. Less tests. That's a win for the secs. And you're free to install an extension to retrieve the behavior of you want. Sounds like everyone wins.

<comment> another-dave Well taking that further, you could say the same with all keyboard shortcuts & they have nothing to test :)

Well, I'm free to install extensions on my own personal computer but not everywhere that I use Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> From G+ discussion where Chrome devs discussed this decision in May of this year.

The suggestion of rigging up monitoring to look for this was considered, but the case was seen as so obvious (user-state loss vs. a week or two to adapt to a changed shortcut) that it wasn't considered worth the effort.

See Ojan Vafai's comment(s) here:

[https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/F1dio2L9XtS](https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/F1dio2L9XtS)

 _IMO the data above is enough when coupled with anecdotal data. Given that it didn 't seem worth investing the considerable engineering effort we would need to gather more data. Although there was disagreement on that point. As Peter said, this decision was only loosely based on metrics. Ultimately it was intuition based on a combination of the data mentioned above and anecdote._

</comment><comment><USER46> One of the things it might be time for is for keyboards to adapt.

Copy. Cut. Paste. Forward. Back. Undo. Redo.

Is there a better way to achieve these things than CTRL-key and backspace? Pretty sure I use some of the above more often than "Q", to say nothing of "Scroll lock" or "Insert".

If not: Just slap 'back' into CTRL-backspace.

<comment><USER40> There are keyboard layouts that do this. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about layouts optimized for English, but I use neo2. It's optimized for German (primary goal) and programming and English (secondary goals). It's fourth layer (activated with the key right of the space bar or of left shift on a 105-key keyboard) contains a lot of navigation keys and a numpad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Reading through most of the comments, I'm led to ponder what the cross-section of the "about time/let it go" and "use vim/emacs/sublime/$editor and configure your own key bindings" might be. Same with the "use mouse button x/gesture/etc".

Personally, as a heavy keyboard user, I prefer to not move my hand off the keyboard to use the mouse if I can accomplish the same task on solely on the keyboard. One benefit I've found is that I can "queue up" a key motion with my left hand while going back with my right on the backspace key.

Ultimately, everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinion! _g_

</comment><comment><USER48> I never, ever have the problem of clicking on the wrong link, or going to a page I don't like. Why should I be punished by all of these incompetent people who need to go BACK so often?

</comment><comment><USER49> When they made this change in the recent Chrome update, at first I couldn't believe it.

But, when I thought about it more, it made sense and I left it as-is without installing an extension.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm baffled with the number of people who can't see that placing delete a character and delete everything on the same key is crazy.

</comment><comment><USER51> I can sympathize with the frustration of losing a convenient keyboard shortcut like this, but I'm surprised that more people haven't switched to using touchpad gestures to navigate back and forth. Your hand is there anyway for scrolling; I find it very convenient. I know this doesn't really help on a desktop machines with a mouse, though.

<comment><USER8> You are right, there are different input methods, some of which are just as convenient. I actually use a wacom tablet with a pen, so the change doesn't bother me that much. It's just as quick for me to point and click, as it is to press a keyboard button.

But the level of incompetence of chrome team in user interfaces continues to amaze me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> In Opera 12, and now Vivaldi, I got used to a really simple shortcut for going back a page: home down the right mouse button then click the left button.

Unfortunately, Mac's don't have two independent mouse buttons and I really miss that quick shortcut.

</comment><comment><USER53> If you haven't run into this on a recent build of Chrome, just try hitting backspace a couple of times and you'll get a toast telling you how to go back. On Mac, that's ⌘+←.

<comment><USER24> So the key binding exists, but it doesn't perform the expected function? This sounds trivial to correct, were the code readily available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> We should have some top level key to do the back or forward actions on browser or file navigator, this is a so common action, Alt + <\- needs 2 hands this is not acceptable.

<comment><USER55> I'm a very happy backspace user (to the point where I wrote an extension to bring it back), but alt+arrow (or cmd+arrow on a Mac) are one-handed on laptops--which more and more people are using on the regular. There are reasons not to remove it, but this isn't really one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Huge related discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11729287)

</comment><comment><USER57> Chrome will show an overlay box if you press backspace a second time (seeing it not work the first time as you expected) telling you to use Alt + <\- to go back.

</comment><comment><USER58> Looks like backspace is already unlinked in Safari. I hadn't noticed, but tried now and nothing happens.

<comment><USER59> The shortcut was invented by a Microsoft and came to browsers through IE. Firefox only does it by default on Windows and Safari has never supported it AFAIK

<comment><USER60> Not true. Safari used to support it and it was removed in Safari 6.

I remember when it was removed; I had been an avid user of the shortcut for many years. It hurt at first, but after a bit of getting over the muscle memory, I don't miss it at all now.

To everyone complaining; let it go, our browsers are better off without it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I have backspace in caps lock and found very comfortable to be able to go back with caps lock.

</comment><comment><USER62> So is no one using mouse button 4 & 5 for backwards and forwards navigation? I do.

</comment><comment><USER41> That's why I use Opera's mouse gestures to go back.

Or the mouse buttons 4 and 5.

</comment><comment><USER63> First screen savers and now this.</comment>


Industry, Ingenuity, and Fracture: On John McPhee - <AUTHOR> http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/industry-ingenuity-and-fracture-on-john-mcphee

<comment><USER2> Time better spent: Structure by John McPhee [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/14/structure)

</comment><comment><USER3> John McPhee is a National treasure.

</comment><comment><USER4> _" five-volume survey of the geological history of America"_

(I don't have a point, I just like the phrase.)

<comment><USER5> Said book - Annals of the Former World - is only $5.99 in Kindle form at Amazon. It's far from my favorite work of McPhee's, but $5.99 is quite a bargain.

[http://www.amazon.com/Annals-Former-World-John-McPhee- ebook/...](http://www.amazon.com/Annals-Former-World-John-McPhee- ebook/dp/B005H0O8KQ)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you do with your life if you solved the money problem? - <AUTHOR> If you had a guaranteed, lifetime stream of steady income - say $100k a year, inflation adjusted - what would you do with your life?  Would you still work?  On what?  Spend all day hacking on projects you loved? Do a startup?  What kind of startup?  Write a novel?  Read on the beach?
Related questions have been asked on YC, but I don't think this one has, and I'm quite curious to find out what people will say.
Here are some things I might do:
1)  create a series of educational games to teach math and science, based on the idea that math is actually additively fun to learn if you do it right ( example: sudoku).
2)  Do another startup ( not sure exactly what the field would be, probably something software or web related )
3)  Do research work in robotics, computer vision or AI.
4)  Start a political party based on the idea that instead of changing specific politicians we need to alter the constitution to change the incentives by which our leaders make decisions.
5)  Write books about history and/or economics
6)  Start a city
How about you? <comment><USER2> Phil Greenspun says

"Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours. I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."

Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.

So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there living the dream."

Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe accomplishing one of his stated goals. "

:-D

Source: <http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/>

<comment><USER3> True. The kind of things you want to accomplish if the money problem is solved should be things you are already working on; solving the money problem should just make accomplishing it faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Noble Causes:

-Be a high school teacher for math and computer science (a la lockhart's lament)

-Start some form of programmers without borders to see how tech can help those in 3rd world nations

-Write as much free medical software as possible (I.E. PACS servers and dicom viewers for MRI's. OsiriX already does this for mac, but nobody has even come close for windows or linux)

Eccentric Causes:

-Put a paintball turret on a golf cart, have a mad max style race with buddies

-Build a rocket with an autonomous guiding system. Seriously, fricken rockets with computer vision on their heads.

-Write stock picking software based on my own random math theories like Ed Thorpe did (Which was very well recounted in "Fortune's Formula)

-Surf more. I already get about a day a week, but I'd like to up it to 4.

-Related to surfing, tap into publicly available weather data to write software to predict swell sizes. FFT here I come!

-Build a poker server with an API for bots. Pit humans against AI.

A billion more things to put here...

[Edit for weird markdown formatting]

</comment><comment><USER5> I would run an experiment to figure out how long it would take me to get tired of sleeping with gold digging models.

<comment><USER6> Me too, and I would do it in a non-industrialized country (South America/Eastern Europe) which would save me money, and possible lawsuits/BS.

;)

<comment><USER5> Ibiza :)

<comment><USER6> Good choice mate, and allow me to add Argentina, The Czech Republic, and Poland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Buy a warehouse, convert it into living / productivity space, a large room for any one "type" of productive activity (read: making stuff).

2\. Contact everyone I know who is passionate about whatever it is they do, and inform them that they can live here, as long as they're productive and clean up after themselves, etc. Focus on people I know who are into green technology, and people that are just generally awesome.

3\. Spend the rest of my life learning, implementing, and creating awesome stuff with other people doing the same. I personally would be making music, implementing an mmo where the npcs learned from their surroundings and the actions of past npcs, and were controllable by a human at the individual and group level, learning and working with electronics - making effects pedals and similar, and researching and implementing ways to use technology to improve the average humans existence without totally raping nature.

3.1 Try to set up more places like that.

EDIT: I wrote out a bit of an extrapolation on this idea, you can see it here: [http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i- had-1...](http://kaens.blogspot.com/2008/09/what-i-would-do-if-i-had-100k-per- year.html) if you're interested.

<comment><USER8> Awesome, can I live in your warehouse when you get it built?

<comment><USER7> Probably. I'm sure we'd (you, me, and other people living at the space) probably want to meet you first though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Randomly visit message boards posing rhetorical questions.

</comment><comment><USER10> Working on hard stuff is in my bones, but it'd be nice at times to be able to live in a la-la land where monetization was completely irrelevant.

If I, say, "solved the money problem" in the sense that Paul usually uses the term, i.e. had a few million piled up, I'd probably get a small team together to rethink the way that music composition on computers is done. Start with a lot of research and interviews about how composers actually build up a piece and just build the best system for expressing musical ideas. I'd like to get around to that someday. It'd be cool being able to ignore the fact that it's a small, poor customer base. ;-)

The fact that computer interfaces are still designed to mimic tape recorders or wire cabling is a embarrassing.

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be cool. One music related pie-in-the-sky project I would like do would be to create software that could in real time give my voice the timbre of a rock star. I'd change a setting and switch from Axl Rose voice, to Bono, to Robin Wilson.

<comment><USER10> Well, the thing there is that you'd have to re-synthesize the voices, wave- shaping wouldn't be enough, so what you'd basically want is a vocoder. The problem, of course, is that synthesis of human voices isn't advanced enough to handle those kind of dynamics, so the problem where you'd end up focusing is on voice synthesis.

<comment><USER11> There is a research group at Cambridge (Oxford??) that is working on a problem like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quite honestly, the most freeing moment in my life was when I realized I had already "solved the money problem". That is, I knew I could be happy and could survive doing exactly what I was doing. Every decision since then has been an effort to do more of what I most liked doing (and conversely less of what I didn't). The only problem now is how to find time to do it all.

</comment><comment><USER3> (1) Practice martial arts 4hrs a day, and travel around the world preserving some lineages that are disappearing this generation.

(1a) I want to meet some Khampas

(1b) I want to meet some of my teacher's teachers in Taiwan.

(1n) ad nauseum

(2) Set up a lab where I can play and build AI models, specifically relating to OpenCyc and neural networks, using Google news as training data then feed it people's RSS feeds and blog posts. Run the whole thing on the cloud and see what else I need to get it to start messing with people.

(3) Collect a huge library and read. Lots. Both non-fiction and fiction.

(3a) Get to the point where I can consistently beat the top Go software and can hold my own near the top kyu rankings. Then go back and read through history books with the skills I acquired from playing Go. Figure out if people make different strategic decisions based on whether they played Go or played chess. Maybe write a book about it.

(3b) Study all of Joseph Campbell's work, and identify the top active, modern myths operating on modern social psyche, both overt and hidden. Distill it and write something similar to Neal Stephenson's Primer (from Diamond Age).

(3c) Write a series of short stories in English using themes from classic wuxia theater (martial art fantasy stuff, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and embed in there how to survive high school with your sanity intact. Then slip it out in the wild.

(4) Write a mobile MMO.

(5) Learn Ancient Chinese, maybe take a crack at Sanskrit. Dig up some old stuff and figure them out.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wake up earlyish, work in a small garden office with the windows open and the crisp fall air streaming in, break for lunch on patio with my wife, read a book, go on a walk in the countryside.

I dunno. I think I'd like it, though.

I'd still work on things, but I feel like the pressure would be released, so I could work on indie adventure games and not have a nagging conscience telling me to do something that will make money. I do want to write my novel. And create a board game. And a stop-motion animated film. And take up painting and drawing. And travel a lot.

Wow. In the meantime, I'll pack up here at the cube and head home. Then I'll come back Monday and do it again. Yayyyyy.

</comment><comment><USER14> Start a big family and be the best parent I could, and not give my kids a dime unless they earn it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm going to move to Argentina and build a sailboat. Its been my goal for 3 years.

<comment><USER16> Have you started?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Work on riskier ideas with bigger payoffs (financial or otherwise).

</comment><comment><USER18> Why aren't you doing some of those things during your free time right now? You certainly don't need money to create a series of games or research robotics in your free time. If you're not doing it now, what makes you think you'll do it if you are relieved of the job obligation?

I find that flaw with myself: come up with reasons why I'm not doing what I _really_ want to be doing. I'm trying to overcome the friction of day dreaming and start actually _doing something_.

These thought exercises are cute, but in the end, counter-productive.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am doing some of these things now. The reason I asked this question is actually somewhat related to #6...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You're going to start a city with $100K a year? You must have mad city- building skills.

<comment><USER20> Hey, it worked on SimCity!

<comment><AUTHOR> I did indeed play too much SimCity as a youth :-) Perhaps I will share my plan for starting a city in a future post. I'd like to find out if the HN community thinks it could work.

<comment><USER21> I have a habit of overestimating the capabilities of modern technology, but I really don't understand why more of the underlying processes of our civilization aren't automated (e.g. food production, food transportation, food preparation, human transportation).

Maybe the problem is history. Maybe, if we were given the chance to start over and plan a brand new city from the ground up, we could eliminate a lot of unnecessary elements that currently occupy a lot of our time and energy.

Would it be possible -- with our current technology -- to build a giant, _self-sustaining_ field of photovoltaic modules? Thousands of automated machines and robots could maintain and repair this system. Massive amounts of free power could effectively fuel a developing city.

And if our basic needs were taken care of, we could each start to focus on what matters to us, instead of what merely ensures our survival. I think it's about time for us humans, collectively, to move past worrying about having enough money for food and a place to live.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you're overestimating technology. Robotics is still incredibly primitive. There is ongoing work in automated driving ( see DARPA's grand challenge and Willow Garage) and automated cooks ( see Anybots), but all of these efforts are in the very early stages.

Even with car companies, I think I read somewhere that Toyota uses much less robotics than GM, and that's a reason why Toyota is more successful. GM bought to much into the robotics, over invested, and it ended up costing more and hurting quality. As for solar, it's still very expensive in terms of resources to build panels.

<comment><USER7> Automated driving doesn't seem like it would be very hard if you had the ability to do whatever you wanted to the roads / cars on the road. Of course we're not in a situation anywhere near that ideal.

I share the opinion that a lot of things that should be automated are not. For instance - fast food. If fast food places are going to exist, I do not think that they should be part of what some people have to do to keep a roof over their (and their kids) heads, and food in their stomachs. They are repetitive, soul-sucking jobs that don't require a human.

The reasons for why our society is how it is are complex. I'd say that the reasons that we still have people working fast food jobs for a living are mainly the economic and power structures that we have in place right now.

I mean, on the idealistic side of things, if everyone suddenly realized just how silly our organizational / economics / power structures are, and what we can currently accomplish with technology - and what we'd be able to accomplish if we were devoting most of our resources to making the world a better place for humans (and hopefully all its other residents) and not on economic pissing matches.

We could colonize space - probably within my lifetime - if we wanted to, etc.

<comment><USER21> We should form a secret society or whatever ;)

Question. Why did we (human beings) spend so many resources and so much effort developing the LHC when it seems obvious that a comparable amount of effort and resources could have _dramatically_ improved our way of life?

I mean, if people didn't _have_ to work for a living, wouldn't we see like a ten-fold increase in people pursuing the arts and sciences?

Btw, I've thought the same thing about fast food chains for a while.

One of my dreams is to create a completely automated restaurant. Touchscreen menus embedded into each table. Food is prepared in the basement and rises up through the center of each table. The only thing actual humans would have to is feed the machines unprepared food :)

It's slogan could be:

 _Reliably tasty food_

or

 _The same exact food made my the same machines every day_

<comment><USER7> _Question. Why did we (human beings) spend so many resources and so much effort developing the LHC when it seems obvious that a comparable amount of effort and resources could have dramatically improved our way of life?_

That's a complicated question, the stuff of long-winded conversation. I'd say that it boils down to (very overgeneralized here) _we_ didn't, a certain set of people did - who happened to be able to get the funding needed to undertake a pretty amazing thing.

Sometimes I think I just read too much Asimov as a kid, I think that there's a pretty big under-use of technology for the purposes of making everyone's life better. When I think about the reasons for that, my head starts to boggle after a while. I do think that another large reason for the state of things right now is that our _ability_ to do really, really awesome things for humankind has only recently become very apparent.

If you ever open your resturant, I'd recommend using both slogans. "The exact food made by the same machines every day" in fine-print, or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 1) I'd spend a year writing a web-app to teach mathematics and physics, open- source it, run it on my own servers and lobby to have it used in high-school education.

2) I'd put more time into promoting awareness of Humanism and showing people that morality isn't restricted to the belief that an omniscient police agent is judging your every move.

3) I'd try to get NATO to play nice with Russia and after that get China on board as well. A USA/Russian/EU/Chinese block should be strong enough to stop nuclear threats and have the added bonus of getting us to Mars faster.

4) Having brokered world-peace and ensured continuity for all mankind, I'd chill out, read Ceasar's De Bello Gallico in Latin, master Bach's violin pieces at solist concert level, learn Russian and Mandarin Chinese, polish my French and grow awesome grapes for delicious wine.

</comment><comment><USER23> Get a good night's sleep.

</comment><comment><USER24> Well, I've got one album recorded and another written (need to rehearse with a band again to record this one), so I'd get back into pursuing a music career. My lawyer actually made me promise my next "startup" would be my music, so I guess I have to now...

I'd read a LOT more (classics and non-fiction mainly), get back into Muay Thai (planning on starting again this fall anyhow, money permitting), donate some volunteer _time_ instead of just money, and travel. I'm interested in studying chess too.

After all that, I'd most likely start another company. What else _could_ I do? ;) In reality, I love the challenge of starting companies, and there's nothing like going from zero to success to prove to yourself you can (even if I had a safety net next time!).

<comment><USER24> I'd consider going into teaching too, if for nothing else than to try to be different and make a difference (Alan Bloom or John Gatto style maybe :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd teach. Math, science, or computer science to high school aged students. I really think teaching is fun and fulfilling, you just don't get paid well at all. I'd also read a lot.

<comment><USER5> i agree with this. recently I've been thinking about what to do when i retire. I know i'll get bored eventually. I think returning to school and getting a teaching degree and then working part time as a teacher would be fun and rewarding without too much stress. Ideally teaching math/science at a community college.

<comment><USER26> I don't know - I tried teaching for a year thinking the same thing, and while it was rewarding, it was way stressful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd do the same thing with my life that I'm doing with it now. I'd just like to do it in a slightly more modern apartment that doesn't contain a futon. That's about it.

</comment><comment><USER28> $100k/year isn't that much. I barely get by on that, so I'd first have to sell the farm and move farther out to find a place that would be affordable at $40k/year. Easy to do if I don't have to limit my commute distance which is the main reason my current place costs so much (well, that and I didn't want to buy a 100 year-old house).

Then: \- Raise money so I could do research in medical devices: barriers to entry are all about money in this field. \- Start a company offering software services to the medical device/pharma/healthcare industry \- Robotics research with a focus on elder care or construction assistance \- Raise s few goats and a pair of cows (already have horses and chickens) \- Farm software (already looking at this on)

I'm in the medical industry and I'd love to start a business in this field if I could afford to. At least with 100k/yr I'd have the _time_ to raise the amount of money it would take.

</comment><comment><USER29> Spend every waking minute making my wonderful wife, who puts up with my stupid hours, travelling away from home, stress, lack of organisation and everything else that would turn mere mortals away ludicrously, deliriously, cartwheel- turning happy.

</comment><comment><USER30> If personal money wasn't an issue, there are a couple things I would do I guess.

\- I'd more than likely hack/work on projects that I thought would contribute to society in a meaningful way rather than trying to do something for profit.

\- Spend more time doing the things I enjoy, perhaps take on a significant hobby project that wasn't work related

\- I'd probably also help my mother out a little more too.

\- Maybe contribute a little of my time directly to community related projects, like volunteer work in something I found meaningful.

Sounds kind of strange, but I guess overall I'd like to be able to give more of myself to others and make much more of a positive impact in other's lives; sounds kind of tree-huggerish I know.

</comment><comment><USER31> Go back to school and finish my degree first. These days I really want to go back to school despite I've a good job. More I work without a degree more I realize I need to learn more. But then again I'm getting married soon. Ah, well......

<comment><USER32> Are you sure that going back to school, and finishing your degree, will address the "I need to learn more" problem ?

You may need a degree to address a particular social issue, like not being able to be promoted in a particular organization, but presumably you would not have that need if you "solved the money problem".

What if you picked a particular topic and set out to self-study it, but instead of the usual "buy a text book, read one chapter, and never follow up" fail method, you found a small group of similarly interested people who agreed to meet regularly to discuss and provide mutual encouragement, pursued it that way ?

<comment><USER31> _you found a small group of similarly interested people who agreed to meet regularly to discuss and provide mutual encouragement, pursued it that way ?_

Well, thought about that. Unfortunately, where I live it's not easy to find like-minded people who are willing to meet regularly and provide mutual encouragement. Moreover, one thing that I really miss about school is the social life. I almost don't have any friends I can count on. I mean I've friends but number is relatively lower than someone who went to school for four years. Besides, for some reason I really miss the energy and atmosphere of a school. But your point is taken, and for most of my life I've self- studied and it worked well.

<comment><USER32> When I suggested the group meeting thing, it was because the social aspect of college is very desired. I think it is also not as good at today's universities as we would wish. The students seem very perceptive to social status, and a lot of energy seems to go into reassuring people about social status, and preparing for job searches.

I would suspect it is easier to find a group of like-minded people than you think. If you do this right, you will start with some subject and 5 or 6 interested people, maybe half of whom make it to the weekly meeting in a coffee shop or somewhere. You will pick up a few more interested people who happen to listen in to the group's discussions. Keep careful track of eveyone's emails, and at some point pick a new subject and send an email around to everyone, and see who shows up. This is can be done even in small, out of the way, non-college towns.

It's kind of like running a "salon" in ancient Greece or 1700s Paris, or a coffee shop in 1600s/1700s London. Someone has to keep track of the social network, so that people who drift out of the meeting group are eventually brought back in when a more interesting topic comes up.

You might occasionally pick a topic just to bring in more people. I think I good one would be to read a chapter of Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle every week, google / wikipedia every character so you know all the inside historical jokes, and then meet and discuss.

On campus, the students are too busy to do the type of social interaction that supposedly makes college valuable -- we think of getting tossed at random into a roommate situation with someone from a different culture and social class, meeting life long friends at random in the library and future business partners in lab groups, etc. But a lot of the college social scene seems to be devoted to making sure you don't accidently meet up with anyone of a different social class, or at least assuring the parents that the student won't; clubs are strongly tied to a student affairs bureaucracy and create positions like secretary and treasurer for people to put on their resumes, as much as do stuff; and the students are busier than those of us that work full time, and have even fewer independent activities and hobbies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> #1 grabbed my attention. I'm doing it right now in my spare time. Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you want to trade some ideas.

It'd be fun to talk about it with someone else with the same idea. Most people I tell this to stare at me like I'm a purple cow.

</comment><comment><USER34> two chicks at the same time

<comment><USER35> One is stressful enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Id sail around the world, and just enjoy life. The ultimate goal is always to break free of the confines of modern life, and live life as it was intended. Note: No that doesn't mean getting naked ;P

</comment><comment><USER37> I kinda thought I had it solved, I had a 1 million portfolio, which is more than enough for me to survive on, as long as you pay attention to what happens in the world economy and markets, since I knew everything we are now seeing was coming, and was making 20%+ per year I though I had it all figured out. Until I got server, -70% in 2 months. So my personal advice is, never think you are too smart. If if you know you are correct, and you are in fact correct, it doesn't mean you can't lose your shirt.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'd do what I've always wanted to do: -Buy old houses and fix them up and put them back on the market -Buy a few bars and small restaurants to manage -Write short stories and maybe a novel with the hopes of getting them published -Once famous, go back to my alma mater and teach a class on something I think I'm good at

Of course, I plan on doing this anyway. Some of it might have to wait, the market being what it may, but you have to stay optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER39> With nothing holding me down to a specific location I think I would travel most of the time, "live" in a certain part of the world for a time before moving on.

</comment><comment><USER40> Easy, I'd travel the world with my laptop and write code on the road. Hopefully code that would change the world.

<comment><USER41> That's what I'm doing these days. The big changes haven't happened yet... but hopefully it will come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> $100K/yr is really not that much now. I mean if you think about it the only difference between 50K and 100K is a slightly bigger house, a slightly better car and a slightly better vacation. A lot of programmers make close to that already

<comment><AUTHOR> My question was, if you could get that salary without working, what would you spend your time doing?

<comment><USER42> get another job, since that amount is not really enough

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The same things I'm doing now.

</comment><comment><USER44> I hate wishful dreaming!

</comment><comment><USER45> Whatever the fuck I wanted, which is the true beauty of it. :)

</comment><comment><USER46> I'd work for the political party you started in point 4.

</comment><comment><USER47> If I were you, I'd start a political party.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'd probably work on molecular nanotechnology... in my spare time, I'd try to solve poverty.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'd be building robots. I've never wanted to do anything else.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have no idea. I only know that its not going to be boring.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd work for the Seasteading Institute full-time.

</comment><comment><USER52> What ever you would do is what you should do.

</comment><comment><USER16> Build the GUI of the 21st century :)

</comment><comment><USER53> I'd open up PARC again.

</comment><comment><USER54> what I am doing now with a tad more surfing :P

</comment><comment><USER55> Hack.</comment>


How I strip formatting from copied text - <AUTHOR>

CMD + T CMD + V CMD + A CMD + C CMD + W<p>:) Best tool ever <comment><USER2> same here :)</comment>


Harvard Admissions Procedures Summary [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5004964/Harvard-Admissions-Procedures-Summary.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is a Trial Exhibit from SFFA v Harvard court case currently in the news:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-look-at-harvards- admissions-g...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-look-at-harvards-admissions- guidelines-1539804848)</comment>


Show HN: Tinythoughts, a line-a-day journal - <AUTHOR> https://tinythoughts.me <comment><AUTHOR> I made this over the past couple weekends, using Vue and Firebase! Would definitely appreciate feedback :D</comment>


Why IBM Will Win the War With Amazon Web Services - <AUTHOR> http://m.cio.com/article/742861/Why_IBM_Will_Win_the_War_With_Amazon_Web_Services

<comment><USER2> So a guy involve with IBM is (honestly?) saying that it will kick the ass of its competitor?

Nothing here to see, move along.</comment>


What are your IP address colors? - <AUTHOR> http://colormyip.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> One day project made with the Kohana framework, shows you a color set based on your ip. Works with ipv4 and ipv6.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does Keybase.io require karma 1? - <AUTHOR> Just created my hackernews account and went to prove my identity with Keybase.io and received this message:<p>> ATTENTION: HackerNews only publishes users to their API who have karma > 1.<p>Does anyone know why this is the case? I'm curious to how they see this proving into identity... Or is it purely an abuse mechanism? <comment><USER2> People where posting their hashes as new submissions which is not an acceptable way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Keybase wants to link to active HN accounts, not those created an hour ago. I think that's understandable.</comment>


Gifgif – A fun way to catalog the internet's emerging emotional vocabulary - <AUTHOR> http://gifgif.media.mit.edu <comment><USER2> What would be really interesting is if they implemented a system like the old ESP game. For those unfamiliar, it was a collaborative game with strangers over the internet. You and your stranger partner are both shown the same digital image, and you have a textbox to enter tags for that image. There was a limited time and the goal was to get to a point where both of you had entered the same tag. Over time, as the database got trained, common tags such as girl, man, bird, etc were blacklisted, and so you and your partner had to come up with more informative tags to play the game.

Unfortunately, Google bought out the ESP game, and then after shut them down.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the idea! We've gotten a bunch of feedback asking about more specific categorizations once the basic set of votes are saturated. This could be a pretty fun way of getting at something like that. We'll keep it in mind going forward!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They're shown at the wrong aspect ratio. What is this, linux video playback in 2003?

</comment><comment><USER5> Done with Meteor! I recognize the uids in the urls, also "Meteor.release" at the console.

Btw, loading a single gif url, like [http://gifgif.media.mit.edu/gif/13AbwdfEHTvih2](http://gifgif.media.mit.edu/gif/13AbwdfEHTvih2) is too slow. dev console shows "Cannot read property 'num_votes' from undefined". You need to prepare the template code for receiving an empty collection while the subs fill the data, i normally shortcut it as Collection.findOne({id: foo}) && Collection.findOne({id:foo}).num_votes. to prevent your error.

Also, some waitOn and loading templates on iron-router will make the overall UX much better with few changes. specially on the results page that is empty for a long time until content kicks in.

Regarding the site concept, its fun. I spent too much time there already. I will show it to my eve game mates. At eve chats the text line to "emotional" gif ratio is about 1:1. Good job.

</comment><comment><USER6> Neat concept, I rather enjoy the website design. However when I'm looking for reaction gif, I use the album I've bookmarked on IMGUR which is already hand curated by Reddit.

[http://reactiongifsarchive.imgur.com/](http://reactiongifsarchive.imgur.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> This could make for a twist on CAPTCHA. If you took pairs of gifs with huge vote disparities you would effectively have a right answer and a wrong answer.

<comment><USER8> You'd have extremely low entropy though. If I write an auto-signup script that just selects one or the other randomly, I'm still getting 50% of my botted accounts through.

Sure you can add more, but how many can you add before users get upset about doing the same thing over and over again? Three? Four? At four times I'm still looking at a 6% chance of getting an account created if I just select randomly. That's plenty.

Suggestions to use things that humans can easily distinguish but computers can't as captchas come up often. However, being only human readable isn't the only requirement for a captcha - another requirement is that it can't be computer guessable. If a computer can guess correctly with a high (>1%) chance of success, then the captcha is pointless.

<comment><USER7> Oh I'm not advocating that this actually being used as a captcha. Though, as a thought experiment, I think it would be more effective if you had, say, eight gifs. Instead of an either-or choice you could ask the user to choose all that match a given condition.

I had a teacher who employed "multiple multiple choice" questions on his exams. The question would have some number of choices (e.g. a,b,c,d,e) and you had to choose the correct answers. These questions were tricky because the answer choices could all be wrong (meaning you select none of the answer choices), could all be correct, and any combination of the answers could be correct. It made guessing go from a 1 in 5 situation to 1 in 32. I was not a fan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I had severe lag issues. Probably needs much smaller assets, perhaps HTML 5 video, and protection against double-clicks.

</comment><comment><USER10> That is a horrible website design. Also the gifs slow down my computer. It would be nice if they played when I hovered over them.

<comment><USER11> I completely disagree. The whole point is to see the gifs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 429 (Too Many Requests)

<comment><USER3> Yikes - sorry about that. Seems to be back up now - are you getting the 429 on refresh?

<comment><USER12> Still getting 429. nbd (this is standard HN fare) I'll check it out in 10.

<comment><USER3> Doh' \- a check showed that we were "load balancing" across all of 1 port. Pulled from the wrong git branch on one of our updates apparently -_-. Running through many more node instances now - hope it's up for you. Thanks for pointing it out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>