The We Company S-1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm <comment><USER2> A Bloomberg columnist's reaction on Twitter:

"I have only read the related party section in the WeWork IPO filing so far, and I am not kidding that it is THE MOST BANANAS THING I HAVE EVER READ."

[https://twitter.com/ShiraOvide/status/1161601877517246464](https://twitter.com/ShiraOvide/status/1161601877517246464)

</comment><comment><USER3> > We will be treated as an "emerging growth company" pursuant to the JOBS Act > for certain purposes until the earlier of the date we complete this offering > and December 31, 2019.

> These exemptions include ... reduced disclosure about executive compensation > arrangements and no requirement to include a compensation discussion and > analysis

I hadn't noticed this in recent big tech IPOs so I looked it up (Rule 12b-2):

> The term emerging growth company means an issuer that had total annual gross > revenues of less than $1,070,000,000 during its most recently completed > fiscal year.

So they claim to have had under $1.07B of gross revenue in 2018, but they list $1.8B in revenue on page 21.

> We ceased to be an emerging growth company as defined in the JOBS Act on > December 31, 2018. However, because we ceased to be an emerging growth > company after we confidentially submitted our registration statement related > to this offering to the SEC, we will be treated as an emerging growth > company for certain purposes until the earlier of the date on which we > complete this offering and December 31, 2019.

So they started the process before EOY 2018 where they knew they'd have $1B, so as to avoid disclosure until they are public. Sneaky!

Slack did the same thing, and had $1.05B in revenue for the previous tax-year when they registered (and $2.2B for 2018). I guess this is a convenient goalpost.

> Our membership base has grown by over 100% every year since 2014. It took us > more than seven years to achieve $1 billion of run-rate revenue, but only > one additional year to reach $2 billion of run-rate revenue and just six > months to reach $3 billion of run-rate revenue.

To claim run-rate revenue like this feels imaginary and misleading.

<comment><USER4> Revenue is one thing, net income is a whole another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > We are a community company committed to maximum global impact. Our mission > is to elevate the world's consciousness.

....

</comment><comment><USER6> If you wanna put those financials in perspective...

We Company financials chart: [https://imgur.com/a/Xky1NNh](https://imgur.com/a/Xky1NNh)

<comment><USER7> It seems like they need to charge more or operate a leaner operation. Even after excluding marketing and sales expenses, they're still not profitable. They also apparently have 12k employees, which is way too high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> An interesting thing happened a bit ago related to public companies and how they must account for leases in the accounting standards update 2016-02, Leases (Topic 842). For lessees, any leases that are over 12 months in duration will need to be presented on the company's balance sheet as a right- to-use asset and corresponding liability for the obligation to pay rent.

So if you are a public company; you can rent space from WeCompany at an 11mo period and you can magically reduce your liabilities vs signing your own office space. While this may seem like a small change, this change could allow execs to improve their financials with accounting gimmicks.

</comment><comment><USER9> Their operating expenses + depreciation seems to consistently be equal to their revenue, before the pre-opening expenses, sales and marketing expenses, and new market development expenses.

Investing in growth at a loss makes sense for such a rapidly growing company, but can they make the unit economics work to turn a profit (after covering general and administrative costs as well) when they need to? They do claim to be offering the ability to house employees at less than half the market rate for traditional leases + operations, so I guess they'd be able to raise prices to a more sustainable level when required, assuming those numbers are accurate.

As put off as I am by this whole company's branding and vibe, they do seem to have built a major business and likely have a substantial lead in the space due to brand recognition and operational experience.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wework disclosed in this S-1 that the vast majority of its members are small organizations or a handful of seats purchased by "enterprises." In the event of an economic downturn I wouldn't think WeWork could reasonably expect to collect on its membership fees no matter its contracts - their small clients will go out of business or otherwise just stop paying. WeWork is still on the hook for its contractual lease obligations, with lease terms averaging 15 years by its disclosures and between $2.3-$2.4bn of contractual obligations per year in upcoming years.

I don't see this going well.

</comment><comment><USER11> That wegrow bit seems really strange and cultish with all the mentioning of "connecting with the universe" and "cosmic education".

<comment><USER12> What the actual heck. Why are startups trying to do schools now? There is no way I'm sending my kid to a company with shareholders. Oh, and it costs $30,000 for your 4 year old to attend preschool. Why must we 'disrupt' anything and everything?

[https://wegrow.com/](https://wegrow.com/) [https://wegrowparents.squarespace.com/](https://wegrowparents.squarespace.com/)

<comment><USER13> >Rebekah has traveled the world apprenticing and studying under many Master Students, such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Mother Nature herself, and is committed to creating an educational community that fosters growth in humans' minds, bodies, and souls elevating the collective consciousness of the world.

Sounds like a vanity project for the CEO's wife.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Based on the filing the company awarded 42M stock options to the CEO earlier this year. The filing mentions a share price of $110 per share, so that's over $4B.

That can't be normal, right? That's 10% of the entire company. It's more than Elon Musk got for Tesla by a long shot, and that was already controversial.

<comment><USER15> Options require the stock to go up to be worth anything. So if the stock price increases ten percent, that would be $420M (120-110) * 42M shares. Still seems like an awful lot.

<comment><USER14> That's actually not quite how it works: "The options awarded had a per-share exercise price equal to the fair market value of our Class B common stock on the applicable grant date"

Common stock is usually way less expensive than preferred, so while currently the company may be 'valued' at $110 per share, the common stock is probably in the $30s or $40s.

He's likely already up $2B on the stock options (pending vesting), assuming the company does IPO at $47B and all common stock converts at the $110 valuation.

Personally I think this is unheard of -- anyone else know of examples of CEO compensation like this prior to an IPO?

<comment><USER16> > anyone else know of examples of CEO compensation like this prior to an IPO?

Snapchat

[https://fortune.com/2018/02/23/snapchat-evan-spiegel- ipo/](https://fortune.com/2018/02/23/snapchat-evan-spiegel-ipo/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks like they need to go public or else they will die. 2.8 billion deferred rent on the balance sheet = house of cards

</comment><comment><USER18> Apparently Adam has pledged $1B in charitable donations over the next 10 years, otherwise he loses voting power. Is this normal?

>To evidence their commitment to charitable causes and to ensure this commitment is meaningful, if Adam and Rebekah have not contributed at least $1 billion to charitable causes as of the ten-year anniversary of the closing date of this offering, holders of all of the Company's high-vote stock will only be entitled to ten votes per share instead of twenty votes per share.```

<comment><USER19> It seems disingenuous to make themselves only 10x more powerful than other investors if they don't do what they say, rather than the accepted 20x.

Is such an ratio normal?

<comment><USER20> It's certainly normal for founders to give themselves more power than other investors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Upon completion of this offering, Adam Neumann will own or control more than > 50% of the total voting power of our capital stock

Another Zuckerberg style IPO. Activist investors beware...

<comment><USER22> It's actually a good thing, they can't be included in a lot of indexes because of that clause which means only people truly intent on setting fire to their cash will ever buy the stock.

<comment><USER23> This is dangerous in case of WeWork, since founder is leasing property to WeWork. Founder knows how much profit is company generating, he can increase rent prices and make WeWork zero profitable all the time, but his other company earns all profit, because he has >50% voting power, he might decide to stay with his own company even if he increases rent

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a very unsophisticated eye, but it's difficult to avoid the feeling that a portion of modern VC is a pump and dump scheme. Particularly when taking into account recent equity moves by WeWork and Beyond Meat.

<comment><USER25> Beyond at least seems like it's a company with a strong path to profitability during a major shift in the food market towards meat alternatives. IDK what wework is doing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> From Page 199: "A majority of Adam's awards are also tied to the Company's performance as a public company, particularly an increase in our market capitalization that is sustained over a period of at least 60 days".

Seriously? just 60 days?

</comment><comment><USER9> I just realized that the last raise was at a $44 billion valuation. That seems unhinged. With the numbers in the S-1 filing, a valuation of closer to $20 billion seems more appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER27> Pets.com of the current tech boom, imo.

<comment><USER28> Let's hope for a commercial during the next Super Bowl.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Our mission is to elevate the world consciousness". Let it never be said that tech startups were not very Californian.

<comment><USER30> Since this is neither a tech startup, not a California company, not sure what your comment is meant to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The executive compensation looks interesting.

I wish they publish the ceo salary before 2018. Is that more for a public perception?

And we see only CFO/Legal and no one else.

<comment><USER32> "Employment Agreement

The Company does not have an employment agreement in place with Adam and, accordingly, Adam does not earn any salary from the Company and would not be entitled to severance if he no longer served as Chief Executive Officer. Adam earned no salary in 2018 and only earned $1 in 2017. Moreover, Adam is not entitled to any perquisites from the Company and elects to reimburse the Company in full for any perquisites he may receive in connection with his service as our Chief Executive Officer."

The value of the options he was granted, as well as related party transactions are quite significant though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > We will be treated as an "emerging growth company" pursuant to the JOBS Act > for certain purposes until the earlier of the date we complete this offering > and December 31, 2019. An emerging growth company may take advantage of > specified exemptions from various requirements that are otherwise applicable > generally to public companies in the United States. These exemptions > include:

> \- an exemption to include in an initial public offering registration > statement less than five years of selected financial data

> \- reduced disclosure about executive compensation arrangements and no > requirement to include a compensation discussion and analysis

> \- accounting standards transition period accommodation that allows for the > deferral of compliance with new or revised financial accounting standards > until a company that is not an issuer is required to comply with such > standards.

Number 2 seems surprising. Is that par for course in these dealings?

</comment><comment><USER34> Huge losses, no profitability in sight, pre-IPO founder cash-out

...yip to the moon!

</comment><comment><USER35> "When applying our average revenue per WeWork membership for the six months ended June 30, 2019 to our potential member population of 149 million people in our existing 111 cities, we estimate an addressable market opportunity of $945 billion. Among our total potential member population of approximately 255 million people across our 280 target cities globally, we estimate an addressable market opportunity of $1.6 trillion.

"(...) By applying the average employee occupancy costs to our potential member population of 149 million people in our existing 111 cities, we estimate a total opportunity of $1.7 trillion. Among the approximately 255 million potential members across our 280 target cities globally, we estimate a total opportunity of $3.0 trillion."

<comment><USER36> Is this how these things are usually calculated?

Does a watch manufacturer say that there are approximately 255 million left arms which we can reach by post, and since our watches sell for $1000 that's a $255B opportunity?

<comment><USER37> > _Is this how these things are usually calculated?_

Yes, it's a run-of-the-mill back-of-the-envelope TAM [1] estimate. The point of this number isn't to value the company. It's to identify obvious limits to scaling.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_addressable_market](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_addressable_market)

<comment><USER38> > It's to identify obvious limits to scaling.

In my experience, it's more likely in order to show an enormous number as a way of telling investors, the executives you need to approve your product/project, etc. that your thing has just incredible potential.

It has some value. If the TAM isn't very big and you'd have to achieve 50% of it to ever turn a profit, that may be a red flag. But TAMs that lead to business projections like: "We only need to put our watch on 10% of the left arms in the world to make a huge pile of cash!" are pretty bogus.

<comment><USER39> Even a nobody likes me knows to take TAM estimates with a grain of salt, so I imagine experienced investors know too.

I suspect if you added up all the TAM estimates for all the industries on Earth you'd get a number somewhere north of 10x the actual total value of the markets on Earth. I feel I'm being conservative; I really wanted to say 50x, but chickened out at the last minute before posting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is just my opinion, but I think it will be one of the most shorted stock this year and next year.

</comment><comment><USER41> Is there anybody here who believes WeWork will eventually be profitable? I know most of the people here are skeptics but I'm interested in hearing the other side.

</comment><comment><USER42> Another scam IPO for another scam tech company.

The fucking hot dog stand at my neighborhood park is in better financial shape than these toxic scam businesses like Uber or We.

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting analysis by SWFI guys, Top 10 Biggest Risks in WeWork are Revealed [https://www.swfinstitute.org/news/74504/top-10-biggest- risks...](https://www.swfinstitute.org/news/74504/top-10-biggest-risks-in- wework-are-revealed)

</comment><comment><USER44> this guy one up'd madoff. took investor money, bought hard assets and now charging those investors rent. haha, dude should be in jail

</comment><comment><USER45> How do you read things like this? I'm overwhelmed but feel like there are nuggets all over in this document.

<comment><USER25> Having an accounting 101 level of background (I'm sure there are a lot of good online resources to pick up accounting - the basics of accounting are way easier than the basics of computer science IMO)gets you like 90% of the way there to be able to skip down to the financial statements and the footnotes and get a decent sense of what the company looks like. Obviously you can go further and further in depth, and there are a lot of things specific to the IPO process that are good to know, but IMO knowing how to look through the accounting statements and read a balance sheet/income statement/statement of cashflows is the 20% of effort needed to get 80% of the insight you would want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Top 10 Biggest Risks in WeWork are Revealed [https://www.swfinstitute.org/news/74504/top-10-biggest- risks...](https://www.swfinstitute.org/news/74504/top-10-biggest-risks-in- wework-are-revealed)

</comment><comment><USER46> According to the prospectus, they lose so much money because they are building out new locations. Their break even point takes about a year for an individual location.

So theoretically, they have a path to profitability. I just wonder where they get the cash in the meantime. >$1B/year burn rate, ouch.

<comment><USER47> Wouldn't it be from the IPO? If they sell 10% of the company, it should raise billions.

<comment><USER27> That sounds like a ponzi scheme, not an investment.

<comment><USER48> I would never invest in WeWork, but no, not at all. A Ponzi scheme takes new investor dollars to pay the earlier investors' "returns".

Taking new dollars to grow the company to generate future profits is actually the definition of "investment".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> It seems there are a lot of red flags here. The entire thing feels like a ponzi scheme to make the founder insanely wealthy - aka no real business here.

E.g. The founder took a near 0% interest loan for 30M in 2006, raised VC capital, than paid it back in 2009 with the inflated share values.

</comment><comment><USER50> This statement though "The We Company is committed to being meat, single-use plastics, and carbon emissions free."

<comment><USER51> A laudable goal? Of all the statements to bemoan, why choose the one about environmental sustainability?

<comment><USER52> These are buzzword marketing goals, and usually unachievable without ridiculous costs, assuming they're even attempted.

<comment><USER51> Going meatless would save money, if anything. Recycling or buying multi-use containers also eventually costs less than single use, especially at scale.

Also, credit where it's due to We. Just because the common opinion of this company is negative, doesn't mean _literally everything they do_ is bad.

I don't buy that it's "unachievable" at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The mechanics of deferred rent are fascinating here. They have 2.8 billion of deferred rent on their balance sheet. See note 11 and 17

<comment><USER54> What exactly is deferred rent and what does it mean for We Company?

<comment><USER53> Let me try to explain with an example. GAAP requires straight line depreciation of a lease. So if I gave you a 2 year lease on a facility and required a single payment of $1M at the end of the term, you'd account for that as 500K expense in year one, 500K in year 2. In year 1, your cash balance didn't change though right? I only wanted payment in year 2. So you record a 500K deferred rent liability to indicate that the expense has yet to hit your cash balance.

Basically over some set of future years they'll have to pay out 2.8B of cash. But they don't disclose the timing on when those payments come due.

<comment><USER54> Very clear explanation, thank you.

It seems somewhat curious they don't have to reveal when they would be contractually obligated to pay out?

<comment><USER53> They are required to disclose it. See page f-59 at the top. You'll note that their lease payments are 1.3B this year but go up every year after.

Edit: the rate of increase is startling. They are going to have an additional 500M in leases on top of their expense this year plus another 200M come 2021 on top of that

<comment><USER55> Is the $500M in leases on top of their expenses assuming 0 growth? Or is their growth plan baked in?

Also, is the deferred rent liability fixed assuming 0 growth?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> 4.5 MB of HMTL... not including the images.

</comment><comment><USER57> Translation: WE slurp money - for granted.

</comment><comment><USER58> Stupid filter keeping me in the dark.

Access Denied You don't have permission to access "[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/0001193125192...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm") on this server.

Reference #18.6fae0017.1565800624.11173d06

</comment><comment><USER59> The thing that's the most upsetting about this is that our 401k, pension funds, city funds will all end up buying this garbage.

</comment><comment><USER60> Oof.

</comment><comment><USER61> tl;dr This dude, through various financial shenanigans, is loaning himself hundreds of millions of dollars to buy real estate and lease it back to WeWork. He then pays the loans off by issuing shares of We Work stock. Nothing is illegal about this, but it stinks to high heaven. But hey, he doesn't draw a salary as CEO!

From the Company Loans Section:

 _In May 2013 and February 2014, we issued loans to WE Holdings LLC for $10.4 million (interest rate 0.2% per year; maturity May 30, 2016) and $15.0 million (interest rate 0.2% per year; maturity February 4, 2017), respectively. The loans were collateralized by shares of our capital stock held by We Holdings LLC, and each loan provided us with the option to purchase a number of these shares in full settlement of the applicable loan. We exercised these options in May 2016, purchasing and retiring an aggregate of 8,398,670 shares of our capital stock in full settlement of the loans._

 _In June 2016, we issued a loan to Adam totaling $7.0 million (interest rate of 0.64% per year; maturity June 14, 2019). In November 2017, Adam repaid the loan in full, including $0.1 million in interest, in cash._

Then from the Properties Leased to The We Company section:

 _During the years ended December 31, 2016, 2017 and 2018, we made cash payments totaling $3.1 million, $5.6 million and $8.0 million to the [CEO] under these leases._

Sounds like they are straight up loaning the CEO money so he can buy buildings and lease them back to the We Company. Bonkers.

From the Personal Loans section:

 _Adam currently has a line of credit of up to $500 million with UBS AG, Stamford Branch, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and Credit Suisse AG, New York Branch, of which approximately $380 million principal amount was outstanding as of July 31, 2019. The line of credit is secured by a pledge of approximately [BLANK] shares of our Class B common stock beneficially owned by Adam._

From the WPI Fund and ARK section:

 _We have entered into operating lease agreements with [the CEO] in which the WPI Fund (or, following the ARK /WPI combination, other real estate acquisition vehicles managed or sponsored by ARK) have an interest, on what we believe to be commercially reasonable terms no less favorable to us than could have been obtained from unaffiliated third parties. During the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2017, no rent expense or cash payments had been recognized by us relating to these agreements as we were not yet occupying any properties owned by these entities and had not paid any rent under these leases. During the year ended December 31, 2018 and the six months ended June 30, 2019, we made cash payments totaling $0.0 million and $0.6 million, respectively, and we recognized _

From Personal Real Estate Transactions section:

 _With respect to the six properties not currently occupied by the Company, in connection with exercising its option to acquire a property in the first year of the management agreement, the ARK Manager and the Company may determine that a subsidiary of the Company should occupy any of such properties to the extent the ARK Manager and the Company agree on terms of any such occupancy agreement._

</comment><comment><USER62> Next Uber? Impressive growth, but their expenses grow at the same pace (they consistently need to spend ~$2 to earn $1).

WeWork's locations are wonderful, but if they want to start making money, they need to start charging more or lower the costs. Won't people just move to cheaper offices then?

<comment><USER63> >WeWork's locations are wonderful

really had the opposite experience. To me they feel like a neural net went rogue and scanned through a billion pictures of "generic millenial apartment" and then turned it into workplaces. Every weworks place I've seen seems completely exchangeable and lacking any sort of character.

<comment><USER64> > Every weworks place I've seen seems completely exchangeable

That's kind of the point. You get a consistent office environment in any wework

It might not be perfect, but in my experience it's way better than the average office (at least in London)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> WeWork has $33.9 Billion in Non-canceable lease commitments, and it's lease payments are increasing 100% YoY. I think that is the true ticking time bomb for this company. In a world where billion dollar losses (Uber) seems somewhat normal, those lease obligations are still outrageous, and those payments will come due eventually, whether they have the money or not. In 2019 they attributed over $800 Million to operating lease costs. Every year, based on static growth that will double, and my bet is that it may even more than double in some cases. This isn't so much a company as it is a race to light cash on fire and run away.

<comment><USER66> Seems like they are pretty much levered to the hilt. What happens when the current bubble bursts (or even just deflates) and their occupancy rate declines?

Their business model seems to be selling short term leases and buying long term leases. This is all fine and dandy as long as they can find enough buyers for the short term commitments, but the distribution of almost all such strategies tends to be heavily tailed. You basically collect a small but consistent margin and occasionally suffer heavy and unavoidable losses.

That's a perfectly fine strategy if the company can stay solvent during the loss, but this seems far from certain in case of WeWork.

<comment><USER67> in a recession, is short term, flexible office space more or less desirable?

<comment><USER68> Wouldn't anyone spending money on that just cheap out and go with a library or cafe or home-office to save money? Sure, not working at home is great for productivity for some people, but when push comes to shove, their customers can largely move elsewhere, right?

<comment><USER69> Maybe if you work alone. But there are plenty of corporate customers of WeWork who will never, ever tell their employees to "work out of a cafe".

The problem of course is that not all customers are big corporates - some are small firms that _will_ scale back spending, or even close, if a recession hits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Perhaps this is a stupid question, but is an S-1 the first chance for the general public to get any insight into a company's financials?

<comment><USER71> Yes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_S-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_S-1)

<comment><USER70> That's so counterintuitive once you get used to all company returns (both privately and publicly held) being public information in Sweden.

Here's Spotify's complete financial history from its inception for example:

[https://www.allabolag.se/5567037485/spotify- ab](https://www.allabolag.se/5567037485/spotify-ab)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> TLDR: We Company (parent company of WeWork) filed for an IPO

</comment><comment><USER73> WeWork shouldn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER74> Red flag company spends $2 to sell each red flag for $1.

</comment><comment><USER75> The financials - [https://imgur.com/a/NZONeDo](https://imgur.com/a/NZONeDo)

TLDR : Revenue - $1.535B | Costs - $2.904B | Loss - $1.369B

<comment><USER76> So revenue and net loss are almost the same number. They lose^h^h^h^h spend $2 for every $1 that comes in. Ouch.

Edit: Yes, spend is better verb here than lose...thanks

<comment><USER77> Not quite - they spend $2 for every $1 that comes in, so they lose $1 per $1 of revenue

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I've disliked WeWork from the beginning, it pretends to be a tech company but it's just an old school real estate play. I still wouldn't short it, especially early on.

<comment><USER79> To me WeWork just looks like the stock market with leverage and extra management fees.

<comment><USER78> Well at least their management does something, REITs look like cushy ticket clippers to me (from the outside).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Does the S-1 disclose the fact that the founder is also one of the company's biggest business partners? He buys up properties and then leases them to WeWork. Seems like a red flag to me.

<comment><USER81> Yes, under "related party transactions": [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1533523/000119312519220499/d781982ds1.htm#toc781982_105)

"We are party to lease agreements for four commercial properties with landlord entities in which Adam has an ownership interest..."

<comment><USER82> > Adam is a unique leader who has proven he can simultaneously wear the hats > of visionary, operator and innovator...

Is this a normal sort of thing to see in such a filing? He's being referred to by his first name and heaped with praise.

<comment><USER83> Adam is extraordinarily humble. Everyone, including Adam, would never exaggerate.

Adam is a part of everything. He is in the sky and sea. He is in the dreams of children at night. He is all that there is, forever.

<comment><USER84> Adam is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Those who invest will inherit all this, and Adam will be their God and they will be his children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the shorts -- they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.

<comment><USER85> Adam's rise signals the start of the Apocalypse. Even his name is an affront, and a sardonic reference to the Alpha (Book of Genesis) and Omega (We).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> My favorite part of new tech company filings is looking at the risk section and finding something to the effect of: "We are not profitable, and may never be."

> We have a history of losses and, especially if we continue to grow at an > accelerated rate, we may be unable to achieve profitability at a company > level (as determined in accordance with GAAP) for the foreseeable future.

I understand the reasoning behind having these in the document, but I always get a kick out of seeing it said so plainly.

<comment><USER87> It's not a tech company, it's a property company with the valuation of a tech company.

<comment><USER88> It's a property company that's planning tracking everything people do in their buildings.

>WeWork's latest acquisition is a small software company with 24 employees. Euclid is a spatial analytics platform...Euclid's website says the company is "focused on redefining the workplace experience of the future." Translation: optimizing every aspect of the physical workplace so workers are their most productive. Euclid does this by tracking how people move around physical spaces. Its technology can track how many people showed up to a meeting or to that after-work happy hour. The company can see where employees tend to congregate and for how long. It's all done over Wi-Fi.

Edit - forgot to link the article - [https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/wework- is-trying-a-creepy-ne...](https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/wework-is-trying-a- creepy-new-strategy-it-just-might-signal-end-of-workplace-as-we-know-it.html)

<comment><USER89> Yeah, I don't see that providing the outsized gains they're hoping for. I've talked to a number of entrepreneurs who business plan is basically

        1. Collect data
        2. ???
        3. Profit

And every time I quiz them on point 2, they get squirrely. They can never explain exactly how it works; at best I get hazy references to Google making lots from data, which is at best a partial truth.

In this case, I doubt having that data will do much; humans are already natural optimizers. Really, the things workplaces should be optimized for are unlikely to be easily measurable, so at best these systems will optimize for the wrong thing.

And really, the reason workplaces aren't particularly optimal now is that most decisions are made not for maximizing business value, but for maximizing the power and comfort of those high up. As an example, when businesses relocate their headquarters, it is generally to move closer to the CEO's home. Or we can look at all the decisions made to optimize a visible metric, like cost, to the harm of invisible ones. E.g., the open office plan, which is cheap and lets managers supervise by looking out their office window, but significantly harms productivity and employee happiness.

<comment><USER90> > And every time I quiz them on point 2, they get squirrely.

Well, sure, but all they're being told is that data is the new gold. [0] And gold is valuable, so data must also be valuable. They tend to forget that not all data is gold, because 'some data is gold' isn't what they were told and also isn't fun.

0: [https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/data- analytics/article...](https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/data- analytics/articles/the-new-gold.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Can someone give me a tldr of what this is/means and why it's almost at the top of HN?

<comment><USER92> An S-1 is the prospectus a company has to file before going public. It includes historical financials, an overview of the business, go-to-market and a lot of additional information. It should generally tell you everything relevant about the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> I'm really disgusted by how much recent tech IPOs inject pitch deck-style garbage into the S-1 filing, especially this one. I've always had a great amount of respect for the mediating nature of the S-1's dry, candid, and ruthlessly honest assessment of business risks, and even though those things are still there, they're blown out by marketing photos, full-page charts, and branding.

This is basically like putting perfume on a term paper. Regulators could do well to clamp down on this sort of activity, especially with the S-1's reputation as a means to truly inform investors.

<comment><USER94> WeWork's _litigation counsel_ might have wanted the pitch-deck stuff to go into the S-1 to make the information more understandable to non-business people. That way, the pitch deck would be an official part of the record; in turn, this would mean a couple of things:

1\. If disgruntled investors were to sue WeWork, the pitch-deck material could be referred to by WeWork's counsel in tactical maneuvering such as a motion for judgment on the pleadings, without having to jump through all the hoops that might otherwise be required;

2\. Worst case, if a lawsuit ended up going all the way to a jury trial, the pitch-deck material presumably would be sent back into the jury room as a "real" exhibit, allowing the jury to review the pitch-deck material during deliberations. (The jurors might even be given individual notebooks with copies.) In contrast, if the pitch deck were left out of the S-1, the judge might or might not allow it to go back into the jury room, especially if it were a so-called demonstrative exhibit prepared for the litigation.

(I teach my contract-drafting students to draft agreements with an eye toward being readable by judges and jurors, with tables, footnotes, non-legalese language etc. — and if the contract language is understandable to a juror, then the parties' business people will be able to get to signature more quickly and are less likely to get into disputes afterwards.)

<comment><USER95> Yeah, except that's not how this works outside the theoretical realm.

In practice, those that actually took companies public know that the more terrible crap you throw into the S-1 ( pitch deck included ) as long as you state that risk-wise you are probably a terrible investment for the public, the better protected you are from the lawsuits in the future when the public's investment does not pan out: you say 'we are doing X and this is our rosy pie in the sky pitch deck, but we must tell you the risk is that none of this is helping us to make money. Buyer beware'

Should one look at the S-1s of the tech companies that went public in last 4-5 years one would see that pattern

Source: Attorneys engaged by the investment banks to help companies to IPO.

<comment><USER94> This is also true. Back when I was drafting my then-company's Form 10-K annual reports, for just that reason I loaded up the risk section with a list of all the things that could go wrong, based on studying similar lists from the big software companies. It's sometimes known as vaccination or inoculation — "hey, we _told_ you all these things that could make our stock price go south!"

(The danger with this approach, of course, is that if you inadvertently leave something out, the plaintiffs' lawyers will spotlight the omission and argue, "they LIED!")

<comment><USER96> Your actions are reason, why this (yours incl) sections are useless from investor perspective.

Take for example a risk from We Work company S1: > the sustainability of our rapid growth and our ability to manage our growth effectively;

translation: getting older may cause you die.

in other words: dont put your cat to microwave, and beware as your tea might be hot in your cup.

<comment><USER94> It's all about the incentives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> First time I hear about this company. Why is it related to HN?

<comment><USER98> Probably half the startups here are working from WeWork offices or have done at some stage..

<comment><USER99> And the other half of us are at the new discount off-brand WeWork, aka Industrious

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER100> > We have 3 classes of stock: Class A shares which have 1 vote, class B > shares, which have 20 votes, and class C shares which have 20 votes. All > classes vote alongside each other.

I wouldn't consider being an investor in this company unless class B or C shares are publicly traded. Just look at the underperformance of GOOGL, SNAP, and SQ for reasons why not to be an investor here.

<comment><USER101> Unfavorable opinion alert!

Lets say they were publicly traded, and not held for institutions, VCs, and fonders.

Would you as a person, buying Class B shares ever buy enough that the 20 votes per share matter? Why does the number of votes to you matter, unless you sank a few hundred million into the company (at which point, you would be an institution or vc), your votes wouldn't matter with any of the classes.

<comment><USER102> The reverse of that argument is "if my vote doesn't matter, why do they want to additionally shrink it by 20x"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> You would literally have to be out of your mind to buy into this, especially as the founder cashed out $700 million right before IPO.

Best. Short. Ever.

<comment><USER104> They are going to be screwed when there's another recession, given that they don't actually own the office space they rent out. This is a real gem:

"Substantially all of our leases with our landlords are for terms that are significantly longer than the terms of our membership agreements with our members. The average length of the initial term of our U.S. leases is approximately 15 years, and our future undiscounted minimum lease cost payment obligations under signed operating and finance leases was $47.2 billion as of June 30, 2019."

<comment><USER105> I would say those landlords are going to be in for an even bigger shock.

<comment><USER106> If WeWork goes broke it's mildly annoying to have to find other tenants, it's true. But it's not like they can't plan for that.

For instance if WeWork goes down, there are still tenants that might want to stay in the building. That's a sensible place to start.

<comment><USER22> The tenants who want to stay in the building aren't going to be paying the same private equity subsidized prices that WeWork were. I'd imagine in some markets wework is such a big customer now that their collapse would cause massive repercussions.

<comment><USER107> In a default scenario, the temptation for the building owners and ultimate tenants to cut bilateral deals and screw over the middle man (WeWork) would be huge. For the owner it's win-win - they keep cashflow coming in and if the deal remains short term then they can replace the tenant with someone who will sign a longer-term lease once markets recover fairly easily.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Presidential Election Results - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region <comment><USER2> Really sleek view of the results. Thought this loaded unusually fast and looking at the code, all scripts are defer asynced at the bottom.

The data seems to be polled every 10 seconds from [https://intf.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/11-08-election- foreca...](https://intf.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2016/11-08-election- forecast/president.json)

<comment><USER3> Hypothetical: if you deploy a webpage for a time-limited event (e.g. vote results) with an async update cycle, what options for throttling do you have if your load exceeds expectations? Is there a best practices for having a server-controlled "Plan B" throttling mechanism?

I'm making the assumption that the majority of users will load the page and leave it running unmodified.

<comment><USER4> You add exponential falloff if the server returns anything but a 200.</comment></comment></comment>


Flour mills working 'round the clock' to meet demand - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52212760 <comment><USER2> > Alex Waugh, director general of Nabim, says the issue isn't being able to > mill enough flour - but the lack of capacity to pack it into small bags for > retailers. Only around 4% of UK flour is sold through shops and > supermarkets, according to the association. The majority is produced in bulk > and delivered in tankers or bags of more than 16kg to bakeries or other food > manufacturers.

So there's plenty of flour, it's just that small, home-sized bags used to be 4% of their sales and now that ratio has been flipped on its head and they aren't yet equipped to _package_ it in that way.

<comment><USER3> If 16kg bags are what you have sell them!

<comment><USER4> Definitely. 16 kg is a large quantity for someone who isn't sure how much they are going to be baking. But it's not a lot of money. Easily less than 10 £/€/US$/AU$.

<comment><USER5> I was staying home with my kid a few years ago and baking a loaf every week among other things. I bought a larger bag of flour but didn't have a great storage solution and it got bugs in it.

I'm in a privileged position, but to me it hurts more to toss something away than to pay more for smaller portions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least for Australia, flour was already in unusually short supply prior to Coronavirus. Primarily due to drought.

[https://www.afr.com/companies/agriculture/drought-shrinks- gr...](https://www.afr.com/companies/agriculture/drought-shrinks-grain- harvest-to-decade-lows-20191020-p532cr)

</comment><comment><USER7> Baking is such a wonderful way to relieve stress and there's so much chemistry involved that it's great for geeks, too. A good book (available in ebook) is The Bread Makers Apprentice: [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/39910](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/39910)

</comment><comment><USER8> And as the article notes—the demand is not for _more flour_ but just a demand for the same amount of flour but in _smaller bags_ which is exactly what you would expect.

Bread-making is not such an alien or quaint skill set. People have either already made bread, or know someone who makes it. We have friends or family members who are into Martha Stewart, Food Network, or Bon Appétit.

Especially with the internet, we are not confused people who are panic buying flour, but people who know (or can find out online) that making bread is not especially challenging, it's just time-consuming, and much of that time is spent waiting. It's hard to fit making bread into your schedule if you go to work every day, but if you're stuck at home anyway _and_ the store is low on bread…

<comment><USER9> The article is literally about a huge increase in demand for more flour by consumers. The industry is "working round the clock" to meet demand. People have a lot of extra time at home so they are baking a lot more, which they did not do in the past. Thankfully there's enough wheat to meet the increased demand, but the bottleneck is currently packaging.

I've personally had to order flour in bulk (50lb bags) online.

<comment><USER8> > The article is literally about a huge increase in demand for more flour

Demand for flour from _grocery stores_ not overall demand for flour. From the article:

> Grocery sales of flour were up 92%…

> Alex Waugh, director general of Nabim, says the issue isn't being able to > mill enough flour - but the lack of capacity to pack it into small bags for > retailers.

> Only around 4% of UK flour is sold through shops and supermarkets…

If you multiply that out, the bump in demand would only account for a 4% increase in total flour consumption… but I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that flour consumption through some other channels (bakeries, restaurants) is down, and you would need to account for that.

<comment><USER9> I think you may be underestimating the sudden impact on the demand for flour and wheat during the pandemic. There are two behaviors that did not exist too much before. First, a vast number of consumers are suddenly stockpiling larger quantities of not only flour but other nonperishable goods such as breads and cereals and pastas. Before they only had enough quantity for days or weeks. Now it is on the order of months. Second, people are baking a lot more as a hobby/comfort food/stress relief than before the pandemic.

Certainly some channels have closed (like dine-in restaurants), but some are still operating strongly (e.g. Dominos Pizza is experiencing massive increase in demand).

> "We've increased production about four-fold but we're nowhere close to > meeting the demand we've seen."

In terms of the overall impact on the flour/wheat market it's hard to tell, but I'd be guessing that it's double-digit % increase in demand. It would be interesting to see some exact numbers on this.

<comment><USER8> What you're describing is a shock to the supply chain and distribution, but not a problem with the amount of flour. Any panic buying is temporary. Buyers simply cannot exhaust our capacity to produce flour in the steady state, but since the supply chain responds so slowly to changes, they can cause temporary disruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone looking for flour, I suggest looking for stores that supply local small businesses and restaurants with supplies. I stopped by my local "Smart Food Service" (formerly Cash & Carry) for something else and noticed that they appeared to have decent stock of all their flour. Although the sizes were larger than you'd find at the grocery store, the overall price per pound was cheaper.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wessex mill is just down the road from me, I often buy my flour there although can't at the moment because they closed their retail sales.

</comment><comment><USER12> Since we've been cooped up in the house, my wife has been making fresh bread.

It's awesome. Brings a little bright spot to this cloudy situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't get this. Don't resturaunts use flour and make bread? Why are stores resistant to selling the industrial size bags?

<comment><USER13> Restaurants in the UK (which the article is about) are currently closed, since it's on lockdown. People want flour at home to make cakes and sourdough bread.

<comment><USER14> At risk of stating the obvious, but the advantage of making _sourdough_ bread specifically is that you don't need to buy yeast (which is also in short supply), just flour, water, and salt.

<comment><USER15> Don't forget the other three essential ingredients... The three T's: Time, Temperature, and Technique</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mandelbrot set discovered in 13th century by Benedictine monk - <AUTHOR> http://www.raygirvan.co.uk/apoth/udo.htm Also see:<p>http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/story?id=98615 <comment><USER2> "This was a labour of faith, and Udo was prepared to work for years. Some slowly-converging pixels must have taken weeks."

Actually, what he doesn't take into account is that in the early 1200's, Brother Elias of Cortona developed MapReduce, which allowed the calculations to be spread among the vast network of monasteries that existed in that time. Monks willingly took breaks from the painstaking work of illuminating manuscripts to each calculate a few pixels' worth of the solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...in the collection of mediaeval underground verses now known as the Carmina Burana."

Hah! I looked at the pics and scanned the article and started reading... I knew something was wrong when I read that line above. It's all a joke.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So did you notice it's a joke?

<comment><USER4> Cheeky bastard. I was thoroughly impressed! I had to look back and see the publication date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How to view this site without clawing out your eyes (requires Web Developer extension for Firefox):

Right click the page. Web Developer > Disable > Disable Page Colors.

Then hit ctrl-+ once or twice to make the text a readable size.

You're welcome.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also see:

<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/WhosCounting/Story?id=98615>

</comment><comment><USER6> I knew that buckfast was good for something.</comment>


Ask HN: What Are Employee Unions? - <AUTHOR> This sounds dumb.
I have worked in tech all my life and I have never had to deal with unions. I have tried reading up on them but never really understood.
What the hell are they? What is their benefit to an employer? Why and how much do I have to pay them? Why does tech not have them? Does tech need them? <comment><USER2> "What is their benefit to an employer?"

You, as a worker, are worried about a union's benefit to your employer rather than to yourself?

</comment><comment><USER3> The point of unions is that unlike in tech, where workers are in high demand and paid a silly amount and get company swag and ball pits or whatever so feel happy enough, in most industries and areas people are treated and paid as poorly as companies can get away with because they are expendable commoditised labour.

Unions are historically a way of fighting for more rights (e.g. better wages, sick pay) for workers by collective organisation (i.e. pay us enough so we can eat, or we will all down tools and stop your factory doing anything).

The arguments against unions are that they are too powerful and mean people who are poor at their job cannot be fired, but I would argue that they are very much still necessary because the nature of capitalism and employment hasn't change particularly much, and without them companies would absolutely start taking the piss as much as they possibly can because it is their function to extract capital from workers' labour as efficiently as possible.

I would suggest that perhaps tech workers could join unions en-mass to fight for the rights of less privileged workers - ie if the cleaner can't eat or pay rent, you don't get your PRs merged, but I think that would take a level of altruism that is far beyond most people in this sector.

You have to pay union dues because they will do things like cover people's wages during strikes, provide people legal support when they are being unfairly dismissed, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> What research have you done so far?</comment>


Ubuntu 16.04's new Snap format is a security risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-expert-matthew-garrett-ubuntu-16-04s-new-snap-format-is-a-security-risk/ <comment><USER2> Isn't the article's title misleading? It made me think that the new snap format is introducing an additional security risk, when what's really the case is that snap _on Ubuntu desktop_ fails to provide any additional security over other packaging formats when the packaged binary uses X11 because the latter is insecure by default in certain ways (the example given is key logging, not sure if there's other ways). I understand that some important Ubuntu person made a claim that Ubuntu's Snap is improving security, and that it's reasonable to counter that and state when and how it does not justify that claim, but choosing a non-misleading and somewhat click-bait-y title would still be appreciated. (At least when posting it to HN.)

<comment><USER3> Accurate title would be "Snap packages can't address security failings of X".

<comment><USER4> Indeed, or any other case where the application is granted permission to do something sensitive (camera?) and abuses that trust. Even in those cases, though, it is an improvement to know the access exists, and to have control over it.

Some more details about snap interfaces:

[http://blog.labix.org/2016/04/22/snappy- interfaces](http://blog.labix.org/2016/04/22/snappy-interfaces)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the author latched on to a PR piece from 16.04 release. Yeah that has the word security in it a few times.

But X11 was there before and installing random packages on your Desktop (or piping stuff from curl to a root bash, etc) is not secure. That is not controversial, I'd think.

> Matthew Garrett, a [...] security developer at CoreOS.

There might be a slight conflict of interest here. Although I am all for exposing security threats and issues regardless, Ubuntu has been advertising LXD, Juju and such technologies which somewhat compete with CoreOS, so I can understand why they'd want to move quickly to discredit it.

The whole adorable teddy bear thing is a bit childish perhaps. "Oh look how evil the new Ubuntu is, it lets evil teddy bears eat your data".

<comment><USER6> _But X11 was there before and installing random packages on your Desktop (or piping stuff from curl to a root bash, etc) is not secure. That is not controversial, I 'd think._

The point that canonical is trying to push that installing random packages is more secure with snap/snappy because they are sandboxed (to some extend). However, as Matthew Garrett points out, this sandboxing is practically useless as long as you are running on X11, since a sandboxed program can send keystrokes to other applications, grab keystrokes, do window grabs, etc. So it still has as much control as unsandboxed applications as long as they are running in a normal X11 session.

He is right to call them out on this.

 _There might be a slight conflict of interest here._

Since he is actually stating (known) facts about X11's security model, I don't see the problem.

<comment><USER5> > is more secure with snap/snappy because they are sandboxed (to some extend).

In a press release. Yes it is more secure but when running on a desktop with X11 will have same issues as before with X11.

Imagine a press release for 16.04 that all of the sudden starts going into details about X11 vulnerabilities. Who does that?

I am can see refuting a white-paper where Ubuntu makes detailed claims about security guarantees under certain threat models but this seems like a cheap shot to me.

Moreover under this model you can shoot down any product. "Tor provides privacy" \-- "Ah no it doesn't, here are more details". "The new JDK is faster than the old" \-- "Wrong! Here is a benchmark where it shows it is slower". And so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its not more or less of a security risk as any other binary that you download from anywhere (or pipe into bash from curl for that matter).

Yes, it's sold as being more secure than other solutions, when it in-fact isn't, but the headline still is clickbait because if Snap is a security risk then everything else is too.

<comment><USER8> I came here to say just that. It also _does_ increase security if X isn't used by the application in the snap (i.e. if the X11 or unity7 interfaces aren't requested).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Click bait. Snap is like Mac's .app or Windows .exe, period. It has upsides and downsides, and they are well known.

</comment><comment><USER10> I see at [https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/guides/security/](https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/guides/security/) that snap applications default to run in jails. I really hope this becomes the exception because sooner or later that would deny me to do something that I want to do. Just imagine the file manager in a jail and the text editor in another one. Even the browser shouldn't be completely isolated by the rest of the system. I want to do something with the files I download, right? Or imagine Gimp being able to read and write only to ~/gimp instead of into any of the directories of my projects.

TL;DR: I don't want to end up with an iOS on my desktop.

However I understand that sometimes, in ways I can't figure now, I could want to run programs in a jail. Maybe games? The music player? Skype?

But the big security risk IMHO is that vulnerable libraries are not updated into every single snap I have. The unmaintained app will break the security of all the system.

A not pleasant consequence of snaps is that we'll have to download upgrades for every single snap whenever a popular .so gets updated. It's going to be hundreds of MB instead of a few kB. This on top of the extra space required by all those jailed apps. I better have to hurry up and buy a very large SSD.

<comment><USER11> Its what you will get, because the big boys in the Linux distro world is aiming for aunt Tillie and office drones.

These days, if you want to do your thing with your Linux install there are perhaps two big names. Gentoo and Slackware. Beyond that you get a smattering of smaller distros on shoestring maintenance.

Sadly much of the upstream is under control of previously mentioned big boys, and they seem to have a crusade going where only their approach matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> HN discussion about the blog post that this article is... discussing

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11547048](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11547048)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a bad title along with a bad article. Either the author has no idea what a package manager is supposed to do, or its intentionally clickbait. Really disappointing.

<comment><USER6> In Canonical's original announcement:

 _The security mechanisms in snap packages allow for much faster iteration [across all versions of Ubuntu] and Ubuntu derivatives, as [snap applications are isolated from the rest of the system]._

Source: [https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/20/canonical- unveils-6th...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/04/20/canonical-unveils-6th- lts-release-of-ubuntu-with-16-04/)

Canonical is selling snake oil here when it comes to the desktop. snap applications are not isolated, because they still have full access to any other X11 application due to X11s security model. Garret is right on calling them out on this.

Compare this e.g. to OS X where there is both sandboxing (as in the application cannot touch other parts of the filesystem, unless you explicitly allow it to) and GUI isolation (applications cannot read events sent to other applications, unless it's an accessibility application and explicitly enabled by the user).

<comment><USER13> You have to be looking for faults in the language to be concerned over something like this. I know everyone isn't the biggest fan of canonical, and there are good reasons why that is. But they aren't trying to mislead anyone here. You can't possibly try to fault Canonical for X11's "security problem".

I don't know enough about either platform to respond to your OSX comparison. But if the concern is that they don't isolate enough then you are entitled to that opinion. But overall this is an improvement in this regard (whether or not its an improvement to the overall package management system is open to interpretation).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ubuntu is actively working on a solution to this problem with Mir. Is CoreOS contributing to Wayland or Mir? If not, perhaps they shouldn't be throwing stones.

</comment><comment><USER15> @dang: Can we point this to the source article: [https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/42320.html](https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/42320.html) ? "Circumventing Ubuntu Snap confinement" It is much better than the zdnet blog spam.

</comment><comment><USER16> Where is the snap format documented? I found documentation about the Snapcraft tool, but I have not been able to locate a reference for the format itself.

</comment><comment><USER17> Fix the title

</comment><comment><USER18> mjg59's comments are fair. ZD's headline is clickbait :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Q77</comment>


Show HN: Standups.io for Mobile – send and see standup updates from anywhere - <AUTHOR> https://standups.io/mobile <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! Over 3 months ago I launched Standups.io via a Show HN post ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17672247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17672247) ) after working solo on the project for 5 months! The feedback that you guys gave me was really great — the response was overwhelmingly supportive and I'm super thankful.

Today I can tell you guys that we've finally released our iOS and Android apps! :-)

I started alone and things have been going great so far. Already there are some great clients using Standups to manage their team standups across time zones. It's been an exciting ride! We're now 4 people (2 full-time / 2 part- time), working on Standups and doing our best to keep growing. :-)

Now that we've released the apps, we have a common ground to start shipping more features on both web and mobile!

You can try Standups for free [https://standups.io/register](https://standups.io/register), and if you need an extended trial just let me know at email@example.com. Btw, due to App Store restrictions, only existing accounts can use the apps. So basically, you can register from mobile web, but not directly from our apps. The recommended way is just to sign up via desktop or mobile, and setup your team standup via desktop.

If you find any bugs or have any suggestions for our apps, just let me know here or via email or our live chat. I'd love to hear what you guys think!

Thanks so much!

JP

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice landing page! Although the logo seems poorly done as compared with the rest of the illustrations on the website.</comment>


The Specialists: Di Fara Pizza - <AUTHOR> http://luckypeach.com/the-specialists-di-fara-pizza/

<comment><USER2> I've been there a couple times. The pizza is really good enough to deserve this sort of attention. The biggest warning I could give would be that the wait times are typically really long, the place is really cramped, and there are only three folding tables for seating. The wait time for a single pizza could easily be over 2 hours, and there isn't anything to do in the area while you wait. That being said, it's certainly worth it for one of the best pizzas I've ever had. Just make a day out of it.

<comment><USER3> I had a boss who grew up in the neighborhood and held that Di Fara's was a _touch_ overrated (if memory serves, he favored Totonno's or L&B). Still, incredible pizza to this midwestern boy.

Yeah, definitely prepare to wait... and to assert your place in line.

<comment><USER4> DeMarco does tend to burn his pizzas sometimes, but they're really amazing and worth the wait, I think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That stove looks fucking disgusting. Is it just me? I get that it's not the pizza oven, but still.

<comment><USER6> That particular style of stove gets like that - we had one in my family's restaurant. You can scrub it all you want, and it only looks worse. It's meant to be functional and reliable, but not attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Spam? I'm flagging this.

<comment><USER8> Why do you interpret this as spam?

<comment><USER7> I don't know. I click on the link and go to some fluff piece about a restaurant? Didn't look like the content was any more related to Hacker News than any of the articles in The Gothamist or The Bold Italic (don't get me wrong, I love good food as much as the next person, I just expect to get those articles from Facebook, not HN.)

<comment><USER9> Not sure what you mean by "related to Hacker News", but the guidelines are clear: anything that gratifies intellectual curiosity is on topic. I don't think it's hard to see how an article about a master of the pizza craft might gratify intellectual curiosity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reddit Would Like to Buy You a Drink: Boston Oct 31 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.reddit.com/2007/10/reddit-would-like-to-buy-you-drink.html

<comment><USER2> This looks like fun. I'm in. Any other YCers going?

<comment><USER3> I'll be there in my homemade reddit alien costume!</comment></comment>


The brain, interrupted – Lasting consequences of premature birth - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/neuroscience-the-brain-interrupted-1.16831 <comment><USER2> I was born two months early, via c-section, in early 1980s. There was concern I wasn't going to make it the first month or so post. I don't know exactly why they felt they had to perform the c-section so early, but I recall that my mother was given something to try to accelerate the development of my lungs.

Seems to have worked out fine, I've always been able to hold my breath for an abnormal amount of time compared to my peers, and my cardio / endurance abilities as a child were at the top of my peers.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _Scientists suspect that when the brain is forced to carry out a crucial > part of its development while the child is in the outside world instead of a > warm, watery womb, it receives inappropriate signals from the environment > that affect how its neurons are linked into networks. "The premature brain > gets subjected to quite different sensory inputs — like visual stimulation > and gravity effects — which it is not supposed to be subject to," says > Ghislaine Dehaene-Lambertz of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in > Paris, who studies language development in infants. "They can be sudden, > intense but also unpredictable." Some of these unnatural sensory signals are > inevitably provided by the intensive medical procedures that keep premature > babies alive._

I recall a (I think) Russian experiment with faked weightlessness for their space programme where they had people lie on half-filled water beds for a month. It was really effective.

If we made an incubator with one of those, and made it a 37 degree heat bath while we're at it, wouldn't that compensate for some of these stimuli?

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Perhaps we should be investing more effort in predicting and preventing premature births. When it already happened it doesn't look readily fixable.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a father of an premature born child I find this topic very interresting. Do you have an idea where to look for more info on cognitive deficits of prematurely born children?

<comment> guard-of-terra They have a section of links at the bottom; you can also try contacting the author.

<comment><USER4> Och, I overlooked that. Thank you :)</comment></comment></comment>


We are infectious disease experts. It's time to lift the Covid-19 lockdowns - <AUTHOR> https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-we-are-infectious-disease-experts-its-time-to-lift-the-covid-19-lockdowns <comment><USER2> The lead author Dr. Neil Rau has been arguing against lockdowns since February. It seems disingenuous for him now to claim that lockdowns have been successful and so it's ok at this point to lift them, without admitting that he was wrong to oppose them earlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends how are your hospitals doing</comment>


7.1 magnitude earthquake hits Japan - <AUTHOR> http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0002ksa.php <comment><USER2> A 7.1 is 1.5 megatons of TNT Seismic Energy Yield.

A 9.2 is 2.5 gigatons.

<comment><USER3> The 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake killed 63 people and left thousands homeless in California in 1989.

<comment><USER4> What made that quake significant was the duration (it went on for 15 seconds). That's a factor that supersedes the strength of the quake to an extent. Because a weaker quake will cause more damage over a long period of time.

Put it this way: Hit a wall with a hammer and you might cause a dent. Continually hit that wall with a hammer for 15 seconds and you'll probably break through.

<comment><USER5> The 2001 earthquake in Gujarat lasted for more than 2 minutes and killed around 20,000 people. The quake struck early in the morning during India's Republic day celebrations. The authorities said that the long duration caused more damage <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Gujarat_earthquake>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish I could downvote this as -1, duplicate.

<comment><USER7> Mentioning it's a duplicate is good, thank you. Next time this happens, a link to the original post would be very helpful.

<comment><USER8> He meant as a duplicate of the earthquake that already devastated Japan. He wished he could downvote it as a duplicate, that is, that it hadn't happened again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hope all the HNers in Japan are safe.

<comment><USER10> I hope everyone else is safe too.

<comment><USER11> I appreciate that comment, but don't like how many up-votes it got. From my experience with Hacker News, the comments with the highest rankings are usually those that point out another post as stupid, instead of those that give valid information.

<comment><USER12> Nothing "stupid" was pointed out. It's a perfectly reasonable correction, although the original poster probably only phrased it that way since only "HNers" would see his post.

And I know what you mean, but I hope you at least realize the inherent hypocrisy in making a post only to complain about posts not yielding valid information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Page has been updated to 7.1

(EDIT : I see you updated the title. Also always good to see an earthquake magnitude overestimated)

<comment><USER14> So what was the magnitude before being corrected?

<comment><USER15> 7.4

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's (unfortunately) another reminder to donate to the relief fund via RedCross: [https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?5052.donation=f...](https://american.redcross.org/site/Donation2?5052.donation=form1&df_id=5052&idb=0)

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry if I'm being insensitive, but is this big news? I didn't think 7.1 was that powerful.

<comment><USER18> Nah, 7.1 is pretty big.

Its especially big news when you consider the events of the last 30 days.

<comment><USER19> Yep, Messina, Sicily, and the tsunami caused a lot of deaths in that case if I remember correctly. Btw full details here -> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1908_Messina_earthquake>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Parts of Iwate lost power? <http://twitter.com/#!/daiwaka/status/56008913857949696>

<comment><USER21> Likely they did, but probably no more than would have happened anywhere in high-winds.

I know here in the Greater Toronto Area can get hit by blackouts frequently because of tree falls. Having moved here from the UK I don't get the idiotic notion of letting trees grow through your power lines because inevitably a branch or the whole tree will fall and knock out power. I've seen a few trees that are so big that no matter what way they fall, they'll knock out power to both sides of the street.

It's surely caused by the earthquake, but it's hard to tell if it would only be cause by the earthquake. You've got to draw a line between "act of god" and an "act of man" for being stupid enough to let an earthquake, windstorm or snowstorm knock your power out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Holy cow, this is an active day for semi-large earthquakes all over the planet:

      7.1 2011/04/07 14:32:42 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
      5.8  	2011/04/07 20:41:54  NORTH OF HONDURAS
      6.5  	2011/04/07 13:11:25  VERACRUZ, MEXICO

source: <http://quakes.globalincidentmap.com/>

<comment><USER23> There are earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger quite often, probably every week. And under 6 (like the 5.8) are even more common.

<comment><USER22> _There are earthquakes of magnitude 6 or larger quite often, probably every week. And under 6 (like the 5.8) are even more common._

I'll hold my assertion that it seems to be a more active week than normal in the seismological world.

Your comment adds nothing here and is not backed up by any evidence; "probably every week" does not count as evidence. The majority of the number that the USGS counts includes quakes below the ocean. [http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqsta...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php)

The USGS calls anything 6+ "large". A magnitude 6 earthquake can be deadly. Even magnitude 5 < can be deadly. There are factors at work depth of the quake as well as other factors, like location where it hits.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadly_earthquakes_sinc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadly_earthquakes_since_1900)

<comment><USER23> Did you really say "not backed up by any evidence", and in the very next sentence provide the actual evidence??

If you look at that handy evidence you provided: Magnitude 6 or larger quakes happen 150 times a year. That's about 2 or 3 a week.

And regarding 5.8 magnitude one you mentioned: earthquakes in that range happen about 10 times a day!

Are you really surprised that events that occur this often happen to cluster up on one day?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is this just an aftershock?

<comment><USER25> I'd hesitate to say 'just', and there is a rigorous definition of aftershock that this may or may not fit, but it's very close to the big one last month and certainly related to it.

So I'd go with 'yeah, basically' in the absence of a seismologist telling me otherwise.

<comment><USER26> In January there was a 6.9 quake here in Chile, and seismologists said it was an aftershock of the big earthquake of one year earlier. For what I recall, any earthquakes within a couple of years of the big one are most probably aftershocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So, this brings the number of >6.5 mag earthquakes off the cost of japan in the past month up to like 12 I believe?*

Surely there is a geologist in the midst who can explain whether this is normal/expected?

*<http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/qed/>

<comment><USER28> IANAG but IIRC quakes often happen in bunches like this as the earth's crust settles into a semi-stable state.

<comment><USER27> Yeah. I guess. And doing some more looking on the internet and possibly answering my own question, maybe: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_swarm>

It's hard to find useful information on line about this. But I guess that the lack of information in itself probably means that geologists aren't particularly worried about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Saw some posts on twitter that nhk switched to a documentary about cranes about 40mins ago, but channel 1 here was still showing coverage until a couple minutes ago. Don't people mean NHK G when they mention NHK?

</comment><comment><USER29> Will radioactive water be spread?

<comment><USER30> Tsunamis (and waves in general) don't actually move the water they're traveling through over any significant distance. It's the wave's energy that's moving, not the water itself.

<comment><USER31> this is only true until the sea meets land.

<comment><USER32> Exactly. The water level is raised, and then water "falls" along the path of least resistance, in the case of shore - it will certainly flow onto land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> english feed: [http://twitter.com/#!/list/TheTokyoPost/japan-earthquake- cov...](http://twitter.com/#!/list/TheTokyoPost/japan-earthquake-coverage)

</comment><comment><USER33> Very sad news, I hope everyone there is safe.

<comment><USER34> I think this was probably a "normal" earthquake which Japan is built to withstand without many problems.

<comment><USER35> True, but I imagine that Japanese infrastructure may have been compromised by the earlier earthquake, making this one more dangerous than it would be otherwise.

Much like the Flu is usually no big deal, but can easily kill people with any sort of immuno-deficiency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Any live stream up already?

</comment><comment><USER25> There was some pretty strong shaking in Tokyo, warning of tsunami up to 2m in Miyagi, 1m elsewhere along the east coast down to Chiba. The tsunami will have arrived in Miyagi by now.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've flagged this for being off-topic for HN. Hopefully others will join me.

<comment><USER38> There's offtopic and then there's offtopic.

I think this one is OK -- and personally if I see another article about how awesome or evil or dickish (or whatever) Facebook/Twitter/Microsoft/Google are, or about how shitty News Corp handled Myspace, or simply showbiz/yellow journalism junk (i.e. pictures of Jobs meeting with Schmidt) I think I'm going to puke.

But there's lots of offtopic articles (i.e. not related to startups or hacking) everyday -- complaining about it just adds more noise and is completely pointless.

<comment><USER37> I didn't complain. Simply took action to help fight noise and hoped to rally others to do the same. I consider a report of Yet Another Earthquake in Japan to be off-topic. We have mainstream news sources for that. And if it's truly important, that sort of news will find us. Through other channels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How is this pertinent to HN but the Israel attacks on Gaza not?

<comment><USER40> An earthquake in Japan is not controversial and might have business implications for some people on HN.

Edit: Removed pro-Israel defense. This is not the place for a political discussion.

<comment><USER41> >> This is not the place for a political discussion.

Your post is still politically loaded. Israel attacks on Gaza are as 'controversial' as evolution, global warming and tobacco causing cancer.

<comment><USER42> It is controversial when you define it "Israel attacks on Gaza". The attacks go both ways - eg, Hamas rocket hit an Israeli school bus this morning.

(This stuff might have had a place here once, but as it is now the HN thread won't be any more intelligent than the Reddit one)

<comment><USER41> The pro-Israel online lobby is soooo annoying ...

Lets move the discution to the definition of some word. Lets call everyone with a different opinion stupid. Lets put out your opinion and try to close the thread ...

<comment><USER42> See?

<comment><USER41> No.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This sucks. Earthquakes used to be interesting but now when that alert goes off on phones + tv and the shockwave hits it's internal panic time.</comment>


The Dawning of Internet Censorship in Germany - <AUTHOR> http://netzpolitik.org/2009/the-dawning-of-internet-censorship-in-germany/

<comment><USER2> "The working group on censorship demonstrated the alternatives for instance by actually removing over 60 websites containing child pornographic content in 12 hours, simply by emailing the international providers who then removed this content from the net."

This is a great example of demonstrating the government's real intentions. If a bunch of guys can send a few emails and take down 60 childporn sites, what are the paid government enforcement agencies doing? Evidently, it has nothing to do with child porn and everything to do with politics.

</comment><comment><USER3> The great irony is, Germany spends so much time combating anything related to Nazism out of paranoia of a return to totalitarianism. And they don't see the massive contradiction here.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just one though as I was looking at opera unite right now: if things go bad with the net, this will be important, everyone, even non technical, will easily host a proxy e.g...

By the way, in France our 3-strikes law was found unconstitutionnal, and this law seems similarly dubious: do you guys in Germany have some institutions that check this kind of cases?

<comment><USER5> We have the "Bundesverfassungsgericht", our constituational court. It has overruled some laws in the past. I don't know if anyone has filed a lawsuit against the censorship yet. Let's hope for the best. I am really curious how the Pirate Party is going to perform in the upcoming elections...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think _circumscribing_ would be a better choice of word here:

"...without introducing a censorship architecture and _circumcising_ constitutional freedoms."

The translation is fluent, and I shouldn't make fun of it, but that line made me laugh.

On a more salient note, it's good to see that these proposals are not proceeding without public notice. It's hard to fight the "FOR THE CHILDREN!" brigade, but fortunately the Germans are having the debate openly, paying at least lip service to constitutional process.

<comment><USER7> The for-the-children brigade has been using its scheme for ages now and it is still working. It seems to me that for such a well known strategy an effectve counter-strategy should have been devised over the years. Yet, it seems to work very well every time. Can anyone point us to some material about this strategy in general, what counter-moves have been tried and how they worked out in the past?

<comment><USER8> Just pointing out that the primary justification for Internet censorship in China is also 'to protect children from pornography'.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk%27s_Tesla_Roadster <comment><USER2> _" The enthusiasm and interest that he [Musk] generates more than offsets the infinitesimally small 'littering' of the cosmos."_

<comment><USER3> What happens to other boilerplate ships or concrete blocks used to test rockets? Some 'littering' needs to take place for progress.</comment></comment>


Sr.ht becomes Sourcehut - <AUTHOR> https://sourcehut.org/ <comment><USER2> As of posting, the info on this site is very lean, but going forward sourcehut seems to be the name for the software suite of the service 'sr.ht'. The linkage is implied by the quote on the site that " _sr.ht is a hosted instance of sourcehut provided for your convenience_ ".

The impetus behind the branding clarification seems to be this HN thread [1]. For more history, see the the debut announcement [2] and its corresponding HN thread [3].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18929709#18930413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18929709#18930413) [2] [https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general- availabilit...](https://drewdevault.com/2018/11/15/sr.ht-general- availability.html) [3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18458908)

<comment><USER3> I think this is a bad move.

There is already:

SourceTree

SourceView

SourceForge

TheSource

SourceCode

SourceDaddy

OutSource

By adding more "Source", you are just diluting value of source brand.

It will be interesting to see how many more "Source" untill we stop using Source at all?

Same is the thing with "Git" and Docker escaped this issue by prohibiting use of "Docker" in non docker owned companies.

<comment><USER4> GitHub, GitLab, Gitea. Those all work fine. As long as you can easily tell the difference between them.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Taco Bell, Del Taco, Taco Cabana, Taco Bueno, Del Taco, Fuzzy's Tacos... and it keeps going.

<comment><USER6> "Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mercurial support, fuck yeah:

[https://hg.sr.ht/](https://hg.sr.ht/)

This is the killer feature for me.

Why Mercurial?

Here's a list of Mercurial features that I think are really cool:

Revsets – a domain-specific language for querying your commits

Templates – a domain-specific language for altering the output of almost every command. Putting together these two you can do things like this: [http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising- mercurial-l...](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising-mercurial- like-a-pro/)

Evolution – a distributed and safe way to share rewrites (think automatically recovering from upstream rebase without any git reset --hard and no git push --force).

Absorb – automatically amends an entire stack of WIP commits at once by picking the right diffs from your working directory based on which commits' contexts they fit best.

Curses interface for hunk-picking – a unified interface for splitting diffs for any purpose: whether to revert working-directory changes, write a new commit, uncommit parts of a commit, or amend a commit with more diffs. Just add --interactive to any of those commands and start picking hunks!

A fairly rich built-in web interface – hg serve and point your browser to [http://localhost:8000](http://localhost:8000) and you're good to go.

Lots of support for monorepos – indeed, this is the main reason that Google, Facebook, and Mozilla are all pouring work into hg and are using it.

A consistent UI – this one is more subjective but often-touted feature of Mercurial. If a command accepts a revision/hash/tag/bookmark; it always uses the -r/\--rev flag for it (and you can also always use a revset for any command that accepts a revision). If a command allows hunk selection, it always uses the -i/\--interactive flag for it. The help for every command fits in about a screenful.

Give it a try! Mercurial is neat!

<comment><USER8> It's also dying [1]. Git's the only version control system that's got legs [2].

[1] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F08441_)

[2] [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F08441_,%2Fm%2F05vqwg,%2Fm%2F012ct9,%2Fm%2F08w6d6)

<comment><USER9> Isn't Facebook investing heavily? I'm more interested in 'good' than popular, when it comes to virtually all personal tech decisions and am inspired by this thread to try out Mercurial, especially as I want to move everything to a sourcehut/sr.ht instance.

<comment><USER10> So does Mozilla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good choice. It's memorable.

I signed up as a paid user when it was last on hacker news. Got an email invoice. Then for the life of me could not remember what the service was called. Finally gave up trying to use it.

<comment><USER12> For me it's the opposite. Can't forget _sir hat_ , too pictorial to forget.

 _sourcehut_ on the other hand is one of too many source _somethings_. It's more prefessional for sure and if it is the official name we can still keep _sir hat_ as a nickname I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "All features work without JavaScript" oh hello there, my new friend. :)

<comment><USER14> Indeed, I haven't seen a single script tag in any of the pages.

It's written in Python, using Flask, [https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/30/Why- I-built-sr.ht-with-Fl...](https://drewdevault.com/2019/01/30/Why-I-built- sr.ht-with-Flask.html)

<comment><USER15> There is javascript for progressive enhancement on some pages. E.g. submitting comments on tickets by pressing Ctrl+Enter, or selection of ranges of lines in git blob view.

For example: [https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sourcehut.org/tree/master/conten...](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sourcehut.org/tree/master/content/_index.html#L12-17,20-27)

But everything is designed to work well without JS first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> crooked-v I was personally hoping for "Sir Hat", with a Shovel Knight-style mascot.

<comment><USER16> I keep thinking of highly memeable Eurovision singer Serhat : [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhat_(singer)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhat_\(singer\))

<comment><USER17> How about Sir Topham Hatt? [1]

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love the minimalist info-dense UI. Thank you for avoiding modern UI trends.

<comment><USER19> Minimalism is a modern UI trend :)

<comment><USER18> If by minimalism you mean flat design I agree, but it's usually not information dense.

<comment><USER20> "brutalism"

<comment><USER18> As an architecture enthusiast and a fan of brutalism I am having trouble connecting this word with UI.

This style of UI reminds me of something different... a late 80's/early 90's simplicity. Yet it's still stylish. I am hesitant to call it retroism because it will cheapen the movement to do that. It's refreshing and unique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mr. Devault is serious about software craft. He's worth your $10 if you are considering. I am a early adopter of his works.

<comment><USER22> There's no obvious way to donate from sourcehut.org.

<comment><USER23> You can set up (and pay for) an account here: [https://meta.sr.ht/](https://meta.sr.ht/)

If you don't want an account, there's some donation information here: [https://drewdevault.com/backers](https://drewdevault.com/backers)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Your form for registering is not using TLS:

      action="http://meta.sr.ht.local/register"

<comment><USER25> Fixed, should be deployed momentarily. Thanks!

<comment><USER26> On your /tutorials/set-up-account-and-git.md you really should not encourage default ssh-keygen.

Please update with either `ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -a 100` or `ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -o -a 100` or

<comment><USER27> I think your case is better made to openssl than to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Could you take care of the Flash of Unstyled Content in Firefox? The page first renders with no css and then with css. I solve it by putting a blank script tag, you could still keep your promise of it working without js.

[https://stackoverflow.com/a/47348262/604511](https://stackoverflow.com/a/47348262/604511)

</comment><comment><USER4> The UI seems very usable. I wonder how the performance stacks up against something like gogs.

One of the main things I don't like is the email focus. I think one of the best things the modern git websites have done is replace email with merge requests which are just so much easier to use, tag, and search. I get that this is a tool made for those old devs who still want to do everything from mutt though.

<comment><USER29> The nice thing about email is that you're free to render and interact with it in any way you like. Yes, you could use mutt; or you could use Webmail if you prefer; or you could run them through some automation scripts; or through some custom CLI/GUI/mobile app/Web service/etc.

<comment><USER4> GitLab and GitHub also send you emails but they provide a sane UI to use as well. The only benefit I see to email is it serves as a central notification location so I dont have to check every website to see what is new.

<comment><USER29> > The only benefit I see to email is it serves as a central notification > location so I dont have to check every website to see what is new.

I agree that email is good for notifications.

Surely "checking Web sites to see what's new" was solved with RSS/ATOM?

(Again, once the data's out there, the UI is your choice; e.g. I convert RSS/ATOM to maildir so I can use my preferred email client for everything; I put HackerNews (HNRSS and HNNotify), subreddits, youtube channels, etc. into the same folder as my mailing lists)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Source: [https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sr.ht- announce/%3C201902062237...](https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sr.ht- announce/%3C20190206223744.GA10775%40homura.localdomain%3E)

</comment><comment><USER31> For a website trying to convince me it's good to host my projects using it, it was incredibly complicated to get from the homepage to _any_ repo to see it in action (note: on a phone).

I've opened the homepage, didn't see any obvious links, went to sr.ht, saw just a login/register screen. I went back, continued scanning for a usable link on sourcehat.org, and ended up leaving the whole thing in frustration.

Still curious, I took my laptop and only then have I figured out that images link to example repositories on click. As a result, my first impression can be summed up as "unintuitive".

</comment><comment><USER32> Funny how as I clicked on the "100% free and open source software" button my brain subconsciously branch-predicted the layout of a GitHub page. The payoff was worth the stall.

</comment><comment><USER33> For some reason this name puts me in mind of Chicken Cottage. [https://chickencottage.com/](https://chickencottage.com/)

<comment><USER34> Sauce Hut would be a good name for a takeaway chain, barbecue, jerk, or Dutch- style fries maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I like the minimalistic approach though I'd recommend to align horizontally the content for higher viewports, e.g. `body { max-width: 1140px; margin: 0 auto }`

</comment><comment><USER36> Great branding! How about a logo contest? ;)

<comment><USER27> Friend of mine made this one:

[https://sr.ht/ekPb.png](https://sr.ht/ekPb.png)

The official logo is this :)

[https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sourcehut.org/tree/master/logo.s...](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/sourcehut.org/tree/master/logo.svg)

(which is just a circle, like the favicon)

<comment><USER37> My idea, [https://ibb.co/nmKymTW](https://ibb.co/nmKymTW) \- it's a 1.9kB svg but I'm sure it can be reduced to something manageable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Cool to see another big flask project. I'd love to see a lighter and snappier alternative to gitlab.

<comment><USER39> Like Gitea?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> As the owner of e.ht, welcome to the world of obscure short TLD's!

<comment><USER40> Interested how you pulled that one off, since .ht domains are supposedly constrained by the DNA to have at least 3 characters (3 - 63 chars).

<comment><USER26> Most registrars won't let you search under three chars. Reach out directly to the ccTLD managing group and see what they have available a-z-0-9. With enough persistence you may find one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Much better, nice!</comment>