The Trump Network - <AUTHOR> https://graphcommons.com/graphs/ee4a43a2-3189-4f82-879c-960344332ea6 <comment><AUTHOR> Mapping the network of power relations around Donald Trump.

This interactive network map is created using the Buzzfeed research data and LittleSis.org profiles and combined on the Graph Commons data mapping platform. This work is not a complete map of Trump's world, both organizations invite you to contribute additional data, the map will be updated accordingly.

Also see an analysis of The Trump Network [https://medium.com/graph- commons/the-trump-network-8610c9203...](https://medium.com/graph-commons/the- trump-network-8610c92035fb)</comment>


Best Groupon deal ever (buy 1 Share of Groupon Common Stock)  - <AUTHOR> http://runningshoes.com/groupon-ipo

<comment><USER2> Look at the domain - this is probably a joke.

<comment><AUTHOR> Read at the bottom:

Disclaimer: This is not a real offer from Groupon. We have no affiliation with Groupon.com nor the other aforementioned companies. Instead, this webpage is a digital parody meant to provide satirical commentary on Groupon's upcoming IPO.</comment></comment>


Enterprise Wi-Fi at home: Reflecting on almost three years with pro gear - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/07/enterprise-wi-fi-at-home-part-two-reflecting-on-almost-three-years-with-pro-gear/ <comment><USER2> I've recommended Ubiquiti to a few friends and neighbors looking to extend Wifi coverage to the back yard or outbuilding or garage. It works quite well, particularly if you have a wired uplink and PoE switch.

I use it in a couple of offices as well, but it seems like the pros are switching to Meraki due to the better (remote, cloud-based) configuration tools... Do any IT professionals make the case for Ubiquiti over Meraki?

<comment><USER3> Meraki seems significantly more expensive than ubiquity.

<comment><USER4> Yep. Ubnt has no maintenance or licensing costs. I have myself and two relatives on it, with no problems, and over 100 APs at work. They just work.

Only issue I've had is there is an emerging issue with the PoE negotiation chip on some UAC-AC-PRO APs. We've worked around it with passive POE, which just works, but it could become a bigger issue going forward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a big fan of Ubiquiti gear, I have set up a number of sites with Unifi, very easy to set up & manage and performance is excellent.

Also impressed with airMAX, have used nanostation/nanobeam to build a number of short-haul point-to-point links where trenching fiber was too expensive.

In general, I use EdgeMax for routing/switching rather than the Unifi branded switches/routers, although the hardware is identical, EdgeMax is infinitely more configurable. Although the single-pane-of-glass for Unifi is very nice, UNMS is getting pretty good these days -- I just wish they'd merge UNMS with the UniFi controller and _stop_ using Java for the UniFi backend (thankfully they did not use Java for UNMS).

</comment><comment><USER6> I setup UniFi APs at a start-up. The APs worked great from 10 people to about 50 people on ~3x APs. The UniFi gear replaced 3-6 Eeros in the 10-15 person days that really struggled, I was shocked that the Eero experience was so rough. We've moved to a new office the new IT team has moved to Cisco.

In addition to the UniFi AP I had purchased 3 Ubiquiti EdgeSwitches: 2x 24 port, and a 16x POE. The first EdgeSwitch Lite-24 port switch died due to hardware errors ('unit 0 MMU CBP packet header memory asserted') while causing all kinds of chaos. And it appears the second EdgeSwitch Lite-24 took a dump this week (similar amount of chaos), (un)fortunately I no longer babysit the IT stuff so I haven't dug in to it.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you have budget, I would recommend trying an Aruba instant access point.

It supports local and remote management, clustering, poe, and can prioritize traffic based on application or specifically voice traffic.

The local management also has a web gui.

Disclaimer: I work for Aruba.

<comment><USER6> The UniFi products have QoS, POE, remote management, etc. Looks like Arbua is a little simpler with the clustering and integrated local management (vs local UniFi cloud key, UniFi hosted, or self-hosted controller). For the price of a UniFi UAP AC-Lite it's hard to beat the price (~$80) for 2x2 MIMO dual band (most cell phones and laptops aren't more then 2x2 these days, so 3x3 without MU-MIMO seems like a waste IMHO).

What I'm really curious about is other then management features and adding radios that follow the latest RF features (i.e. MU-MIMO) that are made available by Qualcomm/Atheros and others, what really differentiates APs? Can you speak to this about how Aruba (or others) differentiate itself in actual RF performance?

<comment><USER7> Aruba access points are built for higher density and longer range deployments. One of the RF management features is called ClientMatch, which helps ensure WLAN performance is not compromised in noisy or high density environments.

Most homes don't have more than 20-30 devices on the WiFi. Most Instant access points can handle about 50-60 devices at a time. In my own home, the 5 Ghz band is primarily used due to the open layout and there's a lot less interference on that band in my neighborhood. I'm just using one Instant access point (IAP-215) to cover about 2500 sq ft.

From a hand wavy and extremely generalized assessment, RF performance between the major enterprise vendors (Cisco Meraki/Aerohive/Ruckus/Aruba) differs by about 10%. If you design your network to the environment and devices used, you can achieve a highly performing network with any of major vendor. The deciding factor usually comes down to training personnel have with the equipment, relationships, and budget. Most RF engineers will probably sneer at the above statement, but there's some truth to it.

Other Useful Information

The Aruba Instant platform does not require a hardware controller - instead it uses a virtual controller that's homed to a master Access Point with automatic fail over to slave Access Points in the cluster.

You can also mix and match any Instant AP model within the same cluster. New Aps should automatically join as soon as they are powered up and plugged into the local network (on the same VLAN).

There's no additional licensing needed for local management.

Access points purchased through an official retailer come with a lifetime warranty.

Application recognition and content filtering is not available with Ubiquity. You can't prioritize traffic or restrict traffic on the WiFi based on specific content – for example, prioritize traffic for voice over YouTube or Facebook. In enterprise environments, WiFi calling has become important due to adopting Skype.

Aruba also offers 3rd party support and integration via Airwave and ClearPass. Overkill (IMO) for a home.

<comment><USER6> > Aruba access points are built for higher density and longer range > deployments. One of the RF management features is called ClientMatch, which > helps ensure WLAN performance is not compromised in noisy or high density > environments.

This is the kind of stuff I'm curious about.

If the antenna is well designed (good radiation pattern) and the EIRP is limited to FCC limits (100mW by default?) how will it achieve longer ranger? The client device (laptop, cellphone) has a TX power as well that requires some symmetry to achieve the range. I know APs can request clients lower their TX power to reduce interference in high density environments, but I don't know they'd raise it.

As for high density environments, this comes down to the management software and not the features of WiFi chipset? Things like MU-MIMO certainly make sense for high density environments (Ubiquiti sells a series of "HD" suffixed parts that add MU-MIMO), but I'm curious if there are other things other then more radios on more bands.

How many of the more advanced features of Enterprise APs at the mercy of the client WiFi module, firmware, and driver for behaving optimally? I assume a company like Aruba (or really any major player) has a full interoperability test lab. Which client devices work best (Intel?)?

> Most homes don't have more than 20-30 devices on the WiFi. Most Instant > access points can handle about 50-60 devices at a time. In my own home, the > 5 Ghz band is primarily used due to the open layout and there's a lot less > interference on that band in my neighborhood. I'm just using one Instant > access point (IAP-215) to cover about 2500 sq ft.

2500 sq ft on one AP is pretty impressive, for the price though you could buy several UniFi APs. I checked out the datasheet[0] for the AP 210 series and was delighted to see some radiation plots at different frequencies.

[0] [https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP210Series.pdf](https://www.arubanetworks.com/assets/ds/DS_AP210Series.pdf)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


When Doctors Thought 'Wanderlust' Was a Psychological Condition - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-wanderlust-was-a-disease <comment><USER2> Aren't most mental disorders just behaviors that differ from the norm and make it difficult for those people to function in everyday society? Some cultures wouldn't recognize some things as a disorder if it wasn't difficult for those people.

My point being that I don't understand where you draw the line. If someone had such a need to wander the world that it meant that they couldn't live properly in modern society then it seems as much of a mental disorder than most others.

<comment><USER3> > _Aren 't most mental disorders just behaviors that differ from the norm and > make it difficult for those people to function in everyday society?_

(Story time.) I went to a presentation one time at work about mental health. (It was part of the government's mental health awareness campaign[0].) In this presentation, the presenter mentioned bathing/lack of changing clothes as a marker for possible mental health issues.

As someone who grew up in a very poor area, where the water came from wells (which oft could dry-up) or the folk couldn't afford but to wash their clothes once a month in the local washateria (if that), I took issue with this idea.

From a privileged, lower-middle class or above perspective, sure, you could say that it's a possible indicator of mental health issues; however, if this were a normalised version of someone's life, having growing up so poor/destitute, would it _really_ be a sign of mental health issues or would it just be a byproduct of their lower social-class life?

So, I guess I have to say that the answer to your question is, "yes": Your "norm" could be vastly different from someone else's.

[0] - [https://www.mentalhealthireland.ie/](https://www.mentalhealthireland.ie/)

<comment><USER4> Access to water in Ireland is assumed to such an extent that it isn't even listed in the ESRI's criteria for poverty. As such, it's very obvious that lack of bathing/changing clothes will almost NEVER be due to lack of access to water. Even temporary halting sites must have access to water considered by local councils.

> From a privileged, lower-middle class or above perspective

Very confused as to why you think 'water' might be limited to the demographic who work as teachers, Gardaí, and above, or why access to water indicates privilege.

<comment><USER5> In Mexico it is more common to have water shortages on low income areas in big cities. Whereas rich areas can even have their own water wells.

<comment><USER6> Right, but this post refers to the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state in the British Isles, a part of the world where there is, on average, zero shortage of water in general. It literally falls out of the sky.

<comment><USER3> Because Ireland has no immigration and, therefore, everyone who lives and/or posts from Ireland is automatically Irish, yeah? /s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> All psychological states are "Psychological Conditions". Whether they are something that need to be "treated", or not is a different question.

Depending on your upbringing, marrying, and staying in your town might be considered the norm, and therefor wanderlust, the abnorm. Locals may think you strange for ever wanting to leave and explore the world.

Conversely, in my upbringing, I resented the idea of staying still and have lived in a constant state of wanderlust. As have many of my friends. It's a big world, and there is lots to explore.

Tangentially, I wonder if there is a link between wanderlust, and people who have to rearrange their bedrooms frequently.

In US culture it may not be as prominent, but in many other cultures, young adults (students) will frequently take a "gap year" in which they will travel the world [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_year)

</comment><comment><USER8> Surely there can be both a healthy "wanderlust" borne out of curiosity and eagerness to explore the world and a pathological restlessness due to some anxiety disorder? I don't see a convincing case for conflating these two things. But it does make a good headline...

<comment><USER9> I have definitely been close to people who seemed to book an unreasonable amount of vacations to get away from their mood disorders.

<comment><USER10> "amount" is not the right metric. It's the compulsive aspect.

<comment><USER9> That's correct. I am using amount as a proxy for this (less compulsive people in the same circumstance would have a lesser amount), but I am absolutely meaning to say it your way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Settled cultures and nomadic cultures have a long history of friction. Settled peoples tend to vilify nomads for various reasons.

But, really, being settled came second. Humans began as wanderers.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some people claim that gen known as DRD4-7R is responsible for wanderlust

[https://www.contiki.com/six-two/wanderlust-gene- travel/](https://www.contiki.com/six-two/wanderlust-gene-travel/)

Little bit different to what the article is talking about, but pertinent to the discussion in the comments

</comment><comment><USER13> A nitpick: wanderlust doesn't mean in English what it means in German. While in German it still means "a desire to hike", in English it is usually associated with travel, a meaning that in German is closer to Fernweh (far- sickness, as in opposition to home-sickness, which is the literal meaning of nostalgia, the Swiss mercenary malady).</comment>


Cipher security summary – Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_security_summary <comment><USER2> [https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSFKSJ_8.0.0/com...](https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSFKSJ_8.0.0/com.ibm.mq.sec.doc/q014265_.htm)</comment>


Comcast, Level3 and You - <AUTHOR> http://www.voxel.net/blog/2010/12/peering-disputes-comcast-level-3-and-you

<comment><USER2> This guy is spot on. He actually understands the history and architecture of the Internet, as well as the business and technical reasons for peering.

To summarize his post: Comcast has essential grown to the point where they can demand payment from content providers to peer with their network, otherwise their customer's traffic travels over intentionally congested paid links through their upstream provider, Tata. This sucks because it disrupts the natural order of the Internet being essentially a "joint venture" between private companies that operate the component networks that make up the Internet.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, if the crux of the complaint is, "we asked Comcast for 20+ interconnection ports, and they only gave us 6 for free", it's hard to feel like this is simply Comcast being abusive.

I love this story. It's so complicated! Did you follow the links about how L3 did roughly the same thing to Cogent last year?

<comment><USER2> It costs them both money though. I doubt L3 gets a significantly better price on switch gear than Comcast does. Let's be serious though... peering itself is dirt ass cheap. Comcast's attitude should be to deliver the best experience to their users whom are the reason they can even turn the lights on. Peering with L3 ensures Netflix streams are delivered with decent service levels, which satisfies their customers. If Comcast has to build out extra capacity to shuttle Netflix streams from the network borders to their customers' homes, that's Comcast's problem, not L3s. The same rules should apply to L3 though, if indeed they are screwing Cogent on the other end.

Everyone has cooperated amazingly well thus far, and these few greedy fucks are starting to turn something that has never been an issue before into a big deal. Ultimately it will probably culminate in fucking us all with some kind of draconian FCC regulation and/or ridiculous network issues that will drive prices up.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't this ultimately mean that bandwidth for content providers should be free? After all, the reason Comcast "should" add this capacity is to satisfy demand for Netflix content. L3 is just acting as their agent. Is it the case that then that the next Netflix should just be able to demand bandwidth directly from Comcast?

<comment><USER2> It's not "free" though. It's just a switch port to Comcast. It costs Comcast almost nothing. They still have to deliver the content anyway. At the tier 1 level, the Internet has always worked as a "you pay the cost for transferring packets on your own network" basis. It'd be one thing if Comcast was trying to charge L3 for carrying traffic to other networks, but Comcast is trying to extort fees for carrying packets on it's own network to it's own customers. That's messed up.

Comcast's customers already pay AT LEAST $0.18/GB, but it's more around _NINETY CENTS_ a gigabyte, considering most of their customers pay around $45/mo and use less than 50GB of bandwidth per month.

<comment><USER3> Comcast disagrees on how much that port costs. I haven't done anything close to backbone-y stuff since 1996, but back then, the equivalent port wasn't cheap.

But that's besides the point. I keep asking _this_ question:

Stipulate that L3 isn't actually an ISP in this scenario (whether you agree or not). They're instead an agent for Netflix; they are literally Netflix's outsourced network infrastructure.

If it is the case that Comcast should reasonably be expected to give L3/Netflix a free interconnect...

... then for whom _shouldn't_ that be expected? Why are YC companies paying for bandwidth? Because, as I understand it, they do pay for bandwidth; significantly.

<comment><USER2> A gigabit ethernet switch port in even the most expensive scenario I can think of would be about $1000. In 1996 it was all FDDI and HSSI ports, which were an order of magnitude more expensive than GigE equipment is these days.

There is very much a precedent for the scenario you describe: Comcast has direct peering agreements with Google. While I can't presume to know if it's settlement-free, I'm almost certain it is. Google's business model, especially YouTube, depends on it.

Your conclusion is a little off kilter. Peering is cheap because they do these types of interconnects in these carrier hotels, and as we all know, running a Cat5 cable through a building is cheap. However, space in these carrier hotels is absurdly expensive because of the demand. This is fine if you just have a few racks of equipment and ship all the packets out over WAN links to your datacenters, which is pretty much the status quo. Not just any average joe is going to be able to setup shop in these places.

YC companies pay for bandwidth because it's cheaper to do that then it is to build out a network. It's the same reason they don't build datacenters, own office space, etc. Most don't even own or operate dedicated servers anymore. Peering works at certain levels of network scale, but below that, somewhat pointless from a business/financial perspective.

Check out SoftLayer's peering page: <http://www.softlayer.com/network/peering> If peering was as expensive and as uncommon as Comcast claims, why would SoftLayer need a special page for it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an awesome post. Here's an accompanying awesome NANOG message:

<http://seclists.org/nanog/2010/Nov/1058>

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link; that's the most succinct breakdown of the neutrality situation I've read to date. Still working my way through the thread.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Vector: a Matrix-powered open-source collaboration Web/Android/iOS app - <AUTHOR> https://vector.im <comment><USER2> I'm not trying to be rude by saying this, but these names "Vector" and "Matrix" are far from Google-able, and sometimes (esp. in game development, and other scientific fields I'm sure) not even clear in person-to-person discussion.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, I think it's an unfortunate naming choice. As a physicist (and hence also mathematician and programmer) this term is already terribly overloaded.

"Slack" is clever because it's not an obscure word but also not something one would normally Google for. Most brandings seem to just opt for really obscure words or made up words, which also works.

<comment><USER4> I'll just add that in biological sciences both "vector" and "matrix" are also overloaded with yet more meanings in addition to the mathematical ones. (e.g. "plasmid vector", "extracellular matrix")

<comment><AUTHOR> well, Matrix is Latin for 'womb', so it's fairly safe to say that the word is heavily overloaded already. Given we have the top google slot (having gone incognito) for Matrix Chat and Matrix Protocol etc. I'm not /that/ worried...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using Vector for Android the last days and I must say I am VERY impressed. Both the vector.im web interface and the smartphone apps are looking polished at a level that I'm very unused to when it comes to open source projects.

I must say though that people are becoming more and more unfamiliar with decentralization. Naming the standard one thing (Matrix) and the main phone app another (Vector) is IMHO a move that only a technologist would come up with. The logic might seem crystal clear to all you working on the project. But if you want traction (hell, you could actually be a serious alternative to Slack!) you should've register something like matrix.im and named the app Matrix.

<comment><USER6> Matrix is the protocol that Vector uses. Matrix itself is being marketed to developers to build their apps using it. Vector is aimed at end users who want a chat system, and they don't really have to know or care what Matrix is. A good analogy is Matrix : Vector :: Email : Gmail

<comment><USER7> Except email and gmail are words that are clearly related (and suggest message transference) even for someone who doesn't know linear algebra..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Matrix is an extremely promising project. It has everything I'm expecting from IM platform so far: it's very open; it's decentralized (I can host my own server and it'll talk to others); it's centralized (one server for many clients); it's modern (HTTP, JSON, REST); it supports push; it synchronises a single history between all clients. It has VoIP, file transfers. There are numerous clients and few are surprisingly mature.

Honestly, it's the best protocol out there. I don't know any other protocol with all those features. I really hope, that Matrix will be the IM of our future, it's good enough for that, in contrast to every other popular IM platform.

I used vector.im as a web interface, and it just works.

I'll try to deploy Matrix as our tiny company internal communication tool. Currently we use a mix of e-mail, skype, whatsapp, telegram, and it just not as good as it could be. I can't force my friends to move to other IM, but I can influence my colleagues, and, hopefully, it'll be the trend.

What Matrix really need is some marketing. It's so awesome, I couldn't believe, that I'm so rarely read news about it. Very few people know what it is, and that's a sad situation.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We just showed off the first official release of the Vector clients for Matrix.org at the Decentralised Web Summit ([http://decentralizedweb.net](http://decentralizedweb.net)) - it seems to have gone down quite well, and even attracted a few new faces :D [https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/thumbnail/matrix.org/xhD...](https://matrix.org/_matrix/media/v1/thumbnail/matrix.org/xhDiiENbEJiDJVJQXZlDqbEA?width=800&height=600)

<comment><USER9> I was only at the first six hours of the Decentralized Web Summit and I missed your demo. Tim Berners Lee was promoting solid github.com/solid as an open framework. I have just started looking at Solid and I would appreciate your comparison of Matrix and Solid.

<comment><AUTHOR> Solid seems to have very similar goals to Matrix, but seems to be a bit more abstract at this point. I had some brief conversations with Tim at the summit about how to collaborate, and as you can see he's been using Vector to participate in the conference chat. I'm sure that we'll get the two to bridge or converge in future!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This may be helpful to other people, as I myself was a bit confused in the beginning.

Vector.im is a client to the protocol called "matrix.org".

This is equivalent to using XChat(client) on the IRC protocol.

In this case, matrix.org also runs their own servers (but you can host your own), so it is like IRC protocol (matrix protocol) + Freenode (matrix server).

<comment><USER5> One big difference though is that the users on one server could communicate with users on another server. In the world of IRC that would mean that users from Freenode and EFnet could communicate with each other in the same channel. Pretty awesome.

<comment><USER11> IRC has federation.

<comment><USER12> So does Matrix :)

<comment><USER13> That's what unicornporn implied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Matrix and vector look more interesting by the week. I would really like to see the Android port on F-droid. I haven't done a tonne of research, but I believe Vector uses Google Play Services, specifically GCM. This makes it impossible for me to use on my GAPPS-less phone. It also bars it from F-droid.

<comment><USER12> Yes the Vector Android app uses GCM, but it's opensource so you might be able to tweak it so that it works on F-droid? Sorry I don't know much about the differences there...

<comment><USER15> Leaving people no option but to use Google's infrastructure (if they want to participate with anything better than a browser) seems an ENORMOUS gap, given the rest of the project's goals. If you want to use it on mobile, it _IS_ still centralised around Play Store and GCM (where Google can collect all your metadata).

You can't even install the Matrix mobile app on open source Android phone that doesn't have all the Google bloatware installed (which you can't do on decent OS's like Copperhead yet while keeping a signed & verified boot loader).

You've done some great work, so I don't want to be too critical (I don't have time to implement the fix for a start!) - but this is almost like how Signal claims to be open source, but you can't ACTUALLY USE the iOS version, because GPL is incompatible with Apple Store.

You claim to be open source and decentralised, but you can't _actually_ use it on an open source and decentralised platform. So I kinda don't see the point.

<comment><USER16> Have you actually tried using it on a phone with no Google Play Services? I'm involved with the project and I remember someone reporting it works just fine. Vector for Android falls back to polling if GCM isn't supported/working afaik.

<comment><USER15> I hadn't tried it, no. Was just going on what others had said here. That's great to hear it has at least some sort of fallback! Polling however is typically too battery draining to be practical. Battery drain was one of the biggest reasons XMPP lost traction.

If Matrix adds something like XEP-0357 Push Notifications, enables verifiable builds & FDroid distribution, plus gets full featured XMPP bridge implementations done, then I think you're onto a winner. It gets extremely hard to convince people to install N+1 different IM clients once N>5, let alone the >10 that're becoming common. The XMPP Push XEP is working fantastically in Conversations IM and extremely fast too BTW (much snappier than Signal at least).

Congratulations on your work on the Olm implementation too!!! Now that Signal Protocol has been locked up in legalese (turns out Open Whisper WEREN'T really open), you guys are _THE_ leading E2E implementation. It's really a fantastic contribution to the community and we owe Matrix devs a huge thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> We do have a similar equivalent to XEP-0357: [http://matrix.org/docs/spec/push_gateway/unstable.html](http://matrix.org/docs/spec/push_gateway/unstable.html). We can and will make Matrix do smarter than polling though, especially for the case that GCM isn't available. For instance you could use the websocket transport that's available today.

Glad you like Olm :) I think OWS are trying to find a way for their impl to be appstore compatible too, so hopefully the user wins twice over!

<comment><USER15> Nice! I really am excited for you (and us)!

Re OWS; yes, I still keep some small hope that they've just been too preoccupied and not completely thought/worked things through. People are human and they've clearly had a lot going on! Their position as stated really did surprise a lot of people. Matrix.org's views on decentralisation certainly sounds FAR closer to the future I'd like to see for the net. Being able to evolve or change clients and integrate new technologies, _without_ cutting off the entire network, seems clearly a very good thing indeed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can watch Matthew from the Matrix/Vector project here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF93l0DbAg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF93l0DbAg0)

We did this call yesterday with them, the Video element uses FreeSWITCH Video MCU. You should check it out. Its very interesting.

/b

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody has said the word "slack" yet... but am I interpreting this correctly? An open source clone of slack? If so, it's very interesting. I wonder if they are taking any steps towards solving the "fragmentation" issue that slack teams seem to cause. I have a few contacts that are shared between 2-3 different slack teams and I can never remember where to find my PM conversations.

Edit: okay someone else did say "slack", should have refreshed the page before posting :)

<comment><USER12> Vector does address the same market as Slack, with similar feature set but also leveraging Matrix to bridge to other systems like Slack, and IRC, and others soon.

And yes Vector allows you to be part of several teams without switching between them.

[disclaimer: I'm from Vector team]

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the reply! To clarify, you mean to say that a single user-account can be the exact same entity on multiple teams? And so point-to-point communication is not affected by team boundaries?

What about server boundaries? Can they be federated somehow? Sorry if you are trying to answer this with your point about Matrix; I'm not familiar with it.

Edit: ah! Arathorn answered my question about federation. This is super cool stuff!

<comment><USER12> Yes basically the concept of closed teams doesn't exist in Vector: you are a member of different chatrooms, public or private, with other people, each having its own focus, no matter what is the project scope or the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I still don't understand why Matrix was made when XMPP is already a thing; if you're not happy with the existing standard participate in the process, don't just make up a new one. [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

<comment><USER19> > I still don't understand why Matrix was made when XMPP is already a thing

Have you tried... thinking about it a bit more? I could come up with roughly 20 different reasons without trying very hard. For someone involved in XMPP, that is one hell of a thing to say.

Seriously, calling out XKCD927 on a massive project like Matrix is extremely disrespectful to its contributors.

Tell me, what could Matrix have done to save XMPP? Publish a hundred different XEPs nobody would ever bother to implement? Make broken clients/servers that don't follow the spec just to try fix a protocol that lost? Magically fix everything and tell people "No really guys, XMPP is better now I swear!"?

They went and tried a new approach and they're doing really well with it... have some respect for that.

<comment><USER15> I actually think it's very good thing that people are asking that question (why not fix XMPP)!! We know from Bob Metcalfe's Law, that starting new networks has a very high cost, either in adoption/migration, lost investments in past standards, duplication of efforts when multiple need to be supported, or when they fail to gain critical mass. There's a limited pool of attention and resources and it's right for people to be instinctively cautious and have the discussions.

For me, the more I learn about Matrix, the more persuaded I am that it really does have merit. If I were a Matrix developer, I wouldn't feel disrespected. I'd be super glad that people are asking questions and genuinely seeking to test that the idea is right. From their dialogue with the community that I've seen so far, the developers are doing great and seem to thoroughly appreciate there's been a lot of false starts by various groups over the years.

TLDR;) - It may be obvious to you, but it's GOOD people are having the conversation. Questions and even dissent should be embraced. It's not about disrespect, it's about testing & validating new ideas.

<comment><USER15> I should add, that the ability to bridge networks, means that XMPP, IRC and others won't/don't need to be cut off from Matrix either. That's kind of the point and interop is one of the big features it will have going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Looks very interesting, but the site is still lacking some important information (or not very clear) from an end-user perspective. Why is there no description of the features? Don't tell me "just try it". There are so many chat clients out there I can't try all of them. But I'm always on the look out for a chat client that also supports group voice chat and group screen sharing.

The page says "VoIP", but with no explanation or details at all. The demo doesn't seem to contain that. Does it exist?

Screensharing is not mentioned at all. Does it exist?

Does this run on Windows / OSX / Linux? Neither is mentioned anywhere.

Maybe even more important would be an end-user oriented site for the Matrix server. Is this a thing? The matrix.org site is very confusing as it has no clear focus. It's all a mix between detail-free overview of the overall idea and low level protocol specification. Where is the end-user friendly page about the Matrix server? What features does it have and how do I set it up? Where is the "tutorial" / blog post about how to successfully setup my own server and install a client in three easy steps to have a full team communication solution (group-text, -voice and -screensharing)?

One thing I really like about Slack is they have great documentation and great customer support. Matrix and Vector may be great, unfortunately it's too difficult to find out.

<comment><AUTHOR> So far the site is just a quick one-page overview - we haven't had a chance to flesh out any of the detail yet at all; sorry about that :) To answer the questions:

* 1:1 VoIP is supported on WebRTC on the web version, Android, and iOS coming very shortly. On Web you hit the call buttons on the bottom right; on Android it's currently hidden behind the top-left menu. * Multiway VoIP is very beta, but supported on the web version. Hit the call buttons when in a room. * Screensharing is even more beta, but happens to be there as an undocumented easter egg on Web. Currently it only works if you're running on Chrome with the --enable-usermedia-screen-capturing commandline option, and shift-click on the video call button. Obviously this isn't intended remotely for serious use yet, but we're working on it. * The three platforms supported are Web/iOS/Android. You can of course run the Web client fine on Windows/OSX/Linux. If you want a different native client, go experiment with the other options on [http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html](http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html) * The page you failed to find for the Synapse server is probably the read me at [https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse](https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse). Agreed we need to make this clearer, and provide much better simple overviews and tutorials for getting up and running. * Agreed that Slack have amazing documentation - it's something we desperately need to do better at. I'd like to think our "customer support" isn't too bad, though; good luck in getting one of Slack's co-founders answering your feedback on HN ;D

<comment><USER20> Thank you for the in depth reply. Glad to hear these things are on the roadmap. I'm really looking forward to when they are ready for serious use. (Although I'm a bit skeptical about WebRTC. Browsers have hyped it for over five years now and is still barely beta quality.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> PRIVACY CONCERN: I had to disable Privacy Badger simply to create my account. When I clicked the link in my email for verification, it asks me to prove that I'm not a robot, but didn't have anything for me to click or do to prove that. Only after disabling privacy badger would it produce a simple checkbox which I clicked, thus proving I'm not a robot.

Designers: Could you please provide an alternate method of human-verification if the user has enabled something like privacy badger?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure - sorry about this; I guess there's something in the google reCAPTCHA stuff which triggers privacy badger. We'll investigate.

<comment><USER15> It's great to see how open you are to community feedback. Hats off for your responsiveness!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I Just got weirdly excited by this. I had heard of it before but never really though about what I could do with it. But then I'm never really sure if I understand it completely yet.

If i just want to set up a server that me and my friends would use. I can just make a server. they would register on it and we would be good to go? I don't have to join the federation if I don't want to? I understand the advantages of doing so though.

Also, how does the vector apps go on battery use and all that. comparable to other messaging apps?

<comment><USER12> Precisely: just setup the server and off you go, you don't have to federate, although as you say that would be missing part of the fun ;)

The Vector app on Android (using GCM) has pretty good perf battery consumption-wise. Unsure how it compares with other apps but we haven't had any particular complaints about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Looks nice, and glad to see it's open source and that I can run it on my own server :) A very crowded space but having that option is great.

I wonder how integration with phabricator would work/look like.

</comment><comment><USER24> As someone who has self hosted my own XMPP server before and still cries over the move taken by Google and Facebook with their messengers, can someone from the Matrix people explain what is so fundamentally different from the protocol, that it couldn't be done in XMPP?

Please don't say "it is XML based". I know the situation with the clients is XMPP-land is appalling, but it seems to me that if Matrix does get any kind of traction, it will face the exact same kind of problems.

<comment><USER25> (not from the team) The matrix.org FAQ has a great overview of the protocol's strengths vs XMPP, IRC, etc: [http://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is- the-differenc...](http://matrix.org/docs/guides/faq.html#what-is-the- difference-between-matrix-and-xmpp) (and it doesn't mention XML at all!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm curious, how does this compare to open source slack-clones like Mattermost?

<comment><USER12> With Vector you have the choice between using the hosted version of Vector or host it yourself. And being built on the Matrix ([http://matrix.org](http://matrix.org)) standard, it's a completely distributed architecture: run your own server and own your own data!

Like any other Matrix compliant app, Vector supports out of the box all the bridges and integrations the community contributes to the Matrix ecosystem. So today it bridges to Slack and IRC, soon Mattermost, Rocketchat, Skype, Lync... And Github, Jira, Jenkins for the integration side, with much more to come, including Slack webhooks.

On the UX side of things, Vector doesn't force you to create an account per team like Slack does and allows the creation of public chat rooms which can be referenced in a directory. Rooms can be invite-only or just "hidden" (anyone with the link can access) or fully public (anyone can access). Also every message is indexed and has a permalink to it, so easy to share information, especially given people can access rooms as guests (if the room allows), no need to create an account.

In terms of Real Soon Now stuff: \- End to end encryption will be landing in a couple of weeks \- Vector web and Android support voice and video conferences via WebRTC (it needs additional polish so consider it as beta, but it's here) \- Proper nice UI to provision the bridges and the integrations in the room (couple of weeks)

And I feel like I'm missing stuff... But that's probably the main bits

<comment><USER27> > In terms of Real Soon Now stuff: - End to end encryption will be landing in > a couple of weeks

Will this be based on Axolotl? If so, and you want to avoid the Signal problem of there being a log of messages being passed between users, how are you dealing with that? Or is the idea that to make that type of security guarantee you have to self-host conversations? If so, surely there's still a log of messages being sent there. Maybe you could employ a rubberhose-like setup where you send fake messages that mask the real ones?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's using a Double Ratchet implementation - an independent implementation we wrote in C/C++ called Olm ([https://matrix.org/git/olm/about](https://matrix.org/git/olm/about)). We've also added a new group ratchet called Megolm which lets users in the room share the same ratchet to decrypt the group messages.

The actual ratchet itself does nothing to protect metadata - it's just encrypting the payload of the messages in the room, and providing a 1:1 ratchet to exchange the details of the group ratchet for the room.

Obfuscating metadata is a Hard Problem, and if you don't want your server admins to be able to see who's talking to who, you'll need to look at something like Vuvuzela or Ricochet or Pond. In future we may go down the metadata protecting rabbit-hole, so to speak: [https://matrix.org/~matthew/2015-06-26%20Matrix%20Jardin%20E...](https://matrix.org/~matthew/2015-06-26%20Matrix%20Jardin%20Entropique.pdf) has the details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Integration's? Do you have to build an integration through the matrix api? No real detail on the page about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now you have to run your own integration from the list of Application Services at [http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix- now.html](http://matrix.org/docs/projects/try-matrix-now.html), or use one of the existing ones which someone's running out on Matrix. In the near future Vector will provide self-service hosted integrations for those who don't want to run their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there some way to connect to this using pidgin on Linux?

<comment><AUTHOR> there's a very basic and experimental pidgin plugin at [https://github.com/matrix-org/purple-matrix](https://github.com/matrix- org/purple-matrix), but the impedance mismatch between purple2 and matrix is pretty bad (eg limited support for synchronised conversation history). It needs more features before it can be used in anger - patches welcome ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does it have push on iPhone and Android?

<comment><USER16> Yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Am I missing something here? What license is the Matrix Specification itself under? (I know most of the implementations themselves are ASLv2).

It seems really unclear from the site & repo: [https://github.com/matrix- org/matrix-doc](https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-doc), [https://matrix.org/docs/spec/](https://matrix.org/docs/spec/) (apart from being copyright to Matrix.org)

Is this yet to be clarified? (Maybe the Google vs. Oracle case makes it slightly less relevant, but needs to be clarified).

What stops Matrix getting everyone aboard, then releasing new CLOSED versions of the major server and clients with a new spec (as the protocol formerly known as Ax _l_ tl did), and carrying the critical mass of user base with them? Sure, the implementations are ASLv2, so in theory the community could fork, but in practice that doesn't always work. Is there going to be incentive to keep it open? (Signal was an 'open' implementation and spec too, but that didn't work out as people expected, even though OWS are non-profit).

Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a genuinely accidental omission - the spec is either PD, a CC variant or ASLv2. Will work out which and post it.

<comment><USER15> Thanks Arathorn. Matthew's confirmed that to me also. I expected that'd be the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does it have encryption already? Because at top it says so, but at the bottom it says not yet.

>Soon, protect your conversation with state of the art end-to-end encryption using Matrix's Olm cryptographic ratchet.

<comment><USER12> Not yet, couple of weeks away though

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually landed on the develop branch, but we're still testing. The bit at the top of the webpage anticipates it merging to master :)</comment></comment></comment>


Amid layoffs, Microsofties reveal further turmoil in Redmond - <AUTHOR> http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/213808.asp <comment><USER2> Many of these complaints are the same reasons I left Microsoft about a year ago. It's becoming less and less a place where good work is rewarded; where engineering reality trumps corporate BS; where you feel empowered to make the best products; where you look forward to spending time at work.

As more and more talented people are pushed out or leave, as the compensation continues to stagnate, as the corporate culture continues to rot all of this will snow-ball. People will find that they no longer enjoy work because all of the good people on their team have left. They'll no longer be bound by MS's golden handcuffs because their compensation won't be any better than a dozen competing companies in the same city. Etc, etc, etc. Increasingly I get the feeling that the exodus is just beginning from MS.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem with Microsoft isn't a lack of bright talent. It's "Who's Next?" People are jockeying for political positions, not concentrating on products. Ballmer won't be there forever and everyone wants to be the next Ballmer. If Steve Jobs passed away tomorrow, there could be similar jockeying at Apple -- we've already seen how product introductions lacking Jobs have been split up among several people. We don't know how many of those people got the idea from that experience that they could be "the next Jobs."

Jobs also once criticized company leadership in general (someone else can go find this), stating that what happens after a founder leaves is that a marketing person ascends to the top -- and he pointed to Ballmer as an example. It's interesting to note that Palm began to sink also when a marketing person was leading it -- Ed Colligan.

<comment><USER4> Eh, Ives is almost certainly heir to the throne.

<comment><USER5> I don't know anything about Ives' business skills, but I'd worry that making him CEO would be promoting him to his level of incompetence. He's a fantastic designer, and I'd rather not see him distracted from that role.

But it might be wise for him to have final approval over product designs, the way Jobs presumably does now.

<comment><USER6> I think the most probable succession plan is to put Tim Cook in charge of the company with Ive in charge of design and aesthetics. Who has what job title is hard to predict.

<comment><USER5> You know, Jobs keeps insisting Siri is an AI company...

"Hey virtual Steve, should we add this feature?"

"Get rid of it."

"Should we keep this feature?"

"Get rid of it."

"What do you think about--"

"That's shit."

<comment><USER7> like this, you mean? <http://quietcode.com/virtualsteve/>

I just bought virtualsteve.com, but didn't have time to set up hosting for it, so I've just put the page here for the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Before succumbing to schadenfreude just remember that this will eventually happen to your favorite tech company in the future, be it HP, Dell, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Fog Creek, Amazon, Y Combinator, etc. Companies have ups and down.

Hopefully MS will see this as a learning experience, become a better competitor and then we as consumers will benefit.

<comment><USER9> / did happen in the past (Apple)

<comment><USER8> Sure, and it's arguably happening right now to some of the companies I mentioned (Dell, Yahoo) but if/when they recover it will likely happen again. Apple will likely face bad times at some point in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't tell anyone, but I think it's happening to Google _right now_. It's just early stages (like MS in 1995), and Google still has more good products than bad, so it isn't exceptionally noticeable.

But the recent, high-profile launch disasters, the clutter that's slowly creeping into the result pages, and stuff like the search page background goofiness...they sure _feel_ like early MS-style mistakes.....

<comment><USER10> MS in 1995 still had many, many years of good work ahead of it. Remember that they won the browser wars, after everyone had written them off as being too big and clumsy to adapt to change. That was also when we got Win2k and WinXP (arguably the best versions of Windows ever) and their Office product matured into its familiar form.

I'd say Microsoft started going downhill after 2002, when they disbanded the IE team and embarked on the disaster that was Vista. But I remember that when I started college in 2001, I _hated_ Microsoft and yet virtually all the software on my computer was by them. It's a sign of market dominance when your customers hate you and yet use your products anyway. ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> _"MS in 1995 still had many, many years of good work ahead of it. Remember that they won the browser wars, after everyone had written them off as being too big and clumsy to adapt to change. That was also when we got Win2k and WinXP (arguably the best versions of Windows ever) and their Office product matured into its familiar form."_

Eh. We also got WindowsME in 2000, which was arguably the worst version ever. And to be fair, Office has been mostly re-arranging the furniture and re- painting the walls since Office95. And...let's not forget Bob. Bob was Microsoft's Buzz, circa 1995.

That said, sure, it's not like MS got to their current state on January 1, 1996. And there's no way I'd argue that they (or Google) are going away soon. My point is only that Google is starting to show signs of lumbering corporate giant-hood, and that it has happened pretty quickly, in comparison to MS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You'd have to think they would be better off giving up on owning the mobile platform, given that they are up against Android and iOS/iPhone I don't think they could possibly come up with something compelling enough to get mobile companies to pay for a license over the free Android OS which iterate much faster.

Possibly they could form a partnership with the aim of bringing other products to a platform. They could support Android, build it into there development tools and release mobile versions of their software there, integrate with xbox ect. Would probably be a bigger opportunity than the dead end that is windows mobile.

I think there would be a lot of businesses at Microsoft that could be cut in order to regain some focus. Although the same could be said about Google and they seem to be doing pretty well at the moment.

<comment><USER12> > they would be better off giving up on owning the mobile platform

They can't afford that. Their strength comes from the lack of viable options - each of their product lines reinforces the dependency on other product lines. If you use Exchange, you probably won't be able to use anything other than Outlook, which runs on Windows and is part of Office, which makes using Sharepoint more or less painless, which runs only on top of Windows servers and requires Microsoft's database...

Their value proposition is based on dependency loops. Break the loops and the value disappears (or becomes negative).

<comment><USER13> I agree with everything but your comment about Sharepoint. Nothing can ever make that painless.

<comment><USER12> After being responsible for a large SharePoint deployment at her company, my wife agrees with you.

But both of you have to admit that using SharePoint through Office sucks less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's all a symptom of too much money and too many resources, I think. Focus get's completely lost.

Isn't there a way to run a big company? Is anything known on how Apple does it? How big are their development teams, even?

Would it make sense to manage internal teams a bit like startups, that is they would have to succeed on their own and pitch for investments?

<comment><USER15> According to Wikipedia, Apple has 34k employees. Microsoft has over 100k. Maybe at that scale, 34k and 100k aren't very different, or maybe that's like night and day.

<comment><USER14> 34K still seems a lot, but how many are really involved in developing the core products? A lot of them would probably be sales people etc?

Maybe MS would do better with 34K than 100K people...

<comment><USER16> Yeah, Apple probably has a lot of retail employees for their Apple Stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It looks like pg was right 3 years ago: <http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html>

<comment><USER18> Yeah, Microsoft was relevant to me when the launched Access in about '96 or so. Then there was a brief spell of relevance with .NET and all the cool stuff attached to that.

Since then, Linux or OS X have become the OS' of choice for many techies, and open software has eaten the lunch of MS when it comes to internet development.

MS are on life support (though in a quite comfortable state!) kept alive by a HUGE installed and locked-in base. There are flickers of life in Office and Windows 7, but they may be fighting a losing battle in future markets, likely to be more cost sensitive than the high productivity and high-priced US.

<comment><USER19> I think they will go the way of IBM: Relevant and profitable but not the all- encompassing mega-monopolist.

<comment><USER12> Microsoft has to mature a lot to become an IBM.

Check what IBM's basic research did and compare it with what Microsoft Research outputs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't think that even if Microsoft layed off 60% of its staff it would become competitive as Apple or Google. The more I read into their problems the more I think that this is not a management issue. No they have rigid management controls to ensure that stuff doesn't go wrong like the other giants, but due to the lack of a vision.

If you ask an Apple, Google, old HP, or any employee of an innovative company they will be able to tell you what their company is about. They will be able to define what they are contributing towards at in work. They know what their company's mission is and what that company stands for in respect to their product line and their positioning in the market. This has stopped happening in Microsoft.

An interesting question is whether _all_ failing companies have similar blind spots of vision.

As someone once put it; management is knowing how to cut down trees efficiently, vision is about knowing if you're in the right jungle in the first place.

<comment><USER10> I think a lot of Microsoft's problem is that they succeeded in their mission statement. "A computer on every desk, all running Microsoft software" was incredible hubris in 1974. It's reality now. What can Microsoft do to top that?

It makes me wonder about what the world will look like in 15 years. Google's mission statement is "Organize the world's information, and make it universally accessible and useful." Right now, I'd tend to think that Google is safe from many of Microsoft's woes, because I couldn't imagine how they could possibly _finish_ their mission statement. But I would've thought the same thing about Microsoft in the 1970s.

<comment><USER20> I agree with what you say, but a part of having a vision also means looking beyond your own accomplishments. I have noticed something in how I think/do things everything feeds to the next thing. Unrelated things become connected somehow and just continue some undefinable chain. 'What's next?' is really the question they can't seem to answer.

Maybe, the problem over here is that the dreamers have stopped dreaming and they're now concentrating on spreadsheets?

Look at Elon Musk after he exited PayPal he could have coasted in that paradigm. Done incrementally better things, or just continued looking after it. He didn't do that. Instead, he asked himself what's next for me, and put his money where his mind was. In a lot of ways to me that defines a vision.

Or, we could take the perennial example, Steve Jobs, Apple could have coasted after the iPod, or the iPhone but they somehow keep on pushing on and they've started creating an ecosystem where all the other products feed into one another. It is true that his dictatorial style helps him, but someone had to _see_ this possibility to work towards it, and that's where the challenge lies in my opinion.

<comment><USER21> Or the key dreamer decided that "what's next" was to cure the world of malaria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Splitting Microsoft into 3 companies would have helped. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Penfield_Jackson>

<comment><USER12> In retrospect, not splitting it will prove to make it fail faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can you think of a project, a product or a company that succeeded with a somewhat negative-sounding name (even if meant somewhat ironically or as sort of a renegade mentality)? I'm drawing a blank.... It's odd that I can't think of a single one though. Even among game studios, etc.

<comment><USER24> What do you mean "a somewhat negative-sounding name"? Products succeed with embarrassing names like "Wii" all the time.

<comment><USER23> I mean like Evil. Or Gloom. Or Danger. Embarrassing is a much wider set. Anyway, just curious...

<comment><USER14> Doom

<comment><USER23> Ah nice, that's what I was looking for.

<comment><USER23> I can't seem to reply to the comment below me in response. But basically re:

 _Danger, one of the sample words you mentioned, is the name of a company that Microsoft bought._

That's why I asked the question. My thought is that there is a psychological excuse to have low expectations for a project, product, or company if it has negative connotations (and not 'making fun of' or 'humorous' connotations).

I've seen projects fail with clever negative titles (mostly via acronyms). Not because the developers were bad -- but because, I think, it might give the management or business side an excuse to look for failure. Or it may create other headaches psychologically for the people involved.

That's the only reason I asked the question. I admire people who take those risks. But it may be worth thinking it through. Or maybe not..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yes, MSFT lacks focus but they are virtually forced to compete across dozens of fronts hoping that someday all the nodes add up to the former glorious whole.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a consensus on the way to do JS inheritance? - <AUTHOR>

I work on a project that uses classes in JS. So far I've already used 3 different ways to do inheritance:
- Subclass.prototype = new Class()
- Subclass.prototype = Object.create( Class.prototype )
- Fiber: https://github.com/linkedin/Fiber
None of those solutions were acceptable: the two firsts have issues with method overriding and super() invocation, the latter is too verbose to implement.
It seems that most articles on the subject link to John Resig's Simple Javascript Inheritance: http://ejohn.org/blog/simple-javascript-inheritance/, but that one is from 2008 and I was wondering if there's one "modern" way to do JS inheritance and that most people agree on.
Is there such a thing? Is there a library that implements it?
Side note: Please avoid things like "you're trying to do things that JS is not meant for", I'm just trying to answer the how, not the why. <comment><USER2> I think your best bet would be going with something like node.js' util.inherits, a standalone version for the browser can be found here:

[https://github.com/isaacs/inherits](https://github.com/isaacs/inherits)</comment>


The Miracle of Minneapolis - <AUTHOR> http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I live in Minneapolis, in one of the "less safe" neighborhoods. Compared to the house I lived in in Philadelphia, which had bars on the first-story windows, it's perfectly fine from a crime proximity standpoint.

The house is 2500 sq.ft., with four bedrooms and three stories (not counting the basement), and we pay about $1200 a month for it. The neighbors are quiet and there aren't too many break-ins in the area.

Cost of living is wonderfully low here. Being smack in the middle of the country, and close to Canada, we have access to a ton of stuff that other areas just don't get. As a major transport hub, we also get extremely fresh seafood, which makes the local sushi scene vibrant.

Music, art, and entertainment are huge here. If it's a day ending in y, there's something going on somewhere in the metro.

There are a number of tech meetups in the area. I go to a few, like GoMN, AWS MN, and PHPMN. I'm thinking of swapping out GoMN for RubyMN - we'll see. There's a handful of tech conferences here, too.

The Twin Cities definitely feels like a Millennial city. Like there's a ton of potential, and it's not just on its way to greatness, it's starting to achieve it.

That is not to say it's flawless - like any place inhabited by humans, it has its problems. But the benefits vastly outweigh the drawbacks.

<comment><USER3> what neighborhood is that?

<comment><USER4> From their description I'm guessing Northeast Minneapolis. It is an old blue- collar area currently being revived, and has quite a few older 3-story houses.

A lot of the old warehouse buildings have been gutted and renovated, turned into office spaces, breweries, lofts, restaurants, and coffee shops. Its also considered the arts district of Minneapolis.

I think the crime used to be worse than it currently is, but I'm not certain of that. I started working in the area a few years ago, and I haven't witnessed anything unpleasant. It feels quite safe here.

If you go across the river to North Minneapolis, you'll run into a rougher neighborhood with bars on windows and stuff like that. But even then I've heard things are improving over there too.

<comment><USER5> it's probably not northeast. source: I'm currently looking to move there, and 1250/month only gets you a nice 2 bedroom duplex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Minneapolis also has a serious crime problem the article completely ignores.

It has about a 10 murder rate (per 100k people). Which is over twice the national average, higher than SF, twice that of Salt Lake City and 50%+ higher than NYC (but lower than Pittsburgh).

It has over five times the rape rate of SF or NYC.

It has twice the robbery rate of NYC, Salt Lake (and higher than SF or Pittsburgh).

An assault rate higher than those other cities, and twice that of SF.

And a burglary rate three or four times higher than NYC, and twice that of SF.

<comment><USER7> Its a midwest thing. I grew up in the MPLS/MKE ish region and its definitely a midwest thing based on my Army travels around the country.

Half the people in the new york metro area live in the city. There is some diversity.

A quarter of the people in the Milwaukee metro area live in the city. Almost no middle class people live in the city, as a percentage. Its all dirt poor in the slums and a couple rich folks along the lake shore areas, thats it.

In MPLS, I kid you not, less than a tenth of the people in the metro area live in the city. Nobody lives downtown but the skyscrapers and some poor people, and as you note, poor people always have amazing high crime stats, so you guess the results. Detroit is pretty much the same way although I haven't spent much time there.

Basically on the coasts, there are middle and upper class people living in cities, which NEVER happens in the midwest. "the city" is a couple soulless skyscrapers, maybe a public uni, and invariably a giant crime filled slum. In the midwest all the cultural and entertainment stuff happens like a quarter mile away from the city or more, in one of the burbs.

If you see a skyscraper, on the coasts its probably a fun place to be, and in the midwest its always the opposite, if you can see a skyscraper, run...

There are two cultural / social effects that really confuse discussions between midwesterners and coasties.

1) Our cities are cultural wastelands with nothing to do except bar hop with fake ID carrying college students. All the cultural stuff happens in the burbs, music, art, parks, most festivals (makerfaire, etc), almost all our sports teams except basketball, all the bars that aren't entirely full of kids with fake IDs or need bullet proof vests to enter, all the good restaurants, all the good or upscale or specialty stores, none of that stuff is downtown in the midwest. My impression of the coasts is ALL the burbs have on the coasts is houses, if you want to buy a pop-tart or a bottle of pepsi you need to drive into the coastal city to shop, etc. So "new urbanism" and all that confuses the hell out of midwesterners. So the coasties say if I move downtown I'll have vibrant cultural activities but there's nothing to do downtown and any time I want to do something I'd have to jump in a car and drive out to the burbs.

This also confuses coasties who get imported. So they think our downtown is like Manhattan but a little smaller, and are mystified that its possibly the most boring four square miles of office buildings on the planet, and tell everyone there's nothing to do in Milwaukee but get drunk, get drugs, and get shot at... but drive out to the burbs, like maybe Brookfield, and we have concerts in the park every summer weekend, and symphony and other music in the amphitheater maybe every other weekend, at multiple sites, and festivals and fairs and street parties and parks and great shopping and great food stores and ... But you gotta drive out to the burbs to have any fun, cities are dead.

The imports have a really rough time, property developers have made these million dollar condos for california people to move into because "all the fun is downtown" back home and condos are supposed to cost a million bucks. But it doesn't work that way in the midwest, so the get all depressed / freaked out that there's nothing to do outside their million dollar downtown condo but get drunk, get drugs, get robbed, or get shot. Could buy a great house in a great school district in a great lifestyle area for a quarter mil, but no, the imports all get a million dollar downtown condo and complain there's nothing to do but get drunk.

In the midwest the cities are empty and soul-less, whereas I'm told on the coasts its the burbs that are empty and soul-less. This confuses the heck out of everyone when coasties and midwesterners talk to each other.

2) On the coasts if someone says they're from NY its over 50% odds they are literally living at a postal address in NYC. In contrast, in the midwest, most people you meet are not from the closest downtown office building city but they WILL say they are. 90% of the people who claim to live in Minneapolis do NOT live in MPLS but in a burb in the greater metro area. I tell people I'm from Milwaukee and people who know MKE feel sad for me and the coasties humorously think I grew up in an office building or in the north side slums, but I actually grew up three burbs to the west (about 15 miles?) in something of a paradise.

Some girls I dated a long time ago were "from Minneapolis" or "from Detroit" but what that really means in midwestern speak is they lived in a burb and the closest skyscraper was maybe 2 miles away in Detroit, for example.

<comment><USER8> Since a few others have said you're wrong about MPLS, I'll say you're wrong about MKE. In my experience, you're wrong, I can't imagine going to the suburbs for "culture," (except perhaps Wauwatosa) I don't know anyone who does regularly, including people who live in the suburbs.

But Downtown is fairly empty, you're not incorrect. It's Offices, and lunch for office workers. For "Culture," or rather events, I go to the neighbourhoods. Bayview, Riverwest, lower East side.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure you're disagreeing with me.

I did some google searches on "things to do in Bayview" and the like:

Bayview: Buffalo Wild Wings chain (oooh), also plenty of places to get drunk at night. Thats about it. Is there anything to actually do in Bayview other than live there and get drunk?

Riverwest: Most of the time nothing to do. Primarily a residential area and student rentals. A couple of annual festivals (like every other small town or neighborhood in the entire state) and a couple places to get drunk although not as many as the east side. They do have a cool annual bike race, again, like pretty much everywhere else.

East side: This place is more fun. Gentrification is pushing all the fun out. Still, there are some coffee shops and there are tons of places to get drunk (like every other small town in the state, LOL). The annual Brady street festival is fun but, again, its not like its the only block party in the state LOL. Madison has better block parties anyway.

Is there any city, burb, or small town in the state that doesn't offer the exact same stuff as the examples above? I can't find anything listed that Hurley, Sparta, or Beaver Dam doesn't do better. Wheres the "culture" in those neighborhoods other than having fifty places to get drunk? (and note the burbs do not exactly lack places to get drunk, LOL, so why are they a wasteland of culture if all culture is, is getting drunk?)

Some of this might be coastie / new urbanism term redefinition. When they say "culture" they seem to mean something totally different than non-coastie / non-new urbanism people, and I think that leads to confusion much like the geographic limits of city vs burb as I previously mentioned.

(edited to add, I might be brutal but I'm fair, for at least 90 mile radius, the Milwaukee city public museum and the Milwaukee city art museum are the best cultural attractions in their field and the burbs have nothing to compare WRT museums. You have to drive down to Chicago to find better museums. Then again I only go to the art museum maybe every other year, and I get the feeling that makes me an extreme art museum patron compared to most people, especially residents, who never go to either facility at all. Actually I take the train to CHC and hang out at their museums more often than I visit the locals, which is funny.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Considering talent, you also must consider the culture of the region. Minnesotans are generally very understated and humble. I have met many people here who at first blush consider themselves average, but are amazingly talented.

There are truly amazing people here. They just aren't broadcasting it--and their not looking for work.

<comment><USER10> Agree. There are a lot of semi-offensive comments about "brain drain" and talent level. It's more subtle than that.

There _is_ a lot of talent in the Midwest. What you don't get outside of the Bay, at the highest levels of specialty, is a continuous rather than discrete/illiquid market. (New York has a continuous market, but you're competing with Wall Street for anyone good.) This is a pain point for job- seekers and companies looking for talent. If you're looking for someone with 5 years of Clojure experience, production experience with three specific NoSQL products, and an extensive knowledge of the Javascript world... you can find that in SF at some price. In the Midwest, you might have to train up into the role... or, if you're a job seeker, accept an 80% match on the tech stack.

It's a quantity rather than quality issue (pound for pound, the talent levels in Minneapolis and San Francisco aren't very different) but this allows employers and job seekers both to be very finicky ("purple unicorn" searches) in the Bay. It also makes it possible in the Bay, if you're adept at this game, to double your comp in a bidding war. It's much harder to start a bidding war in a Midwestern city of 500,000.

This "bidding war" effect is also why you see some not-that-talented engineers making a lot of money. In the Bay, you have Haskell engineers at $125k and Java engineers making $300k. Why the inversion? The Java engineer can get 3 employers into a bidding war at the same time; that's nearly impossible to do if you're a Haskell engineer.

<comment><USER11> java 300k where? and yes please!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lived in MN for 18 years now in Southern California. If and when you can afford to leave MN, you do it. I pay the same amount that I would for an entire house per month in MPLS for a single in Santa Barbara and that would put people off. But to me, I get to scrap that whole 5-9 months worth of Siberian weather and inevitable seasonal depression and have an inspiring environment.

People who have never lived in MN and read these articles with even the slightest interest in moving to the state are simply out of their minds. My opinion of course.

80% of my peers are MPLS millennials working for Target Corp., Best Buy, and slew of start-ups and marketing firms and there isn't one person I know that would even blink at the price difference if they had the opportunity to move to a coastal region. If you have the chance to leave MN you do.

Tax me out the ass, increase my rent, and inflate my prices, I do not care, as long as I get to see blue skies for more than 2 months a year (If you're lucky).

I am simply an MN ex-pat hater but I find that the coastal cities are bustling and expensive because the $$ is worth your sanity.

<comment><USER13> I lived in Mpls for about 28 years, recently moved to Seattle and don't regret it. It doesn't mean I won't come back, my family is there and I love northern Minnesota (cabin country!).

The cold didn't bother me much.

Things that bother me on the coast are the insane traffic, the seemingly lack of aid and/or housing for large homeless populations, yes the high cost of living. But it's mostly awesome.

I'm missing a lot of useful points here, just some ad-hoc thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very interesting article. I've actually been kicking around the idea that the midwest will see a braindrain-reversal in the next 20 years, similar to China + India + etc. (where elite educated foreign professionals/entrepreneurs who historically sought the US market are actually realizing equal/better opportunity back home, and also a more comfortable/familiar lifestyle).

Cities like Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis and Pittsburgh still can't necessarily compete with tier 1 finance/law/tech opportunities and gross compensation in NY/SF/LA/etc., but more and more they are offering a solid job market (particularly within the healthcare industry) and more affordable living to the point where net compensation may be the same, if not greater than in the "elite" coastal markets (corporate lawyers in Manhattan feel less rich than corporate lawyers in Cleveland, I'm pretty sure - who knows).

I think the other key is that these cities not only offer good jobs and affordable housing, but also offer a true "city culture", including a good food/bar scene, farmers markets, art galleries, a strong local music scene + music venues that are on the national act rotation, all with a more casual vibe than NY or SF offers (subjective statement: last time I was in Cleveland it felt more like Brooklyn than Brooklyn). Whether it's better or worse is a matter of opinion, but I guess my point is that those factors exist in many mid-western cities, and these are the things that professionals moving into cities really want (and pay higher rent for) and really miss when they move to the suburbs.

Unlike the folks returning back to China or India however (who often times work even harder for an even greater potential upside back in their motherland), the choice to return/remain in a more regional city may often be driven by a lifestyle choice - a mid-level manager working in Pittsburgh will likely work less, make the same/more and, in the immediate social environment, hold higher status than the mid-level manager in Silicon Valley who is slaving away 80 hours a week to make an IPO happen for a 35 year old soon-to-be billionaire founder (the big/small fish/pond concept) - of course the big draw in SF is that YOU could be that founder, and there's less of those opportunities in Pittsburgh (at least in theory, and for now). I think this also ties into the relative wealth equality and socioeconomic integration when compared to NY/SF/etc., which was well-described in the article.

Anyhow, just a thought - to be honest, much of my conjecture is driven by my own desire to move to Cleveland for a lot of the reasons above, but at the end of the day I have not and probably won't (I tell myself it has at least a large part to do with the fact that I was born/raised in the Bay Area and all my family/friends live here, but I have to admit that part of me still wants to be in the big pond at the end of the day, as chill as it looks in a smaller one - of course that could change haha).

<comment><USER15> Aren't you using 'technical talent' too narrowly to only refer to CS? There are some pretty solid non-CS science/tech companies in the mid-west that employ a large number of elite talent in the respective areas: mechanical engineering in Detroit, food/bio/chem in MN, health-care in Pittsburgh (UPMC), etc. (Anecdotally) I know highly talented people in the top of their respective fields who consider working in companies in these cities to be highly desirable because of how good these companies are in their respective fields.

<comment><USER14> Totally agreed - I think especially with healthcare, cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh and St. Louis have nationally elite medical centers (Cleveland Clinic, University of Pittsburgh and WSL, respectively) along with all the healthcare service industries that surround such centers, and therefore are able to attract and retain top talent at all levels of the healthcare industry.

Since this is HN, I guess the question is when will the developer / VC ecosystem develop, but I personally think it's just a matter of time before successful "tentpole" startups will pop up in each market, and after that when your significant other gets into a 7 year residency at WSL you don't break up because you want to do a start-up in NY/SF/SEA - you just move too and hopefully are able to bootstrap more efficiently than you would be paying $3,000 for a studio =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I come from Minneapolis and moved back here as an adult. A few observations:

1) Of course lots of stuff still sucks, this is a low bar for miracles ;)

2) The region of influence is huge – going west the next real city is Seattle. This has always been an important part of the city, first for lumber, then agriculture, and now medicine and education.

3) Sure there's a brain drain, but we also have that large region draining into this city. Rural areas produce smart and interesting people as well.

4) Government is quite competent. I get a broad and consistent sense that people who work in government, elected or not, see it as a form of service.

5) Government is generally fiscally conservative. Not bullshit fiscal conservatism, but the kind that keeps expenditures low AND taxes high. As a result the squeezes we have had (the same everyone has had lately) haven't been too destructive.

6) Minneapolis is embedded in a quite large county, that includes a lot of suburbs and even some rural areas (even if those are dwindling). Minneapolis is not the majority of the county, population or area. I know many urbanists get excited about unified governments like Indianapolis where county and city take on the same boundaries. I think that's unsafe – you can get shit done, but shit can also fall apart. St. Louis is a good counterexample.

7) We're even less unified than that, because Minneapolis and St. Paul make up one metro area, the two being largely indistinguishable from each other. I liked this opinion piece on the problems with city government: [http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/19/urban_malgove...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/19/urban_malgovernment_lack_of_partisan_competition_is_a_disaster.html) – specifically the problem with a lack of political competition in core cities. Like most big cities Minneapolis is almost one-party (there's a Green Party that manages to just barely hold on to relevancy), but the competition between Minneapolis and St. Paul I think helps keep both of them honest. It's a friendly competition, but it helps moderate things. For instance, a useful critique lately has been that St. Paul Public Schools manages to spend considerably less and has better outcomes, for a student body that looks largely the same. I'm hoping we explore that further.

8) Cost of living isn't that low. Lower than San Francisco, sure, but everything in the U.S. is cheaper than that. We don't have the bursts of speculation that drive prices up in weird ways, and we have the naturally suppressive power of our weather, but it's not cheap.

9) There are many criticisms of the disparities here – that Minnesota generally and Minneapolis along with it have a greater difference in outcomes for whites and minorities, across many measures. Some of these are problematic (I'm very unhappy with our policing), but some of the criticism I think is unwarranted. We have a large Somali population, for instance. They are struggling. But they JUST MOVED FROM SOMALIA. Families torn apart, no background in an educational or economic system like here, I'm certain many people hold trauma from their experiences in Somalia. Of course they aren't doing awesomely. But they are doing okay, and all considered that's kind of incredible. And that population is in Minnesota ENTIRELY because of our social services. And I'm glad this community can use its wealth to help these people, but the talk of disparities is just off. I think this is largely true for many of the minorities here who are fairly recent immigrants, we could do better but we're also doing good by them. (The same assessment doesn't really apply to Native Americans, that's a sad situation where this community is not living up to its obligations.)

<comment><USER17> Which side are you counting St. Louis as an example for? It isn't clear to me from your phrasing, but I think you probably mean that it is split up.

For those that haven't seen it, Saint Louis county has 90 municipalities with 81 court systems:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/09/03/h...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/)

<comment><USER16> Huh, I had been under the impression St. Louis had a combined county and city government. I stand corrected!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> LeadPages is based out of Minneapolis...and they kick as much or more ass than any startup San Fran can produce.</comment>


37signals support satisfaction ratings now public - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2774-smiley-goes-public-now-everyone-can-see-how-our-customers-feel-about-our-customer-support

<comment><USER2> I have to give it to these guys (I work on a competitor product). Even though this is a simple idea and possibly something of trivial implementation, it's clear, honest, and just plain _nice_. My hat is off to them for keeping their customers happy - very well done.

<comment><USER3> What product do you work on?

<comment><USER2> I don't want to pee on anyone's parade - I honestly don't - so I would hate to link to it here, even though it's "competition". I'll link to it on my profile instead.

(Never imagined me writing this, actually, but I think it makes sense. I truly do admire these folks for this particular project - I wish I had thought of it myself, I'll tell you that)

<comment><USER4> If you mean webreakstuff.com, may I gently suggest you have a landing page that does not make explicit reference to 2010...

<comment><USER2> I don't, but I appreciate the note. Will update (we've been busy - a good thing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The subtle dig at getsatisfaction was interesting. (For history: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else> ).

This is a good show of selective transparency. The last 100 should serve to make potential customers feel warm and fuzzy without actually showing anything to potentially discourage them (other than if the last 100 were :( complaints)).

<comment><USER6> For the record, it's not a subtle dig at getsatisfaction. "Customer satisfaction" has been a term used by the companies for decades. We don't think satisfaction is a very high bar. We're fighting against low expectations.

<comment><USER7> Do you publish response rates? Things like this always scream selection bias to me. If it were, say 90/7/3, but it took 300 interactions to get 100 responses, that seems like a misrepresentation.

That being said - I really appreciate the idea, but it only really works if you trust the company already. I have plenty of reason to believe 37s (even applied to be a part of the team being tracked,) but if this were State Farm or Comcast or something like that, it would be a pretty laughable concept.

<comment><USER6> I believe around 15% of our customers respond with a rating. From what I understand that's pretty high as far as these sorts of things go. I think that would be considered a reasonable sample.

We don't ask randomly, we ask everyone, so everyone is free to offer up a rating.

CORRECTION: Just reviewed the stats again and it looks like the response rate is in the mid 30s.

<comment><USER8> Jason, the issue is not whether the sample is large enough--a 30+% response rate strikes me as very high, and I suspect given your support volume you're getting several hundred responses per day.

The issue, instead, is whether the people who choose to respond--to take another step after their support encounter and rate the quality of service-- are representative of all users, including the majority who do not rate the experience. That's a tough hypothesis to test, and I suspect it could cut either way: the happiest customers may choose to respond since they so enjoyed the experience, or the angriest may choose to respond since they want you to be aware of their disappointment. Finding out which (if either) of these is occurring is tricky, though.

That said, I certainly don't mean to impugn what you're doing here. I love the transparency and I think you probably are getting a fairly good snapshot of overall customer satisfaction. Also, even if there is a response bias, you can safely use these numbers to benchmark over time, which I suspect would be very useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish that I could click on the individual smiley faces and find out the facts of the statuses. For some reason it's driving me nuts that I don't know why the frowny faces are unhappy.

<comment><USER6> We have access to that, but we can't share it since the comments often include confidential information.

The biggest source of unhappiness is when we can't deliver a feature request immediately.

<comment><USER10> Maybe you could add a "let the internet know why" field?

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, they're not able to deliver that feature request immediately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From what i can tell it looks like the satisfaction rate has declined since this went live. I wonder if the fact that this is public info has changed the responses some how.

</comment><comment><USER13> Gah! Their support email example uses two! exclamation marks! I'd! be torn as to whether to give them a grimace or a frown on that point alone!!

<comment><USER14> Hrmm...not to be disgusting, but you would take a live example of a company doing right by their customers to rain on their parade because they used two exclamation marks instead of one?

 _sigh_ Sometimes people can make mountains out of molehills.

<comment><USER10> But there are two! molehills!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a company I would definitely would like to work. Always innovating and with some very nice products.

</comment><comment><USER16> How long till people start gaming this & submitting bad customer support tickets, just to spite them?

<comment><USER17> I don't see the point of getting a frowny face on a website for fun. But the point is, if you're not happy then putting a frown is exactly what you _should_ do to let them know you weren't happy. Out of spite or whatever other reason, the point of customer support is trying to make those people happy customers.</comment></comment>