Why I use DuckDuckGo and You Should Too - <AUTHOR> http://blog.clifreeder.com/blog/2012/02/12/why-i-use-duckduckgo-and-you-should-too/

<comment><USER3> I tried using DuckDuckGo for a few days. Here's what I found, YYMV:

• Google's results are much better. A handful of times I searched for something I would think, "Wait, that can't be all there is," and Google would give me back what I was looking for above the fold.

• Google is much, much faster in returning results for my regular searches, which are usually programming related or an esoteric Wikipedia topic.

• DuckDuckGo's bang syntax (!jquery, etc) isn't any better than search keywords built into Firefox and Chrome.

• DuckDuckGo's settings page is like Skyrim -- epic and freeform.

• DuckDuckGo is a very well-executed product. The UI is clean, browser integration is smart ("You're using Chrome! Click this!" or something), and it's tailored for my savvy search users.

<comment><USER4> I tried using DDG for a few weeks, and I had the same experience as you. I frequently found myself doing the same search on Google to see if there were more results, but the biggest issue for me was speed - both Google and Bing are blazingly fast, and I found myself being annoyed with the noticable delay in DDG.

<comment><USER5> There are typically more results on Google. But the extra results are usually of a far lower quality (often just spam sites, or other grabage).

I'm very satisfied with using DDG as my primary search engine. And when I feel my search results aren't finding what I need, I might go to Google and wade through the garbage to try to find the gem I'm looking for. But it's rarely worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used DDG for a few weeks and I'm glad I did because I'd forgotten just how good Google is. A few things that DDG made clear was: 1) How useful personalized search actually is. I like that my search engine knows what city I live in so when Googling the name of a restaurant I don't have to include it (that I don't live in an American city might emphasize this). 2) How much speed and responsiveness matter in web design (not to mention autocomplete). Searching google is a much, much smoother experience.

DDG is really good at returning a good result for a really general search term like "C++". However, for me at least, that is an extreme edge case.

<comment><USER7> I'm a C++ programmer and that's actually the thing I miss most: DDG does not know the difference between 'C' and 'C#' and 'C++'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> People go on quite a bit about the bang syntax in DDG, but is this not a functionality that's entirely contained within Chrome's (and many other browsers') search keywords function? When I type 'wik http codes', it takes me directly to the wikipedia page for http codes, and it's built in. Does bang syntax do anything else in addition?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I'm not using the search keywords functionality correctly, but in my experience, it works in one of two ways.

\- Start typing 'wiki...' and it will autocomplete to <http://en.wikipedia.org> In order to search that site, I have to left arrow, space, and then type my query. I found that while usually helpful, the autocomplete was occasionally unpredictable/frustrating enough to me that it negated the times it was helpful. Having fine tuned control w/o autocomplete is preferable to me.

\- Using the omnibox to enter 'wiki http codes', which will pull up google results. I then have to tab or otherwise use keyboard shortcuts to select the first link, all of which are a worse user experience than the bang syntax to me.

<comment><USER9> once you start typing wiki, and the autocomplete comes up, you can press tab, and it will search using the wiki search. you're able to add custom search engines (as pointed out by other users), but chrome also picks up on many of these itself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I spent a week on duckduckgo and I jumped ship because it was slower than Google. The queries took longer to return and it took me longer to cognitively process the page (because I'm so adjusted to Google.)

I'll use it when I want independent search results, but Google's catering to my interests usually works in my favor. When I search for Ruby on Google, all of my results are about the language. DuckDuckGo gives me results about the gem.

<comment><USER11> I believe to remember a recent discussion on HN where Gabriel seemed to be somewhat astounded by how important query speed is, even when we're talking about seconds here, and promised to look into that. I guess we have become spoilt and now cannot go back to waiting if only three seconds sometimes.

I've been DDG as my default search engine in Firefox for quite a long time now, and sometimes I still find myself re-running a query with "!g" - <USER2> when I expect to have to tweak my query once or twice and google is just faster (and still gives better results sometimes).

<comment><USER12> Yet DDG will never be as fast as a real search engine since it relies on external APIs (Yahoo BOSS, etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why I don't use DDG: they don't even index most of my startup's pages.

\- Google: [https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ix=...](https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome- instant&ix=seb&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#sclient=psy- ab&hl=en&site=webhp&source=hp&q=curvio&pbx=1&oq=&aq=&aqi=&gs_upl=&ix=seb&ion=1&pws=0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=8950b9caf62fc784&ix=seb&ion=1&biw=1920&bih=979)

\- DDG: <http://duckduckgo.com/?q=curvio>

It seems DDG even thinks I'm asking about Jose Cuervo-- really?? How many backlinks do we need before you think I may actually be searching for Curvio?

</comment><comment><USER14> I gave up on DDG. The !bang syntax fails, for me, in a pretty annoying way. "!django modles" sends you off to django's search page (as it should), but now I'm trapped in an inferior search engine.

searching for just "django modles" returns pretty bad results, including what could kindly be described as a linkedin blog entry.

Now try the same search on google. (I made sure to try this logged out in case google personalized my results.)

search for "django modles". The first result matches DDG. The next three are Model field reference, instance references, and how to make queries. All highly relevant! I work with Django, and I think these are good results.

DDG in general has provided dissatisfying results and I suspect it is from not knowing what I don't know when searching, so I can't identify bad searches as they happen. But not knowing is why I search to begin with, so that is Why I don't use DuckDuckGo, but I don't care if you do.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a really specific need rather than a broad issue, why not tweet them about it?

<comment><USER14> It's not a specific need. It's a specific issue. Figured I'd offer up a concrete example rather than gushing or hating on the service.

<comment><USER15> Sorry if you took offence to what I said, I simply interpreted you listing all the issues searching specifically for django and how you work with django, then claim that they are generally a bad service.

Your complaint was very specific, yet you claimed it was a general issue.

All that being said, your complaints were entirely targeted towards meeting your needs. Hence, specific need. I can't even conceive of how your complaint wasn't about a specific need, or how this is so drastically different from a specific issue.

<comment><USER14> >Your complaint was very specific, yet you claimed it was a general issue.

My complaint was a specific example of the general issue I wrote about in the last paragraph of my post. Did you ignore the last paragraph from my original post on purpose?

Let me spell it out for you.

 _DDG in general has provided dissatisfying results_

follow by _I suspect it is from not knowing what I don't know when searching, so I can't identify bad searches as they happen._

So I clearly say in general I am dissatisfied and posit a reason why that might be the case. The point of the example is, for the curious, something they can go try or talk about, but thanks for the nitpicking!

Your only other comment on this story is an "It works for me!" So thanks for contributing nothing but fanboi garbage.

<comment><USER15> > but thanks for the nitpicking!

> Your only other comment on this story is an "It works for me!" So thanks for > contributing nothing but fanboi garbage.

Are you done?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I loved DDG because it was a one person champion fighting a giant. And the attempt was very sincere and determined.

I tried switching to DDG for a week. But went back to Google.

Reasons:

\- Relevance: Google gives me high relevance, very high. Restaurant:Food- Quality::Search-Engine:Relevance.

\- Speed: Google works in milliseconds. Instant search + search intents also add value.

\- Gives me rich map results. Also switching to Maps/Image searches with same search term help. DDG doesn't.

Positives of DDG which are actually not:

\- Not bubbling up. I WANT the search engine to know that I'm a hacker. When I search for ruby, it is a programming language. I see value in bubbling up.

\- Keyboard shortcuts - Good value. But I don't go for more than 3 results in Google. So just a single tab and enter works.

\- Bang syntax - Chrome's search keyword replaces it.

Definite plus:

\- User experience : DDG is much cleaner than Google.

<comment><USER17> > \- User experience : DDG is much cleaner than Google.

Well there's still Google's mobile version around to feast your eyes on. Currently I'm using this to search fast and clean:

<[http://www.google.com/pda/search?q=%s&ie=utf-8&oe=ut...](http://www.google.com/pda/search?q=%s&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&pws=0&safe=off&filter=0&hl=en>);

A big hosts file, privoxy, and Opera's Adblock & Ghostery plugin take care of the rest.

<comment><USER18> Feast your eyes, ladies and gents, on the beauty of the "Bad Request" page.

<comment><USER19> <http://www.google.com/pda/?q=wat>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I switched to DDG, and a couple days later, I find myself running searches while at Google headquarters, feeling... a bit awkward.

Seriously though... I switched back a week later. Speed was one thing, but I'd rather take the latency hit and support DDG. The biggest issue I had was relevancy. I would find exactly what I needed using Google, while I'd have to scroll down quite a bit to find what I needed in DDG. Also... the format of search results in DDG is a bit too big for me (seems like too much centering and spacing)... I'd like a lot tighter layout.

I'd really like to use DDG. Until some of my qualms are fixed, I'll stick to Google. That said, I'll definitely be revisiting and retrying DDG every few months.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've been using DDG for the past 2 weeks or so. First, the bad: 1\. It's really slow. Latency is usually on the order of seconds, as opposed to 100s of milliseconds on Google. 2\. Results could be better. Roughly 80-90% of the time I find what I'm looking for, but the rest of the time Google does much better (note: it's possible that DDG is getting queries that Google misses).

Now, the good: 1\. The one-box is really, really good. A lot of the time, I'm searching for domain-specific queries, especially when I'm coding. DDG brings up a one-box with something like a stack-overflow link and often has exactly the code snippet I'm looking for. 2\. I don't have to give more information to google. Admittedly, they already get my email and stuff, but at least this way I'm spreading my information so no one has absolutely all of it.

Finally, the things that are in principle useful but I don't use much: 1\. Bang commands. Seriously, I'm not going to type !cplusplus to search cplusplus.com, I'll just click the first link. I also can't remember all of them. I do use !g, !image, and !video, but mainly because they take me to a better search engine. 2\. The search suggestions in the top right. It's a good idea, but I don't have the cognitive capacity to keep track of those in addition to the search results.

<comment><USER22> to search cplusplus.com just type !cpp <query>, to look for videos use !v or !yt, to look for images use !i or !gi

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As explained, the author is not really using a search engine as most do. He/she really is just using DDG as a bookmark for searching a specific site. This works, but how would you then discover that a better information source is available?

When would you stop asking Jeeves or HotBot and switch to Stack Exchange?

</comment><comment><USER24> The author is using Chrome. He could set up search engines to use in the Omnibar instead of visiting DuckDuckGo (e.g. ama[TAB] to perform a search directly on Amazon.com).

[http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ans...](http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95655)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I should have been clearer. I do use DuckDuckGo via the omnibar, which would be necessary for any of the efficiency gains I refer to.

<comment><USER24> No, it wouldn't. You can just as easily perform searches on those other sites directly from Chrome's Omnibar without having to go through a middleman like DuckDuckGo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why I don't use DuckDuckGo:

Worse results than Google (and even Bing) for most of my everyday searching.

"But we're not Google!" is not a real selling point.

<comment><USER26> I have done some side by side comparisons between Google and DuckDuckGo. Google seems to produce more relevant results than DuckDuckGo.

I really want to like and use Duck Duck Go...I will keep trying!

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell I _want_ to use DDG, and it has been my default search engine for a while now, but most days, I need to fall back to Google for at least one search because the DDG results simply aren't good enough. When I fall back to Google, I go via Scroogle though: <https://ssl.scroogle.org/>. DDG has a bang command for Scroogle, it is "!s"

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's funny that people argue Google's more relevant. One of the reasons I got fed up with Google was the constant link spam in it from the content mills like Demand Media. Which is why I gave DDG a go. Maybe things have changed at Google, but they lost me as a heavy search user. Habits have completely changed.

I've been using DDG for quite some time (months) as my main search engine and it's been great. I'd say I only need to hit Google once every 50+ searches.

The inline results from Stack Overflow, Youtube and Wikipedia are excellent. That and the keyboard shortcuts are more natural to me (specifically j/k) than Google's (tabs and arrows).

<comment><USER3> After Panda and a few other search ranking improvements were implemented, the spam you're referring to has pretty much disappeared.

<comment><USER28> It's still pretty bad for mailing list archives. Archiveorange, ugh. Markmail, nabble (the one that is actually decent), the fact that I can name these sites from memory proves how truly badly deeply Google has let these duplicate content sites infect results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Another reason to use DDG - they don't "bubble" you with their search results, and have a strict privacy policy. See: <https://duckduckgo.com/privacy.html>

I have them set to my search engine and I would say about 90% of my searches hit productive results. For the other 10%, I consult with Google via their handy link or just via Google directly.

You can't compete with Google for breadth of web search, but I find most of my searches don't utilize that for accurate results, eg finding a company page. When I look for a specific error message or help with a code snippet, GOOG is still king.

<comment><USER30> Actually this is the only reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I tried DDG, I found myself doing queries that I knew worked just fine on Google, but came up a bit short on DDG.

Quite honestly, I don't see a need to switch now.

</comment><comment><USER32> Ugh, another link to w3 schools? It possibly only ranks so high for JS searches because everyone is linking to it as being an exemplar of horrible JS information. Please stop linking to W3 schools.

</comment><comment><USER33> I would prefer a Seeks Project public server setup by the HN community. <http://www.seeks-project.info/site/about/>

I like everything about DuckDuckGo except for the search results. I so often wind up re-googling what I searched it isn't worth the effort. And this is with a unpersonalized Google version. I am not logged into any Google account, I run Ghostery and I clean cookies at every browser shutdown.

Many times a search time yields zero hits in DDG and I instantly find what I search for with Google. Sad but true. And yes, i use "" around all words and phrases in Google.

</comment><comment><USER34> Personally I found results from DDG to be inferior to Google results most of the time, so I had to switch back after a week or so.

The functionality being described here is something that I actually use Alfred for these days.

</comment><comment><USER35> I tried really hard to get used to DDG for an entire week. I changed my bookmarks to DDG, learned hashbang syntax etc.. But at the end of the week I just came to know how much more google does than DDG. I kept missing:

Auto complete (suggestions) - I tend to type a lot of things wrong, integrated image search and unfortunately some times quality of the results too..

I'm not saying every one has to stick with google.. just saying DDG isn't a viable alternative for most people used to google search (but its a lot better than bing)...

</comment><comment><USER36> If you use google chrome you can do a faster search by using the omnibox. For example if you want to find a youtube video type youtube.com into the omnibox and then hit 'Tab' then enter the search terms of the video you are looking for and it will automatically point you to the results page of youtube. This works for almost any site that google can find a search box for (wikipedia, ebay, amazon, hacker news, airbnb, etc.) You can also customize this in the settings of chrome if it doesn't find a site you are looking for.

</comment><comment><USER37> I love the !bang searches and use them daily. Even on a regular search, the zero-click gives me what I want quickly. I'd like to see DDG improve on the following things:

-Instant Search: maybe I've been spoiled by Google, but DDG feels slow in comparison

-Foreign language searches: Have you tried them? They're absolutely horrible.

-Ads: They're not relevant _at all_.

</comment><comment><USER38> In this age of SEO'd dreck and machine-generated content, I'll happily take a few "bubbles" over a static (read: gamable) ranking system.

</comment><comment><USER39> The first link to DuckDuckGo on the page is a link to Google's main search page. Typo or some joke I'm not getting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Doh, definitely a mistake. Fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just switched my search box over to DDG after Google changed something and now the results are clicktrackers instead of actual URLs. They'd done this before but I'd been able to opt out of it by changing my User-agent string.

Wish me luck.

</comment><comment><USER41> Surfraw is a tool that exposes a similar interface to bang patterns.

<http://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/>

</comment><comment><USER42> As others have pointed out, with !bang you can just "!g search whatever" and voila you're searching Google.

So typically, I set my browser default search to DDG and try to use DDG as much as possible. Certain terms or things I know Google will find better I just throw in the "!g" before the query.

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't know who actually goes to google.com and types the query in. I simply CTRL+L to Firefox bar and write "wiki http codes". the same number of clicks as going to DDG and typing the 'bang' query. I'd probably save one click when having DDG as main Firefox search and CTRL+K and 'bang'

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are directly going to google.com/duckduckgo.com, you are correct. You get the zero click benefit by using DDG as the default search in Chrome or Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> using duckduckgo for not to be tracked by google (as one of the reasons), but with chrome by google?..

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry, what? Chrome does not send your info back to Google, unless you have the anonymized usage statistics (not sure what it tracks) option turned on, or are using Google as your search provider with Suggestions enabled as- you-type.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I switched to using DDG exclusively when I got fed up with the poor privacy practices Google was continually enacting. I haven't missed google at all since I switched. DDG provides great results, has lots of cool goodies and best of all doesn't track you at all.

</comment><comment><USER46> If Google implemented !wiki → wikipedia.org they'd be facing a possible antitrust lawsuit (even though they can't be a monopoly as you don't have to use Google, US officials seem to think they are). Wikipedia isn't the only wiki.

</comment><comment><USER47> I switched to DDG about 3 Month ago and use Google only for image search and when I am not happy with DDGs result. More often than not Googles result are not better so I have to change my search terms :-)

</comment><comment><USER48> I like DuckDuckGo but Google just indexes way more pages than it, and as a result I am able to find more quality results there... If DDG can index more of the web, I would definitely switch over.

</comment><comment><USER22> one really important aspect of DDG is that I use it to route my google searches. To search for german google I have to go to google.de (type the whole url). With the bang syntax I can just type !gde and it takes me there. Same for Amazon, !a takes you to .com !ade takes you to Amazon.de. I have used DDG for a while now and by now I've got a feeling of what DDG will find and where I should go to Google so I rarely do duplicate queries.

</comment><comment><USER49> the bang syntax is the wrong way to market this product. i was a fan of ddg until i read about how this bang syntax is the almighty saviour to search engines. the reason why i like google is because i can just search anything i want in plain english w/o any query-language/search-filters. all i'd want from DDG is the ability to get rid of all the fake landing page sites from my searches and i'll be sold from there.

<comment><USER5> _"the reason why i like google is because i can just search anything i want in plain english w/o any query-language/search-filters."_

It's not like DDG prevents you from doing this!

You can search DDG using the exact same "plain english" you use in Google.

DDG's bang syntax is an _additional_ feature. If you don't want it or don't like it, don't use it -- just use regular search.

Personally, I don't use DDG's bang syntax myself. I like to create my own custom searches within Firefox.

But I love the high quality of results DDG provides, and the lack of spam/scam results compared to Google. Not to mention DDG's commitment to privacy, which is very important to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I switched to DDG a few weeks back. The other day I needed some Lorem Ipsum and I typed in "lorum". Got a nasty surprise there...

<comment><USER15> "Lorum ipsum" and even "Lorem ipsum" worked fine for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm using Launchbar to jump easily to site searches. It's the best feature ever.

</comment><comment><USER52> Why it redirects me to google.com when i search for !ruby?

</comment><comment><USER30> The only reason for me to use the DuckDuckGo is the privacy. I am a little fed up of feeding my search patterns to google. And until they will do the same thing, I will use them as 95% of the searches are ok even with Bing, who's behind them.

</comment><comment><USER53> I do use DDG and I like it. Oddly, and unlike most of the comments thus far, it does seem to actually find results which I'm actually more interested in than either Google or Bing (although DDG uses both). I do use them too.

</comment><comment><USER54> App store link: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo- search/id479988136...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duckduckgo- search/id479988136?mt=8&ls=1)</comment>


Homelessness as Social Death - <AUTHOR> https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/09/homelessness-as-social-death.html <comment><USER2> > most people simply blame the homeless person as someone who behaved badly, > obviously.

I don't think blame has that much to do with how people form social connections. I think people assume there are a host of other problems associated with homeless people and stay away from them for those reasons, regardless of whose fault it is that they're homeless.

Great article, by the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> The flip side of this effect is that when you are successful everyone wants to be your friend.

People act out of self-interest, including how they choose their friends, jobs, potential partners, and so on, and I don't think this has ever been any different.

It must make things that much more difficult for people who are struggling.</comment>


QR Codes In China And The Troubling State of Tech Reporting - <AUTHOR> http://luigimontanez.com/2013/qr-codes-china-troubling-state-tech-reporting/

<comment><USER2> When i saw this title, i just knew that it was related to the Mary Meeker presentation, because i also kind of looked at that point a bit suspiciously but i was not motivated enough to investigate it further. I never look at techcrunch for any source of research info, the economist, economist intelligent unit still offers top notch research.</comment>


The moderator problem: How Reddit and related news sites decline - <AUTHOR> http://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how-reddit-and-related-news-sites-decline/ <comment><USER2> I don't deserve a lick of karma for this post, but dang is probably the best moderator I've seen on any site ever. I've been on the interbutts for approximately 20 years now, and have lurked/participated on hundreds of non- notable and notable forums, and never found a moderator like him.

The "please don't do this on HN" replies he makes should be replicated by other mods on other sites such as reddit. I bet those polite replies have done more to change the tone of HN, and delay the Eternal Septembering that's currently underway (hi redditors), than even the HN guidelines for conduct can claim credit for.

EDIT: Damnit people, stop giving me karma for this.

<comment><USER3> Dang, iirc, is a YC employee and therefore has different motivations than a volunteer moderator.

So I'm taking this as agreement with the OP to some degree. ;)

<comment><USER4> Being paid versus not (volunteer work) certainly influences mod behavior.

I for one wouldn't want to do it without pay. And considering it's such thankless work, it's only worth doing if you're being paid for it.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the OP basically said volunteer mods were being paid with non-tangible goods. (e.g. They got to enforce their axe to grind on other people)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's just the inevitability of any site that starts gaining mass appeal. It's the heat death of the universe: you can try and stop it, but entropy will increase no matter what. Sure, zealous moderators can be a catalyst for it, but it was going to happen spontaneously anyway.

People who contribute to sites like reddit enjoy feeling like part of a community. It's hard to feel like you're part of a community when that community starts becoming millions of people. Really hard.

Sure, things like subreddits help - but only slightly. Subreddits that are worthwhile tend to become default subreddits after awhile, and then you're back to square one. Without extremely heavy-handed moderation (and really, you're just stemming the tide at that point), it's hard to feel like you're not lost at sea among people appealing to the lowest common denominator.

And sure, it'll probably happen to HN too. Maybe not, maybe HN is niche enough to keep staying niche.

But unless you have a vested interest in a site like reddit, you might as well accept it and enjoy the ride while it lasts.

</comment><comment><USER6> Remember when slashdot was smart? Now it doesn't even rate a mention.</comment>


Watching an Airbus A380 Roll Through a Tiny French Village - <AUTHOR> https://thepointsguy.com/2016/10/airbus-a380-convoy-to-tls/ <comment><USER2> This was reminiscent of the NASA Space Shuttle _Endeavour_ being towed through the streets of L.A. in 2012:

[https://www.space.com/18052-space-shuttle-endeavour- toyota-t...](https://www.space.com/18052-space-shuttle-endeavour-toyota-truck- tow.html)</comment>


How the 'Plandemic' conspiracy theory took hold - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/23/how-the-plandemic-conspiracy-theory-took-hold <comment><USER2> I'm personally not into conspiracy theories, but from time to time some conspiracies turn out to be true. I saw video on YouTube the other day, which showed how CBS news gathered random people around hospital to make the hospital look more busy than it actually was and the hospital head even had to admit it later on. Then I read news, where the COVID test results were double counted per person. Then you see videos of doctors talking about the virus and showing the inside of the hospital and they say it's nothing unusual. I don't know what you call conspiracy, but this thing seems to be greatly over exaggerated. The virus is definitely very real and killing people, but it's absolutely disgusting for news companies to waste resources on mask and other gear to just create scene for themselves on TV.

<comment><USER3> [https://twitter.com/PWarrior1776/status/1261492235843129346](https://twitter.com/PWarrior1776/status/1261492235843129346)</comment></comment>


Opinion – The Economics of Soaking the Rich - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/05/opinion/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-tax-policy-dance.html <comment><USER2> Recall the difference between marginal tax rate and tax rate. 90% marginal income tax rate is not the same as 90% income tax rate.

It seems that the failure to recognize the difference creates lots of unnecessary confusion in the social media comments. Especially among the first comments.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I couldn't help my self.

Technically around $2B the difference between a tax rate of 90% and a marginal tax rate of 90% becomes a rounding error. Assuming the last tier is $10M.

<comment><USER2> Good data point. Although there are no individuals with $2B yearly income, It would be good idea to put same the upper limit for the __effective__ marginal tax rate in every income bracket.

Poor people can have very high effective marginal tax rates.

> To put it another way, the effective marginal tax rate when a person moves > from the bottom to the middle quintile is 1 - (15.4-12.9)/(12.6-2.2), or 76 > percent.

[http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-effective- marginal...](http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2018/06/an-effective-marginal-tax- rate.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paul Krugman is just so tiresome - he's as partisan an ideologue as they come planting a patent falsehood every third sentence

<comment><USER2> Reflexive ad hominem-arguments (lies actually) against Krugman from people who don't read his articles.

He is partisan, but his economic arguments are good.

<comment><USER4> His economic arguments are only good to the extent that you agree with the economic goals which any economic policy is trying to achieve. For example the Diamond Saez paper he references is optimizing for "Social Welfare" which is in turn defined as more equal distribution of resources. So yes if your goal is redistribution of wealth perhaps the 73% number is the right number. What that does not mean is that 73% marginal tax rate is the objectively optimal tax rate under all scenarios or policy objectives!

Not sure how you arrive at reflexive or lies

<comment><USER2> You should have started with that argument. Instead you started with single sentence ad-hominenm.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon LB is down - <AUTHOR>

All my ec2 instances running well and LB is not accessible. What is the hell... the 3rd time ... <comment><AUTHOR> all my service is in black now, so need to have backup plan for LB</comment>


First public release of chyves – FreeBSD bhyve front-end manager - <AUTHOR> http://chyves.org/ <comment><USER2> Hello all,

This is my project. I say "my" project but really intend for this to be open to whomever. Any questions, feedback, code, or feature requests are welcomed.

Here is a post explaining why I forked the project and where I intend to go with it. [http://justinholcomb.me/blog/2016/06/14/chyves-project- prean...](http://justinholcomb.me/blog/2016/06/14/chyves-project- preannouncement.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Via [https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/4z0ewk/first_publi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/4z0ewk/first_public_release_of_chyves_version_010_an/)</comment>


New AWS Feature: Consolidated Billing - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/new-aws-feature-consolidated-billing.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome because it consolidates all of your bandwidth usage, e.g. if two accounts use over 1 TB, you will start getting discounts. This makes my Ask HN obsolete: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101648>

Anyone want to join up and share the savings? I use about 2 TB of CloudFront transfer</comment>


Open-Source CRM Solutions - onreact-com http://www.focus.com/articles/crm/top-10-open-source-crm-solutions/

<comment> onreact-com I'm looking for a CRM solution that will work also for a small scale business like mine (I'm not a corporation). Which CRM solution do you use?</comment>


How giving up mobile phones saved Nokia - <AUTHOR> http://www.demoshelsinki.fi/en/2016/06/29/how-giving-up-mobile-phones-saved-nokia-and-why-its-ready-to-take-over-the-world-again/ <comment><USER2> | Ikea sells self-powered stickers for 50 cents that can be tagged on any "old school" device to connect online.

What is a self-powered sticker? Does anyone know?</comment>


Bank Tellers, with Access to Accounts, Pose a Rising Security Risk - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/nyregion/bank-tellers-with-access-to-accounts-pose-a-rising-security-risk.html <comment><USER2> This risk has been around for a long time so this appears to be just a reminder.</comment>


Show HN: 15-question language identification quiz - <AUTHOR> https://quiz.triplebyte.com/language-identification/ <comment><USER2> We (Triplebyte) actually tested a while ago whether identifying languages was predictive as an interview question (we thought it might predict general experience / exposure to lots of code). It was not predictive of anything. So this quiz is just for fun!

<comment><USER3> Came here just to confirm this. I got all right but it doesn't seem to be valid test for hiring. Fun quiz! :)

<comment><USER4> Can confirm. I'm a terrible programmer but got 100%. I guess it selects for people with very unfocused careers and no real specialism.

<comment><USER5> One could as easily argue that it selects for people who closely follow Hacker News - I got 15/15 too, but only because I'd previously seen several of the more esoteric languages mentioned here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Got 14/15 but I have a feeling it was only because I made the assumption I would not see the same language twice. Without that assumption a few were toss ups for me.

Of all the languages on there the only one in that set I had never used / seen at all is Kotin and that's the one I got wrong.

Several of them were mandatory for me to learn in college but I haven't seen since. (looking at you, Prolog and Verilog... Verilog is useful but I don't do hardware dev)

<comment><USER7> I also scored 14/15 - got PHP wrong I thought it was Perl which is slightly embarrassing as I've never used PHP but I _have_ used Perl.

<comment><USER8> Ditto. I'm positive that code would be valid Perl with the right libraries.

Which isn't saying much.

<comment><USER9> Same here, because I knew they intersected and presumed it was a trick question. Technically, I believe it is neither valid perl nor PHP because it's missing an opening brace on one of the if statements.

<comment><USER10> PHP lets you skip using curly braces for conditionals. I've seen real-world code which used this style only once, and it was about as bad as you'd expect.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I suspected that, but it looked like there was a close brace and no open brace. (I only noticed because I was specifically looking at the braces to try to determine if it was PHP.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 15/15, not that it matters. I guess all those years of reading about languages on HN and trying out languages even when I had no real use for them was good for _something_ , at least. :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I am not a programmer other than one visual basic course I took in college.

My score: "You got 8 out of 15 right You're in the top 50% of engineers. Can your friends beat you? Share your score and challenge them to do better!"

</comment><comment><USER13> 14/15\. I guessed wrong between Piet and GLSL which I never heard about. How many possible questions are there?

<comment><USER14> Piet's an esoteric, and GLSL is OpenGL's Shader Language. GLSL looks kind of C-like, while Piet looks like Mondrian paintings (for many programs, anyhow).

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I got that problem because I knew who Piet Mondrian was, so I took an educated guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I got 12/15 initially. Then I followed the link to retry the test, and somehow got 15/15\. It's amazing how quickly you can progress as an engineer.

</comment><comment><USER17> That must be top 3% for a large value of 3, or perhaps a small value of 100. How's the HN traffic doing? ;-)

</comment><comment><USER18> I know this is intended as just a fun test, but the highlight.js library used on these pages adds the language name as part of the class name on the code block...

</comment><comment><USER19> 13/15

One was because I got two LISPs mixed up with each other, the other because it was in a language I didn't recognize (Piet) and there were two languages I didn't know anything about as options (GLSL was the other).

<comment><USER20> same score, same reasons :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do one with only assembly languages and we have to guess the architecture.

<comment><USER22> It's all `mov` instructions. Go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just did it, and got 14/15\. But see below.

Saw this thread yesterday and at first did not feel like taking the quiz (because I thought I would not do well, also because I didn't think it was too interesting).

But today read about half of this thread again. Then felt motivated to take the quiz (just for fun). Was not expecting more than say 8/15\. Surprised to see I got 14/15 (but in top 3% of engineers -- definitely not :). It was definitely partly due to reading some of this thread first, else I would never have been able to figure out the Ada/VHDL question (at least just by guessing / logic / prior knowledge), even less the Piet one (since had never heard of it - at least had heard of Ada and VHDL). I guess the result was also partly due to being interested in programming languages right from the start of my career, and having at least read a little about many, and having dabbled in some (apart from the ones I worked in for non-trivial periods).

Anyway - somewhat interesting quiz idea.

</comment><comment><USER24> Wrote code in all but Piet, so knew it was not glsl. I must spend way too much time behind a computer as i also knew all besides Piet even if it was not multiple choice :)

I do think it should be harder; like when you get a lesser known language, also add the choice for others; APL + K + J for instance, or worse (for many) K or J showing either.

C vs C++ vs D.

Prolog vs Haskell vs Ocaml. Curveball there could be something like Mercury.

Haskell vs Purescript.

</comment><comment><USER25> 14/15\. I basically only program Python, but I guessed based on vague stereotypes of different languages. The wrong one was guessing Java for C#.

<comment><USER26> That's a pretty fair toss-up if you're not familiar with either.

<comment><USER27> Biggest giveaway (as a lifelong Java programmer who's probably only written about 100 lines of C#, ever) is that C# Likes To Capitalize Freaking Everything. Java typically only capitalizes Types, but C# capitalizes Method Names as well.

It's like it was created by somebody who either likes German, or Olde-Timey English Writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So the scheme is I answer questions in order to get my ego higher, you bribe me with "you are top n", I leave my CV?

<comment><USER29> (Note: I work at Triplebyte.) No CVs -- we skip resumes and cover letters, and match engineers to companies (bypassing recruiter and resume screens) based on demonstrated skills.

<comment><USER30> Demonstrated how?

<comment><USER22> They have you take a quiz and (maybe) do an interview with one of their partner companies. FWIW I took the quiz and it was actually one of the better "fill out this survey and we'll see if we want to hire you"'s that I've ever seen: finding subtle-ish errors in code, demonstrating more than beginner knowledge in a couple of languages, and a pretty solid set of design questions. I didn't feel out of my league, but I also didn't feel like my intelligence was insulted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 11/15 A few I missed because I didn't know enough to tell them apart (eg Kotlin/Swift.) Others were process of elimination or a straight up guess. And I didn't even know there was an abstract visual programming language!

</comment><comment><USER32> Interestingly enough, question 5 is actually syntactically correct Perl, but not PHP.

<comment><USER33> > syntactically correct Perl

Not a high bar to clear, mind you ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Stupidly, I missed Ruby/Python from going too quickly right at the beginning. Then missed Ada/VHDL from never having heard of VHDL, and I thought "oh, looks like Ada."

Anyway, fun stuff. I laughed when Piet came up.

<comment><USER35> Well, VHDL was _heavily_ inspired by Ada, given they both came out of DoD contracts around the same time...

<comment><USER34> Yeah, I know that now after reading about it. Explains why I got them mixed up...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Too easy (15/15). Had only once to look a second time at the code snippet (elisp vs. clojure, but there were [] around the param, that made it clear).

Would be more fun if they would implement the same code snippet in different (but maybe quite similar) languages and one would have to label the (lets say six for an interesting difficulty level) snippets.

</comment><comment><USER37> > Just as the ++ in the name C++ is intended to imply that C++ is a step above > C, the # in the name C# is intended to resemble two ++ operators stacked on > each other, indicating that C# is a step above C++.

I've sort of followed C# since it was released, and never realized this.

<comment><USER38> I recall C# being a musical reference (a higher note than c), which is why it's pronounced C-sharp and not say, c-pound.

I would occasionally call it Db (D-flat) to be an arse.

I'm not sure if there was a formalized reasoning behind the name or if what I heard was just a rationalisation.

<comment><USER39> a complete arse would reply that Db and C# are not the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's a bit of a giveaway that R included domain specific terminology: otherwise it would've been hopeless for me. Maybe the same for VHDL, but I know so little about it that I don't even know if you could write code without domain specific elements.

</comment><comment><USER23> BTW, what is the reason for the Piet question not showing any code or image (until you answer the question)? Is it somehow related to how the language works, or some feature of it?

</comment><comment><USER41> Surprised how the ones I'm familiar with jump out instantaneously, only got 10/15 but should have got 11, silly mistake confusing ruby and python. Hadn't even heard of some of the ones at the end.

</comment><comment><USER42> Ahhhhhh! APL and Piet I didn't feel bad about (as I have never seen either) But VHDL vs Ada! Bad miss on my part. 12/15 is not too bad I guess....

<comment><USER43> APL and Piet I got right. Instead I missed the newer obvious ones.. Clojure, Kotlin, Rust.

<comment><USER44> The missing font is the giveaway for APL!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Happened to get all of them, but it was getting harder at the end! Was C, C++, Java, Python or included because the quiz would have been too easy?

<comment><USER46> I thought the end was easier than the middle -- the languages there were older and more obscure to a 2017 audience, but that also generally made them much more distinctive.

<comment><USER47> The questions are selected in a random order from a larger set, so nobody likely saw the same questions or order as you.

<comment><USER48> What evidence do you have of this? Judging by other comments, it's pretty clear everyone got the same questions in the same order.

<comment><USER47> Absolutely nothing. I have no idea why I wrote that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Damn, I miss APL.

</comment><comment><USER50> Perhaps this should be a 'poll' post so people can vote for their results? (9/15)

</comment><comment><USER51> My startup provides online compiler service for 20+ languages[0] so my work involves testing every language frequently. So this was easy for me.

[0] [https://codepad.remoteinterview.io](https://codepad.remoteinterview.io)

</comment><comment><USER52> it was a fun test. i got like 13/15\. not too bad i think considering the people who are on this site are making mistakes as well. maybe i deserve a higher salary?

</comment><comment><USER53> All fun and games till the plug at the end...

</comment><comment><USER54> 14/15\. Confused Swift and Objective C.

</comment><comment><USER55> 13 out of 15 (No idea bout VHDL and Piet)

</comment><comment><USER56> Smart! Enjoy it so much!

</comment><comment><USER57> I got 11 of 15, but I can only write competently in maybe 4 of them (JS, Java, Python, PHP).</comment>


Apple News has a notification spam problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.matthewcassinelli.com/apple-news-notification-spam-2/ <comment><USER3> Is this really an app you want to leave notifications on for, period? It feels like the kind of thing where you just say "okay now is time to Read Some News" and go see what's new.

YMMV, I have generally turned off notifications for _everything_.

<comment><USER4> You actually can't turn off notifications for it.

I've done it—and on a day when you get something like the Mueller report or the Notre Dame fire—my phone will buzz. :/

<comment><USER5> Yes you can. I have never gotten any notifications. You may have not done it properly. I've never opened the news app. I just have had notifications off in settings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> j-c-hewitt I turn it off and every so often Apple decides that no, I want their dumb news notifications again. Then it goes off again. I have never received an Apple News notification that was not dumb, stupid, and useless. It's sort of like airport CNN except in your pocket that randomly turns itself on after you have opted out of it.

<comment><USER6> I would be filling a bug report over at [http://bugreporter.apple.com](http://bugreporter.apple.com)

Definitely not normal for the OS to be ignoring notification settings.

<comment><USER7> It's not ignoring so much ass the internal array of notification options changes, or the app is upgraded across a major OS release, or something else which causes a new or replacement notification setting to take on its default value.

The problem, if anything, is that whatever test suite they run doesn't include someone opting out of everything, applying the update, and then checking if they are still opted out of everything ( _including_ new stuff that didn't exist before).

<comment><USER8> This definitely doesn't sound correct. Aside from the fact that the default for notifications is zero permissions, Apple don't keep adding new notification types. I've never seen the type of "reset" you're talking about in 10+ years of developing iOS apps.

If you're certain you've disabled notifications (Settings > News > Notifications > Allow Notifications), then file a bug.

<comment><USER9> > the default for notifications is zero permissions

Not for Apple's apps. Also, note that as of iOS 12 apps can post "provisional" notifications without asking for permission: [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/unauthorizationoptions/2993019-provisional)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a shame Apple have not been as strict about spammy notifications as they have about other aspects of iOS. I realised the other day that I automatically don't allow notifications for virtually any app, primarily because I expect it's going to spam me. Some apps would actually be enhanced by notifications but I never allow it.

The default notifications allowed for any app should be only relevant, action- based ones ("you have a new x!", "time to practice your x!", "user x remixed your track" etc.) with an extra opt-in for spammy attention grabbing ones of these are really needed.

<comment><USER11> Usually when an app sends a spam notification, I just delete the entire app.

For many apps getting push notifications would be the only reason that I install them. But if they then go on to send me spam instead of helpful notification, I don't see the point in using their service.

<comment><USER12> Could you share some examples of apps that you'd install mainly for their push notifications?

<comment><USER11> A recent example is "willhaben", it's an Austrian classifieds website (like craigslist), and you can use it to message sellers/buyers. It would be useful to get push notifications on my phone when someone replies to my messages, but since they send spam, I deleted the app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is something I had noticed as well. Its really surprising that Apple would allow this, since they usually care a lot about user experience. And judging by the amount of notifications - I'd be very surprised if there's anyone left who hasn't turned on notifications for the news app.

I wonder why they wouldn't just compile a Morning and Evening digest and send notifications only then (even that would be aggressive in my opinion - but I wouldn't be overwhelmed.)

I really miss the days of RSS and Google Reader.

<comment><USER14> I still and happily get most of my news from my RSS feed

<comment><USER13> What RSS reader do you use?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I had this problem but then I spent 7 seconds turning off Notifications for News.

</comment><comment><USER16> There is a really, really good article from NiemanLab interviewing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about their use of Apple News notifications. This notification spam is exactly what they/publishers want. The Apple News notifications are used to A/B test what gets clicks against all their competitors running the same story, and they use that Apple News notification clickthru data to tweak which headlines & notifications they send via their own app and on their own website - the platforms they _really_ want you to use.

Stat from the article: nearly 5% of the Australian population have opted in to the ABC's Apple News push notifications.

Australia's Public Broadcaster Is Using Apple News Push Alerts To Reach New, Younger Audiences

[http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public- broadcast...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/03/australias-public-broadcaster- is-using-apple-news-push-alerts-to-reach-new-younger-audiences/)

The full article is really worth the read - especially the part about the notifications the ABC were going to send to target female runners at sunset.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is an article in search of a problem.

It takes 5 seconds to disable ALL notifications from this (or any other) app.

<comment><USER18> The problem is that this is the default behavior of Apple News and is poor design. It doesn't even align with Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines[0], which states "If you send multiple notifications for the same thing, you fill up Notification Center, and users may turn off notifications from your app."

[0]: [https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface- guidelines/ios/system-capabilities/notifications/)

<comment><USER8> > The problem is that this is the default behavior of Apple News

This is not the default behaviour. No application has permission to send you notifications unless you enable it.

<comment><USER19> That's not true for Apple's own apps. News can send notifications without you enabling them (like you have to for 3rd party apps). I've even submitted a bug report about this and it was closed as "working as intended".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a problem even without Apple News+.

When Apple News came out I really liked the idea of having a single place to get pushed real breaking news as they happened. But sadly Apple News (and News+) is not that. Some of it is on the publishers and media (ie everything is considered "breaking" these days) but I think Apple is also part of the problem by pushing out stories on their official[1] breaking news channels that are not in fact really breaking news or news at all. I'm not talking about the biases either, but it has pushed me notifications about active shootings (good) and sports (bad) using the same breaking news headlines.

[1] one of the confusion is probably what is and isn't an official channel. If i can't figure out if the channel is a hand curated one vs one generated by a faulty AI then that's a problem.

</comment><comment><USER21> From just a few days ago: [https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857](https://twitter.com/bradleybuda/status/1119022752092921857)

</comment><comment><USER22> I encountered this problem very recently as well. I like receiving notifications for Breaking News but I don't need notifications for lifestyle suggestions. Unfortunately there is no classifier for this in the News App. My workaround was to go into the settings for News and turn off notifications for every media outlet other than the New York Times. It's definitely not fool- proof but keeps more sane.

There however seems to be no way to automatically get rid of notifications on my iPad once I have read them on my phone...

</comment><comment> 52-6F-62 I don't seem to be having the same problem as others.

I get the odd notification, but they're rare. I have notifications left on for the app on my phone and work and home computers all.

Seems inconsistent somehow?

</comment><comment><USER9> Apple's services products are noticeably spammy and it bothers me. News's alerts is one, but others in this category include Apple Music's trial offer notifications and iCloud's badges to upgrade your storage plan. Honestly, these all feel like they're in poor taste (I'd bring up the Human Interface Guidelines, but they don't really apply in this case) and I think they annoy people and might cause more harm than good.

</comment><comment><USER23> I turned off notifications for the News app a long time ago, so I never noticed this problem.

The author just read 'Digital Minimalism' which is a good book so far (I am almost half way through reading it). Like the author, from reading this book I have been very mindful of use time on digital devices.

<comment><USER24> Some people have turned off all notifications without reading any book ;)

Incidentally, I know this is iOS, but the OS X of old was very good at not letting any background stuff disturb your work. These days we have notifications even on the desktop and apps that steal the focus just because they displayed a dialog. Not even Apple is what they used to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if there is any value for Apple to make an RSS reader comparable to what Google Reader was, and have some way for readers to pay or donate to the publications they subscribe to?

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a problem - I was getting 10-30 notifications a day - I've just switched off notifications for this app.

It's a shame, as I'd like to be notified if some proper breaking news of significance actually happens. One of my notifications for instance was on Princess Eugenie's 29th birthday.

I have zero interest in lifestyle stories, let alone those of the royalty - <USER2> is utter spam.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, the way to go is with a feed reader, so you can set up filters. Takes a while, but nothing is better than having your own personalized news feed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I stopped looking at notifications now

</comment><comment><USER29> That notification screen is a sight for sore eyes.

</comment><comment><USER30> I like how this negative publicity reminded me of Apple News and now I'm thinking of trying it out!

<comment><USER31> There is no bad PR, huh

<comment><USER30> Heh, my comment doesn't working out that well for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> martin-adams I dislike Apple news purely because when my iOS device updated, the icon was added to my home screen, and within one tap I was presented with a tragic new story. I felt this was a step too far as I carefully choose when to consume news and Apple shouldn't have made that decision for me.</comment>


Uber take a lession from ebay - <AUTHOR>

Seems like a simple solution to the contractor/employee problem is route your payment process to a contractor's payment account(ie paypal/strip) then collect fees from them. Don't pay don't get access to the system. <comment><USER2> *lesson</comment>


The Battle for the Soul of San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/02/san_francisco_gentrification_tenderloin_glide/ <comment><USER2> As a rule these articles about gentrification almost always irritate the hell out of me (likely because I live in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago and honestly just don't feel all that bad about it), but this is a rare exception. I think this article is well worth the long read.

A lot of what makes the "news" in Chicago are plays on the old "this was my neighborhood/new people are allowed to live here too" tropes. All that seems to do is to get both sides to dig in, and I've never seen any useful dialogue come from it. Telling me that I'm an asshole because I came in and bought a house for more than it was worth 20 years ago and I should be ashamed of myself doesn't do any more good than me telling someone that I know their rent goes up as the neighborhood gets more expensive, but they don't get to tell me where I can buy my house and by the way, my neighbors houses are worth more now too.

This article changes the conversation in a way that I hope isn't specific to SF by acknowledging that gentrifiers come into contact with new people with real problems. Appealing to someone's humanity to help their neighbor is a much more effective strategy than verbal class warfare. It also helps inspire people to think of ways to get concretely involved in small and meaningful ways, rather than complaining about problems when there are very few realistic alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER3> oh no! property values are going up!

this is always bad, except when it's good.

Oh no! Gas prices are going up! This is always bad, except when it's good.

This article is a bunch of nonsense. Prices are prices, and the demographics of neighborhoods change over time.

The loudest whinging about gentrification always comes from the first wave of gentrifiers. The poor people who lived in these 'bad' neighborhoods for 30 years and sold their house at 20x to a couple of yuppies are not the complainers...

<comment><USER2> Try actually reading the article. That's not really what it's about.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I ensure access to my API only from my webapp - <AUTHOR> Hi, I want to ensure that a particular api/URL is accessed only by my web app and all other origins are denied. My server is not very powerful and cannot handle large volumes of crawlers and I would like to secure the data. Unfortunately I cannot verify users. What is the best way to secure it? <comment><USER2> Where is this app running? Is it only on devices you control, or is it running on devices you don't control (i.e. users' phones, computers, etc.)?

If it's running only on devices that are fully in your control, the solution is easy: make the app authenticate with your API using a large, cryptographically secure-random secret key [1].

But if it's the latter, what you're asking for is generally not possible. A competent actor can reverse-engineer your app to extract any API keys or secrets or other tokens that you'd embed it your app, and thereby masquerade as your app [2]. But, as with nearly everything, it's a trade-off. Obfuscating your secret may cut down on the amount of casual requests to your endpoints, but treat this as a developer convenience, and not as a security mechanism.

[1] [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/REST_Security_Cheat_Sheet#Au...](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/REST_Security_Cheat_Sheet#Authentication_and_session_management)

[2] [https://rammic.github.io/2015/07/28/hiding-secrets-in- androi...](https://rammic.github.io/2015/07/28/hiding-secrets-in-android- apps/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to find high quality workplaces for developers? - <AUTHOR> While I have had a few great individual colleagues over the years, I've never worked with a great overall team or engineering department.
If you have successfully found a great workplace for you as an engineer, how did you do it?
For me, "great" means a team that consistently values quality, puts reasonable effort into application design and maintenance, and makes thoughtful decisions related to project goals and end-users.
I'm open-minded about specific technology choices. I do not expect people to work overtime, or to have exceptional passion for their jobs. I'm not demanding elite talent. Just that everyone is competent and makes an honest effort.
Have you used any concrete techniques to identify teams like that? <comment><USER3> Teams like that are built and grown, not found according to some criteria. You're asking about personalities and team dynamics, and company culture, which vary according to circumstances and over time.

Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you believe then that it's impossible to identify a good situation until you take the job? There are no reliable job search tactics to select for better settings?

I would say, for example, that a job interview helps provide a vibe for the current situation at a company. But it's not a perfect signal, and as an individual I can't go on that many interviews. Hence looking for other approaches people have tried.

> Companies tend to optimize for profit, not for the comfort of programmers.

I believe that's a separate issue from my question. Seeking profit doesn't force a company to hire incompetent or apathetic programmers. If anything it wastes money on salaries that don't deliver as many new product features to sell, or as many improvements that will increase customer retention.

<comment><USER3> Great teams should be visible because they produce great products or services, and because they have their pick of top people because word gets around.

Big companies will have multiple teams, maybe hundreds at companies like Google and Apple. Some of those may be great to work with, others dysfunctional. Adding more people can push the "greatness" in any direction because interpersonal factors are first-order drivers of team productivity and job satisfaction.

So it's not impossible to identify candidate teams but I think it is impossible to predict how you might fit and what you can get out of it.

I think word of mouth through referrals and contacts works best. Some companies have reputations for building good teams, others are known for dysfunction, but those generalization don't necessarily predict what an individual will experience. Even Google has unhappy employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > For me, "great" means a team that consistently values quality, puts > reasonable effort into application design and maintenance, and makes > thoughtful decisions related to project goals and end-users.

My 2 cents...

I don't think it's about teams. IMO it's about company KPIs. Most industries value speed over everything else for a reason: survival. Nearly all companies use KPIs, take a look at the KPIs and you'll be able to spot which companies value quality over speed and vice-versa.

The values you're looking for can be found in specific industries that cannot afford low quality. I'm thinking Aerospace, Health, Military etc. Keep in mind that on the flip-side these industries are very slow on "shiny new tech" adoption, for obvious reasons. You might not enjoy working with cobol :^)

Another good fit could be software companies, especially in the security space like 1Password for example (no affiliation). By "software companies" I mean companies who's product _is_ software and not companies that are using software as _means_ to an _end_. The first group has much stronger incentives in delivering reliable software.

Quality software can be found in many open source projects. The fact that the code is public increases the level scrutiny. HAProxy, SQLite, the Linux kernel and PostgreSQL come to mind as well known high quality open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER5> > For me, "great" means...

You've done the first step - defining what you want. But your definition is still quite objective. What attributes of a team can be observed when they "value quality". What is a "reasonable" effort, and how can you see whether or not they do it.

Figure out some visible outcomes from those traits, and look for them during the interview process. Ask about those topics in the interview. There is so much talk on HN about what is wrong with interviews, but when they ask you if you have questions that is the part that is right - it is your opportunity to dig into these traits that make a team great, and determine whether or not any given team matches your desires.

I recommend people break it down even farther - before you step into an interview, break those desires down in wants vs. needs. If you have a need they do not meet then the team is not for you. If you have wants they do not meet, you need to walk in accepting that it isn't perfect and either be compensated for those imperfections, or have enough authority and/or autonomy to try to invoke changes in the organization to improve it.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you don't know about this ([https://501manifesto.dev](https://501manifesto.dev)) you will like it.

Looking up "9 to 5 developer" or 501 developer" on Google/hn to find blog posts and tweets, then moving ahead to connect with these people or look for places they recommend working at seems like a good idea.

On another note: word of mouth and networking. I know it kinda sucks, information in people's minds is not indexable, but it is still a source of high quality information.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think you can do some things. Honesty at an interview might help - and by honesty I mean actually letting them know your weaknesses and dislikes - <USER2> get rejected for the wrong jobs increasing he chance of ending up at a good one. If you can kick ass at the technical tests the "I got fired because I refused to do 60h weeks" might be perfectly fine.

Also it is mostly luck and teams can change in the 12 months it takes to even begin to understand the dynamics or get productive with code. It's a hard human problem!

</comment><comment><USER6> Yesterday I found this list: [https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without- whiteboards](https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards)

Although not exactly what you are asking, this interview behavior could be a reflection of internal values.

<comment><USER8> It is the opposite of what the OP is looking for. You can't have a high quality workplace with people who fail at basic algorithm questions

<comment> non-entity That's a pretty big jump to say anyone who works at a company that doesn't whiteboard "fails at basic algorithm questions"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Small research companies or small contracting firms</comment>