Affordable, automatic sit-to-stand desk - k-mcgrady https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2036834894/the-most-affordable-automatic-sit-to-stand-desk <comment><AUTHOR> I talk with a lot of people about getting started with standing desks, and I usually recommend throwing a small cheap table (ikea) on top of your existing desk and getting a drafting chair (tall). This way you don't have to pay for a variable height desk, and you keep it on the cheap side to see if you actually like it. Also, be sure to start slow and stand for maybe an hour or two a day for a few weeks. Then gradually stand more and more.

I've gone into more detail here: [http://reustle.io/blog/cant-stand- sitting](http://reustle.io/blog/cant-stand-sitting)

<comment><USER2> A couple of crates and a 1800mm sheet of melamine worked well for me: [https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/benrhughes/1082833...](https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0094009/photos/benrhughes/10828337133/). Cost all of about AU$40.

Because I have a corner desk, I can sit at the other half when I want to write, and I use a stool for the rare occasions I want to sit while typing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When I was researching building my own standing desk, the biggest cost seemed to be getting quality actuators with a long throw at a low price.

Compare this to the a similar looking Ikea Galant workstation at $180-$200. You're getting the motor(s), electronics, actuators, and slide bearings for an additional $200 more.

I'm curious as to how they managed to do away with the horizontal stabilizing bar (this is mentioned as a feature in the video). Without something connecting the legs together, it seems like the left and right tracks could potentially get out of alignment and potentially bind as the desk top raises.

My current verdict from my home built sit stand desk is that it's great for a change a couple times a day. What I found, though, is that my hip starts to hurt after an extended period of standing in one place. I'm now trying standing on an EVA foam pad to see if this helps with that problem.

Incidentally, if you're curious as to how I added sit-stand capability to my desk for less than $200, check out my blog post: [http://planiverse.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/building-a-sit- st...](http://planiverse.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/building-a-sit-stand-desk- for-less-than-200/) .

<comment><USER4> I think there is some trick that stone masons used where you stand on a brick, and keep changing which foot is on it- somehow it helps

<comment><USER3> Sounds like it might help, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Half the price of the competition sounds nice, but they're also using a single motor that has less lifting power and aren't an established name that will necessarily be around in a decade to service your desk... This seems more of a business and marketing play than one of true cost cutting or technical innovation. It would be more impressive to be of equal capability, but less cost.

<comment><USER6> They could insure against that problem by using off-the-shelf parts so you could just go to Grainger for replacement motors or whatever in 20 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use a standing desk. When I first started out, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could make a standing desk that I could raise and lower. I looked at taking apart office chairs and using the hydraulics, I looked at possible crank methods, weight and pulley systems, etc.

A friend of mine listened to my brainstorming and said "why don't you just get a taller chair?". He was right.

This $140 drafting chair is what I have now. It has a padded seat, back, armrests, and is just as comfy as any other office chair I've tried. [http://www.amazon.com/Boss-Multi-Function-Leatherplus- Drafti...](http://www.amazon.com/Boss-Multi-Function-Leatherplus-Drafting- Adjustable/dp/B0030ZDZL8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1396493894&sr=8-2&keywords=drafting+chair)

There are cheaper ones that are more like a stool, more expensive ones, and even some weird (but expensive) saddle type chairs that are designed to mimic standing while you're sitting down. But basically, if you want a standing desk and the ability to sit, ie if you're going to be buying a chair anyways, just buy a taller chair.

It takes a week or two for your feet to get used to it, and if you slouche or lean, you'll find yourself with sore hips at the end of the day. But once you get used to it, you'll find yourself standing much more than sitting. For me, I mostly only sit if I'm eating at my desk, or maybe for a bit after lunch. I have a standing desk at work and one at home. It's a different experience just walking up to your computer and start typing. Most people have to sit down first or stand up when they walk away. This lends to a sort of reluctance to switch from one state to another. Standing, I can lock my screen and walk away at any time.

</comment><comment><USER8> $500!? Plus shipping!? You can make a standing desk with $100 worth of Ikea parts then buy a tall stool/chair for $75 on Amazon. Bam, just beat your "most affordable" sit/stand desk by $325+. Oh, and you can have it next week instead of next year (or later).

I guess I'll start my Kickstarter campaign tonight.

P.S. 45" is not enough height for many of us tall folk, especially in dress shoes with a thick heel.

<comment><USER9> I like this one - [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499144433/the- cardboard...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499144433/the-cardboard- standing-desk-stand-up-for-creativit?ref=live)

<comment><USER8> Only one height? And they claim it fits anyone from 5'2" to 6'2" tall?

I'm 6'3" and my girlfriend is 5'5". Watching her try to use my standing desk is comical. I think those guys are being extremely optimistic, if not outright deceitful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is giving us a list of your advisers (read: board) supposed to make me think that this is a truly community backed project? I'm sick of people using Kickstarter for free money and advertising on ideas that could be (and probably have been) readily pitched to investors.

Kickstarter is supposed to be for projects that are interesting, but that traditional investors probably won't touch. A stand-sit desk hardly qualifies, IMO. Obviously people are free to give money to whatever they want, but I, for one, won't throw any money at such ho-hum ideas.

Oh, and a quick google search shows that their price point isn't even that much of an improvement on the existing market.

<comment><USER6> Taking your point, if it's on Kickstarter with an appearance that it has already been pitched to investors, it's safe to say that the investors didn't touch it.

<comment><USER11> Or investors weren't lining up to loan them 100k for free!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice but not really revolutionary, I've had one of these for a year [http://www.heightadjustabledesking.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewPr...](http://www.heightadjustabledesking.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=26) which looks basically identical and is quite comparably priced.

<comment><USER13> > _looks basically identical and is quite comparably priced._

I disagree. That desk is priced at £407, whereas this one goes for £240. All else equal, that's significant.

<comment><USER12> I'd imagine that these desks cost roughly the same amount to produce and the only reason they're ~£400 is because it's a relatively niche product and is sold through a reseller, not direct.

<comment><USER14> This is they type of desk that I have and I saved a significant amount of money by just buying the legs and then getting a table top at Ikea. Most of this re-sellers are capturing their margins by having overpriced desktops included in the purchase.

This desk also has a cross bar for support and to conceal an axle which allows the desk to have a single beefy motor. I have found the cross beam to be crucial as I have used the desk off-and-on as part of my treadmill setup and every now and then you want to stabilize yourself holding the desk. Even with the cross beam it can wobble in this scenario.

<comment><USER15> Are the table tops standard or did you have to drill holes in the Ikea top to get it to fit?

<comment><USER14> just used a power screwdriver to screw the desk to the top

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To those snarky people how say something equivalent to "just use a box", if your desk setup includes three 24" monitors, that is not a practical solution. Even if you only changed between sitting and standing once a day it would not be practical.

[Edit: Some are pointing out cheaper and alternative ways without any snark or smugness, which is great. I wasn't aiming at them and appreciate their input.]

With one trifling exception, the universe consists entirely of other people. A box may not solve their use case just because it solves yours. For them an affordable motorised desk may be the perfect solution.

So stop being a dick.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure people are being snarky - more pointing out that there are much cheaper ways to create an alternative. Plus, it's often a whole lot easier to add a DIY platform to an existing desk than to get your company to shell out for a mechanised adjustable height desk.

FWIW, I have a 27" and 2 24"s.

<comment><USER16> Some are pointing out cheaper and alternative ways without any snark or smugness, which is great. I wasn't aiming at them and appreciate their input.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My employer got me one of these: [http://www.ergotron.com/Products/Workstations/StandUpDesks/t...](http://www.ergotron.com/Products/Workstations/StandUpDesks/tabid/803/default.aspx?FID=134) and it's been really nice. You move it up and down by hand. I just grab on and stand or sit and it moves right up or down with me. I love being able to change position so quickly and easily. This desk looks like it takes a long time to move up or down.

</comment><comment><USER18> The fact that you need to keep the button pressed to move other standing desks is a feature, not a bug. It's a safety feature designed to make it impossible to get yourself in a situation where a body part is trapped in the desk but you're too incapacitated to push the stop button.

I would never buy a desk that had auto-up and auto-down, just like I'll never buy a car with auto-up windows after nearly getting decapitated by this "feature" in a Volkswagen Passat.

</comment><comment><USER19> In our office we really like the MultiTable.com tables. These were the cheapest high quality tables we could find. Ikea now sells adjustable desks, but the last time I looked they didn't show up on the US version of their site. Ikea prices were comparable to MultiTable. You can buy your table top from MultiTable, or re-use your existing Ikea table tops as we did. Our company was able to negotiate a (modest) bulk discount as well.

[http://heightadjustableworktable.com/index.php/manual- modtab...](http://heightadjustableworktable.com/index.php/manual-modtable- combo1.html)

Speaking of Ikea. I stared with an Ikea hack as my standing desk. Building a combo coffee table with a book shelf as a keyboard tray, all for about $34. That sat on top of my existing Ikea desk/table. I used that until I was convinced I wanted to stay with the standing desk.

There are two drawback to the Ikea hack solution. 1) they are not readily adjustable. You don't want to stand 100% of the time, certainly not when starting out. 2) they can be very top heavy if you have more than one monitor and a workstation AND a laptop.

The electric motors look cool, but are totally unnecessary. It takes about 10 seconds to crank the table up or down by hand.

What goes unmentioned in most standing desk articles is the need for a really good mat to stand on. Here are the best I've found that are also a reasonable price:

[http://www.thehumansolution.com/notrax-974-ergomat-grande- an...](http://www.thehumansolution.com/notrax-974-ergomat-grande-anti-fatigue- mat.html) [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BQR23K/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BQR23K/)

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems like it would start wiggling side-to-side after a while. Need more triangles! Maybe a strut from lower right to upper left, with an upwards arc in the strut to give legroom?

</comment><comment><USER21> Two leg standing desks tend to wobble a lot. I'd love to see that specifically called out and demonstrated. Maybe the two legs are wide enough to avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER22> I backed this project as an early-bird. I'm not sure why you need 4 memory buttons for the deluxe frame. All I need is one more button (maybe two)! Just let me set the height I want it to be at when I'm standing and sitting. If I'm standing pick the other one, and vice versa.

I have a feeling it will get really annoying to use the two buttons on the regular frame over and over again if you're changing the height of the desk a lot. The desk will probably never be at the same height twice if you're telling it when to stop instead of it automatically stopping at the desired height.

 _Edit: The main point I 'm making is for the $399 price, it'd make a lot more sense to include at least one or two memory buttons if a single person uses the desk._

<comment><USER23> We have a 'quiet room'; a separated-off room with a few desks that some people (but not typically very many) use fairly often. In this case, it would be handy to have a few presets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks interesting. I currently have a GeekDesk, but the market could definitely stand to have some competition at lower price points.

That said, Dave Asprey isn't a name that inspires trust. I would be uncomfortable backing a project he plays such a central role in.

<comment><USER24> Could you elaborate more on the Dave Asprey bit?

<comment><USER13> He's made quite a bit of money by promoting what can only charitably be called half-truths.

As another commenter mentioned, his primary claim to fame is "bulletproof coffee"(tm). Among other things, he promotes his own coffee beans by claiming that all _other_ coffee is somehow riddled with mycotoxins - which his isn't, for whatever reason. [1][2]

More subjectively, he comes across as a modern age health guru who touts all his opinion as revelatory fact.

[1] [https://www.bulletproofexec.com/why-bad-coffee-makes-you- wea...](https://www.bulletproofexec.com/why-bad-coffee-makes-you-weak/)

[2] [https://www.bulletproofexec.com/mycotoxins-in- america/](https://www.bulletproofexec.com/mycotoxins-in-america/)

<comment><USER25> And grass-fed butter. Don't forget, adding grass-fed butter to your green coffee. That's the key ingredient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > _The desk can lift up to 225 lbs. Okay, okay…it can actually lift more, but > let's keep things on the safe side._

255 lbs is 102kg; in other words, if I sit on this desk, I'm getting close to the breaking point. Not good :(.

(INB4: yes, people do occasionally sit on their desks, sometimes without even thinking about it - e.g. when full of joy, or drunk. Also there's a good chance that someone at some point will want to stand on a desk to, say, change a lightbulb. Consider this especially if you're buing desks for a more public place, like e.g. your local Hackerspace.)

<comment><USER27> Simple just don't let anybody overweight/obese get on the desk. Or do it in the morning and if it collapses it will make it easier for them to choose what to have for lunch.

[https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/bmi_tbl.pdf](https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/obesity/bmi_tbl.pdf)

<comment><USER28> Is BMI really the same for males/females? I always assumed that what is obese/overweight for a 5'9 woman would be different than a 5'9 man.

<comment><USER29> Bmi is mostly bullshit. Much better indicators for overall health is the amount of belly fat and the fat around the internals organs. Having a lot of fat on the butt/thighs is much less damning than lets say fatty lever.

<comment><USER28> Thanks. I am curious about "lever." Was that a typo or a english-locale dependent noun? I am not trying to be a typo jerk, I produce them constantly, I am just curious what the word is.

<comment><USER29> Its liver ...

<comment><USER28> Thanks for following up. I dont know why liver did not occur to me and I stared at the keyboard before replying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> According to this ergonomic workspace planner[1] for my height of 1.75m (5'9") I want a keyboard height of 660mm when sitting, and 1080mm when standing. The StandDesk min/max is 711 to 1143mm, so the upper bound is fine, but a bit high for me when sitting.

In fact, according to [1] a keyboard height of 710mm is only suitable if you are at least 1.88m (6'2") so you have to be pretty tall.

The stroke of the StandDesk is 432mm, and I need 420mm so the range is okay for my height. However if I was 1.85m (6'1") or taller the range would be too small.

Back Designs[2] also have guidelines for adjustable work surfaces and again, the StandDesk ranges are just a bit short.

All in all, it looks like a product with great potential, but perhaps needs the specifications reassessed a bit more in order to be truly suitable to a wider user base.

[1] [http://www.computingcomfort.org/create2.asp](http://www.computingcomfort.org/create2.asp) or [http://www.ergotron.com/tabid/305/language/en- US/default.asp...](http://www.ergotron.com/tabid/305/language/en- US/default.asp..).

[2] [http://www.backdesigns.com/Desk-work-surface- height-W144.asp...](http://www.backdesigns.com/Desk-work-surface- height-W144.asp..). towards the end of the page.

</comment><comment><USER30> An ironing board is a great, cheap way to test if you like a standing desk. Got the tip from a friend who travels a bunch and uses them in hotel rooms.

<comment><USER31> Hotel bars work in a pinch as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> At $399, that's still pretty expensive for a desk.

<comment><USER33> Doesn't seem that bad to me. I paid $200 for a similar desk (without the standing feature) from IKEA. Most desks, standing or not, that are designed for office environments, are at least that expensive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Like the idea, pricing is interesting and wholly out of line with common desks. Still I would lean towards a glass top (black bordered glass is what I have now) instead of laminate or bamboo. L-shape would be fun, but I guess you could put two together, perhaps slave the controls?

<comment><USER35> As nice as glass top desks are, they get marked up and show every little smudge mark very easily. Also, your arms tend to stick to them more through perspiration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It quite small. I don't see how my current 3 monitor setup will fit on it.

<comment><USER36> You'd have to bolt an arm with VESA mounts to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Curious that they include "patent application" as part of the process. Based on what they've disclosed in the Kickstarter, they're not doing anything that hasn't already been done before in existing motorized standing desks ( _this includes_ the height-position memory function--there's a standing desk out there that retails for about $3000 that has this functionality). As far as I can see, the only real difference is the cost.

</comment><comment><USER37> Even though I am a software/computer person, I find it refreshing when people come up products/companies that are not software/computer related.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone know what the success rate is for Kickstarter projects to actually deliver their products on time? After my absolutely terrible experience with Lockitron (I know they're not a Kickstarter project, but they are similarly funded) and some of the other horror stories I've heard, I just don't have faith that these types of projects for goods deliver on their promises.

</comment><comment><USER39> My god, it's practically funded already. And for those saying it's expensive, I paid $1000 for my GeekDesk.

<comment><USER40> People saying its too expensive obviously haven't done any research into PROPER standing desks.

I was pricing a CRANK ModTable - it as going to be over 560 and it isn't even motorized. Getting a motorized one would be about 630.

So for this motorized version at 399 is, as stated on their kickstarter page, "most affordable".

Edit: All the suggestions for cheaper alternatives are really just compromises - stacking cardboard ikea tables, or recycling bins, or used warehouse pallets - "$37 cheaper even with the tetanus shot - so sick of kickstarter scams".

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This one is rather interesting too ... not as fancy, but interesting company anyway: [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499144433/the- cardboard...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/499144433/the-cardboard- standing-desk-stand-up-for-creativit)

</comment><comment><USER42> The automatic raise-lower after holding the button is the only reason I won't buy one. Seems like a huge safety issue. The current desks we have in our office have a push-button to hold and a up/down toggle to raise lower. Both must be held to make it move, let go and it stops moving.

</comment><comment><USER43> Confused over the country specific pledge tiers. Unless KS has changed since I last backed, I thought you could only select a single tier. Therefore, to purchase a standard fame/top from UK, do I just select the $99 UK tier, but pledge $399? (or is it $99 + $399?)

<comment><USER44> The $399 tier only ships to the US. AFAICT you'd select the $99 tier, and then they'll email you sometime in 2015 to ask for your address plus the remaining $300 (+VAT and shipping).

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This seems awfully similar to the Stir Kinetic Desk [1], except the Stir desk is selling at ~$4k.

Anyone know what accounts for the huge price difference between these two?

[1] [http://www.stirworks.com/](http://www.stirworks.com/)

<comment><USER46> Touchscreen controls + reference to Apple on the home page. They're targeting an audience who won't mind spending the extra money as long as it's for the 'coolest' thing.

I do like the built in power system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> What I'd like to ask here; why is there a patent application involved in this? This is a pretty trivial concept as far as a standing desk goes and certainly not new.

</comment><comment><USER48> My back tells me to buy one. Nice Project! Wonder if they ship to the EU.

<comment><USER43> Looks like they plan to open a UK based distribution centre by 2015.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I just use a comfy stool at my standing desk when my feet get tired.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm getting so sick of Kickstarter. It's stuff like this:

> if we receive _enough_ pledges, we'll push the date _several_ months.

You guys are paying for fairy dust.

</comment><comment><USER51> Woah, their goal was hit in 38 minutes O_O

</comment><comment><USER52> Guys just wait for 6 months to an year before these desks would be all over Department Stores like OfficeMax, WalMart, IKEA for $99.00 or less.

</comment><comment><USER53> Why not just get an ikea galant?

<comment><USER23> Because the Ikea Galant doesn't raise/lower on demand. It's a significant amount of effort to make it do so, and far more if it actually has things on it already.

<comment><USER53> The one I have at work has two buttons to raise and lower. Fully automated.

<comment><USER54> The motorized Ikea Galant is not sold in the US, for whatever reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> > supports someone 6'3"

Well I'm out.

</comment><comment><USER56> it would be perfect if there was a manual way of doing it.

<comment><USER40> Like, a crank option? You can get a ModTable, but your price will be over 500...</comment></comment>


An airline is suing a customer who skipped a leg of his flight to save money - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/13/18223833/lufthansa-sues-passenger-hidden-city-ticketing <comment><USER2> It's amazing the marketing team at Lufthansa let this one slide. The $2300 they may possibly gain is absolutely nothing compared to the terrible press they're getting/going to get if they win.

People don't love airlines to begin with. This won't help Lufthansa's cause.

</comment><comment><USER3> This should be a warning for everyone not to fly Lufthansa.

The fake '5 Star' award they bought from Skytrax (and milked in Marketing till the cows came home) was bad enough. [1]

Last thing I'd ever want to do is fly an airline who would SUE me for not flying them. That's just beyond ridiculous in so many ways.

[1] [https://worldairlinenews.com/tag/5-starhansa/](https://worldairlinenews.com/tag/5-starhansa/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I can say two things about Lufthansa: (1) Overrated (2) Horrible Customer Service

</comment><comment><USER5> Suing your own customers is never a good look. I'm somewhat surprised they would bother. Presumably they are hoping to make an example of this single person. What then? People like him will voluntarily overlook the cheaper fare and choose to pay more money?

</comment><comment><USER6> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19144006)

</comment><comment><USER7> Talk about the Streisand effect, I'll have to check this out. Presumably, this guy's only mistake was to catch another flight with the same airline</comment>


Microsoft triggers Windows 10 nag campaign on Windows 7, 8.1 devices - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/article/2929206/windows/microsoft-triggers-windows-10-nag-campaign-on-windows-7-81-devices.htmlhttp://www.itworld.com/article/2929206/windows/microsoft-triggers-windows-10-nag-campaign-on-windows-7-81-devices.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The icon and Windows 10 campaign is apparently installed with this update: KB3035583

[http://www.infoworld.com/article/2906002/operating- systems/m...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2906002/operating- systems/mystery-patch-kb-3035583-for-windows-7-and-8-revealed-it-s-a- windows-10-prompter-downloader.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> > According to the scheduled tasks the app adds to Windows, it will appear > after logging in, and refresh itself daily at 8 p.m. local time.

1\. Get the default name of the scheduled task.

2\. Create a scheduled task that runs Powershell with the arguments "Unregister-ScheduledTask -TaskName WIN10AD -Confirm:$false"

3\. Have #2 run at 8:01 PM local time.</comment>


Show HN: Fiddlewax Pro – Simple UI for making complex music - <AUTHOR> https://fiddlewax.com/pro

<comment><AUTHOR> And here are direct links to the video/audio for those who don't like reading text :)

Overview Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wx1tDcC_zM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wx1tDcC_zM)

Sample Audio: [https://soundcloud.com/adam- kumpf/sets/fwpro](https://soundcloud.com/adam-kumpf/sets/fwpro)

30-sec Spot: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Jq6X64fM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1Jq6X64fM)

7-min Walkthrough: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMASFk1ksOM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMASFk1ksOM)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is cool! on the about page ([http://news.fiddlewax.com/about](http://news.fiddlewax.com/about)) you thank nodejs. Is this project written in nodejs?! If yes, then when's the android port of this out ?</comment>


Vote on The Tech Startup Bubble - <AUTHOR> http://techstartupbubble.com/

<comment><USER2> This is the first I heard of ZeroCater as a bubble company, which I'm assuming is because they're dependent on tech companies whose bubble may burst. (Being in the UK, I don't know that much about them, so this is just an assumption.)

I think it would be shame if the model failed just because of fluctuations among tech startups. It should really apply to any business where people want to attract and retain talent.

Having benefited from this deal at Google, I feel like it has a lot of benefits for both the company and its employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I think that any company that build a business servicing VC funded companies without viable business models is inherently a bubble company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the issue is that a lot of startups delude themselves into believing that they're putting "a dent in the universe" - trying to create a Steve Jobs- like world in their minds.

But at the same time, if they don't, it's really hard to motivate themselves and their employees to put in all the effort needed to make a startup work.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is definitely true. There is a lot of dumb money out there now and over- funded companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be honest, I was surprised to see Amen so low on the list of results. I mean, seriously -- it makes much less sense than Groupon.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a user-driven voting system, so share the site with people who agree.</comment></comment>


Edge beats Firefox to become second most popular browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-edge-is-now-2nd-most-popular-desktop-browser-beats-firefox/ <comment><USER2> As expected, we're approaching a web browser monoculture. When you have an open platform where only one company controls it, it fails to be open any more. I'm sincerely worried about an ad company controlling the largest source of information on Earth.

<comment><USER3> It's not a browser monoculture, it's a browser-engine monoculture. I for one welcome our new overlords.

I think it's great to have diversity in a browsers; one browser might focus on being light weight, while another might have a new spin on the UI.

But I do NOT want diversity in how different browsers render a table.

<comment><USER4> You must have missed the 90s. When a single vendor mandated every new technology in the browser space. ActiveX and other pleasantries came out of those times.

<comment><USER3> I remember the 90's. It was the era of "Best viewed in X version Y".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a firefox user myself, and am slightly angered by this news, but at the same time, the good news is that because most of these users are upgrading their copy of windows, which means fewer people using IE11! The death of IE11 can't come soon enough, at least there's a silver lining to this cloud.

<comment><USER6> Firefox had been a bad browser for years, the only people I ever meet who use it heavily are tech enthusiasts and privacy activists. If nobody is choosing your browser for practical reasons then you've failed to make a useful browser but pointing this out only ever results in jeering and being told some token line like "Compromise means the erosion of privacy!". This is what that philosophy gets you and down the line I expect the real situation will be Firefox in 4th since Brave has been gaining momentum too.

<comment><USER7> > Firefox had been a bad browser for years

Honestly I have no idea how someone can honestly arrive at this conclusion. I have been continuously using both Chrome and Firefox and I'm yet to notice any practical difference between them.

I'm curious, in your opinion what's the worse thing about Firefox?

<comment><USER6> Sure. Firefox doesn't work with acceptable universality first and foremost, I'd never use Firefox to take an online test at University for example because the one in a million chance it has a hiccup isn't worth the risk when using Chrome or Edge is riskless. The way that situation arise may not be Mozilla's fault but it doesn't change the reality. There are ways to make Firefox more reliable in terms of hiccups on websites but we're past the point of asking users to do extra work being acceptable if they're not your employee.

Perhaps relatedly, Firefox's features for syncing across devices are unappealing because there aren't terribly many Mozilla products that I care about whereas most people have a Gmail and many also have Microsoft accounts. I can't imagine the circumstance that would lead me to have a Mozilla account already and so it's just one more thing to have to think about in an ecosystem where I have other options.

Extension support is stronger in Firefox but most users aren't heavy extension users and if they are it's probably an adblocker. Ad-blocking is a lot less special now since most of the competing browser's have acceptable adblock options whereas once upon a time Firefox was the only choice if you wanted a not awful internet experience.

Edge pays you to use it, Brave does this too but have yet to see the growth of Edge yet I feel it's worth acknowledging because this might just be the cost of trying to genuinely compete with Chrome. Chrome doesn't pay but it has little reason to since it's Chrome.

Finally, Firefox's mobile browser is terrible. Chrome is similarly terrible in terms of UI but Edge and Brave are light-years ahead in terms of having a layout suitable for a mobile device. It's worth noting this might change in the future since Firefox Lite and Firefox Focus both have much better UIs for mobile than the flagship mobile browser but until the flagship catches up those are just novelties for alternate markets.

I'm sure Firefox is still the 'ethical' browser and it runs fine for non- critical web usage, but the market is past that being enough to make a web browser stand out in the mainstream. Nobody wants to manage two web browsers when they could make due with one and so it makes the most sense to just use the critical task browser for eveything. Related to this, most people don't have the extreme outlook on browser ethics that the privacy movement does and so Firefox doesn't offer them anything in that regard anyway. It flies on hacker news to handwave this part as a matter of normies just not knowing better (informed consent arguments) but the reality is that no one has made a convincing argument for demonstrating how all of this is actually damaging the mainstream users and the topics are old enough that there's been plenty of time to come up with persuasive arguments

Summarized, Firefox's strengths are things that mainly appeal to particular ideologies. For people who don't share those ideologies it doesn't offer anything over the other browsers and I've seen little that suggests Firefox will be able to overcome this hurdle since its identity these days is built on being the private/ethical browser.

<comment><USER8> Sorry to say that, but...you use a lot of words and in the end you say nothing...

Some points are just personal preference (like mobile UI) and ecosystem(I really like the function to send a tab to my mobile...can't remember that chrome had it at least I never used it in chrome)

And other points are just wrong/not true ... or missing proof for your strange assumptions...

<comment><USER6> Mobile UI is far from preference in the browser examples I used. Menus and interactive elements at the top of the screen are holdovers from the desktop. Bottom screen menus are vastly easier for exclusive thumb use. Considering that both Focus and Lite adhere to this, I suspect Mozilla knows it as well.

<comment><USER7> At best your complains boil down to subjective and highly exaggerated and outright nonsense nitpicking.

The only thing that Firefox mobile has at the top of the screen are the URL bar, which automatically hides when the user scrolls down, and a couple of buttons piggy backing to save on screen real estate.

And complaining about these UI elements in Firefox mobile while boasting Chrome mobile as the best is something that makes absolutely zero sense, as Chrome mobile has the exact same UI elements at the exact same position.

It seems you are desperate to both find reasons to criticize and justify your complains at a rational and factual level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have to say I wouldn't have thought it but I really like Microsoft's take on Chromium. It seems at least for some reason faster and more responsive than Chrome although it's built on pretty much the same base.

The "reader view" is quite nice and the text to speech feature is great, the quality is really good. It also seems to be getting vertical tabs pretty soon. For now I'm only using it on windows though, it'd be great if there was a linux version at some point.

</comment><comment><USER10> It is also very responsive in Android. I use FF in the desktop but in my phone and tablets it is practically unusable. Switched to Edge there a couple of years ago and it was a smooth transition and has some good configuration options, like blocking ads.

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe it was in the article and I missed it, but has Edge started to eat into Google Chrome's marketshare at all? Or Safari's? (Yes, I know, Safari's marketshare is less than 4%, but it's been consistent.)

</comment><comment><USER12> :(

</comment><comment><USER13> why are folks sad about this? Edge is great. It doesn't make firefox any less great.

</comment><comment><USER8> really strange how fast people forget what kind of company microsoft is...

so: F*CK MS! Viva la revolucion!! (somebody has to say it) :)

Everyone is talking about compliance and risk management and all that blabla, but the most obvious and highest risk (and btw not compliant to GDPR) of a quasi monopolist (with closed source), is not being taken into account...

</comment><comment><USER14> :(</comment>


This bounty for a "Detailed Male Arousal indicator" doesn't appear to be a joke - <AUTHOR> https://www.suprmasv.com/bounties/34/detailed-male-arousal-indicato-1

<comment><USER2> Even though the device can detect (supposedly) when a male is nearing ejaculation. The question is... can it stop the eventual release (if you know what I mean)? It takes discipline for a guy to stop the release. Real discipline.

<comment><USER3> I think _real discipline_ is exactly what this device is meant to be about :)</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Server Status - <AUTHOR> HN went down for nearly all of Monday the 6th. I suspected failing hardware.
I configured a new machine that is nearly identical to the old one, but using ZFS instead of UFS. This machine can tolerate the loss of up to two disks. I switched over to it early morning on the 16th, around 1AM PST.
Performance wasn't great. Timeouts were pretty frequent. I looked into it quickly, couldn't see anything obvious, and decided to sleep on it. I switched back to the old server, expecting to call it a night.
Then the old server went down. Again. The filesystem was corrupted. Again. So I switched back to the new server. During this switch some data was lost, but hopefully no more than an hour.
And here we are. I'm sorry that performance is poor, but we're up. I'll work to speed things up as soon as I can, and I'll provide a better write-up once things are over. I'm also really sorry for the data loss, both on the 6th and today. <comment><USER2> By tolerating the loss of two disks, do you mean raidz2 or do you mean 3-way mirror?

Raidz2 is not fast. In fact, it is slow. Also, it is less reliable than a two way mirror in most configurations, because recovering from a disk loss requires reading the entirety of every other disk, whereas recovering from loss in a mirror requires reading the entirety of one disk. The multiplication of the probabilities don't work out particularly well as you scale up in disk count (even taking into account that raidz2 tolerates a disk failure mid- recovery). And mirroring is much faster, since it can distribute seeks across multiple disks, something raidz2 cannot do. Raidz2 essentially synchronizes the spindles on all disks.

Raidz2 is more or less suitable for archival-style storage where you can't afford the space loss from mirroring. For example, I have an 11 disk raidz2 array in my home NAS, spread across two separate PCIe x8 8-port 6Gbps SAS/SATA cards, and don't usually see read or write speeds for files[1] exceeding 200MB/sec. The drives individually are capable of over 100MB/sec - in a non- raidz2 setup, I'd be potentially seeing over 1GB/sec on reads of large contiguous files.

Personally I'm going to move to multiple 4-disk raid10 vdevs. I can afford the space loss, and the performance characteristics are much better.

[1] Scrub speeds are higher, but not really relevant to FS performance.

<comment><USER3> Why not Raid 60 with Btrfs? It'll tolerate two disk loss with pro-active parity protection via btrfs and be faster and provide you with more disk space.

<comment><USER4> They are running BSD. I don't think BtrFS is an option and ZFS can do pretty much every trick BtrFS can.

The data corruption on the first machine seems like a hardware problem.

<comment><USER5> ZFS has inbuild raiding and much much friendlier tools.

The BTRFS tools are like MDAM and lilo had a child.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The trend I'm noticing is people mentioning that if only HN was moved to <insert-cloud-provider>, problems would go away.

Instead of doing that, they probably dropped a bit more than a thousand dollars on a box, and are probably saving thousands in costs per year. This is money coming out of someone's pocket.

This site is here, and it's a charity, being provided free of cost, to you. Who cares if HN is down for a few hours? Seriously? Has anyone been hurt because of this, yet?

<comment><USER7> HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects.

There is a very strong bias to everything YC.

The HN community has also outgrown the software HN was built on you can see this in threads like: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091)

but even that thread is an extreme many front page items that gain traction are hard to go through because of things like lack of foldable comments. Other things that are extremely noticeable are expiring links which pg has said he doesn't think are important enough to fix. There are many small UI issues that won't be fixed for the community.

<comment><USER8> _HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects._

Feels more like a community with some YC marketing aspects to me.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. It feels very YC driven.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm sure it has been asked many times before, but I'd love to hear the latest thinking... Why in 2013 is HN still running on bespoke hardware and software? If a startup came to you with this sort of legacy thinking you'd laugh them out of the room.

<comment><USER11> _this sort of legacy thinking_

That's the kind of facile statement that makes people riotously mock the entire startup community, like "MongoDB is webscale" but even less valid.

Cloud services are not a panacea, and there are myriad situations in which running one's own infrastructure can be a good idea. What matters is that the issues and benefits are taken into account; if one can show research demonstrating that a custom infrastructure is cheaper, or more reliable, or less prone to legal issues, for example, then there's nothing to laugh at.

And remember that PaaS in particular can cost a buttload of money - I'm certain it's contributed to the downfall of more than one otherwise promising startup.

<comment><USER12> The advantage of cloud servers is if one experiences corruption or goes down you just kill it and start a new one. If your cloudy EBS equivalent experiences corruption, you restore from snapshot and off you go again. Either way it involves less downtime than HN seems to have. The downside is it costs more (usually, depends on how high your server management and data center overheads are.) I'd like to point out that despite several high profile down time incidents in the aws, never was there a case that I'm aware of where you couldn't just restore from your last snapshot to another availability zone or region.

<comment><USER3> You realize cloud services are vulnerable to data loss as well?[1] The cloud isn't some magic machine off in a datacenter somewhere. Its a bunch of servers and SANs just like what you or I would roll out if we needed bare metal infrastructure. The only difference is the extraordinary markup that you're paying amazon to use their servers.

[1][http://blogs.computerworld.com/18198/oops_amazon_web_service...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/18198/oops_amazon_web_services_ec2_cloud_lost_data)

<comment><USER12> Yes, obviously. That's why I said you should restore from backups in that event. If you lose your backups on S3, congratulations, you had better odds of winning in your state lottery. The big difference is not just the price as you say, but the flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's a lot of tuning that can be done on a ZFS setup to improve performance. I'm not a pro, so others will have more feedback and knowledge, but some things off the top of my head to get you started:

Add a flash memory based (SSD) ZIL or L2ARC or both to the box. That'll help improve read/write performance. I believe the ZIL (ZFS intent log) is used to cache during writes, and the L2ARC is used during reads.

You might want to look into disabling atime, so that the pool isn't wasting energy keeping access times on files up to date. Not sure if this is relevant with the architecture of HN or not. This can be done with

        zfs set atime=off srv/ycombinator

Finally, ZFS needs a LOT of memory to be a happy camper. Like 3-5GB of RAM per TB of storage.

I actually think you'll probably have a lot of fun with ZFS tuning, if that's the problem with news.yc. FreeBSD's page is pretty detailed: [https://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide](https://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide)

<comment><USER14> > I believe the ZIL (ZFS intent log) is used to cache during writes, and the > L2ARC is used during reads.

I think the ZIL (zfs intent log) is an intermediary for synchronous writes only. My understanding is that it effectively turns the sync write into an async write (from the standpoint of the zpool) -- this is why it requires a faster device than the pool it is used with. If it is absent, the pool itself houses the zil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not really related but any update on releasing the HN code again?

[the current release is pretty old: [https://github.com/wting/hackernews](https://github.com/wting/hackernews)]

</comment><comment><USER16> Being the sysadmin on a site frequented by sysadmins has to be frustrating at times.

Thanks for all you do!

</comment><comment><USER17> This reminds me I'm still looking for a (pki?-)encrypted zfs snapshots as a backup service, /wink-wink @anyone

Hoping the box has ECC ram, otherwise zfs, too, can be unreliable ([http://research.cs.wisc.edu/adsl/Publications/zfs- corruption...](http://research.cs.wisc.edu/adsl/Publications/zfs-corruption- fast10.pdf))

<comment><USER18> Tarsnap?

<comment><USER17> could possibly work if wrapped around zfs send, something plug-n-play would be nice though

</comment></comment></comment><comment> shawn-butler Using DTrace to profile zfs:

[http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/files/2011/02/DTrace_Chapter...](http://dtrace.org/blogs/brendan/files/2011/02/DTrace_Chapter_5_File_Systems.pdf)

I'm sure other more experienced DTrace users can offer tips but I remember reading this book and learning a lot. And I believe all the referenced scripts were open source and available.

</comment><comment><USER19> may i ask where are the machines hosted? is that on AWS? if not, why don't you move to a more reliable hosting, like AWS?

<comment><USER19> from the downvotes i gather i may not ask...

<comment><USER20> Probably due to the fact that you levelled an unqualified, unsubtantiated claim that AWS is better than any alternative

<comment><USER21> That's not what he said. There's nothing about AWS being better than alternatives to AWS.

> "a more reliable hosting, like AWS"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been reading this site regularly for almost 7 years. 6-Jan-2014 is the only downtime I remember, and it was really a very minor inconvenience. Sucks about the data loss though, always hard to own that when doing system administration. Thanks for the explanation.

<comment><USER23> It's not the only one I remember. It seems like it's down for several hours every couple months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Have you thought about perhaps open sourcing the server setup scripts for HN? I'd love (and I'm sure many others here) to help with the configuration. Perhaps a github repo for some chef recipies that people could work on given the current servers?

</comment><comment><USER25> Thanks for the info!

Out of curiosity, do you have an idea about the source of the corruption problems?

<comment><USER15> The OP is saying "the loss of up to two disks", maybe a hard drive failure?

<comment><USER26> That's on the new server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am curious to know the server configuration, architecture and the number of hits it is getting.

If someone does offer a new software architecture, and hosting, would people be open to move hackernews there?

</comment><comment><USER28> Assuming the disk footprint is small...

Would recommend a new SSD-based ZFS box (Samsung 840 Pros have been great even for pretty write-intesive load), with raidz3 for protection and zfs send (and/or rsync from hourly/N-minute snapshot for data protection which should eliminate copying FS metadata corruption, as not sure if zfs send will).

Happy to provide and/or host such a box or two if helpful.

</comment><comment><USER29> Thanks for the update. No worries, it's just a news message board and no businesses are hurt when it's down. I quite enjoy seeing how these things are solved and I'm sure all will be forgiven if you post a meaty post-mortem.

</comment><comment><USER30> ZFS instead of UFS on what, an Illumos derivative, FBSD, or actual Oracle Solaris?

<comment><USER31> FreeBSD.

<comment><USER32> I'd love to show you how HybridCluster, which automates ZFS replication and failover (FreeBSD + ZFS + jails), might be able to help. Relatedly, we've just announced free non-commercial licences which would be perfect for HN: [http://www.hybridcluster.com/blog/containers-distributed- sto...](http://www.hybridcluster.com/blog/containers-distributed-storage- future-now-free-hybridcluster-non-commercial-licenses/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Are you bottlenecking on high iowait? or something else?

just one random bit to try... Obviously, I have no insight into your system and I'm not saying I know more than you or anything, but I've been seeing more situations lately where I had massive latency but reasonable throughput and the disks mostly looked okay wrt. smart, and I mostly just wanted to write about it:

[lsc@mcgrigor ~]$ sudo iostat -x /dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd Linux 2.6.18-371.3.1.el5xen (mcgrigor.prgmr.com) 01/16/2014

avg-cpu: %user %nice %system %iowait %steal %idle

               0.00    0.00    0.05    0.02    0.00   99.93

Device: rrqm/s wrqm/s r/s w/s rsec/s wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util

sda 0.70 75.11 35.66 1.38 4568.62 611.67 139.85 0.36 9.61 0.53 1.95

sdb 0.46 75.10 35.62 1.39 4566.77 611.67 139.89 0.22 5.89 0.45 1.66

sdc 0.80 75.14 35.63 1.35 4569.63 611.63 140.10 0.64 17.18 0.57 2.10

sdd 0.46 75.09 35.62 1.40 4566.60 611.63 139.87 0.13 3.47 0.40 1.49

(this is a new server built out of older disks that appears to have the problem. It's not so bad that I get significant iowait when idle, but if you try to do anything, you are in a world of hurt.)

Check out the await value. re-do the same command with a '1' after /dev/sdd and it will repeat every second. If sdd consistently has a much worse await, it is what is killing your RAID. Drop the drive from the raid. If performance is better, replace the drive. If performance is worse (and with raid z2, it should be worse if you killed the drive) the drive was fine.

(Of course you want to do the usual check with smart and the like before this)

The interesting part of this failure mode that I have seen is that /throughput/ isn't that much worse than healthy. You get reasonable speeds on your dd tests. but latency makes the whole thing unusable.

</comment><comment><USER34> How about error page show the last static HN page? Most people just need likns

<comment><USER35> I used [http://www.hckrnews.com/](http://www.hckrnews.com/) for that :-) But I actually usually prefer reading the comments more than the links ^_^

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Why on earth are you not using SSD's? The HN footprint can't be _that_ large. The extra speed and reliability from a pair of SSD's has to far outweigh the costs.

<comment><USER37> I'd guesstimate that the READ load is served practically entirely from RAM (file cache) and the WRITE load is non-critical enough that it's done "eventually consistent" (e.g. synchronous_commit=off in PostgreSQL, or fsync=off elsewhere) - or at least that's how I'd run it. YMMV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thanks for the writeup.

</comment><comment><USER39> Maybe you could provide details on the current configuration and architecture and some suggestions could be made on how to improve. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER40> I still like hardware RAID because it's conceptually simple and nicely isolated. Sometimes horrible things happen to it, though, too.

I didn't realize HN had enough disk storage needs to need more than one drive. I guess you could have 1+2 redundancy or something.

</comment><comment><USER41> Don't worry about it. I visited facebook for the first time in years when hn went down. Is hn on linux using zfs or bsd?

</comment><comment><USER42> The world would be better place if software could exist without hardware.

<comment><USER43> It already does, just take your pen and some paper and you're set.

Oh, and don't forget the aspirin, you'll need it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Good you posted this, but it came a little late. After the first series of timeouts you could've posted an update so everybody knew what was going on. But hey, thanks for the update, this clears up a lot.

<comment><USER13> This passive-aggressive attitude is going to get you nowhere in life. Back handed complements are only cool in pre-teen TV shows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hi, I'm the CEO of [http://www.clever-cloud.com/](http://www.clever- cloud.com/) and I'll be happy to help you on this, ping me on twitter : @waxzce

<comment><USER18> Can you prove that you are the CEO? I'm doubting between this being a bad prank from someone impersonating you, and you actually placing advertisements for your own company here.

<comment><USER46> I know he is, he has posted on HN several times before.</comment></comment></comment>


Can I sell my instagram handle? - <AUTHOR> I have an Instagram username from October 2010 that I have been actively using.
It is 4 letters long with a repeating vowel. For example: GABA
Throughout the years I've had numerous people ask for the account via Instagram. I've had offers from $500-1000 that seemed serious and a couple in the $10,000 range that felt like phishing scams so I blocked those accounts.
It's a personal account. I don't sell anything from the account nor do I plan to. There are multiple companies in multiple different business streams with the same 4 letters as their name.
I've had at least 500 attempts to reset my password in the last 9 years!
Eventually someone will hack into my account or will get a lawyer to somehow sue me or a username troll will take over my account (like that guy who posted here who took over all those inactive accounts).
What are my options? Is there a marketplace to sell accounts?
Is there anyway to reach someone at Instagram and have my account linked to me in case I get hacked? I've tried to get my account verified but it's not a popular account and I'm not a famous person so no luck with that yet.
Any input is highly appreciated! <comment><USER2> [https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511](https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511)

"You can't attempt to buy, sell, or transfer any aspect of your account (including your username) or solicit, collect, or use login credentials or badges of other users"

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I understand that. But surely usernames must change hands regularly.

<comment><USER3> Shan gao, huangdi yuan - The Mountains are High and the Emperor is Far Away.

<comment><AUTHOR> There must be a way to get a hold of the emperor if you try hard enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best algorithms and data structures online course? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> In addition to the Stanford courses mentioned in another comment, there are also two Princeton courses taught by Sedgewick [https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~250165](https://www.coursera.org/instructor/~250165) and the MIT course taught by Demaine [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical- engineering-and-compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering- and-computer-science/6-006-introduction-to-algorithms-fall-2011/lecture- videos/)

<comment><USER3> The followup to the Demaine one is great too. Not at all intro, but great if your foundations are strong.

[https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- compu...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/6-851-advanced-data-structures-spring-2012/)

<comment><USER4> Would you say this is good for someone who has recently graduated and has been in industry for a year or so to refresh on?

<comment><USER3> They touch on a bunch of decently exotic data structures like van Emde Boas trees and things like cache oblivious data structures. If you're comfortable with data structures and algorithm design (which it sounds like you are, from your description) it should be accessible. At the end of the day it's just a graduate level CS course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know its not an online course and its a relatively massive tome, but I'd recommend just working through "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen/Leiserston/Rivest/Stein [1].

This book has great explanations and exercises for everything you could want to learn from the basics of sorting and algorithmic design and analysis, to graph algorithms, linear programming, and dynamic programming.

It lacks some degree of depth on more advanced topics, but if you work your way through it and actually implement what you read and do the exercises, you will be more than well enough equipped to take on just about any problem.

The key is going to be to actually implement what you read/learn, I think it might take you a little more time than watching an online course, but in the long run it will give you a much deeper knowledge of the material.

1\. [https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H- Corm...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H- Cormen/dp/0262531968)

<comment><USER6> Isn't this book too academical for any practical learning of algorithms and data structures?

I would recommend The algorithm design manual for more practical purposes. [https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven- Skiena...](https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven- Skiena/dp/1849967202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519228390&sr=8-1&keywords=the+algorithm+design+manual)

<comment><USER5> > Isn't this book too academical for any practical learning of algorithms and > data structures?

I don't think so, I've worked through it and I didn't find it that difficult/academic. But I actually don't read a lot of computer science books / textbooks so I don't really have much to compare it to other than mathematical texts which I do read a lot of.

If you don't like proofs or math then its probably not the best text to work through, on the other hand, if you like rigorously understanding the material I would highly recommend it.

Either way, from what I remember it gives psuedocode for just about everything and has lots of graphs and pictures for elucidating the material, so you could probably just skip the math if you have an allergy to corrolaries, theorems, and proofs. Admittedly, that extra insight is probably a lot of the reason I liked it so much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't know about the best, but I learned a lot from these two courses.

[https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/course-v1:Engineering+...](https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/course-v1:Engineering+Algorithms1+SelfPaced/about)

[https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/course-v1:Engineering+...](https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/course-v1:Engineering+Algorithms2+SelfPaced/about)

<comment><USER8> Tim Roughgarden is a fantastic teacher. I personally love his style and speed. He throws in some humor here and there and makes learning a lot of fun. His lectures on graphs are absolutely brilliant.

This same course is available on Coursera as well.

<comment><USER7> Yes. Same as Coursera. I took this on Coursera only, before specialization thing happened. Don't know if the course videos and exercises are fully available for audit purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's not really a course but I found InterviewBit [0] a great resource. It structures everything around moving from simpler to more complex data structures and algorithms. It's kind of learning by doing lots and lots of questions. You have to complete enough problems in one section to move onto the next.

I spent a hundred hours going through the various tests and it showed the power of functional programming / recursion. The questions that took me much longer than average were the ones where I had a bug and had to track it down. The recursive problems didn't suffer from this, ie I would get the solution pretty much correct first time. This could just have been the questions / my programming style but I found it eye opening.

[0]: [https://www.interviewbit.com/](https://www.interviewbit.com/)

</comment><comment><USER10> If your eventual goal after learning the basics is programming questions for interviews, there are a tons of resources like leetcode, interviewbit, geeksforgeeks. I started writing some of the FAQ with explanations here[1], check it out to see if it is of any help for you.

[1] : [http://letstalkalgorithms.com/](http://letstalkalgorithms.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> The best one is HSE & Yandex & Computer Science Club & UC San Diego 6 course specialization on coursera

[https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-structures- alg...](https://www.coursera.org/specializations/data-structures-algorithms)

<comment><USER12> I agree. This sequence of courses is the best I've found.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The princeton one on coursera is really great and easy to read. Buy the book and take the course. Sedgewick is my hero. It doesn't require a lot of math in contrast to the Stanford coursera one. It's much easier for the general person to follow IMO. [https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms- part1](https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1)

</comment><comment><USER14> All good resources. I'd also add Algorithms, Etc. by Jeff Erickson.

[http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/](http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/)

And for practice, Google Code Jam past problems are quite challenging ;)

[https://code.google.com/codejam/](https://code.google.com/codejam/)

<comment><USER15> The past problems are here: [https://code.google.com/codejam/past- contests](https://code.google.com/codejam/past-contests)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it wise to do any of these courses without taking a course in linear algebra first? I started watching Skiena's algorithm course on youtube recently and he seemed to really emphasize finishing a course in linear algebra before taking any algorithm course. Thoughts?

<comment><USER17> No, I don't believe so (from my experience as a CS undergrad).

<comment><USER18> Linear algebra isn't a prerequisite for learning data structures and algorithms. Though you typically do find linear algebra to be part of the lower division computer science curriculum at most colleges. I would recommend you take a course in it, I argue it expands one's problem-solving mental models.

<comment><USER17> I certainly agree. However, if OP is simply referring to learning the typical algorithms presented in an undergraduate CS course, then linear algebra isn't a strict prerequisite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is useful background: "Mathematics for Computer Science"

[https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring17/mcs.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I'm currently going through this course. Some of it is going over my head but I get the basic concepts

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Intuitive Guide to Data Structures And Algorithms, on Interview Cake: [https://www.interviewcake.com/data-structures-and- algorithms...](https://www.interviewcake.com/data-structures-and-algorithms- guide)

Disclosure: my company made this :)

</comment><comment><USER21> These aren't courses, but from answers to "Ask HN: Recommended course/website/book to learn data structure and algorithms" :

Data Structure: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_structure)

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

Big O notation:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation)

Big-O Cheatsheet: [http://bigocheatsheet.com](http://bigocheatsheet.com)

Coding Interview University > Data Structures: [https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview- university/blob/...](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview- university/blob/master/README.md#data-structures)

OSSU: Open Source Society University > Core CS > Core Theory > "Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part I" [&2] [https://github.com/ossu/computer- science/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/ossu/computer- science/blob/master/README.md#core-theory)

"Algorithms, 4th Edition" (2011; Sedgewick, Wayne): [https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/](https://algs4.cs.princeton.edu/)

Complexity Zoo > Petting Zoo (P, NP,): [https://complexityzoo.uwaterloo.ca/Petting_Zoo](https://complexityzoo.uwaterloo.ca/Petting_Zoo)

While perusing awesome-awesomeness [1], I found awesome-algorithms [2] , algovis [3], and awesome-big-o [4].

[1] [https://github.com/bayandin/awesome- awesomeness](https://github.com/bayandin/awesome-awesomeness)

[2] [https://github.com/tayllan/awesome- algorithms](https://github.com/tayllan/awesome-algorithms)

[3] [https://github.com/enjalot/algovis](https://github.com/enjalot/algovis)

[4] [https://github.com/okulbilisim/awesome- big-o](https://github.com/okulbilisim/awesome-big-o)</comment>


Report touts Bitcoins over bucks for OPEC - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/02/report-touts-bitcoins-over-bucks-for-opec-uh-oh/ <comment><USER2> Interesting, but probably not going to happen, mainly because the buyer and seller both need bitcoins for the transaction. Both pay their bills in USD or a real currency.</comment>


Ghostery and NoScript-like add-ons frequently phone home - <AUTHOR> https://mailman.stanford.edu/pipermail/liberationtech/2015-April/015236.html <comment><USER2> The fundamental dilemma in privacy is the same as for security and Ken Thompson nailed it thirty years ago.[1] You have to trust somebody.

If I didn't trust the folks at Mozilla and Ghostery and NoScript more than Google, I'd run Chrome and leave JavaScript and Cookies on by default. If I trusted Facebook and LinkedIn more, I'd stay logged in. I don't so I don't.

[1]: [http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html](http://cm.bell- labs.com/who/ken/trust.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ghostery has addressed this elsewhere:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1c4wjz/we_are_the_ghos...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1c4wjz/we_are_the_ghostery_team_askusanything_especially/c9d1chg)

>Ghostery is supported by Ghostrank, our 100% opt-in feature that collects information about the trackers you see and the sites on which you see them. Our parent company, Evidon, packages that information and sells it back to sites who use it for privacy, performance, and security audits; and also ad tech companies who use it for competitive intelligence about each other.

>That information is totally anonymous - it's all intelligence about the tracking industry, none about our users. And Ghostery works exactly the same whether you choose to share that with us or not.

<comment><USER4> According to the article this phone home feature activates even when you uncheck all the share options.

<comment><USER5> But at that point, what exactly is it phoning home about? If it's still sharing the data you explicitly refused to share, then that's one thing. If it's simply asking home if there's an update, then that's something totally different.

<comment><USER6> No, it's not.

Firefox is managing extension updates already. As an app developer, you _don 't need to know_ this data.

As a security surface, you really don't _want_ this data in real-time. It makes you a target.

I presume the problem is that Firefox isn't sharing this install/update data with the extension developers. So, they're trying to collect it themselves.

<comment><USER7> Getting updates published on the Firefox add-on site takes a few weeks [1], and as I understand it (haven't needed to do it myself recently) queuing a new version bumps you all the way to the back of the line. If the add-on needs to update non-code things (such as what sites to block) on a shorter time frame having its own service is pretty necessary.

See also the various lists adblock plus / uBlock / lightbeam use. Or for that matter the safe browsing lists Mozilla uses instead of shipping it in a new version of the app.

(I still don't use Ghostery because their relationship with the advertising industry freaks me out, but that doesn't mean I have to be critical of them about the list updates.)

[1] latest status update seems to be [https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/08/add-ons- update-63...](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/04/08/add-ons-update-63/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So what would the author prefer? That security sensitive software doesn't check for updates? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.

Somewhat later there is this remark: _Why are these add-ons? Why are they not designed-in and built-in to the browser?_

Well, this _is_ actually built-into Firefox Nightly. It's called Tracking Protection...and it updates its lists using the exact same SafeBrowsing the original author whines about.

It's hard to take these people seriously, which is bad, because privacy is a serious problem. Not worthy to be left over to whiners that offer no solutions.

<comment><USER9> > Not worthy to be left over to whiners that offer no solutions.

This is not a fair criticism. I can tell someone, "Hey dude, your house is on fire" without having to offer them either a bucket of water or a new house.

This type of argument is frequently used to forestall any criticism whatsoever. Bad supervisors often say things like, "don't give me complaints without also giving me a solution."

It's sloppy thinking, and rejects valuable feedback.

<comment><USER10> > Bad supervisors often say things like, "don't give me complaints without > also giving me a solution."

This is true, but bad employees often say "Hey this sucks" without providing any constructive reasoning, and expecting someone else to fix a problem that you've seen but they haven't usually results in a lousy fix.

Sure, it's not their job to fix it, but if you come to me and say 'our art pipeline sucks, it's too inefficient' and then walk away, I literally have nothing at all to work on.

<comment><USER11> > if you come to me and say 'our art pipeline sucks, it's too inefficient' and > then walk away, I literally have nothing at all to work on.

The 'art pipeline' might be something you could work on...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What exactly is the problem here? If you care about security, use the TBB, each session is still unique because private browsing. If you really care and use tails or whonix, this still won't de-anonymize you. If you aren't doing that, any website you visit gets your ip.

I'm trying to figure out what attack model you'd have a reasonable basis to think you were protected against, except for the fact that these plugins "phone" home. If you're using a setup in which that matters, you've already lost.

<comment><USER8> You've articulated this better than I have.

By default, combinations like Firefox+SafeBrowsing+Ghostery+Adblock make an uninformed user (or informed users who prefers convenience) safer against a given adversary: advertising agencies, trackers, malicious sites. They do not protect you from the government, and they won't protect you from Google. To reach this level of protection and user-friendliness, they rely on automated updates, and the use of metrics to improve the software.

If your thread model is different, and your adversary includes Google or the government, there are solutions too like TBB. But you will give up on the convenience that (drumroll) companies like Google provide.

<comment><USER13> TBB offers a speedy and modern browsing experience. I use it for everything, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. You can watch Youtube videos, download large files, and browse most websites without a hitch.

You could sign up for G+ over Tor and get most of the purported benefits of being tracked by Google without tying your browsing activity to your real name or IP.

<comment><USER12> Doesn't Google now require a phone verification to sign up, thus tying everything to a real id? And you don't get Cloudflare bs all the time on tor?

And have you ever compared speed on downloading large files, or latency? It's bad enough to make me only use it when really needed and not everyday usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Check out Iridium Browser. We try hard to build a Chromium which does not phone home (to Google). It's work in progress but completely open and transparent.

[https://iridiumbrowser.de/about](https://iridiumbrowser.de/about)

</comment><comment><USER15> Reading the source code, I find this:

function recordInstall() { if (utils.prefs('install_recorded')) { return; }

sendReq('install'); }

So the if statement that the OP highlights does not actually phone every time it is called like the OP claims, but only on the first install. The message that the add-on sends to ghostery.com includes the Ghostrank preference, the version of Ghostery, the OS, and the Firefox version (Android or desktop). That said, it does appear that the add-on phones home on each upgrade, and I don't see anything in the Ghostery Privacy Policy about this (it only discusses GhostRank).

<comment><USER16> Yes, its an ongoing issue that people are increasingly unable to read simple if statements. The world has been plagued with academics attempting to analyze the simplest of statements without success. This is what led us to form the "Leave No Academic Behind" (LNAB) group. To inform academics in the err of their ways and show them the path to success.

There have been increase in tin-foil theories about these scripts even when the source is available and very easy to read through. It honestly blows my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Several popular Firefox privacy/security add-ons have become much worse in the last year. BlockSite added ads and full tracking of user browsing. (That one is really bad.) AdBlock Plus added a "whitelist" of ads they let through. (The advertisers pay AdBlock)

Firefox itself reports installed add-ons to Mozilla AMO each day for tracking and update purposes. Add-ons don't need to check for updates themselves.

<comment><USER18> Is this there an open source alternative to Adblock plus?

<comment><USER8> uBlock is getting popular fast, but note AdBlock Plus itself is also open source.

<comment><USER18> I didn't realize that. I'm going to check out the source to see just which sites that are whitelisting

<comment><USER19> It's not in the source code, but instead in a subscription that ABP uses by default (it remembers if you unchecked "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" so it doesn't re-enable this list on every update): [https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable- ads](https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads)

This is the subscription, which was originally linked from that page (but it now links to the Acceptable Ads subforum, which has a sticky that links to this subscription): [https://easylist- downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx...](https://easylist- downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How else is one supposed to react to this other than with cynicism? This is the nature of going on the Internet, you _will_ be tracked whether you like it or not. _No one_ is anonymous. The Internet, while being one of the greatest inventions by mankind, has succumbed like all the others to the maladies of greed. Unless some billionaire Elon Musk-esque figure funds a private service to actually not, really, no-for-real track you, it won't happen. Personal incentives motivate people, and until this hypothetical billionaire sees an incentive other than profit, it's not happening.

<comment><USER21> > How else is one supposed to react to this other than with cynicism?

How about empowerment instead of cynicism?

Maybe it's possible to build browsers and advertising and mobile devices that don't relentlessly erode privacy. I work at Mozilla to help build that tech. I firmly believe the dystopian corporate future isn't the only option.

You should check us out: [https://www.mozilla.org/mission](https://www.mozilla.org/mission)

<comment><USER22> > Maybe it's possible to build browsers and advertising and mobile devices > that don't relentlessly erode privacy.

That's nice a nice sentiment. I'd be less skeptical if Firefox didn't change my default search engine behind my back. (After updating Android from 31 to 36.)

<comment><USER8> If you changed the defaults, it was kept. If you never set a search engine, the shipped default was changed (and clearly mentioned as such in the release notes not to mention all over the press, so saying "behind my back" is quite funny).

<comment><USER5> Just to play devil's advocate, what if the default was the choice the user wanted?

<comment><USER8> Then he can switch it after having read the release notes pointing it out? The behind the back part was unwarranted, so the only thing that's remaining really is "I preferred the previous default" which doesn't quite jive with the "I'm skeptical regarding privacy" complaint that was made.

<comment><USER5> Then that's just bad design. If there was a possibility of them switching out the pre-determined defaults then the default choices should have been asked of the user from the beginning.

But then, it's hard to make money that way so I can understand why they wouldn't do that.

EDIT: you edited, but I agree the "behind the back" isn't quite right.

<comment><USER8> Presenting modal dialogs to the users on first run is considered terrible UX design with a high bounce rate.

The way you state it, you'd have to ask the user to verify every single setting in your app. That is problematic.

Making money doesn't even have to factor in. (Ok, if nobody uses the apps, you're not making money either, but you get what I mean)

<comment><USER22> There's default settings, and then there's "default" settings. I think of Debian's debconf and how there are different levels of prompts when installing a package.

A good compromise would be to ask on use. The first time someone searches say "What service do you want to complete this with?" and have Yahoo/Yandex pre- selected. Then never ask again.

The never asking again is the key part. IE's setup dialog is a problem because it's either answer a bunch of annoying questions now or answer a bunch of annoying questions later. It should be a choice of setup now or don't bother me again (unless I activate the setup wizard myself).

<comment><USER12> Doesn't IE offer "recommended" settings?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Move to uBlock already!

It's faster, on less resources, does what Adblock and Ghostery does, and is so far void of any dubious business model.

Back on topic, I believe the author points out things that you need to be aware of, especially if you use tor. They made the Tor Browser for a reason. Use it!

<comment><USER12> Last I heard the person controlling the repo was doing funny stuff like removing the info of the creators and there was some dispute over control. Any idea what's up?

<comment><USER24> > removing the info of the creators

More accurately it was about importing code changes manually without attribution, thus forfeiting authorship info in the commits. I believe it's all resolved now. The person is a kid (to me), I had no idea, so when I learned this I see this differently now, he was just being misguided. I originally thought I was dealing with a fully grown adult, so I did not hold back on the criticism. My own mistake was to not consider I was maybe dealing with such a young person.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Possibly a naive question: Wouldn't hosts entries block this? i.e. informaction.com 127.0.0.1, etc.

If so, then one would only comment out the entries when specifically after updates, otherwise they run as-is, and no phone home problem.

Although this depends on a browser using the host system's specified DNS: I seem to have caught Chrome ignoring my entries in favor of Goggle's DNS (on Linux) whilst doing web design for a client. :(

<comment><USER26> Useless comment, downvote/ignore at will; If this were Slashdot, you would have just made a friend for life in APK.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for the reference, I had never run into APK as a meme/topic.

As to the HOSTS question, I am currently working through Terpstra's SAMBA-3 By Example, and after spending enough time on small business networks chasing down odd stuff every time a Microsoft Small Business Server goes down (runs its own DNS and DHCP servers for the LANs in question), I am beginning to consider static mapping some of these smaller networks for better resiliency, which seems to be a frequent consideration of that author.

I apologize for the naivete, but I did specifically label my comment as such, and my question was an honest one with a simplistic security model in mind, when it comes to specific outside resources that may be untrustworthy.

edit: And that search for APK derived my answer at pineight.com, so again, thanks.

<comment><USER26> Just to be clear, I was saying my comment was useless, not yours.

<comment><USER25> Thank you, I did misunderstand and was a bit disappointed my comment was taken as useless. It concerns me when I misunderstand protocol...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So Ghostery phones home. Until someone tells me that it doesn't block what it purports to block, the alternative is worse.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hasnt done enough research.

<comment><AUTHOR> They indeed do in the default settings (checked with wireshark).

NoScript for example queries informaction.com to get the own WAN-IP.

<comment><USER28> If you are on a VPN, who cares.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> To me the key question is whether these checks are anonymous. If not -- if Firefox or a plug-in is sending a unique ID, than any advertiser or government agency could pay for that tracking information and then your privacy would be toast, at least until you can reset that ID.

<comment><USER30> I consider my IP address to be private information. If I chose to disclose it to a site, ok, but I don't mean to tell third-parties about it.

<comment><USER31> Well, technically you are not talking to 3rd parties, you are checking for updates on the author's site. For extensions that rely on up-to-date lists and definitions to work this is a crucial step, otherwise they'll be pointless. Antivirus software does the same thing. OS does the same thing. How it is now all of the sudden a problem?</comment></comment></comment>


Linux's awesome and underused traffic control facilities - <AUTHOR> http://serverfault.com/a/384155/82273

<comment><USER2> Quite a few years ago, I setup tc to do a bit of traffic shaping on my home network. Instead of having a standard router, I have a Linux box with two network cards using iptables to do NAT. I connect my cable modem to one of the network cards and then I connect my home network to the other.

Way back, I found I had two problems - if I was doing something that did a lot of uploading (eg seeding a torrent), my download speed would tank because the tcp/ip packets were bogged down in the upload queue.

I also like to be able to ssh into my machine while away from home, and if I did that while uploads were going on, the ssh terminal was basically unusable.

Back then I discovered tc - it was able to make TCP control packets (ack's etc) and ssh related packets jump to the head of the queue, and the other upload stuff have a lower priority.

Looking back at the script I created now, I don't really understand what it is doing, but it remember it worked. I still run it today and just take it for granted.

I tested it by start a large upload while ssh'ed into the box from the internet - I turned off the tc rules and the terminal became unusably laggy, and then I turned the rules on and it worked perfectly.

<comment><USER3> This helps a lot with that, as well: <http://mosh.mit.edu/>

<comment><USER4> How would that help at all?

<comment><USER5> From my understanding, I think they meant that mosh would deal with the more congested conditions better then ssh, thus providing a better experience. Just a hunch though.

That being said, mosh is rather cool ^_^

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wrote this: Journey to the Center of the Linux Kernel: Traffic Control, Shaping and QoS [http://wiki.linuxwall.info/doku.php/en:ressources:dossiers:n...](http://wiki.linuxwall.info/doku.php/en:ressources:dossiers:networking:traffic_control)

</comment><comment><USER7> As the author of the original answer, I have to agree that the interface is shambolic compared to iptables. I think much of this is due to using the same interface ideas as what is in the "ip" command which follows the same principles and is also underused in favour of ifconfig. They are actually part of the same package in fact.

ifconfig has technically been deprecated in favour of ip for about 8 years.

In any case, resource control on Linux is very very good these days. From traffic control to control groups (you can also manage tc classes in control groups too), its worth any system administrator having things like tc and cgroups in their arsenal so that the operating system controls the applications / users and not the other way around.

A pain in the ass compared to other CLI interfaces I agree, but I personally place resource management high on my things to know about, in the same way I put access management and storage management there too.

<comment><USER8> I use 'ip' for all my network configuration/debugging and I think it's a great tool.

I can't say the same for tc, which I tried to get into multiple times and failed. I will try it once more with your good explanation and understandable example. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The little I've been able to find on the kernel and TC (Traffic Control) is here <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/html_single/Traffic-Control-HOWTO/>

<comment><USER9> indeed, The main reason tc(1) is underused is because it is under explained.

<comment><USER10> Even were it adequately explained, it would still be underused, being a pretty crappy interface. I find it virtually the antithesis of iptables, whose syntax and meaning is fairly intuitive and easy both to remember, and derive from a few example rules.

<comment><USER11> I agree that tc is not a very good user interface, but I'm not sure I agree with you that IPTables is. Consider <http://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html#allrules> \- a nice configuration language does look better than a shell script.

<comment><USER10> Uh, yeah, no, that's not my idea of a good user interface. If anything, you've just convinced me never to touch pf.

<comment><USER12> Go ahead and touch it anyways. I can't imagine firewalling without it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There really is a lack of good tc documentation out there and honestly interfacing with tc sucks. HSFC Scheduling with Linux <http://linux- ip.net/articles/hfsc.en/> is a good read.

</comment><comment><USER14> Have abused tc in the past to simulate high-latency remote dial-in connections while testing network equipment (netem delay ftw), but didn't realize that you could restrict by IP, thereby still being able to use the system for something other than dog-slow response. This is very cool - thanks for posting!

</comment><comment><USER15> We use this with our office SDSL connection to prioritize normal traffic and deprioritize things like backups (which used to steal all the bandwidth and drive pings up to 1+ seconds). Works swell, highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER16> We created a complete bandwidth management product using iptables and tc back in 2001, with packages based on bandwidth, hours of usage, usage in hours etc. It was used by small ISPs.

lartc.org was the bible we used to traverse the path of achieving control and command the precious resource called bandwidth. Those days are long gone, but building that small product gave me a chance to learn about networking like never before and taught me a lot.

I owe a lot to lartc.org

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been using tc a lot recently in the research I've been doing and I have to agree that finding good documentation/examples is somewhat difficult to do. There are a lot of weird gotchas (the naming between uplink and downlink being one of them -- root vs ingress). Of course, I'm working on a better framework for controlling network resources, so I have to learn how tc works to provide a simpler interface for doing the things it does.

<comment><USER6> Simpler is better only if it provides the same level of flexibility. the TC command line is hard to learn _at first_ , because it is extremely flexible... and after all, that's what you would expect from a packet scheduler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've used tc on my openwrt (Linksys!) firewall for years. A network genius friend helped set it up.

Why are there no consumer firewalls with great defaults for this? How fantastic in the era of cloud storage and network backup to have long-running uploads not clobber normal traffic.

<comment><USER19> Probably because most consumer 'infrastructure' devices have razor-thin margins. This has two consequences: the vendor doesn't spend any time tweaking it, and second, the CPU is too puny to run all the packets through; they go instead through a hardware packet accelerator. It may be able to do the same thing, but not by configuring 'tc'.

This is also why openwrt only runs sensibly (if at all) on the more expensive boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> tc is very useful for managing traffic over low bandwidth connections. I have used it to control traffic over satellite links (T1 scale throughput) with great success.

</comment><comment><USER21> it is under used because most of the time, you just don't have to care. and when it matters it lack the depth you need, like layer 7 detection.

it is almost always better to just pay for bigger pipes.

<comment><USER22> Wouldn't layer 7 detection drive CPU usage up for a somewhat different use case? You are not trying to give video traffic a lower priority - you are trying to prevent things like backups clogging your pipes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why underused?

It's it well known and heavily used.

</comment><comment><USER24> Could this be useful on web servers? If so, how?</comment>