I Ditched Google for DuckDuckGo - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/i-ditched-google-for-duckduckgo-heres-why-you-should-too/ <comment><USER2> I switched a couple of times to DDG, and the first few false starts I remember coming away from that thinking Google was just better. This time around, DDG stuck. While DDG has been steadily improving, I think the quality of google results has steadily worsened significantly. The focus on top of the page answers and other changes seem to favor commerce vs information. I was recently researching home WiFi gear reviews and google was adamant that I was actually trying to buy WiFi gear. DDG has some of those results, but I also noticed that actual reviews and forum posts were returned instead of amazon and Best Buy links.

<comment><USER3> Oh man, I so badly want to use DDG. I was actually using DDG for the past several months and _just_ switched back to Google today. As a developer, I'm constantly searching for things and I just couldn't justify the additional 5-10 seconds it would take me to re-do a search. Say I make 100 searches/day: (.2 * 100 * 7.5)/60 = 12.5min/wk. Not to mention the disruption in flow caused by those repeat searches. I applaud DDG for what they're doing, going up against a behemoth, but I just can't seem to make it work for me.

<comment><USER4> Did you really just claim you want to use DDG but you can't because it takes an extra 12 minutes per week?

<comment><USER5> Also, at 100 searches a day that's 6.25 searches per hour, if they're spread evenly over a 16 hour waking period. Who makes that many searches?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DDG just doesn't work as well. Also, to ease switching friction it needs a gradient mode where it will start in what looks and feels like Google and then slowly transitions to their normal product.

Once you get over the initial UI muscle memory shock you eventually realize that the results aren't as good and you jump back.

I can rarely find what I need with DDG and usually always find it instantly with google.

<comment><USER7> FWIW, I prefer DDG's UI and instant answers over Google's (and DDG's !bang searches). I dislike how Google will frequently disregard words in my search queries. I only fall back to Google for extremely narrow searches for technical topics or recent events.

<comment><USER8> DDG's image search beats the pants off of Google's, too.

<comment><USER9> Really? How so?

They certainly don't have related/similar images, which I find useful.

<comment><USER10> Google Image Search has been intentionally crippled ever since the Getty vs Google lawsuit. GIS now seems to prefer showing me 'maxresdefault.jpg' YouTube thumbnails for at least 50% of results, presumably because the uploaders of those videos gave Google a license to use/distribute the work. Even for copyrighted works that still gives Google another party to blame.

<comment><USER9> Could you go into more details? What exactly were the ramifications of the lawsuit?

<comment><USER10> My understanding of it as an outsider is that Getty Images filed a suit against Google seeking money for their images being displayed in GIS results. They later announced a settlement, and the 'View Image' button disappeared and the search result quality plummeted (my judgement) at exactly the same time. Here's some more reading:

[https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/09/getty-images-and- google-d...](https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/09/getty-images-and-google- declare-a-truce-with-new-image-licensing-partnership/)

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages- after...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/02/internet-rages-after-google- removes-view-image-button-bowing-to-getty/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Jumping in here with an example, since I'm in the middle of doing this right now.... I maybe have some ID Theft issues, so I'm doing some searches to try and figure out if I can find anything that might help me answer what's going on. Did this company screw up and confuse my account with someone else or do I have a real problem? I'm doing different searches for names, locations and some other searches for very specific things. Google results are far and away better, in that they are returning things that are useful. DDG results are... different, and when compared to what I'm getting with Google, they are not as good. I don't know how much I can generalize from this one example, I don't normally compare G with DDG, but right now, G is winning. It's really interesting comparing the results though. DDG may indeed find something G didn't since the results are pretty different.

<comment><USER12> I use DDG as my primary engine and my habit is to search there first. I have to say, I often don't get the results I'm looking for. So, I simply "bang" out a google search immediately after using DDG search "!g [search phrase]". My coworkers chastise me for being inefficient, but hey, I see it as a small price to pay to support DDG while still getting the results I need.

<comment><USER13> You can append the !g at the end!

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the tip! This is gonna save me a lot of Cmd + Left Arrow.

<comment><USER15> If you're in a Mac you can simple type ^a for the front of the line (and ^e for the end). The standard widget has some Emacs bindings built in (since the NeXT days)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the sound of the comments alot of people don't know how to search in DDG. I have absolutely no problem finding the information I need and would say I'm a pretty serious power user. Or I've just been using it for so long I don't know what I'm missing.

<comment><USER17> If you have to "know how to search" in DDG, e.g. do something different than your intuition (which Google handles very well), then it's simply a worse search engine.

For example, I shouldn't need to add extra context to "elm dict" to get to Elm's Dict package documentation. And I'm not even sure what I need to add to get DDG to know what I'm talking about. Google knows.

DDG is pretty much always worse query-for-query than Google in my experience especially for anything long-tail or in a different language. I don't think there's any nuance to add here. Presumably you're using DDG for other perfectly valid reasons which is where I'd focus my evangelism than "it's just as good if you know how to use it" which is simply wrong because it (basically Bing) is just not as good.

<comment><USER18> "elm dict":

\- Google - first hit

\- Yandex - first hit

\- DDG - Not on first page

\- Bing - Not on first page

<comment><USER19> Did you include the quotes? I get elm-lang.org as the 4th hit on ddg (but not bing, bing it is on the second page) without quotes.

Curiously, putting the canonical partner string in puts elm-lang.org as the first hit!

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict) \- 4th hit vs [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=canonical](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elm+dict&t=canonical) \- 1st hit

Maybe it is a coincidence? ddg does sometime return inconsistent ordering of search results for reasons that I have not been able to sort out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "It all started with a realization: Most the things I search for are easy to find. Did I really need the all-seeing, all-knowing algorithms of Google to assist me? Probably not."

"As a result, I've had a fairly tedious but important revelation: I search for really obvious stuff. Google's own data backs this up. Its annual round-up of the most searched-for terms is basically a list of names and events: World Cup, Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Black Panther, Megan Markle. The list goes on. And I don't need to buy into Google's leviathan network of privacy- invading trackers to find out what Black Panther is and when I can go and see it at my local cinema."

"I had, based on zero evidence, convinced myself that finding things on the internet was hard and, inevitably, involved a fair amount of tracking. After two years of not being tracked and targeted, I have slowly come to realize that this is nonsense."

Every user is different. What is appealing to the author may not be appealing to the reader. The author was searching for obvious things. HN readers and commenters may have more difficult searches.

Outside of HN, it appears there is a very large quantity of users who search for the same "obvious stuff".

<comment><USER21> As a HN user and commenter, I've found DDG just fine as a daily driver (switched nearly 2 years ago). I do occasionally have to fall back to Google, but most of my searches are served just fine by DDG.

Agreed that every user is different. I think the overall verdict is that DDG is certainly not as good at Google on an overall number-of-people-always- satisfied scale, but it does quite a good job for most people.

<comment><USER22> Yea I'm the same way, switched a long time ago, probably about two years like you and haven't really had to look back.

Maybe it's because I mostly browse with private pages, never sign in to Chrome, always deny requests for location, etc and my results were never particularly tailored to me in the first place?

I can't remember the last time I "!g"'d actually. Maybe what I'm searching for hasn't been particularly daunting and mainly consists of jumps to Mozilla's JavaScript docs lately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I switched from Google to DDG on my mobile due to Google AMP pages sometime last summer.

While I find DDG to be equally good for most "dry facts" searches, it stinks for the sort of thing that I'm usually looking for on the road — "best Sichuan in Chinatown" or "glossier sticker blackberry" (long story).

Ironically, I could probably get by just fine with DDG on the laptop where I'm mostly using search as a proxy for Stack Overflow and Wikipedia, and Google on the mobile for shopping and esoterica.

<comment><USER24> Ahh, so that must be why I find DDG search results flawless.

Just the facts ma'am.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 100% agree with this. I switched a while ago and 98% of my searches are easily found through DDG. I use Google's search as a backup when I'm in the rare case of actually searching for something hard to find or very complex. And sometimes it's just something that can't be found or doesn't exist, even on Google. But using it as the backup is perfect.

</comment><comment><USER26> I hate "Here's Why You Should Too" articles but it's worthwhile trying DDG.

You may enjoy having a less menacing overlord in your browser.

</comment><comment><USER27> I mostly shared the Wired author's experience, but theming is what made me switch to DDG everywhere!

If you've themed your whole OS, terminal, text editor, etc to your favorite theme (solarized, nord, etc), then DDG is the search engine for you.

Solarized Dark Dark Go, for example... [https://start.duckduckgo.com/?kae=%23073642&kj=%23073642++&k...](https://start.duckduckgo.com/?kae=%23073642&kj=%23073642++&kx=%23268bd2&k7=%23002B36&k8=%23839496&k9=%23fdf6e3&kaa=%2393a1a1)

</comment><comment><USER28> It doesn't matter how good _some_ results are, if the search engine manipulates the results, tracks the users, and even more so - steals the ideas and profiles the users.

Google has had some very public news stories of manipulating search results, tracking users, and profiling users -- people en mass left google's news site when they started manipulating it, profiling results for total control of Chinese population is pretty recent too, there are dozens of examples. And google profiling users and trying to guess what they are researching or thinking about it is too easy.

And face it, google no longer has a way to innovate but go the way of tracking, monitoring, and theft.

<comment><USER29> Links?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I have been using duckduckgo for years now and Im very satisfied. On google a lot of the search results are ads so they are most of the time useless for me. With ducduckgo I always find what Im looking for and the things I search for dont come back to haunt me in the form of ads.I feel like I have a more "clean" experience of the web. If I do a search for a smartphone I will not have ads trying to sell it to me on every other website I visit afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER31> Sometimes DDG is better, particularly when google tries to infer intent rather than just searching for the keywords typed.

Sometimes DDG is worse, just generally, and sometimes much worse.

Either way, I think DuckDuckGo needs a different and simpler brand. DuckDuckGo does not roll off the tongue, it's not a verb or even verbable, and outside of the tech world very few have heard of it. Call it Duck, call it Go, call it something simpler and memorable.

</comment><comment><USER32> Little fun fact: DDG respects my macbook dark mode settings, google doesn't

<comment><USER33> Only if you don't change any of the appearance settings :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The headline is great:

 _> Once you realize most things you search for online are boring and obvious, you realize you don't really need Google in your life._

Yes! DDG really does work just as well as any other search engine for most day-to-day things, and then there's always the !g prefix. The first page of Google search results are half Amp and YouTube carousels anyway...

</comment><comment><USER35> I am using DDG for more than a year as my default search engine on desktop and mobile.

On technical topics, recent news and local sites I built a muscle memory to just add !g at the end of the search.

For everything else DDG more or less does the job.

</comment><comment><USER36> I use DDG as my main search engine because I like more privacy. But to be fair I think Google is way better most of the time.

And I believe this is because Google is much more context aware.

A fake example: if you search "lounge new york" DDG might show you lounge seats and things from New York, while Google 'understands' that you are looking for a place to chill in New York.

But while this gives better results for lets say 80% of the time in Google, the other 20% of the time it's very hard to search for things in Google if it uses the wrong context. At those times DDG is way better.

<comment><USER37> I can take your point but your fake example does return very similar results in both cases, I'd be hard pressed to find a real example that acts the way you describe on DDG.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I tried DDG within the last year. And I tried really hard. But I used !G about 25% of the time.

Then I switched to ecosia.org, I know it is a front-end for Bing. But it is clean interface and the search results are more in-line with what Google would return. In months I have had to use Google for search arount ten times in the last month. And that was to find stuff I already searched on Google. But I knew what I was looking for was obvious.

</comment><comment><USER39> DDG is great, and I use it by preference. The only thing I prefer Google for is when I want to search for something in a specific geographical location. Otherwise, I find DuckDuckGo more useful, and I wonder why others don't. Maybe it's residual search mannerisms I've retained from my Altavista days.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's funny, because I'm finding myself using Google far more after switching to DDG years ago. At this point, more often than not the results I get in DDG make me go "oh ffs, !g", and I really wish that wasn't the case, but here we are. It used to be pretty great, now it's just... not?

</comment><comment><USER41> I think DDG is decent and getting better. The tough thing though is that for search the bar is high. Alternatives need to be as good as google, not 80 or 90 or 98% as good.

Most users, once they experience just a few instances of worse results will just switch back to google.

</comment><comment><USER42> I did a guide on leaving Google a few years back. I should go update it now - [https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving- google/](https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving-google/)

<comment><USER43> Here is another article from 2018 - [https://homehack.nl/bye-bye- google/](https://homehack.nl/bye-bye-google/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I made an interesting realisation yesterday.

I already use DDG everywhere, but I was having an issue with a site in Firefox, it just refused to work, so I launched chrome and entered the same term in the box.

Google popped up with the privacy/terms field thing it does and refuses to let you pass this modal popup until you satisfy them.

Immediately, with the results sitting behind it, I realised, all I had to do was stick .com on the end and I don't have any of this to deal with, I was just being lazy.

I remember the early 2000s when we would press CTRL(?)+<something> to complete the www. and .com etc...

I entered the site address in the address bar and hit enter, realising I should really try to be less lazy, or at least set a book mark.

</comment><comment><USER45> I am on DDG, but I think until a search engine gets to at least 20% of the market, it won't make any difference. It's just too niche. Big G can still do whatever they want and lock in more of the internet with services like AMP.

</comment><comment><USER46> So you can get proficient with `!g`?

<comment><USER47> And '!w' and '!a' and '!imdb' and '!dpkg' and '!steam' and '!sof' and '!godoc' and ...

The !bang commands are DDGs killer feature. Why would you only use google when you can use google and every other searchable resource very conveniently.

[edit: link to ddg bang docs; [https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)]

<comment><USER48> I was a power user of those for awhile, but then I discovered that Firefox's One-Click Search Engines are more convenient, since they search the sites directly, and don't litter my Firefox search history with a remnant entries of DDG's intermediary links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This was just posted last week:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620744)

</comment><comment><USER50> I use [https://duckduckgo.com/lite](https://duckduckgo.com/lite) in a terminal but google elsewhere...

</comment><comment><USER51> I switched my work and personal device Firefox settings to have ddg as default. I then use the !google bang to search Google if needed. Usually this is for retail queries. This simple step allows the best of both worlds, although the privacy tradeoff is there cause I'm still using Google.

</comment><comment><USER52> The Bing skin with privacy sprinkles.

If you really want to get out of US censorship & political correctness influenced search bubble try Yandex (at least sometimes). One example: Just compare specific NSFW results in image search on these search engines. It's also a blessing to use search engines which are not that much SEO hacked as Google sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER53> Just the fact of the competition is a good thing. And even if DDG is but a drop in the bucket, it appears that they've made a difference.

Having been a DDG user since pretty much the beginning, I watched their zero- click results evolve, and it very much looks to me like this innovation drove much of Google's current search experience.

</comment><comment><USER54> I switched on mobile to eliminate AMP pages.

</comment><comment><USER55> DDG needs to copy the Google iOS app. The search bar should be the focus of the app and not higher than the middle of the screen so it is easy to reach. Currently the best screen real estate does nothing on the DDG app. That is the only place where I haven't switched to DDG.

</comment><comment><USER56> In the beginning, G was a search engine. Now it just seems like a recommendation and answers engine.

</comment><comment><USER57> Ironical that this wired piece attempts device recognition and has 26 cross- site trackers (as reported by Brave [0]).

[0] [https://brave.com/](https://brave.com/)

</comment><comment><USER58> Yeah, but you do you realize that DDG is Bing. And while DDG does not track you, Bing does. So essentially the reason why DDG kinda works well is because a lot of user are still being tracked by Bing.

<comment><USER26> >DDG is Bing

Eh? Maybe you are saying that because they serve ads from Bing?

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

>DuckDuckGo earns revenue by serving ads from the Yahoo-Bing search alliance network and through affiliate relationships with Amazon and eBay.

>In July 2016, DuckDuckGo officially announced the extension of its partnership with Yahoo! that brought new features to all users of the search engine, including date filtering of results and additional site links. It also partners with Bing, Yandex, and Wikipedia to produce results or make use of features offered. The company also confirmed that it does not share user information with partner companies, as has always been its policy.

<comment><USER59> As far as I know (hence I could be wrong), that's outdated. Since Yahoo was purchased by Verizon, it is predominately Bing results with some Yahoo/Oath/Verizon Media results sprinkled in, considering it now predominantly uses Bing itself. Yandex is no longer used and Wikipedia is just part of their knowledge cards or whatever they call them, like StackOverflow is. In other words, it's mainly Bing with DDG's own crawler used specifically for the knowledge cards and to modify the priority of results pulled from Bing.

With that said, I do believe they have a special deal with Microsoft to not pass along any information. Instead, the only information Microsoft sees is DDG requesting the results on behalf of the users (aka Bing/MS just sees DDG's IP, etc. which can be seen sometimes in the results, not the knowledge card, when you search for "what's my IP" in DDG). My one gripe though is that they're definitely not as transparent as they could be about where and how they source results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21620744)

(Same story, same site, different TLD)

</comment><comment><USER61> So no one here uses engines like Startpage or Searx?

I tried to use DDG consistently a few months ago and didn't always get what I wanted, so I found Startpage.

I'll give DDG another try.

</comment><comment><USER62> Once you start using DDG bangs (especially ! for going right to the site), it changes how you use a browser. Ditto for !wikipedia, !gmaps, etc. so so cool

<comment><USER63> They are great. Just want to point out you can use !w for wikipedia and !gm for google maps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Using the bangs (!g, !wiki, !youtube) makes it for me. When I have a feeling a result won't show up on DDG, I drop a !g bang in there and it works.

</comment><comment><USER65> I've using DDG for a while. Anytime I don't find a good result I just add a g! to my query and it will respect to Google instead.

<comment><USER66> I'm glad that you and others are happy DDG users. I think the search engine market could use more diversity and competition. However, seeing this comment over and over again on DDG related threads is getting old. It's like saying:

"I quit eating beef and switched to eat veggies only because meat is bad. Whenever veggies don't fill me up, I put beef steak in the bowl and it satisfies my hunger."

Imagine hearing that whenever the topic of vegetarian comes up. It's not very useful, and it dilutes the message.

<comment><USER67> I dunno... what about this:

most of the time, I have a pretty good meal out of just veggies and try to be vegan with my diet most of the time. Sometimes I want a steak or some BBQ, so I do it.

That's actually a message that a lot of my vegan friends push out, because like most things life doesn't have to be absolute. It has massively reduced my meat intake, that's for sure.

I find it is the same with google. 99% of the time ddg is a-okay, but sometimes I'm not getting an answer so I google something, and the g! thing is how I do it.

I am using substantially less google search this way... why is that a worse situation than the alternative of either just using ddg and not finding stuff or just using google and having fewer options?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I ditched Google and DDG by knowing what websites I want to visit for information in the first place, so that I may avoid most of the BS.

</comment><comment><USER20> Is it possible to submit Google queries using HTTP POST.

Using POST instead of GET is an option DDG provides. Startpage uses HTTP POST as well.

</comment><comment><USER37> I too have ditched Google!

DDG is way better and no reason to stick with google, its gone to the dogs, just thank go we have a replacement.

</comment><comment><USER69> I built my own search engine. If I'm not satisfied I search in GOOGLE/ECOSIA

</comment><comment><USER70> I have also recently switched to DuckDuckGo and so far I am happy with it.

</comment><comment><USER71> Sure thing. Get DDG to stop injecting reams of extremely unrelated porn into my image search results ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21516941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21516941)) and I'll consider it.

<comment><USER72> FWIW, I use DDG and an image search of "filled torus" with "Safe Search: Moderate" doesn't return any porn in an attempt just now.

It _does_ seem to treat "torus" and all uses of "tori" as synonyms, giving lots of images of people named Tori, or taken/written by people by that name, rather than more-than-one-torus.

Google Image Search doesn't make that association between the singular and plural. You'll need to search for "filled tori" to see plenty of people named Tori.

<comment><USER73> Ooooooh, that's what's happening on that search!

I had assumed it was some combination of a bad synonym, partial matching, and a sort order that depended too heavily on site popularity and too little on query relevance, but the torus -> tori rewrite never even occurred to me.

<comment><USER74> Topologically, humans are usually toruses, ignoring that the digestive tract splits into mouth and two nostrils at the caudal end.

It actually occurred to me that the search might be that smarty-stupid before being exposed to the idea that the plural of torus is actually the same as the proper first name of a lot of immodest image models. That made me feel a bit smarty-stupid myself.

<comment><USER73> I'd assumed a much more vulgar synonym, myself.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dark Art of Negotiation - <AUTHOR> http://jordancooper.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/the-dark-art-of-negotiation/

<comment><USER2> My experience may be atypical, but most of the _serious_ negotiations I've been involved in have taken place on paper/email and over days/weeks, not a single face-off. Human psychology still factors into it, certainly, but not in the raw way this article describes.

It's sort of like the party game Werewolf (a.k.a. Mafia, etc.) - when played in person, it typically revolves around gestures, eye contact, and other physical factors; when played on a forum/over email, it's more about the psychology and strategy of who said what.

Or (and this is admittedly an area that I have less first-hand experience in), poker - past a certain point, the really good poker players tend not to give the game away based on physical tells, though the psychology and emotion is still a big contributor to what happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> great analogy...i like meetings in person...more data...will always try to drive a tough negotiation off line...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sort of what kgrin said: Poker is an invaluable skill to possess. If you learn to play the PEOPLE instead of the GAME, everything changes.

It's sort of like switching the lightbulb on, especially when you're dealing people of low experience levels (in poker or any other game/negotiation).</comment>


The 'base tag' trick - <AUTHOR> http://jonathanconway.net/tech/base-tag-trick.html

<comment><USER2> This won't always work. When a copy of a page like you describe interacts with the parent site, the latter can tell that the page isn't local, and they might care. I had a case like that on my site some years ago -- people were trying to hack my guestbook page by downloading it and modifying it. I finally stopped that activity by detecting the origin IP and rejecting any activity that wasn't local.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. Yes this won't work for sites that are heavily dependent on interaction with the server. In my experience it's better for working with static sites such as blogs, news sites, etc.</comment></comment>


Google Removes Result from SRP Because of DMCA Complaint - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=multimedia+authoring+tools&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_en___US385 <comment><USER2> Why is this news? Google - like every other website that doesn't want to get sued - routinely removes content that's the subject of DMCA complaints. The only difference is that they tell you about it, while most other sites will just quietly delete it.</comment>


Larry Page ties all bonuses to success of Google social strategy - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-just-tied-employee-bonuses-to-the-success-of-the-googles-social-strategy-2011-4?op=1

<comment><USER2> Actual: The bonus pool multiplier will be modified by +/- .25 depending on the success of the social strategy.

Headline: Larry Page Just Tied ALL Employees' Bonuses To The Success Of Google's Social Strategy

HN link: Larry Page ties all salaries to success of Google social strategy

Thbt.</comment>


Startups Suck - <AUTHOR>

We are in a post startup era. SAS is over. The cloud is here, almost fog. I see accelerators everywhere. Social businesses. Bing bing. Bling.
Where is the money? The customers? Seems to me that there are too many startups making products for no one and solving problems that don't exist. It would inspire me if all this human capital was doing something. Curing disease. Getting off this rock. Expanding emotional or intellectual space. But most of these startups are just creating web forms. Information ^curriers. Scuttlebutts.
We don't spend time on high technology, pushing limits.
Another startup, another photo wall of founders and unqualified C-level execs. Wow.
Maybe this internet thing made us too introverted. Too focused on our own awesomeness.
Humility is rare.
Well, it may be time to regroup. <comment><USER2> I agree with you, but there are other possibilities.

Singularity University is a superb experience and filled with big thinkers. eg "Made In Space" for example is building 3d printers in space, opening up the possibility of building replication technology on the moon.

I'm staying with a 20 year old that founded a company that is reducing solar costs by 20%+. They have some pretty large customers signed up.

</comment><comment><USER3> totally agree

</comment><comment><USER4> Curing disease? That's nothing special compared to my latest startup.

It's for social sharing of fair-trade coffee brewing tips and lets users upload Lomo style pictures of their coffee cups, that it plays in a slideshow with a Mos Def soundtrack. We have a maxed-out Heroku account serving it, all done in node.js and Sinatra, of course, though we will be rewriting some cpu- intensive parts in ZetaLisp to run on some Lisp Machines.

</comment><comment><USER5> :facepalm:</comment>


Ask HN: Competitor smear campaign. What to do? - <AUTHOR>

*Using a one time account to hide my name/company name (but I am very active on HN).
One of our competitors decided to start attacking us using Google and Bing ads.
So if you search for our company name (company or company.com) it will show their ad saying that our main product has many issues and linking to their site where they criticize us and try to sell their own product.
Most of the ads are very aggressive in tone, which I didn't think Google/Bing would even allow (Company X product is flawed or Company X product won't do what it promised, Company X is lying and similar things).
Have anyone dealt with such a situation? What can we do? They are a smaller company and trying to use our name to gain attention..
Any help or suggestion is appreciated. <comment><USER3> My helpful suggestion: get a lawyer. Don't bother contacting Google/Bing or doing anything else until this is done first. Doing anything else is stupid, risky and futile.

On the plus side, this is a great opportunity for some clever PR spin provided you are savvy enough to out-manoeuvre your competitors. Also, depending whether you are the plucky upstart or the entrenched power in your space, your competitors have just validated your business model and your company's worth.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well from my perspective, you are either doing a better job or they are idiots when it comes to marketing.

My first thought is putting a page on your site about how the competition is scared, address the false claims they make and maybe note that it is a sign of desperation on their part to employ such tactics. Have fun with it - <USER2> sink to their level, and then ignore them and get back to doing what it is that makes them nervous.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes we did. We contacted Google and asked them to remove our competitor ads. We had to prove that we own the copyright for the name of our company in all the countries that the ads where running. After that, they banned / removed all the ads. It was a long & slow process though.

<comment><USER6> You cannot copyright a name. I assume you mean trademark; and even then unless the ad network has rules against it there is nothing in law that specifically forbids using a competitor's name in this way.

Trademark is mostly concerned with "pretending to be someone you're not." So if you pretend to be Nike and sell fake shoes, then it is a powerful set of laws, but if someone writes a critical review of a Nike's tennis shoes then they cannot demand it be pulled down.

As I said Google/Bing might have specific rules against this kind of thing but you really don't have the law on your side. They're allowed to be critical of you as long as they don't misrepresent themselves as being you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This has a few paragraphs that might be helpful... [http://www.inc.com/magazine/201207/april-joyner/online- stalk...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201207/april-joyner/online-stalker-was- killing-veritas-preps-reputation.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Get a lawyer to draft a letter demanding that they cease and desist. This much will stop 90% of people. If necessary escalate with the guidance of your lawyer.

Google will definitely stop them from using your trademarks.

</comment><comment><USER9> More specifics please.

<comment><USER10> Well, you should ask specifically what you need him to tell you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> i don't know</comment>


Why MLB hitters are suddenly obsessed with launch angles - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/sports/mlb-launch-angles-story/?utm_term=.bf67cdee5d05 <comment><USER2> >"The increase in frequency and efficiency of defensive shifts. According to FanGraphs, teams are shifting at a rate nearly 10 times greater than six years ago"

This should be more prominent and is likely the root cause of guys swinging for homeruns more often. Every hitter will eventually fall into a pattern where they're hitting certain pitches to only a certain part of the field. With the increase in data it's much easier for teams to recognize these patterns and position their fielders to compensate. So if you made your living hitting line drive basehits to shallow left field, halfway through the season every team will pick up on that and place an extra infielder right in your sweet spot. The same hits that got you through college and into the major leagues are now outs. This has been such a huge change that MLB thought about outlawing defensive shifts (I personally enjoy seeing the constant back and forth of strategy between offensive and defense which has always been a part of the major leagues). The obvious solution like the article mentions comes down to "the one ball that can't be caught is the one that lands in the seats".

This is also highly dependent on the type of hitter. If you're Yankee's 6'7" right fielder Aaron Judge then swinging for the fences with a higher launch angle makes perfect sense. However, if you're Dee Gordon, one of the fastest players in the league who weighs about 175lbs, keeping the ball low is probably still going to result in higher batting and slugging percentages. Guys like Bryce Harper who can hit for power and average do seem to be leaning more towards power, which used to only happen later in their career (ex. Barry Bonds). In my observation, it seems like players such as Dee Gordon are slowly becoming obsolete as teams are prefering the long ball to playing "small ball". You certainly don't see as many teams with a true, stereotypical "leadoff guy" these days and many teams seem stacked with guys who would have been labelled "cleanup hitters" 10 years ago.

<comment><USER3> Does it suggest that leadoff guys will be cheaper in the future? The next moneyball trend will be fast guys who can accurately place hits?

<comment><USER4> There's been a trend recently to put high OBP bats at leadoff regardless of their speed (see Kyle Schwarber)

<comment><USER5> And Schwarber as leadoff was a horrendous failure. See his .162 avg and .289 obp this year.

<comment><USER6> Yet he's still in the top 5 for the All Star pick; meh.

<comment><USER4> All Star voting doesn't mean anything other than popularity

<comment><USER6> Exactly. That then means actual performance doesn't matter to many fans, which is unfortunate considering how interesting this kind of data is and how players use it to improve their game.

<comment><USER4> Of course performance matters, just not for voting for a meaningless game (that was stupidly given meaning). Schwarber isn't going to be suddenly become thrilled with how well his season is going just because he finishes fifth in ASG voting.

<comment><USER6> > That then means actual performance doesn't matter to many fans

of course performance matters, but you missed my point: a large amount of fans completely ignore statistical performance. This is most evident with Giants fans in particular this season who absolutely despise Hunter Strickland and say he should be kicked from the team when he's been pitching at least league average, if not better, and has been the best relief pitcher on the team. Not to mention they call him a "home run vending machine" when he's only given up 4 in the past 1.5 seasons.

<comment><USER4> I think Giants fans would treat their players better if the team was 11 games over .500 instead of under and if their best reliever wasn't league average. I'm not saying all fans are rational, many are emotional/ignorant and act on perceived performance rather than real performance. Don't know much about Strickland's career, but if he was perfect with a 3 run lead but awful with a 1 run lead, it makes sense why fans wouldn't be thrilled despite the underlying stats. But most do care about performance, and they won't pretend like Schwarber has been good this year. His popularity is heavily reliant on his past performance, including the World Series.

<comment><USER6> Nah, their complaints about Strickland happened last year as well, even into the NLDS, when he had only given up 4 home runs all year. He does well in most situations. If anything when he was still a rookie he needed to improve because he only had one pitch, but now he has a few.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Regardless of analytics, baseball is a game of reactions. Pitchers who traditionally made pitches to induce popups will inevitably change to induce grounders (by pitch choice, location, and/or speed). The beauty of the sport is that the sample sizes can get large enough to make legitimate inferences from the data unlike many other sports.

For those specifically curious about baseball and statistics, both [http://www.fangraphs.com/](http://www.fangraphs.com/) and [http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/](http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/) are great sites.

<comment><USER8> For those not too familiar with professional baseball, there are 162 games in a season. A player starting every game would likely see 600+ at bats. A starting pitcher pitches every 5-6 days and will face 600+ batters per season. League wide there are about 125k outs recorded per season on 700k pitches.

That's a ton of data. It allows you to ask questions like "What is the likelihood that a curveball is thrown for a strike on a 3-0 count in the 8th inning?" and get statistically significant results.

<comment><USER7> For those wanting to play w/ the data, there are a lot of resources [0]. I personally have combined older retrosheet data [1] with modern MLB data to some neat uses, not the least of which to try out tech like Druid (big data, live slicing, etc). E.g. If you wanted data from Sunday's Houston vs Texas game, GDX has tons of XML for parsing at [2]. There are plenty of guides that tell you what is what of course. It has been on my mind to develop a tensorflow graph trained w/ existing data to help me win some FanDuel/DraftKings money, but I haven't as of yet (and I should note the MLB data has restrictions against bulk or commercial use).

0 - [https://github.com/baseballhackday/data-and- resources/wiki/R...](https://github.com/baseballhackday/data-and- resources/wiki/Resources-and-ideas)

1 - [http://retrosheet.org/](http://retrosheet.org/)

2 - [http://gdx.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2017/month_06/da...](http://gdx.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2017/month_06/day_04/gid_2017_06_04_houmlb_texmlb_1/)

<comment><USER9> Thank you so much for these links. Recently I've thought about building something data viz and stats related using baseball stats.

I know MLBAM has a bunch of data they keep to themselves, but I should definitely be able to find something to play with here. Many thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As many have said this is a tactical reaction to changes in pitching and defense.

It always amazes me how balanced the game of baseball is compared to other sports. It's been around for more than a century and people have become so much stronger and faster on both sides of the ball. Still, offense and defense remain so perfectly matched. The bases remain 90 feet apart and the pitcher still throws from 60 feet away. A home run is still 400 feet.

Consider basketball which has had to dramatically rebalance the rules over time. Restrictions on time in the paint, the 3 point line, perimeter defense, etc. Or how hockey changed all the rules after the lockout. Or how football has totally re worked pass defense and special teams.

Baseball is just baseball.

<comment><USER11> Rugby has remained Rugby, pretty much.

There's been various changes over the years, juggling points for tries and penalties, introducing sin bins, and so on, but it isn't really anything fundamental.

Where you do see changes has been in the physique of players, and to some extent it's cyclical. Teams adapt to circumstances, player sizes and types change, and then some outlier will come along and with a visionary coach shake things up again.

Wings used to be lighter sprinters, then Jonah Lomu came along and proved that wings could be big (at 6' 5" he towered over most players, average height for the time was 6' 1") and still fast.

People just didn't have the strength or weight to stop him, especially out on the wings. Players of sufficient size would typically be one of the forwards, the bigger players that dominate a scrum.

Teams adapted to the new paradigm though, wingers started getting bigger and stronger as tactics changed, and we've seen size and weight fluctuate back and forth a bit, sometimes internationals favour lighter faster, sometimes slightly slower but stronger.

<comment><USER12> Ehh, I'm in a club with some old timer alumni, and the stories they tell (and 1970s rugby videos on Youtube I've seen) tell a different story.

Even 20 years ago at a club level, many things were allowed that aren't now: Quicker scrums, high tackles, raking the ruck with cleats, and general hooliganism seem to have been more par for the course than today.

I saw a match from 1977, and there was no Croutch/Bind/Set. The scrum just walked up toward each other and engaged immediately. More dangerous, but a lot different than today. The line-outs didn't lift; the hooker threw the ball in like a football lob.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of an old episode of Seinfeld, where George teaches the Yankees how to hit based on simple physics:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwE7xDZkPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTwE7xDZkPk)

<comment><USER14> Brilliant. "In 6 games."

<comment><USER15> I absolutely love that line... Yes, you just won a WS, but it took you 6 games!... LOL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The scrolling infographic was a very nice touch, especially with the DBZ style animation.

It's only natural that in little league coaches tell players to hit ground balls because kids have trouble fielding (it requires extreme precision, speed, and dexterity).

It's also quite obvious that you have to hit the ball high and hard to get a triple or home-run. Good to know data backs this up.

</comment><comment><USER17> In the past week, a new record was set for the amount of grand-slams occurring on a single day. 7 grand slams!

Fun time to be a baseball fan.

[http://m.mlb.com/news/article/234270104/7-players-hit- grand-...](http://m.mlb.com/news/article/234270104/7-players-hit-grand-slams- in-one-day/?topicId=27118122)

</comment><comment><USER18> The data visualization animation with descriptive text scroll on mobile is awesome, nice work WaPo webdevs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Five Thirty Eight did an article claiming that the results of this strategy have been mixed:

[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fly-ball- revolution...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-fly-ball-revolution- is-hurting-as-many-batters-as-its-helped/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting how the article mentions it would seem intuitive to someone new to the game as well. Just hit where there's less defense and more area to cover, the outfield.

<comment><USER4> Sure, more area to cover but also a lot more time to get there. It's less trying to hit to the outfield, but rather hit homeruns. The problem is that it's easier said than done, and the old philosophy (look at Ichiro for example), was higher average and putting the ball in play was preferable to loading up and trying to hit a homerun. Now strikeouts and homeruns are way up, but batting averages are down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if it is just chance that the 2016 average launch angle appears as though it may have favorable outcomes over the broadest range of exit velocities, and just below the angle where the distribution begins to go bimodal? It would be interesting to see how the featured players' hitting is distributed over speed and elevation (and if I am really interested, I am sure I can find the data...)

</comment><comment><USER22> This a recycled WSJ article from May 18. Here's the story, if you can get access:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ryan-zimmerman-became-a- slu...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ryan-zimmerman-became-a-slugger- again-on-the-fly-1494873943)

</comment><comment><USER3> Was there an answer to the question in the title? Just better analytics on the offensive side of things? They mention Oakland A's value approach in getting players.

Clearly wouldn't have been a good choice for Ichiro..

</comment><comment><USER23> Doubtless for the same reason I'm concerned with them while playing as Junkrat: the relation between launch angle and flight distance.

</comment><comment><USER24> Taking the fun out of sport, for profit. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> I may be that the moneyball strategy becomes an architectural one; make the walls taller or less conventional like they used to be in the 1920s and 1930s.

</comment><comment><USER26> NY Times is so freakin beautiful

<comment><USER4> It's the Washington Post

<comment><USER27> Yeah, but his point still stands. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Use open source? Then you're a pirate - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2811&blogid=10 <comment><USER2> In any industry, the major players respond to effective, game-changing, competition, not with appropriate, creative competitive strategies and tactics, but by running to the government and begging for a law against the competition. This has happened over and over in history.

<comment><USER3> It's a business decision. It's much cheaper to lobby the government than to innovate. It would be irrational for them to do otherwise, at least in the short term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So stupid since open source licenses are all about intellectual property rights: you create something and thus it is your right to determine the license that allows other people to legally use it.

That said, shitty laws paid for by corporations will be problematic for us (an easy prediction to make!)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't really mind describing myself as a pirate. They need to come up with a label that stings. "Thief" works better, but unfortunately also makes it obvious that it's just bullshit.

<comment><USER6> I think "Infringer!" sounds really malicious. I could imagine Hollywood B-type movie with this title.

<comment><USER7> "Infringer" doesn't sound malicious, it sounds like you violated the laws of fashion by hemming your cuffs some ugly way or something.

<comment><USER6> Infringe 1\. To transgress or exceed the limits of; violate: infringe a contract; infringe a patent. 2\. (Obsolete) To defeat; invalidate.

Hmmm... This name might actually backfire if second meaning was to be brought back from obsolescence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I guess they are in league with the SCO guy who considered open-source the equivalent of Communism...

It reminds me of an awesome Swedish cartoon where a kid during WW2 who works at the post office takes Christmas packages sent to people with fancy titles and gives them to the poor. When his father finds out, he says "What did you say you did? I have nurtured a Communist!" and the voiceover goes "... because Tycho Jonsson was one of those people who thought that anyone who gave something away for free was a Communist."

<comment><USER9> Except in that story, the kid isn't giving his own stuff away for free, he is stealing, and this sounds similar to "from those according to their ability to those according to their need."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> IIPA claims "open source [...] fails to build respect for intellectual property rights". Wtf does that even mean ? Not respecting ip rights is one thing, but since when is anyone's obligation to _build respect_ for ip right ?

<comment><USER8> Since respect for IP rights was elevated to the status of human rights... or higher, since the US seems to put HR on the back burner whenever it threatens commercial or business interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How open-source can be seen as a threatening factor for capitalism? In my opinion, thanks to open-source, entry barrier for startups is much lower. Even though, 99% of startups fail - 1% will create new workplaces or will be acquired by another _big capitalistic_ company.

<comment><USER8> It's the usual sleigh of hand that equates capitalism with specific current players. Like the Economist said, "being pro-business is _not_ the same as being pro-market."

<comment><USER12> The terrifying thing is that it's easy for a good writer/orator to convince legislators that software is a zero-sum game. It's easy to visualize a big pie of software and see open source conversion as cutting into the profits.

Whereas for those of us actually in the industry it's obvious how pathetically shallowly we've scratched the surface of the potential of software, and how commodified open source software is the foundation of future software progress which will never be achieved if everyone has to endlessly pay a tax on every decades-old innovation that a company stole from academia to bootstrap a software business back in the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Actually it's the swashbuckling and ocean-based armed robbery that makes me a pirate. Arr!

<comment><USER14> i get a license to use open source from my employer. Does that makes me a corsair?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Provocative tagline. It's worth noting that most open source users do so not to avoid paying, but for more idealistic and teleological reasons.

<comment><USER16> Maybe not paying as such, but freeing your organisation from the annoyance of dealing with licenses has been a major factor in some migrations I've seen. I wouldn't call that ideology, more more of an economic factor, as there is both a direct cost and an opportunity cost to dealing with licenses.

<comment><USER17> Open source products still require you to deal with licences. It's just that the software's usually licensed under a clear and free-as-in-beer licence.

<comment><USER16> I think you're misunderstanding, we're talking about free software, as in OSI- approved licenses, not random proprietary software that happens to ship with source code.

OSI-licensed software isn't "usually" anything, it's always completely free, both beer and speech.

<comment><USER18> GPL/BSD licensed software doesn't have to be free as in beer - you are perfectly welcome to charge for it.

(The challenge is how to keep charging for it since anyone you give it to can also sell it or give it away.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It doesn't matter. It's already been proven that code is speech, and unless there is an amendment to the Constitution, speech cannot be restricted.

If it becomes illegal for me to give away my work for free, I will just sell unlimited rights to my code for one cent. Proceeds will be donated to the EFF.

</comment><comment><USER20> So what exactly does this mean? You get put on a "shame" list? So what. The article doesn't talk about any legal repercussions. Pointless headline.

It mentions the DMCA, however fails to mention a connection between the Special 301 list and DMCAs.

<comment><USER21> It mostly feeds into other negotiations and trade agreements. It is not actionable itself but provides political pressure during almost any other trade agreement.

Canada has been a member of this list for a least the last 2 years and I think longer than that. [http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-301-parad...](http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2010/02/annual-301-parade- ustr-calls-for.html)

I don't have first hand knowledge but am led to believe that this report is often used during trade talks to apply pressure to favour USA in negotiations. (as suggested by the above Howard Knopf and Michael Geist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> ...well the amount of code 'snippets' developers copy from the Internet (tutorials, QA forums, tech websites and blogs) - I would argue that almost all software contains 'open source' code :-) - which again makes a farse of this type of legislation.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why did the pirate use open source?

Because he doesn't like trademarrrrrrrrrks.

</comment><comment><USER24> Then, I'm a pirate since 1991. I need to update my CV.

</comment><comment><USER14> in other news. Libraries will be closed because they show little respect for the knowledge market.

"if you want to learn, enroll in a university. Libraries are destoying jobs" said the spokeman on the matter.

</comment><comment><USER25> It would be amusing if this were a subtle advert for R...

</comment><comment><USER26> Communism is bad when it is forced (which it must be in order for any hope of working properly). I can see the resemblance to the GPL, but in general you shouldn't equate the two because open source is used as a capitalistic business model too.

<comment> loup-vaillant Are you saying that the GPL forces anyone to do anything? It doesn't. You still have the choice not to use GPL code.

<comment><USER26> And no one is forcing us to adopt communism. Nothing is truly forced, in the sense that you have no alternatives.

They are similar because they both take an all or nothing approach that only works in a perfectly ideal situation.

In a perfectly free software world the GPL would have no problem, but the GPL (if you want to use the software) forces you to adopt the policies of that ideal world in the current incompatible unideal world.

Like. Communism, if it is being attempted, people will have to be forced to be dedicated to the whole (if they want to exist in the group).

Free software should be enforced by nothing but practical reasoning, just as communism should too (but most people are selfish idiots). The GPL seeks to enforce it through law, regardless of whether it makes sense here and now (similar to forced-upon communism).

Also if anyone disagrees with me I'd love a response. Better to win over enemies than destroy right?

<comment> loup-vaillant GPL has little to do with communism, for 2 reasons. One is not very important. The other is crucial.

The lesser reason is the development model of free software: Open Source. To have the power over an open source project, you have to contribute. The money is good contributions, and the rewards are reputation and control over the project. Add in the inevitable political discussions about the direction the project, and you will see a rather capitalistic micro-society.

The greater reason is that sharing software is not the same thing as sharing food or shelter. Food and shelter are _scarce_. Sharing them mean having less of them. Software is _abundant_. Sharing it will _not_ mean having less of it. Communism forces you to share scarce resources. The GPL forces you to share abundant resources. This is completely different.

Even then, the only circumstances in which GPL forces you to share is when you distribute "derived work". Meaning, if you have GPL software, you have the right to use it and modify it any way you like. Without sharing anything. If you distribute this software (modified or not), _then_ , you have to release all of it. Mods included.

This is worth repeating: when you use GPL software, you don't have to share any of it. Even when you modify it. Remember the 4 freedoms: when you have a copy of some GPL software, you have: (0) the right to use it any way you like, (1) the right to study it and modify it any way you like (privately if you want to), (2) the right to share it, and (3) the right to share your mods. You _can_ share, but you don't have too. If your company uses GPL software, and modify it for it's purposes, it doesn't have do release anything. This is very important. If you had to release your mod no matter what, this would be an attack to the freedom of thought.

You say the GPL is incompatible with our less than ideal world. Fair enough. Now, can you name _one_ ideal which is compatible with our world? Even slavery isn't completely abolished. I mean, any political idea will have its opponents. The GPL embodies a political idea (not being a slave of your computer). Therefore, it has opponents. If your conclusion is that a software licence shouldn't embody political ideas, take a look at proprietary software licences. Restrictions like "thou shalt not study this software" are indeed quite political. Especially when this kind of restrictions is widespread —and it is. The only way to effectively oppose such a political idea is to go political yourself, and use GPL (or other free) software. If you don't care about either political ideas, you can wait and see. Which is fine. I do that for countless political ideas. You can't, however, oppose the GPL without being in the camp of proprietary software, at least to some extent.

You say the GPL is an "all or nothing" approach. It is not. It was specifically designed with our current world in mind, to make it go from proprietary software to free software, progressively. When the GPL wasn't up to this task, it was not used. The GNU C library, for instance, uses the LGPL. Meaning you can use the Glibc in proprietary software. This strategy better served the free software ideals than plain GPL. Of course, for any individual software, being GPL looks like "all or nothing". In general, however, the _adoption_ of GPL software can't be but progressive.

I also suspect that you think the GPL is idealistic. Not pragmatic. You may think the BSD licence is pragmatic. This is a common view. Some people would like to distribute proprietary software with GPL code in it, only to find that they can't. They are pissed off by the idealism of GPL. Then they find they can do that with BSD software. They are pleased by the pragmatism of BSD, which let them do what they want. Hem. That was the point of view of a proprietary software vendor.

Actually GPL is way more pragmatic than BSD. Look at what the BSD licence says: "do whatever you want with my code, I won't ever oppose you or your political ideas". As neutral as it gets, and a bit weak. Many people who work on BSD licensed projects don't like proprietary software, but let their code be used in proprietary software anyway. The GPL, on the other hand says: "If you want to distribute this code, you will do it on _my_ terms.". The GPL pragmatically serves an idealistic political agenda (most are, anyway).

Remember: the political agenda behind the GPL is freedom. Communism as it was implemented heavily restricted your freedoms. Remember Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!". When Richard Stallman asks us, repeatedly, to give up the convenience of proprietary software to have the freedom of, well, GPL software, he is closer to the ideals of the founders of America than communism.

<comment><USER26> I think you took my comparison too concretely.

Communism is about as similar to the GPL as it is to pro-lifers. Nothing more, and I did not mean to imply any more similarity than that.

To help you grab on to my extended metaphor:

Communism: a communist controlled authoritarian country => GPL: the subset of _released_ software licensed under the GPL

Communism: your natural free will and ability to make a choice => GPL: Your guaranteed rights (in free world) to intellectual property

Communism: everyone's forced to be selfless (fair redistribution of wealth)... under penalty of death? => GPL: everyone's forced to license under GPL under penalty of being sued

Communism: if not forced, one person could shift the economy because communism != economic equilibrium => GPL: If GPL does not force GPL on derivatives, then one proprietary software could shift the balance of power so that it's more advantageous not to open source. This is because if on guy doesn't share, he expends less resources on helping others, while taking in fruits of others' labors.

Public domain is like a family, or really small communal group, whereas GPL is like some authoritarian communist state. You've got the family which works well on the ideal of dedication to the whole. It's small, but it's all by free choice. You've got communist China supposedly trying to force this ideal of a harmonious multi-billion member family on its people, while probably never going to achieve it. Sure they're converting more people to _communism_ , but at what cost?

There is no absolute _force_. There is always at least 2 distinct choices, and any "forcing" as we know it is a result of external pressure. The GPL exerts an external pressure on decisions, so for all intents and purposes, it _forces_ , thus limiting true freedom. True freedom is when there are no external pressures on a decision.

Communism (in practice): In order to propagate and preserve itself it needs to be forced upon people because the slightest selfish act topples the whole system. This is opposed to letting everyone _choose_ to be selfless (not bloody likely, which is why force is necessary). GPL: In order to propagate and preserve itself it needs to enforce its doctrine by law whether or not it makes practical sense in individual cases. This is opposed to letting everyone choose when it's appropriate and practical to open source, and when to proprieties (like in Communism, it can be disadvantageous for all if only a few keep their software proprietary). However I do concede that since the GPL does not force you to release the changes it is one good thing about it. Pro- lifers (in practice): In order to propagate life and preserve the sanctity of it, it is necessary to force people to do the morally right thing, whether or not it's practical in each individual case.

Common themes: absolute black and white world view; end justifying means; restricting free choice It's particularly hypocritical of the GPL, which espouses freedom, to achieve it's goal through restriction of freedom. Hey sure if we are all nice selfless people we could live in a global commune. If we are all righteous, we wouldn't need to be forced not to kill (or make) babies we don't want. And if we all understood the benefits of free software, we wouldn't need to be forced. But we aren't Jesus, aren't righteous, and aren't smart enough to appreciate free software. Therefore it's unfair to encourage anything that forces people to pretend the world is ideal.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

>Now, can you name one ideal which is compatible with our world? Even slavery isn't completely abolished. I mean, any political idea will have its opponents.

Your question is an oxymoron. By definition anything ideal is unattainable, and as for the purposes of our discussion, it means it's also not compatible with our world. But I don't know why you are treating me like I'm Microsoft, I love free software. I've learned all I know from free software and it's let me build some wonderful things. But I love free software for freedom. And the GPL is not free. It's trying to make the world free, but by utilizing the very restriction on software freedoms it's trying to abolish. Hey if free software is really good for everyone, why not let it propagate by its own merits, rather than artificial restrictions/terms? I for one have faith in the practical benefits of free software, and don't believe it's necessary to force (if you want to benefit from GPL) people to adopt it.

> If your conclusion is that a software licence shouldn't embody political > ideas, take a look at proprietary software licences. Not my conclusion at > all, I think free-er licenses are just as political.

> Restrictions like "thou shalt not study this software" are indeed quite > political. And what's the difference between "thou shalt not study this > software" and "thou must make any changes public upon distribution"? They > both restrict your rights. And the only time the GPL's restriction wouldn't > matter is if the whole world's softwares were under GPL. But that ain't > happening any time soon, and sure as hell ain't going to happen if I'm > forced to do it.

> It was specifically designed with our current world in mind, to make it go > from proprietary software to free software, progressively. Yes progressively > by force... by constantly limiting our choices until one day we've got none > but GPL (or do everything yourself).

>Remember: the political agenda behind the GPL is freedom. The whole idea of freedom is to have freedom in means, not just the ends. Plus, being an ideal, that end will never be achieved, which means all we've got are the means. So if the means aren't free, we'll never be free. So given that the GPL restricts our rights to try to achieve a probably unattainable ideal, we'll probably be stuck having our rights restricted until the end of world.

> You can't, however, oppose the GPL without being in the camp of proprietary > software, at least to some extent. That's like saying you can't be pro- > choice without being at least a little pro-death (which is not true btw). > Like I said before, I want all software to be free, but I'm not going to > waste my time _restricting_ rights while trying to achieve that goal.

<comment> loup-vaillant It looks like it boils down to the restrictive clauses of the GPL. The reasoning is easy: BSD gives you total freedom. GPL gives you the 4 freedoms and some restrictions. Logical conclusion: the GPL is less free than the BSD.

This forgets a basic freedom principle however: ones's freedom must stop at other's. The GPL guarantees that you can't further restrict the freedoms it gave you. The BSD does not. Effectively, the BSD gives you the freedom to restrict other's freedoms. We have some examples of liberally licensed software which were more often distributed as proprietary software rather than as free software (IIRC, X was such an example). Therefore, when you look at the society as a whole, you could see that GPL software is _more_ free than BSD software. (Now that companies see the practical advantages of Open Source, this effect is arguably weakened.)

My conclusion is that the GPL does a better job at promoting freedom than the BSD licence. To me that's what's matters. You may still disagree, but I'm out of arguments.

PS: Sorry for treating you like Microsoft, I got carried away.

<comment><USER26> Just to be clear that all this only makes sense if we assume that intellectual property is a sham.

> This forgets a basic freedom principle however: ones's freedom must stop at > other's.

Ahh, but there is no action which is self-contained. Everything we do will affect others and somehow restrict someone's freedom in some way. For example if I take an apple, you can no longer take that same apple. It only becomes fair when everyone mutually agrees on the terms. Murder is an obvious one we can all agree on, intellectual property is hazier.

So with the BSD you are guaranteed your software stays free, but other's can stay within practical limits while still benefitting from free software. And if enough of this natural, unforced benefitting happens, more people will learn and move to free by choice, not by force.

In case you compare it to slavery: These are two different things, because for unfree software, we all have the right to make our own software. It simply restricts our right to utilize others' creations. But since this is a uniform restriction, it's not unfair. Slavery is not a uniform restriction. It only applies to the group being enslaved and affects the same fundamental thing we're talking about with software: people, but in a different way.

<comment> loup-vaillant > Just to be clear that all this only makes sense if we assume that > intellectual property is a sham.

I do. It's a useful sham, however, so I'd think twice before abolishing it.

> So with the BSD […]

I don't think the GPL forces you to choose free software. GPL software just can't be used to make proprietary software. Right now, you still have plenty of proprietary alternatives. People still buy them. You still have the choice. In the end, if the GPL takes over, that will be because everybody who didn't chose it will be out of business. I'm not sure this is bad in any way.

I think what you actually don't like about the GPL is its give and take nature: if you don't give, you can't take. So, being forced to give imply being forced to take. If nobody is forced to take, nobody is forced to give.

Do you think anyone is somehow forced to take? Meaning, does anyone is forced to distribute GPL derived work? Do you have any example (actual or hypothetical)?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Taking Go modules for a spin - <AUTHOR> https://dave.cheney.net/2018/07/14/taking-go-modules-for-a-spin <comment><USER2> I've been using go modules in my company for several months now. Everything has "just worked." It's at least 1 order of magnitude faster than dep.

It's worth noting that go modules use a novel dependency resolution algorithm which is extremely simple to reason about/implement, fast, and produces more reliable builds than npm/bundler/cargo. That's why I was excited about it, anyway. It removes the ever-present NP-complete assumptions in this space, so from a computer science perspective it's extremely interesting.

<comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on why it's easier to reason about than Cargo et al? I've heard a lot of theoretical criticism of Go modules for not taking Cargo's approach so I'm surprised to hear an experience report to the contrary.

<comment><USER4> From cargo's source: "Actually solving a constraint graph is an NP-hard problem. This algorithm is basically a nice heuristic to make sure we get roughly the best answer most of the time." ([https://github.com/rust- lang/cargo/blob/master/src/cargo/cor...](https://github.com/rust- lang/cargo/blob/master/src/cargo/core/resolver/mod.rs))

vgo's more-constrained specification for dependencies means there is exactly one right answer, and it can be easily and quickly calculated by both computer and human.

Whether or not this will turn out to matter in practice is still an open question.

<comment><USER5> Is there a catch to vgo's approach? If not, why aren't the cargo people copying it?

<comment><USER6> The counterarguments are, basically:

1\. vgo focuses on the wrong issue (if you're spending a ton of time resolving and re-resolving your dependency graph, maybe the issue is your build process).

2\. vgo will get the wrong answers and/or make development much harder

There's a long writeup of some of the ways vgo can go wrong here: [https://sdboyer.io/vgo/failure-modes/](https://sdboyer.io/vgo/failure-modes/) and some background here: [https://sdboyer.io/vgo/intro/](https://sdboyer.io/vgo/intro/) among other places. And there was a lot of discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17183101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17183101)

I'd say there's about a 3% chance vgo ends up being a smashing success that revolutionises package management and gets copied by everyone else, a 30% chance that vgo works well for golang due to their unique requirements but has nothing to offer anyone else, and about a 67% chance it ends up being a failure and being scrapped or heavily revised to scrap the novel, controversial and (arguably) fundamentally broken ideas that set it apart from every other package manager.

But fundamentally, the reason the cargo people aren't copying it right now is that it doesn't even really _claim_ to have advantages over cargo _for rust_. (There are some quirks in the golang ecosystem which mean you end up analyzing your dependency tree _way, way, more_ than you do in basically any other common language. That makes speed important for golang, but for everyone else, it's almost meaningless.) "We make the unimportant stuff fast at the expense of getting the importing stuff wrong" isn't very compelling. :)

Of course, the vgo people would phrase it as "we make the important stuff fast _and_ we get the important stuff right", so...time will tell. But don't expect _anyone_ to copy this quickly; it remains to be seen if it'll even work for golang, and it'd need to be a _huge_ step up from the current state of the art to make it worth switching for other languages and ecosystems.

<comment><USER7> > There are some quirks in the golang ecosystem which mean you end up > analyzing your dependency tree way, way, more than you do in basically any > other common language.

What are these?

<comment><USER6> This comment from an earlier discussion here covers some of them: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17185335](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17185335)

Basically, dep/glide do a bunch of stuff, including recursively parsing import statements because of How Go Works (tm). Other package managers don't, because they have lock files, and central repositories. Go expects you to just be able to throw a ton of raw code into your GOPATH and have it all magically fetched from github, which is _super cool_ , but also very hard to do quickly, and not really something other languages are clamouring to support.

(A lot of attention has been focused on vgo's solver, and it _is_ much faster, but the solver isn't what takes up all the time; the speedup from dep/glide to vgo seems to be almost entirely related to the changes in how dependencies are declared. Saving 10ms on a more efficient solver algorithm means nothing if the overall process is spending 12s grinding through slow disc and network access.)

And when you survey the language ecosystem, you see a lot of languages very enthusiastically committed to traditional package managers (with lock files) and centralised repositories. Cargo, composer, npm/yarn, bundler/ruby gems - recent history is full of languages happily moving in that direction. Go is an exception, and I don't see anyone actively copying that quirk any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ainar-g I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the module system, but please note, that it's still experimental, so not all fun and rainbows. As of now, the Go issue tracker still has 53 open issues with the "modules" label[1], and Go 1.11 should ship around August. The system works well for most cases, but there are still rough edges, especially around vendoring, undocumented or not-so-well documented behaviours, and features which may or may not be "in the scope" for the module system.

Overall, I am trying to be optimistic about the future of Go dependency management, but I am not planning to switch the projects I work on in my company from dep to Go modules until most of those rough edges are either smoothed, or officially recognised as "works as intended", with viable workarounds.

[1] [https://github.com/golang/go/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+l...](https://github.com/golang/go/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Amodules)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.

With that said, some none negligible chunk of the issues you linked fall into cosmetic (better error message), proposals, works as intended (docs could improve) or self inflicted misconfigurations of running a go beta. 53 sounds worse than it is.

I don't know why this had so much drama around it to be honest. And yes, it is far from perfect, it will be approximately as crummy as python/ruby/node which is still an improvement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given it's 18.04, you could've `snap install go --channel=edge` to get go from master.

(all praise mwhudson for maintaining the Go snaps -- `snap info go` for the whole story).

<comment><USER9> > `snap info go` for the whole story

It lists the channels and some versions, and has a short description; "This snap provides an assembler, compiler, linker, and compiled libraries for the Go programming language."

When you said "the whole story" I expected there to be some sort of story but I guess I might have misunderstood what you meant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently started to learn Go and everything has gone smoothly... except the bizarre, unfriendly GOPATH and forced project structure.

It was not fun when VS Code (with the Go plugin) would automatically remove my imports every time I saved the file because it couldn't find it.

<comment><USER3> I like the consistent, sane project structure, but GOPATH is an odd duck to be sure.

<comment><USER11> I actually started using the GOPATH structure for all my repos after discovering three full checkouts of github.com/torvalds/linux [1] on my drive.

[1] I know it's not the official upstream remote, but I find this one the easiest to remember.

<comment><USER3> I do the same, but I don't like that it is searched by default when building a Go program. It's too easy for the versions of dependencies in those directories to have changed. And even if you vendor, it falls back to GOPATH so you can still bring things into your build by accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I haven't followed the history of the feature, but could anyone explain why we had to wait until version 11 to be able to build a project from any location we wanted ? I'm having a hard time believing it's purely for technical reasons, but then i don't understand either what has changed that makes it a desirable feature now rather than before.

<comment><USER13> I can't speak to this with absolute certainty, but I have some speculation to offer. The story of GOPATH is tightly intertwined with the story of package management.

Go is a Google project, and Google has a very unique approach to package management: commit everything to the monorepo. The GOPATH is, in essence, a monorepo. If you want to change the API of a library, well, you can just change all its callers across your GOPATH, too. And so for a long time the Go team was unconvinced that package management was a problem.

For example, the Go FAQ [0] still has this to say:

> How should I manage package versions using "go get"?

> "Go get" does not have any explicit concept of package versions. Versioning > is a source of significant complexity, especially in large code bases, and > we are unaware of any approach that works well at scale in a large enough > variety of situations to be appropriate to force on all Go users...

> Packages intended for public use should try to maintain backwards > compatibility as they evolve. The Go 1 compatibility guidelines are a good > reference here: don't remove exported names, encourage tagged composite > literals, and so on. If different functionality is required, add a new name > instead of changing an old one. If a complete break is required, create a > new package with a new import path.

It is true that if you write perfectly backwards compatible code, then you don't have a versioning problem, but if you think that's a viable solution you're ignoring certain realities of software engineering.

It wasn't until early last year that Russ Cox [1] publicly declared that versioning was a problem and set out to introduce a package manager into the Go toolchain. As it turns out, GOPATH is entirely incompatible with the approach to package versioning that the Go team settled on. You simply can't have two versions of the same package in your GOPATH, unless you're willing to rename one and rewrite all the import paths. Given that public opinion had turned again GOPATH [2], it was finally time to do away with it.

So it took about a year and a half from the time the Go team admitted GOPATH was a problem to shipping a release that made it unnecessary. That's really not too bad. The frustrating part of this saga were the first seven years during which the Go team refused to admit there was a problem at all.

[0]: [https://golang.org/doc/faq#get_version](https://golang.org/doc/faq#get_version) [1]: [https://research.swtch.com/go2017](https://research.swtch.com/go2017) [2]: [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/17271](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/17271)

<comment><USER14> Can someone help me understand why people hate gopath? We have a script called govars.sh at the root of every project and it sets the gopath exactly the same way one would use virtualenv in Python. We remove the default one from .bashrc or .profile. This basically makes gopath disappear entirely - we never bother explaining to new devs what it "really" means. Just ask them to use our template project folder structure.

<comment><USER15> In my experience, it's a real pain to get golang projects to build in Jenkins, and it's probably the same for any CI/CD setup, simply because of the gopath. Jenkins agents expect to set up its build directories a very particular way, and so does go with its GOPATH. Juggling it just right to get it to work is frustratingly difficult.

In fact, the one main reason I'm looking forward to this release is because of the elimination of GOPATH. It'll make my day-to-day operations at work FAR easier.

<comment><USER14> In gitlab ci, we run govars.sh which not just sets the gopath but also adds the "bin" folder to PATH. Then when we run tests we know where to get our compiled binary from. Our govars also sets the path on where to find our conf.yaml for env config. Didn't know it would cause so many issues in Jenkins!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Huh, vendor/ won't be honored unless you're in GOPATH? Anyone know any more about this? Seems like an odd choice.

<comment> ainar-g See "go help modules".

      Modules and vendoring

      When using modules, the go command completely ignores vendor directories.

      By default, the go command satisfies dependencies by downloading modules
      from their sources and using those downloaded copies (after verification,
      as described in the previous section). To allow interoperation with older
      versions of Go, or to ensure that all files used for a build are stored
      together in a single file tree, 'go mod -vendor' creates a directory named
      vendor in the root directory of the main module and stores there all the
      packages from dependency modules that are needed to support builds and
      tests of packages in the main module.

      To build using the main module's top-level vendor directory to satisfy
      dependencies (disabling use of the usual network sources and local
      caches), use 'go build -getmode=vendor'. Note that only the main module's
      top-level vendor directory is used; vendor directories in other locations
      are still ignored.

<comment><USER4> Thx.

OK, so that makes it sound like it has nothing to do with GOPATH.

But interesting (annoying?) that vendor won't kick in unless you specifically ask for it.

<comment> ainar-g So far, I get a feeling that vendoring will be a second-class citizen in the world of modules. Unfortunately, I will not be surprised if the team considers removing the support entirely in a future release. I just hope that a viable alternative will be proposed.

<comment><USER4> yeah, i feel like it's really handy to not be reliant on 3p servers to do a build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> irq-1 Go is forever changing the pathing and configuration. Even here we have:

> Very nice, go build ignored the vendor/ folder in this repository (because > we're outside $GOPATH)

and

> Oddly these are stored in $HOME/go/src/mod not the $GOCACHE variable that > was added in Go 1.10

Maybe Go 2.0 will be stable.

<comment><USER16> I mean, the point of modules is to get rid of vendor. And if you were building outside of GOPATH previously, you were likely broken (or using a specialized build tool that handled this for you). The second one is because it's a cache. Storing them there isn't a breaking change, it's just a bit odd

<comment><USER11> > you were likely broken (or using a specialized build tool that handled this > for you)

Or you're using the isolated-GOPATH trick.

      $ mkdir -p .gopath/src/github.com/foo
      $ ln -s ../../../.. .gopath/src/github.com/foo/bar
      $ GOPATH=$PWD/.gopath go install github.com/foo/bar

For example, this is one of my Go projects where you can unpack the release tarball anywhere and `make && make install` just works: [https://github.com/sapcc/swift-http-import](https://github.com/sapcc/swift- http-import)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Thanks, Dave!</comment>


Huge currency zones don't work – we need one per city - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/opinions/huge-currency-zones-don-t-work-we-need-one-per-city <comment><USER2> "City" like Mexico City, with an urban population of 20 million? In which case Sweden, Norway, and Finland can share one currency. Or my city of 50,000 people? What of Beverley Hills, completely surrounded by L.A.?

In US history, after Jackson disbanded the second US bank, it wasn't _cities_ which had their own currency, but _state-chartered banks_ during the "free banking" era of 1837–1862. These banks had a high failure rate, so weren't all trusted. If you traveled, say, to another state where people hadn't heard of your bank, then they might not accept your money, or not at face value.

Even now, take a look at the UK, which has seven different banks that can issue notes. All look different, eg, with Scottish figures on the Bank of Scotland notes. These can be used through the UK, but not all shopkeepers accept them. "English shopkeepers who are unfamiliar with them may refuse to accept Scottish or Northern Irish notes" says [http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/12/can-i-spend- sco...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/12/can-i-spend-scottish- money-england) .

That should give an idea of the problems that will occur should each city has its own currency.

The author notes the era of free banking in passing: "And as Galbraith points out, Free Banking coincided with the fastest half-century of growth in the US, 1800 to 1850, still unbeaten". Do note that 37 of those 50 years was with a central bank, and 12 years of free banking were outside of that period. That seems more coincidence than a meaningful signal.

The author writes "Bizarre as it sounds, their disagreement led to a financial-political satire, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by L Frank Baum, which later got made into a children's film." Note that this is one interpretation, first made by Littlefield in the 1960s. See [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm](http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/Populism.htm) for some of the history of that interpretation. It may be a good interpretation, but there is little to no evidence that it was deliberate, which the author implies.

The author refers to a hypothesis from the 1970s: "Hence, Jacobs argued, all innovation happens in cities".

Note, however, that many modern innovations take place between people located in many cities. In the 1970s, telecommunications was expensive. While for most of my career I've worked with people elsewhere, as a consultant. It's bad enough taking the exchange rate hit when dealing with other countries. I wouldn't want to do that for every city as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Big or small, it's not just the size that matters. One per city would be almost always very unoptimal.

Eurozone is not good currency area because it's too big, but because it does not fill the criteria for good currency area [1]. US is much better. US-Canada economic region might be optimal if divided into three[2], but it's not a big deal. United States can function fine as a single currency region.

[1] A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas (classic paper from Mundell) [https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/top20/51.4.657-665.pdf](https://www.aeaweb.org/aer/top20/51.4.657-665.pdf)

[2] Optimum Currency Areas within the US and Canada: a Data Analysis Approach [http://utopia.duth.gr/~pgkogkas/duthwp/4-2012.pdf](http://utopia.duth.gr/~pgkogkas/duthwp/4-2012.pdf)</comment>


The Neuroscience of Racism and Its Marriage to 'Toxic Masculinity Norms - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2020/05/the-neuroscience-of-racism-and-its-marriage-to-toxic-masculinity-norms/ <comment><USER2> I'm sympathetic to this as a sociological phenomenon, but I can't actually find any _neuroscience_ in this article.</comment>


Apple, Google topped news coverage in 2013, leaving Microsoft in the dust - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2013/apple-google-topped-news-coverage-2013-leaving-microsoft-dust/

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know why GeekWire title says "Apple, Google topped news...." Technically, it should be "Google, Apple topped news" as the article clearly says "Google managed to rack up more than 123,769 mentions this year, while Apple came in a close second with 120,451"</comment>


Google App Engine is down - <AUTHOR> http://appspot.com/

<comment><USER2> It's fine, because they're at 100% availability. Just totally down: [http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/64201bd8-5392-49fc-a47c-...](http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/64201bd8-5392-49fc-a47c-79e3e30f9282/6ff4d48751522b031c44b31335ec4c63)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm surprised that their status system seems to run off the main infrastructure too. Everyone else gets slated for making that mistake.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any businesses currently using multi-cloud infrastructures? Ie. Automatic failover from Amazon to Heroku?

</comment><comment><USER4> so is developer.android.com.</comment>


US Army Field Manual: Basic Cryptanalysis (1990) - <AUTHOR> http://www.umich.edu/~umich/fm-34-40-2/

<comment><USER2> Got 'Authentication Required'

Google found me this. Least seedy looking source I could find.

[http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/...](http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/policy/army/fm/34-40-2/index.html)

<comment><USER3> Worked for me just now (7 minutes after your post).

Minor general complaint to people tarring up stuff for download; It's always useful to provide a useful title and/or author to identify the file, instead of something like 'pdf.tar.gz' or something equally distinguished.

EDIT: I'm not wanting to sound ungrateful, it can just be a little difficult to notice or remember to fix a name, and then... hunt the file time ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/crypto/crypto/army.field.manual...](http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/crypto/crypto/army.field.manual/) contains zipped pdfs for each chapter.

</comment><comment><USER5> I really like that this includes frequency tables for tetragraphs.

I had to laugh a little at the fact that "STOP" is the 5th most frequently used tetragraph though.</comment>


Ask HN: What channel for early users for information management platform? - <AUTHOR> just gone to beta with loop the Smart Information Management Platform that extends the usability of your existing apps so you apps function together.<p>Rather than replace your existing apps, loop allows you to use them together so all your information is in a single place, networked and ready to be analyzed both manually and via machine learning and artificial intelligience.  All your information, one place, connected and working together so you can work contextually and smarter. <comment><AUTHOR> Early testers are also welcome</comment>


Ask HN: Will anything ever truly integrate and replace email&chat? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Why should it?</comment>


BART Withholding Surveillance Videos of Crime to Avoid 'Stereotypes' - <AUTHOR> http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/07/09/bart-withholding-surveillance-videos-of-crime-to-avoid-stereotypes/ <comment><USER2> Up until very recently, a lot of the cameras didn't even work.

[http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART- admits-77-percent-o...](http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART- admits-77-percent-of-train-cameras-are-fake-6818459.php)

"we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process."

Assaulting passengers and robbing them is a "relatively minor crime" now? wow.

Sounds like their refusal is actually reinforcing the stereotypes, if anything.

<comment><USER3> It was worse than merely "didn't work" (in the sense of broken or defective)... _seventy percent of them were outright fake_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "According to BART spokesman Taylor Huckaby, state law protecting "juvenile police records" prevents them from showing the surveillance video"

Can someone clarify how this law can apply to video that was shot by BART, not the police? To me it looks like a violation of the 1st amendment to ban publishing privately recorded video, just because it captures a crime.</comment>


This Startup CEO Claims He Can Save You Millions on Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/eyalbino/2016/02/16/this-startup-ceo-claims-he-can-save-you-millions-on-influencer-marketing/#74db15fa686c <comment><USER2> Sounds pretty useful.</comment>