The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/prcmc.html

<comment><USER2> I guess the headscratcher for me is that I can't understand why someone would start a company if they didn't think they'd enjoy running it. The odds of growing to the point where someone will buy your business for a substantial amount (read: order of magnitude greater than a year's sales) is much less than being able to grow it yourself and live off the revenues.

I guess that's why I don't play the lottery.

<comment><USER3> _I can't understand why someone would start a company if they didn't think they'd enjoy running it._

I'm not proposing that. As I said in the essay, running Viaweb was the most interesting job I'd had. It just wasn't _the_ most interesting thing I could imagine doing.

That's the question you have to answer, if you're ambitious: not just "do I like what I'm doing?" but "do I like what I'm doing more than anything else I could be doing?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> " _David isn't mistaken in saying you should start a company to live off its revenues. The mistake is thinking this is somehow opposed to starting a company and selling it. In fact, for most people the latter is merely the optimal case of the former._ "

Right, they're not mutually exclusive.

But the old school way of thinking simply says that achieving the former will lead to the latter.

I.e., there is such a thing as trying to sell too early.

Building revenue-less companies to flip may have yielded some spectacular successes in the past (e.g. YouTube), but modeling yourself on rare, black- swan events is not a recipe for success.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hire property mgmt and you're the customer. They should do what you want. Get acquired and they're the customer. They'll manage the co as they please.

You may want the co managed to maximize customer satisfaction for long-term stability (ala Craigslist), but a public acquirer will likely manage to maximize quarterly revenue.

<comment><USER3> _They'll manage the co as they please._

Sure, but they guarantee your returns in advance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think the decision is as simple as "I run it, or I sell out." Private companies hire CEOs fairly often.

If you could get a professional manager in to help run your company, you would still have control and could fire/replace him. Richard Branson does not run his 250 or so companies simultaneously - he uses professional managers. He pools risk but the firms remain private.

If you sell out, you lose control of your business. That can be a good or a bad thing. (But you can only really get out if you lose control of the business.)

As my dad tells me, "If you sell out, get out." It's wise advice.

<comment><USER7> Google, Ambani, Tata are other good examples who have tons of companies/product run by good managers/CEOs

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Companies are not apartments or houses, companies are _people_. You don't have to worry about motivation, energy levels when you are dealing with houses.

You cannot "optimize" people - even talking about what is optimal is meaningless when you deal in collections of people. This is the fundamental libertarian assumption, which is why libertarians are for free market capitalism. Not because it maximizes wealth, but because it let's people simply be.

I am afraid this essay is a perfect distillation of the flip-it model, just as the model is going out of fashion.

<comment><USER3> It sounds like you're disagreeing with something you think I said, but I can't figure out what. Can you give me an example of a specific sentence or paragraph I wrote that you disagree with?

<comment><USER8> Sorry I was out all day, so couldn't respond. I was reacting to the comparison of property management company to your putative "company management company" (which eventually gets revealed as a typical public company in your essay). That was the context in which I said companies have people, and people are not housing, and your objective of an "optimal" strategy doesn't hold water.

My broader point is that companies/people (including founders) have goals, dreams, aspirations ... maximizing return on investment may not even be the biggest goal. It is a late 20th century Milton Friedmanite doctrine (which classical libertarians actually disagree with) that the only purpose of a company ought to be to maximize shareholder wealth. I mention this because you refer to "optimal" strategy, but in this case, there is no such optimal strategy, because the goals are so extremely diverse and often mutually contradictory.

Interestingly, shareholder wealth maximization (which academics are so fond of) is a proposition most real world capitalists don't actually subscribe to - witness the resistance of Jerry Yang to being absorbed. It has little do with long term shareholder wealth maximization (though he has to pretend that it is, in order to keep the lawyers at bay), and everything to do with preserving what he perceives as a unique Yahoo culture from being decimated (somewhat justified, in my opinion), even at the cost of losing substantial value as a shareholder himself. There is no right or wrong in this (I think his cause is hopeless myself), just that this is how Jerry Yang, the capitalist part owner of Yahoo, operates.

What is the goal of a company? It ultimately boils down to a religious question of "Who am I? What do I want?" which each founder (and each employee) has to ask himself/herself. DHH laid out his answer, and I bet an awful lot of founders identify with it. You have your school of thought on this, which I bet a lot of founders identify with too. But yours is not any kind of optimal extreme of DHH.

<comment><USER3> It seems to me that you're refuting things you imagine I said, but that I didn't actually say. I certainly wouldn't claim that my "school of thought" was an optimal extreme of DHH's. (In fact, I can't even imagine what it would mean for that to be true.)

I mean what I said, and no more. So please, if you think you disagree with me, find the actual sentence or sentences in the essay that you believe are false.

<comment><USER9> I'm going to venture a guess that the statement under attack is most probably this one: _The best case, for most people, would be if you could hire someone to manage the company for you once you'd grown it to a certain size._

startingup is making the assumption that the goal of hiring this manager is to maximize the startup's ROI with minimum attention from the founders. However, I believe pg's original point was not that anything can be maximized, but that things can more or less _stay in check_ without the founder looking, which is a far weaker claim. This isn't about profit, but about giving the founders the opportunity to do something more interesting, _if such a thing were to exist_. The essay is cautions enough not to make any grandiose claims. Imho, you've got a straw man on your hands, startingup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm normally a fan of Paul's essays, but this one felt a little forced. Maybe not enough "essayer", too much agenda?

<comment><USER11> Absolutely. Particularly strained bits:

 _Sounds like a good plan. Let's think about the optimal way to do this._

Disagreeing by agreeing is a powerful technique. But it's pretty obvious in this case. I prefer disagreeing head on, if I have a solid argument.

 _They want enough money that (a) they don't have to worry about running out of money and (b) they can spend their time how they want. Running your own business offers neither._

I have a friend who "ran his own business" for 4 years while doing his medical degree, and accumulated over a million dollars in the process. That's not enough to change your lifestyle to be like the mega-rich, but it's certainly enough to gain the freedom to spend your time the way you want it. Think of it this way: $1m gives you at least enough money to spend 10 comfortable years doing other stuff and figuring out what else you really want to do.

 _And as anyone who runs their own business can tell you, that requires your complete attention._

That's not true for all businesses. I have a business that I haven't paid attention to for over 9 months and it's _still_ generating revenues (couple of thousand dollars a month). Sure, revenues go down, but even with minimal maintenance you can keep them dropping reasonably slowly.

 _There will of course be some founders who wouldn't like that idea: the ones who like running their company so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. _But this group must be small_._

Why must it be small? Maybe this group is much larger than the other. Where's the evidence, or even argument, that it must be small? It seems to me there are far more people running IT businesses than people starting up in the valley. I would think actually the number of people who enjoy running an online business must be large.

I could go on, but this comment will turn into a rant. I'm quite disappointed in this one. When DHH gave his presentation I thought it was quite interesting that Startup School was hosting a talk that went directly against their principles ("make something ppl want and don't worry about the money", for example), and I was curious what pg's answer would be. I'm not convinced by this answer. It seems weak and somewhat dishonest.

<comment><USER12> _When DHH gave his presentation I thought it was quite interesting that Startup School was hosting a talk that went directly against their principles_

I get "This video is not available" for DHH's presentation: [http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier- hansson-...](http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at- startup-school-08)

<comment><USER11> Weird, works fine here...

<comment><USER12> It's working for me now, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >> And as anyone who runs their own business can tell you, that requires your complete attention.

I had a shareware business that footed the bills and this was not true in my case. There was a large number of people in the Association of Shareware Professionals trade group that were in a similar position. I'm not sure it's true of web apps either. I had tons of time to develop or twiddle my thumbs.

I had freedom. Security is tougher though, as I did eventually get squashed by Google/MS.

<comment><USER14> Apologies in advance for the snark but let me paraphrase:

"It's not necessary to give your startup your complete attention to run it. I treated my shareware business as a part time job. Mind you, other companies that could focus attention on their competing products drove me out of business."

Did I get that right?

<comment><USER13> When MS and firefox built pop up blockers into their browsers it became very hard to sell a pop up blocker. I'd be interested to see you move into this line of business now and explain why your efforts are best spent swimming upstream.

To paraphrase you: apologies for being a tool, but I can't help it. I bet you "know how to make Twitter scale," too. I love uninformed monday morning quarterbacks.

<comment><USER14> Specifics make this discussion a lot easier.

A full-time company would probably handle that scenario by evaluating the market and seeing how to leverage their investment. For example, if your pop- up blocker had any intelligence to it, one approach might involve building the equivalent of adblock for IE, which I suspect would sell about as well as a popup blocker pre-builtin. Then again, I'm not sure how much of a company one could expect to build around a simple pop-up blocker, so calling yourself a company is a bit of a stretch -- it's really just a hobby.

No need to apologize for being a tool, this is the Internet and it is assumed.

<comment><USER13> This "hobby" paid significantly more than my previous salary. I was full time and incorporated--so no, not a stretch to call it a company.

Anyhow, arguing with a troll is not a good use of my time, so I'm cutting this off now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm sure there are many 'ways' to start a company and live off the net income, and there may even be an optimal way. Historically the way a lot of business owners have achieved freedom and security is 1) love what they do, so that the work isn't a chore (their work is what they would do if they could do anything in the world, which is one definition of freedom) and 2) spend/live within the constraints of the net income generated. Seems pretty simple to me since both can be chosen. This also solves the main disadvantage of you 'hav[ing] to keep running it', because you actually want to keep it running.

<comment><USER12> I agree. I think PG addresses that issue when he says it's difficult for the market's and the founder's needs to coincide. That is, to find something that (A) you love to do, that (B) a market also loves. It's hard enough to find something you love; or to find something the market loves - to find both is not just twice, but _squared_ as hard. It's easier to find those two things independently: find something the market loves, get rich; and then find something you love.

But if you can find both (and people have), it's _GREAT_.

<comment><USER15> I hear you and do understand pg's point. While the first part 'doing what you love' is really easy to do, one simply chooses it, the second part 'finding something the market loves' (which is the 'security' point of pg's essay) is basically out of your control. The only thing you can do to be happy about that 'market love' is decide what your reaction is, keep your expectations completely elastic and be able/willing to live within the constraints of 'the market' reaction. The problem comes when there are preconceived expectations of what the market should return, or a sense of being entitled to a level of success (that the market may not grace you with) which leads to unhappiness on that second point. But there is a solution, since you set your response to the market, its easy to reset, simply chose to be happy with what the return the market is giving you (ie. support your life with in those means, though it can be more difficult if you're supporting a family), and scale appropriately.

<comment><USER12> I like your model. You're seeing the 'doing love' as input, and the 'market love' as output from a function you can't control. I agree that "entitlement" can create unhappiness with that output.

Getting away from PG's essay, there could be options other than to accept that output - we could change the input, and not necessarily selling out our 'doing love' for 'market love'.

The 'doing love' could be a set (not a single thing). Some members of the set just being tweaks on a theme, others being entirely dissimilar themes. By experimenting with our set of 'doing loves', we might stumble on the one that also gives 'market love' - without compromise. Like a breakout novel, giving overnight success, overdecades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> " _The main economic motives of startup founders seem to be freedom and security._ "

I would say that these are the economic motives for just about every human being. Economic "freedom" and "security" are often euphemisms for living a carefree life of luxury. Who wouldn't want that? Add "power" and you've got the economic motives for every money-grubbing scoundrel that ever existed. Everyone would love to get rich quick, it's just that startup founders looking to flip fast are willing to take more risks and sacrifices to attempt it.

A founder motive that I can appreciate is the desire to create great and interesting things that improve others' lives.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm getting a bit bored by this perceived dichotomy of funded vs. bootstrapped startups. They are simply two different kinds of companies, and they can perfectly well coexist in an industry.

Some startups can be profitable almost from day one, and need very little cash to get there; others need to do experiments for a much longer time, and could end-up having a useful technology but no revenue model. In the latter case it's only natural that someone will come along who could make use of the technology and simply acquire the company instead of spending even more money developing their own solution.

In many cases the companies in the latter group never have any significant chances of making a lot of money, and acquisition is really the only way for the founders to monetize on their work. Similarly, the companies in the former group could simply never grow enough to be interesting for acquisition -- we call them lifestyle businesses.

37signals and Carsonified are great examples of lifestyle businesses; Digg, Twitter, Zemanta, and even Google, are companies which would never happen if they have tried to bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER18> Often, the problem with public companies is that they try to remake the startups they buy in their image, instead of just managing the company.

<comment><USER3> There's no question acquisitions are often botched. But you're protected against the consequences of this if the acquirer is a public co. I wouldn't advocate being acquired by a private co except in exceptional circumstances.

<comment><USER6> This is a very good point - acquisitions are a messy business.

Can you give us an example - under what circumstances would selling to a private company be a smart move?

<comment><USER3> For cash, or if the company's stock seemed a very good bet, and you were young (or rich) enough that you were willing to risk having no diversification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What a luxury and a pleasure it would be to have to decide, given a profitable web operation, whether to keep running it like a traditional small business or to get acquired for several hundred thousand dollars.

What a pleasure to have such a problem.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have to disagree: founders of the most successful and admired companies stick around for long, long time. Neither of Brin, Page, Gates, Moore or Yang think there are more interesting activities than running their companies.

Maybe that's why there aren't many new googles around: entrepreneurs have "more interesting" activities in mind they need to make a quick $5M for.

<comment><USER3> I didn't say it was impossible that one's interests would coincide exactly with customers' demands, just unlikely. Of course it will happen occasionally, and those founders are obviously going to do particularly well.

Incidentally, though, Gates did just find that there was something more interesting to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> With a typical salary at a typical programmer job, you can make enough money in every year to take several years time off. But meanwhile, taking time off tends to cause isolation, depression, and other problems, since modern social interactions are based around work. Making enough money to retire upfront seems needlessly suboptimal, as it makes it more difficult to do things, if you choose to avoid jobs thereafter. If you choose to work at jobs afterward, then making the money upfront simply isn't necessary.

Of course in Ancient Greece it would be optimal to not have a job, but in America it's a liability.

I don't understand the get-rich-quick mentality for making startups. It's illogical. Making a startup to accomplish a meaningful goal is interesting, but money per se isn't. Making lots of money to "be free" reduces to non- meaningful goals, no-goals centered around the rejection of much of what is worthwhile in life. It's better for people to have real, tangible goals and pursue them, which nearly always leads to work, even if said people already have "enough money."

If one needs time to contemplate, sure, take a few years off. But normally during such years, people who are healthy and challenging themselves will automatically start doing things interesting enough that they can convince someone to pay them for it. If you can't do this, then you've essentially proved the irrelevance of your work (or that you need to go into academia, if your work is too theoretical to earn money in the "normal" world.)

A strong argument for making a startup is when you want to accomplish something so ambitious that no job would let you tackle that task, simply because jobs have smaller scope.

Maybe there are other good arguments for startups, but people are very unclear when they throw a bunch of confusing messages about money out there, because increasing income doesn't make people much happier [1], and it's easy for people who live in their means to take years off from jobs, if that's the issue at hand.

Even if you want to never work again, there's a greater probability of success in taking a high paying, dull job and working hard for several years, than working on a startup. But many ambitious people would have a lot less pride in doing this, despite the higher probability of success. Again this indicates that startups are really about pride of ownership, pride of tackling new ideas, changing the world, etc, than money.

[1]. [http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S15/15/09S18/inde...](http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S15/15/09S18/index.xml?section=topstories)

</comment><comment><USER22> I understand the point that PG is making here. But I think DHH might argue that it's possible to create a business that doesn't require an unreasonable amount of work and attention. The work could even be enjoyable and interesting long term and business could still manage to be a success.

Edit: I guess 37 signals is a good case study of this. They work 4 days a week and have had tremendous success. I have 0 experience running a real "business", but I have a hunch that you could build a successful one that doesn't require the amount of attention and work that PG is talking about.

</comment><comment><USER23> Look at it from the perspective of the customer rather than the owner. When my apartment switches managers I see no difference. I am not forced to move to a different location, nor do I have people reordering my furniture or changing my lease agreement.

When Viaweb became yahoo store it's possible it got a lot more users, but I'd bet existing users weren't as happy anymore. They got shitty yahoo service.

Perhaps in this industry management companies just haven't gotten very good yet. More likely, the difference in scale breaks the analogy from the user's point of view.

</comment><comment><USER24> The referenced lecture:

[http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier- hansson-...](http://omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at- startup-school-08)

<comment><USER12> I get "This video is not available".

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Maybe you should have entitled this one "What's wrong with this country and how can I convince people it's a good thing?"

Some founders seemed to like running their companies and did OK while they were at it: There's Bill and Steve, of course. And Michael Dell. And Larry Ellison. And Jeff Bezos. And they guys from Sun and Ken Olsen at DEC, and Bill and Dave over at HP - yeah, almost every company that's really mattered in the IT world. If DHH want's to run with that crowd, or just run a good, healthy little business, then good for him.

On the other hand,"pump and dump" mentality you seem to favor is exactly the mindset of the multi-millionaires on wall street and in Detroit today who continue to line their pockets while their companies fail or go on the dole.

Really Paul, I know you VC guys have a short attention span (ugh, i mean, investment horizon), but it seems like you're starting to believe that what puts money in your pocket is by definition an absolute good.

</comment><comment><USER26> My take:

If you are starting a business which will make a profit from the outset, in which you have complete control:

\- After a while you may want to do something else other than run the business.

\+ A good way of doing this is to sell the business to a public company.

\- It may take some time to do this depending on the market and size of the business. During which you may not want to be there.

\+ Since the business is making money you don't need to rush the sale.

That all sounds pretty good to me.

Beyond the mentioned freedom and security, a lot of people start business so that they can be more in control of their own lives.

If you start a business with the intention of keeping full control, then you're going to be responsible for the continued control of it.

</comment><comment><USER9> i would rather have a different way to point out this typo, but, alas, i could not locate your email, pg. "to good to be true" -> "too good to be true"

<comment><USER3> Thanks, fixed. (There's an email link on the front page of my site.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What about sharing risks between startups? You could set up a startup shares pool, in which a group of companies trade some of their stock for a share of the pool, so if some companies go under they could still receive some income from the pool.

Maybe something similar to this Artist Pension Trust. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/aug/12/4>

I think this would be similar to what VCs do, invest in 20 startups and hope for one big hit or a couple of good hits.

</comment><comment><USER28> _"... They're like property management companies run by madmen. Or more precisely, by Benjamin Graham's Mr. Market ..."_

No references. More on Mr. Market here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Graham>

</comment><comment><USER29> "One disadvantage of living off the revenues of your company is that you have to keep running it."

that's an odd "disadvantage", Paul. It implies that running my company is something I don't want to do. Don't know about you, but I LOVE running my company.

</comment><comment><USER30> Second prize is selling for enough that the interest funds a comfortable lifestyle, whether or not you want to continue to work. First prize is being able to hang onto control so that you can use what you've built as a base to do still more.

</comment><comment><USER31> Selling also lets you diversify. That is highly relevant to anyone's peace of mind.

</comment><comment><USER32> Running a company and living off it's profits is not the same as selling a company to a bigger player. The latter is a one time payment.

</comment><comment><USER33> Would IPO path be more optimal for Viaweb?

</comment><comment><USER34> _They want enough money that (a) they don't have to worry about running out of money and (b) they can spend their time how they want. Running your own business offers neither._

In this thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79057>

pg has answered the question, "What would you do if you were a billionaire?" with "Day to day? Much the same thing, actually."

Perhaps doing a startup _is_ "spending our time how we want".

Right now, it's hard for me to imagine myself doing anything else. Maybe I'll feel differently later.</comment>


You Can't Block Mark Zuckerberg or Priscilla Chan on Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1066804/facebook-fb-wont-let-you-block-mark-zuckerberg-and-priscilla-chan <comment><USER2> I wonder how long it will be before the common person understands that social media has become mass scale social engineering.

If a news article critical of something Google is lobbying for doesn't come up in a Google search, then most of the population will never know it ever existed.

If Zuckerberg really is eyeing a political run in 2018 or 2020, will he block his opponent's posts or those critical of him from reaching people's timelines? Will he ban anyone critical of him from the platform? [0]

[0] - [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/street-artist-sabos- fa...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/street-artist-sabos-facebook- page-shut-down-zuckerberg-stunt-1029102)

<comment><USER3>
        > that social media has become mass
        > scale social engineering

I find comments like this exceedingly glib and conspiratorial, and they're usually presented simply as fact, as if proof was not needed.

<comment><USER2> [https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections- and-...](https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters- our-thoughts)

> Writing in the New Republic in 2014, Jonathan Zittrain, professor of > international law at Harvard University, pointed out that, given the massive > amount of information it has collected about its users, Facebook could > easily send such messages only to people who support one particular party or > candidate, and that doing so could easily flip a close election – with no > one knowing that this has occurred. And because advertisements, like search > rankings, are ephemeral, manipulating an election in this way would leave no > paper trail.

> ...another Facebook experiment, published in 2014 in PNAS, prompted protests > around the world. In this study, for a period of a week, 689,000 Facebook > users were sent news feeds that contained either an excess of positive > terms, an excess of negative terms, or neither. Those in the first group > subsequently used slightly more positive terms in their communications, > while those in the second group used slightly more negative terms in their > communications. This was said to show that people's 'emotional states' could > be deliberately manipulated on a massive scale by a social media company, an > idea that many people found disturbing. People were also upset that a large- > scale experiment on emotion had been conducted without the explicit consent > of any of the participants.

<comment><USER3>
        > could

being the operative word.

Also from your article:

        > The formation of The
        > Groundwork prompted Julian
        > Assange, founder of
        > Wikileaks, to dub Google
        > Clinton's 'secret weapon' in
        > her quest for the US
        > presidency.

No conspiracy no conspiracy you're the conspiracy!

<comment><USER2> I think you're operating on some cognitive dissonance here, because you're not addressing the second quote, which shows that Facebook has engaged in such experiments.

Also, you show cognitive bias by instantly scrapping a multi-thousand word essay because of one paragraph mentioning someone you already have a preconceived opinion on.

<comment><USER2> > The thousand word essay that turns up absolutely no evidence of foul play or > conspiracy by owners of social media

The _multi_ -thousand word essay that not only speaks of verifiable evidence from the author's own research proving the order or omission of search engine results heavily shape opinion, without detection, and:

1\. Gives evidence from multiple other sources that Google's results are biased to support their business interests.

2\. Calls upon a 50+ year precedent of corporations using all forms of media to manipulate opinion.

3\. Recites the fact that two C-level Googlers straight up worked for Hillary Clinton.

4\. Recites the fact that Google's search algorithm is a black box.

All this on the heels of a revelation that Eric Schmidt (one of those two that worked for Clinton) is willing to flex his muscle in nefarious ways when people are critical of Google, and you'd have to be unbelievably naive to think that he's above using his technology along with his money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Respect to the QZ for showing "profiles likely to get blocked often", using examples of both Donald and Hilary. This is an example of neutral reporting.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not having a facebook profile solves this problem.

<comment><USER6> Not being able to block the Zuck is actually a surprisingly transparent move by the FB. To the degree it reveals the website as being his property and dispels someone's notion that they have some "ownership" of the platform because of how much content they've contributed to it.

<comment><USER5> To prove your point, about 95% of the people I know from 14-85 have a Facebook account (personal anecdote..). out of those, most won't know about this information or care - and out of the small percentage that do, probably zero will close their account after thinking critically about the implications.

I'm not quite a pariah in this group of family and friends, but not having a Facebook account is definitely looked down upon because they have to email, call or text me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _But if you are not particularly taken by the Zuckerberg-Chan family posts, > you have essentially no way to make sure you don't see them._

Is this a problem other people have faced? I ask because I've never once had any content from any of the aforementioned appear on my timeline. In fact aside adverts (which I don't like but I get why they are there), I've never had any content appear on my feed that I hadn't specifically opted in to.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been floating the phrase "facebook is the new cigarettes" and had good uptake. Teens also get it, surprisingly.

<comment><USER5> Given the relationship to dopamine, this is a good analogy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is an artificial problem. Just don't follow them if you don't want to read their posts!

Actually, I've written a script to unfollow anyone and currently I use fb just as a messenger, using the "Friendly" app on Android, because it requires less privileges than facebook messenger.

<comment><USER10> I installed and bought Friendly, but it was never great for messages (because notifications are more miss than hit), and has become useless now that the messages tab always shows "SoAndSo has invited you! Join her on Messenger!" instead of, you know, messages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if these people thinking of FACE BOOK social manipulation ever think about FOX NEWS social manipulation. Do they agree with it or are they influenced by FOX news to think that FACE BOOK and GOOGLE are running social manipulation?

</comment><comment><USER12> Donald Trump and Hillary is also both pages which are different from Profiles, they should have tried with a public personal profile.

</comment><comment><USER13> You think that if I ,or somebody else, would own Facebook that I wouldn't abuse it ? Wake up people!!

</comment><comment><USER14> "lol"

Honestly this is so unimportant i don't exactly see a better answer.

I mean seriously: the higest comment in this thread right now is discussing "social media has become mass scale social engineering"... are you for real?

It's just two guys and maybe it's not even intentional.. and maybe if it was then so what? it's still just two guys.

People feel threatened by anything these days..

<comment><USER5> I think you failed critical thinking 101.</comment></comment>


Lack of effective time signals could hamper IoT development - <AUTHOR> http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/timing-031915.cfm

<comment><USER2> The actual paper: [1]

One of the strengths of the Internet is that it doesn't need tight time synchronization to work. Analog TV did; all the network cameras and videotape machines were synched to a time source in New York. Early digital telephony did; all the time-division multiplexed lines were synched to a time source in New Jersey.

As for real time, getting a response consistently within N milliseconds doesn't require global time synchronization. A local clock is fine. Real time operating systems such as QNX and VxWorks routinely do that. (The usual test: hook up a square wave generator to a digital input. Have it trigger an interrupt which activates a process. Have the process turn on a digital output. Connect the digital input and output to a scope. Are there any outliers, output signals that are delayed from the expected response time? There shouldn't be, even if there are low-priority background jobs running. Linux can't do that, but a true real time OS can.)

There's a demand for microsecond level clock synchronization in the financial community, to measure the delays and record the order in high-frequency trading transactions. And Google apparently uses tight time synchronization for distributed database commit synchronization. But there's no reason to require that outside single industry boundaries.

[1] [http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/TechnicalNotes/NIST.TN.1867...](http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/TechnicalNotes/NIST.TN.1867.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone needs to tell them about dead-reckoning. These are things that have been solved in game dev for quite a while.

</comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't we just piggy-back off of GPS signals? They are, after all, an array of orbiting atomic clocks...

</comment><comment><USER5> This calls for a widely accepted "now" specification

<comment><USER6> Bad news, there is no now.

[https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2745385](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2745385)

<comment><USER5> Well now there is</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I made a site that reminds software engineers of code reviews - <AUTHOR> https://reviewspartan.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

This is my first time submitting to the site and also my first attempt at building a business.

Needless to say I am very excited to try to solve a problem I've seen many software development teams running into.

Review Spartan integrates Slack & Bitbucket to help development teams stay on- schedule by reminding team members of PRs that require their attention.

This is done partially through social pressure because no-one wants to be the person that is constantly pinged by the Slack app.

Please take a look and let me know what you think, good or bad (ideally all constructive though)!

<comment><USER2> good stuff. My team was discussing curiously this problem at work today, we have been rolling out our own solution with scripts :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey that's great, whatever works for y'all! :)

Thanks for taking a look, I appreciate it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Databases/disk access for server-side apps - still a bottleneck? - vanilla-almond I've read many times in comments here on Hacker News that the speed of your server-side programming language matters much less than the speed of your database or disk access. Given that SSDs are now commonly used by many hosting providers - is database/disk access still a bottleneck for server-side web apps? <comment><AUTHOR> Are you doing more than 300 transactions per second? If not then don't worry about it...

I say '300' because just a few years ago we were doing that on (a poorly tuned) DB2 on top of an 8 disk array on Netapp over NFS... Worked Fine™

</comment><comment><USER2> Vary on your application.

\- you can fit all or portion of your database into memory

\- you can utilize cache layer (redis, memcache) to bypass database access

\- you can use certain databases on GPU if db is still bottleneck</comment>


The Data That Turned the World Upside Down or How Trump Won - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-trump-win <comment><USER2> This headline doesn't accurately represent that this article is about than just another rant against "fake news". Hopefully this post gets more attention. Psychometrics is a real danger to democracy.</comment>


Reading the Book - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc311/Notes/Learn/read.html <comment><USER2> _Think about this. Who's the person that learns the most from a class? Is it that brainy person that got an A+ on the exam? That person learned a lot. But the teacher, if they're any good, learns more. When you teach something, you can't learn something half-heartedly. You are trying to explain it to the students, so it needs to make sense to you._

Think about this. Who's the person who learns the most in life? Is it that teacher who had to explain it to the students? That person learned a lot. But the builder, if they're any good, learns more. When you build something, you can't learn something half-heartedly. You are trying to actually make it work in the real world, so it needs to make even more sense to you than it made to your teacher.

<comment><USER3> Alan Perlis: _You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program._

<comment><USER4> That is pretty absurd. Find the most complex thing you have ever programmed and go teach it to someone. Just because you made it does not mean you can explain it. Further, while explaining there is a pretty good chance you will find some bugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes, there are some impatient people who unreasonably ask books to painlessly teach them complicated material. But there is also a problem that most technical books really _are_ poorly written, and the reason for this is simple: for the people who are most qualified to teach material, there are usually terrible incentives for them to invest the enormous effort it takes to write books.

For instance, in Academia, there is pretty much a _penalty_ associated with top professors writing books. Writing a good technical book takes of order a year, and one year not publishing papers is easily enough to prevent someone from getting tenure. Tenure committees give negligible weight to producing good texts, and the royalties from upper-level books is insignificant, so why would a professor bother?

This won't change unless the incentives are changed.

<comment><USER6> I have no evidence, but I suspect most textbooks are written by tenured professors for precisely the reasons you've outlined. I would submit that these people (not untenured assistant professors) are the most qualified to write such books. I attribute the fact that most textbooks are terrible to Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap), so I don't think changing the incentives will increase the proportion of good textbooks, though it may increase the absolute number of such books.

<comment><USER5> This is a reasonable suggestion, but I disagree for three reasons:

1\. It's a common misconception that professors work very hard for tenure and then, once they get it, are free to do whatever they want. (In other words, that there is some "threshold".) Instead, the system is set up to keep professors on a treadmill until they are very old through grant "carrots". Yes, it's possible once you secure tenure to just hang out and think deep thoughts, but this leads to salary stagnation or even regression. Instead, most professor continually chase money by cranking out research. Taking time off to write books means significantly less salary, (which is not nearly made up for by book royalties).

(This is my impression as a physics grad student. Other department might be a bit different.)

2\. I claim that the hardest part about writing books is distinguishing what's obvious from what's not _for the student_. Once you've been using the material for years, it's very difficult to remember all the tiny mental leaps that are required to get from point A to point B. Yes, you need a mastery of the material to write a book, but sufficient mastery for textbook writing comes with only a few years of research experience (as opposed to, say, review papers which require extra experience because they are more-cutting-edge/less- canonical).

3\. Even if tenured professors _didn't_ have a penalty for writing textbooks and they _were_ the most qualified (in contradiction to my first two claims) there needs to be some serious incentive for them to get off their ass and write a whole book. Those incentives doesn't exist right now. A lack of penalty isn't enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have this thing about learning stuff. If I find something hard to understand, it is normally not me it is my source. I have years of proving I could understand stuff, but these authors generally don't have that level of experience in teaching stuff.

I remember in my A-level Computer Science class when we had to explain stuff, the lecturer would give an automatic zero if it didn't come with an example. I carry this practice with me now of giving examples when I'm trying to explaining stuff and non-technical people have commented they understand the concepts behind some of the technical things I write for them. I find that a lot textbooks fail to provide enough examples and analogies; they present just equation and abstract concepts. It amazes me how people find OOP hard to learn. Then I realize that my lecturer was off the chart in explain stuff. Tons of analogy and the like.

So, yea that is how I judge technical books, how many examples and analogies they provide.

</comment><comment><USER8> Most textbooks are actually badly written. They are written by busy profs who don't put too much time into making the concepts easily accessible. This is because writing a book takes a lot of time, and the author does not get much monetary compensation back. The author gets some recognition, but by spending that much time on grant writing and paper writing, he would get much more recognition and funds.

So the problem could be the book, don't blame yourself for everything. Search for the best book. Recently, I found that often the best book is an online tutorial, resource, blog. My 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER9> For many years, I wished for a boss who would hand me a book and say, "here's a book, read up on it." Little did I know that I had to marry him first.

</twee>

<comment><AUTHOR> As a Java programmer, I once was welcomed at a new job: "Here you are. Effective Java. Read it all, cover to cover." Having programmed in Java for a couple of years, it was like a punch direct to my face. And it was awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This whole post is just giving excuses for bad writing. Even though some subjects can be very difficult, a knowledgeable person, who knows how to teach and how to write can produce something useful. Personally, I tend to keep trying different books until I find something that makes sense to me. But I admit this is not always possible with more esoteric subjects. A good text book, like a good teacher, makes a big difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> As Pliny the Younger proclaimed: "There never was a book so bad that it was not good in some passage or another."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some well-read fellows called Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren wrote a book called _How to Read a Book_.

It serves two useful purposes.

1\. It provides a framework for thoroughly digesting important books.

2\. It is a rich vein of humour for visiting friends to mine when they spot it on your book shelf.

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone- book/dp/06712...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone- book/dp/0671212095)

</comment><comment><USER12> My advice: if you don't understand it at first, read it again. And again. Follow the references and read them if you need to. Or google what you don't understand, read up on it on Wikipedia, or another source. People give up way too easily.

Some of you might remember the invisible wall in your mind between you and college-level (and higher) math/science books/papers that you had before you went to college. Breaking that barrier has been one of the most important things I got from college.

Nothing is too difficult to understand (someone had to understand it to write a book about it), so don't give up too early.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some books are bad. However, some of the best books shouldn't be easy to read. I think there is a lot of value in struggling through hard books. At times I think the internet has made things too easy.

Look at any great math book. Large leaps of logic are declared 'obvious', and left as exercises for the reader. While such exercises often aren't easy, struggling with such exercises helps you learn. Before the internet provided tutorials for everything, you had to really struggle when you couldn't figure something out. Yet, I think I really learned to program from that struggle.

You learn to find information that isn't spoonfed to you. When you do, you will better be able to dig beneath hype and propoganda, and make up your own mind. Look for clues, and try thinking for yourself instead of getting all the answers from someone else.

<comment><USER14> It depends on why the book is hard. Sometimes it's just sloppy thinking and writing; sometimes it is an inherently hard subject. It isn't always clear when starting which it is so it is useful, if you start having trouble to compare the one you are reading with another on the same subject.

For reading that is inherently difficult, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren give some very helpful information in _How to Read a Book_. Unfortunately it is not an easy read itself.

Another book I found helpful was _A Time to Learn_ by Phillip Bandt, Naomi Meara, and Lyle Schmidt. It has some really good ideas on diagramming complex work to help you understand them, especially how their ideas fit together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> TL;DR

Sorry, I had to, especially since it's kinda true (just glad there was a summary at the end). I guess I'm lucky this wasn't required reading for my job. ;)

As a physics major I never actually read the books; I know this is why I wasn't a straight A student (close enough though) and probably why I took away less than I know I could have.

There were other majors in our department that would beat themselves up over the material, taking hours on end to really understand and apply it (this was impressive). They were the ones with straight A's, not because they were smarter than everyone but because they took the time to rip into the material. I'm always in awe of these kind of people.

TL;DR Don't read the book, devour it.

</comment><comment><USER16> "In the US, we like to think reporters have no bias, but of course, they do. In Europe, the biases are much clearer."

Not related to the main point of the article, but I don't agree with that. It was very subtle, but in my opinion that is a big lie.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it is _strongly_ related to the main point of the article, insofar there are types of books that allow you a broader margin for thinking and constructive critiques, and on the other hand, for technical books this is not so obvious. What don't you agree with? What and why is a big lie?</comment></comment>


$TERM Is Terminally Broken - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/notes/daniel-colascione/term-is-terminally-broken/10154219967001102/ <comment><USER2> Yeah... I have "xterm-256color" hardcoded in my .bashrc because it just seems to... fix everything. I'm currently running Termite btw.</comment>


Travellers to Australia to be searched for porn - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/travellers-to-be-searched-for-porn-20100520-vh09.html

<comment><USER2> As an Australian I am totally pissed at this.

First we are getting an internet filter despite a crooked trial run which "prooved" it was possible and the majority of the people being against it (especially when told what it is).

Secondly no R18+ rating for games because too many people wanted it apparently. When 98% of people who respond to the open comment thing say they want it then it must be flawed. It seems to be a game of "Head I Win. Tails You Lose" on that one.

Finally there is this. Not only is porn not illegal in this country but this is being brought in with the age old "Think of the children!".

So so angry right now. You Americans dont know how lucky you are to have a bill of rights which our politicians are still arguing over if we deserve or not. Obviously they dont want it so they can get stupid laws like this in.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are they that desperate for porn?

Maybe they should give the people in Australian customs an internet connection, that way they can spend their time in more useful ways when dealing with travelers.

<comment><USER4> > Are they that desperate for porn?

Only big-breasted porn.

<comment><USER5> For those who don't get it, women with A-cup breasts are banned in Australian pornography.

<comment><USER6> I hate to interrupt your fun, but technically I think women who appear to be underage are banned.

<comment><USER5> That's the rule as it stands. As it's interpreted, small breasts = appears underage for the most part.

The issue has been widely reported in the press as either a small breast ban or Australian demanding large breasts as indicated upstream.

From [http://www.inquisitr.com/59633/australian-government- censor-...](http://www.inquisitr.com/59633/australian-government-censor- confirms-small-breast-ban-sort-of/)

"Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party (ASP) said she attended a ACB training session late last year where they showed examples of publications that had been Refused Classification due to the size of the woman's breasts."

As to whether I'm having fun or not, the Australian Labor government has been behaving weirdly when it comes to censorship and personal freedom (net censorship, etc). I guess I'm lucky that I live overseas at the moment, but I do find the moral pandering (www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com) to be over the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I go to Australia before this decision gets reversed, I'm going to be sure to pack a lot of porn.

Also make sure I have some time to kill getting into the country. Really, that's the best solution: everyone needs to carry enough porn coming into the country that the customs officials get so bogged down filtering porn (by hand!) that they have no choice to give up. This is a _prime_ opportunity for civil disobedience.

</comment><comment><USER8> _Patten said if the question was designed to stop child pornography being smuggled into the country then the question should have been asked about "child pornography", without encompassing regular porn._

Yeah, change the question to "Are you carrying any child porn?". That'll stop its import for sure. We should extend this idea further; perhaps we could tick a "Are you planning on robbing this bank?" box before entering a bank. Heck, why not do away with the who judge/jury thing? Next time someone is charged with a crime, just give them a card that says "I committed this crime [Yes] [No]"

</comment><comment><USER9> I didn't know there was a Australian Sex Party. Can we vote for them :-)

This porn thing is really getting out of hand in Australia, first they tried to block web pages, now this. I've never been there, but my naive picture gained from the movies (admittedly not a reliable source, but nevertheless a data point) is that they seem to be quite a normal bunch and not a prudish, bible-thumping, porn-hating crowd. So, which part of the Australian society backs this anti-pron movement, I wonder.

<comment><USER10> The Sex Party is actually pretty sensible and, under our voting system, worth a vote. Unlike the US system (as an example - not sure where you're from) we can vote for minor parties and then preference our preferred major (Liberal or Labor) party.

Australia is not overly religious, generally speaking, but both major party leaders are reasonably prudish, Abbott (Liberal, in opposition) very openly so. Many other politicians don't really show any outwardly obvious signs of being religious.

The lobbyists and so on must be more powerful than we realise because this "censor the internet" and "search for porn" pressure is coming from no one I know and comments online seem to mostly favour the "This is ridiculous" line of thinking.

Very sad to see what is a decent country take these backward turns for the worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So if I say no and I do have porn, that's me lying to customs, right? What if I don't know I have it? What if my kids downloaded something onto my laptop, or there's some pictures still in my browser cache?

Despite what Australian politicians seem to think, they won't be able to build an anti-porn wall to keep new porn out and then filter the porn they already have. They can't build a porn-free zone, no matter how hard they try.

</comment><comment><USER12> Thoughtcrimes are a heinous offence.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wow this is horrible, I already have on my international travel check-list "put all data into a hidden true crypt volume"! But that was mostly to avoid other countries, not my nice supposedly liberal homeland!

</comment><comment><USER14> That's pretty lame.

Fortunately who needs to carry porn these days?

</comment><comment><USER15> This is beginning to look suspicious. Does anyone know what on earth is going on with these concerted, ridiculous assaults on freedom in Australia? It almost looks like the work of some ridiculous lobby with an agenda.</comment>


Show HN: Scala Tutorials (updated) - <AUTHOR> http://scalatutorials.com/tour/?new

<comment><USER2> Great site, enjoying it.

It's a shame that stuff like this gets no upvotes so we can find out important stuff like what startup got funding.</comment>


Google To "Out Open" Facebook On November 5 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/21/google-to-out-open-facebook-on-november-5/

<comment><USER2> I _hope_ this is true! This would be a great thing and everyone's social maps would finally be free!

</comment><comment><USER3> How much can we trust a Google-driven 'open' social networking platform? They did purchase doubleclick after all. While these social networks are interesting projects, I don't think it's a good idea to allow a single company like Google to run the underlying network and maintain the user information. Certainly such a "platform" is not stable in the long term for building startups on if for no other reason than the social graph owner(s) can shut you and your applications out on a whim.

<comment><USER4> Give me a scenario in which it is in Google's interest to shut down their social networking API overnight without warning. Just because they can doesn't mean they will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm personally not to phased by this announcement. I don't think Facebook's real strength is its API but its core functionality. So any attempts to outperform them on this issue is commendable but I don't think it will bother Facebook that much.

</comment><comment><USER6> This could be good news for India-focused Web 2.0 startups given the Orkut demographic.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder how close it will be to this?

[http://mindrosity.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-google-could- beat...](http://mindrosity.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-google-could-beat- facebook-at-its.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> What about privacy? [http://fishtrain.com/2007/09/28/what-happens-when-a- social-g...](http://fishtrain.com/2007/09/28/what-happens-when-a-social-graph- is-compromised/)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's about time _somebody_ did that. I thought it might make a good startup, but couldn't think of any way to get random social networking services to sign on.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Facebook platform makes it possible for one person to build an interesting app in a week or two. Google will need to match this to be competitive.

<comment><USER10> It is the internet. You can build an interesting app even faster without touching Facebook's platform at all.

<comment><USER11> And make a lot more money

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Facebook needs to find their adsense. Fast.

<comment><USER11> Not gonna happen IMHO. Facebook is about interacting with other people. Not about clicking on adverts.

Google on the other hand is about finding stuff, which can sometimes be achieved by clicking on an ad.

<comment><USER12> you're right. i'm sorry i should have been more clear. i was using adsense as an analogy. facebook needs to find its business model X, as google found adsense.

facebook definitely has a potential X that could be as profitable (or moreso) than adsense. but what that is i don't know. i'm sure they do though.

<comment><USER11> ah ok sure. Perhaps it's some sort of dating/matchmaking system. I can see that working, although that's a pretty crowded market already.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A  mummy more than 3,000 years old gets a CT scan - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/gift-of-the-mummy/ <comment><USER2> Strange and freaky to think someone might look at us 3300 years from now, though of course we won't be mummified.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually a Canadian waiting in line for the procedure.</comment>


Ripped off by oDesk - <AUTHOR> http://rippedoffbyodesk.com/

<comment><USER2> I've used outsourced and offshore developers quite a bit, spread over 5+ years. From this, I heartily recommend:

* For projects of substantial time and complexity, pay by the hour. You might like to get a bid and a complete system on a fixed date from a supplier across the planet, but realistically you will probably be left disappointed.

* Hire individuals, to work on your team, rather than hiring a firm/team.

* Manage the project yourself, or at least hire someone nearby (with whom you have a close cultural match) to manage it.

Outsourcing whole projects to an outside firm can work. My own firm supplies this service, with good results, and so do many others. But I've mostly see it _fail_ when the outsource firm is around the world. That's a shame, because I've worked with quite a few really excellent developers who happen to be around the world.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I got burned by providers in oDesk and oDesk siding with the (rather unprofessional) provider. Did a search and it looks like there is a rash of people like me.

Any experiences on how to manage things more tightly?

I was able to cut the bleeding early, but it could have been 5 times more if I were a bit more forgiving, sadly.

</comment><comment><USER3> That sucks. This is a could be a huge blow to oDesk. If oDesk can't guarantee, they should be put to shame for assuring users and using that language on their websites or documentations.

Finding reputable/trustworthy offshore development is very difficult. oDesk is suppose to minimize that risk, no?

<comment><USER2> oDesk collects a small fraction of the cost as their markup. This small fraction, is often of fairly small amounts. There is no possible way that they could provide a guarantee of project success, even if they tried.

That said, I think oDesk does a great job, of what they do (which is NOT to guarantee project success).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried leaving a comment on the site, and looks like the guy deleted my comment as it hasn't shown up.

I have been a provider on oDesk and been ripped off by the client.

It's hard to compete with the prices of the Indians / Chinese developers, and their "estimated completion times" are always far too optimistic.

When I put a bid in on a project which is realistic (both price and timescale) I __guarantee __I never win an interview.

</comment><comment><USER5> Some guy hires a company through oDesk, possibly asks for undeliverable specs and pays very little, doesn't get the stuff delivered and the goes on and sues the marketplace because of the outcome? That's as absurd as suing ebay or craigslist if you don't like some stuff you buy there!

<comment><USER6> I'm sure most on HN would agree that you get what you pay for in outsourcing and oDesk has little liability. However, in your comparison to eBay, I'm not sure it holds and there may be a lesson here for how online marketplaces evolve. The last 6 purchases I've made through eBay resulted in products delivered that were not as represented. What did I do? Well, the first time, I had about 4 email exchanges with the seller and decided it wasn't worth $30 (what I paid) to deal with ebay or the seller. The subsequent times (all in the last 12 months) I also decided not to deal with it. The result: I only buy on eBay now as a last resort. Its not absurd to expect the marketplace to ensure, within reason, the quality of its sellers.

<comment><USER7> > The last 6 purchases I've made through eBay resulted in products delivered > that were not as represented.

Wow, really? Six in a row? I've participated in hundreds of transactions through eBay (over the years) and I can only think of three that I was ever dissatisfied didn't meet the description, or that the description didn't reveal things I considered important (and bad). Two of them were transactions under $10, including shipping.

Can I ask what sort of things you were buying, and what sort of costs were involved (one, you said was $30)?

<comment><USER6> The last 4 were copies of Windows XP. You simply can't buy XP retail anymore and I have clients with old PCs that must be reinstalled. Perhaps software purchases is a corner case. Each time, I chose a different seller, each with a "top seller" reputation. I only purchase items listed as unused original XP SP3. The variations from as advertised were: never as pictured in the ad, no SP3, SP3 on a separate CD (a CD clearly not produced by MS or any other reputable vendor), a product key that had been used, a Dell install disk with key attached from something else.

The first item was for a vintage cocktail shaker. It was listed in mint condition. I bought it for a friend's birthday. I received the shaker: it had no lid to the pour spout. The email exchange went something like this: "I received the shaker, the cap to the pour spout is missing...did you forget to pack it?"..."Cap? It didn't have a cap, I sent everything."..."How can you use this as a shaker if it has no cap?"..."Oh sorry, I know nothing about cocktail shakers, I didn't think to put in my listing that the cap was missing."..."You claim to have been selling antiques for 20 years, how could you not know this? ok, I'd like to return it"..."hmmm...its been past 7 days now, I don't accept returns past 7 days"... This was also a top rated seller with "super duper best seller" comments.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SnapTerms: Terms Of Service As A Service - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/13/snapterms-terms-of-service-as-a-service/

<comment><USER2> Awesome! I suggested something like this in the 500px TOS thread.

should have known somebody would already be doing it :).</comment>


Ask HN: Why using "system font stack" when you can just use "sans-serif"? - <AUTHOR> I've read dozens of articles about how various websites set their "system font stack" up and tutorials on it [1-5].
From what I can see, the goal of "system font stack" is trying to use native system font when possible, particularly on mobile. And all these articles gave rationales about how it would be superior than some of the traditional stacks such as `font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif;`, which I fully agree.
However, none of them seem to address an obvious question: why not just use "font-family: sans-serif;"? The only discussion I found that is on a "notable enough" project is this issue on normalize.css repo: https://github.com/necolas/normalize.css/issues/665
-- By assigning only "sans-serif", it will fallback to exactly that: system's default (san-serif) font. For example, there is no need to manually assign, say, "Roboto" (a typical choice for any of these "system font stacks") on Android, to accomplish so: "sans-serif" uses Roboto already. Similar can be said for iOS etc.
Wikipedia (desktop version, not mobile version) perhaps is the only "notable" site I knew that uses simply "sans-serif", and it seems to work flawlessly for years, on all devices.
Another plus for just using "sans-serif" is that for ends that have finer control over fonts (such as desktop browsers), users can assign their own preferred fonts (therefore overriding the system default ones) and it will be immediately applied to the website. This won't happen for sites that have hard-coded fonts (including these "system font stacks").
Disclaimer: I'm not a designer, but a end-user who is relatively sensitive to fonts.
[1] https://woorkup.com/system-font/ [2] https://markdotto.com/2018/02/07/github-system-fonts/ [3] https://furbo.org/2018/03/28/system-fonts-in-css/ [4] https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/115012937927-About-the-system-font-stack [5] https://flaviocopes.com/css-system-fonts/
(Just search "system font stack to get more) <comment><USER2> Designer/Programmer for 20 years

System font stacks are a way to produce consistent designs across machines. You use them because you know for certain that a font is installed on a machine. This comes with some benefits. But the primary benefit would be maintaining a certain level of control of the brand/site.

By specifying "sans-serif" you are handing over the control of the font to the user. Now if I were to set my default font hypothetically to wingdings, The whole site becomes instantly unusable. That is an extreme for certain, but the point remains valid if I set it Comic sans because i like the look of it. The New York Times would lose the timeless feel and serious nature they have worked hard to evoke. If I changed it to Consolas I would throw the old and well established rules of typography like leading, kerning, line length and visual weight straight in the bin.

Many people may not think about those rules, because those rules are like special effects - when they are good, they are invisible. No one stops mid- page to remark how readable something is. Just like no one questions if an Apple store is an apple store. It just is, everything screams "Apple". But change the Apple stores primary colour from white to slightly grey and everything will feel slightly off. You mentioned Wikipedia uses "sans-serif" only yet wikipedia doesnt focus too much on brand or legibility of their content. They focus a lot on the quality of the content.

So thats the high-level take on why forcing a system font is preferable for designers, it provides a fairly predictable experience with some well designed default fonts that are already installed, without having to worry about unusual fonts breaking designs. Thinking too much about it is for big corporate site where there is money to care about such things. Often, a Corporate Identity comes down from Marketing and front end guys have to follow it to the letter.

(NB I have not mentioned my thoughts on RTL and international languages purely because I am not qualified to do so. Not an expert, just aware this is a massive problem on its own)

Having said all of that.. I personally think there is nothing wrong with "font-family: sans-serif;" and use it often.</comment>


Everyone's AirPods will die. We've got the trick to replacing them - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/08/everyones-airpods-will-die-weve-got-trick-replacing-them <comment><USER2> What are alternatives that are similar in design and have replaceable batteries and are repairable?

</comment><comment><USER3> and then the EU brings in the 'right to repair' (I know... it can't force a repairable design)</comment>


$120k for wedding day weather engineering - <AUTHOR> https://www.oliverstravels.com/blog/guarantee-perfect-wedding-weather-olivers-travels/ <comment><USER2> As someone who thinks the wedding industry is already bloated/inflated beyond all practical measures, this takes the cake.

Interrupting/changing weather patterns for personal gain seems pretty narcissistic to me. _shrugs_</comment>


Founder lead public companies outperform others by 3 to 1 - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/03/founder-led-companies-outperform-the-rest-heres-why <comment><USER2> "What we found surprised us." \- insurgency "Lose this clear purpose and your company becomes directionless and uninspiring" \- front line obsession "Lose this deep curiosity for what is going on at the front line, and your company loses its instincts" \- owner's mindset - "Lose the owner's mindset and your company becomes complacent, slow to act and decide, and risk averse"

So...it surprised them that companies where clarity, curiosity, and accountability are practiced did better than companies that didn't practice those values.

I'm surprised that they were surprised.</comment>


Australia website black out - <AUTHOR> http://www.internetblackout.com.au/websites/ Protest against censorship in Australia. <comment><USER2> It would be cool if their script could blackout the participating sites only for visitors from Australia. I wouldn't do this to all my visitors, but I might do it for the small fraction of Aussie visitors.

<comment><USER3> I'd deploy this more if the copy weren't aimed solely at Australians; which it shouldn't be as globalisation means if you're not an Australian, Australia is just a test-case for wherever you happen to be.

<comment><USER4> It would be nice for someone to provide a script which did this on rota (or a single date) for all countries with i18n for each of those countries outlining their own censorship laws, including UK, France, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Internet censorship is great, because it pushes technologies like Bittorrent and Tor into the mainstream, which improves those technologies. Every time someone uses one of those tools to do something silly like download a song or look at pictures of 17-year-old-girls, we are getting closer and closer to an Internet that the governments can't meddle with. When information can flow freely without consequence from the organizations in power, society can advance. Imagine how much more useful information will end up on Wikileaks when the leaker can truly be anonymous and safe from the established power structure their action is hurting. It will be very good for society as a whole. (And there is the whole issue of "Tor is just for child pornographers". When you have to use it to see the New York Times, nobody will think that anymore.)

Anyway, Internet censorship is just something that looks good in the headlines, but it is not a real issue. These technical measures are easy to get around, and will keep getting easier. (When I was in China, I just ssh'd to my home machine to browse websites that the Great Firewall blocked. Oh yeah, damn the global nature of the Internet...)

<comment><USER6> I want what you say to be true, but what happens when governments simply say that encryption is illegal (e.g. "It's the only way to fight the terrorists!", "To support encryption is to support child porn!")? If any ISP would drop your connection immediately if it saw anything it even thought was encryption what would you do?

Personally I think the only solution will be peer-to-peer devices [1], but we couldn't do that with software only as the phone companies have already shown they couldn't be trusted for something like this [2].

[1] If you're familiar with the "one laptop per child" project then you can see what I mean. Every device will peer up with any devices it can see, so your network is simply all your peers plus all their peers (recursive). This can be attacked too, but it lacks the single point of failure that our current ISP oriented networks have.

[2] [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/wsj-nokia-and- sieme...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/wsj-nokia-and-siemens-help- iran-spy-on-internet-users/)

<comment><USER5> It's easy, you hide your crypto in innocent-looking communication.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography>

Will governments ban photo-sharing sites? Probably not. So your encrypted messages can still be distributed.

Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen.

<comment><USER6> >Will governments ban photo-sharing sites?

No, but that's a horrible way of communicating. I can't image a future where people have complex programs to decode pictures and re-encode them to post to innocent looking sites. Plus, how are average people going to get these programs in the first place without being busted?

I think a better method might be to create a big complex MMO that everyone plays that happens to have a news forum inside it somewhere. Then the data doesn't have to be encrypted per se, but it would be harder to see from outside and wouldn't be complex for users to participate in.

>Also, banning cryptography will mean that online banking, VPN access, ssh, remote desktop, etc., etc. will no longer be possible. So I doubt this will ever happen.

I wouldn't have to become impossible, it would simply have to be changed in such a way that the government can always see all communications.

As I say, I __hope __you're right, but as a programmer with a background in network engineering I don't see anything (outside of P2P) that couldn't easily be stopped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a long and detailed argument about this, with someone who I would consider mostly rational. They just can't see the problem with internet censorship, because TV, Movies, Newspapers and Games are all censored, and theer is some deplorable sites on the internet I think don't have any benefit to anyone. Free speech always involves allowing people to say things you don't like or agree with, but ultimately the good outweighs the bad.

My line is (and will always be) that hidden censorship is the thin edge of the wedge for greater control, and that a faulty technology easily circumvented is pointless. I also have a large problem with any government of any kind telling me how my family should spend it's time, when there is no externality to the activity. But the argument I had really opened my eyes to how the general public (and thus politicians) see this issue. And because of this, I think the filter is coming whether we like it or not. Because tech-literate educated people make up a fraction of the voting public, I fear this is going to happen.

Oh, and I'm not willing to black out my site. I'd hate to think what it would do to my conversion rate.

<comment><USER8> I think arguing against _all_ censorship is doomed because people will always come up with examples that are very hard to argue with. For example, "what if someone puts detailed plans to make a nuclear bomb on the internet"? Would you really argue nothing should be done to prevent that?

What is really the problem here is the method. We can usually all agree that censorship must be an exception, not the rule. In fact, we can usually agree that in a democracy we have a set of important principles without which the pillars that support the democracy itself and the freedom of people within it will break down:

a) We try as hard not to censor as we can.

b) We try everything except censorship before we try censorship

c) Even then, we censor only when such censorship has a provable chance of preventing the serious harm that we have identified must be prevented

Filtering the internet fails all of these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good on the Aussies for making a stand!!!

<comment><USER10> You're welcome. Shame that we have to.

<comment><USER9> Too True!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think you shouldn't do "modal HTML dialog boxes" neither for evil nor for good.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would do this for a day, but not for 5.</comment>


IoT-Cybersecurity: Regulation Ready [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.iotsecurityfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/IoT-Cybersecurity-Regulation-Ready-White-Paper-Full-Version.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> _Common sanctions for non-compliance with these regulations could have serious financial and reputational implications for corporations and staff, including_ :

      - <USER2>
      - Personal liability and imprisonment of managers or officers
      - Cease and desist orders
      - Erasure of data
      - Public announcements and product recalls
      - Binding instructions on security features</comment>


Notreadable – a simple readability app I built - <AUTHOR> http://www.notreadable.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

Notreadable is an app for assessing the readability of text (e.g. grade level, syllable count, difficult words, and more).

I built it after growing frustrated with other offerings (e.g. readable.com), which often require an email sign up, subscription, and/or are covered in advertisements.

Cheers</comment>


Swedes Were Among the First Colonizers in North America - <AUTHOR> https://swedesinthestates.com/nova-svecia/ <comment><USER2> Can the OP please stop posting every "Swede" blog posting? That's all he does here and they're just not relevant.</comment>


Entrepreneurs available for consulting in Seattle - <AUTHOR> http://freeusall.com/ A few entrepreneurs I know in Seattle are consulting on the side to keep their startups self-funded. I've created a simple list:
http://freeusall.com/
Everyone on this list kicks ass - I've worked with several of them. If you're looking for a great consultant and want to help a founder keep their equity, hire one of these guys! <comment><USER2> _The folks on this list are currently working on a startup of their own but are available for part-time work. Please DO NOT contact any of the people below unless you are interested in hiring them._

Hi. I'm a leaf node at a medium-sized tech company in the Seattle area. We're growing rapidly, hiring FTE positions, and quite probably willing to "roll on" temporary people during certain demand spikes. I assume I am or my manager is your target. The
 sized disclaimer at the top has me scared, so I have a few questions:

1) Is it ok to contact people on the list to solicit their willingness to go FTE with our company? If it's ok in principle, perhaps a dropdown with {please do not, unstated, please do} options regarding this preference could be offered so I can tell which ones are going to just get pissed at me.

2) I have a lot of work to do, but I can't assess fit through a short bio. Is it ok to contact people that sound like they may be a decent fit to "interview" them prior to having any particular task lined up for them? I am busy and am not going to walk the combinatorial explosion of each of these people and each of my tasks to decide before emailing someone if it might be worth "going on a date". However, calling with no task in hand walks the line of sleazy headhunterness if done wrong (which is going to be a problem either way next time the economy picks up). I want to follow the rules of your site.

Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER3> A shame it is Seattle-only...</comment>


Why the Kindle is No iPod [2007] - <AUTHOR> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/11/why_kindle_is_n.php

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm particularly interested in this claim:

 _"For the Kindle to be the "iPod of reading," it would have had to have been preceded by a "Napster of reading." And, of course, it wasn't. Which probably tells you something about the difference between songs and stories."_

Is there anything intrinsic about books that makes a "napster of reading" impossible? The only reason I can think of is that reading a book is harder than listening to an album.</comment>


Police Start to Reconsider Longstanding Rules on Using Force - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/us/police-start-to-reconsider-longstanding-rules-on-using-force.html <comment><USER3> One of the problems with US police in general seems to be that levels and quality of training vary so wildly. You have some "world class" police training programs, while others seem to be almost akin to slapping a badge and a gun on the first person who walks in the door.

I have no idea if what I am about to suggest is even legal, but I'd like to see congress pass a reform bill which contains:

\- A minimum level of training and minimum continuing education requirement for all levels of police (state, county, federal, etc). Similar to No Child Left Behind (but for cops).

\- Civilian oversight of police complaints (akin to what other countries have). Or failing that federal oversight.

\- Federal funding to develop better officer education programs (with goals including officer safety, de-escalation, alternatives to use of force, and ethics).

\- Reform asset forfeiture. All funds now also have to go to local education, homeless shelters, or similar. Nothing officer benefiting can be funded. Also someone has to have actually committed and been prosecuted for a crime(!).

<comment><USER4> I think the main problem with your suggestion is that different jurisdictions have different police needs. Should a single officer department in a rural county enact the same programs that NYC has?

<comment><USER5> You can counteract that somewhat by delegating rural policing to a larger force, so that the overhead of some programs are shared.

Maybe it wouldn't be too popular in the States, where everyone from the Mayor down to the city hall janitor (and including the sheriff) is elected. But it seems to work fairly well in Canada. Jurisdictions too small to warrant their own regional force contract the RCMP or provincial force (e.g. OPP) to serve as the regional force.

The flip side is that it can lead to a certain detachment (no pun intended) from the community because the officers consider it a "tour of duty" to serve at a tiny outpost before graduating to a "real" position.

<comment><USER6> And how does that play considering study after study and program after program showing that a successful approach in fostering harmonious police-citizen relations and reducing crime is to have the cops "walking the beat" and becoming known and recognized in the areas they're policing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Like the 21-foot rule, many current police practices were adopted when officers faced violent street gangs. Crime rates soared, as did the number of officers killed. Today, crime is at historic lows and most cities are safer than they have been in generations, for residents and officers alike. This should be a moment of high confidence in the police, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a law enforcement policy group. Instead, he said, policing is in crisis."_

Seeing cops with tanks in Ferguson, Missouri has been a wake-up call for many Americans. Fortunately many on the left and the right ([http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund- campa...](http://truthinmedia.com/billionaire-koch-brothers-fund-campaign- against-police-militarization/)) agree that it isn't appropriate, so hopefully we will start to see some change.

<comment><USER8> The vast majority of police should not be armed. They are simply not well enough trained.

<comment><USER9> If the population is armed the police should be armed. Simple as that. Good luck getting the population disarmed in less than a century, and thats if you get them to pass the constitutional amendment first.

<comment><USER8> > _If the population is armed the police should be armed._

Interesting assertion. But there is no basis in fact. Legal gun owners, think of them and their choices what you will, also tend to be law-abiding.

<comment><USER9> I know they are mostly law abiding. I am one of them. My point is that you can't expect a police force to go unarmed when there is a 50/50 chance someone in each call is armed. No one would want to do that job.

<comment><USER8> > _No one would want to do that job._

That's another assertion without any basis. Cop boards are full of statements like that. Exactly 0.00% of cops making such statements have quit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As far as I can tell, the rules that are on the books for handling dangerous situations is not at issue, it's the complete disregard for those and any other rules. It's the rampant abuse of power that's the real problem.

There is no longer any accountability or consequence for a police officer committing the most heinous of crimes in the United States. At worst they'll get fired, then hired back onto the force in the next town over.

<comment><USER11> Nowadays, the police looks fearsome and threatening with their high tech automatic gear and offensive stance. They are not approachable. Why does policing require these military style weapons?

<comment><USER12> What's the difference between military style weapons and police style weapons? which specific weapons do you refer to?

<comment><USER12> > Flashbangs, fully automatic rifles, armored vehicles, tanks--those are some > military weapons that have no place in a police force, IMO.

Not sure what the etiquette of HN in replying to deep message threads is so I'll try it here. We'll see if it sticks

As far as I understand police officers on the streets do not routinely carry flashbangs nor drive armored vehicles. They do have an AR-15 style rifles in the patrol cars, but those are not fully-automatic though they do look like military M4/M16. Flashbangs and APCs are SWAT team toys.

<comment><USER9> Serious question. We have guns in the US. Lots of them. Leaving the politics of that aside. What do you expect police to use when they need to approach a barricaded person or extract someone in the line of fire?

A Bearcat/MRAP is the perfect tool. Its big (hides officers visually), armored, and relatively cheap to buy & maintain vs outfitting patrol cars with armor. It has zero offensive capability unless you count sitting someone on top of it with a rife.

I can understand (and I agree) with not wanting them to use armored vehicles in certain situations (non-violent protests, non violent drug raids, etc) but do you really not want them to have the capability at all?

<comment><USER13> There are all kinds of extreme and extremely implausible situations which could be used to justify extreme firepower, but it is not a good idea to use a military force as a police service. Ergo, we must accept that the right call will sometimes be "back away and negotiate".

<comment><USER9> Is an active shooter a "back away and negotiate" situation? What about when rioters are throwing 5lb chunks of concrete at firefighters/police like they did in baltimore this past week?

I can't be in the minority here thinking that armored vehicles have a use case and that we should dictate those use cases by policy. Removing them all removes the ability to stop those shit hits the fan scenarios in a timely manner.

<comment><USER14> I can't possibly imagine an instance in which the police arriving in an armored vehicle would deescalate a situation, and I believe deescalation ought to be the aim of police showing up at disturbances. Especially at protests and anti-police riots, like what happened in Baltimore this past week. Rolling around with military gear is antagonistic toward the people who already believe you exist only to oppress them. Perhaps that is not the best move to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Police in the US have killed 398 so far in 2015 [1]

German Police used only 85 bullets against people in all of 2011. [2]

Germany Population: 81 million USA population: 323 million (3.99x bigger)

So, if the USA were like Germany, Police would only use 340 bullets against people PER YEAR.

Not 398 deaths in 6 months, but 340 bullets used for an entire year!

Something is very different about the way the Police in the US approach situations.

[1] [http://killedbypolice.net/](http://killedbypolice.net/)

[2] [http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used- onl...](http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/05/german-police-used- only-85-bullets-against-people-2011/52162/)

<comment><USER16> You can't just go by population. America is just a vastly more violent nation. America has a 6X higher murder rate.

America has higher handgun ownership, which is a cause of many of the police shootings.

<comment><USER17> Fine, take Switzerland, where every home pretty much has a rifle...

<comment><USER18> A government-issued rifle kept in the home, with sealed ammunition that is checked and can only be used in peacetime at a training event. A bit different from handguns that can be easily concealed while walking around the streets.

Two-thirds of the US's annual homicides (about 12k total at the moment) are committed with handguns. Homicides with longarms aren't trivial (total firearm is around three quarters, from memory), but they're a much smaller proportion than handgun murders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am very surprised the article doesn't mention the american "shoot-to-kill" policy, despite the fact it gives the perfect example of how this policy is overkill (pun intended). If a knife-yielding attacker runs toward you, police in other countries (say western Europe) will shoot at the legs to NOT kill the attacker but sufficiently harm him so that he is not a threat anymore.

But in America the shoot-to-kill policy is so deeply ingrained in every officer's training that they only see 2 choices --when should I kill or not kill-- as depicted by that officer's simple question at the beginning of the article ("How close can somebody get to me before I'm justified in using deadly force?").

I have done research in the past on why the shoot-to-kill policy became prevalent in the US but not in other countries, and I have never found an answer. This puzzles me more than it should.

Edit: to the replies saying "if you don't intend to kill, don't shoot", you are wrong. This is precisely why tasers and non-lethal weapons were invented: there are many situations were harming or incapacitating an assailant is needed without necessarily killing him. On this note I agree a taser would be a safer weapon than trying to cause harm with a firearm. But my general comment is meant to apply to scenarios where a police officer cannot make the choice of firing with a taser[1]: in this case shooting to harm is better than shooting to kill.

[1] For whatever reason: he has no taser, or a firearm is the weapon he has in his hands during the split second where he has to decide to shoot, etc.

<comment><USER3> > If a knife-yielding attacker runs toward you, police in other countries (say > western Europe) will shoot at the legs to NOT kill the attacker but > sufficiently harm him so that he is not a threat anymore.

That sounds more like a movie than "Western Europe." Nobody shoots at legs since it is ineffective, can end their life anyway, and can risk collateral damage (what is behind that leg? What if the bullet bounces off of the bone?). You shoot to kill, period.

Here's what the UK police do: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf3RZ7gi2f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf3RZ7gi2f0)

Which is exceptional policing in my opinion. But no shooting at his leg.

PS - Not disagreeing with the argument that US police are too quick to kill people, even unarmed people. Just that shooting at people's legs is a legitimate alternative. Even when armed, other countries kill citizens much more rarely.

PPS - Another good video showing UK police's constraint, this time armed officers: [https://youtu.be/nVOLH_aN-zI?t=3m35s](https://youtu.be/nVOLH_aN- zI?t=3m35s) contrast that with this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYVJ4W7DPo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwYVJ4W7DPo) both incidents involve a cap gun and armed police (one in the US one in the UK).

<comment><USER20> Here in Finland armed men getting shot in the leg is not that rare of an occurrence, e.g. [http://yle.fi/uutiset/prison_guard_arrested_after_shooting_a...](http://yle.fi/uutiset/prison_guard_arrested_after_shooting_at_police/5778062)

<comment><USER21> The question here is what did the police aim for not what did they hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good manners, a soft tone and respect for other people is what most police officers are sorely missing.

A hostile attitude often escalates situations which could have been completely prevented or resolved differently. Unsurprisingly, treating people with complete disrespect often elicits a fight response.

What police departments really need more than anything else are strong "don't be a dick" policies that are rigorously enforced. Along with more "how not to be a dick" training seminars. One can be firm and even shoot someone when needed all without being one. Let the dicks go be mall cops. The guys with real guns should have above average patience and compassion. We should demand this and we should be willing to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I hope they - both the article authors and the trainers being described - <USER2> what the 21-foot rule is supposed to mean. A person with a drawn knife 21 feet from you does not mean that it's time to shoot them, even if they haven't made a move towards you. It means that the time for a healthy person to run up to you is close enough to the time to draw and fire a holstered weapon that you're at risk, so you should address either the closing distance or draw time by backing off or behind obstacles or drawing the weapon before any attack starts.

</comment><comment><USER17> This article is missing a critical criteria: racism. It's quite obvious that police officers (worldwide, but particularly in the United States) are more likely to shoot black suspects than white ones. This is not a training problem.</comment>


How to move from Windows to Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/07/how-to-move-from-windows-to-linux/

<comment><USER2> I love Ars Technica generally, but I'm a bit confused. Why not just link to the stackexchange question? Am I missing something obvious?

</comment><comment><USER3> I learn a lot from reading it. I am a Linux(Debian) user.

</comment><comment><USER4> Find a supported notebook, intall ubuntu </problem>.</comment>