Elementary OS 5.1 Hera - <AUTHOR> https://blog.elementary.io/introducing-elementary-os-5-1-hera/ <comment><USER2> Every workstation in my office runs Elementary. Around half of our employees came to the company with little or no prior technical experience, and it's worked out pretty well.

<comment><USER3> Would be interesting to know what kind of work is done on these machines.

<comment><USER4> My guess is "typing stuff into a website using chrome" which I guess elementary isn't a terrible choice.

<comment><USER5> I do development on my elementary OS machine.

<comment><USER6> Does elementary still return their release codename instead of the base ubuntu release for `lsb_release -cs` in shell?

<comment><USER7> Yes, because elementary OS is not Ubuntu. In the past, we carried newer versions of GTK or other core libraries, so pretending to be Ubuntu would actually do more harm than good.

However, we have added an `--upstream` or `-u` flag to lsb_release like other Linux-based OSes to point to an upstream release if the downstream release is not supported. I believe this has been adopted for installers of tools like Ruby and Node.

<comment><USER6> Makes sense, I hope all installer tools will start using it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So Elementary OS is essentially what Redhat Linux used to advertise itself as, but never quite was? A comprehensive, integrated desktop OS built on GNU/Linux?

<comment><USER9> pop! shares dna with elementary (same people worked on both) and probably is closer to that definition. E.g. backed by a company with actual customer support. Different aesthetics though.

<comment><USER10> It's worth developing: Pop! is the fork of Elementary by System76, which is known for high-quality open-source laptops/desktops. I have never tried either so I can't assess the quality. From the screenshots I have seen, it remains Linux, so not as smooth as macOS.

<comment><USER11> When you say fork are you talking about the desktop environments or the whole distros?

Pop's desktop environment looks like a barely customized Gnome3 session to me. I'm not sure I would even call it a fork. Looks more like just a theme.

Pantheon (Elementary) is more of a fork of Gnome3, reusing some low level parts but presenting a much different experience to the user.

<comment><USER12> yeah pop is just using the gnome desktop (with custom theming, a few extensions, and an improved set of default keyboard shortcuts.

They have collaborated with elementary in a few areas though. Instead of gnome software, they have Pop Shop, which I believe is a fork of the elementary app center.

They also use their own installer, which I believe was a collaboration with elementary os.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love the idea of having a Linux distro that emulates macOS, but I see no point in copying only the vague look, when it still differs in basic functionality, like using different keyboard shortcuts. I don't understand why (based on semi-thorough googling in the past) it is not possible to change all shortcuts to be like macOS (cmd-c instead of ctrl-c etc.)

<comment><USER14> As much as elementary clearly takes inspiration from macOS, the developers have been quite clear that they're not trying to make a mac clone.

You can agree or disagree with that mission, but it is what it is.

<comment><USER15> One of the best things about macOS is the special character inputs, which is one place I think Apple has outshone their competitors for a while. Even if Elementary doesn't introduce the same keybindings it would be nice to have some set up automatically without having to fiddle with the compose key settings. It's a very common UX issue imho and also an area where you can easily "beat Windows"

<comment><USER16> Special characters through the keyboard like these?

ł€æßðđŧŋ«»¢""←ħn↓ĸ→ø

Those are input from just pressing ALT(right) + <SOME LETTER KEY>

The € is ALTgr + e. ¢ is ALTgr + SHIFT + e.

<comment><USER17> I don't know if it's what the OP meant, but on macOS you can hold a letter key, and it will pop up a little dialog with a bunch of similar characters (hold 'n' and chose from 'n' with various diacritical marks), and you can just press the corresponding number key to choose it. I'ts not as fast as a dedicated key shortcut if you're constantly using the same character, but it's far easier if you're only occasionally using various characters and don't want to remember different shortcuts.

<comment><USER18> On macOS you can also type things like Opt-U to get an umlaut, followed by typing the letter you want underneath it (eg for ü, ë, ä, ö). ß is Opt-S, I think é is Opt-E E, etc. I prefer that to the AltGr+key shortcuts, which I find harder to remember. I don't use the Mac as my primary OS anymore, but that's one of the things I miss the most.

<comment><USER16> On Linux there are dedicated combination keys to put accents on characters like: ä, á, é, ë, etc.

This is how it has always worked (I use a Latin-American keyboard layout). And I think it's the best of both worlds.

If you wanted and your font supports it you could have: ṕẃéŕý (accent key + character key).

All above without touching the AltGr key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been using Elementary as my main OS for ~4 years now. No complaints. Everything runs smooth and nice.

However, since they build on the latest Ubuntu LTS release the Kernel is slighlty outdated and may not support the latest hardware. This can be fixed easily using a little tool called "ukuu" that will install a newer kernel for you [https://github.com/teejee2008/ukuu](https://github.com/teejee2008/ukuu)

<comment><USER20> What a spectacular hack! Instead of going around your package manager in such a spectacular fashion, why not just switch to a distro which provides an up- to-date kernel along with associated packages. For example, how does this program handle proprietary Nvidia drivers?

<comment><USER19> It's not a "hack". This tool uses the official Kernel packages from the corresponding Ubuntu LTS repository.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Elementary OS can be installed on top of Fedora. This way you can try it out and go back to vanilla Gnome if you so prefer. While still leveraging the Fedora ecosystem.

[https://computingforgeeks.com/install-pantheon-desktop- envir...](https://computingforgeeks.com/install-pantheon-desktop-environment- on-fedora/)

<comment><USER22> Thank you so much for this! I really like the look and feel of Elementary from trying it a couple of years ago, but wouldn't want to leave Fedora now to go back to it just for the feel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How does eOS cope with multiple displays? This is something both Gnome/Unity and KDE suck at.

KDE just gets total confused when I connect or disconnect a new display, windows jump all over the place, sometimes they move out of the visible screen area if I switch between hiDPI and non-hiDPI displays, or even just disconnect and then reconnect a UHD monitor. I've seen some reports pointing fingers at Qt as the main culprit, tbh I don't care, it doesn't work for the end user.

The latest Ubuntu on Gnome at least doesn't get confused, but it does not recognize my monitor sometimes (I have to turn it off then on again, for example when waking up from suspend), and switching between displays takes about 20-30 seconds (I have my laptop screen disabled if a monitor is connected). But it doesn't remember my open windows, nor the past position of my terminal, which is set to auto-exec on login. This is something that works much better in KDE.

<comment><USER24> Wait a minute! I use KDE Plasma for at least 2 years constantly and it knows my monitors. I use one at work and one at home and when I plug them it automatically changes resolution and keeps the wallpaper I set for each. Also, got a lot of colleagues switch to Plasma from Gnome for exactly this reason!

<comment><USER23> Does it keep your windows in place? Resize/move them properly when you switch to a smaller resolution screen then resize/move them back again when you go back to UHD?

I found the situation is worse if I extend my monitor's screen onto the laptop, because when I unplug the monitor and plug it back again, all hell breaks loose.

(This with the latest KDE that Ubuntu 19.10 has)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I installed this on my XPS 13 this morning, and it's really nice. It has a lot of overall polish that most DE's are missing, it looks and feels cohesive. It installed without any issues, and I had no problem with my Ubuntu-leaning dotfiles. I will probably keep this for the near future, it's very pleasant.

<comment><USER26> I find "very pleasant" to be the best description of Elementary I can think. Every other distro I've used have these little annoyances which put I up with, but the folks at Elementary seem to iron them out. For example, weird font and menu issues in KDE, space hogging title bars and weird workflow in Pop, occasional screen flickering in Mint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is global menu possible on Elementary yet? Searches only turn up old links for the now-dead unity style, but nothing based on libdbusmenu.

Still seems to me that Plasma with libdbusmenu-qt5 is the closest interface paradigm to MacOS for people trying to swap (not that there aren't other problems), but glib and gtk versions exist so someone out there must be working on it?

<comment><USER27> Replying to myself with more info:

This is proving exceptionally hard to search the web for, so apologies if this is out of date, but it seems the answer was "no, and it never will be, so stop asking" as of 2018: [https://twitter.com/danielfore/status/991836014070022144](https://twitter.com/danielfore/status/991836014070022144)

Was this from before Elementary was positioning as the MacOS replacement? I can't be the only one who thinks the global menu is one of the MacOS interface's killer features.

I understand why it's been hard under the X paradigm, but those crazy dbus people are pushing entire application interfaces through IPC now.

<comment><USER28> Wow, that guy seems to be completely out of touch with desktop UI and UX. His main source of arguments is that iOS and Android doesn't do X, so Elementary shouldn't either - a what now? Is he really comparing a touchbased small screen device OS that is primarily used for casual applications to keyboard/mouse desktop that is often used in a complex professional environments?

That's one way to kill any credibility you had I guess.

<comment><USER27> I agree on the substance of your comment re: interfaces, but let's not put too much stock in a random tweet. He might not mean any of that.

In any case, this release of Elementary isn't any more paired down than the latest GNOME shell.

They seem to have a relatively sane approach to building GUI toolkit (though "sane" is relative given this particular domain) so I'm curious to see where they take things even if I don't use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm kind of considering moving to this and Ardour instead of MacOS and Logic Pro due to Apple's recent commitment to making overpriced laptops with the SSD and RAM soldered to the board, that lack the most basic ports I need to use without annoying adapters.

As a video editor, the lack of an integrated SD card slot alone kills any future purchases.

<comment><USER30> Elementary OS is really good, I think you'll like it quite a bit. Also check out Bitwig - if you've used Ableton you'll find it familiar. Guitarix is a really cool free amp emulator as well.

I really love Linux, especially on the desktop. With that said, I've stopped attempting to use it to make music. There's just too much babysitting that needs to be done [1]. A 2015 15" MBP with Ableton is the perfect machine for me and lets me stay in my creative zone. Your experience might be different though, good luck!

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/9lv9ey...](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/9lv9ey/any_musicians_using_linux_here_which_is_your_daw/e79s8g3/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> While I use i3 on archlinux, I think elementary OS looks great and is a great alternative for less tech savvy users. I am very grateful to the elementary OS community for it existence. One other alternative could be Cinnamon.

<comment><USER32> Ease of use and UI preferences have nothing to do with tech saviness.

<comment><USER33> They absolutely do. If you're tech savvy, they're optional. If you're not, or not interested in learning this stuff, they're required.

You can absolutely be tech savvy and prefer the ease of use of Elementary OS's default options. But the converse is not true. You cannot be uninterested in tech and have a good experience running i3 on Arch Linux.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One thing that makes me love Elementary: they're sticking to skeuomorphic design.

<comment><USER14> What elements are you referring to? It all looks pretty abstract and flat to me?

<comment><USER35> Toggles, buttons, sliders, look like they could be on a white plastic physical device. Flat for sure but more skeuomorphic than macOS in its current state imo.

<comment><USER36> To me the elementary theme looks like a slightly more flat/matte version of the Mavericks version of Aqua. It might not be in style these days but I like it a lot.

<comment><USER14> I so happen to have spent the past month working on a mostly-fruitless attempt to get Mavericks running on modern hardware, so I certainly understand the viewpoint. But I can't say I see the similarity at all. Have you looked at a Mavericks machine recently? [https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot- library/os-x-...](https://512pixels.net/projects/aqua-screenshot- library/os-x-10-9-mavericks/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Installed Elementary on my Dad's Laptop last week. He is 75 now, and got immediately productive with it, using Firefox for Email and Banking.

His Windows machines ALWAYS clogged up with Spy and Malware after a few months. The last time, the suspend function broke and shut-down the PC immediately, instead of suspending it. Reboot took 2minutes+ for _some_ reason.

Contrast this to the Mac Laptop of my mother which is fast, and clean after 5y+ of using it.

Looks like, Windows is untenable for the less computer literate at this point. Too easy to mess up the system.

I have high hopes that Elementary/Linux will stay fast and clean for a while. The old show-stoppers: Installation, Hardware Support and Usability are all working smoothly so far.

<comment><USER38> Same old story: user who only needs a web browser is well served by installing <insert distro here>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately Elementary has so far struggled with the 1920x1080 screen on my Huawei Matebook D (bought a few months before the scandal). I haven't installed Hera yet, but hopefully the new text size option works as well as I'd like it to.

Otherwise my experience with Elementary has been... not so bad. The speakers are too quiet for some reason, my university's Wifi won't accept my credentials (every other network is fine) and occasionally Firefox crashes the world, but that's all, so far.

Wish list: a stable, possibly read-only[-only], update of ext2fsd, and a proper Paintbrush clone. Also, .txt files should not automatically open in Code, which would probably scare my mom.

<comment><USER39> > Unfortunately Elementary has so far struggled with the 1920x1080 screen on > my Huawei Matebook D

Otherwise how has it been with Linux on that? I'm considering getting one, they look great!

<comment><USER15> I'm happy to report that the annoying text size issue is fixed in the new version of Elementary. However, the Firefox crashes still happen, and are the biggest issue with the system. I can't recommend it as long as it's still panicking every few days. (Firefox is not the only app, but certainly the most likely, for me to be using when it freezes; no, I haven't delved too far into this, nor have I made any strange modifications to the system.)

It works with the Wifi chip, speakers are too quiet (?), suspend/power is fine (yay!), graphics seem to work. Overall a very near miss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I feel like the Elementary folks have a lot of the right ideas about how to build a desktop OS and a third-party software ecosystem around it. (In particular: They have a HIG, and seem to make an effort to make their platform appealing for developers.) But it sounds like they struggle with execution in some ways:

[https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/elementary-0-4-loki- agai...](https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/elementary-0-4-loki-again.html)

I haven't tried Elementary, but I've tried a lot of distros, and I always come back to Ubuntu because it comes the closest to just working. (It doesn't do as well as MacOS or Windows in the 'just working' department, in my experience (let the flames begin!), but it does pretty well, and better than any other Linux-based OS I've tried.)

And although reliable statistics seem to be hard to come by, my impression is that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux-based desktop OS by a pretty wide margin.

</comment><comment><USER41> I think Elementary should have focused on just shipping Pantheon as their end product. GNOME has had issues not only in the performance department, but it's also a very different type of minimalism for a DE that's supposed to be the mainstream pick for normal users. Elementary has adopted a far more conventional DE that feels as simple as GNOME, but far more usable.

But I'm never going to use Elementary over Ubuntu or Fedora, and I wouldn't install it on a non-tech person's computer. Redhat employs all the systemd/kernel folks so you're getting a super stable system with lots of updates and vanilla packages. Ubuntu has lots of documentation and a huge community. In terms of just gettting shit done as a programmer or a normal user Elementary is fighting an uphill battle. Now if I could get Fedora or Ubuntu with Pantheon as the default choice over GNOME - sign me up.

<comment><USER42> You're not wrong. It's clear that their passion lies in the user experience and specifically look and feel.

<comment><USER43> He _is_ wrong. They shouldn't have focused on throwing a layer on top of a bloated base-image. They wanted cohesion, and cohesion doesn't come from Canonical or Red Hat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Nice work. I don't think people appreciate just how much work has been put into this project.

</comment><comment><USER45> How useful is Elementary OS for people who are more familiar with technology and things like Ubuntu? Would I be able to install Nvidia drivers and CUDA, build my own ffmpeg binaries, etc? or is it more aimed at installing on machines for non-technical people?

<comment><USER46> Elementary OS is Ubuntu LTS. You can do what you'd do on Ubuntu just fine. (I use it exclusively for technical work, for example.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Feels very big for a 0.1 update, which is how it should be. Congrats to the elementary team!

</comment><comment><USER48> I was trying to figure out why the laptop in the header image looks so huge, and I think I did. The UI scaling is really really small for a normal ~15 inch laptop. If that laptop is supposed to be about 13 inches, the dock should probably be 50-100% bigger. A small issue, but it bugged me.

</comment><comment><USER49> I have been using Elementary OS for a while. It's nice to use, but the biggest issue is that there is no way to upgrade it to a newer distro version when it comes.

I am stuck to elementary OS 0.4.1 Loki and only way to upgrade to the latest version is to reinstall the whole thing.

<comment><USER50> According to their article it sounds like you should be receiving updates. I'm not sure if that was different during Loki though.

> Due to the rolling nature of elementary OS updates, users of elementary OS 5 > Juno get the update to 5.1 Hera alongside regular system updates from > AppCenter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone know if any other distros are packaging any parts of elementary OS?

<comment><USER52> Arch Linux appears to have _some_ Pantheon applications in its repos, and the rest of the desktop is in the AUR: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pantheon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I love elementaryOS. Except for the kernel. That thing receives no updates.

<comment><USER54> It's Ubuntu LTS beneath and I have had several kernel updates over the past year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Does Elementary OS support importing iTunes and macOS Photos libraries?

<comment><USER56> I'd imagine if it did it couldn't play any DRM'd music... but I haven't kept track of where we're at in stripping it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wow - this looks great. Keep up the great work - I will have to find time to install and try it over the slow holiday period.

<comment><USER58> I will probably do the same - I tried using the last release (Juno) as a daily driver and found it to be a little more effort than stock Ubuntu (mostly around getting PPAs going, Flatpak support may make that less necessary). I suppose the obvious competitor at this point for "beautiful Ubuntu derivative" is Deepin[1] but I found it to be even more difficult to configure and install stuff on.

1: [https://www.deepin.org/en/](https://www.deepin.org/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Still not icons on the desktop ...

</comment><comment><USER60> Serious question time. What benefit will I get from running something like Elementary over Ubuntu? Forgive my ignorance, but honestly the whole OS looks like it's just a fork of Ubuntu with a couple of swapped in applications, and a GTK3 theme on top of GNOME trying to make it look like a ten year old version of macOS.

I hate to be so negative, but the "new greeter" they are showing looks like something from Windows 98, and worst of all, functionally no better than Ubuntu. What purpose doe s this actually serve if it's neither aesthetics nor functionality?

I would feel a lot safer recommending either Ubuntu or Linux Mint...

<comment><USER61> I do wonder from time to time why Elementary can't be an installable package rather than an OS...

<comment><USER62> It is:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:elementary-os/stable && sudo apt install elementary-desktop

Then, select elementary when you log in.

<comment><USER23> This did not work to me - I just got kicked back to the login screen. It changed my background picture though :)

Also tried running eOS in VirtualBox - after installing and reboot all I get is a black screen. I can get the live version running though, so not great, not terrible!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I thought this was the Android-on-desktop? What is that called?

<comment><USER46> Perhaps you're thinking of (the now discontinued, and unrelated) Remix OS?

<comment><USER63> Sad to hear about the discontinued part

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Wondering how copyright infringement applies to Open Source Software. This OS looks a lot like MacOS, making it a free a clone.

<comment><USER65> Copyright attaches to the literal code, text, or art. Making something that looks vaguely similar cannot infringe on the owners copyright.

Trademark covers the idea of knock offs but honestly similarities are skin deep and would be trying to protect vague similarities where there exists no confusion.

Even if it were possible to make a case Apple owes more to open source than vice versa and it would be terrible publicity

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> These "blah-OS" posts are so disappointing.

You click--hoping for some new take on what an operating system should be-- only to discover yet another half-assed linux distro.

<comment><USER67> This is quite a long-running project, and has tens of thousands of man-hours invested in it. Yet you, taking several seconds to post an Internet comment, declare it a "half-assed Linux distro," without even having properly read the website.

The Elementary OS project develops many of their own applications, have multiple custom themes, does relentless work ensuring available packages are stable and usable for each release, and they have their own DE. Also, many of the applications that weren't specifically made by the project were inspired by the project to be further developed-- thus boosting their userbase and volunteer developers.

Now, think what you will about the project, but this isn't a valid criticism.

<comment><USER66> Totally a valid criticism.

Elementary is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, which is based on Linux. Most of the value in that chain is the work of others.

Last I checked, debian.org & kernel.org don't have a " _Pay What You Want_ " button above the fold.

Debian is awesome. Linux is awesome. I'm not going to tip my hat to some guy putting skins on Debian and charging for it.

<comment><USER68> Everything is ultimately built on the work of others. Do you call Brave or Vivaldi "half-assed" because they didn't write their own browser engine from scratch?

The fact that they didn't start at zero doesn't make their contribution any less meaningful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I hope the ui not built with vala

<comment><USER70> Why do you hope so? Vala is a decent language which let's users build Gtk applications easily.

<comment><USER71> Because most people aren't going to learn yet another language for the privilege of being able to contribute to something.

<comment><USER72> If you are going to contribute to a Linux Desktop Environment, you are not the target audience for Elementary.

Elementary wants to be "the Apple of Linux", to attract less-technical users and switchers from other OSes. Their development philosophy is similarly top- down: someone sets a "vision" and a small group of people gets to implement it. If you are a coder and you value bottom-up development, you should really look elsewhere.

<comment><USER46> [https://elementary.io/get-involved](https://elementary.io/get-involved)

<comment><USER72> Yep, that page is perfectly ordered by priority: funding, free labour for annoying tasks, and only towards the end, if you really really have to, you can give us a hand under the hood or even (dead last! Why are you still here?!?) help with design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> The new greeter experience looks cool, but who the heck has multiple users on their machine anymore?

This is a completely useless component to the OS.

<comment><USER74> A computer shared by a family is not uncommon. You don't use it doesn't mean no one uses it.

<comment><USER73> > A computer shared by a family is not uncommon.

Why would they actually log out of one user and log in as another? Wouldn't it benefit the parents to have all family members on the same user so they can actually see what their kids are up to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Yet another demented linux thread where everyone doesn't use arch. Arch is no more than pacman -Syu unless you've done something retarded. Arch is the least demanding distro, unless you're totally useless or clueless. I use arch by the way.</comment>


Marks of an Excellent PhD Thesis - <AUTHOR> http://condensedconcepts.blogspot.com/2019/10/marks-of-excellent-phd-thesis.html <comment><USER2> Christ, if all I'd needed was to know more about the thesis topic than my advisor, I'd have been done on day two.</comment>


Chain productivity tool launches.  Accomplish something every day - <AUTHOR> http://cha1n.com/ Fill in the blank: "I'm going to _____ every day."  Thinking of something?  Great!  Head over to the site, and you can make posts about your experiences, share your chains with the world, and meet other people who are accomplishing the same things.<p>No, the site won't delete any of your data if you miss a day.  It simply gives you friendly reminders. :) <comment><AUTHOR> Fill in the blank: "I'm going to _____ every day." Thinking of something? Great! Head over to the site, and you can make posts about your experiences, share your chains with the world, and meet other people who are accomplishing the same things.

When you add a link in your chain, it's automatically submitted to a centralized place where others accomplishing the same goal will upvote you and cheer you on.

No, the site won't delete any of your data if you miss a day. It simply gives you friendly reminders. :)

I posted that here because I can't seem to edit the initial text.. But have fun!

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm recommending the f __* chain to my girlfriend right now!

I've been trying to find a way to show her that we've been slipping:)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd really, really appreciate it if you all could list the things you hate (or like) about the site. Anything you'd like changed can be changed. We take your feedback seriously.

How can we make this thing useful for _you_ , specifically? Whomever is reading this, right now. Post something you would find useful, no matter how outlandish it is.

We're two people with time and hacking experience and we can make anything you want work, and we'd be really indebted to you for making demands. How would you want Chain to look if it were your own project?

Is there anything you saw that made you think "Hey, that's neat"? We'll accentuate it. Something that frustrated you? Removed. Something missing? Added.

Thank you so much.

<comment><USER3> Is the current representation of the chain just the number under the picture? I think you need something to visualize the continuation from day-to-day of the chains and any breaks. If you do break the chain it would be cool to have an update on what your previous record was for keeping the it intact: motivation to keep the current chain going and beat the record.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea! Right now it represents how many upvotes that post received from others. The idea was you'd create an interesting entry and others would read about your experience. But that probably won't be useful until there are more people using the site.

Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're taking that Seinfeld slogan _way_ too seriously.

If you're stuck for a project idea, why not go on a few dates with the opposite sex (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129>)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not make the chains 'think of a project idea' and 'go on a date'?

<comment><USER4> Touche

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I'm trying to reach a big goal, like "run a marathon" or "bench-press my weight" or "launch my site", the way to do it is to break it up into bite-size chunks with discrete milestones.

It'd be cool to offer some "goal templates" (e.g. "how to train for a marathon"), and allow folks to make and share their own templates. Match up folks with similar long-term goals to form a support network. You could even use that to jump-start the community... market it to a group of people (e.g. marathoners) who are already working towards some big goal.

Plus, this could be the basis of a better encouragement system. If every day's goal is the same ("run"), I don't have any particular reason to cheer you on the 12th day any more than the 9th day. But if you reached a specific milestone on the 12th day I'd give you props.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for that idea. That sounds pretty cool. You could click "Make a Milestone" and choose the date for it, then the application will countdown until you've reached your milestone, while building up chainlinks.

Or maybe the milestone could be X number of chainlinks without missing a day/week/whatever, and you choose X.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The idea is great, the execution (and design) is currently really bad. If I was you I would concentrate on making things more "simple" (or hidden). Maybe make a front page that explains the idea and does not present so much "raw" data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fully agree. I'm going to make safe-for-work upvoted images appear on the front page to get some nice graphics going, and cut down the chain lists to maybe ten at a time.

I tried to make the process of creating your chains and maintaining multiple chains really easy. Chain's biggest strength is the fact that it's useful even though no one else is using it. So maybe we can figure out how to emphasize that a little more..

Also, having a full time job is _incredibly_ frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if the image modding system, particularly with the way it is worded, will encourage people to try and shock the modders. Maybe you'll do a flickr- like transition and in a month you'll be wh0cangr0ssme0ut.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, you're right. But I'm going to be fighting that.. It's all I can do. We're gonna implement a public ban system for griefers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's cool but I don't get how the chain-linked fence image works.

Also, how different from 43things.com is this? Why would a 43things.com user want to switch to cha1n.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hiya! Ours is a bit more proactive. If you're doing it, you can make a chain about it. But 43things a nice place to make wishes, so if you enjoy that better, that's fine :) We really hope that the site enables a success story to emerge.

And yeah, that chain-linked fence texture is going to be the first to go in the coming improvements.

<comment><USER7> I signed up for 43things yesterday and I found it alright.

This does seem better because you can track your progress.

Good work :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, it looks like a lot of our peers are sexually frustrated.

<comment><USER9> I keep waiting for someone to start a thread like, "So as a busy entrepreneur, how do I find time to sleep with all the hot women who want to sleep with me?"

<comment><USER8> Well, pimpin ain't easy. Although I have tried the GTD system and consulted other productivity blogs, you can't beat the simplicity and efficiency of orgies. If you looked hard enough, I'm sure you could find some relevant documentation on the internet.

edit: for folks with the polar problem, I recommend the gangbang solution

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> the + looks like a +/- sign

I keep on reading "plus or minus 2 people will exercise"

good work! nice layout ;-)

</comment><comment><USER10> Just wondering: Did you actually do the paperwork and start a company called "Chain Enterprises"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. That's YC's thing.. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's quite nice finally being off work to really sit down and hammer out the rough edges. Check back tomorrow guys, many new features coming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I added reply counters to each conversation and a counter for how many discussions a certain chain has. Much easier to figure out when someone's started a conversation.

I also cleaned up the chain display page. Now when you look at a chain page, a chain link only shows up if it has a post with more than 10 letters. That way, you can always read interesting content from other people without seeing blank chain links.

Removed the not-safe-for-work chain from the front page. ;)

I've accentuated some little things. What do you all think about the redesign?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool! Keep it up!</comment>


Ask HN: Is there space for new project/team management software? - <AUTHOR>

If so in which areas are the existing tools lacking? What new features would help in your everyday routine? <comment><USER2> I use Daylite on a Mac for project management. Horrible.

The sole redeeming quality of Daylite is that emails can be attached to projects from Mail.app in a trivially easy way. This means that all email traffic is available to be seen by everyone working on the project.

Find a way to capture emails without brain damage. I cannot train my clients to drop email and start logging into a browser.

I would change in an instant. I am about to pay $280 for another Daylite license for a new employee. That's a lot of money for software I hate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not to sound rude but what's your experience with project management ? Have you been a project manager or somehow involved in projects ? How are you going to solve a problem that you don't know anything about ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have experience with project management/team lead and I have used quite a lot task management apps :) Just wanted to hear what other people are thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that is space, for example I was not able to find a project management tool to satisfy all my needs, the best that I found was teambox.com .

<comment><USER5> Have you tried Asana? It's amazing. (Disclaimer: I don't work for them or know anyone who is in any way affiliated with them. Just a happy customer)</comment></comment>


What's wrong with every social and content network - <AUTHOR> What's wrong with every social and content network: they're built by people who have never had to hustle<p>Instagram announced at its F8 dev conference that it'll start hiding users' public like counts on videos and photos.<p>"Focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get." This is what you write when you have never known the need to hustle. Those that work in the companies developing social and content networks are always in conflict with the users who do the work to get something for their time for this reason. They think their time is worth money, but their users should be time-wasters. Make any attempt to promote something and you are deemed a spammer. <comment><AUTHOR> No one else sees things this way?

The link to the article I referred to: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/30/18523847/instagram- hide-l...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/30/18523847/instagram-hide-likes- test-canada)</comment>


The Good Place: how a sitcom made philosophy seem cool - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jan/30/the-good-place-how-a-sitcom-made-philosophy-seem-cool <comment><USER2> To HN readers who are unaware of this show, let me just say: this is a Very Good show. It's clever, and it's funny, and it's remarkably good-natured despite the premise. It's full of blink-and-you'll-miss-them jokes, ridiculous situations, and plenty of philosophy references. The plot frequently moves at a mile-a-minute, so it never feels like it's stuck in a rut. The actors are all wonderful. It's just really solid all around.

<comment><USER3> _It 's full of blink-and-you'll-miss-them jokes_

Another fan checking in. Here's a bonus if you missed it: writer Megan Amram's list of restaurants for the Good Place. Don't read it if you haven't finished Season 1.

[https://twitter.com/meganamram/status/913642289834090497](https://twitter.com/meganamram/status/913642289834090497)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the only show I'm currently keeping up with as new episodes come out, via Hulu. Its wit and ability to make me laugh out loud is up there with the first three seasons of Arrested Development, while featuring a fundamentally _hopeful_ outlook on humanity. I also enjoy "terrible people" comedies like Arrested Development and Seinfeld, but The Good Place (like the better Pixar movies) reminds me that you don't have to be cynical to make smart comedy for adults.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a philosophy major, the show never ceases to put a smile on my face. And Ted Danson is absolutely brilliant, as always. I would say, though, that "philosophy" is a very broad field, and The Good Place basically deals solely with ethics. We also have logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and so on (which are all very interesting -- and probably deserve shows -- in their own right!).

(The author also misinterprets existentialism, but that's beside the point.)

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the show. With that said, I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy, and the show (i.e., the character Chidi) _mentions_ philosophers and concisely recounts their views in broad strokes, but I can't recall an instance where it invites the audience to understand an argument as such; more like, "Kant thought X, so maybe we should X."

</comment><comment><USER7> This, and Brooklyn Nine Nine have been smart, quirky, and good.

</comment><comment><USER8> As a drug user, the first scene of the show is one of the most fantastic and accurate descriptions of the ineffable effect of psychedelics.</comment>


Releases for XFCE - <AUTHOR> https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2017/02/13/releases-releases-releases/ <comment><USER2> Sigh, are they seriously bringing GTK3's client-side decorations and lack of title bars to Xfce??!

Applications should have title bars. This is how it's been done everywhere since pretty much the first Xerox GUI. Monitors are bigger than ever today. I promise, people can spare 10 pixels of vertical space so that they can see the name of the application being run (and the name of documents open in said application), and have a very easy area to click on to move the window around with. GTK3 CSDs also break the user's ability to choose a window manager theme. It also removes the possibility to disable the toolbar area from certain applications, eg text editors. They also tend to result in applications that lack traditional menubars, which are very useful for complex programs.

I have already dropped every last Gnome 3 application over this nonsense. This is going to be horrendous to have to stop using Xfce now, too.

Sorry, I know HN doesn't like negativity, but this "change for the sake of it" stuff is getting really old. I just want to keep using my computer the way that's worked just fine for me for the past 25 years. This really is a step backward in usability. I don't want to have to target tiny slivers between widgets, or hold down Alt to move windows around. And for applications I want an actual toolbar in, I don't like how most of the toolbar icons disappear so that things can be merged into the titlebar area.

<comment><USER3> _Sorry, I know HN doesn 't like negativity, but this "change for the sake of it" stuff is getting really old. _

Agree.

I sense I am getting old and grumpy but there is something to learn here: there seems to be an increasing number of people, even in open source, who just want stuff to _work_.

I just want Ubuntu, dropline gnome, updated drivers, backed by a commercial vendor that I can pay a reasonable amount to to make sure they _never_ let designers, ux people, product managers etc _experiment_ with my desktop. Polishing it like Ubuntu originally did was totally ok though.

I don't want "spatial navigation" in Gnome. I don't want to have to think application or document" when I hit alt-tab, or having to wait for a (IMO, I know some people love this feature, but bear with my rant here) retarded alt- tab to understand that I want to switch to a document under the app I have switched to, then wait again for it to slide out nicely.

No! I want alt tab to switch through my last used windows. If it looks really nice, bonus.

I want my drivers to work. Etc.

And most of all: I don't want Linux to copy Mac! If I want a Mac I can get my boss to get me one!

<comment><USER4> Could be wrong, but I kind of feel that you might want to give Kubuntu a shot. Everything is really predictable, but it still looks nice.

<comment><USER5> I use KDE on a day-to-day basis, but I wouldn't call it that predictable. They're still infected by the rewrite and change everything disease. They also introduced pointless frameworks like anakondi which had dreadful performance. KDE4 was a incomplete buggy disaster at first and KDE5 can still be pretty buggy. This week my KDE panel decided to vanish losing all its configuration. I'd like to use something which just works, like KDE3 did.

<comment><USER6> Amen. KDE4 was a disaster in the beginning. I toughed it out then. I was in academia and could spend some hours dealing with breakage.

When Ubuntu shipped KDE5, normal usability stuff broke horribly again. Nowadays I have two kids and a job managing a large IT organisation. I simply can't defend spending the time any more. So I switched to xfce for the time being. Of that breaks the UI in any comparable way, I give in to the hordes that keep ridiculing me for not using a Mac. :(

<comment><USER3> Honest question:

What do yo mean by "normal usability stuff broke horribly again"?

I'm using Neon now and it is one of the least annoying distros and DEs I have ever worked with.

<comment><USER6> Totally fair question. Sorry for not being more specific. All multi monitor and docking/undocking broke in seemingly random ways. That's despite giving state transitions ample time (ie. not detaching a screen and then immediately closing the laptop to put it to sleep).

Also I was bit by the bug that somebody else mentioned here: the panels would disappear with sweet reliability. If I remember correctly, this was a bug that would hide the existing dock. So if you simpy recreated it, you'd have two running side by side, and so on.

There was more but I don't remember specifics. The screen issues were enough to be a big practical problem for me.

Edit: speeling

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

I don't use docking and rarely use multiple monitors so that might explain a bit of the difference in experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Only XFCE has given me back the joy of using Linux on the desktop that I used to feel with Gnome 2.x after the crap of Gnome 3 and the honorable but not- quite-there attempts of Cinnamon and Mate.

Do you guys have any tips on contributing to XFCE? As far as I've heard, they mostly use C/C++ and Python, the two languages I'm more experienced with.

<comment><USER8> > Only XFCE has given me back the joy of using Linux on the desktop that I > used to feel with Gnome 2.x

I feel exactly the same way! I never really got used to KDE's looks; I've always had a preference for the look Gnome 2.x had, and when that ended, Xfce filled the gap brilliantly. So much so, that MATE hasn't replaced it since (eventhough I have it installed also), especially since I started using Whisker Menu. I have many nice things to say about Xfce, so I hope it stays. :)

<comment><USER9> What's wrong with the look of Breeze?

<comment><USER10> Breeze is light years ahead of Oxygen (or whatever the default theme on KDE 4 was called), but I cannot shake the feeling that it will be replaced with something else before it is done being polished. KDE doesn't seem to like stability.

<comment><USER9> I hope they don't polish too much. The already polished the circle from the X-Button on the title bar away. Which is no improvement.

Besides that KDE is fuckin' great, imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> XFCE is the (maybe only?) boring desktop environment that does exactly what it says on the tin and who can be trusted to make thoughtful incremental progress rather than changes for change's sake. You can't duplicate this sense of enduring without lots of time.

I mostly pair XFCE with XMonad to get some creature comforts plus automatic window tiling. I've thought about trying to patch XFWM to add automatic tiling --the one and only "power feature" I can't live without in XFCE.

I remember when XFCE was billed mainly as a CDE clone and thus got lumped in with other "nostalgia desktop recreation" projects for a lot pf folks. Since that time it's really come into its own.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hopefully XFWM4 will someday support full 60fps vsync compositing without any tearing. That would make XFCE the perfect desktop environment for me. For now, I am relying on Compton.

<comment><USER13> Xfwm4 already supports two methods of tear-free compositing, OpenGL and X Present, for a few years now. You need to build from git master to use them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Crashy Thunar has been my only complaint with XFCE so far. I'm glad that it has been fixed!

Thunar is an absolutely gorgeous file manager that does what it should, no less, no more. It embodies the essence of what I like the most about XFCE: it is living proof that simplicity and elegance are compatible with treating your users as adults.

<comment><USER14> just for the sake of the useless argument, I(ve used Thunar but for me at least, it's quite slow. Somehow Dolphin (kde's file manager) is much better (I use openbox WM and Dolphin is the only KDE component I use regularly)

<comment><USER10> I found Dolphin clunkier and slower than Thunar when I tried it, but that might have to do with the fact the I was trying to run KDE in a virtual machine. Thanks for the suggestion anyway, I'll give it another go the next time I feel like switching distros.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just posted to say I use XFCE every day and love it. Thanks for your hard work.

</comment><comment><USER16> If only they'd add a proper "dock" widget, then I can go back from my hacked- up Gnome 3 setup.

Guess I should put my foot where my mouth is and code one up.

<comment><USER17> I use DockbarX ([https://github.com/M7S/dockbarx](https://github.com/M7S/dockbarx)), which you can configure to act very much like the taskbar from Windows (one of the best Windows features imo). Unfortunately the window previews don't work in Xfce, and some apps sometimes still show up twice (the launcher doesn't merge with the running app correctly) - rare, but it happens. Still, haven't found anything better on Linux.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yay! Crashy Thunar has annoyed me a bunch, glad to see the patches are in. Will try to help get the Gentoo packages updated

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this going to get into Ubuntu 17.04 or is it too late?

<comment><USER20> We're two months away from the 17.04, Judging from the last two release roadmaps I'd say that there's still plenty of time.

[https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/topic-y- xubunt...](https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/topic-y-xubuntu) [https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/topic-x- xubunt...](https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/topic-x-xubuntu)</comment></comment>


How Netflix Gives All Its Engineers SSH Access to Instances in Production (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://speakerdeck.com/rlewis/how-netflix-gives-all-its-engineers-ssh-access-to-instances-running-in-production <comment><USER2> I feel like depending on the work type ie not a Government Contracting / Defense Contracts type of company means you can do these sort of things and treat your teams like grown adults. Enable sensible logging and what not.

Nothings worse than not being able to stop a deployment you realized has a fatal issue for one server in a cluster or whatever the case.

If you are SSHing to a production server you either know what you are doing and why you are there or you will be 'getting a box.'

</comment><comment><USER3> When is SSH access to production instances necessary?</comment>


Calibra – Digital Wallet for Libra - <AUTHOR> https://calibra.com/ <comment><USER2> > Imagine if cash became digital.

Been there, in China, with Alipay. Absolutely no way for an EU person to pay with it: doesn't accept European phone number for sign up and since the end of 2018 one can not get a proper Chinese SIM with a passport.

Don't touch cash. That's the only fallback we have for outages, when someone is without data connection (ghasp!) or for scenarios where politics or decisions make it impossible for foreigners to use it, like above.

EDIT one additional thought. One of my technical issues with Alipay is that it requires data connection from both sides. With POS terminals it's only the seller who needs to have some kind of a phone line. In a foreign country, with the current state of roaming charges, this is a serious problem. I don't know if FB plans to address this issue.

EDIT2 responding to some comments - even if a foreigner could/can get a full Chinese SIM, for spending 2 weeks there the need for a second, dedicated SIM is an overkill and an additional, tricky round, especially if you're not going to a Tier 1 city. Even if you succeed adding foreign bank accounts and debit cards could get tricky if I understand correctly, but I never actually got to test it.

<comment><USER3> Also cash is the only thing that works if your system gets unfair in some way. It's the only thing that allows a hobo to stay in touch with society, paying in a gay bar without trace, setup a political group that the state would deem immoral, experiment with banned drugs, buy censored books and journals, etc

If you like democracy, you need a small, but resiliant grey zone. You need to allow a few people to take the risk of doing what's condamned. It's not sexy, but it's necessary.

Do not outlaw cash.

<comment> ur-whale >Do not outlaw cash

As much as I agree with you, cash is unfortunately already well on its way out: in many EU countries (Italy, France), cash transactions above 1.5k euros are illegal. For example, buying a car cash is illegal. The US won't be far behind, imho.

For small transactions (eg buying a loaf of bread), something flipped in small business owners minds: they used to hate plastic for small stuff, and I can increasingly feel that today, it's the exact opposite: people let out a small sigh of annoyance when they see you pull out your coins.

This is a freedom almost as important as free speech that's slowly and silently being choked to death by big govt and not a single so-called freedom fighter out there, be they on the left or on the right of the political spectrum is picking up on the significance of the issue.

<comment><USER4> I'm not disagreeing, but have you got a reference for your first paragraph?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer- topics/finan...](https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/consumer- topics/financial-services-insurance/banking/means-of-payment/cash-payment- limitations/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the FAQ:

> Question: How will you prevent fraud?

> Anwer: All accounts and transactions are verified, and fraud prevention is > built in throughout the app. Accounts are verified with government-issued > ID, so you know people are who they say they are. Facebook and WhatsApp > account information are also used when available to verify identity and > prevent fraud. Calibra also has in-app reporting and dedicated customer > service. In the rare event of unauthorized fraud, you will receive a full > refund.

How can they refund the money? Would that mean that they have full control on the currency? And if they do, doesn't that defeat the purpose of a blockchain?

<comment><USER7> You don't need to ask Facebook permission to transfer the money, but they reserve the right to intervene if you commit fraud. That's why they are using a blockchain.

The governments will love it because it allows for perfect surveillance, the people will love it because it makes international payments seamless, it can erase the predatory remittance business out of existence. If they can convince merchants to accept it, they can also improve on credit card UX.

<comment><USER8> How is that different from transferring money through a bank?

I can understand the benefit of this from the standpoint that it will be essentially a global currency, which will reduce transfer times and just generally make it easier to send money, however I don't understand why a blockchain is involved. We already have similar solutions (Paypal, Transferwise etc), is blockchain just a way to market this thing?

<comment><USER9> A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros in correspondent bank fees, in addition to the fees your bank and their bank charge. And you'll get no receipt for that, because banks suck.

<comment><USER10> > A transatlantic bank transfer will cost you over 30 euros

Not will, but can. I did a transatlantic SWIFT payment recently and it cost me $9 in correspondent bank fees. I did another one and it cost me $0 in fees. I did another and it cost $18.

In each instance, I was able to get a SWIFT trace by asking the emitting and receiving banks to provide this. I didn't get a receipt for the SWIFT fees correspondent banks charged, but I did get receipts for the bank fees at either end.

Banks do suck, and the payment networks also suck, but sometimes they can suck less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is Facebook's attempt to cash in on the cryptocurrency hype with a high tech type of bank before real cryptocurrencies can scale and become mainstream.

I consider it a moral imperative for developers to stop this. In fact I will probably make some comment like that at some point on their GitHub pages. Which I expect to be removed. But this is the good fight. It's what Star Wars is really about. Defeating the evil empire.

<comment><USER12> I agree with your first point. Calibra without the "cryptocurrency blockchain" keywords would still have the same utility.

As to your second point, may I ask why you consider it a moral imperative for developers to stop this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Accounts are verified with government-issued ID, so you know people are who > they say they are. Facebook and WhatsApp account information are also used > when available to verify identity and prevent fraud.

What could be a bigger achievement for an ad company than being able to track all transactions between its users and customers? That's why your payment account will be associated with your social account. What Facebook is doing here, it's providing a lower-margin (payment processing) service for free to grow its higher-margin (ad targeting) business.

<comment><USER14> > Aside from limited cases, Calibra will not share account information or > financial data with Facebook, Inc. or any third party without customer > consent. For example, Calibra customers' account information and financial > data will not be used to improve ad targeting on the Facebook, Inc. family > of products

[https://scontent- ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_3...](https://scontent- ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent- ams4-1.xx&oh=4339de8f67aa1979272cfe937400d865&oe=5D982AC3)

<comment><USER13> > without customer consent

Which every customer will give by agreeing with carefully crafted "Terms and Conditions".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://github.com/libra/libra](https://github.com/libra/libra) and

[https://libra.org/en-US/](https://libra.org/en-US/)

Built in Rust. Interesting. Nice choice.

<comment><USER16> Some other links :

\- White paper : [https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra- bl...](https://developers.libra.org/docs/assets/papers/the-libra- blockchain.pdf)

\- What's Next? : [https://developers.libra.org/blog/2019/06/18/the-path- forwar...](https://developers.libra.org/blog/2019/06/18/the-path-forward)

\- Moving Toward Permissionless Consensus : [https://libra.org/en- US/permissionless-blockchain](https://libra.org/en-US/permissionless- blockchain)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is their custommer commitment document which specifies some details about how they will maintain user privacy and Libra's relationship to Facebook: [https://scontent- ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_3...](https://scontent- ams4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.2365-6/65083631_355528488499253_8415273665234468864_n.pdf?_nc_cat=106&_nc_ht=scontent- ams4-1.xx&oh=4339de8f67aa1979272cfe937400d865&oe=5D982AC3)

</comment><comment><USER18> "We are working to bring Calibra to as many countries as possible, as soon as we can."

I hope my country won't allow a currency controlled by a foreign company.

The power of companies is already influencing democracy in a bad way.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't believe any good will come of this

</comment><comment><USER20> Can someone give something like eli5 how this works? Is the currency pegged to some currency? How is that peg supposed to hold? Is facebook a bank? Where are the assets supporting the currency ( if they exist) invested?

<comment><USER21> From the whitepaper:

> it will be backed by a collection of low-volatility assets, such as bank > deposits and short-term government securities in currencies from stable and > reputable central banks.

and

> The assets in the Libra Reserve will be held by a geographically distributed > network of custodians with investment-grade credit rating to provide both > security and decentralization of the assets.

[https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency- and-...](https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/#the-libra-currency-and-reserve)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Big news. Nice to see more details.

\- They have GAS fees. (unlike say EOS which is free). \- Not sure how they will make accounts anonymous? Knowing an account lets anyone query the account balance? \- They will start with permissioned chain and transition to non permissioned

</comment><comment><USER23> I think a cryptocurrency doesn't make sense if it's managed by a company.

</comment><comment><USER24> Let's see if they will allow non-custodial wallets for libra, that might make them the catalyst that enables real world bitcoin payments. There could be a service that pays libra invoices for you if you send them bitcoins. If this happens automated/transparently in wallets that would be a big step forward. Let the POS terminal tell you which currency it wants and your wallet will send it. If they want USD send libra, if they want BTC send BTC via lightning. Switching from accepting USD to BTC would become seamless (e.g. in case of increasing inflation).

<comment><USER25> Something tells me the calibra wallet will be the only wallet authz and it will be no different than your paypal app both as functionality and flexibility. As far as bitcoin is concerned it has no place in the payments world. It's a flawed coin for payments due its volatility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Accounts are verified with government-issued ID, so you know people are who > they say they are.

I would prefer a global payment solution that defaults to anonymity, or at least pseudonymity, especially when it comes to transferring small amounts of money, such as paying for groceries.

This requirement is nothing more on Facebook's part than defaulting to the lowest common denominator in order to harvest as much data as they possibly can.

<comment><USER27> That would be illegal almost everywhere in the world for natural persons.

<comment><USER26> One can legally pay with cryptocurrencies for various services around the world, without submitting a government ID.

[https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin- payme...](https://www.lifewire.com/big-sites-that-accept-bitcoin- payments-3485965)

[https://coinmap.org/#/world/31.80289259/-82.96875000/3](https://coinmap.org/#/world/31.80289259/-82.96875000/3)

<comment><USER25> Bitcoin is a nightmare for both buyer and seller due its volatility, not to mention the difference between exchange rates. You may buy your bitcoin with a specific price but the merchant/payment processor values it differently(lower). Just check bitpay to see for yourself

<comment><USER26> All payment solutions have drawbacks, we are talking about legality at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm skeptical, but it's too early in the morning to deep dive into the white papers. Will save it for later.

Based on what I have read though, this digital currency isn't really a crypto coin. The users are verified through government issued identification and it appears the coin is issued by a centralized system.

Seems like the companies invested into this system are trying to act like the Federal Reserve in the United States.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am curius how refund works? Is there a "master key" that allows Facebook customer service to reverse a transaction or create a transaction from an arbitrary account?

And how does this play with current financial legislation. Do they have a banking license?

And where is the blockchain stored?

Otherwise great news; I am looking forward to something that probably has a very good end-user experience compared to what else is out there.

</comment><comment><USER30> What's the use case for it? It looks like the point is to send money from people to people easily. But how about businesses? Currently I can pay with Contactless in shops, and on online services, paying by debit/credit card is straightforward. So I'm not seeing exactly what it will be used for.

<comment><USER31> More data mining?

<comment><USER30> Yes I don't expect Facebook to do anything for the greater good, however they still need to convince people to use it, and I'm curious what's the plan. "More data mining" won't cut it on their press release :)

Well I guess at this point they can pretty much force people to use the currency (by not giving any other payment options) since people are locked into their platform and won't leave no matter what Facebook do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So the GAFAM wants to get independant from the banks. Great.

But they don't want to be controled by anything, or share the power, or make it fair, or good for humanity.

So they call it a cryptocoin, yet it's locked in and centralized.

I'm all for taking power from the bank, giving more power to the Silicon Valley is a terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER32> Currently 404 for me, was the site up ?

<comment><USER33> It was for around 17 mins and then everything is returning is 404. The website, link to WP.

Edit: Well, it's up now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can not open in Firefox :( but works fine with Chrome.

> ReferenceError: requireLazy is not defined

<comment><USER35> Are you blocking some Facebook CDN domains perhaps?

<comment><USER34> Found the problem, Facebook Container extension blocked the js file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > "In the rare event of unauthorized fraud, you will receive a full refund."

How?

<comment><USER12> Presumably by giving your money back to you.

That's generally how a refund works.

Did you have something else in mind?

<comment><USER37> That would mean they are an intermediary in the blockchain.

<comment><USER12> They create a new transaction from their probably inexhaustible wallet to your wallet.

I don't know much about Calibra, is it a public blockchain? Can anyone build a client to generate transactions and mine blocks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Congratulations to Facebook for releasing code. I'm excited to see how the industry evolves.

We look forward to showing the world what we've been working on at MobileCoin when it's ready.

Privacy matters.

</comment><comment><USER39> I remember they announced reliable messaging across Facebook-owned apps (fb messenger, whatsapp, instagram), but looks like Instagram is not supported yet.

</comment><comment><USER40> Don't use Facebook's cryptocurrency.

</comment><comment><USER41> Open access? NO

Decentralized? NO

Censorship resistant? NO

Fixed monetary policy? NO

Unseizable? NO

Transaction fee market? NO

There's no point in FB using a blockchain for their digital payments network, other than touting it as a 'cryptocurrency'. A centralized or federated database is all they need.</comment>


Show HN: DIY tool for customized Machine Learning – absolute zero coding - <AUTHOR> http://matelabs.in/ <comment><AUTHOR> You can directly go to testing the platform here ([https://www.mateverse.com](https://www.mateverse.com))

Would appreciate some feedback. Thanks!</comment>


Ask HN: When you are programming, do you build the hardest bits first? - <AUTHOR>

I always build the hardest bits first because I can't stand getting to the end of my todo list and finding a small number of hard and time consuming things to do. I like to get to the end of the project and find things getting easier.<p>What do you do? <comment><USER2> I try to implement an end-to-end solution (going through all the layers of the stack) for one simple case first. That gives me an overview of how the different pieces of the code will fit together, and allows me to keep the "big picture" in mind as I'm filling in the remaining pieces. In my experience, this approach helps me to find potential flaws in the design earlier.

For more on this approach, see: [http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpikeSolution](http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpikeSolution)

<comment><AUTHOR> I tend to have a moderate degree of confidence that my initial architecture/design will work, assuming all my underlying technology assumptions are correct. My software architecture skills are definitely better than my coding skills - the coding is something of a plod. I try to minimise coding effort by designing out coding where I can, mainly cause it takes me so long to write the code.

So step one is to prove all unknowns around the technology assumptions. One these are proven out then I build the hard bits then the easy bits, in the knowledge that it will all hold together.

It annoys me to have a working system implemented "thinly" because I have to go back and context switch into the mindset of each component and then deal with the massive technical debt of properly implementing each component.

Don't get me wrong - I really like the idea of the SpikeSolution - makes a great deal of sense.</comment></comment>


Writing better Code (extension to Joel's 12 steps to better Code) - <AUTHOR> https://gerlacdt.github.io/posts/writing-better-software/ <comment><USER2> > 23\. Do you focus on the four key metrics?

Sorry, you lost me on this one! All metrics will be gamed to uselessness. I'm sure Joel already wrote something sarcastic about this 20 years ago.

<comment><USER3> The metrics listed are:

> Short lead time

> High deployment frequency

> Short mean time to restore (MTTR)

> Low change fail percentage

Those aren't as easy to game as LoC, which is the usual example for gamed metrics when people say "a metric that becomes a target stops being a good metric."

I think that saying is contextual, in any case. If you take it to the logical extreme you have to make organizational decisions without any information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure the question in the original set - Do you have testers? - make sense in the current generation. May be we could rephrase - Do you have a way to test critical flows of the application in automated fashion?

</comment><comment><USER5> To enforce a common code style, the best solution is to use EditorConfig

</comment><comment><USER6> After quite a few decades' experience with style guides, I have determined that they are vastly over-valued, and often very actively harmful.

There are three major problems with typical style guides (including yours):

1\. Triviality

They legislate behaviors that are easy to express and police, but don't actually result in better code. This is a big evil because it distracts from hard-learned behaviors that do make better code.

Programmer attention is the scarcest resource any of us have. Almost all bugs trace to a lapse somewhere. Hence, anything that squanders attention actively generates bugs. Lining up columns generates bugs.

How often have you got review notes that mentioned nothing but style trivialities? Did the reviewer have attention to spare for things that will matter?

2\. Obsolescence

Style guides are invariably obsolete on their first day, and only get worse. Updating a style guide is always contentious, rightly recognized as a waste of senior engineers' time, yet not to be trusted to their juniors. So, the guide is for a language as it might have been used (somewhere) five, ten, 20 years ago. Current best practices are not mentioned at all.

Worse, if it ever is updated, none of the existing code conforms anymore. Nobody is so foolish as to try to bring all old code up to new requirements. Automated updates can only address trivial changes. So, you have an official style that is either badly out of date, or at best doesn't match the code you have.

3\. More obsolescence

Besides the style guide's own obsolescence, it legislates code constructs that are obsolete. "This is why we can't have nice things." Each bit of new code that conforms to the old guide for bad or trivial reasons amounts to more tech debt.

Ultimately, there is no substitute for competence. Good engineers will not write hard-to-read code. Somebody who does will, despite the best guide. Your only hope is to demand competence.

Instead

What can we do, then, to avoid chaos?

First, instead of mandating trivialities, identify principles and goals. Refer to concrete benefits to code quality. Good principles will address very different topics than your style guide did. Structs should have not too many members, functions limited size, names be (only) long enough to be readily distinguished from others, whitespace draw attention to places that need it, not wasted on highlighting nothings. The principles are based on psychology and the limits of attention, not typography.

Consistency is good in small amounts, and harmful in the large. When there are old ways and a new way of doing things, people reading code can easily adjust to each where it appears, recognizing that old code is that way because it is old. Changing habits become a useful marker of code origin.

The useful range for consistency is not a project, or folder, or file. It is at most 20 lines.

<comment><USER2> IMHO code guidelines are there to _avoid_ wasting time on trivialities. Why would something which is already settled by the guidelines even crop up code reviews, except for the first few commits from a junior developer?

Lots of style choices are more or less arbitrary. PascalCase or camelCase? Big endiand or little endian? Comments and identifiers in english or french? You cant just "demand competence" because neither is clearly superior. But consistency is clearly superior to everyone doing it their own way. So you make a decision, write it down in a guide, and the question will not take up any more time and attention.

But yeah, a guideline which legislates obsolete code constructs is obviously bad. Clearly something is deeply wrong in the culture of the team if the guideline is 20 years out of data and no one care about updating it - while at the same wastes a lot of resources on pointing out the issues in code reviews! But that problem is not with guidelines per se. Using an obsolete compiler will probably also give you problems.</comment></comment>


The Impact of Listening to Music on Cognitive Performance (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1657/the-impact-of-listening-to-music-on-cognitive-performance <comment><USER2> As a music listener I will point out the obvious flaw in the study: the "choice" of music was from pop genres. I find music with distinguishable lyrics in a language I understand to be distracting while music with no lyrics, or lyrics indistinguishable from noise (cf Rammstein, Björk, Enya) are far less distracting.

I use music to mask open office noise including customer support personnel on phone calls, ops people discussing equipment failures, and political trolls discussing my preferred party.

Industrial, death metal, and recordings of rainfall all work just as well for me. Though in the case of rainfall I find about twenty minutes of the same sound is about my limit before I need more texture in my auditory diet. Silence just makes my ears ring louder until after a few minutes it is physically painful to not have some noise.

The issue of masking background conversations was not covered. I find that wearing isolating earphones, earmuffs, etc only serves to strain me further since I can still hear conversations but I have to listen harder to make out the words.

Perhaps I have some undiagnosed anxiety or paranoia but for me, isolation/silence does not work as well as masking.

<comment><USER3> I agree regarding music without lyrics. But I never thought of including incomprehensible lyrics in that group. Below is a selection of playlists that I listen to often while working. There are occasional lyrics or talking, but not too often. I also like that the music style has a bit of variation in it.

[http://musicforprogramming.net/](http://musicforprogramming.net/)

<comment><USER4> These mixes are brilliant! Boards of Canada get in that same type of headspace

[https://youtu.be/ksWPFwHwlwY](https://youtu.be/ksWPFwHwlwY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr: "participants performed better in silence than they did in any music conditions"

Personally, I cannot listen to music and work... I get too caught up in trying to follow the music. I end up just wearing my noise canceling headphones with no music playing and working in relative silence.

That said, I'm interested to know if folks here on HN can relate.

<comment><USER6> What about that ambient/"cognitive/aural beats" stuff on youtube? I've been trying that lately and it seems nice. No data to see if better or not, but definitely more relaxing.

I've also started just using earplugs which can also seem to be (subjectively) effective.

<comment><USER7> Link?

<comment><USER6> sorry -here's one I listened to yesterday

\- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh- dcCeR-r4&t=6856s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh-dcCeR-r4&t=6856s)

basically, I search for "cognitive enhancement music"\- sometimes the "meditation" ones seem nice, too. I have an immediate relaxation response to this stuff, and it's pleasant.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, for me this just comes off as a hamfisted cliche of "calm". I'm distracted by the constant modulations. Just not my thing, but it probably works great as a constant drone against unwanted noise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mark-r > Interestingly, this study revealed some evidence that overall background > noise, such as television, music, and chatter could improve performance in > complex cognitive tasks for extraverts, although it will significantly > impair introverts' performance (Furnham & Bradley, 1997).

Maybe this explains why open offices are so popular with higher-ups? They tend to be extroverts, and if their own personal experience is that distracting noise is positive... I've always wondered why the negative impact isn't completely self-evident.

<comment><USER8> Also cheaper which could explain popularity with higher ups.

<comment> mark-r Cheaper shouldn't matter if it hurts productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The problem with this paper is that it ignores ADHD. It can be very difficult or impossible to maintain concentration for periods of time longer than some minutes (or even seconds) for an ADHD person and certain kinds of music can help mitigate this problem in some cases.

BTW amphetamine works alike AFAIK: it induces hyperactivity and harms concentration in healthy people but calms ADHD people down and induces concentration and clarity on them.

<comment><USER10> I've heard that claim about amphetamines before, and I've always doubted it. I know many people who do not seem to have ADHD and who have never been diagnosed who have taken adderall before. They all claim to have used it to study for tests, work on huge projects, etc. with great success.

Besides, if amphetamines worked differently on the healthy/ADHD people, wouldn't you just give someone a small dose of amphetamine if you wanted to "test" them for ADHD? If they act calmer, they must have ADHD, if they get hyperactive, they don't. Right?

Apologies if I"m misunderstanding; I'm just hoping to get to the bottom of a claim that's always bothered me.

<comment><USER11> If you want a brilliant and lovely person to listen to about the facts of ADHD, look up Dr Russell Barkley.

That factoid is a myth: the difference is that ADHD meds provide those with ADHD the focus needed to function in modern society, and without it they do not function. There's a theory to do with dopamine regulation and the COMT gene which I don't claim to understand. A generalisation might be 'this gives me dopamine in a pill, so I don't disrupt my environment/chase random thoughts for my dopamine'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I def prefer the quiet. Avid music fan, ears blown from 2 decades of festivals, clubs, and chonic headphoning. Certain beats on the stereo are good but I won't do headphones anymore. Final problem with headphones in office is political, visually implies being closed with a good margin of false positives and negatives.

I've no data, but my life programming with constant music started in offices to cope and I think I am better without the blaring noise. I've made other substantial changes that I think made desire for loud noises generally be negated. I think I am way more sharp now, similar to 17yo self before headphone coping began

<comment><USER13> Last year I started with the headphones at work to block out the noise, but I got a lot of pushback about being "unavailable". Amazingly on a team using Slack, where I usually respond instantly.

I'd expect though, that when your brain has to maintain focus actively (w/o headphones) it does a better job overall, than with, and it forces you to prioritize for tasks which are worth focusing on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Discussed a bit in 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8686072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8686072)

</comment><comment><USER15> "In agreement with the first hypothesis, performance scores were significantly higher in silence (M= 12.94) than in all four music conditions, intensity levels, and types of music combined"

For those comparing this to work performance, where do you work that "silence" is an option, and are you hiring?

</comment><comment><USER16> Yeah I've noticed a big difference in genre too.

I find that I have three main modes:

\- I have control over my environment and don't need/want to listen to music or noise

\- Creatively I need stimulation, so I listen to sonically interesting music with no lyrics (that I can understand).

\- I want to get work done as efficiently as possible but there are too many aural distractions, so I listen to rain.

I do think that I perform the best when not listening to anything, but over time I need to use other parts of my brain so it's nice to do like, idk 80% coding efficiency while getting a "this is an interesting song" fix.

Big fan of video game soundtracks. Thunder Force IV ;)

</comment><comment><USER17> I have listened to rainymood.com over 1000 hours and am 100% sure I perform better while listening to it vs. not listening to anything. However, pop music would be much more distracting than silence for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use my earbuds to calm down sometimes but then after one song I stop the music and then I have silence.

I have started to just use earplugs but the cheap ones I have have less isolation than my earbuds so I generally use those.

Turning off the phone is a great way to not only accomplish the above but also to reduce distractions . Or just invest in good earplugs .

Headphones that do noise cancellation for some reason irritate me more than natural isolation (I guess that might be the fact that there is sound there I just can't hear it?).

Or if you are lucky find a quiet room and use that.

<comment><USER19> Its important to find earplugs that fit correctly. My favorites are Howard Leight Max, and many come in different sizes (regular or small).

[http://www.howardleight.com/ear- protection/earplugs](http://www.howardleight.com/ear-protection/earplugs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a counterpoint to this, here's an article citing multiple peer reviewed studies that says largely the opposite, that certain types of music can be quite beneficial to cognitive performance: [https://blog.pzizz.com/how-music- can-help-you-focus-and-get-...](https://blog.pzizz.com/how-music-can-help-you- focus-and-get-work-done-3ff97deab93d)

</comment><comment><USER21> I have been listening to the AI-generated music at Brain.fm for about a month now. The focus mode really does seem to help. (I also like the sleep mode, but I need better headphones to wear to bed.)

Before I learned about Brain.fm, I was a fan of the isochronic tone generator at mynoise.net, which I would combine with the "white rain" generator in their iOS app.

</comment><comment><USER22> There should also be a comparison of type of cognitive task vs type of music.

Once I have the solution to a problem in my head, I do great writing code while listening to instrumental music with a lot of repetition (some progressive electronic fits this, but it is not the only style).

Under no circumstances I can listen to music with lyrics while performing any type of cognitive task.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think there are several differences on the thought process between examp, learning, programming or other creative processes. Say mathematical examp would need more concentration than writing a poem, which should be has different cognitive impact.

</comment><comment><USER24> If people are trying to be machines then I guess it makes sense. I wonder what they would discover if they considered enjoyment/flow/creativity as a factor.

</comment><comment><USER25> How about isotones or binaural beats? I've moved to those. They seem to help. How about the rest of you? Any good?

</comment><comment><USER26> The big concern I have with students learning in a music enviroment is that the information they store will not be recalled in the same way when they can't listen to the same music, i.e. exams. I wonder how much state-dependent memory is affected on recall.</comment>