The World Is Getting Hacked. Why Don't We Do More to Stop It? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/opinion/the-world-is-getting-hacked-why-dont-we-do-more-to-stop-it.html <comment><USER2> The world gets hacked _because_ programmers make mistakes, and their management cannot evaluate those mistakes -- if only for no other reason that sometimes it isn't even obvious they made a mistake until a couple years later.

Users have been fooled: Turn it off and on, is a reasonable and well-known troubleshooting guide, but _nobody_ blames the software vendor. If I'm on the phone with a company and they tell me to turn it off and on, I can't even point out "so you sent me something defective?" _this is normal folks_.

Maybe we need to teach programming younger and younger -- and it'll take two or three generations to become common enough that management will actually understand what I'm doing. Or maybe we need awareness campaigns to keep users from putting up with shit experiences!

Or maybe someone has some other idea, but the major barrier exists: We don't know how to program computers, and _saying that out loud_ makes a lot of people with the job-title (or description) of programmer clam right up.

<comment><USER3> You are dead wrong in everything. To start with, your analogy is bad. You cannot compare psychical items with software. When you buy a car do you expect it to run and last forever? Software does, so you can see immediately that it's not a good analogy.

Large systems are extremely complex but even so we have process, tools and methods to build reliable, verifiable and bug free code. What is stopping us from using them for every piece of software is the cost.

Consumers are happy with the status quo of quality/cost.

<comment><USER2> > Consumers are happy with the status quo of quality/cost.

Consumers cannot understand the cost because they are not programmers.

I don't understand the rest of your post. I'm not making an analogy to any psychical [sic?] items, physical items, or any other kinds of items.

<comment><USER4> Maybe not exactly "cannot", but they often don't because the really big costs of shit software are rarely paid and to many users it hasn't happened yet, so it is easy to miss them until you find all of your files encrypted by ransomware and suddenly need to figure out this new bitcoin thing.

<comment><USER2> I think that's exactly the definition of "cannot".

<comment><USER4> I think I could point you to a dictionary at this point but let's agree on "it's sufficiently hard and unlikely that in practice they pretty much effectively cannot" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A true disaster always has more than one cause. It took many separate problems and mistakes to sink the titanic and cause such a large loss of human life. Same here. There can be endless and interesting discussions about the role of the NSA, Microsoft, the end users in this very specific incident.

But the root of the problem is, that computer security still does not get the proper awareness and attention. This starts from how we write software, but from a society point of view, mostly how we deal with computer systems. Computer systems are not toasters which you can replace easily. Often they are part of larger installations, difficult to replace as a component. We need to deal with them as with aspects of traffic or workplace safety, or hygiene. There should be a clear concept (I sincerely hope we don't require too strict state regulations) that like any professional tool, a computer system has to be reviewed in regular intervals for being fit for its intended purpose, and maintenance for security should be done as naturally, as mechanical or electrical checks.

So, for any computer-powered (and networked) device, this would mean, that either there is a maintenance contract in place, which in the end would mean, the provider has a contract with Microsoft, if Windows is used, or, like with any other device, the machine is no longer considered fit for professional use.

</comment><comment><USER6> The article states this:

> The money they made from these customers hasn't expired; neither has their > responsibility to fix defects.

This is wrong. We don't ask for mandatory lifetime guarantees in any other industry I'm aware of, and perhaps more importantly, much of what is done in the field wouldn't be possible if it did (could you imagine having to continue to maintain an IE5 webpage for another twenty years?).

It goes on:

> In its defense, Microsoft probably could point out that its operating > systems have come a long way in security since Windows XP, and it has spent > a lot of money updating old software, even above industry norms. However, > industry norms are lousy to horrible, and it is reasonable to expect a > company with a dominant market position, that made so much money selling > software that runs critical infrastructure, to do more.

If I buy a toaster it comes with a one year warranty, maybe. A nice car might come with a five year or two hundred thousand mile limited warranty. Microsoft sold a product at a fraction of that cost and supported it, unconditionally, for 8 years. 8. And they supported it for five more after that with appropriate arrangements with enterprises (and after a select few enterprises who somehow concluded that paying some engineering salaries at Microsoft for dedicated support was cheaper than upgrading). That's a 13+ year lifetime of support on what was an $80 a license product. Industry norms can only be "horrible" insofar as there's only been a serious industry for 30 years... And XP was supported for half of it (man, I suddenly feel old). My point is that there is no world in which the "cash-strapped National Health Service" is not the primary entity which was grossly negligent in its maintenance of critical infrastructure.

Stepping back and looking at the article as a whole and less at specific inflammatory parts, it is, well, filled with inflammatory parts. It starts as a thin attack piece on Microsoft for being slow to provide free support for a 16 year old product, offhandedly references IoT for some added scare factor, then starts calling for action (from both corporate and government actors) without any serious discussion on either the merits of the proposed actions or the impacts taking them would have on those organizations or the implications that they would create for future actors.

But hey, if you're a fan of Bruce Schneier's more recent musings, at least you'll enjoy the conclusion: That we must legislate software, and fast.

<comment><USER7> I think you are getting it very wrong.

What guarantee used to mean is that if product has _manufacturing defects_ then these will appear within limited period of time.

Having a 5 year guarantee for a car does not mean that it will fall apart after this period of time. It means that defects that occur after this period of time are due to wear and not _manufacturing defects_.

The main difference between a software product and say a car is that it appears that _manufacturing defects_ of the software would take much longer to appear than 2 or 5 years. Sometimes it may take even 10-20 years for a defect to appear.

The main issue with Microsoft software is that the problem, when it becomes apparent, can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product. This is caused by the closed nature of the Microsoft software.

Another thing you get wrong is that you call XP a $80 product. It is not. It is a $80 x number of owners product.

<comment><USER8> > can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product

I think this is nice in theory, but impractical with our current level of technology. If your toaster broke, would you be able to fix it? How many owners have the analog circuit knowledge to fix even a toaster from the pre-IC world? Would you be willing to invest the tens of hours and dollars required to fix it? Or would you just go buy a new one for $20?

Aside from people who train to do so, even your above-average owner can not maintain or repair a modern car drivetrain. Or an IC which has, thorough the laws of physics, formed whiskers that have caused it to short out. Most people couldn't even replace such an IC, even if given all the fairly specialized tools.

Nor could they realistically learn enough about programming to realistically find and repair defects in a 45 million LOC codebase.

Hell, as a (as called by peers in the past) above-average programmer, I couldn't grok 45M lines of code in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.

Just opening the source is not enough. And just as car maintenance costs money (sometimes more than the car cost originally), if you want software patches past a reasonable span of time, those are going to cost money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cause the users dont know what they are actually buying. They go for superficial signs of quality - like weigth, design, surfacepolishing and nice UI.

Security of a object is a thing you can only evaluate the day it turns around and snaps at you.

Now the default american solution for this, would be to have a "Late-Adopter" plugin, allowing to install "Additional" Gated-Comunity-Security for the rich - and let the mob become one huge botnet, held back by aggressive campaigns of bricking whole device classes remote should they be a threat to the "devices" in the better neighbourhoods.

Unfortunatly the rest of the world is either too poor or unwilling to follow this model, which means we are going to see a regulated, securty TÜV checked model in europe and japan, state regulated devices in china & russia - and a wild west everywhere else.

</comment><comment><USER10> The article is wrong on timing because they choose to ignore the herd of elephant in the room.

The world has been getting hacked since before 2013 by the NSA and related parties. They wanted to keep it hackable (by them, but an open door is open for everyone), not to fix what was wrong (even they asked/forced companies to include backdoors, unsafe encryption and so on). They developed (directly, or hired third party companies) software to hack it even more, and not just systems but people too. They created an entire market of malware/exploit/zero days, where was pretty profitable to find zero days and sell/hoard them instead of warning the world.

Is not amazing that in this scenario of planned/designed insecurity at every level even they get hacked/intruded/disclosed, and not just not to get information but the software weapons they were already using too.

Is like the department of health has been developing all the latest years new flu strains, are weaponizing them, and somewhat, you get sick, they get sick, everybody else get sick and some of the people you know dies. Would you complain about the last person that transmitted you the disease, the vaccine makers that run behind the (designed) diseases and even are forbidden/delayed to make a cure for them, or the root cause of it all?

Instead of asking why we don't do more to stop it, ask yourself why we did (and keep doing) so much to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER11> Because most people don't give a crap? Out of the 10 people who saw the news (on TV!) while I was there 9 reacted with "Ha! These hackers..." and 1 with "I'm pretty sure they are not interested in a guy like me, I'm safe haha".

Until people start losing personal money they won't bother educating themselves. They see these "hacking games" as, well, games.

</comment><comment><USER12> I would say the reason the world is getting hacked is quite simple: OS vendors are asleep at the wheel. Instead of actually improving their OS platforms, they're instead turning them into web browsers and game engines - while all the vital services that a modern OS should provide are being ignored in the rush for control.

Take for example, the Fappening. This was possible because iCloud. iCloud is only necessary - like Dropbox and other services like it - because OS vendors decided they didn't want people to have control over their content, using their local computers - that it was 'easier' to provide servers dedicated to the purpose, than to actually add dedicated file sharing to the individuals' computers.

(There are no really good reasons why your modern PC can't serve its own content - especially in this era of bandwidth and monster CPU power. We hosted the 90's Internet on far less powerful computers than your average mobile phone, with less bandwidth too.. the point is, the protocols.)

So I honestly think that OS vendors need to be forced back behind the wheel to make our computers better, and the "network is the computer" business model needs to die. This was always a terrible idea, formed on the basis of an accountants wet dream, and should be forgotten as soon as possible. Instead, lets build better computers, simple as that. Computers that are actually safe to use because they've been designed that way, from the get-go. The cloud must die.

<comment><USER2> How do you force them back to the wheel?

<comment><USER12> The same way you handle every 'new' world order, of course .. you build another one right on top.

i.e. IPFS, Akasha, Ethereum, etc. These need to become first-class services in a default OS install. Then, maybe, we'll start evolving again ..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully governments will one day take GNU/Linux based OS & Software. I know, I know ... Linux for Desktop is hard, but it seems like making exploits are harder than doing the same for Windows ( maybe hacker focus is on windows, who knows. ).

Anyway money equation I think is quite simple :

Why buy Windows, when you can use Linux and buy backup infrastructure.

<comment><USER14> The recent attack on the NHS targeted Windows XP. I dare you to run a Linux distro from 2001 and tell me its secure from modern attacks.

<comment><USER15> That's about the time I installed my Debian system that I am still using today. I updated it continuously over the years, but have never re-installed. I wouldn't say it is secure from all modern attacks, because no system is. But it was never obsoleted.

<comment><USER16> You can update Windows installations as well. People run Windows XP either because they like its interface or they don't want to risk upgrading. Linux doesn't help with either case. If I liked Debian 3.0, I don't have an easy option to run it with all modern security updates now.

The only thing that Linux has is free as beer. Many people don't want to spend money on buying new Windows and Windows XP works for them just fine. Linux could certainly help here.

<comment><USER17> You are comparing upgrading a system with going to the store and buy a new operative system and saying its the same thing. Windows vista was not a Windows XP update, and in theory they could have nothing in common but the name and the publisher.

There need to be a meaningful distinction between a software update for a product and a new product. For a operative system, hardware requirement and driver support is quite critical.

As a small testament to this, I had a server which hardware initial had 3.0 Woody as the version and ran until 6.0 Squeeze, at which point the motherboard gave up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > ...started, as it often does, with a defect in software, a bug.

It all started with poor ethics. Every single version of Microsoft Windows have intentionally left backdoors for NSA and some hackers knew how to use it. This is like you pay some money and buy a house, but the previous owner keeps backup keys to watch you. And some others get the backup keys, kick you out of your own home unless you pay them.

This is such a shame for Microsoft, NSA and American government. People trusted Microsoft products and purchased them, in return, Microsoft wanted more than money; they wanted to spy them for their ideological goals.

<comment><USER19> >Every single version of Microsoft Windows have intentionally left backdoors for NSA and some hackers knew how to use it.

Is there any proof of this?

<comment><USER18> Have you followed the news at all ?

<comment><USER19> I have somewhat. I don't recall hearing "every single version of Microsoft Windows have intentionally left backdoors for NSA".

<comment><USER18> For last 15 years Microsoft keeps same "bug" in their every single operating system, even after rewriting it bunch of times. Noone except NSA knew about this bug until their tools got leaked, for 15 years. Can you believe it ? Somehow, only NSA discovered and used this bug. And you're gonna sit in your chair and ask for proof. People like you easily get manipulated by shit organizations like CIA and Microsoft because they can get proof of the color of your poop, unlike me. I don't have a proof, but just use your critical thinking skills. If you got any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To howls of outrage, I have suggested to several companies that we simply disconnect from the public Internet. People programmed before cut-and-paste- from-SO was a thing after all. Obviously the web servers in the DC need to be accessible but the desktops in the office, or the critical bits of infra like DB, file servers and so on, nope.

Anyone who wants to surf can easily do so on their personal smartphone with no risk to corporate systems. No one has ever been able to put together a coherent rebuttal to my proposal, yet still the PCs remain connected and still people click things they shouldn't...

<comment><USER12> > People programmed before cut-and-paste-from-SO was a thing after all.

I've always considered SO to be more a sign of devolution than anything else. It hasn't produced better programmers - just more programmers. Is that better?

<comment><USER13> SO, although can be misused via copy & paste to production, is one of the greatest productivity boost I've ever had ( I'm 15+ years of experience ).

Sure I remember having lots of fun with Turbo Pascal and paper books, as well as Perl and `man perlre`, but nevertheless there is always one weird error that will cost you half a day of debugging, which nowadays is replaced with 5 minutes googling.

SO community are doing fine job with preventing bad code left without the warnings, but anyway I think SO delivered more to programming than it actually took.

<comment><USER12> I think the SO mentality leads to lazy developers who depend too much on the wisdom of others and don't do enough to push their own forward. Too many times I've seen "tech departments" sitting around, incapable of doing anything productive, because "the internet is down". This is a real issue, and I wish it got a bit more attention from the cognescenti .. we are producing generations of robotic developers who can't get anything done without hand- holding...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is not enough incentive to do so, carrot or stick.</comment>


Show HN: libaudiodecoder - The Cross-Platform Audio Decoder API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/asantoni/libaudiodecoder/

<comment><AUTHOR> For those interested in why we created this, there's some extra background about our motivation here: [http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/portaudio/2012-April/013...](http://music.columbia.edu/pipermail/portaudio/2012-April/013813.html)

Specifically, there's issues with FFMPEG, libmad, and GStreamer, and there was no good alternative that did what we wanted. So we wrote one!</comment>


Duet Display is out - <AUTHOR> http://www.duetdisplay.com/ <comment><USER2> On my system, Duet provides a much better experience than AirDisplay. Working with Apps is very fluid. Videos play back just find. It is not as fast as my MacBook's built in display, but I have to look for any sluggishness.

There are some bugs. My iPad was stuck saying Duet Display was "Launching". I noticed that the MacBook's Display preferences showed the iPad as being in portrait and I had it physically in landscape. Turning the iPad to portrait orientation allowed it to work.

I noticed some issues with windows getting completely cropped off the iPad when dragging between screens.

You should also note that the Duet preferences include changing the frame rate and the resolution, by default these appear to be set to 30 fps and Regular (non-Retina).

UPDATE: seeing a few more visual bugs. For example, the corners of windows have broken corners. I continue to be impressed by the speed performance. Hopefully, we will see bug fixes. (Although with the looming christmas app store review shutdown, that might take a while)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8751414](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8751414)</comment>


Something Simple - <AUTHOR> http://joeaverbukh.com/something-simple/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to start writing. I got so enthusiastic about the idea that I started coming up with all these extra things to do. It wasn't until a month later that I realized I lost sight of my original goal. This happens to me often. In any case, I finally started.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you pay $5/month for? - <AUTHOR> I am a developer with 7 years of professional experience.
I have tried to develop different types of services and apps but had little success. Please share some of your ideas, it would help me out a lot.
Thanks <comment><USER2> I think a better question is "What would you pay $10,000 per month for?"

I mean, although I would pay $5 a month for a Lower Manhattan penthouse, a late model Dodge Charger, five pounds of ground beef, etc., there aren't many things that I think are both worth about $5 a month and are worth the overhead of paying someone to do it...well maybe Mad Magazine or something else _content_ based.

But that's not an app or service. And anyway, the last thing I would recommend as an MVP is an app because there is no control over customers or sales channel and no way to iterate quickly.

I think this is a reasonable introduction to pricing: [http://www.slideshare.net/omohout/lean-pricing- startups](http://www.slideshare.net/omohout/lean-pricing-startups)

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have you tried making something that you (and your friends) would pay $5 / month for?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have this tendency to just code up small solutions to my needs myself. Looking at my expenses - there isn't anything at the moment that I pay for monthly, thus it's hard to draw from my own experience.

<comment><USER3> Probably best to "scratch your own itch" first. Do your friends have the same problem(s) your solving?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> seems like a lot of companies offer a free "limited" account at that level.

</comment><comment><USER5> What have you tried so far?</comment>


Show HN: Csysdig – A customizable curses UI for sysdig - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/draios/sysdig/wiki/csysdig-overview

<comment><USER2> Can we get a couple of screenshots on that page?</comment>


Stop calling it the Sharing Economy – That isn't what it is - <AUTHOR> http://olivierblanchard.net/stop-calling-it-the-sharing-economy-that-isnt-what-it-is <comment><USER2> "Laws that took decades to come up with by the community in which they apply, whose intent was to established the most ideal balance possible between cab fares and consumer protections. "

This sounds a little bit too naive to me.

I am not saying that it is not like this. Just this is not the full picture and perhaps not the honest one.

I think that some industries do need disruption, but I agree with the author that perhaps not the kind we are seeing right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> I never got why Uber would be part of a sharing economy.

Sharing economy is about sharing underutilized resources, in other words, fully utilizing expensive assets by spreading usage across a larger number of users. The focus here is on the asset, not the service.

AirBnB? Check, that's sharing economy, you're clearly increasing usage of an underutilized asset (your home when you travel, or your spare bedroom), although there are exceptions (those who buy a place to rent on AirBnB like a hotel).

TaskRabbit? Nope. Uber? Nope. That's just the service economy, nothing new to see here folks.

<comment><USER4> Even AirBnB isn't _sharing_ though, in the traditional sense of the word. This should be obvious when you compare it to CouchSurfing, which is genuinely about sharing.

I would argue that the way it's traditionally understood, sharing is something that happens between equals, or people who have an intention of becoming equals. "Let me share some advice with you" is fundamentally about a relationship between equals or possibly a relationship between people who are not exactly equals in some aspect, but either feel like they belong to some common in-group or like they will be equals eventually.

From this perspective, it's obvious that CouchSurfing is sharing while AirBnB isn't: on AirBnB, the expectation is that there is a split between the seller and the buyer; on CouchSurfing, there is a shared identity of "travelers" and an expectation of reciprocity.

Let me also point out that by your own definition of how you use the word sharing, it's not so clear why you _wouldn 't_ call Uber a sharing service. After all, somebody might decide that their car is an underused asset which should be "shared". (Hold on, you say, those people are also selling their labor? Well, so do AirBnB hosts when they clean the room after you stayed in it...).

tl;dr: Your conclusions don't actually follow from your implied definition of sharing, _and_ your definition of sharing doesn't match the general feeling that the word evokes.

<comment><USER3> Guess I should have made my definition of "sharing" more explicit: Share: have a portion of (something) with another or others. I never said sharing should be free. Carrier share towers (for fees), companies share office buildings, warehouses, etc.

 _" I would argue that the way it's traditionally understood, sharing is something that happens between equals, or people who have an intention of becoming equals."_

Well, that's your definition. We can spend the rest of our lives arguing about definitions.

 _" From this perspective, it's obvious that CouchSurfing is sharing while AirBnB isn't: on AirBnB, the expectation is that there is a split between the seller and the buyer; on CouchSurfing, there is a shared identity of "travelers" and an expectation of reciprocity."_

So, by my definitions, AirBnB is sharing, so is CouchSurfing.

 _" by your own definition of how you use the word sharing"_

Again, you're implying a different definition of sharing than I'm using (or even that the dictionary uses).

 _" somebody might decide that their car is an underused asset which should be "shared""_

The car yes, but you're not paying for usage of the car, you're paying for a transportation service.

 _" Well, so do AirBnB hosts when they clean the room after you stayed in it...)."_

That's asset maintenance. Someone driving a car isn't asset maintenance, it's a service. And that's even charged separately, usually (as a "cleaning fee").

 _" tl;dr: Your conclusions don't actually follow from your implied definition of sharing, and your definition of sharing doesn't match the general feeling that the word evokes."_

Not only you wrongly implied my definition of "sharing", which I actually took from a dictionary, but you also didn't understand the difference between usage of assets and labor services. Another way to look at it is: what's the main cost component? Is it return on assets or labor?

\- Uber: labor

\- TaskRabbit: labor

\- AirBnB: return on asset

<comment><USER5> Dictionaries don't specify that sharing be free, sure, but that's because the concept of 'i give you part of something i am in excess of in exchange for something' is already called selling, and 'i allow you to use part of something i am in excess of in exchange for something' (airBnB) is already called renting. Those activities are not sharing because they are already renting and selling, which are incompatable with sharing.

By induction, sharing must not involve transaction of money between the two parties doing the sharing. A timeshare is sharing because the people who share the condo do not pay each other, they both pay someone else and agree on when each party will have access.

Also, Uber's claim to be 'ride sharing' is the idea that the rider is filling otherwise empty space in the drivers car. It's original purpose was to let drivers pick up strangers to fill otherwise empty seats while on their way to do other things, it just mutated into the 'driver as a profession' form that we have now, so I think it does fit your definition.

<comment><USER3> We can disagree on definitions then.

<comment><USER6> Your desire to have a word mean something different does not make that alternate meaning correct.

<comment><USER3> I'm just looking up in the dictionary:

verb verb: share; 3rd person present: shares; past tense: shared; past participle: shared; gerund or present participle: sharing 1\. have a portion of (something) with another or others.

You're the one making your own definitions...

<comment><USER6> We share the same dictionary definition of the word share.

By way of example; you and I may share a ride in an Uber drivers car. The Uber driver (as a profession) does not share our same purpose so is more accurately described as renting out their service and vehicle.

With example of carriers sharing a tower care must be taken to clarify the roles of the participants. If three carriers are using the tower then all three are sharing. Note the common purpose. If one of the carriers owns the tower then this carrier is also renting. There is nothing precluding both renting and sharing from occurring at the same time but to include sharing there must be a common purpose.

Since the dictionary definition of sharing speaks to a 'portion' with out regard to financial reward and rent is a 'payment for use' then the correct way to describe the financial transaction that occurs with an Uber driver is 'rent'.

As @kedean correctly points out; Uber may have started out as a service for sharing a common purpose but it is no longer that. The fact that Uber drivers are contractors, or in the State of California, employees is clear evidence that the driver and rider no longer share a common purpose.

As the word economy connotes finance and there is not a common purpose to portion out the more accurate phrase is 'Rental Economy'.

<comment><USER3> Once again you're narrowing the definition of sharing to fit your argument and, as I said, we're arguing definitions.

By the first definition of sharing on the dictionary, my argument is valid.

If you want to use another definition, than don't expect my argument to be valid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> NB: I was confused until I realised that this is not the same Olivier Blanchard who is chief economist of the IMF. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Blanchard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Blanchard)

<comment><USER8> Same here. I have read several of the IMF Blanchard's school in grad school and naturally thought it would be the same guy. I got a little confused too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Companies like Uber and AirBnb have put a spotlight on the cost of old and sometimes outdated information and are driving changes that were not going to come from within the system. In some cases we end up with a better end state, in others we are forced to weigh all the pros and cons and we rejig our current model.

<comment><USER10> I think the end game here is better regulation for companies like Uber. Not to defend taxi companies, (i.e. not protectionism) but we need at least some of those rules to apply, such as background checks for drivers. There is also the question of whether drivers are employees or not. (and thus due greater benefits)

To my mind, Uber is unquestionably a good disruption; I'm glad its happening. I hope that the "end state" won't be the status quo of today, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think some companies/individuals hide behind the name(Sharing Economy)?

It just sounds fair, progressive, and everyone benefits? This Sharing Economy has make a lot of people insanely rich, provided a lot of middle class jobs(Programmers, Tech workers), and a lot of promises to the rest of us.

What's going to happen when these companies are streamlined, and running pretty well? All the kinks have been eliminated. The point, if they ever completely get past all the regulation; where all they really care about is customer growth? What's going to happen to all those good paying Programmer/Tech jobs? (In reality, I hope Tech workers will just move on to the next opportunity. I just hope certain companies don't get preferential treatment because they were the first to arrive? I hope Tech workers will have a lot of opportunities.)

I do think some of us will look back, and reminisce about the good ole days? And yes--that seems to happen with ever bull market, and subsequent fall.

I wouldn't be that concerned, but it looks like the big boys(Uber, Airbnb, etc.) are buying their rights to the party? A party that looking harder to get into daily? I thought by now, we would have a bunch of Ubers? It looks like their only competition is Lyft? Yea--I know everyone is waiting on the side lines waiting to see exactly what regulations Uber is required to follow? Maybe that's true?

</comment><comment><USER12> Sharing: "use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others." Economy: "offering value for money"

There are many very interesting discussions to be had about the Sharing Economy [1]. But the name isn't one of them.

[1] [https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/networks-and-the- nature-o...](https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/networks-and-the-nature-of- the-firm-28790b6afdcc)

</comment><comment><USER13> "The ticket scalpers" happen when prices of tickets are too low. So either price discovery of the correct price is too risky/costly or the seller wants to subsidize the buyer for some other reason.

This isn't even dependent on the EMH - if there is no price theory _at all_ , then...

So Uber et al could actually _be_ "ticket scalpers" and there's only a deeply normative reason - not a rational one backed by economic theory - to decry them. Of course this illustrates a .... nice example of shear between complex social arrangements and the (ab)use of mathematics.

Taxi medallions are a textbook example of rents. A business model that goes after rents almost cannot be "evil. Of course if it's your ox being gored...

"Sharing" is Just One Of Those Words - like "nice" or "fair".

</comment><comment><USER14> Is anyone old enough to remember the original "Sharing Economy" \-- ZipCar and FlexCar and the newish bike shares. When did the term get misapplied to "contractor economy"?

<comment><USER15> There's an incomplete history at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_economy) but I'd like to see a histogram of uses... might be heard to filter for current usage/valance however.

Needless to say, adopted and popularized because branding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't get why he thinks a sharing economy couldn't do all the things he points out to be bad without being mislabeled.

He can argue "disruption" by rule breaking is a somehow objectively bad thing. He can believe that selling something shouldn't qualify as "sharing".

All of this seems very constructed to me.

To me it looks like he just doesn't like those services, rationalized it and spins it in a way where he assumes others were misleaded to gain attention.

<comment><USER13> I would say that for the purposes of his essay, he's being a classic Burkean Conservative. That position means that our ability to discern all the things that could be lost by the disruption will be hard to determine up front.

Agreed that the assault on the word "sharing" seems tacked on, somehow. I suspect it is - it means "somehow like Napster".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Every time you say the word "no" in your article, it's not a fact, it's your opinion. Trying to change people's minds is about educating them, not telling them to stop using words or phrases or to tell them that all their ideas are wrong.

</comment><comment><USER18> What I question is the fact that these startups become too big to fail which puts them on par with corporations, meaning we start to support corporations rather than the underdog. Corps still win.</comment>


Setting up Sublime Text 2 - <AUTHOR> http://drewbarontini.com/setup/sublime-text/ <comment><USER2> One of the things I like most about Sublime is that it just works right out of the box. Sure almost everyone uses a plugin or two, but to me it's the editor that doesn't need blog posts about how to configure it, it doesn't require you to keep a git repository of your thousand-line configuration, it doesn't require an understanding of esoteric key commands to get started.

To me, Sublime is an editor for people who don't want to spend man-weeks fucking with their editor and just want to get to work.

<comment><USER3> It's half-way there. It could go a lot further. I'm really surprised there isn't a single (featureful) editor that follows the OSX/GNOME aesthetic of "convention over configuration; no preferences/options/modes if possible". Key-bindings are the same everywhere you go. Every command is available on every instance of the editor on everyone's machine, everywhere in the world. You never have to re-learn anything; you can just sit down and use all the features.

I would personally imagine something a bit _like_ Sublime, but where all the "plugins" were actually just code contributed to the central codebase, and delivered by updates. (Specifically, I'm imagining it would work like Cloudflare's <https://github.com/cdnjs/cdnjs> for plugins.)

Given that the editor would then have "everything" in-the-box, it'd then probably have to have emacs-like modes, as well, to allow all the plugins' various key-bindings to live together.

<comment><USER4> I'd suggest you should download every plugin for ST and see how bloated it becomes, you'd end up with something as slow and ungainly as Eclipse.

To me, one of the largest benefits of ST is having a very powerful editor which is fast, simple, and very usable, and wouldn't want to see the core become much heavier than it already is (although I'm loving the code navigation functionality coming in ST3).

<comment><USER5> I have loaded a TON of plugins at one point. It was nowhere near Eclipse's "oh, you wanted to keep typing? No, sorry I'm going to block while the JVM does a GC sweep, and I try and figure out what auto-completion to show you".

With everything I had loaded in Sublime, it just took a couple of seconds longer to start up. Which plugins were you loading specifically?

<comment><USER6> > No, sorry I'm going to block while the JVM does a GC sweep, and I try and > figure out what auto-completion to show you".

I've experienced this quite often, mainly on large code bases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know Sublime Text has a lot of momentum, especially on this site, but the one main ting which keeps me from adopting Sublime text is that I can't run it from a terminal. Simple as that.

If I'm going to invest time, effort and know-how into something as fundamental as a text-editor, I want to know that I can run it everywhere I need it.

I'm going to guesstimate that I spend at least 20% of my text-editing via terminals, via SSH, via remote sessions somehow. And there I can't use Sublime Text at all.

In those remote sessions I'm probably editing the same things I do locally, so why should I need to change my entire environment to suit that 20% of the same workload? It just doesn't make sense.

Other objections to Sublime text would be that it's not open source. With more and more (new) arm-based platforms popping up left and right, that becomes increasingly important. I want to know that I can take my tools with me to the places I go. Not being open-source severely limits those possibilities.

<comment><USER8> You can use the built in 'subl' command to launch Sublime Text 2 from the terminal.

<http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/osx_command_line.html>

Editing remote files is as simple as an SFTP mount.

<comment><USER7> That is for OSX, which I refuse to use on an principle of ethical software conduct. Apple is hostile to open software and computers as open platforms. They want to take away the open nature of computers which allowed them to exist in the first place and they use BS patent-lawsuits to hinder competitors willing to provide just that.

They are _evil_ and I refuse to support them with a penny or any significant effort or attention.

Apart from that, talking about SFTP mounts is completely missing the point.

Sometime I'm in a terminal, on a router, NAS, cloud-server or whatever, and need to edit some files in the current folder.

What I do then is "$ emacs file", not change context, go to another local terminal and fuse-mount some completely remote FS with whatever keys and credentials I need to provide, in /mnt/remote/, and then fire up a local editor for /mnt/remote/the/actual/directory/i/was/working/in/file.

That's extremely inefficient.

When I say I need something to work in a terminal to be a proper solution, I mean any terminal.

<comment><USER9> In every sublime text thread there's someone praising Vim.

If you want a terminal text-only editor, and already have one like emacs, then you don't need or want sublime text.

Sublime Text does not try to work in the terminal and I love that it doesn't.

Very different use cases. I suspect you are simply a very subtle forum troll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are a lot more keyboard shortcuts for this editor, makes you much faster if you don't have to touch a mouse.

Here's a "cheat sheet": <http://i.imgur.com/yGrUAL8.png>

<comment><USER11> Printing as I type, thanks so much for sharing this. Saw a few that I didn't know about and others that I google far too regularly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice guide. I'm surprised Aqua didn't make it to the themes section - a theme to make Sublime look more native on OS X: <http://github.com/cafarm/aqua- theme>

CommandOnSave is a nice plugin that I've been using recently, very useful for automatically running Makefiles on save, etc.

Also, if you want to browse Hacker News via Sublime Text, here's a small plug for my plugin: "Hacker News" (<https://github.com/kaolinite/HackerNews- SublimeTextPlugin>)

<comment><USER13> I've updated the article to add the Aqua theme link. I'm surprised I missed that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here are a few plugins I rely upon that make Sublime much easier to use (that weren't on that list).

* GitGutter: Adds symbols beside the line # on modified lines. A feature widespread in other editors with Git integration. I haven't found a plugin to mark modified files in the sidebar (which is also another common feature). - <https://github.com/jisaacks/GitGutter>

* Missing Palette Commands: Adds a few commands like setting the indentation for the specific file only. You can see a full list in the link. - [https://github.com/fjl/Sublime-Missing-Palette-Commands/blob...](https://github.com/fjl/Sublime-Missing-Palette-Commands/blob/master/Missing.sublime-commands)

* Open Folder: Open up the selected folder in explorer/etc.

* Terminal: Open the selected folder in the terminal. - <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/terminal>

<comment><USER15> GitGutter is awesome, thanks for sharing :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This video taught me a ton of stuff I had no idea about: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ-bgcJ6fQo>

Quite long, but definitely worth it. Not affiliated with whoever did it.

<comment><USER17> Great video, thanks for sharing. The automator osX hack to get right-click open project in Sublime is worth it alone!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Been using Sublime Text for awhile now and I'm always finding something new. One thing I'd like to point out is that it actually supports multiple selections by default and you don't need to enable VIntage mode to take advantage of the huge timesaver: [http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/multiple_selection_with_th...](http://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/multiple_selection_with_the_keyboard.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> GoSublime [1] is also an awesome plugin if you write Go code.

[1] <https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime>

</comment><comment><USER19> Great guide, it covers most of the must have plugins.

While everyone is talking about themes, if there are any Intellij 12 users out there that fancy the Darcula theme, I've created a theme for both Intellij 12 and Sublime Text 2 which is a blend of Solarized and Darcula: <https://github.com/rickhanlonii/Solarized-Darcula>

</comment><comment><USER20> Amazinginly helpful article (especially for first timers). Another addition I'd like to add to the list if you use LESS is the LESS Build plugin: <https://github.com/berfarah/LESS-build-sublime> — allows you to compile LESS stylesheets by hitting control + B on Windows to compile.

</comment><comment><USER21> I really enjoy working with ST2 and I would be super happy if there was a faster workflow for file / folder creation. I would really like to see something that helps me Cmd-Shift-P and type "New Folder" or "New File", type the name and be able to do tab-completion in it (and thus also map it to some keystrokes).

<comment><USER22> Have you tried the AdvancedNewFile plugin? It uses ctrl+alt+n by default, lets you create folders when you specify your new file and also has tab completion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> this is a tutorial worth watching for beginners and advanced users, [https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime- text...](https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime-text-2/) an hour or two of investment, could save countless hours of work.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone have a plugin that prevents ST2 from showing the contents of binary files? For example, clicking on a JPG in the sidebar shows the contents, requiring you to somehow close the window before you can continue.

<comment><USER25> Not sure on a plugin, but perhaps adding image formats to your file_exclude_patterns could be a workaround?

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the suggestion, but I still need to be able to see them in the sidebar :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> And I suggest you to install Sublime hacker News Reader too :) (from Package Control)

<https://github.com/Dimillian/Sublime-Hacker-News-Reader>

</comment><comment><USER27> It was only yesterday that I thought about using animated GIFs for demoing code typing. That's what I liked most about this post!

<comment><USER28> I disliked how I had to watch the gifs a couple of times though in order to read exactly what he typed for the first snippet to see how it related to what it filled. Text underneath would help, but it does indeed look nice.

<comment><USER13> Good point. I just updated the post to fix that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wow, it's as complicated as setting up a bare bones linux install.

</comment><comment><USER30> How do you put downloaded themes into Sublime Text 2?

<comment><USER31> Is there a particular theme you're interested in?

Two options:

1\. Download package control [1] (first config listed in OP) and then search for themes.

2\. Visit the individual theme repos (mostly on GH) and follow instructions.

[1] <http://wbond.net/sublime_packages/package_control>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> DetectSyntax is called now ApplySyntax</comment>


Show HN: Try my musician-savvy bot - <AUTHOR> http://dev.bandscape.net/scapebot

<comment><USER2> Nice - maybe enable caching? Seems like when you search for the same band twice, it does the search all over again. Obviously not necessary until there's a more practical use for it. nice job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I have it working elsewhere where it caches the info in a database but I figured for a demo you should always be able to see it working.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to learn as much about C or C++ in 3 days - <AUTHOR> This post is a follow-up question to to this one [1] I posted a couple of weeks ago.
Since I wrote the above post I have been asked to an interview for a position of Embedded Software Engineer.  Apparently there is a lot of Assembly Language required, but as well as this they require C or C++ skills. They do understand I have no such experience with C or C++, but I don't wish to remain totally clueless, so are there any tutorials, reading materials out there that you could recommend I read over the next 3 days to give me some kind of useful knowledge?
Many thanks again for all help received so far, it is much appreciated.
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12231066 <comment><USER2> Find out if you're using C or C++ and study which-ever you need, DO NOT study the other. Good practise in one is bad practice in the other and vica-versa

</comment><comment><USER3> Say you dont know C++. Read kernighan ritchie cover to cover.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know what, that's exactly what I'll do. Shouldn't even really have needed to ask such a question :)

<comment><USER3> Remember being calm and composed is half the battle. Dont read till the last minute, take the last half a day to just get into good spirits and get focussed.</comment></comment></comment>


Name.com tweets about Royal Baby during an outage - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/namedotcom/status/359803021040955392

<comment><USER2> The person tweeting about a Royal Baby is probably not the same person thats trying to solve an outage...

</comment><comment><USER3> The tweet is now deleted.</comment>


College Board is licensing personal data of students taking SAT to colleges - <AUTHOR> https://www.insider.com/college-board-sat-student-data-colleges-to-reject-students-admissions-2019-11 <comment><USER2> Makes sense, every high school student in the US gets random college mail as soon as they take the SAT</comment>


Does Exercise Help You Sleep Better? - <AUTHOR> http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/phys-ed-does-exercise-help-you-sleep-better/?hp <comment><USER2> 'There is "absolutely no scientific evidence" that working out in the late evening keeps you from sleeping, Mr. Youngstedt says.'

That isn't what people say happens -- indeed I thought everyone knew that working out late kept you up because workouts wake you up.

And that some people who exercise the most think they don't do enough should show that self-ratings are questionable at best and not a basis for "scientific evidence" in this case. Especially since "[w]orrying, as the Swiss study showed, is what will keep you awake long into the night" can easily interfere I would think that without taking general stress levels into account that the study isn't particularly meaningful.

<comment><USER3> During my PhD program I regularly would go running around 10-11pm at night, come home, shower and go straight to bed. I guess I just didn't know I wasn't supposed to feel sleepy after exercise.

<comment><USER4> That's not unusual. Running is very different from lifting weights or similar. This discussion is worthless until "exercise" is more precisely specified.

<comment><USER2> Not only that, it says nothing about stress levels (running is a great way to relax). How hard were you working out -- low hr runs, sprint intervals, tempo runs? Were you already a bit sleepy? Did you have established circadian rhythms? "There's no room for exercise to improve sleep, if people are sleeping fine. [Mr. Youngstedt] said."

I am skeptical of the results when the researchers say that they cannot count on the volunteers to accurately gauge their exertion levels but they can accurately gauge the quality of their sleep (remembering of course that 6hrs good sleep feels more restful than 8 on a plane). Also, gauging over-training is a pretty difficult exercise (pardon the pun) which definitely messes with a person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article concludes "It does not matter how much exercise" you actually complete "as long as it make you feel good and feel fit."

So it boils down to finding a way to relax and release any tension you may have before you sleep. Ummm, I know of certain 'exercises' that could be done on the bed that would help you sleep.

</comment><comment><USER6> It works for me. I usually wake up at around 8:30. If I have an early morning meeting, I'll go running the night before, pass out when I get home, and wake up at 6.

</comment><comment><USER7> Exercise at 5pm helps me sleep better. Exercise at 9pm helps me sleep at midnight.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes.

<comment><USER9> or no

<comment><USER8> It helps _me_.

<comment><USER9> then (Yes || no) == true

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know, I never tried.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good open sourced mobile back ends - <AUTHOR>

Hey all, exploring the mobile world here. I've been through the udemy ios complete course and found Baas such as parse as really convenient. The only caveat is cost. Are there any open source backend solutions that you guys can suggest? I'm most familiar with python, but couldn't find any pre-existing solutions. Let me know!<p>(NOTE: I'm currently trying out datakit/parsekit, seems promising, but I'm looking for a solution that you guys can vouch for) Thanks! <comment><USER2> You could take a look at BaasBox ([http://www.baasbox.com/](http://www.baasbox.com/))</comment>


I swapped my MacBook for an iPad+Linode - <AUTHOR> http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad <comment><USER2>
      One fateful day, VMWare and OS/X conspired to trash my
      shared filesystem, losing several days of uncommitted
      code in the process.

Several days of uncommitted code? We need to have a heart to heart talk about your process.

<comment><USER3> Insightful, and so close to a haiku as well...

Here's an attempt:

      Mac lost my data
      Many days of work gone
      Cloud to the rescue

<comment><USER4>
      It's the poor craftsman
      Who points the blame at his tools
      Y U NO COMMIT?

<comment><USER5> winner

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who spends their day (or most of some days) in a terminal connected to a remote server, I can't recommend using GNU Screen enough (brief tutorial: <http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/9/16838/14935>).

I've worked almost exclusively on remote servers, using the command line and vim, for about eight years now. It's only been in the past year that I started using Screen, and I feel stupid for not using it sooner.

<comment><USER7> Screen is great. Though not it's fault, the only downside is that it cant persist through a machine restart.

<comment><USER8> Nope, but you _can_ script both screen and tmux, and have it automatically start a screen session for you when you login.

I've got a little bash script for my VM that launches tmux, and starts a development web server in one of the windows, and tailing logs in another, and then dumps me into my project directory.

I also found tmux much, MUCH easier to script than screen.

<comment><USER9> Any good resources you'd recommend for scripting tmux?

<comment><USER8> I just googled around, read the man page, and eventually came up with [https://github.com/pavellishin/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/vodk...](https://github.com/pavellishin/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/vodka- netomat-tmux.sh)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This has to be the most ergonomically inefficient set-up ever!

I also cannot fathom how to work with < 2 big monitors (> 21" at least). And a tiling window manager. And a decent mechanical keyboard... ok ok..

Interesting setup. I'd be interested in knowing how it works out in the long term.

<comment><USER11> Having multiple monitors isn't good eronomically IMO. I always prefer what I'm working on to be on direct center, and I don't really see the point of having other stuff that isn't direct center. I prefer to alt-tab.

<comment><USER10> I have a large monitor on an arm in the center flanked by monitors to either side. My main monitor just has a full-screen emacs. The other monitors are for peripheral information such as browsers, irc sessions, email, etc.

It's great for keeping API docs open while I'm working without leaving my editor.

Having the center monitor on an arm just lets me adjust it's height when I move between leaning forward, slouching, or sitting straight, standing, etc.

A single monitor is limiting as it requires more context switches as I swap out windows in my viewing area. It's much nicer to just leave all the important windows open in a nice grid that spans multiple displays.

<comment><USER12> I love 3 monitor setups, with the big one in the middle and two cheap small ones on either side. All my input (editing, browsing, etc.) happens in the big fancy middle window. Test logs on the left, and server logs on the right.

The only time I use the side monitors for anything else is if I'm following along with a screencast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are a lot of comments here from people acting as if not having two 24" monitors and a full mechanical keyboard would drastically diminish their productivity. This year I spent 4 months out of the country with only my 15" laptop while still working 8 hour days. I was surprised to find no change at all in how long it took to get shit done. I think we tend to kid ourselves about how much of a difference expensive equipment makes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is something I wanted to say and somehow didn't: one personal take- away from the experience for me has been that programming, ultimately, is thinking.

All the technology in the world doesn't make me think faster. The most I can ask from it is that it gets out of my way and lets me search, explore and express myself efficiently.

<comment><USER13> Exactly. A subtle change to our workflows where we force ourselves to think about the problem for a minimum of ten minutes prior to coding will provide more benefit than any piece of equipment ever could.

Not as sexy as a new cinema display though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's interesting to see that other people are noticing how poor the google web experience has become on iOS. It seems especially deliberate when I note that android & chrome use webkit.

I've even swapped the default search engine to bing because it provides a better layout, especially so for image searching which in my view is broken on iOS.

This from the company that just released tools to aid the transition to mobile web.

(and yes, I'm aware that they hate each other, but why should I be punished? reminds me of the MS from yesteryear.)

Also: there is general feedback that google's optional services are generally quite good, which makes it curious that the originally very good google search/image search was replaced with versions that aren't up to scratch.

<comment><USER15> Anyone who thinks Google Docs is better on Android due to anti-Apple conspiracy clearly has never used Google Docs on Android.

Also, outside of Google Docs, Google has first rate support for iOS on the web. Gmail, Voice, Reader, everything runs brilliantly on iOS. In fact, usually better than Android, as they clearly see web as their primary in to iOS compared to Android (example: Voice is the snazzy HTML5 newness on iOS, while Android has the spartan 1995 grad student webpage styling).

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't call the mobile support in Reader "frist rate". Some of the UI elements (especially the "mark as read", "email", etc. links at the bottom of each post) are too small, I constantly expand the next post when trying to email one. A small detail, but one that drives me crazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> wes-exp Imagine an "iPad Pro" that had similar battery life and even an integrated keyboard. In addition to supporting the SSH workflow, it can run traditional GUI applications if you really need them.

You don't have to wait: it's called the MacBook Air.

<comment><USER17> I _really_ like the 13" Air form factor, but the high resolution and smaller physical size results in fonts that are a bit too small for my eyes these days. So, I stick with my couple-gen-back 15" with matte finish and 1440x900.

<comment> wes-exp The new full-screen capabilities in Lion can help with reading on small screens (in fact I think that's why they added it). Combined with bumping up the font size in applications, it can be quite readable.

<comment><USER17> terminal.app is one of the worst offenders, possibly because I like a good monospace font for it (monaco-with antialias disabled). When adjusting the size away from the 'good default' of 11pt, it looks awful.

Combined with that, bumping up the size in every single app lowers the value proposition _for me_ , especially given the expense of the laptop itself.

I practically live inside my laptop, use it far too much of the day, and anything that makes my eyes hurt _more_ or requires more effort to use instead of less, I consider less than ideal.

Full screen (which I quite enjoy by the way) helps neither or those things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The last time I tried to use SSH under iOS with the Apple bluetooth keyboard (trying different SSH apps including iSSH and TouchTerm) I found that I could not comfortably use Emacs due to various key combinations not being transmitted (I guess Vim isn't as much of a problem). One of the SSH app developers said that they were not able to trap certain keystrokes that were iOS keyboard shortcuts. Looks like this may still be an issue, as moconnor says this:

> Ctrl-X is my screen's 'hotkey'; it defaults to Ctrl-A but on a wireless > keyboard that leaves unicode characters in the terminal - I assume this is > related to Apple's support for some common Emacs key bindings in iOS.

Is the situation any better now? Any workarounds to make this work better (e.g. configure the shell on the remote end)? How is this on Android?

I was trying this on an iPhone, but I'd imagine it handles bluetooth keyboards the same as the iPad.

Another issue I had was latency of the cellular connection (AT&T 3G); there was a very noticeable delay between keystrokes and the server receiving them and transmitting back. I imagine if you're on wifi most of the time this isn't as much of a problem, though. Or maybe you just get used to the latency.

<comment><USER19> In my experience, Prompt is much better app for straightforward terminal use than iSSH. It handles meta keys very well includig the hardware ESC key on the wireless keyboard that iSSH could not, last time I tried it.

<comment><USER18> Are there any tricks to getting Prompt working correctly? Ctrl seems to work good, at least the keys I tried (Ctrl-A/E/N/P/K/T). When connecting to a Linux box, I can get some of meta keys to kinda work, but most of them do unexpected things. When connecting to an OS X box, option just spits out special characters. Prompt doesn't appear to have any configuration option for what type of terminal emulation, so I guess my only options are to configure the shell I am connecting to.

I just tried the latest versions of both Prompt and iSSH on iOS 5 on an iPhone 3GS. Prompt is at least a big improvement over iSSH in this area, but, unless I can figure out how to get it to work better, it is definitely not something I'd be comfortably using for Emacs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You could actually do the same thing WITH a Macbook Air/Pro. The beauty of a cloud linux instance + gnu screen isnt limited to the ipad and so you could still have a bigger screen and the possibility to go back to GUI apps if you need them. I like this for travelling on the go, but spending my normal workday in 1024 resolution ? Naaa.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true, but I'd be sacrificing the silence, the portability and the battery life. And the hipster factor, I guess.

102x768 isn't for everyone, but in text-mode it's all the same. I've no idea how many hours I've spent on a huge high-res monitor staring at a relatively tiny terminal window surrounded by a pretty desktop picture.

<comment><USER21> The battery life of a Macbook Air is pretty damn good. You can get a good 6+ hours of work out of them before needing to plug in. Not quite iPad-scale, but close enough in many cases. Also, the iPad does tend to run out of battery a bit more quickly when using 3G and bluetooth heavily, I believe...

<comment><AUTHOR> For me, 6 hours is the difference between needing to take a charger to work and never thinking about it. If I'm going to take a charger, I might as well have 1 hour battery life.

I didn't buy the 3G version, but I do use bluetooth for the keyboard all day and still get around 9 hours out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If this guys thinks having a single 10" screen with no ability to switch between tasks easily and quickly is the wave of the future for developers, I don't want any part of that future.

You can pry my dual 24" monitors + high performance desktop from cold dead body.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's the future for developers, I think it's the future for pretty much everybody else though.

I plug the iPad into large monitors sometimes. When an iPad with double the resolution comes out, this won't seem nearly so silly.

<comment><USER23> The iPad 2 can output FullHD resolution, the app just needs to support it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It looks like the goal of the swap was to have a spartan, lightweight, cool (temperature) workspace.

It seems like a MacBook Air accomplishes this better than iPad, stand and keyboard.

The only difference I can grok from the article is that the MacBook Air is somehow more fragile. But is it?

<comment><USER25> The title is a bit disingenuous. Before clicking through, I was wondering how he managed to maintain his productivity level with a touchscreen keyboard. I'm disappointed he's using external hardware, because otherwise I'd love to try a similar setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What's the solution for when "the cloud" loses your files and the ToS says "so sorry, we'll try harder next time - here's next month's bill"?

When I keep my files locally, the only person I have to blame for losing them is myself. Out in "the cloud", there's quite literally nothing that can be done to recover my data.

<comment><AUTHOR> Linode offer monthly backups for $5. All my real work is pushed to the office repository. All my personal projects are done in a Dropbox folder.

I'm pretty confident the data will be ok this time.

<comment><USER27> Backups with same vender aren't backups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Incredible that we seem to be moving back to powerful mainframe computers in a timesharing system. A 40 year cycle?

<comment><USER29> It is a bit better than that though because you can have a complete server environment to yourself, and don't have to deal with timesharing.

<comment><USER30> Unless you shell out for a dedicated server, you are sharing the physical machine with other people. The cpu is probably scheduled according to the size of the instance you bought, but you might get the whole thing if your neighbors aren't running anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am still amazed that Apple hasn't come up with a shortcut for app switching when using bluetooth keyboards.

By the way, Moconnor, have you given Panic's Prompt a try?

<comment><USER32> They don't really need to come up with one as much as just implement it. Gold standard's always been [Alt|Clover]-Tab; or even F3 (Apple's mapping for Exposé/Mission Control, even marked as such). I understand there's no easy way to dismiss the on-screen keyboard when you're using a hard keyboard either.

<comment><AUTHOR> The on screen keyboard vanishes when a Bluetooth one is connected; the eject button toggles it in and out again.

<comment><USER32> I'm guessing this changed in iOS 5 then (AFAIK; it didn't in iOS 4). I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> $800 gets you a pretty nice laptop. I don't see the advantage of this approach at all.

<comment><USER34> $800 gets you a LOT more than an iPad. I can see the advantage of working in the cloud, but working off of an iPad to smells of "hey! hey everyone!! look at me! look what I'm doing!" Not to mention there is now a monthly fee to program. That's not economical.

<comment><USER35> Just to toss this out here, but $20/mo for a linode, is not a huge investment, and it's something that I have even without doing everything "in the cloud". It's handy for those quick file transfers, a small portfolio site, and since you have root access, you can quickly set up or take down any odd services without the hassle of finding a distinct hosting service (Mumble, Mercurial, Subversion, or what have you).

But that's just my two cents.

<comment><USER36> How does the cost of light usages like this compares to aws?

<comment><USER35> To be honest, I couldn't tell you-- for the amount of usage that I have on it, it's a flat $20/mo, and I believe I have something like 20G of HD space and 200G of bandwidth, which I've never come close to using up (it's amazing how small your OS is when you're _not_ running a gui).

The _really_ nice thing, imo, is the fact that you can pay a couple bucks per month piecemeal to increase any one stat of the machine as you need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The lack of ability to look at documentation/stackoverflow/code examples in a browser while simultaneously coding out said example and making the changes I need would severely limit my productivity. "Just copy and paste!" you may say... Sure, that'll work. Only, wait, I forgot what that one line meant, is it needed? What did they say about changing this piece of code that was "really important?" Crap, back to the browser. Let's switch apps again. Crap, the page in the browser is having to reload because I had too many tabs open and memory got low, now I have to wait for it to reload. Where was I on the page? Cause when it reloaded the page, it put me back at the top. Wait, that wasn't the tab I wanted, it's that other tab. Great! It has to reload now too!

I typically work with a single external monitor connected to my Macbook and use the Macbook for holding my mail client, chat and a browser while my Terminal's and IDE are on the external monitor. This works best for me.

Now that spaces and expose are so tied together, working with even just one screen is much nicer. I have toyed with the idea of just using a single external monitor and use spaces extensively. Just a swipe and I'm at a new space. This is much faster and nicer than changing apps on iOS.

I think it's a neat trial idea, but for long term productivity, it certainly is more of a "hipster factor" than useful.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting. Did you ever consider the same setup but using a Chromebook? I've been thinking about doing that for a while now (I'm on an MBP currently). <http://www.google.com/chromebook/>

</comment><comment><USER38> I think the way of the future is a smaller powerful notebook, like a Thinkpad X220, and then using larger monitors and whatever cloud service you want.

</comment><comment><USER39> I actually attempted the same thing once but gave up after a day. I borrowed the iPad from work (clients absolutely love demos on this thing) and used iSSH to connect to my netbook running ubuntu.

First, I tried to create a simple mobile website with vim. I'm not a hardcore vim user so the frustration I felt using it on the iPad were mostly due to my level of inexperience with vim. Additionally, I didn't have an external keyboard. Using the software keyboard with my neck hunched forward gave me some serious cramps.

The second activity was writing a document. I used markdown and pandoc to create an rtf. googlecl for uploading to the google cloud.

Small screens bug some people but after using a 15" macbook pro and a 10" netbook, it normally doesn't bother me. In this case, using a software keyboard meant I had even less screen real estate which did bother me.

Overall, it was workable. If I ever took vacations, I could see myself taking an iPad (with keyboard) instead of a regular laptop and doing some emergency bug fixing but I wouldn't choose it over my netbook.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel your pain, I can't imagine doing _any_ serious text-related work on the iPad without an external keyboard. As you say, alone the typing position is horrendous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What you have done here is an HCI study. On yourself.

You could formalize this with related models and write a paper on it if you wanted.

<comment><USER41> The problem is, IMO, that it is a very narrow use case with a very specific user base that is willing to be very very flexible with this particular user interface (apps timing out when backgrounded, swiping instead of switching via Command+Tab, the low viewing angle etc). It is an interesting preview of what a 'cloud terminal' future could look like but I can't help wondering if the vast majority of viewers on HN are cringing at the thought of just how many backwards steps in UI evolution they would have to take from the familiar desktop and laptop PCs.

<comment><USER40> Well, yes. But Contextual Design, by definition means building something for a specific user.

As you say, its a first step towards the the pc-free, cloud-enabled, dev environment. The 'cringe' factor will always be there with new things!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Isn't the latency of vim on a remote server distracting? Or is your ping low enough to not be noticeable?

I've thought about this kind of setup, but I think I'd need vim to be running locally (but working on files from a remote filesystem - vim can do this).

<comment><USER43> Can you or somebody expand on that last bit...run vim locally on remote files? How? How does this improve lag? Any downsides to it? This would save me so much bother.

<comment><USER42> I haven't done it in ages, but a quick google shows gives an example (BTW google beats vim :help if you don't know the command name) [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Edit_remote_files_locally_via_SCP/...](http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Edit_remote_files_locally_via_SCP/RCP/FTP)

       vim scp://email@example.com//var/www/html/rtc_functions.php

i.e. you just start vim with the address preceded by the protocol name (here it's _scp_ , but also works for _ftp_ and _rcp_ ). The "konimi@" is the syntax for username. You might need to set up SSH passwords for scp on the remote (that's a whole other thing to research)

<comment><USER43> Thanks a million

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is partly a testament to what a great app iSSH is. I haven't used it as a daily work environment, but I've gotten some pretty great things done with it, even the iPhone version. My favorite was sitting in a crappy motel room with barely Edge, and still managing to build a GPX converter (not build as in write, build as in download and compile), convert some map routes to a format I needed for another phone app, and get them on my website where I could then get the app that needed them to download them.

It was not fast, and I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but it worked, and iSSH made it about as painless as I can imagine that process being.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really true, although depending entirely on a low-price, commercial app makes me uneasy.

I'd be happier if I knew iSSH made enough to support a small company.

I'd be happiest with an open source version I could contribute to.

<comment><USER45> Panic's Prompt ([http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh- for...](http://www.panic.com/blog/2011/04/introducing-prompt-ssh-for-ios/)) probably doesn't make them enough to support their company, but they've been around for a long time and I don't expect they'll go anywhere. I'm not sure whether it supports 256 colors.

<comment><USER46> The fact that Prompt alone cannot earn enough to support all of Panic has nothing to do with the original point. The point is that Panic, Inc. has quality full-time developers that go to work every day. They make great software, and they support it vigorously (see <http://twitter.com/panic>). iSSH does not have this.

Also, I personally like Prompt better in terms of UX. Its quick access menu is always available right above the keyboard, you know, near your fingers when you are typing. Have you ever tried to move the cursor position in iSSH on an iPhone?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Ouch, each to his own but not for me!

Combination of tiny screen , having to reach out and touch the screen rather than just put a hand on the mouse and the latency involved in using a remote machine would make this a nightmare for me!

Judging by the photo of the setup on the desk I would assume you have to lean quite far forward in order to see the screen (unless you have very good eyesight) and I have enough backpain as it is.

Using any graphical tools at all (unless there is an ipad version) must be a major pain on this setup!

I find working on a laptop bad enough but when I really need to be portable and can't take my dual monitors with me the combination of internet hosted source control + IMAP email + dropbox means that I can grab my laptop and just walk out the door without worrying about where my files are so I'm not really sure what advantages you get from this setup.

Of course if your happy with your setup then that's totally cool, what worries me more is if the desktop market dissapears and it becomes necessary for everyone to use a setup like this, it would feel like a _massive_ step backwards to me. I'm just too used to being able to lie back on my chair, have my keyboard within easy reach and clearly see everything I need to see right in front of me in big readable text.

As an aside I also don't really like widescreen monitors for doing work , especially programming as vertical screen estate is much more useful than horizontal when trying to look at allot of code and figure out where the bug is. But it seems almost impossible now to get a large square monitor that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

<comment><AUTHOR> At work we have large widescreen dell monitors that can be rotated into a portrait mode, you might like those.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > Maybe it works better on an Android - no, wait, that'd be anti-competitive > behavior and Google would never do something evil, right?

I don't see how releasing a full Android version would be anti-competitive in any meaningful sense.

Especially since the Android app and webapp support for Google Docs is unbelievably horrible. It amazes me that something as simple as editing a document (or simple spreadsheet) is almost completely impractical on Android tablets.

</comment><comment><USER49> Anyone tried to do this as a web developer? I know theres an app or two geared towards being a web dev environment, the one good one i found (its called Gusto on the app store) i didnt get to test properly because it didnt support SFTP yet (due to apple requiring some permission from the gov or something, not technical limitation).

<comment><AUTHOR> I do some web development in my spare time but I think I'd _really_ miss the developer tools in the browser if I did more client-side javascript.

There's always firefox-in-vnc, but that's a pretty awful solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you really write code efficiently on such a small (9.7") screen?

<comment><USER50> I've written many tens of thousands of lines of C on my netbook, which has a 10.1" screen, also using Vim, so I believe it's possible.

Still, I'd really like just a _smidge_ more space, especially in the vertical. At least 168 pixels, to be specific.

That's one advantage he has with the iPad - he can easily switch between portrait and landscape, depending upon his needs.

I'd _love_ to be able to occasionally turn my netbook screen to portrait!

<comment><USER51> <http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> So Mac/VMWare/Linux failed and the solution was to move to iPad/Linode? Did you consider just installing a Linux distro? Why do people who develop on Linux all day _need_ OSX? I don't get it. What is the killer app? It's more expensive and harder to use for Linux development. Is it really just because it's prettier?

</comment><comment><USER53> My first thought was, "Oh! no you didn't!"

Kudos for thinking of it. I think that it's a very viable solution for those who don't have a great need for a graphical IDE. But as a web developer I have to test across all major browsers, so I can't switch everything to an iPad. (Not that I wouldn't be interested in trying it.)

</comment><comment><USER54> That's good stuff! I just did the business version of this post

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3186237>

I haven't attempted anything for my normal Objective-C XCode work yet on an iPad.

Anyone out there have any hacks to do iPhone/iPad dev from the iPad?

<comment><USER55> 1\. Keep your project in a Dropbox folder or sftp site.

2\. Edit your code with one of the many Dropbox-enabled text editors. (Or use Textastic with its sftp support.)

3\. Use Hudson's web interface to kick off an Xcode build. Configure Hudson to send built IPAs back to you via email or TestFlight.

4\. Download and test your new build on the same device.

It sort of works, even! As long as you don't need to edit your XIB files, and you avoid typos. I'm not switching over to it, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I find myself using SSH on my Google CR-48 netbook to develop and do work much more than my shiny Dell XPS laptop. SSH+Linode+VIM+screen is such a great combination as you can literally pick up exactly where you left off from any machine with SSH access. Gotta love it.

</comment><comment><USER57> I dream of the day when I would be able to work completely remote. Much like using a VNC now to connect to server and do the work. Unfortunately.. the internet connection is not good enough for anything like that, and VNC is sub- optimal for this kind of things.

Imagine being able to work remotely, being able to "rent" a couple of more virtual processor when you need to compile something bigger, having as much RAM available as you need and paying only for what you use, and most of all, having the security that all your data is safely backed up with a 1-second delay at most. Virtually unlimited bandwidth (again, pay for what you use), as all the other resources. Just imagine ...

</comment><comment><USER58> I heartily agree -- once you add a wireless keyboard to an iPad, it stops being a toy. I use the keyboard and an iPad 1 to write my first drafts (both locally and google docs, if need be) and with VNC, I code on my remote servers as well.

<comment><USER59> How do you keep the iPad's screen comfortably facing you if you're not holding it?

<comment><USER58> I have a protector case (Incase) which has ridges to keep it open at an angle, landscape. Very low-tech but it keeps it at the correct angle for me. Back when Border's were still around, I just needed keyboard and iPad (power lasts a long time) to work on my writing at one of their tables or even their Big Comfy Chairs(tm).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Looking at the setup of the iPad on your table with the keyboard gave me neck ache. I can't imagine what that does to you on a daily basis.

Interesting experiment, I don't think I could ever move to doing something like that permanently.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm a big fan of tmux* and vim but there's a limit to the complexity of system that you can develop efficiently with vim. A good graphical IDE used by a skilled operator will be more likely to generate correct, consistent code faster.

If you're using vim and think you're developing as well and as fast as you can, you're probably wrong.

* 17 years of screen and I've finally switched over to tmux. None of the features were sufficiently compelling for me to change, but it's so much faster

<comment><USER50> I respectfully disagree, or partially, anyway.

I've been developing software in Vim, Netbeans, and Visual Studio (with about a year or so of Eclipse thrown in for good measure).

I've worked on projects in all three ranging from tiny 1kloc one-offs to several million line systems, using C, C++, Java, Bash, and a smattering of Perl and Python.

For Java and C++ code bases beyond a few thousand lines, I certainly agree that language aware tools are invaluable. It's sad that C++'s nature makes such tools so difficult to build. Going from Netbeans/Java to Netbeans or VS C++ is like going back in time - not quite laser scalpel to flint knife, but sometimes it feels like it!

Fortunately, I spend the bulk of my time in C, where I find myself at _least_ as effective in Vim as in either Netbeans or VS. Granted, I obviously do use a few additional tools - primarily ctags and make.

If vim only had fully language aware navigation and search, I think I'd be just as effective in it as in any IDE. Exuberant ctags comes close, but just isn't quite there, and cscope is just too clumsy and slow.

<comment><AUTHOR> For code navigation / completion, you could try eclim / clang_complete.

<comment><USER50> Yup, it's at the top of my pile of things to try when I need to take a break.

Though there's something that feels ... _wrong_ with eclim in particular. Not that it'll stop me from using it if it works well!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I would do this, except for most of the day hook up the iPad to a 24" monitor with the HDMI cable. The only roadblock I see is not having chrome inspector.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm surprised he didn't think it was worth going for a 3G ipad. I spend a decent amount of time working outside of my office on my laptop with a local environment. Impossible with this setup and no 3G. Maybe there's a tethering plan on his iphone to account for that.

Either way, this setup would be significantly less painful using a MBP to connect to linode instead of an ipad.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm in the process of deciding on a laptop upgrade. I can't decide between an 11" MacBook Air or a 15" MacBook Pro. If I could get a nice Thunderbolt 3D accelerator, the Air would win hands-down.

I'm really close to moving to remote work for almost everything development related, but I photoshop enough to worry about the Air being underpowered. Any good cloud answers for that?

<comment><USER65> Thunderbolt 3D accelerator will be out early next year. ViDock G4 Micro ([http://www.facebook.com/VillageViDock?sk=app_202980683107053...](http://www.facebook.com/VillageViDock?sk=app_202980683107053&app_data=69f57681-2b83-45a5-b695-1ba5cd87ff48:0))

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Sounds very interesting. I think the major downside would be that you can't really do any development while offline. I've done some of my most productive programming during flights and train rides, so that would be a downside for me.

Maybe Android could give a little more of the "local productivity" option?

<comment><USER67> While I haven't replaced my laptop, I also do some coding on my iPad under certain circumstances. Instead of using an editor over SSH, I purchased Textastic. It supports SFTP and a host of other protocols, allowing you to edit offline and then sync with the remote host when connectivity is available. I'm pretty happy with that setup.

[1] <http://www.textasticapp.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> For anyone still using gnu screen, tmux.

<comment><USER69> Looked at it; didn't see any compelling reasons to switch; went back to screen.

Screen is for the most part "good enough" that any replacement that aims to supplant it completely needs to either be vastly and obviously superior or enough of a drop in replacement that it doesn't require any effort to switch (I'm most definitively not investing time updating config files or changing key presses unless the improvements are dramatic).

As far as I can see, while tmux might be "better" in some nebulous way, the value proposition is way to weak to invest time in switching for me.

<comment><USER70> _shrug_ Maybe. It's all about what's valuable to you.

I switched to tmux because it is better maintained and it has better screen splitting functionality. I also mapped screens commands over to tmux, so the switch was basically painless. Took all of 15 minutes.

If you're cool with screen, you're cool with screen. No worries.

<comment><USER69> The maintenance thing means nothing to me, since I basically don't need any changes unless a new version of my Linux distro flavor of the day breaks it. There's been nothing new in Screen in the last 10+ years I've cared about.

And I don't use the screen splitting at all - I use splitting a lot in emacs, but never in the terminal, so that's basically a non-feature for me.

I want to create, remove and switch between windows, and have a status bar showing their names. That is all.

I guess these are the reasons I've never seen the point in switching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I tried doing this, but it felt like I wanted to make this setup happen. It just wasn't there for me. The idea is elegant and simple, but the reality is that having a laptop is just more efficient. One day, this might be the nomadic developers toolbox.

</comment><comment><USER72> If you're going to try something like this, you couldn't ask for a better VPS provider than Linode. I think the choice of VPS provider is at least as important as the choice of client access tools.

</comment><comment><USER73> I tried to code on an iPad, but just couldn't get used to it. I'm glad it is working for you.

It should be interesting when there are versatile graphical programming languages for touch devices (LabVIEW, etc.).

<comment><USER74> To be fair, he attached a keyboard to it and worked mostly through ssh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> > The iPhone keyboard is somewhat painful to use, but for rm -rf > /tmp/build-2011-* it suffices.

Is it just me, or does the thought of typing rm -rf on an iPhone keyboard sound a little... dangerous?

</comment><comment><USER76> In other words, yet another frustrated Mac user converted to Linux.

<comment><AUTHOR> I used Linux for 10 years before my first MacBook, so it was really more of a return than a conversion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> On a rather different note, a very comfortable setup can be achieved. Setup a neat iPad mount on a wall with a comfortable viewing distance and say goodbye to neck strain :).

</comment><comment><USER8> > Frustrated by the inconsistent usage of ctrl/alt/option/arrow keys to jump > words and screens and lines,

I'd really like to know what editor he was using.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried Textmate. But I was also using a web browser, an email client, a terminal, a VM running Linux with gnome-terminal and a few other linux-only utilities, including our product.

I don't recall exactly what was inconsistent with what, but the overall effect was to make me unhappy.

<comment><USER8> I got used to it, especially with a little help in .inputrc: <https://github.com/pavellishin/dotfiles/blob/master/.inputrc>

But moot point, now :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Hey, 1024x768, 8bpp is how I rolled back in 1995 rocking my first Linux box. Thanks for bringing that feeling of freedom back to my memory.

</comment><comment><USER79> Sounds great if you do work which can be done in the terminal or a slow 256-color vnc session. Otherwise i'll be sticking with my Macbook.

</comment><comment><USER80> I don't see the difference compared to owning a MacBook Air. Is it that the screen and keyboard are separated?

<comment><USER34> The screen and the keyboard are separate, the Macbook Air isn't _completely_ useless, and the Macbook Air can develop locally when, Jah forbid, the internet goes out or you have to work on a train or something. A Macbook Air can also, as far as I know, also work in the cloud perfectly well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Do other people have this much trouble with Google Docs? I sure don't, and I consider myself a heavy user.

</comment><comment><USER82> iSSH maps either alt to option or control to option, how do you have it set up to do both?

Prompt lets you use the control key for control, but the alt key is borked on apple's wireless keyboard.

Is there a set up with both these keys working at the same time, preferably on the keys labeled as such?

</comment><comment><USER83> If only a viable version of Office could be found for the iPad

</comment><comment><USER84> > More recently I've been scanning mails over IMAP with a python script > instead.

Natch.

</comment><comment><USER85> You can also use SSH + screen with your MacBook... that's what I do with my MacBook Air since it's much more pleasant to deal with than the company IBM laptop.

</comment><comment><USER86> I can't deny that this is a cool setup but I can't see it being useful for long. I personally need to see multiples windows simultaneously as I work. Swiping over can't cut it for very long. But good for you, man. To each his own I suppose.

<comment><AUTHOR> I must confess, I did wonder about adding a second iPad for browsing documentation, or maybe one of the new kindles...

I went through a phase of using multiple monitors all the time. After a year or so I came to the conclusion that alt-tab is quicker and easier than looking at another physical screen.

Swiping isn't; I wish alt-tab worked in iOS. Still, it's close and it stops me checking my mail too often.

<comment><USER87> I think this is one of the places where Win8's tablet interface will gain fans. I've seen the developer preview and being able to snap windows to the side and get a "mini mode" (or whatever it's called) is really cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> This. I'm sure a "mini mode" will be a part of every tablet interface in a couple of years' time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I put my throughout development environment on my linode for couple of years and think that it's a good for availability.

As an example, I developed MultiplayerChess.com is on my Linode server. I don't have an IPhone or IPad yet but I see that it's great to access a full utilized development environment from anywhere...

Let's turn this topic to a usesthis.com for CLI lovers.

CLI apps that I use are tmux (In addition to the previous comments not recommending Screen, I highly recommend Tmux), Emacs, VIM (I use Emacs as an IRC and Twitter client, an IDE and a self-organizer _, VIM as a file editor), newsbeuter for RSS and links for browsing. My choice of distribution is Arch Linux.

_ if you wonder about my Emacs configuration, it's in my Github; github.com/azer/emacsfiles

</comment><comment><USER89> Random observation: Who uses an iPad + "the Cloud" + vim, and rips low quality DVDs?

<comment><AUTHOR> A UK expat who can't (legally) get UK series like Outnumbered digitally, yet still wants to take them with him on his iPad.

<comment><USER90> Even if you own the dvd I think it would be faster/easier to get a "backup" copy via torrent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Sorry man, but I like to code from my sofa. I also have no problem keeping my Snow Leopard running perfectly. iPad is just way too limited and you will discover that very soon.

<comment><USER91> Oh, just now I noticed all the affiliate links in your post. Yep, we're on the same page now. Keep going!

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> I use a Chromebook and its crosh to ssh into a Linode instance with tmux for web development. Works like a charm, apart from the lack of UTF-8 in chrosh.

</comment><comment><USER93> what is VGA adapter used for?

</comment><comment><USER94> OMG computers

</comment><comment><USER95> Why can't just install linux on his macboc and sync everything using ssh/rsync/git without being such a hipster.</comment>


Best places to find python/django developers - <AUTHOR>

We're looking for python/django developers over at Analyte Media (http://www.analytemedia.com), a start up out of Chicago. We've been getting a lot of Java/C# developers responding off of CL, but are hoping to find people with a passion for python/django and some amount of real life experience with them. Any idea where these folk are hiding out on the web beyond the usual job posting boards and python dev lists? Many apologies if this has been asked before. Thanks for your help! <comment><USER2> Google "Django jobs" and you immediately hit:

<http://djangogigs.com/>

<http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/DjangoJobs>

and some other interesting links.</comment>


Show HN: FoneScript, cloud PBX for hackers - <AUTHOR> http://fonescript.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> FoneScript is both a DSL for specifying simple telephone menu trees and call routing, and (eventually) a cloud platform for hosting them.

You can check out the syntax, try out a demo and sign up for our launch list, but right now we're not quite ready for customers.

If you have any questions, ask them here or email me: cam (at) fonescript [dot] com</comment>