Build and Deploy Serverless React Apps with Next.js 8 and Zeit Now - <AUTHOR> https://blog.hasura.io/build-and-deploy-serverless-apps-with-nextjs-8-zeit-now/ <comment><USER2> I recommend against using Zeit. I tried their offering this year and it was too much in beta. I honestly couldn't even get a basic service deployed because my defined dependencies wouldn't install. My web service deployed fine using the serverless offering of another cloud that I won't name, although it was not AWS. As a disclaimer, I have no conflict of interest.

<comment><USER3> They killed their Docker offering right about after they launched it, mostly because it's too difficult/expensive to scale containers, so they forced their entire user base onto the serverless paradigm, because it was convenient for them. Their PR story is it's "better for everyone", except there remain use cases (aka websocket support) that remain unsolved for months on their new platform. To give them credit, they didn't fully deprecate Docker-- old customers can use it, for an indeterminate amount of time.

<comment><USER4> Anyone know of an alternate hosting service that is as simple as including a Dockerfile and changing your DNS, other than Zeit and Heroku?

<comment><USER5> GAE is pretty close. See eg [https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/appengine- custom-runt...](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/appengine-custom- runtimes-samples/tree/master/elixir)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Conceptually one lambda per page (route) sounds super cool, but in practice I suspect it would lead to a ton of cold start wait times for less common routes

<comment><USER2> Have you actually found cold-start delays to be an issue with serverless services, or are you just speculating? To my knowledge, the cloud provider keeps enough instances hot based on a forecasted demand. I have not found cold-start delays to be a real issue.

<comment><USER7> AWS doesn't keep instances warm based on forecasted demand. It uses one instance per request and instances stay warm once they are started for a predetermined amount of time based on the size of tyrvlambda environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love now.sh - its the best developer experience out there and we really really tried to use it at my company - but we kept on having latency issues. It was consistently 5-10x the TTFB of Heroku or an ec2 instance (all in the same locations, or super close).

</comment><comment><USER5> Is the headline benefit really paying only for use? Trading increased complexity & dev effort for this seems like a backwards development when vm/container/heroku-style hosting is so cheap & getting cheaper.

<comment><USER9> The complexity and dev effort is higher initially because the paradigm is so different from "localhost" development. But once the initial boilerplate and yak-shaving work is done, serverless can actually be easier to manage because you deal at a much smaller functional level.

<comment><USER10> I have never used "serverless", but how does that differ from say a Django app?

You have the initial boilerplate setting up the project, then you map urls to functions. Once the initial setup is done its trivial to map a new urls to new functions.

I am genuinely curious as I can't really work out what all the hype is about regarding serverless. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER9> Yes. So in serverless, there is no concept of a long running service. So you can't listen on port 3000 and have any routing within the app. You will rather write one function, add a route to it via API Gateway and then use it in your app. You can probably use django library to help you write code in django style but you can't use it fully for e.g. 1) you can't do migrations in serverless the same way, 2) everytime your function is invoked Django will map the database to models, etc so it could be very slow.

<comment><USER10> So your original comment said

"But once the initial boilerplate and yak-shaving work is done, serverless can actually be easier to manage because you deal at a much smaller functional level."

Everything you just described in your second comment, sounds like it would make things more difficult.

<comment><USER9> Suppose you have set up everything to get you going with a single route. Now, adding another route/handler is just deploying another function. And you deal with everything at this function level and never the entire "monolith".

You get all the advantages of breaking free from a "monolith", independent iteration, scale, federated management. Consider a big team which writes 100s of routes/handlers, then you can just federate the ownership easily.

Not very great for a solo-dev kind of projects, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article hits one of my biggest pet peeves -- _tell the reader what you're about_. Presumably, the reason you have this on the Hasura blog is at least in part lead generation, right? And it worked, in that I showed up on Hasura's website never having heard of them before. But the article makes no effort to tell me what Hasura is before throwing me in the deepend. A link wouldn't go amiss, either. (Yes, I know there's one in the header. It's better to have one in the article text too. Links are free, better to have more than fewer.)

</comment><comment> dane-pgp For apps that just do basic things like read and write to a database (e.g. DynamoDB) would it be possible to go a stage beyond serverless and have the code that runs in the user's browser talk to the database directly?

Obviously you'd have to be careful about permissions, and integrate with Cognito, but there are REST APIs for talking to AWS services so I'm sure there are use cases where even the lambdas are not necessary.

I don't know what such an architecture would be called, other than "serverlessless".

<comment><USER9> Apart from permissions, which can perhaps be solved by temp credentials etc, how do you prevent 1) DDoS: someone fiddling the queries to result in db outage, 2) scale: browsers can't leverage connection pooling so not sure if DB can handle so many client connections.

<comment><USER5> How do serverless apps usually prevent DDoS? If it's using API Gateway features, couldn't you just proxy DynamoDB calls through API Gateway?

I think connection pooling is not relevant to DynamoDB.

<comment><USER9> 1) DDoS not just at the API Gateway level, but also at the database level. Suppose you fiddle the query to return you a million rows or some horrible aggregated join. You can slow down the entire DB. You need to hide the query from the client.

2) Yeah, connection pooling is apparently not relevant for DynamoDb because it is HTTP based, I wonder how they implement transactions then. How can I manipulate code while having an open transaction?

<comment><USER5> I think dynamodb lacks joins. Generally, good point. Though I suspect many traditional web app backends are vulnerable to this kind of "crafted high overhead api call" dos too. I guess you could throttle the calls based on duration using some kind of token bucket scheme...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are there any good NextJS tutorials out there that you can link here? I am looking to learn NextJS. Thanks

<comment><USER13> The nextjs website has a tutorial that I found very helpful:

[https://nextjs.org/learn/](https://nextjs.org/learn/)

<comment><USER14> I dislike the forced login to read the tutorials. I get that it's a Zeit project, but this smacks of user farming.

<comment><USER13> It bugs me too. When found that link to post, the first thing I thought was "I'm gonna get a comment about this shitty forced signup". It's a good guide though. In a few hours I went from knowing very little about next (not a React/Web beginner though) to getting my hands dirty in the internals.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


RedHat announces OpenShift Pricing - <AUTHOR> https://openshift.redhat.com/community/developers/pricing

<comment><USER2> They do the performance comparison with Drupal, is that a really good common measure for that? If you need 3 "gears" to do 15page/s, it kinda feels slow to me, or maybe I'm too naive and spoiled by Node?</comment>


I wandered off and built an IDE - <AUTHOR> http://blog.querystorm.com/index.php/2018/04/04/whynow/ <comment><USER3> Posted seven times before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114421](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13114421) (64 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15670030](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15670030) (34 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11583488) (111 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10991747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10991747) (1 comment)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9783022) (64 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9359128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9359128) (10 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9399119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9399119) (6 comments)

<comment><USER4> Looks like this attempt is the winner!

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely!:) I didn't expect this at all. I had to write 5 articles as part of my last milestone for HugeThing (accelerator) and share them somewhere. I wrote four technical ones in a day and a half. I then struggled with this one for three days. Had no idea where I'd share it or if I was going to use it at all. Finished it up this morning, and figured what the heck, I'll post it on HN. Probably no one's going to read it. Holy moly, was I wrong. Immediately posted on Reddit too, where it went through the roof.

<comment><USER5> Doesnt it feel good to post about what interests you, on your own terms, without a care for if anyone even cares, and then it blows up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes sir, it certainly does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> @anakic

That was an enjoyable read! I have also tried qutting my job as a developer, tried making money by working for myself (and focusing on developing features instead of actually making money, same as you), then returning to a "proper job" as an engineer. There were many recognizable moments in the blog post.

I once took a course in entrepreneurship, as a distraction from computer science, and the bottom line is that to make money you should first try to find someone willing to hand you their money, and then put the effort into making the product or service. But, as a developer, it's soul-wrenching and just feels wrong to try to sell something before something proper has even been made. But I've seen it work many times, you just need sales people that are not afraid of making up products while they go, with both the profit and stress that follows.

I'm glad you found a good opportunity with an accelerator, good luck with the next adventure!

<comment><USER7> _But, as a developer, it 's soul-wrenching and just feels wrong to try to sell something before something proper has even been made._

This has been my biggest struggle.

<comment><USER8> In my experience, technical people latently believe the thing that people buy from you is a product. So if the product isn't done / ready / etc, then you are being misleading trying to "sell" them or engage with them. It feels wrong, like you're forced to misrepresent yourself.

You imagine the potential buyer as a hyper-critical power-user that will expect everything to be perfect.

But what if the above isn't true at all? What if the potential buyer is buying something more abstract? Like a solution to a problem; or even the _chance at future resolution_ of a painful problem?

And what if they aren't power users? But just need basic help today that could grow into something better tomorrow?

Like, what if they just need a partner to help them solve a painful part of their work, and would be willing to put up with a lot of incomplete stuff to get that?

In that case, reaching out to them to "sell" them in the early days is basically saying "Hey, I'm starting to build XYZ that solves problem ABC. My goal is that it would help by doing DEF. Do you have that problem? I'm early on in the process, and looking for lots of feedback from potential users. Would you be interested in checking out my prototype / designs / thinking on this?"

That doesn't seem "soul-wrenching" or disingenuous or anything like that. It feels very authentic. You're making yourself somewhat vulnerable and portraying yourself as eager to learn and help.

IMO early stage entrepreneurship consists of finding a problem bad enough that non-trivial amount of people say "sure, let's talk" to that pitch and then working with those early users to build something useful.

<comment><USER9> This shift in perspective has been critical for me. Similarly, it is critical to ask "Whose problem am I solving?"

I am an engineer and tinkering with tech brings me pleasure from creating, I crave mental stimulation, and I get immense satisfaction from havingright things in right places". Polishing the code is like polishing the car engine for a petrolhead.

But those are my problems and triggers. I am feeding _my_ needs, then implicitly expect other people to give me _their_ money for doing this. Because look how hard I toiled! Yet many people do not care how polished their car engine is. And I have never seen clean code that was generating revenue.

The critical shift was to accept that people and have needs I don't have, and they are desperate to solve them. And their professional lives are often painful - I get frustrated when I spend a day with almost any professional outside of tech. " _This_ is the shit you have to put up with to get anything done??!" I haven't had that problem since teens, if ever, and I can fix it. Automatically, empathy takes over, and I want to rescue them from the daily dread. So I wire together a minimal app that will make them glow with delight for 6 months, and they'll give me dollars in return. Today was a good day, because two strangers supported each other and did not focus entirely on themselves.

If it were up to me, everyone would get a juicy steak. But when going fishing it's more effective to bring worms.

<comment><USER10> That really is some great insight into entrepreneurship. I have that same problem of wanting everything to be perfect before showing it to anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "You might be surprised to learn that in a developer's life, there aren't all that many chances to impress girls with your coding skills."

Ha ha. When my wife and I were new she asked to use my laptop and was surprised that it "had no icons". (No window system). So I started to show her how to avoid using a GUI. 12 years later she uses a terminal about half of her time as a stock administrator.

<comment><USER12> Textbased internet surfing must be awesome.

<comment><USER11> You would be quite surprised actually. Try it and see how often you decide to use it over a graphical browser.

<comment><USER13> What do you use? -- I've tried with lynx and its ilk but I find that too many websites these days are completely broken without javascript, and the layout often unreadable without CSS.

<comment><USER11> Lynx, plus I have made my own enhancements over the years for the way I like to browse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> FYI, Google Sheets has limited SQL support via their =QUERY() function:

[https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093343?hl=en](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093343?hl=en)

This has come in handy for me recently, but it's painful to try and edit even a simple SQL query in the cell edit field. However, it's super convenient to have this capability built into the spreadsheet.

Marketing idea for QueryStorm: guides that apply your tool for specific data analysis/workflow challenges. You might benefit from looking for the popular guides for Google Sheets that rely heavily on QUERY(). Then you can translate those for Excel/QueryStorm and suddenly you've got answers for "How to do XYZ in Excel" that promote your tool.

<comment><USER15> This is a fantastic idea. Several years ago I worked for a startup that sold a series of very niche services, and this technique produced probably about 80% of our web traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really like this guy's tenacity and clever use of excel. But from my experience you can use excel files as an ODBC database source (Windows).

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15844633/using-excel- as-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15844633/using-excel-as-an-odbc- database)

Once you create your ODBC source from the excel files, you can run queries and use the language of your choice (Python,C# ....). I am pretty sure you can also insert/update rows and columns too.

Wondering how this differs from the approach I describe (which has existed for many years).

Good work!

<comment> the-dude See the Dropbox HN argument.

Polish.

<comment><USER17> Infamous Dropbox comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)

<comment><USER18> To be honest - dropbox is still burning investors money, right? AFAIK they are not profitable even today.

<comment><USER19> They're about to IPO. Doesn't mean they're profitable, but it does mean their finances are healthy enough that they can be publicly traded.

<comment><USER20> They already IPO'd. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That was a fantastic read. In a world of products and apps that seem to be a solution looking for a problem, it's nice to see a full story illustrating a common problem, and how a technical person came to provide a featured solution to that problem.

I think I already know the answer to this, but I assume that this IDE is Windows only? I couldn't see any information about platforms on the main product page, which might throw someone off if they use Excel on a Mac.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed it!

I think I know what you assume and I assume you assume correctly. Windows only so far, Excel for Mac doesn't have VSTO:(

<comment><USER22> There is [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add- ins/excel/ex...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add- ins/excel/excel-add-ins-overview) if you wanted to port it to JavaScript! It's a very weird and badly documented async API, but it is possible to lift out the data and, say, use [https://github.com/kripken/sql.js](https://github.com/kripken/sql.js) . If you've got something good going in VSTO though, I wouldn't waste time trying to port it. Most people doing corporate reporting are indeed doing it on Windows anyways, I'd imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My usual approach when I reach the limit of my excel skills (and patience) is to save as csv, write a Python script to do the job, import back in excel for the graphs. This looks like it could nicely streamline the process, granted I learn a bit of C# (any excuse to pick up a new language I guess). Looking forward to try the tool the next time I battle a budget forecasting file. And kudos for the well-written and funny article.

<comment><USER24> If you're already exporting to CSV, why bring it back in for the graphing? There are plenty of decent python graphing libraries. Or if you hated all of those, you could always just use R, which will make basically any graph you could ever need (...and do the data analysis for you too).

<comment><USER23> Because excel files are the lingua Franca of the corporate world. Much easier to share an excel file with the numbers formatted to HR/finance/management expectations and a few graphs (which they can modify to their liking if necessary), than a word file with embedded graphics and tables (which they can't change so they'll ask you to redo the graphs in puce or whatever). Or god forbid a jupyter notebook... FWIW I worked once with a network graphing tool for a fairly involved HR topic (mapping out all possible career paths within an engineering department) and I spent half my time learning the tool, and the other half exporting images and importing them in PowerPoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I thought this sounded pretty cool:

> It doesn't copy the data into it, it actually lets the SQLite engine use > Excel tables as the data storage (I implemented something SQLite calls a > virtual table - an adapter to let it work with custom data sources). This > means you can run update/delete/insert statements directly on excel tables

(from the linked reddit post, I haven't finished the blog post)

I wonder if a similar sort of approach with FDW's could work with Postgres and Excel.

<comment><USER26> Yep, that's just what FDWs are for-- modular storage layer. Plenty of cool hacks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I like your humour, I like the joke about the mansion, I like how you casually assume that choosing the project over Anna was obvious as you move on. Nice article!

You should do an interview with IndieHackers!

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the way you list things you like. Never heard of IndieHackers, but I'd love to be interview by them if they'll have me. I'll check em out. Cheers for the tip and the kind words.

<comment><USER27> Haha :) Here you go [https://www.indiehackers.com/contribute](https://www.indiehackers.com/contribute)

They used to be a lot more focused on interviews, but then Stripe bought them and they somewhat shifted focus a little, but the interviews are still there.

I guess the "right" thing to do now would be to add your product there? [https://www.indiehackers.com/products](https://www.indiehackers.com/products)

Either way, it should give you additional great exposure from a community you seem to belong to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hope Microsoft gives you a ton of money and hires you to make Excel like this. VBA is so crap. And this looks amazing.

<comment><USER29> I hope so too. I've used QueryStorm for a year or so. I try to avoid Excel as much as possible, but when I have to use it, I can spend 4 hour learning the Excel/VBA way to do something, or 1 minute and write it in SQL. It doesn't make sense how this isn't in Excel already.

Seriously. Try to do a join and some simple data manipulation/aggregation in Excel without this. Or try to emulate SQL minus/except. You'll Google for simple answers using the UI, and those probably don't even solve your exact problem, then dig until you find some that seem correct, try to implement them, and then realizes it doesn't work for some unknown reason. Then either give in and write VBA to do it (which also sucks), or pull it out of Excel and put in something that uses a good language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for writing this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> lmao, I really appreciate the story telling here. Nearly started laughing at my desk when you switched to "ex-girlfriend" after the ultimatum.

<comment><USER31> There's obviously much more going on but just from reading OPs article I got angry at his ex-GF. Be a little supportive, geez...

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This was hilarious and utterly relatable. I've also built a lot of one-off tools for my pharmacist girlfriend (now wife - she learned SQL with me ;)

Congrats on the launch and the joining accelerator, hope it gains traction! It looks fantastic!

<comment><USER27> You did better than the OP relationship-wise xD

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have to say, without even looking at the actual product, seeing it use the FooStorm naming from jetbrains while being a paid product isn't inspiring much confidence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I do get that comment every now and then. It was originally called ThingieQuery, but then I got people saying that they liked it but couldn't ask a manager to buy something called ThingieQuery. I didn't consciously steal the JetBrains naming, but the first time someone pointed it out my reaction was d'oh...

<comment><USER34> What about "ExcQL" ?

<comment><USER35> Or, since the original motivation came from his (presumably) ex-girlfriend, perhaps just "ExQL"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Love it, haha <3

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This was a terrific read and it might just save my former girlfriend (and current wife) a ton of time at work each month!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks and I hope you use of it, that would be fantastic! Let me know if you need any help, there's a contact email on the website. There's a sales and support address, but feel free to pick any one, they all go to me:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> "It took a few days to build the first version. It was butt-ugly and looked like it was designed according to whatever the opposite to Feng Shui is, but it worked nicely."

Made me laugh.

</comment><comment><USER38> Your blog post should probably show a picture of the product

<comment><AUTHOR> I felt like I should keep it about the story, but yeah, maybe a picture or two would be nice. I'll see about including a gif at the beginning.

<comment><USER39> Fast turnaround. That gif made a newcomer like me immediately appreciate your work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I read the post and it's amazing you took the hard path. In regard to the product, first of all kudos, and second of all; you may want your users to be able to run analytical workflows. In which case embedding Firebird instead of SQLite might be cool. Just something I thought while reading the docs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've never used Firebird db so far. I have no idea how it differs. I will check it out, and possibly include it. QueryStorm already supports 6-7 different types of databases so one more won't be too difficult to add. Thanks for the tip!

<comment><USER40> Is it possible to run Window queries on SQLite? I think it's not! Firebird implements quite a few of these statements.

I integrated most commercial db vendors and we even ran queries on imported data in a HSQLDB database. Firebird is just way ahead of HSQLDB, and HSQLDB is similar to SQLite feature-wise.

I don't mean it would be cool to be able to export to Firebird. I mean that you might want to use Firebird as your underlying engine :)

<comment><USER41> What's a "Window queries"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Interesting read about an equally interesting product (plugin). I can definitely see how it can help so many people.

Quick suggestion: If at any point you are looking to offer varying price points based on features, one possibility is to have three versions - <USER2> (for people who know and work mostly on Excel every day), Developer (C#, LINQ etc.) , Complete (All features).

Because having worked with many people who work with Excel for whole day, at least 90% of the users will not understand or use this: "Additionally, imagine how much easier it would be to build prototypes and small applications if instead of VBA you could use C# (and LINQ) in Excel. You could write business logic in C#, load data from all sorts of APIs."

Not to say this will not be useful. This will be extremely useful for me (a developer). Just a thought.

Good luck with QueryStorm.

</comment><comment><USER43> My girlfriend married me for showing her Ctrl-Z.

<comment><USER44> A former girlfriend asked me to marry her after I showed her ⌘⇧T in Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> @anakic

I have used excel as a data source using VBA before so one problem I had there that I'm curious how you approached was how to automatically determine data types? IIRC the ODBC engine in VBA scans a set amount of rows to guess. Are you doing anything different?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I scan the entire contents of the table. I have a cache layer in memory anyway so that works quickly. If you have multiple types in the same column, it just treats the type as "object". If you connect, and start entering various types into your columns, you'll notice in the object explorer that it updates the type information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Nice. That's further than I would have gone. I would have written a script to export to CSV, import to SQLite, run the queries, export back to CSV then convert back to Excel. Maybe that's why I don't have my own company...

<comment><USER47> Excel can import/export CSVs already, so the only thing you'd need to do (assuming you already have Excel open) is hit save and then open it in/as SQLite. A script could possibly make it more difficult :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> This makes me wish I had to do more grunt work in Excel.

</comment><comment><USER49> I thoroughly enjoyed read this, thanks for posting. Well done on making something for which there is an actual need and polishing it enough to charge money for. That isn't easy in my experience.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hey I am so glad this is working. I talked with you via reddit when you first started working on the project. It looks like it has grown dramatically over the years.

Well done!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I remember, same username and all!:) Thanks for saying hi, man!:)

<comment><USER50> No problem. I think you did a great job persisting with your project!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Great writing. Cool project. What it sounds like is there's going to be piles of use-cases in different companies for something like this that are all different. I suggest a model of selling companies custom solutions to those that all leverage your plug-in or tech. You might license the underlying tech itself, too. So, the start could be something like:

1\. Surveys on places with lots of Excel users worded to figure out what jobs they have that take lots of manual steps with days of effort. This is your potential market.

2\. Maybe immediately create proposals for the ones you could handle easily as a one-man shop. That's some revenue to get you started.

3\. Look for any common patterns in them you can abstract into generic functions or generators. This becomes part of your tooling.

4\. Also, look for any kinds of analysis that happen pretty often in certain industries. Then, you might create some basic functionality to as industry- specific solutions that your customization work builds on. If not that, it could just be a marketing tool illustrating the value your software provides to that segment.

Those are the ideas that came to mind as I read your article. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER25> There were many components mentioned here that sound like they would be marvelously useful to the open-source community without being too competitive (eg; various SQLite parsing tooling, SQLite/Excel interface, SQLite/other db interface, etc).

Might be worth open-sourcing? Perhaps even under a restrictive license (free for FOSS work, otherwise paid).

<comment><USER52> There's been quite a bit of open source work in this space. [https://github.com/dinedal/textql](https://github.com/dinedal/textql) runs queries against CSVs on the command line. [http://sheetjs.com/sexql/](http://sheetjs.com/sexql/) runs queries against excel files in the web browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> We have a bunch of people that have to build and maintain VBA excel files for our clients. We'd really rather not maintain all this VBA crap. Can we replace that with this? Can it deploy files with all those horrible rules or is it more primitive than that and only functions as an IDE for personal Excel munging?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Absolutely you can! You can embed code into the workbook and automate stuff. If you're up for it, I'd love to discuss over Skype. It's the perfect use case! Send me an email, it's antonio at querystorm dot com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Congratulations on the project. It actually seems like something quite fun to build! I'd probably have kept it open source and just do it for fun, but good luck with the company nontheless!

Personally I did not immediatly think about Jetbrains when reading this name, probably because I mostly use IntelliJ IDEA rather than PHPStorm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it was really fun to built! The parser, editor features and C# support were amazing to work on. Some times I felt like I was wasting time, but when I compare what I was working on most days in a corp to what I get to work on with QueryStorm, I'm pretty happy I did what I did. As for open source, that might be a better way to go. The project needs a community and open sourcing would help a lot. It's something for me to consider.

<comment><USER55> Did you use Roslyn for the C# support?

<comment><USER56> He did, it is in the article.

<comment><USER55> Ouch, my mistake. I didn't read closely enough. I'm sure the Roslyn folks would be happy about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I love the pricing, $150/year.

Where are the other professional developer tools with subscription pricing? Not stuff company stuff like Atlasssian or web-SaaS, but, say, a really good local `git` GUI and merge tool.

</comment><comment><USER58> In regards to your non-existent pricing page, I would suggest this read: [https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/saas- pricing](https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/saas-pricing) :) I think you could capture more B2B value if you display some amount of pricing for potential business customers and also make it more clear for non-commercial users that it is free.

Besides from that, product looks really nice!

<comment><USER36> Seconding this. Without upfront pricing, I always assume buying a copy means handing over my email or phone to The Sales Team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> What a pleasant read. Not bad a way to start a Friday. Thanks for sharing. As someone who battles between having to use SQL and Excel quite often this is pretty neat.

</comment><comment><USER60> Trial purchase page seems to be only place you describe the difference between free and Professional ([https://www.querystorm.com/trial.html](https://www.querystorm.com/trial.html)). Perhaps add to FAQ in docs or elsewhere to make clear the added functionality that comes from purchase, beyond the "non-commercial vs. commercial" use license requirement.

Otherwise, cool system!

</comment><comment><USER61> Well done.

I think LibreOffice offers a python/javascript scripts/plugins? Anyone want to get an ultimatum from their girlfriend and build one for Linux?

</comment><comment><USER62> Your story/writing is more amazing for me than IDE itself. Awesome man and sorry for your breakup.... Didn't feel good about it.

</comment><comment><USER63> It would be helpful to have a link to pricing accessible on the front page of the site. Not seeing this on mobile at least. Businesses aren't afraid to spend $100/yr or $10/month for a useful tool. It cost more to have a meeting than to impulse buy. Not seeing pricing info on the site is kind of a turn off. Maybe that's just me?

<comment><USER63> I hopped on to my PC to actually try the plugin. It's because the buy button and the rest of the top menu are removed when screen width gets small enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Someone on this thread mentioned EasyMorph, a visual (low-code) tool for excel/db/etc data munging. I can't find that comment now but I thought it looked interesting.

Resubmitted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16773686](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16773686)

</comment><comment><USER64> Kudos on the IDE, kudos on helping your girlfriend, but it could have done without the "I'll solve all the problems with technology and then she'll see me as the hero I am" schtick. It made it kind of an uncomfortable read, even though you did clearly build something with a use case, which is always admirable.

<comment><AUTHOR> That was auto-ironic, though:) I think that's the right phrase...

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Awesome. Get people to make even more convoluted messes in Excel for me to detangle and make into a web application.

</comment><comment><USER66> Maybe of note: I've always dreamed of building stuff in excel with c#. And I craved something that let me use linq inside excel.

I'm a consultant working for corporations and excel is part of my life. Your plug-in has a market. In fact, I'll advertise it inside my company - if I like it, of course.

</comment><comment><USER67> There's no Install button when the (desktop) browser window is too small except at the end of the page in the footer.

Even if hiding it for mobile seems like a good idea (not the target), someone looking at the website on mobile would acknowledge they can easily download the software later on.

</comment><comment><USER68> Fortunately, I don't use Excel at work, but this was a very entertaining read. Thanks @anakic!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I touch on the project a little, but the point was to stick to the story and make it enjoyable to read. I'm glad it worked:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> How hard would it be to add support for calling Python scripts, so an advanced person could use one of the many internet articles on Pandas scraping/etl/mashups to pre-process some data before bringing in as an excel table?

</comment><comment><USER70> Thank you for sharing this with us.

Have you considered turning this into a web based SaaS product? (upload excel -> do fancy stuff -> export or save the result on cloud)

Is there any specific reason for the current licensing/revenue model?

<comment><AUTHOR> No plans for the cloud solution so far. I figured it needs a community, so a lot of it has to be free for non commercial use. For commercial use I figured the price isn't going to be an issue. Probably there's more tweaking to do there. I'd love to get some thoughts on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> This is pretty awesome. Love the multi-pane interface. It's true there is a lot of data access tech for Excel data like OLE DB, but this works right inside Excel which has a huge user base. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER72> I also had to help my ex-girlfriend (preschool director) make google drive scripts to generate tables. I found small businesses have great need for this type of things. I explored this as a startup idea.

<comment><USER73> And was it successful?

<comment><USER72> No I have never done it, I just thought there is a great need for it. The reason is because I can't formalize my idea. I want to make this thing useful and simple at the same time, but it's hard.

google drive script, for example, is still too complex to use for non-tech, it doesn't have a ui builder.

but I can't imagine a simpler, drag-and-drop solution that can implement complex data processing logic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This is great - I refuse to mess with VBA and I've been doing all my spreadsheet regex work using R/RStudio until now. The regex feature alone could save me tons of hours in my consulting job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic! If you're up for it, I'd love to demo and discuss over screen share. If you'd be interested let me know via email, it's antonio at querystorm dot com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I've spent the last month (yes - month) writing a custom CLI to run on CSV for a customer which have data scattered in a bunch of Excel files. This seem a bit too good to be true.

<comment><AUTHOR> Only one way to find out:) If you need help setting it up, let me know, I'd be glad to help if I can

<comment><USER75> Yes, thank you. I see that my comment might be interpreted as sceptical. It looks great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> If I wanted to combine Excel and SQL, I would look at MS Access first. How does this compare? Also with the latest powerquery add ons Excel you can actually do joins in Excel itself

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. With Access you'd have to first get the data into it, process it there and get it back. With QueryStorm, you just click "connect" and you get a nice SQL editor, code completion and all. Anything that's marked as a table will show up as a database table. If you wanna connect to access or some other type of database you can do that as well, and the Excel tables will be visible to the database as temp tables.

As for PowerQuery, it's designed as an ETL tool to get data into the tabular model and process it, but isn't as expressive or as well known as SQL. It's a bit less technical, I guess. It's useful, but if you know both SQL and PowerQuery you can probably do much more with SQL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> Hi - the tool looks great. Is there an e-mail address I can reach you at? Wanted to bring something to your attension, in private. Dont worry - I'm not selling anything :)

</comment><comment><USER78> > You might be surprised to learn that in a developer's life, there aren't all > that many chances to impress girls with your coding skills.

Truth!

I am at zero for 35+ years so far...

</comment><comment><USER79> I just took a look at QueryStorm. Very cool indeed.

</comment><comment><USER80> Hmmm. Excel has supported SQL queries against itself for at least 20 years. This includes select, insert, update, delete

<comment><USER81> Via MS Query? ADO? OLAP cubes? Care to elaborate for the newbs?

<comment><USER80> Yes, MSQuery. Here is the first of many results returned by Google after searching "query Excel spreadsheet" (I didn't bother reading it) [http://www.exceluser.com/formulas/msquery-excel- relational-d...](http://www.exceluser.com/formulas/msquery-excel-relational- data.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> "As with many great endeavors of man, this one also started in order to impress a girl" Gotta love the man :)

</comment><comment><USER83> Cool IDE, cool project.

At the same time, it can all be done in Power Pivot and Power Query as long as you know how to use them.

<comment><USER84> You can use C# and SQL in Power Pivot and Power Query? I couldn't figure out how to do so based on a cursory web search.

More generally, you can do all of this same 'stuff' in any language. This seems like a possibly _better_ way to do the same things tho.

<comment><USER83> If you need to use C# in Excel, you're doing it wrong. There's very little programming that you should be doing with VBA, too.

Most of your programming should be DAX plus a bit of worksheet functions. Some SQL to filter your data before loading into Power Pivot.

SQL yes, of course. You run SQL queries to load data into Power Pivot through a native SQL Server driver or native drivers for your DB or worst case ODBC.

Then you do all the BI analytics in DAX and show results in pivot tables. DAX is a very fast, concise and very, very powerful language for analytics. This is the whole purpose of OLAP.

Check out this video when you have time :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WwFJ0Zg3d8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WwFJ0Zg3d8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This looks great - nice work. If I get asked to do something complex in Excel again, I may give this a go :)

</comment><comment><USER85> This is slick!What a great way to impress your girlfriend.I hope you succeeded in your mission:-)

<comment><USER86> If you're referring to the mission of impressing the girlfriend, success doesn't seem likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I loved that you used your technical skills to solve a real problem, besides regular stuff at corporate work :) Insipiring!

Sorry this could be a dumb question, but,does this plugin work with Spreadsheets in Google docs? If Yes, thats great, just from the perspective that it will add more customers for you. If not, are you planning to add support in google sheets as well?

<comment><USER88> Not inside Google Sheets, there's nothing stopping you from moving your spreadsheets to Excell though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. It just works in Excel, but if you have Excel then it makes spreadsheets easier and more useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> "As with many great endeavors of man, this one also started in order to impress a girl"

:)

</comment><comment><USER89> An honest question, isn't this kind of what PowerBI is supposed to do?

</comment><comment><USER90> "Careful calculations conclusively showed it wasn't enough for a mansion"

</comment><comment><USER91> The story is kind of goofy, but the product looks very cool indeed.

</comment><comment><USER92> This looks awesome! Have you thought about joining [https://wip.chat](https://wip.chat)

Lots of fellow makers in there :)

<comment><USER93> Not the OP but... What's the upside of using wip.chat? It just seems to be a public to-do list system?

<comment><USER92> A community of people who get things done everyday. Seeing other people mark off their todos and launch their products all day and night is surprisingly insupiring.

The community is also very welcoming and helpful!

<comment><USER93> Ah OK, thank you! I couldn't see any actual 'chat' feature - is that because I wasn't logged in ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Well written. Entertaining. Captivating.

</comment><comment><USER95> Good read. Good Font too. Fast website.

</comment><comment><USER96> So, what color is your mansion?

Great project by the way!

<comment><AUTHOR> Saving up for a turquoise one:) Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Amazing work and story! Congratz!

</comment><comment><USER98> Now that's pretty awesome.

</comment><comment><USER99> Every place I have ever worked had that same kind of shitty Excel/Access pile of crap including the manual instructions. It's like people can't understand that if you can write down a procedure for someone to follow you can automate that procedure.

<comment><USER84> Are you a programmer? Have you ever had to support and maintain an 'automated procedure'?

I'd bet a lot of the people you're casually insulting _do_ understand that it could be automated, but, unlike you perhaps, they're more cognizant of the _costs_ of automating it (and ensuring it continues to work).

Processing even slightly messy data can turn out to be a basically unlimited amount of work, easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> I was curious about your ex girlfriend and was hoping that you married here and that was the reason why she is your ex girlfriend now but apparently not :(.

</comment><comment><USER101> I read this as IED (Improvised Explosive Device)... I was disappointed. And then impressed.

</comment><comment><USER102> Poor Anna

<comment><USER103> I hope the ex-girlfriend was either unrelated or a joke, otherwise, i don't really consider OP a good person.. There's only so much time you should spend instead of doing something with your loved ones.. I know, I'd probably drop my project at some point in the evening to get back to my girlfriend or wife.

<comment><USER104> I would be 100% behind my partner in a similar situation, if she were building something and putting so much time and energy into it. I would love to find someone like that, actually.

<comment><USER105> I would love to find someone to love, chemistry is a very hard thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER106> working on a daily basis with excel/vba/sql and was intrigued for a moment. Then I wandered into the pricing and was truly surprised. Again, a niche tool that charges as much as the complete jetbrains suite (if you're a subscriber for 3 years).

<comment><USER84> Pricing is weird, generally. I understand why you might be "surprised" (that the price is 'too high'), but it's probably, if anything, _too low_. (JetBrain's suite is priced too low too!)

I've paid, as just one example, $100 for what's 'basically' just of fancy keyboard shortcuts for just one of the tools I use frequently. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then the price is 'just right' (for you).

If you're working with Excel/VBA/SQL daily, then you might already have a nice 'working environment' in terms of the tools and workflow you use. But this still might be better than what you have now. I know I'd rather use C# and SQL than VBA or whatever it is you have to use with the similar recent-ish Excel add-ons.</comment></comment>


How To Make Sure Power in Manhattan Never Goes Out Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109603/power-finally-back-in-manhattan-heres-how-make-sure-it-never-goes-out-again# <comment><USER2> While I like distributed generation overall, Manhattan isn't really the place for it. Most of the argument for DG is in places where the grid is overtaxed and everything is fairly spread out. Solar on rooftops in low density commercial is awesome, and smaller generation (especially cogeneration) makes sense in some areas, but big efficient generating stations still make a lot of sense for super high density areas like Lower Manhattan. I mean, if you can't even pay for more real estate for just switchgear, you're not going to be able to pay for more real estate for generating stations.

It would be a lot easier to harden the grid, add strategic backup sources at hospitals (done) datacenters (done) cell sites (somewhat done) and gas stations (wtf why is this not done?), than to figure out how to get some magical fuel to all the buildings, run their generators pollution-free, and then evacuate the waste products. You don't run hospital backup diesels 24x7 for environmental reasons (microsoft does this at their Mountain View office, due to "electrical work on the main incoming gear", which turns them into a top stationary air pollution in the state and makes people want to kill them...). There's really no other option, other than maybe natural gas turbines, and then you're still dependent on natural gas, and you've got pollution sources around the city. Sun-exposed surface area of a skyscraper doesn't allow enough solar to be meaningful (the sides are indirect and thus a lot lower efficiency).

(I'm trying not to be overly critical, but this seems like someone who has been affected by a power outage, has heard of distributed generation, and is trying to tie the two together. Sort of like "let them eat cake.")</comment>


The Milestone Referral by Viral Loops - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/the-milestone-referral-by-viral-loops <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

We're launching a new Viral Loops template to help companies gamify their referral program with company swag and milestones!

It's called The Milestone Referral

We got inspired by our favorite men's grooming brand, Harry's and the best daily email for tech and business news, The Hustle

In a nutshell, it can help you build your email list faster, get more signups, run prelaunch campaigns and build a community!

Feel free to shoot me with any questions and make sure to take a look at our special gift!</comment>


Stuxnet worm reportedly planted by Iranian double agent using memory stick - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/stuxnet-worm-reportedly-planted-by-iranian-double-agent-using-memory-stick.ars <comment><USER2> One has to question the reason why this information was leaked now. My guess is that Israel or the US wants Iran to be paranoid about a secret agent within their nuclear facilities and go hunting for a mole. Imagine if Israel planted evidence on a prominent Iranian physicist? Good luck proving your innocence.

The whole Stuxnet story would make for a great spy novel, that's for sure.

<comment><USER3> There's no subtlety to what Israel is doing. They aren't encouraging paranoia or planting evidence, they're literally killing the scientists involved. I don't care which side of the fence you sit on, assassinating scientists for a presumed 'greater good' is awful.

<comment><USER4> That's a disingenuous argument. If you're building nuclear weapons for a hostile government, you're as much a target as anyone else. It doesn't matter if you're a scientist or a solider.

<comment><USER3> Like I said below I don't think it's ever justifiable, and it goes both ways. There are thousands of good scientists working with the DoD. The US is technically at war. However I do not believe their scientists should be considered legitimate targets.

It's also debatable as to whether they're developing a nuclear weapon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a sad reading this whole thread is.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is this real?

<comment><USER7> Ars is not known for shoddy reporting. It is, however, basically a rewrite of the original ISSSource article: [http://www.isssource.com/stuxnet-loaded-by- iran-double-agent...](http://www.isssource.com/stuxnet-loaded-by-iran-double- agents/)

<comment><USER8> Ars > ISSSource > Richard Sale > UPI > News World Communications > Unification Church

<comment><USER9> UPI is (or was) a legitimate news organization and, anyway, Richard Sale was there before it was bought by Rev. Moon. If you're trying to imply there's a connection there, I think you're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> US itself and Israel engaged in sabotage of foreign countries development? you don't say...

<comment> kai-zer Development of weapons-grade uranium for which the only purpose is for use in weapons of mass destruction...

You make it sound like that is a bad thing.

<comment><USER11> A statement for which you have no evidence. And what threat does Iran pose to the United States? None at all.

<comment><USER12> That's a rather strong statement.

Some people would argue that Iran with weapons grade uranium could reasonably increase the chances that 50,000 Americans will die in the next 10 years by more than 1 in 10,000. That suggests the US could reasonably kill 5 Iranians to deal with the threat. However, Iran would respond to such action which suggests a more limited response such such as planting a virus is reasonable as long as the US can get away with it.

PS: That's how these people think, rare events vs lot's of deaths = covert and deniable action.

<comment><USER13> I think a nuclear armed Iran would greatly decrease the probability of Americans being killed by Iranians.

The logic is simple: nukes bring a country into MAD (mutually assured destruction) mechanics. Most likely Iran would use Israel as a hostage since it would not have the ICBMs necessary to attack the US directly. It would be like North Korea and Japan, only "Japan" would be nuclear armed.

I consider invasion of Iran by the US the most likely vector for Iranians killing Americans. MAD should prevent this, like it does in North Korea.

(I don't buy neo-conservative anti-Muslim ideology around suicidal leaders for a second. NK is far worse in this respect, IMO; that whole country is being led on a suicidal basis.)

<comment><USER14> >MAD should prevent this, like it does in North Korea

I thought MAD only worked with rational players. Do we know the people who would hold the levers would be rational? We (the west) don't seem to have the same feedback network (i.e. spies) we could depend on as we did with the USSR. That and we had the "red phone" thing. Dunno if that was more gimmick than actual tool.

>I don't buy neo-conservative...

We don't know what the control structure behind such threat there would be. Can one person cause a launch, conversely, can one person override a launch order?

<comment><USER13> Yes, I believe that leaders who are able to control a country are rational players.

(I think nuclear weapons are probably the greatest ever contributory factor to world peace in absolute terms. I'm certain that the 20th century would have been far, far bloodier throughout its span had they not been invented.)

<comment><USER15> >>Yes, I believe that leaders who are able to control a country are rational players.

Maybe you should read some history about some of the kings we've had in Europe? (Or of some of the African dictators over the last century. Same thing, different name.) [Edit: Just consider this; because someone is rational doesn't mean they _stay_ rational.]

Then please check "the resource curse" on Wikipedia.

In short, oil countries don't become democracies. It is too lucrative for leaders of countries with lots of natural resource income to oppress the population and steal the money. (Norway was a democracy long before the oil.)

Do you really want to condemn the Iranians to a religious dictator until the oil is gone?

Edit: Instead of the word "Iran" and "they", how about you use a more relevant term like "torturing and terrorist junta"? The (upper class!) Iranians I've known around Sweden were, more or less, as west oriented as any Scandinavian.

<comment><USER13> Do you think there is a rational alternative for Iran other than pursuing nuclear weapons? (I don't think there is.)

Do you think there is a way of stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? Short of a pre-emptive nuclear strike or an invasion, I don't think there is - and I don't believe either will be pursued.

So what happens when you have to think what you seem to think is unthinkable?

Iran _will_ get nuclear arms. What then?

Listen, I'm not arguing that it is _right_ that Iran gets nuclear arms. I just think it's inevitable and it is obviously in their own best interests given the situation they are facing.

I'm trying to figure out what the situation is after the inevitable occurs, and Iran already has nuclear arms. Debate over whether the players are rational or not is actually _irrelevant_. If they are not rational, Iran will be wiped from the earth. But there's really little that can or could have been done in that scenario, so it doesn't really need much thought.

<comment><USER15> >>, I'm not arguing that it is right that Iran gets nuclear arms.

Sorry, but you do sound like you have an agenda.

You made a claim that the Iran junta won't be insane, I showed it is wrong by trivial historical examples. Now you make a different claim. [Edit: And ignored my other point.]

Edit: If I should bother to answer the new point, about what will happen: Saudi Arabia Turkey and others will start high speed nuclear weapons programs. That is not even in the Iranian interest.

<comment><USER13> What agenda do you think I have? That I want Iran to be nuclear armed? I do not; but I think the alternatives are worse (nuclear strikes on Iran, US invasion of Iran; I think a conventional strike on Iran would have a similar effect to the Israeli one on Iraq in 1981).

Please tell me what you think my agenda is before discussing anything further. It's a pretty serious accusation.

<comment><USER15> I motivated that statement. You don't have anything to say about that, either?

Edit: Sigh, the "answer" below just repeats the previous, it is still not touching what I wrote. AGAIN:

1\. I killed an argument (rational is just not in "kings" historically) -- you just ignored it.

2\. I noted that this would probably result in a nuclear race with _at least_ the traditional competitors of Iran -- Turkey and SA.

3\. This religious junta will almost certainly torture, rape and oppress the Iranian population as long as there is oil, without external intervention.

I think you will just repeat your position while ignoring everything else. Hence, an agenda of some sort that you want to get out.

<comment><USER13> I think both of:

(a) that Iran would not be irrational. This is my considered opinion based on all I've read - Iranian politics seem subtle to me, with a tug of war between president, chief cleric and "Guardian Council" - a long, long way short of a despotic single point of failure.

and (b) if it was irrational, there's little we could do about it, unless the preemptive strike / invasion route is taken, and that level of US aggression would encourage even _more_ countries to pursue nuclear weapons. The US would essentially be a huge armed bully roaming the neighbourhood threatening people not to get guns, and breaking into random houses searching for guns. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that that policy is eventually going to convince the neighbours to get some guns.

I think there's a range of options here; I tend towards de-escalation and looking at things with a cool head. There's far too much drum beating and propaganda pumping going on for my liking.

PS: I wish you would reply, rather than edit your comments after the fact. It makes things very hard to read.

 _1\. I killed an argument (rational is just not in "kings" historically) -- you just ignored it._

I addressed it twice: firstly, that it does not apply (no single point of failure like a king, in this answer here), and secondly, it does not actually matter. By my score I "killed" your own argument twice!

 _2\. I noted that this would probably result in a nuclear race with at least the traditional competitors of Iran -- Turkey and SA._

Sure. And your point is?

(My point is that when something is inevitable, talking about the bad consequences of it is pointless. It's going to happen. And bad consequences will happen too. Just is. But do you honestly think a US invasion of Iran would be a better outcome than a nuclear-armed Turkey? SA?)

 _3\. This religious junta will almost certainly torture, rape and oppress the Iranian population as long as there is oil, without external intervention._

Lots of regimes oppress their populations far more than Iran does. How about starting with North Korea? Invasion, particularly as recent experience has shown, does not usually result in "saving" the population. Most countries in oppressive rule don't have the social infrastructure built up for a better system, and besides, particularly in the Middle East, they suffer from Dutch Disease. (This is actually your own earlier point, FWIW; I ignored it because it wasn't relevant, but it is relevant here to your apparent (yet cowardly silent!) advocation of intervention.)

 _I think you will just repeat your position while ignoring everything else. Hence, an agenda of some sort that you want to get out._

You're lucky I even saw what you wrote here, because you didn't actually reply to my comment.

<comment><USER14> >firstly, that it does not apply (no single point of failure like a king, in this answer here)

I'm a bit late coming into this discussion. But I think I should like to clarify that Kings were not all powerful autocrats. They had councils and other Kings they had to answer to. Still, some went "rogue" as it were.

So to me the question is, could one of the people who control the levers "go rogue" do they/would they have controls to guard against that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > booby-trapped memory stick

can someone explain what that is??

> Once the memory stick was infected,

huh??

<comment><USER7> They introduced the worm with an infected USB drive. What did you want clarification on?

<comment><USER16> ok sorry I was confused.

<comment><USER7> No worries.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Let's, Like, Demolish Laundry" (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/news/features/laundry-apps-2014-5/ <comment><USER2> That article contains one of my favorite lines of all time: "Entitlement is a straight line pointing heavenward"

<comment><USER3> No doubt a good line. The entire article is very well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Washio closed in 2016 [https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/washio-on-demand- laundry-s...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/washio-on-demand-laundry- service-shuts-down-operations/) FlyCleaners seems to still be around.

</comment><comment><USER5> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817895](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7817895).

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/washio-on-demand- laundry-s...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/washio-on-demand-laundry- service-shuts-down-operations/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Somehow, this seems so much longer ago than it really was.

<comment><USER2> This article feels more relevant today than when it was written in 2014. I think there's a good chance it will be required reading in b-school classes on the Great Gig Economy Meltdown in 20 years.</comment></comment>


FreeBSDJournal - <AUTHOR> http://freebsdjournal.com/ <comment><USER2> While I'd be interested in a physical magazine, or an PDF/Mobi, I've no interest in an app. I hope they reconsider their distribution model.

<comment><USER3> Strongly agree. The topic and content are appealing. The format is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's to hoping the magazine won't be sent as one big image to subscribers!</comment>


Berlin community radio - <AUTHOR> http://www.berlincommunityradio.com/ <comment><USER2> Good to see a community project like this. Many community radio stations in the US are struggling (especially with a plague of cutbacks from the National Corp for Public Broadcasting in recent years). Some are taking the plunge to stop broadcasting terrestrially and only stream online. The IT staff needs in this regard increase dramatically, while in many cases the station's user base is more and more gray haired and young people often don't know of the station's existence. This process is laying many community stations to rest.

Am enjoying the music at the moment. Excited to see Blackest Ever Black's show is coming up in 15 mins on this Berlin site!

<comment><USER3> I really miss East Village Radio from NY.

It is a shame it had to go: [http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture- desk/the-death-of-e...](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the- death-of-east-village-radio)

<comment><USER2> yeah EVR was great

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What exactly is the point? People streaming music on the internet? Is that front-page material?

Sorry, if I sound ignorant, but I don't get it and I am living in Berlin...

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting to note that Soundcloud terminated the BCR account in October. Fortunately they finished transferring their archives to Mixcloud that same day.

[https://www.facebook.com/berlincommunityradio/posts/51486844...](https://www.facebook.com/berlincommunityradio/posts/514868442012681)

</comment><comment><USER6> Another community radio from Berlin (with a real FM frequency): [http://www.88vier.de/](http://www.88vier.de/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Warning to others: this will play audio automatically.

</comment><comment><USER8> Zürich community radio [http://gds.fm/](http://gds.fm/) :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Not easy to listen to right now. But I don't think, that's the point ;)

<comment><USER10> sounds very Berlin, to be fair :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seriously. I've been following this project for a while. Sooo good!</comment>


Dave Winer: Occupy Silicon Valley? - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2011/10/04/occupySiliconValley.html

<comment><USER2> I think Silicon Valley is the answer, not the problem.

There's a world of difference between the massively publicly subsidized, mostly zero sum financial industry and the technology driven entrepreneurship of the Valley. One hedge fund's gains are another hedge fund's losses.* Google and Facebook make money by improving the matching between buyers and sellers. I would argue that thus far, my trade of privacy for useful communication tools has worked wondrously in my favor. Does anyone disagree with that?

Privacy? I absolutely agree that's an issue. If you do too, then do something about it. Create a company that consumers can flee too when/if Facebook et al. overstep their bounds. That's competition. It actually exists in the Valley. After the tech bubble did Uncle Sam bail out the entrepreneurs and VCs? No.

Yet when Wall Street managed to destroy more wealth than they ever created, the taxpayer had to basically insure them against losses (it doesn't matter if the government was made whole afterwards - the value of the insurance itself is an implicit subsidy as well as a moral hazard).

Of course, government subsidies, particularly military subsidies, were crucial to the early development of the Valley, but can anyone argue that we haven't earned rich dividends on those public dollars?

Tech entrepreneurship is much more likely to be a positive sum game than the financial speculation that has enriched the Street and the City.

Many of the biggest problems we face as a society can only be solved by technology entrepreneurship. Information technology is ushering in an era of personalized medicine that holds the promise of finally offering us effective care at reasonable cost. New models of web-based and social learning promise to disrupt the academic status quo and provide a new outlet for smart people to learn skills quickly and efficiently. The Valley has also been at the forefront of investing in energy technologies that will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Seriously, what has Wall Street done? What can they do? Is loaning someone money to buy a house really so hard you need a 100 PhD quants figuring out how to do it? Probably not. However, if your goal is to fight a zero sum game in the financial markets with other hedge funds then that brain power comes in handy. But what has society gained in that scenario? Nothing. Instead we've just lost brain power that could have been developing the next disruptive technology.

* This is only true in highly liquid markets. I think the evidence suggests that financial trading is valuable up to a point to create liquidity. I would argue that the US and UK have well exceeded the point where we need to shuffle more brains and talent into Wall Street and the City.

<comment><USER3> Most serious traders recognize that "providing liquidity" is a huge joke for the bumpkins. Don't give the banks that kind of credit: even in the best of times, with fractional reserve lending, they are government-sponsored ponzi schemes.

On the other hand, are you _sure_ that silicon valley is driving net material progress? Is Facebook adding or detracting from our material wealth. Would a drug with significant side-effects that swept through the world be a good thing or a bad thing? Are the jobs that are being lost to increasing automation being replaced by better jobs? Or worse ones?

Personally, I am quite ambivalent and confused on these topics, and certainly skeptical of pat answers on either side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think VCs and Silicon Valley create value. Wall Street doesn't seem to be doing that recently - much the opposite actually.

And people don't hate Wall Street because they are rich - the riches are the insult added to the injury. They hate the financial industry because they appeared to have recklessly gambled away our future, and then left the people holding the bag.

</comment><comment><USER3> The protestors could do worse, although not for the reason Winer suggests: many of the jobs that they thought they were going to have upon graduation have been eaten by technology.

I am ambivalent on the topic.

</comment><comment><USER5> no one is forcing you to use these technologies.

<comment><USER6> Really? Credit card companies are starting to analyze your transaction data for ad companies. Can you not use credit card? Can we not use cell phone? When more and more aspects of our life are recorded and sold,you might find that if you don't use these services, it will be almost impossible to live a functional life. Yes, they don't force you. But when every company is doing it. You are left with little options.

<comment><USER7> I don't use a cell phone or a credit card.I don't have both of them.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple fined for slowing down old iPhones - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724 <comment><USER2> Lots more discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22266966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22266966)

<comment><USER3> Comments moved thither.</comment></comment>


Geocommit.com - annotate git an Mercurial commits with location - <AUTHOR> http://www.geocommit.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Planning to add realtime visualizations and analytics to this as our NodeKnockout project next weekend, so it would be cool to have as many people using it as possible :-)</comment>


Freeing My Phone from Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.hexaquo.at/posts/2019/06/29/Freeing+my+phone+from+Google <comment><USER2> There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area.

I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit.

A big benefit of free software is that we can also use useful proprietary apps without giving up control of our hardware.

<comment><USER3> Google Maps is fully compatible with MicroG, a free and open source replacement for the Google Play Services client. MicroG includes UnifiedNlp, which was discussed in the blog post.

[https://microg.org/](https://microg.org/)

[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)

At the moment, I recommend the previous version of MicroG (0.2.6.13280) since the latest version (0.2.7.17455) may have compatibility issues. If you're using LineageOS for MicroG, builds on or before June 2 use the previous version.

NewPipe is like YouTube, but also with a background music player, a video/audio downloader, and no ads. It also supports SoundCloud.

[https://newpipe.schabi.org/](https://newpipe.schabi.org/)

You can use NewPipe regardless of whether you are using LineageOS or MicroG. It's not available in the Google Play Store (or the iOS App Store) for obvious reasons, but you can download it for any Android device from F-Droid.

<comment><USER4> MicroG talks to Google servers and uses Google's infrastructure while breaking the terms of service (at least in case of FCM).

Same goes with NewPipe - you're using YouTube without actually paying for bandwidth, storage costs or the video author.

So you're not actually getting yourself rid of Google or tracking, you're just using their resources without paying the asking price.

Use other alternatives instead.

<comment><USER5> > Same goes with NewPipe - you're using YouTube without actually paying for > bandwidth, storage costs or the video author.

> So you're not actually getting yourself rid of Google or tracking, you're > just using their resources without paying the asking price.

I love newpipe. I block ads on my desktop, I'm not going to feel bad blocking them on my phone. Google has taken far too much from us, from me, for me to worry about their bandwidth or storage costs. Somehow I think the multinational billionaires will manage.

As for video creators (who themselves are regularly screwed over by Google) they should be supported using other channels.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, ads are a terrible and unsustainable business model anyways. I think it's much better (both for the creator and for the business and community in general) to support YouTubers you like through something like Patreon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I really dislike people recommending Signal in a post about free software since Signal has a pretty bad track record when it comes to allowing non official clients to connect to its network. So much for user freedom.

<comment><USER7> Most people haven't even heard of [https://jami.net/discover/](https://jami.net/discover/) ... and that's the problem with messengers - you have to educate your social network and coax them to use the same product or you will be forever stuck with Facebook Messenger / WhatApp, iMessage et al.

<comment><USER8> Riot.im and the broader Matrix ecosystem are doing pretty well. Matrix was even adopted by the French government for internal communications.

I tried Jami when it was called Ring and I couldn't figure it out after some fumbling with the app and skimming of the website. If I can't figure it out how can I expect nontechnical people to? That was one of the reasons why I ended up adopting Riot/Matrix back then and have been pushing it since, but I'm still interested in alternative communication systems if they can bring any benefits to the table. Does Jami bring any?

<comment><USER9> My problem with Riot specifically and Matrix generally is that the adoption process isn't very gentle. Yes they have bridges, but my experience has been that they're way more pain than they're worth, especially if you're the odd one out.

The thing I like about Signal is that I can use it for regular texts as well as encrypted communications. Instead of converting all of my friends at once (or even just a significant subset), I can just replace my texting app with Signal and get my friends to move over one as a time.

I tried that with Riot, but it just didn't work out. I tried the Slack bridge, but it required admin access on the Slack server (fortunately I had that at the time) and only one channel could be created at a time, which was tedious. That's not Riot's fault, but it's not particularly important who is at fault.

I want to replace _some_ app with Riot and slowly phase everything else in, but nothing really gave me the confidence to do so. I heard rumors that they were planning to support VoIP, but this doesn't seem to extend to making/receiving regular calls or texts, but merely providing audio and video chat along with their regular text service. Maybe that has changed (I check back periodically), but unless it solves a problem that doesn't require me to convince everyone else to switch, I'm probably not going to make the effort.

And that's why I like Signal. It's not the best secure messaging system out there, but it's a drop in replacement for something I use today and doesn't require me to get everyone to switch at once.

<comment><USER8> >The thing I like about Signal is that I can use it for regular texts as well as encrypted communications.

Can you expand on that? I'm afraid I don't quite understand the advantage here. Also, have you tried Silence for sending encrypted SMS?

<comment><USER10> I presume they meant that the app sends a normal unencrypted message to clients without Signal. (The user is clearly informed when this will happen). This means you can use Signal as your default SMS app and as your friends start adopting Signal, you'll automatically start sending encrypted messages. It's how I'm using it and appreciate it.

<comment><USER8> That's what Silence does. It is in fact the SMS part of Signal standalone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speaking of phones, did you try to read this on a phone? Tiny font, not responsive design and faint color (no contrast) makes it very hard to read. Ugh.

<comment><USER12> Use Firefox's Reader mode.

<comment><USER13> It keeps failing for me trying that. So weird.

<comment><USER3> It works for me. What happens when you turn on reader mode?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wouldn't it be simpler to just use one of this 9 alternatives ???

[https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives- android/](https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/)

By the way PureOS seems a good shot.

I just can't understand people claming to run free of Google and stay on Android !!! ;) ;) ;) ;)

Good luck with your fight againsn't the Google devil. Me ? I am staying on Apple devil device, but I just take responsibility for that choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true that Google plays a big role in Android development, but that doesn't mean there's something inherently wrong with Android. It's a good operating system, it's free and open source, and its huge ecosystem and existing userbase (to whom something like LineageOS or Replicant will be immediately familiar) is the reason I stuck to it.

Because it's open source, Google can't put their objectionable code directly into Android - that's what their proprietary apps and services are for, and those are where you begin to lose your freedom and control.

<comment><USER15> the worst part about android apps is that they are android apps...

<comment><USER15> but the same is true for most proprietary formats... which is why I was hoping for web apps to catch ON more

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only thing preventing me fully leaving Google is YouTube, but a massive amount of my News, Entertainment, Music, basically everything, comes from YouTube.. Does anyone know a way I can watch YouTube videos without sending my stuff to Google? Some sort of custom client with telemetry disabled or something? Honestly I'm not even entirely sure what Google does with my video watching data but it'd be foolish to think they're doing nothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> The app NewPipe and its web version [https://invidio.us/](https://invidio.us/) were recommended in the comments here. They allow you to use YouTube quite well without an account and without the official website/app. However, I imagine through loading videos, YouTube can still collect some data. (I might be wrong though, I don't know exactly how much they pipe through their servers.)

If you want to be completely private, you'll probably have to use TOR together with those alternative clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it sad that there is no recommendation for microg in this article, since some apps refuse to work without the Google APIs. I'd also add Aurora Store as an alternative Playstore apps downloader. You can even log in with an anonymous account, so Google can't link app downloads to your personal account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, microG is a great project, especially when you need to use proprietary apps which rely on Google APIs. However, with the goal of also generally moving towards free software on my smartphone, I personally only needed the UnifiedNlp part (which is mentioned in the Map section) - in my experience, most free apps don't depend on other Google services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any suggestions for Google Keep replacement? I really hate that all reminders end up in Google Calendar. I've already tried almost all Tasks apps from F-Droid, but each has some or other annoyance that prevents me from using it.

<comment><USER19> Carnet is one I like, though it's quite early in its development cycle (started less than one year ago, I think). Author is supported trough donations. It also syncs with nextcloud (and is available as a webapp --nextcloud or standalone), and explicitly takes google Keep as an inspiration. The desktop version has a barebones google keep import feature.

[https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/carnet](https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/carnet)

[https://github.com/PhieF/CarnetDocumentation](https://github.com/PhieF/CarnetDocumentation)

[https://carnet.live](https://carnet.live)

I've been on the lookout for such an app as well, and after trying a lot of different ones, this is my favorite so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [META] This site becomes _much easier to read_ with e.g. sakura css bookmarklet [0]

[0]: [https://oxal.org/projects/sakura/bookmark](https://oxal.org/projects/sakura/bookmark)

<comment><USER21> Or Firefox reader mode. Just click the icon in the address bar.

<comment><USER22> I switched to Firefox early this year, but I still haven't cemented reading mode into my muscle memory yet. I'm a little better about it on mobile. But on desktop I did what I often do on sites like these; inspect, turn off color: #777 on body/p tags. Oh, there is text on this page after all!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Do you really need to install UnifiedNLP to use location services? Doesn't the GPS radio work without google play services?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was surprised as well, I do believe that default GPS should work regardless. However, I tried 3 different spots and could not get a single location after minutes of trying.

I'm not an Android developer, but could it be that applications are just expecting that API? It would make sense for Google to want to route location requests through what's usually their service...

<comment><USER4> There are two sets of APIs - one provided by Android AOSP where you choose whether you use GPS, network location or other provider and handle it manually.

And then there's a more powerful version provided by Google Services, which automatically fuses all providers and talks to Google servers. Most apps these days opt for the Fused provider, since it's easier to use and automatically handles getting a reliable location in pretty much any environment. It's not available on "Google-free" phones though, since it depends on Google's infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would immediately switch from Google if I get the same integration between services, all encrypted and for free.

<comment><USER25> Which services are your top 3? I am working on integration between email and calendar in my spare time :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any phones that can be used for FOSS experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> The Fairphone seems to offer the option to buy it with an open Android OS and no Google apps preinstalled. It also has the added benefit of trying not to kill people in its production process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't really understand how using tons of different services with probably much worse privacy and security teams and policies just for the sake of not using Google is improvement. It is actually much worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you referring to a specific recommendation? I'll gladly change or remove it if I included something with worse privacy or security unknowingly.

Overall though, Linus' law ("given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow") is a huge factor when it comes to privacy and security in my opinion. If an open source app is bad in one of those aspects, it will be noticed and fixed (or forked). Additionally, community driven projects like OSM simply don't have any reason or motivation to spy. They're a collaborative effort owned and developed by their users, not a company driven by capital and short-term profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Google is evil by all means. I'm so happy that people start to use alternatives..

Ditch evil doers, be in positive side to support companies that actually have people's privacy in they priority.</comment>


Ask HN: Mastermind group for 9-5'ers looking to escape - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
Would there be any interest on HN in creating a private mastermind group?
I work a 9-5, and would like to completely replace my income with a product, or a product + consulting, before I make a clean break.  I think a weekly no bullshit chat session may be beneficial.  If you are interested and
- have a 9-5 in the software industry - want to create something that will allow you to work for yourself - have an hour a week to chat - think this would be beneficial
shoot me an email firstname.lastname@example.com (Tell me a little about yourself, what timezone you are in and your availability) ; I'll see what comes in, organize everything etc <comment><USER2> You should look at a case study like WooThemes.

They worked remotely (and still do) and have found success.

The only problem with your idea and the rest of the bootstrapped remote successful companies is that they were addressing a real customer need/problem and you are simply trying to address your situation of hating your 9-5.

Come up with a great idea, open your world to devs from everywhere, work your ass off initially and then build the company in a way in which that 9-5 doesn't feel like work anymore and can be done at 10-6 or 8-12 + 2-6.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out the open projects on DoerHub.com . You can see if you like one you want to join, or post this as a project others can join. It works like a Github for non-hackers, so you can find subject matter experts who have solid material for a passive income project (a doctor with algorithms for a medical iPhone app for example, though that exact one found a teammate already) and are looking for someone with your skill-set to split the project with.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am working on something similar. The project management tool is based on Bugzilla, and I have built real time chat software for Android, iOS, and Web app. I organize everything around a "project" and each group has strong focus to get the product to market. If you are looking for general socializing place, HN works well in that regard.

I am involved with a couple of active projects. They are games targeting Asia Pacific market. You can take a look, [http://126.96.36.199/bz/about.cgi](http://22.214.171.124/bz/about.cgi)

It is not much a way to escape 9-5, more of a place where like-minded people get together and build something interesting. If it pays off financially, it is even better.

</comment><comment><USER5> "9-5'ers looking to escape" is an odd demographic to target, since if your group launched a product, you'd be working _much_ longer than 9-5.

<comment><AUTHOR> To be clear, the goal is not for the group to launch a product, it's to discuss mutually beneficial topics having to do with launching your own project.

I've owned a business, and Ive worked 9-5s, it's not an odd demographic at all, unless you buy into the macho bullshit about sleeping at your desk etc, by 20 year olds, who have never made a dollar themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great idea. You might want people to include their timezone so that you can segment groups in to when people are available

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://jfdi.bz/](http://jfdi.bz/) \- $20/month. I'm giving it a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> What has your experience been thus far?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a 9-5 and am bootstrapping a startup. Unfortunately my startup may compete with yours :)</comment>


Emotional Intelligence in Design - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/facebook-design/emotional-intelligence-in-design-abcd1555b3e7

<comment><AUTHOR> "When you call something an edge case, you're really just defining the limits of what you care about." Really interesting piece on increasing empathy during the design process to think about how someone might experience your product in the worst case scenario.</comment>


Node development for the lazy (using CoffeeScript) - <AUTHOR> http://zappajs.org/

<comment><USER2> Zappa is an excellent web framework that builds on Express to provide a more Rails-like "convention over configuration" experience for Node.js. And this is its fancy new website.</comment>


Wherein reporters don't find duplicate bugs - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=66071

<comment><USER2> I would call this a bug tracker fail. Having a 20,000 issues in the database is going to lead to a lot of data duplication.

Searching for "mouse wheel scroll" produced 111 results. The chance that I will read through all 111 of those if I am only slightly interested in the project is: zero percent. Instead I will submit a new bug as a bit of volunteering and leave the sorting out to the maintainers.

Not like one more dupe on a 20k list will make a difference. Broken window theory.

At the very least they could have a prominent top 10 trending bugs list or something. It would help keep the system from being flooded when a new build introduces an easily triggered bug.

<comment><USER3> Really, I think the problem is that it defaults to only searching Open bugs. Makes sense, but as this case demonstrates there is a big enough gap between a bug being fixed and an updated build getting into users' hands that there's a problem.

I wonder how many dupes would be eliminated if the search defaulted to Open and Recently Closed bugs.

<comment><USER4> > I wonder how many dupes would be eliminated if the search defaulted to Open > and Recently Closed bugs.

As of this writing, 42 out of 259 would have been eliminated:

[http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=66071#c21...](http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=66071#c217)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fix is amusing: <http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/73619/branches/chromium/597>

<comment><USER6> I'm betting the testing procedure is even more amusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "hi, i would like to check that this issue is fixed but i'm at the bottom of that huge list of duplicates and I can't scroll up to see"</comment>


WhatsApp Co-Founder Leaving Facebook Amid User Data Disputes - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/technology/whatsapp-facebook-jan-koum.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16962328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16962328)

<comment><USER3> Thanks - we've merged the other comments into that one.</comment></comment>


What I discovered from interviewing imprisoned ISIS fighters - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/ <comment><USER2> The $1,000,000 quote: _ "The Americans came," he said. "They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didn't like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn't have war. When you came here, the civil war started."_</comment>


Top 5 Apps to Help You Lose Weight - <AUTHOR> http://www.technogist.com/2013/02/top-5-apps-to-help-you-lose-weight.html

<comment><USER2> I have found <http://www.myfitnesspal.com/> My fitness pal to be the best choice for calorie counting. This is mostly because it keeps the records accessible on the web as well as through the app, and because it has the largest and most diverse food database, including items in the UK and Ireland.</comment>