It could happen to you too - <AUTHOR> http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/chase-just-handed-over-all-our-assets.html

<comment><USER2> Sigh. I understand the angst, tax organizations are the worst. However, a piece of advice.

If you file a tax return in a state, and then you leave. Make sure you file a tax return the next year as well but put down zero taxable income.

What I have seen states do, is take the last year you filed a return "presume" you made that much in the next year but just "forgot" to file, and then charge you for back taxes. You counter this behavior by filing a $0 tax return so that the last year on the books you made $0 and when they use the last year you filed to compute your 'expected' return for the current year they will start with $0. A CPA friend suggested that you continue this for three years as that was the 'average' over which they might make a computation.

Either way, its a pain. But filing a state return with $0 on it is pretty straight forward thing these days with efiling.

<comment><USER3> _But filing a state return with $0 on it is pretty straight forward thing these days with efiling._

It's stupid to have to do that. They shouldn't be estimating your income, they know exactly how much you make from your W-2s, 1099s, etc. This is all to be reported to the state by an employer.

As for the guy in the article, there isn't something quite right. The state could be completely wrong here but there is something fishy with his ownership of part of a business in MA. If everything is as he says is true and the MA tax lawyer isn't getting this settled, he needs to get a different lawyer.

<comment><USER2> Two part response:

 _"It's stupid to have to do that."_ \- yes it is. However, as the author points out, states are broke, so they do everything they can to maximize revenues. (California is horrible at this, they twiddled two of the digits in my social security number and the first I heard about it was a tax lien filed against my house, really sad.) For a long time not filing a tax return effectively deferred your tax liability until you did. They aren't willing to wait that long any more.

 _"As for the guy in the article, there isn't something quite right."_ \- Of course not, tax stories like this are always more nuanced than the 'victim's point of view. Combined with the common practice of "interpreting" the statutes to mean one thing or another, its what keeps tax attorneys gainfully employed.

Of the latter my favorite is the "home business" or "hobby" interpretation. Your home business of shipping coal to New Castle may be losing money year after year, but the IRS doesn't technically get to call it a hobby, even if there is no evidence to believe it will ever make any money. People abuse that "loop hole" all the time, it is an opinion of whether or not its a "business" and the IRS isn't technically allowed to make judgements along whether it is or isn't. That doesn't stop them from trying to intimidate people though.

<comment><USER4> It is bad behavior by the states, high income earners explicitly avoid ever residing in certain areas that are notorious for long term harassment -- even when they have zero problem with the tax rate itself.

Several states are playing the all in card on their expenses, because they know when there is a real financial crises its much easier, politically, to purge excess expenses (The Federal government is doing this too I think.) The more they spend today the quicker that day arrives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A similar thing happened to me about 4 years ago in California. At the time I was running a small business and we had several thousand dollars withdrawn from our Wells Fargo Checking account along with a $200 Well Fargo legal fee. After some investigation we discovered that California had sent a notice to Wells Fargo to seize our assets for unpaid taxes. The Wells Fargo legal team was fairly helpful and they told us that 'this happens all the time', meaning the state doesn't really care who they take the money from as long as they get money from somebody. It took us nearly 2 years to prove to the state that they had the wrong business and we we able to recover the money from California. They paid us something like 0.25% interest. We never did get the $200 back from Well Fargo. All of this happened without a single notice or letter from either California or Wells Fargo.

</comment><comment><USER6> Austin-based developer evangelist here..

If your wife needs a hand, don't hesitate to drop me a note. I'm happy to do a grocery run, make introductions, or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER7> "And I'm one of the lucky ones. We use a foreign bank for the vast majority of our assets, and keep only a small amount in Chase for bills and such."

Section 319 of the USA PATRIOT Act specifically allow for the seizure of any money in Interbank Accounts held in the U.S... You may not be safe.

18 USC § 981(k) is the specific part of the U.S. Code that deals with this.

I knew that spending two years reading about the Patriot Act and writing it up on Wikipedia would be useful one day...

</comment><comment><USER8> This happened to my dad recently. All accounts frozen. For $22 in unpaid taxes due to a discrepancy.

The funny part is that you can't write them a check for $22 when all of your accounts are frozen. #recursion

To everyone who is alarmed by this it actually happens a lot and is not necessarily Chase's fault. A lot of banks do this. Blame the IRS, our large government, and their incessant need to take everything from everyone in order to pay for all the social programs we don't need. Okay I didn't really need to add that last bit .. don't want to start a big war on HN with my political viewpoint.

<comment><USER9> More specifically: #deadlock

<comment><USER10> Actually; #livelock

The world doesn't stop because you can't pay your taxes (the fines don't stop either unfortunately!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yeah, been there and done that.

Me: "I didn't live in your state or earn a dime in your state the year you're claiming I owe you thousands of dollars in tax. Shouldn't you have a shred of evidence that I owe you money before you send out a bill? Why should I have to waste my time proving that I _don't_ owe you money, instead of the other way around?"

Minion at the California Franchise Tax Board: "That's just not how it works, sir."

Happened again when I moved from New York to New Jersey, and I fully expect it'll happen again this year, since I moved from New Jersey to Texas.

And people wonder why I moved to Texas.

</comment><comment><USER12> My personal and business banking is done at Chase. I've found them to be fantastic and managed to avoid pretty much any fees by following the guidance of very helpful employees. I know everyone loves to bag on big banks, but Chase has been great. Bank of America is another story - their website barely works.

That said, I highly recommend anyone with significant assets open a bank account in a foreign country where seizing assets is much more difficult. Keep a reasonable sum there and know how to transfer the rest quickly if you fear legal action.

<comment><USER13> > and managed to avoid pretty much any fees by following the guidance of very > helpful employees

shouldn't they not have useless fees to begin with?

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure the fees are _necessarily_ useless. Banking is a service, and services cost money to provide. I suppose an argument can be made that the fees are higher than they need to be, but then, banks aren't non-profit entities either.

As for me, I've been a Chase customer since 2004 when they merged with Bank One, and a Bank One customer since 1990. I've tried a few local and regional banks, and brief stint with BOA as Bank One didn't have any branches in San Jose circa 2002. I've been quite happy with my Bank One/Chase experience to date. Far more than any other bank if tried.

<comment><USER13> an uncle that worked too long on banks used to tell that when he started, he would be writing mainframes applications to calculate the 'cost' of a client for the bank. Basically, the bank would give the service as an investment to get the client money, and make money investing that money.

At some point banks started to charge for services and nobody could live without banks anymore, so he was writing cliper86(?) scripts to discover the 'profit' of a new client.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Apparently this is written by the co-founder of Ars Technica.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's a common thing to not exactly give notice of proceedings despite the legal requirement. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/nyregion/31debt.html?_r=0> Would like to think that Massachusetts is more scrupulous, but maybe it's one of those "we'll keep our hands clean by demanding more of process servers than is humanly possible and pretend to be shocked when the inevitable happens" kind of things.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is the statute of limitations for tax issues in Massachusetts? I looked it up, and it appears that there is an _unlimited_ amount of time that MA can come after you: [http://www.mass.gov/dor/individuals/filing-and-payment- infor...](http://www.mass.gov/dor/individuals/filing-and-payment- information/guide-to-personal-income-tax/administrative-tax/statute-of- limitations.html)

However, using the technique that ChuckMcM described, that limitation would be 6 years. Sounds like we should start filing $0 returns for states we don't reside in anymore..

</comment><comment><USER18> Well, there's yet another good reason to stick with local credit unions whenever possible. If they have no presence in another jurisdiction, they're unlikely to comply with any of that nonsense.

<comment><USER19> I use a credit union, and I have been the victim of a similar problem as the author, and the credit union folded in exactly the same way. Notably, the credit union is local to a state different from the one that tried to shake me down. I don't especially blame the credit union, though: they were upfront and communicative with me, and told me that their hands were tied.

The advice I was given (not by the CU): either withdraw all my money from the account and put it in a safe deposit box, or wire it to a ( _very_ ) close relative ASAP -- _before_ the lien is officially issued.

<comment><USER20> "withdraw all my money from the account and put it in a safe deposit box, or wire it to a (very) close relative ASAP -- before the lien is officially issued."

IT is generally too late. Both are problematic and can be clawed back relatively quickly (the timing looks suspicious, etc). Yes, they would have to take you to court, but the defense costs usually exceed the asset value (and the author notes this).

<comment><USER19> The state actually gave a fair amount of advance notice. I was given an exact date for when the lien would go in effect, with over a month of lead time, as I recall.

I'm a little too paranoid to say exactly what I did, but I will say that I'm glad I was given that advice. (I was younger, and had much less money saved at the time; obviously that amount would affect any similar decision now.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You should always have assets at multiple banks and have lots of cash stored outside of the banking system (in a safety deposit box, at home, in car, etc).

*note: be careful about how you accumulate said cash. CTRs are generated if you withdraw too quickly.

<comment><USER21> _note: be careful about how you accumulate said cash. CTRs are generated if you withdraw too quickly._

This is very bad advice, as it's illegal in the US to intentionally evade CTRs by aggregating smaller transactions. It's known as structuring:

<http://www.irs.gov/irm/part4/irm_04-026-013.html>

Also, CTRs aren't inherently a bad thing, and they aren't generated behind your back. If you hit the $10k reporting limit, it's a simple one-page form, and you're on your way. Legitimate businesses are required to complete them all the time.

Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) are filed at the discretion of the institution, are secret, and are independent of the transaction amount. Withdraw $9,990 and you'll probably have a SAR under your name instead of a CTR. Ditto if your deposit smells like drugs, or if you're dealing in large amounts of currency as an individual, and the bank staff can't determine why.

<comment><USER20> If you are interested in taking out 100K this year, nothing is illegal about withdrawing 2K per week as opposed to taking out 100K at once.

<comment><USER21> Unless you're doing it evade reporting requirements.

Taking out 100k in currency within a year will look very suspicious -- financial institutions run regular look-back reports designed to find this kind of thing.

Were a bank officer to ask, I don't think there's any problem with telling the truth, "I'm stockpiling currency, and am contributing to this stockpile on a regular basis to coincide with income."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting; I finished A Handmaid's Tale last week, and the same thing had happened to the main character's family. Everybody had stopped keeping cash, and without their bank card working they were powerless.

</comment><comment><USER23> Similar thing happened to me, but with a much happier outcome. I lived in Iowa, moved to Colorado for a few years, and now I'm back in Iowa. I received a letter that I owed estimated taxes plus interest and penalties and... Ignored it. Then, 6 months later, I got a bill with the email address of the Iowa IRS agent.

One friendly email and four days later, her response was:

Thank you for your response to the Department's billing notice you received for no record of an Iowa individual income tax return on file for tax year ending 12-31-2005. Per review of your 2006 Iowa return I have verified you claimed a part-year Iowa credit therefore please consider this matter resolved. I am in the process of revising your billing to zero. You may continue to receive notices until our Accounts Receivable as officially cleared the billing.

If you have any other questions please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

<comment><USER24> Yes both Missouri and Hawaii have handled my moves in this fashion. At first they assume you owe them money, but if you provide documentation for where you were living and when then they cancel proceedings with no fuss.

I'm not sure how I was able to escape California without dealing with this, but that was some years ago...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I had a somewhat similar experience last year.

The IRS sent me a letter saying that they found I had mis-stated income from one of my freelance gigs. They said their records show that I was paid $800,000 for the job but I only claimed $800. I now owe ~$450k in back taxes along with daily accrued interest and penalties, we have enclosed a envelope for you to mail a check, etc.

I checked my records and I was indeed only paid $800 for the job. I checked with the company to make sure they didn't make an error when they filed their takes, nope, $800 the whole way.

Within days I had IRS agents calling both mine and my wife phones, calling previous employers, showing up at my house looking to put me on a payment program.

Our state and federal tax returns were held up and applied toward the "debt".

I'm sure that if I had a bank account tied to my SSN that those would be locked out as well.

It took 6 months and $3500 for a tax attorney to go back and forth with them over every single dollar on every 1099. They would literally go down the list and say "Thank you for bringing '$1099' into compliance, but we have found a discrepancy with '$1099 + 1', please submit a payment of $payment along with daily accrued interest and penalties".

</comment><comment><USER26> You may be able to sue the state of MA in CA court. At least one person did this to California after moving to Nevada:

<http://www.hgexperts.com/article.asp?id=5410>

Granted, it was the state of Nevada, and Nevadans hate taxes and probably loved sticking it to California more than anything. (which is one reason I moved there from CA).

</comment><comment><USER27> Fucking IRS.

I must say I always paid taxes and never had problems with them. 2008 I made some nice stock trading profits. Paid taxes for them all to the last penny. Actually, I taxes more than I had to, since the bank statement reported higher profits that actually occurred (must be a real gypsy bank). What the bank statement did not report, was the buy and sale of an ETF. I held it for 3 months, made maximal 1% profit of it. The IRS became aware that I sold this ETF, but they could not figure out when and for how much I bought it. Hence, they assume, the sales price is 100% profit. Not they want: * back taxes for a profit that never occurred * Fine me since I did not pay taxes for this profit that never occurred. * on top of that, want interest for this whole cluster- fuck.

I did not receive some letters from them since I was abroad because I was totally broke. I have no idea how I can pay this. It makes me also think that I might have to go offshore. I have to save urgently for retirement and just can not afford that the IRS pulls some random gypsy charges out of nothing.

<comment><USER28> You don't have to go offshore. The same thing happened to me. What you need to do is get an accountant or get a copy of Turbotax for that year. Then you enter in all your info and make sure you fill out Schedule D. They'll give you the person's (examiner) name on their letter. I filled out a new tax form, and sent the letter below to the IRS. A few weeks later, they said "Thanks for the info, and we'll contact you if we need anything else." That was a few years ago. Haven't heard anything since.

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

Dear Examiner:

I have attached a Schedule D form, which I did not include in my 2009 tax return. According to the CP 2000 letter, the securities income reported to the IRS was $xx,xxx. But this was using a zero cost basis for stocks sold. The schedule D form I have included provides the cost basis for all stocks sold. The final total for the Schedule D shows a net loss of $xx.

Sincerely,

xxxxx

</comment><comment><USER29> The title suggested to me that Chase had handed over the writer's assets _to_ the writer... reading the article, it's exactly the opposite of a happy ending.

Not surprising, but alarming. More alarming, I think, is that it's not surprising.

</comment><comment><USER30> Do not use these companies:

Chase bank or American Express

They will turn there back on you when you need them most. I had a horrible experience with both back in 2008 when the economy was collapsing. And no, I don't have crappy credit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I never had that scale of problem with Chase, but had enough smaller interactions over the years that I jumped last year. I started as a Washington Mutual customer years ago. Putting aside the massive mismanagement going on at the top, their customer service was impeccable. I couldn't have been happier until they went under and got bought my Chase.

I've been a Charles Scwab customer for the last 2 years. Great bank. Excellent customer service, ATM fee refunds each month, direct tie-in to investment accounts if you do that. Highly recommend them if you are looking to switch.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why does the author keep hounding on "Again, I have not lived in MA or earned income in that state since 2003"? It sounds like MA isn't after anything to do with residency or wage income.

<comment><USER33> In fact, that's almost certainly what it is.

They see in 2003 they had a return that owed some money, and no return in 2004, so they assume that the same taxes are due from 2003. Then they do it again in 2005...

This is what happens when your state doesn't have official move-out procedures, etc. They don't know, and they don't mail you until 15 months after you move, so your mail is no longer forwarded, and they make no attempt to contact you a lot of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wells Fargo has a similar give-your-money-away-to-any-semi-legit-looking- official-who-comes-knocking policy.

I have a nice small town bank. The VP knows me by name, goes to my wife's church (whisky-pagan). I know where he lives. ATM fees? None, the bank doesn't own an ATM, and refunds any fees I pay for using ATMs at any other location. Makes it a lot harder for things like that to happen, or at least I hope it will, if it ever comes to that.

</comment><comment><USER35> These are some of the times I feel lucky to be in a developing country. Our government is still behind in developing laws where they freeze all your bank accounts on income tax evasion counts (obviously unless you are a high profile case).

But this is plain ridiculous. Its must be some kind of breach of basic rights. Govt should not be able to freeze accounts unless proven guilty in court.

</comment><comment><USER36> It helps to distribute accounts between one major bank and one or two local credit unions.

The only problem is that you need a fair amount of money in each to get 'perks' and reduced fees.

</comment><comment><USER37> Bitcoin.

I don't underestimate the difficulty of Bitcoin becoming a viable tool to transact daily life, but this is something that could not happen with Bitcoin. If nothing else, the fact that Bitcoin provides a fundamentally different way to transfer value, independent from state or corporate interference shows that there are potential alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER38> Credit Union, you will be better off.

</comment><comment><USER39> The title seems ambiguous (and, oddly, does not match the blog post title).

Did Chase bank hand over all _Massachusetts_ assets (all assets in a MA account) to the state, or did they hand over non-Massachusetts assets to the state of Massachusetts? The opening of the article implies the latter, since the account was opened in Illinois, though it's possible that the account qualified as an MA account.

Even if the address on the account is listed as a California address, the account may still be a Massachusetts account (use an MA routing number, etc.).

I'd be very interested to know if Chase handed over assets from an _Illinois_ account to the state of Massachusetts.

<comment><USER40> I suspect that there's no such thing as an _Illinois_ or _Massachusetts_ account to Chase. They are all just accounts held by clients who are US citizens.

<comment><USER41> Bank of America in NYC is a different entity from B of A in California. Same with Wells Fargo. The accounts are geographically tied to the state in which they were opened. Chase is probably set up the same way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Without more details the whole story sounds iffy. Since he did not give us more details but still shared his story I will speculate that he took advantage of what he thought were some clever tax loopholes in MA. Remember that hid did state very passingly that he has a presence in MA. Specifically this:

>>Again, I hadn't lived there or worked there since 2003, but I did own part of a business that was headquartered in MA, and the state was using this fact to harass me for income tax money<<

So in essence, he probably took advantage of some iffy tax loop hole which the state now probably disagrees with and is asking for whatever it thinks it is owed.

<comment><USER43> As with all these stories, need to be taken with a nice handful of salt. Owning a business in MA would make it seem like you would qualify for state taxation (on that part at least).

The US taxes its citizens even outside of their own jurisdiction. It wouldn't surprise me if MA taxed people that still made money in MA.

<comment><USER44> All states (that have an income tax) do. I own property, which I rent, in multiple states including MA. I need to file tax returns for the income I make in each of them. Nothing unusual there.</comment></comment></comment>


Glenn Greenwald Stands by the Official Narrative - <AUTHOR> http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/30/glenn-greenwald-stands-by-the-official-narrative/ <comment><USER2> One thing I don't understand about this article is, it talks about groups assisting in surveillance while acting as if they are opposing it, and questioning whether current companies might be doing the same.

This could be a valid concern, but if it is, I do not know how to address it, and it seems like an accusation which doesn't have much of a way to defend against. What standards of evidence would it want, to conclude that a company was not secretly assisting in surveillance?

"Yes, they might look like a well adjusted person, but so did <person that was secretly a serial killer>! So maybe they are one!" Is not sufficient to conclude that a random, seemingly well adjusted person is likely to be a serial killer. Thats not really quite whats going on here, but it seems possible that it isn't /entirely/ unlike it?

This seems to be sort of a wink-nudge thing accusing greenwald of being a pawn of the govt, and I don't think it provides sufficient evidence to justify making that accusation.

Even if Greenwald's claim about what the prime motivations of the nsa et all are is false, that would not necessarily mean that it is deceptive.

And then it ends with a "oh he probably wont respond to this because he is a TOOL OF THE POWERS THAT BE" type thing.

I do wonder if some of the points it makes at the beginning might be good, but I got a sort of, feel from it, reminiscent of either tabloids or , well, I hesitate to use the term "conspiracy theory", because a prediction that there is a conspiracy about something is not necessarily incorrect or unjustified. So, I don't mean "conspiracy theory" in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense of, /relatively unjustified/ idea of a group being involved in a bad conspiracy.

<comment><USER3> I also don't understand what is surprising here or why do they think there is some "conflict" in this case. Companies can comply with laws and regulations while being against them in principle this is how most politics works. Companies may also find that some "surveillance" laws benefit them as they might allow them to gain protection against attacks by foreign state actors or organized crime as well as some protection against liability for cooperating with the US government which they have to do so anyhow. So yeah the whole proving a negative part is kinda silly, but so is the entire premise. Microsoft, Google, Facebook can work on thwarting surveillance while having to continue to cooperate with the US government and while still be in need of it's protection and knowledge to thwart attacks against their own corporate resources and interests, or in short politics. And yes the criticism of Greenwald for saying, yes most likely US spies care about national security and do their job rather than attempt instituting some shadow government on the behest of shape shifting lizard aliens is also pretty stupid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bill Blunden: "In this editorial he asserts that American spies are motivated primarily by the desire to thwart terrorist plots."

Glen Greenwald: "In one sense, this blame-shifting tactic is understandable. After all, the CIA, the NSA and similar agencies receive billions of dollars annually from Congress and have been vested by their Senate overseers with virtually unlimited spying power. They have one paramount mission: find and stop people who are plotting terrorist attacks. When they fail, of course they are desperate to blame others."

Maybe Glen's sentence could have been written "They have been given the mandate to find and stop people who are plotting..." to fend off a potential (purposeful?) misreading like Mr. Blunden has done, but the problem here is clearly not the wording.

Nothing about Glen's article supports any of Mr. Blunden's rambling innuendo. Not only is this is a lame attempt to score points off of Glen, but it's pretty dubious submission to HN in the first place.</comment>


Microsoft to Stop Supporting Office 2016 for Mac in October - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/03/microsoft-stop-supporting-office-2016-october/ <comment><USER2> 4 years... only 4 years. Their software is capable of being used for decades. This is just sad.

<comment><USER3> A specific version of their software was supported for 4 years. There are newer versions readily available. I think 4 years support for a product like this, while there are far newer versions is really good.</comment></comment>


Scientists find an equation for materials innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.princeton.edu/engineering/news/archive/?id=2582

<comment><USER2> _crosses fingers_

please find something awesome enough for space elevators

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the paper. It was interesting translating journalese back into physicsish.

<http://prb.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v81/i4/e045206>

<comment><USER4> They also have some software (PROFESS): [http://www.princeton.edu/mae/people/faculty/carter/homepage/...](http://www.princeton.edu/mae/people/faculty/carter/homepage/research/software/)</comment></comment>


The Source History of Cat - <AUTHOR> https://twobithistory.org/2018/11/12/cat.html <comment><USER3> I was surprised to read that some versions of cat (apparently BSD Net/2 and derivatives) have special code for _sockets_. What does cat do with sockets!?

Well, AF_UNIX sockets are sockets with paths in the filesystem. You must either connect() to them or bind() to them instead of open()ing them. Apparently, BSD-derived versions of cat will try to connect() to to a file if open() fails.

With GNU cat, if you try to cat a socket, it will go like this:

        $ ls -l test.sock
        srwxr-xr-x 1 luke users 0 Nov 12 21:07 test.sock
        $ cat test.sock
        cat: test.sock: No such device or address

but BSD-derived cats will successfully open the socket for reading. That behavior can be accomplished on other systems by using socat instead; BSD cat behaves somewhat like:

        $ socat UNIX:test.sock STDOUT

<comment><USER4> Hah, I learned something about cat today. Thanks.

Amusingly, the BSD socket behavior can be disabled with the compiler macro -DNO_UDOM_SUPPORT, but as far as I can tell it is not documented nor hooked into the rest of the build system in any way since its introduction in 2001:

[https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=83482](https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base?view=revision&revision=83482)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The plan9 cat is nice: [https://github.com/pete/cats/blob/master/plan9-cat.c](https://github.com/pete/cats/blob/master/plan9-cat.c)

<comment><USER6> Agreed. But the lack of `{}` raises my blood pressure a few points...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > But, if you pull up the manual page for something like grep, you will see > that it has not been updated since 2010 (at least on MacOS).

Well, GNU grep was last released 16 months ago, and the last change to its master branch was 4 weeks ago: [http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/grep.git)

FreeBSD's grep was last updated back in August: [https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/tree/master/usr.bin/grep](https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/tree/master/usr.bin/grep)

OpenBSD's grep was last updated 11 months ago: [http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/grep/](http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi- bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/grep/)

Oddly, it looks like the Darwin grep was last updated in 2012: [https://opensource.apple.com/source/text_cmds/text_cmds-99/g...](https://opensource.apple.com/source/text_cmds/text_cmds-99/grep/grep.c.auto.html)

Strange that Apple would be shipping such an ancient grep.

<comment><USER8> Iirc, Apple stopped updating but continued shipping all gnu utilities since gplv3 was attached to them

<comment><USER3> I don't believe that macOS grep was ever GNU grep. I believe that macOS always used a BSD variant of grep.

<comment><USER9> Using OS X 10.4.11 here, the grep file is dated Jan 2006, the end of the grep man pages says "2002/01/22".

      $ uname -v
      Darwin Kernel Version 8.11.1: Wed Oct 10 18:23:28 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.25.20~1/RELEASE_I386
      $ grep --version
      grep (GNU grep) 2.5.1

Other man pages: ed says 1993, sed says BSD 2004, cat says 3rd Berkeley Distribution 1995.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. What does `type grep` say? Is it possible that it's /usr/local/bin/grep from homebrew/macports/…, and that /usr/bin/grep is BSD grep?

I found a comment claiming that prior to 10.8 (2012, Mountain Lion) it used GNU grep, but nothing I'd feel comfortable citing.

<comment><USER9>
      $ type grep
      grep is hashed (/usr/bin/grep)

It does seem to be the original grep for this machine (it's a Mac Mini) - <USER2> has the same Jan 2006 date as most of the files in /usr/bin, and nothing has an earlier date. There's no other file called grep elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really nice history! I want to applaud the author on this loving treatment.

Also I want to point readers to the commentary of some of the Unix authors:

"Old programs have become encrusted with dubious features. Newer programs are not always written with attention to proper separation of function and design for interconnection."

[http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf](http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf)

My point being: Unix (and derivatives) encompass a set of people who disagree about what constitutes Unix philosophy.

<comment><USER4> > My point being: Unix (and derivatives) encompass a set of people who > disagree about what constitutes Unix philosophy.

That's certainly a Unix truism! It seems everyone has their own subjective beliefs about what Unix should be and decides their own beliefs constitute "the" Unix philosophy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting to think what a different conclusion the article would have arrived at if he'd chosen to look at GNU _cat_ on Linux. A few sample points:

* 2002: 833 LoC ([http://landley.net/aboriginal/history.html](http://landley.net/aboriginal/history.html))

* 2013: 36kLoC, 2/3rds of them .h files ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340510#11341175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11340510#11341175))

* 2018: 37kLoC of .c file dependencies going into libcoreutils.a and some LoC of .h files (coreutils has 60kLoC of .h files)

The methodology for counting lines likely isn't consistent across those data points. But the trend is still unmistakeable. Maybe I'll tree-shake all the dead code out and come up with an accurate line count one of these days..

<comment><USER11> I just performed an _ad hoc_ file-level tree-shaking for 'src/cat.c' in GNU coreutils 8.30, starting with `gcc src/cat.c` and gradually adding arguments until I got it to build. Here's the command I ended up with.

        gcc -I. -I./lib /
          src/version.c /
          lib/progname.c /
          lib/safe-read.c /
          lib/safe-write.c /
          lib/quotearg.c /
          lib/xmalloc.c /
          lib/localcharset.c /
          lib/c-strcasecmp.c /
          lib/mbrtowc.c /
          lib/xalloc-die.c /
          lib/c-ctype.c /
          lib/hard-locale.c /
          lib/exitfail.c /
          lib/closeout.c /
          lib/close-stream.c /
          lib/fclose.c /
          lib/fflush.c /
          lib/fseeko.c /
          lib/version-etc.c /
          lib/xbinary-io.c /
          lib/version-etc-fsf.c /
          lib/binary-io.c /
          lib/fadvise.c /
          lib/full-write.c /
          src/cat.c

Those .c files add up to 5021 lines.

The .c files include 44 header files:

        lib/binary-io.h
        lib/c-ctype.h
        lib/closeout.h
        lib/close-stream.h
        lib/config.h
        lib/c-strcaseeq.h
        lib/c-strcase.h
        lib/ctype.h
        lib/error.h
        lib/exitfail.h
        lib/fadvise.h
        lib/fcntl.h
        lib/fpending.h
        lib/freading.h
        lib/full-write.h
        lib/gettext.h
        lib/hard-locale.h
        lib/ignore-value.h
        lib/limits.h
        lib/localcharset.h
        lib/locale.h
        lib/minmax.h
        lib/progname.h
        lib/quotearg.h
        lib/quote.h
        lib/safe-read.h
        lib/stdio.h
        lib/stdio-impl.h
        lib/stdlib.h
        lib/string.h
        lib/sys/ioctl.h
        lib/sys-limits.h
        lib/sys/types.h
        lib/unistd.h
        lib/unused-parameter.h
        lib/verify.h
        lib/version-etc.h
        lib/wchar.h
        lib/wctype.h
        lib/xalloc.h
        lib/xbinary-io.h
        src/die.h
        src/ioblksize.h
        src/system.h

The header files add up to 19.7k lines.

So the total line count for files GNU cat _actually_ needs to build is _at least_ ~25k.

(I didn't bother checking for headers including other headers.)

Next step: do this for various versions of GNU coreutils.

<comment><USER12> Much more code for much less functionality than the BSD cat which can do sockets. Not surprised at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Strangely, it seems that many versions of macOS on opensource.apple.com are missing grep. It used to be its own project until 10.7 Lion, after which it disappeared and then reappeared under text_cmds in 10.12 Sierra.

<comment><USER3> Apparently, the 10.7→10.8 update is when macOS switched from GNU grep to FreeBSD grep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _My aunt and cousin thought of computer technology as a series of > increasingly elaborate sand castles supplanting one another after each high > tide clears the beach._

They are basically right though.

The counterexample of some Unix utilities means nothing. You're not getting a CS degree in order to develop the next version of _cat_ , are you?

We have some things with a long history and they are easy to identify. It is just hindsight being 20/20.

For every one of those things, there are countless that can't be seen or felt. They aren't here; they got washed away.

Who uses the Michigan Terminal System?

Or a web framework from ten years ago?

<comment><USER15> I am not sure that computer technology would have become powerful, inexpensive, and ubiquitous to the extent that it is become today were his aunt and his cousin correct.

The aunt and the cousin are thinking that 'computer technology' exists at the level of abstraction of the sandcastles in the metaphor. To some extent it does, but the vastly greater part of it is at the level of abstraction of the knowledge and theory of building sand castles, as gained over the course of many iterations.

One of the most common themes one hears, when reading what people write about computer science, is how few _new_ ideas in computer science are actually involved in nearly anything anyone does on a computer (or teaches at the undergraduate level).

<comment><USER14> The people implementing those ideas often _believe_ they are new, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you like to have insights into how some UNIXes got built, these books are quite interesting.

"The Design and Implementation of the 4.4 BSD Operating System"

"The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System"

"Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach"

"Solaris Internals: Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris Kernel Architecture"

"HP-UX 11i Internals"

"IA-64 Linux Kernel: Design and Implementation"

<comment><USER17> How could you omit Bach and Comer? (-:

<comment><USER16> I never read it, thus cannot express my opinion about its contents.

Xenix manuals and later Steven's books were my introduction into UNIX world.

<comment><USER17> Not it, them.

* [http://jdebp.eu./FGA/operating-system-books.html](http://jdebp.eu./FGA/operating-system-books.html)

One of these days I shall get around to expressing _my_ opinions, which as you can see are still missing. Indeed, the list itself is a decade out of date. (-:

I have some SCO UNIX manuals on the other side of the room as I type this.

<comment><USER16> Very nice list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think that code bloat, especially in GNU, is a huge problem in our software because it makes programs difficult to maintain, to understand and modify. I feel like most people I interacted with online (present company excepted) don't care about it and don't see it as a problem. I can get that it doesn't affect them because they only use these projects as black boxes and don't maintain them, so it isn't relevant to their work.

I created a wiki page to measure the number of lines of code* of various types of software [https://softwarecrisis.miraheze.org/wiki/Linecount](https://softwarecrisis.miraheze.org/wiki/Linecount) \- LOC is a very very rough proxy for what I actually want to measure, but the results are so stunning that even a inaccurate indirect measurement tells a lot. You can see that for 2 projects that do essentially the same thing there might be a 1000x difference in LOC.

It's fascinating what can happen to such a simple program like 'cat'. The same effect is amplified further when you look at projects like gcc. I tried to ask the question on a couple sites like stackexchange and reddit why does gcc take half an hour to build instead of a fraction of a second but this question was not taken well. I got a lot of resistance to it, X-Y answers, deleted etc. I don't think that the common software engineer wants to take the idea seriously that the day to day tools we use have a million fold inefficiency built into them by accident. I also noticed that 'make' has no profiler, nobody has even really done a breakdown of what takes how long to build in the gcc tree.

There are a lot of brilliant engineers who understand this problem and want to solve it though. We see that in Alan Kay's STEPS project, aligrudi's work, musl, toybox, maybe sbase and many of the independent bootstrapping projects that have popped up. There's a lot of inertia and weight to the standard GNU toolkit to push back against but I believe these problems are all solvable and by solving them we can create programming languages and tools with leverage far beyond what currently exists. I just hope such projects can be integrated rather than be forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER19> > [...] but it seems that many people still get most excited about the six > months of work he put into rewriting cat [...]

Is it me or does 6 months seem like an awfully long time for re-writing such a small and simple program?

<comment><USER20> It was a different era, one in which computers were a lot slower, source control was a lot more primitive, a lot of basic stuff was still being invented, but … yeah, I feel a _lot_ better about my own productivity now!

<comment><USER21> While I agree about productivity now (although rewriting a source for cat that is used decades later seems very productive), I think the above commenter has it correct that it was probably a side project that he worked on and released after 6 months and not so much the speed of the CPUs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I worked with some version of Unix in 1984 that had a program called dog. It would silently wait for a <CR> to be pressed after each screen of output. I've never seen it anywhere else.

<comment><USER23> Was it [http://www.linuxcertif.com/man/1/dog/](http://www.linuxcertif.com/man/1/dog/) ?

<comment><USER22> That looks like a different program named dog by coincidence. My dog had no bells and whistles. Do you happen to know where the source for this is?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The __cat __utility is among the simplest, but once upon a time __true __was about the simplest possible Unix utility.

        #!/bin/sh

Yes, that's really it. Fire up the shell, get it to exit with 0, which is taken as success. That's all that's really necessary for its spec.

GNU's is around 29 KiB compiled, and it uses some of that to support __\--version __and __\--help __flags. MacOS 's is around 17 KiB compiled and ignores flags.

<comment><USER18> it used to be even simpler, a blank file

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> That capital C in the title weirds me out.

</comment><comment><USER26> Cat is awesome :) There is also 'tac' (reverse of cat) installed on most systems

<comment><USER27> I came across something called bat recently. It's a rust clone of cat with a lot of nice features integrated. This seems to be a thing lately in the Rust community to put out vastly improved versions of tools we haven't really touched in ages. Loving it.

<comment><USER28> I'm a fan of exa as an ls-replacement :)

exa -l --git will list N/M git status flags in the output and:

exa --git-ignore will obey .gitignore when you're listing files :)

Works like a charm in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I always wondered where the name cat came from which the article doesn't address. Any ideas?

<comment><USER30> It's short for conCATenate.

original man page: [http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/cat](http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/cat)

<comment><USER10> Actually catinate, which is a real word but less used. But you are still right.

<comment><USER3> In the earliest references, it was "concatenate". It wasn't until 7th edition UNIX (1979) that "catenate" was given.

References:

\- 1971 draft (pre 1st edition) of the paper that would become the well-known 1974 CACM UNIX paper (earliest documentation on `cat` that I can find): [https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_...](https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/UnixEditionZero- OCR.pdf) (tune in on page 28)

\- 6th edition cat(1) man page (1975): [http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/cat](http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/cat)

\- 7th edition cat(1) man page (1979): [http://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/cat](http://man.cat-v.org/unix_7th/1/cat)

<comment><USER31> Latin root word "catena", meaning "chain".

<comment><USER4> Latin root "con-" ("com-") meaning "with," or "together." As in, "concatenate" means something like, "chain together."

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/com-](https://www.etymonline.com/word/com-)

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/concatenate](https://www.etymonline.com/word/concatenate)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I only read the beginning and end, and I very much like the closing message here.

A tldr of the middle would be cool. Maybe there was a pattern.

I'd like to add another OS not mentioned that will hopefully become a well- appreciated artifact soon too, from Redox OS: [https://gitlab.redox- os.org/redox-os/coreutils/blob/master/s...](https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox- os/coreutils/blob/master/src/bin/cat.rs)

I can't find it quickly now, but jackpot51 also has a very answer somewhere on Reddit about how their networking stack's DNS query command departs from a commonly deployed C program for Windows and Unix, iirc. fascinating</comment>


Missing (from) Links: great idea for the expansion of HTML syntax - <AUTHOR> http://www.furia.com/page.cgi?type=log&id=273

<comment><USER2> In addition to a search string, XPath or CSS selector syntax could be nice. (Think: JQuery.)

Should be easy to implement as a Greasemonkey script or FF add-on.</comment>


How to rig an election, get published by JP Morgan, threatened in just 12 hours - <AUTHOR> https://vc.gg/blog/how-to-rig-an-election-get-published-by-jp-morgan-and-get-threatened-with-waterboarding-in-just-12-hours/ <comment><USER2> The HN "Hug of Death" ??

        Error establishing a
        database connection</comment>


Show HN: Weekend Project - RingSong - <AUTHOR> http://ringsong.cheerusup.com/

<comment><USER2> Dude, its ringing nonstop. Please make it stop or allow people to delete their messages.

<comment><USER3> i think in general thats the issue with a lot of these services asking you to enter in a phone number. Even apps that ask for contact list get denied. The last thing I want is to be the cause of this kind of bug, or bad case of selling my phone number and contacts numbers to solicitors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree. The code is open-source, and I won't sell the phone numbers. Really didn't mind too much if people do/don't use this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Source Code: <https://github.com/codejoust/ringsong> using mongodb, node, express, and tropo.</comment>


How not to write a job advert - <AUTHOR> http://inter-sections.net/2008/08/30/how-not-to-write-a-job-advert

<comment><USER2> Talk about timing. I'm in the process of having to write a couple of adverts myself. I tell you its hard. Especially if you haven't launched yet.

How can you get people excited without disclosing the whole thing that you are trying to build?

What I really need is a job advert copy writer to sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the thing that will cause talented people to send in their applications...

Bonus link: <http://joblighted.com/statistics> lists all job boards worth posting to.

<comment><AUTHOR> How many people in your company? If you haven't launched yet and you still have a very small team (less than 10), I'd strongly recommend hiring people via referrals and networking rather than via job ads.

<comment><USER2> We are 4 people right now. 3 founders and one that we brought in from the previous company.

What if you have exhausted your network (which admittedly wasn't that large)? How do keep those referrals coming?

<comment><AUTHOR> That hasn't happened to me yet, but if it did I'd find every interesting, somewhat relevant geeky meet-up in town and start going to them. Obviously don't openly declare you're there to recruit someone, but if you stay aware and know how to spot hackers, you're bound to find a suitable one who happens to be contracting or unhappy about their job... Basically, expand your network :-)

The problem with this is of course that you don't have a clear deadline on when you get the person, so it's best started early while you can still wait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's also a good example of how to not quote a Craigslist article. His use of the pre tag and ghastly CSS means an absurd amount of side scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER4> I take the guy's point that they are laying it on a bit thick, but I also think he does lambast them a bit too much. Being excited about your company and trying to get other people excited about it too is a good thing.

Describing employees as "rock stars" may not be the ideal approach. But, I'd rather be in a company that's fun with a few goofy buzzword happy managers than one that's precise as hell and every day feels like watching paint dry.

</comment><comment><USER5> Look, this is how you write a job ad: don't bullshit people. This ad violates that single rule in every sentence.

People who think they are "rockstar" programmers are probably inexperienced college kids with inflated egos. Meanwhile, the EXTREMELY FEW people in the world who are actually as good as this ad is literally asking for are probably wondering what this job pays. $65,000? Oh, stock options too?

People like this aren't exactly free you know, no matter what you just read in the book you just bought at the airport.

</comment><comment><USER6> What a cynic. I bet the guy behind this post would rather write one of those horrible, dry ads that make our eyes glass over.

<comment><USER7> I think he has a pretty decent take on it.

Personally I think the whole "rockstar / ninja" jumped the shark a while back. A "rockstar" is a unique and rare individual, it's a loose definition but it would seem to imply that not EVERYONE can be a rockstar (or ninja).

The term is getting over applied to everything these days in the startup/tech world.

Writing job adverts is a tough gig. You need to make people want to work for your job and relate to the position without dipping too heavily into the bag- o-cliches or applying excessive acronym scattershot

<comment><USER8> Anytime I see the word rockstar or ninja in a job listing, I don't think of a unique individual. The first thing it makes me think of is that they want someone they can pile on totally unrealistic expectations (not enough resources, not enough time, not enough defined requirements) but still expect it to get done perfectly every time. As soon as I read that, I move on to the next listing every time...</comment></comment></comment>


Straw Man Argument – Why people get away without answering the question? - <AUTHOR> https://models.substack.com/p/straw-man-argument-why-politicians <comment><USER2> I think a factor for the issues outlined in this article is the inherent vagueness of human language. Everyday language isn't semantically rigorous like mathematical proofs, and depend on some implicit context/knowledge between the speaker and listener to be correctly interpreted. In the context of most online arguments, people will simply assume the worst variant of the opposing party's inherently vague statement, and it's just a snowball from there.</comment>


Ask HN: What frameworks do you use for prototypes? - <AUTHOR> In order to quickly create a prototype with good frontend what do you use besides React <comment><USER2> I tend to follow the 'make it work, then make it pretty' school of thinking but it really depends on _what_ you're building - since you've mentioned React, can we assume you're looking for some kind of web solution?

</comment><comment><USER3> I prefer Svelte and Inferno mostly. However, for quick prototypes or side projects that I know I'm not going to need, I use a completely new framework, to experiment and have fun while learning something new.</comment>


Ask HN: Is the whole Internet slow nowadays? - <AUTHOR>

It seems to me that over the past few weeks/months that the Internet has really been bogging down on a site-by-site basis. 3rd party APIs for modules and logging, heavy client-side JS, cloud latency...it seems to me that all of these trends have conspired to make the web slower than browsing on a Treo 680. I routinely get mid-pageload hangs on sites of all levels of popularity and prominence, delayed/dropped clicks, and scrolling problems.<p>It seems to me that there are some bad architecture decisions gaining currency as standards. <comment><USER2> Anecdotes aren't evidence but I've noticed a subject, steady degradation as well over the "months" end of that time scale.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think "weeks" refers more to noticing my own growing dissatisfaction, but it's certainly a 2011 phenomenon.</comment></comment>


Uber Makes Offer to Buy Postmates Delivery Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/technology/uber-postmates-buy-offer.html <comment><USER2> Isn't Uber going to be hammered by Tesla eventually? Not sure why it's still a company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, wonder what'll happen to the stock...</comment>


Ask HN: How do you interview senior front end engineers/architects? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious. We're trying to hire for our startup and have no clue what sorts of questions to ask. An algorithm based interview doesn't make sense, nor does it seem appropriate to give senior engineers (8+ years exp) a take home project.
We ideally want someone who is
1. Adept at good architectural and design patterns.
2. Understands library internals and performance nuances.
3. Can scale a complex codebase with software engineering practices (Test cases, CI-CD, migrations, etc)
4. Can mentor the team to better themselves.
How do you test for all these?
Note : None of us currently on the Frontend team have over 4 years of exp. The person coming in will be leading the team. <comment><USER2> Try the Ashley Madison approach to hiring:

First, accept that the vast majority of people you want to hire are already employed and normally couldn't be bothered with your startup. The leftovers are either really unlucky or not worth hiring.

Second, go after the top 98% and leave the others for the rest of the industry. Don't waste time trying to interview them beyond a quick phone screen on personality, because any time of theirs you ask for is extremely expensive to them and you need to acknowledge it from the start (or they'll not respond). Offer them _more_ than they're earning now. After you find one you like, and you're willing to pay them more than they're currently getting, and they're willing to jump ship for that, close the deal as quickly as possible.

This works because their current employer vouches for them (by employing them), and their current employer is presumably a better judge of technical skill than your team is. So leverage that skill instead of cobbling together some facsimile yourselves.

The downside for this approach is that if they're currently earning $200k and you have a budget of $120k for the position (or even $220k), you're not going to hire anybody. It's a shared delusion in the industry that everybody can lowball the senior talent and they won't wise up.

It's been said before, but it bears repeating. For senior talent, you're not buying the job, you're selling it. It's a buyer's market and you need to play motivated salesman and not choosy PITA customer.

<comment><USER3> "First, accept that the vast majority of people you want to hire are already employed and normally couldn't be bothered with your startup. The leftovers are either really unlucky or not worth hiring."

Hey, I'm not employed! Haven't had a full time job in almost a year. But it's mostly because working 10 hours a week on projects pays as well as a full time job.

If someone wants to hire me, I'll listen, but you probably have to offer double what I make working from home.

<comment><USER2> if ( self_employed == employed )

      working 10 hours a week = employed;

<comment><USER3> I mean I've been on the job market for a long time now. I'd actually prefer some kind of full time commitment over doing boring CRUD apps. But it's just not a good deal. Interview process is either too painful, compensation is too low, or the job is too meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I ask for basics.

Why? There is a lot of stuff happening in the top layer of everything (UI, full-stack, os/cloud/vm/container)... and it is impossible to evaluate properly knowledge in that area.

BUT... If I ask for basics (OS, Database, organization, how to isolate processes from each other, how to scale), I can see if the answer is solid technically, if the candidate can articulate an answer, how she/he communicates.

Also, I always ask for a projects candidate is proud of.

I want to hear what (s)he did, and why. Architects have to decide stuff, so I want to hear the whys and the why nots.

Then I ask what the would do differently now in the same project.

Reject the candidate if (s)he would do everything the same way: there is always room for improvement, and shit usually happens.

This is a sign other people did the work, or the candidate has a complicated personality that might backfire after hiring.

(edit: sorry if the answer looks a bit harsh)

</comment><comment><USER5> The great thing about anyone who's working in their trade more than five years that you can actually ask them "what were the most interesting projects you worked on" and get a meaningful response. I would ask him about the experiences of what you just listed here and go with the flow. Also you may want to read about CAR (context action result) interview method to have a better understanding how should you structure your questions about these topics.

What was the worst problem erformance wise he had to overcome? What was the largest team he ever supervised, why did he get in that position? If you talk about these kind of questions for a good hour or two you already will feel something about this person. You then have to transorm this feeling to a yes or no as a team. As he will be your future mentor and technical leader I would interpret the "yes,but..." And "no, but..." Answers as "no".

</comment><comment><USER6> Prepare a few questions for each trait you care about and then ask all candidates the same (or sample of) questions.

Grade the candidate on each trait based on how well they answered the related questions and pick the best one.

Because you know the questions you can prepare and not be intimidated to ask someone more senior.

For instance:

How to design an app that feeds from two radically different apis? (no need for detailed code)

What perfomance practices they used in library/framework/their own code and why?

What test cases they would write for (a simple) given spec?

Ask them about instances were they mentored/helped/coached teammates.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey, just posting an interesting blog post that was linked previously on HN and got 973 upvotes[1]: [https://hiringengineersbook.com/post/trouble- hiring/](https://hiringengineersbook.com/post/trouble-hiring/)

(I am not affiliated with them in any way)

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18955731)

</comment><comment><USER3> With senior engineers, you tell them what you do and ask them their opinion on it. Pay attention to their questions. Ask them what they think would improve the system. Pay attention to how they diagnose your system.</comment>


25 Things You Missed at SXSW 2015 by Gapingvoid - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/gapingvoid/25-things-you-missed-at-sxsw-2015-by-gapingvoid

<comment><USER2> SXSW is our Burning Man, baby. It's our TED.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the share.</comment>


You Think Nokia Uses Deceptive Advertising? Have You Heard of Apple? - <AUTHOR> http://pocketnow.com/2012/09/11/false-advertising-apple-vs-nokia

<comment><USER2> Apple is a special case. They spend more on advertising than the GDP of most countries. The media won't--can't--call Apple on its deceptive advertising because Apple, even post-Jobs, is notoriously vindicative with these sorts of matters. For too many media companies, Apple's ad buys are what keep them in the black (or at least, out of bankruptcy).</comment>


ICANN extracts $20m signing fee for $1bn dot-com price increases - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/07/icann_verisign_fees/ <comment><USER2> This appears to be a fierce competition between ICANN, the IOC, and the reigning corruption champion: FIFA.

<comment><USER3> That's funny.

<comment><USER4> It's also one of the subjects in _The Dictator 's Handbook_, an excellent layman's read on political economics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

[https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost- Po...](https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost- Politics/dp/1610391845)

If you want the hardcore game theory version, check out _The Logic of Political Survival_ by the same authors: [https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita...](https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/gov2126/files/bueno_mesquita_2003_logic.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All this BS with ICANN, what other options are out there to replace them? Some decentralised solution would be great, I guess Namecoin is trying...

What other options are there that you're aware of?

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

<comment><USER6> OpenNIC looks like the easiest replacement, they mention some other TLDs they're peered with on their front page such as emerDNS which is decentralized.

That doesn't work for anyone who wants their site accessible to the public though, since it won't resolve. Maybe once a few ISPs switch and Google, OpenDNS etc. change their resolvers it'll be a possibility.

<comment><USER7> OpenNIC is no different than ICANN aside from being a failure. It just appears to be better since it uses a talk track that's attractive, but structurally, it's probably even worse than ICANN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The ICANN ITSELF got 20m. How many senior members will, in totally unrelated transactions, suddenly find they can buy yachts or pay off mortgages they previously couldn't in the next 12 months?

<comment><USER9> Nah, they just change the rules then immediately jump into companies built specifically to take advantage of the rule changes.

See the theft of dot org or the opening of TLDs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, the price caps on .com have been released too? Isn't this the same as what happened to .org? When will we hear that .net is ballooning too?

What a scam.

<comment><USER11> Honestly, I will just not renew, my domains aren't that special. I'll rather have 1 domain and everything else be a subdomain.

<comment><USER10> I'm defiantly going to drop down. Right now I have a personal domain, my parents domain and a few other. High schooler me didn't realize what I was signing myself up for when I started using a personal domain.

<comment><USER12> You can also use alternative root zone projects like Handshake.org. Most people wouldn't be able to resolve it by default but if it's just for personal use it's trivial to set up a resolver for friends and family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh look capital is eating another public service who'd've thunk

<comment><USER9> We never bothered to properly build ICANN as a lasting public service. This is what happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What TLDs should be looked at that are in the nearly $10~ or less range and are not likely to rate hike? I hate the idea of investing $10/year in a personal use domain then getting a surprise $50 bill X years later.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is corruption in it's purest form, but I feel like there might be a silver lining here. If they increase prices on domains the scummy domain name squatters will get burned and have to dump a good chunk of their inventory when renewal comes up. They're basically taking the margin that the scalpers were exploiting.

<comment><USER16> Legitimate players lose out as well. But you're correct that this hurts the squatters more, as they're the ones subject to linear multiple cost increases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The rent seeking has begun in earnest.

<comment><USER18> I can't see how this is rent seeking. .com domains are a finite and scarce resource, they should be increasing in price over time. The registration costs are also a tiny fraction of what any desirable domain name would sell for on the secondary market. I don't think you can describe selling something for well below the equilibrium price as rent seeking.

I'm also not sure it's even a bad thing to have registration costs increasing. DNS is a highly dysfunctional system, especially for the popular TLDs. If you want an alternative system to take its place, then rising registration costs will only increase the demand for that.

<comment><USER19> Since you're getting downvoted for an honest question, I'll explain: you're confusing the cost of _owning_ a domain with the cost of _registering_ a domain. ICANN and Verisign don't own nor sell domain names, they just perform administrative functions relating to owning and selling them. The gist of this article is that Verisign gave ICANN a kickback to get the right to charge more money without adding more value, which is pretty much what "rent-seeking" means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> So let's get the players straight:

In 2014 the Obama Admin decided to cede control of ICANN.

ICANN is run like a classic Italian mafia org, with corruption at every level and zero accountability.

This year the Trump Admin rubber stamped a price increase on .com because.... reasons?

The price of domains should trend down. not up. This is a classic case of regulation being abused by those in power to give each other a bonus.

Running a global address book has gotten cheaper and easier with automation and yet we're allowing these orgs to just increase prices willynilly instead of trying to make internet hosting more accessible.

<comment><USER21> > The price of domains should trend down.

Their value doesn't, so why should renewals go down?* It's not like registration is related to anything like cost of operation...

*: I'm not in favour of this, but living in a capitalist market, I'm surprised things haven't gotten much worse, e.g. a sliding scale cost for domains, so Amazon would have to pay $50,000,000/year for its domain, for example.

<comment><USER22> I was actually thinking about this the other day. Domains are too easy to get, and too cheap to hold on to. I like being able to go to Namecheap and buy a domain name for under $10... what I _don 't_ like is the hours or days I spend trying to find a domain name that isn't already taken and parked. And even if you paid $3k for that parked domain, it might now have _years_ of history with search engines as a parked domain that you have to fight against.

If ICANN really wants more money, they'd increase the renewal fee for parked domains every year until it's actually put into use.

<comment><USER23> >If ICANN really wants more money, they'd increase the renewal fee for parked domains every year until it's actually put into use.

and how do you differentiate a parked domain from a non-parked domain?

<comment><USER24> Yeah, people always use domains for non-website purposes, like email etc with nothing coming up if browsed. Also, with no dns on main except cnames, which can not be easily found as easily mx or txt records can be seen on a gived direct domain.

<comment><USER22> That's not really a parked domain then is it? You know when you've hit a parked domain when it loads a page covered in ads that says "buy this domain for $30,000" at the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I never understood the fascination with domain names anyway.

I actually rather liked just memorizing IP's. I thought it had a nice parity with phone numbers, which we were all kind of used to anyway.

The whole "buy a name" thing struck me as little more than a land grab for speculators anyway. You already have a unique identifier to the overall network... Just use it!</comment>


Seperate Comments/Whitespace from Production Files - <AUTHOR>

I was curious if anyone has a tool/Dreamweaver method/workflow method for separating white-space & comments out of css/javascript/html files.
I'm almost envisioning a tool that will mark the location of a comment or white-space in a file and will keep track; so that you can strip it when uploading to production, and then when you re-open the file, the tool will insert comments & white-space.
I'm interested if anyone has anything ready, because I could use it for work immediately. However, if nothing exists, or the interface sucks, I guess I now have a side-project to hack on. ^_^ <comment><USER2> You might want to look at Leo: <http://webpages.charter.net/edreamleo/front.html>

In particular, you'll be interested in the @shadow file type, which keeps two versions of a file, one with the "sentinels" marking the structure and one without.

Warning: in my experience, the "sentinels" are prejudiced against collaboration. Either you put the version with sentinels into Git/Hg/Bzr and the merge of changes made by two separate parties is more likely than otherwise to create corrupt files, or you put the version without sentinels under version control, and then your collaborators lose the benefit of the structure or anything else that has been omitted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly what I'm getting at with using version control on the production file; we don't use a strict testing/production file-system (and I'm not high enough on the food chain to change that) instead someone may open the production file and make changes as they see fit. (not many someone's but still..)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is a minifier different from what you're describing? I may be missing something, but that sounds very similar to what you want.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good question! This should make it a little more clear:

The biggest thing I'm looking for is I don't want to 'lose' my comments; it's just that I don't want them in the final file; and I'm looking for an easier method than keeping two different files (one with and one w/o comments).</comment></comment>


Email prankster dupes White House staff - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-01/white-house-investigating-email-prank-against-top-officials <comment><USER2> How long until He gets his twitter account phished and a kid from 4chan starts a war with North Korea?

Insane times...</comment>


Em Baseline Generator - <AUTHOR> http://joshnh.com/tools/em-baseline-generator.html <comment><USER2> This is very nice, but wondering if the em can be rounded a bit? I'm not sure there's much difference between _1.5238095238095237em;_ and _1.524em;_

<comment><USER3> Good call, I've fixed that.

<comment><USER4> Same for line-height and margin-bottom?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do I need to use em? I thought browsers handled things like zooming on their own nowadays. What's wrong with px?

<comment><USER6> With em you define a base font-size in px. And then you express multiples of the base in em, instead of multiplying manually

<comment><USER7> How is it different, better/worse, than expressing font sizes as percentage?

<comment><USER8> Ems and percents behave differently when a user changes the browser's font size setting (which I think you only see in IE now), but are otherwise the same. Other than that the only advantage is in the fact that ems are a standard convention for designers and typographers, who are used to expressing measurements as a proportion of the text size, and "1 em" is just a more concise representation of that measurement than "100% of the point size of the font in use".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent! You should also checkout <http://www.gridlover.net/>

</comment><comment><USER10> The letters are hanging in the air, i think a good demonstration would show the baseline of the letters to coincide with the line pattern!

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Typograph...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Typography_Line_Terms.svg)

<comment><USER3> Hi, creator here. Unfortunately that's not how CSS works. See here for more information: [http://joshnh.com/2012/10/12/how-does-line-height- actually-w...](http://joshnh.com/2012/10/12/how-does-line-height-actually- work/)

<comment><USER10> I read your article. But i am still wondering why you cant shift the pattern so that the lines really line up with the baseline. You can influence the leading via margin or padding and the line-height property, right?

<comment><USER3> Absolutely, you can hack it on a very individual basis, but this introduces some major problems. For instance, browsers and operating systems all render fonts differently, and as the web is fluid by nature, simply having a sentence break to the next line can be an issue. Also, it can be incredibly different based on the typefaces you are using.

<comment><USER10> then i still don't get it. When a simple line break would break a horizontal baseline-aligned grid, wouldn't it break a horizontal baseline-plus-some- space-aligned grid?

Although the css prop. "line-heigt" is not implemented in a convenient way, it is still deterministic as I understand from the quoted article:

"This is determined by working out the difference between the line-height and the font-size, dividing by 2, and then placing the calculated amount of space above and below each line of text."

<comment><USER3> Only if you are using line-height to hack together a print baseline on the web.

Let me put it this way, if there was a semi-reasonable solution, I'm sure you would have heard about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Would be nice to have classes for the 6 font sizes as well. I typically don't use H tags to control font size.

<comment><USER12> Seems easy enough to just edit the generated code to add your classes.

Also, shouldn't you be using headlines when headlines should be used instead of classes? Semantics and everything.

<comment><USER11> Sure but semantic importance doesn't necessarily need to have anything to do with font sizing. It's also easy enough to generate the code myself, the point of a generator would arguably have been to do that for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I prefer using rem over em. Em values multiply when nested where rem values do not.

<comment><USER3> I plan on having an option to output rem with px fallback code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Might I recommend lorem ipsum to paragraph. paragraph paragraph. paragraph. ?

It gives a more meaningful look at how a paragraph would actually look.

</comment><comment><USER15> We require more Lorem.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another thing: When your reactive layout switches to a single column. Float the sliders. so they're always visible.

Actually floating the sliders so they're always visible is probably a good idea regardless of layout.

<comment><USER3> What browser/OS? I can't replicate the issue you seem to be having.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a better way for me to interact with companies - <AUTHOR> Hi All
Posting here since this is a community that likes solving problems or (even better) may know of a solution.
I am based in the US (just moved here), and I wonder if there is service (or if I am missing something) that will improve how I currently interact with companies? For example, when I moved apartments, I needed to make contact with all credit card companies, my gas and power, bank (you get the picture) to update my address. If I am lucky, it involves me logging into dozens of sites to update things. If I am unlucky, I need to call them up. In addition, my mail box is constantly filled with special offers and discounts that I don't ask for (some which is actually useful, most is not).
So... hoping someone can point me to a solution where I can manage all this (if it even exists). If it doesn't exist, is someone building something? <comment><USER2> Switch to companies that are easier to get ahold of (if your current supplier doesn't allow to change your details online, switch to a competitor that does), and possibly cut down on the number of companies you interact with so the task takes less time.

> In addition, my mail box

Email or physical mail? For email, every time you get receive bullshit, spend a minute to try and unsubscribe. I recommend _not_ using the link and instead logging into the website and unsubscribing from _all_ their mailing lists, where as the unsubscribe link would usually only unsubscribe you from _one_ of their mailing lists.

For physical mail if it's a company you have an account with I guess you could do the same and see if there's a way to opt-out (I imagine they would want to save costs and not spend money mailing out physical spam to someone that isn't interested). For the rest sadly there isn't much to do, but if any spam arrives with prepaid envelopes just put their garbage in there and send it back to them, just to waste some of their money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It seems like such a waster of time and money to do this all the time. For mail, I meant physical mail (email I always unsubscribe). I just can't get rid of all this physical mail.

Question: Do people actually read all this "physical mail spam". I assume they do, otherwise companies wouldn't bother us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think that's just how things are. I'm 23 and haven't found a better way yet!

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no. I was hoping that this would not be the case. In your opinion, is there any service that can do this for me? I mean, I am sure other people have this problem as well, someone must be solving it?</comment></comment>


The architect of the Reich: On the architectural horror of Albert Speer - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-architect-of-the-Reich-8384 <comment><USER2> Surprised the article doesn't mention the theory that Speer is most famously associated with: the idea that future generations judge civilisations primarily by the aesthetic quality of the ruins they left behind. Largely true (and not an original idea, despite Speer's claims), but a surprisingly chilling observation in context.

<comment><USER3> See, for example, the Victorian fashion for building Gothic or neoclassical "follies", sometimes _as ruins_ to achieve that aesthetic.

A lot of Fascism was based on emulating the Romans, whose ruins are famous. It's right there in the name, taken from _fasces_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The other thing is that the massive constructions of nazi Germany aren't dissimilar to the architecture of many public buildings in Washington or elsewhere.

Reich chancellery building: [http://terrainandtoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/54mm- rei...](http://terrainandtoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/54mm-reich- chancellery-backdrop.html)

National Postal Museum (DC) [https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=9...](https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=980&bih=643&q=national+postal+museum+washington&oq=national+postal+museum+washington&gs_l=img.3..0i24.3694.3694.0.4622.214.171.124.0.0.0.60.184.108.40.206....0...1ac.2.64.img..0.1.59.fo_zD_ohfMw)

At the end of day the codes to impress people with a building are always similar.

<comment><USER5> Actually the Nazi architecture is close to fascist architecture in Italy, not so much to classicist architecture elsewhere. You can see that in the details, for example that DC building you linked has classical doorways and round columns with greek capitals, while Speer-style Nazi buildings have a brutalistic tone with square columns and avoidance of details that point to a humanistic heritage (see also the stylized eagle). In some way, this is the fascist form of architectural modernism.

edit: yes, both are made to impress, but that's just as true for big glass&steel-buildings that share not much with those two examples other than the massive, larger than human size of everything.

<comment><USER6> No comparison. Italian Fascist architecture was graceful [1][2][3].

[1]:[https://static-secure.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pic...](https://static-secure.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/2/15/1424025276648/97877c1e-3f90-4a13-8bee-2e88885fdbdf-2060x1236.jpeg)

[2]: [http://41.media.tumblr.com/9b6cfa0be5785abbfb2c8e107cbb1565/...](http://41.media.tumblr.com/9b6cfa0be5785abbfb2c8e107cbb1565/tumblr_mki3wfNRfp1rfybgvo1_1280.jpg)

[3]: [http://s4.thingpic.com/images/ho/S4VCpGhFJtXuBJVU5aY7ZKhR.jp...](http://s4.thingpic.com/images/ho/S4VCpGhFJtXuBJVU5aY7ZKhR.jpeg)

<comment> at-fates-hands It still gives you an imposing feel. Fascist regimes saw this style of architecture as another means to highlight the strength and imposing will of the state over its citizens.

Make no mistake, it was meant to be oppressive, discolored, and raw. Not terms someone readily associates with "graceful".

<comment><USER7> I think he was being sarcastic, since the last pic seems clearly "brutalist"? (is that the right term?)

<comment><USER5> "Brutalist" as a tendency definitely, as much of modernism is - but actual Brutalism is a style that is almost comically using modern materials, like this church in Cologne [http://www.kirschfoto.de/galerie/bilderkiste/pics_high/koeln...](http://www.kirschfoto.de/galerie/bilderkiste/pics_high/koeln_2014_01.jpg) or this university building in Berlin: [http://40.media.tumblr.com/ed3608dcb4860ad6dc8df05c4bd807ca/...](http://40.media.tumblr.com/ed3608dcb4860ad6dc8df05c4bd807ca/tumblr_nzgmhcXPCA1unjxq9o1_1280.jpg)

<comment><USER7> Wow, the last one looks reminds me of many public buildings in my city: [https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/11038238423_8788196347_b...](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/11038238423_8788196347_b.jpg)

I'm not sure I'm looking at the right details when "classifying" it, though.

This one was built in 1972.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The Venice Architecture Biennale will also have a focus on Nazi Architecture.

>The Evidence Room was the combined effort of a team of students and faculty of the University of Waterloo School of Architecture headed by Anne Bordeleau, Sascha Hastings, Donald McKay, and van Pelt.

>It features life-sized replicas and casts of key pieces described in his testimony about Auschwitz, including a gas column, gas door, a section of wall with a gas-tight hatch and other items that definitively proved the site was a factory of death.

There's a fascinating radio interview at this link: [http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday- march-2-201...](http://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/schedule-for-wednesday- march-2-2015-1.3472195/chilling-exhibit-the-evidence-room-recreates-a-nazi- gas-chamber-1.3472244)

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a distinct impression that half the modern architects are in on the conspiracy to demean and hinder the people who use their creation. Looking at most modern buildings they are either imposing or convoluted.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture#Critici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture#Criticism_and_reception)

<comment><USER11> I find this era as fascinating as horrifying. It's surreal dreamy and timeless yet inhuman at the same time.

ps: some scenes of Total Recall were filmed in a military school in Mexico which such design. As a kid not knowing that school, it made 30% of the realism of that movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> if you like this area, I highly recommend reading Adam Tooze's The Wages of Destruction - The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. It takes an economics lens on Nazi Germany both pre and during the war. A lot of the book centers on Speer and other 2nd/3rd tier people in the Nazi regime.

</comment><comment><USER13> Read his "Inside the Third Reich" many years ago. Had no idea until I read this article that he has been discredited. For anyone who hasn't read it, it can pretty much be summed up as "All I ever wanted to do was architecture, and I just got caught up in a series of events. I was surrounded by brutes and buffoons, and I just did my best with the situation I found myself in." Also some very valuable insights into Hitler's persona, but can you believe anything in that book now?

<comment><USER14> When I read that book I had to take some of his statements with a grain of salt. Even then, when the Posen proof was not yet known. As explained in this article he lied a lot. He had to, esp. the Posen incident where he got away with it even if it was totally unbelievable. We only got the proof recently. And his involvement in Todt's slave labour "Organization". He was his boss after all and got all the credit for its success. Even rising up to be the designated follower of Hitler. Todt got the death sentence for it and he successfully talked his way out of it.

But then his made up prison stories to impress his fellow germans just broke it. He was a lousy architect after all, as Poelzig correctly found out. What was interesting for the americans then, how he managed to be so incredibly successful as manager of war-time economy. It was unbelievable and unexpected. McNamara would have been very proud of Speer's accomplishments. He was a kind of genius figure for the americans.

<comment><USER15> Obviously you can't take his book as your only source of truth but it provides a lot of insight into how the Nazi system worked. I found especially the parts about Hitler very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Speer's monumental plans aren't that horrific as such things go. Other big, intimidating monumental complexes have been built.

\- Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany, NY. This is the state capitol.[1] A big plaza surrounded by 1960s concrete brutalism at its finest.

\- The Raj Path at Delhi.[2] Built by the British to impress the heathens.

\- Place du la Defense, Paris.[3] Contains a building built to look like a wind tunnel intake. Built partly as a rebellion against the city of Paris building height limit. It's just outside the city limits.

There are other big monumental complexes - Washington, DC, Red Square, Tienanmen Square, and Brasilia, for example. But the three above stand out for their deliberately intimidating architecture.

As for the square-column thing, that was a 1930s-1950s fad. The US State Department Building has an imposing square-column facade. It's not as imposing as it used to be, because there are guard houses and terrorism barriers blocking the view. The Pentagon also has square columns, on all five faces.

The author of the parent article is a Jew, so he has to be negative on the work of a Nazi.

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/DF8n1Ew3ua52](https://goo.gl/maps/DF8n1Ew3ua52) [2] [https://goo.gl/maps/AY43jg4WmN92](https://goo.gl/maps/AY43jg4WmN92) [3] [https://goo.gl/maps/WCSdUqnaEek](https://goo.gl/maps/WCSdUqnaEek) [4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S_Truman_Building](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S_Truman_Building)

</comment><comment><USER14> Excellent characterization and summary. In German those types are called "Angeber" but you really have to read his books to get that. Essentially he said he is soo clever, he memorized most of the books in his prison library

</comment><comment><USER6> Architecture and authoritarianism go together like milk and cookies. There is an inherent desire to order and control in the architectural mindset.

</comment><comment><USER17> An article about architecture with no pictures, seems a waste. Apart from that it was very interesting.</comment>


Concerns about the F-35's agile software development process - <AUTHOR> https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/02/06/the-pentagons-weapons-tester-has-concerns-about-the-f-35s-new-software-development-process/ <comment><AUTHOR> > _Software changes, intended to introduce new capabilities or fix > deficiencies, often introduced stability problems and adversely affected > other functionality._

> _Under the C2D2 construct, F-35s are set to receive software updates every > six months. That leaves little time to test out the new code, often > resulting in "significant" bugs being discovered in the field, Behler > wrote._</comment>


New York's Shadow Transit - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/sandbox/projects/nyc-dollar-vans/

<comment><USER2> What a great article! It's put together like a research paper but reads like a novel. I love The New Yorker.</comment>