GoPro IPO on LOYAL3 - <AUTHOR> https://ipo.loyal3.com/gopro

<comment><USER2> It's always seemed strange to me that IPOs are not open to the public in the US. Is it some kind of Great Depression legacy?

Here in Finland IPOs have been open since at least the '80s, or maybe always... In the original dot-com hype days of 1999, there would be long queues in front of banks as the "Joe Publics" wanted to put their money into IT stocks that were mostly crap ISPs or web design consultancies. All those stocks crashed hard a year later, of course. (But then again, you wouldn't have been much better off investing in the "big and established winners" like Nokia, which peaked at around 90€ and later traded at below 2€ in the darkest post-Symbian days.)

<comment><USER3> There was actually a really interesting experiment at the tail end of the dotcom boom -- the WR+Hambrecht (San Francisco) "OpenIPO". Essentially it was a dutch auction (I think) for IPO shares, and open to the public. Google was the big success.

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

VA Linux did some interesting stuff with their IPO (so did RedHat, I think), where community members got access above what the public received, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. From the Loyal3 landing page: [https://www.loyal3.com/](https://www.loyal3.com/)

 _" I love the Amazon brand and service, and now I can invest in this brand whenever I have a spare $20 or $50." -Jacob Ortiz_

And then on their "About us"

 _We offer a technology platform where people can buy stock in their favorite brands in 3 easy steps, invest as little as $10 and pay no fees, really.

By using ownership to bring brands together with the people who love them, the LOYAL3 platform deepens brand engagement and creates more valuable and loyal stakeholders._

Then the letter from the CEO: [https://www.loyal3.com/about- loyal3.html#contact](https://www.loyal3.com/about-loyal3.html#contact)

Basically what I read from this is that people can, for as little as $10, own a piece of any company, especially ones that "they love", and not-legally- speaking have to do zero financial diligence. I'm all for innovation, but that's scary.

<comment><USER5> > Basically what I read from this is that people can, for as little as $10, > own a piece of any company, especially ones that "they love", and not- > legally-speaking have to do zero financial diligence. I'm all for > innovation, but that's scary.

How is that any different than the other trading platforms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This Loyal3 looks interesting because of the IPOs, credit card purchasing, and the no fees option.

However I am wondering what happens if the company (LOYAL3) folds since it allows fractional shares? Closest reference I found was this,

"LOYAL3 Securities, Inc., as a broker-dealer, has to comply with certain regulations regarding the requirement to have adequate net capital and asset protection. LOYAL3 segregates your securities holdings and cash in your account, meaning it keeps your assets separate from the firm's own assets. In addition, LOYAL3 Securities, Inc., is a member of SIPC, which protects securities of the customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash). An explanatory brochure is available at www.sipc.org."

<comment><USER7> In the case if a full service firm, you can move those shares to another account at a different institution once the year settles. Should be the car at this company too, but I suspect that the process would be much more annoying since you can't just pester a person on the phone for info.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Knowing nothing at all about investing, this looks pretty awesome. I wish they could provide a global service, being outside of the US.

What are the limitations of using a platform like this to buy shares and what would the limitations be on their side to be US only?

</comment><comment><USER9> This concept and platform seem like a great thing, but GoPro's $3B valuation may be aggressive.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _We offer access to all U.S. residents only_

Ugh.</comment>


User Privacy Isn't Solely a Facebook Issue - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/04/user-privacy-isnt-solely-facebook-issue <comment><USER2> How quickly everyone forgets Google's big privacy changes in 2012 that allowed them to aggregate user data from YouTube, Google Search, and all its other platforms. [1] Until the privacy conversation meaningfully includes Google, it seems insufficient.

For Example, to keep your data separate on each platform, Google suggests: "For individuals who would like to continue using Google products, but want to create some type of silo between Google search, YouTube, and other products, there is an option to set up multiple Google accounts. Users can set up two or more accounts as long as they have different Gmail addresses; however, individuals using this strategy to protect their privacy should be careful not to commingle-consider using separate browsers for each of your Google accounts."

Data sharing spans Google Maps, Search, Youtube, Gmail/GSuite, Chrome, Contacts, etc. [2]

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/what-actually- changed-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/02/what-actually-changed- google's-privacy-policy)

[2] [https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190)

EDIT: Added quote from EFF Article about siloing your data between Google Services.

<comment><USER3> I think that this is the best privacy conversation so far... it's a good start at least.

<comment><USER4> Since you just created this account, could you please use a different one that doesn't add partisan flamebait every time you post? Maybe it shouldn't matter, but I guarantee you it will provoke a flamewar eventually, and probably sooner than later.

(A better solution would be to rename the account, but that feature isn't ready yet.)

Edit (2020): I usually use the phrase 'trollish usernames' when I posted about this: [https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20trollish%20username).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Badly written laws in reaction to Cambridge Analytica could end up solidifying Facebook's dominance, as only a company with their resources could comply."

Without examples, it is difficult to understand what the author is trying to communicate with this statement. Is it too vague?

Hypothetically, if a user was provided with a software program that allowed her computers to form separate and distinct peer-to-peer "social networks" with small groups of family, friends or colleagues without any assistance from a third party website such as Facebook, would the "badly written laws" affect this type of competition?

Should we assume that the only competition for Facebook could come from another website that resembles it, both in size and architecture? Will users ever grow tired of the limitations and negative side effects of the centralised, web-based, third party-managed "social network" styled after Facebook?

Are the privacy issues that Facebook must contend with due, at least in part, to the architecture of their "network", viz. aggregating millions of small social groups together in a single website where they can be more easily targeted by advertisers.

What if, instead of millions of small social groups managed by one website company (Facebook), these groups were each independently managed by the members themselves, having no centralised path for advertisers nor "bad actors" to reach them.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think they are barking up the complete wrong tree with Facebook. Facebook isn't an ISP and should not be treated like one.

Some congressmen question Facebooks EULA stating: "Do you think people read it before agreeing?" Should this be facebook's burden? If i don't read the contract for a creditcard before signing it, put my self in serious debt, should the bank be questioned too?

Colt is not facing questions for every AR-15 used in mass shootings, and to my knowledge does not even come with a recommendation not to kill innocent people, yet facebook should own up to the US government?

I developed a few Facebook apps back in 2009 so i was fairly aware i could see basic data like friends of users of my app, but once more every time you install an app you have to agree on what permissions are handed out.

What i did not know about was the collections of shadow profiles, but even that makes some sense.. Some people will allow facebook to plow their inbox where my communication might be and at the end of the day, if i never register an account with Facebook it will be harder to spoof my identity by someone else.

Responsibility should be with Aleksandr Kogan, and possibly Cambridge Analytica.

As for LinkedIn, that day will be interesting :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Personally I'm waiting until GDPR comes into effect before requesting all the data LinkedIn has on me and information on any third parties they may have given my data to.

I'm mildly terrified by some of the suggestions they have made which could only come from linking third-party data sets.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love the EFF, but as of late it seems like all they've been doing is playing the role of Captain Obvious to whatever media controversy is happening.

<comment><USER9> You'd be surprised if you knew the amount of things that aren't obvious to the tech-ignorant average citizen.

<comment><USER10> Just today one of the top r/funny posts had comments with people totally shocked and amazed that shadow profiles exist and actively in use. What is obvious to us is so not obvious for most of the people.</comment></comment></comment>


Researching ResearchKit - <AUTHOR> http://petersteinberger.com/blog/2015/researching-researchkit/

<comment><USER2> Using video instead of writing and maintaining a lot of code for those animation is a very good decision.</comment>


An obvious jerk who thinks highly of his rockstar status - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-meetup-for-rockstar-designers-in-SF

<comment><USER2> First thing that pops into mind is the Dunning-Kruger effect <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

<comment><AUTHOR> Perfect explanation.</comment></comment>


China announces jobs programs for college grads - <AUTHOR> http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/01/07/business/AS-China-Employment.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Background story from Xinhua:

"Labor Pains: Downturn upends career dreams of China's college grads"

[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/04/content_1060222...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/04/content_10602229.htm)</comment>


The sky's gone dark - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/09/the-skys-gone-dark.html <comment><USER2> This will be a very interesting question. There are some mitigating factors however that make remediation a bit easier.

The first is that many, perhaps most of the satellites orbiting in LEO do so traveling west -> east. That is because rockets use the Earths natural rotation to get a free "kicker" to orbit. Thus entering orbit headed that direction will be less dangerous than trying a different orbit, much like entering the freeway in the direction of traffic is easier than trying to go the opposite direction.

If the goal is cleanup then, you want want to reduce orbital velocity so that the orbit gets lower and the atmospheric drag can pull things down.

Some simulations have looked at very fine mists of "soft" materials introduced in a retrograde (opposite) orbit, as a way to rapidly degrade the orbits of everything in LEO. Think of it as debris being hit by a million particles of sand, none of which is enough by itself to deorbit the device but collectively, over time, it transfers all of its momentum to the space junk.

In the ideal case X kg of "sand" in a retrograde orbit would deorbit X kg or "junk" in the typical equatorial orbit. As the momentum was transferred from the sand to the junk both would fall out of the sky.

That would only work for clearing a lane though. If you could create enough space to clear a lane then you could launch something like NASA's laser ablation idea which would travel in the same orbit as the remaining junk and fire a laser at junk to impart some delta-V when the material ablates off the junk.

Regardless two things are going to be true, its going to be a pain, and anyone in orbit during the first cascade will die.</comment>


'Cloning' makes human stem cell - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15191866

<comment><USER2> Link to the original paper (or abstract, for those of us who lack access): [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7367/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7367/full/nature10397.html)

<comment><USER3> > The exchange of the oocyte's genome with the genome of a somatic cell, > followed by the derivation of pluripotent stem cells, could enable the > generation of specific cells affected in degenerative human diseases. Such > cells, carrying the patient's genome, might be useful for cell replacement. > Here we report that the development of human oocytes after genome exchange > arrests at late cleavage stages in association with transcriptional > abnormalities. In contrast, if the oocyte genome is not removed and the > somatic cell genome is merely added, the resultant triploid cells develop to > the blastocyst stage. Stem cell lines derived from these blastocysts > differentiate into cell types of all three germ layers, and a pluripotent > gene expression program is established on the genome derived from the > somatic cell. This result demonstrates the feasibility of reprogramming > human cells using oocytes and identifies removal of the oocyte genome as the > primary cause of developmental failure after genome exchange.

"Oocyte" = egg cell. "Somatic" = normal (non-ovum/sperm) body cell. "Pluripotent" = capable of developing into all cell types.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can you imagine the ruckus if he had actually implanted this embryo? Wow. Up till now human cloning was impossible.

Would be especially interesting for a woman to do this to her own eggs since the chromosome mixing would not change anything in that case.

Someone tell me if I've misunderstood this.

<comment><USER5> You it might be viable but it would not be a clone in the traditional meaning.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is huge. Recollected pluripotent cells can only be reproduced and divided a very limited number of times with the techniques we know so far (it used to be ~2x). A big problem was that only a very small amount of stem cells usable for treatment can be collected from ,say, like a placenta.

</comment><comment><USER7> quick, let's get some of jobs skin cells! on a more serious note: I wonder whether the state of the skin cells matter - eg. would this work on conserved/dead skin cells as well?</comment>


Tell HN: The application links on the YC Apply are broken [Fixed] - <AUTHOR>

http://ycombinator.com/apply.html
Application Form link (http://news.ycombinator.com/apply) leads to:
Sorry, we're no longer considering applications for summer 2011.
Check back later to apply for winter 2012.
[Edit] Fixed: in case it goes south again, the link is: http://news.ycombinator.com/w2012form <comment><USER2> Oops, fixed. Sorry.</comment>


Here's how Peter Norvig thinks people should prepare for machine learning - happy-go-lucky https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/29/googles-peter-norvig-how-to-prepare-for-ai-job-losses.html <comment><AUTHOR> It's as if these people have no comprehension of how many menial jobs still exist only because they are not yet automated, and how many of the people performing them will never be great problem solvers in an emerging, AI- assisted economy.</comment>


Fudging jobless statistics: Conflicting government stats skew jobless rate - <AUTHOR> http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/09/fudging-unemployment-statistics/?feat=home_headlines

<comment><USER2> This is sadly not unique to the Obama administration. Every president since at least Kennedy has altered the statistical measures of key economic indicators in order to hide weakness in the economy. Here's a fantastic article on the subject of bipartisan economic perfidy: <http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/05/0082023>

<comment><USER3> You're right. But it does seem like the perfect place for the Obama administration to follow through on it's promises and release the raw data for these calculations to the public each month (in a machine readable format of course)</comment></comment>


Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> The strategy of RIAA et al seems to be working. Make an example out of someone and the rest of the weaker links runs for cover. Even if the megaupload team gets acquited later, it will still be a battle won.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems like an unusual reaction. I thought a lot of these sites made fun of legal requests or takedown attempts, and when one went down, another would take its place. I wonder what's got them cowering this time?

<comment><USER4> Jail time and having your cars seized and sold.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: List of words – List of regexes tool? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know of a tool that would input a list of strings and output a list of regexes that match the strings? An intelligent regex pattern matcher ? If not, what do you think about building something like this? <comment><USER2> There is this insane email validating RegEx [0]. The page says:

> I did not write this regular expression by hand. It is generated by the Perl > module by concatenating a simpler set of regular expressions that relate > directly to the grammar defined in the RFC.

There's also the famous xkcd Regex Golf [1]. Peter Norvig writes:

>So that got me thinking: can I come up with an algorithm to find a short regex that matches the winners and not the losers?

And he described his steps to create a RegEx using a list of words that must be matched and those that must not be matched [2]

[0]: [http://www.ex-parrot.com/~pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html](http://www.ex- parrot.com/~pdw/Mail-RFC822-Address.html)

[1]: [https://xkcd.com/1313/](https://xkcd.com/1313/)

[2]: [http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/xkcd1313....](http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/xkcd1313.ipynb)

<comment><USER3> If how to create these giant matchstick regexes interest you, there is a wonderful(famous?) perl script generating a regex 6,598 chars long, more optimized and faster than earlier attempt at 4,724 bytes, in Jeffrey Friedl's book, Mastering Regular Expressions, 1st edition, Oreilly, pp 312-316, Appedix B: Email Regex Program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, this is somewhat vague. There's more than one way of matching any string - you'd have to be more specific about what exact form you want your regexes to have.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. I was thinking about a tool that would give you a list of regexes, ranked by some factor that aims to get at the regex pattern that'll be useful. For example, if I gave it, [email@example.com, email@example.com] it would give all kinds of regex patterns, but ideally point to [a-z]@[a-z].com

<comment><USER5> I think you need to consider more specifically what you want. Another possible regex would be /name2?@(?:som)?e(mail|thing)\\.com/ or even /(name@email\\.email@example.com)/

I was able to find this: [https://github.com/noprompt/frak](https://github.com/noprompt/frak)</comment></comment></comment>


From Australia to Chile, a visualization of the distribution of wildfire smoke - <AUTHOR> https://graphics.reuters.com/AUSTRALIA-BUSHFIRES-SMOK/0100B4W52R7/index.html <comment><USER2> From the article:

> As they have raged for months in Australia, the fires have pumped 400 > megatonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

That's crazy. For comparison, 400 megatonnes is roughly half of what Germany emits in a whole year.[1]

[1] [https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys- co2-emissions-...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys- co2-emissions-set-fall-markedly-year-energy-use-declines)</comment>


Ask HN: Recommendations for open source Framework/Library to work on - <AUTHOR> Hey HN!
I'm a CS student who just finished his second year in school.
I'm passionate about Data Science, Visualizations, and cool web technology. I have a large background in development. I've never worked on a open source project and want to give it a shot!
Does anyone know of any projects that are cool? I've been looking and thought I'd ask the HN community.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> have a look here: [https://dev.to/kerryja/getting-started-with-open- source-3o23](https://dev.to/kerryja/getting-started-with-open-source-3o23)

also, if you want to contribute, i am looking for contributors: [https://github.com/doganoo/PHPAlgorithms](https://github.com/doganoo/PHPAlgorithms)</comment>


Dstat project ended due to RedHat replacing it with its own dstat tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/issues/170 <comment><USER4> Having read through this post and the previous comments[1] I have to say that RedHat did the right thing in the completely worst possible way.

Stealing the project name was a mistake. The authors are right to be upset by the fact that people used to get their project when they did "yum install dstat" but now are getting a completely different (and not completely compatible) project. I think a lot of the friction could have gone away if they had just named it "pcp-dstat" or something similar, but instead they essentially took this person's namespace without discussion, and really for no good reason that I can tell.

The other issue is that forking a project without even talking with the people running it is a very touchy subject. Ultimately it does look like the project was dead- even to the point where people were asking to contribute but not getting responded to, and the fact that python2 is EOL and python3 support wasn't added until after this drama started shows that the project wasn't really "active". So while I do think they should have reached out, I totally understand why that slipped their mind.

So at this point I think RedHat should apologize and fix the package name.

[1] [https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/issues/156](https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/issues/156)

<comment><USER5> It didn't just slip their mind, they did not really care: [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1614277#c7](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1614277#c7)

The decision to do this was made before June 2018, 18 months after the last activity. One of the reasons cited was lack of activity, but that is no thanks to them, I guess.

That is why I am convinced the goal was to replace it from the onset, there was no interest in helping out the project. In fact "no activity" was the right excuse to make their action seem legitimate. Attempting to contact the project could have jeopardized that plan.

They could have just removed "dstat" from the distribution, and added a note that users can now use pcp-dstat. But now they made it impossible for users to add the original dstat. Let alone the support nightmare of having a different tool with the same name. There's no winning this one.

<comment><USER6> I totally agree that they should have left a note on the issue tracker - <USER2> if they thought it would go unread. However I think you're being a little unfair on this one point.

>there was no interest in helping out the project.

They saw that people were filing issues and making pull requests and that those people were getting total radio silence. I can understand how someone might think "well, people are already trying to 'help the project' and the maintainer isn't even acknowledging it, so it's a waste of time".

And while again I totally understand and agree that they should have tried to contact you, you've known about the removal for like 9 months and you apparently never reached out to them either? Like, a couple words in reply to a bugzilla or an IRC message does not amount to picking a fight with a company.

<comment><USER5> Huh? Jumping to conclusions while not knowing all the facts. Please read up on the discussions that we had _after_ Red Hat made this decision. Their decision was made, end of discussion.

I am sure they made a sound business decision, and I think as a result of that I made the right personal decision. And here we are now having this meta- discussion with people not having a clue. Welcome !

<comment><USER6> You knew that it had been removed from Fedora months before they announced it was going to be replaced in RHEL. You seem totally confident that they wouldn't have just added the package back once you showed back up and addressed the issues that lead to it's removal. Maybe that's true, but I'm not sure it is.

<comment><USER5> There was a discussion in the Github issues. From that it was pretty clear this was a done deal. If the project is no longer maintained, why would they. And they had the PCP reimplementation ready.

You seem to imply there was no communication, and I stopped the project out of the blue. That is a misrepresentation.

Nobody stepped up to take over maintainership, and I don't see anyone doing that now. But if someone wants to try, I can unarchive the project and restore the PRs and issues.

If not, the king is dead, long live the king!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I submitted this PR long time ago: [https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/pull/50](https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/pull/50) that fixed an important installation issue, and it took the author 5 months to look at it and simply close it without providing any hints how to fix the problem in some other way. So I was discouraged to contribute further to the project.

<comment><USER8> You added a security problem. The fix is obvious for everybody working in security, but it's questionable if it should be discussed there.

<comment><USER9> I can see how the original CVE patch removed using the current working directory for loading plugins, but it seems like less of a security issue to simply look up one directory relative to the current binary install, assuming the binary is stored in ./bin after being built and plugins would be stored in ./shared ... Now, it might be inconsiderate to look up a folder when one could be preconfigured based on a common root or home folder, but it doesn't necessarily seem as bad to trust the parent folder of a binary as trusting the current working directory's contents?

<comment><USER10> This isn't relative to the binary install, it's relative to argv[0]. It's the same security issue -- that argument is under user control. You can make a symlink to your target wherever you want and then argv[0] will be the symlink location. I don't think there is any secure way to get the current script path in Python.

<comment><USER11> so you install dstat in /usr/bin/dstat + /usr/share/dstat (because you are root), and an attacker creates /home/eve/bin/dstat with /home/eve/share/dstat/evil.py. why would you run /home/eve/bin/dstat? if eve can get you to run dstat from here ~/bin, why wouldn't she just have ~/bin/dstat with completely different contents?

i'm still convinced this is cargocult security.

<comment><USER10> You're right that this wouldn't matter if the program is run with the same privileges as the caller. I was imagining if that wasn't the case (e.g. the user gives dstat setuid permissions), then letting it load arbitrary code could produce a security hole. Admittedly I didn't think too hard about whether/why something like this might be done -- if it wouldn't be, then never mind. As a matter of general safe practice I err on the side of caution, i.e. not depending on argv[0] to have any particular value for the correctness of the program, because otherwise you have to think through all the possible attack/error scenarios and likely document them for the user, etc... and I thought in any case it was worth pointing out that argv[0] did not necessarily correspond to the program location regardless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Devil's advocate: Isn't this kind of behavior how we ended up with what became the POSIX command-line utilities? A bunch of people re-implementing and extending each other's stuff without changing the name?

I know that the word has changed a bit since then and that it's a bit different to appropriate a soul-less corporation's command names vs an individual volunteer.. It just happened to strike me as odd at the moment I came across this thread that we're so up-in-arms about this when we're all happily using utilities that were produced by the very same process every day.

<comment><USER13> I don't know that massively popular utilities were ever "reimplemented" with the same name. Ported, or forked, or extended, but not reimplemented. It's not clear to me if pcp-dstat is a fork or a total rewrite.

Also, most of those utilities were named things which solely described what they did. It's a bit different to make a new "cut" vs a new "clhodapp".

<comment><USER14> Then there is _a lot_ of history that you do not know, starting with BSD and progressing through the late 1980s and early 1990s when there was a torrent of "clones" of things.

The "Vixie cron" that you might even still be using is a "PD" clone of the Unix cron program, reimplemented from scratch with the same name. The van Smoorenburg "init" that you might have heard of was a clone of (an at the time sadly _already_ out of date) Unix init program. All of the stuff in GNU coreutils and other similar GNU toolsets was a deliberate reimplementation from scratch.

And then there are the Thompson, Mashey, Bourne, Almquist, Bourne Again, Korn, Z, and Watanabe shells. And BusyBox and ToyBox. And /usr/lib/sendmail . And the "mailx" utility. And "awk". And "vncviewer". And "getty". And so on.

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/508142/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/508142/5132)

* [http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html](http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988382)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17005677](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17005677)

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/316279/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/316279/5132)

<comment><USER15> I'd like to add the common aliasing of vi->vim

<comment><USER14> You're too late. It's the fourth item in the first Stack Exchange answer. (-:

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> this strongly reminds me of the hn post from five days back in which the main thread talked at some length about a very similar scenario

> "He missed a big one: you have no way to stop Linux distributions from > hacking up your software, and you'll suffer the consequences of whatever > they do."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19935648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19935648)

<comment><USER17> Yeah I thought of the same comment. That is unfortunate.

Maybe Debian is more respectful since it's open source not backed by a company with enterprise customers?

<comment><USER18> "respectful" as in let's wait years for a maintainer to come up with a solution and when we try to propose our own the maintainer trows a fit and turns it down?

<comment><USER5> Is that what happened? I remember it differently...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So, from a Fedora Project point of view, I'm not really sure how we could have done this better. This change was properly announced and publicized as [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MergeDstatAndPerforma...](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MergeDstatAndPerformanceCoPilot) and approved by FESCo (the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee) in August 2018 ([https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1956](https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/1956)).

The change page says "The original dstat utility has reached end of life - <USER3> does not support python3 and there are no plans to update it." This may not have been right after all, but I don't think it's in _bad faith_. Perhaps FESCo should have dug a little deeper, but there aren't really any particular red flags indicating that that's warranted.

I'm open to suggestions, though -- we _do_ want to continually improve our processes, and we _do_ want to work well with upstreams. And, y'know, be better to long-time Fedora ecosystem friends.

<comment><USER5> Well, I had to find out this was planned and acted on after the decision was made and the alternative was written without any regards of the original project.

And that is fine if it would stay pcp-dstat as-is.

The most upsetting to me is that Dstat is no longer a python tool you can drop on a JeOS, Synology NAS or a WRT router to get it to work, you now have to install PCP and all its dependencies to make it work, which goes against the original design goals. (i.e. we used to support Python 1.5 for a long time to accommodate RHEL2.1 during its life-cycle)

Also, by taking the Dstat code, removing the plugin mechanism and replacing it with a PCP backend, writing a python plugin for Dstat is no longer possible. This is promoted as being a feature as "your plugin is now a config file" which is a bit disingenuous as you have to write a PCP backend which is a lot harder.

And it is not even a drop-in replacement, it only implements the built-in counters, not the full set of plugins (i.e. --top plugins are missing). So the argument that it needs to work as-is for existing customers does not hold true either.

By taking that name (with the Red Hat clout) there is no chance of anyone taking over maintenance without having to deal with 2 products using the same name, which I guess is forcing your wish on other distributions too.

Wrt. the change was properly announced. I bet the checklist was properly checked. Or to quote Douglas Adams:

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard."

<comment><USER19> Well, we do try to do better than the Cottington planning department. Like all changes, it was posted to devel-announce ([https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel- announce...](https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/devel- firstname.lastname@example.com/message/S2TZ2VS4DMK2PW466U3GKZUYPGAVWOGA/)) to get more visibility than just a devel-list post (or a random wiki page).

In retrospect, it would have been nice for the devs working on this to contact you directly and explicitly about the proposed change. I'm sorry that didn't happen.

But here we are now -- at this point, what outcome would you like?

<comment><USER5> It has played out as it did, that's why I closed the project.

I don't have any wishes. Just a bad aftertaste but that will go. I don't like to dwell in the past, regardless of the fact I have to defend myself in this forum to total strangers who seem to know better :-)

And that will pass as well. We'll see...

<comment><USER19> Okay. Again, I'm sorry it came out like this. I would like us to do better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> redhat announcing their "new dstat": [https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/implementing-dstat- performanc...](https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/implementing-dstat-performance- co-pilot)

<comment><USER21> The claim is that the original is no longer being maintained. Is that true? It changes a lot about what I would think of this move.

<comment><USER22> From the git changelog, it doesn't appear to be completely unmaintained, but not very vital either: [https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/commits/master](https://github.com/dagwieers/dstat/commits/master)

Red Hat's announcement (posted in February 2019), also cites lack of Python 3 support as another reason for replacing the original dstat, but Python 3 compatibility was added last January.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I added python 3 support after I learned that was the main reason for replacing it. It took me less than an hour to make it work on Python 3, including all (but 2) of the plugins.

And given that PCP is using most of the original code, they must have made the same changes to get Python 3 support.

<comment><USER23> maybe you shouldn't have waited until the absolute last minute to do this or it wouldn't have been replaced.

<comment><USER5> I am not sure what you are implying here. I have zero interest in maintaining the project. This was the last blow to a dying project.

The king is dead, long live the king.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I only know enough to get me in trouble, but pcp is a general "framework" for performance monitoring... they have pcp versions/rewrites of all types of traditional monitoring utilities like vmstat, iostat, top.

Note: they don't overwrite/replace those utilities on the command line. You can still use the traditional utilities same as it ever was. The pcp versions are called like so: "pcp dstat" or "pcp atopsar".

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me on moreutils parallel (C), hijacking GNU parallel (perl), and changing the command line options. [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=597050](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=597050)

<comment><USER14> This sort of thing happens regularly. For another example of many, witness the effects on users of the change of the "mailx" command in Debian.

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/469780/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/469780/5132)

* [https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/489477/5132](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/489477/5132)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Honest question: aside from "they provide Enterprise support", does anyone have a reason they would actually use redhat or centos for new servers? Why not use a Debian-derived one, which seems to both be more common, and have less constant creepy corporate influences?

<comment><USER26> Disclaimer, I work for Red Hat. That being said...

The big things for our customers isn't just support, it is stability. When you build your systems on RHEL 8 (just released), you will get 10+ years of support and patches for that system. Those changes are all guarenteed to be binary compatible, so the risk of patching ever impacting systems is low. If there is a critical security vulnerability (say Heartbleed in openssl), Red Hat will backport the fix to every supported version of RHEL. That means you get the security fix without (1) having to upgrade the entire openssl dependency and risk breaking something else and (2) without pulling in newer changes that might have their own vulnerabilities.

Going along with the stability, vendors can QA their products against RHEL as a known target.

Last reason for now, if you are in an industry with any kind of compliance requirements, like FIPS, Red Hat jumps through the hoops to get the certification. That makes RHEL the only option in many environments.

<comment><USER27> I'd say both stability and update.

Debian never upgrades anything (unless security issue). All packages are frozen at the time of the initial major release. Have fun using curl/htop/nginx/libreoffice from 5-10 years ago, plenty of obscure bugs and missing command line flags.

RHEL actually maintain their system packages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Curious, i know dagwieers from being involved in the Ansible project (RedHat owned). Seems friction is occurring, given the language in his post.

<comment><USER5> What language ? It is being quite factual really.

<comment><USER29> Time to go to Puppet Dag? :)

<comment><USER30> :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I literally use dstat all the time! This is very sad.

<comment><USER32> Why? What has changed? Do you use the plugin functionality of dstat, or do you just use the dstat command? If it's the latter, then you can do everything you could with dead-dstat and more with pcp-dstat.

<comment><USER31> It saddens me when a useful, good open source project closes. I realize I can still use it, and I will... That's not the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is undoubtedly shady behavior. dstat is a widely regarded and mature tool. Looking at its repo for 'activity' without context - maybe nothing needs to be changed and its working as designed - is completely disingenious.

Why should repo activity without context be used as an indicator of anything in discussion instead of focusing on what Redhat has done?

This is openly hijacking an open source project by a billion dollar company because it can and makes a mockery of not only open source colloboration culture but basic professional behavior. Has Redhat reached out to the author, made any requests, tried to work out some way forward, offered to pay for the brand name? Cmon this is simply indefensible.

<comment><USER6> >Looking at its repo for 'activity' without context - maybe nothing needs to be changed and its working as designed - is completely disingenious.

>Why should repo activity without context be used as an indicator of anything in discussion instead of focusing on what Redhat has done?

"Activity" doesn't just refer to commit traffic. People were filing issues and making pull requests and not getting any responses for more than a year. And furthermore it was a Python 2 tool and the Python 2 EOL date is fast approaching.

I agree that the packagers should have at least left a note on GitHub (even if they thought it would go unread) - but clearly it was not a "maybe it's just mature and nothing needed to be changed" situation.

<comment><USER33> This is muddying the waters. Surely if you have gone through the trouble of looking at the repo and finding these pull requests you would also know the context and should then share it to give others here a context. Without that you are just here making 'vague' charges given dstat is a well known, highly regareded and mature tool. The Python3 port was already done by the author so the python2 eol seems a complete non sequitor. Again a rush to condemn without good reason.

Are you saying anyone running a Python2 project can expect to have Redhat reimplement it in Python3 secretly and have people defend it on HN? This kind of behavior is simply indefensible.

It's obvious there is a culture clash of open source developers sponsored or working for corporates conflating heavy activity on Github that they are paid to perform as their day jobs as the only open source model. But open source was traditionally about people having other jobs and using their spare time to develop open source without profit motives because they believed in the movement. They certainly did not face corporates and paid developers analysing their frequency of contributions to dismiss their efforts and justify an unethical takeover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have been using dstat for years. It's a great tool. But why kill the project just because some company has a project with the same name? There is more than one distro, you know

<comment><USER35> The project was already dead. But now the maintainer[s] found time to complain about how evil RH simply opted to provide a py3 compatible replacement and provide it as dstat.

<comment><USER5> That's not exactly what happened, but great to see you are making improvements in your fiction-writing skills :-) Keep it up !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> dagwieers, sorry this happened man that really fucking sucks. They should have done this differently and reached out to you for communication and stuff. Pretty disappointed with them for this. Hope you keep on and find other projects that excite you to work on.

</comment><comment><USER37> Why not come up with a new name for the project instead of rage quitting?

<comment><USER38> > Why not come up with a new name for the project instead of rage quitting?

Why should he change the project name when he originally have it first?

Also why did you have to frame it as rage quitting?

<comment><USER37> It's the way of the world that larger fish get to do as they please.

A simple name change and he can continue to do his work. It's the idea of turning the other cheek. That or trademark the name I guess.

<comment><USER39> Would redhat ship dstat under the new name?

<comment><USER37> They should have shipped the original devs version or forked it and worked with him to get it supported and submitted their RH changes upstream etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Performance monitoring tools for enterprises can be very lucrative. Surely they'll move to an "open core", closed source commercial license for the useful bits, if they haven't already.

<comment><USER41> That isn't Redhat's model. They open the code (it's mostly 3rd party OSS anyway), including packages (hence, CentOS) and sell access to the updates system and support contracts.

<comment><USER42> _That isn 't Redhat's model._

Well... it hasn't been _so far_. But this isn't the old Red Hat anymore. This is IBM Hat. And for all the talk about keeping Red Hat mostly independent or whatever, I think we all know that's bullshit. Acquiring companies _always_ give that little dog and pony show, and it never holds up in the long-term. There's no way that IBM culture won't wind up infecting Red Hat. Now whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a question I'll leave to the philosophers. But I'd be very leery of assuming anything regarding what RH will or won't do going forward.

<comment><USER43> Every single thread someone has to bring it up. The acquisition isn't even closed yet and suddenly every decision done is mysteriously pushed by IBM.

There is more than enough people who have their own minds. That is the RH culture, if this freedom is touched they will just quit.

IBM won't affect RH in any way, Jim is not an idiot because he knows this would destroy RH and IBM are also not idiots because it would destroy they purchase.

<comment><USER42> _The acquisition isn't even closed yet and suddenly every decision done is mysteriously pushed by IBM._

I am not saying that "every decision is mysteriously pushed by IBM." I'm saying that IBM culture _will_ \- over the long run - infect Red Hat. To pretend otherwise is, IMO, pretty naive. Over the decades, company after company after company has been acquired, and nearly every time the acquiring company makes the same promises about maintaining autonomy for the acquired company. And sometimes it holds up for a few months, or even a few years. But every single time, at least that I can recall, in the long run the acquired company eventually gets totally absorbed by the parent and starts to take on their characteristics. I haven't heard any cogent argument yet to justify believing that this time will be different.

 _IBM are also not idiots because it would destroy they purchase._

Like the way IBM managed to avoid destroying Lotus, Informix, Tivoli, Rational, Sequent, Truven, Explorys, Phytel, etc.?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Changing Face of Web Development - <AUTHOR> http://blog.opbeat.com/2013/06/23/the-changing-face-of-web-development/

<comment><USER2> Tools might have got better but.. it hasn't got any easier to develop for the web. To be a web developer today you need to know the ever changing HTML/CSS Specifications, have a good understanding of Javascript, be fairly good with the backend platform you use, have some design aesthetics, know the HCI basics for UI design, be up to date with the mobile browsers, have knowledge of a couple of SQL or NoSQL data stores, knowledge of web security and maybe even have knowledge of cloud hosting services.

Of course in big projects developers/designers only take up one of the above tasks but in most down to earth projects handled by smaller companies and startups you need to be an all-around expert to keep things running.

</comment><comment><USER3> Future is Unpredictable ! Something might surely come ahead of services too ..

P.S i am preparing my self to get future ready.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hypothetically wonder what will come after services. Perhaps some parts of stack will be replaced by an AI of sorts.

</comment><comment><USER5> The future, what happens next, I must know!

</comment><comment><USER6> pulled

<comment><AUTHOR> it's back</comment></comment>


The Man Who Broke the Music Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/27/the-man-who-broke-the-music-business <comment><USER2> If The Scene interests you then you may want to check out [http://www.welcometothescene.com/](http://www.welcometothescene.com/)

It's an internet-TV show the follows a group (not a documentary, it's all staged) that releases movies. The first "season" was very good and I highly recommend it. The second has yet to really interest me. I watched a few episodes but it's different from the first.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of using oth.net to browse ftps for tracks in late 1990s. I used to burn custom mixes for friends in high school back then before napster exploded and everyone had a burner. On a 28.8 or even 56k connection it was an amazingly tedious process to download tracks from ftps. It is pretty insane how you can download an entire discography today in the amount of time it took to download some single tracks back then. oth.net is still active today it looks like, crazy.

<comment><USER4> I made some pretty good beer money running one of those FTP sites by making people download Bonzai buddy for a password. I feel a bit bad for advancing that purple ape, but at least I could increase my sysadmin skills on something that didn't matter.

<comment><USER5> +1. I was running an FTP server on one of the few multi-honed T3 connections (late 90's) in our city. OTH sent me a ton of traffic, which also included RIAA scouts. I almost lost my job after they sent a C&D to our IT department; I was ~16 years old at the time and was forgiven.

<comment><USER6> Be glad that was 20 years ago. If you did it today, you'd have a felony...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember seeing people at flea markets selling bootleg compact discs. They'd rent a booth and have boxes and boxes of them in those fluorescent colored plastic holders, the ones you could buy in 500 packs at Sam's Club or Egghead. Some of them even printed out fake covers and labels on inkjet printers, heck they would be doing it in between customers.

I couldn't figure out why the cops never came and shut them down. Same goes for the gas stations or convenience stores that sold obviously bootlegged movies for $3 on the check-out counter.

Now I want to read an article on Adil R. Cassim, the guy behind that whole ring.

<comment><USER8> In some parts of the world (Singapore, Malaysia are places I have seen) there are shops in malls that openly sell copies of stuff. In fact when I first bought a PS3 and went looking for games for it in Singapore I was frequently turned away with "Oh, you want originals? We don't do that here".

<comment><USER9> You probably won't find a lot of places like that in Singapore anymore. They've really cleaned up over the past 10 years.

<comment><USER8> Huh, OK. I guess it probably was about 9 years ago now. How time flies!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was a pretty good article, I'd love to read one (as similar as it might be) about warez crews.

<comment><USER2> If you liked this I'd check out [http://www.welcometothescene.com/](http://www.welcometothescene.com/) The first season is great, I never got into the second season. It's an interesting format for a show, most all text with just some music in the background but I quite enjoyed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > After the trial, Glover began to regret his decision to testify and to plead > guilty.

He shouldn't have taken the deal, I guess he is the only one who went to prison, not even the guy he testified against went to jail.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's hard to believe one person was able to successfully leak so much material. I got into album leaks in the early-mid 2000's. Even if I would end up buying the album anyway, that first listen of the leaked album was awesome.

<comment><USER12> And all he got was 3 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _...if the MP3 was just as good, why bother with the CD..._

The thing is, MP3 _isn't_ "just as good". A rendering in lossless compression from a CD still sounds different than a 320 kBPS MP3. Which is why I just can't get over the iTunesStore selling sound in 256 kBPS. Much too bad. Amazon does 320 kBPS, but it's still not good enough.

<comment><USER14> For the majority of people, mp3s seem to be "just as good" enough.

I remember some low-bitrate songs encoded with some very early encoder where you could hear a difference. Not necessarily "the" difference but "a" difference. After a couple of years the worst encoder anyone could find was better already and since 192kbps bitrates mp3s were 99.999% there.

I'm sure that a trained ear can hear differences between 256kbps vs. 320kbps in a special studio with high-end audiocards, amplifiers and speakers but 99.999% of all people don't and they don't own the equipment either.

<comment><USER15> The conventional wisdom is just that - MP3s don't sound any different than their CD counterpart, but we all know that they don't have the same degree of fidelity to the original mastered audio files. While it is true that most cannot detect the differences between MP3 (and other lossy formats) and PCM (lossless) audio, this is beginning to change as consumers become used to a higher quality of sound delivery than before. The popularity of Beats headphones, for instance, meant that hip hop producers could no longer just push the limiter until the sub bass begins to sound farty - their fans were all equipped to hear the differences now.

Vinyl playback, in the pre-CD days, had consumers interested in a whole different kind of audio fidelity. The noises in the record were largely ignored, and nobody tried to get past them. Now, all listeners notice the sound of a vinyl record immediately, and people either love it or hate it.

The point I'm making here is that audio fidelity and quality are separate topics, but while fidelity is an objective measurement of audio, quality is a subjective one, and it shifts with the culture of the day. The problem with the MP3 and other lossy audio formats is that they are taken to be the same as their lossless origins. Consumers will catch up to the decay that MP3 codecs cause and feel the same way about them that a millennial feels about VHS tapes. It may take a few years, or even decades, to arrive there, though.

<comment><USER16> _> The popularity of Beats headphones, for instance, meant that hip hop producers could no longer just push the limiter until the sub bass begins to sound farty - their fans were all equipped to hear the differences now._

I think you're being overly charitable about how well Beats perform.

<comment><USER17> They're better than earbuds. The iPod brought forth a decade where virtually everyone's only headphone experience was earbuds.

<comment><USER18> That's probably the weakest compliment that I've heard for a set of headphones ever. I have something like 7 pairs of earbuds and I pine for the bass that I remember from my crummy Philips HS820 (foldable neckband) headphones.

For some reason the only place to get good earbuds is from someone who is selling something else: Samsung's in-ear earbuds sold with Galaxy devices and Apple's earbuds are both somewhere between OK and pretty good.

<comment><USER19> >For some reason the only place to get good earbuds is from someone who is selling something else

Or you buy quality stand-alones from Shure, Sennheiser, Beyer Dynamic, or Sony (and many more probably)? I always throw into my e-waste bin the Apple earbuds since they're both really low quality. The Shure SE215s are so much better than any bundled earbuds it's barely an opinion.

<comment><USER13> I can confirm that the Beyerdynamic DX160 iE are indeed excellent for their price.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scientists find 'clear evidence' that cellphone radiation causes cancer in rats - <AUTHOR> https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/scientists-find-clear-evidence-phone-13549308 <comment><USER2> Link to study: [https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2018/novemb...](https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsroom/releases/2018/november1/index.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would rats use cellphones?

<comment><USER4> At least the cancer isn't all bad.</comment></comment>


Tourists Heeding Utah's 'Mighty 5' Campaign Overpower Moab - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/tourists-heeding-utahs-mighty-5-campaign-overpower-moab-11568638923?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> "No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs--anything--but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places. An increasingly pagan and hedonistic people (thank God!), we are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly." ― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

<comment><USER3> They banned cars in Zion National Park about ten years ago, and it was a good idea. Arches could definitely do the same, but the problem with the Moab area isn't so much overcrowding of the parks as it is overcrowding of the town, because one small town serves as the launch pad for so many surrounding areas.

In this case, the solution is to try to develop other areas and spread the tourists out to other towns, many of which are desperate for economic development and tourist dollars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a reasonably well travelled Australian (30+ countries, 40ish US states) and think that Southern Utah has one of the best concentrations of natural attractions on the planet. I've visited a number of times and would love to visit at least yearly if I could. I can appreciate that locals detest being swamped, but should everyone have a chance to visit such unique features for themselves?

National parks in the US have incredible brand recognition and cachet and I imagine that this campaign is only part of the story. The big name parks across most of the country are swamped - Yellowstone, Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, etc.

I don't know that there's a brilliant solution short of virtual tourism. Raising prices deters anyone but the rich. Adding carparks just reduces the magic of the wild. Increasing awareness of the second-tier features or developing more is an option. Naturally, the crowded experience will push people to visit outside primetime or peak season.

Absolutely do not be deterred though. As the article suggests, avoid peak times for the best experience. Get up early. Stay late. You can sleep in at home. In Moab specifically, loads of people start later than they'd hoped or concentrate in particular places for sunset or return to the town for dinner. If you want a meal in town, make it lunch when the light is most stark and the park is packed. See Delicate Arch at sunrise instead of sunset, as one example. On this year's trip, we started Devils Garden at 6-7pm and came back in the dark with headlamps - had an amazing sunset and only saw a handful of people out there (I wouldn't recommend this to first-time visitors as the primitive trail can be adventurous to follow).

Outside of the big five, there are outstanding places nearby that are popular but not completely overrun. Byway 12 is superb, Buckskin Gulch is fantastic, the slot canyons near Escalante, Coyote Gulch, Goblin Valley, Horseshoe Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Snow Canyon State Park, Kodachrome Basin, etc. Even in the big parks, there are top-shelf experiences that most people don't see - hiking into Canyonlands' The Maze is one of the best things I've ever done, hiking Trans-Zion is full of premium scenery without huge crowds, Fiery Furnace in Arches sans-guide is good fun, at Bryce you can get some great early/late viewing without hordes just by skipping the two main viewpoints.

If you need help with an itinerary, ask away or my email is in my profile.

<comment><USER5> Why not have a lottery and give non-transferable tickets to US nationals and have a fixed number of tickets for non-US nationals that are charged for?

[NB I'm not from the US but have been to a few US national parks].

<comment><USER6> This should be done more. I was absolutely bummed for not being able to the see Da Vinci's "The Last Supper", but in hindsight I understand and feel that is the way to deal with precious places.

At the time, you were required to book ahead, could only stay for 15 minutes, and the number os visitors was limited (so even in November you had to book weeks ahead).

<comment><USER7> The Tower of London which houses the Crown Jewels [0] has a conveyor belt / moving walkway that you have to stand on to see some of the exhibits. It thus controls access and limits the time you can spend in one of the rooms (I can't remember if it possible to get back to its start to go round again)

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Jewels_of_the_United_Kin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Jewels_of_the_United_Kingdom)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I grew up in Utah and was able to visit Moab many times over the years. It is a great little town and the sites and things you can reach from it are awesome. One of my favorite hikes at Arches NP is the Fiery Furnace, which is permit-controlled. I wonder if requiring permits for more of the sites would help address these issues?

Of course, I'm also a big supporter of efforts to increase the size of national parks and monuments in the state as well (despite this administration's recent efforts). Preserving and regulating more wilderness would go a long way to hopefully mitigating this overcrowding issue.

<comment><USER9> Fiery furnace is great! I used to drive to Moab every year for Spring Break to do outdoor sports with some friends from University, and it's a total paradise for people who want to do anything outdoors.

It's selfish and elitist to say, but I almost feel like it's better if places like Moab aren't publicized at all, and people just find out about it through word-of-mouth like I did. It takes some education to properly "leave no trace" in the back country, and I feel like that sort of works itself out when people discover the parks largely by being invited by someone who's already in the fold.

If the parks are going to be a more popular destination for the general public, then I think it is probably better to have a permit system both to regulate absolute numbers, and to require people to pass some kind of test or course about how to be a good citizen inside the park.

<comment><USER4> "It takes some education to properly "leave no trace" in the back country"

This kinda baffles me because it really should take a bare minimum of consideration. The basic rules are not overly difficult, right? Don't trample stuff. Dig a hole if shitting in the backcountry. Don't feed animals. Minimise your impact. Don't walk around playing music at everyone.

Parks have signs everywhere. Clear brochures with obvious info. What makes it so hard for people to understand and make that tiny amount of effort?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The tourism onslaught has caused problems all around. On adjoining state > desert land, Michael Grindstaff recently drove an all-wheel-drive vehicle > past juniper and pinyon trees that were littered with scraps of toilet > paper, windblown remnants of unpermitted campers having done their business.

Hey, a use for a national DNA database.

/s

</comment><comment><USER3> Interestingly enough, there's a parallel to the San Francisco housing shortage.

There are actually many, many more amazing places to see in Southern Utah and the rest of the Southwest. Only a small number of these places are in national parks. Like SF housing, an increase in supply would ease overcrowding, but instead of restrictions on new building because of NIMBYs and misguided governmental action restricting the supply, it's actually ideological myopia that's at the root of it.

Utah's largely conservative Republican congressional delegation and state government pushed to roll back two new national monuments, and vehemently oppose the development of federal lands for tourism and recreation uses, while on the other hand are rabid about subsidizing extractive industries that aren't nearly as important to the local economy.

In both cases, the problem is made worse by ideology. San Francisco housing is expensive partially because local lawmakers are blind to free market solutions, and Utah tourism is harmed because local lawmakers are blind to the idea that public lands being preserved in parks may be the best way to bring economic development to the state.

</comment><comment><USER11> A preview of the Area 51 flash mob, perhaps.

</comment><comment><USER12> Lived in Utah for a year and saw most everything I wanted to see in that time. I will go back one day but in the off-season and will alternate between vandwelling in a van conversion and pay a premium for nice accommodations when I need it.

A year ago my friend and I drove from SLC to the Tetons to Yellowstone to Glacier, then over to the PNW and down the coast to the Bay Area. This was honestly two of the best months in my life, I grew so much as a human being and expanded my horizons quite a bit just realizing how little I needed to be happy.

</comment><comment><USER13> There's little evidence that this is due to a campaign. RMNP in Colorado had a similar jump in number of visits, as well as Yellowstone and the Grand.

The problem is simply too many people, too little wilderness. Unless we stop growing and put some wild lands off limits (as wilderness), in a few short years there will be nothing left.

<comment><USER14> > The problem is simply too many people, too little wilderness. Unless we stop > growing and put some wild lands off limits (as wilderness), in a few short > years there will be nothing left.

National Parks are overcrowded, but they are a tiny, tiny part of all the public lands. Your complaint is that there are too few places with nice paved roads and visitor centers and such for people to go, not that there is too little wilderness.

"in a few short years there will be nothing left" is so comically wrong it's ridiculous. You're looking at literally the top 5-10 most popular outdoor areas to go, of course they're crowded.

Even within national parks, as soon as you go more than 1-2 miles away from a road, you'll see very, very few people.

<comment><USER15> yes! they should fix up infrastructure and steer people to lesser visited sites

<comment><USER16> This is essentially an argument for more national parks.

I've lived someplace embroiled in controversy over pursuing national park status. Most the residents are vehemently against it because it would trash the place and overwhelm it with tourist traffic and all the problems that brings. The supporters consist a small contingent of profiteering area land owners that don't even spend any significant time living there. They couldn't care less about what impact becoming a national park would have on the environment or the area residents' quality of life. They just saw dollars.

National parks are a double-edged sword. They bring often much-needed tourism dollars to typicaly economically distressed remote regions. But they do not improve the environment. They stimulate travel (often by air), pollute the park area, and damage the natural habitats.

If the goal is to preserve and protect, the last thing you do is classify a place as a national park and make it easily accessed and comfortable with infrastructure. You leave the place lacking roads, running water, campgrounds, and toilets, and certainly don't advertise it as a nationally-recognized place of beauty.

National parks are more about stimulating the economy than preserving nature, at least as implemented today.

<comment><USER17> Commodification of nature. Get in the car, drive for a while, do something for 2 to 4 hours, get back in the car and drive back. In this case the activity consists of walking, but the summit/lookout/whatever can't be more than 6-7km away from the road. It has nothing to do with preservation.

Let me share a case I am familiar with. One of my favorite short walks in my grandparents' town used to be one where you had to walk ~2km through fields, then a steep ascend of ~4km on a difficult rocky trail, then another ~2km through a nice pine forest to finally reach a beautiful lookout.

Then someone somewhere decided that it was a good idea to build a paved road so people didn't have to walk the first 6km.

To the benefit of who? Certainly not the environment: the construction of the road, polluting cars, garbage, soil erosion at the sides of the road from cars parking there...

It didn't provide any benefit for the people that walked there. Now you can hear cars going up and down while you walk. Some places are littered with waste material from the road's construction, and at some points you actually have to cross the road.

The people that drive up there also admit that while the place is ideal to go with kids, it is so crowded that it makes the experience miserable.

Finally, it didn't create a continuous economic revenue for anyone, since the lands are public and the town doesn't charge any fee. There are only a handful of shops in town and they have not seen an increase in consumption.

So what was the point of all it? Did we wreck a beautiful mountain and forest so that a construction company could pocket a few million euros?

<comment><USER4> This might not be the ultimate answer because I think a world with a variety of experiences is reasonable, but making locations accessible may mean a lot to those in a wheelchair or unable to walk 6km. Let's say you work yourself to the bone, retire and then every natural wonder of the world has a lengthy walk to see it and you have bad knees - that's brutal. Or you have a teenage daughter unable to walk and you'd love to show her the view you grew up enjoying yourself. In your example, did the outlook itself change dramatically?

A lot of national parks have this mix already. You can drive a scenic route. you can do a short interpretive walk or an accessible trail, or you can do a half- or full-day hike, or you can get out away from the main trails hiking 100 miles across the park. You can stay in a nearby town, or in the in-park campground, or hike 5 miles to a backcountry spot with no one around.

But I think accessibility would be one 'point of it all.'</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Blank - <AUTHOR> http://madebywickd.com/blank/

<comment><USER2> It annoys me to no end when people write "your" where it should be "you're". And I'm not a native English speaker.

<comment><USER3> same here, non-native, never understood why this is so difficult for people.. just replace it with 'you are' in your mind to see if it works

<comment><USER4> The most fascinating thing about that whole your / you're confusion thing is:

It mostly happens to native speakers - or so i've observed..

And yes, it also makes me facepalm a little everytime i encounter it (non- native speaker as well..)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why would a competent developer want to work on this with a you, a beginner?

<comment><USER6> To help? A beginner who takes the initiative to start a project and is willing to learn has my full support as a "competent developer".</comment></comment>


Y Combinator style applications in the Non-profit world - <AUTHOR> http://newschallenge.tumblr.com/post/30941400763/a-deeper-look-at-the-news-challenge-application <comment><USER2> It's probably worth noting that the News Challenge has funded projects like DocumentCloud (full disclosure, i work there) and TileMill amongst many others.</comment>


Ask HN: Portugal tech scene - <AUTHOR>

Hi, Portuguese people!
I'm a Brazilian software engineer, with Portuguese citizenship.
This week I was wondering: what about the Portuguese tech scene ?
I'm web developer for 5+ years and iOS for 2+ years and some recently plans and ideas didn't go well, so I was thinking about moving out and try new things.
There is a good startup scene in Portugal and are they hiring ?
[note: I'm not looking for a job right now, just researching my options to make plans] <comment><USER2> Used to work in tech in Portugal, it's not bad, but underfunded. My recommendation? Move to London.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the maximum number of lines a function should have? - <AUTHOR> I'm specifically interested in C# and JavaScript if you require that distinction. <comment><USER2> It doesn't make sense to think about a maximum number of lines.

There may be a complex function of many variables which is not simplified by splitting into multiple functions.

Most often though, the code in a function has several logical parts which have their own temporary variables and are good candidates for splitting into separate functions.

Generally it makes sense to split code up so that it can be encapsulated at different levels. For example if you have a validation routine for a record, it may make sense to have different functions to test different properties, so that you can see which validations are being performed at a high level and then zoom in when you need to.

Encapsulation should be done to manage scope of temporary variables, and to make the code easier to read and to test. But there's no hard and fast rule, really.</comment>


Rethinking Unix: A New Apropos Implementation from NetBSD - <AUTHOR> https://man-k.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just wanted to mention that there are linux and posix man pages indexed as well: [https://man-k.org/linux/](https://man-k.org/linux/) [https://man-k.org/posix/](https://man-k.org/posix/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I like the url. man-k is so much cleaner than apropos. How could I google that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I guess just google man-k.org :) If you try man-k, Google gives lots of useless stuff :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very Helpful</comment>


Where China is looking to land its 2020 Mars rover - <AUTHOR> http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/china-2020-rover-sites.html <comment><USER2> The 2020 launch window is going to be an exciting one indeed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rover? I don't see how it could move.

<comment><USER4> There is a picture clearly showing a rover sitting on a lander ?

<comment><USER3> Oops, I somehow didn't see that :( It just looked like one thing to me. In a small browser window.</comment></comment></comment>


Progress on longstanding open problems - <AUTHOR> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=3697 <comment><USER2> I'm a big fan of Scott Aaronson, he's a bit eccentric and I love it. I would love to meet him one day.

I currently have two books on my desk, and one is his book : Quantum Computing since Democratis. It's a book that pushes at the edge of my intellectual capabilities, and it's been a tough read where I have often had to stop and go away and study something for a week, then resume. Very challenging, and very enjoyable.

<comment><USER3> What is the other book?

<comment><USER2> Socrates Defence

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the reply!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Rack Elevation Diagram Generator in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://wjholden.com/rack <comment><USER2> It's good to to see IndexDB used for data persistence to reduce the need for a backend API and network calls. It's an under-used technology that's available in every browser ([https://caniuse.com/indexeddb](https://caniuse.com/indexeddb)).

I can recommend Dexie ([https://dexie.org/](https://dexie.org/)) as a wrapper to make it a bit nicer to work with.

<comment><USER3> what makes this application better suited to IndexedDB over localstorage? its not a lot of data.

(genuine qtn, i tend to use localstorage a lot and have never handcoded IDB usage but have of course used libraries that used IDB)

<comment><USER2> _what makes this application better suited to IndexedDB over localstorage? its not a lot of data._

I haven't found IndexedDB helps much the quantity of data (you _can_ store more than localStorage, but most apps don't need close to that much). The advantage comes from iterating over the data (with cursors) for searching, and the fact that Indexeddb is versioned so you can migrate existing data to a new format when you deploy updates really easily.

<comment><USER3> ah, good, nuanced, points, thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone looking for a better way of managing rack diagrams/assets, NetBox has a great and easy UI for this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why when I export rack to image the back button is disabled?

<comment><USER6> They just replace the page content with the image so when you hit back you are navigated back to HN or in your case nowhere since you opened it in a new tab.</comment></comment>


The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. And Wikileaks - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> It's been abundantly obvious for a very long time that regardless of the noble motivations of some people who have been involved in the project, Assange is a partisan hack who's about as well-intentioned as weev and probably surprisingly similar in his politics.

Though even I'm amazed his hubris actually went as far as asking to be appointed as a foreign ambassador, and can't help but love the implication that he or one of his closest confidants managed to talk Donald Trump Jr into tweeting out incriminating emails. Not to mention the irony of Wikileaks' being leaked against and its founder tweeting about not keeping any records of the conversations...

We could probably still do with an impartial international clearing house for leaked memos that isn't run by somebody who rejects the Surkov leaks because it might deflect from him tweeting polls about the Presidential candidates' heath or the remarkable insight that the Economist has a Rothschild on the board.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of this can be read as Wikileaks fishing for information from the Trump campaign, and saying what they need to get it. The Pandering and trying to make Assange sound good is a bit off-putting, and strengthens my impression that Wikileaks really _is_ a mouthpiece for Assange in all but name, but it definitely doesn't look good for Wikileaks in general.

Edit: This seems to be suppressed on HN as of right now (not in the first four pages of submissions), likely due to their automated systems that tramp down things likely to turn into political flame-wars. Hopefully it somehow hits a threshold to get out of that or gets moderator approval/boost, as this seems like news worth discussing to me. Then again, I'm sure there are plenty of people that would be happy to see it skip the front page entirely because they don't like these kind of articles.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> As author Julia Ioffe notes on Twitter, the story has now been updated to note that @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails 15 minutes after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. [https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232](https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/930197548651999232)

</comment><comment><USER4> No matter how you view Wikileaks, they are more than technically able and would have known Twitter DM's are essentially public to USG. Adds an interesting angle.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Leak us one or more of your father's tax returns … If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality."

</comment><comment><USER5> Just this week I was involved in a comment thread where people defended Wikileaks' impartiality.

This is a huge bombshell.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Just wow. This is unexpected even for the Wikileaks standard.

</comment><comment><USER7> Because of course, whoever is leaking this information is only doing it for the noblest reasons.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't know if this line of thinking will get any play on this forum as I have read people praising him constantly, but what does this mean for Snowden? He was working for the NSA, stole secrets from his government and gave it to reporters to distribute, and then sought and received asylum in Russia with the help of WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks is heavily connected to the Russian government, at what stage can we say that Snowden effectively defected to Russia?

<comment><USER2> tbh I'm not sure even if there was hard evidence of Assange as an intentional Russian asset it would greatly change the complexion of Snowden's situation, unless records were produced of him offering Snowden the support of the government of Russia _before he released anything_. If anything, it might make him more likely to have been duped into having little choice of destination to flee to other than Russia.

The military's view Snowden defected as soon as he released classified info and added to the charge sheet by fleeing to Russia isn't really contingent on whose advice he took either.

And the published bits correspondence isn't really evidence of Assange being particularly closely connected to the Russian government; if anything it's so crass, self-absorbed and risky it points towards the opposite.</comment></comment>


The Awk State Machine Parser Pattern (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://two-wrongs.com/awk-state-machine-parser-pattern.html <comment><USER2> I do this _all_ the time ... I've even created a script to take a state machine description and turn it into an AWK script template.

Very powerful technique, when it's the right thing to be doing.

The ABC of programming: Always Be Checking.</comment>


Show HN: Collect feedback from your team like a boss - <AUTHOR> https://feedbackmeter.com/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a blatant copy of an existing product called Know Your Company ([https://www.knowyourcompany.com](https://www.knowyourcompany.com)), which has been around for several years. The pricing structure is identical, although you undercut them by 50%, and the Monday/Wednesday/Friday questions are ripped verbatim from Know Your Company.</comment>


It's been two years since the last update to dansdata.com - <AUTHOR> http://dansdata.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a fantastic site, with years of great content. Lots of great questions answered, with a healthy helping of shooting down scams.

I wish Dan all the best.</comment>


China's Giant Spy Drone Just Tailed a U.S. Navy Cruiser - <AUTHOR> https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/china%E2%80%99s-giant-spy-drone-just-tailed-us-navy-cruiser-69881 <comment><USER2> Worth pointing out that, as purely an exercise in military hardware intelligence, the Navy surely learned far more about China's fancy new drone than the People's Liberation Army did about the capabilities of a 30 year old missile cruiser.

<comment><USER3> Maybe China WANTED the US to know about their drone technology.

<comment><USER2> What China WANTED was a press hit like this, making them look big and important on the world stage. There was no need for surveillance here at all. They knew exactly what that cruiser was doing, the whole point of that naval mission was, after all, to say "Hey China! These waters aren't yours! Look at our giant cruiser sailing around with impunity!".

<comment><USER4> The only reason that might be true is if no one read the article (so, depressingly plausible).

Quotes like " The US has hundreds of comm satellites... China only has dozens... hampers ability to stream high quality imagery... or even control the uav

...a total of seven Xhialong have been seen at three sites...

China only recently deployed their Xhialong's, while the US has had Global Hawks in air since the 1990s

The Pentagon employs tens of thousands of UAV operators, it will take China a long time to catch up

China has trouble producing military grade engines for helicopters, planes, uavs... "

Didn't really paint a great picture of China's military capabilities to me. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

<comment><USER5> It is of course always in the best interest of a country to make it seem as if its military is much better organised and more well-equipped than its adversaries. In other words, I'd take such statements with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If one sets aside the issue of Taiwanese independence and whether China does or does not control the straight of Taiwan (a large thing, sure), nothing about this seems terribly surprising or aggressive on China's part.

The US sent a Navy cruiser through water China claims is theirs. China flew a drone to keep watch. If it had been the other way around, the US would have done the same, no doubt.

It's all games to look and sound very important and powerful.

<comment><USER7> As a matter of fact China and Russia did send a joint air mission a week ago, which violated disputed South Korean/Japanese airspace which Seoul controls. Of course Russia claimed it was passing through international airspace and Japan blamed SK for taking action.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-russia- aircraf...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-russia- aircraft/first-russian-chinese-air-patrol-in-asia-pacific-draws-shots-from- south-korea-idUSKCN1UI072)

<comment><USER8> > Japan blamed SK for taking action.

According to the article you linked Japan blamed China and Russia, not SK

<comment><USER7> "Separately, Japan, which said it had also scrambled fighter aircraft to intercept the Russian and Chinese planes, lodged a complaint with both South Korea and Russia over the incident, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a question about the political purposes of some of these responses. The article notes that China sortied J-11 multiple times. But the J-11 (which is just a licensed Su-27) doesn't carry anti-ship missiles, or even laser-guided bombs. Why use that aircraft against a cruiser? I suppose it would be a threat to the Seahawks, but in a real conflict the cruiser would be more than capable of defending them. I mean I get that this isn't a real military conflict so that doesn't matter, but is that communicating some sort of message? Maybe that the PLA isn't able to produce lots of ASuW sorties on demand, or maybe the PLA is trying to demonstrate they aren't really concerned about a cruiser? I feel like the actions in these sorts of maneuvers speak volumes, but I'm just not able to pick up the meaning.

<comment><USER10> The J-11 sorties seemed to be mainly concerned with making sure the Seahawks stayed on their side of the fence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pictures / more details on the drone (2016): [https://www.popsci.com/soar- eagle-chinas-coolest-looking-dro...](https://www.popsci.com/soar-eagle-chinas- coolest-looking-drone-enters-production/)

<comment><USER12> Jarring to see pics of such an advanced-looking drone being pulled around the tarmac by what looks like a berry picker truck.

<comment><USER13> That's part of the charm. You can probably pull this thing by hand, no special hardware required. That means, with enough fuel, it can take to the skies from almost anywhere on the globe, as opposed to fighter jets that generally require modern infrastructure to be combat ready.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting article, but the comments are a special kind of ignorant.

<comment><USER15> This website has been popping up all over my recommends in the last six months. The articles do just enough work to not seem clickbaity but they really are. They are barely researched, overly long, repetitive, fearmongering, and really not complete. But they are heavily disseminated via recommends. And given the content - Exactly the type of article to generate bad comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Look at the wings.

Somebody finally did it, a low swept wing connected to a high forward-swept wing. In this case the connection isn't quite at the tips, with the forward- swept wing being smaller, so it isn't quite the same as a rhombic closed wing. The forward-swept wing is a little bit like part of a tail.

This was more expected on aircraft with highly variable center of gravity, such as passenger and cargo planes. It's seen on some concept plane sketches from Boeing. Putting these wings on a drone is a little odd. We can wonder if there are internal bays that sometimes contain reconfigurable heavy things, such as surveillance equipment or bombs.

The choice may be just to experiment with the concept. Perhaps it helps with short takeoff.

</comment><comment><USER17> Building something functionally equivalent to a Global Hawk doesn't seem like a huge technological stretch, or a surprise, considering the global hawk first flew in I think 2001 or 2002.

Eventually all jet turbine powered HALE (high altitude, long endurance) fixed wing platforms tend to converge on a similar type of design.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like a clone of those CIA birds

<comment><USER3> Looks like a copy of the NG global hawk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If it is a spy drone, why is it giant?</comment>


99 Rules to Live By - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@JohnLeFevre/99-rules-to-live-by-c93e286a7c29#.2zc2s07qq <comment><USER2> "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men." Well this is true for every other words synonymous to Rule.</comment>


Show HN: Taskenizer - <AUTHOR> https://www.taskenizer.com/

<comment><USER2> I feel like at this stage, simple small improvements will give you the most bang for your buck. A few starting suggestions:

* The buttons on the page (highlight, defer etc) are kinda small and close together.

* Highlight is a simple toggle function, but it has two buttons. One button would be simple and just as easy to understand.

* How do I make a new category. It wasn't obvious on the first page.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you fix Linkedin? - <AUTHOR> If you were the CEO of Linkedin,What steps would you take to fix it? <comment><USER2> Don't ask users when opening the mobile app to send mass invites to anyone they have ever talked to on the phone via text message or email. I uninstalled the app as soon as I saw that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stop the eMail bombardment. All eMails I get from LinkedIn go directly to Spam because of this, even the useful ones. Also, cease the dark pattern that makes you accidentally invite people to LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER4> They made it look like Facebook recently and it's painful to browse on a desktop. They use only a few pixels width instead of the whole screen. So, I'd fire one or two UX people. The rest is ok... also get rid of a bunch of useless notifications because no one cares about your birthday on linkedin.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd start by making it faster. Every time I click somewhere I have to wait and watch a spinner.

</comment><comment> jamey-aha It would be helpful to be able to post jobs as "remote" rather than requiring they be posted in an a geo-location.

</comment><comment><USER6> For their platform to be a recruitment platform, they should fix targeting, suggested hires. The algorithms behind it are in a dark age. Their tools to load jobs and suggest skills are terrible. The ability to customise jobs is woeful and they do not really make it easy to spread jobs into groups.

</comment><comment><USER7> Buy AngelList, let people login using their linkedin and autofill their profiles, let recruiters in a "Recruiters" group, not your "Network" which is basically a friends list.

</comment><comment><USER8> To be honest, if I was the CEO of Linkedin, I will be happy overall. Here is why. The stock IPO'ed at $45 and it is sitting at $190 today. So I will say that it is going well. Who cares about those stupid users, eh ? Remember, the primary goal of any for profit company is to make profit for their shareholders, period. Everything else is a side effect.

Now, if I was the actual user of linkedin, we are talking a whole different situation.

<comment><USER9> >the primary goal of any for profit company is to make profit

I couldn't agree more.

But they haven't turned a profit since 2013.

What's even more annoying is that it took me 10 minutes of googling to figure out what their annual net results are. Revenue shows up as the first result on google, but if you want to see the net result, you actually have to look through their quarterly reports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> From the CEO's perspective I'm not convinced it is broken. See the top comment [1] from a recent thread:

"Every part of the UI has been A/B tested and placed there to maximize what linked-in values."

[1] Ask HN: Why LinkedIn's UI is so terrible? - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13629283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13629283)

<comment><USER4> It's like saying "every line of code has been tested, we don't think the UI is broken"...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Stop nagging for app downloads when using mobile devices.</comment>


GitLab is down - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://status.gitlab.com](https://status.gitlab.com) isn't loading but GitLab seems to be back up, there's a notice stating: "We will be deploying GitLab EE 9.3.0-rc3, no downtime is expected." so I'm guessing that was the culprit.

</comment><comment><USER2> ah, okay, they are just upgrading and maybe it didn't go well: [https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus/status/876717704354385920](https://twitter.com/gitlabstatus/status/876717704354385920)

</comment><comment><USER2> indeed, for me too from hong kong. [https://status.gitlab.com/](https://status.gitlab.com/) also returns "502 Bad Gateway"</comment>


"Will not treat spending as dependent on approval of congressional committees" - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-by-the-president-38/ <comment><USER2> It's a $425 billion fund that is to be leveraged 10x into over $4 trillion in extremely cheap loans to large corporations. This is a staggering amount of money will be used to further consolidate the American economy with all the attendant problems that causes in the mid to long term.

The "strings" attached are almost non existent and most of them can be waived by the treasury secretary. Including using it for stock buy backs.

The US Government has just robbed another generation to further enrich the richest and this was not just a Republican doing, although they're going to get the blame. Schumer and Pelosi together wanted this in the bill because they serve the same interests. Pelosi could've stripped it in the House and the House could've passed the worker and small business focused measures leaving the slush fund for a separate bill. But they didn't for a reason. Pelosi also didn't take votes on the record so we can't hold our Representatives to account for their vote here.

</comment><comment> move-on-by He's going to spend it on himself and his children.</comment>