8000 screenshots of my PC and phone over the past 365 days - <AUTHOR> http://kaiel.vin/9Ho <comment><AUTHOR> This is part of a social experiment on radical transparency, of which I am the guinea pig.

<comment><USER2> You should probably freeze your credit card before someone spot the one screenshot you didn't know about

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I immediately got a browser popup from the site to install an esoteric "Kai Elvin" app (classy) but not before I got to see a thumbnail of a naked guy shaving, private bits barely covered by a bathroom sink (even more classy).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm going to flag this (hopefully that's the same as report)?

It's pretty irresponsible to publish this if you haven't:

a) Checked ALL the screenshots yourself

b) got permission for all the PII (names, mobile numbers) of everyone in your screenshot.

Should be removed until such time as that's established.

<comment><USER5> I noticed that even with NSFW content not hidden, some posts were still censored. Hopefully that means all content was reviewed prior to release, with proper permissions obtained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use Automatic Screenshotter on my work pc to capture a screenshot every 15 seconds. I currently keep about a year of screenshots.

We do a lot of consulting and I move between clients many times a day. So I keep the screenshots to be sure we are billing correctly. And also it comes in handy if there's every a question about billable hours.

I thought it would be fun to make movies out of it, but it only becomes interesting when I work on one thing for extended periods of time. I just move between windows far to often for interesting videos. But when I'm nose down developing, it's relatively neat.

edit: I'm not revealing this to the world. But I'm not afraid of higher-ups coming across this. I work pretty damn hard.

</comment><comment><USER7> Heads up, some of these are NSFW!

Scrolling screenshots of code/Youtube then boom, naked guy.

</comment><comment><USER8> For many years I had a cronjob configured to take a full screenshot once an hour during business hours on my office workstation. Nearly 20k in total, before I left that position. I still have them. It's sometimes quite amusing to scroll through the old ones and gawk at how things were and how I did things 10+ years ago.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think that this is an interisting idea and in general I welcome it that you shared this. However, based on the quick look I just had I doubt that you asked for permission to publish these from all the persons present in the pictures.

These kind of things can have real consequences.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm interested in the scrollable timeline code. I also used to do this with a cronjob every minute or so.

</comment><comment><USER11> After two screen-scrolls I was not comfortable that the author could have obtained consent for all of the captures. Did they?

I don't think this is appropriate for HN honestly, it's probably not legal in most jurisdictions. Viewing it could be a crime.

</comment><comment><USER12> Can I know, what stack you are using, it's fast for soo many images and Webdesign is good .

</comment><comment><USER13> This is not the "transparency" we want or we need.

</comment><comment><USER14> Real Truman Show

</comment><comment><USER15> huh? I don't get the concept. What is the benefit of revealing yourself like this to the world?

</comment><comment><USER16> What is being censored?</comment>


Show HN: Manage, annotate, and share research papers - <AUTHOR> http://www.papershipapp.com

<comment><USER2> Do annotations sync with mendeley?

Any plans to support zotero sync as an alternative? If you were unaware, there's an active mendeley boycott/emigration after they sold out to the beast.

<comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: Yes, and yes.

Annotations from PaperShip are saved directly to the PDF file, so they are synced accross devices, and readable everywhere. Please note that the official Desktop app from Mendeley uses a different kind of annotations (closed to third-party developers). We hope a future release from Mendeley can improve that.

Regarding Zotero, we just started working on it! There's still a lot of work, but it's definitely on our roadmap.

Thanks for the interest!

<comment><USER3> If this supported zotero I would use it all the time. Looking forward to the update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks great! Many of the uni students that I know have Android devices though. Any plans to make this cross plat?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

It's just a first release. No plans for an Android version yet, but we'll see how things work out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> just looking at the site, and not having an idevice, all i could think was that this is "pdf in the cloud" i.e. a way to get data in a way that is hard to work with other tools.

also, have no idea what's mendeley.</comment>


No link between eating dinner after 8pm, obesity in children - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/1841.html <comment><USER2> It's probably a cultural thing. In India...We ate after 8 all the time. 6.00 is when you get the last installment of caffeine..as tea or coffee. But then again, we were not allowed to come back home until after sunset. Play outside till sunset, homework time afterward, dinner and then a little walk/tv time and then off to bed. Elsewhere...Asian outdoor markets thrive until midnight. In my suburban town in America, everything is dead by 8. It's a tad depressing actually.

<comment><USER3> I think it's weather related. In most countries that have late night outdoor markets, temperatures are unbearably hot during the day, and comfortably warm at night.

In much of North America, half the year is only tolerably warm during the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Duh! A large chunk of the world eats dinner after 9pm and obesity rates are lower or the same than other countries.

<comment><USER5> Spain and the south of France comes to mind as examples.

<comment><USER6> Personally, when i arrived in the usa 8 years ago i was surprised that people eat dinner at 5:00 pm. In India,where i am from this time was meant for some light snacks and coffee/tea. So you get some light food to fuel you till you have dinner much later.

It's more of a cultural thing and no single thing is good or bad.

<comment><USER7> Are these people without jobs that eat dinner at 5pm? Most people I know are still at work at 5pm.

<comment><USER8> Many people seem to snack in the office around 5.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is it so hard for us to accept that obesity is due to overeating? Also, the myth that exercise is the key to losing weight won't die.

<comment><USER10> I have a friend who eats 3000~4000 kcals with no exercise and he is as thin as a stick. I have another friend who is a complete couch potato and eats junk food all day with no exercise, and he looks like a gym rat.

I think a lot of the magical thinking surrounding weight loss is because there's no one-size-fits-all solution, so people make up patterns in their heads and believe them to be true.

<comment><USER11> Basic thermodynamics:

If inputs > outputs, there is net energy storage (as fat or protein)

If inputs < outputs, there is net energy deficit (lost from fat and protein)

Inputs = food and drink consumed

Outputs = Basal metabolic rate (BMR) + energy used for activity + energy lost in urine and faeces

Faeces caloric content varies between 50-350 kcal / day, urine 91–117 kcal / day [1]

Basal metabolic rate is primarily decided by fat-free mass, mass, and age, 26% of BMR is not defined by these parameters. Mean BMR is 1500 kcal/day, and 26% of this represents a variability of 1305-1695 kcal per day.[2]

(350-50) + (117-91) + (1695-1305) = 716 kcal

Therefore two people of identical age, fat-free mass and mass who consume identical caloric intake and perform identical exercise will have, at most, a variance of 716 kcal / day in their energy expenditure from the variance in urinary and faecal caloric loss and BMR

[1]: Rose C, Parker A, Jefferson B, Cartmell E. The Characterization of Feces and Urine: A Review of the Literature to Inform Advanced Treatment Technology. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology. 2015;45(17):1827-1879. doi:10.1080/10643389.2014.1000761. Section 3.2.5 and Section 3.6.4

[2] Factors influencing variation in basal metabolic rate include fat-free mass, fat mass, age, and circulating thyroxine but not sex, circulating leptin, or triiodothyronine. Johnstone AM, Murison SD, Duncan JS, Rance KA, Speakman JR. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Nov;82(5):941-8.

<comment><USER12> Assuming that 9kcal of fat = 1g, that's about 80g of extra fat stored/lost per day. Over the course of the year, that's 3 kg, or about 6.5 pounds.

That kind of variance is enough to mean that if we trust the study, you could raise two different twenty-year-olds and one will die of starvation and the other will be clinically obese despite the same routine and diet.

<comment><USER13> It's not true. Even if they start with very different calorie needs for the same lifestyle that will even out once their weight changes. The more you weigh the more calories you need and the less you weigh the less you need. That's where the myth of metabolism slowing down after weight loss comes from btw: you just need less calories after some time of dieting so your progress will slow down or steak stall if you don't adjust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> it may not lead to weight gain but is still healthy to eat late dinners?

If you have chronic acid reflux (GERD), eating late makes it worse (acid comes back up when you lie down after a meal)

Eating late can also lead to worse sleep as your body is spending energy digesting food rather than repairing itself.

Personally I feel much more refreshed the next day, when dinner is around 6pm and when it is the lightest meal of the day. Practical issues aside, i cant think of any health benefits eating a late dinner.

<comment><USER15> Obviously, if you feel bad after late dinner, it is healthier to eat sooner. That does not mean healthy people needs to follow the same restrictions.

FOr many of us, late dinner does not cause problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Finally, an article to link to my girlfriend when she finds me eating ice cream at 3am. It's a stretch, but I'm easily convinced after 8pm.

<comment><USER17> Surely you're not a child, Danneu.

<comment><USER18> He said it was a stretch :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There obviously is a link between the span of eating and your weight. But it's not as big, when you eat large quantities of food.

If we are talking about obesity it means that it took years to put someone in that state. Eating 300-500 of unhealthy kcal less, by decreasing the eating span just delays the problem.

I do agree though, that the shorter eating span the better. It's called intermittent fasting and there are promising results coming out from research on that.

</comment><comment><USER20> There was a paper published recently (within last year or two) that looked at the time between first meal and last meal of the day in mice. In general, they found that the shorter time between first and last meal had a significant correlation on weight loss. For example if the time between breakfast and dinner was 10 hours instead of 14 hours, the 10 hour mice weighed less than the 14 hour mice, even on the same diet.

I can't find the citation right now but if I do I will edit the comment.

<comment><USER21> I'm commenting to express interest in that citation, and will go looking for it myself if you don't find it.

If I had to bullshit a mechanism, I would say that, for well fed mice, activity increases with the amount of time since the last meal, so mice on the early dinner diet would be more active in the mornings before breakfast.

To test this, I would see if I could get the effect to go away by feeding mice as soon as they woke up, and then 10 or 14 hours later.

<comment><USER20> [http://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814...](http://www.cell.com/cell- metabolism/abstract/S1550-4131%2814%2900498-7)

I think this is it. It even includes a nice Graphical Abstract which is kind of comical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My opinion is the amount of time spent eating (and not when you eat) is a major contributor to lower obesity rates. When you spend more time chewing and conversing, you seem to eat less and get fuller. Typically you can't even finish your meal.

In NA we eat to quickly not giving our brain and stomach time to send the proper signals of fullness. Try it sometime, take a typically portion and spend 20 minutes not eating more than half of it. You probably won't be able to finish it.

<comment><USER23> And they are all tricks to eat less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "The lead author of the study, Dr Gerda Pot, is a Visiting Lecturer in the Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Division and is also based at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She said: 'The findings of our study are surprising. We expected to find an association between eating later and being more likely to be overweight but actually found that this was not the case. This may be due to the limited number of children consuming their evening meal after 8pm in this cohort."

So the study is far too small to have the power to come to _surprising_ conclusions, and should probably be retracted.

Also, Science Bulletin has very annoying popovers that will drive the audience away.

</comment><comment><USER25> When do you eat dinner?

Vote Here [https://goo.gl/9XHtG7](https://goo.gl/9XHtG7)

Voting Results [https://goo.gl/aIixqm](https://goo.gl/aIixqm)

UPVOTE FOR VISIBILITY

</comment><comment><USER26> So the last time I had put on weight (an accident -> was bedridden for long) I decided to fix my food intake along with running and sports. One advice I received from a dietician was that have dinner at least 2 hours before you go to bed and I followed it. I don't know whether it was other things that worked too or only others worked but I felt a clear difference in my fitness, sleep pattern ("very" uninterrupted), digestion, and mood when I woke up the next morning.

On a side note, when I was S Korea - dinner happened at 5pm and I could never get used to it :-)

</comment><comment><USER27> When else are they going to eat?

I was once a serios competative swimmer (think top 100 in the US). If i ate between school at say 4pm and training at 5, that dinner would have been floating down the lanes. After 8pm was the only option. (Same for breakfast. Eat after training, on way to school.) Properly active kids eat when they can. Nobody should skip exercise or other activity for the sake of some silly 1950s eating schedual.

</comment><comment><USER28> I was a small kid and my kids are small. I've always found late dining to be uncomfortable as I'm too hungry. Thankfully, it isn't cultural in the areas of Canada and USA where I've lived.

Does anyone have any experience where adopting later dining improved happiness or health? What changes did you make? How did you adopt it?

<comment><USER15> Assuming late dinning is sinning after 20:00, we adopted it in the summer. It definitely improved hapiness, because we did not had to watch the time and could leave playground when we felt like leaving it. (Our playground even had wifi for parental hapiness. Kids were happy to be with friends.) It is safe to assume the health got better too, because we had more sun and kids had more exercise.

We adopted it by not feeling like leaving and taking food with us.

<comment><USER28> I like that. The kids want to snack after school anyway, so a later dinner as the weather gets nicer makes a lot of sense. The tricky part might be keeping bedtime reasonable as my kids are still young.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm curious-everyone who is doing the contrarian "But I never eat before 8pm/whatever"-where do you live? Also its a bit of a straw man to make 5pm your early eating time-I usually eat between 6 and 7-is that abnormally early? I also tend to get to work earlier and leave earlier as well.

<comment><USER30> I live in Spain and we have dinner at 20:00, almost all my friends and family have dinner between 21:00 and 22:00.

My Italian family have dinner at 19:00

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> meh.. in asian countries its a norm to have late dinner and go to bed after that. Doesn't make the kids fat.

<comment><USER31> Is this an anecdotic evidence?

<comment><USER32> It may not be the entire picture, but certainly we have obesity stats for millions of children in Asia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Perhaps there's a spurious link - the kinds of families who eat after 9pm are also the kinds of families who eat too much.

Maybe. I have zero evidence, not even a circumstantial anecdote. But perhaps that's where theories like this come from.

</comment><comment><USER34> The article cites major caveats - 1\. Cohort size of children eating after 8pm is much smaller than before - mostly because the kids are in bed by then ( they are looking at 4-10 year olds ) 2\. Self reported Food Diaries are seldom accurate. 3\. This study is the first of it's kind.

Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain, especially if most of the calories are from carbs. Simple rules like NCA5 or NCA6 ( no carbs after 5pm ) easily influence weight loss in teens & adults. I wouldn't try this hack with 4-10 year olds, but once you are in the teens, it is a nice simple body hack.

<comment><USER35> You first say "Self reported Food Diaries are seldom accurate" and "This study is the first of it's kind", but you then say "Supper timing is majorly correlated to weight gain". How do you know that? Isn't there a slight contradiction there? If it was correlated, you would then expect an experiment like this to find it.

<comment><USER34> You have a point.

Details - I build weight nodels related to food dairies. I have a few dozen redditors ( mostly from the loseit subreddit ) who have signed up. They send me their food dairy and weight everyday via the free WeightGreat.com service, and I then build models.

From the data I have looked at, I can say supper timing is correlated to weight gain. Moreover if the supper is sourced from mostly carbs ( sugar/starch, not fiber ), weight gain is statistically significant.

<comment><USER35> I think that makes your evidence significantly weaker than what was used in this study.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Obesity isn't about _when_ you eat, it's about _what_ you eat and how much.

<comment><USER21> How much you eat might have been related to when you eat. No one here is seriously advocating that energy is not conserved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think the problem is not really about eating late, but more of eating a large meal and going to bed right away.

I don't know about it making you gain weight, but I know I wake up tired and my heart rate tracker shows it being much higher then usual.

<comment><USER38> Still not a problem. Whatever makes you eat the least will let you control your weight. For some people, it might be not eating before bed, for others it may not matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Who eats before 8pm ?!? O_o

What kind of country are they talking about?

<comment><USER40> Young kids need ~11-12 hrs of sleep a night. They have to get up at about 7:00AM (because WE have to get up then) so bedtime is fixed at 7ish. Bedtime routine takes 30-45 minutes. We don't want to have a separate dinner for the kids. Plus we need kid-free time to keep the house in something resembling order. So _of course_ we have early (~5:30) dinner.

How do families in 7:00-9:00 dinner start time countries handle this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Unfortunately, some people are going to read this wrong. For example: I know some folks who have "second dinner" after 8 pm. Their children are definitively obese, and I can see them citing this study as a reason to keep eating "a meal called dinner" after 8 pm.

</comment><comment><USER42> Some people are advocating to have the largest meal in the morning, then a medium meal in the afternoon, and a light meal in the evening. (I could not find a good reference, it's something I've encountered several times in blogs).

Anyone here following such a regime, and does it work in controlling weight and feeling healthy?

<comment><USER43> Some people advocate intermittent fasting. Some people advocate skipping lunch. Some people advocate advocate nearly any strategy you can imagine. The only thing that really matters is whether you eat less. Any strategy that helps you eat less will result in weight loss/control.

<comment><USER44> "The only thing that really matters is whether you eat less."

Intermittent fasting != calorie restriction - you can eat the same amount. The benefits are from entering a fat burning/low insulin state that occurs by going > 12 hours without food.

<comment><USER23> > Intermittent fasting != calorie restriction - you can eat the same amount.

But most people will not. To keep numbers simple lets say I eat 2kcals/day. Now I decide to intermittent fast and only eat every other day. On the days I do eat, I will have a really hard time pushing down 4k cals unless I plan to make them up (when I used to bulk eating became a chore). Also, since I'm already doing IF, I'm probably a bit health conscious and likely eat pretty health on the days I do eat making it even harder to make up the missed calories.

Over the course of a week and month those cals missed on the IF days but not fully made up on the eat days do add up which leads to weight loss.

<comment><USER42> That doesn't prove that "The only thing that really matters is whether you eat less" is correct.

<comment><USER43> Find the studies that show weight loss when eating in a caloric surplus while intermittent fasting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Obesity isn't the only thing though. Skipping dinner or breakfast is a form of intermittent fasting.

I think intermittent fasting improves lifespan. It is a form of calorie restriction. People I know even do water diets to repair bones - but that may be a bit extreme.

However, this is probably not good for children. Their bodies need to grow. What we really need is to feed them healthy food instead of the processed crap found now in many stores. The explosion of sugars and HFCS in everything probably contributes to the diabetes / weight problems for kids today.

<comment><USER46> IIRC the only studies that show that calorie restriction improves lifespan are done in animals, so you can't really extend this to humans.

<comment><USER45> Humans are biologically so different from animals? Most such studies are done in animals first. Human trials take much longer.

Here is a much more recent study with monkeys:

[http://news.wisc.edu/monkey-caloric-restriction-study- shows-...](http://news.wisc.edu/monkey-caloric-restriction-study-shows-big- benefit-contradicts-earlier-study/)

<comment><USER6> so you can correlate success with trial animals to success with humans. eh ? i know its hackernews but i see a lot of people preaching about their favorite hacky fad food habits.How about asking people to live a normal healthy lifestyle. Few hours of exercise and normal food that your body can sustain.

<comment><USER45> Well unless you can tell me what makes humans so different from monkeys that you think it won't work.

<comment><USER43> Lots of interventions that work in animal models do not work in humans. Physiology is different as is adherence. Humans control their own diets, so a really difficult diet will simply result in no humans sticking with it.

Humans aren't even monkeys. So it's not surprising that "works in monkeys" is a mediocre proxy for "works in humans".

<comment><USER45> Well then here is human trials:

In a pilot human trial, three cycles of a similar diet given to 19 subjects once a month for five days decreased risk factors and biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer with no major adverse side effects, according to Longo.

BOOM.

<comment><USER43> Like many intermittent fasting proponents, you look at these studies that enforce days of significantly-reduced caloric intake and assume that a positive result there transfers to "skipping dinner or breakfast" just because both are referred to as "intermittent fasting". Even if 5 days of significant caloric restriction extends lifespan, that in no way indicates that 14-16 hour fasting does.

Also, I never said that intermittent fasting was ineffective in humans. I said that animal models do not always map well to humans. Scientists who use animal models understand their shortcomings. You should do some basic research before throwing up your arrogant "boom" as if you proved something.

<comment><USER45> Why don't you look at the actual article?

<comment><USER43> Which article, the one about eating after 8pm having no relation to obesity in children that has pretty much nothing to do with intermittent fasting? Yeah, I read that one.

Or the one you randomly quoted but didn't even bother to provide a link to? The one that did a pilot study in humans specifically because the researchers know that animal studies don't always map well to humans? The one that did a 5 day fast rather than just skipping breakfast? I read that one, too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324478304578171623040640006-lMyQjAxMTAyMDEwMjExNDIyWj.html?mod=wsj_valetbottom_email <comment><USER6> This is so typical - a government agency screws up, so it blames the fact that it didn't have enough powers, and does another power grab:

"However, Mr. Abdulmutallab and his underwear did alter U.S. intelligence- gathering. A Senate investigation revealed that NCTC had received information about him but had failed to query other government databases about him. In a scathing finding, the Senate report said, "the NCTC was not organized adequately to fulfill its missions."

"This was not a failure to collect or share intelligence," said John Brennan, the president's chief counterterrorism adviser, at a White House press conference in January 2010. "It was a failure to connect and integrate and understand the intelligence we had.""

From what I'm reading here, this person would have been within the jurisdiction of the previous rules as a person connected with terror activities. The agency just failed to connect the dots. If I recall recall correctly, the guys own father had contacted US Embassy to tell them that his son is trying to get involved with terrorists...

The solution to this problem seems to be better data interconnection between agencies, in order to ensure that as much detail about identified threats is available. I don't see how have more data about a much broader set of citizens is going to help... if anything, it's going to make the identification process more complex.

</comment><comment><USER7> At risk of stating the obvious, the false positive rate will create a vast number of innocent citizens flagged for further investigation. This automated flagging will overwhelm the human investigators, creating a situation in which terrorists find it easier to hide and operate amongst the citizenry, with the added feature that innocent citizens swept up will become truculent and less likely to cooperate. Net result; the US government makes terrorism easier, at vast expense to the US taxpayer.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A couple of key paragraphs:

"Now, NCTC [National Counterterrorism Center] can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans 'reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information' may be permanently retained.

"The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes."

<comment><USER8> > The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to > foreign governments for analysis of their own.

What forces those foreign governments to comply with the safeguards of US law?

Especially if when they hand over the data, the feds say "do what you need to do to tell us what we need to know (wink wink)". It's nothing less than "extraordinary rendition" for data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A very telling line in the Article - "The guidelines provide rigorous oversight to protect the information that we have, for authorized and narrow purposes," said Alexander Joel, Civil Liberties Protection Officer for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence"

A "guideline" is supposed to provide rigorous oversight...how many guidelines have you heard of that provide rigorous Anything? Basically the government wants to be able to Datamine every single database within their control for anything suspicious. Unfortunately the definition of "suspicious activity" can be elastic enough to be almost anything.

Occupy Wallstreet? - <USER5>

Protest against Oil drilling - <USER5>

Blog post criticizing NY police "stop & frisk" - <USER5>

Criticize the Feds for overstepping on something - <USER5>

Sad - we are sleep waking into the Total information awareness state. The terrorists attacks have worked - they have destroyed the very values that America was built on

<comment><USER10> Add to it that paying with cash is suspicious and should be reported immediately. [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/14/fbi-perfect- terro...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/14/fbi-perfect-terrorist- coffee-cash_n_1276494.html)

<comment><USER11> If you are a regular "cash customer" of a restaurant, you get treated like a king.

Good inside move.

<comment><USER12> If you pay cash _anywhere_ , not only are you treated like a king, but you will get a nice discount due to the vendor not having to pay CC processing fees (at the least). I highly recommend that frugal HN'ers explore this phenomenon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No mention in this article (that I saw) that points out that this data is also used to find new candidates for the extrajudicial "kill list" using the "disposition matrix":

>the "disposition matrix" has been developed and will be overseen by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). One of its purposes is "to augment" the "separate but overlapping kill lists" maintained by the CIA and the Pentagon

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama- te...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama-terrorism- kill-list)

There's been a slow, steady consolidation of state power post-9/11, including the establishment of NORTHCOM: a command post for war in North America. It seems like they're worried about domestic insurgence rather than conventional terrorism.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you haven't committed a crime how could you possibly need privacy, comrade?

<comment><USER10> You really do enjoy having lots of people watch your sex tapes, or know about your financial situation or about how you and your parents haven't been talking for so many years or knowing that your girlfriend/wife dated and slept with crowd of men before meeting you, huh?

<comment><USER14> (psst: might want to have your sarcasm detector recalibrated, it appears to be giving erroneous readings)

<comment><USER15> (psst: text only communication is a _really_ shitty way to convey sarcasm. Sarcasm on the Internet is fundamentally Broken)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bin Laden won the war on terror. They're all scared now. Even China does not monitor its own citizens like that. Soon Chinese citizens will enjoy more freedom and privacy than western citizens.

<comment><USER16> Sure. I mean, their local police are allowed to arrest people and send them to "Reeducation Through Labor" camps for 1-3 years without trial. But sure, the US, China, same thing.

<comment><USER17> Are you saying the US does not detain people without charges for years at a time?

<comment><USER16> I'm saying that the local police in China can, on a whim, send you to a labor camp for 1-3 years, and that even after "reforms", the hearings that spring you from labor camps take longer than 1-3 years.

And I'm saying that the police in the US can't.

Equating civil liberties in the US with those of China make you, prima facie, a nutjob.

<comment><USER18> Please reread the NDAA 2012 (keyword: indefinite detention) and dispense with the ad hominem attacks. If you can't make your point without calling someone a nutjob, maybe you don't have a point to be made...

<comment><USER16> Just citing the NDAA in this context is a tell that you haven't read it. The authorization to detain persons without trial doesn't come from the NDAA, it comes from the 2003 AUMF. The NDAA _narrows_ the detention powers available to the US; the ACLU (rightly) is upset that it doesn't narrow those powers sufficiently.

And, obviously, the detention powers available to the US under the AUMF/NDAA are _nothing like those available to any local Chinese constabulary_.

<comment><USER18> I have read it, and I submit the relevant text from section 1021 below.

Namely, the NDAA affirms the "authority of the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force". A "covered person" is someone who has "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks" or who "was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces." But no trial needs to be held in order to make the aforementioned conclusions: "Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force."

So, our government can detain anybody it (who's that exactly?) deems is a "terrorist", without trial, until the end of "hostilities" (let me make a prediction: the "war on terror" isn't ending any time soon, hence "indefinite").

So, no, I am not making and will not make any comparisons between the United States and China. I am, however, backing up guelo's point that the US can _legally_ "detain people without charges for years at a time", and very few people seem to care.

SECTION 1021

      Sec. 1021. Affirmation of authority of the Armed Forces of the
      United States to detain covered persons pursuant to the Authorization
      for Use of Military Force.

      (a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the authority of the
        President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to
        the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40;
        50 U.S.C. 1541 note) includes the authority for the Armed Forces
        of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection
      (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.

      (b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section
      is any person as follows:
        (1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided
          the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,
          or harbored those responsible for those attacks.
        (2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported
          al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged
          in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,
          including any person who has committed a belligerent act or
          has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy
          forces.

      (c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The disposition of a
        person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may
        include the following:
        (1) Detention under the law of war without trial until
          the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for
          Use of Military Force.
        (2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States
          Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009
          (title XVIII of Public Law 111–84)).
        (3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent
          tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.
        (4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person's country
          of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.
      (d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is intended to limit
        or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the
        Authorization for Use of Military Force.

<comment><USER16> The problem isn't the NDAA. It's Public Law 107-40, the original 2001 Al Qaeda AUMF. Here's the problematic language:

        (a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary
        and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons
        he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist
        attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such
        organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of
        international terrorism again the United States by such nations,
        organizations or persons

Compare to the 1991 AUMF for the first Gulf War:

        (a) AUTHORIZATION- The President is authorized, subject to subsection
        (b), to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations
        Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve
        implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664,
        665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677.

        (b) REQUIREMENT FOR DETERMINATION THAT USE OF MILITARY FORCE IS
        NECESSARY- Before exercising the authority granted in subsection (a),
        the President shall make available to the Speaker of the House of
        Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his
        determination--

        (1) that the United States has used all appropriate diplomatic and
        other peaceful means to obtain compliance by Iraq with the United
        Nations Security Council resolutions cited in subsection (a); and

        (2) that those efforts have not been and would not be successful in
        obtaining such compliance.

Notice that the 2001 AUMF, which was written in a panic, authorizes arbitrary force with no mitigating effort required not only against nations but against "organizations" and "persons", and continues to authorize those efforts so long as they might prevent future acts of terrorism.

It is hard to get much worse than that. The NDAA doesn't make it worse; in fact, by putting pen to paper and outlining specific circumstances in which the US can use its military to detain people, it ostensibly makes it better (it is hard to imagine making the 2001 or 2003 AUMF better without repealing it and starting over, though).

The Alex Jones take on the NDAA would be that it's a huge executive overreach and a sign that the current administration favors an overt authorization of Latin American-style "disappearings" of suspected terrorists. Apart from the 2001-2003 context those febrile rants exclude, there is also the fact that the House and Senate GOP wanted the 2012 NDAA to _expand_ the powers available to the executive to combat terrorism.

It is also possible to be disquieted by detention and due process provisions in a war powers act while simultaneously understanding the context in which a reasonable person could assert them. For example, without some provision for detaining US citizens abroad, how would you lawfully handle _any_ armed conflict with the Taliban? There are more than 300MM Americans. Some of them will win the lottery, and others will in fact fly to Pakistan to train with militants, as has already happened repeatedly. US military forces will eventually encounter them in armed conflict. In every war, there is always going to some due process concern regarding the handling of possible US citizens taking up arms to fight alongside our opponents.

The Al Qaeda AUMF is ridiculously overbroad and needs to be fixed. But the NDAA, a utility bill that happens every year to fund the military, is not a re-ratification of that act, nor does it create a civil liberties regime in the US comparable to that of China.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the info about the AUMF. I'll definitely have to look into that further.

      Notice that the 2001 AUMF, which was written in a panic,
      authorizes arbitrary force with no mitigating effort
      required not only against nations but against
      "organizations" and "persons", and continues to authorize
      those efforts so long as they might prevent future acts of
      terrorism.

      It is hard to get much worse than that. The NDAA doesn't
      make it worse; in fact, by putting pen to paper and
      outlining specific circumstances in which the US can use
      its military to detain people, it ostensibly makes it
      better (it is hard to imagine making the 2001 or 2003
      AUMF better without repealing it and starting over,
      though).

Yea, that's definitely horrendous. That being said, the entire purpose of Section 1021 of the NDAA 2012 is to affirm those governmental powers. There's even a section which I cited which specifically states that the NDAA doesn't limit the President's powers at all: "(d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Which basically means "everything we just said about limits and expansions means jack squat when it comes to the president; (s)he can do whatever". So yea, the AUMF started this, and it was broad and allowed everything. The NDAA is still a problem because it continues it and doesn't actually limit anything when it comes to the President.

      The Alex Jones take on the NDAA would be that it's a huge
      executive overreach and a sign that the current
      administration favors an overt authorization of Latin
      American-style "disappearings" of suspected terrorists.
      Apart from the 2001-2003 context those febrile rants
      exclude, there is also the fact that the House and Senate
      GOP wanted the 2012 NDAA to expand the powers available
      to the executive to combat terrorism.

I don't think I mentioned Alex Jones. Also "huge executive overreach and a sign that the current administration" and "the House and Senate GOP wanted the 2012 NDAA to expand the powers available to the executive". Both of those are right :) Both parties are responsible for this. This is a bi-partisan effort haha.

      It is also possible to be disquieted by detention and due
      process provisions in a war powers act while
      simultaneously understanding the context in which a
      reasonable person could assert them. For example,
      without some provision for detaining US citizens abroad,
      how would you lawfully handle any armed conflict with
      the Taliban? There are more than 300MM Americans. Some
      of them will win the lottery, and others will in fact
      fly to Pakistan to train with militants, as has already
      happened repeatedly. US military forces will eventually
      encounter them in armed conflict. In every war, there
      is always going to some due process concern regarding
      the handling of possible US citizens taking up arms to
      fight alongside our opponents.

If a US citizen is engaging in a firefight with US armed forces, then yes, there's your proof they are "terrorists". If you can a US citizen in the act of building a bomb, then yes, there's your proof. However, if through the grape vine you gain "intelligence" that a certain US citizen is a "terrorist", by constitutional law you must provide that citizen a fair trial by a jury of their peers (i.e. not a military trial). If overseas, bring them back to the US. The AUMF generally and NDAA more specifically do away with that requirement (which is, in my opinion, one of the most fundamental aspects of american freedom).

      The Al Qaeda AUMF is ridiculously overbroad and needs to
      be fixed. But the NDAA, a utility bill that happens every
      year to fund the military, is not a re-ratification of
      that act, nor does it create a civil liberties regime
      in the US comparable to that of China.

If it's not a re-ratification, then why mention it? If the government doesn't need it, why put the language in there? I think it's important to keep in mind that few things are put into legal documentation without express purpose, especially at the level of government.

<comment><USER16> I'm the one bringing up Alex Jones, as a way of being derisive about people who equate the US and China on the auspices that "the US has made policy mistakes and China has made policy mistakes so what's the difference?". I'm sorry that I accidentally implied that you, specifically, were regurgitating Infowars points.

You ask, in effect, if the administration already had the ability under its war powers to detain people, why create a new bill that re-affirms that power? The answer is political. The conservative GOP wanted to re-affirm those war powers that benefited the CIA, and at the same time some (but not all) liberal elements of the Democratic party wanted to clarify and rein in those powers. There was a fight, and then a compromise bill, which, reading between the lines, attempts to punt the thorniest parts of the debate to the Supreme Court while creating an immediate statutory authority for CIA and DOD to continue doing what they're already doing.

Yes, this is a clusterfuck.

The problem in the US is that we were hit with one of the most damaging, best organized terrorist attacks by a non-state actor during the least competent administration of the past 50 years. Congress panicked and granted the Bush administration a wish list of military powers, and we're spending the ensuing decades gradually cleaning up after the resulting mess.

That's a problem. But it's not a sign that the US is gradually turning into a dystopian hellscape.

I don't care, except for two things. First, when people bring up the NDAA, they set off a "someone's wrong on the Internet" sensor that, as a nerd, I am unable to suppress. Second, as much as Internet psuedo-activists do not want to hear this, the "NDAA" issue is in fact a corner case in US policy. Indefinite detention of political dissidents in China is not a corner case. It is a daily fact of life, as it is elsewhere in the world.

You can make millions of dollars spinning conspiracy theories about the evils of the government and big corporations in America, and the reality is, nobody really cares. Try doing that in Russia; see how long it takes for you or your coworkers to end up dead.

<comment><USER18>
      I'm the one bringing up Alex Jones, as a way of being
      derisive about people who equate the US and China on the
      auspices that "the US has made policy mistakes and China
      has made policy mistakes so what's the difference?". I'm
      sorry that I accidentally implied that you, specifically,
      were regurgitating Infowars points.

No problem. I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't.

      Yes, this is a clusterfuck.

That's something we definitely agree on ;)

      That's a problem. But it's not a sign that the US is gradually
      turning into a dystopian hellscape.

At the risk of sounding crazy myself, I've seen too many recent videos of "peace officers" dragging peaceful protestors into the streets by their hair and group beating them with batons before handcuffing and arresting them, to believe that myself. But that's my opinion. And I really do wish that was the case.

      I don't care, except for two things. First, when people bring
      up the NDAA, they set off a "someone's wrong on the Internet"
      sensor that, as a nerd, I am unable to suppress. Second, as much
      as Internet psuedo-activists do not want to hear this, the "NDAA"
      issue is in fact a corner case in US policy. Indefinite detention
      of political dissidents in China is not a corner case. It is a daily
      fact of life, as it is elsewhere in the world.

I don't have any examples of the provisions outlined in the NDAA and documents prior being used, so I can't speak to that.

      You can make millions of dollars spinning conspiracy theories
      about the evils of the government and big corporations in America,
      and the reality is, nobody really cares. Try doing that in Russia;
      see how long it takes for you or your coworkers to end up dead.

"Try doing that in Russia; see how long it takes for you or your coworkers to end up dead." Let's be fair, you could make that same case for the death of Andrew Breitbart.

<comment><USER16> Wait what? Breitbart died of a heart attack. He had a history of heart disease. He was also beloved of roughly half the US government. Russian activists with inconvenient positions and personal beliefs appear to routinely end up shot to death.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia)

Anna Politkovskaya did not have a history of bullet disease.

<comment><USER18> Yea I'm not saying Breitbart was murdered lol. I'm just saying, if we're going to talk about governments murdering inconvenient people, a case could be made for it and we shouldn't put it past our own government to do so.

In any case this is tertiary to the original point that the situation is a mess, regardless of whether the NDAA has anything to do with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm guessing they would prefer to be referenced as a "Counterterrorism Agency" rather than a "Terrorism Agency"...</comment>


The portable cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.karan.org/blog/2015/10/15/portable-cloud/ <comment><USER2> As well as building this brilliant proper portable cloud, Karanbir also helped me to choose parts for my rather cheaper non-portable caseless alternative:

[https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/caseless- virtualizatio...](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/caseless- virtualization-cluster-part-5/#content)

</comment><comment><USER3> There was another article on creating a portable cloud setup with Intel NUCs at Joyent blog few months back:

[https://www.joyent.com/blog/spin-up-a-docker-dev-test- enviro...](https://www.joyent.com/blog/spin-up-a-docker-dev-test-environment- in-60-minutes-or-less)

I wonder what the cost difference would be between this setup and the original article box?

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought this was why things like the big end ThinkPad W-series exists?

I still run 3-4 VMs at the same time on my ancient X201 on Hyper-V.

</comment><comment><USER5> what are the advantages of this over just having a machine with many VMs?

<comment><USER6> If you are messing with virtualization setups, hypervisors and low level os/kernel things you often can't (or at least don't want to for speed, stability etc) be in a virtualized environment as your base layer.</comment></comment>


Distinct on: a confusing, unique and useful feature in Postgres - <AUTHOR> https://www.yogeshchauhan.com/167/postgres/the-confusing-unique-and-useful-feature-in-postgres-distinct-on <comment><USER3> Seems like a saner option (in that behavior is defined) than MySQL's ability to select columns in a group-by that are not aggregates / grouped-on.

e.g. this works in MySQL, and has for many years:

        select a, b, c from table group by a

and you'll get undefined (but valid) b and c items from the grouped results per `a`. It's absurdly useful at times - if the non-grouped columns are just denormalized data, it doesn't matter which row they came from, and there's no need to spend time sorting/maxing/etc. And sometimes you truly don't care which entry you get, you just want _an_ entry, e.g. to show a sample of what's in the group.

<comment> munk-a Thankfully, though, Postgres' DISTINCT ON does play nicely with ordering and that's where I think it shines. If you have revisioned historical data this is one of the best ways to clearly and expressively pull off most recent records - it also works well for MIN/MAX based selections or more complicated ordering schemas - in my workday setting we have a common ordered data set that we order along a three component index and have ended up wrapping one of our most common DISTINCT ON expressions in a view.

<comment><USER4> I had no idea this existed, and that was the first use case that came to mind. I can see myself using this a lot now. I have one especially terrible dataset I'm working with at the moment where table A has a primary key, and table B is a set of denormalized transaction logs. If I want to know the status of a record in table A, I have to JOIN on table B (SELECT ... MAX), to get the most recent transaction for that PK. It's ugly, confusing to anybody else who reads it, and inefficient. DISTINCT ON seems like a a significant improvement for that.

Note: it would be theoretically trivial to actually normalize this schema, but sadly that's beyond my remit. At first glance I can't think of a scenario where I would choose this design pattern unless I was forced to work within similar constraints (which does happen all the time in the real world).

<comment> munk-a If performance is a concern a MATERIALIZED VIEW might be a good tool to use - I've worked in similar sounding legacy environments and usually, while the underlying structures are immutable due to layers of code, adding a mat view or two on top is do-able.

Maybe that'd be some help?

<comment><USER4> This particular use-case wouldn't be suited to MVs, because it's infrequently accessed, and cannot tolerate stale data. So refreshing the view just kinda kicks the can down the road a little bit. Other DB engines support a FAST or INCREMENTAL refresh, which can even support queries with aggregates (as long as certain conditions are met). For instance Oracle achieves this with MATERIALIZED VIEW LOGs, which are essentially just transaction logs for the MV.

It's a bit of a moot point for me in this case though, as I'm not allowed to make any DDL changes to this DB, I just have to produce periodic reports. Which is perhaps a bit of a contrived situation, but it's absolutely not my first time dealing with it. In reality there's other even more trivial solutions to this problem. It could be solved by adding a row to table A (or creating a new related table), and then adding an update to the code that inserts the transaction logs (or even just with a table trigger - <USER2> that's a bit more spaghetti). That would be all that's required to bring this schema (or at least this particular portion of it) in line with a normal form. This particular DB is a large component in a generally spaghttified architecture, that lots of stakeholders write to and consume data from, so over the years it's grown too complex to reliably tolerate simple changes. I imagine constraints similar to these is what drives a lot of use for features like DISTINCT ON, where the more "correct" approach might just be to fix your schema.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One really useful call out is that it supports expressions, not just columns. You can create derived entities via case statements (think binning, entity normalization, etc) and leverage the super handy functionality against those derived entities.

It also allows you to use multiple entities/expressions in the distinct on, so you can pivot the logic between granularity levels. Which comes in handy when needing to pull rollups latest/first/biggest/smallest style rollups from varying perspectives.

<comment><USER6> This sounds pretty awesome. Anyone have any sample queries demonstrating this lying around?

<comment><USER5> I threw together a Fiddle that demonstrates it here[1]. It shows the basic single column version, a multi-column distinct on, and an example that uses a case statement for a derived column. The only thing with the third example is that I don't believe you can alias the derived column within the distinct on field itself, so have to repeat the expression - once within the distinct on and again in the column list of the select statement.

[1] [https://www.db-fiddle.com/f/7CCYFf14UtkuGYfGZAt5PY/3](https://www.db- fiddle.com/f/7CCYFf14UtkuGYfGZAt5PY/3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Distinct on is for sure one of the most useful Postgres extensions to SQL, as far as how concise it makes queries which otherwise would suck to write.

I would have liked to see equivalent queries written with GROUP BY so people could understand and translate that knowledge even if they don't have direct Postgres experience.

Thanks for the article!

<comment><USER8> I believe the demo query

        SELECT DISTINCT ON (location) location, time, report
        FROM weather_reports
        ORDER BY location, time DESC;

could also be written with a self-join like so

        SELECT location, time, report
        FROM weather_reports
        JOIN (
            SELECT location, max(time) AS time
            FROM weather_reports
            GROUP BY location
        ) as _ USING (location, time)
        ORDER BY location;

though I'd be curious what the query-plan differences are. I suspect the DISTINCT ON might translate more closely to a lateral join

        SELECT
        FROM (
            SELECT DISTINCT(location)
            FROM weather_reports
        ) AS locations
        JOIN LATERAL (
            SELECT location, time, report
            FROM weather_reports
            WHERE location = locations.location
            ORDER BY ts DESC
            LIMIT 1
        ) AS reports ON TRUE
        ORDER BY location;

But I really can't say.

<comment><USER9> The first only works if location,time is unique. In the example it may be, not necessarily in general.

And yes, the JOIN LATERAL would be a good substitute.

P.S. More concise is CROSS JOIN ... rather than JOIN ... ON TRUE

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This removes the self join needed to ask the query "(latest/first/biggest/smallest) record per (customer/user/entity)".

Nice!

<comment><USER11> I've been struggling with a similar query recently perhaps better suited for a time series DB. Can DISTINCT ON be used to ask the query "latest record per customer _per day_ ". For example, let's say we have a bunch of devices that send sensor readings arbitrarily throughout each day. Could DISTINCT ON be used to query the last reading of each day per device?

<comment><USER12> Also consider expressin this with a lateral join.

Scroll a bit down here for a similar example.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11472790/postgres- analog...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11472790/postgres-analogue-to- cross-apply-in-sql-server)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> DISTINCT ON, when I stumbled upon it rather accidentally a few years ago, was a life saver in some complicated queries in some even more complicated stored functions in our telephony infrastructure product, where only the first route offered by any vendor that otherwise matches a set of criteria is desired.

The alternative would have been a lot less concise and would have required a much longer stored procedure.

</comment><comment><USER14> What's nice about PostgreSQL is that you quite often discover little useful trick you have missed so far.

Guess that's however true for any well written language when you master it enough to enjoy theses gems hidden in plain sight.

</comment><comment><USER15> DISTINCT ON is also very useful for nearest neighbor queries with PostGIS.

</comment><comment><USER16> If you want your application to be portable, don't use this feature.

<comment><USER17> Do you mean portable as in able to run on different databases? Your application would have to be fairly simple to achieve that goal. We moved an application from Oracle to Postgres. It took about 2 years to complete.

<comment><USER16> Many applications are built on ORMs which are pretty portable. About the only thing I regularly depend on that is proprietary per RDBMS is "last insert autoincrement id" since it's not part of the SQL standard. Binary blobs is another big one.</comment></comment></comment>


The customer-facing mobile carrier dashboard that I want (wireframes) - <AUTHOR> http://troy.yort.com/towards-a-transparent-wireless-carrier-custom

<comment><USER2> This is a little jumbled to me and it has the glaring problem that what I really want, to see what my usage looks like, whether that's an issue and an easy way to fix it, simply does not appear.

It's certainly an interesting thing for the curious, but it doesn't provide any important information to me qua user. Even the presumably important things, like data rates or dropped calls, aren't really: I have very little (no?) control over how this impacts me since my behaviors are prescribed largely by external demands, I simply hope the network cooperates.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think there will be any issues that you can fix. "Walk somewhere else to get better coverage" is the level of control that customers have.

What carriers can do is tell you what caused the problems you had, what if any patterns exist (map), their assessment of performance, the impact, cause, and resolution of problems, and how your experience compares with others. Basically, demonstrate through transparency that they're confident in the service they're providing.

As far as being jumbled, I agree. They're definitely first drafts. Taking it further would depend on what data a specific carrier already collects.

<comment><USER2> Well, that's kind of the thing: it's not so much "customer-facing" as "geek- facing".

It doesn't really do the customer much good at all except tell them that their service sucks or, contrary to their experience (why else are they looking?), that it doesn't. Either way, you're making people angry and not doing anything about it.

For people who actually care about and can make sense of the information, it's more about curiosity than transparency. The information there could all be falsified, there'd be almost no way to hold the carrier to account.

It's more a UX searching for a carrier, particularly one who's built their brand on real customer service and honesty. You know, the one who would, at the end of your dashboard say "we think we dropped the ball last month" before offering you free minutes, messages or megabytes. Otherwise, it's just a frustration engine _even if the carrier isn't doing anything bad_.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is very much a UX searching for a carrier. I think the most likely US carriers would be Sprint, or if they could get the data, Virgin Mobile's MVNA.

As far as the value of transparency without accountability, I disagree. Carriers have a choice between a frustrated customer, and a frustrated customer who knows the carrier is aware of and working on the issue, tracks the same things that they care about, and is comfortable sharing them.

As you said, that customer is still powerless (short of changing carriers). They're more confident in the provider, though, and the provider now has direct line to their savviest customers - the ones that some are already trying to reach on Twitter and GetSatisfaction. "New tower in your neighborhood. We expect 10% fewer dropped calls. <Share on Twitter>"

We've already seen a bit of this, like AT&T's Mark the Spot app to report a dropped call. Customer is still powerless, they just feel a little better about the end result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We are working on something related: <http://chill.ly/>. We aren't as focused on dropped calls as I don't think even the carriers track that, but we will help you save some money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Who is that targeted at?

For me, cost control was a concern 10-12 years ago, but I pay for unlimited usage, have for years, and consider it cheap for the value.

I perceive that among folks with smartphones, doing more with the phone is higher priority than saving money (or even getting a better value). Upgrading to an iPhone 4 was totally elective, and that 3rd $2 game or ringtone didn't add much value. Of course, if I could press a button and save $30/month, I'd do it, I just don't think I'd trade away services.

I think it's a totally different story with the feature phone market (which will soon evolve into the prev-gen/smaller smartphone market).

<comment><USER4> Hey Troy,

We haven't proven who exactly our customers are, so these are still loosely validated assumptions, but we're doing our best to learn more about them.

Here's what we think so far.

A chill.ly customer:

* Is a customer of major telco in Canada (for the time being, at least). * Has an app phone / smartphone / phone with a decent browser. * Has monitored their personal finances, sometimes with services like mint * Is a a premium customer for the telco ($70+/month) * Ignores their phone bills, whether they're digital or print * Typically sees their monthly bill as a line item on a bank statement * Spends an average of 30-60 minutes choosing a provider, plan and device. * Typically uses their phone in professional and personal contexts * Travels out of their coverage zone * Has combined many options to form their plan (IE chooses a base plan and adds various options/add-ons) * Has been a customer of more than one telco in their lifetime * Is concerned that changing their plan will result in a worse deal.

Max The other chill.ly dude

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool summary (and that does describe me). Just subscribed to the beta list.

BTW, I'd be willing to do extra legwork to test it. If you eventually add CSV import, AT&T has CSV (and XLS) CDR downloads. Feel free to email me if you need a sample.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Designing for scalability - <AUTHOR> http://merbist.com/2011/01/31/designing-for-scalability/

<comment><USER2> My own random thoughts/opinions on various things touched on in the article:

When working on any API, it's often useful to show it to someone who will likely be using it. Getting a second opinion will help you quickly determine where it needs improvement. It's best to do this early on, lest you need to start over.

If you're doing a lot of disk access and you have control over it, try to make your reads/writes as large and sequential as possible. This can make a huge difference if you're disk-bound.

For choosing a worker count in a threaded queue, the number of hardware threads[1] on the system would be reasonable. However, if the workers are doing frequent disk reads/writes it may actually end up being better to reduce the number of workers to reduce thrashing, though in a perfect world the disk firmware would help negate this (is that the case these days?).

I generally just worry about documenting outward facing APIs and any parts of the code that are inherently dense or otherwise require background information. More docs can't hurt, but I've found that things change quickly enough that immaculate docs are often out of date shortly after their completion. On that note, I also like to keep docs as close to the code as possible, so that it's easier to keep them up to date when the code is being changed.

Something I picked up recently that I yet don't do as often as I should is to design each module as though it were an independent library with its own API, to the point that a working application could be written against that API. At the time this mode of thinking sounded extreme, but I've recently been trying it and it's turned out to be quite useful for enforcing module boundaries and allowing easy testing.

[1] boost::thread::hardware_concurrency()

</comment><comment><USER3> Solid article on the mindset behind building scalable designs, which I could've read this months ago!

<comment><USER4> Thanks Julio. I should have written it months ago but you know, procrastination... ;)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any drawbacks to Sublime Text 3 update? - <AUTHOR> Everybody's been buzzing that Sublime is being worked on again, and just a few days ago I started getting a notice about an update. I'm quite content with everything it has now though and sometimes 'upgrades' make for a less enjoyable experience.
Has anybody that has updated noticed any drawbacks/downsides/nuisances that didn't exist prior to updating?
EDIT: Just to clarify, I already have ST3,and am wondering about the recent update. <comment><USER2> I've been using it for a while and can't say that I've experienced any issues.

One difference is that the SublimeLinter for ST3 doesn't come packaged with language-specific linters. Instead, they're separated into their own packages. This may be a 'pain point' if you're switching but I consider it a good long- term design decision on the part of the SL devs.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a new and improved syntax format. Which cleaned up some problems and errors in the old syntax formats. However it turns out some people preferred the way stuff used to look.

If you spent days adjusting your themes to be just so and get violently enraged at other colors, it's probably best you hold off on any updates.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't like the look quite as much in Sublime 3 and the ColdFusion plugin doesn't seem to work (obviously not going to be a problem for most people). Otherwise I haven't seen any issues. But I also haven't noticed much of a reason to switch if you aren't having any problems with Sublime Text 2. I installed Sublime 3 after Sublime 2 started failing to search properly and had issues opening some of my projects.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of people have been using the beta and dev versions for a long time, it's a lot faster and there are lots of upsides. I used it for a long time (switched to Emacs recently) and found it superior to ST2 in just about every regard.

<comment><USER6> I am a big emacs fan as well and have switched back to emacs after two years of using Sublime. One thing I do miss from Sublime is the blazingly fast grep on Windows. On linux emacs grep works well enough, but on windows grep is broken out of the box on binary builds and using cygwin causes greps to be much slower for some reason.

<comment><USER5> [https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el](https://github.com/Wilfred/ag.el) works amazingly on Linux, ag is much faster than grep (and will try to parse .gitignore and similar files to give more relevant results). Might be worth a try on Windows as well?

You can find ag in [https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher](https://github.com/ggreer/the_silver_searcher)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No issues so far with the latest ST3 update installed.

</comment><comment><USER8> The update has been working well for me.

</comment><comment><USER9> Themes are not working properly.</comment>


Physically Based Shading in Theory and Practice - <AUTHOR> http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2015-shading-course/

<comment><USER2> Previous years:

[http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2014-shading- course...](http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2014-shading-course/)

[http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading- course...](http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/)

[http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2012-shading- course...](http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2012-shading-course/)

[http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2011/index.html](http://advances.realtimerendering.com/s2011/index.html) (not sure there was one in 2011...)

[http://renderwonk.com/publications/s2010-shading- course/](http://renderwonk.com/publications/s2010-shading-course/)

This is a good, high-level intro:

[https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr- theory](https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory)

[https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr- practice](https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice)

This page has links to more than you ever want to read:

[https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/readings-o...](https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/readings- on-physically-based-rendering/)

</comment><comment><USER3> The full list of ACM SIGGRAPH 2015 Courses is here:

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2776880&picked=prox&CFID=7...](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2776880&picked=prox&CFID=702491298&CFTOKEN=20578127&preflayout=flat)

But in some cases, the pdf files from the ACM just provide links to other sites (like the submitted link to selfshadow.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> Most courses offer just the syllabus without any slides or notes on the ACM digital library. There were many other great courses, but most sadly haven't posted their slides and notes yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This course will be yesterday.

<comment><USER5> What?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best ways to solicit donations for a free service? - <AUTHOR>

I run http://jsonip.com. Its a free service, supports millions of daily requests, and something I really enjoy working on and maintaining. Server fees each month are only about $50 USD. I need to find a way of asking for some donations of my users or the service will probably be shut down for a while in a few days. I can't afford to pay for the hosting right now.
Some important details: This has been a personal project and isn't part of any commercial entity. In each response you'll see a reference to getjsonip.com and jsonip Pro. This is an idea I've been looking at for a few months and only have been collecting signups. The server also hosts my personal blog http://geuis.com and a photo streaming site called Popped At (http://popped.at). Neither of those sites are commercial either and are just other sites I develop.
If it was just my blog and Popped At, I wouldn't be posting this. But since jsonip.com is used by so many people, I don't want it to go off air. In fact, I'm very uncomfortable writing this at all, but I don't have any other options at the moment.
Can some more knowledgable folks make some suggestions for how I can go about this process? I have Paypal but have heard stories about how they shut down donator accounts. This is way too small for a Kickstarter campaign and isn't really appropriate for that anyway. Lastly, I'd like to do this in a more or less transparent manner. I feel weird about asking people for donations that goes to run a server that also hosts my non jsonip.com sites.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm no expert on soliciting donations, but could you change to hosting your sites with free services. jsonip.com seems like a good candidate for heroku.

And you could use a static site generator like jekyll or octopress and host your blog with github pages.

As for popped.at, maybe that could be another heroku app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heroku is pretty expensive. Also, their instance couldn't keep up with jsonip I think. Good tips though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can you reduce your server costs?

At around 0.16K per request * 5,000,000 requests = 800,000K (781.25M) * 30 days = about 23.5G per month. That is well under the 1TB you'd get per month for a $5 VPS at some place like [https://www.digitalocean.com](https://www.digitalocean.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Matt. I'm pretty set on Linode though. Great service and reliability. Also, I don't have the free time right now to completely rebuild a server instance and do migrations.

<comment><USER3> Probably doesn't help but knowing how much you pay is a problem for me, given that it is such a simple service and how much you are paying I feel like it'd be better if I spent the 2 hours to re-implement it and setup my own VPS. 2 hours + 50 dollars == 10 months of service or 50 dollars == 1 month of service. I have a feeling that a lot of the HN crowd would use your service if it was around but we all have hosting solutions we can use to re-implement it so honestly it becomes a choice of giving you money or spending two hours (and it looks like another commenter already implemented a clone). It seems like more like a value-add to another service like Pingdom than something that will ever be self sustaining (this coming from someone that runs a few out of pocket things for people that will never be self sustaining). To be blunt, I doubt you'll break even and if you are having trouble affording keeping the server up you should probably kill it. If want to give something to the community that doesn't cost money you could always release the server impl on github.

But if you still want to give it a go and seeing as you weren't getting much in the way of answers to your question (my answer included) I searched and it seems the same question got asked on HN recently and there were some more useful links: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6113484) From everything I've heard I'd try Stripe first (no first hand exp myself)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've run jsonip.com for years. It supports millions of requests a day. More than anyone else, its organic growth and scale has surprised me. The server I have costs $50. That provides me with enough capability to support jsonip and other sites. There's not a chance in hell I'm going to kill it. That being said, things have been tight for me recently and I'm trying to get this straightened out. But I figured it would be worth the 10 minute effort to see if any of the hundreds-thousands of people that use the service on some very, very high traffic sites were willing to chip in a bit since its been free, and will remain so indefinitely.

<comment><USER3> But you aren't checking to if your users are willing to support it and honestly you have almost no way to reach your users. Your users have no reason to visit your site, most probably don't even read the about page linked to in your output. If you do implement donations you need to some way more than just adding a donation link in the output or to the about page.

I'd suggest trying to drive some traffic to your human readable site once you have donations setup. The only people that will probably care enough to visit your website and see a donation button are the people that are about to use your service for the first time. Unless they are just stumbling across your URL in some stackoverflow post and then you'll probably never get a chance to connect with them. Create several tutorial pages on how to call your service. Create a library for people that don't know JavaScript enough to use XHR. Make a library with XDomainRequest support so IE 8 & 9 will work with CORS. Make a jQuery plugin, etc, etc. Don't do it as blog postings, make a real tutorial section. Every single code example you create should embed the donation URL as comment.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are actually good, practical examples. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If it bridges the gap until you can get the donation stream idea up and running I'll wing you $50 to keep things running this month.

Don't like the idea of something that so many rely on just dropping off the radar like that! I am not a user of the service myself though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yikes, that timed out. Interesting project though! A lot of sites I've helped administer in the past have used ChipIn, but that service has been sunsetted for some time. PayPal is always an option, but sketchy.

What are you using for the caching front-end?

</comment><comment><USER6> Try offering technical support as a service. People who are scared of "limits" are not usually scared of paying for an enhanced faster level of support... even if it is just your normal support anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> If anyone is looking for an alternative, you can use [http://ip.jsonwrench.com/](http://ip.jsonwrench.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Did you get many people looking to sign up for the pro version?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's been a trickle. Under 50 since I setup the landing page.</comment></comment>


A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly-wrong.html

<comment><USER2> > Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by > not having them.

Ok, that's pretty brilliant :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Heh, the LISP bullet is the only one with footnotes. Very subtle :)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I took that to be a dig a Paul Graham, whose early essays all seemed to have unlinked footnotes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This gets reposted every now and then

But it's still funny every time

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Heh:

> Wadler tries to appease critics by explaining that "a monad is a monoid in > the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?"

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a blogpost I have bookmarked and go back to read several times a year. It's the only blog post I have ever done that for.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Still a good read a few years later.

<comment><USER7> Indeed, somebody could add (2009) to the post?

Also, I have .uk blocked, I could read it at:

[http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete- and-m...](http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2009/05/brief-incomplete-and-mostly- wrong.html)

<comment><USER8> Sorry if this is a bit personal, but why do you have .uk blocked?

<comment><USER7> Work :) . The rules are a bit odd, I still haven't figured out why some sites are open and why some are blocked. I'm happy Hacker News is still open.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but the entire .uk domain system? That's really odd.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A "Y Combinator For Education Startups" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/startup-veterans-launch-imagine-k12-a-y-combinator-for-education-startups/

<comment><USER2> Happy to read this news.

I personally won't be able to apply for my edutech startup with them, but am sure it would encourage a lot of other hackers who give this space a pass due to all the challenges specific to this domain.

Another HN user covered them pretty very well in this comment - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1879171>

\</comment><comment>--

      Education systems have huge budgets, but they are always run by such [REDACTED]
      people that the money is never used as a lever to get what they need.

      Education systems are quite happy to spend millions of dollars on consultancies
      and studies, but because the focus is on risk avoidance they never actually
      achieve anything.

      (And yes, there are a few exceptions. Having destroyed myself trying to
      achieve anything in that sector I applaud all the more for those
      who have managed it.)

      For anyone considering doing a company in this space, read all the
      warnings you hear about doing enterprise software, and then take away the
      fact the most enterprises are at least rational (if slow).

      Then also remove the fact that enterprises pay people well,
      so they are usually a few decent people who you can deal with.
      Then add in politics, the election cycle, unions, teachers, lectures,
      "duty of care" considerations. If you are still considering that sector,
      then good luck!!

\</comment><comment>--

<comment><USER3> "Education systems have huge budgets, but they are always run by such second rate people that the money is never used as a lever to get what they need. "

I'd just add that frequently it's not so much "second rate people" as "good people working under some crazy-ass constraints with way too many stakeholders to satisfy".

I very much don't buy the notion that someone making 5X the money at bigcorp is automatically a higher grade of person -- they're probably at least as much of a screwup, if you've ever been on the inside of bigcorp to see it.

<comment><USER2> I agree that "second rate people" comment by the OP in the linked thread wasn't required at all. I personally don't agree with it. Rest of the stuff he mentioned is quite correct though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _After they launch we're going to publish a blog post encouraging startups working on software for schools to apply to them instead of us._ \- PG

I don't think you can give any higher compliment than that.

I spoke to Geoff briefly about Imagine K12 and I'm super excited about the idea. One of the biggest challenges with education startups is attracting hackers - why do you think that is?

I know when I was working on a "Youtube for Teachers," we spoke to about a dozen teachers and were turned off by how long it would take to actually get anyone to adopt our technology in the classroom. The connections to charter schools that Imagine K12 will give its companies will go a long way towards alleviating some of those turnoffs, so hopefully hackers will apply.

</comment><comment><USER5> Specialised startup accelerators seem to be the next logical step in startup evolution: mentors specialised in your field, sense of direction, capitalisation on specific related areas. I think we'll see more of those.

<comment><USER6> I wrote a master's thesis on seed accelerators, and this was exactly my conclusion:

[http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y- combina...](http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combinator- why-and-how/)

[http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2011/02/23/looking- back-1-5-...](http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2011/02/23/looking- back-1-5-years-since-copying-y-combinator/)

As you said, it's the next logical extension. The "Ivy League" of seed accelerators has largely been established. But other programs can become top- tier programs in their niche quite easily.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to see an accelerator focused around computer security (with a way to support both non-commercial or pre-commercial efforts, and productization and companies), and/or the defense/government sales segment.

Healthcare might also be good; similarly regulated, with a lot of domain knowledge required. I think the drug discovery world is handled through academia, but medical devices and definitely software/systems are a weak area right now.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. There are a lot of niches that could use a specific startup accelerator. (One ideal example is anything where you have to manufacture "stuff"... thinking about the trials and travails of Wakemate.)

While I'm sure PG would argue that YC partners have the capability and expertise to succeed if any of these kinds of companies came to YC, they would likely be better served by an accelerator focused on these markets and issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great news! Sounds like a good model (essentially, YC's again) and a good team, and off to a lean/substantive approach.

I happen to have 2 different education startup projects, one of which might be a good fit for Imagine K12. However, the logistics and economics of moving out to SF for 3 months are making me hesitant to apply yet. I live in Colorado, no longer the college student age/stereotype, etc. But the team and mission is exciting. (YC is awesome too, of course, but the living-in-SV-area-for-months thing has been a big negative for me with their program as well.)

I plan on analyzing some cost of living numbers, see if I can make the dollar part at least make sense. Whether I could do it for $500/month, or $1000/month, $2000/month, and what each level would get me. And it's not just the direct cost of living, I'm also a guy with a career, paying client gigs, etc. so there's a financial opportunity cost. Yes, yes, bootstrap myself, obviously, and I already am, but I also see the value in getting mentors and introductions and the biz dev connections into the education market. Cash infusion is almost an afterthought, and giving away 6-10% is so small at the seed stage that it is nothing to worry about.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm excited about this program. Hopefully it will bring a lot more smart entrepreneurs and developers into the edu-tech space. It's definitely an industry that's in need of good talent, innovation, and creative problem solving.

Quizlet.com (Alan Louie, one of this program's founders, is an advisor) is looking for a few great people to join the small team in SF. If you have an interest in edu-tech (or just working on a web product that's helping millions of students study already), please get in touch. Email phil@[thedomain] or <http://quizlet.com/jobs/>

</comment><comment><USER10> How about a charter-school incubator? You probably have to be a teacher to apply. The incubator would provide you with a classroom, and help you recruit some students. If you succeed, then you get to start your own charter school.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the real advantage to a company such as this one is if they're able to leverage their clout for K12 education startups to get their products into public schools.

</comment><comment><USER12> After talking with these guys, they are really serious and passionate about creating a positive change in education.</comment>


Data 'chunks' are easier to remember - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2008/07/14/even.toddlers.get.it.data.chunks.are.easier.remember

<comment><USER2> This might have something to do with [cached thoughts](<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/10/cached-thoughts.html>).

I'm wondering how exactly the cache works. Is it like a-b-c, where the brain remembers that a is 443, b is 297, and c is 9960? Or does the last number in each chunk give you a clue as to the address of the next chunk? (example: after reading the 3 in 443, my brain says "Oh, you might be needing this" and gives me the next three numbers all at once.) Right now I'm leaning towards the second one.

</comment><comment><USER3> in short, it's called chunking. most introductory psych classes cover this, i'm surprised that john hopkins is spending their time regurgitating basic stuff like this.

<comment><USER4> The news is that even toddlers do this. Even the article state that it's been known for a long time in adults.</comment></comment>


In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/13/world/europe/13italy.html?ei=5070&em=&en=538cd5a2ccd3cb18&ex=1197954000&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> Hah, I thought pg might like that one, but refrained from posting it myself because it didn't seem relevant enough.

It's a very accurate portrayal of what's going wrong there right now, and at the same time avoids being one of those articles that just seeks dirt and dishes it (it would be easy to paint any place like a dump if you only report the negatives).

It's all the more heartbreaking, because there really are a lot of people doing interesting, creative, entrepreneurial things, but they are completely strangled by incompetent or actively malicious bureaucracies.

I do think that, long term, they'll do ok, but who knows how long "long term" may be - 5 years? 10? 50? 100?

<comment><USER3> 'Long term' will be never if they don't fix the corruption and bad government problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An interesting statistic here was that only 36 per cent of Italians trust their government. US's Congress currently has approval ratings hovering in the 20's. Do you think that a poll would show that even 30 percent of the US people trust their government?

</comment><comment><USER4> _"Doubt clouds the family itself: 70 percent of Italians between 20 and 30 still live at home, condemning the young to an extended and underproductive adolescence."_

Cost of living. In the U.S., most college graduates can't afford to live on their own in major cities. Jobs require ever-more qualifications and advanced degrees. Productivity goes out the door and escapism comes in when you're stuck with your parents.

That housing bubble was _horrible_ for the economy. Far from a sign of good things happening, it meant owning their own home was out of reach for the vast majority of young people. The amount of productivity and joie de vivre lost cannot be overestimated. Being stuck living with people you don't want to live with is toxic (that includes non-family members, too).

<comment><USER2> Housing has always been relatively expensive in Italy, with 60 million people in an area slightly smaller than California. But the problems go far beyond that, unfortunately. In my opinion, they really center around a broken political system that has neither managed the economy well, nor simply left the economy to its own devices without interference.

It costs something like 10,000 Euro to open the equivalent of an LLC in Italy, between mandatory capital requirements, legal fees, and notaries that eat up thousands of euros at a go.</comment></comment>