Fedora Linux will switch to Python 3 by default - <AUTHOR> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Python_3_as_Default <comment><USER2> This is a good move towards real adoption of Python 3, and doesn't have as dire consequences as it seems.

Distros that use Python 3 by default (such as Arch and Gentoo) still allow for Python 2 to work side-by-side with Python 3. Proper separation using virtualenvs works seamlessly, and there's no problem at all to work simultaneously on Py2 and Py3 projects.

<comment><USER3> This is untrue about Arch, but true about Gentoo and seemingly will be about Fedora. Your experience with "Py3 default distros" has a bit to do with what version `python` points to. You certainly can get by with virtualenv all over and / or setuptools rewriting shebang lines but it's less convenient.

From the two sections in here it appears that Fedora will stick with `python` pointing to Py2, so that's good news.

<comment><USER4> What's untrue about Arch? /usr/bin/python is python3 by default in there.

<comment><USER5> What Fedora is planning is leaving /usr/bin/python pointing to Py2, but making all their tools explicitly depend on and request Py3. This is distinctly different from the Arch decision, which instead resulted in fixing everything that expects `python` to mean Py2 to explicitly request Py2, or assisting with the porting process to Py3 for those applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of the comments here seem to me to be based on a confusion between Python as a development tool for users and developers, and Python as a base operating system component. These are two very different roles that the language fills.

IMHO confusing these roles and providing, or expecting one install of a language to fit both simultaneously has been something that's irritated me about Unix-like OSes for a long time, much as I love them.

Yes I know there are plenty of tools for installing dev versions of tools side by side with the system components. IMHO doing so should be the default assumption unless you really are developing system scripts or scripts that you explicitly expect to be limited in scope to that OS.

<comment><USER7> I try to never use any distro installed Python or libraries when developing Python software. In fact, I even went to the trouble of creating a self- contained Python build that had no dependencies whatsoever on distro-installed libraries. That way I have even more control over the foundation of my applications than you get with virtualenv.

Next time I do some Python development (other than system admin scripts) I will be using Python 3.4. And I will likely also create a self-contained build of that as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ok, so I'll state the obvious - it took almost 6 years from release of python 3.0.0 (2008-12-03)[1] till fedora adopting it. And I thought that cheap PHP hosts takes long time to upgrade PHP version.

Can someone with knowledge of python ecosystem explain what took a major distro so long, given that you could run different versions of python in parallel (or couldn't you?) for some of big pro software that needs the old version? [1] - [http://python.org/download/releases/3.0/](http://python.org/download/releases/3.0/)

<comment><USER9> You can see some reasons from one of the core developers here [0]:

 _" We (i.e. the Python core developers) predicted when Python 3.0 was released that it would take about 5 years for 3.x to become the "default" choice for new projects over the 2.x series."_

He suggests the 5 year timeline begins in June 2009 with the release of 3.1 (since 3.0 still had many bugs) - so that means there is a little more than half a year left for it to become the default, if the prediction holds true.

The rest of his post goes into the issues in adopting Python 3.x.

[0]: [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/63859/why- do-...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/63859/why-do-people- hesitate-to-use-python-3)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for sharing this information. I am interested what strategies can be applied to increase the speed of language adoption.

<comment><USER11> There are large working Python 2 code bases in a lot of organizations. It works great. Fabulously reliable. Extremely well-tested. Been running great for years. They have no desire or need to upgrade and will run Python 2 and pay devs to maintain it forever.

Welcome to the real world.

<comment><USER12> You are right, just as there are still COBOL applications around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fedora 22 is ... 3 releases out? So we're talking about 12-18 months depending on how soon F20 is due to be released. Still, I'm surprised, and I've been a Fedora contributor since FC5.

</comment><comment><USER14> The interesting thing is of course: >DNF is the default package manager instead of Yum, which only works with Python 2

Otherwise no big news, since all other major distros are switching to default python 3 too.

<comment><USER15> DNF is a fork of Yum, so not that big news either.

<comment><USER14> This whole thing is no _big_ news at at all. I wonder what they define with "scope". If they are talking about 21+22 thats around ~12 months ahead, so even less big news.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A good way to get folks to make the switch.

I just wish Python 3 didn't benchmark so much slower than Python 2 in some of my use cases (though I still aim for compatibility with it).

Couple of relevant search results:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14911122/same-code- slower...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14911122/same-code-slower-in- python3-as-compared-to-python2)

[http://pythonadventures.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/python-3-is...](http://pythonadventures.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/python-3-is- slower-than-python-2/)

Has anyone else experienced this?

<comment><USER13> Codechef appears to use Python 3.1.2 for "Python3", which is pretty old (March 21st, 2010) and predates some significant performance improvements in Python3[0].

[0]: E.g., 3.3 adds a more efficient encoding for ASCII-subset unicode strings: [http://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.3.html#performance- and-r...](http://docs.python.org/3/whatsnew/3.3.html#performance-and-resource- usage)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it is a little bit silly for a distro that claims to be bleeding edge... (freedom. friends. features. FIRST.)

<comment><USER18> Fedora is very much bleeding edge as far as stable distributions with set release cycles goes. First in the category of Ubuntu/Debian/openSUSE, not in the category of Arch/Gentoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is not news. All distros will. News would be: Fedora, that normally is late, has switched to Python 3 a year after others.

</comment><comment><USER20> "DNF is the default package manager instead of Yum, which only works with Python 2"

This will be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER21> This will make some people to switch to other distributions, because in some cases making your software compatible with Python 3 is harder than changing distributions.

<comment><USER22> I don't think so because it is really easy to install Python 2 and have _both_ versions installed.

I'm already doing that, the difference is that "python" for me is Python 2 and I have to run "python3" to use Python 3. Other than that, I can't see any problem. You can install packages for both versions, the distros usually add a number (ie. python-django, python3-django).

<comment><USER23> That will still be the case. As the proposal makes clear, this will make the system tools use Python3, but "python" (/usr/bin/python) will still point to python2.7

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I understand the ressons for moving to Python 3. But I'm glad that most of my Python code runs on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm still using python 2.7 because many of my libraries require it, such as wxwidgets and pygame.

<comment><USER26> PyGame actually does mostly support Python 3. Their binaries seem to be a little old, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder if this has any effect on the plans for CentOS? Somehow I suspect there would be more wailing and gnashing of teeth from that user community. (Not a criticism, just an appraisal of what CentOS folks do and how they're set up.)

<comment><USER28> CentOS still has python2.6 as the default. Several people I know who use CentOS with python just build their own python2.7 anyway -- at $dayjob, I build python2.7 and package it up with fpm[1] and drop it in our internal repo.

[1]: [https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm](https://github.com/jordansissel/fpm)

<comment><USER27> Great link to fpm! I'm definitely going to check that out.

<comment><USER28> Gushing a bit here, but it makes packaging things up soooo much nicer. It doesn't cover every use case of packaging, but it hits the sweet spot for quite a few things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there a good reason that the Python project didn't just adopt a new command name and file extension for Python 3? It seems like that would have made the migration a lot less painful.

</comment><comment><USER30> Great news!

</comment><comment><USER31> it so bravery</comment>


Learning CSS in a Day? Easy, Build a Pokedex - <AUTHOR> http://toucantoco.com/blog/learning-css-easy-build-pokedex/ <comment><USER2> Is the code available on Github ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you can find it at the end of the article ;)</comment></comment>


Google enforcing VMP for Widevine from May 30 - <AUTHOR> http://archive.today/2019.04.02-145829/https://www.widevine.com/news <comment><AUTHOR> Since VMP is not supported on Linux, this will result in Linux users being blocked from streaming Widevine protected content or only receiving lower quality streams unless the streaming service explicitly opts out of VMP enforcement.

Amazon has already started enforcing VMP today, with Linux users being restricted to SD streaming only.</comment>


Hopkins Computer Scientist Students Boycott Final Exam - <AUTHOR> http://www.jhunewsletter.com/2013/01/31/computer-science-students-successfully-boycott-class-final-76275/

<comment><USER2> Final exam at the end of January? It's the right thing they boycotted, alright?</comment>


U.S. Expats Balk at Tax Law: American Citizen Renunciations Are Soaring - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323585604579007860126146566.html <comment><USER3> I am a citizen that works in an international org abroad and I am exempted from taxes due to my annual income being under the threshold.

That aside, I am thinking inevitably I would renounce my citizenship given the opportunity to get a citizenship in Europe. I am no longer interested in associating with the political shithole my nation has become, and it looks like that will not change.

Reality tells me however, and from experience: a) whatever country I would establish in would turn to shit and I cannot shop for citizenship every time some country loses its mind (which happens frequently these days) and b) Americans are treated very well as expats in terms of low restrictions on visa requirements and barrier to entry (unless you are going to Iran and the like). Point A is minor, while Point B, having been married to an Arab national for only over a year, has proven that being anything other than American or one of the European countries of high standing is very uncomfortable for anything requiring travel, and often humiliating. That is why, sigh, she is clamoring for her US citizenship ASAP.

<comment><USER4> Australia/New Zealand are pretty attractive, citizenship-wise. As an Australian, I get the 'reciprocal' treatment - i.e., we will treat you as you treat our citizens, and since thats pretty good right now (Australia lets many European citizens in for a working-visa, two years on average), this means I can move around most of the western world without too much fuss.

I cringe at the hassle my American friends have to go through whenever they travel through a densely-packaged country region such as Europe .. whereas we Australians seem to get treated pretty well.

<comment><USER3> What are their requirements? I remember hearing about Wozniak but I never checked. I should do that soon.

<comment><USER5> For Australia, the easiest path IMHO is a 457 visa => Permanent Residency after 2 years => citizenship after 1-2 years as a PR. They definitely are pretty generous. I'm working on the paperwork for my PR now.

<comment><USER6> Like NZ, we have a points system. Young, highly qualified professionals can get in much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a dual citizen (US and Israel) currently residing in Israel. I'm not remotely wealthy.

US tax laws are inconceivably, horribly bad for expats like me, even if you are just a working dude. The amount of paperwork and headache I undergo yearly just to stay within the law on taxes is ridiculous—that translates into direct costs to me, mainly for employing two accountants (one for each tax jurisdiction). They're constantly communicating about how best to structure things—not so I can save some money on the imaginary millions I don't have, but to simply not be a criminal.

It gets worse from year to year, as the US passes ever more complex tax laws. Some of them are a major financial burden (double taxation). Some of them are just expensive to comply with (accountant hours).

I'm not going to renounce my citizenship anytime soon, and I get that expats are probably a tiny group, but it's a major pain. Almost every other country on earth taxes based on location, not based on citizenship. Don't reside in Germany all year? Great—no taxes, and no state services for you.

</comment><comment><USER8> To be expected really when the IRS seems to think that, even if you live outside the US for a full tax-year, you are taxable as a US citizen just because you hold a passport/green card.

It was a long time dream/plan of mine to try get sponsored and on to the green card system (because I think the US is a beautiful country - and I would love to live there for multiple years) until I discovered these taxation laws.

<comment><USER9> If you're on a greencard these tax laws don't apply to you. You're only taxed for what you make while in the US.

<comment><USER10> (User woe, you have been hellbanned which is a shame because your points in this thread have been quite true.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So stupid, and it ruins the perception of the US worldwide. The result of this change is going to be exactly as described, a lot of US citizens living outside of America are going to renounce their citizenship and not a single dollar is going to flow into the federal budget. No upside, a lot of downside.

<comment><USER12> Really? What upside is there to having US citizens living outside the US and not paying taxes? They enjoy the benefits of being a US citizen without any of the shared sacrifice.

I say, let them renounce.

<comment><USER13> What benefits do you think we're getting when we live overseas? Having to fill out a lot more tax forms? Getting charged $50/document you need notarized at the embassy because they're the only option available if you're not in the US? And if you do decide to renounce your citizenship, they charge you $450 just to do that!

Trust me, unless you're very well connected, you're not getting any benefits of US citizenship when you live overseas.

<comment><USER14> Forest for the trees.

I met a triple Dutch/UK/American citizen. Sounded English, self-identified as Dutch, but always travelled on her US passport (she was a world traveller, big time). Why? Because the US actually does things to support its citizens when they travel in foreign lands, whereas everyone else just gets "well, you were stupid, weren't you". She was quite clear on the point that Americans get more assistance than others do, and she wasn't well-connected in the US (being early-mid 20s European)

<comment><USER15> Wrong. If you aren't on CNN, they won't lift a finger to help you. About 12 years ago my life was in very real danger, my best friend at the time was the British embassador to the country I was in. He told me if I was a British citizen he could help me and told me to go to the Us Embassy, because that's what they are for. When I went I was interrogated by four guys with buzz cuts and shiny shoes who obviously had no clue about what was happening on the ground outside the embassy walls. I refused to talk until they told me what they could do to help. Finally a woman came in who appealed to my patriotic duty, and finally pushed a piece of paper across the table and told me to write down an address in the States where they could ship my body, saying "it is not the policy of the United States Government to help citizens abroad." I was floored, but finally declined her generous offer and took my chances. Luckily it only cost me a few broken ribs, though one of our offices was firebombed, another partner chopped up with a machette in another part of the country.

If you're in trouble abroad, don't hold your breath.

Hell, you can't even walk into embassies any longer for citizen services, you have to make an appointment for all citizen services and even then, they still make you wait for half an hour in an empty waiting room with bullet proof glass before they get around to seeing you.

<comment><USER16> "I refused to talk until they told me what they could do to help"

That's not exactly the best way to ask for help. You are asking them, not the other way around.

"who appealed to my patriotic duty"

She appealed to you?? Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I suspect your experience is not shared by most people, and has more to do with you than with the US embassy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This tax scheme also causes a lot of trouble for kids who had the bad fortune of being born in the US, without growing up there or any other real ties to the country. You are still subject to the tax rules, are technically breaking the law every time you entry the US with you real passport (as you must use the US one even if you never got it as you as still technically a citizen).

Getting rid of the citizenship is then best done around the age of eighteen, but chances are no one will tell you how much of a pain in the ass all of this is, and likely you won't even be aware of the tax potential tax burden and paperwork. Alternative is to pretend like nothing and hope you never get caught.

When you finally get around to renouncing the whole thing becomes a never ending process of getting all the IRS papers and possibly back taxes in if you earn enough, getting a SSN as you can't file taxes without it, actually renouncing, and likely getting the SSN after you renounced as the whole thing takes bloody ages, and then finally figuring out exit taxes and if you are actually exempt from paying them. The exit taxes of course have two loop wholes, one of which is you were born a dual citizen _and_ still pay taxes to the other country, which means you are screwed if you are working abroad. While the other test checks net-worth, average income over the last five years and a few other things. Oh, and for the exit tax the states assumes you have sold all you assets and will tax you on the capital gains of those fictive sales...

Whole system is a mess, there is no way in hell expats can fix it as their votes don't in essence don't count and it's "free" money for the state. The level at which taxes kick in for expats of course stopped being adjusted long ago as the state realized that if they stop increasing the min. amount they get more money. Though it is still being moved slightly up, it's long since stopped targeting the truly wealthy and is now hurting more and more regular people (especially if you live in a high cost country with high wages that has crept above the threshold).

Throwing money and/or time out the window is no fun, so I have no problem understanding why people want to get rid of their citizenship if they can without becoming stateless.

<comment><USER6> Having access to American universities and jobs on Amercian-citizen terms give those troubled children a helluva worldwide advantage.

As an Australian I have no advantage on the education front over any other foreign student. I at least have a leg up in the E-3 visa.

Dual citizenship can smooth the edges too, depending on the 2nd citizenship. Lots of countries have reciprocal tax treaties with the US that will excuse American citizens earning in the foreign country from paying American income tax, because they are paying local taxes. And vice versa.

<comment><USER17> The way the US tax treaties work you get tax credits for your local taxes. So if you live in Scandinavia with high taxes, say 40% you have enough credits to offset all of your ~30% US taxes. But if you are in a low tax country, say 20% you would end up still paying ~10% taxes to the US.

edit: And yes, if the citizenship is a good or bad thing is of course highly dependent on your other citizenship, your plans to study/work/live in the US, the country you intend to live in instead of the US and a number of other factors.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, I didn't know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It sucks, I go through this every year: file a tax return where I crunch a bunch of numbers to eventually figure out I owe...nothing, and of course file my fbars so the gov knows about all my bank accounts. I'm also never sure if I'm doing it right since its so complicated, and I don't trust tax accountants to do it right either. There is also the matter of double taxation if you do business trips to the states but work in a country without a decent US- oriented tax treaty (e.g. China...).

But I wouldn't renounce my citizenship over this, that would just be stupid.

</comment><comment><USER19> Because people occasionally get worried about this: here is the actual FBAR form: [http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f90221.pdf](http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- pdf/f90221.pdf)

Mine took five minutes to fill out. Four minutes to find the postal address for my bank branch, one to flip through my bank statements to find the peak balance and covert it to USD.

It may get slightly more complicated if you control an account in the Cayman Islands with $30 million which you might have forgotten to file on your taxes for the last 30 years.

<comment><USER20> > Mine took five minutes to fill out. Four minutes to find the postal address > for my bank branch, one to flip through my bank statements to find the peak > balance and covert it to USD.

Sadly, it's not that simple!

Suppose you in the year 2013 have 200k units of Foreign Currency X (FCX) in your non-US savings account, and the money has never had anything to do with the US (it's all been earned and saved abroad, where you live and work). Let's say the conversion rate in 2013 is 2 FCX to 1 USD. OK, so you report 100k USD on your FBAR. Let's say 2013 is a bad year for you, so you haven't been able to put anything in your savings account - in 2014 it still stands at 200k FCX. But lo and behold, the value of the USD has fallen against the FCX, so the dollar equivalent in your account has now in 2014 become 150k USD. This means [1] that you have to put 150k USD on your FBAR and _that the difference of 50k USD is taxable as capital gains_. This is _utterly_ , entirely, completely insane! It's nothing short of international robbery. (I repeat: I'm _not_ talking about money earned in or brought into or out of the US here - I would understand if it were taxed. This money has never had anything to do with the US, and has never been converted from one currency to another, except on the FBAR form.)

This cannot be OK. Not at all. I understand that the laws were made for catching US money hid away overseas. That goal makes perfect sense. But the way it works now is just insane.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfWk6yRdwMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfWk6yRdwMo)

<comment><USER19> First of all, merely having a number increment on your FBAR in year N and year N+1 does not cause that delta to become taxable income. (And, for that matter, failing to have a delta does not show absence of income. For example, if you earn 100k euros in a year and consume 100k euros, your accounts will show a delta of nothing, but you still earned 100k euros.)

Second, the US does not tax unrealized capital gains. In the situation you have just described, you have not realized any capital gains and have no taxable income, even if you believe that receiving currency in year N and disbursing of it in year N+X counts as capital gains if the currency has appreciated against the dollar. This interpretation is contrary to what the IRS will tell you is the law.

Should you want to actually use the money, you should say that "My cost basis in the 200k Euros is 200k Euros. I liquidated them at their fair market value, of 200k Euros. This gives me a capital gain of 0 Euros, which when I put it on forms I will convert into dollars, for capital gains of $0." There are more complicated things you'll want to do if you operate a currency exchange business, but that isn't relevant to you.

If you disagree that this is the correct interpretation of US tax law, you can do what I did and phone the IRS. They'll explain it to you.

If you doubt this is correct, use some of the 200k Euros to have a brief chat with a tax accountant. I know this sounds new and scary for you. It was new and scary for me, too, eight years ago. It's a lot easier than you think it is.

<comment><USER10> The parent may have been confused about when a transaction takes place. They would only have a taxable event for their currency at the time they converted between different currencies. However, the advice you give about calculating capital gain in foreign currency is VERY bad. You may have been given bad advice. In particular, the IRS helplines are completely inaccurate for issues arising from foreign residence. If you get a personal letter ruling then their advice is binding. Advice over the phone is not binding.

For a US citizen, the functional currency for personal taxation is ALWAYS the US dollar. See particularly points 12 and 13 of [http://openjurist.org/93/f3d/26/quijano-v-united- states](http://openjurist.org/93/f3d/26/quijano-v-united-states)

Basis must always be converted to US dollars using the exchange rate at the time of purchase, and sale price likewise converted to US dollars using the exchange rate at the time of sale. The US capital gain is then the difference between these two US dollar values.

This can easily (and frequently does) lead to having to pay a capital gain on a transaction that lost money in the currency in which it actually took place. Particularly the last decade was bad for this with the falling US dollar.

Many expats (if they are aware of their obligation to worldwide taxation which most are not) may calculate this incorrectly. This will often be ignored by the IRS, because they have no matching information to use to flag the foreign transaction for audit. However, with FATCA coming, the IRS will finally get some matching information and it is a strong possibility for nasty surprises in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Btw, the whole "I renounce b/c I'm just losing cash" problem also applies to Green Card holders abroad who either haven't "moved in" yet or have temporarily "moved out". AFAIK they also pay US taxes abroad.

<comment><USER18> If they don't live in a high tax country, sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The numbers don't seem to be that concerning--1000 people/quarter or let's say 5000 people renouncing per year. Out of 6 million citizens living abroad that's less than 0.1% renouncing their citizenship. Can you really draw any conclusions from such a small group?

<comment><USER23> It could have a massive impact if the ones renouncing are top earners, "Meanwhile, Americans in the highest 0.1 percent of all income-earners — these are the very rich, with incomes of at least $1.974 million — paid 16.4 percent of the total federal tax burden.". ( source: [http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/top-01-percent-pays- more...](http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/top-01-percent-pays-more-income- tax-bottom-80-percent_594000.html) )

Anecdotally this is happening, ex. Eduardo Saverin. ( source: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/05/11/eduardo-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/05/11/eduardo- saverin-renounces-u-s-citizenship-ahead-of-mega-facebook-ipo/) )

<comment><USER24> Population: 313.9 million Top 0.1%: 314,000 people Lose 5000: 1.6% Revenue paid: 16.4% Revenue loss: 0.26% Total federal rev: $2.7 trillion Total loss: $7 billion

<comment><USER14> The article is stating that the exflux is due to the additional difficulty of hiding assets, so it's not at all like this is a straight loss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Where Facebook users are immigrating:

[https://twitter.com/Amazing_Maps/status/366328072066187264/p...](https://twitter.com/Amazing_Maps/status/366328072066187264/photo/1)

</comment><comment><USER20> It's all an insane mess. I do feel for US expats that have to go through this, when no other expats have to (the US and Eritrea are the only countries that practice citizenship based taxation [1]), but I'll bring to this thread another group of people that I haven't seen mentioned so far in this thread. Again, I'm not trying to detract from US expats. Your problems are real enough, and you are unfairly treated, but here's a rant about another group of people:

Some of us are US citizens _born abroad_. We are the children of one or two US parents, born outside the US. We have lived our entire lives as citizens of another country, and our ties to the US may be as slim as having been there on vacation a couple of times. We are still subject to all of this. And while it is true that most (all?) won't be double-taxed, the reporting requirements are so complex and so strict - and made all the more complicated by incompatibilities of the tax codes of our native countries and that of the US - that it's almost impossible not to make a mistake. And mistakes are punished severely - at least in theory. Even trying to evaluate whether university scholarships in my country is taxable by the US (an obscene idea on the face of it) seems to take a lawyer or accountant. Where does it end? What about child benefits? Pensions?

Yes, we could renounce our US citizenships when we turned 18. In my case, however, I was not told I was a US citizen. It's now more than a decade on, and I've never filed with the IRS because _my US parent did not tell me I was a citizen_ until recently. What on Earth do I do? So far, I've frozen in place and not dared do anything. I am not a US person in any common sense of the word, but I feel entirely trapped by that foreign country. The benefits of a US citizenship that have come up in this thread have an entirely opposite sign for me: I'm a researcher, and would love to spend significant time at US institutions, but now I can't - I can't stay beyond a tourist visa as a foreigner because as far as the US is concerned I'm not a foreigner. And I can't travel on a US passport because I don't know what will happen to me if I get one and do. And I can't fix things with the IRS (which I'd love to do), because I have no idea how many laws I've accidentally and unknowingly broken. I'm sorry that I have, and I wish I hadn't, but how could I possibly have known? You might say that my parent should have told me - and I agree - <USER2> that didn't happen. While ignorance of the law is no excuse normally, I certainly am not going to do anything that places me in danger (financially or otherwise) from a foreign nation - so here I am, frozen in limbo. As for any social service the US might provide, I can tell you that every one of these is provided better and more generously by my liberal European homeland. I don't want anything from the US - I only want to either be let go and leave the club, or be treated fairly. Either one is fine by me, but the current situation is not.

Incidentally, any pointers from HN would be much appreciated. I know my status quo of "do nothing, sit still" won't be good in the long run, but I also have no damn idea on how to approach the matter.

Let me summarize again: I've never earned a dollar in the US. I've never received a dollar from any US entity, save the odd birthday present from relatives as a kid. I've never been to the US for more than a couple of weeks at a time - and only as a tourist. I've never voted in the US. I've never brought money into or out of the US - except ordinary tourist amounts. I pay (comparatively) high taxes where I live - in my country, my home, which is _not_ the US. I never knew I was a US citizen. Now all of these benefits that people bring up apply to me with a negative sign. I'd gladly give up my US citizenship - but you can't unless you've proven that you're good with the IRS going back 5 years, and that you're not renouncing for tax reasons. As for that latter part - some might say I am... I am, afterall, trying to avoid being haunted by a foreign nation's tax collecting agency for the rest of my life. Is that renouncing for tax reasons? God knows...

(Sorry for the rant - this has just constanly occupied 10% of my head for a while, and it's not like there's a lot of people nearby in the same situation to talk to... any pointers from you guys would be great).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Citizen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_taxation#Citizenship)

<comment><USER17> Last year in September a tax delinquent program for expats was enacted, what this means is basically that you need to file the last three years of taxes, and the last six years of FBAR (for the years you had more than 10K USD in your accounts). This is instead of the last five years of taxes that you would normally be required to do. You would only need to actually pay taxes if you are over ~90K USD a year and don't have enough foreign tax credits to cover it.

To be able to actually file the taxes you need a SSN. You can get this by going to a consulate or embassy, bringing the proper original documentation (get in touch with them for the details). They will make certified copies, mail those up the chain until it gets to the state department and 3-6 months later you will have your SSN.

For actually doing the taxes one option is to pay someone to do it. You still end up doing a lot of prep-work yourself, so you are basically paying to some peace at mind that they've signed of on things being correct.

If you go for a renunciation, the date you renounce is the date your tax obligation ends, this has recently changed and not all tax accounts, even the ones that specialize in expats seem to know this. This means you might end up with renouncing before you have a SSN, and thus your taxes in order, so look into the laws and/or ask an expert before deciding how to handle this.

Last bit is figuring out exit taxes, there the tax accountants seem to be useless as it makes no sense for them to specialize in one time customers. But it seems they will happily charge you for looking over and sanity checking the form once you fill it out.

You can also forget calling the IRS and getting any help about renunciations, they consider such matters "advanced" and will only tell you to get a lawyer and/or tax accountant.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20130626160026/http://www.renunci...](http://web.archive.org/web/20130626160026/http://www.renunciationguide.com/) used to have a very comprehensive coverage of the renunciation process, but seems to have disappeared :(

As for how to proceed, and what makes sense to do is a highly personal matter and depends on so many things. The act of renunciation is irrevocable, and should not be taken lightly. I wish you the best of luck as having this type of stuff looming over you is really draining.

<comment><USER20> I appreciate your comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For the people that don't know/appreciate the difference, the US taxes its citizens on their earnings globally. You can normally net this out against the taxes you pay locally via double taxation agreements.

<comment><USER25> One other thing - can we set something up so people who renounce their citizenship can give it to someone who wants it? I'm a Brit but I'd love to live and work in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe they should get Chinese citizenship. I hear they're economy is growing and if you have the money you can get away with anything over there.

In all seriousness, if you don't at least support the American gov't with your wallet or with your life (military service), you aren't really American. Why should you always have the option to go back to the US?

<comment><USER27> >In all seriousness, if you don't at least support the American gov't with your wallet or with your life (military service), you aren't really American.

Supporting the US government is not a prerequisite of citizenship. Not at all.

<comment><USER26> Every US citizen is required to pay tax that they owe to the government. You can oppose the government, but you do that throw voting, civic engagement, not tax dodging.

<comment><USER28> Renouncing citizenship is not tax dodging. It's renouncing citizenship. Believe it or not, plenty of folks who have renounced their US citizenship have done so not only for tax reasons, but also because they have the freedom to choose to not associate themselves with a nation that is doing so much wrong in what was their name.

<comment><USER26> Yes which is _exactly_ what I'm arguing for. If you're not living in the US, have no immediate intention of returning to the US, then you should renounce your citizenship. The best way to enforce this is to tax overseas so that you really have to value your citizenship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> How does someone become a citizen of hong kong? hong kong is not a country and all native hong kong people a chinese citizens who hold permanent residence cards in hong kong. If you want to naturalize in hong kong you must become a people's republic of china citizen

<comment><USER30> Hong Kong is only part of China in the same sense Puerto Rico is part of the United States.

If you are a citizen then you can hold a Hong Kong passport. The majority of the population is either Cantonese or Han Chinese in ethnicity (Han Chinese being the largest ethnic group in Mainland China).

Hong Kong has a pretty liberal immigration policy. After 7 years continuous residence you are eligible for Permanent Resident status. Gaining temporary residence is pretty much as easy as landing a job there.

(I'm an Australian who has been living in Hong Kong for the past few years.)

<comment> barry-cotter This is misleading. I can't remember if Puerto Rico still issues passports but I do know all US citizens resident in Puerto Rico are/were entitled to them, there is no separate citizenship. One can definitely be a HKSAR passport holder without being entitled to Chinese citizenship. All the people with Right of Abode in Hong Kong who it can be proven don't have Mainland (or Taiwan) ancestry who want a Chinese passport need to be naturalised as Chinese. This is really, really hard. Last I heard about 700 people with Right of Abode had done it. China (including Taiwan), Japan and Korea don't really naturalise foreigners.

On a side note Cantonese people are as Han as Northwsterners. It's a strong regional identity and it could have supported a nationalism, like Ukrainian did in the Russian/Soviet context but the time is gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The US tax system is exorbitant and immoral.</comment>


Why Google is for search and Digg is for laughs - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/349538/why-google-is-for-search-and-digg-is-for-laughs <comment><USER2> Digg's competitor is cnn.com and similar, not google.</comment>


These Are Facebook's New Offices - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/02/07/facebook-menlo-park-pics/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> Out of 53 photographs, approximately 214 are pictures of carparks.</comment>


Students Thrown Climate Life Preserver - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298306,00.html <comment><USER2> Ah, Fox News, that bastion of truth.</comment>


Ineffective treatments for the opioid crisis - <AUTHOR> https://motivationandchange.com/treatment-getting-you-down/ <comment><AUTHOR> This site is really great, unlike a lot of "rehab spam."</comment>


Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly? - <AUTHOR> https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/11533/why-did-moving-the-mouse-cursor-cause-windows-95-to-run-more-quickly <comment><USER2> Interesting.

When I used to play computer games, back on Windows 95 or 98 (don't remember fully) I experienced a different weird behaviour. A lot of games would freeze at black screen and would remain there indefinitely until the CD-ROM was opened and closed - then the loading suddenly continued like nothing happened. For some games I had to repeat this 2 times to get them to start.

Wonder if this could have been caused by similar processes.</comment>


Ask HN: Best HN "Who Is Hiring" Parser? - <AUTHOR> I think there's a few of these floating around but now I am actually looking at these in earnest I can't find them (i don't even know what to type in to Algolia to get me the results). Surely someone has built a scraper for these?<p>also would be interesting to eke out comp trends over time but it seems the submitted data is still so unstructured that its unlikely to yield useful results. <comment><USER2> [http://whoishiring.io/](http://whoishiring.io/)

[http://hnhiring.me/](http://hnhiring.me/)

are probably the two most prominent</comment>


A man will eat only what he can grow or forage–here's why - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/rob-greenfield-of-orlando-florida-eats-only-what-he-grows-forages/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190316env-foragingfoodcities::rid=&sf209488936=1 <comment><USER2> Titles that finish with "here's why" make me cringe.</comment>


A World of Hardware Startups - <AUTHOR> http://upverter.com/hardware-startups/

<comment><USER2> Would it make sense that companies in more than one location show up on the map in more than one place? NinjaBlocks main base is Sydney, but they have an office in SF, so they show up as SF.

Showing virtual offices and workers might do more to show how truly global hardware startups are.

</comment><comment><USER3> You're missing Thalmic Labs in Waterloo! They are the makers of the Myo! ( [https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/](https://www.thalmic.com/en/myo/) )

</comment><comment><USER4> A new version of the map has been deployed. We receive lots of emails with more startups to include, they're pinned. There is also a full screen mode now, and links to the coolest hardware newsletter. Hope you enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER5> There's also at least a few companies on here that aren't startups - both Kiva Systems and Bot & Dolly jump out as startups that are now part of big companies (Amazon and Google respectively)

</comment><comment><USER6> The small discussion happening on reddit is convinced upverter is using this as a lead generator.

[http://www.reddit.com/22sflo](http://www.reddit.com/22sflo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Bad link - got another?

I think it's fine if they're doing it as a lead generator. If only more pro- social things would yield profit so that they would actually happen.

Or maybe, they did like we at CloudFab did, and opened up our hard-won supplier database of 3D printing shops after using it internally:

[https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zkIlt1cSAfh4.kskl...](https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zkIlt1cSAfh4.ksklRQVJ0zJ4)

<comment><USER6> Link is fixed, missed a 2 when I copied it over.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with the discussion, just food for thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For real - I'm super excited there's 1500+ of them!

Hardware is going crazy right now!

<comment><USER7> The SF density is incredible ! ... But I'm guessing there's some selection bias here ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really selection bias. It's the biggest scene in the world, so it's to be expected.

Still though - the density throughout the world is more amazing to me!</comment></comment></comment>


Smooth Talk - <AUTHOR> http://reallifemag.com/smooth-talk/ <comment><USER2> > _While writing is supposed to intimately represent who we are, this software > highlights the perpetual inadequacy of translation, intervening with > standardization as optimization_

I think Alex needs more than writing aid software. This sentence is overloaded with million dollar phrasing.

So many sentences in this article are nearly meaningless, and impossible to parse. The reason is that the author and his postmodernist/posthumanist idols reject meaning itself, so when they attempt to produce advice on conveying meaning, they instead produce nonsense.

Don't listen to Alex. "Late capitalism" and "patriarchy" are not to blame for the advice Grammarly and Hemingway give. The drive to be understood is what motivates tools like this. I have used the rules that Hemingway (the application) enforces to improve my business communications, and they have measurably reduced the need for retransmission or damage control related to misunderstanding.

<comment><USER3> > _So many sentences in this article are nearly meaningless, and impossible to > parse. The reason is that the author and his idols reject meaning itself, so > when they attempt to produce advice on conveying meaning, they instead > produce nonsense._

The sentence you quote is, at worst, clumsy. There are few, or no, signs in the post itself that the author rejects meaning or anything or the sort. He might be a hardcore Derrida scholar for all I know (-- but that's hardly apparent in the post and the point he tries to make are quite clear.

Here's a "translation":

"While writing is supposed to intimately represent who we are"

This needs to translation.

"this software highlights the perpetual inadequacy of translation"

...this software is an example of how when we translate something, we lose some part of the meaning of the original.

"intervening with standardization as optimization"

...the software meddles with our writing process, presenting us with the most standardized options (regarding word choice, standard rules for "better writing" etc) as if they represent the optimal way to write something.

<comment><USER2> > _There are few, or no, signs in the post itself that the author rejects > meaning or anything or the sort._

You're correct that the article itself doesn't spell it out clearly. My spidey senses just started tingling when I was uncertain I had understood the singular intended meaning of the sentences. I checked out the author bio and it confirmed my inkling: that postmodernism and/or posthumanism has something to do with why this article is such a pain to read.

I am a human, and all of the beings which read and understand English, as intended, are humans. Posthumanism is an affront to the conveyance of meaning, no matter how drab or lame you think your essay is after you run it through Grammarly.

It is true that, given only the rules and conventions of a language, no singular meaning can be read from an utterance. It is, thus, tempting to say that no utterance has any singular meaning. I contend that the human condition lends sufficient context to read a singular (or close enough) meaning from a well-formed utterance.

<comment><USER3> > _It is true that, given only the rules and conventions of a language, no > singular meaning can be read from an utterance. It is, thus, tempting to say > that no utterance has any singular meaning. I contend that the human > condition lends sufficient context to read a singular (or close enough) > meaning from a well-formed utterance._

That though is not all that post-modernism says, but rather a a reduced straw- man version.

Even if they alluded (or openly) stated that, they did it for particular, quite rational, reasons, with they explained with much more nuance and drew rather rich conclusions from.

In the end, like with the dadaists/surrealists, people might have laughed at them, but half of what we consume culturally today, from ads and graphic design to mainstream tv and comics, owes them huge debts.

Speaking of the original post-modernists of course. Not that the American academics that followed french post-modernism much understood this nuance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The comments here prove, at least, that not everyone is cut out for dense or complex reading ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> I totally enjoyed this article.

</comment><comment><USER6> The obsession with eliminating passive voice drives me nuts. It is absolutely okay to use passive voice. Or maybe it would be better to say it _should_ be okay to use passive voice.

<comment><USER7> For example, consider the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

The joke only works in passive voice. If you attribute it to a specific person or group then it's no longer comical wishful thinking, it's just plain wrong. Sometimes vagueness is beneficial.

<comment><USER8> Close — it's because this kind of wanting is a passive, chronic want that may or may not be acted on with the right amount of forwardness, as the novel demonstrates.

You could rewrite the sentence as "a single man...wants a wife" and talk about exactly the same group (men with a fortune) so that's not where the inaccuracy lies.</comment></comment></comment>


Venmo is offering users an physical debit card - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/venmo-is-offering-users-an-ugly-physical-debit-card <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who refuses to use Venmo? When I need to pay friends casually, I use Facebook Messenger, Square Cash, or even PayPal (which is really easy in Slack with the `/paypal` command these days).

I have no interest in using an app that by default broadcasts my transactions to everyone, and that makes it a pain to get money out of its non-FDIC insured closed system. With Facebook or Square, the money gets pushed and pulled directly to my bank account, simply by adding a debit card.

Plus, when I did try to sign up once a long time ago… it had the audacity of asking for my SSN. I flat-out refused and refused to use Venmo ever since.

<comment><USER3> Paypal is awful. It's not to be trusted under any circumstances. They often reverse your transactions and lock your account for any reason, or no reason.

A friend of mine offered a student some programming help. They used Paypal to pay. The student decided they didn't want to pay and told Paypal it was a fraudulent charge. Now my friend doesn't have the money and a strike against their account. (They contested that the charge was valid, but Paypal didn't care.)

BTC sadly is up to $3 in transaction fees, so it's not too lightweight at this point.

<comment><USER4> Bitcoin Cash is a fork of BTC with large blocks, which increases capacity and therefore reduces fees. They're about US$0.01 right now.

<comment><USER5> I recently had two < $.50 fee BTC transactions quickly verified. Segwit, among other things, is a block increase and enables the lightning network which will allow fast, cheap transfers.

<comment><USER4> Worth noting that the Lightning network is off-chain. Whether you care about that or not is up to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These services exist only because the US banking system is still mostly stuck in the seventies.

During a contract in New Zealand we'd send .25 to pay for a cookie or several thousand for an apartment deposit without blinking an eye, took a few clicks, free.

How? The banks talk to each other ((boggle)).

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get the use of a physical Venmo card. I solely use the app to split bills with my friends, and almost always cash out as soon as I'm paid up. And that's not a knock against the app: I think it's one of the most useful I've experienced.

It seems like this would just give me a debit card for a service which is already linked to my real debit card. Is this targeted at those who _don 't_ have existing lines of credit/debit and want to use Venmo? What am I missing here?

<comment><USER8> It's slightly more frictionless because you don't have to wait for the money to transfer. Might also be useful for psychological budgeting purposes. You pay for dinner with your Venmo card, your friends pay you back in the app, you know the whole time that you're just spending your entertainment money, not your rent money.

<comment><USER7> True, this is much more "instant" and definitely has a psychological effect of only working with the separate Venmo money you've accrued.

I think the next frontier of these bill-share/social payment apps will be in tighter, seamless bill-share integration. A store where I can easily split the payment between a few people at checkout, or a restaurant that has the Venmo addresses of everyone in my party at the time of the reservation. No need to photograph receipts and split after the fact.

<comment><USER8> I think that already exists.

[https://venmo.com/business](https://venmo.com/business)

[https://help.venmo.com/hc/en- us/articles/217532327-Splitting...](https://help.venmo.com/hc/en- us/articles/217532327-Splitting-Sharing-Purchases)

I've never seen it in the wild though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Similarly, Square's Cash app has had quite a sleek physical debit card offering for some time now.

[https://cash.me](https://cash.me)

<comment><USER10> That's referenced in the first sentence of the article.

<comment><USER9> Noted, thanks. I'm just reiterating the fact that it's been available for quite some time and IMO the experience with their app and card is well executed. I much prefer it to Venmo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> With Zelle finally rolling out properly to the big banks, I've started slowly converting friends and family away from Venmo. No need to have money flowing through PayPal and unnecessarily risk it being frozen for arbitrary reasons.

<comment><USER12> Last I checked Zelle didn't allow you to link to a credit card. Is this still the case?

<comment><USER11> They're supposed to be releasing an app sometime this week, but all the literature I read makes Zelle out to be a connection between bank accounts with debit cards being a work around. If credit cards were allowed, like on Venmo, I assume there would be a fee involved to prevent point churning. If that is the case why would you want to link a credit card?

Is there any payment service like Zelle or Venmo that allows credit cards without a fee?

<comment><USER13> That would not be possible. Credit card companies enforce this fee, i.e. Venmo has no choice.

Meanwhile, most credit cards give points on dollars spent. If the fees are waived, you and a friend can make a lot of free points. Basically crazy arbitrage would ensue and the program would be ended instantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is not any different from the Paypal Debit card that Paypal (owner of Venmo) offers, no?

BTW, Paypal now offers almost-instant transfers to a debit card account for a 25c fee (I think it was). I did one of these over the weekend and it was done almost faster than I could log into my bank account and check.

</comment><comment><USER15> I love these cards (Google Wallet used to have one, Square Cash now offers one too) for a different reason from possibly intended: they're a great fallback in case you want to make a purchase where contactless phone payment isn't supported but plastic is. I keep one in my running armband with my phone in case of emergencies and it never leaves the band. That way I never forget it, and if I were to lose it somewhere, I'd still have all of my regular credit cards.

<comment><USER16> Lol where do you live that everywhere accepts mobile pay? Some utopia in the sky?

<comment><USER17> In Canada we've had contactless card readers for a few years now - the mobile payments are compatible with the exact same protocol, so instead of tapping your card you just tap your phone.

I haven't even gotten any funny looks tapping my phone with Android Pay at places not advertising it - even just after it came out in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "an physical debit card" ? I swear I see this mistake so often it makes me question whether I actually understand when to use "an"...

<comment><USER19> The actual headline is 'Venmo is offering users an (ugly) physical debit card,' so the '(ugly)' part complicates this. From a quick search, it seems like 'an' is correct here, because the '(ugly)' part isn't an independent clause... or something like that.

<comment><USER20> "a" vs "an" is solely a matter of pronunciation; you go off of the next word no matter what it is.

<comment><USER19> That's what I had assumed, but this grammar StackExchange[1] answer seemed to specify that there are exceptions. Admittedly, I didn't read the articles he linked.

1: [https://english.stackexchange.com/a/115200](https://english.stackexchange.com/a/115200)

<comment><USER21> > I need an (well, if I need anything at all) idiom.

This is not an English sentence. No native English speaker would produce this (regardless of a/an)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm still bitter that they killed off their API. They were basically the only popular individual-to-individual payments system with a public API (now there are none). So many cool apps could have been built with it, but instead they decided to divert their resources to their API for vendor payments (which, of course, is _not_ why people use Venmo).

</comment><comment><USER23> I tend to leave a pretty decent amount of money in my Venmo account. I consider it my "play" money. Usually, I have my buddy use his reward credit card and I Venmo my part of the bill (mutually beneficial). Having a card would make things a lot simpler for me.

<comment><USER24> Interesting, do you then always forfeit the credit card rewards to your friend? Everyone's situation is different but usually credit card points can be quiet valuable coming in at 3% to 5% of the swiped amount.

(For example, $1000 spent on wining and dining over a month can equal approximately $20 to $50, depending on how you spend your reward points).

<comment><USER23> Yup. That's the trade I guess :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> What's the point of this? I remember Google doing something similar with Android Pay and a physical Google Wallet card and it was equally useless.

I use physical cards only because of the 2-5% cashback. If they don't offer the same levels of cashback as the Chase/Amazon/etc. plastic cards do, I see zero point in having a Venmo debit card.

I use Venmo only because I need to send money to friends. For that, a physical card is not necessary.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like how they are keeping the ugly design theme going

</comment><comment><USER27> If this card could be funded by my points-generating credit card - with no extra cost - I would be very happy.

<comment><USER12> Very unlikely. Credit card companies charge fees, which is why such apps (venmo, cash-me, etc) all just push that fee onto you. Usually 3%.

<comment><USER27> I believe the 3% could still be shouldered by the business, if I'm swiping with them. Venmo would just be sitting in the middle of the transaction so they can prompt me to charge my friends.

I think this is possible with Marqeta today: www.marqeta.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> But why a ball of dough?

<comment><USER29> Probably something to do with "dough" being a metonym for money?

Really contrived and silly, though. They could've just made it monochromatic with a huge Venmo logo on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Do all these new wallet players allow paying between each other? so if you split a bill, one can have Venmo and one can have some other app/service/wallet?</comment>


Deleted Scenes from HBO's Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/12/exclusive-deleted-scenes-from-hbos-silicon-valley/ <comment><USER2> Those were not deleted scenes. It was a mashup of clips that actually aired, with a few outtakes thrown in.

<comment><USER3> I guess you didn't read the article. Here's what the article says:

      Before Mike Judge took the stage at Disrupt SF today,
      the crowd was treated with 4 minutes of deleted scenes
      from the most recent season of HBO's Silicon Valley.

      There are some fun extra cuts from the famous "spaces
      vs. tabs" scene and the Pied Piper jacket segment, plus
      tons of new one-liners from Jared.</comment></comment>


Threadless Is No Longer Placeless With Retail Store - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/10/threadless_retail_store_chicago.html <comment><USER2> This store seems to follow all of the ideals of Skinnycorp. It's beautiful. From the way the Dell plasmas display web comments about designs to the custom-made carpeting that directs you into the fitting areas, it's really a work of art.

I love Skinnycorp. Their websites are beautiful and their culture is awesome. They certainly subscribe to the business philosophy of making awesome products that customers want to pay them for rather than getting as much money from customers as possible at the expense of their product quality. I wonder if they can keep their customer service reputation with a retail store, considering that the rules are completely different.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good for them; sounds like a great store.

>It seems to be an odd move for Skinnycorp to take on the added costs and management overhead of a brick-n-mortar store.

It means they're making a lot of money and they get to try retail and compete in the real world. They can afford one unprofitable store in the worst case scenario.</comment>


Positive coronavirus tests causes tower at Chicago's Midway Airport to close - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/17/faa-says-tower-at-chicagos-midway-airport-is-closed-after-several-air-traffic-controllers-test-positive-for-covid-19.html <comment><USER2> Can confirm Midway tower is closed, although the airport itself remains open (albeit with a ground stop for incoming traffic). ATIS is broadcasting the following:

 _Midway Airport Control Tower updates March 17 2227Z. Midway airspace has reverted to Class E airspace. The tower has been evacuated and is currently closed. CTAF is 135.2. One-minute weather is available via phone at xxx-xxx- xxxx. Are currently unable to provide IFR service off the ground. If you can depart VFR and request IFR services, may be received from Chicago TRACON frequency 128.2._

With no one in the tower to approve visual approaches, the airport is one- in/one-out.

ATC System Command Center advisory for the ground stop:

      CTL ELEMENT: MDW
      ELEMENT TYPE: APT
      ADL TIME: 2138Z
      GROUND STOP PERIOD: 17/2128Z - 17/2315Z
      DEP FACILITIES INCLUDED: (ALL+CZY_AP) ZLA ZAU ZLC ZTL ZDC ZNY ZHU ZJX
       ZFW ZOB ZDV ZOA ZSE ZBW ZMA ZKC ZME ZID ZAB ZMP  CYHZ CYOW CYUL CYYZ

      PREVIOUS TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 646 / 71 / 20
      NEW TOTAL, MAXIMUM, AVERAGE DELAYS: 2233 / 131 / 68
      PROBABILITY OF EXTENSION: HIGH
      IMPACTING CONDITION: OTHER / OTHER
      COMMENTS:

<comment><USER2> Ground stop was just lifted but tower is still "ATC Zero."</comment></comment>


My job has destroyed the pleasure I get from programming - <AUTHOR>

I've been at my current job for almost 2 years and I do a bit of everything.  I've written an entire web application (ASP.NET+jQuery), written integrations as Windows services, written complex SQL queries for reporting, and maintained a 100+ table database.  I hate all of it.
I'm tired of supporting it all.  All I do anymore is boring reporting for boring business, or figuring out why a project's data is bad.  I don't care anymore.  I'm not impacting anything.  Additionally, none of my management is from a programming background.  I feel like in order to really learn I need to surround myself with people more talented than myself, which I don't feel like is the case at the moment.
I really want to find a new job but I'm terrified I'm going to leave and find out I'm totally burnt out from programming entirely, and hate my new job too.  I'm not in a very startup-heavy area (Indianapolis) and I'm not in a position to move across the country.  It's gotten to the point where I've considered dropping out of the industry entirely and finding something else entirely, but I know I'd like that even less.
What can I look for in a job that would, hopefully, revive the pleasure I used to get from programming? <comment><USER2> I have way less experience than you, I'm 24 and still in school, but I feel like the people I work with have a much bigger impact on how I feel about work than the work itself. I don't expect or want to be best friends with everyone I work with, but I think that basically anything can be enjoyable if you enjoy spending time with your coworkers. So my opinion, for what it's worth, would be to look for people that you would be excited to work with more than a project you'd be excited to work on.

It scares me that you're 25 and feeling burned out, I worry about that sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have the same issue. I move to a new job every few years and I always run into this issue eventually. My job gets dull and boring and I just want to leave.

The only thing that has't gotten boring is my own business. You may want to consider this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely I have, but I don't really have the capital, experience (I'm 25), or idea to start one. I keep a notebook of ideas but nothing concrete yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like your overworked. Cut back your hours and program on your own stuff on the side.</comment>


Deep Learning in a Nutshell (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://nikhilbuduma.com/2014/12/29/deep-learning-in-a-nutshell/ <comment><USER2> it's nice, but is it just me, or is anyone else tired of X's "deep learning tutorial"?

I personally write my own notes by looking at the same material over varying sources (it helps me flesh out equations when they have similar but different representations and explanations), but it's almost every week i see another deep learning intro on HN. The author even states:

>> Deep learning. Neural networks. Backpropagation. Over the past year or two, I've heard these buzz words being tossed around a lot...

I'm not trying to disparage the author here, the article is good. But seeing it rehashed weekly instantly makes me believe it's just pandering blogspam.

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks very similar to [http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/](http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/)</comment>


Skeleton 2.0 CSS Framework - <AUTHOR> http://getskeleton.com <comment><USER2> Hey ya'll - I'm Dave the creator of Skeleton. Grateful to see it on HN. I wrote about why I created v2.0 in a weird format here: [https://medium.com/@dhg/dear- skeleton-452f4bb07d69](https://medium.com/@dhg/dear-skeleton-452f4bb07d69)

I'm hoping the update really helps anyone who's been using Skeleton for a while or anyone trying to get into RWD.

Thanks :)

<comment><USER3> Hi Dave, great work on Skeleton. Was the original project a side-project or was it in use for projects at Twitter and / or Medium? Wondering about how it seems to be a sort of antithesis to Bootstrap (as in no preprocessor / small footprint / sane defaults).

<comment><USER2> Haha, just a side project. Weirdly bootstrap, foundation and skeleton all have similar roots together, but a story for another day. I made it cause it was what I wanted to start projects and seemed like there might be others :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Skeleton is the only "sane" CSS boilerplate framework I've encountered. It's incredibly minimal -- the entire framework is so small and elegant that I can crank out websites without delving into the subtleties of the documentation. I find it really intuitive to use, and while I don't do a lot of web dev, when I do it's almost always with Skeleton.

Anyways, I'm so glad you're working on Skeleton again! Congrats on the 2.0 release, and thanks for all of the hard work!

<comment><USER5> Semantic UI is really good as well.

[http://semantic-ui.com/](http://semantic-ui.com/)

<comment><USER6> Aside from what has already been said (SemUI is a MASSIVE piece of CSS), Semantic UI is also not semantic.

<article> is semantic <div class="article full width"> is not semantic, it's describing how it should appear.

You can break half of the examples page by just clicking everywhere and typing and such. I currently have three buttons stuck in the middle of their two positions, textboxes being broken, etc. It needs work.

Also it's rarely a good thing if your goddamn landing page makes an i3 stutter when rendering it. Doesn't really scream lightweight or efficient (although the biggest culprit is that background header video)

<comment><USER7> However, Semantic.gs is pretty good. Minimal and much more semantic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks really awesome!

One piece of feedback I have is that I don't think it's wise to put "maximum- scale=1" in the viewport meta-tag because it makes pages hard to read for people with less-than-perfect vision (because it prevents zooming in on phones). I created a github issue about this too: [https://github.com/dhg/Skeleton/issues/173](https://github.com/dhg/Skeleton/issues/173)

Is there an actual benefit to having this on web pages? I see it a lot (unfortunately -- makes it very difficult when I'm on my iphone sometimes), and am not sure why people do this. Is it just "common wisdom" that has been copy-and-pasted down through the ages without anyone questioning it, or does it provide some benefit that outweighs the (pretty big) drawback of reduced accessibility?

Thanks!

<comment><USER9> I can see your point, but want to add why I recently started to add this meta- tag on most of my responsive sites: 1\. images start to look blurry 2\. input fields change the scale of the page and seem to confuse some users (at least in some test-cases). On the other hand I try to improve accessability by making sites screen-reader-friendly and using high contrasts. I have also seen a lot of people using "bigger fonts" options in their browsers or on their phones, which solves this problem from my point of view.

<comment><USER10> I read a lot on my phone and I don't have great eyesight. If I cannot zoom the website I'm looking at, I often cannot read it.

<comment><USER2> I honestly hadn't considered this case. Let me dig into it and see if I can find a solution that works best all around.

<comment><USER11> An option to increase text size in the interface is probably going to be even better than allowing zoom, since it will reflow the text and not require the user to scan left and right around the zoomed-in text.

<comment><USER12> Of course, this is how our browsers used to work before the makers decided to remove or hide that feature. I've never seen it on a mobile device. Does anyone understand the reasons behind that move? Even if you think page zoom is 'better' than text scale, surely it doesn't make sense to disable the latter altogether?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems to be in the same market as Pure: [http://purecss.io/](http://purecss.io/)

Would love to see a compare/contrast.

<comment><USER14> Hadn't seen that one before. Looks closer to what I need -- thank you! I like that it includes a fly-out menu and exists on several CDNs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice, looking forward to using this. I'm a CSS/JS framework creator myself (Ionic), but often when working on simple websites with a designer I just need a nice grid and some clean defaults. Congrats on 2.0!

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a really solid framework. A couple of humble suggestions:

1\. Package up your site itself on github as one of the examples. Mixing up some elements of your base site with some of the landing bits would make for a solid base for a lot of people.

2\. Get a compatibility table together stat. To help you out, I did a quick test of both your main site and the landing page. Nothing in depth, just the basics. The following browsers worked properly:

On Windows (8.1 unless noted):

Firefox Stable 34.0.5

Firefox ESR 31.3.0

Opera 26.0.1656.32

Google Chrome Stable 39.0.2171.95

Internet Explorer 11

Internet Explorer 10 (Windows 7)

Internet Explorer 9 (Windows Vista)

On Ubuntu 14.0.4:

Firefox Stable 34.0

Chromium 39.0.2171.65

Google Chrome 39.0.2171.95

On Android 4.4:

Google Chrome 39.0.2171.93 (both landscape and portrait, phone and tablet)*

Firefox 34.0 (both landscape and portrait, phone and tablet)*

* Note that the UI navbar didn't stick on the phone for either browser despite the phone having a 1920x1080 resolution vs the tablet's 1024x768 resolution. I think this is by design on your end

The following browsers did not work properly:

Windows XP - Internet Explorer 7 and 8 - Failed to load custom images at top hero secion (custom CSS not contained in skeleton), alignment issues of buttons, full nav list visible (not part of skeleton issues), example grid completely broken (shows as full width divs), very broken visually but still usable

Windows XP - Internet Explorer 6 - issues above plus more visual issues. semi- usable

<comment><USER2> This is awesome! Browser chart more than just a quick list might be nice. Adding it as an outstanding issue to my long list of improvements. Appreciate the feedback!

<comment><USER16> You're welcome. Based on my testing, I think you don't even really need a detailed chart, just a compatibility list. You'd be safe listing it as compatible with:

Mozilla Firefox (desktop and mobile)

Google Chrome (desktop and mobile)

Chromium

Internet Explorer 9 and later

Opera (desktop and mobile)

Safari (desktop and mobile) [this is an almost-positive guess but test to be sure]

You could then work backwards a bit on version numbering, trying older versions until you see where it breaks. You could put Firefox 31+ for now (since I tested 31 ESR), but that would be misleading since I'd wager it works quite a ways back on Firefox. Same with Chrome, Opera, and Safari. You could even just leave those versions off as users generally have the latest version of Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. Safari is another story since it's OS-tied like IE is, so you have a lot more users using an outdated version of desktop Mac OS X's Safari than outdated Firefox or Chrome users on the same OS versions. Leopard users are stuck on Safari 5.0.6 and Lion users are stuck on Safari 6.1. If you can get your hands on really just those two versions to double check, you'd be set and could list it as Safari 5+.

I may test back a bit as I'm playing with using Skeleton for an older site using Drupal with a single-page theme. I can drop you a note if I do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Skeleton: A Dead Simple..." \- I see what you did there :)

<comment><USER2> I wrote it totally by accident then got a dumb smile and was like...feels right.

<comment><USER18> Presumed the name came via "bare bones CSS framework"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thanks a lot! This seems like something I'm going to use a lot. Is it available in bower? That's how I manage all my front-end dependencies nowadays.

<comment><USER2> I don't believe it is, but maybe I should go about getting it into Bower. I have no idea how I would go about that, but one of the Bower creators coming over to play smash bros...will ask him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why have a max width of 960px?

"The grid is a 12-column fluid grid with a max width of 960px"

<comment><USER21> > "The max width can be changed with one line of CSS and all columns will > resize accordingly."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What's the reason behind not doing nested grid columns? Seems like a fairly common usage pattern as I've seen. What's the recommended way of doing something where something like Bootstrap would use nested columns?

<comment><USER23> I'm curious about this as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hey man, super cool to see you come back to the project after so long. Skeleton was the only understandable framework that was on the go when I started developing, and it really helped me get to grips with RWD. Every time I'd start new projects I'd come back to Skeleton for reference and now have my own extended version thats always being refined, ExoSkeleton ;)

Thanks a mil the work you put in man, Cheers!

<comment><USER2> I really appreciate this :) Seems like Skeleton's greatest benefit is sometime to newcomers to RWD and knowing it helped someone learn a little means the most to me.

Also rad that you extended it. That's what it's about - making it your own :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I realized a few weeks ago that Dave Gamache started a 2.0 branch. Skeleton was always nice to use and very lightweight. Great to see it is back. It is a nice boilerplate that doesn't come in that heavy as bootstrap.

</comment><comment><USER25> Two questions: Are there hover-classes for tables etc. that can easily be applied? What about striped/alternating rows? And how come I can only nest lists 2 levels deep?

Other than that, it looks great.

<comment><USER2> 1\. There are not hover classes for tables. I'm not in love with table hover classes, BUT, zebra-striping (like every other row) seems like it could by useful. That said, I don't want to create subclasses of any components really (buttons is one exception). It also should be super easy to implement w/ Skeleton – tr:nth-child(even) { background-color: red }

2\. List nesting was just because I basically never go deeper than two levels and I wanted to properly indent them. Didn't want code bloat for something I _think_ would be rarely used.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I like simplicity but skeleton is missing a few essential things for me.

1) Vendor prefixing. Like "sk-columns sk-column-5". Uikit does this, but Foundation and Bootstrap do not. I really wish they did.

2) Preprocessor support in Sass and Less. They are so similar, it is easy to support both.

The grid class naming really really needs some cleanup! No one wants to automate something that has to output integers as integer names like "five" or "six". What is wrong with "sk-col-5" or "sk-col-6"?

</comment><comment><USER27> > All measurements are still base 10 though so, an <h1> with 5.0remfont-size > just means 50px.

So why not just use px?

EDIT, answering my own question: "font-sizes and spacial relationships can be responsively sized based on a single <html> font-size property".

So how does this work? Do you just set html font-size 62.5% for "normal" font- sizes and then change that with media queries in order to increase size for mobile etc? Is this best practice for font-sizes nowadays?

What about em? When are you supposed to use that?

<comment><USER28> I was wondering about this too - anything smaller than 16px base size is a bad idea in my opinion. Also, Raleway as a body font? Not an ideal choice, it's too thin for low DPI displays. Other than that, I like the fact that it's very lightweight and reduced to the basics.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands I've been using Skeleton for a while, so it's nice to see an update. I have a 1200px wide version, so if anybody's interested, I'll post it on my GitHub page.

<comment><USER2> :) Awesome man. Fwiw, the new version makes it super, super, super easy to scale since the grid is % based now. Can just change the max-width of the .container and voila. Done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This might be a dumb question, but what are the pros and cons of choosing something like Foundation over Skeleton?

Is it a tradeoff of simplicity vs features - are there any features in particular that Skeleton misses out on? I've been using Foundation recently, but the thought of a simple, 400 line CSS framework is very appealing.

</comment><comment><USER30> Very nice site - if that's indicative of the framework (and it surely is), this one will be worth checking out.

<comment><USER2> Cheers man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hey Dave, really appreciate your work. Skeleton was just what I needed when I first started getting to grips with web design - it's been an invaluable tool to me while learning the trade. To see you've released an update is a joy, can't wait to dig in and start using it. Thanks a lot!

</comment><comment><USER32> Glad to see it back. So simple and clean.

<comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JfEJq56IwI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JfEJq56IwI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Very neat.

A bit OT, but it appears the 'class' attribute has now become the home for DSLs for styling. I wonder if there are better ways of doing this because after a while it becomes difficult to process mentally.

Maybe these projects should actually create their own markup language and release a transformer to HTML.

<comment><USER34> That's effectively what React Bootstrap [1] is. I'm wondering if there's a nice way to make a factory-like version of something similar which takes DSL definitions and generates the necessary components for you to use in a sandbox.

Or custom element types for Emmet [2] which expand to the appropriate HTML.

[1] [http://react-bootstrap.github.io/](http://react-bootstrap.github.io/) [2] [http://docs.emmet.io/abbreviations/types/](http://docs.emmet.io/abbreviations/types/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've read through the source (400 lignes, really short) and it's a real piece of art. I forced myself to understand 100% of what each line was doing, and learnt a bunch of little things on the way. I'll definitely use it in my next project, I love it!

</comment><comment><USER36> Whoa, it's certainly been a while. Cool to see that people are still working on this.

<comment><USER2> Hey yo - I write Skeleton. I haven't been giving Skeleton the love it deserves, but it's gonna get it now. I wrote a bit in a weird format here: [https://medium.com/@dhg/dear- skeleton-452f4bb07d69](https://medium.com/@dhg/dear-skeleton-452f4bb07d69)

<comment><USER36> As one of those half million people, thank you! I used it in my blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Would be nice if you can add or link something like a registry with skeleton components / plugins / snippets that people create and publish.

It could be a github-wiki page, so that everybody can add their components.

It is always hard to find matching components.

<comment><USER2> I totally agree. Been thinking about the best way to handle this and will have something in the near near future. Promise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This looks great. I love the simplicity of it and how classnames are handled and just the overall lightweight feeling. Sidetone: I had to go to the github page to see browser support, maybe you can add it to the website. Thanks

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Browser support is under a "catch all" more tab on site, but really should be in docs. I'll make it happen soon, though hopefully the readme is clear for now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Great! Like everyone else here I thank you for Skeleton. 1.0 is what basicly taught me CSS!

Working on a project using 2.0 already! Love the percentage based grid I just wish there was a way to adjust the gutter width.

Thanks again.

Brian

</comment><comment><USER40> I've been waiting for this for years. Thank so much for this!

<comment><USER2> <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This looks really great! Will definitely use it for my next project. Have loved Skeleton 1.0, and this is just better. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER42> Talk about timing. Yesterday I was checking up on this to see if there is something new and today this shows up. Great!

</comment><comment><USER43> Thanks for making this. A really awesome and minimal way to build sites. This will be perfect for my next project.

</comment><comment><USER44> Used Skeleton as the backbone for a responsive self service portal; it was great to use and customize!

</comment><comment><USER45> I generally like this very much, but I don't think width:80% for container is suited for mobile.

</comment><comment><USER46> great to see it coming back. for those that still something tad bigger (also feature wise), but not yet a bootstrap big, there's [http://responsivebp.com/](http://responsivebp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER47> This looks really simple, I like it. Is it pure CSS or is there JavaScript involved?

<comment><USER48> It's pure CSS. Download it and take a look, it really is simple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This looks great. Any plans to include a scss or less version?

<comment><USER27> How would a scss or less version work? What would the difference be?

<comment><USER50> I guess you'd have variables for things like the colours of the buttons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Great! Nice to see optimisation on the web presented so beautifully. Greetings from the 9 KB framework [http://natuive.net](http://natuive.net)

</comment><comment><USER52> Very, very nice. Kudos DHG!

</comment><comment><USER53> This is great!

</comment><comment><USER54> Awesome!</comment>


Designing a better onboarding flow - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sourcerer.io/designing-a-perfect-onboarding-flow-5285c4c3ca91 <comment><USER2> The author has the email marketeer's model of customer onboarding. - onboarding is complete when an email address has been captured. "We have you now!" The product is targets to spam, and the service provided is a loss leader for that.

There's a school of thought that onboarding is only complete when the user perceived that they are getting more value from the service than the effort they put in to use it. For some services, that's a long process. Github onboarding is complete only when the user has created a repository or made a change to some existing one. You don't need to be a Github user to read.

This is sometimes confused with customer retention. It's different. Customer retention is about keeping customers who fully completed onboarding. The signup that never did anything was never onboarded. (Also, it may just be a signup bot.) This is especially important to services which have a free and paid tier. Counting free customers too soon creates the illusion that there's a big customer base ready to be converted to pay. That pool may be much smaller than thought.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was hoping this was about employee onboarding, but it's about customers.

</comment><comment><USER4> putting the screenshots of the workflow in a huge, horizontally scrolling google-drive hosted PNG is really obnoxious. Why not just put them in the article?

</comment><comment><USER5> You need to compare tools in a similar category otherwise a comparative study is a bit useless.</comment>


Naval Missile Test Freaks Out LA - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/11/07/california_mystery_light_trident_missile_test_seen_by_thousands.html <comment><USER2> Naval missile test freaks out the west coast every time they do it and I hope it never stops. It's pretty cool seeing the reactions. I had a boss that was on a road trip near-ish to Vandenberg Air Force Base and pulled into the first town to have an ice cream cone, waiting for death to rain down and the world to end.

<comment><USER3> Yup, just a teeny taste of how things would look if it did all go to shit.

<comment><USER4> Delicious frozen dairy ... The official taste of WW3</comment></comment></comment>


BSD Hardware Database - <AUTHOR> https://bsd-hardware.info <comment><USER2> >[https://github.com/linuxhw/hw- probe/blob/master/LICENSE](https://github.com/linuxhw/hw- probe/blob/master/LICENSE)

What in the world were they thinking. This is now how you appeal to the BSD community.

<comment><USER3> One of the biggest turn-offs I have about BSD is the License zealotry that runs so rampant in that community.

<comment><USER4> Oh, even more than the zealotry of Linux and ZFS?

<comment><USER3> I've only experienced "Linux zealotry" from Free Software Foundation types, and I make an effort to avoid them as well because I find it just as odious. However there's a massive chunk of Linux community who aren't interested in licensing debates and seemingly just want to get things done.

Case in point: I've been using various Linux and BSD distros off and on for about 15 years and have never experienced the zealotry you are referring to coming from the Linux side of the fence. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it seems a far smaller proportion of the Linux community is spending their time arguing (loudly, obnoxiously) about minor philosophical issues and blasting those opinions into the internet than compared to BSD.

<comment><USER4> Maybe you met the wrong people, from my PoV the BSD peoples like the BSD2/MIT/ISC/FreeBSD-License, but have no problem too import the CDDL the Apache or the GPLx (at least in the pkg), whatever works. On the other hand with Linux, CDDL absolutely NOT acceptable (hi Linus) but ultra-proprietary Firmware-Blobs are ok.

Some zealotry experience from a Linux foundation guy?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181)

<comment><USER5> > BSD peoples like the BSD2/MIT/ISC/FreeBSD-License, but have no problem too > import the CDDL the Apache or the GPLx (at least in the pkg), whatever > works.

If by "BSD peoples" you mean the FreeBSD/NetBSD community, then yes. But OpenBSD devs deem CDDL to be unacceptable:

[http://quigon.bsws.de/papers/2015/asiabsdcon/mgp00020.html](http://quigon.bsws.de/papers/2015/asiabsdcon/mgp00020.html)

[https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/ZFS-on- OpenBSD](https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/ZFS-on-OpenBSD)

<comment><USER4> OpenBSD was always different, just talking about FreeBSD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are 33 computers in their database.

<comment><USER7> and 33.000 on bsdstats.org. I guess this is a new and unrelated endeavour

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can someone help me understand what's the difference works and detected?

<comment><USER9> Detected means you see a device at a certain port or address. Works means that after detection you can actually interact with the device and do things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> These survey sites tend to miss large numbers of FreeBSD machines in use in corporate environs. Eg, Netflix Openconnect CDN and similar.

<comment><USER11> idk but wager to say there are maybe a couple of thousand OC machines worldwide. not really "large numbers".

on other fronts i rekon that other infrastructure manufacturers are big on BSD (eg. dell/emc, juniper)

<comment><USER10> Yes, openconnect was just one example that I know well because I work on it, and I know we don't report to these survey sites. If we did, we would make up a sizable percent of bsdstats.org, and over 99% of the BSD Hardware Database in the title.

And I'm sure there are others (like your infrastructure manufacturers) that could say the same.

<comment><USER4> Here's a list:

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

Some of it is outdated, like Whats-app

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is the difference between this and bsdstats.org ?

</comment><comment><USER13> Very disappointed by BSDs and FreeBSD in particular. The other day I wanted to build a pihole set-up using it - do you think it works seamlessly with raspberry pi? It doesn't. Wanted to install it on my UEFI bios - have to take more steps than I should. Wanted to run it on an nvidia jetson i have lying around. Good luck with that! Basically it only works with very common or old hardware. A shame really. I don't want to sound entitled, would have been happy to allocate time to build eyecandy apps to make it more suitable for a desktop (had an app included in the ports tree in the past), but I simply can't without spending too much time to even make it work. I wish this would change, as FreeBSD is my first "love", and for good reason - it's tidy and logically organised.

<comment><USER6> rpi and many other boards use proprietary drivers that are not open to the community. the hardware vendor makes a Linux blob and that's it. What can FreeBSD do about it?

<comment><USER14> NDISwrapper

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> BSD "distro"? Really?

<comment><USER16> The D in BSD is...distribution.

<comment><USER15> True, yes true, but it is there for entirely different reason than in the term "Linux distribution". Even more, if we follow your argument it makes even less sense, "distribution distribution". There some genuine "distibutions" among _BSD, such as NomadBSD, PC-BSD etc (FreeBSD derived systems), but in most cases,_ BSDs are very different OSes, incompatible with each other, with very different kernels (OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD).</comment></comment></comment>


Jeff Sandell, creator of police scanner monitoring site, dies of cancer at 39 - <AUTHOR> http://www.startribune.com/obit-jeff-sandell-brains-behind-mnpoliceclips-com-police-scanner-monitoring-site/386203481/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have no idea if Mr. Sandell was a programmer or otherwise bonafide web dev, but I think what he created is a nice example of what someone with tech skills can do with public information to improve the civic space. His website, mnpoliceclips.com, isn't going to win any web dev awards, but just goes to show you how far basic web dev -- and effort -- can get you. Seems like has a lot of fans on FB too: [https://www.facebook.com/PoliceClips/](https://www.facebook.com/PoliceClips/)

<comment><USER2> this! I don't know him or his motivations : but the concept of using one's time and skills in technology for social justice / watch dog activities is appealing. Seems this could play an important part of our checks and balances as journalism goes through its transformation.

(reminder to self: get that ham license)

<comment><USER3> Interesting read, [http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=17576.0;wa...](http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=17576.0;wap2)

<comment><USER4> Police scanner laws seem really antiquated.

Would a smartphone with a police scanner app (or even just TuneIn) count?

Encryption is the correct solution anyway.

<comment><USER5> >Encryption is the correct solution anyway.

I wouldn't say solution. Realtime visibility of police activity is critical to understanding what's happening in a city and holding one of its most important institutions accountable.

Police operating in secret is a deeply scary thing.

Granted, there are other mechanisms, like daily activity logs that can be inspected at the police station.

The difference between Soviet-style "disappearing" people and arresting them is putting the fact of their arrest in a place where a newspaper will find it. This stuff matters.

<comment><AUTHOR> As the recent shootings in Dallas show, having police comm happen on public airspace is crucial in crisis situations. Even with traffic unencrypted there was huge confusion...imagine some "which fucking frequency are you using and why is Officer Smith not fucking using it?" mixed into the clusterfuck, exacerbated by encryption protocol differences between multiple agencies -- Dallas PD, DART, FBI, ATF, county sheriff, Texas highway patrol, college campus police, nevermind fire and ambulance.

<comment><USER6> Having to deal with multiple frequencies and protocols is a fucking nightmare on an emergency scene. God forbid you have multiple agencies from various counties and states, plus something federal mixed in. It's really a bad experience and messages do get lost.

Source: former firefighter and 911 dispatcher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _His father, Michael, died in 2002, also from colon cancer._

This is the most sad part of the story. For cancer that is relatively treatable if caught early enough, please see this as a cautionary tale and be extra diligent in getting checked out for diseases that may be hereditary.

<comment><USER8> The problem with that logic is that nobody knows the speed with which cancer multiplies.

Even if you got checks down to three months (which no insurance would cover), it would still be like finding a fetus growing inside your colon but too bad it already pierced into other organs because there is no room for fetuses to grow there

The fetus analogy practical because many women don't figure out that are pregnant in the first trimester.

<comment><USER9> I'd never thought of cancer like that before. You're pregnant with a fetus which is constantly reproducing, trying to make a fetus army in your organs.

<comment><USER10> The process of pregancy is, in many respects rather like a parasitic infection. The foetus is very good at dampening the mother's defences to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I looked forward to "North Side Current Events" every morning. He'll be missed.</comment>