Ask HN: What's wrong with current advertising system? - <AUTHOR>

In "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund" by Paul Graham (http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html) one of the idea is 12. Fix advertising.<p>According to you what's wrong with current advertising systems on web and mobile? What are the major pains for both advertisers and uses? Do you know of any startups with innovative advertisement model? <comment><USER2> Ages ago, when the world was young (say 1994 or 95), I thought ads on web pages were a fantastic idea. Unobtrusive, able to be taylored to the viewer, a one-click gateway to all kinds of information, and a nice way to get free content paid for. But, alas, after I clicked on a few ads, I was sadly disillusioned. Haven't clicked on ads in years.

But now, you post your questions. So I put on my experimenter hat and try again. For science.

Let's click on some ads.

Ad #1. A sidebar ad asking if I know who uses oil & natural gas. I click. I get a page listing lots of uses of oil & natural gas. Why do these people want me to know this? How does it benefit me? How does it benefit them? I have no idea.

On to the next ad.

Ad #2. Forex trading. Click. A page full of words like "spread" and "pips". No idea what it's talking about.

Continuing.

Ad #3. Schick Hydro. I can win prizes. Wow. Click. The Facebook page for Schick Hydro, whatever that is. If this is the same Schick we all know & love, then it's probably a new kind of razor, I guess. I'm supposed to "like" to continue. They want me to upvote them before I even know what's going on?? I'm seriously turned off. But, as a die-hard experimenter, I bravely forge ahead (for science!). Click "like". Get a box saying I need to sign up for Facebook. No thanks.

Sick of ads, I end the experiment.

Folks, I've been on the web since 1993. There must be an enormous amount of information about me in various databases out there: my habits, my preferences, what I like to read, what I like to buy. And this is the best the ad industry can do?

Consider: someone _worked_ on these ads. Someone _paid_ for them. But in none of the three cases did the ad offer me anything I wanted. Nor, I think, did the advertisers get what they wanted. Complete waste of their time and money. I know how oil is used. A page that assumes I understand "pips"? That does no one any good. And making me jump through hoops before -- presumably -- telling me about a razor, is not pushing me toward buying it.

In short: these ads all appear to come with a significant dose of stupidity -- or well intentioned incompetence at least.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

(1) Build an ad platform that isn't stupid. (I'm not saying I know how, or that it's easy, but my experiences above show some things _not_ to do.)

(2) Work very hard to keep the stupidity out. Advertisers seem to _want_ to be stupid and waste users' time. Don't let them; not on your platform.

(3) Brand the platform in a recognizable way. I think the web will always be full of worthless ads. Your platform needs to be easily recognizable and develop a reputation as something worth clicking on[1]. Otherwise, you'll just get lumped in with all the stupidity out there.

\</comment><comment>--

[1] That is, if clicking is what you want users to do. There are certainly other ways of advertising on the web. But I should warn you that, if you choose to put your efforts into unskippable ads before videos, then I will most likely end up detesting you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ad system has four stakeholders - Advertiser, Ad Platform, Content Publisher, and Content Consumer. I guess we need an advertisement model that not only provide benefits to all four but also engages all four stakeholders to determine the quality, ranking and relevance of ad. Automated Context Matching Algorithms are just a first step in this regard. They match the ad with content but they don't take into account the preferences, beliefs, opinion of visitor and content provider. We must allow content publisher and visitor to have an equal say in which ads get served and which not. Atleast they should be allowed to express whether they found ads relevant or not.

How about vote up/down system for ads? Will it help in determining the relevance of ads according to visitor? Will user even care to click on it?

Another thing that bothers me is how a particular user can be identified and his behavior/preference can be recorded without invading his privacy? How existing ad platforms handle this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Advertisements particularly for local businesses are limited in their ability to track conversion. If a user sees an ad on Yelp, for example, there is no good way of telling if the ad converted or not - that is that the user saw the ad and made their way to the business due to the ad.

Groupon has begun to close this loop - a business automatically knows that a customer came in due to Groupon. There needs to be a more sustainable way for a business to gain traffic though, like Adsense etc offers for online businesses.

I would suspect Google Offers + Google Wallet will be an extremely effective solution. Companies will be able to advertise AND track how much customers spent. I would say those metrics are extremely important in order to optimize the ad experience.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ad platforms capture behaviour but rarely capture quantifiable opinions. Advertising based in this premise is like chasing a shadow.

You may assume that based on a detailed behavioural profile a user should click on my ad and buy my product.

Capturing the opinion of a user (or users in aggregate) in a way that can be relayed to an ad platform is more likely to result in higher relevancy advertising, as you can move closer to the users beliefs about themselves, which governs their behaviour.

So in summary, behaviour is a poor reflection of beliefs. Opinions are a better reflection of beliefs.

Capturing opinions and matching these with advertisers is a better matching system.

This is the direction I am working in anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> The web hasn't taken enough advantage of the technological advantages it has over TV. So what I'm thinking is more in-depth on page commercials with the ability to checkout (even one click checkout). The call to buy should be more aggressive overall.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one nice concept. We need to think more about it. Isn't it something like "Related Products", "related articles", "Products you might be interested in" type thing?...where user can just simply choose to buy and checkout from ad itself?

<comment><USER6> Integrating a context-sensitive ad network with a widely-used payment platform that keeps users signed-in-by-default could be very powerful...

<comment><USER5> Can't amazon or iTunes integrate their one click buy systems?

Can you sell products using the amazon one click service on an iframe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Advertising is bad because it doesn't positively contribute to the user experience. Advertisements should inform you of something that you either A) Actually want to buy or B) Want to know about. They don't do that.

<comment><AUTHOR> So, basically it comes down to knowing what user wants to buy/wants to know. Despite the concept of contextual ads by services such as Google Ads why isn't it happening?

<comment><USER7> Most ads are put in a disruptive place, or put out of site. Advertising should be put in a disruptive place, but not in a disruptive way.

Google's ads are kind of put to the side and there because they need to make money, not because it actually makes Google's products better, and the same thing goes for Facebook. They just do a good job of putting it in a place that doesn't hurt the user experience that much, while being worthwhile.

An example of good advertising is in Grooveshark. I legitimately think that the themed search looks good, and I don't get annoyed by it.</comment></comment></comment>


LA Speed Check, Becoming a Crew - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg73GKm7GgI <comment><USER2> The video is put together nicely, but for those of you who prefer the written word:

[https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...](https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blackbird- speed-check-story)

As told by:

Major Brian Shul, USAF Retired

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting this. This is one of many stories in the book "Sled Driver", by Brian Shul. BTW, Hardcover prices have dropped, really. 11 Used from $345.55 1 New from $999.00 from Amazon

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A nice diversion, just in case you haven't heard the story... Or because it never gets old. From Sled Driver.</comment>


Show HN: Feedback tool built to give you data-backed insights on your + and - - <AUTHOR> https://rethinker.com <comment><AUTHOR> We've built Rethinker as a platform to help people develop faster and get more fulfilling jobs.

Our first product is called Rethinker Feedback, and is built on a Ray Dalio- like belief that society is moving towards a place where knowing your strengths and weaknesses in a data-driven way will be amongst the only ways to keep competitive.

We've received so far a range of feedback on the app, from ppl who abhor the idea of being "gamified" all the way to people who think something like this will never work in the work place. There's also the group he believes nobody will give you negative feedback on a consistent basis due to social dynamics.

What do you think? Are people ready to give/receive feedback in a manner which "rates" personality and capabilities, baseball card-style?

P.S- we've also just been featured by ProductHunt ([https://www.producthunt.com/posts/rethinker](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/rethinker)), supposedly more for the cute dog pic than for the product itself, but who's counting? :P</comment>


Police Crack Down on Burning Man - <AUTHOR> http://intellihub.com/2013/08/23/state-and-federal-police-crack-down-on-burning-man-in-unprecedented-show-of-force/ <comment><USER2> If you believe the thesis presented in _Arrest-Proof Yourself: An Ex-Cop Reveals How Easy It Is for Anyone to Get Arrested..._ ([http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop- Reveals-A...](http://www.amazon.com/Arrest-Proof-Yourself-Ex-Cop-Reveals- Arrested/dp/1556526377/)), that in a period of declining overall real crime rates the bulked up police-judicial complex needs a steady diet of the "clueless" else there would be layoffs, then you'd expect these sorts of events to be magnets for police to build up their arrest statistics.

Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled compounds to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least strongly discouraged from "visiting".

<comment><USER3> > Doing these sorts of events may be less and less practical in the future. I > can think of a number of countries where people tend to build walled > compounds to among other things keep the "authorities" out, or at least > strongly discouraged from "visiting".

Those are fascinating places. Not in a pleasant way, most often there are drugs, own made up rules, human trafficking going on and so on, living condition are probably terrible (slums). But it is just the whole setup is interesting. Like a little fiefdom or small city state.

Authorities are either corrupt and are bought off and discouraged from going in there via positive reinforcement or they are just so outnumbered and the determination of the community to keep them out will make it very hard to get to a particular subject to arrest them.

I can think of Brazilian favelas or that one criminal in Jamaica that was walled off and protected by a large community who he was "taking care of". It is also interesting at how self sufficient those places are. Is there always rampant disease and crime or is there a support network, people helping each other in need and so on. I guess it all depends who you ask.

Sometimes I think Detroit and inner cities our there are almost there. I imagine and all out assault will bring the national guard out.

<comment><USER4> Have a look at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania)

Drugs, yes. Own made up rules, yes. Otherwise, not so much. No human trafficking, no slums, and the authorities are neither corrupt nor underpowered. They just largely choose to ignore them and let them get on with what they do (I say largely, because that's not always the case; every few years they have some crackdown or other).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        "One DPW member was issued a $275 ticket for urinating on
        the playa, and threatened with being forced to register as
        a convicted sex offender."

Lots and lots of stuff goes down at Burning Man that could get you registered as a convicted sex offender if that stuff occurred back in the normal world. However, it's a sexually charged event and everyone who goes to the event knows this before they go and the event occurs far far away from the normal world. To be out there charging people for acts that are within the social norms of the event, especially in a way that is going to follow them back to their life where ever they happen to live is pretty shitty.

TBH I don't get why public urination deserves more than a ticket as deterrence. Listing someone as a convicted sex offender is quite frankly absurd for such a benign infraction.

        "If the cops would leave their badges and guns at home and
        just be burners like everyone else in BRC, we'd welcome
        them just like we welcome anyone else. We'd even build
        them a Donut Camp!"

Not exactly the best comment to make if you don't want to attract the ire of law enforcement. It may be a playful jab that burners will get and consider not that big of a deal. But some tough guy LEO with a hard-on for prosecuting hippies is going to see that as an excuse for going there and ticketing people. It's now a known phenomena that police officers in many parts of the country will volunteer at major events like political summits where they it's likely that they might get a chance to crack some skulls. When you teach people new paramilitary skills, they are going to want to jump at opportunities to practice on real life human beings.

<comment><USER6> "TBH I don't get why public urination deserves more than a ticket as deterrence. Listing someone as a convicted sex offender is quite frankly absurd for such a benign infraction."

Sex offender registration is absurd regardless of the crime. The entire concept was a knee-jerk reaction to a rare crime, and now we have to deal with a class of outcasts who have trouble finding a place to live:

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

<comment><USER7> The Overton window has passed on that one. Now, no one remembers that sex offender laws were controversial when first instituted, and were a big difference from anything that had happened before. Of course sex is dirty, and people who commit sex crimes should be permanently stained while murderers live freely - the only debate is when people get that stain for something that merely involved nudity, or teenagers get it for molesting themselves.

Sad, really. The Bill of Rights was the only thing protecting us from the wolves, and each amendment has been reduced by the post-Warren courts into a loose guideline or an unenforceable platitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Calling the police pigs and showing outright disdain isn't going to help anyone, it only makes the Burning Man community look like a bunch of lawless idiots which is exactly what the police want. That said, this is likely retaliation for the lawsuit Pershing County sheriff lost against Black Rock, LLC ([http://brcvpc.com/](http://brcvpc.com/)). The linked article said the BLM lost but I don't think they were even involved in the case, as far as I can tell the BLM has only been supportive of Burning Man.

<comment><USER9> I think we are forgetting that the point of the law is to protect people. If a bunch of people do want to be lawless in the drugs and public urination sense, but go out of their way to do it in an isolated, out of the way place, then I support them 100%, and think the police and law should stay away. "Lawless" is not a dirty word in my mind when the laws are wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Look, I'm all for weird stuff, but when a site features ads that read "FACT: Cancer is a Fungus, It Can Be Prevented" and two "X banned/hate this video"... hmm, how about no?

<comment><USER11> >"FACT: Cancer is a Fungus, It Can Be Prevented"

What on Earth. Are they serious?

<comment><USER12> Cancer vectors vary far and wide, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease) no comment on whether that particular cancer is a fungus which BTW would be a new one to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Law enforcement is big money, big profit.

Sadly as every last non-service job is shipped overseas, you can only expect more of it in every aspect of society as government sees it as boosting employment numbers, especially as we scale down wars and switch to drones, bringing home all those enlisted.

<comment><USER14> The equivalent of strip mining the citizenry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a clarification from the official Burning Man blog:

 _[Note: It was erroneously reported on Boing Boing that BRC won a lawsuit against BLM this year and that BLM may be retaliating by writing more citations in Black Rock City. For the record, BRC was not in a lawsuit with BLM this year. There is an ongoing lawsuit with Pershing County. More information about that can be found at www.brcvpc.com. The information about retaliation is unfounded.]_

[http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law- enforcem...](http://blog.burningman.com/2013/08/building-brc/law-enforcements- comin-to-town/)

</comment><comment><USER15> "One of the most peaceful and long running festivals in the country".

If you don't count rape. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning- man-rape...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vanessa-pinto/burning-man- rape_b_1897689.html)

<comment><USER16> Given the lack of information in that article beyond a single anecdote, we have no idea how common rape is at Burning Man. However, rapes occurring wouldn't preclude it from being "one of the most peaceful .. festivals"; it merely has to be better than most of the others for that to be true.

(I have no idea whether it _is_ true. Never been.)

<comment><USER17> Agree.

Anytime you have large groups of people (in certain circumstances) things are going to happen. As you noted w/o statistics it's hard to draw a conclusion as far as the risk. Similar to when you hear about things happening on cruise ships. They do but statistically chance is extremely small.

Also things like this:

"Reno. Joseph Pred, Burning Man's Emergency Services Operations Chief confirmed, "Rape kits do not exist in Black Rock City. Forensic exams are incredibly complex issues that have to do with the court system and are not something that is really easily taken on. In Northern Nevada, there is only one facility that does that type of exam."

I found this curious, so I contacted a hospital in Northern Nevada and asked if rape kits were only done in specific facilities. A charge nurse in the ER said that when a person is brought in for rape, they are instructed by law enforcement to conduct a special exam and it can be done in any hospital in Northern Nevada."

So we have one person saying one thing and another person saying another thing. At least the person making the first comment is named. The 2nd is just "charge nurse in the ER".</comment></comment></comment>


At the End of a Procrastinated Day - <AUTHOR> http://removed.posterous.com/at-the-end-of-a-procrastinated-day <comment><USER4> The Hemingway Trick: Stop in the middle. Never stop working at the natural barriers. They next time you start working, the barrier will be the first thing you encounter, and you won't have the momentum to overcome it. Try to stop writing mid-chapter, or mid-sentence (or mid function). Know how to finish, but stop working. The next time you start, you know exactly what needs to be done. There will even be the _urge_ to start working to finish the unfinished.

Nearing the end of a unproductive day, accept that the day was not productive, start on what you will work on tomorrow, do a little, and stop in the middle.

<comment><USER5> Kent Beck calls this the "Red Test Pattern". If you do test-driven development, check in your code, write one more test that fails, and only _then_ stop working.

Works wonders for me.

<comment><USER6> Agree - this pattern is really underestimated.

I find it especially powerful at the end of a long day when you've been deep in the details. When you come in the next morning and see that red test, you "download" the context you were in much more quickly. I've also noticed that you tend to remember little details and nuances more clearly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For me, procrastination _always_ come from a lack of having a digestible plan of attack.

When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out a _single_ next step for your project, one single feature, or one single task in that feature that needs to be done. If you know what your next step in the project is, you'll have this urge to jump back in and do that task.

If you can't find that task, then you need to step back and look at your project from a higher level and analyze it to see if you have a clear picture of what you're trying to achieve.

Try it, it works wonders.

<comment><USER8> Since monday my home internet hasn't been working. Was told by tech support to call them if it didn't work two hours after rebooting it.

My internet is important to me (and using an iPad with 3g wasn't a great solution). The tech call wouldn't have taken more than 15 minutes. I had the time.

Yet I procrastinated making the call. I might have made it, but the connection started working today so I didn't.

The plan was simple. Pick up the phone. Dial the number.

Yet I didn't.

Not really sure why.

Heck I don't have any clean socks. I could easily pick the used one up from my bed, put them in my laundry bag and put them in the machine. Yet I don't. It is not like I don't know how or that I like not wearing socks.

So yeah the plan of attack is one thing, maybe it helps somebody, but it is far from enough.

<comment><USER9> Having to wash socks is incredibly depressing. Not sure what can be done about it - perhaps move to a country where you wouldn't need socks, which would probably also have more sunshine :-/

Or get floor heating, or a household hand? Maybe some bearable solution could be found.

<comment><USER10> Wash socks when you want to procrastinate doing something worse. If there is nothing in your life worse than washing socks, you really don't want to move, you're already living in Shangri-la.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found this article on Less Wrong to be extremely useful: "How to Beat Procrastination": <[http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/>...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/3w3/how_to_beat_procrastination/>). The article establishes The Procrastination Equation and outlines some scientifically suggested techniques for increasing Motivation:

                     Expectancy x Value
      Motivation = </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----
                    Impulsiveness x Delay

My notes on the article:

      Increase your expectancy of success.
      Increase the task's value (make it more pleasant and rewarding).
      Decrease your impulsiveness.

      Success Spirals:     small successes one after the other
      Vicarious Victory:   watch inspirational things, read books
      Mental Contrasting:  imagine where you could be vs. where you are now

      Flow:     match the difficult of the task to your ability
      Meaning:  think about what you're doing and make it mean something
      Energy:   sleep, drink water, caffeine, exercise, cold water, music, de-clutter
      Rewards:  reward yourself for success
      Passion:  increase the value of the task

      Commit Now:    commit in advance (tie yourself to the mast)
      Set Goals:     break the ice, then daily goals
      Set Routines:  for instance, exercise every day

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand why some people beat themselves up so much over procrastinating. Sure, it becomes a problem when you can't get anything done because you're so busy procrastinating. But everyone has a day here and there where they just can't be bothered to work on anything. Usually, it's a sign that your brain needs a break. Listen to it! Take a break.

If it happens so often it interferes with your work, you need to address the underlying issues. Do you enjoy what you're doing? Are you stressed out about something outside of work? Your problem procrastinating won't go away until you resolve those issues.

<comment><USER13> So, my procrastination won't stop until I resolve the reasons for my procrastination. Thanks!

<comment><USER14> Isn't he simply suggesting that we might want to address the problems, rather than the symptoms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This may not apply to everyone, but I found the thing that consistently removed my procrastination was simply to stop working in isolation. Whether it's going to the office of an employer or renting a desk at a co-working space, being around other people who are being productive worked wonders for me.

I used to think there was some fundamental flaw with my psyche; I would procrastinate quite often and always feel utterly depressed afterwards. Turns out that external motivation and clear delineation between "work space" and "play space" was all I needed. I still work _after_ work pretty often, but usually on other projects. If I just sit around and watch TV or play video games I don't feel badly about it because I know I just put in 8 hours of solid programming, which is something I used to think myself utterly incapable of.

If you're in an environment where watching Hulu all day is acceptable, find an environment where it isn't. I practically guarantee it's all you'll need.

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel you. I've been procrastinating a project for 3 years already (yes 3 years). I write code maybe half of one day each week. The rest of the time I do as you describe. I'm so ashamed of it I tell no one. Glad to have quite a bit of savings.

<comment><USER17> I don't mean to come off as a dick, but switch projects. I procrastinated for a month straight on something, as soon as I dropped the project the code flowed.

<comment><USER16> I did twice already. Both times because competitors beat me due to my chronic procrastination.

<comment><USER17> Talk to a doctor, it seems like you suffer from something along the lines of ADD. I have a friend that drastically improved his condition through medication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find procrastination is a symptom, not the actual problem.

The very root of the problem is that I'm either faced with something I just don't want to do or can see that the NEXT thing is something I really don't want to face.

It usually means I need to do some introspection.

<comment><USER19> Yes, this. I have no problem working when I'm excited about the work. If I'm not excited, then it's usually some extra-curricular problem or the work is not the kind of work that inspires me.

<comment><USER20> Sometimes you just have to work on less interesting things, there's no way around it.

<comment><USER18> There's a difference between dealing with a little boredom or muckwork in a project (there's always some of that) and the sort of relentless, day-long, can't do _anything_ procrastination the OP describes.

Sure, we all have those little jobs we don't want to do... But if you find you just can't get _anything_ done for days at a time, it means your subconscious is trying to tell you something. You'd be wise to try and figure out what, and take steps to address the underlying problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have been fighting somewhat winning battle with procrastination and it sums up to a few things, key ones are: \- get a good nights sleep, having less then 8 hours of sleep lowers your IQ and therefore doing complex and rewarding work its a catch 22, you go home feeling bad fret go to bed late. \- make a plan before you go to sleep for the next day, visualize, conceptualize results in your head - feel the accomplished goal. \- when you wake up focus and tell yourself that you trust that you can be reach each one of those goals. goals can be .. being focused and productive and feeling great! \- few pushups crunches goes a long way at the beginning of the day. if you feel a bit tired - i take a shot of double espresso before morning excerize, it all falls into place.

Procrastination can be good if it is deliberate, like when you are stuck and you can't move you can deliberately switch focus, take a nap read a book.

My 2c.

<comment><USER17> Honestly I find my IQ to be a hindrance for all but the most difficult coding. Getting a night of 4 or 5 hours (half the mornings waking up naturally) does wonders for my productivity.

Most of the time I'm not actually working on the math part of what I do (building data analysis applications), I'm working on the glue code. Glue code is terribly boring, but less so when your mind doesn't have the energy to think about more complicated things. Also, TDD really helps because it makes it feel more like a game where dots are XP tokens, but still. Also being sleepy makes me more likely to just say "$#%@ it, I'll just roll it in C" rather than trying to reduce an O(n __3) to a O(nlog(n)).

Hmmm. After writing all that out, I came to the realization I need a vacation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I found a way to reduce procrastination, while enjoying some of it. I alternate a procrastinate day with days of non-procrastination.

For one day, I am allowed to watch as many movies as I want, play chess, do whatever useless and enjoyable I might want. Then I would do variable periods without procrastinating. This could be 1 day, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month. It depends on your other priorities, work, family, achievements. During those periods, I have blacklisted the things I usually do when procrastinating. When I go back to my procrastination day, I am very happy since it has been a while I have watched a movie, trailer or play chess.

This is very similar to some drug-addiction techniques, and I found it worked for me very well. If you feel bad and haven't tried that yet, try that and let me know how it went.

<comment><USER23> So ... you've scheduled in breaks and call them 'procrastination days', because 'break' or 'vacation' or 'sanity holiday' sound wasteful?

<comment><USER22> You're right, those are breaks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How I kicked the same problem:

Spend a day procrastinating. Contemplate how unpleasantly wasteful it was (even if it felt superficially 'fun' at the time.)

Spend time being productive. Contemplate how I enjoyed doing it, and how I enjoyed _having done it_.

Consider the contrast between a day spent (in my case) learning C++ versus a day messing around on Reddit.

I don't have to make an effort any more. After my allotted procrastination time is up, I lose interest, and start to feel drawn towards my studies. It's like an internal productivity timer that automatically dampens my enthusiasm for wasteful activities and makes me keen to return to my books. I guess this is what it feels like to be hypnotized into disliking chocolate and into preferring healthier snacks.

<comment><USER25> Just a friendly caution: overcoming procrastination to study is very different than overcoming procrastination to work. I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps because learning is more passive than producing. Perhaps because learning usually feels _productive_ , like you're permanently gaining something, whereas a lot of work will lead you to question the purpose of the work itself, and usually doesn't compound in value of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here's a realization that scared me to death that I don't procrastinate any more: The whole life only exists in the current moment. The reason being that the past doesn't exist any more, and the future has yet to come into existence. Hence all my life exists only in the current moment.

This leads to the conclusion that if I procrastinate for even a bit moment, I'm wasting away all my life. This is the most scary conclusion I've ever had and it works wonders to drag me back to work.

<comment><USER27> It seems to me that working away all your life isn't any better that "wasting away" all your life.

<comment><USER26> You don't need to work every minute. All you need to do is to not waste it away. So go skiing for a full day is still considered making good use of the current moment than reading reddit. For me, I think not wasting my life away means I'm either contributing to the society by working or I'm making my self a better person by working out, skiing, reading books etc.

<comment><USER28> The problem is the half-assed work/activities.

I think you have to be fully engaged in any activity you are making. If you want to relax, relax in a full paced way. Not worrying about the work you have to make. If you must work, work in a fast-paced way, and make the job done.

The worst kind of works is the one multi-tasked. You dont get in a 'flow' state that is necessary for the most jobs people here in hacker news makes.

Two books are very good in the matter, The power of full engagement <http://amzn.to/vdS1Tc> and Flow <http://amzn.to/t2bed6>

<comment><USER29> I can see that being good practical advice for getting things done, but I'm less sure it's good (or at least universal) life advice, especially to follow all the time. My model for a good day spent is a lot of intermingled puttering around, reading, thinking, relaxing, working, to make unexpected connections between things, find new angles on problems, and generally understand how everything fits together better. Like the way a Douglas Hofstadter book "flows". I really, _really_ dislike the "work-hard / play-hard" lifestyle; just doesn't work for me at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think procrastinating is one of the most obvious symptoms of low EQ. You are just to emotional, you feel extremely unmotivated because you do not want to do what you need to do(studying etc). You just can not overcome your emotions and you do what ever your emotions want you to do, which is procrastinating and feeling better for this moment of time.

Emotions do not care about what you will feel in the future, they just care about what you feel right now. Procrastinating makes people happy. It is some type of addiction. You just can not ignore your emotions, and you do what makes you happy right now which is procrastinating.

</comment><comment><USER31> As some say, procrastination may be a symptom not an actual problem I think the less "tools" you have to procrastinate with the better. My top recommendation that I think has helped me become more productive within the past month is deleting all bookmarks and apps involving Reddit. Yes, it is just one site and you can easily replace it with another time filler but it is easy to get lost on that site for quite some time each day. Replace "Reddit time" with work and you can gain back some time to complete tasks each day. It's working for me and I don't really miss it.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm with the "it's ok to procrastinate sometimes" camp. Lot's of exercise plans include a "junk day" where you're allowing yourself to eat whatever you want without guilt. The reason is because it's good to reward yourself with something you like, and because it's near impossible to continue at something forever without little breaks.

From the sounds of it, maybe your "junk day" breaks aren't regular enough to keep you balanced, and you've reached an overloaded point.

Take regular breaks, don't feel guilty, and your net productivity will benefit.

<comment><USER33> Here's something I noticed:

If I spend all day browsing around the web unproductively, I don't feel motivated at all.

If I say "You know what, I'm not getting anything done. I'm going to play video games for a few hours.", I feel energized to get work done afterward.

I think it's the fact that browsing aimlessly is like knowing you need to run an errand and then sitting in the car with your hands on the wheel, but not turning the key. It's close enough to what you SHOULD be doing that you feel even worse that you're not getting things done. If I take a break to play a game or read a book or something, it's an explicit transition between activities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> My trick is mindful meditation, even two or three minutes is often enough to get me back on track.

<comment><USER35> Mine is to just stand up, push the volume a bit and start dancing as if the world was ending outside. This is so satisfying!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> my tactic: if you are burned out on coding, stop and do something else positive:

* go for a run * do an errand that has to be done anyway * balance your checkbook

This gets your mind on something else which is probably the problem - <USER2> aren't meant to stare at a screen doing exactly the same things over and over for 8 hours.

And remember, you are not alone in this. No depression allowed - you are not weak, you are human.

<comment><USER37> Doesn´t work for me. After I get my mind off the issue at hand and do an errand, when I come back I´m at the same position I was before. Sometimes even worse, because of the context switching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> You know how sometimes you are reading a book and then at some point you realize that you have no idea what the last few paragraphs were about. There was a study that traced this sudden loss of comprehension to the first word that didn't make sense. Anything between that word and the current position was read, but not understood.

I am guessing the procrastination is similar. I would be working and it all would be flowing along, but then I would hit a problem. Something stupid, like having several variable names 5 characters each, and needing another variable, but not being able to find a 5 char name for it. And that's it. I will just keep idling here.

The remedy in both cases is to realize there was an unknown word or a stumbling block, explicitly identify it and work around it. This really works, though YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER39> > I've still no clue why humans procastrinate.

I've still no clue why people consider doing stuff so important.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just start. Usually the problem is that you unnecessarily look up to your tasks. You think it's boring, difficult, or you don't know where to start. Just start. Once you start, you get into a positive flow and become motivated to finish it.

</comment><comment><USER41> > I've still no clue why humans procastrinate

[http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_hum...](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_humans_procrastinate_and_how_can_it_be_beat/c31rsxx)

</comment><comment><USER42> I have this exact same problem and I just have to get started. I don't start because I know a task is going to be a lot of work but that work will go away if I just get started. It's difficult and I think all coders deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER43> > I've still no clue why humans procrastinate.

I do - it's a sign you need a rest and a sign you've been doing too much of the same and some variety is required. Take a day off, do something different, get some fresh input.

</comment><comment><USER44> Check out the excellent book "Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now" by Burka and Yuen. I discovered it via a HN comment and figure I should repay the favor.

</comment><comment><USER45> I can't believe that this has been up 8 hours without any mention of Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" (<http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of- art/>)

This lays bare the root of procrastination. It is also provides forceful, direct ways for dealing with it. I don't know a single person who has read it and not taken something positive away.

And it's a really quick read. I went through it in an evening.

</comment><comment><USER46> Procrastination shouldn't just suck, it should be unacceptable. Don't tolerate it. No excuses. Not even if it's "just today".

Close everything! Ask yourself why you're not enjoying your work today. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, do something about it. Either finish it, so you can move on to something you enjoy. If that's not the case, talk to someone about how boring your stuff is and _fix_ this problem.

DON'T ACCEPT PROCRASTINATION!

</comment><comment><USER47> You know, I think its a manifestation of anxiousness about the work. Haven't figured out why this happens but I've seen that it is easier to overcome when I'm 1. working on a passion project 2. Working in a group.

Passion project point is really interesting because this implies that all other projects have something my(our?) subconscious is not quite comfortable with...but what is this??

Is it that I'm scared to attempt this new project for the fear of failure? Or is it that I'm too comfortable with it and therefore don't think its worth my time? Or is it because doing(attempting) this project will take me down an unknown route?

Ah!! So many possibilities...but I'm slowly learning to overcome this. One thing that works for me on a bad day: First think about the big picture of what needs to be done and how to go about it (sequentially) - I find this provides me with a _time perception_ of the project, that I can visualize what steps are involved in completing this project. Then just start the project! Just start it without thinking anymore and pretty soon its been 2 hours and you're almost done with phase 1!

</comment><comment><USER48> I find that procrastination, at least in my personal case, is strongly correlated to the amount of work I have pending. I tend to procrastinate when I a light work load. I find that I can focus on task when there is a heavy load. Well, at least now days, back when I was a student it was quite a different story and I guess I changed because of that experience.

</comment><comment><USER49> At the beginning of the day when I'm lying in bed, after looking at my calendar and reading the morning email when I get up, I picture myself going through my whole day in my mind. Whenever I get stuck in the middle of the day, I take some time to let my right brain image stream through the rest of my current task, which usually gets me back on track.

</comment><comment><USER37> Something that helps when acknowledging I´m procrastinating is to fast forward to the future and think: How will I feel after I´ve wasted a perfectly good day doing nothing, when the day before I told myself I was so going to do all of those things?

Getting myself out of the present, in a nutshell.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's extremely important to be working on the right thing. That's why some things just don't feel like work.

<http://www.humblepied.com/jessica-hische/>

I find Jessica's perspective refreshing. I try to end almost every talk I give by quoting her.

</comment><comment><USER51> Reading that was pretty eery since I just ate a banana, got a glass of water from the kitchen, have Chrome open with 20 tabs (including, obviously, Hacker News) and have a Pomodoro Android app within reach. The only thing that snapped me out of it was that my app was free.

<comment><USER28> The only difference to me is that I'm reading a book in my kindle, and I use the e.ggtimer.com/pomodoro to work.

Feels bad man.

<comment><USER52> Same for me, but using <http://tomatoes.heroku.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> A very sad post. Even sadder when to know it represents my exact thoughts... most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER54> Procrastination is also because of a tired mind. I get spaced out after a long/hectic week and lose a day or two without realizing. Then I just work on something else which dosent need too much brain-work [read: blogging]

</comment><comment><USER55> Relevant: [http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/job-fails- monday...](http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/job-fails-monday-thru- friday-not-a-lot-of-takers-strangely-enough.gif)

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't get why stories like this make it to the first page of HN. Seriously.

<comment><USER20> I have a problem with procrastination.

Seeing this post has led me to possible solutions to the problem.

<comment><USER56> There are a million sites on the Internet about procrastination and you found your solution in a mediocre (at best) 15 line blog post? Google. Seriously.

<comment><USER28> The solution is not on the post, is in the comments.

So you think that the solution for procrastination is google for it? I see this approach going all way around, and making people procrastinate more. Here in hn we can listen to other peers, that have the same problem and have good solutions.

<comment><USER41> sheldon wonders why a lazy few lines post "hey, my day today was a lazy day, why is it so? I dunno, lol" is considered valuable enough to be upvoted, and submitted in the first place. how is it insightful in any way?

<comment><USER57> I think it's a little bit insightful in that it highlights how not-fun procrastination is, even while we're doing it ("Procrastination is the worst feeling ever"). A reminder of that feeling, which we often forget when we desire to procrastinate, can give people a little extra motivation to avoid procrastination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Finally a post that talk about procrastination without giving advice away.

Because really, I've read them all. I'm pretty sure I could do a PHD about procrastination. The thing is, I would never start it.

</comment><comment><USER59> This question: Why do humans procrastinate, and how can it be beat? prompted an excellent reply from Sneering.

"People overestimate the value of the reward if the reward is imminent, and increasingly discount the value of the reward, the further away it is in time."

Worth a read if are interested in neuroeconomics [who knew?].

[http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_hum...](http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/mkwf2/why_do_humans_procrastinate_and_how_can_it_be_beat/c31rsxx)

</comment><comment><USER60> It's pretty simple:

When you procrastinate your day away, at the end of the day you feel like a shit.

When you work hard and deliver, at the end of the day you feel like a boss.

I'm going to keep feeling like a boss :)

</comment><comment><USER61> At least one post I've read here on HN while 'procrastinating' influenced my life quite significantly (in a measurable way). More than pretty much any number of hours spent working instead would. That made me reconsider my classification of activities as useful and useless. What matters more is probably willingness to take action or something along these lines (haven't thought this through yet).

</comment><comment><USER62> Lot of posts about procrastination past days here on HN. This confirms my feeling that this is a real and widespread issue. Even for startuppers.

[On topic shameless plug] This is why I'm building asaclock (<http://www.asaclock.com>), an anti-procrastination web community for startup single founders and people working on side projects.

</comment><comment><USER63> One partial solution for me: Buy a netbook that won't run any of my favorite games. Work on this netbook, from a location that has no internet access, if necessary.

If you need internet access to do your work, go to a public location (say, Starbucks) where you'd be embarrassed to be caught Youtubing.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm procrastinating reading the comments to this post.

<comment><USER65> Same. I just webmarked it along with hundreds of other articles and youtube videos to check out later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Tales of mere existence - <USER3>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMFWpKofSg>

</comment><comment><USER67> I find that writing things down on paper in a divide-and-conquer fashion really help in battling procrastination.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm having one of those days today and I need help! The while week has been that way. It sucks. I know much of my procrastination is due to burnout. I totally burned myself out and now I need to recover. But sometimes recovery isn't an option when you've got deadlines to meet. Sometimes you've got no choice. So now it's off to try to force myself to finish and hope to God I end up with just enough time to take a long enough break to recover.</comment>


Ian Bicking Joining Mozilla - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ianbicking.org/2010/03/10/joining-mozilla/

<comment><USER2> It's not worth a HN post by itself, but for those who know me from HN or various startups... I'm joining Mozilla too! <http://www.google.com/buzz/mbrubeck/9zWURcvonqi/Mozilla>

</comment><comment><USER3> Just one question.. Who is he?

<comment><USER4> He is well known in the Python community and has created several great libraries for Python like virtualenv and Webob.</comment></comment>


FAA: 2M lines of code process new air traffic system - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/article/2917198/software/faa-2-million-lines-of-code-process-new-air-traffic-system.html

<comment><USER2> When I hear statements like 2 million lines of code, I ask myself whether this is actual code that a team of developers wrote or if they're counting the lines in third party packages and frameworks they are using. LOC is not an accurate measurement of the quality of a software application. Interestingly it seems that it is written in the Ada programming language as well (a favourite amongst mission critical software applications and military purposes): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_%28programming_language%29)

<comment><USER3> I'm tempted to read it as "merely" 2 million given how bloated these projects tend to become. healthcare.gov is reported to be 500 million LOC, in comparison. I simply don't know how one writes that many lines, but it happened.

(And FWIW, I'd feel much safer if the figure for ERAM were 200KLOC or 20KLOC.)

<comment><USER4> > I simply don't know how one writes that many lines ...

I think with a template get ide and a verbose language ... Think eclipse and Java ...</comment></comment></comment>


Comparing HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 on Aircraft WiFi [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqY1MfgTYmE <comment><USER2> Tried the test in desktop Firefox, and the HTTP1 gave me a "insecure connection" error.

Apparently it is an expired certificate.</comment>


MoMA makes most exhibition catalogs since 1929 available on the internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/history <comment><USER2> Is this also available from their API[1]? Or do they have any plan on providing it as API?

1\. [https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2015/05/13/open- sour...](https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2015/05/13/open-sourcing- momas-digital-vault)

<comment><USER3> Not really an API, but they do have a GutHub account, and they make their collection listings available as a CSV last time I checked:

[https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/](https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personal fave:

The Responsive Eye (1965). Exploration into "retinal" art. Amazing how it presaged cognitive and vision sciences current obsessions with optical illusions.

[https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2914](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/2914)

</comment><comment><USER5> Considering that exhibition catalogs are a commodity in the art world this is huge.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do I see that right that the first color picture is from 1969 on that whole list of exhibitions [1]?

Even tough the color photography is available to anybody since the early 1900s [2]? Is there a reason for that? Is it a choice of art?

[1] [https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1918?locale=en](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1918?locale=en)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_photography_techno...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_photography_technology)

<comment><USER7> I didn't live during that period of time, but I wouldn't be surprised if the field had some recalcitrance for cultural reasons -- think of all the classic photography that is in black and white. B/W may have started as a technical limitation but it's something that could have become inextricably associated with "classic photography". On NPR today, they were interviewing the latest Sulzberger to take a leadership role at the New York Times (the Sulzbergers own the paper), and when asked about how the NYT will adapt to the technical changes, he talked about how even in his lifetime (he's only 35ish), the NYT heavily debated having color photos on its front page because it was unseemly (the first color front page photo was 1997 for the Gray Lady) [1]

From an artistic perspective, B/W photography absolutely has advantages from a dramatic perspective. Think of how we describe clear-cut situations as being black-and-white. In certain situations, the actual color in a scene can be extremely distracting and cut away from the photo's intended center.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times#Style)

<comment><USER8> Some of the early color photography is pretty stunning. I was watching a documentary on color photographs from WW1 using the Autochrome Lumière process the other day, and it was just incredible - it's hard to think of that era outside the black-and-whites and sepias that we usually see.

Some examples from a Time piece[1]

[1] [http://time.com/3803957/rare-color-photographs-from-the- tren...](http://time.com/3803957/rare-color-photographs-from-the-trenches-of- world-war-i/)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Which Pokemon is it? - <AUTHOR> http://jyotiska.github.io/pokemon/ <comment><USER2> a) at one point, when I was shown a nidoran, both nodoran were options, but it doesn't specify which of the answers is nidoran male and which is nidoran female, so I had just just pick one. (though I don't think I would recognize the difference from the silhouette anyway)

b)Any chance of making the hardest mode harder by picking ones that look more similar? I may not be able to name all of them given pictures, nor remember all of them given names, but given a silhouette, the correct name, and two random incorrect names, I didn't find the hardest mode to be all that hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Suggestion: keep track of which ones have already been shown in the current streak to avoid repeats? I did 100 of them, maybe 10% of which were repeats (I got Bellsprout four or five times on its own)

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently, the application fetches random pokemon, which might explain why there might be repeats. However, changing difficulty levels lets application choose from broader range of Pokemons. Can you try that?

<comment><USER3> I just did another hundred (on ultimate), and got Marshtomp, Shellder, and Pawniard each twice.

Also, I got one wrong at one point (Misdreavus's silhouette was just an unrecognizable blob to me haha), but it didn't have me start over and instead just let me try the other options. Not sure if that's expected or not, but I figured I'd check, since it didn't give me a message telling me what was going on, so I thought the button wasn't working at first.

I'm still waiting to get either Voltorb or Electrode and have them both in the options. It would be literally impossible without viewing the actual image...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious about where the source set of images for the pokemon comes from

<comment><AUTHOR> All images come from Pokedex that is hosted on the official Pokemon website: [http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokedex/](http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokedex/)</comment></comment>


Cops to Airbnb Host: No white people in this black neighborhood please - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f0Q8PuvCrU Cops tell Black Airbnb Host that it's not safe to have white guests here in the black neighborhood while questioning and interrogating her. <comment><USER2> Um, BnB != AirBnb. That title's a little misleading.

<comment><USER3> If you look at the previous submissions of this story, it does seem to be AirBnB:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2918751>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2920622>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2925720></comment></comment>


The Evils of the `For` Loop (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://graysoftinc.com/early-steps/the-evils-of-the-for-loop <comment><USER2> Perhaps specify that this is Ruby specific in the title? Otherwise its incredibly clickbaity, as for loop is central to so many C style languages.

<comment><USER3> There is a related issue in Python and Javascript. If you don't have block scoped for variables, you have a potential issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you don't have Flash but still want to read it:

        Array.prototype.map.call(document.querySelectorAll(".zclip"), function(node) { node.parentNode.removeChild(node); })</comment>


Announcing Certbot: EFF's Client for Let's Encrypt - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/05/announcing-certbot-new-tls-robot <comment><USER2> > Let's Encrypt is a certificate authority, co-founded by EFF, Mozilla, and > researchers from the University of Michigan

I'd like to make a point about money: Institutions like these need money, or many important public goods will never exist. Consider that next time you are making donations or your legislators want to cut funding.

<comment><USER3> Risking playing the devils advocate, checking the EFFs annual financial reports shows 13M support + 1M from investment income against 7,5M total expenses (salaries being 5,3M). EFF is doing good work and Let's Encrypt is a great initiative and I'm sure they can use every dollar, I'm just wondering whether you could have a bigger impact donating your money to other organizations / developers who are worse off.

[https://www.eff.org/document/fy-2014-statement- activity](https://www.eff.org/document/fy-2014-statement-activity)

<comment><USER4> > I'm just wondering whether you could have a bigger impact donating your > money to other organizations / developers who are worse off.

You certainly could.

However, every donation has opportunity costs in multiple dimensions, and if you walk down the "can I have better impact somewhere else" path, you'll find it rife with circularities and get nowhere.

Instead of the top N _best_ candidates to donate to, I usually look for N _good_ ones, and be done with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This new name and website are a big improvement to the branding of the client, and make it clear that this client is not a requirement for getting a certificate from Let's Encrypt. It was very difficult to explain to people learning about it that there is a difference between:

1\. Let's Encrypt, the certificate authority

2\. ACME, the protocol for users to interact with Let's Encrypt

3\. Boulder, an implementation of an ACME server in Go that Let's Encrypt uses

4\. Certbot (formerly the Let's Encrypt client), a command line client and ACME library for Python, originally developed by the Let's Encrypt team

Any CA can use ACME to offer automated certificate issuance to their users. Anyone can implement an ACME server or client in any language. There is no "official" client or server necessary.

It's also important that Certbot was rebranded to distance it from Let's Encrypt because, personally, I think the project is doomed to fail. It tries to handle both certificate issuance and configuration of software using certificates. It attempts to abstract the process for someone who barely understands what certificates/SSL/TLS are (if at all), but requires so much detail from them in order to configure and run the client that they might well have just learned how it worked in the first place. In other words, Certbot's use case targets laymen, but requires non-layman understanding to use. It doesn't help that their documentation is very badly organized and confusing, often mixing content for the CLI and the Python Library, which have different audiences: end users and developers building an automated tool in Python.

Meanwhile, intermediate and advanced developers and system administrators who understand the concepts are much better served by a different client that simply takes care of certificate issuance without trying to automatically manage the software they will be using the certificate with. There are many, but so far I've been happy with Lego ([https://github.com/xenolf/lego](https://github.com/xenolf/lego)).

<comment><USER6> I think your criticisms were pretty fair of the earliest releases of the Let's Encrypt client, but they seem to be less accurate now. We see the client (aka Certbot) being used successfully by many hundreds of thousands of site operators. In terms of full automation, the Apache plugin has gone from "experimental" to "works for most people automatically". We'll be working on delivering similar features for Nginx next.

But if lego works for you; that's great!

<comment><USER7> Does Certbot have the ability to only output the signed certs to a specified directory and nothing more?

<comment><USER6> At the moment you can get that behaviour with "certonly --csr". You'll need to make a CSR file yourself. It'll drop your cert and chain files in the current directory. You'll still have an account key and some other ACME protocol housekeeping state in /etc/letsencrypt.

[https://github.com/certbot/certbot/issues/2373](https://github.com/certbot/certbot/issues/2373) will track implementation a nicer version of that functionality; it'll probably be --no-lineages (lineages are Certbot's notion of a succession of renewed or updated certificates that replace each other; they live in /etc/letsencrypt/live, though you can put them somewhere else with the --config-dir option)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use acme-tiny[0] and it was pretty simple to setup. The letsencryptclient requires running as root and quite a few dependencies if I remember correctly.

I have acme-tiny run with its own private user privilages monthly in a cron job and it's pretty slick. Only has access to the account key and writing to the http challenges and cert directories, no private key access.

[0] [https://github.com/diafygi/acme-tiny](https://github.com/diafygi/acme- tiny) Edit: clarification

<comment><USER9> The letsencryptclient does not need to run as root. I run it below its own user and group, and add that group to the http user to allow it to read the certificates and keys. Configuration at [https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master...](https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master/hologram-letsencrypt.pkg.toml) and [https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master...](https://github.com/majewsky/system- configuration/blob/master/hologram-nginx.pkg.toml)

Permissions are more granular on your setup, though, as far as I can see.

<comment><USER10> The letsencryptclient (now renamed to certbot) runs `sudo apt-get install ...` even when running `--help`. I have a pull request that aims to fix that particular surprise: [https://github.com/certbot/certbot/pull/2790](https://github.com/certbot/certbot/pull/2790)

<comment><USER11> Wow. That's a backdoor.

Trying to install stuff without the users permission, and using sudo without the users intent is really not right. How can we trust this if they do such things?

It looks like it is running a sudo command with a python script with scripts under a non-root user. This means that anyone who can write data to that non- root user folder can then run things as root.

ie. I can drop in a .py file and execute whatever code I want. Code run with sudo should not allow this.

<comment><USER12> The backdoor is `sudo` and if you allow passwordless `sudo` then any program you execute has permissions to run code as root. If you require a password to `sudo` then there's less of an issue as even the LetsEncrypt client would require you to grant permissions to `apt-get`.

That all said, it's still bad form to `apt-get -y` when run with a `--help` flag. Particularly with the `-y flag`. Even if you trust LetsEncrypt (and most of us would), it's still unexpected / non-idiomatic behavior and the `-y` flag means users don't get much time to cancel the operation should any output concern them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One problem I have with this tool is support for pre-computed public keys or CSRs. The client prefers to generate a new key pair for every certificate. Automated renewal that works the same way for existing CSRs as it does for regular certificates requires undocumented hacks.

Using the same key pair for multiple certificates is necessary for public key pinning, since Let's Encrypt only issues certificates that last 90 days. I would love to see this feature get developed further.

<comment><USER14> > Using the same key pair for multiple certificates is necessary for public > key pinning, since Let's Encrypt only issues certificates that last 90 days.

So do like Github does (did?)[0], and make the pins valid for 5 minutes.

[0] looks like they upped it to 60 days?

<comment><USER15> > So do like Github does (did?)[0], and make the pins valid for 5 minutes.

That kinda defeats the point of HSTS. If the key is changing regularly, it makes it easy for an attacker to just temporarily prevent access to the site for long enough for the pin to timeout, and then present their own certificates and keys.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps you mean HPKP, not HSTS?

<comment><USER15> Yes, sorry, HPKP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've found acmetool perfect for my use and this table explains why: [https://github.com/hlandau/acme#comparison-list-of-client- im...](https://github.com/hlandau/acme#comparison-list-of-client- implementations)

The biggest feature the official letsencrypt client was missing was triggering restarts of other services after certificate renewal.

<comment><USER6> Hooks to perform arbitrary restarts and housekeeping upon renewal were added in version 0.5.0. Run with "\--help renew" and/or see [https://certbot.eff.org/docs/using.html#renewal](https://certbot.eff.org/docs/using.html#renewal)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For people that want something much smaller (dependency-wise), I can recommend letsencrypt.sh which – together with cron – achieves the same goal: [https://github.com/lukas2511/letsencrypt.sh](https://github.com/lukas2511/letsencrypt.sh)

<comment><USER18> letsencrypt.sh is great. It has easy support for existing CSRs and can do dns-01 verification (i.e. making sure you control the domain via a DNS secret rather an http get path/secret). I wrote up a usage tutorial for the latter with Route53 here [https://blog.boldlisting.com/free-ssl-certificates- without-p...](https://blog.boldlisting.com/free-ssl-certificates-without- placing-a-file-on-your-server-using-aws-route53-31035f8fca14)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the new name of what was previously known as the official Let's Encrypt client.

<comment><USER19> Which was a lot more straight forward, so why change it to something obscure? (I mean "Let's Ecrypt" is a well positioned brand and since this is all about trust, why introduce a new name?)

<comment><USER20> Because it's supposed to be independent of the Let's Encrypt brand, with Let's Encrypt hopefully being one of multiple providers of CAs speaking the ACME protocol and this client being one of many clients compatible with them.

There has been a lot of misunderstanding and FUD about how you can use Let's Encrypt because of the relatively heavy and by default "invasive" official client. This hopefully helps to make it clearer that it is one option of many.

<comment><USER6> The official client (now Certbot) actually supports a whole bunch of different use cases; some people want full automation of everything; other people find that "invasive". The software supports both, but people would often find the wrong instructions. The new Certbot landing page tries to do a much better job of giving people instructions that are tailored to their use case and needs. Please try it and send us feedback!

[https://certbot.eff.org](https://certbot.eff.org)

<comment><USER21> Given the emphasis on full automation in Let's Encrypt, it's really baffling that the official client lacks DNS-based support at this time. Anyone behind a load balancer like AWS ELB can't really use it.

<comment><USER22> HTTP-01 verification works quite well behind load balancers - it's a simple GET request to a specific URL.

You're probably thinking of TLS-SNI-01, which requires changes on the host that's terminating TLS (which isn't possible on a load balancer unless it has dedicated support for ACME).

<comment><USER21> > HTTP-01 verification works quite well behind load balancers - it's a simple > GET request to a specific URL.

Running the client on one of the servers frequently results in it hitting one of the other servers in the cluster. It's a pain in the ass - you either rely on luck and retry a number of times until it hits the right server, or you have to go the more manual route and deploy the challenge directory to all of the servers.

DNS doesn't care how many servers there are, as long as there's the right record in place.

<comment><USER22> You can work around that fairly easily by having a permanent redirect (HTTP 301) for /.well-known/acme-challenge/* to a dedicated validation server (which might just be certbot in HTTP-01 standalone mode).

<comment><USER21> Now that's an interesting idea I'll have to play with. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I had been interested in Let's Encrypt, but hadn't dove in. This makes implementation alot more compelling.</comment>


Tesla Batteries Are Keeping Zimbabwe's Economy Running - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-01/tesla-batteries-are-keeping-zimbabwe-s-economy-running <comment><USER2> Tesla batteries being used as a big UPS for mobile base stations. Nice idea for remote stations!

Fun fact: from the metal mesh grill (cabinet on the right next to Tesla) looks like it's Ericsson equipment being powered.

<comment><USER3> And is worth a ton more $ vs the powerwall in a armored cage.

<comment><USER4> I suspect reselling stolen telecom equipment is a lot harder than reselling (or simply keeping and using) a battery that everyone can use.

<comment><USER5> An engineer working in JHB told me the stolen battery business is a R 1b a year market (15 ZAR = 1 USD; so USD 65m a year) in South Africa so you are probably right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Power only being turned on a few hours per day is supposed to save power, and act as a form of rationing.

If everyone buys batteries and charges them when the power is on, and uses them the rest of the time, it doesn't save any power, and just costs everyone far more money.

Pretty bad for the economy as a whole.

<comment><USER7> Not if they are mostly charged by the sun and also batteries act to level the load over time which lessens requirements for the power source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting fact about Zimbabwe's economy: they had one of the worst hyperinflation stories in human history. Then in 2009 they switched to a mix of foreign currencies (mostly USD). It stopped the crazy inflation, their markets calmed down and started working.

This year they switched to their own currency again. 40% inflation already.

<comment><USER9> It would be a fascinating case study if they were to switch to a crypto currency. Is anyone aware of any countries with hyperinflation (or otherwise unstable economies) that have attempted to do so?

<comment><USER10> There are problems with that. For one, consider that if all of a country's debt were denominated in bitcoin. For instance, the government issues bonds that can be redeemed when they mature for some quantity of BTC.

Now consider what happens if the value of bitcoin goes up suddenly. The government now is much deeper in debt than they were planning to be.

Sometimes having your own currency has benefits, for the country and for the world economy as a whole. For instance, if a country goes into recession and the value of their currency drops, then their debt can shrink (if it's denominated in local currency) along with the economy so that it doesn't bankrupt the country. Also, when the price of local goods drops with respect to other currencies, it encourages exports which usually helps the economy recover.

If you use a currency controlled by some other country or institution (i.e. the Euro), you don't have these safeguards. That's true as well if the currency is controlled by no one in particular (e.g. Bitcoin).

I don't know what Zimbabwe's particular problem was with their own currency. Sometimes using an external currency makes sense (like the Bretton Woods system in Europe before the Nixon shock in 1971). But it can be dangerous as well.

(A real economist could probably explain this all better. I just recently happened to read a book on all the problems with monetary policy in Europe written by Yanis Varoufakis, who served as Greece's finance minister for three months.)

<comment><USER11> These mechanisms you mention are all mechanisms that have historically been used, but there is a widespread consensus that it's not the right thing to do. Best practice is that a central bank should be independent of government and their mandate should not be to meddle with the valuation of a country's debt but to keep the value of the currency stable. For example, for the ECB it would be completely impossible to make monetary policy to suit the fiscal needs of all Euro-area countries since they are in wildly differing situations as far as their debt-levels and fiscal policies are concerned. Fortunately that's not part of the ECB's job description, though. Their job is: Keep inflation at a target that's close to but not exceeding 2% over the medium term. In theory the Fed should be just as independent from the U.S. government as the ECB is from any European government.

<comment><USER12> Of course if you believe anything you just said about the ECB you are really delusional. They are very much dependent on a few European governments (primarily France and Germany), this became readily apparent during the financial crisis of 2008. The Bundesbank president at the time had served in the Kanzleramt before.

<comment><USER11> I believe that starting a comment with accusing somebody of being delusional is not in line with HN guidelines -- see [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

The national central banks don't have all that much to say within the ECB system and are basically a historical remnant of a system that has been superseded and made obsolete (like the queen of England).

Personally I don't have a problem with somebody serving in government administration moving on to a role that's independent of government. Not everybody in administration is a political entity, and it is very possible for somebody who had been a political entity to leave politics behind. The same people who like to spin everything into conspiracy were also keen to point out that Mario Draghi had previously been with Goldman Sachs. ...so if it is somebody from public administration, there's a conspiracy theory. If it is somebody from business, there's a conspiracy theory, too. In that case where are these people supposed to come from? In my opinion it's a good thing that people need a proven track record of some kind or another to be eligible for offices like that, you can't just pick them up on the street just because, for political reasons, you require that they should have no past of any kind.

And, finally: European sovereigns weren't particularly in trouble in 2008. It was in 2010 that the crisis had made its way into the accounts of sovereigns, most notably the Greek debt crisis which later expanded into a debt crisis for Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain. During that time, this mechanism was, indeed, a much discussed topic, but precisely in the sense of what I previously wrote: It was a historical precedent for how a sovereign debt crisis plays out when you can't just inflate your way out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, this article is reall interesting to me. I am actually an extreme critic of Tesla.

However, I also am an ardent supporter of cost-efficient technologies (anyone who knows what an Acer C720 is knows what cost-efficiency is). So, it is really awesome to me that a country that has been ravaged by corruption and health crises is able to run vital services with repurposed hardware that isn't anything to do with glitz and glam like Tesla cars.

Hope they continue to build what they need with whatever they can continue to get their hands on.

<comment><USER14> This is not repurposed Tesla hardware, they are using actual Tesla backup battery product.

<comment><USER15> I would say they are repurposed in the sense that they were intended for home usage and not for keeping cell towers working.

<comment><USER16> If you buy a brand new server and use it for your PC, does that make it repurposed? To most people, it's a brand new computer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if solar plus batteries will become more common than the power grid in some of these countries, making the power grid redundant.

<comment><USER18> Seems doubtful. Solar and batteries require large initial investments; that's generally easier for the government or power companies than individuals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The photo of tesla battery pack behind the bars is striking.

<comment><USER20> At $6500 it's over a years worth over a years average salary [using numbeo.com rates] , and more importantly it's useful to anyone else suffering from intermittent electric which they all are.

<comment><USER21> It be worth stealing anywhere, provided you ok (or dont care) with possible consequenses if getting caught. Resale, private usage.

Guess the gate is eletricfied, as the bars look easy to get through.

<comment><USER22> >Guess the gate is eletricfied

doesn't look like it. it's not isolated from the ground, so any electricity is going straight into the earth. the bigger deterrent is the barbed wire, but you can get pass that (and the electric fence, if any) with a fiberglass ladder.

<comment><USER23> A wooden ladder is even easier (though heavier).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Tangential but as an effort to go green- I'm considering not buying new Led acid batteries for my UPS and reusing the old ones from my old laptop. Does anybody know if this can be done?

<comment><USER25> Fair chance _old_ laptop batteries are going to be well and truely past their serviceable life.

Lead acid batteries are highly recyclable, and more easily recycled than lithium ion cells anyway.

<comment><USER24> By old I mean used not old-by-age. I usually buy a new laptop every 3 years

<comment><USER25> Have you looked in to what's required to balance-charge the cells?

I've seen some blog and YouTube videos where people have repurposed 18650 lithium ion cells.

There's a bit to it, but it's doable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> they have to remove tesla logo from batteries for rubbery.</comment>


Data sent home by µtorrent - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-interweb.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/129-Data-sent-home-by-torrent.html#extended

<comment><USER2> Not being a user of uTorrent (and therefore not knowing about uTorrent through experience), I was a little annoyed that he waited until the very bottom to mention:

      Oh yeah, there is a setting in the preferences dialog
      (Send detailed info when checking for updates) where
      you can disable all of this data sending. However,
      it's enabled by default so your data is sent out at
      least once when you first start the program.

It also seems like just an advert for the debugger he used. He doesn't mention it specifically in the blog post, but the first comment is someone asking what the debugger is. When the author responds with a name and a link (to another blog post). The commenter responds with "Anyway, thanks again for introducing this invaluable debugger" even though he states that the price tag is way too high for him. The commenter also makes sure to explicitly state the price of the debugger package _and_ the add-on package to it.

I could be wrong on the advert angle, but I'm skeptical of those comments.

</comment><comment><USER3> Per the comments below the article, you can disable this by disabling the 'send anonymous usage statistics' option.

</comment><comment><USER4> While it could compromise privacy, I didn't see anything outright evil on that list.

<comment><USER2> It sends a unique identifier to the server, and the server has access to the IPs that you connect from to post that info/check for updates. Depending on what they do with that information it could end up as a central repository of your bittorrent usage statistics (assuming you only use uTorrent and only run it on a single computer).

[EDIT] If you were downloading copyrighted content, and the RIAA/MPAA/IFPA/etc got a hold on this information they could use it to link your computer to an IP address (and even an IP address on at a certain date, if they web request timestamps are logged) by correlating the IPs associated with the unique ID recorded at the utorrent server with the unique ID stored in your settings.dat file. They could also try and use the Total Amount Uploaded/Downloaded since uTorrent was installed against you in court.

If you were running uTorrent in Wine, they could use that a some weak 'proof' that it was you downloading the torrents and not someone else. (If you run Linux/MacOSX/FreeBSD and have uTorrent installed in Wine; it's likely that that majority of uTorrent users are on Windows)

Most of the other stuff is rather innocuous. I can't think of anyway for it to harm you, but I'm not doing some sort of thorough analysis of it.

<comment><USER5> There is a beta version of uTorrent for Mac OS X, but it does not have a preference option to uncheck. It simply has "Check for Updates" -- no mention of "detailed information" or the ability to disable it.

<comment><USER6> uTorrent for OS X seems quite crippled, in terms of features, or at least it did when I last used it. I do get that it is still a work in progress. For now, I'm still using Azureus on my MBP.

<comment><USER7> If you haven't tried it, I'd highly recommend Transmission. It's the best OS X torrent client I've found.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>