Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/01/dozens-injured-as-riot-police-storm-catalan-ref-polling-stations <comment><USER2> I feel a little bit disappointed with hacker news having this superficial and anti-analytical article in the front page.

As a Spaniard id like to address some points brought up here in the comments. I've read people comparing this with Crimea, thoughts on self determination, thoughts on the repression by the government, etc.

The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).

Then there's the legitimacy of this referendum. In order to make this referendum, the catalan parliament approved new laws without majority and breaking the Catalan laws in a dictatorial disgraceful manner. This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions. If anybody recalls past dictatorships, many of them had these kind of referendums.

After knowing how this referendum was done and why it was illegal and anti democratic, I'd like to address the people who can't conceive liberty with rules. Referendums on self determination are unconstitutional by law in Spain, I can agree on a change on the constitution. But to change the constitution in order to allow these referendums you need a national referendum, because your changing the constitution of all the country, not just Catalonia .

I will finally argue on self determination and try to clear some superficial comments I've read.

The first and impulsive thought all of us have is to think that everybody should decide about everything. But in reality, that extreme liberty can take on someone else's liberty.

If you allow catalonia to self determine their independence and then they do get independent, the next will be país vasco, then Galicia, then Madrid, and so on. The problem with this is not that the country would disappear (I'm not very patriotic) the problem is you're creating extreme inequality by regions. If Madrid gets independent they become rich because they give a great percentage of their gdp to Spain in taxes. But andalucia or Extremadura would become extremely poor. If you have a little bit of socialistic view, you can understand this is wrong. It's against redistribution, against equality, against globalization, and pro-isolation, xenophobia and discrimination.

Also, Catalonia can never be compared with Scotland, their history is null in contrast. Their identity is as special as many other regions of spain.

[0]Here are some tweets on how the referendum was done:

Guy votes 4 times [https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016](https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016)

People voting [https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957](https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957)

Fake census on a small town [https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566](https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566)

<comment><USER3> The only two autonomous communities I could see leaving are Catalonia and Basque Country. Madrid, despite being rich, has many more privileges than Catalonia.

What makes you think less than 15% of people voted? Did you by any chance get these numbers from the extremely objective and impartial newspapers abc, el mundo, or la razon?

I don't feel like arguing at 3am, so I will leave it at that, but reading things like our history is null makes me pretty sad.

<comment><USER2> More privileges? Madrid has a higher gdp per capita but a lower gpd (fewer people), despite of having a lower gdp they contribute with twice the money: [http://m.eldiario.es/politica/Madrid-deficit-fiscal- millones...](http://m.eldiario.es/politica/Madrid-deficit-fiscal-millones- Cataluna_0_284521745.html) (Leftist source)

What makes me think about the real percentage of people that voted is not any newspaper but things like this: [https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016](https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016)

[https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957](https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957)

[https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566](https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566)

And finally, I'm very sorry if I offended you, I'm just saying that the difference between someone from Madrid and someone from Barcelona es less than someone from Madrid and Cadiz or many other cities. There is no special identity nor history compared to other regions. Your claiming the crown of Aragon, which was pretty much half of Spain... I don't think you could claim independence just because you belonged to something else (as every region before the formation of Spain) in the past... The only real argument is to say: a lot of people want it. I stated my points on that in my comment.

<comment><USER3> (I did not downvote you, for the record) Don't feel bad for offending me. I have been getting easily triggered quite a bit lately due to the lack of objectiveness of a lot of the Spanish media (you could say the same about Catalan media). I shouldn't really talk in these threads to be honest.

It's true that Madrid is richer, but they also have, for example, the privilege of being the capital of Spain, which naturally helps with their economy.

Regarding the multiple votes, I could also add that other people tried[1] voting twice and weren't allowed. That is not to say that it wasn't possible at certain places, but I think that stating that less than 15% of the real population voted when the released data said that more than two million IDs were registered electronically is a bit ingenuous. Furthermore, TVE, the Spanish national TV channels, manipulated data and were really biased, as stated by multiple journalists working there[2].

[1] [https://twitter.com/orioldebalanzo/status/914526879582998528](https://twitter.com/orioldebalanzo/status/914526879582998528).

[2] [https://twitter.com/vanesabenedicto/status/91448136228718592...](https://twitter.com/vanesabenedicto/status/914481362287185925)

<comment><USER2> I agree with you on the media being biased (by both sides). But I don't think this should be about the numbers. I only stated that percentage to make clear the point that there was no census and multiple ways to hack the polls...

In any case, my arguments apply wether that percentage is 15 or 50. Also, I believe we shouldn't differentiate between regions that could have the privilege of voting and regions who wouldn't have it (specially when the reasons aren't solid) , it just intensifies the feeling of false superiority and xenophobia between different populations.

I could agree on the possibility of self determination for any region (or city), but I'd like people to think a little bit more about what that could mean in the long term and if that's something good for the world overall.

Sorry again if I was too arrogant, I fully respect your love for your hometown and your people.

<comment><USER3> I think a lot of non-Catalans have the perception (perhaps portrayed by the media) that we dislike Spain or the people, but frankly, the big issue is that we are fed up with the government (and certain branches of the govt.), probably like a large amount of Spaniards, with the difference being that we are able to express it through the pro-independence movement, which has always existed, though admittedly it had never been close to as strong as it is nowadays, and which allows us to put much more pressure into the govt. for changes. There is no hate at all; we just want the best for our land, like everyone. It's good that parties like Podemos have been growing, even if one doesn't feel identified with their ideals, because it shows that people are fed up with the situation.

Thank you for the kind words. Likewise to you <3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought this analysis article was really thought-provoking and now I have uncertain and mixed feelings about the referendum: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence- movements-catalans-kurds.html).

Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: _integrity of national borders_ and _human rights_. And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it, if _all_ of Spain voted in this referendum (since this would affect the resources and borders of the entire nation), what would the result be? There are obviously major and critical differences, but if you look at another issue, Crimea, most people there _would_ actually rather be with Russia. But obviously the rest of Ukraine didn't agree with that. And Crimea actually tried to hold referendums in the past that were blocked by the national government. The "referendum" that Crimea ended up holding (to legitimize the annexation) was declared illegal by the UN, but that's exactly what Spain's constitutional court did in the Catalan referendum.

Very complex issue and not as cut and dry as I had thought it to be.

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's appropriate to ask the citizens of the rest of the country if they support the secession. To create a simple analogy lets say you have a group of five people. One is a captive and four are the captors. Is it appropriate to have a referendum with all five people to vote on if the captive is allow to go free? No the four captors are always going to vote no. The captive has to escape without the support of the captors.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure if you went to any prison and polled the inmates, you'd find quite a bit of support for the inmate's freedom.

Without taking a position on Catalonia, I think one has to analyze the reasons they want to hold the referendum and decide if you find them compelling. When the USA seceded from the UK, the Declaration of Independence provided a reasonable list of reasons. By contrast, the main reason the CSA seceded from the USA - slavery - prevented their cause from being legitimate.

<comment><USER7> But you are not polling inmates, you are effectively polling wardens. How many wardens will poll to release the inmate their own jobs depend on? None.

Independentism is always a thorny subject, because most justification ends up being defined _ex post_. It's like "resistance" movements against lawful but tyrannical governments: if they succeed they will be freedom fighters, if they fail they'll be brigands and terrorists. Usually the threshold for legitimacy is overwhelming support from the population, something that happens sporadically (it happened in Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Kossovo, _almost_ in Scotland, and of course in post-soviet republics all over the old federation). But once popular support is somehow made manifest, then the Wilson doctrine must be allowed to set the agenda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah ... if you are willing to take a boot to the face to vote, you probably want to change the status quo. But the boots to the face then validate the results and the rest will be history.

<comment><USER9> Game theoretically, the fact that the Spanish government was so dead set against the vote implies that they thought there was a significant probability that it would be over 50% regardless. It seems like if a government resorts to violence to stop separatism movements, that violence is prima facie evidence that the separatist sentiment potentially represents the majority of a region.

I have actually been surprised by Spain's response to this. I have always assumed that self-determination was a principle that modern Europeans actually believed in, rather than something that was only a political convenience. I don't know that much about history, though, so perhaps I could be more cynical on the topic.

<comment><USER8> I don't know if you have spent much time in Spain, but they have a tendency to be pretty heavy handed even when they don't need to be. It is a large contributor to the Basque separatist movement for example. I am still waiting to get better numbers on how many people voted etc. since the reports are wildly disparate, but I wouldn't be surprised if the move was more to send a message to other separatist movements than to deal with today in itself.

Regardless, I think the bigger take away from these events is that they have made their bed and now must lay in it. Almost any result of this vote could have been more easily dealt with in almost any other way they could imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are reports of people voting from two to 4 different schools. Wondering what methods authorities used to ensure there was no fraud on these referendum.

<comment><USER3> I voted. I can't talk about all the schools, but the ones I checked made sure (electronically) that you didn't vote twice, but of course there's a chance that some people did indeed vote more than once if for some reason they manually wrote down the name.

<comment><USER2> Check this out:

[https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016](https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016)

[https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957](https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957)

[https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566](https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's absurd that in a Western 'democracy' you'd have the national police out to suppress a referendum and attack peaceful voters.

Good job Spain, you just legitimised the referendum and gave Catalonia a ton of international sympathy.

<comment><USER12> The optics (at the moment) seem to be the most important issue here. Whether or not the vote is legitimate is quite irrelevant in immediate aftermath. This is a government using physical force against its citizens for, of all things, voting -- a core democratic principle.

Democracy must be tolerant of peaceful protesting. An "illegal" vote (depending who's lens we are viewing this from), to me, is a form of peaceful protest. Candor, mutual respect, and peaceful organizing are some of a few tools democracies have to solve problems without devolving to unrest and violence. If we assume we highly value avoiding violence (and we should), governments need to tolerate the use of these tools, from time to time.

By banning the use of these more moderate options, the national government is essentially promoting dissenters to even less desirable options so they have at least some form of expression. I think we should be surprised the national government chose to use such force when it had far less invasive means for dealing with the consequences of this vote, e.g., courts.

<comment><USER13> It was an illegal act, funded by public money. Had the government not acted, it would have set a bad precedent: that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life.

<comment><USER12> Maybe a court should be deciding whether or not it is illegal, not the police. Again, my comment was about using the proper response to a given situation.

I don't think the use of public money for the illegal act necessarily sets a bad precedent. The constitution didn't say to go out there and spray rubber bullets at civilians. So how a government can respond to this illegal act is a subjective choice.

Spain could have chosen to use less authoritarian methods to deal with the consequences of this ballot without setting any precedents. It could have been declared unenforceable by a court, which is a more appropriate venue.

<comment><USER14> Police was instructed by courts to prevent the (illegal) vote from taking place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As much as I'd like to see Catalonians have a voice in this, given that the referendum is was ruled illegal it seems unlikely that the "no" vote would come out in droves. One crime in protest of another?

<comment><USER16> And indeed, turn out was pretty low

<comment><USER17> Lot of people were stopped from voting though. Police shut down hundreds of polling stations and intervened in other stations trying to stop people from voting. 42% turnout under these drastic conditions when police is beating up people on streets is not low imho.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since the referendum was illegal according to the Spanish government, and involved violent clashes with police, it wouldn't be surprising if 90% of the people who actually showed up and voted anyway were separatists.

</comment><comment><USER19> Scottish referendum: allowed, failed

Kurdish referendum: suppressed, succeeded

Catalan referendum: suppressed, succeeded

It's a little too early to call it a pattern, but it has the appearance of one.

<comment><USER16> You could interpret that as the Scottish referendum having been allowed because it was thought unlikely to succeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This will end up as a shooting war.

<comment><USER21> ...that's extremely unlikely. Independence doesn't have anywhere close to 90% support in reality, it's just that the pro-Spain faction didn't turn out to vote.

<comment><USER22> As far as I can tell, US independence had minority support (~40 - 45% of the white population) they however where willing to fight. With others either neutral or Loyalists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I understand the freedom argument but it's probably coming at a very high price for little practical gain. It seems a form of Brexit, based largely on emotions without a clear path forward.

Catalonia becomes a nation state and then what? Are they now an island in the EU? Easy trade with all other regions in Spain now has to go through taxes and trade agreements? How much is debt increasing?

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/21/heres-how-bad- economically-a...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/21/heres-how-bad-economically- a-spain-catalonia-split-could-really-be.html)

<comment><USER24> Funny you mention Brexit.

[https://thinkprogress.org/assange-catalonia- independence-0a8...](https://thinkprogress.org/assange-catalonia- independence-0a83cd016972/)

[http://www.smh.com.au/world/on-catalan-independence- julian-a...](http://www.smh.com.au/world/on-catalan-independence-julian- assange-edward-snowden-emerge-as-surprise-backers-20170925-gyoqxs.html)

Seems to be modest pattern emerging.

<comment><USER25> If you are ideologically opposed to large and powerful nation states you'd almost categorically support breaking them into smaller states.

<comment><USER24> Just like he supports breaking up Russia? Did you read the 2nd link and look at the ranking of influencers on #catalonia?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wow, I didn't expect a sensationalist headline like this would sneak its way in in Hacker News. Be aware of fake and this kind of headlines before posting in HN!

</comment><comment><USER27> A 90% of less than 40% of the voting population is minuscule.

<comment><USER17> No it's not miniscule. That's 36% of all eligible voters. Donald Trump won election with 26% of eligible voters. Obama and GWB won with around 30%.

Also given the circumstances where police shuts down hundreds of polling stations, seizes ballot boxes, imprisons local authorities and starts beating people on the streets, that's a good turnout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seeing threads like this makes me want to go back, and ask for forgiveness for all the occassions in which I strongly voiced an opinion in matters I had absolutely no background, and for which I was utterly unqualified to talk about.

Because it's clear that most people here have no clue about how Spanish constitution works, how it was ratified in 78/79, including Catalonia, what are the consequences of using _public funding for illegal activities_ , including polling, and how states have a say in their whole, and each of their parts.

Lesson learned. I'm sorry.</comment>


NASA wants to send humans to Venus – here's why that's a brilliant idea - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/nasa-wants-to-send-humans-to-venus-heres-why-thats-a-brilliant-idea-104961 <comment><USER2> I'm skeptical about the idea of dropping astronauts into the Venusian atmosphere and then trying to get them out again. On the other hand I think maybe you could make a case for a manned Venus flyby mission. This would allow for teleoperated robots on the surface with relatively minimal latency over, say, a few days. This is good because you maximize rover effectiveness over the short period of time before the coolant runs out.

A flyby mission would only take something like 15 months which puts it within the maximum limit for astronauts to be in zero-gee. This would make a flyby mission much safer than a Mars mission because it's a lot shorter and doesn't even presume to make a landing (floating?). It might serve as a decent intermediate step between lunar missions and Mars missions.

Of course I'm personally looking for any good excuse to do any kind of manned mission that would get us out of low earth orbit, so I'm not completely objective.</comment>


Ask HN: What one should do to gain most out of a startup conference? - <AUTHOR>

I am going to attend my first ever startup event tomorrow. There must be lots of interesting folks, including startup founders, angels and VCs. What I should do to make the most out of it? Would love to hear you experience with such events. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Contact the people you want to meet before the event. Try to get on their radar. Try to schedule a hallway coffee, or find them around the event.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't be shy, talk to everyone you can.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but observe the corollary: Don't be _too_ polite; get out of dead-end conversations as soon as you can.

You don't need to be a dick about it, but be mindful of when a conversation has become more draining then beneficial

(This goes for life in general, not just conferences.)

<comment><USER5> Here's the polite exit route: say "let me give you my card" and once you exchange your cards say "it was good meeting you" and walk away.</comment></comment></comment>


Firefox dropped below the 10% share value on Netmarketshare - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2018/06/04/firefox-dropped-below-the-10-share-value-on-netmarketshare/ <comment><USER2> I hope that more webdevs recognize this is just leading into a new era of IE but with Chrome and start pushing people into Firefox (atm they're pushing into Chrome via 'works only in chrome' messages that are factually false most of the time given the websites work with a UA changer)

<comment><USER3> IE won because it was better than Netscape, Firefox won because it was better than IE, Chrome won because it was better than Firefox. As far as I can tell the whole history of browser market share is just one long example of the market working exactly as it should and everybody benefitting.

<comment><USER2> Browser Monocultures are not good, even if Firefox is the dominating browser.

In an ideal world we'd have about 25% to Edge, 25% to Safari, 25% to Firefox and 25% to Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is important, but Safari has a stable market position too (macOS + iOS), so the worst case scenario will not be as lousy as the early 2000s situation w/IE.

I tried to switch to FF completely - for dev work and all - late last year. The dev tools were just not as good as Chrome/Chromium. I use FF for browsing. I'll try to make the dev switch again, starting today.

<comment><USER5> I also did the same and from a dev standpoint, Chrome is far ahead. FF makes it difficult to even use breakpoints or alter psuedo styles in the browser, which is really needed for a lot of development work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm always using FF for casual browsing, but Chrome for devwork

<comment><USER7> Funny how I'm the exact opposite. I like Chrome for general browsing because my bookmarks and open tabs are known to all other devices, out of the box. Besides that, it seems faster.

I use Firefox Developer Edition for dev work. I prefer Fx's tools, and it's a walled garden where I don't have any other plugins that could possibly interfere with anything I'm doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dying to get off Chrome but FF has been giving me soso performance on 2015 MBP. Video playback is iffy and battery usage is terrible =/

<comment><USER9> I'm with you. I use Firefox as my daily driver, but it really makes my dual- core processor struggle (2015 MBP for home, 2017 for work). It's a great browser in every way except performance. They really need to prioritize that.

<comment><USER10> FF runs fine on my six-year-old Thinkpad. Of course I run PrivacyBadger which blocks most adverts and trackers.

Are we really saying that Chrome is just more efficient at wasting CPU cycles to show adverts?

<comment><USER11> Maybe it's an OS thing. I'm on macOS, and FF feels much slower than Chrome or Safari (all using uBlock Origin). One big thing is HTML5 video playback, FF really drives the CPU up, even on a 15" 2017 MBP. Page loading is also worse, even on basic sites like HN.

<comment><USER8> I have heard multiple people say that it _is_ an OS thing specific to MacOS. Can't verify, have just seen that around HN a few times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Last redesign of Chrome was good. Very good browser, deserves to be afloat.</comment>


The Saudi connection to the 9/11 case that divided the FBI - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/magazine/9-11-saudi-arabia-fbi.html <comment><USER2> It seems to me like a really complex matter to both investigate and communicate.

Where does the line between the sprawling royal family and the state sit, for example? How do you redress issues with the family of a monarch where does it become a national sovereignty issue?

<comment><USER3> I think American people should turn public opinion against having such an "ally", maybe then the politicians will take a notice

<comment><USER4> This has proven difficult due to the Saudi's strong ties to the US financial system. They buy tons of military equipment, and on the commercial side their sovereign fund bankrolls tech giants like Uber.

<comment><USER5> And until very recently the US imported more than half its daily oil usage. Now it is a net exporter. The Saudis controlled the oil market. American oil from fracking has recently changed that, however, and gives the US a better chance of cutting ties without existential threat to its economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://archive.md/effA9](http://archive.md/effA9)

</comment><comment><USER3> A list of saudi investment funds and tech investments

[https://qz.com/1426370/silicon-valley-is-awash-with-saudi- ar...](https://qz.com/1426370/silicon-valley-is-awash-with-saudi-arabian- money-heres-what-theyre-investing-in/)

</comment><comment><USER7> anyone have a non paywall link?

<comment><USER8> Private Window, disable javascript, reload.

<comment><USER9> Or using Firefox, just click on reader view.

<comment><USER10> wow awesome trick, thanks.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't always work, but when it does, it is great. On some sites you have to click the icon quickly enough if they were dumb enough to load all the content just before removing it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Let's build a browser engine, Part 4: Style - <AUTHOR> http://limpet.net/mbrubeck/2014/08/25/toy-layout-engine-4-style.html <comment><USER2> CSS matching is one of the more resource-intensive parts of the computation the browsers do; the given implementation is very instructive for understanding the algorithm, but would be too slow for any nontrivial page. The total possible number of comparisons is basically {number of rules} * {number of elements}, which can be extremely high, and avoiding this is quite important.

I am reminded of how IE uses a single integer to identify each CSS rule: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2011/05/14/10164...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2011/05/14/10164546.aspx)

<comment><USER3> Interesting. So is that typically the reason why pages with large number of elements are so slow? I had always assumed it was the HTML elements themselves, but could the bottleneck here sometimes be the CSS matching of those elements?

Also, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that Servo (which the author of this post works on at Mozilla) is attempting some novel parallel CSS matching using Rust's support for parallelism/concurrency.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Digital Ocean vs. AWS for client hosting - <AUTHOR> With Digital Ocean, there is less configuration, and I can probably fit a lot of client sites on a single box. I tried out AWS via Free Tier, while I was able to login to the box, it was a little overwhelming. Digital Ocean is much more easier to configure. <comment><USER2> I use AWS for work (trip.com) and I use DO for everything personal.

I really recommend DO for what you need.

I know it sounds complicated but here's what you should do (it's really NOT complicated at all).

2 tools

1\. Docker 2\. Nginx

Most likely everything can be on a single instance unless you have customers with lots of traffic.

Docker to host the customer code with mounting to `/customer-name` etc... so you have a persistent storage.

If you worry about losing data, you can rsync everything to another server and hotswap when something fails.

Nginx should be the router/balancer so `client1.com` will go to the docker host it should go to.

I work this way with all of my blogs and open source projects and it's really a breeze to manage.

</comment><comment><USER3> I no longer use Digital Ocean for anything after they lost an instance. While I wasn't caught unprepared, this is something I had never experienced with Linode (whom I have been using since 2007) and I was simply shocked. I think they offer the best value for money. Frequent upgrades (RAM, storage etc) are icing on the cake.

[https://www.nu42.com/2015/06/linode-kvm- upgrade.html](https://www.nu42.com/2015/06/linode-kvm-upgrade.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Would you consider Google Cloud Platform? I recently moved my VM that ran my website and hobby projects to Google cloud and it was a better experience at the same or lower cost. f1-micro costs $4.4/month and has 0.6 G of memory Digital Ocean costs $5/month and gives 512M of memory

VM on GCP is closer to Google cloud storage which I use for backups already.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like you answered your own question. For VPS hosting I would recommend DO.

</comment><comment><USER6> AWS becomes interesting when you want to automate your infrastructure (i.e. infrastructure as software). When you're not orchestrating your infrastructure, then its probably overkill.

DO, as you rightly mentioned, is a lot closer to a straight forward Linux or whatever instance (easier to use). And the prices are very attractive.

I use both and split based on the above. DO is great for hosting web apps / dynamic web sites at a reasonable price. AWS is great for orchestrated clusters / large scale production, or for very low cost static hosting via S3.

</comment><comment><USER7> Digital Ocean is very reasonable for the price. Not quite as fast as Linode, but DO has more features. I am really liking the new volumes feature, so I can add any size file volume to an instance. Or several. It doesn't appear to be available in all locations yet, so keep that in mind when setting up a droplet.

</comment><comment><USER8> AWS instances are more complicated to handle and at the low end I'm sure their underperform in terms of disk I/O, plus you'll need to build your own AMI or automate installation (chef, puppet, etc.) to deal with possible instance retirement.

</comment><comment><USER9> Aws has more knobs to turn. T2.nano instances can be had for under $5 a month too.</comment>


MagicJack to Disrupt Mobile Carriers with Sub-$100 Fem-to-Cell - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/magicjack-to-disrupt-mobile-carriers-next-with-sub-100-wireless-antenna-2010-1

<comment><USER2> If you have to hyphenate it, it's "femto-cell".</comment>