Becoming an Expat - <AUTHOR> My family and I are in the process of moving abroad from the USA. We will be moving to a Scandinavian country from the west coast of the USA.
If you have done something similar, I would like to hear what your experience has been.
* Do you have any advice?
* Do you have any regrets?
* Did you have any anxiety or second-thoughts before the move?
* How did your family handle the transition? * What would you have done differently?
I don't know anyone in my personal life who has gone through something like this, and so I figure the HN community would be a good place to inquire. <comment><USER2> I moved to Sweden about 12 years ago from New Mexico. However, I was single. I am married now, to another American, with two small children.

(BTW, I consider myself an immigrant, not an expat.)

The questions you ask are entirely too generic. Moving to a large city like Stockholm is different than moving to a small one like Skurup ("When in Europe, visit Skurup"). Moving to Norway or Denmark is yet different again. Moving as a self-employed person is different than moving as an employee of a large company. Moving as a single person is different than moving as a family.

I will therefore answer generically. I found "Culture Shock: Sweden" to be helpful, though it's 15 years old now and almost certainly dated. There are vlogs on YouTube about people from the US moving to/living in Sweden, e.g., [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moving+to+Swede...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=moving+to+Sweden) . Perhaps check them out? There are many other web sites which offer advice for those moving here, including pages hosted at universities for visiting professors.

Regrets? No, not really.

Anxiety or second-thoughts? Yes, absolutely.

My family? My parents lived in Ecuador when I was young. My g'parents from Canada lived in Cuba when my Dad was young. It wasn't a problem.

I was single, so not a problem with the rest of the family. My wife moved here after we got married. She misses much more of US foods than here, so uses services like (the currently closed) [https://tastyamerica.se/](https://tastyamerica.se/) .

Done differently? That's a hard one. Oh - get a first-hand apartment rental contract early on, rather than second-hand/sublet for a few years. The housing crisis hit hard a couple of years after I moved here.

Housing is _very difficult_ right now in the big cities of Sweden. If you aren't employed by an organization which will help its employees find housing, then start looking now. And fraud is rampant in the online housing offers.

There are also American clubs, like [http://awcgothenburg.com](http://awcgothenburg.com) . Larger cities have American schools, if your kids are in high school age (for example) and you want them to continue in English, with a US-oriented education.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunetly I think it is hard to recommend Sweden to anyone these days. People have made huge amounts in the housing market and anyone getting there now is going to pay for it. Maybe Malmö is still good to make a life in, but it would still require careful consideration. At least Sweden, but maybe even Scandinavia, really isn't what is was ten years ago.

<comment><USER2> Since the OP _is moving to Sweden_ , there's no point in making a recommendation, is there?

It's hard to know what the OP is asking about.

The housing problem outside the big cities is much less of a problem. Even negative in some places. For all we know, the OP could be moving to Skurup.

FWIW, we moved to Trollhättan because the housing situation in Göteborg was untenable. It only took a few months to find a place here. To be fair, we also had good timing, but my point is that there is more to Sweden than the big cities.

It's hard to recommend Silicon Valley as well, but people keep moving there. ("No one goes there anymore. It's too crowded." \- [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too- crowded/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/) ).

Is there anywhere like it was ten years ago?

<comment><USER3> > Since the OP is moving to Sweden, there's no point in making a > recommendation, is there?

"to a Scandinavian country". Presumably that means looking some sort of quality of life. I would say that Sweden is probably the worst among the Scandinavian, or Nordic, countries in this regard at the moment.

> The housing problem outside the big cities is much less of a problem. Even > negative in some places.

This has mostly changed in recent years. There are only three counties (kommuner) with a housing surplus at the moment. They are in the middle of nowhere.

> FWIW, we moved to Trollhättan because the housing situation in Göteborg was > untenable.

Sure, the situation is easier, but not necessarily easy for a foreigner. People select bigger cities because there are less compromises. As someone having lived in Sweden for awhile you presumably know better what you want and what to expect. For someone just arriving in Sweden it is going to be much harder to make an informed decision when moving to one of these smaller cities. From what I can tell the housing queue in Trollhättan is still 3 years, but it might of course be less in reality.

> It's hard to recommend Silicon Valley as well, but people keep moving there.

It isn't hard to recommend Silicon Valley if you are there to make a career in the tech industry. They have the highest salaries, the most opportunities and the best services. I wouldn't personally move there, because I don't find it appealing, but for someone who is looking for just they would end up in the more favored group.

> Is there anywhere like it was ten years ago?

Everywhere changes, the important part is what is changing. Ten years ago you could for example look at the passengers on a train in Sweden and most people would be on relatively equal terms. Some people might make more money, have better education or professions. But that would a least in theory be based on merit.

Making the same thought experiment today would result in many people over 45 becoming a SEK millionaire in the last 10 years by doing nothing. And few under 30, who isn't there children, being able to attain a similar life as they have. I think that is a huge change. I might certainly be true of other places as well, but much of the appeal of Sweden is egalitarianism which in my opinion is essentially a joke today. Moving to Sweden today would to a large extent put you in the less favored group.

<comment><USER2> "to a Scandinavian country" Indeed. My error. My point remains that it appears to be past the time for a recommendation.

Is your goal to convince the OP to back out of the arrangement? Or is it to bad-mouth current life in Sweden? Or something else? Perhaps subtle advocacy for Vänsterpartiet and the Miljonärsskatt?

Because you aren't the type of person the OP was asking for a response from, your response don't seem to have addressed any of the OP's topics, and your list of complaints doesn't resonate with most Americans.

To give an example, you _have a train system_ , and both your SEK millionaires and young ride it.

Immigrants are _almost always_ in a less favored group.

You know what else has changed in the last 10 years? White supremacists who have decided it is proper to kill children in Norway and Sweden - including my adopted city - and the rise of white supremacist stickers and graffiti around town.

<comment><USER3> > Is your goal to convince the OP to back out of the arrangement?

My goal is that they should make an informed decision. If they want to live in Stockholm in a "second hand" apartment spending 15k SEK a month without any guarantee to be able to stay there while at the same time being hit with a 20% extra tax trying to increase their salary and there by being potentially one of the more income sensitive people in their workplace, if not the job market, then that is fine. They should however be aware of the situation.

However if that isn't what they were bargaining for they needs to be more careful about their decision. Be more selective were they try their luck in the region, or consider other places that might have similar characteristics.

> Because you aren't the type of person the OP was asking for a response from, > your response don't seem to have addressed any of the OP's topics, and your > list of complaints doesn't resonate with most Americans.

Sure, I mean I don't represent the incoming side. What I am trying to highlight things that most people wouldn't necessarily be aware of. I am not so sure these issues wouldn't resonate with Americans. In my experience many Americans find the almost universally rent controlled rental market concerning. As well as the hundred year mortgages. And that the housing market is plateauing. That is in addition to relatively low salaries and high taxes. Which you therefor absolutely needs to care about what you get for them, since you are paying for it anyway.

> Immigrants are almost always in a less favored group.

And that is a pretty bad thing if you are an immigrant.

> You know what else has changed in the last 10 years? White supremacists who > have decided it is proper to kill children in Norway and Sweden [...]

There were white supremacists killing people in the '90s as well. Still it certainly isn't a good development. Up until the Sweden Democrats entered parliament, to much detriment to the government being able to do anything productive, Sweden was the exception among Scandinavian countries. Which was something worth highlighting, but it isn't true anymore. Now we have our own populists and people more extreme then them being validated as a result.

I would love to say "come to Sweden" and that everything on the up and up. That it is easy to build yourself a life here. That good apartments, salaries, health care and all the other things that gives you a good quality of life are plentyful. That there is a lot of potential, excess and that you are getting a good deal. I just don't think it is true and I don't see it getting fixed any time soon. That is the problem. Sweden isn't currently a very good deal short term, and there is a lot of uncertainty long term as well.

I am not an expat, but I have spent a lot of time with expats. So if I were to address the questions more directly I would say that:

A) It is important to make your investment (the time and effort) count. Everyone always comes in rosy-eyed thinking everything will work out. Even if you are making a high salary you also invest in friends, community and other things. There is a lot of people that after five to ten years completely change their mind on things they knew about beforehand, becoming rather bitter.

B) Your investment as an adult is one thing, but especially when kids get to an age where they start to have friends it gets more complex. This combined with the later parts of A isn't a nice thing, but essentially a lose-lose. You start resenting the place your are in, but you also feel bad about moving.

C) This will be slightly ironic, but they should probably do things sooner. A lot of expats will regret not going sooner and also regret not leaving sooner. If the author really wants to move to Sweden, they should do so for three months, six months or whatever. Just make sure having something productive to do and to come back to. If they don't like it after six months that is still a good experience and not much lost.

Of course Sweden comes up from time to time on HN as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428682) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6584045](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6584045) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19210577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19210577) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18166055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18166055)

I don't share all of these views, but at least what I am talking about isn't uncommon. Most people agree that especially the housing market was crazy even more than five years ago and by now the prices increased 50% and started plateauing.

<comment><USER2> Your original response to mine offered no additional information which the OP might find useful.

Thank you for including points A) - C) now.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


BabyZoink: semi-unique name generator - <AUTHOR> http://babyzoink.com/ <comment><USER2> For better results, see "Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing":

<http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Most of the names it comes up with are anywhere between stupid and downright abysmal. "Laylord"? Yikes. It even recommended "Dad", that'd be an interesting name for a child.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of this article on The Daily WTF, it's the same concept applied to database IDs: [http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-automated-curse- generato...](http://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-automated-curse- generator.aspx)

<comment><USER5> Unless they had severe space constraints, they should have used multiple words from an English lexicon rather than Markov chains, kind of like Amazon's payphrases.

<comment><USER6> There's an RFC for that. RFC-1751 <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1751.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _BabyZoink is the place to come for unusual and new names._

If you want your child to be beaten repeatedly at school, yes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> They should do one for startups.

<comment><USER8> There are plenty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So why is this interesting?

<comment><USER10> Because there wasn't enough annoying parents who think they cleverly named their child.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't tell if these names are for girls, boys or both.

<comment><USER12> Clintina for a girl, Fleen for a boy.</comment></comment>


Microsoft suggests customer donate extra X-Box they sent him. - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/2011/12/microsoft-spreads-the-holiday-spirit-by-telling-me-to-donate-extra-xbox-at-their-expense.html

<comment><USER2> Very cool. Had it been Paypal, they'd want a picture of a burned X-Box surrounded by crying children to prove authenticity.

MS has been controversial commercially, but socially I think they've done a decent job of "Don't Be Evil", for example in their treatment of Gay and Lesbian employees - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_and_Lesbian_Employees_at_Mi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_and_Lesbian_Employees_at_Microsoft)

<comment><USER3> PayPal once refunded me out of their own pocket for a seller's obvious mistake. This was for about $30 USD and only a few months ago. I was blown away.

PayPal isn't all bad.

<comment><USER4> Are you sure they didn't charge the seller that $30? That seems to be PayPal's standard practice.

<comment><USER3> Quite sure.

I believe PayPal refunded me simply so I wouldn't sue them... but who knows?

Here is the lowdown...

I purchased ~10 1500W rated ATX power cords on ebay from a seller in china.

I fired up 2-3 servers and the cords literally started smoking/melting under ~300 watts of load.

Upon dissection of the cords, it was obvious they were fakes and would never be able to stand 1500 watts of load. They were all comprised of hundreds of 30+ gauge wires.

Long story short... I had to pay for shipment back to china in order to receive a refund.

I wrote to paypal in my furious state, explaining how the seller had nearly burnt down my home (what if the cables went as soon as I stepped out for a smoke?)... and they refunded me literally out of their own pocket.

They said [sic] ... "typically you must return the items but in this case we will refund the payment for you".

I wrote them back wishing the seller would have been reprimanded some how or have had to felt the loss but that was the last I heard from them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Props to Microsoft, but this is actually pretty routine. (It was literally written policy at a previous employer of mine.)

Manual exception handling at the warehouse is _crazily_ expensive. It is much, much easier to write it off (as shrinkage, not charity) than to get the item back into active inventory (all the fun of chasing invoices, except the amount payable is "one XBox", and the person doing the chasing sees their general productivity go to pot), particularly as it may have been opened. The charity suggestion removes many customer objections and ends the ongoing CS expense almost immediately.

<comment><USER2> Agreed, but the charity bit was a special touch:

      In the spirit of the season, you might consider
      donating it to the charity of your choice

Beats a standard "you keep it" corporate letter.

<comment><USER5> Just staying, our literally written policy was "Offer DDD": donate, destroy, or "dispose of" (a polite euphemism for "You keep it") the misshipped item. I would have added the Christmas flourish if I were saying it in December, too, but the options would have been the same in July. (n.b. The business does not care what you do. We want to convey, in the politest possible way, that we both don't want it and don't want to talk to you about it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While this is obviously great (and it's wonderful to see this sort of action more often from companies) it's no-brainer PR: the cost of a 360 (retailing for around $300 nowadays) for a positive spot in Consumerist.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention whoever it gets donated to is likely going to end up spending $1000+ over the lifetime on games, accessories, subscriptions, etc.

It's a nice gesture, yes, but I still doubt they will be "out" anything for it in the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to work for a company that shipped products. It was a pain in the butt to have customers ship stuff back to us, even if we sent them 2 or 3 of something by mistake. We did this all the time. Well handled though.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some of you might be surprised but MSFT provides some of the best costomer service. A good friend of mine built his PC and once a week it would blue screen. He spent hours trying to figure out which hardware component caused it but gave up and called MSFT. Their CS rep spent 2 hours on the phone with my friend until they figured out what the issue was. The guy gave steps to fix the issue, without having to buy anything and even called the next week to verify that it didn't happen again. They did all that for free. PROPS!

</comment><comment><USER10> That is very good on Microsoft's part. I guess they are finally catching up on Bill Gate's philanthropy route :)

<comment><USER11> Very good on Timothy's part too. In the same situation, I would probably sell the extra XBox to be honest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does this really need to be discussed on HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought so. It shows a good way to turn a mistake into a positive PR story, valuable for startups to understand imo.

As others have pointed out the cost of this for Microsoft is miniscule compared to both the positive press from Consumerist and the, likely, positive word of mouth of the person who got the extra X-Box.

I'll admit it isn't the 'normal' fare of "Startup X lands 90 kajillion dollars to build Facebook-GroupOn-Twitter Mashup 2.0 in Ruby/Erlang/Go!!" or "New proof of Tychonoff's theorem", but you know, everyone has different tastes and I do love me some variety of time wasting stories to read while my code compiles.

<comment><USER13> I am now curious. Is there ever a " _grumble_ Why is this on HN?" that is upvoted?

<comment><AUTHOR> I doubt it, it doesn't substantially add to any discussion except to indicate you feel the discussion is pointless (unlike everyone else contributing).

For people that see something they are not interested in they can always flag the submission as abusive (though that is a bit extreme) or simply, you know, not click on the article/discussion link.

I see lots of stories on the front page that don't interest me, I simply don't read them or upvote them. If the community at large disagrees with my assesment and chooses to upvote/comment on the stories, so be it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What the Hell Does a "Business Guy" Do? - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2011/04/19/what-the-hell-does-a-business-guy-do

<comment><USER2> "I need to be clear: if you have any interest in learning marketing, I heartily encourage you to keep your equity and learn this stuff yourself. A developer who can market is an amazing combination." "if you have any interest in learning marketing" change that to coding.

Simple statements != results. The comment of sales, sales sales is spot on that it is not easy, nor intuitive to "most."

</comment><comment><USER3> Sales, sales, sales. Always be selling. Lots of people claim they can; few actually can.</comment>


Show HN: Trivial script to spin up a Debian MIPS|PPC|arm|x86|x64 VM - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/cellularmitosis/54d3cc18e1b128b9286d7ceed3c5bdb7 <comment><USER2> I've worked on something similar using libvirt, kvm, and qemu. Maybe I'll clean it up and share it here later this week.

The script uses libvirt to automate the process of creating a new kvm VM, and emulates CPU architecture via qemu (arm, aarch64, ppc, risc, etc).

The VMs run pretty nicely on Debian - including insane boot times and direct kernel boot.

I'm not sure if MacOS supports kvm or not. A quick google search yields results to emulate MacOS, though :)

<comment><USER3> If you do (which would be great), please consider adding it to this list:

[https://wiki.debian.org/SystemBuildTools](https://wiki.debian.org/SystemBuildTools)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While this is in no doubt very useful, it (as you note) re-uses pre-built images that are unfortunately ancient (2013).

The real jackpot still remains out there: a tool with which to actually create those images. Having that would be _awesome_.

I use tool like vmdb2 to generate entirely new Debian VM images in under three minutes: I have more than a dozen images for my regular Debian development needs (various distributions, various specializations such as buildd-specific environments, etc.).

However, unfortunately vmdb2 only supports i386 and amd64 so far.

There are a ton of tools for automatically building Debian systems [1], some of which can generate bootable images, however they all seem to focus on i386/amd64.

Fully Automated Installation (FAI) in combination with your gist could be something that works. FAI is used to generate most of the Debian images for the cloud providers. So most of the tooling should already be in place.

If you get that to run, I can't say that you will make a lot of people happy, but you will definitely make a few people very very happy :-)

[1] [https://wiki.debian.org/SystemBuildTools](https://wiki.debian.org/SystemBuildTools)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have a similar thing with weekly updated images (from Debian unstable) and more supported archs here: [https://people.debian.org/~gio/dqib/](https://people.debian.org/~gio/dqib/).

<comment><USER3> This is exactly what I as looking for! I wasn't aware of DQIB. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Good! Mind you, they are not high quality images. They're just a raw mmdebstrap with little configuration, probably not suitable for production use. I mean them for development. (I specify this because you mentioned tool for actual production use).

In any case, help yourself!

<comment><USER3> That's exactly my use case: I use these images for (1) building packages locally (sbuild has a QEMU bridge via the autopkgtest mode), and (2) for autopkgtest.

A minimal debootstrap-like installation with only the bare minimum configuration is ideal for that, it ensures that nothing from my own environment bleeds into the build/test environment.

I've run into all sorts of issues on non-amd64 platforms, and debugging on porter boxes is sometimes cumbersome. Most importantly, however, is getting access to one. For Debian contributors, it's easy, but most upstreams aren't Debian contributors.

Unless I'm mistaken, I can now at least point them to one of the images you generate, and they should be able to run it with very little effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some usecases you can even use docker for lightweight chroots for ARM, MIPS, POWER8 etc. At least for me it covers a lot of grounds (eg. developing for my RPi on my x86 laptop, recompiling a kernel for my ARM-based HTPC etc.)

See [https://benou.fr/www/ben/using-docker-as-chroot-on- steroids....](https://benou.fr/www/ben/using-docker-as-chroot-on- steroids.html)

I just checked for Debian 10 for mips64le, ppc64le and arm64v8 targets.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I found a series of Debian QEMU images and wrote a script around them. This solves the need of "I need a MIPS box but don't have time to install Debian from scratch".

<comment><AUTHOR> I should add a note to the script: root passwd is root and a "user" account exists with passwd "user"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello again HN, an update: I added OS detection (apt-get vs brew), and also set up port-forwarding for port 22. Cheers!</comment></comment></comment>


Ohio Schools Propose Pepperspray Against School Shooters - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/school-district-to-arm-students-with-giant-pepper-spray-1827555374#vdmpz9ifk91tv34tv1c1nep.3j3flmctntfco <comment><USER2> I'm not certain that encasing them in glass makes the most sense. Will they have new preparedness drills so everyone knows how to operate this without harming themselves in the process?</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg × H&M - <AUTHOR> http://markforhm.com <comment><USER2> _scratches head_

Is this....for real? I mean...I guess it kinda makes sense?

 _looks at date_

sigh

</comment><comment><USER3> Rocking an old version of nginx there...

        500 Internal Server Error
        nginx/1.0.5

Security, one less thing to think about in the morning?

<comment><USER4> Instagram is also 5XX error... OH WOW!

<comment><USER3> It's back up now though, strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It Has Begun. Close your browsers, ye news fiends, an' batter yer shutters, for the Big Wave of Unfunny Jokes is up'n us!

<comment><USER6> I work from home so I don't really need the pants. It's already got a too complicated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would not be unhappy if this were actually a thing.

<comment><USER8> One does not simply go to H&M and buy seven grey t-shirts and a pair of jeans. Oh wait you can :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wrote an enthusiastic email to H&M - and guess what? I'm getting one pack!

I'm auctioning this for charity: [http://www.ebay.de/itm/-/301916911250](http://www.ebay.de/itm/-/301916911250)

All proceeds will go to Greenpeace (for their "Detox Fashion" campaign) and Clean Clothes Campaign More info: * [http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/detox/f...](http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/detox/fashion/) * [http://www.cleanclothes.org/](http://www.cleanclothes.org/)

Because I already own too much stuff - I'm an average person and like anybody else: About half of the items in my wardrobe never get worn. I'm concerned about labour conditions and the environment - if people buy less new stuff, both will be better off.

Please see details, bid on and spread the news for: [http://www.ebay.de/itm/-/301916911250](http://www.ebay.de/itm/-/301916911250)

</comment><comment><USER10> Why?

To me this feels like a lesser version of what would have been a Uniqlo Steve Jobs turtleneck.

If it was for charity... a maybe, but really? On another note, I've found betabrand to be interesting for this kind of wear although slightly overpriced, though not as bad as this post.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminded me of the markbymarkzuckerberg parody from 2011 ([http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/07/mark-by-mark- zuckerberg-...](http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/08/07/mark-by-mark-zuckerberg- fashion-line-parodies-the-facebook-founders-wardrobe/))... unfortunately the domain's since been taken over by squatters :(

</comment><comment><USER12> This site is probably an April Fool's Joke, but Mark Zuckerberg really dresses like this: [https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102616793975691](https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102616793975691)

</comment><comment><USER13> This better be cheap

Literally, you could buy seven shirt that looks like that for $5 each

Pants you could get for $20

In total if this is more expensive than $55 I hope the profit would go to philanthropy. Especially if they're throwing that word around.

<comment><USER14> It's April 1st, aka April Fools Day

<comment><USER15> Yeah because if it was real it would include a hoodie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Added it to the list at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11402947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11402947)

</comment><comment><USER17> "Two pairs of black shirts. Two pairs of black pants. One pair of combat boots. Two pairs of black socks. One black jacket. $300 personal burial money."

</comment><comment><USER18> It's Soylent for your closet

<comment><USER19> Wouldn't that just be gray coveralls/speedsuits?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Signed up for updates. Hopefully they'll be as amusing as the site

</comment><comment><USER21> So it begins... I love April Fool's day...

</comment><comment><USER22> April Fools! (hopefully)

</comment><comment><USER23> Basic. :)</comment>


NativeHost: Run your Cappuccino applications on the desktop - <AUTHOR> http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2010/05/13/nativehost-run-your-cappuccino-applications-on-the-desktop/

<comment><USER2> I just wish they'd use native controls instead of their custom replacements. It is not good design to make an application look and feel different merely because it was built with a different programming language.

<comment><USER3> Our opinions on this specific issue: [http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/11/04/mockingbird- cappucc...](http://www.alertdebugging.com/2009/11/04/mockingbird-cappuccino- and-what-really-matters/)

<comment><USER2> I did read that and I think you're missing a key distinction.

Custom controls aren't wrong. There's a very limited number of native controls, but a seemingly infinite number of ways to display and interact with data. So all but the most simple of apps are going to require custom controls.

Some apps take this further and replace _every_ control in the application with custom one. Notably Logic/Aperture, Final Cut, a great deal of iPhone apps and all games. Done well, this can give a sense of context to the user (especially important in games) and make it look cool.

What I object to is requiring a full replacement of native controls because the application was written using Cappuccino. This is arbitrary: there's no reason why a temperature converter app written in Cappuccino should look any different to the _exact same_ app written in Cocoa. There's no benefit of context to the user - the toolkit used is merely an implementation detail.

Meanwhile, what would be minor design irritations in a single app are magnified to become major design flaws when they affect all Cappuccino apps. I'm not going to pick on specific things since it's beta software, but if you're going to replace everything, you've got to be absolutely sure it's implemented immaculately. Otherwise overall usability is going to suffer. It seems it would be easier to go with native controls and avoid the fuss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Currently NativeHost supports Mac OS X, but we're working on other platforms."

Ah. Perhaps in time it will be a good alternative to Air.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is really cool. However, in the future, I think a better alternative will be running native code from the browser like Google NativeClient or CLI in the browser. Users are always in the browser and really don't like opening other application, aside from the iPhone / iPad apps.

That said, this tool is a great alternative to Air and Silverlight and it is here now.

<comment><USER3> The problem with trying to run native code in the browser is that you're likely to be stuck on Chrome for the forseeable future, whereas NativeHost (and technology like it) needs only to be written once for each platform and can then bootstrap any cappuccino app on top of it (and those apps will also run unmodified on the web).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does it support right-click menus?</comment>


News as a social play: Here comes MySpace News - <AUTHOR> http://www.thepomoblog.com/archive/news-as-a-social-play-here-comes-myspace-news/ <comment><USER2> I read about this on a post titled "MySpace News: The Digg Killer?" The comments on Mashable are worth checking out:

http://mashable.com/2007/03/08/myspace-news/

By their own contention, MySpace is a "place for friends". I am not sure what NewsCorp has in mind, but this is certainly not a direction that will appeal to teens. Companies that try to appeal to everyone end up losing market share to smaller more focused startups.</comment>


How Fast Do Your Favorite Brands Respond To You On Twitter? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/customer-support-on-twitter <comment><USER2> Bad infographic...</comment>


Ask HN: What features and aspects to look when selecting a startup to work for? - <AUTHOR>

I have applied in 2 startups both in 3D printing domain.  One consist of young and energetic graduates working on some projects related to it and also involved in selling a paid on too. But on the other hand the 2nd one consist of experienced entrepreneurs working on a single project related to 3D Scanning and printing, its unpaid.  Please help on how to select,  what main points should i look. <comment><USER2> It depends on what you want. Are you looking for experience? To pick a winning horse? The important part of any job decision is to decide on what you want. This sounds basic, but for every job decision I've ever made I started with a statement of what I want and then did a pro/con list. I assigned a value to each item and derived a score. It's really easy to get caught up in trying to make the "right choice". I don't regret any of my job decisions, so it's worked for me. Might work for you too.</comment>


Interactive scientific computing; of pythonic parts and goldilocks languages - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4990 <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8028255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8028255)</comment>


Show HN: A graphics library for teaching Java - <AUTHOR> http://apcs.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I'm the creator of APCS graphics, and my students love learning Java through game design and animations. It allows them to be creative and have a greater appreciation for computer science (the thinking aspect) rather than just programming (the writing aspect). I would love to hear if you have any questions or suggestions - my organization's email is on the website.

</comment><comment><USER2> I see and enjoy how it asks the student to really reflect upon the steps. The mixture between clear instructions and animations help trains to visualize outcomes while coding instructions.</comment>


Ask HN: Good digital watches for hackers? - <AUTHOR>

I've always been a big fan of digital watches. Mine is getting old, and I'm considering an upgrade. Does anybody have a "really cool/useful" watch that they would recommend (ideally, that can be ordered online)?<p>Sorry if it's a little off topic! <comment><USER2> I've always been partial to the binary watch[1] and the Rosendahl Watch[2] (but not enough to actually buy either one for myself -- I wear a non-digital watch myself[3].) Also, I know a few people who are wearing iPod Nano's on their wrist as watches and seem to like it.

1\. <http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/6a17/>

2\. <http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/watches/7a91/>

3\. [http://www.bulovaprecisionist.com/en/collections/claremont/9...](http://www.bulovaprecisionist.com/en/collections/claremont/96b127/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't have one but maybe this: <http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/EZ430-Chronos>

<comment><USER4> I have one, and it's pretty nice. Haven't done a whole lot with it except revamp the chronograph function more to my liking for my workouts, though. The 915 MHz frequency band is limiting; a 2.4 GHz 802.11 transceiver could be much more interesting.

The large face scratches easily; it's just acrylic and not glass. Easy enough to buff out, though.

The product page is here: [http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/ez430-chronos....](http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/ez430-chronos.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221579>

</comment><comment><USER6> While somewhat expensive, you can get ipod nano with a watch band and listen to music. It does not have many other functions though...

</comment><comment><USER7> gshocks best fit my wrist. its heavy duty and less expensive

</comment><comment><USER8> Not digital, but if you happen to have an Aston Martin, then you have to have this watch: [http://www.astonmartin.com/eng/thecars/dbs/amvox2dbstranspon...](http://www.astonmartin.com/eng/thecars/dbs/amvox2dbstransponderwatch)

The HD3 Slide is neat-looking: <http://www.hd3complication.com/en/#home>

If you're into E-Inky things, like I am, then this one's pretty cool: [http://www.atysdesign.com/proddetail.php?prod=watch_digital_...](http://www.atysdesign.com/proddetail.php?prod=watch_digital_hour_black_leather_e- ink-phosphor&cat=8)

Touch screen, and about as fashionably acceptable as you're going to get out of a digital: [http://www.kennethcole.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=42189...](http://www.kennethcole.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=4218949)

If you don't care about fashion, then this one's a winner: <http://uncrate.com/stuff/casio-databank/></comment>


How Your Tweets Reveal Your Home Location - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/525741/how-your-tweets-reveal-your-home-location/

<comment><USER2> The phrase "home location" in the headline feels a touch alarmist. They're revealing your city 68% of time, state 70% of the time, and time zone 80% of the time.

A person might not feel terribly concerned to reveal they live in the greater NYC area, while the location of their home feels more private.

<comment><USER3> While the title might just an alarmist privacy story, the article actually isn't written about that, and it's suggested examples of why this research may be of interest are for marketers and journalists, not anything privacy related.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The location of my home is in public records and also the white pages.

Anybody that wanted to do something bad to me via my address can find out where I live a lot easier than with Twitter. Also, they are only getting the city.

<comment><USER5> Not everybody can afford to publicly link their twitter identity to the aspect of their identity that has public records.

<comment><USER4> Twitter is perhaps not the best idea for them, then. I would bet you can do a city level tag just based on who you follow. I certainly follow an order of magnitude more local people than any other place -- no tweets even necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "when they exclude people who are obviously travelling" How do they do this? I also didn't realize all of the Red Sox fans live in Boston.

</comment><comment><USER7> A data set containing only tweets from the 100 largest cities in the US probably doesn't generalize to the entire twitterverse</comment>


Tardigrades may now be living on Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/hordes-earths-toughest-creatures-may-now-be-living-moon-doc-1jd4j52 <comment><USER2> Can this be flagged as clickbait? They are not living, they are in cryptobiosis. Even though experiments have shown that they can come back to life after a long time in this state, nothing can guarantee that they are actually still alive.

<comment><USER3> i agree the article isn't super informative, but is it correct to say that something in cryptobiosis isn't alive? There is almost certainly some tiny amount of remnant metabolism and sensor proteins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If we find one on the moon, can we know if it originates from earth?

<comment> en-us We can sequence its DNA and see how similar it is to the ones on Earth. If there are living organisms on the moon that share a common ancestor with Earth tardigrades then they diverged a very long time ago and their DNA will reflect that. But if their DNA is identical to those on Earth then we know they came from Earth.

<comment><USER5> Do you know how much tardigrades DNA have changed since they first appeared on earth?

<comment> en-us I do not know exactly how much but this is something that can be approximately quantified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They will be waiting for us when we come back.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cue the "accidental panspermia hypothesis" \- the real (messy) world variant of panspermia[1].

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

</comment><comment><USER8> > _"That distinction belongs to the DNA and microbes contained in the almost > 100 bags of feces and urine left behind by American astronauts during the > Apollo lunar landings from 1969-1972."_

Gross! Talk about littering and polluting a pristine environment. This is at least as bad as the climbers who leave poop on Everest, where it doesn't biodegrade.

Is it really so hard to bring poop back with you? Were payload restrictions that tight on the return Apollo journeys?

<comment><USER9> i wonder if they accounted for the reduction in mass when calculating the return trajectory

<comment><USER10> Difficult to figure out how regular the astronauts would be.

<comment><USER11> they probably had them on a strict diet and knew pretty well.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


CoffeeScript and Progress - <AUTHOR> http://peterlyons.com/problog/2012/03/coffeescript-and-progress <comment><USER2> he's missed the point. people aren't saying that "CoffeeScript is a priori somehow wrong or inferior or a bad choice". Coffeescript is an abstraction, and abstractions have potential to leak, so some people are questioning whether the benefits of coffeescript - namely, prettier code - are "worth it" for production-scale projects.

as your project gets big, does coffeescript help us write more maintainable code, better abstract our solutions so we can keep less things in our head at once, resulting in higher agility and fewer bugs? When you look at the deep reasons why a large codebase went sour, you're not blaming it on things like list comprehensions, you're blaming it on things like "Java strong-arms us towards building abstractions with only OOP, which over the course of a few years builds into indecipherable layers of implementation inheritance, causing high defect rates and much decreased agility".

The difference between CoffeeScript and Javascript, in terms of what a team can accomplish, hasn't been proven in production-scale projects. they may be, or maybe only for some teams, or maybe they aren't, but you can't debate something without being able to articulate the opponent's position.

update: interestingly, ClojureScript may be a language where the productivity delta from javascript is much larger, and is better worth it. clojurescript introduces new ideas and idioms to the js community, where coffeescript is an incremental update to javascript with no new ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think programmer productivity is also linked to happiness given one's own tools. My experience thus far is I'm happier when working with CoffeeScript. Not "OMG P0nies" happier, but significantly happier. I think the amount of boilerplate CS removes is significant, but indeed whether it is worthwhile depends on many factors in any given situation.

Given how CS maps to JS, I'm not too worried about leaky abstractions.

<comment><USER2> > programmer productivity is also linked to happiness given one's own tools

so i certainly agree with this, but in my experience, as the problems get harder, my happiness isn't determined by syntax.

the things that make me mad are "i have to fix this defect but this code is a fragile mess which i'm afraid to touch, so i bandaid on more hacks to have the minimum possible area of impact so i know for certain that i can give this to the client and it won't make things worse". that makes me fucking furious, man, the artist in me dies a little bit every time I do it. We have this issue in our large javascript codebase. CoffeeScript would probably help a little bit, but a speculative 2x improvement in "fucking furious" is still furious.

This opinion is probably along the lines of those who think CoffeeScript is a toy. List comprehensions don't fix our problem; we (my team) just don't care. investing in education, growing the teams ability to craft well factored code and stable code, that will have exponential payoff.

Now you can get meta here and say a language like ClojureScript which brings Clojure's strong opinions about managing complexity and crafting good abstractions - you get better just by using it, its sort of self-educating. ClojureScript has my attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're considering trying Coffeescript, here are a few thoughts for you. Remember that the Vim plugin for Coffeescript compiles your Coffeescript to a js automatically every time you save, and it even shows you immediately if there are any errors. I've had difficulty setting up other Vim plugins, but this one was blessedly simple to get going.

An awesome tool for helping you to learn Coffeescript is the "Try Coffeescript" tab on <http://coffeescript.org/>. This lets you type a little bit of stuff, and see how it translates into Javascript, in realtime, while you type. I still use this today when I'm trying to verify I'm on the right track with a bit of punctuation (meaning, leaving punctuation out, usually).

<comment><USER4> Also, a bunch of shortcuts[0] and Syntastic (which Just Works) makes it absolutely blissful.

Note that although :CoffeeCompile operates on the whole file by default, it also works on buffer regions, so _vai,c_ shows me the current block as JS ( _i_ is from indent-object plugin)

[0] [http://esa-matti.suuronen.org/blog/2011/11/28/how-to- write-c...](http://esa-matti.suuronen.org/blog/2011/11/28/how-to-write- coffeescript-efficiently/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Ouch, my eyes! All those closing punctuation groups!_

This seems to come up often, the purported ugliness of JavaScript. To rebut, I'll use one of his own arguments:

 _I don't really know why people bring this up so often. It's just a non- problem for me._

</comment><comment><USER6> > The few who responded seemed to dislike it, not for any particular technical > objection to the language or its features, but simply to its existence at > all, which surprised me.

It seems that the author is surprised by rational human behavior. A new language introduces a tradeoff between having a new tool that may better solve your problems, and introducing fragmentation where the developer must invest time learning a new language and tooling or the developer faces a smaller body of code that he can work on.

I like and use CS, but the author's philosophy that more languages in use always better for everyone, is fundamentally flawed.

<comment><AUTHOR> So let me clarify that my general take on the state of programming languages today is that they are all pretty terrible and we don't have a good track record of fixing known flaws with them. With tend to just live with them. Given that, most new languages offer a shining chance at progress toward something better. They indicate someone is thinking about the problem and trying to help. Thus by default I like new programming languages per say. But yes, each does add to the total body of stuff out there, which has a cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is Rob Pike's take on FUD toward new programming languages:

[http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2011/12/esmereldas- imagina...](http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2011/12/esmereldas- imagination.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> If f g h x boils down to f(g(h(x))) and [1 2 3] boils down to [1, 2, 3]

Then what is the meaning of [f 1] ?

EDIT: I've tried on <http://coffeescript.org/> and it seems a = [1 2 3] doesn't work? EDIT2: newlines instead of spaces works, my bad

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, array elements separated by new lines works, but CS requires commas between elements in 1-line arrays. I would like to see CS remove commas between array elements but most folks like commas there, it seems. And yes, I guess there's a syntax ambiguity with function arguments that is not easily resolved. I love omitting parens for calling a single function, but doing it more than once per line should be avoided I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with pretty much all of his points. But the argument that code will 'never align' with line numbers seems like a dismissal that debugging exactly what you wrote is very valuable when tracking down subtle bugs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough. I don't need line numbers specifically when I have a full-on in- browser graphical debugger so I can debug exactly what is being interpreted. There's work underway to handle mapping back to source files, and when that arrives, it will be "nice". However, listening to NodeUp podcasts, people think that line numbers not lining up is an absolute deal-breaker, which I just don't find to be the case at all in my personal experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't have an opinion pro or con on this.

However, I'm old enough to remember when JavaScript was first introduced as LiveScript and it was mostly seen as a toy for simple stuff while Java was the Real Deal. (I started my first company largely on this premise.) The big competition back then was ActiveX. Remember that? Amazing how things have evolved.</comment>


Build your own CDN on a Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://suryad.com/blog/2020/03/21/build-your-own-cdn/ <comment><USER2> If you'd like to actually join a CDN with your Pi, check [https://commons.host/](https://commons.host/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a really weird setup and it's not "a CDN on a Raspberry Pi", it's a "CDN with a Raspberry Pi origin".

TL;DR: It uses CloudFlare Workers to add cache and CORS headers to cached responses.

It's unclear to me why though. Why bother with all this complex setup, code and extra expense? It takes two lines of NGINX configuration to add the headers and CloudFlare's regular service supports the caching headers natively [0] and will proxy through the others you set.

[0]: [https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/11500320685...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/115003206852-Understanding-Origin-Cache-Control)

</comment><comment><USER4> "Utilize Cloudflare's CDN to serve files"</comment>


Super Mario Bros Augmented Reality - <AUTHOR> http://www.techi.com/2010/07/super-mario-bros-visualized-as-one-really-really-long-level/

<comment><USER2> This isn't augmented reality, this is a CG trick by a film student.

<comment><USER3> And I'm still trying to figure out why its on HN.

<comment><USER4> because it's awesome?

<comment><USER3> I'll take the downvote - but "because it's awesome" isn't why we are here. At least, its not why _I'm_ here. There are plenty of places where links like this are great - but I'm probably not alone when I say it doesn't belong here.

<comment><USER5> From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>:

 _Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link._</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tech workers who are engineering a mid-30s retirement - <AUTHOR> https://story.californiasunday.com/tech-retirees?mc_cid=4c3a28b9cd&mc_eid=c40ad0da43 <comment><USER2> ⌘+f 'health', ⌘+f 'insurance' \- no hits.

All this talk about retiring early when living frugally is a bunch of horseshit. It's 'Fuck you money' or bust.

\- Completely counterproductive to live frugally in order to retire early so that you can continue living frugally without working for 'the man'

\- if you really want independence from your employer, it needs to be complete independence. Not the independence that risks bankrupting you whenever you or your family have a serious health condition

\- 'Mr. Money Mustache' is so full of crap sometimes, I wonder if I'm reading /r/frugal_jerk and people often forget that 'Mr. Money Mustache' is a business in itself with different incentives than solely teaching you how to 'game the system' and 'escape the ratrace'

\- sometimes the frugal part takes up so much time and energy it's counterproductive to go that way when you're really well paid. Not to mention the decrease in quality of life

After decades in this business, if you want a happy semi-independent life the following advice is what I can think of:

\- work on yourself, cultivate your craft, become a specialist so that you call the shots whenever you need to change jobs and afford to pick jobs allowing you to work on what you really want

\- work on side-projects and constantly learn new stuff. If you manage to get a passive income stream, good for you but don't necessarily make it a life goal

\- screw corporate loyalty. Change jobs every 3-4 years, you'll learn way more and your income will be miles ahead of your former colleagues

\- don't buy stupid shit you can't afford (including but not limited to: fancy cars, McMansions, travel for the sake of traveling, etc..) unless they are a central part of your existence

\- follow some basic money management rules (max out retirement funds, keep emergency cash while investing your savings, etc..)

\- keep good work life balance constantly so that you don't get burned out or daydream about your early retirement

<comment><USER3> I don't think MMM is "full of crap" intentionally or that the whole thing is a scam. But I do think it is a bit misleading to claim you only need 25x your annual expenses to retire because of a 4% SWR. He does recommend those Vanguard index funds like most early retirement people but he has a free and clear rental property that covers the whole family's expenses. And a free and clear primary residence. So a huge chunk of his portfolio is in real estate. Same goes for Financial Samurai or Frugal Woods.

The frugal path works for some personalities though. Myself, for example - I've lived on $1000 a month for seven years in a decent paying job. Everything went towards buying rental properties. When I quit I moved out of the US to avoid high medical premiums and high costs of living. (City center in Paris or Tokyo still cheaper than NYC.) I don't plan on having kids or getting hitched, and I'm practically a hippie. So my opinion is that you need a combination of (1) Good salary (2) sustainably low expenses (3) major flexibility in lifestyle (4) updated skillset and social capital. I've lived in my car for fun. I plan to spend this summer sleeping rough on a beach, gratis. If the economy goes to shit I am not opposed to dumpster diving. Or offering my services as a live-in tutor.

I hope many people realize that early "retirement" is not just numbers - you're still going to want to do something "productive" and you have to constantly be leveling up skills and relationships.

<comment><USER4> Yea, his owning real estate should be a huge asterisk. Financial advice: Step 1: Own your home free and clear. Yea, I'll get right on that.

It's like Ryan Gosling's dating advice: Step 1: Be as handsome as Ryan Gosling. Well no shit!

<comment><USER5> Also - he's a software engineer - one of the best paid careers at the moment (and in the US). I also work in IT (not in the US) and get paid 5x times what my former highschool colleagues make. But I don't rub salt in their wounds that I am able to save 60-70% of my income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After college, I paid $800/mo and lived modestly to save up money in SF. Two years later, I bought my first house in Berkeley and moved in. The tax savings from mortgage interest helps save alot of money. We rented out 2 remaining rooms that we are not using and it helped cover the mortgage. (Starting out, I made around 100k and saved around 50-60k/year)

2 years after that, my gf (at the time) and I pooled our money to buy a house in south SF. 2 years after that, my mom and I bought a 3 unit run-down place in Oakland and fixed it up. 6 years after college, I have rental income coming in around 13k / month and I quit my job. No need to move to a new/cheaper location, 13k / month is plenty for bay area.

Now, I run a nonprofit to help people in the bay area community learn how to code (we focus on low income workers and we pay them to quit their jobs so they can learn how to code full time).

Looking back, the best thing I did for myself is to refrain from living extravagantly. Its an easy trap once you start making 200k/year. With that much money, its easy to think that you deserve a nice car, impress girls, and get stuck in the mindset of always getting the best, which not only drains your financial resources quickly, but also creates an internal emptiness. Reuse old cars, cook at home, host modest dinner parties in your own place with friends/coworkers instead of going to bars. You will save alot of money.

Also, (I could write a whole blog about this), time capping your time at every company to 1-2 years helps you cut through political bullshit (huge time sink) and focus on impact. Plus, sign-on bonuses every year boosts your income significantly.

<comment><USER7> > I bought my first house in Berkeley > rented out 2 remaining rooms > buy a > house in south SF > my mom and I bought a 3 unit run-down place in Oakland > and fixed it up > rental income coming in around 13k / month > Looking back, > the best thing I did for myself is to refrain from living extravagantly

Surprising! Sounds like the best thing that happened in this story was partnering with other wealthy people to engage in leveraged speculation on Bay Area real estate.

<comment><USER6> > Sounds like the best thing that happened in this story was partnering with > other wealthy people...

I can see how you made this conclusion, which is semi-correct. You don't have to partner with other wealthy people though, it just makes getting to a point of retirement faster. So if I was to do everything myself, it would probably have taken 12 years to get to where I am vs 6.

<comment><USER8> > it would probably have taken 12 years to get to where I am vs 6

This isn't a small difference, it's huge. 6 years of your most productive adult years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ok, let me make sure I understand. The goal is to live extremely frugally while you work so that you can retire very early and continue to live extremely frugally?

Why?

I don't hate working, and it allows me to fund my hobbies. If I wanted more free time I would just quit and do my own thing for a year. And many of my friends from college have done that.

Maybe saving for retirement _is_ the point. And the fun comes from attempting to accomplish that. I can understand, and thus respect that.

<comment><USER10> No, the point is freedom. Liberating a tremendous chunk of our one, single life from the _obligation_ to work in order to not starve/be homeless/etc.

You can even keep working after you're reached your retirement number, but at that point it is because you _chose_ to do it rather than having that choice thrust upon you.

<comment><USER11> You are already free. The shackles are in your mind.

Find meaningful work, whatever your passion is. In practice, you'll likely not starve or become homeless; but simply enjoy more modest means.

<comment><USER10> By "the shackles are in your mind" you mean "if you consciously suppress the fact that if you choose to stop working you'll starve and be homeless, you're already free." That isn't freedom, it's living in a fantasy.

<comment><USER9> I think that you are being unfair. There will always be "shackles". Sometimes changing your perspective is more valuable than changing your situation.

<comment><USER10> Nobody is claiming you will be free of all shackles. Everyone has only a slim margin of subjectivity they can use to control the course of their life. An incomplete list of things to which we are subjected, largely outside of our control (which we might call shackles):

* Severe medical problems, some resulting in instant death (like an aneurysm rupturing)

* Accidents resulting in damage to your person, especially car accidents

* Disability, ethnic makeup, sexual preference, parental social class, etc. which restrict opportunities available to you in our current society

We aren't talking about any of that. We are talking about things which fall within our margin of subjectivity, which for some fortunate people (especially highly-paid software engineers) includes work. To deny this reality and the terms of your participation is to live inauthentically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Everyone tosses around a 4% safe real withdrawal rate (SWR), but that number is just a starting point. The Trinity study was for a 30-year period where success was defined as ending with a non-negative account balance. If you're retiring at 30, you're probably looking at a 40-60 year time period and want to avoid sliding into the grave just as your account balance hits zero. Here is an in-depth analysis which seems to recommend a 3.25-3.5% SWR instead:

[https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate- guide...](https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to- safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/)

Of course, many software engineers will continue to mess around with tech after retirement; if you follow your interest into extremely niche domains, the option of irregular highly-specialized consulting gigs becomes available. This income stream, while not consistent enough to live off by itself, proves formidable in conjunction with retirement-level investments and enables a much higher SWR.

<comment><USER12> > if you follow your interest into extremely niche domains, the option of > irregular highly-specialized consulting gigs becomes available. This income > stream, while not consistent enough to live off by itself, proves formidable > in conjunction with retirement-level investments and enables a much higher > SWR.

I just had a weird moment this weekend where I calculated what my yearly cost of living would be at the house I'm inheriting. My mom bought her house in cash, in a low property tax state and it's amazing what not having a mortgage will save you -- and it's a _nice_ house. Yearly CoL, counting food, a small home emergency fund and estimated maintenance of the house and car came out to around 7k.

Considering what I make from sporadic consulting, I realized that I could live off that for years just working a few weeks a year. And I only have to do that until Social Security payments kick in (though I'm probably going to try to maintain this level of income until 62).

It drilled home the point that I need to save what I'm earning here so that when the time comes I will have a nice large, easy cushion.

<comment><USER13> There won't be any Social Security when you are 62. The system is a ponzi scheme that will collapse with the boomer retirements.

<comment><USER14> I don't know. I thought that when I was in my 30s and 40s. I'm 56 now, and it looks like there might actually be something by the time I get there.

Would I count on it if I were 30? No. I don't _count_ on it for myself, either. But I was more cynical than has been warranted (so far).

<comment><USER12> I'm going to make a bold statement and say that it's highly likely that I'm among the most pessimistic people _on earth_.

That said, the idea that the government (any government) is going to tell about one hundred million people that they've been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars into something their entire working lives that will give them nothing in return seems beyond ludicrous to me. That's a recipe for disaster. The violent kind.

Human nature's need to maintain the status quo for as long as possible definitely applies here. I'm in my 30s and I won't start worrying until the government starts massively scaling back what we pay _into_ the social security system. If that even happens before I'm retired.

Basically, I sneer and laugh at anyone who says Social Security won't be around in the near-term.

<comment><USER4> Yep, as long as old people continue to massively out-vote young people, Social Security has zero chance of going away or becoming privatized (which is essentially the same as it going away).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >After projecting their monthly cost of living, the Rooses determined they'd need $300,000 in investments to be able to live off the dividends.

What sort of dividends are they receiving? 10% would give you 30K a year, and seems pretty optimistic for planning.

<comment><USER16> Most people target 4% withdrawals if you want to live off the nest egg in perpituity, which in this case, would be $12k/year. Less safe investments would earn you a higher return at the risk of sacrificing principal.

Edit: Something important to note is that you can live very well in other countries for what would be considered the poverty floor in the US. For $2k/month, I can pay for a very nice luxury apartment, day camp, and a nanny for my kids in parts of South America.

<comment><USER17> Is that 4% before or after inflation? A 4% real return (aka 7% if inflation is 3%) already requires quite risky investments.

<comment><USER18> S&P500 90 year average is 9.8%. people FIREing typically have nearly all their money invested in low cost index funds.

<comment><USER17> And one of those years the return was -37%. Not a safe return.

<comment><USER19> 9.8% is not a safe return, no, which is why the safe return is about 7%. The worst-performing 30-year period averaged around 7%, which is what the 4% withdraw rate is calculated from (accounting for inflation).

Obviously anything can happen, the world could end, whatever; there's no truly 'safe' option. But it's reasonable.

<comment><USER17> It does assume the continuation of American exceptionalism. I believe that a better benchmark would be a basket of stock markets rather than just the S&P 500.

That basket would be dominated by the S&P 500 so it wouldn't change things too drastically, but it would pull that number down somewhat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Am I just grumpy or is it fair that if you're lucky enough to be healthy and skilled you should still be spending your time working to contribute to the world and/or paying taxes, rather than just travelling around and having fun. Now maybe they plan to travel to work elsewhere to help people poorer than themselves but I doubt it.

I'm presuming if they aren't American so if they get cancer or something they can return to Australia or wherever and sponge of the working taxpayers to pay for them.

<comment><USER21> Hmm, no.

Why are you putting this "forced charity work" condition on it?

Someone who retires early has saved enough to live on their investments. That's no different from someone with a trust fund, but the difference is that they earned it.

Think of it this way; if you won the lottery tomorrow, would it be a better contribution to your community to keep working in order to pay taxes, or retire so that someone who needs your job to live and support their family can do it instead?

<comment><USER20> If someone wins the lottery tomorrow they should keep working. There is no shortage of jobs.

If this is in an area where there is unemployment, ideally the lottery winner/trust fund baby/early retiree would start a company and employ people.

If the lottery winner/early retiree doesn't work & pay tax, or do charity work, or contribute to society in any way they're leeches, just as bad as a trust fund baby. They live off investments based on other people working for them, and expect people to grow their food, teach their children, tend to their illness and build their roads for them.

If you've worked 45 years you've done your time, but ideally then you'd continue to teach or manage so that others can learn from your experience. Retiring at 40 is offensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The following is my little story of how I "retired" young.

I am 34 and "retired" 8 years ago. I still do some consultancy now and then to keep my brain active and up to date with how things are done in the "real world". Money isn't a big factor for me as I have enough for everything I want. I don't have any expensive interests, I don't care about owning a high- end car or a huge house, etc. I live in West London (technically Surrey) which is kind of expensive but I am comfortable.

I was lucky more than anything being able to give up work in my mid-twenties though. I got some inheritance, I had a decent job that paid well, I sold my house a few months before the 2008 crash, etc. With some long term investments and a simple lifestyle I realised I didn't _need_ to work not long after I separated from my wife. As I wasn't really enjoying life much after my divorce I ended up quitting my job and living with family for a year while I "found myself". I met my partner and we had a son who turned five a few months ago. My partner still works but doesn't earn a huge salary, we could live with her not working but she enjoys what she does and I suspect we would kill each other if we spent 24 hours a day together so it works out well imho.

I have enjoyed almost every minute of being "retired" so far. I usually just say I am a stay at home dad as saying you retired in your twenties is a bit pompous sounding I feel. Now my son is at school I am toying with the idea of doing more consultancy but I also don't want to make a big commitment to a large project plus we are currently looking into moving to [redacted] to be closer to my partners family. Out initial calculations show living in [redacted] will be about 15% cheaper than where we currently live (mostly due to living in West London). Maybe [redacted] will bring some different consultancy options that will take my interest.

Not entirely sure why I posted this comment if I am honest. I guess to see if there are other early retirees here who might want to chime in with their experiences to add to mine?

Feel free to ask me any questions. I am happy to answer if I can. Also if anyone has any [technical/general] project management questions feel free to drop me a message (username @gmail.com forwards to my personal email).

<comment><USER9> Did you set out with the goal of early retirement? Or were you just relatively frugal, and at some point realized it was possible? It seems like you owned a house at age 24 which is pretty unusual.

<comment><USER23> Getting into the housing market a few years before the 08 crash and joining the workforce during the crash produce extremely different results. The envy i have for people 5 years older then me are difficult to explain away sometimes.

<comment><USER22> There are always tradeoffs though. I know many people who got in around the same time as me, did well and had great high paying jobs, a lovely house, car, etc. Then the crash hit, they lost their jobs and couldn't find a new one that paid the same, had cars reposed, etc. Many quickly realised they had committed themselves to way more than they should have. Had the sell the house, etc. Not fun times for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I respect the fire movement - principally the frugality and minimalist component.

But I am genuinely interested to see what happens the next time the market crashes - very easy to be pragmatic about pulling your 4.5% while skies are blue.

<comment><USER25> They'll probably get jobs again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > One software engineer wanted to hit $1 million so she could home-school her > future children; another man, who hadn't bought new sneakers in eight years > thanks to Nike's generous exchange policy, wanted to found a philanthropic > enterprise. "I'm not sure," another person said. Google, his employer, > offered sweet perks. "It's a great 9-to-5, but I want to see what I could do > if I got those 45 waking hours per week back."

Yeah, no fucking way.

Perhaps it makes sense if you don't like working very much. I tend to generally enjoy the work that I do, and love that I can use the money that I make to live in a nice house, to eat at nice restaurants, to travel wherever and save for retirement as well. At a time when most people in this country (US) are facing stagnant or decreasing wages, working in Tech seems to be an unbelievable luxury.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you hate your job so much that you think about retiring at mid-30, maybe you should consider changing profession. If you love what you do, you don't have to work a single day in your life.

</comment><comment><USER28> >Like many other aspiring early retirees, Daniel also made lucky investments in cryptocurrency. "The crypto lottery forwarded my timetable by five, ten years."

...makes complete sense now.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd never heard of FIRE, or MMM, until a couple of years ago. I'm 58 & unemployed but have discovered (honestly, to my surprise) that my wife & I are almost there already.

> $1M in 401K money

> three pensions lined up. go figure.

> zero debt & a modest, paid-off house. with a view.

> health insurance thanks to my wife's by-choice 2nd career

> a preference for state parks, my dogs, and homemade avocado toast. :-)

I know this is humblebragging. But all this financial uber-engineering seems a little over the top. Just staying out of San Francisco is one helluva head start.

<comment><USER30> You are almost 60 - you should be close to retirement. It would be way more impressive if you were 35.

<comment><USER29> That's not the point. Simply going through life without making dumb financial decisions (and a little bit of luck) will get you to the same end point with the benefit of having a decent quality of life. I'm happy. And more importantly, my wife of 40 years is happy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> How does one go from online marketing to an engineer at a big data company, earning $180,000 a year? Was he just that good at marketing himself?

<comment> FLUX-YOU This article is too light on details to speculate well, but it's entirely possible he already had good engineering skills and just happened to be doing something else for the article's starting point.

It's also possible he just knew someone and writes zero code and the engineer title is bogus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This isn't retirement it's just people deciding to live a minimalist life off minimal income. This could backfire big time when they realize they want "normal" stuff a few years down the line or have expenses (like health issues) that cost a ton if you don't have employer coverage.

Can you live off the income of $300k in savings from mid 30s onwards? Maybe. Is that a good idea? Probably not.

</comment><comment><USER33> I made a throwaway account. I wouldn't want to be found out be potential employers.

I would want to do this, but I am in The Netherlands where health care is amazing, but the salaries are more modest in terms of absolute value. How would you go about a country like The Netherlands?

I don't like working for someone else or when someone else says what I should do, in most cases. I want to do whatever I want, when I want it. I do think I'll be working on something, because watching movies and playing video games all the time seems like fun but I tried it -- it is depressing.

Currently, I'm teaching a family member to code, because she really needs a distraction from her tough life. Also, she needs to see how smart she is -- even after being homeless for the past 20ish years (it is rare but does exist in The Netherlands). I enjoy that, but I won't get paid for that while it does add value to society I believe. I also would want to do a lot with music, but that seems risky financially. Or, I would want to learn a lot of new languages (e.g. Mandarin or Japanese) for fun. It would be cool to organize some events with friends or other people. Or I would like to help homeless people and refugees. Or, I try a stab at becoming a YouTube or pro-gamer (for fun, not for money). I'm all over the place and I'd like to be that, eventually honing in on the things I really like to do and own it.

Another idea is to go for entrepreneurship. But without a financial cushion seems too risky. Maybe I should apply for a subsidy.

Or, maybe I should just grow up. I honestly don't know. I feel the whole financial independence thing is something you can strive for if you're really crafty and clever but is at the very least just as hard as starting a startup and bring it to scale YC style.

I feel my life is meh because of all this, because I'm being pushed into something I don't want to do but ought to do (work). Maybe Darwin will eventually select my type of genes out eventually, I hope so because this type of suffering is unnecessary.

<comment><USER34> I hang out on reddit's financial independence sub, and there are a few Europeans and NL specifically; I believe there's even a specific FI NL sub (or maybe just FIeurope) for specific answers to your questions. Worth checking out if you are interested; more generally, it's the expenses not the income where most people struggle financially, and not having the US healthcare concerns makes a world of difference. You do need some kind of stable, middle class income to achieve FIRE - which is sometimes overlooked - but from there it's achievable if it's important (and it's OK for FIRE not to be important to you).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have a similar opinion to the early retirement movement as DHH [0]:

> One of the other underlying pillars of this dream was the concept of Never > Having To Work Again. Like somehow an eternity of leisure was going to > provide the existential bliss I had been longing for all along. I thought > about that a lot. I did all the math: Hey, if I stuff all the money in a > prudent mix of stock and bonds, I should be able to live a comfortable, if > not extravagant, lifestyle until the end of my days without lifting another > finger.

> [...] What kept moving the needle, though, was programming Ruby, building > Basecamp, writing for Signal v Noise, taking pictures, and enjoying all the > same avenues of learning and entertainment my already privileged lifestyle > had afforded me for years in advance.

Or PG, even [1]:

> If you work hard at being a bond trader for ten years, thinking that you'll > quit and write novels when you have enough money, what happens when you quit > and then discover that you don't actually like writing novels?

Why would I live frugally and work at a job I dislike for a considerable chunk of my best years just so that I can then live frugally and have no idea what else to do? (if I didn't dislike it, I wouldn't want to stop doing it).

[0] [https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-day-i-became-a- millionaire-55...](https://m.signalvnoise.com/the-day-i-became-a- millionaire-55d7dc4d8293)

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html)

<comment><USER36> One of the tenants of FIRE that I hear is "create the life you want to live, then save for it". Nobody is saying to not try writing novels in spare time during career!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> My mother is a wise woman. She's in her late 80s and is living comfortably. (She has since her mid 60s, when she retired. Dad died years before.)

Her advice: Don't retire too soon. You'll get bored.

</comment><comment><USER38> Blimey, all very well if you live in the US and earn a six figure salary (and want to live ridiculously frugally). In the UK I don't think I know a single person earning that much.

<comment><USER34> Interesting. Just finished running a conference in Australia, and was having a beer at the end of the day with one of the UK guys talking about how many of his team and network were making early to mid six figures GBP.

I only lived in London for a couple of years, but also knew a few. Most were 45+ years old and "financially independent", although they wouldn't have thought about it in FIRE terms because their idea of independence was pursuing interesting careers choices rather than retiring early. (Which is largely my plan as well.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> How many people actually do this vs talk about doing it? I know Mr. Money Mustache is super popular and generally the tenets are a great idea, but I certainly don't know anyone my age (early 20s) who has become a proponent of these ideas. It seems a bit too extreme for my tastes. Why not just get a job you like, save enough that work is optional and enjoy your day to day?

<comment><USER40> it's that middle bit that seems to cause all the consternation: "Save enough that work is optional". It also could be (and I don't mean to sound like an old grump or condescend so apologies in advance) that people in their early 20s haven't been soured on employment sufficiently yet. I was much more idealistic and had a greater tolerance for work-related BS when I was in my early 20s.

I'm nearly 50 now and after being burned several times I made a vow to myself never to be dependent on anyone else again. Even if you work for an incredibly well-funded company, that doesn't mean some dweeb with an MBA in some office in another city / state / country won't wake up one day and decide to wipe our your entire division just because she needs to make a bigger bonus.

I've seen pensions disappear overnight, industries collapse quicker than anyone ever thought, and vibrant cities crumble when big employers shut their doors. Painful and stressful in the extreme.

I've also blown $10k on something stupid instead of buying another bunch of Apple stock, reasoning that I'd make it up later in life easily enough. That was 1997. The $10k would be well over $1 million now.

The biggest thing to learn is that money doesn't equal happiness. That, for me, is the repeated lesson of MMM and related authors. Freedom to make decisions without reference to finances is a massive, amazing thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> To try to solve social problems with self-reliance is about at the same level of foolishness as trying to solve them with technology.

I am quite introverted and impractical person. But the effort that goes into avoiding banding together for more freedom (aka unionization) amazes me.

I can sort of understand it, and I admit that sometimes it works. But is it really an efficient strategy?

</comment><comment><USER42> > "Daniel Imberman, a 26-year-old software engineer, drifts toward this pole, > though he rejects the FIRE label ("sounds like classic tech-douche"). His > target is $15 million."

How long do you think it'll take him to reach his goal? He talks about starting a start-up, selling or profiting, but all of that take a lot of work. And even then there's no guarantee his plan will work.

Saving 15M will probably take a developer anywhere from 10-20 years? Or am I very wrong?

<comment><USER43> It's very far off. You would either need seriously over-performing investments or some kind of exit.

I ran the numbers for a simple scenario, assuming a current $150k income:

\- With a 5% yearly raise and a 7% investment return, you end up with ~$3.8M at 20 years.

\- With a 5% yearly raise and a 20% investment return, you end up with ~$14.5M at 20 years.

That 5% yearly raise would have you earning almost $400k at the end of 20 years too - probably up for debate how likely that is.

<comment><USER4> What savings rate do you assume there? I agree the savings goal is very difficult even with ridiculously favorable assumptions! I've never heard of 5% yearly raises outside of the first 5-10 years of someone's career. You're lucky to get raises that approach inflation. And that 7% investment gain is average only if you have a very risky all-equities asset allocation the whole time you are saving. 20%? LOL.

I don't think most people's "retire early" savings plans/goals can survive initial contact with reality.</comment></comment></comment>


Hackers May Soon Be Able to Tell What You're Typing–Just by Hearing You Type - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/hackers-may-soon-be-able-to-tell-what-youre-typingjust-by-hearing-you-type-11559700120 <comment><USER2> A good reason to use a swype-style keyboard? Good thing Apple is integrating this in iOS 13!

Although of course swiping doesn't work for entering passwords, which are (hopefully) not dictionary words that can be algorithmically predicted/guessed!</comment>


Ask HN: How to manage multiple email addresses with Google+ - <AUTHOR>

Pardon me if this is a dumb question.  But I have firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com, and firstname.lastname@example.com.  I obviously have intentionally structured my email addresses by the circles I want to communicate with.<p>So Google+ has come out with Circles, which solves this problem in a different way:  manage your circles with just one email address (identity).  But I've got multiple gmail addresses.  What do I do now?  What are other people doing?  Am I misunderstanding something? <comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, why did you structure your emails like that?

Personally, I used to have multiple addresses for different purposes but realized I didn't have a reason for doing it. I created a new address using email@example.com and I use that for everything now (including Google+).

<comment><AUTHOR> > Out of curiosity, why did you structure your emails like that?

About ten years ago I had a junk email I used for web sites, separate from the one I used for friends and family. So as an anti-spam measure.

A couple of years ago when I started my online programmer persona, I used email@example.com for continuity.

The system has actually worked pretty well for me, apart from having to manage lots of accounts in my mail client.

> but realized I didn't have a reason for doing it.

That step didn't happen to me until now. Now what?

<comment><USER3> >Now what?

Select your favorite email address, and forward the others to it. If your favorite is your gmail, then have the incoming emails automatically tagged with a label appropriate for where it is coming from (you may wish to use "family", "hacking" "work" etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an option I'll definitely consider.

Is Google+ designed to actually work seamlessly this way? In other words, will people interacting with my Google+ presence through my firstname.lastname@example.com have the same experience as those interacting with my Google+ presence through my email@example.com?

Also, I've got two invites: one for email@example.com and one for email@example.com. Which one do I take? If I choose one, do I lose the connection with the other person and have to re-invite them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know, but this is a big problem for me as well. I have several gmail based email, analytics, adwords, adsense, etc. accounts and use them all. I keep Chrome Safari and Firefox running so I can be logged into a different account on each browser at the same time, but I'm running out of browsers.

<comment><USER5> You may already know this, but you can double your amount of sign ins by opening an incognito window in each browser.

<comment><USER6> \+ chrome canary build!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can enable multiple sign in in your account settings page. It lets you switch between accounts very quickly and doesn't require re-authenticating each time.

<https://www.google.com/accounts/b/0/MultipleSessions>

<comment><AUTHOR> This means I would manage several different Google+ accounts, right? I would have to set up my circles on each one. At first that sounds redundant to the purpose of Google+, but maybe that's okay? Maybe the Circles are really the subcircles of my individual accounts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm in the same boat. My solution has been to only use G+ for one of those purposes.</comment>


"Crazy crazy crazy ", The "print and Play - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.fr/translate?hl=fr&sl=fr&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trictrac.net%2Factus%2Ffou-fou-fou-le-print-and-play <comment><USER2> Breaks the browsers back button...</comment>


Tay Microsoft's AI Chatbot - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-launches-ai-chat-bot-tay-ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> Super excited that Tay finally launched. I sit right next to the team, so it's super cool to finally see their work in the wild.</comment>


Nginx, Varnish, Cherokee, thttpd, WEBrick, Yaws log escape sequence injection - <AUTHOR> http://packetstormsecurity.org/1001-exploits/log-inject.txt

<comment><USER2> Fortunately he put the only correct response to this nonsense right in there - saves me some typing. Quote from the varnish team:

This is not a security problem in Varnish or any other piece of software which writes a logfile.

The real problem is the mistaken belief that you can cat(1) a random logfile to your terminal safely.

This is not a new issue. I first remember the issue with xterm(1)'s inadvisably implemented escape-sequences in a root-context, brought up heatedly, in 1988, possibly late 1987, at Copenhagens University Computer Science dept. (Diku.dk). Since then, nothing much have changed.

The wisdom of terminal-response-escapes in general have been questioned at regular intervals, but still none of the major terminal emulation programs have seen fit to discard these sequences, probably in a misguided attempt at compatibility with no longer used 1970'es technology.

I admit that listing "found a security hole in all HTTP-related programs that write logfiles" will look more impressive on a resume, but I think it is misguided and a sign of trophy-hunting having overtaken common sense.

Instead of blaming any and all programs which writes logfiles, it would be much more productive, from a security point of view, to get the terminal emulation programs to stop doing stupid things, and thus fix this and other security problems once and for all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone's VT100 emulator support the answerback function these days?

Terminal on OS X doesn't seem to. I think I remember in the dark ages there were some that let you set the answerback message remotely, but I suspect people figured out that was a bad idea.

Ah, but who among us didn't embed a CTRL-E in our "you are about to be idle killed" messages and set our answerback messages to "".

</comment><comment><USER4> So... Their problem is that log files don't filter out VT100 escape sequences by default?

This is not a terribly serious bug...</comment>


Facebook IPO: The Facts and Figures Behind One Of The Largest Offerings Ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-voakes/facebook-ipo_b_1205714.html

<comment><USER2> Zuck is a true tulip-man (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania> ). The problem is that other than huge companies like Coca-Cola or Apple, average Joe with his small business and 3 employees cannot get a decent ROI from his facebook advertise. The reason why I compare FB ride to tulip mania is that I have every single non-tech friend that co/owns business being extremely excited of advertising on facebook platform. "wow!" - they say "imagine if I only get 10% of bussines out of 10% of clicks out of 500 million users, wow!". but you wont! the same logic is behind opening a shoe factory. well, there is 6 billion people and most buy shoes so getting even 1% of that market makes you millionaire. it doesnt work like that. After week or two testing, they come back with miserable click-through result and totally disappointed. Until another friend learn the same mistake on his own. And I think we are in this finite loop of people finding out on their own that for average Joe Facebook won't work as an ad place. But before everyone will find out, there will be hundreds of dollars per business owner per day thrown into this machine. Good luck.</comment>


Homosexuality Turned On and Off in Fruit Flies - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/animals/071209-fly-genes.html <comment><USER2> Generally, it will be interesting when parents can choose the genes of children. Some fear homogenization. I think that betrays a lack of trust in the desire to be unique. Just look at glitter on MySpace.

There is also an empathy angle. If people still treat folks in the LGBT community with disrespect, a parent might be neutral on the issue but not want avoidable difficulty for their children.

My guess is that this particular issue is quite generational. By the time people are making the decision to customize the genes of their children, most will find gay/bi/straight to be perfectly normal.

<comment><USER3> Comparing the design of someone's child to the design of someone's MySpace is horrifyingly scary.

<comment><USER2> Embrace the chaos. You'll just look like an old fart to your kids otherwise.

<comment><USER3> To my five-armed 250-IQed blue-haired children that play audio constantly? Sure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>