Free America Now (@elonmusk) - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1255380013488189440 <comment><USER2> Please don't post like this to HN. It's off topic [1], against the spirit of the site, and led to a wretched and utterly predictable flamewar.

HN is fragile. The idea here is to try to stave off the default fate of internet forums [2, 3]. The forces pushing in that direction are far stronger than the ones in our favor. It wouldn't take much to destroy this place, and a thread like this is a real dose of poison.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[2] [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> What a fool. And it won't be just other fools who get hurt or killed by this foolishness.

</comment><comment><USER4> I struggle to take Musk seriously. He has too much to gain from getting people working again.

His production operations are notoriously behind schedule and only accelerate by throwing more (literal) bodies at the problem.

<comment><USER5> To quote the classic:

"Many of you will die, but I am ready to make that sacrifice."

<comment><USER6> Can we please stop pretending that economic destruction doesn't kill people? Because it does.

If the food supply chain gets disrupted, as many fear that it may, that could be a _lot_ of people.

<comment><USER5> Can we stop pretending Covid19 doesn't kill people?

<comment><USER6> No one is pretending that.

Now, does anyone care to address my point, rather than brigading down something because you actually don't have a response?

<comment><USER5> No one cares to address point that have been addressed already.

If we talk about the numbers then opening up a country runs a risk of even higher daily deaths and longterm economical damage due to lack of workforce after the disease passes.

Americans want to be South Koreans without taking South Korean measures. You simply cannot have a cake and eat it too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why do all the rich people want to "free America now" ? Would it be because their factories are not running ? Get real people. Do not follow the wolf in sheep's skin. If something happens to you because you contracted the virus, you will be no more than collateral damage, as long as Tesla's roll off the production line.

</comment><comment><USER8> He needs to stop tweeting drunk it's as simple as that.

<comment><USER9> I think it might be more helpful if he just stopped being a massive asshole.

<comment><USER10> Why not both?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That doesn't bode well for Tesla earnings later today.

<comment><USER12> Whole sectors of the economy are shut down, how come the wall-street gambling dens are still open?

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's a dumb question, but isn't it possible to do most of what Wall Street does from home?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He might just want to do it as e.g Germany does it. i.e. basically opening most smaller and some bigger businesses. shops with limited people at the same time, masks, hygiene procedures etc. schools more or less closed until end of summer.

Though Germany already has receding numbers for a while now, US is still a little behind. Total number of cases vs deaths is (if counted and reported correctly in worldometers) quite comparable (to my surprise). UK is way worse in this respect.

Difficult to say what he really wants as he does NOT communicate well in this respect. In longer interviews he is way more thoughtful.

<comment><USER15> I actually heard Germany's infection rate has now increased directly related to their reopening (before R0 was <1 now it is ~1?)

<comment><USER16> I read that too but actually the case augmentation is not statistically significant yet (comparing d1 and d2 after the reopening is not enough). You'll have to wait until at least d4 to have a better idea and i think they can manage to wait until week two to decide to either go for herd immunity (at R0 ~ 1 this is viable, deadly but viable for healthcare workers) or lock their country for a month again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> this definitely tops the list of crazy things musk has said, it would be funny if so many people didn't take every word he says as absolute truth

<comment><USER18> he also "predicted" close to 0 covid cases by end of April (groan): [https://twitter.com/JBauernberger/status/1255452046897135617](https://twitter.com/JBauernberger/status/1255452046897135617)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> wow, that's... bonkers. i wonder why the hell he's saying this kind of thing -- it's not like his companies are having issues due to covid-19 (afaik).

<comment><USER20> He aspires to be a populist demagogue. I have no doubt he'll be running for president one of these days.

edit: I'm dumb, he can't run for president of the US.

<comment><USER21> You can't run for President in the US if you were not born in the US, even if you are American.

<comment><USER22> As long as your mother is American, it doesn't matter where your born.

<comment><USER23> This is an incorrect oversimplification of citizenship law and of the natural- born clause.

There are residence requirements for foreign-born US citizens to pass on citizenship to children born abroad, which already contradicts your statement. This applies to mothers and fathers (with a paternity test if not married). Furthermore, it hasn't been legally settled whether someone born a US citizen abroad counts in this clause, though personally I suspect anyone born a US citizen (not just, and not always, children of US mothers) would qualify if challenged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What's the context of this tweet? Is he just trolling?

<comment><USER9> He is mad that the lockdown is losing him money, and he wants to force people to risk their lives to go back to work making him money.

<comment><USER25> Isn't Elon wating for a _huuuuuge_ payday? One that could not happen if the stock drops too much?

Which raises the question, whether or not, this Tweet is similar to the going- private one.

<comment><USER26> This is a great point of how SEC regulations violate free speech through prior restraint when interpreted too broadly.

If it's illegal for Musk to make political commentary like this, then that doesn't mean Musk broke the law, it means the law is unconstitutional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Did this open up focussed on a tweet by a "Melissa A" with a reply by Elon Musk saying "True" for anyone else? Took me a few seconds to realise that I needed to scroll up to see the actual linked tweet (literally just the words "FREE AMERICA NOW"). I tried on a few browsers with the same behaviour, looks like this is _deliberate_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well if it's the case I'm sorry about that. I just copy pasted on my iPhone when I saw it, so may be the URL change when you scroll ?

In any way it was not deliberate

<comment><USER27> No no no I don't mean that you did this - you used the correct URL for the tweet.

I meant that this looks like another weird Twitter UX decision. And it seems this is on Desktop (so FF, Chrome, Edge), I just looked on mobile and it was fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Never trust a billionaire.

</comment><comment><USER28> Step 1) Widespread, compulsory testing.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow he really likes his money. But not so much, people.

</comment><comment><USER30> Elon Tusk would never say this.

Also, yeah he really wants Tesla stock to tank today, huh?

</comment><comment><USER22> I love how billionaires with their private jets and 40,000 square foot homes want every body else to go back to work

<comment><USER31> and I love how many privileged middle class people are smugly calling to press pause on civilization from the comfort of their homes which they can only do because a faceless army of poor people keeps them fed and cared for

<comment><USER29> You understand that they're at home too? Just look at the unemployment stats.

Most of American production is automated. Its middle-level folk keeping America running. Cherry-picked examples notwithstanding.

<comment><USER31> uh, no they're not. do you think the chicken fairy is depositing frozen birds in your supermarket? your existence is secured by a chain of people who haven't achieved the level yet for "is it safe for me to go to work?" to even register as a question

<comment><USER32> And by non-essential workers staying home it frees more hospital beds for those more at-risk and exposed.

That's literally the point of shelter in place.

<comment><USER33> With hospitals shutting down, and doctors and nurses being furloughed for lack of patients...

<comment><USER29> ...because we've done enough to slow the spread. Any responsible look at the stats show that clearly. Here's a link in case the entire internet wasn't enough:

[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

<comment><USER33> ...or because the dangers were exaggerated in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Quite the career change from cave diving rescue missions expert to expert on how to handle pandemics.

</comment><comment><USER35> Writing from the Netherlands. I believe the American rhetoric has fully been divided between the "if you aren't careful, you are killing people" on the left and "open the economy" on the right.

I'm surprised that it isn't clear why the left is in an extremely dangerous position. They can't win unless lots of people are dying. Otherwise, the non- zoom working class will vote in anyone who prioritizes the economy. Isn't wholesale economic collapse a much bigger civilization-wide existential threat than COVID19 itself?

I would have also thought that the left would be more scared of another 4 years of Trump (now with unlimited power and money) than his voter base dying in droves. Just surprising, that's all.

<comment><USER36> From what I've seen, the non-Zoom working class is the group most against re- opening. They're the one's most at risk from the virus.

<comment><USER35> Maybe it's different in the Netherlands. But here there seems to be a lot of contempt for not being able to do construction, cut hair or otherwise work.

Luckily, the weather is nice, which generally puts people in good spirits.

<comment><USER36> Maybe I'm wrong, but in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re- opened is a part of the Zoom working class and the upper classes.

In the US most blue collar work has been deemed essential anyway. Construction for example, is deemed essential. Layoffs are still happening like crazy, I suppose. I'd say the left generally wants to leave non-essential parts of the economy closed, and give people UBI or freeze rent, etc to help out the working class.

<comment><USER37> > in the U.S. it seems most people that want things re-opened is a part of the > Zoom working class and the upper classes.

This does not seem accurate to me at all. The upper classes have fled the hot- spot cities. The upper-class-aspirant professionals are stuck in the cities working via Zoom. The risk of premature opening there is real, so they're not pushing for reopening.

The people pushing for re-opening are mainly non-Zoom non-essential working class people who are feeling the economic pain of the prolonged shutdowns in places where they're not needed.

Also, to a lesser extent, people who object to the restrictions on freedoms on cultural-ideological grounds, either on principle or on a cost-benefit basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It feels like he's angling to out-Trump Trump so that he can run against him in the next election... and that might even work! It has before...

</comment><comment><USER31> "lol just don't work, it's for the best" is as tone deaf as "let them eat cake"

</comment><comment><USER39> I tend to feel that what we are seeing is a society without any philosophical understandings. The hard sciences have taken over, and we are to see a new version of eugenics take over - a different name, a stated different goal, but an equally immoral result.

Does anyone remember Hunter S. Thompson?

<comment><USER40> _A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream._

But does anyone remember City Light Books? :hmm:

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Easy to dismiss him because of his wealth or other prejudices you may have of him. "Free America Now" raises an incredibly important debate that all lockdown-ridden countries should be having. Were lockdowns constitutional? Were lockdowns effective? Could other measured responses have achieved similar outcomes?

Were lockdowns done in vain? And have we set a dangerous precedent?

Bunch of questions. Don't flame him or me. Just participate in the debate.

<comment><USER3> "Just participate in the debate" is the kind of nonsensical rhetoric Creationists use to push their religious beliefs into science education. There is no debate. There are no questions. The only dangerous precedent we're setting is one of ignoring the expert epidemiologists tasked with protecting the public.

[https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy- less...](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/pandemic-economy- lessons-1918-flu)

[https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3561560](https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3561560)

To summarize, during the 1918 flu pandemic, American cities that implemented early and extensive non-medical measures (including quarantines) suffered no additional adverse economic effects due to implementing those measures when compared with cities that implemented measures late or not at all.

[http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20150111194407/http://www.hist...](http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20150111194407/http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/influenza_main.htm)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291414](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291414)

Again, to summarize, American Samoa and New Caledonia succeeded in preventing even a single death from the 1918 influenza through effective quarantines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Points for not being a Silicon Valley coward blindly following the 'lockdown' religion but he doesn't seem to have a clear handle on the virus to be saying what he is.

I'm not sure he even noticed C19 in January or February.

virus OR coronavirus OR c19 OR covid OR covid-19 (from:elonmusk) until:2020-04-29 since:2020-01-01

</comment><comment><USER43> NY, NJ, PA, CT, and MA have 53% of cases. It's time to stop treating this like every state or region is in the same situation.

Edit: Some people apparently need to be reminded that Europe is a place. Individual countries are reopening as they see fit based on how they are handling the virus. It honestly is starting to feel like some people prefer the pain than the idea of safely reopening certain states and regions.

<comment><USER44> Very impressive that the virus acknowledges state boundaries.

<comment><USER43> People aren't flying. Your comment is meant for laughs but states and regions are in completely different situations.

And please tell your joke to Europe, and Germany in particular.</comment></comment></comment>


Keep the Internet free and open - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/keep-internet-free-and-open.html <comment><USER2> I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment of this petition, but it strikes me as mostly preaching to the choir given the driving issues here. Governments want the right to cut off Internet in a crisis...and the countries who think that's a good idea do so no matter what established democracies think. It's like signing a petition for peace...the right thing to do, maybe, but it's not really a debate.

<comment><USER3> After thousands of wars peace is understood by everybody, not so about the free and open Internet, which to most is something that just works like electricity, or black magic.

Making more people understand is definitely worth one tweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I generally support what is being proposed here, Google as a company has a strong interested in "keep[ing] the Internet free and open" for them to sell their products. That doesn't make it wrong, it just means that if this was raised by organisations that don't have a clear commercial interest then it might improve the visibility.

<comment><USER5> > it just means that if this was raised by organisations that don't have a > clear commercial interest then it might improve the visibility.

It might improve the thrustworthness, but I doubt anyone else on the planet has more power to increase visibility than Google. Also always, in terms of visibility, big commercial entities > any non-profit, except maybe Wikipedia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is this the first I am hearing about this? On such a niche site like HN too? This should be all over the interwebs...

<comment><USER7> As a 25yo w/out a TV, this is the first I've heard of it as well.

Given the likelihood of similarly positioned friends on my social networks, I shared the Economist article here ( [http://www.economist.com/news/21567340-governments- squabble-...](http://www.economist.com/news/21567340-governments-squabble- over-new-rules-internet-system-error) ) as a set up for the link to the petition, should people agree w/ Google's efforts.

<comment><USER8> Thank you. A very interesting article. A few points that caught my attention:

1\. The US position on the ITU meting is to shot down various proposals and keep the current regulations intact.

2\. The bulk of proposals are devised to lessen the influence of the US on the internet. E.g. transfer ICAAN duties to ITU, charge companies like Facebook and Google for outgoing traffic to national networks.

3\. European Telecommunications Network Operators seek to outlaw net neutrality, quoting that without "fair" traffic control they're unable to develop their networks.

And in the end a little excerpt:

"A bigger danger is therefore deadlock. That might encourage a large pack of nations to set up their own internet regime, making communication with the rest of the world more costly and more complicated."

Which is already happening with China, Syria, Iran, and others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So I'm enjoying my blank page because for some reason this free and open internet is not accessible and requires several scripts to display simple html.

Posting about a free and open internet on a website which is paid for by ads and with closed content is kinda ironic but it makes a strong point about google's credibility.

Make no mistake, they're defending their business model and profit which happens to be based on internet being sort of free and kinda open.

<comment><USER10> I couldn't agree more about Google sticking up for what's best for Google. And while I don't agree that we need more government regulation and intervention, we do need to call Google on their BS.

It gets even funnier if you read between the lines on their "take action" page and translate.

Original: "A free and open world depends on a free and open Internet." \</comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---- Translated: "Google's revenues depend on a free and open Internet where we can freely monetize content created by everyone else."

Original: "Some proposals could permit governments to censor legitimate speech — or even allow them to cut off Internet access. Other proposals would require services like YouTube, Facebook, and Skype to pay new tolls in order to reach people across borders. This could limit access to information — particularly in emerging markets." \</comment><comment></comment><comment>---- Translated: "Who are these governments to censor what appears on the Internet? Only Google and our hand-tuned animal- named algorithms have the right to determine what people see and don't see. And how dare anyone but Google attempt to impose tolls on the Internet? Shocking, the audacity of these governments..."

Original: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future." \</comment><comment></comment><comment>---- Translated: "Governments alone, working behind closed doors, should not direct its future. That privilege belongs to Google alone."

Original: "The ITU is also secretive. The treaty conference and proposals are confidential." \</comment><comment></comment><comment>---- Translated: "Only Google is allowed to be secretive. Everyone else must be open."

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand. Isn't it better for this to get mainstream publicity rather than waving a hand over it saying that it won't change anything? My point is, shouldn't we encourage this so that it might get as much media coverage as possible - "All publicity is good publicity"? Can someone explain to me what it is I'm missing, please?

</comment><comment><USER12> A petition has absolutely no effect on this process.

<comment><USER13> I think that #STOPSOPA has clearly demonstrated that a lot of people making noise can influence the United States at the very least; and the United States has a number of economic and political tools (I'm not including military tools here) that it can use to influence the decisions of many less than democratic regimes. Politicians are more willing to advocate the use of these tools publically if they think that 1) People care about this; 2) People support using them.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately, international policy making is even more opaque and convoluted than the US legislative process. ITU has been several years in the making, and at the penultimate meeting back in October, it's likely that almost all of the big decisions were finalized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We will NEVER stop them all no matter what petition, but they will NEVER stop us all.

Don't worry, humans will keep the network up no matter what.</comment>


Burrows-Wheeler Transform [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WRANhDiSHM <comment><USER2> Wow this is a great video. I was able to implement a simple python version of the BWT as described in the video here:

[https://gist.github.com/damiankao/908fe1fd6562dc75f40c](https://gist.github.com/damiankao/908fe1fd6562dc75f40c)

</comment><comment><USER3> This algorithm is widely used in genomics. Here's an explanation by Ben Langmead, a computational biologist, with some Python code as well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n7NPk5lwbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n7NPk5lwbI)

The original paper, interestingly, only published as a report:

[http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC- RR-124.pdf](http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/Compaq-DEC/SRC-RR-124.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> Fun! Now I'm going to watch the whole 'Compressor Head' series. Thanks, Googler Developers!

</comment><comment><USER5> Finally, an explanation that kinda sorta makes sense of why it's reversable.

<comment><USER6> if only it explained how it works!</comment></comment>


Flak for Slack chaps in yak app hack flap: User database WHACKED - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/27/slack_hacked/

<comment><AUTHOR> Best article title ever!</comment>


Generic Actions in Rails 3 - <AUTHOR> http://yehudakatz.com/2009/12/20/generic-actions-in-rails-3/ <comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely love seeing how Rails 3 is maturing. The fact that it seems to be truly Merb-flavored probably has something to do with that.

This isn't just "Rails can do what Django does" ... it's why it can, and how that could be used to do lots of other cool stuff.

<comment><USER2> Its good to see 2 major frameworks learning/borrowing from each other rather than trying to one-up each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been looking around for a while now, with little success ... are there any timeframe / estimates on when Rails 3 will be live? There's been lots of hype about it for months, and I'm looking forward to moving over to it, but I don't know quite how to manage my expectations in terms of projected release dates. Anybody know?

<comment><USER4> No, but this is my question as well. There's plenty of stuff on the net about how great Rails 3 will be, but the last time I checked out edge Rails (around three months ago), it felt pretty far from ready for prime time.

They've done a lot of refactoring, and made a ton of improvements, so I can understand a longer-than-usual development cycle, but all the hype around how great things will be, without seeing a stable release, is a little unsettling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While this is neat, the redirect and template-rendering generic views aren't the ones I'm really interested in. What I'd want if I were looking at Rails is an equivalent for the content-retrieving generic views (which provide indexes, archives, date-based navigation, etc.), but I don't see anything about them here.

<comment><USER6> Do you mean the Django admin stuff?

<comment><USER5> No, I mean things like this:

[http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/ref/generic- views/#date...](http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.1/ref/generic-views/#date- based-generic-views)

The powerful thing about generic views -- as far as I'm concerned -- is that they're encapsulated generic logic. Things like "show an individual object" or "show objects published in December 2009" or whatever, which crop up over and over in real-world use, and which are best written once and reused over and over again.

<comment><USER7> I hope I showed that those sorts of things are quite possible using the same basic techniques that I showed for the redirection and rendering generic actions. Thanks for the feedback :)

<comment><USER5> Well, it may just be that I don't know enough about Rails, but how _do_ you do that sort of thing? For example, what's the equivalent data structure to a QuerySet that you'd pass around as an argument?

<comment><USER7> There are two ways I can think of to achieve a similar effect. Let's use this example from the Django docs:

        info_dict = {
          'queryset': Poll.objects.all(),
        }
        (r'^(?P<object_id>\d+)/$', 'django.views.generic.list_detail.object_detail', info_dict),

One (pretty simple) solution would be to use a block to pull out the object in question:

        match "/:id" => object_detail {|params| Poll.find(params[:id]) }

Rails 3, with its ActiveRelation integration, could also support a syntax similar to the QuerySet syntax:

        match "/:id" => object_detail(Poll.all)

where Rails would internally take the Relation from Poll.all and do @relation.where(:id => params[:id]). To be honest, while the newly available syntax is nice, lightweight block syntax is pretty nice as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN:How to Efficiently Live with Mental Health Issues? - <AUTHOR> I recently found out that I have Anxiety Issues.
Any know-hows to manage mental health with your daily life?
Anyone that has successfully done it without therapy? <comment> jerome-jh An advice I once got from psychoanalyst I had been consulting for a few month: do not identify yourself to your pathology.

There are two faces of the coin once your condition is named:

\- it can be a relief: I have that, what can I do to improve it

\- it can be an impairment: if it gets all your focus

I think of this because you put capital letters to "Anxiety Issues", and also because the diagnostic sounds pretty vague. Be aware that many people have psychological, psychiatric or other medical conditions, and still live what looks like a normal life to others. So take care of yourself, but do not let those two words have all the focus.

</comment><comment> jerome-jh Without therapy and proven to work: contact with nature, physical exercise. Both can be combined ;)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not a psychologist so this comment is just random text that _accidentally_ might help.

Journaling, self-reflection and professional help are a good start. Journal your daily life. Triggers, foods, challenges you set, what worked, what failed. Be more forgiving of yourself as you grow. Each failure is a learning experience. Try again. Review patterns as you notice them.

If you don't want professional help, then understand anxiety is often "too much potential future" and/or "too much recycled past" and not enough "actual now". You need to gradually build up resistance and resilience to your fears/anxiety.

Look for clinical psychologists like Jordan Peterson etc. he's posted a lot on youtube about anxiety etc. Learned helplessness and CPTSD are also some other possible things to be aware of when examining anxiety.

The problem with doing it alone is the increased number of blind alleys you will waste time in. As well as prolonging anything you don't notice. But you have your reasons - they are what they are.

Recruit allies to help where possible. Self-help does not mean you do it alone.</comment>


The Putnam Mathematical Competition's Unsolved Problem - <AUTHOR> http://inside-bigdata.com/2014/07/20/putnam-mathematical-competitions-unsolved-problem/

<comment><USER3> I think it starts like this:

1) at most nb of stone increase by one each time one player plays

2) nb of stone cannot decrease unless the board is full of stones

3) no one can lose unless the board has been full of stone at least once; this is because until the board has been full of stones it is possible to increase the nb of stone by adding one and this is a new position because of 2)

4) as soon as there are n - 1 stones, the player who puts the last stone wins; because there are n - 1 different positions left with n - 1 stones and n - <USER2> is even

<comment><USER3> Now a good strategy for Alice is to first play in the middle, and after that use the following rules:

\- if Bob removes one stone and the result is that it adds a stone both on the left and right side of the board, then Alice replays the stone that Bob just removed,

\- otherwise whatever Bob plays, Alice plays the same thing on the other side of the board (symmetrically regarding the middle of the board)

This ensures that:

5) the situation is always symmetrical after Alice played

6) when Bob plays once and then Alice plays once, if the nb of stone on the board increased since before Bob just played, then it increased by an even amount

<comment><USER3> As after Alice first played in the middle, there was just 1 stone, then because of 6):

7) when it's Bob turn to play, the number of stones on the board is always odd

Alice wins because of 7) and 4)!</comment></comment></comment>


Why India outsourcing is doomed - <AUTHOR> http://www.devbattles.com/en/sand/post-490-Why+India+outsourcing+is+Doomed <comment><USER3> Oh not this stupid argument again. Many problems he mentions aren't specific to India, you'll find them across all developing economies (We had most of the same issues contracting work to a Chinese and Brazilian company).

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. And some companies are clearly okay with said cheap work. There's a reason the IT industry in Hyderabad/B'lore is booming. Want solid contracting work without slackers? Sure, you can still find plenty of those too in India (thoughtworks?) but pay up (albeit less than what you may have to in the valley). The reason you're outsourcing core-work/parts of it to India should be that you can't find enough talent locally; not for getting it done cheaply or because your in- house developers think the work is 'beneath' them (I've seen this happen way often, dev with inflated ego doesn't want to test. Wants to do a cold hand-off and expects the cheap developers to be on his level and take dirty work off his hands. Starts cursing). So, there's probably room for both (cheap and expensive) industries in India. Unfortunately, you might have to expend more effort before you find the company that fits your needs.

Articles like these insinuate nothing but Xenophobia and racism. More often than not, Indians are always on the receiving end of it despite contributing so much to the software industry in general. The author from Ukraine of all places probably wants soviet like discipline and work-ethic for USSR salaries? Yeah, ain't gonna happen comrade. The employees on the other-end aren't stupid either. They have many friends in the US making bank working at Google/FB. Why would they work their balls off for peanuts?

<comment><USER4> Your post contains more xenophobia than the article, "comrade"

<comment><USER5> How is that?

<comment><USER6> I think this excerpt is representative of the content that woah (reasonably, in my estimation) found xenophobic:

"The author from Ukraine of all places probably wants soviet like discipline and work-ethic for USSR salaries? Yeah, ain't gonna happen comrade."

<comment><USER4> Correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not sure why the author seems to insinuate that the problems he/she has described are somehow specific to India. We had a disaster when we outsourced a large piece of design work to Denmark. We found out that the outsourcer in Denmark was themselves outsourcing chunks of work to Ukraine. Our bias assuming that an expensive Scandinavian outsourcer would be magically better than a cheaper Asian alternative led us astray. A mistake we won't make again. The real solution is doing proper due diligence and proper contract maintenance clauses that ensure the outsourcers goals are aligned with yours. That takes work, not just tossing a spec sheet across the wall.

<comment><USER8> We outsource successfully. But we have a 1 on 1 relationship with each developer outside our company. So no fooling us about whom it is doing the work.

It takes real work to manage any developer. Its an illusion to think outsourcing solve all the problems. We think of it as simply a recruitment tool really. Not that we hire all the developers we work with. But the outsourcing company is only there to bring in talent as needed. That talent still needs to be managed.

<comment><USER9> >But we have a 1 on 1 relationship with each developer outside our company

This is the main issue. Not whether the outsourcing is done to India, the Philippines, or even in the US. The model of shipping off your large projects to another company is going to be very problematic.

One on one relations with a good developer are going to be the way to go. A lot of smaller startups that outsource do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most important point is of blended rate.

Outsourcing industry has a huge conflict of interest with the customer. Customer wants minimum number of high-quality engineers to complete work in the minimum possible time. Outsourcing companies want the opposite. They don't hire high-quality engineers because a) they eat in to their profit margins because of high salaries b) they get things done quickly which reduces their invoice.

They just want to deliver the "good enough" level of quality to ensure customer retention.

The interests of outsourcing companies and customers are totally orthogonal. And we all know this always end bad.

<comment><USER11> I wish I could read the article, but it is asking me to log in, so I am skipping it.

But your comments remind me of what I hear for a lot of Americans (and Indian expatriates) who tend to be negative about Indian workers, when often the root cause of their complaints are cultural differences, and the ways that it impacts the work.

I have had great relationships with outsourced teams. But I did not get them just from hiring someone and expecting it to work. I spent a lot of time with my people, getting to know them, talking about how we wanted to work together, bringing them over here so the teams on both sides could know each other. I got to know a bit about their culture and how that impacted their work, and learned to work with where I could, and helped them make some changes to work better with us, where appropriate.

You would do that much for anyone on-site, so not doing it for remote workers is doing them a dis-service.

Personally, I got good results. And invitations to their weddings, which made me really feel like we were a team, and not just using them as a tool to get some work done.

Maybe I just had good luck. Maybe the rest of the industry is different. But I cannot support the comment that it "always ends bad". That does not have to be the case.

<comment><USER10> That's great to hear.

I certainly don't think the problems are cultural. I believe it's the inherent business model which is not aligned.

You are happy with your outsourced teams but I would love to know how do you compare your outsourced team with your US one? I believe that their are super quality engineers in Asia who can give you US standard of work but you will never get access to those guys as long as you are going through an outsourcing company. In a team of 10, maybe you'll have 1-2.

You may not think so but you can actually afford to hire 10 senior high quality US standard guys in your outsourced teams. And it would still be 20% of your US cost yet your partner company's interest is not in it. They'll always tell you it's hard to hire, market competitive or difficult to retain etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who are these "experts"? Why they are so cocksure that the problem with outsourcing is related to any ethnicity? Oh, they are Slavic "managers" of a lowest rank..

Outsourcing could become a problem in situation when a "man in the middle" is incompetent and incapable to perform these tasks himself, so he obviously cannot estimate correctly any time-frames or evaluate sub-contractor's performance, and, most importantly, have no idea which tasks in a "project" could be outsourced and how to split them correctly into sub-tasks and between people to work in parallel.

What is the problem really? The answer is greed, mediocrity, incompetence and inflated self-esteem.

</comment><comment><USER13> So far the comments seem to be saying:

Not all Indians

Not all outsourced projects

I would love for someone to step up up and directly address the core argument of this article, that is, _Indian outsourcing is doomed_.

Indian outsourcing, not outsourcing, not Indians, Indian outsourcing.

After a short 10 years observing, managing, or cleaning up after outsourced developers in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ukraine, India and CONUS (I'm in the U.S.) the data points I have are very consistent.

1\. Outsourcing is hard

2\. The greater the time zone difference the harder it is

3\. The greater the culture difference the harder it is

4\. The lower the average skill of available programmers the harder it is

You do the math.

From a U.S. perspective Indian outsourcing cannot possibly continue at its current level without innovation. That simple assertion the author made, IMHO, is both valid and correct.

I can't claim my experience is comprehensive enough to satisfy the apologists here but my God man find me a majority of CTOs, product managers, and senior developers who have an overall positive view of Indian outsourcing.

The last, and most controversial thing I'll say is this: The best Indian developers aren't in India. The great ones are getting visas to Europe, N. America and Australia. Hell there are 50 or so right now on my project that transplanted their families for only a 1 year project. They, and their families want to be in Europe, N. America, Australia.

edit: _sigh_ formatting

</comment><comment><USER14> I really should not be commenting on this - it feels like feedin the trolls. Ah well. So here is my "15 years of experience and no data points" commentary

Indian Outsourcing has a history that made it the way it is today - and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality or skill level of (averaged) developers. The article smacks horribly of what I call "loud old white manager of forty Indians" syndrome.

India in the 60s and 70s tried to cut itself off from the outside world and political strategy effectively strangled any native IT industry in it's crib. So Indian hackers did what hackers all over do - got round the problem, either by emigrating or by flying out to find clients. Outsourcing was for a while quite literally the only game in town for IT.

It worked really well - and therein lies the rub. If you want to maintain a good client relationship with a Fortune 500 company mostly you do it at the middle manager level.

Fast forward to 2014 - Now it is clear that software is eating the world, senior managers are going to replace middle managers with some combination of simplified process, automated decision making and "empowering" frontline workers. And yet those middle managers are the ones outsourcers have spent decades learning to work with.

This has left a mark on the Indian university system - with a lack of professors (remember the good ones left) the schooling was left to commercial companies - and it is only slowly recovering from this bias - "don't challenge the loud old white guy" and "learn Java" are two axioms that (good) universities would not teach but outsourcers have built in.

So there is innovation and hacker culture in India. But it is not as celebrated as "going to work, having a proper job and working for a named Fortune 500 company". Every hackers mother prefers the second one, and India has an unusual situation that the majority of IT education prefers it too.

Apart from this quirk of history Indian outsourcing and project management is down the line the same as every where else - gosh! Training at the expense of the client ! Rapid turnover on internal projects! Badly spec'd out projects with minimal business justification turn out badly!

This is not an Indian problem. This is our industry's problem - and treating it as anything else is ... Wrong

</comment><comment><USER15> As an Indian software developer who has some exposure to the outsourcing industry, I have to say that I can't disagree with anything the article has to say.

</comment><comment><USER16> I agree with other commenters that OP has conflict of interest since he is an outsourcer as well. He hopes to establish that this other outsourcing destination is not as high quality as his own.

That's an easy argument to attack on both "conflict of interest" and "racism" grounds, and many in this and other threads have made that rebuttal.

It dismisses though the reality that most of what he says in his post is true, as anyone who has actually dealt with this scenario honestly knows.

If outsourcing, there are advantages to having compliant workers who never contradict you. It's very comforting and you can feel good about yourself until the deadline arrives and you receive non-functional junk. But that's OK, you're saving money, just send it back for another round, or ten or twenty, of rework.

Dealing with guys like the OP is much harder. He's Ukrainian. He's much more likely to tell me if what I propose is a stupid idea or I am an idiot. If I was insecure or incompetent, that could really damage my self esteem. On the other hand, he's much more likely to deliver a working product in accordance with what I had in mind on the agreed upon date.

Depending on whether I am some middle manager at a big corporation for which product quality and success is not very important, or if I am the owner of a company that is trying to rework industry, I may find it rational to choose one rather than the other.

</comment><comment><USER5> Take away the point about the 12-hour difference, and you can repurpose this article into: Why Silicon Valley startups are doomed.

-Resource Availability

-Resource Quality

\- Employee turnover

\- Mindset and work ethics

\- Cost

A truly lazy piece of writing about generic/cylical demand-supply challenges that most booming industries end up facing.

<comment><USER17> Referring to people as resources is normally reserved for Outlook resources at financial institutions.

<comment><USER18> Most companies above a certain size have a human _resources_ department.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but that's because most companies above a certain size are old, and department names are the last to change. Younger companies have 'people and culture' or similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Every problem he mentions, except the timezone difference, is exactly the same when you're outsourcing to large IT consulting companies in the US. The only difference is the US companies charge 5x-20x more for their crappy deliverables.

How many people here have worked with a major IT consultancy in the US? How many were satisfied with the process and result? I would be astonished if even 5 out of 100 projects outsourced _within the US_ turn out so well that customers say, "That was great, we can't wait to work with those consultants again."

As a veteran of half a dozen such projects using half a dozen different IT consulting firms, my experience was they were all terrible experiences, with rampant price-gouging (novice programmers billed at $300/hour, "senior" people at $600-1,000/hour), conflicts of interest, poor communication, etc., and the work products in every case were massive total failures (and no, they do not give refunds).

I don't put much stock in this article as a specific critique of India, but as an article about outsourcing in general it's dead-on accurate.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why do "people" links lead to "people4people.ru"? I'm afraid to click it. Is it malware on my machine?

<comment><USER21> I get the same; guess it's some link building SEO.

<comment><USER22> The whole things gives me a clickbait-y feel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As some people here have already commented, the trick to effective outsourcing is building solid personal relationships. I have worked with people in India, Vietnam, Russia, China, Ukraine, and Hungary. In most cases I keep track of people and share life events long after work is over (or between projects).

</comment><comment><USER21> Did anybody else find it odd that every occurrence of the world "people" is a link? Is that some SEO link-building stuff? And if yes, do you consider that OK?

<comment><USER24> If so, trying to rank #1 for the word "people" is bad SEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are known causes of failure in software projects many of which overlap with project failure in general. As there are two companies involved, a post- mortem of failed projects must include problems on both sides.

On the purchaser side:

\- poor specification is a major project for both internal and external projects

\- abdication of responsibility for resource appropriateness. Yes, you are responsible for ensuring the vendor's engineers are a good fit for your project.

\- failure to manage the project. PM of external resources is a specialized PM skill.

\- changing objectives: this flows from poor specs, and results in changing targets

\- communication failures: nuff said

\- no QA: Yes, you must quality check work of external vendors. It's amazing how often this basic step is skipped.

On the vendor side:

\- everything above, plus

\- failure to include specification as a line item in budget

\- poor estimation

\- failure to align resources to task at hand

\- underbidding

\- inexperience in problem domain

</comment><comment><USER26> Most of these arguments can be made about any country and any type of contractors, from car mechanics to house builders. Bad cost estimates, Cost overruns, work not completed to satisfaction of the buyer, work completed but with poor quality are all in general aspects of any kind of outsourcing. There's a saying if you want something done and done well do it yourself. Whoever you hire may not be able to satisfy all your expectations. Adding to the confusion sometimes people who charge a lot do a lousy job and people who charge less end up doing better work. Such is life.

</comment><comment><USER27> I worked with one of the top 5's and the biggest issue was the hierarchical culture that seemed to give managers more status and money than coders.

I think this meant there wasn't a lot of incentive to become a great coder so people worked very hard to take on management responsibilities and not as hard at becoming great coders.

I'd really like to hear from people with more experience if this was just true of this one consulting company(one of he top 5) or was this true of many companies.

(first posted from cell phone, edited for readability)

<comment><USER28> This phenomenon (career advancement = promotion to middle management) is also the case at the client companies, which is part of the reason why outsourcing is tempting to them in the first place. The never ending desire to commoditize their inputs.

<comment><USER27> At most of the companies I've been in the U.S. the difference in pay between senior coders and middle management was slight to non-existent but if you look at Accenture's Indian salaries associate manager makes 50% more then team lead, and makes almost triple what a senior software engineer makes.

While this phenomenon exists in the U.S. it seems to me it is an order of magnitude smaller then it is in India.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Google cache version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.devbattles.com/en/sand/post-490-Why%2BIndia%2Boutsourcing%2Bis%2BDoomed&nfpr=1&biw=1193&bih=665&noj=1&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER30> "Finding talent in Hi Tech centers like Bangalore is almost as hard as finding qualified people in Silicon Valley."

This is a good point. A related question: Can _more_ and _better_ work be done by _less_ people?

If so, are 'two-dozen dev-ops' (a rhetorical number) adequate for all scenarios?

<comment><USER14> Yes, more and better work can be done by less people - it's axiomatic in software. It just takes longer - and often looks like people sitting around thinking and experimenting.

<comment><USER31> I agree except for

"It just takes longer"

Which depends a lot on everything. As an extreme example a bunch of junior people might develop a feature for a few sprints using TDD, XP and whatnot and not getting it done while a single expert might implement the feature simply and elegantly in a few days and a lot less code.

My favorite example of this are two blog artifacts: The first of which describes an attempt to write a Sudoku solver using TDD, and as a counterpoint Peter Norvig's simple and elegant sudoku solver in python (as previously discussed in HN):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3033446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3033446)

<comment><USER18> As someone who hasn't really managed to get into TDD (despite a few attempts), do you think this is generally the case? I do feel that TDD encourages a sort of shotgun approach to development, where you just try things until it works, rather than think the problem through thoroughly. Any opinions from people who have done both? I personally find fiddling with tests interrupts my flow of thought too much, so I would rather do it at the end.

<comment><USER31> Boy, are we diverging :)

From my experience TDD is kinda newspeak in the sense that it does not help at least in the first stages of design. From what I've managed to gleam as valuable way of working is test driven _implementation_. I.e. when implementing something akin to a simple datastructure I can test the interface functions as I write them which verifies the interface is not silly and that it works.

Another place where implementing tests concurrently brings value is using the tests as a form of documentation.

I would not call TDD a design methodology beyond the fact that usually implementing interfaces (and verifying it works) is good practice while speccing it.

Tests bring lots of value to a codebase beyond the fact that it sounds impressive to have a 95% coverage. From what I understand of the pathologies of software development having the TDD tagged as methodology is to allow the programmers implement tests in peace, politically shielded from the more gung ho elements of the stakeholderkin.

Summary: IMO if production code has no tests something is wrong. But I would say the most value tests bring is in verifying the algebra of the interface, protecting against breaking commits and documenting the inteded usage through examples. I would not say _writing unit tests_ is a particularly powerfull design methodology but playing with code is, and calling what the developer is doing as 'TDD' gives the developer the mental piece to do exactly this.

<comment><USER18> Most of the advantages you list are about testing, not testing before coding, which is what I was curious about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have no doubt that the author has experienced these issues and also agree with him on some points. However here's where the error lies - <USER2> conclusion from your personal experience and extrapolating it to the entire sector worth perhaps 100 billion dollars and predicting it's impending doom. That's just not how reality works. There will be dozens if not hundreds of examples contrary to your experience.

There may be declines, there will changes, restructuring, recalibration, pains, growth etc. Life and business will go on albeit with changes. A broad vision always helps keeping things in perspective in drawing such conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER33> Not this again! The fact that the article shows only the under developed images (like the over crowded vehicle and the snake charmer) makes me sad. These articles and the tv shows have completely wrong images of india in their mind. You can argue why is it a big deal, but when you see the typecast running in all the articles these days it hurts mostly because it so far from the reality. I have not seen a snake charmer my entire life after staying in the country for 25 years! The problems he mentions might be true I dont have any experience but I bet its common and holds true for the entire outsourcing business.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have worked in outsourced projects for a big company in the past and our team got the work done. I have since then started my own company and have been working for US customers from India. My current customer is a startup from Philly for which I have been working for about 3.5 years. So, No. Indian outsourcing is not doomed. There are thousands of small companies like mine making customers happy at an affordable price.

And what's with the pictures of a snake charmer and a crowded jeep?

</comment><comment><USER35> Being an Indian, I agree with that. Sometimes, when asked "how do you justify the X salary you are demanding" I find very few who have any answers (except the occasional: 'How he/she belongs to IIT' as if being an IITian gives you the right to earn without work)

</comment><comment><USER36> From my (not so big) experience:

Best things to outsource are those with well defined requirements, with not many refinements to be done (or that can be done internally)

The bandwidth is reduced, so it's not like the person is next to you. But with good requirements (and an agile development) this can work

</comment><comment><USER37> Some parts of this post are true, some are straight wrong. To let you know I worked for a Major Indian IT services firm for over 5 years.

>>with no innovation and nothing to offer other than questionable rate savings.

Most of the big IT services firms have very elaborate and very active community of people who innovate all the time. In fact if you are working with any moderately big outsourcing firm, they will likely have training programs for nearly all trending technologies out there. There are local in-company LUG groups, all kinds of technology interests groups, even labs who work on core CS research. You just don't hear about them, because unlike the product folks they don't blog every second minute about how great they are. You will be surprised by the sheer depth and diverse range of areas people are working in these companies.

>>Remember all those schools that promised to turn anyone with or without ...

This has been happening in India from probably 1980's or may be even since the independence. That doesn't change anything. India is a place where people will do anything, and I actually mean _anything_ for opportunities. This might look strange to a lot of people. But there are many of us, for whom merely getting a foot in the door means bailing out of a few generations of misery. There fore people will do anything to first get some education, once done anything for a job. Once in a job anything to get a good life. Its not odd, for people to work crazy hours their all life just to get a decent life for themselves and their kids. People in the west may call lack of sleep as spoiling health or whatever, here its almost a virtue.

>>With about 12 hours difference with Pacific Time there is simply no reasonable time for you to talk to your team in India. When they are finishing their work day you are not even ready to start, and when you are ready to leave office they are not anywhere to be found.

In early part of my career, I've slept in the office dorm for days in stretch only because I had take status calls from UK/US. I know innumerable amount of people who still do. Any company with a reasonable brand, and a good vein of professionalism will do. It all depends on whom you are doing business with.

>>Employees in India are extremely difficult to motivate. You'll notice that weeks and months go by with very little progress being made. Indian outsourcing employees seem to have a natural talent for working hard while producing little.

If anything this is probably the most wrong statement in the entire blog post. In IT services companies you will run into projects which are basically 'mission impossible'. For almost negligible budgets, you will be pushing 18 hr work days to achieve almost the impossible. Most of the them succeed, a few fail. There are instances where people will be up all the night because some UAT needs to be done, or because a regression testing needs to be finished. Again continue to work the very next day to fix a few bugs and get stuff shipped only to be asked to be available that same night for a status check call, I've seen people do this kind of stuff for months. I've seen people burn out, get kidney stones, develop blood pressure related ailments, lose weight drastically- All kinds of crap because over the past year they just have been working like machines. Amidst all this some projects do fail, but its rarely because people are lazy.

<comment><USER38> I'll try to reply cautiously, but I don't think your picture of innovation is accurate. To start with, the big-5 IT majors find it very difficult to attract talent. Even back when I was in college ('98-), the IT majors were a fallback option for most people. In fact, the best students didn't even bother applying there. This has only gotten worse now, from what I hear.

It is also my opinion that there isn't a lot of innovation happening in these places. You could see some of the work being published (in their blogs) but the quality of work (or innovation) is nothing to write home about. Many of them are simply rehashed whitepapers on topics widely discussed on the internet.

Having said that, I don't think Indian IT is in any sort of danger, in fact things are getting better. Interesting work is happening, just not in large IT companies. There are way more talented, passionate, excited tech folks here than at any time before.

<comment><USER37> >>In fact, the best students didn't even bother applying there. This has only gotten worse now, from what I hear.

Largely because these companies pay less, not because quality of work in product companies is higher.

I worked at a onsite location for a company which is one of the largest internet companies. We were all hired to work there after elaborate interviews. And we used to be repeatedly told they hire only the best, from the best universities and all that. Yet when we worked together as a team, most of these kids hired from IIT's who really believed they were some special snow flakes and all they really got to work on was HTML and some small time shell scripts. These kids had never seen what it meant work on a P1 bug after clocking full nighter, never had any exposure command line kung fu, they didn't know what it meant to having spend a full weekend writing a 2K line perl script because someone at the top wanted a prototype/reporting application done by Monday, heck for all the algorithm geniuses they were considered they could barely do any genuine work of significance to the real world. All they were really interested is in learning the next set of interview questions that were in trend so they could get some one in their alumni have an interview arranged for their next jobs.

The irony is we did bulk of the really algorithmic work there was. We set up a good deal of hadoop infrastructure and platform, we wrote a great deal of what were the complex workflows. And got a lot of systems and applications set up. Yet we were thought of as some kind of lesser children.

I'd really judge the best students/best professionals by the work they do, not the college they belong to, or their degree or their college network.

Show me what work you've done. Everything else is just hot air.

<comment><USER39> I'm preparing for my campus placements and I feel so frustrated by having to solve algorithmic puzzles because that's all that companies ask in interviews, everything else is secondary. I have so much interest in OS and networks but so few companies are there that offer challenging or exciting jobs in these fields in India. Most of the work is testing and validation and all the design and architecture work is done in the US division of the companies. This leaves students with no other option but to study what is required for the interviews and get trapped in the eternal interview-study-promotion-interview loop. The lucky ones go to US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Look at the images on that article. Has this guy been to India? Snake charmers? Simpleton logic as well.

</comment><comment><USER41> Cloud services will destroy/dilute their revenues.

<comment><USER42> plus automation

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I get a login screen, not an article, from this link.

</comment><comment><USER44> There are also cultural problems. Person X won't talk to person Y because he/she is from different caste.

<comment><USER45> This statement is plain wrong. People you are referring to are highly educated professionals.

<comment><USER46> I've actually witnessed what the parent refers to, here in silicon valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It also explains that the best programmers are, American or Indian([http://www.devbattles.com/en/sand/post-504-](http://www.devbattles.com/en/sand/post-504-))

<comment><USER48> So all you non-Americans and non-Indians - now you know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Outsourcing experience will depend on selection process and outsourcing rate. Can author confirm that they did good job on both of that ?

<comment><USER50> The second paragraph contains the sentence:

"This is simply an opinion I have formed based on 15+ years of experience with various providers."

Your question smacks of 'show me the proof-ism'. Why does this article make you uncomfortable?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: New Ubuntu Desktop--what would you install? - <AUTHOR>

I'm shopping for useful linux programs. I've used linux mainly on servers, but now I'm switching so my dev environment matches production more closely,and installing ubuntu desktop. What would you install on a fresh Ubuntu desktop? <comment><USER4> * To install: These should be in the repository; use synaptic for keyword search.

GNOME Do: <http://do.davebsd.com/> It's like Quicksilver for OS X, only more so.

Glipper: Clipboard history manager. A pale imitation of the old Klipper for KDE 3.5.

Banshee: Arguably a better music player than the default. Honestly, I was a big fan of the old Amarok, but KDE 4.0 in general has too many problems and lost functionality for me to use yet.

* To UNinstall:

Totem video player, or at least the Totem plugin for Firefox: It tends to be very crashy, at least for me. Replace the plugin with mplayerplug-in.

* New repositories to add:

Medibuntu: <http://www.medibuntu.org/> has restricted and non-free software. Easiest way to get DVD playback, and I would recommend installing mplayer and win64codecs/win32codecs from here. Also, tools like Acrobat.

Wine: <http://www.winehq.org/download/deb> These are usually much more up-to- date than Ubuntu's repository, if you need Wine.

</comment><comment><USER5> pidgin -- multiprotocol IM client

inkscape -- Vector Drawing

gobby -- collective editor

pgadminIII -- PostgreSQL GUI

EasyTAG -- mp3 tagging

dia -- diagram editor

GIMP -- photo editing (already installed most likely)

phatch -- batch photo manipulation

mercurial -- Distributed Version Control brings Meld which is a GUI merge program

emacs22-nox -- because I like it that way.

gnumeric -- because the numbers do matter.

python-${handy} -- my work environment has a swollen dependency tree :P

That's my list, but I'm a boring person who doesn't really play video games.

<comment><USER6> <http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/RailsOnUbuntu>

Rails On Ubuntu < You cannot miss this.

<comment><USER5> I don't miss it; I avoid it.

//me likes to know what application is doing. Not guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you use vim, vim-full is better than vim-tiny which comes installed.

A nice panel applet can be found in the repos under the package name "timer- applet", which I find comes in very handy at times.

<comment><USER8> This one always catches me out on a clean install of Ubuntu, if I remember correctly you can't use "vi file.txt" with vim-tiny.

<comment><USER9> I think "vi foo" works just fine with vim-tiny. If it didn't, it would be vim- empty.

<comment><USER8> I think you have to type "vim foo" with vim-tiny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Htop for monitoring system resources in real time, VirtualBox for running different OSes, Wine for some Windows games and apps, Deluge as a BitTorrent client. Conky is a great productivity booster and nice on the eyes too. Then get the packages needed for playing all media files, and I think that's about it. Oh, I forgot, Pidgin rlz.

</comment><comment><USER11> dmenu - <USER2>

dzen2 - simple (but very configurable) statusbar

screen and surfraw

w3m - _excellent_ text-based web-browser

mpd and ncmpc - for music

mutt - for email (if you don't use emacs)

bitlbee - an irc proxy that handles most other instant messaging protocols

irssi - irc (or e.g. rcirc in emacs)

cowsay and figlet :)

xwrits - typing timer

rsync - for backups (set it up with cron)

git or mercurial (whatever, pick one)

good windowmanagers: xmonad, dwm, wmii, blackbox

 _Common theme_ : non-flashy, shell/keyboard-oriented stuff. If you like several of those, you will probably like most the rest.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some of the apps I use frequently

XVidCap - if you want to make screencasts

KdenLive - for video editing

(and unstripped codecs, I re-compiled ffmpeg)

MySQL Administrator and Query Browser - for pokin around MySQL

VirtualBox - for running other OSes

</comment><comment><USER13> Amarok--It's a KDE music player, and it's really good. It seems faster than rhythmbox, has good librarying, and even integrates with Last.fm

I like konversation (another KDE program) as my IRC client, but I've only dabbled in the other ones briefly.

(Note: your first few KDE programs take awhile to install because they have to install a lot of kde libraries and the like.)

Opera--It's not in the package manager, but it's an easy install from <http://opera.com>, and it's faster and in some cases better than FF. For example, Firefox doesn't like being disconnected and won't let you get even to localhost when it's in "offline mode" without some tweaking.

Your favorite editor, obviously (both emacs and vim are in the package manager).

If you have a slower computer, I suggest looking into other windowing systems. Up until a month ago, my main computer was an ancient computer with 384MB of RAM and a 1.6GHz single-core processor. Awhile ago my productivity was being hurt so much that I looked into minimalist window managers. I chose icewm, but there are other good ones. It really did make a big difference.

<comment><USER14> I'd suggest looking at xmonad for the other windowing system. You never need to use your mouse again (though you can if you want to).

It's also written in Haskell, so it has enhanced coolness as well. No ubuntu package as far as I know, but it isn't hard to build from source.

<comment><USER11> Dwm and wmii are along the same lines, but written in C, in case you happen to be running an architecture whose GHC port is lagging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wouldn't install Amarok (avoid loading Qt in Gnome and vice versa). RhythmBox does not handle an iPod well if that matters for you, but Banshee does. Banshee relies on Mono.

Zim is a little-known note-taking tool that relies on text files and uses a Wiki format.

AbiWord and Gnumeric are good programs to have around when you don't want to start MS Office. Copy the .ttf and .otf font files from your Windows machine and install them in Linux if you want them available.

Inkscape is good to have around for drawing.

What else do you think you'll need?

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, how about any equivalent to the os x desktop widgets? I like having time, weather and a calendar right there.

<comment><USER12> I like gedit for this purpose, but I think its standard on ubuntu.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just got to it... Looks nice. Have yet to find one on OS X I really liked.

<comment><USER15> Well, the Mac equivalent is TextEdit. I use xPad to take notes, and it has a file drawer. Nice freeware app.

<comment><USER16> Mac equivalent to gedit would be TextMate, not TextEdit, which isn't a programmer's editor.

<comment><USER15> He was asking about NotePad equivalents. And to call GEdit comparable to TM is ridiculous. Emacs is a much better comparison.

<comment><USER16> Our parent seems to have edited his post to be abouit desktop widgets, so you may be right about him referring to notepad equivalents (or not).

But why do you think comparing GEdit to TM is ridiculous? Both have syntax highlighting, auto indentation, inbuilt terminals, tabs, and other programmer specific features. Neither are emacs style user environments with mail checkers and other unrelated stuff. Also GE and TM have far more discoverable configuration tweaking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone here use Guake? I have an addiction for Quake style dropdown console terminals. <http://guake-terminal.org/>

<comment><USER18> I use Yakuake, the KDE equivalent. I'm addicted too.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for this, just installed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, here's exactly what I install on a fresh Ubuntu desktop machine (it's my script, copy/pasted).

sudo apt-get install subversion git imagemagick oprofile ssh manpages-dev g++ gcc libtool autoconf automake emacs vim compizconfig-settings-manager valgrind inkscape

Might be something interesting in there for you with a little googling.

</comment><comment><USER21> Unison - <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/>

Tellico - my favorite book manager

VLC Movie Player

VMWare(take your pick)

XChat

HPLIP Fax Utility

Azureus

IDEs(KDevelop, Netbeans, DrScheme, Quanta, IDLE)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, I have not played with compiz, and I'm wondering if people have found it to be straightforward and easy to live with? It looks fun, but if it makes my life harder. Thoughts?

<comment><USER22> Eh. It's shiny and nice, but in the end, it's pretty useless. I lived with it for a month, then figured that it didn't do much good, and disabled it.

(I still enable it to show off to friends about how cool Linux is though, sometimes :D)

<comment><USER23> Same here. Thought it was pretty neat at first, but it doesn't do a good job of balancing functionality and bling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a nice list from a previous thread here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132082>

</comment><comment><USER25> Arch Linux :-D

As much as I like ubuntu, Arch linux just makes more sense to me. It doesn't do anything you don't want it to.

Seriously though, zsh is nice bash replacement. VLC is a great media player and Enlightenment is a nice GUI.

Actually, check out Etoile (etoileos.com) too; its a really nice GUI that's based off of OpenStep and its really pretty and usable.

</comment><comment><USER26> I prefer console apps:

1.) Music: moc (Music on Console)

2.) Irc: irssi

3.) Editing: vim

4.) Mail/News: mutt

</comment><comment><USER27> Pidgin - IM client

PHP, Apache, Postgresql, pgadmin III

SongBird - Media player

Eclipse - <USER3>

Xchat - IRC Client

VLC - Video player

RTorrent - Torrent downloader

Subversion - Version Control

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been using Thunderbird, and I hate it. I want a more functional UI and better search. Gmail is great, but I want my own local mail store. Any suggestions for a better mail client?

<comment><USER28> Have a look at Kmail (or Kontact which intergrates Kmail with Korganiser & KAddressbook). Evolution ain't too bad either, but seems to have gotten buggy (or buggier) in recent years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> i prefer xubuntu

installed: vim-full dwm mercurial lighttpd mplayer mpg123 xpdf ImageMagick qiv vifm (there's a vim-like photo manager, but i forget its name) wink vnc (server and client) ssh server gftp (the ftp cli sucks big time, unlike one in openbsd ... and no axyftp) opera swiftweasel java 6 jre (for ameritrade) adobe flash (for google analytics)

uninstall: basically games, default bloated software, useless hypocrate softwares that only play free format, etc

</comment><comment><USER30> Don't install things until you're ready to use them; otherwise, you'll find yourself spending too long browsing packages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah but I don't know what the good stuff is, and knowing is half the battle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> since nobody mentioned them before:

* workrave (similar to xwrits, but IMHO less annoying and better GUI support)

* swiftfox (has debian package, customized ff build for your CPU)

* worker (directory opus clone -- i don't use it that often, but it comes in handy from time to time)

</comment><comment><USER32> here's a post I wrote last month on what I do every time I install a new linux system. The same steps apply to any recent gnome distro. <http://mapleoin.bluepink.ro/perma/after-install-work>

</comment><comment><USER33> Exaile is my media player of choice.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'd install my depenguinator. :-)

</comment><comment><USER35> bubblemon - bubbling load monitor

</comment><comment><USER36> errr.. Wine? J/K =P

</comment><comment><USER37> emacs</comment>


Game developers must avoid the 'wage-slave' attitude - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/16/game-developers-must-avoid-the-wage-slave-attitude/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is an interesting article because it is _glorifying_ crunch time, which is a very unusual position.

To quote:

> Don't be in the game industry if you can't love all 80 hours/week of it — > you're taking a job from somebody who would really value it.</comment>


Senators propose lawful access to encrypted data - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidauthority.com/lawful-access-to-encrypted-data-1132922 <comment><USER2> US Senators are at the executive top-of-the-food chain in a complicated social game of "can / cannot" and "should / should not", so US Senators can propose things that are not in the interest of individuals, despite being individuals themselves. US Senators (mostly lawyers) decide that law is "good enough" to be used to control technical behavior.

A major, major problem with locks and technical solutions is, that they keep un-trained people out, trained people must jump through hoops, but the implementors have special insight and resources in how to break it. Therefore, the implementors get special powers that individuals do not have, trained or not trained. Once again, US Senators believe that the implementors are "good enough" to be useful, given that errors, omissions and yes, crime, will occur.

The end result is, from the point of view of the individual writing this, is that implementors have special powers over individuals moving forward. This may or may not be a bad deal. Historically, humans have victimized other humans at astounding rates, including incentiving others to do the same, sucessfully. So, do you an individual, or you a responsible organization leader, believe that these particular implementors will be special over time and not use this power to victimize others?

lastly, throw in the murkier sides of "legal" and "victimization" .. Famously, most everything done in 1930s Germany was legal, at each step, encapsulated in the derogatory term "little Eichmann"

edit- over time, technical solutions will break or be leaked, and then all the "should / should not" is irrevocably out of the equation.. this last part is often what is referred to by technical analysts.. the chain of responsibility becomes un-fixably broken "when" not "if"

<comment><USER3> > The end result is, from the point of view of the individual writing this, is > that implementors have special powers over individuals moving forward. This > may or may not be a bad deal. Historically, humans have victimized other > humans at astounding rates, including incentiving others to do the same, > sucessfully.

Giving some group "special powers over individuals" "may or may not be a bad deal"?

      If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men,
      neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
      In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great
      difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed;
      and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is,
      no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind
      the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

-James Madison, Federalist No. 51 [https://www.csus.edu/indiv/f/friedman/fa2019/govt1/schedule/...](https://www.csus.edu/indiv/f/friedman/fa2019/govt1/schedule/B/FED%2051.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Keys Under Doormats" should be required reading for anyone wanting exceptional access to encrypted data. [https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys- unde...](https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-under- doormats-CSAIL.pdf)

Even if you honestly wanted to implement this, the real elephant in the room is how to manage multiple jurisdictions. For example, the US government and its contractors routinely use off-the-shelf hardware and software. If China happens to confiscate one such device, would we want to live in a world where they too have exceptional access? If the implementation exists, you're kidding yourself if you think only the US can require it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Apparently US government never learns. As Schneier puts it, it will become a tool for criminal organizations in the end. I can't wait for this to become the norm and absolutely everybody would be able to spy on everybody. Then you'll have the equivalent of your nosy neighbor that sits on window, having nothing else to do all day, and just watches what happens on the street. Then you'll see how fast this law will go out of the window when the elected ones will see none of their secrets are secrets anymore.

<comment><USER6> I agree with the general point, but the "elected ones" will keep using crypto because laws don't typically apply to the wealthy and powerful.

<comment><USER7> How, would manufacturers make special edition phones or software especially for the wealthy and powerful? It can't be just a switch or people would either find a way to flip it to either close the backdoor on regular phones, or to open one on those "special" editions.

And what's stopping anyone from simply downloading or buying the "worldwide" version of software of devices which presumably have no known backdoors?

<comment><USER6> You don't have to make special edition phones. You just side load encryption apps, unless they're going to lockdown all on-device testing of software.

Also, they already make "special phones" for people in government:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectéra_Secure_Module](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectéra_Secure_Module)

<comment><USER7> You didn't address the point or at least your answer is parallel to your original comment. What would "the wealthy and powerful" do that I can't? What encryption will they have exclusive access to?

> the "elected ones" will keep using crypto because laws don't typically apply > to the wealthy and powerful.

Sectéra phones/modules never made it outside of mandated government use because encryption (and security in general) only works if it's there on both ends and people _want_ to use it. So pretty much the only option is with software on top of your smartphone of choice (like POTUS and the hardened Blackberry with encryption software on top). Already both presidents and presidential candidates alike repeatedly bypassed security measures in the interest of comfort and usability. In fewer words people want their iPhones (Samsungs? whatever) and they don't want to only talk to people who also have "the special phone", rather just a piece of software.

So I can't really see how "the wealthy and powerful" would have exclusive access to that encryption and make any meaningful use of it. Good encryption options are like backdoor keys: once they're out there sooner or later everyone will have access to them.

<comment><USER8> This is correct. An colleague of mine used to brag about his "black phone" to the point of obnoxiousness. After one of his "look what I have!" spiels, I asked him to initiate an encrypted call with me. He couldn't, of course, because I don't have the same phone. Then I asked him who he knows that does have one, and requires him to use more security with them than for every other call he made every day.

Ah, Nobody. Sylvia wrote a catchy song about her back in the early 80's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article's title is "New US Bill would require makers of encrypted devices to leave a backdoor" which reads much less like propaganda than the current HN headline of "Senators propose lawful access to encrypted data."

<comment><USER10> Does it? I'm not sure I see a material difference, but maybe it's because I know the context of US government snooping.

<comment><USER11> There's no material difference but a huge one in presentation, and also in detail: the second says _what_ , the first says _how_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY6m6fS8bxU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY6m6fS8bxU) about the "meshtastic" project is quite interesting. It allows communication via spread spectrum LORA, which seems pretty hard to intercept.

Ironically, to use it, you currently need to pair the device with a smart phone, but that's not essential.

Edit: [https://www.meshtastic.org/](https://www.meshtastic.org/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Will one of the moderators please change this title to its original "New US Bill would require makers of encrypted devices to leave a backdoor"? The current title ("Senators propose lawful access to encrypted data") is much less clear.

</comment><comment> mewse-hn Should read "Senators propose weak encryption"

</comment><comment><USER14> When this happens people still will be able to transmit encrypted end to end messages, just they will have to encrypt them themselves off platform. I wonder how quickly this is going to be illegal and when algorithms to conceal true message in a regular text that makes sense will be more widely available. We are getting closer to thoughtcrime being a thing

</comment><comment><USER15> If they can indict Assange for hacking conspiracy for a theoretical ability to crack a hash of a password with an unknown and possibly infeasible number of bits of entropy, the only lawful right the US government should have to encrypted data is the infeasible suggestion that cracking properly used secure cryptographic primitives is possible.

</comment><comment><USER16> The one thing I haven't seen mentioned here is one of the motes that stopped all this in the 90s, open source. And of course the only way to stop open source is to have devices that can't run whatever the user wants.

</comment><comment><USER17> So today is HN thinking "we trust the government to regulate tech" or "we don't trust government to regulate tech"?

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm conflicted.

On one hand, I don't believe citizens should have the ability to protect communications (or anything, really) from a lawful warrant. It is obvious that the right to privacy is not a right to perfect forward secrecy. If there is a tool that achieves this I'm not convinced it should be legal to use.

On the other hand I trip up over the whole "lawful warrant" thing because of the long history of abuse.

Someone smarter than me should tell me what to think.

<comment><USER19> > I don't believe citizens should have the ability to protect communications > (or anything, really) from a lawful warrant.

Supposing there was a method to read thoughts or memories without physical contact, would you allow police to do so as long as they had a warrant?

edit: typo

<comment><USER18> Interesting question. I think this would probably be protected against by the fifth amendment, would it not?

<comment> dane-pgp What if the communication were stored on a digital device, embedded in a person's skull, which they were able to interface their brain with?

That may sound like an unrealistic scenario, but there are already people with medical implants that record digital data, and there has been a case of using Fitbit data to help convict someone:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/us/fitbit-murder- arrest.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/us/fitbit-murder-arrest.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


JSON files should not be authored, use YAML instead - <AUTHOR> https://www.gae123.com/article/json-source-considered-harmful <comment><USER2> Copy that doesn't require JS:

[https://gist.github.com/jwilk/8b63759674e9413186c507bd30a0ad...](https://gist.github.com/jwilk/8b63759674e9413186c507bd30a0ad8d)</comment>


The Log File Navigator - <AUTHOR> http://lnav.org/ <comment><USER2> Just saw this recently: [http://blog.libinpan.com/2009/07/less-is-better-than- tail/](http://blog.libinpan.com/2009/07/less-is-better-than-tail/) \-- use _less +F_ instead of _tail -f_

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) They used OpenSUSE Build Service for RPMs YES. Why don't they also use the service for DEB?

2) I prefer ncurse to any gui ever. So much fast to use and read.

3) VIM bindings for the most part and the short cuts look very well thought out

4) Marking and copying gives the same feeling as Ranger File Manager which I use all the time and when forced to use Windows it is the first thing I always miss.

Great job and look forward to adding this to my common work flow with my Linux boxes.

<comment><USER4> There are Debian ([https://packages.debian.org/sid/admin/lnav](https://packages.debian.org/sid/admin/lnav)) and Ubuntu ([http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/admin/lnav](http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/admin/lnav)) packages available from other maintainers. I use the RPM at my day-job, so I use OBS for that. I've not spent time to setup OBS to build DEBs. I'll look into it, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like how u can't do anything except reload the page after clicking on the preview image. fade to black - deal with it.

<comment><USER6> You could always try pressing escape (as I did) (see above).

<comment><USER5> yeah landed on the admin page after hitting esc and was even more confused :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you only want it for the colors (or maybe you dislike installing software from source):

Check out "ccze".

</comment><comment><USER8> While not exactly the same as lnav, at Mobile Jazz we're building a remote logger for mobile devices (iOS only at this stage, support for Android, JS web apps and native desktop applications coming soon): [http://bugfender.com/](http://bugfender.com/)

We use Bugfender already for our own applications as well as for our clients, but we'd love to hear some unbiased feedback from other people whether or not this would be a useful product worth paying for. You can sign up here for a free beta account: [https://app.bugfender.com/signup](https://app.bugfender.com/signup)

</comment><comment><USER9> Strange, pressing the 'Escape'-key on that webpage sends me to [https://timothy-stack.squarespace.com/config](https://timothy- stack.squarespace.com/config)

<comment><USER10> That's basically the "Admin-Panel-Key" on all squarespace hosted webpages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A quick try on ubuntu 12.04 64bit failed to compile(latest 0.7.2 release):

lnav-0.7.2/src/static-libs/libncurses.a(lib_mouse.o): In function `_nc_mouse_event': (.text+0x61e): undefined reference to `Gpm_GetEvent' lnav-0.7.2/src/static-libs/libncurses.a(lib_mouse.o): In function `enable_gpm_mouse': (.text+0x78c): undefined reference to `Gpm_Close'

Then I did this to "fix" it: ./configure --disable-static

</comment><comment><USER12> GitHub [https://github.com/tstack/lnav](https://github.com/tstack/lnav)

</comment><comment><USER13> Been using multitail ([http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/](http://www.vanheusden.com/multitail/)) for a while now, this looks interesting. I'll put it on my radar.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am on MacOSX and interested but spoiled by debian.

How do I come by the dependencies mentioned: libpcre, sqlite, ncurses, readline,zlib, bz2? brew install doesn't know the formula if I brew install libpcre. Sorry for being a noob.

<comment><USER15> brew install lnav

lnav itself is already in the Homebrew repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love it! Been searchin for something like that for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks really good, can't quite tell if it can interleave lines from several sources if not this would be an excellent feature.

<comment><USER4> Yes, log messages from different files are interleaved based on their timestamps.

<comment><USER18> Any facility for piping, for example to route an adb logcat (live remote log tail from android) through it?

Of course, I could redirect the adb logcat output to a file and point this at that, but it'd be nice to have the sugar to not have to explicitly wrap the process.

<comment><USER4> You can pipe into lnav like you can with less/more:

      make |& lnav

The '-t' option will prepend timestamps to the lines that are coming in on stdin so that it will be treated as a log file. The '-w <file>' option will write the stdin data to a file if you want to look at it later:

      make |& lnav -t -w /tmp/make.out

Is that what you're asking about?

<comment><USER18> Sure is. Sounds great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thank you ! A good log terminal tool was really missing. Have some karme from me</comment>


An Andy Warhol Artwork Was Stolen and Never Seen Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-andy-warhol-artwork-was-stolen-and-never-seen-again <comment><USER2> What I find pretty amazing about this theft and the theft from the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston is that the pieces stolen can't be resold on the open market. Whomever is paying for these thefts, can only sell to discreet private buyers (who then can't display them openly without risking being caught). The economics of it are fascinating. A collector is paying someone to steal artwork, which then becomes an illiquid asset with significant legal liability. And the main benefit of these artworks is being able to display it to your guests, which now adds more legal liability when someone recognizes it. Who's behind these? Mob bosses? International millionaires? The 1% in the US?

<comment><USER3> Watched a documentary about stolen van Gogh. Turned out the person planned to use it in negotions with authorities if he got caught (for other crimes, he was involved in drugs).

In some countries you can negotiate a shorter sentence if you agree to cooperate. "Give me shorter sentence, I'll bring back the national treasure - put me to jail for life and you'll never see it".

<comment><USER4> If he had ended up dying without getting caught, we may have never seen that van Gogh again either.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Now Lets You Join the Fight Against Ebola - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/company/3105721/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmorati%2Ecom%2F2014%2F11%2F07%2Ffacebook-against-ebola%2F&urlhash=6rEU&actionToken=isFolloweeOfPoster%3Dfalse%26aggregationType%3Dnone%26actorType%3Dlinkedin%3Acompany%26feedPosition%3D2%26pageKey%3Dbiz_company_feed_mapper_public%26contextId%3DKJg3MMVtpBPQa2HgYysAAA%3D%3D%26verbType%3Dlinkedin%3Ashare%26isDigested%3Dfalse%26rowPosition%3D1%26objectType%3Dlinkedin%3Aarticle%26activityId%3Dactivity%3A5936498124859125760%26actorId%3Dcompany%3A3105721%26isPublic%3Dtrue%26model%3Dnull%26objectId%3Darticle%3A5681815750%26distanceFromViewer%3D-1%26isSponsored%3Dfalse%26moduleKey%3Dcompany_feed&trk=feed-article-title

<comment><USER2> Why did you post a redirect URL? It just goes to [http://gizmorati.com/2014/11/07/facebook-against- ebola/](http://gizmorati.com/2014/11/07/facebook-against-ebola/)</comment>


How to Optimize Apparel Manufacturing Business? - <AUTHOR> http://gbksoft.com/blog/safety-driving-app-development/?utm_source=news.ycombinator.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=post_link&utm_content=submit <comment><USER2> Andromedia is helping the fashion business with supply chain and infrastructure specific to that industry. They have done such a good job that FIDM partnered with them to include them into their curriculum. [https://latechnews.org/andromeda-connects-fashion- technology...](https://latechnews.org/andromeda-connects-fashion-technology/)</comment>


Three reasons to use IntenseDebate - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2008/05/three-reasons-t.html <comment><USER2> I took a look at this and then went to IntenseDebate's home page. The first thing I saw was a glowing testimonial by Brad Feld ("frighteningly good"). That got me curious. A little googling confirms that IntenseDebate is a TechStars company (which the OP implied anyway).

Does that strike anyone else as dodgy?

Edit: maybe I should be more clear. What struck me as dodgy is that Feld is an investor with an interest in praising the product, but this was not disclosed. Even his company affiliation was listed as something other than TechStars.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, the Disqus guys are proud of being used by Fred Wilson, and I believe Wilson is an investor in Disqus.

But, I do find it amusing that there is a little Indochinese style war going on here between TechStars and YC, with proxies in the form of Intense Debate and Disqus. I dunno how far the analogy goes, but I suspect that whichever one plays most effectively by guerilla rules will be the winner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have had some issues with IntenseDebate. They use a script which causes IE to slow down. IE detects it and asks if I want to continue running the script. Has anyone else seen this with Disqus or IntenseDebate?

Another issue is that IntenseDebate loads (script) AFTER TypePad has already displayed its comment system. My blog is hosted on TypePad. After a few seconds IntenseDebate loads and replaces the TypePad comment box. Has anyone else seen that?

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER3> Have either/both of these solved the Googlejuice problem? e.g. searches find your comments and the click leads the searcher to a site other than your blog. This is one of our hesitations in going this route, even though Disqus is really awesome to use.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do any of these schemes allow me to federate comments with other blogs? I'd like to be sharing comment feeds with the other blogs in my space.

</comment><comment><USER6> Fred Wilson FTW.</comment>


Coinbase raises $300M Series E round - <AUTHOR> https://blog.coinbase.com/coinbase-raises-series-e-round-of-financing-to-accelerate-the-adoption-of-cryptocurrencies-1ad927463814 <comment><USER2> I would _LOVE_ to see the pitch deck they used for this. Is the goal to just sop up transaction fees across * crypto?

I'm on the "normie" edge of crypto but I haven't seen anything particularly exciting come out of the space into the mainstream for a while. Some sites support paying with Crpyto but most "3rd wave crypto" people I know are HODL- ers and hoping that they made the investment of their lives.</comment>


The trillion-dollar taboo: why it's time to stop ignoring mental health at work - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/1e8293f4-a1db-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1 <comment><AUTHOR> [http://archive.is/OQSTS](http://archive.is/OQSTS)</comment>


On Startups, Platforms, and Innovation - <AUTHOR> https://a16z.com/2019/03/11/startups-platforms-policy-ftc/ <comment><USER2> While everything he says is true, he doesn't really answer the question of whether users and startups are better off when platforms purchase other competitive platforms. In other words, should Facebook have been allowed to buy Instagram and WhatsApp? Are we better off because of that?

I agree that the presence of these platforms is great. I also believe in the benefit of M&A in general. But allowing platforms to consolidate by buying their direct competitors is a bit of a different matter.</comment>