Lessons Learned from "On Writing Well" - <AUTHOR> https://www.robinwieruch.de/lessons-learned-on-writing-well/ <comment><USER2> I've read "On Writing Well". I then discovered "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams. "Style" is better than "On Writing Well". "On Writing Well" opened my eyes to what bad writing is, while "Style" explained how to write clearly. He took an impossible topic - writing clearly, showing you the elements of clear, consistent and impactful writing, distilling down into actionable lessons. The advice is not vague like "Use the active voice", "Don't start sentences with And"; he shows you why with examples. Even the passive voice is more suitable in certain cases. After reading the book, it changed the way I read and write. Very few books change the way you think. "Style" is one of them.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. "Style" is a great book--short and practical.

<comment><USER4> Why is it so expensive?!

<comment><USER5> Look at the used previous editions...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from _Walden_ as his exemplar of "uncluttered English":

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Dense, incredibly difficult to parse, with a non-standard use of "front" as a verb and what seems to be a triple-negative. If I said that sentence to you, out loud, I doubt you would catch the meaning of it on the first pass. The book is filled with stuff like that.

That said, I really do want to get better at non-fiction writing, specifically technical writing, but I haven't found any good recommendations for "canonical" books on technical writing. If anyone can suggest a decent, pragmatic (as opposed to Strunk-and-White style prescriptivism) introduction to technical writing specifically, I'd appreciate it.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure you've seen it before, but The Economist's style guide is my usual resource: [http://www.economist.com/styleguide/introduction](http://www.economist.com/styleguide/introduction)

<comment><USER6> This might not be so bad as a general guide to writing things like blog posts or whatever, but I'm specifically looking to get better at _technical writing_ \- e.g. writing software documentation. For example, the prohibition there on "jargon" words would probably come into conflict with the kind of precision you need in technical writing; I would expect the advice on something like that to be like, "where terms of art are required for the sake of precision, always make sure a definition is available, and link to it in hypertext formats" or "do not overload jargon words".

Don't get me wrong, it's not like there's no overlap, but I'm looking for the equivalent of "Clean Code" for technical writing.

<comment><USER8> But the rule is to avoid jargon if there's a better everyday equivalent, not to avoid jargon at all costs. There's no contradiction.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I didn't intend that there was a contradiction, just that "jargon" and technical words _are_ actually used more in technical writing than in other kinds of writing, and it can be tricky to understand where the line is, how to introduce these terms such that the reader is not confused by the unusual term (or by a common word used in an unusual way, like how in programming contexts the word "string" refers to a sequence of characters).

Anyway, it's not that none of these principles apply, it's just that there are almost certainly many tweaks here and there and additional tips for people writing technical documentation - for example, almost no one sits down and reads the documentation for a library from "front to back", it is usually used in segments, which has implications about what you can expect your reader to know, and about how important navigation and organization of the document are.

These are just some things that _I 've noticed_ as a consumer and producer of documentation, and I don't know that I even have good answers to most of them.

(I hate to make it seem like I'm arguing the point that these more general writing guides are not good, I just want to clarify the kind of thing I'm looking to improve, for myself.)

<comment><USER8> No problem. I really enjoy MSDN documentation so I think imitating good guides or tutorials is a good starting point.

As an aside I like the article _How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly_ [0] that was posted here a couple months back as well.

[0] www.downes.ca/post/38526

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amazing book.

Out of the 250+ books I have notes on, this is in my top 10.

Here are some excerpts from it:

[https://sivers.org/book/OnWritingWell](https://sivers.org/book/OnWritingWell)

</comment><comment><USER10> _" I am eager to improve my language and writing skills."_

Fowler and Birchfield. "Kings English" (1906), "A Dictionary of Modern English" (1926) and "The English Language" (1985) make humorous reading. For example:

\- Familiar words over the far fetched.

\- Preference for concrete words.

\- Prefer the single, short word.

\- Preference to the Saxon over the romance word.

English has many roots and riddled with confusing syntax and rules. Well written English, shines when read. If you read pg essays you see these examples in action. [0] The Economist style guide mirrors F&B, pg. For instance, _" Use the language of everyday speech"_.

[0] PH Wodehouse ~ [http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html)

 _" Writing briefly"_ ~ [http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html](http://paulgraham.com/writing44.html)

 _" Write like you speak"_ ~ [http://paulgraham.com/talk.html](http://paulgraham.com/talk.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is my favourite book about writing. It's not only filled with insight but itself serves as a perfect example of what the author is recommending you do.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, the examples in the book are almost unnecessary next to its own text. You can tell how much work Zinsser put into every phrase.

</comment></comment><comment> open-source-ux The Plain English campaign in the UK has some free guides on writing clear and easy-to-read English. Well worth a read whether you are a native speaker or not.

 _" So what is plain English? It is a message, written with the reader in mind and with the right tone of voice, that is clear and concise."_:

[http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free- guides.html](http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/free-guides.html)

<comment><USER13> Cool! The U.S. has an informal group for federal employees: [http://www.plainlanguage.gov/](http://www.plainlanguage.gov/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I recommend Steven Pinker's "the Sense of Style". He talks about some cognitive science behind why some sentences are easier to parse than others.

He also makes a distinction between "classic style" and other styles like "self-conscious style" and technical jargon.

The concept of "classic style" is worth it alone. It's kind of an obvious idea but once you know it, you will look at things you read a different way. It doesn't apply 100% of the time, but it almost certainly does in technical or business communication.

</comment><comment><USER15> The ability to do anything well co-evolves with finding good reasons to do it. In the case of writing it would be having things you strongly desire to write about.

</comment><comment><USER16> For the lazy, here are my tips:

1) Use what you learned in high school: write in paragraphs with a topic sentence and supporting sentences.

2) After you write a sentence, read it out loud (or pronounce it in your mind) to make sure it flows easily.

4) When people reply to your comments on Hacker News (or Slashdot), try to figure out if they understood what you wrote. If they didn't, next time try to think of a way to be more clear. Over time, you will improve: probably quickly.

<comment><USER17> > read it out loud (or pronounce it in your mind)

If you pronounce it in your mind, you'll pronounce what you thought you wrote, not what you actually wrote. Your memory of your writing will distract from your vision.

The simplest, best, most actionable advice I know to improve writing is: "Edit". The second is "Read it out loud".

<comment><USER16> _If you pronounce it in your mind, you 'll pronounce what you thought you wrote, not what you actually wrote_

With a little practice, that won't be a problem. If you find it is still a problem, then the solution you gave of reading it out loud is fine, too.

<comment><USER17> > With a little practice, that won't be a problem.

I've written quite a bit of prose over the past decade or so. I still find a lot of things in the third draft (read out loud) that I didn't notice in the first two.

<comment><USER16> ok, keep it up then :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Imagine you start to write about a topic. Start to think small. "Decide on > the corner of the subject you want to bite off." Cover that corner well, be > satisfied by that and stop. Make it a complete experience for your reader. > Don't nibble on another corner of the subject and leave the reader with an > incomplete reading experience.

Huh? Shouldn't you provide a birds-eye view of the topic first? Answer questions such as: why should the reader be interested in the topic in the first place, and quickly scan over the relevant issues, make it clear what issue you are going to discuss next, and why.

<comment><USER19> "make it clear what issue you are going to discuss next"

Please don't. Just get on with it. I routinely skip over anything that does this. Sometimes I have to flip through an entire opening chapter or introduction of a book to get past it.

At least I _can_ skip over it in the written word. When someone is delivering a presentation in the format of "tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them", it's excruciating.

<comment><USER18> > "make it clear what issue you are going to discuss next"

> Please don't.

I would agree with you, but you removed "and why" from my sentence, which makes a big difference.

Consider a text about computing. Assume the first chapter discusses the binary number system. If not properly explained why this system is useful in computing, the reader would have a hard time understanding why they are reading about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I was first working as an author with O'Reilly Publishing (animal books) ~10 years ago they included a copy of "On Writing Well" in the new author welcome kit. I don't know if they still do.

</comment><comment><USER21> One trick that has been very helpful when editing my books is to use the Mac OS text-to-speech functionality. I find I can catch a lot of typos this way, and rereading multiple times allows me to improve the clarity. Highly recommended!

Here is how to setup a shortcut key: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem8qpMmnaBFYOgV32gdMc/edit?usp=sharing) (Mac OS X only)

</comment><comment><USER22> Plug: if want to write crisper, try my game, Worrd Warrior.

It's an online game gets you away from the stuffy platitudes of books and pits you against other writers to see who can get the message across best.

[http://worrdwarrior.com](http://worrdwarrior.com)

I haven't updated it in a little bit, but I'm preparing an update that will position it for competitions in local schools & companies, kind of like a spelling bee but actually useful.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just go read the Zissner book. It's worth your time.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's an amusing number of simple grammatical mistakes in this article.. ("english", "It is unnecessary words that don't add meaning but complex sentence constructions.", "Write about "grass" except _when_ (my insert) it has another color than green", "Avoid semicolons except _when_ (my insert) you want the reader to make a pause", ...)

<comment><USER25> In all but one of those examples you're calling out technical errors that don't have much impact on communication.

It seems most HN threads about writing advice have a post nit-picking the article for grammar. I don't see how this is interesting if you don't want to actually make the case that it hurts the author's credibility. Do you?

<comment><USER26> I found it somewhat amusing, and whilst it did not have a significant effect on my understanding of the article it did break 'the flow' and made the piece much less compelling.

Does this hurt the authors credibility? Yes.

The piece is a summarisation of a book literally called "On Writing Well" yet the text itself shows the author has not fully digested the information they are regurgitating. This is ironic.

That said, it is very well written for a non-native speaker. I would feel much more comfortable having this author communicate on my behalf than many native English speakers that I am close to. With some practice (probably including spoken word and works of fiction) there is no reason they could not exceed the skills of the majority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was recommended Zinsser from a writer whose own writing is very wordy.

Personally, I prefer Strunk and White and the AP Style Guide.

But I was looking for good guides for technical documentation, web copy, and B2B high tech marketing material (case studies, data sheets, etc.).

Not how to write a non-fiction book.</comment>


Fixing the UX of hyperlinks - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@nashvail/fixing-the-ux-of-hyperlinks-7cb4e5a3fe17 <comment><USER2> The problem description makes not clear to me why this is a problem. It describes an existing solution, and there is an easier one: middle mouse button click for new tab, normal mouse button for intab load. It is always a horror when some websites try to be smart and fuck that up (looking at you, kimono – you are great but this part of your UI is not).

Is there something special about those specific links as well that makes the existing solution not work? If not, I doubt that indicators would help much – the specific control we have already is better than the time-consuming task of interpreting those.

<comment><USER3> True, but it doesn't work for the author because he's using a one button mac.

<comment><USER4> I use BetterTouchTool, a program similar to AutoHotKey for Mac, to remap three-finger-tap to middle-click in Safari and Chrome in order to allow this.

<comment><USER5> Or middleclick ([https://github.com/cl3m/MiddleClick](https://github.com/cl3m/MiddleClick))

<comment><USER6> BetterTouchTool is way more versatile and has tons of functionality. BetterTouch is to vim as Middleclick is to Notepad, or perhaps cat.

<comment><USER7> Meh, the only thing I need is three finger tap to emulate middle click, better touch tool seems like an overkill for that sole purpose.

<comment><USER6> I started using it for only one touch gesture to start with, too, until I realized I could control almost any navigation with swipes and taps. Swipe left and right to switch browser tabs, make a circle "refresh" motion to refresh the page, 3-finger swipe down to close a tab...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You don't need a new UI: just disallow the ability of a site to open a link in a new window or tab, and leave that ability in the hands of the user, where it always belonged.

</comment><comment><USER9> How about people stop changing what links do, and let the user decide by via right click or ctrl+click/cmd+click?

<comment><USER10> Yep. "target=_blank" is one of those things that, like pop-ups and BLINK, seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved too easy to abuse. If I want to make your site more "sticky," I'll open links in new tabs by myself. This should probably be blocked by default in most browsers.

<comment><USER11> I don't think <blink> every seemed like a good idea[0]. It was an undocumented easter egg that was created so that Lynx could have some of the advanced text formatting that was coming with the new graphical browsers.

[0] [http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag](http://www.montulli.org/theoriginofthe%3Cblink%3Etag)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link -- great story! If only more web nuisances could be killed off so easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a great idea, but where's the solution to those web pages that put links in javascript that do stuff like window.open("url") that forces a new window, or do_postback("url"), that prevents you choosing to open it in a new tab? They can go die in a fire.

<comment><USER8> > where's the solution to those web pages that put links in javascript that do > stuff like window.open("url") that forces a new window, or > do_postback("url")

I think a solution of hydrofluoric acid would be appropriate for them…

<comment> semi-extrinsic Have you read the manual on treating hydrofluoric acid burns? Recommended if you want to completely lose your appetite, especially the fingernails part.

[https://www.honeywell-hfacid.com/document/hf-medical- book/?d...](https://www.honeywell-hfacid.com/document/hf-medical- book/?download=1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What bothers me so greatly are these new web "apps" that are trying to behave like a desktop app and have no ability to right click and open in new tab. I can think of no use case where one shouldn't be allowed to do this. I have to use some tools that are like this and even duplicTe tab causes me to navigate thru 5 pages to get back where I was

<comment><USER14> Yup. The web is fundamentally about links. If application state is not driven through hyperlinks, it doesn't belong on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I rarely ever want to open something in a new window. I do however like opening pages in new tabs so that I can finish doing what I'm doing on the current page.

I'm a Mac user. If I want to absolutely open a new tab when clicking on a hyperlink, I just hold down the command key and click on the link and ta-da it opens in a new tab (there's an equivalent for this in windows). If I want to open in a new window I just hold command + shift and click on the link.

</comment><comment><USER16> Almost as annoying as pages filled with static content that don't follow the HTML design principles and fail to render properly with JS blocked.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone really open links with left-click if they still need the current page?

I always middle-click.

It bothers me more that most web-sites don't indicate in- and outbound links.

Often I get a bunch of links on news pages, which just let me hop around on their system, while the link text indicates that I get to a source of information.

</comment><comment><USER18> We considered indicating this in Chrome, but the problem was reliability - because JS can execute when you click, we actually can't tell you what will happen next, and we don't like showing unreliable UI (extensions, however, are great for this sort of thing).

</comment><comment><USER19> Personally, I use add-ons to force every link to open in a new tab. Because when I click a link, it is more like reference/supplement reading, but I have not finished to consume the original page.

</comment><comment><USER20> If a link is simply to reference material (wikipedia blue links / blogs that reference earlier posts / etc), then I'd ideally like the new page to open in a new column and either occlude or squish my content to the side. I don't want to save those for later or leave what I'm doing; I want the contents of both, now.

<comment><USER21> Right-click Open in new window would come close to the effect that you're after, without installing an addon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was just thinking about this problem today: lack of information as to whether a link is an external link (different site), an internal link (same site) or anchor link (same page).

I cmd+click everything and inevitably have four or five tabs of the same page. It's probably the most minor of inconveniences but the serendipity compelled me to comment.

</comment><comment><USER23> It'd be near if instead, these symbols were shown (but not interacted with), depending on your hover state on the link. So if you hover with control pressed, the "new tab" icon would be displayed. Normal hover would display the "current window" icon.

</comment><comment><USER24> Safari does this already. It shows "Open <URL> in a new tab" in the status bar when clicking will open in a new tab, and same for windows. This text also changes in response to modifier keys.

I'm surprised that Chrome doesn't do this!

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anybody who keeps up with browser extensions know if there's a way to disable any kind of ad-hoc link handling on Firefox? When I tab-click I'd like to get a new window, always:)

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't think this is really a problem, but I upvoted because I like the thought experiment. I love the icons. I would not want them in my browser.

</comment><comment><USER27> Or, you just always use target="_blank". Problem solved. Almost never do I want to load a real hyperlink in the same tab.

<comment><USER28> Then the user can never click to open the link in the same tab, they have to copy the link-> open a new tab -> go to the URL.

The UX problem seems to be browser-side and is there only by convention. The _default_ should be "new tab" and "same tab" should be "hold control". This should be a user-toggled option. It makes `_blank` unnecessary and gives all control back to the user.

The next step is an issue with users: most people I meet who aren't tech-savvy don't know how to open things into new tabs. Which is why `_blank` is used so liberally.

It seems to me the defaults are wrong. More often than not, I want a new tab. But there are still times I don't want a new tab.

I don't know of anyone who wants "new window" but I assume they must exist somewhere. Probably in hell, where they belong. /tongue in cheek

<comment><USER27> True, as soon as I wrote that I thought of the few counter-cases. But they are all genuine navigation cases: clicking a link in Google search results, clicking an actual nav link, etc. Most of the time, I don't want to actually navigate, I want to open the referenced material like it is a foot/end note.

Far too often, I accidentally forget to ctrl-click on a link, and lose my place in the original document. Especially for something like HN, which tends to be long, and somewhat dynamic, so that items can reorder themselves or have new items added into the DOM when reloaded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like a good candidate for a browser extension.</comment>


Ask HN: Which Kubernetes Distribution are you using? - <AUTHOR> With the recent CoreOS EOL we are looking for another K8s distribution which has immutable OS. Main reason for immutable OS is that you have a golden image and you can make sure nobody can install software after it is up and running. This saves a lot of time as you are sure all the installations work the same and there are no surprises.
Currently there are several options like Fedora CoreOS, FlatCar Linux, Clear Linux OS etc.
Would like to know from HN, what is your experience and which K8s distribution are you using in production? <comment><USER2> None, I am still relying on docker compose.

</comment><comment><USER3> GKE, a dozen or so</comment>


Tell HN: Ignored after submitting Invision billing info leak to Bugcrowd - <AUTHOR> As the title says, I submitted  a "bug" in Invision to BugCrowd that I thought was pretty important to fix. It "leaked" part of the user's billing info along with a bunch of other data on nearly every page you visited. So, if someone is/was sniffing your traffic, they can get your payment method info in plain english.
Long story short, after submitting, we went back and forth and BugCrowd refused to acknowledge that this was an actual vulnerability and did not pay out, despite me not even submitting the bug in hopes for a payout. I just wanted Invision's users to be safer online while using their service.
How do we - as a technology community, or even furthermore, developer community - deal with situations like this?
Note: I am disclosing this publicly as it has now nearly been one year since my original submission, and the bug remains. <comment><USER2> It sounds like they're knowingly in violation of GDPR etc report them to the data commissioner?</comment>


Android creator Andy Rubin is accused of running a 'sex ring' - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/andy-rubin-complaint-documents-sex-ring-2019-7 <comment><USER2> This is not only just smear journalism, it's also not even particularly scandalous, and dubiously sourced.

At worst it sounds like consenting adults doing consensual stuff... So who cares.

<comment><USER3> 1) This isn't news -- it's been widely reported in the past.

2) While the headline is clickbait, the article is mostly talking about his bullshit treatment of his wife:

* Running a sex ring between consenting adults: whatever. Doing so behind your wife's back and keeping it secret from her? That's cheating, and the financial impact of that (it significantly reduces your likelihood of coming out on top in divorce proceedings, with or without a prenup)

* Having one of your former lawyers "represent" your wife's interest in crafting a prenup? You can't say "she should have known better" or some such: the reason we hire lawyers is because they understand the law, and so we defer to them. Both the lawyer and Rubin obviously knew about this prior relationship and hid that knowledge from her. The is likely going to completely nullify any terms of the prenup, which means the financial cost is likely even higher (50/50 split people think of is in the case of no-fault divorces). Per a bunch of family lawyers on twitter (I know, I know), it sounds like that lawyer may also be somewhat screwed. Anyway, more financial impact on one of the "major" players in mobile.

* He redirected his google paychecks to a personal account when he "resigned" (you know, when he was given $90 million for harassing multiple coworkers; They were forced out of the company without $90 million for some reason). This was before they started the divorce, I'm sure the implication is that given he was "fired" his wife could reasonably have interpreted the paychecks stopping as being a product of that, rather than hiding funds. Again, this hurts him in any divorce proceedings.

As for dubious sources: Seriously? It's legal paperwork, and lawyers don't get to lie on such paperwork. The sex ring nonsense has been well known for at least a few years (it came out around the same time we learned he'd been paid for harassing coworkers), and I assume led to the divorce we're now witnessing.

Ignoring everything else: It's a skeezy harasser and HN's continual defense of him remains bizarre to me.</comment></comment>


Scaler Academy Review: How I Landed an Offer from Walmart by Mohini Bansal - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5exmMQB_PjI <comment><AUTHOR> Scaler Mohini Bansal shares her journey of how she managed to pursue her dream despite the unfavorable conditions. She also talks about her experience as a mentee at Scaler Academy, her preparation secrets, tips and tricks that she learned along the way.</comment>


Why we chose Git, a rebuttal - <AUTHOR> http://www.unethicalblogger.com/posts/2008/11/why_we_chose_git_a_rebuttal <comment><USER2> I'm not sure emphasizing how much easier branching is in Git is a good idea. Git already has a "herding cats" kind of reputation.

Programmers like branching because it lets them be less conservative in their planning. Project managers hate branching for exactly the same reason; only one branch is going to be the actual product and the other branches are wasted effort.

<comment><USER3> I don't agree with you that branches are unimportant, but I do agree that the emphasis on branching was a bit of a red herring.

Apparently a lot of Git users haven't heard, but you can branch in Subversion, too. That's why "svn merge" exists -- it's a core feature! Yes, you have to remember the branch point and change directories to do it (and I grant that this is slightly annoying), but in my experience, the results are equivalent. You still have to resolve conflicts at about the same rate as with any other revision-control system. And the annoyance that Git saves you (by remembering the branch point and saving a 'cd'), is _more_ than offset by the extra complexity of multiple masters, obtuse commands, non-local branches, and the oddball, multi-stage commit process.

To me, the extra complexity of Git is only justified when you're working on a project that has multiple, far-flung contributors who frequently work offline. Otherwise, to extend the author's metaphor, using Git is a lot like having a good set of work pants -- but wet, with sand in the crotch.

<comment><USER4> The amount of FUD you've expelled about Git the last few days is suggesting to me that you got burned by it at some point. That sucks, but some of the stuff you've been saying is just flat-out wrong.

If you're getting as many merge conflicts with Git and as you were in Subversion then something is seriously broken with your team's development strategy. Git is built with a much better merge algorithm, such that conflicts should happen less often. Git was built to merge hundreds of lines of kernel code every day, and if it didn't do that quickly and accurately, there would have been no point to the project.

The extra complexity you speak of is negated by the fact that you don't have to use the "confusing" features if you don't want to! This is the number one thing that upsets me when people give Git a hard time.

99% of the time I come across someone that says Git sucks is because they ran a command like 'git-filter-branch' when they were trying to do something clever and it wiped out their data.

I don't Git should have to apologize for giving more power to developers as long as they're comfortable using it.

<comment><USER3> Oh, please...a guy expresses a critical opinion of your favorite version system, and he's automatically irrational and wrong? Are we debating religion or technology?

I've taken the time to _explain_ my opinions, and they're fairly well- informed: I use Git daily, for real work, and I used Subversion for many years. Moreover, my opinion is fairly measured: I can see the value of Git -- just not for most types of non-distributed development. My direct experience with the system trumps whatever theories you have about the quality of the approach.

Maybe my experience is due to the way that I use version control; maybe I'm just not a "power" user. I don't know. All I really know is that if you can't a handle a civil discussion of a _version control system_ without resorting to emotional retorts, then you're WAY too invested in the debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, GIT fanboys are almost as smug and condescending as Apple fanboys. I wish I could un-read this post.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds exactly like how I would answer the same question. Very rational.</comment>


Giant Molecules Exist in Two Places at Once in Unprecedented Quantum Experiment - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-molecules-exist-in-two-places-at-once-in-unprecedented-quantum-experiment/ <comment><USER2> Cool experiment, De Broglie got it right back in 1924, all matter is wavelike with wavelength = h/p</comment>


The 7 words that could improve Copyright - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/fixing-fair-use-with-seven-little-words.ars

<comment><USER2> I like the idea, always provided that "personal and noncommercial use" is interpreted as "transfer to iPod, reading to one's children, burning CDs for personal use, writing fan fiction, etc." and not as "Napster." We have the problem that our popular culture is all under copyright, and this would do a lot to resolve that -- not impeding the profits of the creators of the works in question, but simultaneously not dampening cultural expression or exposure to the culture.

This sounds particularly appealing as an aspiring content creator: finally a legal standard that neither requires pursuing creators of fan fiction, fan mods, and so on, nor creates a risk of accidentally losing copyright over one's own works!

@anigbrowl: I agree that there's a potential issue with sufficiently negative use of material under the expanded fair use rules; but then again, philosophies, governments and religions aren't given legal protection from rotten eggs. A creative work, too (even the architecture of a mall), becomes part of the culture; other members of the culture have the right to react negatively as well as positively to it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting, but as a content creator I can't help feeling it alludes to cases but fails to set any standards for how to handle them.

For example, just now I'm thinking about the costs of getting a release to shoot video in a private location (a shopping center). It would make my film look more interesting but hurt its budget. If I shoot by stealth (not so hard with modern cameras) they would have a copyright complaint against the film and could sue for damages. The copyright claim subsists in the interior architecture, configuration and decoration of the building.

But what if I release my film for free, just to say 'hey look at my film (and consider investing in the next one)'. The analogy would be using an allegedly proprietary algorithm in a piece of open-source code, I suppose. There's an indirect commercial gain on my part (if it proves popular), but should the IP owner have a claim on a free work?

The proposal does include a threshold of whether such a violation does harm to a business, or is likely to. Unfortunately, that puts the defendant in such a case in the position of having to prove a negative, ie that the complainant's allegations of likely harm are unreasonable. If my shopping center scene involved a successful pickpocket, they would have a good claim, but suppose they just complain that I made it look drab or old-fashioned?

<comment><USER4> The fact that we've gotten so far into this ridiculousness that the interior of a building that is open to the public is somehow considered "protected by copyright" is preposterous. This is not at all what the founders had in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are the seven words? Today I am lazy.

<comment><USER6> "incidental uses, non-consumptive uses, and personal, non-commercial uses."

<comment><USER7> i got better 7 words - humanity can work well with no copyrights

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure where the right balance lies, but here are another seven words:

Copyright must reform, or face irrelevance. Soon.

We've got a generation of people who are actively contemptuous of copyright law, and backed up with capable technology. If the system doesn't become more reasonable, people will turn more and more to straight-up piracy instead of trying to obey the law.

<comment><USER7> <http://questioncopyright.org/promise> probably a tl;dr candidate, but has a lot of good points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could the objections about personal, non-commercial use not be overcome by adding (or replacing "personal" with) a qualifier such as "private" or "without redistribution"? Surely the point is that if someone has legally obtained a legitimate copy of a work, it is reasonable for them to enjoy it as they see fit in private, without being under any obligation to pay for it repeatedly rather than format shift, back-up etc? Redistribution to others is obviously contrary to the basic principle of copyright, and shouldn't be covered, but for once this is a black-and-white issue and could be easily and unambiguously coded into the law.

<comment><USER10> It's not obvious that redistribution is against copyright, e.g. see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine>

It seems to me (from First Sale Doctrine) that copyright protects against increasing the number of copies, not passing copies around.

Prior to easy copying, these would have been the same thing (copying a book being difficult), but it's worth thinking about the distinction for digital media.

<comment><USER9> Fair point, the word "redistribution" probably isn't the right one. As you say, it is the generation of additional copies that pass to others that is against the spirit of copyright, not merely transferring the original copy in its entirety.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but while it's easy to see that, _in spirit_ emailing an mp3 to a friend (and deleting mine)is "giving my copy", note that it looks a lot like "making a new copy".

That's why I think the distinction is quite important for digital media - giving your copy looks very similar to making a new one.

<comment><USER9> Again, a fair point, but I think we have to keep in mind that no law like this will succeed through enforcement alone, simply because the resources to do so robustly and with due process would be too great.

Rather, I think we should try to do what we did with drink driving here in the UK a few years ago: raise public awareness with simple, logical, objective arguments, so that behaviour that crosses the line becomes socially unacceptable and most people stop doing it voluntarily. Then you can leave alone those who are acting reasonably but not crossing the line, overlook the occasional mild infringement because you can't go after everyone, but throw the book at the minority who repeatedly go well over the line.

I think if you set out a system where the kind of personal, non-multiplicative use we have been discussing was clearly allowed, but making additional copies and sharing them with others was not, then that would be understood by and socially acceptable to the majority. For best results, throw in some long- overdue price-fixing penalties for certain Big Media organisations, because another major reason people feel entitled to copy anything they want is because they think they've been ripped off for years, but they don't notice that not everyone whose material they're copying was part of the big rip-off scams. I think for the general public to accept a reasonable degree of copyright as fair, you probably have to show that Big Media are also paying the price for systematically over-charging people for things like CDs for years.

I can't remember the details now, but there was an interesting survey into public attitudes not so long ago, IIRC by one of the consumer groups here in the UK. It did show a very sharp distinction between people who thought it should be legal to do whatever you wanted with stuff you'd paid for properly (almost everyone) and people who thought it should be legal to copy the material and offer it to unknown other people who hadn't paid for it via P2P networks (only 20-something percent). The same survey showed that in general, people weren't (or at least weren't admitting to) sharing material as widely as the anti-copyright brigade were claiming, but certain niches (typically students and children) had a very high proportion of infringers. The most common reason given by those people was that although they knew it was wrong, they thought they'd get away with it anyway.

The reason I describe all of that is that I think it makes the problem you mentioned a moot point. If there is general acceptance that multiple-copying and redistribution isn't allowed, then you can probably ignore the kind of one-off transfer you mentioned, because it will either be legal or an infringement of little consequence anyway. It's much more important to cut down the exponential distribution of illegal copies where each new recipient shares with many more, and it's fairly easy to identify likely cases because the chances of someone legitimately e-mail that MP3 to 15 different people on the same day are slim.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In Charts: China's Reliance on US Technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-trade-war-us-china-technology/ <comment><USER2> regarding procrssor design, as well as operating systems, couldn't china simply switch to open source ? (risc-v and linux or android without google services)

It never seemed to me that this ban was a great threat to a country that always had the desire to be autonomous and grow local alternatives to whatever the US is building. It looks more like the confirmation that their strategy was the correct one...

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article, the dependence on Android with a Google services seems to be something that is expected by consumers outside of China. Without those, the appeal for its otherwise great hardware may be diminishing.

On processors, RISC-V certainly had the potential to change the game. Not just for China but also for the established players. But even then, designing and producing (at high yields) are not the same. China still has a lot to learn here.</comment></comment>


Faster dart2js and new HTML editor in latest Dart SDK - <AUTHOR> http://news.dartlang.org/2013_10_01_archive.html

<comment><USER2> This was a long time ago at October 2, 2013.</comment>


Control and monitor React Native apps from the comfort of your console - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/skellock/reactotron <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN".

Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Tuning JVM for a VM - Lessons Learned, Directly from VMware - <AUTHOR> http://marakana.com/s/tuning_jvm_for_a_vm_lessons_learned_directly_from_vmware_video,1138/index.html <comment><USER2> Efficiently using memory when you have three levels (Hypervisor->OS->JVM) that are largely opaque to each other is an real challenge. Doing ballooning at the JVM level [0] instead of the OS level makes sense for VMs primarily running Java applications. VMware often seems to be the first to get a new technology out, but their competition quickly follows (e.g. KSM for transparent page sharing and compcache for memory compression). I wonder if Oracle or Red Hat are working on their own JVM ballooning implementation.

[0] [http://pubs.vmware.com/vfabric5/topic/.../vfabric-tc- server-...](http://pubs.vmware.com/vfabric5/topic/.../vfabric-tc-server- em4j-1.0.0.pdf)

<comment><USER3> [Disclosure: I worked at VMware from 2002 through 2011.]

I take issue with the claim that the competition "quickly followed" on for (at the least) the transparent page sharing feature. VMware was shipping transparent page sharing in their type 1 hypervisor since ESX 1.5, which was released before I joined the company.

KSM was first proposed in 2008, and I believe it didn't actually ship until 2009 (note: the delay was at least in part because the developers wanted to avoid the possibility of exposure to patent litigation since VMware held a patent on the technology, software patents are evil, blah blah).

You can tell a similar story for VMotion/live migration of running virtual machines; VMware first shipped it in 2003 and it was at least 2007 before any competing hypervisors were shipping a similar feature (Hyper-V didn't have it until 2008 R2, Xen had it sooner - possibly in 2007?).

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity what made you leave VMware?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me or is running a VM in a VM just crazy? The application stack now looks like

OS -> Hypervisor -> VM -> OS -> VM -> App

Where "App" might be a service so you might have this stack duplicated dozens of times for an actual app that a user can use. And you don't save anything either, rather than "processes" your sysadmins manage "VMs". What happened to

OS -> App

<comment><USER6> Yes it bothers me a bit. I think the 'everything to a VM' culture at the moment unfortunately misses doing isolation in a lighter way. (jails,zones,lxc,lguest etc). Some of those are not quite mature but still. Relatedly sometimes license requirements are per cpu, and the license accepts vmware restrictions but not cgroup or resource manager type restrictions.

I hate licensing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or you could just run the JVMs on the base OS and use good old file system security if you really need sandboxing. The supposed advantages of adding a OS VM layer seem iffy if you're just running one app per.

<comment><USER8> It always amazed me that the JVM doesn't have any options to restrict CPU resources (something VMware does have). The only alternative I can think of is to use the unix taskset utility to limit JVMs to specific CPU cores. Anybody got experiece with a setup like this?

Limiting memory usage and file permissions with the JVM is indeed easy.

<comment><USER7> Let the OS manage the CPUs, you can use nice if you need to prioritize.

<comment><USER9> There is also cpulimit if you want to set hard limits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So, how reasonable is it right now to run a JVM directly on a VM?

<comment><USER11> Pretty reasonable as proof of concept, MS runs the .NET VM as an operating system, see Singularity. There's also JavaOS, JNode, JX

In practicality the issue is drivers, databases, webservers, etc.

<comment><USER10> There are a few ways to solve this; the simplest might be to replace the OS with a library (a libos) linked into the JVM that implements whatever the JVM needs from an OS API in terms of what a specific VM offers. This is the idea of the MIT Exokernel Operating System, XOK.

<http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/exo/></comment></comment></comment>


The Science of Crawl: Improving on PageRank - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urx.com/urx-blog/2015/3/31/the-science-of-crawl-part-3-prioritization

<comment><USER2> Relying on PageRank (or the graph structure of the pages) alone is no longer enough. Now you need to follow users and see who's clicking on what, and what trails are being blazed across the web. This is where Facebook's "Like button" comes in, or Google Analytics (or AdSense). Google can follow people around and see what's hot _right now_ , and surface those links. WikiPedia may be a great hub, but if people are making a beeline for a Brad Pitt article on TMZ, then that Brad Pitt article may be more relevant right now than his Wikipedia page.

TL;DR: Search is hard. Google and others have taken ranking to levels _far_ higher than PageRank, which is nearly 20 years old now.

<comment><USER3> PageRank as a secret sauce that solves search -- this was actually always an overblown myth created in the early days of Google for PR purposes. It fits their PR mission perfectly because they want everyone to think that super smart algorithms are the secret to their success.

If PageRank was really as useful as they say, Google would have had tons of high-quality competitors from day 1.

<comment><USER4> Except for patents: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#Relevant_patents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank#Relevant_patents)

<comment><USER3> Except search engines have sole control over the systems doing the calculations. It's easy to see how they could just go ahead and use the patented methods on their private servers, and no one on the outside would be able to legally prove that they copied their patented method, at least for a long time.

Just some patents would never have kept competitors from moving in on this 200B market.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Customer Service - <AUTHOR>

In a word: wow. I just got off the phone with Amazon customer service. It's 10:15 PM.
I called about a UPS Package that couldn't be delivered because I hadn't specified the apartment number. Since the package had already shipped, the Amazon rep said it was out of Amazon's hands.
I though I'd have to re-phone UPS and face it's automated machine. I was wrong. The Amazon rep said he'd conference call UPS with me on the line. In less than 15 seconds we were on the phone with a live UPS rep and I was clarifying the address.
The whole process took less than two minutes. This is some of the best customer service I have ever seen. Thank you, Amazon. <comment><USER2> A package of mine got lost in the mail, and they overnighted a replacement -- cause they're awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> What I like about their service also is that you tell them to call _you_. No waiting, no hassle.</comment>


Younger millennials/Gen-Z can professionally pandemic-proof - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/now-what-how-younger-millennials-gen-z-can-professionally-pandemic-proof-acc3d738d61a <comment><USER2> > On the surface, the COVID-19 pandemic is the most Millennial/Gen > Z-positioned crisis we could possibly imagine

The H1N1 Swine flu Pandemic of 2009, 2010 would like to have a word with that claim. But this time, social media has caused extreme hysteria and panic over this outbreak which is just un-needed for. Just wear gloves, cover your mouth, wash your hands and don't re-use the same masks.

Perhaps when it comes to creating a tech startup in 2020, it now has to compete against being sherlocked by the big tech companies, scalable to millions and generates a large profit margin whilst also being recession- proof, government-shutdown proof and now add pandemic-proof to the list.

Once again, the FAANMG companies still win and are unaffected.</comment>


2013 infographic: The past, present and future of the database - <AUTHOR> http://insights.wired.com/m/blogpost?id=6544125%3ABlogPost%3A65101

<comment><USER2> No mention of mysql, postgres or sql server. Neet graphic none the less.</comment>


Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://mca-marines.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Albayrak.pdf <comment><USER2> I found microdosing DMT to be a very interesting experience aswell though it is not so common to hear about it.</comment>


Giant ape went extinct 100,000 years ago, due to its inability to adapt - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160104080854.htm <comment><USER2> I find evolution terminology funny.

Aren't the terms 'something going extinct' and 'inability to adapt' essentially same. They are symmetrically causal to one another. It has inability to adapt, hence it went extinct; it went extinct hence we say it didn't have the ability to adapt. What new unit of knowledge do we gain by saying something like the OP's title?

In short, the 'ability to adopt' is itself measured in terms of whether 'something is extinct or not'

<comment><USER3> They mention that the ape was mainly restricted to forests - wouldn't a metabolically-imposed habitat restriction limit the species' exposure to _ex situ_ adaptations?

Which is to say, we gain insight into how metabolism, specialization and extinction play together. Although, perhaps this is what you meant by correlating extinction and inability to adapt?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Copy-pasted summary, with emphasis added:

"The demise of the giant ape Gigantopithecus has been the focus of recent study, where researchers have reached the conclusion that the presumably largest apes in geological history died due to their _insufficient adaptability_. Analyses of fossil tooth enamel show that _the primates were restricted to forested habitats_."

So, the forest turned into savannah faster than they could adapt. Similar things happened and happens to zillions of species.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting adjunct of the Red Queen hypothesis: species survival probabilities are largely constant over time, or conversely, species don't get _better_ at surviving simply by surviving longer.

"Leigh Van Valen proposed the hypothesis to explain the "Law of Extinction",[1] showing that in many populations the probability of extinction does not depend on the lifetime of this population, instead being constant over millions of years for a given population."

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

This strikes me as fascinating, and makes me wonder about where similar rules do or don't apply (e.g., business, organisational, or national longevity, hardware failure rates, etc.).

<comment><USER3> Very interesting. I'm hardly a bio/ecologist but I think that I have some links you may find pertinent:

* The Lindy effect [0] is a theory of the life expectancy of non-perishable things that posits for a certain class of nonperishables, like a technology or an idea, every additional day may imply a longer (remaining) life expectancy:[1] the mortality rate decreases with time. This contrasts with living creatures and mechanical things, which instead follow a bathtub curve, where every additional day in its life translates into a shorter additional life expectancy (though longer overall life expectancy, due to surviving this far): after childhood, the mortality rate increases with time.

* Correlations, Risk and Crisis: From Physiology to Finance [1] - "in crisis, typically, even before obvious symptoms of crisis appear, correlation increases, and, at the same time, variance (and volatility) increases too."

* Liebig's Law [2] - growth is constrained by the minimum resource, not the total of resources

* Metabolic theory of ecology [3] - the metabolic rate of an organism governs observed ecological patterns

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect)

[1] [http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0129](http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0129)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebig%27s_law_of_the_minimum)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_theory_of_ecology)

<comment><USER5> Likewise, interesting. I'm quite familiar with Liebig's Law, and the Metabolic Theory sounds an awful lot like Geoffrey West's work on scale effects (of pretty much everything: mammals, forests, cities, economies). Lindy Effect and Risk/Crisis correlations I need to look at.

Appreciate the references.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has any species ever died out for anything other than "inability to adapt"? If they were able to adapt, wouldn't they still be here?

<comment><USER7> In a way, yes, mass extinctions.

<comment><USER8> Even this is a failure to adapt.

<comment><USER9> Are there species that can adapt in time to survive asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions or other catastrophic events?

<comment><USER10> Humans could, if we (as a species) could all work towards survival, the most powerful feature we have evolved is the intelligence to adapt rapidly within lifetimes rather than over millennia.

I'd like to think most countries would band together to be able to survive a sudden event as all of their survival is dependant on it.

I'd say most species couldn't adapt before a sudden event (how would they know?) but can adapt to the after effects of such event.

<comment><USER11> You're assuming they'd stop looking out for #1 and stop fighting over whatever limited resources were left. I'd like to believe it would happen, but history doesn't really reflect that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I wrong in thinking that a majority of extinct species are gone for exactly the same reason (insufficient adaptability)?

<comment><USER13> Or extinction events

<comment><USER14> E.g. competition with people.

<comment><USER15> Same thing happened between populations. Competition of hunter gatherers with farmers. People suck :-/

<comment><USER16> Well, totalitarian farmers. Humans cultivated crops for a long time here and there before we got the bright idea to put the entire world under the plough.

<comment><USER8> Well the choice was let your children die of starvation or farm more land. I know which one I would have taken.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but unfortunately we didn't account for the fundamental rule of ecology: more food, more population.

The world population grows every year because we produce more food every year. Food is what the new people are made of. Somewhat counterintuitively, this is perfectly compatible with the continued existence of starving people.

<comment><USER13> That's nonsense. Feeding people doesn't make them have children. IT keeps them from dying of starvation.

<comment><USER15> Increasing food production causes increases in population. It causes more people to starve because it is ultimately unsustainable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One can use this headline as is for so many large companies.

</comment><comment><USER18> coming soon to a cinema near you thanks to Disney.

</comment><comment><USER19> If its the Ancestor of orangutan, then how is it extinct?

</comment><comment><USER20> Most primates are adapted to very specific environments and diets and because of that are quite vulnerable to change. There are only two species of primates that are known to thrive when their environments are completely changed, the so called "weed apes". These are humans and rhesus which both form social structures that enable adaptation.</comment>


All private Google Profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1192471&p=public_profile

<comment><USER2> Google seems to be going about creating social products in entirely the wrong way. They seem to prefer forcing people on to their platforms (see Buzz in Gmail) rather than making a product that people _actually_ want to use and spend time on.

<comment><USER3> Or integrate it incrementally one step at a time without any disturbance to those who don't use it.

I never really understood googles approach to these things.

Look at Wave. Why did I need a specific wave mail, why couldn't they just integrate with my gmail and again those who can use it great, those who can't no biggie.

So much engineering power yet so little design skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I previously never had any desire to create a profile, I didn't see any reason to. But now I kind of want to create a private profile just to experience having my digital persona permanently deleted from record and to join the revolution. Orwell would be proud.

<comment><USER5> I don't know about permanently deleted. I'm sure some trace of it will remain somewhere!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can anybody who has a private Google profile describe what they use it for and why?

<comment><USER7> It should be the reverse, private should be the default, and public should be the eyebrow raising exception.

How nice it is of Google to decide by fiat to impose their standard on everybody else without consultatin (I know Eric Schmidt is on record as saying that he doesn't believe in privacy, here we have a prime example).

However, at least they are handling this better than the way Facebook does. If this was Facebook they would have (a) just done it without giving advance warning and (b) would have flipped everyone who was private over to public.

At least Google is deleting the accounts rather than outright exposing the info.

<comment><USER8> I think the argument here is: if you are going to have a private profile, you may as well simply not have a profile. Like, why did you spend the time to fill in a bunch of details into Google Profile just to mark it "private"?

<comment><USER9> Perhaps so you could share it explicitly with people you've vetted and trust with your information?

<comment><USER10> But there is no mechanism to share it explicitly with people you vetted. This isn't Facebook, there aren't friends with various levels of permission and a public version.

You could do that by just showing your screen to your vetted people, though, I suppose.

<comment><USER11> (a) There are friends with various levels of permission. Certain fields on the profile can be set to be visible only to certain groups of contacts.

(b) Upon noting (a), I filled out a private profile in anticipation that Google would be rolling out further mechanisms to share private profiles with certain contact groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How can you tell if your profile is private? Just checked mine and don't see anything that distinguishes public from private.

<comment><USER13> 1\. Copy permalink to profile in clipboard.

2\. Logout from your google account.

3\. Going to google profile permalink, should not show your profile information.

4\. Login to another google account.

5\. Going to google profile permalink, should not show your profile information.

<comment><USER14> Or just open a private/anonymous session in another browser window :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> When you put your information into the cloud terms and conditions apply, and they can be changed on a whim.

<comment><USER16> Just like the gold and silver bugs say, "if you don't hold it, you don't own it" ...

<comment><USER17> Ironically, a lot of the gold and silver bugs don't actually hold it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think that the following can be derived from the plan to delete private profiles:

\- The upcoming Google social product will be launched in August 2011 or later.

\- Public profiles are a key element of the new social product.

Google could ask users with private profiles to make them public, but people will scream about privacy. It's easier to remove the profiles from a PR perspective.

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks like they learned their lesson from Google Buzz privacy fiasco. Instead of making them public by default they'll delete it.

</comment><comment><USER20> I actually wonder what would happen to a google account without a public profile linked to a gmail address. IIRC deleting such account is impossible without deleting a corresponding gmail account. Loosing all your emails one day just because you are not into google buzz and other fancy social stuff would be horrible.

<comment><USER21> I'm wondering too. On <https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount> , it says:

> You don't yet have a public profile. Learn more Create a profile or edit > your personal info without creating a public profile.

I have no idea if I'm meant to create a public profile to save my email, or if I already have a private profile, or if I have no profile at all and this doesn't affect me. Hoping the last one.

<comment><USER22> You should be ok. It says that 'Deleting your profile won't delete your Google Account.' here: [http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=...](http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=97703&hl=en&ctx=ch_ManageAccount)

<comment><USER20> As far as I can tell this statement is about a public profile. The private profile is essentially a google account, and I don't know a way to delete a google account and keep a gmail address associated with it.

<comment><USER23> No, the private profile is essentially a public profile. If you delete a public/private profile, all access to buzz is gone, and all past 'buzzes' will not be accessible (effectively deleted).

<comment><USER20> That's quite confusing. How can I tell that a profile is private vs public (which seems to be a default)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That's funny, I'm always trying to create a Google profile but I can't, because my main account is on appdomains and they don't do profiles for appdomains. Which means I can't check into places on latitude from my android, for instance. You'd think they'd be a bit more worried about the potential user base they're shutting out of their platform, rather than worrying about deleting private profiles. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER25> Okay, this is too much. Forcing people to make their profiles public so that Google could do their next failing social experiment on the top of them?

Google does not delete the emails I deleted, that's how much storage they've got, why would they delete my profile? Obviously not a storage issue. I mean WTF google, seriosly. You are becoming as evil as any other bigco could be.

<comment><USER26> What do you mean? They see private profiles as pointless and made the business decision to not support this feature in the future.

They're not forcing anyone to have a public profile. You know what Facebook would have done? They would have simply made all private profiles public without any previous notification. That would have been evil. Instead, Google has chosen to follow a path where the default action doesn't compromise anyone's privacy and they have given ample time for people to decide whether they want to make their profile public or not.

From what I see, what they've done is pretty much the Right Thing To Do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> i dont understand, does this have any impact on gmail account?

<comment><AUTHOR> I doubt it, I deleted my profile. My Buzz posts went as well, but my Gmail remains fine.</comment></comment>


Buy a home, get a US visa, Senators propose - <AUTHOR> http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8413642-buy-a-home-get-a-us-visa-senators-propose <comment><USER2> This is the type of unserious, policy-by-press release we've come to expect from the micromanagers in the U.S. Congress.

First of all, housing is still overpriced, in terms of historic trends, in many markets.

Second, this is yet another program for ICE, which cannot manage its current immigration visa portfolio. This idea seems particularly open to abuse, since the home could be bought with borrowed money. (Sure it has to be "cash" investment but there's an asset here, you could easily cash out or have straw buyers.)

I wish these guys would come up with better solutions to the banking crisis (yes, it isn't over) than selling U.S. visas.

<comment> daniel-cussen We already sell/monetize US visas. You have to invest a few hundred thousand in a US-based business and you get a Visa. I believe the amount is 500,000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Give me your energetic, your rich, Your striding elite yearning to oppress, The vaunted gild of your desolate shore. Send these, the landowners, first- class-turbulence-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the door for those with gold!

<comment><USER4> America is broke. If you want to tax the rich you need to let them into the country. And people buying a house aren't that rich anyway. Besides, this is very similar to the immigration policy of Canada or Singapore, which also give points if you buy property and start a business in the country. Their economies are vastly outperforming ours and it might be worth emulating them.

<comment><USER5> Although Singapore is outperforming our economy (on a per-capita basis), Canada is not. Why do you believe emulating them will get us Singapore-like benefits rather than Canada-like harms?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

<comment><USER6> 1\. The Canadian economy is largely based on exporting goods to the US or exporting natural resources world-wide.

2\. When the Canadian dollar reaches par with the US dollar, the benefits of US companies doing things across the bordering Canada rapidly evaporates. This means that economies like Ontario start doing poorly, while economies like Alberta and British Columbia that have natural resources to export start doing better (well, at least when coupled with an increase in oil prices.. because the tar sands become viable).

3\. A lot of money comes into the Canadian economy through the entertainment industry. There are huge tax breaks in Ontario (specifically Toronto) and BC (specifically Vancouver) for doing things there, in addition to the exchange rate (when the US dollar is riding higher).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll go out on a limb here and say I like the basic idea. One major detail I would change is to make it a $100,000 or $50,000 minimum instead of $500,000. There are many parts of the country where it's hard to even find a house that's as expensive as $250,000. I'd like something like this to be open to all parts of the country and I'd like it to be open to middle class as well, not just wealthy people.

Why do I like it?

* Fill vacant homes (as opposed to urban blight)

* There are many indirect economic benefits like money spent fixing homes, all the day to day purchasing that will be done by the new residents, etc.

* In some cases, individuals will be able to rejoin relatives more easily.

The urban blight thing is the one I care about most. I live in the East Bay of California and have seen certain neighborhoods totally fall apart as dozens of vacant homes attracted vandalism, drugs, and other forms of crime and caused remaining residents hardship.

EDIT: formatting

<comment><USER8> Well, the places where it's super hard to find a house at 500k, and somewhat easy at 100k, are the border states... New Mexico, Arizona, Texas (and Nevada). In these places, the 500k house is going to be the cream of the crop... the top 1%. Southern California is a different issue, but this isn't going to help the places where the housing market really took a shit, like Nevada and Arizona, because the market there is saturated with foreclosures of homes that might have originally sold for 500k but are probably worth half that much in the current market. The poisonous idea is that these homes were actually worth that much money, but they never were. The artificial demand of the sub-prime mortgage crisis pushed prices up where they should never had been. The 500k limit would try to, again, artificially inflate the worth of the house by stimulated demand in the highest priced homes, homes which should probably sell closer to 350, because the 150k premium might be worth it for some families to get a visa. The second problem with this thinking is that anyone who qualifies for a 500k house would likely be rich enough to get a visa in the US anyways as an investor.

A lower limit of 150k would be reasonable for boosting the middle class, and actually helping the housing market, but that's obviously not the goal.

<comment><USER9> I agree, it would be difficult to find a house in Indiana for 500K... Perhaps the metric should be based on median home prices..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another terrible idea, in my opinion.

When an employee interviews with a company, the company should decide if the employee gets a job, not a visa.

When a PhD candidate defends a dissertation, the university should decide if the student gets a degree, not a visa.

When an entrepreneur applies for venture capital, the investor should decide if the entrepreneur gets money, not a visa.

And yes, when a buyer makes an offer on a house, the seller should decide whether the buyer will get the house, not a visa

None of these people should control whether a person gets to reside in the united states, and giving them this power is an invitation to government sponsored abuse.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a horrible idea, the problem is not that houses are too cheap it's that they're too expensive.

A better idea would be to relax visa standards for starting a business that hires x number of americans. Those employees would have a far bigger impact on the economy as a whole as the majority of their income would be pumped right back in for basic necessities.

Once they start a business here, guess what? They'll need somewhere to live and since they're rich they can still buy that $500k+ house.

</comment><comment><USER12> Agree with this or not, this is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking members of Congress need to be doing.

<comment><USER13> Naah. Giving sweet-heart deals to people with a lot of money isn't out-of-the- box thinking - it's older than the hills. Out-of-box thinking would include enforcing consumer protection laws, strong oversight of large businesses, and progressive taxes. That sort of thinking hasn't been so common over the last few decades.

<comment><USER14> I think you've been caught up by the current mass hysteria, and forgotten to look for the reality:

 _enforcing consumer protection laws_

See FTC's web site for news [1] like yesterday's "FTC Stops Nationwide Federal Jobs Scam".

 _strong oversight of large businesses_

How about the DOJ suing to stop AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile? How about the absurd suit against Boeing for wanting to build a factory in a state where they don't have to worry about unions?

 _progressive taxes_

The tax rates vary from 10% up to 35%, as you go up the income scale [2]. So, there are your progressive taxes.

[1] <http://www.ftc.gov/opa/index.shtml>

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2011_income_brackets_and_tax_rates)

<comment><USER15> _The tax rates vary from 10% up to 35%, as you go up the income scale [2]. So, there are your progressive taxes._

 _Income_ taxes vary from 10-35%. Payroll taxes vary from ~14% down to infinitesimal as you go up the income scale, they are _not_ progressive, and for the people at the bottom end of that 'progressive' scale, they tend to cost more than income taxes.

It's frustrating that I even have to make this point. Everybody knows about this, and yet when these discussions happen, it's like payroll taxes don't exist, or don't count, or somehow or another are not part of the debate. For that matter, neither are capital gains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> We have to stop spending so much time/energy/money on trying to prop up housing prices. The valuations were clearly in a bubble. Now that the prices are more grounded in reality how about letting supply and demand dictate the prices?

</comment><comment><USER17> $500K minimum? Anything to breathe life into the higher segment of the US real estate market ;)

Kidding aside, are they also going to retro-actively award visas to all those that already own their own homes and do not currently have their paperwork in order? That would be a very quick way to solve another issue that was on the front page earlier today.

$500K is a bit stiff as a lower limit.

<comment><USER18> "Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as $250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate, which can be rented out," the paper added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Incentives that rewarded home ownership got us in this quagmire. I hate lobbyists.

</comment><comment><USER20> Do they realize that there is a sizable number of US citizens living in the country that would like to buy a home and can afford one but due to the still artificially inflated prices in some areas of the country that can be attributed to low rates and the backlog of REO homes are choosing not to buy yet?

</comment><comment><USER21> Instead, they should automatically offer work visas to college graduates. It is such a pain to have to get a work visa after you graduate if you were on an F1 before then. And most people that come all the way to the US to go to college are top notch professionals by the time they graduate.

<comment><USER22> I was on F1. I think offering work visa to all graduates could not be justified for the US economy. This would just increase the number of applicants for all the jobs. Even as of now, there's more supply than demand for jobs. Although, you're right it would make life so much easier for the international students.

They could offer fast green card processing to those already working (H1B) in this country who buy a house worth $150k+.

Good luck.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the reply. Just to clarify, I am not an international student, and never was, but I had a number of friends in college that I think would literally be an asset to this country that went back to their respective countries of origin. Now, they had reasons other than the visa issues, but I do wonder how it would have turned out if they were offered the option to stay.

Yes, this flood the job market with more non-Americans who are competing for the same jobs. However, we are currently giving out green cards on the basis of a lottery and not really doing anything to prefer any category of job over another when making immigration decisions. Using a proven population to diversify America would be much better than blindly giving out green cards in a lottery. Another strategy would be to not just automatically hand everyone an H1B, but instead simply make the process much easier. Or prefer some industries over others. Or institute a quota and a lottery for just the pool of interested college grads. Possibilities are endless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I am not sure why many people are upset that this will attract the rich foreigners. Whats wrong with rich people moving in?. Think how much new tax revenue the country will gain if 10000 millionaires move every year

<comment><USER24> Very little - millionaires tend not to pay much tax. Especially foreign ones whose income is difficult to trace.

What happened in Vancouver when Canada did the same thing is that people bought the houses as an insurance so they had an escape route if Honk Kong went bad. Most of the houses either sat empty, were rented out, or the kid was dumped there to go to college.

It did a lot for the local housing market - not clear it did quite so much for local entrepreneurial growth.

<comment><USER25> That's true in partial. Vancouver has some interesting experiences with foreign capital investing in the housing market. It makes for a very expensive city. If the aim of this is to boost the price of the housing market, then I think this measure will do that. Whether or not that is a good thing is an entirely different issue.

<comment><USER24> Depends if you are a bank sitting on a lot of unsellable fancy property!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> $500,000?

The number of people for whom visas are the only barrier to buying a home in the USA and would spend over 500k on one is probably way too small to have any real impact on the housing market.

Why not $5k? There are plenty of houses going for dirt cheap in the parts of the country hit the worst by the recession. It would mean more people taking advantage of the program and selling that cheap housing would have more of an impact on the housing market and overall economy.

<comment><USER27> Because they clearly don't want immigrants from the bottom of the socioeconomic status of other countries.

<comment><USER28> And they don't want immigrants buying a $5,000 house, then abandoning it to rent a closet in California.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Too bad it must be at least $500,000. The first that came to mind was to buy a derelict house in Detroit somewhere, and then automatically getting a US visa!

</comment><comment><USER30> The only beneficiaries I can think of for this program would be rich capitalists from China and the Middle East who are exporting their gains and sinking them into foreign property already, and who would now get a fast-track for immigration as well.

I guess Congress would like to get campaign contributions from these people (once you have a green card, you can legally make political contributions to U.S. politicians).

Still waiting for Congress to do something - anything - for people who aren't millionaires (or indeed, are U.S. citizens).

<comment><USER31> They're not the _only_ beneficiaries. I can think of a few moderately-wealthy foreign-born H1Bs (and equivalent) living in Northern California who might have half a million spare and wouldn't mind buying a $500K house and getting a free greencard if it'd save them the trouble of going through the usual immigration process. Picking, just as a random example, say, me.

I'm not even sure whether I want to remain in the US long term, but if offered a free greencard I'd say yes.

<comment><USER32> The direct beneficiaries are American homeowners, who get higher prices for overvalued assets and financial institutions holding housing as collateral. The losers are lower-income Americans (often also recent immigrants) for whom the cost of housing remains out of reach.

<comment><USER33> Excellent conclusion, David. I have seen this play out in vancouver, british columbia. Look it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not convinced how effective this will be. The parts in the US where housing prices took the largest hit are also the parts where a foreigner with access to USD$500,000 is least likely to want to go in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not sure who will take "advantage" of this program - \- $500,000 CASH investment \- You get a 'resident visa', so you can not work here Source: WSJ.

How about we give incentives to people already in this country?

I propose: You get priority processing on your green card application if you buy a house worth more than $150k, and you can't sell for at least 3-5 years.

Disclosure: I'm on the H1B visa. I bought a house last year while the 'first- time home buyer' $8k credit was available.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is suited not for entrepreneurs, but wealthy retirees from overseas and also parents of rich overseas students who want to be with their children. This is especially if they can show proof of pension income and will not take up work in the U.S..

However, the US tax laws aren't particularly friendly to the super rich and wealthy. Once you are deemed resident (I read this from phodgen's blog) then you have to pay tax on all your income.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is the best solution I've heard so far that kills two birds with one stone. You could create a mini housing bubble thereby solving the unemployment and also offer a legal route for immigration for hard working folks. This should also offer a chance of amnesty for all illegal aliens when they buy a house worth 500,000$. Buy a house and get legal status/amnesty for trespassing into the country.

</comment><comment><USER36> $500,000 to get a visa? Seems to me like Congress is still catering to the rich.

<comment><USER37> They already do that with the EB-5 visa. Invest at least $1,000,000 (or $500,000) and keep 10 jobs in the US and you can live here.

<comment><USER38> The E-2 can be had for as little as $100,000

[http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/Compare%20work%20Visas/ref/1...](http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/Compare%20work%20Visas/ref/1133)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Do you see VCs loaning $$ to entreprenuers to buy a home in the US for a visa?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand - what problem is this supposed to solve?

<comment><USER37> People that have $500,000+ houses that they need to sell.

<comment><USER40> Banks, not people.

<comment><USER41> People too. There's plenty of people that would like to move to find employment, but have a mortgage that they need to get out of first. The market is pretty terrible at the moment, and these people end up being stuck. I know a few personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's amazing these people can get away with claiming they don't get what OWS is about with a straight face.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's not buy a home, it's spend half a mill. That gets about 4 homes 'round these parts.

</comment><comment><USER44> How about hire 100 US workers for a year, get a free home.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In case you're looking at this and somehow don't know about <http://startupvisa.com/> , take a look and offer your support if so inclined. It would allow non-US entrepreneurs with funding from a US investor to get a visa to start a company. StartupVisa would be wayyy more beneficial than the housing thing... get folks to contribute to society, hire local workers, etc. Those local workers then can in turn buy homes, etc.

<comment><USER24> Trouble is that it must be from a US investor.

So it's the same slave labor problem as H1B. If you don't like anything the investor suggests after you have moved then he withdraws the funding and you get deported.

Can we think of how a good capitalist VC might use that to their advantage?

<comment><USER45> I think you're overstating the issue. I am in the US in an H1B visa and am in no way 'slave labor'. But I can't start my own company- the Startup Visa would finally solve that issue.

<comment><USER24> There aren't many places where it's considered reasonable that your employer can fire you for no reason and have you and your family thrown out of the country aswell.

<comment><USER46> Reasonable? No. Does it happen? Yes... Are there business models based upon this feature? Yes...

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3je9EqJurWo>

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17855015/Videos/trt-domenic- romanell...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17855015/Videos/trt-domenic-romanelli- boss-from-hell.m4v)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> okay Senate for sale business as usual..nothing to see here

</comment><comment><USER48> Which other country does this? I think just lessens the appeal of an usa visa and the USA in general.

<comment><USER27> Pretty much all of them. Most countries in the world have "investor visas" which let you buy your way into the country.</comment></comment>