The Next SourceForge - <AUTHOR> http://sourceforge.net/create/ <comment><USER3> Easy litmus test.

Can I go to a project and immediately find a direct download link that I can paste into my terminal (for fetch or wget or whatever) ?

Or is it still user-hostile, requiring multiple clicks (pageviews) to get to a "download link" that gives me some 200 character long, ephemeral-link- monstrosity that assumes (wrongly) that I want to download their linux source tarball to my GOD DAMNED LOCAL MACINTOSH.

I'm not even going to bother to look.

<comment><USER4> You know, I went to look at a new project on sourceforge, thinking I'd quickly prove you wrong. (I don't know why I still have any faith in sourceforge.)

Guess what happened? I clicked on TWO SEPARATE ADS with a download now image in them.

I captured it because I assume the ads change, but wow, terrible: [https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676...](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s3/sh/78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0/36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753?noteKey=36ac37214962b3479348b32b6fec8753&noteGuid=78c81dc2-0a90-4e0a-8676-0d15d9017dc0)

I eventually found the files link, and then clicked a download. And was taken to download page where I had to wait for my download to start, with some more ads.

Yeah, screw that.

<comment><USER5> That screenshot is all I needed to see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another thing that's missing in this overall thread is context....

.... context of companies like SF, Yahoo, etc. Basically, SF (Yahoo, etc.) has been in existence before the days of dropping server costs, dropping bandwidth costs, dropping storage space costs and before the term _devops_ was even being used in conversations ;-)

Given this, and the fact that people were still figuring out how to scale and serve in the 90s, SF (along with Yahoo and some other web pioneers) was going ahead and practically doing it to scale, and doing it for "free" (if you train yourself to ignore the irrelevant ads, it is free!). To put this in context, Github/Bitbucket are all <5 years old by contrast. They've had all the time in the World to learn from the mistakes of these giants, and use all their learnings to get things right, and capitalise on EC2/AWS etc. (which was not possible during SF's setup period) :-)

So, given that some of these companies are the "giants" whose shoulders have enabled us to come this far, context is very inmportant in trying to understand these venerable beasts! They may appear to be long in the tooth by today's standards but they have lent us their shoulders, on whom today's jazz and pizzazz depend upon.

And for that I will always have a soft spot and gratitude for these internet pioneers like Yahoo, SF, etc.

EDIT: Also to remember is, the business model around file hosting/repository management was not the same in the 90s until mid-2000s as it is now, so that also needs to be kept in context.

P.S: Not affiliated to Sourceforge in any way.

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel like this is too little too late for Sourcefourge. I can often assume one of two things when I see a link to a Sourceforge project:

1\. I am going to be redirected to Github or Google Code

2\. The project is dead

At this point, they are just playing catch up.

<comment><USER8> To be honest, a link to Google Code is not much different from a SourceForge link by now.

<comment><USER9> I host my personal projects on Google Code. In contrast to Github it lets you host files (especially important if not all your users have compilers or similar tools), and lets you have multiple repositories per project. Pretty much every hoster does two repositories per project - one for the main source and a second for the wiki. Having more than two is great. For example for work stuff I often have Android client and server as different repositories. But there is no need for them to have separate bug trackers or wikis - for an end user it is often hard to tell where an issue actually lies and having to copy issues between client and server side trackers is useless work. Github's issue tracker lacks being able to prioritise which is highly annoying.

The most annoying problem with Google Code is they refuse to have private paid for hosting - <https://code.google.com/p/support/issues/detail?id=1829>

Having all our employees create new Github accounts and doing administration there is a pain when we already do everything else at Google. I suspect paid project hosting would also help improve Google Code since there would be revenue behind feature requests and bugs.

<comment><USER10> Minor point: GitHub wiki's have git access. <https://github.com/[user]/[repo]/wiki/_access>

<comment><USER9> I don't understand what point you are trying to make. As I stated, pretty much every project hoster has two repositories per project for the code and wiki. Eg for github you have github.com/[user]/[project].git and github.com/[user]/[project].wiki.git

With Google Code you can have any number of additional repositories eg the equivalent of github.com/[user]/[project].documentation.git, github.com/[user]/[project].testsuites.git, github.com/[user]/[project].androidclient.git etc

With Github you would have to create new projects which means separate issue trackers, wikis etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > font-family:"Helvetica Neue";

Unbelievably sloppy, especially for something introducing a redesign. My browser is falling back to serif for most of the text... didn't _anyone_ at sourceforge test it on something not a mac?

<comment><USER12> Well, it's open source so go fix.

<comment><USER13> While you're at it, please remove those terrible ads too. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> SourceForge still has a niche that's significantly different from GitHub or Google Code: it's made to be somewhat friendly to end-users of large open source apps. Honestly, I'm surprised they haven't fully pivoted to being an open source "app store" (with more community features i.e. forums and support).

<comment><USER8> If SourceForge is friendly to anyone, it isn't end users.

There is a lot they could do.

<comment><USER15> It's a lot better than github, IMO. Still not as good as a real project page with binaries, or ideally just having your package in macports, mac app store, ubuntu/debian repositories, etc.

<comment><USER16> I dunno. I would rather have a page with binaries _plus_ macports, etc. There are a lot of cases where you may want to reach out to markets not covered by external repos or where you haven't gotten into every external repo you want to.

<comment><USER15> Yes, you should have both. Plus ideally presence on GitHub and Sourceforge. (I also would never use a service as my only repo...)

<comment><USER16> (We got into Debian/Ubuntu repos not too long ago but there are still many more to get into.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I still see a big green "download" button that is in reality an advertisement for who-knows-what download manager. <http://twitpic.com/as9agf> <http://twitpic.com/c60rx5/full>

This is all I need to see to know they haven't really changed.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think SourceForge was great but we've been spoiled by Github or Bitbucket. I never minded the ads, which are used to keep the site running, and were a minor inconvenient to provide access to a huge amount of open source projects, which was great.

Github and Bitbucket simply provided pages and sites which were easier to navigate. Specially Bitbucket, which has kept the Downloads section that Github removed. However, for me, the biggest "feature" that Github and Bitbucket provided was the ability to create projects easily because (a) the project name only had to be unique to your own projects instead of globally and (b) you could simply fill the project name and a brief project description to create it, instead of having to fill a form with lots of information about the project area and categories, licenses, development language or technologies, etc.

Note I haven't used SourceForge for new projects in a long time, so I don't know if my observations still stand true.

</comment><comment><USER19> Isn't competition great? Contrary to popular opinion, Github isn't the only game in town.

Assembla: Git, Mercurial, Perforce, Subversion

SourceForge: Git, Mercurial, Subversion

Google Code: Git, Mercurial, Subversion

Bitbucket: Git, Mercurial

Github: Git

<comment><USER20> Github: Git, Subversion. [https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on- github-with-su...](https://github.com/blog/1178-collaborating-on-github-with- subversion)

<comment><USER21> Github: Git, Subversion, Mercurial. <http://hg-git.github.com/>

<comment><USER19> It's not quite the same as having native hosting of Subversion and Mercurial repositories. With a bridge and plug-in there might be some edge cases where things don't work as expected. I wouldn't risk my source code in this way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice that they are contributing the code to the apache fundation ! Could be a good Free self hosted alternative to github:enterprise or others

<comment><USER23> Check out <http://gitlabhq.com/> too

<comment><USER24> And RhodeCode:

<http://rhodecode.org/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm sorry guys at VA (Larry Augustine is an ass who sues people. Look up the OpenVista lawsuit for reference where he sued some of my friends) but if you want to be new and hip, buy github and dump the sourceforge brand. It was great once upon a time, but simply doesn't offer what developers are looking for. As a casual open source dev myself, if I saw a _new_ project using sourceforge, I'd hold it against them. Why? The sourceforge mailing list archive web ui is beyond terrible and dealing with the ads and terrible navigation make it waste my time. Sorry, but a pretty face won't save market share.

<comment><USER26> Dice.com owns SourceForge now. For a chronology, see Wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeknet#Geeknet>

Dice Holdings (DHX) market cap is ~560m. GitHub is almost certainly worth more, growing like crazy, and generally almost finished with making SF irrelevant.

<comment><USER25> Oh duh, I'd forgotten about that. One up vote for you sir! Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Man, when Sourceforge fixed the wget "misfeature" a few years ago, that was great. They should do more of that.

Every time I hit a Sourceforge page, entire seconds are spent navigating to the actual page that I want. That's not to say that it's impossible to figure out how to get to where I want (that status is reserved solely for Launchpad). Rather, it just takes a lot of time to use Sourceforge. When the seconds are ticking away, and another page has to load, it's just infuriating. I want at most two page loads: whatever awful incoming link I came in from, and then the thing I actually want on the project. I keep forgetting the url structure, so I can't just type to what I want to get. GitHub and BitBucket have both done urls particularly well.. you can easily predict the exact url to immediately see the contents of a file.

Let's examine some Sourceforge urls.

main page: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/docutils/?source=directory>

source code: [http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&...](http://sourceforge.net/scm/?type=svn&group_id=38414&source=navbar)

Oops, wait, no.

real source code: <http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/>

Let's see a file... pick a folder, click a file and you get this:

[http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we...](http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=log)

I know this is viewvc, but who cares. When I click a file, I wanted the file, not the version history. Why is version history still the default action? Okay, click on the version and you get the content:

[http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=rev...](http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils?view=revision&revision=7571)

Well, no. This is just a diff. Okay, let's try clicking on the file again because ???

[http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we...](http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt?view=markup&pathrev=7571)

File contents, at long last! But the real url to get the actual file is something like this:

[http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/we...](http://docutils.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docutils/trunk/web/index.txt)

But does this work for other projects? Well, I seem to remember that FileZilla was hosted on Sourceforge.. let's see.

<http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla>

Well, at least that worked. Click around a bit..

[http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZi...](http://filezilla.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/filezilla/FileZilla3/trunk/)

Oops, repo moved. Well, let's try another project.

<http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/>

After a bunch of clicking..

[http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trun...](http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php)

At this point, I think a lot of Sourceforge's problem is viewvc. And the number of pages in between the project page and the things I need to do. I think getting rid of viewvc would probably be a huge step forward. Why should I even have to type viewvc in the first place?

When you don't include viewvc in the url, you get to a directory index (argh):

[http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMy...](http://phpmyadmin.svn.sourceforge.net/phpmyadmin/trunk/phpMyAdmin/user_password.php)

But why am I including phpmyadmin in the url again anyway? It's already in the subdomain. And it's not a folder in the repository... so what's the deal.

BLAH

<comment><USER28> To be fair, it looks like those are all old-style projects. The new platform -- the one the headline links to -- sucks a lot less. e.g., <http://sourceforge.net/projects/allura/>. Source browsing works more like you would expect and less like ViewVC.

No, I don't know if they have a plan to forcibly upgrade old projects. I wish they would do so, because the new platform is far less terrible.

<comment><USER29> Hm, so, let's look at something more modern.

The project Allura page seems nice, altought I still don't understand why they have one sort of navigation in "code" view and in "non-code" view, that looks completely different. Also, the link "Pastebin" displays a 500 error in "non- code" view (<http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/pastebin/?source=navbar>) but works in "code" view ( <http://sourceforge.net/p/allura/pastebin/> ) - <USER2> switch "views" by clicking at "Git", apparently. You switch them back by clicking at "Files" or "Summary".

Why does the Allura project have thousand of badly named branches? (It may be a goal but it looks confusing from outside.)

Now let's look at some other project that's linked at SF front page

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/weka/>

What's the difference between "Wiki" and "MediaWiki"? Oh, once is inside SF, the other one directs me somewhere else and tells me it isn't working. Was that needed?

...why is the code part empty? Is that a bug?

The News are not very new but that's not an error on SF side, I guess.

Overall, I feel like SF jumped 5 years forward - from a site from 10 years ago to a site from 5 years ago. But I still wouldn't use it for any kind of new project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is what stood out for me.

I am surprised that while so many of the comments are intensely hateful of the ads, but for a very tech-savvy site, most people actually seem to have no ad- blockers installed on their browser(s), which takes away virtually _all_ of the ad problems? With ad-blockers, I find SF is just as smooth to navigate any any others out there.

<comment><USER30> I don't use an adblocker, because its easier just to not visit sites I don't like

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> At least it's great for the projects and project owners on the platform.

As competition to GitHub and BitBucket, it just seems sad, frankly. But a rising tide raises all boats.

</comment><comment><USER32> I disliked and migrated away from SourceForge seven or eight years ago. Although it did let you provide compiled binaries / packages for end users, the process to do so was ludicrous, and the tools were paper-thin at best. rsync's comment about the download links are spot on; I can confirm that the Next SourceForge still gives you the ridiculous go-round when you want to grab the URL to an install package.

The catalog of software _could_ be great - GitHub doesn't provide this, except in a developer-friendly format. And maybe this format still works (obviously I don't know their numbers). But it's slathered in ads and still reminds me of Tucows - I bet there's a better way to solve this problem.

</comment><comment><USER33> Now all they have to do is change the name :)

Half joking, but for me, whenever I hear "sourceforge" - it's like a reminder from the 90s with heavy page loads and arcane user interface. It will take time to get over it.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't like to bash on other peoples' hard work, but it seems like their focus on features and not UX may be a mistake here. The reality is that most developers use other services now and they need to make a better case for why I should care about them. More features != more compelling.

Also I think the juxtaposition of the big green "Open Source" logo with "TM" is very ironic.

<comment><USER35> It is the logo of the Open Source Initiative (<http://opensource.org/>), not their own.

<comment><USER34> How foolish I feel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Sourceforge used to be where code goes to die.

Nowadays it's not even that anymore, I wonder when they will finally shut it down.

<comment><USER37> Yeah I was hoping this blog post would be "the next source forge will be us closing down."

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The redesign is an improvement, but the usability is still miserable. The main nav with "solution centers" is really just sponsors. The fake download banners and links are so misleading.

These attempts to get users to click on links makes my stomach turn. Compared to Github or Google Code, SourceForge still feels so dishonest. This is open- source software they are hosting here.

Nine years ago I was a subscriber of SourceForge, because I thought they were helpful to developers and the communities around projects. I'd never consider paying them anything these days.

I also found it surprising that Adium is the most popular Financial app.

</comment><comment><USER39> I just visited the Allura project page to check out the new design, and my eyes had no idea where to look. There's just so much text with no clear layout. The job ads on the side have the same color and weight as the main project description, and there's so much extraneous information.

My head starts hurting every time I visit an SF page. Even after this redesign, I don't see why anybody would use SourceForge for a new project over GitHub + GitHub Pages for the project page, other than they really hate git.

</comment><comment><USER40> SourceForge needs to integrate with OpenHatch so its easier to get started with Open Source projects.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sourceforge feels a little bit like the Geocities of developers now. Funny how things go.

</comment><comment><USER42> I would like to see otherwise, but SourceForge looks like it could be the MySpace of code repositories.

I used SourceForge Google Code for several projects and it just seemed like everybody abandoned ship for GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why is this site design giving me such intense deja vu? I swear I've seen a site that looked just like this before. Maybe it's just that all sites look kind of like this these days.

</comment><comment><USER44> If Google Code can't catch GitHub, then SF definitely wont.

</comment><comment><USER45> Today I learned sourceforge is blocked in China. Yet I feel no rage like I did when they were blocking github, interesting.

</comment><comment><USER46> The irony of a trademarked OpenSource logo...

<comment><USER47> Eeh, yes and no. I think their ( = Open Source Initiative) main reason for doing so is to give them the right to pursue sites/companies that would use their logo while not actually being open source in some sort of attempt to gain goodwill with the people that would care about it.

You are quite free (<http://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines>) to use their logo in a lot of cases without the need to contact them at all.

It is not like your average open source advocates are standing on fences wanting the right to put an "endorsed by apple/google/amazon/..." logo on their sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> So, the next next next next SourceForge, then...

</comment><comment><USER49> Wow! When can I start using it? Oh, not four years ago? Then I think I'll stick with GitHub.

<comment><USER50> You would have switched from Github 4 years ago? Not me.

<comment><USER51> Joined Github Mar 17, 2009. Pretty close.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why has it barely been mentioned that the platform powering SF is now open source?

Don't like the ads? Think it takes too many clicks? Fix it, deploy it.

<comment><USER53> How will that fix the problem at all? Will me changing the source code of my local copy of the source code somehow lead to the ads disappearing on SF, or me having to do less clicks when trying to download one of the six projects that still use SF for their hosting?</comment></comment>


Hacker News Kansai: Next Meetup in Kobe, Japan on 31st of May - <AUTHOR> http://hnkansai.doorkeeper.jp/events/3953

<comment><AUTHOR> Co-organizer here. This is the first time we do the event in Kobe city itself (last time we were around it was on the outskirts), so we expect this location to be more convenient for everyone.

We'll have several presentations:

\- How to make (simple) custom electronics (to work with Arduino)

\- Overview of the Open Pandora 1Ghz version, Pocket Gaming Linux Computer

\- Presentation of a couple of new mobile/web apps

\- The making of a Speed Reading application

If you are around on the 31st please join us and we plan for a place to have a drink after as well.

<comment><USER2> Awesome, sound very interesting topics! Are you uploading the presentation somewhere?

We are organizing the Shanghai Hacker News (come if you want) and are starting to move to a more formal approach than just drinking beers and speaking around. I can you have the kind of things that could be good food for thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the presentations are uploaded in Youtube, please check hnkansai.org for the links :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would like to go incredibly. Unfortunately, I'll be flying back home a tad bit too late. I'm happy to know now though, that this exists. Just a big thank you for that, for making it exist =)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll miss this one :( Looking forward to the videos, though!</comment>


Joel Spolsky: Management, Doogie Howser and Y Combinator Kids - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/29.html <comment><USER2> Joel Spolsky should probably have done more research. When Townsend was building Avis, he worked crazy hours -- when he sold to ITT, he started slacking off (showing up late, if at all, and leaving early). His bosses didn't like it; he didn't like them. He got away with saying what he did because Harold Geneen wasn't a very sympathetic character, but Townsend's failure was Townsend's fault, and ITT (which made some stupendous sums as a conglomerate) only screwed up to the extent that they underestimated his ability to be obtuse. More information: <http://www.amazon.com/Itt-Management- Opportunity-Robert-Sobel/dp/1893122441>

And Google, Yahoo, etc., are only barely conglomerates. They've figured out what the conglomerates got right (if you give customers every kind of product they want, they'll have no reason to consider working with anyone else) without repeating the same mistakes (overpaying, buying utterly unrelated businesses). The Google/Yahoo/Microsoft model of conglomerates is great -- it predates the word 'conglomerate' (which, I think, was coined in a Fortune article in the late 50's), since it's what US Steel and GM did early in the last century. The conglomerates Townsend complains about were an artifact of the accounting rules and financial culture of the late 1950's through early 1970's, and there's no reason to consider them a useful analogy with any business trend before or since.

Edit: Also, has anyone seen anything written by Casnocha that's in any way remarkable? It it just the age thing?

<comment><USER3> " _has anyone seen anything written by Casnocha that's in any way remarkable? It it just the age thing?_ "

He is remarkably good at self-aggrandizement. Hm, wait, no... just remarkably persistent at self-aggrandizement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ben Casnocha just says things that have no real value or meaning. I don't think it's just an age thing but I think the arrival of blogging has made a lot of younger entrepreneurs think they are a lot more important than they really are. Everyone has an opinion on VCs, consultants, lawyers, convertible debt, etc. Casnocha amazingly has an opinion on absolutely nothing except organic blueberries and Zen Buddhism. He's too caught up in the San Francisco world of trust fund babies like himself.

<comment><USER2> The real tragedy about Casnochas is that there are probably many people near his age who are great entrepreneurs -- but smart teenagers are bad at playing by stupid rules, so they end up not bragging because bragging could get them in serious trouble. I bet there's a 16-year-old with twice Casnochas' net worth and a much more insightful view of business -- who can't brag about it because his business is selling drugs.

<comment><USER5> Would that be of the street variety or pharmaceuticals? (con prescription)

This guy has done very well by himself and gets little press (he's 22-24 now or so): <http://www.ryanallis.com/blog/>

His companies do several mil a year and have profits to show for it. (my buddy's a cto there)</comment></comment></comment>


Google Earth for live radios - <AUTHOR> http://radio.garden <comment><USER2> Thanks for the post OP. Nice to be back on the HN homepage again.

We launched Radio Garden almost two years ago. Since four months I have shifted from doing RG on the side to giving it my full attention. We are doing millions of monthly visitors from all over the world. Now our mission is to build out the platform in such a way that people can use it as their main destination for radio.

We are currently focusing on putting out some much needed features like search. Next up will be some great curation features to help guide you to stations you care about and also surprise you with hard to find gems.

Happy to answer any questions!

<comment><USER3> I would like to ask if there are any updates for radio addresses. Right now Barrow, AK cannot be connected. It was interesting for me to listen the news they have at corner of earth. Thanks and keep up the good work.

<comment><USER2> It works for us: [http://radio.garden/live/barrow- ak/kbrw/](http://radio.garden/live/barrow-ak/kbrw/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is super cool, and it reminds of the utopian public imagination of the future of the internet in the 90's. When cyberspace was often showcased in the form of actual spaces instead of the flat list like presentations we have ended up with today. The weird 3d intermezzo between console based computing and a future that ended being all about windows, lists and buttons.

It's like when interfaces become map-based, especially on top of an actual 3d globe, something weird happens and some of the skizoid foggy fragmentation of the modern internet falls away and becomes ordered.

There is a scarcely known concept called Psychogeography that has to do with the interaction between humans, places and emotions, and its like globe based presentations of data does something both important and magical that works as an antidote to the disassociation, rootlessness and loss of both history and empathy that cyberspace without geographical anchors has lead us to.

90's comic book pop-esoterica took up the idea of the living-city, an advanced evolution of the Anima or the spirit from tribal religions, where each street, neighbourhood and country had it's own unique mood created from the people- cells of the country-organism. This spirit was an amalgamation of the locally anchored tastes, music, smells, sights and philosophies - unique to each area and that formed a somewhat cohesive aesthetic framework that functioned as a local mythology in which people could form an individual identity or an identity as a neighbourhood or a country.

The internet has somewhat eradicated these local emergent properties because people look into their phones and don't connect with each other locally anymore. Today cyberspace is all encompassing and we don't go to a gadget to get emerged, we exist inside of it at all times and everywhere.

This in turn has lead us to become fuzzy identities that has difficulties navigating without a GPS or other authoritarian maps of meaning while the parts of the brain devoted to navigation shrinks with unknown consequences.

These unknown consequences presents themselves most potently when "something clicks" sporadically and we become aware of the spaceless, fractured fog we have come to exist inside of at all times. Looking at a globe with some cultural context is one of the mystical potent Sigils or gateways that instantly helps to deprogram and declutter this noisy feeling and becomes a starting point for further non-insane exploration.

<comment><USER5> Comments like this are why I keep coming back to HN. That living-city concept blows my mind on so many levels. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and diverse perspective!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was super into grabbing the stream database they are using. (For my own personal wifi radio)

This page has an _interesting_ behavior when used without a session key: [http://data.radio.garden/live.json](http://data.radio.garden/live.json) It returns stations but with fake/warning data.

       id	"radio-afghanistan"
       name	"This app is fake"
       website	"http://rta.org.af/"
       src	"http://radio.garden/public/fake-app-warning.mp3"

I guess they don't intend on opening any of this up

<comment><USER7> Use [http://www.radio-browser.info/gui/#/](http://www.radio- browser.info/gui/#/) instead

<comment><USER8> Good DB, thanks! It sez:'Community-driven effort', 'Any help is appreciated!'

Found and updated a couple of my old 'missing in action' links, and added a couple of good ones they were missing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Previously discussed in 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164058](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164058)

I noticed there that the top comment is "developer here, ..." by user studiopuckey, do you work with them?

<comment><USER10> What's "Show HN" etiquette here? Is submitting something two years old cool, or is it only supposed to be for new things or posted once?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I'd say it's cool as long as you're not spamming it. 2 years is a long time and likely out of the memory of most. But, this is just my personal opinion. For example, I've never seen this site and it's pretty cool. Happy it was posted.

<comment><USER7> Reposting the same Show HN with a different user ID is strange though. It's supposed to be personal work

<comment><USER12> This post _might_ be some sneaky marketing for whatever it is OP is promoting in its profile.

This is the second random Show HN post in three days under this profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really impressed with this. It's something I would never have known I wanted until I saw it. I'm happily scrolling around different countries to get a taste of what they are playing.

I only speak English fluently but I've been learning some French and I can see this helping.

<comment><USER14> Same. I must say all pop music seems to sound the same no matter the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great, thanks for sharing! There's something slightly related but more focused on music from a specific time period in a country. It's called Radiooooo ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18428147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18428147)), just submitted it too because I thought others might find it interesting too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. This is awesome too. Easy to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Super, super cool, and super super clever. Congrats and amazing job!

Small UX feedback: I wish I could pan to another part of the globe and _then_ click on a radio station, rather than it almost immediately switching to whatever station is closest to the middle of my view. (I'd like to keep listening to the old one a bit before choosing the new one.) Also, the + and - buttons seem wonky and sometimes seem to get stuck/inactive.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is amazing!

If you're up for some traditional southern Tunisian music, tune in here: [http://radio.garden/live/djerba-midun/ulysse- fm/](http://radio.garden/live/djerba-midun/ulysse-fm/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Best Radio Ever ! Makes me feel that I can immediately connect to the vibe of any nation/community through the music or shows that they like. Not too many features like many here thought you should have had, I think you have hit the right balance where I can choose a radio and continue listening to it without having extra controls over volume or giving the ability to browse while still listening which could unknowingly distract a user from listening the current stream. Thank you for making this.

</comment><comment><USER18> I keep this on my bookmarks bar and dip in often. It reminds me of when, as a child in the UK, I made a crystal radio from a kit and spent late evenings hunting for intesting stations from continental Europe.

</comment><comment><USER19> An especially cool feature is that it changes the URL when you select a station (which Google Earth does) into a nice human-readable one with a slug (which Google Maps does not) example (my old college radio station) [http://radio.garden/live/westfield- ma/wskb-89-5-fm/](http://radio.garden/live/westfield-ma/wskb-89-5-fm/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Quick question, (I can't check the site where I'm at currently), can anyone recommend a service that plays historical radio recordings? For example the radio (with the historical dj/commercials also) from the 1970-90s or older? Preferably not just short snippets, and I'd be open to purchasing recordings if a streaming service isn't available.

<comment><USER21> [https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio](https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio)

[https://archive.org/details/radioprograms](https://archive.org/details/radioprograms)

Enjoy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is awesome, listening to some sweet latin-influenced jazz playing in Mogocha, Russia and remembering how I thought the internet would bring us together some day when I was a kid.

</comment><comment><USER23> Oh my goodness there are so many! I like to think I grok the scale of the world, and it's easy to trick yourself into thinking it is all pretty uniform. But it really is unfathomable at the human scale of granularity. Awesome project!

</comment><comment><USER24> I love this! It took me about 10 secs to find something I enjoy listening to.

The UI and ease of access to so many streams is incredible. Great job.

</comment><comment><USER25> As someone who enjoyed listening to AM/MW/LW bands before the internet, this brings back a lot of memories. Back in those days the only way to "connect" to the world was by trying to tune to radio stations as far as away as possible. Not being able to understand the language wasn't a problem, as long as you could hear something different and understand how different (but similar) we all are.

</comment><comment><USER26> I really like this. I could see this being a great add-in for Volumio[1].

[1] [https://volumio.org](https://volumio.org)

</comment><comment><USER27> The elephant that isn't in the room: China (one Hong Kong station and that's it). Anyone know if their government restricts streaming?

<comment><USER2> Sadly, we were recently blocked by the Chinese government on the DNS level. Although we do have many Chinese users on VPN. We don't have so many Chinese stations, because they mostly broadcast using the Windows Media Audio format.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> To echo everyone else, this is _amazing_.

Currently listening to Black Velvet at [http://radio.garden/live/saarbrucken/classicrock- radio/](http://radio.garden/live/saarbrucken/classicrock-radio/)

This is going to help my fledgling German no-end.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is amazing! I discovered Seoul Community Radio -- which is of the ilk as Berlin Community Radio.

These little stations are total gems. What a fun site!

[1] [http://radio.garden/live/seoul/seoul-communtiy- radio/](http://radio.garden/live/seoul/seoul-communtiy-radio/)

[1a] [http://seoulcommunityradio.out.airtime.pro:8000/seoulcommuni...](http://seoulcommunityradio.out.airtime.pro:8000/seoulcommunityradio_a) (direct)

[2] [http://radio.garden/live/berlin/berlin-community- radio/](http://radio.garden/live/berlin/berlin-community-radio/)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is one of my favorite internet radio ~stations~ websites. My only beef is that I wish there was a more permanent way to bookmark stations. The current implementation uses cookies or something that doesn't allow me to sync between browsers.

<comment><USER2> This is definitely on our todo list. Because we have so many users, we want to make sure we do this in a scalable way. We are currently moving from a very static file based lamp stack to a regionally distributed docker swarm based microservices setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How long before television.garden?

</comment><comment><USER32> This is incredible, I'm curious about what you're using for rendering the earth though, is it google maps? If so, how are you able to afford the costs of the api? I love it already, but I'm already worried about its sustainability.

<comment><USER33> Its a project for some dutch gallery from designer and programer Jonathan Puckey. Big name in design/art scene. I am not connected to the studio but some friends worked there and from my foggy memory the project had excactly those problems. It got big some time ago and although it was supposed to be more local thing they started to get rejected by google analytics and maps. I think instead folding the project the gallery is just swallowing the costs. It goes from Dutch grants - so state money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> this is amazing! congratulations on the great work! how does it get the radio feeds from all over the globe?

<comment><USER35> Presumably because a lot of radio stations nowadays also stream on the web, this is just an aggregator with a great way to browse the information.

It's incredibly mind-opening, if I asked you "Do you think Timbuktu has a radio station?", you'd say "For sure.", and we could even google that term to find a website or two, but with them visualized on a globe we could just randomly browse places to listen to what the locals are listening (sadly Timbuktu doesn't seem to be on their map).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Looks cool, but I'm not sure what the +/\- buttons do, they seem to only move the globe sometimes and zoom in and out other times.

Currently zoomed too far in and can't zoom out.

<comment><USER37> Zoom buttons just pick random stations in Firefox. In Edge the map doesn't even move. Mobile Safari doesn't work at all.

Devs gotta stop testing their apps only in Chrome. Not everyone wants Google spyware shit on their systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> thank you for posting this. Interesting how euRope has so many stations. Greece for example has more stations than India on this list [http://www.radio-browser.info/gui/#/countries](http://www.radio- browser.info/gui/#/countries) Is there a concerted european effort to list stations perhaps because the money for this is dutch? Or does the internet access of a country affect this?

<comment><USER2> India is actually in the top three countries visiting Radio Garden. We believe internet access and costs do indeed affect how many stations can afford to be online. Another reason is that in certain regions, stations tend to use streaming formats like Windows Media Audio, which is not supported on the web. We have a submission system and actively add all submitted stations. A few hundred a week are added to the database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Amazing project.

I just submitted a local radio station. Since this is in the front page, I guess that you'll be overwhelmed with the number of new submissions, though. :)

</comment><comment><USER40> I decided to broaden my horizons a bit, see what I could find in Mexico.

The first station was playing "Feel It Still" by Portugal. The Man.

Anyway, awesome application.

</comment><comment><USER41> Love it! When traveling I often enjoy listening to local radio (assuming I understand at least some of the language) in e.g. taxi/Uber. I find that often it gives you perspective and level of detail impossible to get researching the place on the internet. With the fantastic UI of this app I already feel more connected to a lot of places I'm interested in.

</comment><comment><USER42> Very nice. I'm surprised you don't bother to equalize the audio levels between stations, though, any reason for that?

</comment><comment><USER43> This is going places. It's quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER44> Best feature of it is that it is fast to load.

Also, being able to listen to WW2 Nazi Propaganda (and a fun commentary about it):

[http://radio.garden/history/warsaw/ghost- voices/](http://radio.garden/history/warsaw/ghost-voices/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Very Cool. Love the auto geo location feature to zero in a local station. This makes the first impression really awesome! You using some type of ip to location lookup, then doing a db lookup for a local station, then connecting me?

<comment><USER45> Not the author, but it seems so; in the credits they link to [https://github.com/puckey/freegeoip/](https://github.com/puckey/freegeoip/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm slightly freaked out that it went to within 100 meters of my house while I'm all the way across the country, but it seems like it goes there for my colleagues as well, so I guess that's just a coincidence :)

</comment><comment><USER47> Seconding the request to be able to "lock" a station while scrolling. Other than that it is perfect - UX and discovery is intuitive, the station listings are comprehensive, and the music sounds great

</comment><comment><USER48> This is rad. It's an early monday morning and I'm listening to what would be late night wave anime radio in Japan. Really cool idea and solid execution.

</comment><comment><USER49> Lovely, I'm particularly impressed with how fast the streams started. Biggest surprise for me was Kiribati and Saint Helena.

</comment><comment><USER50> Very cool but really, really needs a volume control so that I can set the radio volume separately to the other tabs I have open.

</comment><comment><USER51> It would be nice for it to follow your location on mobile, tuning to the nearest station as you drive across different towns.

<comment><USER52> I honestly don't know if this is tongue in cheek or not (if it is: bravo!), but does your car radio not serve that purpose?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Perhaps an option to return to the previously selected station would be useful? Basically just an undo button...

</comment><comment><USER54> Can someone integrate this with Alexa? :)

</comment><comment><USER55> Groundhog day. ..It has something interesting the combination of geography and music. Always great

</comment><comment><USER56> I love this creation! Thank You, shouldn't you add a login service so favorites are not lost?

</comment><comment><USER57> the same thing but in json... if you want to implement on your projects, as I probably will... [http://cdn2.radio.garden/live.json](http://cdn2.radio.garden/live.json)

</comment><comment><USER58> This is really cool. My friends and I are greatly enjoying it. Thanks!!

</comment><comment><USER59> No radios in China. Looks like those satellite night of NK photos

</comment><comment><USER60> One of the coolest things I've seen on HN in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER61> This site makes me happy. A request: dark theme, please.

</comment><comment><USER62> Great idea, but having no volume control is awful.

<comment><USER40> It has the same volume control as pretty much anything else: your operating system's.

<comment><USER63> Also, hard to take someone seriously when they use the word "awful" to describe the lack of some minor UI enhancement.

<comment><USER62> Well, hard to take someone seriously when they don't understand that it's not a minor UI enhancement.

<comment><USER63> Call it a major UI enhancement. Is it still appropriate use of "awful"?

<comment><USER62> In my opinion yes. There's trend on dumbing down media UI on desktop, even though it doesn't have restrictions of mobile, with instagram being prime example - no volume control and no ability to move position. It's their choice for UI not technical problem. I have several sound sources - couple of sites in tabs that don't have volume control, media player, notification sounds, etc. They are all set in balance to my liking and I don't want to fiddle with global volume for every site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> This is much fun! Kudos for building this!

</comment><comment><USER44> Time to find that radio signal from Vega.

</comment><comment><USER65> Wow. This is awesome, great submission!

</comment><comment><USER66> Love the idea! Congratulations.

</comment><comment><USER67> I love it. It's magical.

</comment><comment><USER68> my kid fantasies of having a short wave radio become true

</comment><comment><USER69> thanks for sharing radiooooo.com ! this is AMAZING !

</comment><comment><USER70> this is super cool

</comment><comment><USER71> SUPER COOL

I find the green dots easy to miss on a green earth.

I find the gray dots even easier to miss.

I wish I could "lock" a stream while I spin the globe, just to be able to browse and see how dense an area is for signals, before committing or stopping what I was listening to.

History didn't do what I expected it to do AT ALL. I wanted to find a stream I had previously, but lost because I couldn't find the dot due to the previously aforementioned issues.

Okay now that I'm in History anyway, why am I stuck in 1987? Can I change the year... with the plus and minus buttons? Nope! Okay I'm done with History now.

Good job! Looking forward to seeing this evolve

</comment><comment><USER72> Gimmicky ... but it was really fun to scroll around various countries. Nice job.</comment>


Streamline 3.0, the world's largest icon library, with 30.000+ icons - <AUTHOR> https://streamlineicons.com <comment><USER2> This looks like a really awesome icon library. I wonder what the biggest difference is between this and font awesome? It doesn't look like it is possible to use CSS classes out of the box (not that I'm recommending using them.) Also, not seeing any social media platform icons being included.</comment>


San Francisco reports first coronavirus cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-first-coronavirus-cases-15108332.php <comment><AUTHOR> "The patients are 'contained,' Mayor London Breed said at an 11 a.m. press conference."</comment>


Testing Against Datomic - <AUTHOR> http://yellerapp.com/posts/2014-05-07-testing-datomic.html

<comment><USER2> Great article. Your experiences mirror my own.</comment>


Fleeced by the Telecoms and Your State Is Blessing It - <AUTHOR> https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-your-state-allowing-the-cable-company-to-rook-you/ <comment><USER2> I prefer to call it being "fisted by the invisible hand".</comment>


Ask HN: Is it safe to analyse your DNA? - <AUTHOR> Yesterday I saw this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0QJvZlEDNo where one of these doctors recommend to test your DNA to know your weakness and anticipate future problems and prevent deseases. Although, recently I read about a data breach from one of the major genetic analysis companies. I'm concerned about privacy and future threats that can appear with your DNA in the wild. I feel like I'm giving away my private key, which obviously is impossible to replace. What are your thoughts on these matters? <comment><USER2> The doctor's idea is excellent, but your right, the information can leak, and not just from data breaches but also via the Law enforcement, the government, and other companies via mergers and acquisitions or they just may sell the information or give it away. Doctors can sell their practices, or be acquired by large business interest.

Something else to consider though, any relatives will have pretty much that same information and may decide to have analysis done under terms you would not accept.

This is what lead to the Golden Stake Killer's capture.

You might also want to consider is who will interpret the information and will it yield reliable information, or just a guess?

Here are a few stories about identical twins getting different results:

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits- twins-m...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/dna-ancestry-kits-twins- marketplace-1.4980976)

[https://www.healthyway.com/content/these-identical- triplets-...](https://www.healthyway.com/content/these-identical-triplets- were-shocked-to-learn-that-their-dna-didnt-match/)</comment>


The Scientific Revolution Of India Before Muslim and British Conquest - <AUTHOR> http://mindbodypolitic.com/2011/12/10/the-scientific-revolution-of-indian-before-muslim-and-british-conquest/

<comment><USER2> It's worth noting that a lot of the dates mentioned in this article are far from the scholarly consensus on the matter; to take one example, the attribution of the Puranas to Vyasa is roughly similar to the attribution of the Pentateuch to Moses; it's not a reliable foundation for dating the texts (which most scholars place far later than 1000BCE.)

Similarly, the claim that Pythagoras was acquainted with the Upanishads is not historically attested; there's some fascinating work (by McEvilley) on cultural diffusion between the Ancient Greek and Ancient Indian worlds, but much of it is conjectural, and there's no "smoking gun" to support blanket statements of the type "Pythagoras read the Upanishads."

Finally, in my reading of the secondary literature, most scholars reverse the chronology in the statement "Philosophical formulations concerning Shunya - i.e. emptiness or the void may have facilitated in the introduction of the concept of zero." The consensus seems to be the opposite-- that the concept of zero in mathematics appears to have influenced the philosophical formulations around emptiness.

<comment><USER3> Yes. The dates of ancient texts from India are often based on legend rather than history. (A similar phenomenon in China turns an actual 3,000 years of Chinese history, with reliably dated written records, into a proverbial "5,000 years of Chinese history," which counts eras of unhistorical legends recorded in later historical sources as though they were really historical.) An accessible, accurate, and honest book about mathematics in India is Mathematics in India by Kim Plofker.

[http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim- Plofker/dp/06911...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-India-Kim- Plofker/dp/0691120676)

The highly divergent Amazon reader reviews (I really ought to add my own five- star review, as I have read the whole book), and especially how divergent some of the Amazonian reviews are from the professional reviews of the book, show how controversial some of these issues are. The issue of the history of science and technology in India is tightly interwound with domestic politics in India. The whole notion of "Vedic mathematics" is based on willful misunderstandings of the sources. Plofker in footnote 7 from page 16 of Mathematics in India cites works by scholars in India who have dug into the primary sources, and disagree with the usual claims about "Vedic mathematics."

[http://books.google.com/books?id=DHvThPNp9yMC&pg=PA16...](http://books.google.com/books?id=DHvThPNp9yMC&pg=PA16&dq=popular+usage+of+the+term+%22Vedic+mathematics%22+often+differs&hl=en&ei=RpGwS86wHp7MMt_GnbUO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=popular%20usage%20of%20the%20term%20%22Vedic%20mathematics%22%20often%20differs&f=false)</comment></comment>


Why Your First House Is A Liability - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@introvertmac/why-your-first-house-is-a-liability-7e41c8b35295 <comment><USER3> Lots of bad financial advice here. "You can't unlock a house's appreciation" - wrong, they have home equity lines of credit, refinances with cash out. "You could do so many better things with the money" - you have to live somewhere, wouldn't you rather live in a nice house with the potential for appreciation than rent with no chance at all?

Also, there's tax advantages to mortgages here in the US.

Renting out a house isn't easy money, believe me I've tried it. You have to find tenants, things break, a lot, that you have to pay for. In my case, the tent ants literally moved out in the middle of the night using their car headlights since they hadn't pairs the electric bill in 5 months.

Letting your money generate appreciation (in the stock market I assume) is no guarantee and as we've seen the last 20 years, we could see annual gains and losses of 20%.

A house IS AN ASSET. It's a non-liquid asset, but it's not a liability. What's the best test if it's an asset or a liability? Would you want to just give it away to someone?? A house, of course not. A car loan, of course.

<comment><USER4> The tax advantages are pretty rare now that the standard deduction was raised to $12k per individual. Only something like 10% of homes still use the interest deduction.

<comment><USER5> Yep between the salt tax deduction cap, incredibly low interest rates, recently lowered limit of $750k for how much home value qualifies for the mortgage interest deduction, and recently raised standard deductions, for a married couple (and maybe also for a single person but I haven't calculated that in detail) the tax benefits of owning a house are very close to 0.

Which is probably a good thing, there's no need to give the huge breaks we have been the past few decades to people wealthy enough to buy a house. But what a bizarrely complicated way to go about enacting this change instead of just eliminating the mortgage interest deduction altogether.

<comment><USER6> I'm in favor of the owner-occupied mortgage interest deduction (MID) because I believe that owner-occupied housing should not be at a disadvantage compared to commercially rented-out property.

Without MID, landlords can (tend to) outbid owner-occupants for property because of differential tax treatment. (Commercial loans for profit-seeking businesses are always tax-deductible as we tax profits and not revenues.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dawg- I bought my first house at 24 which is apparently rare nowadays. I sold it and made some money. If I had taken my down payment and invested it in a bunch of AMD stock or something I would have made triple the money. But I don't regret it - there is something so satisfying about owning the place you live. It's like a sense of self-efficacy and control over your life that is not the same when you rent. I would recommend any young person to go ahead and buy a house as soon as they have the money for a down payment. There is a lot more benefit than just the financial side of things. I grew up a lot in that house. The freedom of owning your place also comes with the reality that anything that happens to it is on you. The house was the biggest personal responsibility I had ever taken on and it was a great overall life experience.

<comment><USER7> > A mortgage payment is always less than rent for an equivalent property, > anyway.

Not always, though they often track closely to reach other, they can also diverge. If rent is high and home prices are low that could be a good signal to buy.

And you also have to consider what you equity would be doing if it was invested in something other than your house.

<comment><USER8> > > A mortgage payment is always less than rent for an equivalent property, > anyway

Yeah, I don't understand these statements. It is clear that people making them do not have experience is real estate or only have experience in specific markets. There are absolutely many real estate markets where the rent is more than the mortgage, and anyone with enough real estate knowledge to give advice would know this.

<comment><USER9> > There are absolutely many real estate markets where the rent is more than > the mortgage

That's what the quote is saying.

<comment><USER8> Ahh you are correct! My point is there are many markets where rent is cheaper and there are many markets where mortgage is cheaper. Anyone saying that is only one of those is going to cause me concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh god, I've thought long and hard about this over the years and my conclusion is that there's no good advice that applies to everyone - whether you should own or rent depends heavily on what you value, how long you plan to stay put, and what alternatives you have when it comes to what to do with your money.

Renting gives you flexibility and keeps any cash you might have free, but it also is a sunk cost with each passing month. It's pretty simple math.

Owning a place ties up cash in the form of a down payment, and a lot of people underestimate the true cost of maintenance and repairs over time on both new and old buildings. But the ability to build equity over time and the amount of control it gives you over your living situation makes it an obvious choice for me. If you can get into a multi-family or income generating property, your returns are obviously higher. I'd always look at appreciation potential as a bonus if it happens, it's never a reason to buy.

I think the truest and most important thing to keep in mind is that money is made and lost when buying real estate, not selling it. Educate yourself, be picky, take your time, be realistic about costs, and do your very best to buy well.

<comment><USER11> This idea of appreciation being a bonus is the most important concept in real estate ownership.

Make the math work without appreciation, and you are doing it right.

<comment><USER10> So, so true. But if you have conversations with a hundred people about the math behind their real estate, it's the only thing the vast majority are considering in my experience, which is such a big miss.

<comment><USER11> This is literally what creates real estate bubbles. If you are thinking that way, congratulations, you just reinvented leveraged investing.

A la 'a short history of financial euphoria'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I don't want to reinvent the wheel, we'll use the definition from one of the > best personal finance book "Rich Dad Poor Dad"

I was trying to understand the perspective of the article, and that gave me the major clue.

RDPD is one of many books that basically says the key to financial success is real estate investment.

For a few people, and at certain times, maybe, but it is better for most people to make it a (small) part of a wider financial investment plan.

Your first house (or any house) should be first and foremost though if as a place where you will live, and "primary residence as investment" is almost never a good thing.

<comment><USER13> I agree with your point. In addition, this book also suggests ideas that, in my opinion, are so far away from the minds of an average person that it's kind of absurd. Admittedly it's been years since I've read the book, but one example I can remember is setting up a corporation to reduce tax burden through. I don't think it's useful advice for somebody whose trying to get by and not already wealthy.

I would've appreciated the article more if they skipped mention of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seems to be written from the perspective of somebody who cannot see the difference between an investment and a _home_.

Even if you look at it in mostly financial terms there are positives and negatives; the essay here is far too black and white.

Sure, by chasing every dollar you can sacrifice quality of life for a few years to maximise your bank account at a later date, but in the meantime some of us prefer to live a life where not everything is based around that mind- frame.

There is probably some useful advice in there somewhere but a more thoughtful, pragmatic approach will serve it better.

<comment><USER15> you can turn that argument on its head though. Caring about quality of life is why I rent rather than buy a home. No debt, no fixed costs (people typically say 1% of the value of the house per year, quite a lot of cash), no repairs I have to worry about, moving out is simple etc..

Here in Germany most people rent by the way, so I never understood the obsession with homeownership. Just look at the covid mess. If you're in your 20s or 30s and bought a house and live on credit cards I'd be sweating right now. Living in a rented place within my means, having a year worth of savings in the bank, it's a lot less stressful.

<comment><USER16> My rent is 0.5% the price of an apartment per month (350 eur / mo). So, in 17 years, there are two outcomes:

1\. I have no apartment, no money invested, and I have to keep paying rent.

2\. I have a 60k euro apartment. Not only do I not have to pay rent ever, I also have the option of selling it and recovering most of my investment. Or I can rent it to generate money. Not to mention I have something to leave behind to my grandchildren so they don't have to spend money on rent.

> Just look at the covid mess. If you're in your 20s or 30s and bought a house > and live on credit cards I'd be sweating right now

People who are renting are also sweating right now. Whether or not they bought a house or rent doesn't matter. What matters is that they "live on credit cards".

Or take another example: Silicon Valley. There were are two kinds of people in SV:

1\. People who owned homes now rent them at exorbitant prices, or sold them for a huge profit.

2\. People who rented were forced to move out or live on the streets.

Owning a home is an investment. Renting is a liability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why is Medium filled with, what I call, celery? I consume articles, but there is absolutely no substance.

Is there some unknown incentive for these people to share empty "enlightenment?" It's as if these people are becoming content farms being graded on number of articles published.

Anyway, this article is garbage.

<comment> dawg- Medium is very popular among people who are trying to be Thought Leaders but actually have no original thoughts to share

<comment><USER18> Ha. I'm stealing that joke, that's quality. I wonder if anybody's managed financial success on Medium/Substack yet with a "hustler inspiration" focused GPT masquerading as a guru. I'd love to read that postmortem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree that for someone who wants to frequently move around in their 20s, a house is a liability, especially since you don't know what the housing market will do so you could end up loosing a lot of money in the short term. But not everyone wants to move around in their 20s, some people find a city they like and want to stay there.

And I don't understand why the author suggests everyone wait until they can get a rental property, that just doubles your exposure to the housing market and adds the stress of having tenants. If you really want to have that much money at risk, just dump all the second house money in the S&P 500, and trade on margin or something.

</comment><comment><USER20> Depends what country you're in really. Here in Australia the advise is pretty terrible.

House prices in some cities go up faster than any investment you could make and there are some pretty crazy tax gymnastics purposely put in place to keep the dirt cash churning.

Meanwhile your mortgage repayments are slightly higher than renting in the same area so why wouldn't you just pay for an asset instead of paying off someone elses mortgage.

Youre building equity which you can leverage for other investments while keeping a roof over your head.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is mixing up liquidity with asset vs liability. A house is a depreciable asset. The land beneath the house holds it's value and doesn't depreciate. That's why the assesed value for tax splits them out. Both are less liquid than cash, but I can convert my equity in the asset to cash very quickly with a loan, or put the house up for sale and maybe it takes a little longer to get the cash. The loan would be a liability. But a house is never a liability on financial terms.

My current plan is to buy, live in the house for a few years, offer the house up for rent, and rent a new house for myself. I'm currently on step 2. I don't want to overcommit myself in real estate so buying a second residential property doesn't make sense for me. Because of rent appreciation I will have positive cash flow while renting out my current home. That hedges for any future rent increases in my future place of residence.

I'd consider buying an income generating vacation home too. But not another primary residence. That's just my opinion. And my opinion doesn't make my house an asset or a liability.

Now that said, I feel one non-financial aspect where owning a house is a liability is the opportunity cost of time spent maintaining the house. In a rental the landlord takes care of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> > It is safe to assume, you are probably buying your first house for yourself > — not for renting it out. In this scenario — your first house will take > money out of your pocket, you can't convert it into cash for at least first > few years otherwise where will you live? Hence I believe it is a LIABILITY.

Yeah... Of course. But let's look at the alternative - most young adults don't have a roof over their head sorted out. Statistically few people have the opportunity to live with their parents - lack of space, job opportunities, social circles and so on. So it's either buying or renting. And here is where you need to look at both options:

1\. Renting - you have a fixed rent + bills to pay. If something breaks down on it's own, your landlord has to fix it(ideally but far not always the case). Depending on your landlord there may or may not be furniture, so you may need to invest in furniture, appliances, etc.

2\. Buying - same as rent, but you have to take care of maintenance on your own in all cases. However, the big difference is that in this scenario, your mortgage payment does add something to your name, that is, your money isn't fully gone at the end of the month, as opposed to renting. Renting will guarantee a roof over your head until the end of the month and that's it. Mortgage does mean you have an asset(even if it is partially). You still have the ability to sell it, should you need to.

I'm not talking about the people born with silver spoons in their mouths - <USER2> the vast majority of people(myself included), those are the two options we have in front of us. They are both liabilities, they both are a weight on your shoulder and while mortgages come with more strings attached, I still believe it's the lesser evil of the two.

<comment><USER22> >> most young adults don't have a roof over their head sorted out. Statistically few people have the opportunity to live with their parents

"The share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents has become a majority since U.S. coronavirus cases began spreading early this year, surpassing the previous peak during the Great Depression era.

In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February"

\-- Pew Research, [https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact- tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents- for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/)

<comment><USER21> U.S. is a different story. On the other side of the pond, things look differently. I know of just one person in his late 20's living with his mom, but this is a recent development in his life(used to live abroad, moved back and needed a place to stay). Otherwise he left the nest pretty much when he was 18.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well politely "I disagree"

I moved to a lovely new town for my first IT job (I'm still there 20 years later). I initially rented for the couple of years and moved out when the landlord decided to sell - and he offered to sell to me for what I thought was a ridiculous price. Few years later I decided to buy and saw that original house was back on the market. The appreciation on that original house was more than I'd earnt (pre-tax) in those intervening few years.

Next flat I rented was from a teacher. She'd decided to try working in Australia, but before she left had decided to sell her house in the UK and buy a nice, easily rentable flat in the town she 'might want to move back to'. This struck me as incredibly sensible.

There's your job(s) which may be tied to a particular place and there's your housing in that same place. If you don't own anything you're at the complete mercy of the markets. You might score that great 10% yearly pay-rise, but if housing goes up 20% it's still 'bad'

My humble advice is that not buying is perfectly sensible as it provides you with flexibility - but try to connect yourself to the housing market - you'll always need a house. Buying a place and renting it out might provide best return for the risk, but there are plenty of funds geared around housing you can invest in, just to make sure you don't get left behind.

</comment><comment><USER8> It unclear to me what investment of a 20% down payment the author thinks is going to have net returns greater than the leveraged real estate investment.

Also the statement "Especially, in big cities where down payments are huge, renting is always a better idea" is just straight up wrong and it's uncomfortable to me that people write financial advice articles with such a clear lack understanding of markets, real estate, and motives of home buyers.

</comment><comment><USER24> The author's advice is country dependent. My assumption is that he is writing from the perspective of buying in India.

1) In India, rents are very low compared to mortgage payments. 2) Home value appreciation is low given the rate of inflation. 3) financial instruments like home equity line of credit are not available.

So yes, it probably is not a good decision to buy a house in a big city in India. Elsewhere? Do your own calculation.

<comment><USER25> True rental yield in India is 1.5-2% pa as compared to 6-7% in America or Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This really varied from place to place. I live in a small city in the midwest. My mortgage payment is barely more than my rent was and I went from 1 bedroom to 3. I also went from hearing neighbors all the time to rarely hearing them and having a fenced in yard where I can do whatever I want. Those luxuries are more than worth it to me.

I could make more in a large city but real estate would be way more too.

<comment><USER27> Roughly the same for me here on the east coast even. My basic mortgage payment was less than I was paying for rent to hear a kid have night terrors most nights. Definitely miss maintenance being someone else's problem but I think it's very much worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't ever consider my primary house an investment. I purchased and put money into projects that allowed me to live in the house. Usually, housing markets are stable enough that at the very least you are either breaking even, making some moeny or at the worst losing a little money to when selling the house. Despite maybe losing some money, consider the overall amount you spent. If done right, you should have at least lived rent free.

There are downsides to owning. Bad stuff happens and you are on the hook for it. A furnace can cost a pretty penny. Water damage is messy, expensive and hard to repair. If you aren't handy, renovations are costly. Even if you are handy, renovations often cost more than planned and take WAY longer than you might want. I wound up doing a lot of punch list work as I was getting ready to sell my first house. I spent years living with my imperfect, incomplete work.

Consider this, though: renting is as bad as leasing a car. There is no financial benefit long-term. That money is gone and you will have no real leverage from that rental to put towards your next adventure. Not even the security deposit with interest will cover the overall cost of renting for a year, though you may get it back with a little interest. You will have spent a significant amount in rent over the time you lived there, more than that deposit + interest is worth.

You do have some benefits (maybe). You aren't responsible for renovations or equipment failure. Hopefully you have a landlord that is responsible and willing to quickly repair that furnace in the dead of winter. You aren't as tied to a location long-term. When the contract is up, you can leave immediately. You don't have money tied up in a house that may not sell at the same time you are looking to purchase.

Ultimately I was able to walk away with a chunck of change for my next house, if I calculated it out, I likely broke even or lost a little money over renovations and interest, but I didn't lose all those payments over 5 years to rent.

</comment><comment><USER29> > best personal finance book "Rich Dad Poor Dad"

Lost me right there. That is such a stupid book.

</comment><comment><USER30> Home ownership and apt renting are radically different markets. That house you bought, how much does it cost to rent the equivalent? Your end desire is the important issue here to decide to buy or rent. When you rent you don't control the surrounds you have and might have undesirable neighbors living on top of you. I know few people who bought a home regret it. But some people prefer the care free life of renting. I don't want to be renting or paying a mortgage in my later years.

</comment><comment><USER31> Forget pure financial calculation -- It also gives you less flexibility to move quickly! I certainly wouldn't buy a house before age 30. You want to be able to pick up and move and chase an opportunity. (I'm awfully glad I got on a plane and moved to Silicon Valley in 1989 on a whim.)

<comment><USER32> > You want to be able to pick up and move and chase an opportunity.

This is a very personal decision. I, for instance, hate moving. Doubly so moving long distance. I was never going to be the type who bounces from city to city. Thus, I bought my first property when I was 24.

<comment><USER31> > This is a very personal decision.

That's why I said " _I_ certainly wouldn't buy a house before age 30." I was pointing out an advantage of renting that's not purely financial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Purchases are irrational. I bought the car I bought because I like the engine noise, and I bought a house because I don't want to have to ask permission to the landlord to hang a frame in the wall.

It makes sense not to buy a house if you just know you are moving in the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER34> buying a house is probably not a good investment, true. But so is buying a car.

And at some point people may get to the point where they want these things.

Sure, you can rent, but there at lots of things you can't do in a rental. And in some regions the rental market for houses is very small.</comment>


A Live SPDY server running on node.js server - <AUTHOR> https://spdy.indutny.com/

<comment><USER2> Can't load the page, in the meantime you can find the codebase on Github:

<https://github.com/indutny/node-spdy>

</comment><comment><USER3> On a related note, the latest Go comes with spdy support as part of standard http serving library: [http://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/#hg%2Fsrc%2Fpkg%2F...](http://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/#hg%2Fsrc%2Fpkg%2Fhttp%2Fspdy)

The code implementing it seems to be smaller than the node version.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is fantastic! Thank you for contributing this back to the community.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you! That wouldn't have happened without your contribution</comment></comment>


ARM chip converts video to 3D on the fly - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Quartics-QV1721/

<comment><USER2> Call me back when they actually have some video samples showing this chip in action. (With examples of the extracted left & right video views to demonstrate the 3D conversion.)

<comment><USER3> It's even worse, it's not their software (linked on the page) and the specs required for the software seem to be fairly high compared to the specs of that arm chip.

And the 3D is 'psuedo 3D', taking a 2D movie and converting it to a '3D' experience for some definition of 3D.</comment></comment>


The Case for Melancholy - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/style/the-case-for-melancholy.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur <comment><USER2> Interestingly, Albrecht Dürer's engraving Melancholia I (1514) is thought to portray melancholia as "the state of waiting for inspiration to strike, and not necessarily as a depressive affliction". Seems like the author sees it in a similar way (an opportunity for reflection).

</comment><comment><USER3> Glorifying melancholy does not automatically make it a sensible state to be in.

It seems that as the self-help mania withers down, the pendulum swings right back to embracing suffering as normal state of affairs. Is there no creativity in the realm of human happiness (we keep trying the same old same old for centuries)?</comment>


BioCaster: mapping disease outbreaks through news aggregation and social media - <AUTHOR> http://born.nii.ac.jp/

<comment><USER2> Maps! Me like.

It's a shame I never got to do anything with my Certificate in GIS.</comment>


Show HN: An experimental news site that generates content from Reddit: Nowpaper - <AUTHOR> https://nowpaper.com/ <comment><USER2> I love it. It's become one of the first things I look at every morning.

</comment><comment><USER3> First impression: None of the links are links, so middle-click/ctrl-click does not work. That was my last impression as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah good point thanks</comment></comment>