A Better Alternative to Small Houses - <AUTHOR> http://benicetobears.com/2016/11/17/the-better-alternative-to-small-houses-that-nobody-is-talking-about/ <comment><USER2> I'd like to put forward the pinnacle of this theory: Get a tiny shithole.

Travel trailers are dirt cheap, once they reach a certain age, and they're shitholes, once they reach a certain age. There really isn't much you can do to fix up a really old travel trailer that isn't one of the "collectible" sort (Airstream, mostly, but there are some others with collector value). They don't cost too much to heat/cool, even if poorly insulated, because they're very, very small (a couple hundred square feet). They've also got wheels, so you can drive them south when it gets cold and north when it gets warm.

And, unlike tiny houses, you can park them in most RV parks, which provides the hookups you need to live comfortably (though the older and shittier your trailer is, the fewer parks will take you, but you don't want an expensive and fancy RV park, anyway, as that defeats the purpose of living in a shithole tiny house).

I say all this only half jokingly. I live in a 32 year old Avion travel trailer (one of the collectible sorts, all aluminum and very expensive when new); not quite a shithole, but not exactly pristine, either. I genuinely recommend it for folks who have the freedom to do so.

<comment><USER3> How frequently do you travel? Do you work remotely and if so how do you manage to find internet connection? This is something I've been very interested in for some time now.

<comment><USER4> Can't say from experience since I am in the research phase. But I like the outdoors so I want to be able to boondock.

So my current plan is a Wifi Device from Verizon, plus Satellite Internet, plus lots of Solar and Batteries. This is not cheap, and I am pretty sure it will not resale very well.

The satellite dish alone is like $7,000 ([http://www.rvdatasat.com](http://www.rvdatasat.com)).

But I know I'll be working remote for some time, and why not just go hit the National Parks for a bit. Of course, still need to pick and choose. Not sure I could rely on a view to a geo-sat from Yosemite Valley for example, but up high at Tuolumne Meadows should be fine.

<comment><USER2> I considered satellite when I first started, but the cost is very high, the latency is very high (I have experience with satellite internet as I've helped design caching systems for cruise ships and other satellite linked networks; while the up/down speeds aren't terrible, interactive stuff is painful), and the places where you can't get 3G/4G data in the continental US has shrunk quite a bit over the past decade or two.

I spend a lot of time in deserts, which have surprisingly good coverage, even quite far from civilization. Being flat, and all, makes it reach quite far from towers. Mountains are problematic, but even then, you can often find a place to park that's in a pocket of coverage...or you can hike or bike to a high point where you can get coverage. And, as you note, mountains are potentially problematic for satellite coverage, as well.

<comment><USER3> Do you just tether internet from your phone? I've been looking at service like Karma [1] which seems to receive good reviews from RVers i follow on YouTube and they charge an incredible $150/50Gb. The prices are just outrageous.

[1] [https://yourkarma.com/pricing](https://yourkarma.com/pricing)

<comment><USER2> I had Karma, but they did a double bait and switch (they offered unlimited with a bandwidth restriction, but then changed it after a bunch of people signed up, and then changed it yet again the month after, due to complaints...in both cases, the deals got worse and the pricing got more expensive for my use case), which made me hate them.

But, I use Sprint and T-Mobile. Karma is on the Sprint network, so the same network, but with slightly better prices. I have a 40GB plan from Sprint ($127/month, including the hotspot and the line fee), and 16GB spread across two devices on T-Mobile. And, yes, my phone can tether, but I have two hotspots, as well. I use T-Mobile for the Binge On feature, which is zero- rated Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon Video, YouTube, etc. So, when I'm streaming, I use the T-Mobile data, and for anything else I use Sprint.

And, yes, prices are outrageous. It wasn't always this way. Clear used to offer unlimited data for $40/month, and I had an unlimited data plan on my T-Mobile phone, as well. I kept the actually unlimited plan for many years, even after T-Mobile no longer offered an actually unlimited plan. But, then they started blocking hotspot usage (even on a rooted phone; not sure how they were detecting it was being used that way), so I had to switch to another plan, which was more expensive and much more limited.

Anyway, it works out to about $250/month; if I weren't sharing it with my girlfriend (who does a lot of streaming), it'd probably be plenty. I never used to use more than about 30GB/month when it was just me. I watch a lot less TV when it's just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live in a shared shit hole and let me tell you, it can be pretty damn miserable at times. I'm living 20 minutes from central London via train for £300 a month. Everything is falling apart, things keep breaking because they have been repaired so many times, everything is glitchy, bits of ceiling occasionally fall on my head.

All that said, it's freedom. I can live any hours I like, do anything I want and not worry about the consequences. I don't worry about the paint falling off the wall, the furniture that wobbles or the heating that randomly turns on. I would say I am living the life.

<comment><USER6> It depresses me to say so, but that is insanely cheap for London.

<comment><USER7> The price tells you how awful it must be to be that cheap.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it's literally the cheapest place I could find in the local area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't live in a shithole, but I live in a shitty neighbourhood with many shitholes. It's definitely not as glamourous as this guy makes it out to be.

The whole 'broken window syndrome' means that no one gives a shit about anything in the neighbourhood. People will literally shit on your doorstep. They will drunkenly crash their cars into their garage in the middle of the night. You will be awoken, many a night, because people are fighting.

Stay away from shitholes if you value sleep and your sanity.

<comment><USER9> And when people move away they call it white flight and question why they didn't stick around and give back to the community. What community?

<comment><USER10> Or they do stick around and try hard to make the area a better place to live and get nothing but grief for gentrifying the neighborhood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> blubb-fish I live in Germany where I guess the situation is quite different in that regard from the States.

One thing that comes to mind is that shitholes are also usually located in shit areas - the whole neighbourhood situation is there usually rather depressing and less secure.

The idea of a tiny house is that you can place it anywhere - at least in theory. And that allows you to choose an especially calm, quiet, peaceful environment.

I'd love to live in a tiny house - a shit hole on the other hand does not seem so appealing. Also b/c the additional square meters wouldn't be of much use. A nicer less is for me more than a shittier cheap more.

<comment><USER11> I also live in Germany. The other day I was walking past a kleingartenverein [0] and wonder how it it will be before it becomes legal to stay in in the small hut that is on each garden.

[0] - for the non-German speaker folks, this is the closes I can find on what a kleingartenverein is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_\(gardening\))

<comment><USER12> The Bundeskleingartengesetz will never allow this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, but then there's the mould, the lack of insulation, rough neighbourhood and paper-thin walls (if in apartments) that you have to put up with...

Sure you can get a shit hole, but then it's important to ask why it's considered a shit hole. Shitty housing in good areas aren't common (at least not where I've lived)

</comment><comment><USER14> I feel this is a passive aggressive way of attacking what's a reasonable idea. To live in a small place that you own outright. Maybe this guy associates that with smug hipsters or something like that. But really it's about people seeking autonomy. Not seeking a way out of society or wanting to live at the bottom rung of it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Or, you know, just get a place you like and understand that a home is a home, not an investment. The part whete people get into trouble is when they buy a home and think it's an investment.

The implication of home != investment is that you get something you can afford.

<comment><USER16> What does "you can afford" mean? By definition you can't be bankrupted by nonrecourse debt.

On the other hand, I have a fairly significant fraction of my net worth tied up in my home, and a fair amount of equity at this point, so it would be fairly painful to lose it.

That being said, in hindsight I am almost certainly financially in a better position than had I been renting for the past 5 years (I say "almost" because appraisals aren't worth the paper they are printed on as far as I'm concerned; I don't know a single person in this town who has bought or sold a house within 10% of the appraised value in the past decade).

It seems like poor advice to _not_ consider a home as an investment; investments come with risks, as well as opportunity costs. Particularly for smaller units, I've known places where renting was so much cheaper than buying that it should be considered a luxury to buy, and yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the financial repercussions.

Maybe you really mean one must understand that a home is not a risk-free investment, in which case we are in agreement.

<comment><USER15> > yet people just buy once they have a down-payment without considering the > financial repercussions.

My desired location is in an anomalous realestate market. Mortgage for the place I live in would cost me about $6k/month, rent is about $3.5k/month. Even if that wasn't the case, do I really want an illiquid investment that ties me down with a loan for 30 years when there are so many other investments I could make?

Just considering a downpayment of, say, $200k ... for that kinda money I could take 2 or 3 years off work and build a business that makes much more than that. Riskier investment, sure, but also a lot more profitable and more fun. Quicker returns too.

Dunno, the arguments for buying never made sense to me. Unless of course you have high leverage (can buy cash, but choose not to). Then it's a whole different game.

<comment><USER7> > My desired location is in an anomalous realestate market.

> the arguments for buying never made sense to me

Well, there you go. I live in a market that's anomalous in the other direction: there's exactly one four-bedroom house advertised for rent in the city at the moment, and its price is about 20% higher than the mortgage would be.

(Mortgage >> rent implies a _really_ strange market where the landlords must be experiencing negative ROI?)

<comment><USER17> The statistic measuring this property is the price-to-rent ratio: [https://smartasset.com/mortgage/price-to-rent-ratio-in-us- ci...](https://smartasset.com/mortgage/price-to-rent-ratio-in-us-cities)

Landlords in California have a great reason not to sell - prop 13, a tax benefit for people and corporations who bought low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've never quite understood the problem the tiny house movement is supposed to be solving other than "look at all the amenities we can cram into such a tiny space!"

Most of the time when they're shown off, they're sitting isolated on some huge lot somewhere in the woods, so housing density isn't it. I mean, clearly, just look at how they're positioned on the market -- 9/10 are in the woods or next to a lake or some such. A housing situation that's less sustainable than suburbs.

If I look for ones that are actually for sale, they just seem to be rebranded college apartments or RVs - except now the sellers are charging twice as much because they attached a solar shower to the back or something.

They often come with advice for how to get them into RV parks or mobile home parks, but those can be very expensive to dock a house in and can sometimes come with uncomfortable and very real externalities as you intersect with the transient and the poor (plus, if you're going to live in a mobile home park, you may as well just buy a used mobile home, they're much more comfortable to live in).

Just like RVs and mobile homes, most of the shed-like tiny houses are terrible housing investments because the market views them as what they are, RVs and sheds, and depreciates them over time on average, while actual real estate tends to appreciate over time.

And for the non-RV tiny houses, they don't solve the mobility question. They're just about as fixed as a normal home structure.

And notions about living less materially seem okay, but there are many long- term stories of tiny home dwellers who run away screaming because of how cramped their living conditions are, and all the unexpected external costs (like self storage for their actual stuff) that never seems to get into tiny house movement propaganda.

I feel like what they're actually trying to solve is the desire of apartment dwellers to "own" a home without having to go through the normal home ownership system, which they've been conditioned to view as a trap of some sort for reasons, and "hack" that system by coming at it from some non- traditional angle.

It's also interesting how pretty much all of the professionally designed and purpose built tiny homes seem to lead their sales pitch with all the tiny house movement awards they've won and really not much about the structure or the maintenance of the 20 acres the tiny house sits on.

<comment><USER19> I have a few friends who are very enthusiastic about the tiny house movement. They are building a tiny house community, getting the zoning changed, etc.

At first I didn't get what problem they were solving. After enough discussions with them, I understand: The problem that tiny houses are solving is having the financial advantages of living in a trailer without the social stigma that comes with living in a trailer.

It's a class perception thing. In America, if you want to avoid living around the poor or being perceived as poor, you have to buy an expensive house. This is why people buy more house than they need - so they can live in the right kind of neighborhood.

Tiny house communities are a way for astrophysicists and programmers to live in trailers without having to live around the kind of people who live in trailers. It's a social hack to get around the signaling cost of expensive housing.

I told them that I didn't think it would work long term, that eventually tiny house communities would be perceived as just another kind of trailer park. They said sure, eventually that might happen, but by then their kids would have grown up and the next generation could figure out their own arrangements.

<comment><USER20> I think you're spot on with your analysis.

The hope (for me), is that some middle ground is reached. Make it ok again to build normal-size houses (1200-1500 sq. ft.) in nice neighborhoods with nice schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> (Summary: Live in a rundown, but large, house.)

That only works if you rent. It's too expensive to own and not maintain a rundown home - you lose too much money on letting it decay.

And no, I don't understand the economics of how it's not worth it for a homeowner, but is worth it for a landlord to let property decay. But somehow it is.

<comment><USER22> The shittier the shithole the less depreciation there is. Land gains value, houses lose value. A brand new home, with brand new appliances, starts to depreciate quickly - like driving the car off the lot. Once the oven, roof, walls, plumbing, is 10yrs old the 11th year doesn't matter much. There is a threshold of course - if you let the roof cave in and destroy everything inside there's a jump in loss there. Otherwise the longer you can make use of your shitty house, on your appreciating land, the more financially beneficial it will be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Extolling the merits of a clear pejorative strikes me as disingenuous to say the least.

I honestly can't figure whether this blog simply echoes the sentiments of a bachelor longing for days free from adult responsibility, or tries to be some hip justification for squalor conditions contrived by the outrageous cost of living in a high-density city.

If your reasons for _choosing_ to live in a shithole are: 1. cost; 2. cost; and 3. laziness thinly paraded as character...more 1st-world power to you. I prefer to live frugal, which actually requires a bit of work to pull off.

<comment><USER24> Some of you guys really need to lighten up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Complete nonsense.

A large(r) "shithole" requires more money for:

# Maintenance in general - things like water heaters, furnaces, roofs and kitchen appliances are not cheap.

# Heating. Older buildings have crap insulation, you're going to pay through the nose for that if you live anywhere cold.

# Property Tax. Depending on where you live it's a function of the square footage of the house.

# Things to fill it with. The bigger the living space, the more stuff you have.

</comment><comment><USER26> from the name of the domain I thought the alternative he was going to discuss was going homeless with really good camping equipment.

<comment><USER27> Same here. Which reminds me, I have some decent Kiwi camping gear in Sydney, might give it a workout next month in the southern hemisphere summer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> We're currently going for "tiny shithole". Trying to set up a full kitchen in <4sqm of space. Our current BOM for that is

        1 x 15L Medical Wastebasket
        1 x60x40cm Table
        1 x Anti Slip Stickers
        2 x 30x40cm Bamboo Cutting Boards
        1 x 75cmx35cmx150cm Industrial Shelf
        1 x 56cmx24cmx38cm Plate Rack
        1 x 7W T5 LED Lamp
        1 x T5 plug with switch

        1 x 90cmx45cmx180cm Industrial Shelf
        1 x 71cmx46cmx21.1cm Range Hood
        1 x 15cm Range Hood Exhaust
        1 x HEPA/Active Charcoal Filter Sheets
        1 x Roll of Greaseproof Foil

        1 x Induction Plate 2100W
        1 x Pressure Cooker 1000W 70kPA
        1 x 52cmx32.5cmx30.5cm Oven 1600W
        1 x 182L Fridge

        1 x Kitchen Scale
        1 x Kitchen TImer
        1 x Meat Thermometer
        1 x Immersion Blender
        1 x Coffee Machine

        1 x Chefs Knife
        1 x Cast Iron Skillet/Dutch Oven
        4 x Lint-free Kitchen Towels
        1 x Vegetable Peeler
        1 x Paring Knife
        1 x Silicone Spatula
        1 x Ceramic Sautee Pan
        2 x Large Mixing Bowl
        8 x Small Prep Bowl
        1 x Zester (Microplane)
        1 x Silicone Bench Scraper
        1 x Tongs
        1 x Mesh Sieve
        1 x Strainer
        1 x Set of Measuring Spoones
        1 x Ladle
        1 x Can Openner (side open)
        1 x Potato Ricer
        1 x Waiters Bottle Opener
        2 x Wooden Spoon
        1 x Kitchen Apron
        1 x Salad Spinner
        1 x Sharpening Stone
        2 x Pepper/Salt Mill
        1 x Set of Tupperware 17pcs.

        8 x Plates
        1 x Pack of Chopsticks 20pcs
        8 x Cutlery Set (Fork, Knife, Spoon)
        8 x Highball Glasses

        1+1 x 120cmx60cmx75cm Foldable Table
        8 x Stackable Chairs

We've spent about 4500RMB (650USD) on it, which includes some non-kitchen stuff (Wardrobes, Bedding, Lamps, extra shelving), and there's still some bits and bobs we'll need to get, but all in all, it's a compact, cheap, and versatile kitchen stack.

<comment> guard-of-terra 4sqm kitchen is basically how everybody lives in ex-USSR, and I presume China too, and probably Japan and Korea.

It's quite some space if you know how to use it.

<comment><USER29> Ukrainian here. I've only seen 4m kitchen once in my life, and it was in apartment in 120 y.o. building. In all the USSR-era apartments the kitchen was at least 8sqm.

<comment> guard-of-terra Obviously you were lucky: Soviet standards were pretty diverse (non-russian republics getting the best housing and wares, then Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs, and finally the worst ones for RSFSR).

Here you have a typical plan of block khruscheba: [http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/volgodim/14339505/26623/26623...](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/volgodim/14339505/26623/26623_original.gif) I've seen quite a few of those. 5.8 m^2 kitchen. All over Russia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _"You don't need to fix up a shithole!"_

Well, maybe. One shithole some friends lived in in Melbourne had had all the copper piping stolen, so the landlord had replaced it with garden hose. Touching the shower head or taps in the bathroom resulted in a mild electric tingle. Something wasn't right there I tell you. Probably electrical earthing and the absence of a residual current device.

Another shithole, this time in Adelaide, I lived in for a couple years, when it rained heavy one gutter overflowed and there would be a waterfall above the window _inside_ the house.

Couple other shitholes I saw in my 20's weren't so bad.

Filth _is_ fun when you're _young_.

Also, there's no way a lender will get in on you borrowing to buy a shithole.

</comment><comment><USER31> I live in a shithole and the only complaint that I have is the health risk from using a shared toilet and the noise in the city. Other than that, I really dont care. I have everything I need and it's cheap. If I could get something even cheaper then I would.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm grown up enought to have so much aesthetic that i don't wanna life in a shithole anymore.

</comment><comment><USER33> err?

</comment><comment><USER34> The problem with shitholes is that they suck. Sure they are cheaper but like fast food it's not good for you.</comment>


Show HN: All Events in City – Discover Events Happening in Your City - <AUTHOR> https://allevents.in/invite/688944 <comment><AUTHOR> Allevent Is small and diverse group on mission: to help people discover the events happening around them. Hundreds of events happens in our city, but its difficult to find them out. All Events in City helps you do that..!!

Uniquely harnessing the power of the social media, we have created a smarter way to discover and share information regarding events. Started in 2011, All Events in City has 50 million+ events posted, 25 million users from 33,000 cities all over the world. World's fastest growing event aggregation platform having such a huge reach has become a platform for event organizers to promote their events at City, Country and/or Global level. We are the connecting bridge between users who are looking for events and event promoters who are in search of their audience. There's always a bigger picture. All facets of event marketing needs to be understood and we cover the gamut.</comment>


'Enhanced' Google Chrome Bookmarks doesn't make sense to me - <AUTHOR>

How could they get it so wrong (in my opinion)?
I want a clear separation between folders and bookmarks. And I want to be able to decide which folders to put what in.
It seems Chrome now wants you to save bookmarks without worrying about where you store them. And it wants to algorithmically create 'smart folders' for you.
The search has slowed down tremendously too.
What do you think? <comment><USER2> Agree with you 100%.

It's also quite frustrating that to revert back to the default bookmark manager, one needs to mess around with settings in a way I'm not sure the average user knows how to access (about:flags in the address bar)

I have high expectations with managing my links, articles, bookmarks though, and I doubt any system that tries to auto organize will work for me...

It's interesting you use the word "worry". I've come to think that the act of organizing is crucial to memory consolidation and furthering ones mental models.

For this reason I've completely lost faith in folder structures for optimally organizing my digital life...tags and graphs/connections highly preferred (closest systems that emulate our internal information/knowledge repository)

<comment><AUTHOR> In my case, even messing with settings doesn't roll me back to old bookmarks. It's thanks to an update that's just been rolled out and it may be heading your way.

However, installing the following 3 Chrome Extensions has helped somewhat: \- Old Style Bookmarks \- Simple Bookmarks \- Chrookmarks</comment></comment>


Why I Wrote PGP (1999) - <AUTHOR> https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html <comment><USER2>
      The government initially claimed that using Clipper would be
      voluntary, that no one would be forced to use it instead of
      other types of cryptography. But the public reaction against
      the Clipper chip was strong, stronger than the government
      anticipated. The computer industry monolithically proclaimed
      its opposition to using Clipper. FBI director Louis Freeh
      responded to a question in a press conference in 1994 by saying
      that if Clipper failed to gain public support, and FBI wiretaps
      were shut out by non-government-controlled cryptography, his
      office would have no choice but to seek legislative
      relief. Later, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City tragedy,
      Mr. Freeh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that
      public availability of strong cryptography must be curtailed by
      the government (although no one had suggested that cryptography
      was used by the bombers).

Sounds a bit like some of the conversations going on again, today. The last sentence in particular.

<comment><USER3> Yes. The difference is that today, about Paris, people _are_ suggesting that cryptography (or Xbox games??) were used by the bombers.

<comment><USER4> Is there any credible data to support that?

The NYT seemed to be the source for that claim, and they quietly pulled that story. It's still repeated by media outlets elsewhere.

Not that it would change my opinion that government mandated crypto backdoors are a bad idea if they had.

<comment><USER5> French intelligence has heavily infiltrated the regional extremist Muslim community and they had no idea about these attacks in advance. Ergo, the terrorists were using encryption.

That was the speculation I heard the other evening on NPR, by someone lobbying to put limits on private citizens' use of strong crypto.

<comment><USER6> I would disagree with this reasoning.

Yes, french HUMINT has heavily infiltrated extremist organizations, and failed to prevent this attack. It does not mean that it was the use of encryption that allowed ISIS/extremist organizations to execute this attack on french soil.

The french secret service approach is fundamentally different from the US, as they historically rely less on SIGINT.

I am not sure where I read it, but in presume the number of prevented attack is in the thousands.

<comment><USER7> > I am not sure where I read it, but in presume the number of prevented attack > is in the thousands.

Then why don't we have thousands of prosecuted and convicted terrorists in our jails?

<comment><USER6> I am not speaking necessarily about prevented live assaults, but about pre- emptive action as well.

But I get your point. I need to check that article back then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

This still rings very true to this day.

<comment><USER9> Worth noting: "if X is outlawed, only outlaws will have X" usually overlooks how many otherwise law-abiding citizens will legislatively become outlaws because they won't give up their right to X. (Current example: a registration/prohibition law in New York has turned about a million otherwise exemplary residents into "outlaws" as the SAFE Act has a compliance rate of about 4%.) Rather than solving the problem, legislators alienate & criminalize much of the population.

<comment><USER10> My favorite has always been: "Outlaws do X, but X isn't against the law. If we make X against the law, it will make it harder for outlaws to do X", when, in reality, outlaws weren't doing that thing legally (read: traceably) in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The interesting thing in retrospect is that the pro-crypto faction seems to have won. These days anyone that actually needs cryto can get it and use it. The amount of useful intelligence that a government can get from passive monitoring is constantly decreasing. Entities like the NSA have to concentrate on stuff like meta-data as they can be sure that most of the interesting content is unavailable to them. Signals intelligence is quickly becoming technologically obsolete. So the situation that the Clipper chip supporters feared back in the day has become real.

It would be really good if the NSAs of the world would just accept this and stop doing evil in their desperate attempt to survive.

<comment><USER2> The NSA also focused on meta-data because it was more likely to survive a legal challenge. A law enforcement observer can make note of you entering and leaving a building at certain times. Your entrance and exit is public. What they can't do, without warrants (legally, not speaking to technical ability), is observe what happens inside a private place or within (what's intended to be) private communications.

Meta-data also bypasses codes, as you point out, by revealing the network of communication (who-with-who, when, and how often). So whether the communication/interaction is recorded and understandable or not becomes less important. In the case that it is recorded and understandable, excellent, even more intel. If it's not, they still have some material to work with.

<comment><USER12> The focus on bulk collection of metadata is based on the assumption that it can be used to stop terrorists and other enemies. This assumption remains unproven. American drones routinely murder people abroad purely because of their metadata, and yet peace is nowhere nearer.

At home, it turns out that it is pretty much impossible to stop a handful of people who have access to weapons, want to do as much damage as possible, and don't fear death. Increasing the surveillance on regular citizens will not change that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> PGP Usabilty:

In the old days (Groupwise?) I found PGP easy to implement and use. Today I find it nearly impossible. Apparently I am not alone.

[http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf](http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf)

I have found S/MIME a bit easier to implement, but still much harder.

Is it a conspiracy to keep people from using crypto?

<comment><USER14> I was using Groupwise in 2007 at a previous employer, and PGP was definitely easy to use with Groupwise. I worked in a MIS department for a large UK company, and the customer services department was in a small town in Wales, the kind of town where not many people had broadband in 2007, and the staff were not trained in any technical specialty, it was mostly just people with jobs instead of people with careers. The staff used to send banking information using PGP and Groupwise and people rarely had issues.

The problem now is the increasing number of centralised services, Google doesn't want to be storing encrypted emails within Gmail, because the content cannot be analysed for advertising purposes. And the same goes for other free email providers. It's still possible, but it is increasingly difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When politicians will understand that technology is only a tool. The way it is used can be evil but not the technology itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> In the 90's I found PGP fairly easy to use (with old versions of Novell Groupwise)

Today I find it fairly difficult to implement with modern email systems and devices. Apparently I am not alone.

[http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf](http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf)

I have found S/MIME to be barely implementable. What can we do together to make it easier to use email encryption?

<comment><USER16> Dupe comment?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Thanks for sharing this. It's terrifying how relevant this is - the predicted government ability to read all communications has come true.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thanks for the share. Relevant given politicians are currently, and predictably using the recent news to push through various snoopers charters.

Has nobody told them that in reality, the problem is not encryption. Its poor foreign policy as well as poor international relations.

Thats my two cents for what its worth. Im no expert on foreign policy though although I do understand that the clear agenda in it is peace.

</comment><comment><USER19> Thanks for posting. This is incredible.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder how the people who wrote crypto software and provide secure messaging services feel about terrorists and other bad people using their products to execute their plans? Most of these people wouldn't have the ability or access to such technology had it not be for the efforts of a few who have made it very accessible and user friendly.

I know there are plenty of legitimate uses, but especially for the services that essentially bill themselves as secure and untraceable, you have to know at a certain point you've designed and built technology that is actively being used to hurt innocent people. For me it would be difficult to quantify if the amount of good is worth the all the bad people in the world.

<comment><USER21> This is the "think of the children" argument used by many manipulative government news agencies when discussing

anonymous money anonymous communication anonymous residence anonymous weapons

etc

Maybe we should make hands illegal since they do illegal things and you can only use your hand with a license from the smart-over-lord-government, right?

Or less dramatically, all technology and all constructions from home improvements to particle accelerators to hairspray to encrypted internet should pass review from the government and people can only work on what the government approves and use things they have licenses for.

\--

Do you want to apply your same argument to car manufacturers? Cars can be used by kidnappers, bank robbers, rapists and murderers to flee crime scenes. So car manufacturers should stop producing cars because all of the good they are used for (visiting loved ones in the hospital, visiting your kids baseball game, going to work) isn't worth the carnage caused by the "bad people"?

<comment><USER22> Exactly right. It goes with almost anything, if you make it, someone will end up finding a way to use it in a negative way. If everyone lived thinking X shouldn't be created because it could turn into Y then we would all be living in caves afraid of everyone else.

<comment><USER21> Did you see the frontpage today? EU clamping down on bitcoin to avoid viking invasion. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10594453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10594453)

<comment><USER23> You just made me laugh out loud :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gotchas in Writing Dockerfile - <AUTHOR> https://kimh.github.io/blog/en/docker/gotchas-in-writing-dockerfile-en/ <comment><USER2> Thanks, a lot of these I've read elsewhere but it was a good refresher and it's nice to have it all in once place.</comment>


The Argument for Cubicles - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@findbridge/the-argument-for-cubicles-9392b7a5fd2b#.clddhjnb0 <comment><USER2> Imagine how dense people will be able to be packed with VR. Goggles, Headphones, air filter and each can have a private space or join in a virtual meeting, all without leaving their work chair.</comment>


Ask YC:  Could you point to examples of great and terrible code - <AUTHOR>

I have been a bit isolated and self-taught for my CS education (online at University of Maryland).  One of the holes in my education is that I feel like I've missed out by not working with and looking at other people's code.  I could use some examples of what people consider to be great code and what's terrible code.<p>I'd love to see what other people think is great code and/or terrible code.  If you have access to code that you think is great or terrible and is freely available online, I'd love to see it. <comment><USER2> Good: Quake - cross platform, fast, clean & easy to read ~ <http://www.idsoftware.com/business/techdownloads/>

Bad: Sendmail - it works but is continually plagued with bugs ~ <http://www.outpost9.com/exploits/sendmail.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I was looking for. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Start out by looking at open source projects... Linux kernel if you're into low level systems programming, Mono if you're into higher level systems programming, the countless web apps out there in your favorite language, etc...

The bigger the project the better because more people have looked at it and offered suggestions.

Look for great code, terrible code is everywhere.

<comment><USER3> Note: Use common sense, if you want to look at really good code, look at code in a critical part of a system... I bet that Linux's memory management routines are really interesting to see. Look at those, make a class diagram out of them (or entity-relationship diagram), and look at the design. Good code is borne out of good design. If the design is good, chances are the code is equally good and vice versa.

Why do I cite Mono? It's not becuase I am a Microsoft nut, but because Mono is a re-implementation of MS code. Mono people had a great reference for design, which allowed them to focus only on writing good code. What I have seen of Mono's implementation is really good code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good ideas, thanks. I'll look into the Mono libraries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> David R. Hanson has a book called "C Interfaces and Implementations" that walks you through his C library (that in part replicates the standard library). If your're a novice (or a novice at C) you can learn a lot. The code is free to download.

</comment><comment><USER5> Look at Wordpress (wordpress.org). Their code makes me want to throw up, yet it presents itself quite nicely to the end user.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. In fact, most PHP applications are full of nasties. Imho, that's because PHP is a language that makes it easy to write bad code. There is, of course, good PHP code too, but the majority is really quite bad - even when you look at leading projects like Wordpress.

I switched my blog over to typo because I just couldn't stand working with the writhing mass of spaghetti that is Wordpress (once you get under the hood, anyway).

<comment><USER7> PHP and Perl

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you want to see some code abominations (with a healthy dose of ridicule and humor) check out <http://thedailywtf.com/> Seriously, some of the worst code I've ever seen.

<comment><USER9> While thedailywtf.com is an excellent source of entertainment, I think it's more useful to study code that compiles, looks, and runs fine, but has some less-obvious deficiency like an XSS vulnerability, or poorly chosen algorithm (e.g. bubble sort). I like to skim through "best practices" books whenever I'm learning a new language or technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another thing... Beside looking at good code, buy some books. Code Complete is excellent. Writing Solid Code another... They have the bonus of not only showing you good code, but telling you WHY it's good code.

</comment><comment><USER10> Kernighan and Plauger's _The Elements of Programming Style_ covers exactly this ground, showing in turn poor code and how it could be better. They use real-life bits of code they come across, not artificial constructions. Kernighan and Pike's later _The Practice of Programming_ also partially covers this. Both are must-reads. <http://troff.org/pubs.html#style> and <http://troff.org/pubs.html#tpop>

</comment><comment><USER11> A set of examples of great code: Almost everything written by Petr, in Topcoder Competitions, though it is instructive to see how his coding style evolved over time.

Here's an article on him, by the way. [http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=features&...](http://www.topcoder.com/tc?module=Static&d1=features&d2=070805)

</comment><comment><USER12> Great Code:

1) The code in the book "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming" by Peter Norvig. (on the surface this is a "good lsp style book" but in my opinion you can learn a lot about writing good code in any language from this book)

2) I second David Hanson's "C interfaces and implementations", reccomended by Maro in his reply.

3)The code for the HotDraw framework (smalltalk and java)

</comment><comment><USER13> The source of Lua [<http://www.lua.org/download.html>] is extremely excellent. It's in super-portable strict ANSI C and is quite impressive in its ability to run pretty much anywhere. It's also very readable.

It's very instructive to read the source of the parser and the code generator for the VM. It's well commented and it just flows.

</comment><comment><USER14> libcairo (the new graphics layer for linux) has some amazingly well written and well maintained code.

</comment><comment><USER15> Chad Fowler and Bruce Williams came up with <http://slickorslack.com/> which presents code snippets where people vote them 'slick' or 'slack'.

<comment><USER3> The site has great potential... but it's essentially worthless as is. Several reasons:

1) Only short code snippets. It does not take much to write a brilliant 10 lines of code. Give me at least code for a well-designed class.

2) No comments. Of the top snippets, I only saw one that had comments.

So it's kinda useless to go to that site. The idea's really good though, lots of unrealized potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In terms of simplicity and architecture I think Ikarus Scheme and Rubinius are good reads. Both are compilers/VMs that have been expressed in their most beautiful form.

</comment><comment><USER17> Good code: <http://fit.c2.com/> Bad code: Just look around. Easy to find.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bad code: OSCommerce

</comment><comment><USER19> Do you have a particular language in mind?

<comment><AUTHOR> Dealer's choice.</comment></comment>


"Shared room in co-living space for Tech people" - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupbed.com/ <comment><USER2> And not a single dollar amount on the site. Trash.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may want to sit down.

[https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sub/5679439591.html](https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/sub/5679439591.html)

<comment><USER3> I love that they state price without the duration. $1200 per what... It's not hard people.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it's per month it's an absolute scam. I wouldn't even want to pay that much quarterly to live in a startup hostel.</comment></comment></comment></comment>