I Replaced My MacBook Pro with a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB for a Day - <AUTHOR> https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/i-replaced-my-macbook-pro-raspberry-pi-4-8gb-day <comment><USER3> Although not wrong, and full of interesting details, this is a really puzzling article. It feels a little like writing about how you couldn't get your toaster to boil noodles. (Though not as unsafe.)

I use Linux as my main desktop and have always found it very pleasant, but if my main thing was video editing, I wouldn't try to do it with Linux on ARM64 and then grumble when it turned out not to work very well.

(Of course what makes the article worth reading is the fact that its author has tried just that, and reported on it. It's an interesting report! It's simply odd that the article seems so disappointed, since surely few readers would have expected any other result.)

<comment><USER4> In my experience, linux is (unfortunately) only good for running server apps. Ubuntu is good but it's still like 20ys in the past when compared to macos (and that's including how macos gets worse with every new release). There are so many things wrong or half-finished, inconsistent (3 ways to copy/paste, no native GUI fw/toolkit, vsync/video/browser tearing), I'm afraid to install updates because sometimes it won't boot up and I'll need to figure out what went wrong this time (instead of doing what I wanted). Linux ppl like to say it's because of HW but no, it's because they don't care or they have different goals but then I don't understand why the same people often don't understand why linux is not more widespread.

If you want to get job done, get a mac, it's still the best choice (unfortunately, I don't like it but it's the least evil - W7 was good too but W10 spy/adware is ew)

<comment><USER5> Take Linux Mint Cinnamon for a spin. I think it'll change your perspective for Linux on the desktop. Browsers like Vivaldi make a consistent experience across all three OS platforms.

<comment><USER6> I use Mint; have done for ... eight? years after I got fed up with incessantly gardening Arch. (Too high maintenance to be my friend, I decided after 6 years.)

Recently I had to start using windows 10. On Microsoft's own hardware. Oy vey.

I doubt that someone who likes Mac OS will like Mint, but it's definitely a better Windows than Windows. Comfortable rather than stylish, but without jarring jumps to 30 year old UI styles at random times, or six different ways to not quite do what you want. Or the surveillance.

If you don't like Mint, then try MX Linux or Manjaro.

<comment><USER4> Mint was one of the best distros, I've tried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure what the author's background is, but if he did all of this in one day as a Mac-using Linux newbie, I'm actually pretty impressed. There are references to previous posts about the Pi, but it's not clear whether he's used Linux as a desktop O/S before.

I'm using Ubuntu on a 4 GB Pi for some Docker experiments, because I couldn't get ARM64 images to work on Raspbian. Is Raspbian the best distribution for the desktop, or is there something better for a 4 or 8 GB Pi?

<comment><USER8> He's not all a newbie; among other things he maintains some well regarded Ansible roles for things like deploying Jenkins.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using Linux on the server side exclusively for years and twice before tried to switch to Ubuntu and Fedora (two separate times during Apple's butterfly-switch years).

So I do have some background but not a PhD in Linux in the Desktop.

What I've found is that if you're mostly dealing with programming, dev work, and maybe some more specialized graphics work (not just twiddling with artwork and media using the computer as an artistic tool), almost any Linux desktop may be entirely adequate.

But if you do like (somewhat more) consistent UIs and a deep catalog (more than 2 in every category) of _very good_ apps, your much better off in Mac/Windows :(

I'd like that to change but just like Fusion energy my excitement will not make it happen any sooner than 20 years from now. (I could've said that same thing the first time I tried Red Hat for my workstation (against Windows 3.1) in like 1996...).

<comment><USER9> > _But if you do like (somewhat more) consistent UIs and a deep catalog (more > than 2 in every category) of very good apps, your much better off in Mac > /Windows :(_

The flip side of this is that the skills and apps you learn in the open source ecosystem have staying power.

I spent a lot of time learning to use old Photoshop versions pretty well, but these days I don't have a subscription with Adobe, so those skills have been lost to its walled garden.

However, I also spent a lot of time using GIMP during that period, and I can still leverage that knowledge 15 years later for free.

<comment><USER10> I doubt up to date GIMP has many more features than Photoshop CS2 which was a pay once license :)

<comment><USER9> I doubt it either, and I don't have CS2, unfortunately. However, GIMP gets the job done for my purposes, and I'm not limited to an old binary version that relies on components that will become increasingly deprecated with time.

edit: Ha, Adobe still has the download link for free Photoshop CS2 live. Apparently it works in Wine, too.

For anyone who is wondering, Photoshop CS2 works well on Wine stable on Linux. I'm going to be honest, CS2 and GIMP are pretty similar feature wise.

<comment><USER11> _> Photoshop CS2 works well on Wine stable on Linux_

But won't work on ARM, so it wouldn't work on Raspberry Pi 4. If Apple starts a wave with its much-suggested move to ARM, CS2 will not survive but GIMP likely will.

<comment><USER9> Definitely agree. It also crashes on a HiDPI screen, can't handle SVG or WebP and modern GIMP has more features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Funnily enough, to avoid all the cables and mess, I simply plug my Pi 4/8Gb straight into my iPad, then VNC or SSH into it, and instantly have a development environment. I would have to use some kind of hub to charge the iPad at the same time and plug an external monitor in, but the iPad Pro plus Smart Keyboard plus a Pi works brilliantly. (Where's my cheque, Tim?)

<comment><USER13> Can you expand on that? How do you plug your Pi into the iPad, just a simple USB cable? Do you use an app for VNC/SSH?

<comment><USER12> Yup, I had to go through a couple of USB-C cables before I found a working combo (See Pi 4 USB-C woes elsewhere, since fixed) but that was it. I use Blink for SSH/Mosh and VNC Viewer - Remote Desktop.

I also used this link to help me get set up: [https://www.hardill.me.uk/wordpress/2019/11/02/pi4-usb-c- gad...](https://www.hardill.me.uk/wordpress/2019/11/02/pi4-usb-c-gadget/)

<comment><USER13> Awesome, thanks for the pointers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not sure why the conclusion is, "Linux on the Desktop isn't possible," when the big blocker the author had was pretty consistently finding and installing software compatible with a small ARM64 machine. (That's not to say it's not a valid conclusion to draw in general: just that it's a bit of a non- sequitur for this article.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't say that. I said the fabled "year of the Linux desktop" is a long ways off, in terms of being a potential option for the vast audience of users who currently own a Mac or Windows computer.

<comment><USER15> But the vast audience wouldn't use such an ARM64 machine for that and won't have these problems. The audio problems for instance that you encountered with all applications are obviously related to the hardware, not Linux. Even on my weird desktop running slackware I run Zoom, Jit.si, Cheese, Skype, etc without any problem.

It's precisely the other way around, I've seen several articles recently about the fact that Linux adoption on the desktop has soared rapidly, and you see Lenovo and Dell supporting Linux on a large number of machines nowadays.

The only thing you showed is that there is no desktop-grade ARM64 Linux machine available.

<comment><USER16> > The audio problems for instance that you encountered with all applications > are obviously related to the hardware, not Linux.

When people say "Linux on the desktop" they mean "Linux on _most common desktop hardware_ ". They don't mean "Linux but only on one carefully tested machine".

A Logitech C920 especially is very common and uses standard USB audio, so it _should_ work. The fact that it doesn't could feasibly be a firmware bug that happens to work on Windows for some reason, but given how janky Linux audio is in general, I think it is almost certainly a bug in Linux (or PulseAudio or whatever if you're going to get nitpicky).

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem I had was "it works sometimes, and in some ways, but not other times".

And as a developer, inconsistent behavior in any system means chaos and something I can't depend on to get my work done.

This is not a problem exclusive to Linux on the Pi. While much less of an issue, I have had strange driver problems when I tried working from both Ubuntu and Fedora on my Dell XPS 13.

On the Mac, or on Windows on the PC, at least the random weird behaviors (like random crash if I open this, change that, open this, and then use two different audio interfaces) are consistent, so I can usually adapt my workflow to avoid them.

<comment><USER17> Out of curiosity, what driver problems did you run into? I switched my primary laptop to an XPS 13 a few months ago after almost exclusively using MacBook Pros for over a decade and I haven't run into a single driver issue. Even the usual suspend issues I seem to have with almost every single Linux desktop I build didn't show up.

If anything, I feel like I ran into less issues overall on the XPS 13 than I did in macOS once I had everything set up properly. That being said I suspect part of it is due to having a very minimal setup. I have no DE, no DM, a lightweight WM (dwm), etc. so there are fewer moving parts that can cause a crash (in addition to a much more responsive feeling UI on cheaper/slower hardware).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Shocker: A $75 multi-purpose device could not adequately replace his dedicated $1500 device.

I don't know what this was intended to prove, exactly?

<comment><USER19> (̶4̶5̶$̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶l̶u̶d̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶i̶p̶p̶i̶n̶g̶)̶

Edit: wrong price quoted for the 2GB model.

<comment><USER20> That's the 2GB model

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> While I get that he wants things to Just Work for things the Pi's not designed to do, that's not the goal or design of the Pi in any sense whatsoever. The hypothesis that a Pi would be feasible for his workflow was set up to fail before he started doing anything.

</comment><comment><USER22> A Linux desktop is far less "painful" when it's on an equivalently powered device as you are used to. I wouldn't plug a monitor into an iPhone and claim Apple desktops are painful.

The real takeaway to me is "ARM desktops are a few years away".

<comment><USER23> Actually, you'd probably find the iPhone outperforms your current laptop (Assuming average 2y-old laptop). It just doesn't have the same UX, or the ability to run desktop apps.

<comment><USER24> I think they're suitable for different tasks.

I prefer an iPhone myself for consuming the web and social media, but I wouldn't use it for development work, or running anything computationally- intensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Title seems a little cringey.

The 8GB model isn't going to perform much better on these tasks that the 4GB on that has been available forever and the $75 device is not a suitable replacement for a $1,299 device.

I do use Jeff's work to determine what SD card to buy...but the above has rattled my confidence a bit.

<comment><USER26> The title is classic click bait, looks like he's good at it since right below it he has a youtube video of the project. It's probably a hustle for some views/ad revenue and not meant to be a serious project where he legitimately thinks he's building a mac in his room.

<comment><USER27> At a penny for a thousand views, that doesn't seem a smart play.

<comment><USER26> I don't know his CPM, but a quick google search reveals the average (2018) CPM to be $2.80. I agree not a lot, but hey, worth the passive income probably.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's part of a bit of a wide reaching effort to make it possible for me to get all my income from open source work and free ventures. I'm about 25% of the way there.

And quick note on YouTube CPMs, they vary a lot by genre. Some of the more popular genres are on the lower end of that spectrum (afaict, based on limited testing).

It's tough because I have a chronic illness and also support a family of five (SAHM, but it seems all parents have been stay at home lately).

But as cringey as many in the HN audience may find it, marketing is actually vital to any endeavors success.

I try to make it so my work is better than the title suggests, but don't always succeed.

I literally unplugged my MBP and replaced it with a Pi 4 for a day, but that is apparently not literal enough to justify the title ;-)

<comment><USER26> Hey man, all the support to your family. I know the bait works and I respect the hustle.

I won't criticize you for doing something that works and I like your goal, I've been wanting to be 100% passive income open source for a long time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> And yet many years ago I was using Debian on a laptop with 32MB of RAM. I was using the "Awesome" lightweight desktop and spending 99% of the time in the terminal.

SSH to work on remote servers, Vim for development, git, IRC, text email, man and less for documentation (installed locally), rsync. Occasional browsing with Dillo.

Believe me or not, I miss the productivity of not being forced to use tons of stuff in browser.

<comment><USER29> This. I'm not sure how many more years people will eventually realize that web is originally invented for sharing documents over the decentralized internet and not really suited for other type of applications. The proliferation of app-over-web is really pushing it including the online web based video editing [1]. Off course the online companies are loving the status quo since they can sell us advertisements and perhaps our data as well in exchange for online free software, or the dreaded "pay-forever" subscription based software.

I agree it's really convenient to go gung-ho all-web but how long can you survive by continuously eating fast food diets?

With cheap off-the-shelf multi-core CPU (latest 64 cores/128 threads), terabytes SSD, and terabytes RAM (including the new Optane non volatile memory) the modern laptop/PC is even more powerful than twenty years ago supercomputer [2]. I hope that native applications will make a comeback with the increasing popularity of the compiled programming languages. The internet and cloud are only being used for synchronizing and versioning the application's data over multiple devices rather then online data processing due to inherent limitations of remote bandwidth and latency that's not suited for majority of desktop applications.

[1][https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/best-video- editors/](https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/best-video-editors/)

[2][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Origin_2000](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Origin_2000)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Most of this has to do with Linux and not the Pi itself. I use a mac and a linux system side by side, desktop linux is still a tire fire. This is coming from a person who used to run a FreeBSD laptop in the early 2000s.

<comment><USER31> Maybe it depends on what software you're using?

I use both OSX (MBP) and Linux Mint as my desktop. Everything I use works on both. Both are stable and solid and work perfectly. I'm on a 4k60 monitor.

The only thing I had to do is have my graphics card do vsync on Linux. Software vsync on Linux is horrible. GPU vsync has Linux runs smooth as butter the same as smooth as OSX. I also had to manually increase my dpi and font sizes to match my monitor.

<comment><USER30> Do you have unified keyboard navigation inside of text editors across all linux applications?

Can you reliably cut and paste between all applications?

Can you open the menu items with the keyboard?

It could be the applications, but I find to get the smooth OSX experience I need to tweak every single application's preferences, many of which do not have have the required level of control, then I need to resort to xmodmap, etc, this is the path to ruin, rather than modify my system I have to modify myself which hurts but I am ultimately more flexible than software.

I have come to the realization that the desktop OS you run doesn't matter, use what works for you. I would absolutely love to run Libre software for everything, but it isn't possible.

Maybe someone will create a window manager that also does live binary patching and instrumentation, I am convinced that this is the only way, but by the time that comes, everything will run in the browser anyway.

<comment><USER31> >Do you have unified keyboard navigation inside of text editors across all linux applications?

yes

>Can you reliably cut and paste between all applications?

Of course.

>Can you open the menu items with the keyboard?

What, why?

The great thing about OSX is keybinds are standard between programs, so you for all intents and purposes only need to learn one set of keybinds. Other OS' are not as uniform but uniform enough to not cause problems too.

>I would absolutely love to run Libre software for everything, but it isn't possible.

I have it and use it. I don't see the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Well, I guess running all those favourite Electron apps simultaneously on the Pi wouldn't be a wise thing to do since it would still grind to a slow and painful halt.

I would just spare the Raspberry Pi from this Electron app stress testing torture as it evidently cannot handle many of them running at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER33> Many of the issues and personal choices made where due to the jump between a non-linux OS to a Linux OS.

Even though the 'default' desktop environment is light weight, a tiling WM just as i3 or dwm would run perfectly on the Pi. Light weight application alternatives such as qutebrowser (instead of Chrome) and Spacemacs (instead of VSCode) would also make using a Pi a lot easier.

The lack of 4k@60Hz is pretty annoying altough it actually might not be noticable with a tiling WM due to the lack of animations.

<comment><USER34> Given that Macs (at least the good old trashcan) also can't do 4k@60Hz over HDMI, that was the one comparison that struck me as somewhat unfair.

<comment><USER35> Not sure why you're being downvoted - the 2013 Mac Pro has an HDMI 1.4 port: [https://support.apple.com/kb/SP697?locale=en_US](https://support.apple.com/kb/SP697?locale=en_US)

Which is only good for a 30Hz refresh rate at UHD 3840x2160 resolutions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.4)

You could use adapters on the Thunderbolt ports to get 4k60 support on that hardware.

<comment><USER34> Yep. And I'm using those Tunderbolt ports for my daily work, but . (And, you know, it's nice that you can drive a large amount of screens with the ports, but I was specifically referring to the HDMI implementation)

And digging into the specs of the RBpi4, it seems the HDMI port actually _does_ support 4kp60, which makes this whole thing even funnier :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is immensely interesting to me. This is a developer who is familiar with linux servers and infrastructure but in unaware of all the linux desktop oddities that come with it.

<comment><USER19> I'm "familiar with linux servers and infrastructure" and would have little idea how to setup linux as my working env for things like editing video. Seems completely orthogonal.

<comment><USER36> You are familiar with libraries and dependencies then. You know that its a very complicated mess of spaghetti. You also know that video editing is a very high use of a computer. Even for profit companies like Adobe has trouble with current hardware[1]

I get you wanted to write a blog article. Content creation is cool. I don't think you get where computers and technology has come from and necessary where its going. That Raspberry PI would be great for programming GPIO pins to literally do anything for you. This is my favorite explanation of technology[2] and honestly amazed that any of it works.

[1]- [https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/cc-2020-super- la...](https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/cc-2020-super- laggy/td-p/10720042?page=1) [2]- [http://bretthard.in/post/dizzying-but- invisible-depth](http://bretthard.in/post/dizzying-but-invisible-depth)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> When I first bought a RPi, I used it exclusively for writing and coding for several days. Worked OK, so I was surprised about the whining in the article.

<comment><USER38> There is a big difference between working OK and working in a pleasant to use manner.

Every time I've ever tried to use Linux as my daily driver it has worked OK. But it has never been pleasant to use and as such I never stick with it for too long.

<comment><USER37> I usually use a MacBook but I also use a beefed up System76 laptop with a good GPU, i7, and double the memory. Things like large Haskell builds, anything using TensorFlow, etc. runs so much faster than my MacBook there is no comparison.

Everyone gets to choose their own setup, but to be honest, if I didn't like my Apple Mac+Watch+iPhone+iPad interop so much, I would always use the much faster Linux system. At my old job, I had the fastest current MacBook Pro configuration and it was much slower than my System76 rig.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I could customize my Mac like I could with a PC build (mmm more cores in a Threadripper without a $10K Mac Pro minimum...), I would definitely not be using a laptop today :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've been using a Pi 4 4GB as a desktop for a couple months now. Considering that my other main computer is an ancient Thinkpad, I don't feel hampered by the speed. I used a Pi 3B for a desktop replacement for a while and while it was fine with my typical use (emacs+mostly command line) "modern" browsing was uncomfortably slow. It was perfectly capable of video playback in standard formats but there are problem sites using codecs which are not supported by the media decoder in the Pi. The situation with the Pi 4 is quite similar but it's just about fast enough for Youtube now.

Most any school or office could switch to the Pi 4 seamlessly these days for sure though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Related: Building a Raspberry Pi Cluster

[https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/build-a-raspberry- pi-...](https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/build-a-raspberry-pi-cluster- computer)

And: Raspberry Pi Vulkan Driver Makes Progress But Long Road Remains

[https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry- Pi...](https://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Raspberry-Pi-Vulkan- Summer-2020)

I had no idea til this week the RP4-B had dual 4k hdmi output. And I love the idea of a cluster for testing microservices. But regarding graphics performance I think I would opt for NVidia's Jetson Nano.

</comment><comment><USER41> If you have a teeny-tiny amount of money - like, $75, the cost of a Pi - <USER2> you want to get the best work computer/laptop and developer experience you can, for your buck - you'd be dumb to buy a Pi.

Instead, get a used laptop - say, a Thinkpad. Install Linux on it.

There you go: the best computer you can get, performance-wise, for $75.

</comment><comment><USER42> Coming up next: AtTiny13 vs Dell PowerEdge.

</comment><comment><USER43> It became "The year of the Linux desktop" for me when Windows10 came out.

I now use Linux for most everything.

I also have 2 MacBook Pros and a MacBook Air but I quickly get frustrated when trying to do anything worthwhile on them and go back to my ancient business class Dell running Linux. YMMV

<comment><USER44> You see, outside of programming, Windows 10 became my main OS when it released.

Vista / 7 / 8 / 8.5 were really shitty in my opinon but Windows 10 "saved" Microsoft for me.

I have an Edu/Business license and I absolutely love it. Group policies allowed me to avoid all the "auto-updates while doing work" from the start. I never had any issues with Windows 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is more of a comparison between MacOS and Linux than a Macbook and a Pi.

</comment><comment><USER46> Next article: I replaced my car with Raspberry Pi... didn't work out.

hmmmmmmm.

</comment><comment><USER47> On Ubuntu with an Intel processor I have been very happy with the app ecosystem. I suspect if the Raspberry p Pi had an AMD or Intel chip it'd be less painful.

<comment><USER48> Your comment made me curious why ARM architecture was chosen for the Raspberry Pi. The following from Wikipedia explained it:

> Processors that have a RISC architecture typically require fewer transistors > than those with a complex instruction set computing (CISC) architecture > (such as the x86 processors found in most personal computers), which > improves cost, power consumption, and heat dissipation.

> These characteristics are desirable for light, portable, battery-powered > devices — including smartphones, laptops and tablet computers, and other > embedded systems — but are also useful for servers and desktops to some > degree. For supercomputers, which consume large amounts of electricity, ARM > is also a power-efficient solution.

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

Power efficiency seems to be one of the big reasons why Macs will have ARM processors.

> Current ARM processors are also often more power-efficient, which helps with > battery life. Switching to ARM is expected to let Apple reduce its processor > costs by 40 to 60 percent.

[https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2020-04-23/apple- ai...](https://www.bloomberg.com./news/articles/2020-04-23/apple-aims-to-sell- macs-with-its-own-chips-starting-in-2021)

<comment><USER49> It was a lot more basic than that. They already had contacts at Broadcom. When a client orders N chips, you make some percentage more just in case something happens with binning. Their deal to buy those excess chips got them a sweetheart deal they couldn't have gotten without ordering millions of units (they also couldn't have gotten it without contacts though).

Now they're big enough to make their own orders and even their own chip designs and it's inertia because changing requires a lot of money for new firmware and software changes. Changing would increase device cost for at least a could of cycles.

On the x86 front, they're simply never going to get that good of a deal with AMD or Intel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I would strugle the same way on macbook, never used this platform. Pi4 is fairly nice desktop. I use it as a backup workstation while traveling.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone know how a Pi4 with 8gb ram would hold up compared to a six year old mid-lower tier laptop?

It's something I've been curious about for a while and really just waiting for the point where a RaspberryPi-type device is adequate for Facebook / Hackernews / Youtube, which is essentially what I use a laptop for at home.

<comment><USER52> I just got an 8GB one and it works well enough for YouTube and light browsing but I couldn't use it as a dedicated machine. Certainly is more snappy than the older ones I have. Just visiting the YouTube home page seems to really be pushing it though.

<comment><USER51> What I am hearing from this is that there are good odds the Pi5 will be a suitable light-duty desktop replacement.

<comment><USER52> Pretty much, I think it just needs a slightly faster CPU to handle loading JavaScript heavy pages.

<comment><USER53> By then the Javascript-heavy pages will probably be even heavier. You'll then be waiting for the Raspberry Pi 6 to run them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I remember when people were trying to do day-to-day work on their smartphones, then the iPad came out and they started to work on those, which eventually led to the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface Pro and now fully capable of doing day- to-day work on it.

Keeping pushing the boundaries!

<comment><USER55> With the slight difference that any of these boundaries pushers (never did) cost $75. Not now not then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Tangentially, I permanently replaced my Raspberry Pi with an x86 Upboard and it is just so much nicer to use and not really that expensive, though there are some high end models

[https://up-shop.org/](https://up-shop.org/)

</comment><comment><USER57> I didn't get what's wrong with H.264 since it present in every pi even on pi zero.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't add the right options to FFmpeg it can't take advantage of the CPU acceleration, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Since people are so disappointed with ARM64 video/audio viewing/recording/editing applications, they should write their own and contribute to Linux ARM64 and stop complaining

RISC V on FPGA sucks, I wouldn't use it either

</comment><comment><USER59> The other article on Apple switch to arm might help. Those software on mac are on arm. You have now some video editing software on ipad that works well. The question is which is the next winter, AppleArm or ...

</comment><comment><USER60> If the author did all of this in one day as a OSX/Linux novice, hat's off! Took me a good bit of playing around to get fluid using Linux for the first time

</comment><comment><USER61> I admire how knowledgeable Jeff is in different subject matters. Jeff is a major contributor in the ansible community and very helpful to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER62> Hey Jeff! I've been using your VirtualBox Centos builds/images for years. It's nice to see the face behind the Box.

</comment><comment><USER63> I Replaced My MacBook Pro with a Cat for a Day

<comment><USER43> I tried that too but my cat had trouble interfacing with the mouse.

(Sorry)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> The only purpose I could see raspberry pi in, is as a development env where you can ssh into and do work as a pure Linux kernel.

If I was to use an arm desktop full time it would be microsoft surface pro x (although with its quirks) having much more support and apps

Also Apple is planning to move MacBook line to arm although time will tell whether that will work out or not. In the meanwhile we might need to stick to x86 architectures for a while

</comment><comment><USER65> I feel the same pain. Sound is a problem in my x86_64 Linux. One of the sound cards doesn't work anymore, don't know what happened. But if I pass it through to a Windows virtual machine with virt-manager, it works!

So many problems for the desktop, that come almost day in day out that I'm considering trying Haiku OS for the desktop. Just need something that works.

<comment><USER66> I have the feeling that between graphics and sound processing there is just a dearth of material about how the underlying mechanisms that drive that portion of computing actually work. At least, I haven't really the magic words to represent "For God sake, what do I have to line up to make this stiff work" yet.

It's front and center of this decades computing goals for me. To that end, I've been looking into things like how X actually works, actually making use of graphics processing hardware, and the like. If anyone has some good reading, I'd love to know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> The author is right, none of these problems exist on macOS, and if you want the year of the Linux desktop to finally come, it will have to solve all of the issues highlighted. The commenters aren't going to be there to defend the true use-cases of "ARM Linux Desktop" to the end-user, so expect them to be completely turned off by this experience.

<comment><USER15> None of these problems exist on my XPS running Ubuntu, either. Of course when going to a 75$ not-desktop-grade machine from a $1500 Mac you'll find some compromises along the way. That comment doesn't make the slightest sense, frankly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I thought this $120 tablet + keyboard looked interesting but wondering if 2GB of RAM is going to cut it?

[https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinetab-10-1-linux- tablet-...](https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinetab-10-1-linux-tablet-with- detached-backlit-keyboard)

<comment><USER69> A fast SSD does wonders for making lower memory machines feel responsive. I do useful work on a 4GB machine running Win10. There is lag when web browsing, but it's easy to adjust to.

That said, it won't cut it if your applications actually do need more than 2GB at a time. And the Pine device doesn't list support for SATA or M.2 either, so you can't count on the SSD being a screamer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I'm amazed that, given how long video editors have been around, there isn't something better than OpenShot or Kdenlive; I would have expected that someone would be working on the video equivalent of Gimp/Audacity/etc.

<comment><USER71> Did you try ShotCut?

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> Don't the Raspberry Pi 4 support 4kp60?

<comment><USER53> I think it does but only on 1 monitor.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, you need to toggle a setting in the boot config, and your HDMI cable and monitor both have to support HDMI 2.0

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> great choice for those looking to waste time

</comment><comment><USER74> I can't even get WiFi working on my Pi 4. I can only resolve IPv6, anything IPv4 fails. I suspect it's a router issue but I have no control over that, so I simply can't use the Pi.

</comment><comment><USER55> With Windows practically giving licenses away, Apple coming with MacOS, cheap chromebooks coming with chromeOS, I really don't get this "Linux on a desktop move", especially when it is $75 device + $250 of accessories.

That said I love Pi, have it for home automation and media server, amazing piece of tech, NOT a desktop replacement and for the most part it's not even aiming at that.

<comment><USER75> Where can I get a free Windows license for my Macbook?

<comment><USER76> Anecdotally, I've found you don't really need one if you're fine with a nag in the bottom right corner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Cool write up/experiment, and I can feel the pain with Linux and Sound issues. A few days ago I had a job interview and they used MS Teams. At first I was completly blown aways that there is a native linux app. For the first 5 minutes I tried to get sound input working but gave up. Luckily once you press the invite link, you can also choose to join via browser, and then sound input worked directly as expected.

</comment><comment><USER78> >But, sadly, I don't think this year is the 'Year of the Linux desktop'. In general, I think 'Linux on the Desktop' for a mainstream audience is always going to be 20 years away, just like nuclear fusion.

Yep. I know there are people who do Linux on the Desktop, but they're people with a lot more tolerance for day-to-day pain than me. I had a job about a decade ago where I had a linux desktop machine as my day-to-day working environment and it was a miserable experience. There just doesn't seem to be the will to make things otherwise.

<comment><USER79> Things have changed a lot. Over the last year the company I work for has transitioned a couple hundred developers from Windows desktops to Linux desktops and it has been surprisingly smooth. Much better than an experiment I ran myself a number of years prior.

<comment><USER55> I have seen a fair amount of successful transitions. My company develops open source software and our development team is on Linux/Mac. Works a treat. Sales/Marketing/etc - Windows mostly with some more adventurous users using Mac. Linux is still not there yet, for an end-user overall nice experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Breaking the Chain - <AUTHOR> https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2016/11/breaking-chain.html <comment><USER3> "The Win32k filter is already used in Edge, however at the moment only Microsoft can use it as the executable signature is checked before allowing the filter to be enabled."

I find this disturbing and anti-competitive. Microsoft is clearly giving Edge an edge here (pun intended).

<comment><USER4> Is the "edge" the same advantage chrome has on a chromebook? semi-serious question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me, or does it seem trivial to MitM this HDCP API by just faking out the certificate chain, then faking out the method return values?

> Fortunately this doesn't compromise the security guarantees of the original > API because of the way Microsoft designed it. To prevent a MitM attack > against the API calls (i.e. you hook the API and return the answer the > caller expects, such as HDCP is enabled) the call is secured between the > caller and graphics driver using a X.509 certificate chain returned during > initialization.

<comment><USER6> You know what I'm waiting for? When game manufacturers start to require HDCP. The outrage of the youtube gamer kiddies (I personally dislike them all, but hey, they got enough influence) when they can't stream their stuff any more is going to be priceless and maybe enough to finally burn down the HDCP/DRM towers.

Or when someone develops a malware that exploits vulnerabilities in the x.509 code. I mean, if it's proper x.509, it's a hellhole of vulnerabilities - because either the crypto developers had to use common, often-flawed code like OpenSSL or develop their own.

<comment><USER7> Windows has it's own crypto api, I'm pretty sure the drivers would use that.

And why would game companies want to kill streaming? It's free advertising, not to mention that they all probably dream of making the next dota.

<comment><USER6> > And why would game companies want to kill streaming?

Never underestimate the power of human greed. Apple (with iTunes) has proved that the availability of unprotected content doesn't hurt the bottom line, and when I go into a store today and buy a physical CD-ROM it more often than not lacks any copy protection. And this has been the situation for years.

Meanwhile, the movie industry is soundly asleep at the wheel and its execs don't recognize that the consumer demands (near-instant access, no copy protection, no unskippable FBI warnings, no unskippable teasers, and no freaking region lock) have greatly diverged from their offerings. Or they do recognize, but cannot change their existing contracts or whatever - in this case the entire industry deserves a burn-to-the-ground event, because the situation ain't going to be fixed otherwise.

And for the game companies: there are already companies taking down "let's play" videos. Need for "absolute control", I guess. And they still haven't stopped putting retarded DRM (including what basically amounts to rootkits, in the form of anti-cheat stuff) into their games.

<comment><USER8> > Meanwhile, the movie industry is soundly asleep at the wheel and its execs > don't recognize that the consumer demands (near-instant access, no copy > protection, no unskippable FBI warnings, no unskippable teasers, and no > freaking region lock) have greatly diverged from their offerings.

Are you implying that people still use DVDs or Blu-rays?

If you are, I got genuinely curious, because in Brazil at least, I'm quite certain they got nearly extinct. Here, is Netflix, cable (or satellite), online "channels" as HBO-Go or torrent.

Based on that, it appears to me that consumer demands already won.

<comment><USER9> Walmart has a huge selection. People buy them. Even the local grocery chain has all the new releases. People stay renting at the Redbox, too. I don't know what the absolute numbers are on the industry but plenty of people like them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That must have been a hell of a workload. Thanks for this.

There are three pieces that left me shivering:

> After discussion with my original contact at Adobe they didn't have access > to the DRM code for Flash.

WHAT? Adobe ships (to them!) unknown, unauditable binary crap to users? Security by obscurity or what? This is totally irresponsible of Adobe.

> though I'll admit something about sending binary blobs to a graphics driver > gives me the chills.

What a joke that DRM crap is. Hasn't been sending crap to graphics drivers been a cause of a boatload of exploits, and they're still doing so?

> The stability issues are likely down to interactions with third party code > (such as AV) which inject their own code into Chrome processes.

LOLOLOLOL. For what is this even needed, given that AV software usually has kernel-level code anyway? Also, why on earth do AV vendors think they can mess around with third-party software?

The only ones who get clogged up with the inevitable bug reports are software devs who don't test their own software across all possible AV solutions - <USER2> doubt any company except Apple, Microsoft, Google's Android and Chrome divisions and Adobe actually have the install base for doing such tests "in the wild" like Chrome did.

<comment><USER10> > WHAT? Adobe ships (to them!) unknown, unauditable binary crap to users? > Security by obscurity or what? This is totally irresponsible of Adobe.

I understood this to mean that _James ' Adobe contact_ doesn't have access to their DRM code, not that Adobe as a company doesn't.

<comment><USER11> That's exactly it. The contact had flash source but they get the DRM code shipped as a binary library so never see the source of it. A lot of companies, MS, Google, Adobe compartmentalise their drm team, effectively at the behest of the media companies as its all smoke and mirrors anyway. trying to protect things like encryption keys and the like. Typically therefore the binaries are also obfuscated heavily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So tomorrow Microsoft ships an update for Windows that causes a runtime function to call an additional Win32k function and suddenly Chrome crashes?

This seems somewhat impossible to maintain.

<comment><USER13> They've had similar problems with Windows 10 updates and other security measures. Yes, it's a headache.</comment></comment>


Apple CEO Tim Cook paid $378m for 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-09/apple-ceo-cook-s-11-compensation-to-reach-378-million-with-stock-options.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting one - perhaps some cognitive dissonance WRT CEO bonuses?

Good discussion here: [http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/01/10/825201/the- ipay-p...](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2012/01/10/825201/the-ipay- phenomenon)</comment>


The Feds Are Ready To Sell $25 Million of Bitcoin Seized From The Silk Road - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/01/16/the-feds-are-ready-to-sell-the-silk-road-bitcoin-kind-of/ <comment><USER2> Hold on they haven't found anyone guilty in a court yet have they?

<comment><USER3> Civil forfiture doesn't require a criminal conviction. In fact there's hardly any process at all. Just one more twisted doctrine justified by the War on Drugs.

<comment><USER4> To expand on this, from wikipedia:

 _" In civil forfeiture cases, the US Government sues the item of property, not the person; the owner is effectively a third party claimant. The burden is on the Government to establish that the property is subject to forfeiture by a "preponderance of the evidence." If it is successful, the owner may yet prevail by establishing an "innocent owner" defense.

In civil cases, the owner need not be judged guilty of any crime; it is possible for the Government to prevail by proving that someone other than the owner used the property to commit a crime. In contrast, criminal forfeiture is usually carried out in a sentence following a conviction and is a punitive act against the offender.

The United States Marshals Service is responsible for managing and disposing of properties seized and forfeited by Department of Justice agencies. It currently manages around $2.4 billion worth of property. The United States Treasury Department is responsible for managing and disposing of properties seized by Treasury agencies. The goal of both programs is to maximize the net return from seized property by selling at auctions and to the private sector and then using the property and proceeds for law enforcement purposes."_

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture#United_States)

Since the Government _sues the property itself_ , and since property itself has few if any rights, you can understand how the entire process becomes rather... one sided.

<comment><USER5> You have to admit, whoever came up with that law was being pretty clever. If only they would use some of that cleverness to just send me a bill for my taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Based on the current price it makes roughly 25K bitcoins, and using the current BUY backlog on MtGox, selling them would push the price back to $550. However such a volume will certainly create a panic wave and it could go below that.

If they are clever, they won't put everything on the market like this.

<comment><USER7> Why would the feds care about crashing BTC? If anything, it seems like it might be a desirable outcome for them.

<comment><USER4> Because they want the money. Same reason they auction off the cars of suspected drug dealers, instead of just handing them out at random.

<comment><USER8> You mean those police auctions that advertise how cheap you can get cars?

Selling at the immediate price they can get in a very volatile vehicle is not 'handing them out at random'.

<comment><USER4> Cars at auctions are typically pretty damn cheap. That happens because there is risk for the buyer when buying a car at auction.

If cars at police auctions were _unnaturally_ cheap, everyone would be making a killing with arbitrage. _(To be clear, many people do, but as more people get in on that, prices at police auctions go up... the balance that is struck gets you relatively close to the legitimate value of a car at a police auction)._

Trust me, they love that money. They use it to buy fun new toys for themselves. That's when the property itself isn't their new toy: [http://www.clumsycrooks.com/media/files18/pictures/drug_deal...](http://www.clumsycrooks.com/media/files18/pictures/drug_dealers_car.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So that will depress the price right? Time for some cheap BTC

<comment><USER5> I honestly don't think the Bitcoin market is sophisticated enough to react to events like this. Certainly, if the feds really want to sell and someone puts $0.01 on the order books for that size of a trade, and nobody else is around, it could be filled, but I don't see that happening.

<comment><USER10> It wouldn't be unprecedented. I believe that mass sells have caused price crashes numerous times in the past.

Perhaps I misunderstood you?

<comment><USER5> Sort of. To me, it looks indistinguishable from randomness with /r/bitcoin trying to explain the randomness with news stories. But maybe I'm wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article speculates these Bitcoin will be auctioned off. I wonder if that would be the entire wallet as one lot. Not too many people have the resources and willingness to throw $25 million into Bitcoin outside of the Winklevoss twins and hedge funds. Odds are they might get a good discount, but that might be preferable to the Bitcoin economy than the government selling the coins in smaller lots. 30k coins suddenly flooding the market at once would cause a pretty dramatic drop in price.

<comment><USER12> Only if they try to sell them in a trading venue. Anyone with the bankroll to buy that many probably understands how markets work.

<comment><USER11> Rereading my prior post, it was a little unclear. Let me expand on my prior point. The Bitcoin market is neither liquid or large enough to absorb 30k new coins and remain stable. That means the US government isn't going to get $850 per coin. The effects on the market will likely depend on how the coins are sold.

 _Scenario 1:_

There is a single large buyer. Assuming the buyer and US goverment are smart, they will recognize the liquidity risk of Bitcoin. The buyer will then get a discount for this and be able to purchase the coins at a below market rate. Assuming their plan is to hold onto the coins for the long term (or at least not short term), I wouldn't expect a large movement in the general Bitcoin markets.

 _Scenario 2:_

There are many small buyers. Each sale would slightly effect the price of Bitcoin as each sale would slowly satisfy demand. The US government might receive $850 per coin for the first sale, but certainly wouldn't for the last sale. This would cause the biggest harm to the market as the price would drop more than in scenario 1.

 _TL;DR_ \- The US government either needs to accept a lower price for the sake of liquidity or accept that their sales will quickly lower the market rate for Bitcoin.

<comment><USER12> You are absolutely correct on the price they get for them being dependent on how they are sold. The industry jargon for this is how you execute the buy or sell. One option is they could sell the bitcoins using a VWAP algorithm.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume- weighted_average_price](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume- weighted_average_price)

For all other asset classes VWAP execution is a thing and a common one at that. Basic idea is split your large order up into slices and sell small amounts during a given interval. Bitstamp & BTCE have 24 hour volume of ~18k bitcoins. As a fun aside, if you don't randomize your time slice someone like me will see what you're doing and move the market to screw you :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's not clear to me whether this drives the price up or down. Sure, naively, it's more supply therefore lower prices. However, it does lend an air of legitimacy to Bitcoin and will likely raise awareness as it gets played out on mainstream media.

In other words, it will likely affect both the supply of and demand for Bitcoin.

<comment><USER14> Well the government considers bitcoin to be a commodity and not a currency. So they're selling the commodity they seized, no different than selling a fleet of ferraris and armani suits seized in another drug raid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I somewhat would think they'd actually want to maintain ownership - but create the illusion they no longer do, so then they can make transactions. It'd be smart to track how those Bitcoin move and all accounts it touches.

<comment><USER16> What could they hope to learn from trading with others that they can't figure out now?

It is already pretty transparent: [http://blockchain.info/](http://blockchain.info/)

<comment><USER15> To try to make purchases of illegal items, get shipping addresses, etc..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > approximately $25 million worth of Bitcoin will be auctioned off soon

At least they won't sell it via usual exchanges in one go. That would make quite a mess... (bringing price down to ~0 for a while before everything rebalances)

<comment><USER18> Maybe that's exactly what they want to do to this rogue currency...

<comment><USER19> They might want to, but I think it is illegal to. They have to auction it just like all other siezed assets.

<comment><USER20> Does that mean if they seized foreign currency, it would also need to be auctioned off?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This service is wathing Feds coffers: [http://www.bitcoinburn.com/](http://www.bitcoinburn.com/) (if green then all ok, and they not spending bitcoins)

</comment><comment><USER22> He could have kept an encrypted copy of the wallet with a trusted friend, and given them the password when he was caught. The FBI would be powerless.

</comment><comment><USER23> Counterpoint:

The feds selling the bitcoin would be an endorsement of it and the market they used to sell as being legal. This could push the price up.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great, so this will basically be a giant free handout to wall st because no one else will have enough money to bid on a block.

<comment><USER25> So the feds are gonna give the bitcoin to people who owe them money so they can pay the feds back?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Based on bitcoin architecture, is it possible to short Bitcoin directly?

<comment><USER27> It is not possible to short anything directly. Only direct actions are to buy and sell.

Options are derivative products that other people offer. They looks at statistical volatility and price their options, such that they make some $ on average. This means you can short bitcoin, just like anything else - you need to find someone offering the service.

<comment><USER28> When you think about it, even "buying and selling" don't exist as far as the Bitcoin protocol is concerned. There is only creation of new Bitcoin (via mining) and transferring them around. Granted, there is a lot of potential complex functionality based on Script, but as far as I know not much is supported by widely-used Bitcoin clients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is it legal to buy/sell bitcoin as a person or as an exchange?

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this an opportunity for financial firms?

<comment><USER31> I am sure the Winklevii are salivating over this....

I wouldn't doubt they are trying to use their network to get hold of these...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> What was the price at time of seizure?

<comment><USER32> > When the FBI first seized the coins in October, they were worth about $6 > million

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel like they should just hold onto it so it will increase in value. ;)

</comment><comment><USER34> But thanks to the public ledger that is the blockchain, we know which coins came from the Feds, and as such, which not to accept!

Don't let them get away with it, folks.

<comment><USER35> First they came for the Feds coins, and I did not speak out--Because I was not a Fed.

<comment><USER36> So, if convicted, should he be able to keep the estimated $100MM of bit coin, the proceeds of a criminal enterprise (regardless of your thoughts on legalization, it remains that trafficking or facilitating/conspiracy to abett trafficking -is- a criminal offense)?

Or is your argument based solely on the lack of conviction - which is more worthy of discussion?</comment></comment></comment>


How to Farm Insects at Home - DanI-S http://modernfarmer.com/2013/06/small-scale-insect-farming/

<comment><USER2> _a minimal initial investment in a cricket colony could absolutely feed a family of four_

I've tried to raise crickets to feed a pet bearded dragon. I followed all the guidelines, but generally could never even keep them alive let alone get them to reproduce. I don't think this is quite as easy as it's made to sound.

It's odd because you see crickets everywhere in the wild, they must be pretty hardy, but I utterly failed trying to "farm" them.

<comment><USER3> Crickets are one of the worst insects to breed. It's hard to keep a stable colony, they smell awful, make noise, and constantly jump out and escape.

I breed Guyana roaches to feed my pet tarantulas. They are hardy and easy to breed, plus they don't smell or make noise and they can't climb walls. They give live birth and don't infest homes. I keep them in a large storage bin with a screen lid filled with egg crates, and feed them fresh fruit and dry cat food once a week. I live in a small apartment and guests don't even know they're there unless I point them out.

<comment><USER4> How the FUCK do you manage to do this? As someone who grew up in Guyana, I can't even stand the memory of those things, let alone imagine touching them again. They can't climb walls? What kind of walls do you have? They climbed everywhere and happily flew into your face when I was a kid.

There is absolutely nothing I can think of that I'm afraid of, but those bugs give me the shudders! Ugh!

Props to you for being able to do that!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As my wife pointed out to me, reading this over my shoulder, it was always used in the context of her refusing to eat something she didn't like, as in "In some parts of the world they eat bugs!"

That said, in San Francisco the grasshopper tacos were banned [1] even though people did like them and people back in Oxaca apparently suffer no ill effects from eating them.

So given that good marketing (grasshopper tacos) can overcome western sensitivities, it offers the possibility that farming bugs for human consumption can in fact be a worthwhile endeavor.

[1] [http://boingboing.net/2011/06/09/grasshopper-tacos- ba.html](http://boingboing.net/2011/06/09/grasshopper-tacos-ba.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe crickets and mealworms would be a good diet for prisoners but I'd personally rather eat rice and beans if I was on a limited income.

Maybe have these farms available for very poor countries?

I just don't see the desire to eat crickets and worms.

And forget about a social life or dating once they find out you raise and eat crickets and worms, doesn't matter how good you are at explaining the concept.

Am I missing something?

<comment><USER7> > Am I missing something?

It's a normal food in many parts of the world.

Apart from that, you're right about it having a big "yuck" factor for most people. At the moment it's going to be brave early adopters, finding out what's nice, and what's got too much exoskeleton. (Chitinous legs stuck in your teeth is off-putting.)

 _Cereal_ volume 3 has a nice article about the various types of bugs and where they're eaten. ([http://readcereal.com/magazine/](http://readcereal.com/magazine/))

I might be about to raise and eat insects, but my child definitely will. (Consider that children often eat bugs from the garden, and it's only the reaction from horrified parents that stops them doing it!)

<comment><USER8> I think some better marketing will be needed as well.

It might seem strange and off-putting to eat bugs but eating lobster, shrimp and crawdads has similar challenges and these have become commonplace - <AUTHOR> delicacies - for most.

How long until we have a Squeaky Cricket or Brown Roach right next to Red Lobster?

<comment><USER9> Actually, I rather eat crickets than Red Lobster. That place scares me...

<comment><USER10> Well they're both arthropods. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I looked into selling insects as food last year. There's definitely a market for it, but I'm not sure what would stop a well-established existing insect farm from getting into the business the moment it looks viable and crushing everyone as they're already equipped for huge amounts of production, shipping and handling.

There were some disappointed people when I ran my test and they tried to buy crickets or mealworms just to find out I didn't actually have any.

Ultimately I decided not to mess with it because I'm not very excited by eating insects myself. I've tried a few things (crickets and mealworms) and while they didn't taste bad, they didn't taste like much of anything... I foresaw the eating of many insects in order to make it succeed and it's pretty tough to get excited about :)

<comment><USER10> Perhaps you could raise them on gourmet coffee beans or genetically engineer them to taste like blueberries or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live a mile from Hotlix and the kids & I often incorporate one of their bug products when we play card/board games ("loser eats a chocolate covered cricket").

If anyone wants to try something let me know. The store has blemished items cheap and I could mail some out this week.

<comment><USER13> Do your kids end up enjoying the treats, despite the fact that they're associated with the negative act of losing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Eating insects actually looks closer to the _norm_ outside of McDonald's land, so farming insects should definitely be an option.

It's only taboo because people never tasted it. I ate ants [1] here in Brazil and it's delicious. In Vietnam, apparently, fried tarantulas is another delicacy - tastes like lobster. The article mentions crickets, but by the smell of it I don't think they make a good appetizer.

[1] [http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com.br/2011/11/recipe-ica- fa...](http://flavorsofbrazil.blogspot.com.br/2011/11/recipe-ica-farofa.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> How do you convince a person like me who thinks it's gross to eat insects? Esp. Out of fear they (or the parasites they bring) might "become alive and crawl up to your brain or start a colony inside your bowel".

<comment><USER2> I would think you typically cook them or prepare them in some way, not just pop them alive into your mouth like a bird.

<comment><USER16> Put half a pound of crickets in food processor. Two teaspoons starch (for binding). Add 4 small sliced green chili peppers, some grated ginger, 2-3 thinly shredded kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, teaspoon of fish sauce (for the msg!). Form into patties, deep fry until golden brown.

I think i had something like that from a food stall in Thailand, not far from Cambodian border O_o

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Convenient. I just finished reading "How to Eat Fried Worms" to the kids.

Off to find some nice night-crawlers...</comment>


Is apple.com doing User-Agent based discrimination? - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/mparramont/6132627

<comment><USER2> Nice found, Apple is always bringing a bad UX to other people.

Some other examples:

\- Older webkit for webapps on the homescreen (= slower loading), so a bad experience with webapps so people would search / request a native app

\- iTunes on Windows (seriously, what was that!)

\- Not compatible Bluetooth with non Apple devices (you really have to do a lot)

\- No standard battery loader (and it's in the European law that you should use one...)

\- No EU obligated garantee if you don't buy Applecare

\- Airplay, ... doesn't work with other devices (instead of using DLNA, which is a standard-protocol and works cross-device)

\- Tried to push that no other programming languages would work on their platform --> XCode. So basicly, no cross-platform programming...

\- ...

<comment><USER3> I think one of the reasons that Blink forked from WebKit is that Google has a vested interest in making the web cutting-edge; whereas Apple's interest is in making the web "good enough" and reserving premium experiences for their native apps.

Interesting considering that the whole reason Apple survived the 90s was the advent of the web counteracting the move to Windows-only software.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. Probably that's the reason why Steve Jobs had such "smart" ideas on how to persuade people to switch to Apple.

His marketing / monopolist plan was years in the making, long before he announced it to anyone.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Transnote – Video Notes by Timestamps - <AUTHOR> https://get.transnote.co/M3e <comment><USER2> Cool but how do you plan to monetize this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Additional features like team collaboration, integrations. We don't plan to monetise it at the moment.</comment></comment>


Apple and Ireland: It's more complicated than meets the eye - <AUTHOR> https://www.aei.org/publication/apple-ireland-more-complicated-than-meets-the-eye/ <comment><USER2> It's always more complicated for the powerful manipulators of our society. And... businesses are people until they're not.</comment>


Ask HN: Sciter, Open Source or Other Options - c-smile I am thinking about future directions of the Sciter Engine project (https://sciter.com). I have an impression that is far overgrown its initial state of little aside pet project.
Options that I am considering:
- to make it Open Source. OS is a great responsibility (at least for me) so some work is required - documenting, unified code conventions, etc. I am looking for sponsorship on that one.
- Also about OS. At one point I had an offer for selling the project from one of "big 100" - they wanted to buy out copyrights and make it Open Source by their name. But literally next day DotNet bubble happened and so that ended nowhere.
- some other options anyone?
So I am at T-intersection (no road back) at the moment.
I see great potential for the project, in particular of making real alternative to Electron. But that definitely requires efforts and so some funding.
I'd appreciate any advice. <comment><AUTHOR> Given advantages over electron etc - perhaps open sourcing it with a foundation model and commercial services for those wanting support. In many respects I can see Sciter being used by corporations in a similar wayt o sqlite - e.g. if it was open source there are a number of corporations who may be interested in commercially supported services and project sponsorship</comment>


Ask HN: How do you track your domains for expiration? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For DNS:

For my own domains, they auto-renew. They will pester me through email and phone if my CC expires.

For work domains, they also auto-renew and a CSM will tell us if the root servers changed without the registrar changing anything.

For SSL:

For my own certs, I use a little script to ensure LetsEncrypt is doing it's thing. This is the manual version. (sanity check)

        #!/bin/bash
        set -o posix
        set -u
        for domain in $(cat /opt/haproxy/sslhosts.txt)
        do
        echo -en "\n${domain}:\t"
        echo | openssl s_client -servername "${domain}" -connect "${domain}":443 2>/dev/null | openssl x509 -noout -dates | grep After

For work SSL certs, the registrar will also tell us if SSL certs are not set to auto-renew and our monitoring software will alert on certs about to expire.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've used [https://dnmin.com](https://dnmin.com) for about 6 years now. It's a free service I found on lowendtalk.com

You can paste in a list of your domains and it'll help you organize them and send you email notifications when they're close to expiring.

</comment><comment><USER4> Auto renew for the domains I want to make sure are renewed. Anything else is error prone.</comment>


Warp, Cloudflare's Free VPN, Is Now Publicly Available for iOS and Android - <AUTHOR> https://warp.plus/pWpA <comment><USER2> Is that an affiliate link? (the "pWpA" after the domain in the URL)

But more importantly, is it just me or does using a free VPN seem like a super risky idea? haha

<comment><USER3> Thread without affiliate link:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21067602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21067602)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the underlying technology? WireGuard (via BoringTun)?

I see there's two tiers, Warp and Warp+. Supposedly Warp+ has better/optimal routing that lets you avoid local ISP congestion. It's $7 CAD/month. This would be pretty cool on desktop for gaming, etc.

<comment><USER5> In the original blog [https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better- vpn/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/)

"We also knew it was critical that we ensure Warp doesn't meaningfully increase your battery usage. We built Warp around WireGuard, a modern, efficient VPN protocol that is much more efficient than legacy VPN protocols."

And Warp is why we wrote BoringTun: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/boringtun- userspace-wireguard-ru...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/boringtun-userspace- wireguard-rust/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cloudflare controls a great portion of the web. How useful is hiding from websites with this VPN?

<comment><USER5> Warp isn't designed to hide you from websites you visit. It's designed to secure the connection from your device. [https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better- vpn/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/)

<comment><USER6> I'm under the impression a lot of people fall for the marketing and use VPNs for privacy.

<comment><USER4> Still protects you from hijacking at public wifi hotspots. Doesn't let you watch geolocked content (US Netflix), and probably doesn't let you torrent either.

<comment><USER6> Is it better than Tor in your opinion?

<comment><USER7> In terms of privacy? Definitely not. With Tor, it's extremely hard to trace a packet from end to end but in this case there is a high chance that Cloudflare is both your VPN provider and the CDN for the site you are visiting meaning they could theoretically know exactly who is looking at what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I signed up some months ago and am using the DNS service on my iphone, but is says that I am #192604 on the WARP waitlist and that they will let me know when it's ready.

<comment><USER5> Try updating the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Eating my iphone's battery like crazy

</comment><comment><USER10> Cloudflare is doing a great job improving privacy and security on the Internet. Not only they helped websites move to HTTPS, now they also do that on the client side too! Soon, 99% of the traffic on the Internet will be encrypted. Except, of course, for the traffic that goes through Cloudflare data centers, but that's a small price to pay for privacy and security.

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

<comment><USER6> Gosh I hope this is sarcasm.</comment></comment>


The Universal Rules of Civilized Discourse - <AUTHOR> http://blog.discourse.org/2013/03/the-universal-rules-of-civilized-discourse/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone tried a social killfile? Almost all usenet clients had this wonderful feature called a killfile which would simply elide known-bad posters in a newsgroup. The regulars would have a largely (but not exactly) identical killfile, since the trolls were well known. A good group would often leave troll posts totally without responses - since no-one had even read it.

I always used to think it would be handy to have well-respected members of the group share their killfiles with others. Web-hosted forums could go one better and allow the easy sharing of killfiles between participants.

This kind of solution gives individuals freedom to see what data they want to see, but it also never takes away an individuals right to say whatever they want to say however they want to say it, however terrible or useless anyone thinks it is. There are no "moderators" per se, just people you respect well enough to copy their killfiles.

This relates to the OP's article because while it seems like a good idea to write down the rules of discourse, application of the rules will be arbitrary by nature, and so you have to let the community police itself in a scalable way.

<comment><USER3> I'm an admin of a forum where we share ignore lists.

I was very concerned about this at first because there's a very real chance that people will blindly ignore users based on others already ignoring them. However, for the most part, it seems users will still look at those shared lists as an "advisory" and still use their own discretion when choosing to ignore a user.

There's also a feature where frequently ignored users will lose community standing (it works a bit like karma points except no numeric score is shown). Users with poor community standing will see an increase in the delay interval they're allowed to post.

They will also not see new topics until a certain number of users with good community standing have already replied to those. The idea being that, perhaps, exposure to good quality posts will dissuade rubbish ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's not a bad list, as far as it goes. That said, I've moderated forums before, some of them for the better part of a decade - That ruleset is way too wordy to be effectively applied, IME of various sets of rules. Probably not at any great damage, because I expect people to deal with it the way they do must such rules, i.e. make a good faith effort while largely ignoring them.

You have, maybe, three or four points that you can really pick out when you're giving people rules, preferably not in prose but in bullet point form, and the rest of it's down to how people conduct themselves in the community and how your moderators interact with people when they go wrong. People are not going to be constantly checking their posts against a big list of things they barely remember.

Ideally you want to get it down to one overarching rule, like don't be a dick, with a handful of examples of what dickish behaviour is; what the tone of your specific forum would be. You really have to keep this stuff very concise. Explanations for why each rule is there can, if necessary, be included further down; underneath the short summary that you want everyone to have read. Personally I've never found much need for such explanations, that's more something you'd do in PM if someone was questioning them - by and large people seem to understand well enough from examples.

</comment><comment><USER5> _This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion_

 _Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park._

I'd hope our standards could be higher than that. I know several public parks that are best avoided.

</comment><comment><USER6> In their own way, the comments are more interesting than the article. Atwood lists StormFront as one of the sites they investigated the dynamics of. The other two object; one claims Atwood was dismissive of his concerns in a twitter convo. In the end, the posts were civilized and the discourse, nonexistent. Each is visibly holding back his fuller opinion not b/c it would be uncivilized to give it but b/c he fears being seen as such. What was gained?

<comment><USER7> I actually clicked on the Stormfront link, and felt stupid immediately afterward; as far as I could tell the only demand was that you were polite to other _white_ persons. Certainly I didn't get a very strong "be nice to every poster" vibe.

<comment><USER8> Stormfront is fairly notorious for being a racist forum, which is populated chiefly by racist whites (and those who wish to act like them) and run solely for the benefit of racist whites. It is a hateful place and its rules should be viewed with skepticism on that basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Heh, I find it ironic that the comments on that article quickly degenerated into a political argument about racism :P

<comment><USER10> Yup, completely derailed. The main problem with discourse on the internet is not a software problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Productive conversation is rational and does not mince words.

"Politeness" is nice to have, but sometimes, to be polite is to be uncivil. Just imagine being polite to someone advocating racism. We don't abolish poor behavior by treating it like it's civilized. On the contrary, that's an inversion of true civility.

I don't trust people who elevate politeness above all else.

<comment><USER12> I think you are mistaking politeness for 'sweetness'. You can be perfectly polite and at the same time perfectly clear. Politeness in a conversation is the art of being clear without being offensive _to the other person_.

In your example, someone advocating racism can be countered by stating clearly and simply the historical, anthropological and economical reasons why racism is wrong.

Politeness implies _reasoning_. An internet discussion is not war, it is a conversation. Whenever you leave politeness aside, you have lost. Always. (Obviously, this is my way of seeing it).

In your example, _any_ pro-racist argument is _by itself_ both impolite (because it insults persons straightaway) and wrong (for many reasons). It is a no-no in any case. If you fall on the same side of the wall (by being impolite) you are placing yourself at the same level and your "reason" is lost to the reader.

You can say: "racism and eugenics have lead mankind to the Nazi extermination camps" and being polite.

To repeat myself: politeness is not lack of clarity. It is just the way to properly oppose wrong ideas without harming people defending them. At the same time, it _protects_ your argument.

<comment><USER11> I think you are using the word "polite" to refer to the Christian ethic "don't judge others". As widespread as it is, that ethic should not get to rule discourse without justifying itself. And in practice it is almost always hypocritical: those who violate this dogma are usually castigated, thereby violating the rule they dogmatically insist upon.

I see no reason why we should refrain from morally evaluating what others say, whether that evaluation be positive or negative. In fact, I think it leads to a great deal of evil to _not_ so evaluate.

<comment><USER12> We should morally evaluate what others say, certainly: as a matter of fact, that is what we do to have an opinion in ethical questions. I do not think I advocated the opposite. What I opposed was attacking the opponent, instead of the ideas.

<comment><USER11> It's possible my criticism isn't aimed at you, but at those who get angry and start screaming "be polite" or "be tolerant of others" when their views are morally evaluated.

In any case, based on my experience they are at least fellow travelers, cowardly hiding behind "be polite" while suppressing rational dissent.

<comment><USER12> I understand now your comment and tend to agree with you. However, as you say, that is not properly "politeness" but simple fear, as you say.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Oxford university shaped Brexit – and Britain's next prime minister - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/85fc694c-9222-11e9-b7ea-60e35ef678d2 <comment><USER2> Can't outline :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Open an incognito window, paste the article title into Google, and click the first result. Usually works.

Or pay. The FT is well worth it.</comment></comment>


Hacking real estate with a web scraper to find the best off market deals - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kimonolabs.com/2015/02/12/hacking-real-estate-to-find-the-best-off-market-deals/

<comment><USER2> This isn't "hacking" anything.

For content marketing, you need to have actual content.</comment>


Risks of Cryptocurrencies [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~nweaver/papers/cryptorisks.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Schneier shared this today [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/07/nicholas_weav...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/07/nicholas_weaver_2.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> >>However, unless censorship resis-tance in an electronic transaction is a requirement (such as for drug deals, ransom payments, money launderers, and those seeking to evade currency control), irreversibility combined with the volatile price means Bitcoin is sig-nificantly inferior to alternatives such as credit cards or PayPal

This is not true, as Elaine Ou explains:

[https://elaineou.com/2016/08/01/the-value-of-settlement- fina...](https://elaineou.com/2016/08/01/the-value-of-settlement-finality/)

Any high charge-back industry would benefit from an irreversible payment method, which is why several offer steep discounts if one uses cryptocurrency.

With respect to volatility, that's largely a function of very thin trading volumes, and the high proportion of cryptocurrency's current value stems from speculative demand. In a hypothetical mass-adoption scenario, trading volumes will be huge, solving the first problem, and growth potential will be significantly less, making speculative value a much smaller component of the cryptocurrency's total value.

So this only applies in the early adoption phase:

>>This also means that unless the buyer is a believer in Bitcoin, the buyer ought to buy Bitcoin only immediately before they initiate the transaction, to avoid volatility (and will have had to mine or buy the Bitcoin in any case).

In a mass adoption scenario, immediately converting to fiat currencies through exchanges will not be necessary.

>>Bugs in these smart contracts can be catastrophic.

This is indeed a major risk, but one that can be mitigated through methods like formally verifiable smart contracts.

>>The exchanges themselves also cre-ate systemic risks. Almost all exchang-es seek to avoid regulation, which means they implode with almost seeming regularity—usually due to a combination of theft and fraud.

Absolutely false. The failure rate of exchanges has dramatically declined over the last several years. Methods like cold wallet storage have significantly reduced the losses suffered when an exchange is hacked, and the exchanges are now much more professionally run services than they were in 2012/2013.

I question the impartiality of the author when he makes a claim like this.

>>In many cases the bandwidth limit for crime is not the crime itself, but the money laundering.

I am dubious about this claim. Is there any case of a criminal activity being easy to get away with, but not widely committed, due to the difficulty of laundering the proceeds?

>>It is primarily criminals who regularly benefit from censorship-resistant payments

While it is true that criminals benefit the most from censorship-resistant payments, this is no different than criminals benefiting the most from privacy. It is not an argument against censorship resistance or privacy. The flip side is that exercising one's basic rights, and ensuring one's own survival by doing something as fundamental as trading a good/service for money, requires becoming a criminal in some countries, like Venezuela.

Circumventing Orwellian levels of mass-surveillance and centralized control in places like Xinjiang is also an antitode to a much more dangerous risk to society than that posed by malevolent non-state actors: [https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/26/china-big-data-fuels- cra...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/02/26/china-big-data-fuels-crackdown- minority-region)

<comment><USER3> >> Any high charge-back industry

Not if your the person buying. Bitcoin guarantees 1 way movement of 'currency', it makes no guarantees on your product or service. This is why charge-backs exist.

>> With respect to volatility, that's largely a function of very thin trading volumes

That only get thinner due to limited (and loosable) deflationary currency and increasing fees due to extrodinary power consumption.

>>In a mass adoption scenario, immediately converting to fiat currencies through exchanges will not be necessary.

Not possible due to volatility and fees. See previous.

>> Absolutely false. The failure rate of exchanges has dramatically declined over the last several years.

Brick and mortar banks still get hacked, if they havent solved it, unregulated crypto exchanges certainly wont. The problem can be mitigated in traditional currency by simply 'undo'ing the damage, or holding a regulated institution responsible.

>> While it is true that criminals benefit the most from censorship-resistant payments, this is no different than criminals benefiting the most from privacy.

You've conflated privacy into this argument, which is strange because normal currencies have privacy. Crypto generally does not.

<comment><USER2> >>Not if your the person buying. Bitcoin guarantees 1 way movement of 'currency', it makes no guarantees on your product or service. This is why charge-backs exist.

In the article I linked, it explains that part of the reason high charge-back industries have a high rate of charge back is that the payment processors they're stuck with don't conduct the fraud prevention validations that more established credit card processors conduct.

So the result is that credit card scammers have an easier time conducting scams, which honest buyers end up paying for with higher prices.

While the risks posed by the merchants in these industries aren't mitigated by using irreversible cryptocurrency payments, the additional costs incurred by credit card scammers are.

Where cryptocurrency has a use is where the customer trusts a merchant in a high charge-back industry. They can enjoy high discounts for using cryptocurrency in this case.

>>That only get thinner due to limited (and loosable) deflationary currency and increasing fees due to extrodinary power consumption.

Trading volumes should have no relationship with the nominal money supply in cryptocurrency, since the units are highly divisible.

1 Ether == 1000 Finney == 1000000 Szabo == 1000000000000000000 Wei.

The choice of units is up to the user.

So no, in a mass adoption scenario, thin trading volumes won't get thinner. That would be totally absurd.

>>increasing fees due to extrodinary power consumption.

Power consumption follows fees, not the other way around. Power consumption is a function of mining revenues. The cost of the energy consumed approaches mining revenues. Since much of mining revenues consists of the block subsidy, as the portion of mining revenues consisting of subsidies decreases, as a result of greater fee revenue from a larger volume of transaction, power consumption per transaction decreases.

>>Brick and mortar banks still get hacked, if they havent solved it, unregulated crypto exchanges certainly wont.

Straw man. I didn't say hacks will stop. I said that exchanges are getting more secure, in contradiction to the claim made in the paper.

>>You've conflated privacy into this argument

I haven't conflated anything. I was illustrating a general principle using privacy as an example of the principle in action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> mandatory repost since price is going up and we hate bitcoin here</comment>


Indigenous community built a DIY drone to fight off illegal loggers (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/662530/a-tiny-forest-tribe-built-a-diy-drone-from-youtube-to-fight-off-illegal-loggers/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of the story of Krikkit.

[https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/k/krikkit](https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/k/krikkit)

<comment><USER3> I missed this joke when I read it as a young lad: "the destruction of everything that wasn't Krikkit"

<comment><USER4> Mind explaining the joke? Is there another meaning besides the straight- forward one?

<comment><USER5> "It's not cricket" is an English expression meaning that something is unfair. See, for instance, [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/2...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/2013/04/130404_todays_phrase_not_cricket.shtml).

Or was that the straightforward meaning you had in mind anyway?

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that's helpful. I had never heard this phrase before. I don't think it's common in the US.

<comment><USER5> Understandable since cricket itself is not very common in the US either.

It is played though, and there is a national organization: [https://www.usacricket.org/](https://www.usacricket.org/).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google Earth doesn't update often enough?

<comment><USER7> They use satellite imagery in some cases too: [https://www.digital- democracy.org/ourwork/guyana/](https://www.digital- democracy.org/ourwork/guyana/)

Drones are useful because you can immediately respond to logging action, you don't have to wait until Google Earth updates which could be weeks or months. It's also significantly higher resolution than satellite imagery (whether that makes a difference).

Digital democracy do some fantastic work, and their mapping tool is open source: [https://github.com/digidem/mapeo- desktop](https://github.com/digidem/mapeo-desktop)

[https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/innovative-mapping-tool- for...](https://www.leonardodicaprio.org/innovative-mapping-tool-for- indigenous-communities/)

<comment><USER8> [https://planet.com](https://planet.com) images the earth at 3-5m resolution once a day. At least in theory. I tried out some random pieces of forest in Guyana and depending on the size of your area of interest it's more like once every 3-10 days you get a portion of the area you're interested in. I don't know how fast they update but I'm pretty sure it's faster than 24 hours.

Their interface is well made and they have a free 14 day trial.

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

<comment><USER7> Having a proper look, this was actually in mid-2014: [https://www.digital- democracy.org/blog/we-built-a-drone/](https://www.digital- democracy.org/blog/we-built-a-drone/)

I don't think Planet Labs were scaled up at that point!

There are a few other issues: potential lack of high bandwidth internet connection makes subscriptions a problem. Price is almost certainly an issue - all the parts for this project were donated; to give an idea they're making replacement parts out of beer crates. However Digital Democracy could be an intermediary here and some of Planet Labs's goals are targeted towards humanitarian efforts.

Resolution is going to be an order of magnitude better than a satellite image, probably < 0.1m with a GoPro. Maybe that's important for producing evidence of mining or logging?

A big part of this is empowerment. They built it, they can repair it, they capture the data and they process it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>