President Obama Should Shut Down the NSA's Mass Spying Before It's Too Late - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4565149/obama-trump-nsa-surveillance/ <comment><USER3> I don't understand all of the fighting in this thread. I don't understand why people are acting like every liberal was on board with these policies until the election. It's simply not accurate.

Two groups of people who completely agree that mass surveillance is a bad thing will go at each other's throats about _when_ the other speaks up about it needing to be dismantled. You're on the same fucking side and chances are, if you actually believe that mass surveillance is bad, you've both been at least mildly against it the whole time.

The expansion of surveillance powers under Obama was probably _the most_ consistently cited dissatisfaction amongst HN contributors one, four, and six years ago. Threads critical of these policies were consistently on the home page during the Obama presidency. Security and privacy conscious individuals on the left and right agreed. The top thread at the moment mocks liberals: "Well, sure, unconstitutional power grabs are tolerable when someone I like is in power…" but that straw man simply isn't in line with reality, not on this forum at least.

More broadly, yes, masses of people have given up their privacy. Go talk to them, stop bitching at people who agree with you.

<comment><USER4> > I don't understand why people are acting like every liberal was on board > with these policies until the election.

As a libertarian, I agree. Many liberals have opposed these policies. I think even Glenn Greenwald may have or may still identify as a liberal.

However, _every_ person I know who self-identifies as a "Democrat" and not a "liberal", has supported "all" of Obama's policies (including mass surveillance), and has condemned Snowden in the strongest terms. There are a few of those on HN, but I agree that by far most HNers oppose mass surveillance (unless there's a large "hidden" segment as is apparently the case with Trump supporters, who have come out en masse on HN in the past few days).

<comment><USER5> I know a lot of people who identify as a "Democrat", few who can't find things to nitpick about any given candidate (including Obama). I'm surprised our experiences are as different as you describe. Probably presentation is different when discussing with people they view as allies versus those they view as opposition?

<comment><USER4> You're probably right, had I probed enough I probably could have found policy they disagreed with. But on surveillance/national security stuff, the self- identified Democrats I know have stood staunchly behind Obama, and view Snowden as a traitor. It's kind of odd how much like most Republicans they sound when talking about these issues (not counting pro-liberty Republicans like Rand Paul, who view these issues like a libertarian would).

<comment><USER6> Being against surveillance and considering Snowden a traitor are not mutually exclusive; one can be pro-privacy and liberty and still think of him as a traitor for seeking refuge in Russia and for having a deadman switch for example.

<comment><USER7> I'm not disagreeing but I think it can also be hard to trace it back and be absolutely 100% on this.

If Snowden hadn't committed the activities he did and revealed more information about the scope and breadth of the surveillance state, would that be good or bad? Did those activities help affirm your stance on surveillance? If so, can we truly consider them traitorous (outside of a legal standpoint)?

Now, you folks are probably far better at logic puzzles than but as someone that fits the bill of pro-privacy and liberty and still questioning how to classify him, I'm open to other ways of arguing for or against.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It amazes me that journalists publish things like this with a straight face, then don't understand why nobody trusts the media.

"Well, sure, unconstitutional power grabs are tolerable when someone I like is in power, but this new guy is bad!" Yes, that's how it always works. That's explicitly the reason our government was designed the way it was. Why do educated people forget this every time "their guy" gets into power?

<comment><USER9> This isn't a journalist. It's an opinion piece written by an activist.

Please show where this activist writes in support of the NSA programs in the past.

Even if there were such a thing as homogenous left: I believe the number of people from the left defending these programs has been pretty short for as long as I can remember.

<comment><USER8> Please show where I said anything about "support of the NSA programs in the past."

Please show where I said anything about the "left".

This is a problem that both democrats and republicans suffer from. Remember when the PATRIOT Act was proposed and enacted? Most democrats thought it was an unbelievably unconstitutional overreach that would be the end of the world, and republicans mostly saw it as a necessary tool that didn't even really have any constitutional concerns worth mentioning. Magically these perspectives flipped when Obama got into power. This happens every single time.

*I would also note that journalists' "tolerance" for the NSA programs over the last 8 years is essentially tacit support. Nearly all of the network media's coverage of the NSA issues over the last few years has been centered on whether the effectiveness of the programs justify their existence. There has been virtually no network condemnation of these programs based on their illegality and unconstitutionality, whereas that was a major focus from 2001 to 2007.

<comment><USER10> You and I must have been living in alternate realities. The furor over the Snowden leaks was extreme. The calls for President Obama to shut down the NSA were primarily from the far left. The article count of NSA-critical articles from NYT and the Washington Post vastly outnumbered those from conservative news organizations, such as Fox News and the Drudge Report (admittedly an aggregator).

If you perform an internet search for "Pardon Snowden", the vast majority of these articles arise from publications traditionally associated with Democratic Party support.

I remember some milquetoast grumbling about the USA-PATRIOT Act from various publications on both the right and the left, but the quantity of outrage was far greater after the Snowden leaks.

In case you need any convincing: [https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&q=unconstitutional+nsa](https://www.google.com/search?espv=2&q=unconstitutional+nsa)

In the top 10 results, you'll see various "MSM" news sources. The sole defender of the NSA programs comes from The National Review, a (high-quality) conservative newspaper.

I'm not trying to use "gotcha!" commenting, but I think it is grossly misstates the position of most left-wing folks to push this flip-flop theory.

I will readily admit that flip-flopping happens all the time about other matters but I have not witnessed it at all with this one.

On the matter of NSA surveillance being abused by President-elect Trump, I consider it extremely unlikely. I consider the left's fear to be based off of a failure by the government to communicate the programs effectively to the press.

<comment><USER8> I just read the the first 5 results of your google link. There isn't any outrage in any of them. They are actually fairly unbiased news reports about court rulings on the illegality of various NSA programs, not opinion pieces criticizing the programs. The post that we're discussing is an opinion piece, and my comments were about opinion pieces. There is no dispute that there has been an incredible amount of news coverage of state surveillance since the Assange, Manning, and Snowden leaks.

Frankly, given how news is now consumed, it's very possible we're living in alternate realities. The PATRIOT outrage I was referring to was circa 2002. Where I lived, the media reported vociferous outrage from democrats and nonchalance from republicans. Since "Obama" has wielded--and greatly expanded --the state's surveillance powers, I have not heard anywhere near the same objection from democrats. (Note that I say "Obama" because I have no idea whether and to what extent he has actually overseen the NSA's actions; its entirely possible much of these programs have been hidden from the executive branch for decades, which is frankly much more worrisome).

The few polls i just looked at seem to back up this flip-flop:

[1] [http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/12/news/la-pn- republica...](http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/12/news/la-pn-republicans- democrats-nsa-poll-20130612) ["With President Obama in the White House, Democrats stand in support of the NSA's methods, 49% to 40% in the Gallup survey. Republicans were opposed 63% to 32%. When President George W. Bush was in office, Republicans were supportive of government surveillance efforts and Democrats opposed."]

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/12/poll-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/12/poll- republicans-hate-nsa-spying-democrats-are-ambivalent/) ["Interestingly, the most intense opposition to the programs comes from the political right. Republicans disapprove of the program by almost a 2 to 1 margin. Independents disapprove, 56 to 34 percent. But 49 percent of Democrats approve of the program, compared with 40 percent who disapprove."]

I don't share your believe that Trump won't seek to use surveillance for his own purposes. Not because I think he's a horrible person, but simply because people use the tools at their disposal, especially in times of stress or emergency. Of course, the president of the U.S. deals with nothing but stress and emergencies.

Finally, I don't think anyone's fear is based off a failure to communicate the programs effectively. If the programs were wildly successful, those successes would be publicized by now. The NSA needs some good publicity. By the way, negative publicity the NSA can't avoid is largely its own fault. It's current slogan is "Your Data: If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Fear" [https://nsa.gov1.info/data/](https://nsa.gov1.info/data/) I'm not sure you could come up with a more Orwellian slogan if you tried.

<comment><USER10> That .info site is a parody site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why would he, when he authorized it? Not only did he strengthen Bush's anti- constitutional policies, he enacted new ones, like the NDAA which spits in the face of the constitution.

<comment><USER12> Because he has a new perspective on what unbridled data collection can render, not only with the hindsight of the Snowden debacle, but also because I am around 100% sure he didn't posit Mr. Trump as the future Head of State.

Maybe we should remember the words written in the founding document that precluded our noble country's separation from the English State:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men/women (language added by me) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men/Women (same semantic addition), deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

If one's right to privacy is being infringed upon, we are bound by this document to remind the powers that be that they are beyond their right to govern.

I think the initial thought is incredibly prescient, as Trump seems far more laissez-faire when it comes to moral governance than President Obama is and has been. Let's not put the cart before the horse, but let's also make sure the toys are all child proof before we hand them down, n'est-ce pas?

<comment><USER13> Hubris: Now that his term is over, mass surveillance is suddenly bad?

<comment><USER12> Suddenly? Where do you draw word that from?

I referenced the fourth amendment, which seems not-so-sudden to my naive (read: full of hubris) self.

Methinks thou dost protest too much.

<comment><USER13> > Suddenly? Where do you draw word that from?

He as two months of an 8 year term remaining.

The program was in place before the current administration, and if there was a problem to solve from their perspective, it should have been solved long ago.

<comment><USER12> I mean to say why do you assign that adjective to my comment?

It isn't like I've been commenting every day on your blog or something and today decided to voice my opinion on the wiretapping, stingrays, etc.

<comment><USER13> Not to you or your comment, but to the President that if he shuts down NSA programs in the final hour, then it would be arrogant indeed to have let them run for 8 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When it was possibly used against the people they did not like then it was acceptable. Now when it may become after them has it suddenly become a problem. How pathetic.

I also can not say that many have not warned against this scenario. Something, something about not standing up.

<comment><USER15> It was never acceptable to many of us. But the threat of unbridled autocracy was less present under Obama than it will be under Trump, for the reasons stated in the article. It is possible to oppose these programs with some but not utmost urgency, and then be catapulted into utmost urgency by an event such as a minority of the voters electing a fascist.

<comment><USER16> > But the threat of unbridled autocracy was less present under Obama than it > will be under Trump.

The creation of the laws is the creation of the autocratic power. The temperment of who ever is in power at a particular point is irrelivent. By creating the law you automatically open the door to use those laws.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, and I opposed the Bush expansion of executive powers and the Obama expansion of executive powers. Perhaps not everyone has been ideologically consistent throughout this process but there are those of us who have.

And as you have pointed out, the major difference is temperament. Obama has not exhibited a temperament that has led me to believe he would use these powers to round up run-of-the-mill opposition. Trump's opposition to protests and potential unwillingness to concede an electoral loss leads me to believe he would mobilize the executive apparatus into dictatorship, unlike Obama or Bush before him.

<comment><USER16> Good, there are not many who have evaded the grips of the partisan blob.

Each side takes credit for the same national security policy wrapped in different language and each side pushes the policy a little father. The perfection of the total surveillance state with unlimited Presidential power is truly the bipartisan crown jewel that the Washington consensus wants.

Its a dramatic picture but maybe people need to be scared out of there apathy at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Trump isn't even in office yet, and already he's done more to advance the libertarian agenda than 40-ish years of libertarians have managed.

Democrats are coming out in support of the Second Amendment, the right of secession, and limited government. They're now apparently opposed to the surveillance state and the expanding powers of the Executive.

<comment><USER11> Surveillance is not a Democrat belief. Most Democrats/all progressives are against surveillance. The problem is that Obama went against liberal ideals and enforced and extended Bush's policies, which is why Obama was generally hated by progressives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fascism was all over the country a long time before recent events. I'm not a Trump supporter but assuming that this problem is something that should be of people's concern only now is just childish.

<comment><USER19> I've seen this comment in various guises over the last few days, and I struggle to understand what it's intended to accomplish.

If you think the problem is old news, that doesn't make it any less urgent to fix. It's like seeing firefighters arrive and tell them not to bother, because the house started burning hours ago.

<comment><USER20> Obama supporters were all for mass surveillance when it was their guy doing it. So it's more like the firefighters showed up hours ago and you told them not to put out the fire because it was only burning someone else's room.

<comment><USER5> > Obama supporters were all for mass surveillance when it was their guy doing > it.

Not many of the Obama supporters I know.

Of course they were more willing to forgive it! That's going to be the case. Partly because humans don't like admitting they were wrong. Partly because it's legitimate to trade off issues against each other. Partly because we're introducing selection bias - if it's enough to turn you off Obama entirely, you're not an "Obama supporter".

But there's miles between overly generous forgiveness and support. It was commonly named as an area where they were disappointed in Obama.

<comment><USER20> And yet that disappointment didn't translate into voting for other candidates -- and I'm not talking about voting for Romney or Trump, there were plenty of other options the whole time -- so in the end it is of no value.

<comment><USER21> There are exactly 2 choices that are possible for any first-past-the-post voting system.

Change that (which I support) and we can talk 3rd parties.

I supported Sanders 2016 primary and his 2012 primary threat to Obama, after having voted for Obama in 2008. Once the options became Obama (and now Clinton), I voted for those simply because the alternative means more coal, less regulations, and more religious right.

<comment><USER20> That is to say, you voted for the surveillance state. There were other candidates running, you know.

<comment><USER5> No, that is to say they were not presented with the option to cast a meaningful vote for or against the surveillance state (in a general election) and so chose to use their vote to speak about other things.

<comment><USER20> The only reason third-party isn't a meaningful vote is because of people who tell themselves that it isn't a meaningful vote.

<comment><USER5> No, the reason a third-party isn't a meaningful vote is because we have a voting system that means any vote for any but the two most-likely-to-win candidates has a basically zero chance of affecting the outcome. The reason _these particular_ parties' candidates are the two most likely to win is, certainly, because everyone understands them to be the two most likely to win... but we don't fix that by simply pretending it's not the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You know, libertarians have been saying for a long time that it's best to keep government as local as possible, so you could choose how you wanted to live, and live that way to the greatest extent possible, without having to worry about what happened in other states or in the federal election. You decide how you want to live and others can decide how they want to live.

Liberals responded with a policy of moving as much power to Washington as possible, explicitly to enforce a policy of, No, we will decide how _everyone_ lives, and enforce it federally to minimize others' ability to escape our reach.

Libertarians have been saying that judges should do their best to interpret the meaning of the legislators, so that whatever laws we had would be those written by legislators elected by the people. Liberals said, No, we want judges to interpret laws to mean what they ought to have said if they people had done as we wanted, so that the laws will be what the political elite want them to be, regardless of what the know-nothing rabble choose for themselves. So now, we have the precedent established and argued for for years from the left that the law is what the court wants it to be, not what the people said. Nice work.

All along, those promoting local government rather than central, unescapable authority have been derided as fascists by liberals. Now the chickens come home to roost. Do you think now that maximizing and centralizing and moving out of reach as much power as possible was a good idea? No? Want to change it? Why didn't you in all the years you were in power and advocated the opposite, because now you've turned that power over to another group. It didn't have to be this way, but you wouldn't stop. Probably still won't and will instead just fight to regain control.

<comment><USER23> This is vague and hyperbolic.

For starters, there is no united group known as "liberals" whom either of us can speak on behalf of, but I will indulge you and also speak in generalizations.

Liberals do not arbitrarily support "moving as much power to Washington as possible". Rather, they believe strongly that human rights should be dispensed equally to everyone in the country. If abortion is a right, then being born in Texas shouldn't deprive a woman of that right any more than being born in the south in the 19th century should've deprived blacks of their freedom. Similar arguments can be made for gay marriage, miscegenation laws, female suffrage, the availability of healthcare for the poor, quality education, etc.

There's nothing whatsoever baked into the liberal ideology that supports things like domestic spying and warrantless wiretaps. Rather, the better explanation is any branch of government (in this case the executive branch) is incentivized to increase its own power, and people tend to be biased in favor of their party's presidents. But I've met countless pro-Snowden liberals, and I think you've really mischaracterized the essence of what makes liberals liberal.

<comment><USER24> You're skirting around his point. American liberals don't just believe in human rights for everyone in the country--they have embraced using a strong centralized government and its court system as the way of enforcing those rights. But the side-effect of that is taking away autonomy and independence from the states, which leaves states less capable of opposing centralized surveillance.

Liberals may not want surveillance, but they helped create the power structure that enables surveillance as a byproduct of pursing end goals they do want. I think the benefits of that approach far outweigh the drawbacks, but it's important to acknowledge the drawbacks. If you give the central government more power so it can achieve X, you have to be aware of the possibility that it will use its power to also do Y.

<comment><USER25> Both parties have been complicit in creating the power structure that enables surveillance - it's certainly is not something new. It has been growing ever since WWII and supported by both parties. Neither party wants to be seen as anti-military, and a lot of the technology used for domestic spying originated in the military (or as off shoots of the military). Saying that liberals created that power structure is disingenuous.

<comment><USER23> Exactly. It's totally inaccurate to blame our domestic spying apparatus on liberal initiatives to protect human rights. It's the inevitable result of fearful citizens on both sides of the aisle _ceding_ their rights in response to war, terrorism, and foreign enemies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This was one of the reasons why Hillary lost. It WASN'T ok that Obama got, expanded and strengthened it. Still today come to light uses and misuses of it under current administration. And Hillary would had kept that trend for sure. It is one of the things that should change, and for sure she wouldn't do that.

Yes, Trump could make things even worse, or not. Is not the same people that actually set things as it was in the last years, unless the people behind both sides on this is the same, of course.

In any case, shutting down/disabling/destroying all dangerous things that US may have in stock or running now (nuclear, cyber, biological, foreign interventionism/destabilization and so on) that the narrative on Trump could misuse could finally give some meaning to Obama's Nobel prize.

</comment><comment><USER27> This has always been one of my biggest fears as well.

IMHO this was the one thing that allowed the Nazis to create the kind of power structure they had. They spied on themselves to no end, bugging their own officers, hitler youth teaching children to spy and report on their parents.. everyone was afraid to speak out or step out of line no matter how bad it got.

It would be terrible to see these systems used as a method of control.

<comment><USER9> The Nazis were allowed to gain as much power as they did because they had a charismatic leader exploiting partisanship and economic insecurity with a unifying message blaming all ills on minorities.

<comment><USER28> Oh look, here we are again. Humans are so pathetically easy to manipulate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's the same reason you don't keep a loaded gun in your night-stand when you've got a 5 year old. Immense power to defend your home is a good thing... but that's probably not what's going to happen.

We're having a close call. We just caught the child peeking into the drawer and got a quick education on why certain powers should be kept safely locked up by the constitution. Even if it makes them a bit harder to use when we "really need them".

</comment><comment><USER30> I extremely doubtful that an "on the way out" president would be able/allowed to do that. Hell he can't even get a SCOTUS nomination appointed, a constitutional power.

He could (and must) pardon Snowden.

<comment><USER31> As I understand it, he's got a phone and a pen and that's pretty much all he needs.

<comment><USER30> Tell it to the Supreme Court Justice he has nominated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Now you remember? Good to see liberals finally acknowledging the frankenstein monsters they have created.

<comment><USER33> They would not complain about it if Clinton was elected.

<comment><USER34> Do you see the world so narrowly? Which "they" is it you speak of? The voices that have protested these programs are many and loud. The separate existence of partisans does not change that.

<comment><USER20> And those voices would then vote to elect and re-elect Clinton, and advocate for her every chance they get, as most of them did this year.

<comment><USER34> Again I ask: who are you talking about? Just because someone supports a candidate does not mean that they support all of what that candidate believes. Frequently, they even oppose those stances, and actively work to change them. Not everyone is a partisan.

<comment><USER20> If you're going to support the candidate no matter what, why should the candidate care what your opinions are? They have your vote already. Candidates will only care about your opinion on surveillance if you're willing to deny them your vote over the issue.

<comment><USER34> I suspect that it is this (somewhat cynical) line of thinking that cost Hillary the election. Successful politics is about coalition building. Maintaining and expanding those coalitions means following through on those promises.

<comment><USER35> Or she didn't realize that what had worked for Obama, who's often cross that he even had to deal with the Congress, even when it was Democratic, and very famously went for a narrow but very deep Get Out The Vote (GOTV) strategy, wouldn't necessarily work for her.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The panic over trump is starting to get comical. Aren't you americans proud of your guns to protect you from power abuses? Dont you have probably the worlds best democracy that many would be jealous of?

<comment><USER35> Ah ha ha, the people panicking pretty much by definition haven't taken advantage of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA), in fact loathe the very concept and have been campaigning for decades to take them away from the people who do have guns, which I'm sure massively overlapped with those who voted for Trump.

Many even live in cities or states where it's impossible to own guns (NYC unless well connected, D.C.), or hard/decided by whim (e.g. Massachusetts), or where the types of arms that can be legally bought and owned are severely limited in a way that makes them less useful for this sort of thing (e.g. California, much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic).

Me, when Obama was elected, I finally broke down and bought an Evil Black Rifle and ammo for it, but that was more a FU to someone I'd correctly pegged as a "gun grabber" than anything I was planning on making "serious social use" of (well, I'd bought those earlier). And I have a lot of company, for years, most every month, sales of guns through licenced dealers are greater than the same month in the previous year.

<comment><USER37> I'm not sure what you're talking about - there's been plenty of carving away at the bill of rights, and it's started well, well before Obama took office. And what have those passionate gun-owners done? Absolutely nothing but protect the second amendment. Where were the gun-toting constitutional defenders when the 'free speech zones' went up, for example?

The idea of a popular uprising against government overreach is a fiction. You even have the police shooting citizens dead in the street to the fury of their community, and the gun owners do...? Well, the ones you're describing, the Trump-loving RKBAing lot, decide not to fight against the government, but instead find excuses for the police's actions. The gulf between their 'talk' and their 'walk' is better described as a chasm.

<comment><USER35> Evidently this is a strange idea, but using lethal force as a first resort is not a part of America's gun culture.

And therefore whatever we're doing about those other issues is effectively anonymized, aside from things like supporting the NRA's fight against McCain- Feingold's censorship of core political speech.

As for "police shooting citizens dead in the street to the fury of their community", if the dead earned it, and we're much more able to analyze deadly force encounters than those who've never shot a gun, we only care when that "community" decides to rape and pillage innocents in return. And some of us are known to take action in such situations: [http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2014/11/25/armed-business- owner...](http://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2014/11/25/armed-business-owners- thwart-mobs-ferguson-riots/)

The _vast_ majority of BLM protests are of this nature (in fact, while I think I'm forgetting 1 or 2 cases, this is true of all the ones I can think of), whereas true victims like Eric Garner ... well, yeah, you're right, all we've done about his murder at the hands of NYC's finest is talk about it, quite a bit. And buy more guns and ammo, and practice with them....

<comment><USER37> Nice. You don't care about the people being shot dead by the police, but you do care about when they get so angry they start to spread the shit around a bit. As long as they meekly take police abuse, you're just dandy with it.

You know how you all fantasize about rising up against an oppressive government? Well, those BLM riots are going to be what that looks like. You guys rabbit on about keeping an oppressive government in check, but do nothing to help your neighbours. And if you're not going to do anything for your neighbours, what hope in hell do you have when you finally rise up solo to defend your own stuff by yourself?

And seriously, the ' _vast_ majority' (your emphasis) of BLM protests are _not_ town-destroying rampages. You've painted a very bizarre and self-serving view of the world around you. Do you guys ever step back and wonder why there's no other first-world country where shop owners aren't expected to keep firearms to keep their stuff safe?

<comment><USER35> _You don 't care about the people being shot dead by the police_

Yes, I don't care about them _one tiny bit_ if their actions warranted a reply of lethal force.

As the Alt Right puts it, "We Don't Care."

But getting back to your points, that's because we don't score _these_ events as police abuse. We score others, like Eric Garner's murder, as such. If you desire any proof, I can point you at some of the popular RKBA blogs I read that cover these, plus of course see Radley Balko.

 _You know how you all fantasize about rising up against an oppressive government? [...]_

 _You don 't understand us in the least_, not surprising from someone who expects us to use lethal force as a first resort to non-immediate stuff, so that and the rest of your paragraph are simply not to the point.

As for "vast majority", sorry for my lack of clarity, I'm referring to the people who they choose to protest about, not the intensity of any particular protest. The people who, as I said above, as we see it legitimately earned a lethal force response.

 _Do you guys ever step back and wonder why there 's no other first-world country where shop owners aren't expected to keep firearms to keep their stuff safe?_

Oh, we "wonder" about this, and have our own set of answers, but they aren't germane to this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> NSA surveillance, while terrible, is also kind of a red herring.

The bigger risk to people is the enormous pile of data at large Internet companies and ISPs which any government would find useful in implementing a policy of mass deportation or "extreme vetting".

NSA has legal and institutional barriers on domestic surveillance. These are damaged, but still exist. What private industry collects is completely unregulated and far broader in scope.

<comment><USER34> Those institutional barriers are less effective in the face of those who do not respect them, and/or feel that disregarding them serves greater ideological goals. Couple this with both of the other branches of government being in the hands of political allies, and the normal system of checks and balances is no longer present.

It is a fearful recipe. The calculus pre-Trump wherein corporations were considered threats as you described has changed: now the government is far, far more dangerous.

<comment><USER38> The threats compound.

Gov't plus commercial is worse than either individually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> He should also pardon Ed Snowden before it's too late. Be sure to add that to the list of things that will never happen.

<comment><USER40> I guess you didn't actually read the article, because it says that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Like Calexit, this proposal is so unrealistic as to be unserious and not worth discussing.

What is needed now are technologies of resistance. We need the private sector companies who essentially built this monster to give us the tools to render it nugatory. Not only is that the only way forward, but they owe us that.

</comment><comment><USER6> In all honesty i see very little evidence that mass surveillance would naturally increase under Trump more than it has prior to him, or more than it would under Clinton or any other candidate.

Also anything that Obama does now can easily be reverted; there is little time nor there is sufficient political capital to pass this as a law, and any executive order can be overturned completely by the next administration.

Obama can't dismantle the NSA, he can't cut their budget, he can't do anything of meaning at this point there is too much momentum behind these programs to stop them if the next administration would indeed want to keep them or expand them.

In his last 2.5 months he can't really do anything but pack.

</comment><comment><USER42> 9/11 allowed all this, next time let's not be little scared kids that hand away our freedom so easily for security. They are hard to get back, probably even need revolutions to get that back.

A decade and a half and we still can't shake this overreaction. "They hate us for our freedoms", so our representatives went ahead and took away our freedoms.

Both parties are responsible and we need to start being American over The Party of your chosen type. If you like a one party system and vote in line with it every time go to China, you'd fit right in.

Snowden is a hero as is every other statesman that is left that puts country over party. It is time to start helping this country not your party.

</comment><comment><USER43> Unbelievable hypocrites. It was fine during Obama but somehow he needs to shut it down because they all despise Trump ? no it was shameful back then and it should have never existed.

<comment><USER44> NSA surveillance predates the Obama administration. Limiting it now is a good thing, isn't it? Regardless of when it started or who was responsible?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> When the good guys do it it's fine.

</comment><comment><USER45> Why would he do that? It's been abundantly clear he's been in favor of it all along.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's probably impossible to shut down, but put in place authorization processes that will discourage abuse

</comment><comment><USER47> Before its too late? Its been too late for years!!!

<comment><USER19> Now it's too later!!!

<comment><USER48> There is something to be said about how this went past "urgent" into "emergency response / recovery" sometime before the Snowden leaks (prompting the Snowden leaks). Odd that there is an attitude surrounding this akin to (not just telling firefighters not to bother as you said elsewhere in thread) but, "The house is already on fire, clearly that means we shouldn't care about putting it out. If it was a real priority to not have a building on fire why is it clearly on fire? Also let's build some very flammable houses next door."

People's lives have already been ruined by the inability of the government to secure the sensitive data it collects (see: OPM breach). That's pretty much the end-of-the-line in terms of damage assessment. Let's just try to do it better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> You try opposing people that have all the blackmail material and power they need to ruin you or anyone you could ever love. Look what happened to Hillary with an incomplete email dump. They have every email anyone in this thread has ever sent, at least in the last decade. Anyone who's been elected in this country. Even encrypted ones which they may know how to read or may soon. So don't threaten them unless you're ready to be ruined or you somehow have a tremendous army.

</comment><comment><USER50> HN really does have a soft spot for scathing denunciations of the SIGINT Enterprise written by people who have absolutely no clue what the Enterprise does, how it does it, why it does it, and the results consistently delivered.

It's very interesting to me. I get that this is an EFF-friendly crowd, and attitudes here skew hard toward the maximalist end of civil liberties. But the fact that articles like this continually get upvotes is a bit embarrassing to our community, isn't it?

<comment><USER51> I suppose the logical fallacy you're employing is a variation of the argument from authority, isn't it?

Why don't you present an actual argument in support of "SIGINT Enterprise" instead?

<comment><USER50> Sorry, so criticizing the article puts the onus on me to write you my version of what the article should be?

<comment><USER52> I second your parent comment's request for you to write that here. (please take the 4 point karma hit, as it will be downvoted.)

This place is as good as any. If you're really worried about the backlash (from HN) you (or 'someone') could reply under a throwaway, detailing those thoughts and arguments.

>Why don't you present an actual argument in support of "SIGINT Enterprise" instead?

<comment><USER50> I guess the short version would be that it provides the overwhelming majority of the actionable intelligence that drives both national strategy and tactical decision-making. Also that virtually all "domestic collection" is collection on foreign adversaries whose comms include at least some American selectors, which is a very, very different proposition from using national-level SIGINT platforms to engage domestic targets.

I can't provide tangible examples to people who aren't read-in, and thus my argument ultimately rests on a very annoying appeal to authority, i.e., "If you were privy to what I know, you'd agree with me." I get how problematic that argument is, but in this case I think it actually is true. I wish there were a way that I could get around this quandary, but there really isn't.

Sorry -- I know that the above is probably not convincing to >90% of the HN community. But it's my honest opinion.

<comment><USER52> How can I get myself blacklisted from intelligence work so that I can be my normal weird self without being read into anything, ever? Also while retaining the right and ability to be extremely critical on forums like this one, while using _all_ of the actually-public information (i.e. what has been published by the New York Times.)

I'm artistic and write and do lots of stuff under all sorts of pseudonyms, I travel, I want to directly engage the Chinese government on better IP laws, I want to directly do all sorts of stuff that would be way too suspicious or off limits if I had anything to do with intelligence - all without meeting your qualification for what are "comms with at least some Americans" or whatever. I just want to stay on the free side. I'm an American and foreign dual citizen.

I get the argument for why people who work with intelligence need to be held to a different standard and arguably have fewer freedoms than people outside of it. I just want to stay on the other, civilian or outsider side of that line. How do I do that (other than not agreeing to that work)?

This is an issue that is coming up for me and I am seriously thinking of paying some psychologist to say that I have some kind of specific tourrette's syndrome where if I'm recruited for any kind of conspiracy/intelligence "community"/whatever is on the other side of that curtain, I spasm out, and then just going ahead and pretending to do that if it ever happens.

Please give me specific actionable steps I can take. I don't want to change my attitude or habits. By the way, when intelligence agencies (don't know which ones, may not even be US) read my writing or what I'm doing, they have actually physically gotten the wrong idea. Which is fine, I don't care - <USER2> didn't bother me. It's their job to stay invisible and out of civilians' hair.

but I am not going to change my attitude or behavior. I'm an American as well and I think I certainly have the freedom not to participate in any institution I didn't sign up for explicitly. America isn't a police state. I don't have to watch what I say, certainly privately or anonymously, in case some bureaucrat gets the wrong idea.

I don't want to live in an Orwellian nightmare. I wanted to show you another commenter who raise a similar concern, but couldn't find it. He talked about how stifling and restrictive it was to work on some generic (not even secret) government contract, where they couldn't even do basic things like travel without announcing it exactly etc etc.

Anyway in this comment I am asking specifically how I can disqualify myself. What would keep someone from being read into anything, ever, or joining the intelligence "community". (Obviously this is just speculation, I'm just interested in your idea.)

<comment><USER50> I think you're safe, friend -- you don't get read into anything without making the proactive decision to join the intelligence community. Not really something that happens inadvertently.

<comment><USER52> haha, all right. Hey if I get killed for going to some dictatorship on my own and not belonging to the intelligence community but somebody thinks I am, I'll have that on my tombstone, and it'll be your fault, ya jerk. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SEC Discloses Edgar Corporate Filing System Was Hacked in 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec-discloses-edgar-corporate-filing-system-was-hacked-in-2016-1505956552 <comment><USER2> Sympathy for the SEC on this one. For its faults, EDGAR is an elegant, useful tool for disseminating a massive amount of information. In an effort to be robust in the service of its presumably thousands of poorly-configured clients (academia, hobbyists, day traders, etc.) it's probably trivial to mistake a hostile act for poor programming practices. We've used this system successfully to fuel tons of projects and only on a few occasions been rate- limited despite numerous logic breakdowns, fork bombs, etc. resulting in traffic spikes that would have been easily mistaken by a smaller organization to be DoS attacks. While it's easy to say they should have been more vigilant, they have probably been _deliberately_ permissive in the service of their mandate. Thanks to their patience, our projects have been served. That sort of patience probably leads to overlooking something like this.

<comment><USER3> In what ways is EDGAR elegant?

<comment><USER2> Well, for one, it's 34 years old and is simple enough for non-technical people to use but robust enough for institutional use. For another, it's scaled to accommodate 3 decades of exponential growth in public filings and regulation. Did I mention it's 34 years old?

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure about exponential growth in public filings (and EDGAR does not track regulation, so it's not relevant). For example, the number of publicly traded companies is down about 70% compared to twenty years ago: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DDOM01USA644NWDB](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DDOM01USA644NWDB)

Could you share a link showing exponential increase in the use of EDGAR?

<comment><USER2> Sure. Although you should be aware that not only public companies are required to make filings with the SEC.

Index - Q1 1994 - 3mb - [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/full- index/1994/QTR1/form...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/full- index/1994/QTR1/form.idx)

Index - Q1 2017 - 45mb - [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/full- index/2017/QTR1/form...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/full- index/2017/QTR1/form.idx)

<comment><USER5> File sizes are also increasing because filers are adding structured data[1] to their SEC filings. Also, most SEC Filings are now verbose HTML files instead of plain-text files.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/structureddata/what-is-structured- data](https://www.sec.gov/structureddata/what-is-structured-data)

<comment><USER6> And not really exponential. Something interesting happened 2003-2004 though. We can perhaps observe lead up to dot-bomb (1996-1999 growth) and the 2008 financial crisis.

[http://hpics.li/2e78909](http://hpics.li/2e78909)

        1994,3153191
        1995,4813587
        1996,7539137
        1997,13755958
        1998,16107028
        1999,15935643
        2000,17548021
        2001,16873202
        2002,18904001
        2003,27723307
        2004,47116841
        2005,47982675
        2006,50672891
        2007,51322342
        2008,49635521
        2009,45312542
        2010,45384720
        2011,46455461
        2012,46733150
        2013,45842099
        2014,47065954
        2015,48112988
        2016,46636963
        2017,47037415

<comment><USER5> Nice breakdown! The SEC introduced some new filing requirements[1] in 2003 and 2004 that may have contributed to this.

[1] [https://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/regoverview.htm](https://www.sec.gov/info/edgar/regoverview.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Breaching EDGAR and getting away with trading on the information -- and we are learning about this now?!

To be fair, I've used EDGAR and it is <cough> very legacy. So no question it was going to be completely compromised.

I'd say the mistake was putting non-public information on it in the first place. The risk assessment for private data exposure was extreme.

<comment><USER8> Edgar is almost as outdated as the TESS system for patents. I'm surprised someone hasn't "hacked" it long ago. Unfortunately, due to Sarbanes Oxley a lot of that infrination is required to be public.

<comment><USER9> Shouldn't that be "Fortunately..." ?

<comment><USER10> That really depends on how you feel about the disclosure requirement.

<comment><USER11> You're gonna have to explain why one would feel negatively about public disclosure.

<comment><USER12> why should someone have to explain that simply because you haven't thought about the existence of a possible other perspective.

the united states has protected trade secrets by law far longer than its been on the transparency train.

there are reasons for that, and the corporate disclosure requirements has had no effect on creating a "fair market"

<comment><USER11> I was just asking for an opinion from someone in that camp.

Your answer does not give faith in your business practices, as a client or as an investor. I suggest you work on communication, even with strangers on the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Congress should look at the SEC obligations for disclosure (the delay seems wrong given the organization's mission of transparency... the SEC would sanction a public company for a similar failure to disclose) and why the SEC decided to wait a year to inform the public. Not disclosing the hack back in August 2016 strikes me as a political decision by the Obama Administration to avoid criticism during the home stretch of the election.

<comment><USER14> If it was intentionally covered up by Obama's administration, why did Trump's administration wait 9 months to make it public? Not everything has to be politically motivated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How come SEC only discloses this now? Isn't preventing insider trading a goal of financial regulations? If so, is there a reason SEC didn't disclose it as soon as they gained knowledge of the leak?

I think this goes to show that _any_ data collection is dangerous, even if government thinks they're the good guys (when in fact they're naively collecting data that could be weaponized against them very easily). The EU is on to it as well with MiFID II granular reporting of financial market transactions starting effectively next year.

Though I'm not sure the Brits are going to play along (where the majority of trading happens in Europe); after all, why should they go through the trouble of implementing MiFID/MiFIR when leaving EU anyway?

Edit: _preventing_ insider trading

<comment><USER16> Well, just because this was disclosed to the public now doesn't mean it wasn't previously disclosed to Treasury, FINRA, the US Equity SROs, and the ESMA. The surveillance systems surrounding almost any market center are substantial, and can seek the sort of behavior having inside information might appear as.

<comment><USER15> That makes sense, but do we have info on whether that actually happened? Who's overseeing the overseers? The only theory under which it would make sense to withhold that info I can think of are criminal investigation tactics, but there's no actual info on suspect transactions, is there?

Broadly and vaguely trusting in surveillance isn't convincing at all. The usefulness of surveillance must be weighed and re-evaluated against risks, as demonstrated by this incident.

<comment><USER16> I guess by surveillance I was speaking purely transactional surveillance, and typically investigations into transactional behavior takes time, and under certain circumstances would result in criminal prosecution (on top of any regulatory fines/punishment).

It also takes time to coordinate investigating multiple different asset class transactions, in the event, say, equity derivatives are used.

And no, we don't have info on what happened and what was taken, and certainly nothing about any regulatory investigations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _" The U.S. Department of Homeland Security detected five "critical" cyber security weaknesses on the Securities and Exchange Commission's computers as of January"_

 _" The report's findings raise fresh questions about a 2016 cyber breach into the SEC's corporate filing system known as "EDGAR.""_

 _"... it shows that even after the SEC says it patched "promptly" the software vulnerability after the 2016 hack, critical vulnerabilities still plagued the regulator's systems."_

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-cyber-weaknesses- exclu...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-cyber-weaknesses- exclusive/exclusive-u-s-homeland-security-found-sec-had-critical-cyber- weaknesses-in-january-idUSKCN1BW27P)

</comment><comment><USER18> I thought EDGAR was only used to disclose public securities filings. What's the big deal?

<comment><USER19> They likely upload the filings some time before they are released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't see this article as its paywalled. I believe this is the actual statement from the SEC:

[https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement- clayton-...](https://www.sec.gov/news/public-statement/statement- clayton-2017-09-20)

<comment><USER21> Thanks. Here is a mirror of the article: [http://archive.is/xsniG](http://archive.is/xsniG)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> As much as the UI appears dated, Edgar is consistently one of the fastest websites I use on a daily basis. Punch in a ticker under "Fast Search" here ([https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html](https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html)) and click around the filings for a bit to see what I mean.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the hackers were from the industry or outsiders who just took advantage of the opportunity.

<comment><USER24> Probably both. That's a pretty good-sized arbitrage opportunity.

Think about the number of people in the financial world who are looking to get a _percentage of a second_ advantage with high-speed trading. Hard to believe they'd pass this up if they knew about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's a non-paywalled version:

[https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/21/us/ap-us-sec- cyb...](https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/21/us/ap-us-sec-cyber- breach.html)

> _The Securities and Exchange Commission says its corporate filing system was > hacked last year and the intruders may have used the nonpublic information > they obtained to profit illegally._

This is the most problematic part.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is EDGAR data publicly available, as in, can I download the archive for a year?

<comment><USER27> Yes

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Facebook Proxy Past Paywall [https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/sec-discloses- edgar-corpora...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/sec-discloses-edgar- corporate-filing-system-was-hacked-in-2016-1505956552)

</comment><comment><USER29> paywall workaround:

[https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/article...](https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/sec- discloses-edgar-corporate-filing-system-was-hacked-in-2016-1505956552)</comment>


4K is for programmers - <AUTHOR> http://tiamat.tsotech.com/4k-is-for-programmers <comment><USER3> > Today, you can still buy a 30-inch 2560x1600 display for over $1,000. Or you > can get a 39-inch 3840x2160 display for $500. This choice is not even fair.

Yes, you can buy a wonderful, physically adjustable, mountable, color calibrated, blissful contrast, delightful brightness control monitor with a great matte finish like the Dell 3014... or you can buy an absolutely awful 30hz, locked in place, blue tinted, horrible uniformity, terrible brightness, awful contrast, with horrible black levels and really -- just horrific to work on 4K "tv". I speak from first hand experience, it is absolutely one of the worst panels I have ever had the misfortune to stare at vim on.

The colors are so awful that literally, some of my favorite themes (seoul256) where ENTIRELY unusable, just a greymush of nothingness. With bright spots and dark spots to make reading code even harder. So, I tried a black background theme... only to be horrified with the black level.

I agree with the author there is no comparison, obviously almost anything beats the Seiki. Hell, most review sites won't even recommend it as a TV, let alone a monitor.

<comment><USER4> Sad to say, for many programmers and other people who aren't AV types, the step up in resolution— _plus_ the saving of over $500—is likely worth the dodgy colour and brightness. Many won't even really notice the badness. That said, some of the $600-ish mystery-meat 2560×1600 displays apparently have good display quality and so may be a stronger alternative to the Seiki.

<comment><USER3> At $500, there are FAR better monitors. Bad contrast, bad brightness, bad everything. If you buy your programmers this, buy them a years supply of pills to deal with the headaches it will induce.

Again, this isn't like a "bad for picky art professionals" type of bad. Just awful, I wouldn't even sell it to anyone I knew personally because I knew it would come back to bite me.

<comment><USER5> _At $500, there are FAR better monitors._

You keep repeating this as if it is some magic mantra. You have not defined any what "better" really means in manner that can be quantified and compared without introducing subjective opinions of a user.

Also, care to link to these "better" monitors, including sellers that sell these for the $500 price, as well as non-subjective reviews?

<comment><USER6> Better monitors very easily be objectively conceived. Latency, refresh rate, contrast ratio, brightness, input options, are all easily measured.

"Better" monitors are easily found through a simple search, and how do you exactly determine a review to be "non-subjective"?

[http://www.displaylag.com/display- database/](http://www.displaylag.com/display-database/) [http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/](http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/tvs/) [http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd- monitor...](http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/a-great-27-inch-lcd-monitor/)

<comment><USER7> What latency is better than what brightness?

<comment><USER6> I can see where you going with that, and I'll agree it's subjective, as to which suits your needs, but I think you can find TV's that are all around better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Seiki is missing a golden opportunity to dominate the desktop display market by removing the television tuner, speakers, and remote, and then reallocating that budget to a 60Hz or better input (HDMI 2 and/or DisplayPort), a matte screen surface, and instant-on DPMI support, all the while retaining the market-wrecking price."

And while we're at it, I want a unicorn as well! Seriously, speakers, a remote and a TV tuner are like, $5 in parts _max_ whereas everything he just listed involves upgrading silicon fabrication processes and designing new ASICs.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll take my unicorn in black, too.

I'm not a monitor manufacturer, just an opinionated blogger. But are you telling me that a matte surface would cost more to manufacture than a glossy surface? DPMI support costs a lot? Of my wishlist items, DisplayPort seems the toughest to this layperson, but even that doesn't seem unreasonable.

In my earlier blog entry about the same monitor, I said I'd also be willing to pay a tiny bit more. If I could get the "professional" version with the attributes I listed above for $600, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER9> > ...But are you telling me that a matte surface would cost more to > manufacture than a glossy surface?

Ex TV Product Planner here - yes matte costs more than glossy. If nothing else there is the volume but I think the production techniques for glossy are intrinsically cheaper too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for posting this. It's good to finally have a rationale for why glossy has dominated matte in recent years beyond the one I've heard over and over ("glossy looks better at first glance in a Best Buy"). If it's truly a matter of price, I suppose it's fair that only professional monitors use matte screens.

I for one be willing to pay a modest premium for matte.

<comment><USER9> It isn't the only reason, contrast ratio is higher too so it is needed to be competitive on specification too. If you can control the lighting so that it doesn't reflect to you it can be better as matte will scatter light in all directions. The intrinsic cost difference would be pretty small without the economies of scale I think. Matte would have to be special order panels and you wouldn't be able to pick them up on the spot market.

<comment><USER10> "matte will scatter light in all directions."

Unless you are saying one pixel smears into another, doesn't scattering light in all directions end up giving better viewing angles with good brightness uniformity?

I always thought the reason a matte screen hurt contrast was because of scattered light from the room raising the black level.

<comment><USER9> Mostly I'm talking about ambient light, hence worse blacks and lower contrast ratios. It may also scatter outgoing light reducing sharpness and brightness (some may be scattered back in to the panel) a little but that is pretty minor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article lists the "ideal size" for monitors at 50 inches, and the one for TVs at 100+ inches!

While I'm sure it's great to have such massive screen real estate (I wanna get a 4K in 2014 too), I can't but help think this is the programmer equivalent of consumers buying needlessly large TVs.

I work on a 24" desktop monitor and a 14" laptop one. How is 50" the "ideal size"? Even 39"? At what point does the law of diminishing returns kick in? Sure, it's great to gave 7 windows side-by-side, but is it that much of a productivity jump from, say, 4 windows or 5 windows?

Personally and subjectively, I'd draw the line somewhere around the 28-32" screen size.

To sum up, the core argument here seems to be that upgrading to a 39" or 50" monitor is great because (a) it's cheap, and (b) more is always and infinitely better.

<comment><USER12> I don't really understand how a TV can be needlessly large. Also, I don't understand why people still buy TVs in 2014.

When I replaced my TV about 4-5 years ago, I bought a 500€ beamer and a 100€ retractable canvas. Sure, that beamer only has 1024x768, but today you'll certainly be able to buy something significantly better in a similar price range.

With my living room PC connected to the beamer, my "screen" is 1.7 meters wide, I can watch movies, television, play games, have internet, linux (rsync!, ssh!) and all of that significantly cheaper than any "decent" television set.

Why do people (given they have the space) still buy televisions?

<comment><USER13> I did the same (but my screen is taller than yours is large :P), but I think there are a few reason why this hasn't seen larger adoption.

People like to have their TV on all day long: with a projector you can't, because it won't be very visible in daylight and it will burn through lamps like it's popcorn.

Second point, modern TVs usually have a tuner in, you plug them in and they work. Also you don't need to adjust the image until it's rectangular.

You don't need to have a line of sight for a TV, chairs and people are not an issue.

<comment><USER12> You are right that of course, not everybody has my usage pattern. Since my daughter becomes a mindless, staring zombie whenever a TV is running in her field of vision, we only watch TV late in the evening (for us, a lamp lasts about two years).

Before I first set it up, I expected the configuration to be a lot more tedious than it actually was. If you have the computer, some sort of sound system and your TV receiver lying around, all you need is a switch for the different audio sources and you can basically plug it all together. (In my setup, TV does not go through the computer. We don't have Hulu, HBO or Netflix over here.)

I'd say about 80% of the work was mounting the beamer to the ceiling and getting the upper hand on the cable mess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is quite the opinionated "article".

"4k isn't for couch potatoes", "you should buy a $500 monitor", "if you are programming on something so old, [you suck]", etc...

I am fairly surprised to see this style of wording upvoted to the top of HN, actually.

<comment><AUTHOR> I took this as a bit ironic because my writing style was tamer in years past and I feel it has become more blunt (to use another euphemism) since I started reading more Hacker News postings.

But yes, it's opinionated. I'm quite strongly of the opinion that in general larger desktop displays increase productivity. They are finally arriving, and at prices that are almost affordable. With several important caveats and weaknesses that cannot be ignored, the market is finally moving in a direction that I applaud. So this blog entry/rant is a form of celebration.

<comment><USER14> Hey, no worries!

There is a time and place for everything.

I am not criticizing your writing style. I just found it odd to find one like it at the top of HN is all.

<comment><USER15> Because this kind of writing style makes people with different opinions frustrated which leads to discussions and debates.

I actually like it. It reminds me of kenrockwell.com

<comment><USER16> A debate without the accompanying upvotes would trigger the flamewar penalty though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > At our office, we just equipped all of the programmers' workstations with > Seiki 39" 4K televisions as monitors. [...] For the time being, there is no > single higher-productivity display for a programmer.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm most productive on a 13" laptop. I can change my work place and position as I want, plus only one app fitting on the screen actually helps me focus. Emacs/tmux/IDE users can do most programming work in a single application anyway.

I've used a 27" monitor and before that two 20" monitors for years. It was great for other activities, but when it comes to programming, it only distracted me.

<comment><USER18> It's not just you.

While reading the article I was thinking "wow, these guys are using 39" monitors, while I'm perfectly happy with a single 17" monitor or a 13" laptop. There must be something wrong with me."

Emacs is my screen space saviour. Every file or shell is 3 key presses away, I just don't need extra monitors.

<comment><USER19> Have you tried emacs in portrait mode on a bigger screen?

<comment><USER20> I've tried it on a 24in monitor running at 1920x1200 in portrait mode. Its great for editing text. I found that a good setup was to split the screen vertically and have 2 windows, one on top of the other. It doesn't really work well when splitting horizontally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A 39-inch monitor? I'd feel pretty intimidated by such a beast at close- quarters. The extra real estate would be handy but the constant glare from all angles attacking my peripheral vision would be relentless. Nice to see some 4K adoption however.

<comment><USER22> It's not that bad. I had a pair of 30" monitors in an open floor office and I really liked the setup precisely because I wasn't distracted by watching everybody walk around behind my monitors. The people who disliked it simply used a dark background/editor scheme and kept the browser window towards the center.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This seems like flaunting your budget more than improving your environment.

Maybe I just need to get my eyes checked again, but for some reason my code just doesn't perform any better or write itself any faster with more screen real estate and I'm as productive on my laptop as I am on my big screen.

4K is not for programmers, code is for programmers.

<comment><USER24> I use two 27" monitors at work and would definitely feel a productivity hit if I were to go back to smaller or fewer monitors.

I dedicate one entire monitor just to a full-screen terminal with tmux running inside. It's trivial this way for me to edit and view and compare multiple files at once. I typically dedicate half of the second monitor to a browser, for testing, and the other half to administrative applications, like email, Jabber, and IRC.

The result is that the cost of context-switching is drastically reduced. I'm able to maintain focus for much longer stretches of time because I don't really have to ever completely switch contexts.

<comment><USER25> A tiling window manager would blow your mind. Anyone whose productivity is improved by using tmux should really try out something like i3 or xmonad or awesomewm.

I use i3: [http://i3wm.org/](http://i3wm.org/)

My vim-like config: [https://github.com/SirCmpwn/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config](https://github.com/SirCmpwn/dotfiles/blob/master/i3/config)

<comment><USER26> I use xmonad on 2 screens, it's amazing how much better it feels than without a tiling manager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 30Hz is a dealbreaker. I will keep my 1920x1200 until I can have a proper 4K display. I really am surprised there are people who can tolerate that refresh rate on a desktop.

<comment><USER28> "Proper" includes 16:10 or even better (15:10 would be great)

<comment><USER29> Honestly I hate this new trend of making displays wider and wider. I feel like 4:3 or something a little bit wider is great for programming. Right now my two widescreen displays waste space at the edges because it's just too far to look at. Putting some of that vertically would improve the use of screen real estate for work

<comment><USER30> 4:3 is 16:12. 16:10 is 'a little bit wider' :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not only programmers.

ASIC designers. Analogue electronics engineers. Traders. Quantitative analysts. Anyone whose work involves big complicated things that it's difficult to hold all of in one's head: a large piece of software, the design of a power station, the results of a finite element analysis.

For almost any sort of heavy brain-work, having _more pixels_ makes for more productivity. So for almost any sort of well-paid heavy brain-work, employers should be falling over themselves to provide lots of pixels. It is a longstanding mystery to me why so many aren't.

</comment><comment><USER32> I had 4k for years (4x 22" displays in pivot mode). It really improves productivity on complex tasks such as debugging.

Soon I will upgrade to 3x Dell P2815Q with 6480x3840 resolution.

<comment><USER33> That's the same number of pixels as 12 1080p monitors. Isn't there some level of diminishing returns after about, say, half that resolution? Just curious.

<comment><USER34> In terms of sheer workspace? Probably, but then you can dedicate the excess pixels to increasing pixel density and making things easier to read.

After getting used to the high-DPI displays in tablets and phones I have to admit, desktop text rendering has become very notably lacking.

<comment><USER8> It's not just that - you can read _very_ small text on a high DPI display. I'm consistently amazed that I can basically read HN without zooming on my S4 despite it being tiny compared to my desktop (but the same resolution pixel wise).

That's a big benefit for when you want to keep an eye on some debug output but not work on it directly, or quickly parse big sections of text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Heh. Lots of articles about "technology sucks" on a page which has broken middle click so I can't open new tabs, can't right-click to copy a link URL (in the 'more' section), breaks the back button if the AJAX request completes after you press back again...

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd love to have a good 39" 4K monitor, but I really don't want any other developer in my office to have one. For some reason, everyone else feels that they should use the entire screen width for code.

So we end up with 200 character long lines on our 24" monitors. Can't imagine the horror they'd produce with 39" monitors.

<comment><USER7> Not having an arbitrary length limit allows one to write code prose, instead of being limited to code poetry... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 4K isn't _only_ for programmers though, or even only for programmers and a few other specialised technical or AV jobs. Bring the word of high-resolution monitors (ideally through demonstration) to your friends and relatives who are navigating tax law or writing papers about _Beowulf_ : 4K is for them too. Doing any serious work or study in law, business or the humanities on a single small, low-resolution computer screen is horrible: it's like being forced to read only through a cardboard kitchen-roll tube. And the more people who are demanding reasonably-priced high-res monitor screens, the more likely manufacturers are to take note.

</comment><comment><USER37> Does anyone know if the 15" 2012 MBPR (that is, MacBookPro10,1) supports 4K with its HDMI output under Mavericks? Of course, it will only be 30Hz, but that's tolerable.

<comment><USER38> I've read officially no, but Apple frequently gives "official" specs that claim a feature isn't supported when really it is.

For example, every macbook pro in the last 5 or 6 years that had replaceable RAM had an actual RAM limit that was double what Apple said was its RAM limit. I wouldn't be surprised if 4K works, albeit perhaps a little sluggishly.

<comment><USER39> Why would Apple do this? What possible reason could they have for selling their own product short?

<comment><USER40> Removing the amount of choices in front of people allows people to feel more confident about theirs.

If you give them the option for 4Gb, 8Gb, 16Gb and 32Gb instead of limiting to 16Gb lots of people will freeze and never make a choice or get frustrated when they see the markup for 32Gb and avoid buying altogether because of that.

In limiting the amount of upgradable RAM on their sales page they show you choices that are most likely going to be easy to sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> how is this better than multiple monitors? the support in Windows (and at least Ubuntu Linux) for e.g. maximising a window to fill a single monitor is excellent.

The other thing, with any article like this where Windows is not used for testing makes me skeptical. Most programmers do not work in offices developing on Macs or Linux machines by a very large margin. Working on a mac for iOS and OS X development is something we grudgingly do because Apple enforce it... in fact you could say that all programmers use Windows and be very close to being accurate.

I've never used multiple monitors on a mac to comment though - I can imagine the support being just as good as in Windows or Linux.

<comment><USER42> An extremely large number of programmers use Mac and Linux machines. Linux on the desktop is sustained to a substantial extent by a programmer audience - and you only have to look at the availability of software for it to see that it's popular among that group.

Personally, when I'm not using a unix-y environment, it's because I've been forced. Using windows as a programmer feels like having one of my hands chopped off.

<comment><USER41> sure it is a large number, but large != most.

every programmer i know works in a windows dominated environment. this is a small sample though.

i believe that in back-end only environments linux has some serious popularity but i can't comment on how many studios use it as their development platform because i have no great experience there (actually i work in office where they develop such things, but they use windows exclusively).

for desktop software, games and web front-end development windows is king. its the platform that all of your target audience are using to an excellent approximation. for AAA games there is an extra restriction that its the only practical choice (there are zero tools for working on any other platform). sure for iOS/OS X there is the same restriction to a mac and iOS development has become extremely popular - even so there is quite some resistance to using OS X and XCode as anything more than a test configuration on cross platform projects - I've seen a lot of macs dual booting to windows in this context. For android Linux can give you a small edge, but its not much...

Linux is obviously meant for programmers, but that doesn't mean they use it either - until quite recently even the best flavours were horrible user experiences. I think ubuntu is great and really takes steps to get away from the 'you download source and build your app with archaic and buggy tools at the command line' approach which has always dominated... in terms of doing your job though - unless you work on the backend of some web service you can't do any useful builds under Linux, unless you are targetting Linux desktop which is exceptionally rare.

<comment><USER42> I don't dispute that windows developers are in the majority - I dispute that other choices are as vanishingly rare as your initial comment suggested.

Anecdotally (I work at a large corp), slightly under half our devs use Linux. You only need to look at the array of software-for-programmers that's available under Linux to see that it's an extremely popular choice - <USER2> availability of programming software and libraries is generally better under Linux than it is under Windows.

While linux is certainly a bit more hassle to maintain than windows (I use a mac when given the choice, which i find gives me the best of both worlds), it's still a clearly superior environment for highly technical users. It's only recently with the introduction of Powershell that Windows has stopped being a substantial handicap for developers, imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Flagged, for two reasons:

\- Requiring JS for text. Okay, I'll turn it on this once since you claim "nothing dodgy."

\- Disabling my control click to open in background tab, especially after claiming "nothing dodgy"? You shouldn't be on the front page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well at least you posted why. Incidentally, I got a lot of flack for the animation and loading posts via AJAX and the history API rather than just as traditional pages. Lesson learned: a blog isn't really the place to experiment with my meager UX skills. So I'll probably simplify it when I get some free time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What about couch potato programmers? That strikes me as a pretty sizable market segment.

</comment><comment><USER45> Whatever. It's not the number of pixels, it's the pixel density that's important. Higher density is what is going to make text and pictures better. At 39″, that's 113 ppi. Anyone can rig up a multi-monitor display setup with higher ppi. The only advancement is one physical screen that a good number of GPUs can't take advantage of.

For comparison, my Retina 13″ MacBook Pro has 2560x1440, 2.5K (or really ⅔ 4K) but at 227 ppi.

<comment><USER46> The real factor is pixels per degree of your vision, not ppi. Viewing distance range with phones and laptops is pretty limited (an arm's length), but with a monitor you can simply move it farther away on the desk to increase the perceived pixel density.

Of course, moving the monitor farther away also makes the perceived monitor size smaller. since PPI and distance can be traded one for the other, what ends up mattering is the total resolution. 4k is a lot of pixels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The classification of this as a television reveals the schizoid nature of display development. For programmers the main requirement seems to be lots of pixels without undue eyestrain. Where things start to get crazy is that 4K is now the standard for movie projection in commercial theatres and creative professionals of all stripe are clamoring to produce content that takes advantage not only of the pixels but all the qualitative properties that photographers, illustrators, animators need. For me as a photographer, having a 4K camera is a wonderful thought in terms of resolution but if the display can't integrate into my workflow to match my printer then it is not so useful. It is this referenceability issue that makes it possible for Sony to sell 10,000 dollar reference monitors for television production. I can only hope for the day that I can by a $500 4K monitor for creative professionals.

</comment><comment><USER48> > Several colleagues found the display shockingly bright and were frustrated > that the brightness adjustment did not actually reduce the backlight > intensity.

In 2007 I had the idea to use my 28" flatscreen TV as a monitor, took me three days before I had terrible eye strain/migraines/light sensitivity.

<comment><USER49> Yeah, I have a beautiful little ASUS netbook (the newer ones that ship with Ubuntu) and its brightness ranges from reasonable to just barely on. It's fantastic being able to tune the brightness to the ambient light in the room (as well as save on battery life.)

I really don't care about 4K, I want a monitor that's got a wide range of brightness levels with the same integration with my Ubuntu workstation that that netbook has with its integrated screen. (I plug it in and the OS immediately knows how to communicate with the monitor to adjust the brightness based on a keystroke. )

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Does the alleged productivity boost come from the increased screen estate, or the feeling of value that comes from your employer investing in you? I had a distinct boost when I went from a 17" Dell laptop to a 13" Mac Air.

It'd be interesting to see if any increase lasts.

</comment><comment><USER51> I agree, higher resolution displays is a productivity enhancer, but I also believe that saving money by purchasing a television, as a monitor, is not a good idea… taking care of your eyes is worth every extra dollar.

Just recently I went through the same issue, had to buy a new monitor for my work station, finally decided to go with a 2k Apple TB monitor, also considered Samsung alternative, but it doesn't have some of the features Apple added such as automatic brightness control and additional ports.

My decision was based on taking care of my vision, tvs simply aren't built to be viewed from a desktop distance, they are just too bright… they where thought to be used from a distance.

</comment><comment><USER29> My two 23" screens area already too big for me. I could cut half off each almost. They're nice IPS panels with minimal glare and really good for your eyes. Putting a cheap 39" TV in front of my nose 8 hours a day sounds ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't see how anyone could use a 30hz panel for a productive length of time. At 40hz, which is what my laptop goes to when it's in power save mode, even something as simple as scrolling a web browser looks like a torn, jagged mess.

</comment><comment><USER53> > This blog uses a little JavaScript. Nothing dodgy, though, and nothing > hosted at third-party sites. Just some jQuery and animation bits. So please, > if you'd be so kind, ask Noscript to call off the hounds. ... That said, if > you insist on leaving script off, you can just scroll down a bit to read the > content.

This site is my hero. Write a "no javascript detected" message as if blocking javascript is perfectly understandable (even if you secretly believe we're all hatted in tin). You know your audience with these, what does it hurt to throw them a bone.

<comment><USER53> (That said, I don't block javascript to keep content providers from doing dodgy things quite so much as I do it to avoid fallout when someone breaks into your server, or slips something into your page in transit.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Very tempting! Unfortunately I like to have my monitors close to my face, so I think the large size of the television may cause viewing angle problems.

<comment><USER55> I thought the same thing but now that I have the Seiki it is very similar to having 4 x 20" 1080p monitors. The view angle is decent as long as you place the monitor about 2-3 feet away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Article about 4K monitors with 300 pixel photos. It's just not right.

</comment><comment><USER57> I feel like I must be in the minority here: I enjoy multiple (smaller, 28" max, sub-24" preferable) displays.

I run iTerm2 in full screen with Vim split alongside 2 or 3 console panes; I find the separation from the rest of my OS a blessing. The second screen I use for Chrome, HipChat, Flint, Sparrow etc; I still notice chat notifications, and to keep a eye on my dock (which displays all notification counts across my multiple programs) is a simple key combination if I'm in 'the zone' and don't wish to break out of my programming environment (iTerm2).

I've tried larger screens in the past, and found myself physically looking around the screen a lot more, simply due to having all my content splatted together.

Combine this with a keyboard-based window manager and the 1/2 - 1/4 screen segmenting and I feel much more organised and efficient than trying to manage a 30"\+ monster of a screen.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't think I'd want to work somewhere where it appears to be compulsory to use a ridiculously cheap $500 39 inch UHD display. How ridiculous! 28-30 inch is plenty big enough for a desktop computer.

The intentions are good. But seriously, why not just wait a few weeks for the Dell 4K monitor that's price well under $1000.

</comment><comment><USER59> Anyone know, is a Windows machine required for the step of applying the mentioned firmware fix to this monitor?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope! The monitor "boots" and patches from a file on a USB key. It's fairly painless.

<comment><USER59> Sweet, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> A few weeks ago I got a brand new 27" 1920x1080 Asus display for some 200 bucks. Once at home, I realized it was a TV set without the TV receiver. This is the worst thing a programmer may ever buy.

A programmer's monitor should have not only a fairly decent contrast, but also the darkest black possible. This thing, even at the lowest brightness/contrast/colours settings, outputs a lot of light (and its black is just a gray), making it unsuitable for programming with any color scheme.

I switched back to the old 19" 1440x900 Samsung monitor bought some seven years ago, which has a true black. I'll pop in a mediacenter box and throw the 27" in the dining room.

Before buying a monitor, you should check for its "blackest black" in a low light condition and use full-screen.

And -yes- that tsotech article just sucks.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _And -yes- that tsotech article just sucks._

It's just a blog entry. I'm not a journalist.

But thanks for the criticism. It's clear you and I just disagree about displays.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> It is definitely a productivity booster for devs. However if your software audience includes low res users (enterprises, accessibility etc.) ensure that design/layout testing for low res usability does not become an afterthought. We have had this oversight in our team a few times.

</comment><comment><USER62> My problem is that I have really bad eyesight and I don't want to program all day on a monitor with pixel density like that. I have a laptop which has a high pixel density, 1080p at 13 inches and it is just not ideal. I am zoomed in 150% to 200% on websites routinely.

<comment><USER63> High pixel density should, ideally, have no influence on text sizes but the sharpness of the text.

You should increase the DPI count in your OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I don't really understand monitor specs, is the 30mhz limit due to the size of the monitor, or is it a GPU limitation on most PCs?

I'm wondering if a 4k 36" monitor would have a better 40mhz limit or something?

Also, my laptop is a few years old with Intel HD integrated graphics. Any idea if it would have enough power to run one of these?

What about a ChromeBook?

I'm trying to get an idea of just how much power these things need?

<comment><USER65> The panel is capable of 120hz on both 39" and 55" but the 39" is further restricted to 60hz at all resolutions. The limit at 4K to 30hz is the HDMI connection. The TV does not have DisplayPort, though HDMI 2 is hoped for in a future firmware update. (At least based on Sony's announcement of such an firmware update for their sets.)

<comment><USER66> If you flash the 39 inch with the firmware from the 50 inch it can do 120Hz at all resolutions 1920x1080 and below. I even give it 240Hz @ 720p even though it drops half the frames to reduce the input lag from around 9ms to 4.5ms.

<comment><USER65> Sounds too good to be true. 30 fps mouse cursors were starting to drive me nuts. I'll have to try this soon. I wonder if/when Seiki comes up with an HDMI 2 version of the TV we can reuse the firmware here...? Edit: I see that Seiki announced new 4K TVs with HDMI 2 at CES, but only 50"+, no 39". I can only hope the new firmware has clues for getting HDMI 2 running on my 39" eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Honestly, I've long used a pair of 1080P 37" TV as my preferred monitors. One landscape, one vertical. I place them far away so my eyes don't have to work as hard to focus. Fonts are big for the same reason. I don't need 4k whatsoever. It would just make things too tiny to read with the current poor support OSes have for dpi independent rendering.

</comment><comment><USER68> Well, this is just about the opposite of what many people have been moving towards for the past decade (smaller, more portable, lighter).

I do think a single large monitor would be nice. I'm using dual 24's with a 13" retina display centered below and find it difficult to make smart use of the screen space because I have to turn my head constantly.

</comment><comment><USER69> Part of the problem might be gamers not having powerful enough machines and not wanting a blurry image from scaling.

<comment><USER54> I think PC gamers would find the 30Hz much more of a disincentive. I think most console games are used to 24 fps anyway, but they don't even have the option to reach that resolution (yet?)

<comment><USER70> Yup, 30hz would be a no go. And I am pretty sure Sony has said the ps4 is able to play video at 4k, but has no intentions for games at that resolution. Hell games for both systems aren't even 1080p across the board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Anyone knows where you can get something like this at a similar price point in Germany? The only price I could find the exact same TV was 1200 Euros (about $1600). Not even ebay's international sellers seem to have it, and those proved pretty useful when it came to the Korean high density IPS monitors...

</comment><comment><USER72> Yes indeed. And programmers should get multiple screens too. This will only get better over time too.

</comment><comment><USER73> For movies, last time I checked about a year ago, it was still difficult to get a bluray that was real 1080 (they usually are DVDs converted to bluray and the quality is not any better) ... I wonder how many years it will take for 4k content to be widespread ...

<comment><USER74> Not my experience at all, although I could see that being true for older movies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> > but if you are programming on something so old, you should first contend > with that. So for programming Android apps I need an top of the line GPU? > Most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Not even bothering reading the rest.

</comment><comment><USER76> I had to bring my own shitty 19 inch monitor to work just to have two :/

</comment><comment><USER77> No, 4k is for film editors and colorists. These are the people who think about resolution color, persistence of vision and so forth for a living, and who ultimately guide the standards that result in quality monitors. Whingeing about HD as if it had hindered some programmer-driven monitor nirvana is laughable; if the needs of programmers were the guiding light of display technology we wouldn't be using GUIs because so many programmers prefer a command-line environment.

 _I want a 50-inch desktop display with north of 10,000 horizontal pixels._

Big whoop. I want an interactive holodesk and bidirectional wireless neural interface too. I also want dynamically-generated domain specific function graphing so I don't want have to shoehorn my ideas into a one-dimensional text stream.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd say up to about 42in 4k monitors are for programmers, between that an about 8 feet, 4k is a gimmick--4k projectors are for couch potatoes. 4k VR headsets will cover everyone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of these, I feel the least certain about VR headsets. I've not yet tried one so I remain skeptical. But I agree, if a terrific VR headset hits the market, that would be compelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> They say that having a 120hz monitor greatly improves the desktop experience (it's not just for games) so wouldn't 30hz be a real downgrade if you're used to 60hz?

<comment><USER79> Honestly, it depends on the person.

At work I have an old 75Hz 1024 x 1280 panel (portrait) beside a newer 60Hz 1200p panel. If you look closely, you can tell the old panel is smoother. But its just that.. you have to look closely. It definitely isn't a jarring difference. IMO I wouldn't get much more out of a 120Hz panel just for programming and daily use.

As for gaming, wI know the extra framerate definitely smooths out the experience in FPS games. I'd take a 1440p IPS panel over a 1080p TN (120hz) any day, but I know others who say the exact opposite. Its totally subjective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Just wait 12 months. Better 4K options are on the horizon.

</comment><comment><USER81> This monitor is listed as $999 on Amazon, following the very link he posted in the article. Is there somewhere else you can buy it for $500?

<comment><USER82> He's talking about the 39 inch, which is $500. When you go to Amazon, it defaults to displaying the 50 inch. Click 39 inch button to the right of the product image and you'll get the $500.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Would I get the full resolution using the DisplayPort out on my laptop and a cable to convert that to the HDMI on the TV?

<comment><USER55> I have been using the Seiki 39" for about 4 months now and I agree with a lot of what @bhauer has to say.

There are a couple of things as a developer. 1\. You end up developing really long lines of code that might upset other developers 2\. I'm on my second Seiki, my first one died and it took 1 mo. to receive a replacement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Does anyone know if a macbook pro (1 year old) can support 4K monitors?

<comment><USER85> Only late 2013 retinas do

<comment><USER66> Not true. The older 2012 rMBP will do it fine too on newer versions of OS X or linux/windows. And that is just over the HDMI port. With a Active DP 1.1 -> HDMI 1.4 adapter even very old macs that have TB will run the display just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> alt+tabbing? wut?

Synergy + 17" Laptop as server + Desktop with 2x 24" screens on desk arms...

Some one explain why a single large screen is better for a programmer, when synergy is dead easy to setup.

<comment><USER3> Some people loath the seperation between screens (I am one of these people) -- So I have a single nice 30".

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Who would disagree that more pixels is better? I DO disagree that a 39" glossy monitor from a garbage brand and that only runs @30hz in full res is a good option right now. Too big, glossy and every Seiki monitor that I have come across has had problems within the first two years (everything from displaying all green to catching on fire)</comment>


Microsoft's Rotting Corpse - <AUTHOR> https://smooth-space.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/17/the-rotting-corpse-of-microsoft

<comment><USER2> > "Apple's announcement that their full iWork suite will be available for free > on all new IOS devices marks a huge shift in the tech industry."

Like Office is available for free on WP devices since a while ago? I think people over-rate Apple sometimes.</comment>