Paypal policy update: No class-action suits - <AUTHOR> https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/upcoming_policies_full

<comment><USER2> [http://hothardware.com/News/Appeals-Court-Reverses- Decision-...](http://hothardware.com/News/Appeals-Court-Reverses-Decision- Allows-ClassAction-Lawsuit-Against-Dell/)

tl;dr

The issue in question was whether or not Dell's Terms and Conditions of Sale could legally force the company's customers to settle disputes through arbitration rather than in a court of law. This is the second time in recent history that the ninth circuit has found such arbitration clauses unenforceable due to the unconscionable burden they place upon the purchaser.

...

The court based its ruling in Omstead v. Dell directly upon an earlier case, Oestreicher v. Alienware, in which Alienware (a Dell subsidiary) attempted to force Mr. Oestreicher into arbitration. In that decision, the court wrote that the Alienware contract was unconscionable because it was a "contract of adhesion." A contract of adhesion is _a standardized contract, which, imposed and drafted by the party of superior bargaining strength, relegates to the subscribing party [the customer] only the opportunity to adhere to the contract or reject it._

<comment><USER3> IANAL, but wouldn't the Supreme Court's subsequent ruling in the AT&T case supersede that? [http://www.npr.org/2011/04/28/135785797/supreme-court- impose...](http://www.npr.org/2011/04/28/135785797/supreme-court-imposes- limits-on-class-actions)

<comment><USER4> Courts have avoided _Concepcion_ with surprising frequency by holding that it did not preempt ordinary unconscionability rules.

There's a pretty good round up of illustrative opinions here: [http://www.uclpractitioner.com/2012/03/new-opinions- interpre...](http://www.uclpractitioner.com/2012/03/new-opinions-interpreting- concepcion-robinson-v-title-lenders-brewer-v-missouri-title-loans-and-kilgore- v-keybank.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if this is part of David Marcus' plan to "radically change" paypal and "earn your trust again"...

<http://ndy.gd/JJgB>

edit: added trust quote.

<comment><USER5> Well, class action suits itself are not free of problems.

<comment><USER6> They're not, but they're a solution to a basic structural problem in the law. In countries like the US that depend on private suits to accomplish what in some other countries would be done through government enforcement actions, it becomes possible to profit by screwing over a large number of people for a small amount each. If that amount is less than a threshold, it becomes unprofitable to litigate, and only a few such claims will be brought, far less than the actual damages caused by the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Unless you opt out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against > PayPal on an individual basis

So, you can opt out. But they will retain a herd immunity of sorts -- as long as a critical mass of users doesn't opt out, a class action can never gain steam. Clever.

Incidentally, has anyone managed to opt out? I can't figure out how to (the new TOS doesn't even show up for me, so it may be that non-US users are not affected)

<comment><USER8> From the Policy Updates page:

Opt-Out Procedure.

You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate ("opt out") by mailing us a written opt-out notice ("Opt-Out Notice"). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131.

The Opt-Out Notice must state that you do not agree to this Agreement to Arbitrate and must include your name, address, phone number, and the email address(es) used to log in to the PayPal account(s) to which the opt-out applies. You must sign the Opt-Out Notice for it to be effective. This procedure is the only way you can opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate. If you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate, all other parts of the User Agreement, including all other provisions of Section 14 (Disputes with PayPal), will continue to apply. Opting out of this Agreement to Arbitrate has no effect on any previous, other, or future arbitration agreements that you may have with us.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I found an easier way -- deleting my PayPal account.

<comment><USER5> But expect more legal agreements to do this.

<comment><USER7> I do expect to see more of it, although I prefer to see it done the way Microsoft does (I've linked it elsewhere in the thread). What rubbed me the wrong way about this one wasn't the policy, but how they make opting out as difficult as possible.

<comment><USER2> Hence the emergence of such legislation as: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003>

Of which the efficacy is certainly arguable, since a truly reputable firm might seek to provide such a mechanism in an easy-to-use manner. Whereas a shady operation would, and do, ignore the directive anyhow.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but by making it hard for legitimate companies to spam you, we get a much clearer separation of spam from ham. You don't have to know who all the bad guys are, it's enough to know who all the good guys are.

These days, messages in my inbox fall into two categories: Messages with an "unsubscribe" link, or spam.

This didn't use to happen in the olden days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm from Europe and I don't really getting it.

If you start a class action lawsuit, the best thing PayPal can do is to sue you for contractual non-performance. At least in Europe, even if the contract say that you won't file a lawsuit, the court will throw that part of contract out, usually for constitution terms.

So is this legal in the US? How many of your constitutional rights can you give up in a contract in the US?

<comment><USER6> > So is this legal in the US? How many of your constitutional rights can you > give up in a contract in the US?

In the US, the general rule is that you can give up your Constitutional rights via contracts. It's, e.g., the basis for our criminal justice system, where plea bargaining (which is the criminal analogue of a civil settlement contract) is used in almost all cases despite a Constitutional right to a jury trial.

<comment><USER11> _"In the US, the general rule is that you can give up your Constitutional rights via contracts"_

Thats astonishing.

I see from your profile that you are a lawyer, so I'll ask. Are there any limits to the rights a person give can give up? Could they, for example, voluntarily sign a contract that irrevocably places them in servitude to someone else (13th amendment)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As a non-lawyer, I'd be interested to know if existing Paypal customers in the US can request a declaratory judgement on the enforceability of the arbitration clauses. I feel there would be a beneficial chilling effect on service providers if customers could bring class-action suits for declaratory remedies about adhesive and unconscionable/inequitable terms of service—that is, without having to first breach the terms of the contract (which could only happen on an individual basis and in which case the playing field would be massively un-level).

</comment><comment><USER13> Sue in small claims court? I thought part of the point of class actions were to make things cheaper for defendants by only having to defend one case instead of thousands.

<comment><USER14> Binding arbitration is even better for defendants, though, since all they have to do is pay their friend the arbitrator to rule on their side. There are no checks and balances, no jury of your peers, no appeals process, and no reason for the arbitrator to ever side with you. If you sign a contract that includes a mandatory binding arbitration clause, it means one thing: the other side intends to violate the contract.

<comment><USER15> I'm familiar with your history on HN and your work with open source and appreciate both, so please do not take offense to this.

You are completely and totally wrong about everything you just said. I run a business and every client signs a contract agreeing to mandatory binding arbitration. Why? Court cases are expensive, and most of my clients are attorneys themselves or have significantly more resources than I do.

Both sides agree on an arbitrator and each side pays 50% of the fee. Arbitration is not some back room circle jerk where the defendant gives the arbitrator a couple hundred bucks for a favorable ruling, and the notion that it is is offensive to people like me who rely on that option. And guess what? If the arbitration _was_ like that, you're within your right to sue.

<comment><USER14> The problem is not back room deals but how the system converges on local maxima. Say you're consumer C and you have a problem with megacorp A. Megacorp A chooses arbitrator B. B sides with you. Consumer D has a problem with A, and B again sides with the consumer. Arbitrator B is fired by megacorp B. Megacorp A brings in arbitrator D, who sides with Megacorp A. This continues, generating happiness for Megacorp A and plenty of income for Megacorp D, making everyone happy but consumer C.

It's simply how the incentives are aligned. If judges were paid salaries by major corporations and could be fired at the corporation's whim, the court system would, at the very least, _seem_ unfair.

For two small entities wanting to disagree over something, arbitration might work out OK. But it absolutely does not work out between consumers and large corporations. Fair or not, they don't seem fair, and seeming fair is the legal system's number one task.

<comment><USER15> The comparison to judges would be a fair comparison if both parties paid 50% of the judge's salary, and both parties had to agree on which judge to use. Arbitrators are simply not chosen and paid for by the corporations. The way it is typically done is that one arbitrator is agreed upon by both parties (negating any implications of foul play), or each party chooses one and those two arbitrators choose a third.

I think it was mentioned elsewhere that contracts that are both (A) between parties of vastly disparate power, e.g. Microsoft's EULA and the average Xbox gamer; and (B) "take it or leave it" style contracts have been ruled on at least one occasion to be untenable.

Understanding this is not usually the case in the US, I'd rather have a legal system that seemed unfair unless you researched the details than one tried to seem fair from the outside at the risk of being unfair to specific groups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would like to find the first form on their page, find out where it posts to and post my opt out there. If the web server responds with a 200 OK then I know they got it so I have opted out and received a confirmation that they got my message.

Also I don't need to do this, because I'm in Norway and I have no reason to join an American class action suit and in Norway you can't sign away your rights in this manner.

</comment><comment><USER17> FnordFnordFnordCo LLC Policy update. This update to the User Agreement effective ca. many years ago. contains changes that affect how claims you (PayPal) and FnordFnordFnord have against each other are resolved. You (PayPal) will be used only as a last resort. Pretty much if there is any alternative better than a carrier pigeon, it will be used.

</comment><comment><USER18> Absurd. Think of what a class action lawsuit is, in its bare form - it is a form of free speech - a peaceable assembly.

I dislike runaway litigation as much as anyone, blah blah blah, but you can't keep me from peaceably assembling for whatever reasons I see fit.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this even legal?

<comment><USER19> This is something I don't get about these clauses in contracts. Law should supersede any private contract otherwise what's the point of having such law?

<comment><USER6> Laws create private rights, and those rights can be contracted-away. Say the securities laws create a private right of action for people who make misrepresentations on a prospectus. If you're an investor who buys a security from a shady issuer, you can choose to sue or not. The law just creates a right of action, it doesn't force you to use it. The law views contracts to give up that right of action as being just a part of your discretion in exercising that right.

Obviously a contract can't protect a company from, say, criminal enforcement by the SEC, because that's a right held by the government, not the injured individuals.

<comment><USER20> > Laws create private rights, and those rights can be contracted-away.

Maybe in your country.

In Australia, at least, they can not.

When going ice skating those signs that say "Skaters do so at their own risk" mean nothing in Australia. There are certain rights an individual can not sign away.

<comment><USER21> If you can't waive your rights, you can't even settle out of court. That's what a settlement is -- an agreement to waive right to due for some payment.

<comment><USER20> In the case of basic rights, why would you want to settle out of court?

i.e. if the ice skating rink from the above example is negligent in their requirement to provide a level of care, then they need to be punished by a court.

<comment><USER22> How is it hard to understand? Settle does not in any way mean "forgive" or "forget" or "waive."

Court: a year (or more) of legal fees, proceedings, headache, stress, and pain in the ass. Settle: Get less cash, be done with it.

In both cases, you're being compensated for the violation of your basic rights. In one of them, you take up the court's time and pay for it dearly in order to make your point publicly and to potentially get more money. In the other, assuming you're trying to sue someone without too much hubris such that they're willing to settle, the affair is much tidier, but generally less bitter for the loser, too.

<comment><USER23> Why do you have to agree to that before hand? Why doesn't the contract prevent Paypal from suing other parties?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So where is the webpage that takes your Name, Address, paypal Email, and sends the opt-out letter for you, for $0.99 ?

<comment><USER25> Paid via Paypal of course.

Though I'm not sure if it would be possible because you need to sign the letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've started seeing these on my Visa card as well, about 1 month ago. I wonder which one tipped the other off about it, or which case made this so sensitive to these large companies.

</comment><comment><USER27> That's okay, seriously. I have no intention of ever using paypal ever again. Case closed. I wonder how many new customers this is going to loose them? Only time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER28> Contracts only mean what the courts say they mean. And if your only agreement is a "yes" typed into a text field or a checkbox clicked, probably mean even less than that.

</comment><comment><USER29> Oh no and paypal said they were changing... yeah like 99% of paypal users have the time and money to sue paypal individually, yeah change...

</comment><comment><USER30> Netflix, just this week added a similar EULA...

<comment><USER31> Netflix annouunced that some months ago in the US. Are you just seeing it now?

For some time I was getting a page banner on netflix.com telling I had to go agree to this. I never did. I keep expecting them to cancel my service. Perhaps they went and agreed for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Words on a page.

</comment><comment><USER33> it is legal ?

<comment><USER34> Probably, see: [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2011...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2011-04-27-supreme- court-class-actions_n.htm)

<comment><USER35> "Scalia was joined in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito."

Big f __ing surprise.

<comment><USER36> The supreme court started class actions in the US, the supreme court ended them (in practice).

In reality though, your problem is with Congress. This had nothing much to do with class action lawsuits, and everything to do with the federal arbitration act and whether it preempts state law. Congress could trivially fix this by adding two sentences to the law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Am I the only one surprised with the widespread use of "IANAL" as an abbreviation ?</comment>


OmniPresence, Omni Group's new cloud sync service, hits all the right buttons - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/2039524/omnipresence-the-omni-groups-new-cloud-sync-service-hits-all-the-right-buttons.html <comment><AUTHOR> So the company blog post was posted to news a few days back[1] but somehow there was no discussion or thoughts on the advantages of the service:

(open source client and server, over WebDAV against Apache (most any solid WebDAV service should work - hell this makes it easy to host against AWS!), seamless sync of the Dropbox sort, document-level sync ( _glares_ at iCloud))

In fact, OmniPresence seems to have completely gone under the radar on HN. It seems surprising as the service seems to address huge swathes of the concerns shared by much of the HN community about cloud data sync services.

[1]: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5745750></comment>


Awesome flash websites from the 90s - <AUTHOR>

Not a comprehensive list, but I dug these up and wanted to share the nostalgia with anyone who remembers simpler times :-)
http://www.yesterstudios.com/picts/balthaser/main.swf
http://www.eye4u.com/home/
http://v3.2a-archive.com/flashindex.htm
http://www.thefwa.com/flash10/gabo.html <comment><USER2> [http://www.flasharcade.com/shooting-games/play/pink-slip- pan...](http://www.flasharcade.com/shooting-games/play/pink-slip-panic- game.html)

<comment><USER3> one of these games maxed my CPU. Can't imagine what it would have been like back in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember earlier versions of <http://derbauer.de/>

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.neostream.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe it's just me...but I actually feel a bit nostalgic after seeing this.

<comment><USER7> Wow, yeah, the memories. 2 Advanced was the coolest thing on the internet back in its day. There are all kinds of good reasons why it's a bad website, but it's still pretty nice eye candy.

I hadn't been to their site in years. It looks like they're still doing all Flash, but have moved more toward game development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How is using a proprietary plugin "simpler"?

</comment><comment><USER9> gross</comment>


The Programmers Guild, a professional society - <AUTHOR> http://www.programmersguild.org/

<comment><USER2> This organization has a pronounced anti-foreign worker stance. Since almost all of my colleagues are not American and are here on visas, I cannot support this organization.

<comment><USER3> Not a problem, you are completely entitled to your own opinion on this.

That said, it's a real charge to say that they have a pronounced anti-foreign worker stance. This organization is clearly opposed to the H1B visa, but that doesn't necessarily translate into being anti-foreign worker.

Is there a specific press release or position that you disagree with? If so, would you be willing to articulate your objections to it?

<comment><USER2> My colleagues - researchers - that are not here on student visas are here on H1-B visas. Those that are on student visas will eventually need H1-B visas after they graduate. I take their objections to be anti-foreign worker.

<comment><USER3> I'm having a little trouble understanding your position. Do you feel that any individual or group that advocates a limit, even a high limit, on the number of immigrants or guest workers who can come to the united states each year is "anti-foreign worker?"

Keep in mind that even without the H1B visa, the USA already takes in about 1.2 million immigrants legally each year. I also believe the principle objection to the H1B is that it specifically targets a few professions, causing a greater disruption to engineers/scientists (and potentially discouraging young Americans from entering these fields). Many people who are opposed to the H1B visa are not opposed to more general immigration.

Anyway, thanks for responding. As you can probably tell, I take a dim view of the H1B visa. I do think it's important to have a healthy (but limited) infusion of talent from other countries, but I think that we need to ensure that it is not overly concentrated in a single field, and I do believe that it is reasonable to enforce absolute limits to the number of people who can come to the US each year. I believe that this position is more pro than anti- foreign worker.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WeWork in Talks with SoftBank to Double Valuation to as Much as $40B - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-in-talks-with-softbank-to-double-valuation-to-as-much-as-40-billion-1528923090 <comment><USER2> Remember kids, when a graph of business valuation looks like a hockey stick, you are probably buying at the top of the market.</comment>


Show HN: Esgy – Easily remind yourself of links you'd like to see again - <AUTHOR> https://es.gy/ <comment><USER2> Looks really similar to [https://mailist.app](https://mailist.app) Were you inspired by that?

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there a way to adjust the time between sending links? Also it's not clear if the links will disappear from my account after they are sent to my email, will they?

Also it looks like the Privacy Policy is included with the Terms of Service ([https://es.gy/terms-of-service](https://es.gy/terms-of-service)). These are two separate things, which I think should be split out; as some people may be looking for a Privacy Policy before using your service may not find it as they expect to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for informing me regarding the PP and TOS, I didn't know this. Regarding links, they don't disappear once sent, but I'm currently working on being able to delete links.

If I understand you correctly regarding time between links, you can (even though this feature is not publicized) set custom delays for when links are mailed. Example: es.gy/2d/{url} would remind you of the link 2 days later. You can also do es.gy/2w/, 3w, 11w, etc for x weeks later. Same goes for 1m, 2m, etc for x months later ...

<comment><USER3> Nice. That's a cool feature, this is what I was asking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Isn't this essentially Firefox's Please feature?

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. Curious what esgy stands for or means?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Doesn't really stand for anything just a domain I liked.</comment></comment>


Camtweet is TwitPic meets live video (from Justin.tv) - <AUTHOR> http://www.camtweet.com/account/login_with_invite_code?invite_code=HACKERNEWS

<comment><AUTHOR> We built this in about 3 days of work on top of the Justin.tv platform, I'd be curious to hear what the HN community thinks about it. I've set up an invite code so you all can try it out.

<comment><USER2> Why don't you have a native iPhone app?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because you can't stream live video to or from the iPhone over 3G yet, and it only works for h264, so it's fairly pointless. The existing apps are pretty much crap because of Apple restrictions. We're ready to pounce if and when we think it's a good idea.

<comment><USER3> _Because you can't stream live video to or from the iPhone over 3G yet_

Yes you can; we've already done it. A coworker of mine hacked together an app to do it in a day or so. There's also some companies offering services to do it for you (Ripcode, etc).

 _and it only works for h264, so it's fairly pointless._

It's fairly trivial to do realtime transcoding (x264+ffmpeg+segmenter).

<comment><USER4> Try doing faster than realtime transcoding of 2000 simultaneous streams. Not _that_ trivial.

<comment><USER3> Let's do some math then. Let's assume the videos are 320x240, for example. Since we have so many streams at once, we can assume perfect scaling across multiple cores and systems.

A 320x240 video encodes at about 195 FPS on my Core 2 Duo Conroe 2Ghz with one encoding thread, using x264 and preset "veryfast".

Now, if we go up to a Quad at 3Ghz and use all four cores, we're up to 1170fps.

A Penryn is about 10% faster per-clock than a Conroe on x264. We're up to 1287fps.

A Core i7 is about 40% faster per-clock than a Conroe on x264, including the effects of Hyperthreading. We're up to 1802 FPS, or 60 streams, and we haven't even left our single processor. For all 2000 streams, we'll need 33 CPUs, or maybe a few more if we allow for a bit of overhead, just in case.

Not that hard now, is it? Bonus points: you save bandwidth, since H.264 compresses a lot better than Sorenson H.263 (FLV1).

(Also, preset "ultrafast" is another factor of two faster than _that_ , though the quality is low enough that nobody should be using it...)

<comment><USER5> In practice you are not going to be doing nearly as good as that. your co- workers hack notwithstanding.

Assuming 'perfect scaling' and discounting such things as networking overhead are going to upset that picture by a considerable amount.

You'll be lucky to get to 500 Mbit out per physical machine using 16 cores and streaming to about 2000 users with 75 incoming streams. So that's roughly 5 streams per core.

To just multiplex 2000 streams to 40 K viewers with adaptive frame rate you'll need roughly 30 sixteen core machines, note that that does _NOT_ include transcoding yet.

<comment><USER3> _You'll be lucky to get to 500 Mbit out per physical machine using 16 cores and streaming to about 2000 users with 75 incoming streams. So that's roughly 5 streams per core._

Why do you have the same computers handling encoding as distribution? That's stupid.

 _To just multiplex 2000 streams to 40 K viewers with adaptive frame rate you'll need roughly 30 sixteen core machines, note that that does NOT include transcoding yet._

Then your multiplexer is unimaginably inefficient. Last summer I worked for a company that multiplexes live streams for _millions of viewers_ ; it is not as hard as you think, especially since you only have to do the work once per channel, not once per user, since all users watching a given channel receive the same stream.

<comment><USER5> I think you are missing what adaptive frame rate is all about...

<comment><USER3> You have yet to explain what "adaptive frame rate" actually is in this context.

Do you mean that each user receives a different framerate based on the download bandwidth that he has? You really only need a couple framerates to cover all users--and I suspect you mean "bitrate", not "framerate", in this case (though changing the framerate _is_ one effective way to improve the quality of an adaptive bitrate scheme).

<comment><USER5> Adaptive means that based on the connection quality every user receives the maximum quality that their link is capable of while guaranteeing audio delivery with a minimum lag to stay as close to realtime as possible.

This means that every user has an individual stream because the connection quality can change very rapidly over short periods of time, they might switch a secondary stream on (or off) for a moment and whatever else can change the quality of the connection. You can't use very large windows because that would mean that if there was a hickup in the line it would take a long time to recover, which would degrade perceived quality.

Video is relatively forgiving by the way, the audio is the real kicker, a single packet delivered a little bit too late will instantly cause annoyance whereas with the video you can be a little early or late and it doesn't seem to matter too much.

Initial encoding happens on different machines (obviously) but a stream multiplexer that maximizes the end user experience is a lot more complicated than just encoding to a preset selection of rates, after all every keyframe and subsequent updates have their encoding scheme determined by the throughput measured during the transmission of the keyframe(s)+updates just preceding it.

For non-live consumption the situation is a lot easier, you can pre-buffer and that takes care of most problems but in live transmissions that is not possible unless you want horrible lag (which does not work when the connection is two way, it screws up the interaction between people).

<comment><USER3> _Initial encoding happens on different machines (obviously) but a stream multiplexer that maximizes the end user experience is a lot more complicated than just encoding to a preset selection of rates, after all every keyframe and subsequent updates have their encoding scheme determined by the throughput measured during the transmission of the keyframe(s)+updates just preceding it._

It's really not that difficult; if you have one encode going per-user, you can just reinitialize the encoder's ratecontrol, and if you don't have one per user, you can simply use a short GOP and swap the bitrate at each keyframe, in the same way that H.264 extended profile proposed using Switching Pictures (but in a way that real software actually supports). Of course this latter method requires multiple simultaneous encodes per channel, or an SVC-like system (which almost nobody supports, and for which there aren't any good software implementations anyways).

Is it really that important for Justin.TV to have less than one second latency? The vast majority of the site is completely non-latency-critical (from my cursory browsing of it). Heck, the broadcast company I worked for last summer had over 10 second latency and nobody ever complained about that-- and that was live television, including sports games and so forth.

Plus, if Justin.TV is already doing a scheme like this, surely upgrading to a better, faster encoder is going to _decrease_ , not increase, their CPU load.

 _Video is relatively forgiving by the way, the audio is the real kicker, a single packet delivered a little bit too late will instantly cause annoyance whereas with the video you can be a little early or late and it doesn't seem to matter too much._

It sounds as if your buffer size for audio is too small. There is no reason why video or audio should act differently in that regard; in fact, audio should be easier, as losing a video packet will result in a loss of video until the next keyframe, while in audio, every single frame is a keyframe.

<comment><USER5> I think the word 'trivial' means different things to you than it does to me :)

<comment><USER3> It is certainly very simple in the general case (you have a video stream, you need to transcode it); it just becomes difficult when you try to do fancier things with it... which is perhaps true of all systems.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A startup founder and ex-Facebook engineer's story of the BSD + Patents license - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ji/the-react-license-for-founders-and-ctos-b38d2538f3e5 <comment><USER2> "To my knowledge, Facebook has never proactively sued anyone for infringing its patents."

That's not a good enough reason for developers or startups to give away legal power like that. Forgive me if I don't feel like waiting for them to turn evil.

<comment><USER3> _turn_ evil? Patents aside, isn't there a fair amount of FB behavior that already falls in that bucket?

<comment><USER4> What are those behaviors?

<comment><USER5> [https://stallman.org/facebook.html](https://stallman.org/facebook.html)

<comment><USER6> Stallman, captain tinfoil hat, is not a reputable source for this sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > As part of the patent grant, you'd have to stop using Facebook open source > upon claiming patent infringement.

IANAL but I don't believe this is correct.

If I'm using React and I decide to sue Facebook for infringing some other software patents I hold, I lose the _patent grant_ for any _potential_ patents Facebook might hold concerning React. Which they could go after me with if they do indeed hold such patents. There's nothing proactively forcing me off React.

I just don't see anything but good from this BSD+patent grant situation. It lessens software patent litigation in general and lets me know I'm safe from Facebook suing me specially. It seems fantastic!

<comment><USER8> > _If I 'm using React and I decide to sue Facebook for infringing some other > software patents I hold, I lose the patent grant for any potential patents > Facebook might hold concerning React. Which they could go after me with if > they do indeed hold such patents. There's nothing proactively forcing me off > React._

It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't actually hold any patents on React. This seems unlikely, and is contradicted by what the author wrote (indicating that popular React alternatives may also infringe FB patents). Or am I not understanding your line of thinking?

My view, as a former lawyer, is that if you want to sue FB for patent infringement, you would be very unwise to continue using React. Willful infringement = treble damages.

<comment><USER9> > It seems like you're assuming that there's a decent chance that FB doesn't > actually hold any patents on React.

That's very likely actually. Patents are public; people have searched around for obvious concepts and phrases involving the virtual dom, synthetic events, etc., and nothing has been found. (There's also nothing novel in what React does, so you'd kind of hope there'd be no patents.)

> This seems unlikely

Why do you think Facebook having patents on React is likely? (Come to that, why is it any more likely than them having patents on the tech behind, say, Angular?)

> and is contradicted by what the author wrote (indicating that popular React > alternatives may also infringe FB patents)

 _IF_ a patent on, say, the virtual DOM exists, then Preact, Vue, etc., will all violate it. But it seems fairly clear that no such patent exists. So the author is quite right; popular React alternatives almost certainly use just as many of Facebook's patents as React does...it's just the number is probably "zero".

<comment><USER10> what about this one? It was literally just published: "Automatic overdraw reduction before rendering"

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+use...](https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242?dq=facebook+user+interface+react+virtual+dom&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjWo8DVvZzWAhWojlQKHXRDAkgQ6AEIPzAD)

<comment><USER11> That's an ugly React-related patent application for sure.

I hope this application doesn't go anywhere, as there would seem to be a lot of prior art. For example, the Cocoa API in macOS implements the method of Claim 1 pretty much to the letter:

[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appkit/nsview/1483772-getrectsbeingdrawn?language=objc)

This API was introduced in OS X 10.3, so that would be 14 years ago.

<comment><USER12> React doesn't do layout so it can't do occlusion.

<comment><USER11> The patent description explicitly states it's about React:

"Although many embodiments are described herein in the context of React, embodiments are not limited to React or to rendering only updated views as determined by React libraries."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is good insight for Facebook's motivation behind this license. Even before this post, most people understood why Facebook would use this license. However, it still doesn't fix its problems for 3rd parties, and it introduces bad precedents for open source in general. I can see less collaboration over time between different companies if this license ever gets popular. I could be wrong but knowing the history behind it doesn't change my opinion that this will hurt open source in the long run.

<comment><USER14> IANAL.

If we take a look at Apache 2.0's patent grant:

> ... If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a > cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a > Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory > patent infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this > License for that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is > filed.

It seems to be more fair to me. It doesn't give any special right to Facebook or any other entity. I.e. Apache 2.0 revokes the patent grant if anybody sues for patent infringement arising out of the work. Facebook's license the patent grant if anybody sues Facebook for anything, or other parties for patent infringement arising out of the work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This discussion just goes to show again the extent to which the tech community allowed itself to be gaslighted into accepting that:

1\. Anything about react is patentable.

2\. Licensing of unspecified patents is a thing.

3\. Licensing of software without disclosing related patents held by the author does not invalidate those patents on the basis of bad faith acting alone.

In what obscene legal reality does adding a patent grant that can be revoked in certain circumstances puts the licensee in a worse position than a license that does not mention patents at all ?

<comment><USER16> > a patent grant

if you called it a patent 'clause' \- rather than a grant - then does it make more sense? More clauses == more legal conditions.

The fact is that patents are obsurd in software. It should be treated like in the fashion industry - notice how clothing design is _not_ patentable, and the fashion industry has not an iota of being un-innovative or impeded! In fact, the very reason of being able to make any design copy in fashion leads to the large proliferation of innovations, as each designer tries to one-up another.

<comment><USER15> Yes to my non-lawyerish understanding making it a clause in the BSD license would be different - it would no longer be a BSD license but rather a new (non OSI) license containing provisions regarding patents.

I agree that software patents are evil but then so are many other parts of the modern legal system, but even with them it feels that what facebook (and other companies) are doing shouldn't have any legal standing - see my comment down the original thread.

<comment><USER16> > it would no longer be a BSD license

and i'd argue that the license that facebook is using _is_ indeed a new license! It's BSD plus something added to it!

Unless the end user has the choice to not take the patent clause ("grant") as part of their license. IANAL, so i dont know if it is possible to cherry pick like this.

<comment><USER15> It wouldn't be a "grant" if the user didn't have a choice of not taking it. Consider if somewhere in the repo there was a file called GOATS which conditioned the right to use react on having goats sacrificed to facebook every new moon, would it make react BSD+Goats licensed ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is something I don't understand about the HN comments when the React license comes up.

Whenever something about software patents in general comes up, the majority of commenters seem to condemn them - at a minimum in their offensive usage. And a vast majority of commenters seem to be opposed to them at least to some degree.

So if as a general position you do not support the offensive use of software patents, why does the react license matter _at all_ to you? The only time it would matter would be if you would sue facebook for violating your patents. Am I not correctly understanding the license? Does it apply any other time?

<comment><USER18> If everyone used React, Facebook would then be rather free to sue everyone (especially other mega corps) for violating Facebook's patents. Normally, this isn't the case, because every company of appreciable size has at least a few patents laying around that you're violating, which they could use to countersue. It's a MAD situation. But if you sign away your right to sue Facebook, you're also signing away your right to _countersue_ Facebook—thus removing any disincentive Facebook would have for just suing anyone they like.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't the license explicitly state the opposite?

> Notwithstanding the foregoing, if Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or > corporate affiliates files a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against > you in the first instance, and you respond by filing a patent infringement > counterclaim in that lawsuit against that party that is unrelated to the > Software, the license granted hereunder will not terminate under section (i) > of this paragraph due to such counterclaim. [0]

As I read it, it only applies if you are the original instigator, not if they are.

[0]: [https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/af312ce006ebe76307662...](https://github.com/facebook/react/blob/af312ce006ebe76307662d78d63328a047bd9780/PATENTS#L21-L26)

<comment><USER16> This needs to be more up-voted, so that mis-understandings about the license doesn't perpetuate! You only "lose out" on the patent grant if you sue facebook over patents - _NOT_ when facebook sues you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> So, Facebook is the only company that struggles with this and come up with this arcane solution?

Google and Microsoft are just as big, yet they can manage open source perfectly fine without this ridiculous licence.

<comment><USER20> > they can manage open source perfectly fine

It's easy to "manage open source perfectly fine" if you just open-source less of your code, or release it without any patent grant at all. I'm not sure how much credit should be given for those non-efforts, though.

<comment><USER21> I've never worked at Facebook (so I can't compare directly), but I've never met a Googler who shied away from open sourcing code for legal reasons; no one ever said "I would open source this, but only if I could attach a patent grant to it."

There are plenty of reasons that someone might choose not to open source code (e.g. they like working on only internal infrastructure or don't want to bother with external maintenance), but I don't think the patent grant has anything to do with why a developer at {Google, Facebook, Microsoft} would choose to open source (or not) a library.

<comment><USER20> I've never worked at Google either, but I have worked at other companies where people got in serious trouble for trying to open-source something that was associated with the company's IP. It's important to remember here that copyrights and patents are separate. A company might be very permissive when it comes to copyright (though woe betide the engineer who tries to open-source something related to _trade secret_ IP) while still aggressively protecting their patents. Have you seen a Googler actually try to attach an explicit patent license to Google code? After Oracle, I'd be pretty surprised. The BSD/MIT non-license is the real stealth option here. It precludes _no_ action by the patent holder, under any conditions, so of course your local legal department would have no problem with it.

<comment><USER21> Google defaults to Apache.

The whole process is documented here ([https://opensource.google.com/docs/releasing/approval/](https://opensource.google.com/docs/releasing/approval/)) but here's the tl;dr:

1\. Googler tells their director that they want to open source some code; the director approves it.

2\. Googler tells the Open Source + Patents Office that they're releasing code. The OSPO says to use Apache as the license unless you have a good reason not to, and does a sanity check to ensure that the license information is in all the right places in the repo.

3\. Googler posts the repo to GitHub.

Googlers don't usually even think about licenses. The OSPO says to use Apache, so that's what we use.

<comment><USER20> Do you suppose that neither the director nor the OSPO is checking _which_ patents relate to the code under consideration, and that neither might reject the request on the basis that it would compromise valuable IP? It would actually be irresponsible for them not to. Given the value of that IP to the company, they have a duty to ensure that it's protected. The fact (if fact it is) that individual engineers don't worry about it means approximately nothing except that they're sheltered little pups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Replace "Yahoo" with "Microsoft", and "Facebook" with "Yahoo", and you have basically the same justification given to me as a Yahoo employee to patent my (company internal) hack-day ideas.

The engineering manager responsible said Yahoo would only use patents as a defensive measure, to defend themselves against patent threats from other companies. Same promises, same logic. Two years later Yahoo launched their software patent action against Facebook.

Software patents can only be used offensively. Because their defensive capability is limited to the threat of using them offensively. If there is no substance to the threat they are useless. So the value of software patents rests solely on their offensive capability.

<comment><USER23> An investment of $550 million that is only "for defensive purposes only" is BS. Company policies change all the time especially if a new market competitor emerges.

Here's a question though. Let's say you're a startup investor and you have a choice to acquire one startup and one startup uses react and one uses vue.js both have stable apps and both have the same revenue which one would you choose.

<comment><USER24> Generally M&A involves due diligence; which involves assessing the business and the technology. It aims to summarize assets and liabilities. It would surprise me significantly if a viable product was not acquired because of a technology choice; a viable product rarely hinges on one piece of technology -- the acquirer is likely to make it a goal of the acquired company to change some tech (react-> some equivalent) if they really view this as a significant liability.

IANAL :) but was once acqui-hired by a patent troll.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a great explanation and it all makes sense.

Given the mess that it was born from, it makes sense for developers to think about staying away from this if building anything of consequence.

It also is incompatible with free software.

However there are a lot of things that are worth developing that are neither of these things and react can be a great choice there on the technical merits.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's fine that Facebook wants to defend itself and gain hiring benefits from launching interesting projects, but those reasons aren't sufficient to allay concerns that this license won't be weaponized against small teams with interesting technologies.

<comment><USER27> Those small teams only need to be concerned in the event that they intend on suing Facebook for PATENT INFRINGEMENT. That's it. That's the only event that this could ever be relevant to you. Small teams should focus on building great products. If their hope is to patent some software algorithm in the hopes that they're going to make it big in a legal battle with Facebook...I mean, I suppose in that special 1 in a million case you should probably avoid Facebook open source. But you are probably going to face patent counterclaims regardless, because they own thousands of software patents. You might be accidentally violating one of them now. Who knows? Have you combed through your code base and Facebook's patent portfolio to find out? What about all the other big software companies out there? Google? Yahoo? Microsoft? Your choice of tech won't prevent you from violating broad software patents like Amazon's infamous 1-Click patent [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click), for example.

<comment><USER28> The odds are much lower than 1 in a million. It's _any_ kind of patent. Facebook aren't just a social media software company anymore by any means.

What this means is they can infringe on your patent on say "tinder for dogs bark swipe mechanism" and they can infringe all day long knowing you would have to migrate off React Native and GraphQL before sueing them over it

<comment><USER27> I think your example just shows how ridiculous software patents are as a concept. Facebook's license is an attempt to prevent silly lawsuits over things like that.

<comment><USER26> I don't think you're thinking it through. Facebook is setting up a situation where it can do bargain barrel corp dev -- acquihires or (what reasonable folks would consider) theft of IP based on what technology was used to build the target's "About Us" page.

<comment><USER27> No, they're setting up a situation where if Yahoo sues them for some one-click patent they can be like, "well, you're using our virtual dom patent so let's call the whole thing off"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Where I work we've already been given the "don't use React" talk from legal. I'm curious as to how many others out there are getting the same advice at their day job.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, OpenJDK is already on our "do not contribute" blacklist for issues with their CLA, so I wouldn't be surprised to see react in the same list soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The issue of not wanting open source contributions to inadvertently license valuable patents is not unique to Facebook.

Qualcomm reorganized itself several years ago so that their employees who interact with open source would be assigned to one corporate entity while all sensitive patents would be held by a separate corporate entity.

Other large organizations muddle through with closer oversight of the open source teams by the legal team than either would like.

It is a difficult problem to solve.

</comment><comment><USER32> After reading this article, I can see where Facebook is coming from when making these licensing changes. However, the points he makes about smaller companies feeling pain from Facebook due to patent infringement is very real too.

<comment><USER33> What patents, exactly, is Facebook infringing? And considering Facebook has one rather specific product: How would it help these companies if Facebook avoided their patented technology, unless they're trying to start a social network? And if they're starting a social network: is there anything that makes it plausible that their lack of success in unseating Facebook is due to this technology?

And if they're feeling the pain, have any of them sued Facebook and won? If not: Is it because they're using React? If not: How does the patent grant make a difference then?

<comment><USER34> Facebook has more than one product. They have the social network itself; a lot of work around ads, ad targeting and ad delivery; Oculus technology, both hardware and software; their efforts to bring internet to many places, etc.

You can sue Facebook for infringing a patent with Oculus and they'll come after you for your use of React/GraphQL/etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > it's not clear how much switching to another React-like library like Preact > or Vue would help; you need Facebook's patent licenses anyway — in the eyes > of the law — for any library that uses data structures, algorithms, or > techniques patented by Facebook.

Can someone clarify what the author means here?

<comment><USER36> Patents protect implementation techniques, not actual code like copyright does. Since something like Preact is API compatible with React, if there are any patents that cover functionality in React, they would also likely be needed by Preact, so switching to Preact wouldn't save you anything it terms of patent defense.

<comment><USER35> Thanks for this.

Just to make sure I am getting it:

Does this mean if you never used React, but use Preact or Vue that Facebook can still countersue you in the same way if you used React?

<comment><USER37> If there is a patent that covers what preact or vue do, then yes. A patent on "react" would not use the term react (it might not even mention JavaScript or web browsers), and it applies to any implementation of a particular concept. So if some aspect of React's DOM handling is patented then anything that implemented DOM handling (patents are a bit more complicated but bear with me) would be a patent violation and any user of the code could be sued. You can also be sued even if you are just a user of a project that uses preact.

<comment><USER38> Is the list of patents Facebook thinks are used by react even disclosed?

<comment><USER39> No.

The majority view seems to be that there are _none_.

But Facebook has a very large patent portfolio, so if they wanted to sue/counter-sue you, they could probably find something that was close enough to lock you up in litigation for a long time.

<comment><USER40> [https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242](https://www.google.com/patents/US20170221242) \- The majority is probably wrong in this case, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The post describes Facebook's motivation for their license, but personally, I don't care about their motivation, but about the fact that their license is anti-Open Source, anti-Free Software.

There's actually a big difference between the patents grant of a license like Apache 2.0 and FB's license and I quote (from Apache 2.0):

> " _If You institute patent litigation against any entity (including a cross- > claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a Contribution > incorporated within the Work constitutes direct or contributory patent > infringement, then any patent licenses granted to You under this License for > that Work shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed_ "

In other words the patents grant and its revocation is made explicitly in the context of " _The Work_ " being licensed. So you can still sue a company like Facebook for unrelated projects and still be protected by the license.

By contrast Facebook's PATENTS license says that:

> " _The license granted here under will terminate, automatically and without > notice, if you (or any of your subsidiaries, corporate affiliates or agents) > initiate directly or indirectly, or take a direct financial interest in, any > Patent Assertion: (i) against Facebook or any of its subsidiaries or > corporate affiliates ..._ "

Let me spell this out for you:

1\. if Facebook infringes your IP, but you happen to use React, then you can't sue them without also risk infringing on their React-related IP and be counter-sued for it

2\. their PATENTS creates a unidirectional relationship; when Facebook accepts your contributions, they are protected because MIT / BSD are said to have an "implicit patents grant" (which supposedly works in the US) due to the estoppel principle

Btw, Microsoft is taking steps to do what Facebook is doing as well. See for example how they are switching from Apache 2.0 to MIT and the disingenuous way they are communicating the change:

[https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/3440](https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/issues/3440)

But folks, this is not how Open Source or Free Software is supposed to work. When you release something as Open Source, you need to allow others to use your work as they wish (Freedom 0, or in OSI parlance, no discrimination against fields of endeavor).

Patent-encumbered software is NOT Open Source or Free Software.

</comment><comment><USER42> [IANAL] The React license provides more rights than BSD/MIT. Period. The "oh but what if Facebook has patents" claim is just as valid as it is for any other BSD code. If you're worried about React, you should be worried about all of your BSD code from companies that are big enough to have huge patent portfolios.

<comment><USER43> No, it's not. Plain BSD has an implicit patent grant. BSD+Patents applies explicit clauses (condiions), and is less permissive than BSD.

Apache asked Facebook to license React under plain BSD, and they declined.

<comment><USER44> What court says BSD has an implicit patent grant?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> One thing I think would lay to rest a lot of this issue would be if Facebook would just explicitly state, "We have patents for React," or, "We hold no patents for React." There's a lot of misinformation going around, and some people say that there have been searches and found nothing, others have said there are patents, so it's very confusing. My understanding is that Facebook doesn't hold any patents for React or technologies that React uses, but I don't know for sure because I haven't seen it from a qualified source and Facebook hasn't said anything. The other thing I think would help is if Facebook made is crystal clear the meaning of the patent grant and explained it in plain English, because they currently aren't doing a good job at explaining it as evidenced by people always saying different things about it. Their relative silence and opaqueness around this issue only causes confusion and distrust of their OSS work, even if it is good.

The main reason that I don't like the patent grant isn't because of React specifically, it's because Facebook revokes ANY patents if you sue them for patent infringement, even ones unconcerned with the technology you're suing them for. This is why I prefer OSS licenses with explicit patent grants better, because they're worded in such a way that the only patent grants you lose are the ones that concern the technology under license (see Apache 2.0).

<comment><USER46> It isn't just React -- the PATENTS file is in most Facebook repos.

<comment><USER45> True, but most people are concerned about React since that's the technology that most people only use.

<comment><USER46> If most people are only concerned about React, then they aren't paying attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Why is Facebook ok with changing the license on RocksDB but not React?

<comment><USER39> Two possibilities come to mind (and they can both be true).

1\. Somewhere in FB's patent portfolio is a patent that is broad and vague enough to cover some part of React, so the patent grant/revoke clause has meaning and value. Changing the license would mean that they were giving up something that they value, and they don't want to do that. That might not be true for RocksDB, in which changing the license is relatively low cost.

2\. React is more widely used and more easy to detect (public facing websites) so the patent clause offers protection against a wider range of potential threats. _Lots_ of sites use React, or react-like libraries.

Since the purpose of the patent clause is as a protection againt offensive patent suits, they seem to think (probably with good reason) that React is a worthwhile shield that they don't want to give up. For RocksDB they feel that balance is different.

<comment><USER48> My feeling is that #2 is the reason. Also, a lot of Apache projects embed RocksDB and would effectively be stopped (until a suitable replacement would come up) had they not changed the license.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> <not a lawyer> In particular my reading is that the BSD license alone gives anyone an irrevocable right to use, modify and redistribute the software providing only the conditions in _that_ license are met.

So one can either ignore the PATENTS file altogether or to formally fork the repo while omitting this file and it would be as if that file never existed.

Facebooks' (et al.) claim that these two files together constitute the governing license should be challenged as fraudulent - if they want to relicense react under a new license that contains terms regarding patents they can do so but the last revision before that would still be BSD licensed and the community can fork it. </still not a lawyer>

</comment><comment><USER49> Patents were created to protect an inventor. Facebook does not need to protect any inventions, because they are so big and powerful. Patents can only hurt them.

If you have such a monopoly, only legal protection would protect you.

</comment><comment><USER50> Maybe there is a way to make this a little more fair. Every open source project could add a patent clause that said "If you license your software with a patent clause and invoke that clause against anyone, you lose your right to use this software". I know, I know, tit for tat. On the other hand FB wants to be part of the open source community they should do it in a fair and reasonable way, and if they need to "protection" maybe everyone else needs it too.

</comment><comment><USER51> When I learnt about it, I thought "Facebook wants to kill patent laws" which I believe is a good thing.

What if Facebook starts a foundation where every member makes the same kind of agreement. "Sue one of us over patents, we'll all withdraw our patent grants from you".

That might end the patent craziness.

This hockey stick ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#/media/File:US_patents_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent#/media/File:US_patents_1790-2008.png)) shows the problem with patents clearly: what worked 200 years ago can't work the same today. The world is moving much faster than ever, yet patents are still granted for very long times. At this rate, how can you expect to NOT infringe on a patent?

Everybody's paying huge sums to lawyers to play what has become a null-sum game in the end. I think Facebook illustrates this: "sue me for infringement, and I'll do my best to show you're infringing too". Null-sum game.

</comment><comment><USER52> A BSD license without a patent grant gives you less safety than a BSD license with a bad patent grant.

If you're not ok with Facebook's BSD+Patents, then you shouldn't be ok with BSD alone either.

There are licenses with a decent papent grant (notably, Apache) but BSD and MIT aren't among them.

If you're all up in arms about Facebook's OSS licensing and at the same time use OSS that is licensed without a patent grant at all then you're a hypocrite.

</comment><comment><USER53> Finally some context. Not just what-if's, but the context of how facebook has acted historically. Great read. I will continue to use React.

</comment><comment><USER54> Even though Facebook's points are valid from their perspective, I think that they are setting a bad precedent which can be utilized by all the powerful corps if this picks up steam!

Is this the only way to stop a patent troll? Or does FB want others to think harder before suing?

</comment><comment><USER55> All of this just poisons the water. I know people are looking for justifications for their favorite framework, but if Facebook wants to trojan horse FOSS with asymmetric privileges, it should just sell React licenses and call it a day.

</comment><comment><USER56> I get that it seems scary for an innovative startup to have facebook steal your intellectual property just because of a javascript library you're using. But I am of the opinion that patents are worthless to small startups anyway so it's not much of a concern. Until a startup starts getting to unicorn status patents are basically useless. If a tech giant wants to blatantly steal your idea they will and their wall of lawyers will mean you can do absolutely nothing unless you can convince a VC that a legal fight is the best way to blow through millions of dollars.

</comment><comment><USER57> Yet more BS from Facebook (and it's surroundings) on BSD+Patent. This piece does not mention anywhere the fundamental asymmetry of the patent grant.

First, Facebook grants you a patent license only in conjunction with the software. You are not granted a license to use a patent that React requires in some completely different piece of software. The only thing this patent grant prevents Facebook from doing defensively is countersuing the users of software that Facebook gave them for using the software that Facebook gave them. Unless that is Facebook's idea of defense, the patent grant (without the retaliation clause) does not impair the defensive capabilities of Facebook's patent portfolio in any way.

Second, the patent grant terminates if you (first) assert any patent claims against Facebook whatsoever. So in exchange for a very narrow grant of a handful of patents, you in effect agree not to assert any patent claims against Facebook for any reason, even if they're totally unrelated to the software that Facebook's patent grant came with.

IMO this sort of asymmetric grant of rights is a very bad development for open source. It's also quite disconcerting that Facebook (and it's surroundings, I realize this guy is no longer employed there) never acknowledges this even though they're surely aware of this. If Facebook were content with merely not increasing their exposure to patent problems through open source the Apache style patent grant would have sufficed. Instead they have decided to militarize their open source projects in the service of decreasing their patent exposure in completely unrelated areas.

<comment><USER58> Many of the top-dollar patents in FB's chest are likely very broad / fundamental to the modern web. If you implicitly or explicitly retain a license to use whatever's needed for React, etc. than you likely have a decent foothold to say you have a license to many of those key fundamental patents, significantly impacting FB's legal position, and these battles are all about position.

It's my "not a lawyer but spent way too much time in legal negotiations" understanding that if you sue FB for patent infringement then you lose license to _the patents_ you get in the BSD+PATENTS, _not the software_. This would prevent you from saying "well, I've got a license to those patents because I've got a license to use React" (including a possibly implicit one under standard BSD/OSL). This agreements says that at that point, you can no longer assume you have a license to whatever _patents_ could be construed to coverer React, etc., which could be all sorts of wonky over-arching crap from the 90's that FB bought.

The reason _you_ is your whole org and _patents_ is everything is because it would probably be really damn hard and expensive and risky to try to slice it finer.

Don't take this as an endorsement of the license. I'm still not sure what I make of it. FB has done a poor job of communicating about their motivations and indented mechanism, leading many to suspect treachery, and that's not an unreasonable position, but from I can kinda start to see where they may be coming from.

<comment><USER9> > understanding that if you sue FB for patent infringement then you lose > license to the patents you get in the BSD+PATENTS, not the software.

That's correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> IANAL but the patent grant seems independent of the BSD License. React is BSD licensed. In addition, Facebook has provided a patent grant that applies under certain conditions.

The _license_ for React says that Facebook has given me permission to use it. It doesn't seem that they can then sue me over patents related to the code, because they've just explicitly said I can _use_ it.

If I sue Facebook over patents, then the patent grant no longer applies. But the BSD License does.

</comment><comment><USER4> My take is most people are worrying too much. I see lawsuits against big tech corp either comes from patent trolls or other competitors at the same scale. Being careful and prepare for future "do evil" is great. The only reason we can't trust patent license is because patent trolls are ruining the whole patent system, and the clauses in many patent licenses are too complicated to be trusted IMO.

<comment><USER60> A lot of evil in the world has stemmed from people not worrying. I am glad our community is worrying.

<comment><USER4> Worrying too much is going to hurt the community as well. Worrying that your friends are spying on you, worrying your family will leave you, worrying the world will come to an end. How much can you worry?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> > To my knowledge, Facebook has never proactively sued anyone for infringing > its patents.

Past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER62> If the protection of defensive patents was really Facebook's concern this could have been addressed by using the Apache 2.0 license. The patent grant is clearly limited to its use in regards to the specific licensed work and if you file a patent suit regarding the work the grant is revoked.

<comment><USER27> Correct, but in this case, it wouldn't have protected them from Yahoo, for example. Yahoo was suing over other, unrelated patents. Facebook had to counterclaim in order to stave off the lawsuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> It is interesting that so many people preface their comments with IANAL.

Isn't it that one is not a lawyer until proven otherwise?

<comment><USER64> Not only that. In case an actual lawyer comments, they often start with something like "IAAL, but I'm not your lawyer". Because even their opinion is only to be trusted if they did an exhaustive investigation on the topic, which is a huge amount of work that they won't be able to do unless they are paid for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> It makes a lot of sense, it costs a lot of money to hire and fire.

Hire less by automating. Fire less by retraining staff.

</comment><comment><USER66> Nonsense. Patent trolls don't use Facebook open source projects. Either they are completely dedicated to law or they are giants with their own code (e.g. Yahoo/IBM/Microsoft in the article)

This is the excuse. Facebook wants to dominate the small companies who might threaten their business model with patents on future technologies.

</comment><comment><USER67> The real problem is Software patents. They do nothing but harm. Get rid.

</comment><comment><USER68> How can you tell if Apple is using React for their documentation page?

<comment><USER33> Right click -> view source?

<comment><USER68> I did that, but I don't know what to look for. I searched for React but it didn't find anything. The article claims Apple uses React. I wanted to verify that claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I completely respect a company's decision not to open source software. But to add restrictions of any kind to an open source project means it really isn't.

</comment><comment><USER70> Until there is an example of a case where Facebook has abused a technology patented elsewhere and survived a lawsuit due to Patents+BSD all of this squealing is suspicious FUD. React is still a dominant tool for web technologies and anyone using this item in their checklist against it is doing the wrong homework.

<comment><USER71> I said that for a long time and continued to say that right up to the point where Facebook said they are explicitly leaving the clause in as a weapon.

The fact is that every big company named by that post undoubtedly has an expensive cross licensing agreement.

The other fact is that the original react license (apache 2) defended them perfectly well, but they went out of their way to change it and further out of their way to explicitly keep it.

That's not FUD. It's simple business sense to avoid complications.

<comment><USER72> > The fact is that every big company named by that post undoubtedly has an > expensive cross licensing agreement.

Sorry, that's simply not true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> All of these feel good stories about the Facebook license will immediately become null and void the moment they actually use it. Like an active volcano erupting for the first time in recent history, people will run away and never look back. Besides, React is not that great. Mixing view and controller, and incremental DOM is better anyway.

<comment><USER73> Are downvoters not liking the volcano analogy for the FB license, or the critique of ReactJS?</comment></comment>


Patient 91: How Vietnam saved a British pilot and kept a clean Covid-19 sheet - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53196009 <comment><USER2> I'm an expat in the HCMC. I remember significant amount of skepticism by the beginning of the outbreak around COVID-19 related news, as both expats and locals suspected state censorship involved, like it happened in China about a month before. However, by the 2nd week of quarantine, even skeptics had to admit that outbreak has been handled with the same efficiency as in Taiwan or New Zealand. By that moment borders are still closed, and it's hard to back to my home country, however, being able to walk without a mask and a constant fear to get infected really worth a lot. My sincere gratitude to Vietnamese health officials and medical workers who made it possible.

Of course, significant part of the success belongs to people who were following social distancing rules, wearing masks (which is almost a part of Asian culture), businesses that were closed on an early stage of outbreak - measures that other countries were very hesitant to do. And that successful handling of the pandemic has already brought significant benefits to the state, as international investors and manufacturers consider moving to Vietnam from China, something they were looking forward to, as China's biggest competitor in the region.

<comment><USER3> I'm also an expat here and I can second this. Trust in the government is at an all time high. Domestic travel is up 25% over last year. While many retail businesses suffered during the lockdown, life has mostly returned to normal. Albeit, with closed borders.

<comment><USER4> If its any consolation closed borders doesn't bother them as much as the thais who are far more dependent on tourism. Or the singaporeans , who do far more travelling..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's very noticeable how "middle development" countries (east Asia, eastern Europe) seem to have coped very well with the virus, while several of the "advanced" economies haven't, and the US is worst hit entirely. None of the "advanced" political leaders want to learn from this.

It seems to be arriving in South America now.

<comment><USER6> >the US is worst hit entirely

How is it that people still claim this with a straight face? The US has the most number of deaths on an absolute basis, but by per capita Belgium, the UK, France, Spain, and Italy are much worse off. (The US has more people than those countries combined.) Of the large western European countries only Germany did significantly better on deaths on a per-capita basis.

There is a real discussion to be had regarding how Western countries in general did versus the likes of China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, but that's not the same thing.

<comment><USER7> But you are not considering the fact that the number of cases have been on a decline in these countries, but the US is already experiencing the second wave without ever even bringing the first wave under control.

<comment><USER8> I think there's a strong argument that that isn't a separate wave at all. The first wave is ending in NY and NJ, but it's still on the upswing in many other states. Add those together and it looks a bit like two waves, but that's not a helpful way to think about it.

<comment><USER7> Regardless of the semantics, my point is the "infections per capita" will keep increasing for US but for these European countries it's pretty much at a standstill for now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Surprising how little publicity ECMO machines (Think heart lung machine without the heart) have had. They are rare but seem to have a much higher success rate 75% than ventilators 35% for covid ICU patients - so even though they cost twice as much $100k, they are well worth it on a cost per life saved.

<comment><USER10> ECMO uses immense amount of resources, both in scarce equipment and trained staff to monitor and manage.

Great to say "this one case we won't let die". Useless in "we have 50k people who need this" scenarios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a photo I took at one of Vietnam's jam packed airports a few days ago:

[https://imgur.com/a/9dn5AJh](https://imgur.com/a/9dn5AJh)

Not many people will believe that a poor country like Vietnam, led by a single party in authoritarian style, can suppress Covid-19 with zero deaths. But for people who live here, being able to travel freely is the greatest proof that the approach worked.

(still I find it weird that covid-19 seems to be much weaker in South East Asia, even Laos or Cambodia aren't being hit that hard).

<comment><USER12> Not weird at all, is an autochtonous organism in Asia, therefore they had chances to being exposed in the past to similar viruses, and they have lots of young population probably also.

Has happened before with american natives dying in mass from new european diseases, for example</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which is the best way to keep yourself organized - <AUTHOR> I have been using Post-Is for various purpoase. Right from to-do lists to quick math formulas.
But I am wondering what are the other options I have given that I am constantly on move?
Should an electronic gadget, a small netboo, PDA is helpful or just a notebook will suffice?
What are all Hackers at HN are using? <comment><USER2> I've been using everything from Things and The Hitlist to Remember the Milk and Ta-da list; used GMail to keep track of tasks; written two task list applications for the console; created three web-based (three different approaches) systems.

I went out and bought a Moleskine to use while doing some research on how I'd manage tasks using a notebook. I've been using the darn book since June now and all of my previous endeavors have been discontinued.

There are so many positives with using a notebook. I can disconnect from the computer while planning my day. I can draw stuff in it. It's a neat feeling to have a good-looking notepad with you into a meeting. You get to spend hours in the store looking for the perfect pen. You can _really_ cross something off a list. Just flipping through the pages gives me a great sensation of accomplishment.

I'm getting the 12-month daily planner next year as I am already adding date and weekday to all pages. I'm so looking forward to that :)

EDIT: Sorry about all the typos. Really .. really tired :)

<comment><USER3> _EDIT: Sorry about all the typos. Really .. really tired :)_

Maybe if you were more organized.... (just kidding-- I couldn't resist)

I'm a notebook man myself. Haven't graduated to moleskine yet, just the composition books for "back-of-the-envelope" type notes, and spirals for meeting/strategy/etc. notes.

I use Daytimer for calendar, but am starting to migrate to Thunderbird/Lightning for the monthly planning and weekly meeting stuff. It's a bad method to have more than one calendar, so I haven't quite resolved that yet.

Daily to-do lists go in the Daytimer, numbered and prioritized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I mostly use my email. Gmail provides several features to make this easy. I know a lot of people say "your inbox is not a todo list", but I say to hell with that. Email is a good aggregator of information for me, since I can add things to it easily from a wide variety of devices, and with the techniques below I'm able to use it effectively.

First, I have several labels ("giterdone", "lookatlater", etc) for emails that contain tasks for me to complete. Some of these come from other people, but several also are emails sent to myself with tasks. Filters automatically tag "to-do" emails from me. I also have labels for things like "ideas" and things "tothink" about.

I use the "multiple inboxes" feature of Gmail Labs to create separate message lists for the todo-type labels. At the top is my highest priority label, "giterdone", followed by lower priority labels. My general inbox is at the bottom. This forces me to see my tasks whenever I check my email, which for me is pretty much always open. FWIW, I keep my inbox at 0 pretty much whenever possible. Smart labels and filters, along with another labs feature, the "Send and Archive" button, help me a lot with this.

Also, I carry a notebook (legal pad, really) with me wherever I go. That is used to just jot down quick notes, but frankly I don't use it as much as the above.

<comment><USER5> Several of my gmail labels have a corresponding _labelname_ -to-reply label.

I realized I was using my inbox for several functions:

1\. notice urgent or topical subject lines

2\. store items to read later

3\. store items to reply-to later

4\. store important already-read items for later reference

5\. store to-do items, often implicitly as 2-4 above.

Once I set up the appropriate labels, I was able to move functions 2-5 out of the inbox, leaving it just for function 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I couldn't find an organizer solution that provided exactly what I wanted in the format I needed, so I just hacked one up in a week with PHP/MySQL. For awhile I had been using a simple pad/pencil and an EXPO board at home, but I noticed I tended to "forget" my long-term goals when using a daily pad and ignore the EXPO board after awhile.

Mine is lightweight and my homepage on every computer/mobile device I have... My current sections are:

\- daily to-do / scratch pad box, which get moved from...

\- the monthly goals box, which get moved from...

\- the bucket list box

\- calendar with simple tagging (for searching)

\- a mini journal so I can reflect on the positives of the day

Ultimately your best solution is to do a little personal "customer analysis" and write out exactly how you'd want to manage your life and just design something to that. You know yourself best so just mix and match until you find what's optimal for how you want to operate, whether that's a simple pad or a complete netbook.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use my grandfather's method: Legal pad to-do lists.

Each day he would write the list of the day's tasks on the top page, then use the rest of the page for notes throughout the day. The next morning, he would copy unfinished items to the next page, then tear off the top page and discard it.

Rinse and repeat.

He called this legal pad "his computer" and if it could work for him, it could work for me. I've been using this method since college (either with an actual legal pad or using a simple text file) with great success. Just the simple tactile act of writing to-do items down keeps them top-of-mind all day.

<comment><USER8> After trying many methods (as seems everyone on this thread has), this is what I do too.

I think that software for people who do this might approach a solutions by starting with a basic text-editor/word-processor and adding some features to it, slowly. Remember that you are making a list.

Apple mail notes/tasks gets that general idea right but it has so few features that it's not all that useful. Working with email (eg turning an email into a task) is important, so mail clients are in the best position to produce this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I haven't moved completely to this new system that I am implementing, but I have a few moving pieces together, so take it with a grain of salt.

I started with David Allen's Getting Things Done (Another commentator also made a reference to this).

GTD involves the use of multiple lists - these could be "projects" you are working on, those that you don't have time for right now, action items from those projects (kinda like to-dos but with a definite objective in mind), lists for agendas (like a list of items you would like to talk about at your 5 min. standup) etc, lists of just about anything - movies to watch, artists to follow, books to read etc.

Naturally, like others, I started having too many lists, and was constantly moving items from one to another. So, not I am trying to manage all my activities using Org-Mode, GMail and Google Calendar (I do have some paper based files for certain things, mostly sketches or notes from stuff I am currently reading).

Org-mode is fantastic for organizing yourself. You can use it as a todo manager, a work-log, and if you are vested heavily into emacs, it can even link up with your calendar and email. There are several blog posts out there for Org-mode and GTD and its certainly a good start IMO.

One more thing - MobileOrg just got released for the iPhone (its an application that lets you view, edit and manage your Org files), so I have access to my lists no matter where I am.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Hit List for Mac, a Moleskine, 37signals Backpack (and its Journal function) and my Work Progress Journal <http://markbao.com/wpj.pdf>

<comment><USER11> Redmine (redmine.org) is a free, open source alternative to basecamp/trac written in rails. It's great for tracking issues for your own projects, but especially useful to small teams. There are numerous plugins available to meet individual needs (scheduling, time tracking, etc).

<comment><USER10> Redmine is nice, though I think I prefer the little things that Backpack gives you that's tailored towards personal/team use and the better UX. It's only $7 a month if you use the (unadvertised) "solo" plan, which you can upgrade to after you sign up for a free account. (I hope jasonfried doesn't mind.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Things.app + Things for iPhone for most of the tasks I need to get done. If I get actionable email I just organize them into the appropriate labels without transferring the associated task to Things.

This is what I've settled with after trying to get into GTD, Zen to Done, ActionMethod, etc.

<comment><USER13> another vote for things!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have messed around with Emacs org-mode in the past, but never quite climbed the learning curve to the point of effortlessness.

Many people justifiably are promoting Moleskines, but these days I prefer <http://riteintherain.com/> waterproof notebooks. <http://www.tadgear.com/> has a good selection (if a horrible website). Much better if you're in the habit of jamming a notebook in your pocket, and paired with a solid waterproof/space pen you're pretty well guaranteed that your ink won't run.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use lots and lots of loose leaf 8.5x11 printer paper and different colored pens. I keep a stack of this with me all the time. The top page is a to-do list and notes to myself. The other pages are other notes on things I've been working on recently. I continually add new items and cross them out as they get done and when a page is full and has all the items finished I toss it out. Same with my other notes.

So how swamped I am or how on top of things I am varies with the stack of paper I carry in my bag.

Doing things on paper also gives me time to focus hard on a problem away from the distraction of a computer.

</comment><comment><USER16> Stop fetishizing moleskines.

Meditate.

Get off the Internet.

Do what you're doing _now_.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've tried a bunch of computer based solutions, software designed to help with doing GTD, to-do lists, Remember The Milk, a fancy, small leather bound notebook, all sorts of things.

These days I carry around a small, cheap 50c notebook that fits easily in my pocket and a small pen, and use it to jot down thoughts. I write down everything, from to-do lists, to business/application ideas, to what to have for dinner tonight. Whenever I feel like I've forgotten anything, I just flick through the notebook. It's low-tech and always available.

I have recently gotten an iPhone and started using Evernote for things like voice notes and photos that would take too many pages to write down in my notebook, and sync them to my laptops, but that's more of a secondary solution.

When it comes to more in depth and organised research and note taking, I carry around an A4 size spiral bound sketch book with a low tooth, and I write with a Micron or something similar. This lets me take notes and not feel constrained by lines. I'm free to write as big or small as I want, put diagrams and tables and formulae wherever it makes sense. I've started to do one notebook per subject, and now have 2 notebooks - one that I'm filling with math research and working, and one that I'm getting ready to start filling with research and notes for the Starcraft AI competition.

All up, through out the week, I carry the small notebook, one A4 notebook and my small pencil case and Sony ebook reader. If I'm going out to dinner or a movie or something, I'll just take the small notebook, and my iPhone and transfer notes when I get home.

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally I find a single text file + Dropbox both simple and all I need. I always know where to look and I can reorganize however I want. If I'm looking for a registration code or a favorite quote or a handy command line snippet, I can just use Spotlight or open the file and search. This has worked well for me for years (even pre-Dropbox). I realize this doesn't work for everyone.

<comment><USER19> This is one of the reasons I voted for browser-based text editing on Dropbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Google Calendar plus Google Tasks in the sidebar that have tasks to do with dates so I can check them off when I'm done.

Do the smaller, easy things first and fast, so you'll be motivated to get others done.

Check out the GTD philosophy: <http://www.davidco.com/what_is_gtd.php>

</comment><comment><USER21> If you code (or even if you don't) check out the eclipse plug-in Myln (<http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/>) and using Trac (<http://trac.edgewall.org/>) as a task repository (there are plenty of good cheap hosts like projectlocker.com). There is a great extension to it called Tasktop Pro that lets you use a gmail label as a task repository too. The great thing about Myln is that it is "context based" - ie it filters tasks to the work you're doing at the time, and looks after opening all the related resources needed for it. Google each of trac, myln, tasktop pro and projectlocker to see examples and how other people use them.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use omnifocus for task tracking. I used rememberthemilk for awhile, but the lack of projects/taskgroups pushed me over the edge. Omnifocus has enough features to make me want to poke my eye out, but they've done a decent job at keeping the interface clean. I've even been using it for issue tracking lately.

For actual stuff organization, I throw things in random bins and photograph/track them in Evernote (i.e. your scissors are in Bin J). I've tried the whole "keep related things in related bins" thing, but the space/time complexity to resize the various bins when they get full is way beyond polynomial time. Whereas sorting and tracking randomly has O(1) lookup and O(n) resize (and resizes are rarely necessary).

</comment><comment><USER23> I wrote (and use) <http://voo2do.com/> . I'm currently working on turning it from a popular side project into a business, so I'd love any feedback on it. My email is on every page.

</comment><comment><USER24> I use gmail. I have a label for storing tasks, and I can access it anywhere...

</comment><comment><USER25> I have tried so many things - notebooks, moleskins, PDAs when they came out, web and desktop to do lists and organizers... nothing has ever worked more than a week.

I am seriously retarded in the organization debt. I own two businesses and have equity in two others and its all going well, I'm just handicapped with time management. I think about the only thing that would work would be to hire someone to stab me with a bayonet everytime I get off track from a list we made in the morning... hmmm, maybe this could be a business - Boot Camp Assistants™.

Curiously, anyone else on this thread ENTP?

</comment><comment><USER26> Paper notebook and Remember The Milk (mostly accessed via Gmail gadget).

</comment><comment><USER27> Ive found task lists without a firm start and end date does not work which is why I add tasks into Google Calendar.

For the 'gadget' I dont think there should be a specific gadget as Google (docs/email/calendar/tasks/talk) has solved the problem of being tied down to a single device.

In saying that I have several netbooks, PCs and iPhones all accessing shared data within the google 'cloud' and I feel effective and productive on each device I use.

</comment><comment><USER28> GTD suggests using anything that can manage lots of lists quickly. I'm currently using a Nokia N800 for managing my lists, and it works well. There's a basic To Do app that's easy to use. I'm upgrading to an N900 once it ships. I had tried using a physical paper notepad, but it kept getting stale. Lots of pages of half-crossed-out to-do items was annoying and not easy to sort through.

</comment><comment><USER29> Organizational issues often are a proxy war with procrastination. So as a cousin to other tools that have been offered up:

1\. Uninstall IE and chrome and use only firefox.

2\. D/L leechblock plugin, start your bad-site list (HN is in my list).

3\. Set a random password, write it down, hand it to your wife and say "don't let me see this ever again"

</comment><comment><USER30> I have been loving <http://www.actionmethod.com> by the Behance crew... It is what I wished basecamp was. Lightweight but can manage a ton of projects, has an iPhone app and even _gasp_ paper.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why does everyone fetishize Moleskine notebooks? I went through a couple, and they all have terrible paper. I hate seeing ink bleed through to the next page. Clairefontaine and Rhodia notebooks have significantly higher quality paper.

<comment><USER29> If you'd like a lesson in brand management, Moleskine is right up there. It's the macbook of paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I like to Use ToodleDo and Evernote on my iPhone.

Both apps sync with the web, and offer offline modes. This makes it easy to use no matter where I am. I used to use my blackberry and outlook, but really wanted web integration.

</comment><comment><USER19> For my long-term learning goals, I wrote a quick python script to randomly select a daily study topic from my list. I'm also considering using spaced repetition for reviewing what I've already covered.

<comment><USER33> I would recommend Anki for the spaced repetition. It's fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've been using "Tasks" for many years now, and it works really well:

<http://crowdfavorite.com/tasks/>

</comment><comment><USER35> I use three tools postits(quick idea), notebook(Meetings, todo, discussions,work,thoughts) and Evernote(everything on- line,ideas,bookmarks...).

</comment><comment><USER36> pivotal tracker for project management

<http://pivotaltracker>

combined with mac's ical program for my daily scheduling (i not only add future events, but i also log how i spend every hour of the day. i log using different calendars. i wrote a python script to aggregate the data into graphs and compute useful analysis.)

<comment><USER37> would you mind sharing that python script?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> A notebook. I have a 8.5 x 11 notebook that suits my big handwriting. I use 1 page a day.

EDIT: Moleskines are too expensive for me.

</comment><comment><USER39> microsoft onenote. if you havent played around with it i strongly encourage you to. imagine word with tabbed documents contained in dozens of precategorized folders of your making with a seamless interface to engage in free form note taking (clipping, drawing etc).

</comment><comment><USER40> i just send myself emails. since so many tasks are email based anyway, it keeps everything in one place. i.e. "follow up with John Smith about X". when i complete the task i delete the email from my inbox

</comment><comment><USER41> Things on the mac and iphone works for me! Small notepad also.

</comment><comment><USER42> using my iphone right now. I would love an app that is able to sync with microsoft project. Anyone have something for this?</comment>


Infra.app: The simplest way to troubleshoot Kubernetes apps on Mac - <AUTHOR> https://infra.app <comment><USER2> Hey everyone, I'm one of the co-founders for Infra.app. I'm super excited to launch this in early access.

Previous to this my co-founder and I were building Docker Desktop and Kitematic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this support log aggregation from multiple pods?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes - it will stream logs from all pods managed by the workload you're currently viewing (e.g. a Deployment, ReplicaSet, Daemonset)</comment></comment>