Google to Remove Chrome "Close Other Tabs" and "Close Tabs to the Right" Options - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-to-remove-chrome-close-other-tabs-andamp-close-tabs-to-the-right-options/ <comment><USER2> There's a chrome extension called 'OneTab' that I tend to use for this purpose anyway.

You can whitelist certain websites (for instance, I whitelist email because I want to keep it open and AWS because the login is a pain).

Any time I feel like my current stash of tabs is out of control, I hit the onetab button and everything that's not that important gets archived into an html file that's automatically opened in a tab when the button is pressed (so 10+ tabs get archived down into one). This way I can clean up my tab mess without losing anything.

[https://www.one-tab.com/](https://www.one-tab.com/)

(I am not affiliated)

</comment><comment><USER3> In case it's helpful: in Chrome you can shift-click and select ranges of tabs and close them all at once.

<comment><USER4> Wow! My first thought was, "How would _anyone_ discover that?" How did you?

<comment><USER5> I discovered it ... by reading the linked article to the end. Now if they knew about it _before_ I'd like to know how ;-)

<comment><USER6> I tried shift-clicking a range of tabs on a whim about a year ago, and it worked.

Once you've done that, you can drag the whole selection into another window or a new window too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Chrome is becoming the browser of the masses. Power user usability features are disappearing. I'm still upset over the removal of the backspace key as "back" navigation.

I shouldn't need an extension for this.

<comment><USER8> > the backspace key as "back" navigation

That was a ridiculous usability nightmare and was only popular due to muscle memory from IE doing it long ago (it was a terrible decision back then, too).

Good riddance to it, may no one ever again unfocus a form field by accident and wipe out an entire form with a single keypress.

<comment><USER9> Good riddance indeed! A big thank you from me and my blood pressure to the developers who finally pushed through the removal of that godforsaken nightmare of a human interface feature :)

<comment><USER10> Agreed, and although I get that patches breaking muscle memory are annoying, the potential downsides to that are so disastrous that the arguments around it puzzle me quite a bit to this day.

In fact, the whole conversation surrounding this issue made me see for that, although hyperbolic, XKCD 1172 [1] actually isn't _that_ contrived...

[1]: [https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "close other tabs" is the only option I use. Good to know they are removing it!

<comment><USER12> That can be easily done by dragging the tab into another window and closing the window with the other tabs.

<comment><USER13> Yes. Easily. Very convenient having three context switches. First you drag out the tab, it maximizes in its own window, you minimize that window, you go back to the other window, close it, then find the window you just created. Much better than two mouse clicks, I'm sure.

<comment><USER12> drag tab → alt-tab → alt-f4

It's not as easy as the two mouse clicks though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live and die by these two cmds on my browser. wow. how else do people manage the avalanche of tabs that is browsing today?

<comment><USER15> As someone who rarely has more than a few tabs open, I honestly don't get this. What are you doing with so many tabs?

<comment><USER16> I can't speak for the other commenters, but for me it's because my browsing style was formed back in the days of dialup in Australia. You'd click a link and wait 30+ seconds to have the page load, so instead of staring a loading page you'd open anything that looked interesting in a new tab and continue on the current page, so all the interesting links would be there ready to read without waiting. invariably you wouldn't end up having enough time to read them all, but they piqued your interest enough to open them, so you'd keep them around in the hope that some time later you would. Rinse, lather, repeat, and add in persistent browser sessions between restarts and suddenly you've got 100+ tabs open.

The internet is much faster these days, but I still open way more links than I actually have time to read because they sound interesting

<comment><USER17> I do that with HN actually. I visit between a few times a day and once every second day. I open whatever I think is interesting. Usually 1-10 tabs every time I go to HN. then I spend time in one or two tabs and read a lot, and close these two. Then I still have 8 tabs open. Second step is repeat. Third step is I have 400 tabs open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I use these everyday, they better have flags to re-enable them. Would be annoying to have to drag a tab to a new window and close the other window.

<comment><USER19> I don't understand why it's preferable to remove the functionality vs having some better settings that allow me to customize my browser experience.

<comment><USER20> Because "old" is "bad." Throw away everything that makes people happy and start with reinventing the wheel. Also, corporations are slow, unresponsive and inconsiderate because incompetent people can hide and also bureaucracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What else needs the menu space, since competition for menu space seems to be the sole justification?

</comment><comment><USER22> Switch to firefox, before google's heavyweight prowess forces it out of the market!

<comment><USER20> Firefox on macOS takes an _order of magnitude longer_ to start or do anything than Chromium (Chrome, Opera) or Safari.

<comment><USER22> may be, or may be not. However, does it really matter how long the browser takes to start when you don't ever really close the browser (but only the tabs)?

<comment><USER23> As someone that likes the stated Mozilla mission and always wished them the best, I unfortunately have to agree with /BrailleHunting about Firefox performance on Mac OS.

Not only does FF take a while to start up but when it is loading a mildly heavy page or even after updating, it can freeze up for several (as in 10-20) seconds.

<comment><USER24> Damn. I tried switching back to Firefox with the assumption that these issues were fixed. After using it for the past few days, it really 'felt' dog-slow, but I assumed it was just prejudice on my end :-/.

<comment><USER25> Huh. Doesn't happen to me. I'd suggest using about:memory to see if you have a leaky tab. In my case, it used to be that my FB and Twitter tabs both leaked a lot. I stopped leaving Twitter open and FB (or Firefox) seems to have fixed their problem.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, I tried that. the about:memory usage reported is much lower (and strikes me as more reasonable).

I use an unload tab extension so currently there should be no 'open' tabs. Memory usage is at 1.5Gb though. It doesn't seem to go much higher or lower, though, so could it be that FF just takes/keeps the RAM it can get and doesn't bother to unload stuff?

It's also true that my MacBook has become slower in general since I updated to the latest MacOS, so perhaps it's not FF fault. Still, very annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So sad! Don't want to install 2 more plugins. (Chrome doesn't allow more than one top-level menu item in a plugin)

</comment><comment><USER27> Well I hope there is an extension to get those options back as I used them regularly to to "reset" after I've solved a problem or moved on to a new ticket and see I've got some 15 tabs open for research that I no longer need. Really they are removing this and leaving in "Bookmark all tabs"? Are you kidding me, what a stupid thing to leave in if you are so concerned about context menu space...

<comment><USER6> I use "bookmark all tabs" quite a bit. If I've got 15 tabs open for research that I want to read later...

<comment><USER27> Hmm, interesting way of using it. I've used extensions in the past to save off a group of tabs but I wouldn't want them in my bookmarks as I view them as temporary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The issue comments say as of 2 days ago they are no longer considering removing CTTR. Whew.

</comment><comment><USER29> Usage stats, from article:

\- Duplicate: 23.21%

\- Reload: 22.74%

\- Pin / Unpin tab: 13.12%

\- Close tab: 9.68%

\- Reopen closed tab: 8.92%

\- New tab: 6.63%

\- Close tabs to the right: 6.06%

\- Mute tab: 5.38%

\- Close other tabs: 2.20%

\- Unmute tab: 1.41%

\- Bookmark all tabs: 0.64%

<comment><USER8> Part of the 6.06%!

I will definitely miss the close tabs to the right option. Interesting that Duplicate is so popular; I've never really used it for anything, ever.

<comment><USER30> I use it a lot when developing - I'll have a tab open and then I'll want another tab of the same URL except for a slightly different port number or hostname. I find it faster to duplicate the tab, make the change and hit enter than to select the URL, open a new tab, paste the URL, make the change and hit enter.

I use it so much that I finally tracked down how to do it with the keyboard: Alt-D, Alt-Enter. (Shift focus to the address bar and select its contents; open a new tab with the contents of your selection).

Then I started using a computer with a Model M keyboard with no Windows key and had to remap my i3 modifier to Alt on all my computers to fix my muscle memory. Alt-D is the default shortcut for dmenu, i3's default program launcher, and i3 intercepted shortcuts before chrome. So I eventually rebound dmenu to a totally unmnemonic Alt-C... but now I've realized that Vimium allows me to duplicate tabs by typing yyP ("yy" yank contents of address bar to clipboard, "P" open new tab with current contents of clipboard).

All this to say, I love my duplicate tabs and these 6%ers who love killing tabs (but just to the right) are weirdos.

<comment><USER31> Thank you so much for this.

Duplicating tabs is by far my most used feature out of that menu for me and it always irked me that there was no keyboard shortcut available for it and I had to resort to using the mouse to do it (the amount of time lost hitting "Pin tab" or "Reload" by accident - I cannot even begin to tell). That being said, I didn't go out of my way to google for a workaround, either. Maybe, with all the features (or rather what's left) being taken away, I figured there was no hope (but for a dedicated extension) to achieve it.

I will now have to retrain my muscle memory to replace the ordeal before with just Alt-D, Alt-Enter - I don't think it will take long at all.

btw remember the old Opera? Customizable Keyboard Shortcuts (not to even mention customizable Mouse Gestures) - wherever did we lose all this along the way...

Is it really necessary to "optimize" a menu that is mostly unused by everyone (I agree on the point that it's a crowded menu - I'd really _love_ to be able to configure the entries I want in there, but that option is apparently not even on anyone's mind at chrome)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What I'd love though is an option to manage tabs by filter.

\- Click a button (or press a hotkey). A popup with a list of all tabs appears.

\- Enter `hackern` (or ny or something similar) to filter the list down to hacker news tabs.

\- Click Close Selected (you could also do "move to new window").

One day I'm going to write a plugin for this, unless somebody reads this and steals the idea :-)

</comment><comment><USER33> Is that also going to disappear from atom and other electron apps ? Or is this feature re-implemented in electron itself ?

</comment><comment><USER34> It won't be long before these features are written into an extension. Then the 6% of users who use them can install that extension.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm pretty upset to hear this... I actually use that feature everyday!

I don't care for the keyboard shortcuts very much

</comment><comment><USER36> I want a Ctrl + K shortcut.

In IE it dublicated the current tab including the browsing history. It was sooo useful.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just when I started to get used to it! Oh Google!

</comment><comment><USER38> sad news for me, I use both every single time :(

</comment><comment><USER39> well that settles it, im changing browser

</comment><comment><USER40> Do non-power users even right-click on tabs? Literally what is the issue with having the option if I right-click? Fucking stupid to take it out, it's just another nudge back towards Firefox...

<comment><USER24> Yeah, well, I gave it a shot with some ideological reasons to boot and based on comments here and my own experiences I'll probably move back to Chrome soon. Fourth time this happened. I'm starting to wonder if either there's something wrong with Mozilla as a company, or if they just can't compete with the money Google is throwing at this. Either option is depressing, even if just because I love Tree Style Tabs.</comment></comment>


Grunt-sanitize - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/christill/grunt-sanitize

<comment><USER2> really useful plugin! will start using it in my projects from now on</comment>


Restoring Havana's neon - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190505-is-havana-getting-a-makeover <comment><USER2> It's an interesting project from a heritage point of view, but it feels like a throwback from when Havana was simply the playground of rich Americans. I wonder if this is a history residents really want to go back to? Having said that, I suppose a lot of retro fashions call back to a past that was darker in some respect, but people rarely care.

<comment><USER3> It's not like the revolutionaries made a policy to tear down the neon after the revolution. The America gov't instituted an embargo. Being in the tropics, the electric signs broke down, and it was hard to get replacement parts.

Almost every negative event in Cuban history can be traced back to some misguided American policy.

<comment><USER4> Actually they destroy then directly and indirectly. The goverment closed all the casinos and nationalized all hotels and small business main users of neon lights. Once every little business was taken over by the government, no one really cared anymore since they belonged to no one so they slowy broke and no one cared to fix them. This a reallity for Cubans living in Cuba right now(I'm a Cuban myself but I do not live in Cuba anymore) with many other things like buildings, roads, artworks, no just neon lights. And of courses suporters of the regime will blame the US for it like with everything else.

<comment><USER2> It seems an odd thing to get hung up on, really. I'd rather have universal healthcare than lots of neon lights.

<comment><USER4> Dude, the reality of Cuban healthcare it's very different of what you see in the news. Foreign people are banned to enter the hospitals used by the regular people. There are special hospitals for foreigners, and Cubans cannot go there unless you have very good connections or you pay an insane amount of cash under the table(keep in mind that the average wage in Cuba is about 25$ a month and with food prices quite similar than the US). On regular people's hospitals there are shortages of meds quite often, with people having to go to the back market to get the meds they need.

Take for example here: (You can use google translate)

[https://www.periodicocubano.com/pedazo-de-techo-del- hospital...](https://www.periodicocubano.com/pedazo-de-techo-del-hospital-de- diez-de-octubre-cae-sobre-la-cama-de-un-paciente/)

<comment><USER5> is the shortage of meds due to the embargo, or to a general disastrous state of the economy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love neon.

The golden era of neon was the 1950's and Las Vegas was the epicenter. Vegas was built and controlled by the mob, as was Cuba in that era. Therefore it might be good to make people aware of that part of the restoration's history - you are looking at one of the reasons why there was a revolution and why the mob and their cronies were kicked out.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting article although light on the technical details of how they are restoring the neon glass signage. If the glass was well made then they can simply replace the electrodes and burn it in again (bombardment). However neon glass has changed a lot over the decade to make it easier to bend, hopefully the glass mixes old and new are compatible long term.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you ever come to Warsaw, check out this Neon Museum, full of neons from the Cold War-era Poland:

[https://www.therockysafari.com/2019/02/04/the-neon-museum- in...](https://www.therockysafari.com/2019/02/04/the-neon-museum-in-warsaw- poland/)

<comment><USER9> Similarily London's God Own Junkyard [http://www.godsownjunkyard.co.uk/](http://www.godsownjunkyard.co.uk/)</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Anyone use a stand up desk? - <AUTHOR>

I've been struggling with weight loss for years.  I find that every time I try and start a regime I get really hardcore for 2 weeks or a month and then fall off the wagon.  I either get sick or busy working crunch and don't have the discipline to stay at it.
I've been tinkering with the idea of using a stand up desk at work but was wondering if the muscle pain and altered workspace would be too much.
Any advice? <comment><USER2> Hey, it might be a bit too much. What you can do to get yourself started is to perform one specific activity standing up.

>>I used to check all my e-mail standing up and then sit down to do other stuff. >>Or if there was a site I had a tendency to waste a lot of time (like a humour or gossip site), I would stand up while surfing that site to prevent 3 hours from disappearing into the Interwebs.

A long time ago, when I was an investment banker, a lot of the senior traders would sit on those rubber balls and use them in place of chairs. Really good for your abs, but personally I found them a bit pretentious -- like they were trying too hard to be cool and flashy.

Let us know what you try and good luck, croucho.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many thanks, I will :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been thinking about trying this too. I'm about to move, so maybe in the new place... Do you have a home office where you could do a test? If you watch any TV shows maybe start standing through some of them.

Your shoes could be a big factor. Heel elevation de-stablizes posture, so you may want to try barefoot/Vibram FiveFingers or something.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I planned on trying barefoot. I talked with our IT guy today and we're gonna rig a little something just to try the experiment for 3 weeks. If after that I don't keel over, then I suppose we can offer the option to others (and possibly look into some sweet desks that can raise up).</comment>


Parks and Houses for the People - <AUTHOR> https://placesjournal.org/article/swedish-social-democratic-parks-and-houses-for-the-people/ <comment> yt-sdb This topic reminds me of Jenny Odell's "How to Do Nothing" [1]. The book links the attention economy with the loss of public space in ways that I had never considered but now believe to be true.

Consider two thoughts. First, a mall is not a true public space. It is a branded, controlled experience designed for shopping. For many teenagers in America, the mall is a default hang out space—or at least was when I was a kid. Second, today you can easily see an ad on your phone before you say hello to your partner or kids, before you go outside, before you use the bathroom.

Underpinning these issues is the gnawing feeling, for many people, that we must be _more productive_. Time is money. Space is money. You should be doing something or, if you must do nothing, do nothing so that you can do something more later. Did you know that these CEOs read this many books this year? This successful person mediates an hour a day. What have you shipped today?

Her solution is not to delete your social media accounts, throw out your smart phone, and disappear into the woods. Her solution is to ground yourself. Watch birds. Learn about who lived on the land before you. Talk to your neighbors. Walk down a river. Get involved in local politics. This process of remembering that you're a physical being in a physical place, that you live in a real community, is a reminder that your life is interdependent upon everything around you.

I'm not quite sure how this is related to public housing, but I suspect it is, e.g. this article's main theme is that these public spaces grew out of labor movements that also fought for things like the 8-hour work day.

[1] [http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html](http://www.jennyodell.com/writing.html)

<comment><USER2> You might enjoy George Lakoff's book Metaphors We Live By.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a good faith counter-narrative to the history of People's Parks and Houses that isn't presented here? I'm genuinely curious. The whole movement seems fascinating, but I wasn't satisfied with the explanation of why Sweden adopted a more neoliberal approach after WWII. You'd think there are at least some downsides of bottom-up welfare, otherwise it would have persisted for longer. If Swedes really wanted to they could try a similar approach to welfare today. I suspect it takes a lot of communal bandwidth that is scarcer in the modern age. The average person is substituting whatever "work leisure" they may have performed before with pure leisure. The former, more civic form of leisure is necessary for bottom-up welfare.

</comment><comment><USER4> The US was building similar housing around the same time. We call them The Projects.

In the UK they're called Council Flats.

<comment><USER5> The big difference is in the social housing model rent is on a sliding scale so you get a mix of incomes. In America public housing was only for very poor people. America's public housing era also coincided with deindustrialization, the end of full employment, and the neoliberal turn. Good social policies work together. When some policies are neglected the policies that exist get blamed for the overall failure. For example, in America there's poverty, so schools in poor areas are blamed. Nobody in rich suburbs wants charter schools. The problem is obviously economic policies that cause poverty, not the schools, but because there's no full employment policy, the schools get blamed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've read elsewhere that the wage-earner funds were never very popular, and were actually a break from the tradition of the Social Democrats to only pursue popular policies, often with the support of the Liberals or Center.

</comment><comment><USER6> History will look back at how one of the most prosperous nations in the world's history (modern America) had millions of people living without decent access to housing and healthcare.

I don't know what the right model is for sure, and whether it is the Swedish one, but whatever it is, it isn't what we're doing now.

<comment><USER7> Like too much these days, the alternatives we've been provided are at the extremes. They seem to be offered less as viable solutions and more as tools for sorting people into one of two buckets.

So, we must be either communists or laissez faire capitalists without a hint of regulation.

But, of course real solutions--particularly to such macro scale challenges-- are seldom found at the extremes.

If we could spark an earnest discussion about what a saner version of capitalism would look like, then we could find a solution, and relatively easily vs what our "manipulated" experience might suggest.

EDIT: looking at the responses, then rereading my comment, I realize I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is the state of things is such that the solutions offered are _characterized_ as communist, with the offered alternative being a form of laissez-faire economics, positioned as "standard" capitalism.

My bad. I blew that one.

<comment><USER8> Does this kind of "both sidesism" really engage with the reality of the situation or does it just sound "smart" because it is generically claims that there is something complex about the issue?

Here is this comment applied to the situation in America ~160 years ago:

Like too much these days, the alternatives we've been provided are at the extremes. They seem to be offered less as viable solutions and more as tools for sorting people into one of two buckets.

So, we must be either abolitionists or in favor of the harshest slavery without a hint of regulation.

But, of course real solutions--particularly to such macro scale challenges-- are seldom found at the extremes.

If we could spark an earnest discussion about what a saner version of slavery would look like, then we could find a solution, and relatively easily vs what our "manipulated" experience might suggest.

<comment><USER9> _> Here is this comment applied to the situation in America ~160 years ago_

No, a proper application would be:

If we could spark an earnest discussion about how to move towards abolition of slavery peacefully, we could avoid having to fight a war that kills a million people and does not improve the actual material condition of the slaves at all, not to mention leading to another century of Jim Crow laws.

But it was already too late in 1860 to have that kind of discussion. It should have happened in the 1820s or 1830s, when many Southern states were indeed considering abolishing slavery--until the fiery no-compromise rhetoric of abolitionists swung the South the other way. The Virginia state legislature had a bill abolishing slavery in 1831 that was close to passing--until copies of William Lloyd Garrison's pamphlet containing copies of his "no moderation" speech arrived and were read by the members.

<comment><USER8> > The Virginia state legislature had a bill abolishing slavery in 1831 that > was close to passing--until copies of William Lloyd Garrison's pamphlet > containing copies of his "no moderation" speech arrived and were read by the > members.

I'm no expert in this period but from a cursory research I don't see how you could make this claim. This page gives a completely different impression, which is basically that the legislature punted on the issue[0].

Are we have discussions about how to move toward abolition of the wage system and minoritarian control of the economy peacefully? I am all for that. From history, though, it seems that those who have power are not liable to relinquish that power without putting up a fight.

[0]: [https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Slavery_Debate...](https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Virginia_Slavery_Debate_of_1831-1832_The)

<comment><USER9> IIRC the story I referred to is in Beveridge's _Life Of John Marshall_ , Volume IV. Unfortunately I don't have my copy handy to check right now.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linux Mint 13 featuring Cinnamon to seduce its users by enhanced user interfaces - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxstall.com/linux-mint-13-featuring-cinnamon-for-enhanced-user-interfaces/

<comment><USER2> The distribution fragmentation, then the DE fragmentation, then the Gnome fragmentation. As a user, I applaude diversity. As a developer, I wonder... what's next ?</comment>


14% of US Internet users have Amazon Prime - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/108089472890519702166/101174951617223562800/posts/JgzTmpejdrP

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like the US West was over sampled and they have the highest "yes" percentage so maybe the actual number is a little lower.

[http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=y...](http://www.google.com/insights/consumersurveys/view?survey=ym4ybuohwetma&question=1&filter=geo%3AUS&rw=1&grouping=geo&ha=0&ha=1&ha=2)</comment>


The User is Drunk - <AUTHOR> http://www.kylepenndesign.com/2013/11/21/the-user-is-drunk/ <comment><USER2> Is it just me or is the scrolling on that blog incredibly annoying and "cushiony"?</comment>


Show HN: Genact – A nonsense activity generator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/svenstaro/genact <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I built a completely useless tool that just pretends to do work. It's written in Rust and compiles to Linux, OSX, Windows and the web all from the same code base. The web version uses xterm.js which is a JavaScript ANSI terminal. Windows version only has proper colors on Windows 10 because that has finally gotten ANSI support.

I would be extremely surprised if anybody found a productive use for this. Enjoy!

<comment><USER2> Can you make a mode where it pretends to be compiling genact?

<comment><AUTHOR> That already pretty much exists! If you run `./genact -m cargo` it will look pretty much like compiling genact itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The online version - [https://svenstaro.github.io/genact/](https://svenstaro.github.io/genact/) is absolutely excellent!

Hopefully its the beginning of a trend with more apps being available in a browser-window without install because of compile-to-WASM.

It makes me wonder if there is any nice version of C stdio you can use that lets your C program access the 'local filesystem' which is actually a folder on the webserver etc so programs that have resource files etc can be cross- compiled.

</comment><comment><USER4> Whenever I watch movies featuring "hackers" I always wonder who writes the code to do the random terminal noise to make it look like they are doing something.

This is really cool and I could see this making it into a movie (esp considering it is free).

<comment><USER5> This one is my favorite: [https://hackertyper.net/](https://hackertyper.net/) haha I've actually seen it used in a few videos before. Cracks me up.

<comment><USER6> [https://www.facebook.com/sos.o.sosowski/posts/10151947287917...](https://www.facebook.com/sos.o.sosowski/posts/10151947287917825)

That's from a national TV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This could be something for the movies industry... It's at least better than your average Hollywood OS.

</comment><comment><USER8> Another use-case:

If you boss doesn't want to grant you that cool new high performance rig, maybe you can convince him by showing just how much time you spend waiting with your current slow-as-hell machine. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER9> Back in the old days, before computers could run multiple programs and switching between them was easy, some games had a built-in "boss mode". You'd hit a function key and the game you were playing would be replaced with something serious looking like a spreadsheet. As Jeff Goldblum once said - gamers ... uh, find a way

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

</comment><comment><USER10> This may be a stupid question, but I can only see linux / win binaries on the releases page.

Do I need to compile for OS X?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly travis has some problems right now and that is what's supposed to be compiling my OSX binaries. See here: [https://www.traviscistatus.com/](https://www.traviscistatus.com/)

They should be there soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Extremely similar with multi-window support [https://github.com/dustinkirkland/hollywood](https://github.com/dustinkirkland/hollywood)

</comment><comment><USER12> This seems like a great tool for [https://reddit.com/r/unixporn](https://reddit.com/r/unixporn) users.

</comment><comment><USER13> I literally didn't notice when it stopped building and when it started running. Good show.

<comment><USER14> Same here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Need a generator of nonsense activity for humans. Structured procrastination!</comment>


Reset C by GE Light Bulbs [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BB6wj6RyKo <comment><USER2> I've had these bulbs and done this reset process more times than I can count. For _years_ the software was some of the worst I've ever used.

It would constantly lose pairing with the bulbs. In order to re-pair with the bulbs, all the bulbs had to be reset individually using this process, and then all configuration had to be deleted from the app and every bulb needed to be re-added as a new bulb. Pairing was error-prone. Firmware updates would constantly fail.

Not only that, but initially the software didn't even support turning them on or changing the color on a schedule, despite the hardware being capable of it (they added the feature later). If basic things like schedules don't work what is even the point of smart bulbs?

Looking at this error message from the app [1] might give you an idea of how sloppy their SW was. This isn't from the first version either.

After they added schedules it was a bit better since you could just set one and not touch it. And after _years_ they've fixed some of the major bugs.

I still think smart lights are useful. Setting the lights to turn on in the morning (as a substitute for an alarm clock) is very nice, as well as changing to a warmer color temperature in the evening. But switches are superior to phones for just turning the lights on and off IMO. I think an ideal smart light system would use switches to turn them on and set brightness/color temperature, and only use the phone for advanced things like scheduling.

[1] [https://imgur.com/a/Uauynh6](https://imgur.com/a/Uauynh6)

<comment><USER3> Oh my goodness. Why did you put up with that for so long? Surely there are other bulbs that are just as capable and don't come with this ridiculous software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Labeled Buttons >> Unlabeled Hieroglyphs >> Morse Code Button >> Morse Code Side Channel

Why do I so often find products where the designers have chosen a less usable option even though size constraints would have easily permitted a more usable option? Here it's debatable, but every time I find a desktop app / website that has replaced labeled buttons with hieroglyphs in a hamburger menu I die a little inside.

Also, while this light bulb is bad, I feel like bluetooth earbuds still take the cake for having the worst interfaces. They combine the undiscoverable and difficult-to-actuate morse code button with a slow, obtuse interactive voice menu and bluetooth's unreliability and incompatibility to create a modern interaction hell like no other.

<comment><USER5> >Labeled Buttons >> Unlabeled Hieroglyphs >> Morse Code Button >> Morse Code Side Channel > Why do I so often find products where the designers have chosen a less usable option even though size constraints would have easily permitted a more usable option?

I assume the designers were responding to management's insistence of reducing BOM costs.

And by "designer" we're talking about EEs -- high volume low-cost hardware applications rarely have any UI team at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have some GE smart lightbulbs and i've never needed to reset them. People seem eager to mock this, but i don't see the problem. it's a (hopefully) rarely used procedure that you wouldn't want to be accidentally triggered, on an item that's very price sensitive. A physical reset button would significantly add to the cost of a part that sells for <$15.

If anything, be happy that GE has not only engineered a reset procedure, but they also publish it. The most likely alternative to this is not a button but rather no published reset at all, and just call the part disposable.

<comment><USER7> However, they recognised the complexity of the reset process, and that customers may have a more-significant-than-none need for a reset. (A simple example that occurred to me: Lost/destroyed phone).

This video was the result.

A professionally filmed video, even with low needs such as this one, also come with significant costs, as well as the PR fallout when people realise it's absurdly complicated compared to pressing a button with a toothpick. (As well as the support fielding they may have to end up doing).

The BOM cost of the hardware in the bulb is closely accounted for in most products like this, but it seems the cost savings on the BOM weren't accounted for elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> A surface mounted switch and a tiny hole in the casing would be easy and cheap... but it would ruin waterproofing, which would make the bulb unsuitable for places like a bathroom. That's probably too big of a market to lose just to simplify a reset procedure that will rarely be used.

<comment><USER9> The hole method become a problem when your only fixtures are embedded/in the ceiling and you can't reach it.

Some people will end up using a metal hairpin... next to an live, exposed Edison socket

Some LED lights also get quite warm

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stop buying smart bulbs. It's an absolutely _horrible idea_ from beginning to end. What people want is a way to switch a lamp on and off. For that you need a _smart switch_. For it to work you can't have a dumb switch in your wall first - because when the dumb switch is in the "off" position, the smart lightbulb doesn't work!

What do people that buy smart bulbs do, tape their light switches in the "on" position so you can no longer use the most convenient way to switch off? Or do they eventually get a smart switch _also_ thereby removing the need for a smart bulb (yes I know there is things like dimming and rgb, but let's face it the killer application of smartness is _switching_ ).

If someone had pitched the hue to me 20 years ago I would have laughed. But apparently I misjudged what people want - so why are they popular? Has anyone met everyone that said "I switched all my bulbs to smart ones with dumb switches and it's great"? Sorry for the rant but I just feel that _this_ isn't what's stupid about smart bulbs. The idea itself is fundamentally flawed or I completely missed the point.

<comment><USER11> 1) we have one in our bedroom - wife loves to crotchet in bed, but of course then inevitably I'm the one being kicked out of the bed to switch the light off. Smart bulb solved that issue, I can just switch it off from my phone.

2) yeah smart switches sound great but it's physically impossible to get them installed in the UK thanks to the unique way our electrical wiring is done - the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is wired directly into the bulb socket. So smart switches just don't work as they don't have anywhere to pull their own electricity from.

<comment><USER12> > _the switch on the wall only has the positive terminal in, the ground is > wired directly into the bulb socket._

This is the standard practice in many countries. Wiring the return wire is unnecessary.

> _So smart switches just don 't work._

This is false.

There are remote controlled switches that are designed to work with a single wire. I have one right now in my room, they utilize an energy-harvesting circuit to obtain energy from the changing magnetic field surrounding the AC line to charge a capacitor to power itself. Also, it uses 433 MHz RF, so it means it doesn't have Linux and IoT craps embedded inside, no firmware upgrade, no factory reset.

Yet, I can capture the control sequence using RTL-SDR, and use a 1$ RF transmitter from my Raspberry Pi to control my light programmatically if I want, though I never needed to, fortunately.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, but I suppose I got something wrong then, as there must be a reason why pretty much no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart switches in other markets.

<comment><USER12> > _no company offers smart switches in the UK market even when they have smart > switches in other markets._

Honestly I don't know, I'm not sure about the UK.

Perhaps those "smart" switches can't be powered by this technique due to their higher power consumption? But then, why can't one just use dumb RF switches, and put the heavy-duty digital "brain" inside a separate unit as I suggested? Because the encoding scheme doesn't scale? But it should...

In all possible ways, the same principle should be fully applicable in the UK... Sorry, I don't understand, it should be answered by someone who knows better than me...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this really the best way they could come up with? I do understand the problem though. And why did they change the pattern between firmware versions? Were they getting false hits, or was it just too hard to do?

This is a lightbulb! Who is the intended audience. The Internet of Things really isn't ready for the general public.

<comment><USER14> As a software guy working on embedded systems, working with HW guys, more often than not the SW is always considered "free" while the cost of the BOM is always scrutinized to the cent.

I am pretty sure in this instance the initial design had a reset button, and someone had the great idea to remove it to gain a few cents.

Be sure that the people working are sure this is a really poor design, but often cost considerations trump common sense.

<comment><USER15> My bets are that the firmware developers never had a problem because they're JTAG'd, simulated, or running insecure firmware with a built-in back door, and it wasn't until late in the product cycle where the need was even discovered (likely by a QA team.) At _that_ point, this is the best they could come up with.

<comment><USER14> This could also be possible and more charitable for the poor HW guys I have denigrated, but at some point, someone (Product Manager?) has decided to go ahead with that weird pattern, which seems a bit odd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Was it really to expensive to add a cheap button? It's not like it needs to be pressed more than once or twice per product lifetime.

<comment><USER17> I don't own any smart lightbulbs, but my flat's ceiling is at about 3,90m and getting a ladder out for every reset would be tedious. This would work without.

<comment><USER18> I'd rather throw a brick at the bulb than do this.

<comment><USER19> Interestingly, their target demographic is specifically people who wouldn't do that.

<comment><USER18> Buddhist monks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> OT: I've noticed that my local Walmart has the GE bulbs. They are over in the lighting section, out on the shelves with the non-smart bulbs. If you want them, you just toss them in your cart and go pay for them at the regular checkout.

They also have smart bulbs by Philips, TP-Link/Kasa, and Merkury Innovations-- and all of these are in a locked display over in the electronics section. If you want them, you have to find an employee in electronics to unlock the display and grab them for you, and then you have to pay for them at the checkout in electronics. They won't let you just toss them in your cart and pay at the regular checkout.

Finally, they also have some Monster smart light products, which are in the electronics section, but not in a locked display, so you can buy them without assistance.

I have not been able to figure out any good reason for the different smart bulbs to be in different sections like this, or for some to be locked up and some not.

</comment><comment><USER21> For people who actually need to do this, there is an automated solution available: [https://hackaday.io/project/166216-ge-smart-lightbulb- resete...](https://hackaday.io/project/166216-ge-smart-lightbulb-reseter)

h/t @deshipu (the author) over at Mastodon.

</comment><comment><USER22> Which episode of SNL did this air on? Hilarious writing

</comment><comment><USER23> Do people buy smart lightbulbs these days? Is there any innovation to drive sales?

In the olden days they would be part of your weekly shop, somewhere in the house a bulb would need replacing or you would be running low on them. Maybe 'weekly shop' is overstating it, but you wouldn't want to be without a spare bulb on hand.

All of those filament bulbs have been replaced. The lights you have are the lights you have. People that wanted the smart bulbs must have got them by now, old timers who don't care for such things are not going to get them. The old user interface of the switch on the wall is what most people want. The idea of having to get your phone out to turn on a light isn't of appeal to those okay with the existing arrangements. This is particularly so in the world of light pollution where it is never truly dark in built up areas.

I notice some people in the comments talk about replacing all the bulbs to smart bulbs. In America it is okay to just do this but in more frugal parts of the world there would be the aspect of waste to consider - never mind expense. Ad-hoc replacement of filament bulbs that blow with novelty smart bulbs is one thing but chucking out perfectly fit for purpose bulbs to get smart bulbs isn't how people do things outside America. Exceptions to this are when getting a new house but the housing market is kaput at the moment in most of Europe.

How is this smart bulb market going? Has it reached a plateau with everyone who wants them having them and the market declining? Or are these new bulbs that don't need a Hue base station making it happen?

</comment><comment><USER24> > ...the software...

I thought it was already bad when our DVRs, TVs, cars and personal electronics take time to 'boot' because they're running OSes. Now were at the point where we'll put software into just about anything and deal with the fallout. The IoT age is about to be a very inconvenient one.

</comment><comment><USER25> I really thought this was a parody.

<comment><USER26> Yeah it's actually hilarious. It's like something straight out of an Adult Swim show.

Cheerful music, complicated and obviously error prone procedure, narrator that sounds really happy about what they've done here. The added text in the description about the firmware version.

Life is stranger than fiction sometimes. I love it. Oh and I'm never buying GE smart bulbs lol.

<comment><USER27> All I could think of was The IT Crowd: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8GtuPdrUQ)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't see why this is so bad. You just have to follow along with the video for ~1 min. and depending on your lighting setup, it allows you to reset many lights at once without getting a ladder or stepstool and physically poking each one.

<comment><USER21> The person in the video actually doesn't follow the timing precisely, repeatedly turning the bulb off after ~7 - 7.5 seconds. I wonder what tolerances are on timing in the firmware?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start.

</comment><comment><USER30> Was a pinhole reset button so hard to implement?

<comment><USER25> Yeah, it would be. You want the user to stick their hand up in a lamp, with the power on? And try to poke a button with a sharp metal object?

I suppose you could add a big capacitor or battery so that it could be reset when not in the lamp, but that is non-trivial.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps you could use an on/off switch, and do something like this.

        function power_on() {
            bool sw_pos_last = eeprom_read(SWITCH_LASTBOOT);
            bool sw_pos_now = input_read(SWITCH);
            if (sw_pos_last != sw_pos_now) {
                eeprom_write(SWITCH_LASTBOOT, sw_pos_now);
                factory_reset();
            }
        }

To reset, simply turn it off, press the switch, turn it on, done!

No power is needed to latch a reset request when the bulb is disconnected. Seems easy and straightforward, at worst you need to power the bulb on/off several times.

> _I suppose you could add a big capacitor or battery so that it could be > reset when not in the lamp, but that is non-trivial._

Even if you go this way with only a momentary switch, it's not trivial, but I don't think it's rocket science either, just an example to make the point: using a flip-flop and a 100 uF capacitor, with an isolated Vcc supply (can be supplied by the MCU). The flip-flop draws 1 mA of current at 5 volt, you press a reset switch to invert the flip-flop, when the bulb is turned on later, the MCU would read a different state and trigger the factory reset. 100 uF would give the user at least 2 minutes to react, assuming the worst capacitor. To detect the power loss of the flip-flop, use a comparator before MCU reapplies the power, the cost is less than 1 USD, and I bet the electronics engineers can come up with a even better solution.

<comment><USER25> Well that's a very good design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Cant use these bulbs for light signaling!!

</comment><comment> chupa-chups [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20242805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20242805)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20244885)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235376)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235221)

<comment><USER32> what is the point of linking to submissions with no discussion.

<comment><USER13> People get angry that their submission didn't get them the worthless internet points and this one did.

<comment><USER33> when people look over my coworkers shoulder and see his 23K HN point count at the top of his screen, they acknowledge hes calling the shots in code reviews.

<comment><USER34> Are you serious? This sounds like an awful workplace.

<comment><USER33> lol no im joking, but that would be hilarious if true</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Artificial Intelligence in the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://betalist.com/startups/alina-api

<comment><AUTHOR> There is cloud computing, now we have AI in the cloud. I found this on Betalist, thought the HN community might be interested.

Machine learning is in its baby steps. I'll be curios to see where the future goes in the next 5-10 years.</comment>


An Aristotelian Realist Philosophy of Mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-sum-of-its-parts-7955

<comment><USER2> >The mathematician hunkered in a foxhole, earning his pay, finds it difficult to set aside the prejudice that he is grappling with something real—to keep up morale, if nothing else.

This is true of myself as much as I think Platonism leads to strange ideas about things in other regards. There is also an idea known as logicism that I think might explain a bit better what universal mathematical objects are.

I am not a mathematical philosopher myself, maybe some day, but when Franklin says numbers can be relations to things, I think that the fact that there are uncountable sets which means there is not a way to map the natural numbers in any "relation" to that set seems like it undermines the Aristotelian idea of linking mathematical objects with physical things.

<comment><USER3> Disclaimer: my views on this are still being formed, and I don't necessarily have good, concise explanations for some of the ideas the way I'd want.

> I think that the fact that there are uncountable sets which means there is > not a way to map the natural numbers in any "relation" to that set seems > like it undermines the Aristotelian idea of linking mathematical objects > with physical things.

I try to think of infinite things as extending finite mathematics by replacing a simple set with an equivalence class of pairs of (set, make_more_elms), where set is a set and make_more_elms is a constructor to make set in to a set with more of the "whole" set in it.

Then we can view acting on infinite sets (as long as we generate finite results, which we by default always will) as interacting with these tuples using finite math.

The fact that the naturals have a different cardinality than the reals can be expressed by ({}, build_naturals) and ({}, build_reals) being in different equivalence classes.

At no point do we have to deal with anything actually infinite to come to these conclusions, we're just looking at objects that are both finite with a pretend "infinity" constructed out of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not a philosopher, but this sounds awfully like embodied mathematics: Mathematical ideas grow from embodied experience plus metaphor. Lakoff and Nuñez's "Where Mathematics Comes From" is an extended effort at demonstrating that this can be done in a convincing way.</comment>


Diaspora pledges have just crossed the $50,000 mark - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr/comments <comment><USER2> This actually seems like a bad idea at this point. As I understand it these four guys are going to get 50,000+ (maybe 100+ by the time all is said and done) in donations to implement this concept.

The first problem I have is that this is entirely too much money. This is an open-source project. The idea is not for them to take a salary. They really just need money for living expenses for the summer.

Second, I don't see any seasoned mentors in the picture. Not to be crass but I think young people are silly (I am a young person and I am no exception.) I think the money is overscoped and the time is underscoped. I can see a lot of that money being wasted. Prove me wrong guys.

Third, since this is not the typical investor/entrepreneur relationship, the incentives are much different. This is not a loan, where they will feel super motivated to deliver because if they don't they will lose money. This is not an equity investment where an investor puts in money and has a say on the direction of the project. This is basically a really big grant _(1)_ from 1,573 people who trust them with their money based on a 5 minute video. If they fail, who do they have to answer to _(2)_? They can always just say, "hey, we are four students who bit off more than we can chew." I think they will deliver something but I am not writing "social networking revolution" into my calendar for September 2010 at this point.

I am totally happy for them, and happy that someone is doing this, but I am also skeptical that the final result will be anything revolutionary.

 _1_ Regarding the donation structure: "Projects must comply with Amazon Payments' Acceptable Use Policy. Among Amazon's restrictions:

        *Loans, investment, and any kind of financial return are forbidden
        *Lotteries, raffles, and sweepstakes are not allowed" taken from http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines

_2_ They answer to themselves from what I gather: " _Who is responsible for making sure project creators deliver what they promise?_ Project creators are wholly responsible for their promises. Kickstarter is a venue, like eBay or Etsy." taken from [http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq#WhoIsRespForMakiSureProj...](http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq#WhoIsRespForMakiSureProjCreaDeliWhatTheyProm)

<comment><AUTHOR> re: 1: these are not loans or investments but donations

re: 2: that's the worrying bit. But there is nothing lost by trying, we'll all learn from this.

If they fail, then we can analyze why they failed. If they succeed there will be a lot of attempts to copy this success. There already will be I believe.

Something new is happening here, crowdsourced funding on a relatively significant scale.

And I think you could safely add a 0 to your estimate of how much money they'll end up with, which will give them several things: Investors will see the concept as 'validated' by the target audience before they've even written a single line of code. And big name companies with resources and experience will fall over each other by next Friday to have their name associated with this effort.

If they're smart they sell their skins dear and get a reputable investor on board for the expertise they miss and the networking factor.

The excess money will give them runway and extra clout during negotiations.

<comment><USER2> The crowd-sourcing aspect of this has me really excited. I think it is awesome that people are throwing their support behind these four random guys with a dream.

The skeptic inside me says, who the hell are these guys anyway? And how do I know they will act responsibly? And even if they attempt to act responsibly how do we know anything will come of it in a sub-optimal situation (sub- optimal in my point of view because they have little experience, no mentors, and don't have to answer to anyone. I don't think a great amount of experience is necessary but when combined with the other two it just doesn't look good.)

Also, it just seems like this system is ripe for abuse. If I just want 50,000 bucks it seems like I can use Kickstarter to mobilize people around some fake or inflated cause, do little to no work, and pocket the money.

No offense to Kickstarter, I participated in "New York Makes a Book"!

[EDIT] Also, I agree with pretty much everything you said. All of that can and will happen in the best case scenario, but how likely is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Highly unlikely at the moment. Another 20 days of favorable press and a 0 behind the current figure and they're in the 'viable' department, even if they themselves are not capable of pulling it off they'll have to funds to attract the expertise to nail it and they'll have the 'ins' with VCs they need for the rest.

Hopefully they'll pick something like YC for their source of knowledge. Or they might crowd source that too, no telling. Already people are offering them fat pipes, infrastructure expertise and so on.

They're currently pulling in $3500 per hour, it is accelerating rather than slowing down. If they hit a feedback loop (if that isn't already happening) this will be the start-up story of the year. By some measures it already is.

edit: they just picked up another $2K donation, $55,429 now, that's a 10% increase in about an hour and half.

<comment><USER2> Alarm bells start ringing in my head whenever I see a "bandwagon" pattern. I always think to myself, is the popularity warranted here and I think the answer here is a resounding "no." The ratio of _information provided_ to _money donated_ is waaay to low and to me this indicates that people don't have a great idea of what they are donating to. Then again maybe there is very little harm since most people are donating very little money. If they raise 500,000 dollars that would be a truly remarkable outcome that I did not expect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the bandwagon pattern is very scary, but then again, it was the bandwagon effect that made facebook in what it is, I think that the frustration with facebook is what is driving it and that would almost have to follow the same pattern.

The harm will be if they fail. Even if they ship something in the next 6 months I'll be really impressed.

<comment><USER3> If they just have a secure, P2P Twitter with rudimentary social networking, that's enough to get them started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Legally, crowd funding is a bit shaky.

Those who use this model can avoid securities law problems by using a donor model, which is fine in itself.

Traditional donations, however, are made to charities and similar 501(c)(3) organizations that are bound by pretty strict rules and by fiduciary duties which, among other things, require that: (1) all assets must be permanently dedicated to the charitable purpose; (2) those who manage the charity cannot misdirect assets for their personal profit or pay themselves inflated salaries that amount to misappropriation; (3) those who manage are bound by fiduciary duties to do so consistent with the purposes of the organization and face severe penalties for violating such fiduciary duties; and (4) those who manage must render a strict financial accounting for their activities and make their books and records available for appropriate inspection to assure integrity.

No such safeguards are built into crowd funding, as the system really depends on a "trust me" attitude. This may be fine in any given project if the founders have the talent, vision, and integrity to comport themselves consistently with the trust placed in them to do what they say they will do when they solicit the donations. If they do not have integrity, however, I am not sure what remedies might exist if they should prove less than scrupulous in dealing with the donated funds.

This is a pretty new area and I'm not very familiar with it. But it would appear on the surface that there is not much that can be done if founders in such situations choose to abuse the trust reposed in them by the donors. Given this problem, I don't see how this model can easily be replicated across a meaningful spectrum of situations, even though it might work for select high profile cases.

<comment><USER5> Spreedly just finished their crowdsourced funding on Kickstarter on May 6. I have to presume that they've had some lawyers help out since then. I'd really love to see what they came up with to find a clear path. If there really is a viable donor model path for funding (I believe that Blogger did this for a bit as well) that is replicable, that could really change things nicely. Then you've got product/market fit, MVP, paying customers, and all the other stuff in one nice, neat package.

<comment><USER6> Spreedly's Kickstart package was different than Kickstarter the bounty site. Spreedly actually sold an expensive, "lifetime" service rather than just asking for money to do anything.

We bought one, I think it was $700 for a lifetime of no monthly fees and transaction fees pegged at 1%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't see how this will work, at all. No one is going to "install their own node." It's like OpenID: a huge pain in the ass. Will my girlfriend use this? No. My sister? No. The friends that I work on cars with or ride bikes with? No. My hacker buddies who are paranoid and anti-government? Possibly. Even I won't use it... and I live inside of a terminal and write code for a living. I commend the idea... but this isn't going to make even the smallest dent in Facebook.

I have no idea why people are donating money to this. Might as well flush it down your toilet.

P.S. I'm not trying to piss people off here, I'd honestly like to hear someone explain to me why this is worth even $1.

<comment><USER8> _I'd honestly like to hear someone explain to me why this is worth even $1._

It's worth at least $5 or even $10 dollars to me. That's effectively, "I'll buy you guys a pizza." (Or, here in NYC, a couple or three slices of pizza. But it's good pizza, damn it.) I'm not especially worried about whether or not _this_ project conquers the world, or beats Facebook (which I could care less about one way or the other). The motivation here is just some interesting people with a lot of passion doing something _they_ care about. Giving them a little money is like buying a beer for someone in a bar you just met who is telling a great story. It's not really goal oriented, just sociable. (And that's the difference between this and flushing money down the toilet.)

The larger result relies on the magic of lots and lots of individually small donations. A small amount of money like this doesn't hurt me at all, but a whole big lot of donations like this add up to $50,000 in a hurry apparently.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out the breakdown:

325 in the $5 to $10 range

274 $10 - $25

104 $50 - $100

76 $100 to $350

8 $350 to $1000

3 $1000 to $2000

1 $2000 and up

That's certainly a lot of people buying them a pizza, but there is also a significant number of people buying them 10 DVDs or a four course meal for two, and even a few are buying them a months rent.

<comment><USER8> Yup, but note that the larger donations come with larger "rewards" later. Everyone above $350 gets a free year from the future subscription service. The $2000 and up donator gets a computer down the line. I wonder if the larger donations move down (up?) the continuum from encouragement towards investment.

<comment><USER9> Wait, the site is going to be subscription? I thought this was supposed to compete with Facebook. Almost everyone is on Facebook because it's free.

<comment><USER10> They will release code for anyone to host their own site, but provide a subscription service for people that do not want to manage the code. I'd imagine some of the sites will be free, but they may not have all of the features possible. For example a company may want to use the subscription service for internal use but not want to host it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm presuming they are going to work on this for four months, and open source the code. Four People * Four Month = 16 People Months = $3100/Month for a project that I don't see a lot of financial incentive.

If they're half decent developers, they could, without blinking, get a job at $72K/year, which means, they are taking a 50% pay cut to do something interesting and useful, and perhaps educational, while simultaneously voicing the pain we all fell about the direction Facebook is going.

I sent them $25 (or, at least, pledged it to kickstarter) because I applaud anybody who goes to the effort to do something like this. I sent Firefox $25 to get their NYT advertisement.

These all seem like useful diversions of money, not sure what's up with the detractors - You think the developers at RedHat/Novell/IBM aren't taking a (much larger) salary to work on Open Source projects?

<comment><USER12> the really annoying point of this, from my perspective, is that it's only when they're done that they're going to open source the code.

if they'd keep their code open throughout the process, then people can push them code and help them out, and then we'd end up with a product that the community could stand behind, and ensure that it is portable, and release it as a stand alone program with all the goodness that it needs -- firewall tunneling, being a cross platform easy to deploy app, being fast, whatever

If you were to push a feature to them instead of donating 25$ to their 'project', we'd all be a lot better off, and much much closer to our goal, then buying a group of four undergrads from nyu a slice of pizza

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> $80k currently. Now they could even afford to buy the domains diaspora.com|net|org instead of joindiaspora.com

</comment><comment><USER14> i just gave them 25 bucks

screw facebook, screw VCs and summer jobs and internships and loan officers and grumpy old techies

freenet 2.0

</comment><comment><USER15> I guess they better make something actually happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, absolutely. If you look at the distribution it is really impressive, quite a few in the higher brackets.

More dicussion here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1342655>

The comments on the kickstarter site are quite interesting to read, the mix in gender is relatively balanced and it does not seem to be a 'techie' crowd at all.

Just lots of people that wish these kids luck and don't mind throwing some money on the table for them to go and play with.

I really wonder how high it will go, they're in a feedback loop now, more $ means more press which in turn means more $.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> An easy way to deal with this would be to say, preferably in the promotion video, something like "if we receive the desired $10000 amount then no further donations will be accepted", or to nominate a charity which any surplus donations would go to. If they receive a large amount of money and then don't deliver much at the end of the summer then there could be a lot of negative publicity.

But I wish the diaspora developers well, and hope that they deliver something which is at least a foundation for a privacy respecting social network in future. Clearly there is a need for some software filling this role, and enough people are fed up with the status quo to put money towards a solution.

<comment><USER17> I'm amazed and slightly worried that they haven't stopped donations yet (assuming this is possible with Kickstarter).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> its amazing to see what publicity on places like HN have done to this. I pledged a few days ago before i saw the first post on here, within a few hours they went from 3k to 10k. I really do hope they turn out something good

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel like kickstarter.com has it backwards. I feel like they should:

1) Put up ideas. 2) Raise money for them. 3) Have people apply to try to execute them.

Not that I have anything against these four kids, but I imagine this idea could be executed better by a different set of people. For example, as most of the HN community news knows, four co-founders is a lot and usually not optimal.

</comment><comment><USER20> Very nice, apparently this is a great enough need (perceived at least) that crowdsourcing seed money worked.

I wonder if there are other sites this would work for - ones that have huge userbases, with a big enough proportion of them being very dissatisfied?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point, the anti-facebook hype is definitely what drives this (and facebook is helping nicely), but for other ventures it may not be so easy to get the public mobilized.

Throwing $10 or $50 on the table for a bunch of strangers out of frustration is probably quicker done than out of interest for a good but unproven idea.

If linux hadn't happened someone could go and suggest to rewrite windows in 3 months if $10,000,000 is pledged.

There must be other sources of frustration on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I saw the "share this on Facebook" button on this page, I was overcome by the shadenfreulich irony, and had to click it - not quite the first web page I've ever shared on Facebook, but pretty close...

</comment><comment><USER22> The most important result of this endeavor would not be the implementation, but an open, de facto standard protocol. Has anyone seen any mention that such a protocol would be formalized?

</comment><comment><USER23> About to hit 100K, still have 19days to go, I wonder what the record is..

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm having _deja vu_ about the decentralizing-diaspora that followed classic- Napster.

Diaspora == Facetella?

Ultimately, one of the biggest winners there was the closed-source but relatively efficient and enforcement-resistant Kazaa, from the Skype founders. But open-protocol (Gnutella) and open-source (LimeWire) options also did alright.

Today, Skype as an again-independent company could be a dark horse candidate for a decentralized, enhanced-privacy but closed-code Facebook-competitor.

</comment><comment><USER25> And they don't even have a working prototype to prove the efficacy of their ideas?

I'm not donating a dollar until they have something to show.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow, reminds me of the pixel-a-dollar campaign to raise money for funding college. Can we see some source code please?

<comment><USER27> It was actually for business school and he ended up dropping out after one semester O_o

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> almost 60K now ~5k/hr?

</comment><comment><USER28> Strange,

These people are getting obscene amounts of money that

a)a very small proportion of web is going to use

b)is going to be built by 4 guys who presumably can live off there computers but can now afford there own office space or something and live like kings.

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure where you're from, but nobody is living like a king in NYC (or most any other major US city) for that amount of money.

Also, if you compare the ~$90k they've raised so far with some recently VC funded social media startups, all of a sudden it won't seem "obscene"- in fact it seems positively lean and scrappy.

<comment><USER28> Those startups are going to give the VCs back something. They will make profit. But this is something which will not be making profit. Its a non profit thing and the people pledging money will not get a penny out of it (may be some rewards but that's for major investors.

I admit the over exaggeration on the "living like a king" part but I fail to see any analogy with VC funded social startups and this</comment></comment></comment>


Shock European court decision: Websites are liable for users' comments - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/shock-european-court-decision-websites-are-liable-for-users-comments/ <comment><USER2> Considering the article is from two years ago it's not such a shock now.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, this is incredibly misleading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great. Websites are keen on publishing these comments and benefit from the angry clickbaits and discussions, they should then be responsible for them too. If it's on your website and you're displaying it, then you own it.

I want this applied to Facebook and all its racist, sexist and homophobic user content too.

<comment> GCU-Empiricist So what is the scalable solution to allow discussion without causing automated censorship, inflicting astroturfing vulnerability, or hiring significant staff overhead that allows things like reddit to start up, or are you happy with the ecosystem we have?

<comment><USER5> Perhaps a pay-to-post scheme. If it takes $1 to make a post people will comment a lot less, and hopefully when they do comment it'll be saying something meaningful. This will also help reduce automated span.

<comment> GCU-Empiricist Personally I'm a fan of more speech, vice less, in hopes that more insightful things bubble up, voting algorithms are an intresting puzzle but I'd prefer to see discussion without making people who can't afford it silent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder what the fallout will be for small websites running their own comment streams vs. Disqus vs. Facebook.

Will these websites prevent or bifurcate access from Europe?

</comment><comment><USER7> [2015]

</comment><comment><USER8> Shock? This has been like this since forever.

</comment><comment><USER9> Free speech violates human rights. Got it.

Sarcasm aside, this ruling is the sort of insanity that one can expect from human rights courts in countries that lack a long-standing commitment to freedom of speech. The _very_ notion of a "human rights court" is foreign to citizens of countries with nothing like the American Constitution's 1st Amendment and absolutist jurisprudence that we have here in the U.S. No such thing as a human rights court is necessary when the laws are themselves just and enforced by just courts. From the U.S., the notion of "human rights court" seems to exist only so as to impinge on individual freedoms rather than so as to strengthen them, and this follows from the idea that they should not be necessary in Western countries that should have just laws to begin with -- and this perception is supported by this sort of ruling.

One even expects that saying the above alone will be seen as evidence of racism/sexism/whatever-ism for even merely denying that a human rights court should be necessary in the West... implies denial of human rights simply because of the institution's very _name_. The very act of naming something in this way leads to suspicion that it is a euphemistic name, like all those People's Democratic Republics of yore (and, still, the DPRK), or the UN's very own not-remotely-sane human rights commission.

<comment><USER10> "Human Rights" in this context is rather similar to the US' Constitution's amendments, not whatever chain of free associations you are coming up with: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there any justification for DMCA Safe Harbor [1] in the US anymore? When it was enacted screening user content was considered not practical. Now is done by almost every service.

[1] [http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise33.html](http://digital- law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise33.html)

<comment><USER5> Yes, screening content is still hard and/or expensive. It's more technically feasible than before, but it's still one of the things small startups struggle with.</comment></comment>


Turning a shipping container into a 3D printer - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2012/09/24/turning-a-shipping-container-into-a-3d-printer <comment><USER2> It's going to fail. You can't reach industrial scales like this. These things need maintenance and that isn't going to be cheap on a shipping container moving slowly around the globe.

<comment><USER3> I doubt a shipping container that needs to be stood up on its end is intended for mass use, since most equipment capable of transporting containers isn't designed to tip them over!

However, that doesn't mean something like this couldn't work on an industrial scale in the future. There's a UK TV programme I saw last week about house building (it's called Grand Designs, if you want to look it up) which featured a house made entirely from CNC milled ply-wood boxes that were made 'on- demand' onsite, using a computer controlled milling machine shipped in on...a shipping container.

It is not a massive step from a CNC miller in a portable shipping container to a 3D printer. There are several advantages (...and disadvantages) to this approach, including being able to re-make pieces on-site should you have to make adjustments due to environmental conditions.

<comment><USER2> That makes sense. The idea over here is to make consumer goods while manufacturing equipment is sailing the seven seas. Economically stupid. Maybe they could be successful targeting the luxury market or abusing the tax system. I wouldn't be surprised if this is solely getting backing due to some tax loophole. Taxes may be more than the economic inefficiency.

<comment><USER4> You've _completely_ missed the point. This isn't intended for large-batch "industrial scale" consumer good print runs. It's not intended for printing while it's on the move.

The idea is to be able to take the custom production facility to the point of specific need so that you can iterate quickly to solve the local problem.

<comment><USER2> "the Kamermaker is designed to print huge objects including furniture, architectural elements, and even entire rooms."

Guess this could be seen as a luxury on demand printer for those who have money and don't want to wait.

Thanks for enlightening me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


LibreOffice Project's Check - <AUTHOR> http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0308/#ID0ECRAI <comment><USER2> Are these issues reported to LO devs, or they have to look it up themselves?

<comment><USER3> Readers' FAQ on Articles about PVS-Studio and CppCat: [http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0085/](http://www.viva64.com/en/a/0085/)

<comment><USER4> _Have you reported the bugs to the project developers? Have you sent them a patch?

When checking open-source projects, we almost always report the results to their authors. If we publish such a report as an article, we try to send the link to it to the developers. If there are too few bugs in a project to write an article about, we still report whatever results we've got to the authors. Or rather, we try to - sometimes developers don't (strange as it may sound) have any contacts, or their bug trackers don't accept messages, or you need to enter a captcha which no one can solve.

That's why we never send patches. There are a few reasons for that:

1\. We are not familiar with the code and therefore cannot be sure if all the bugs we catch are really bugs. To understand that, we would need to study the project very closely.

2\. Even with obvious bugs, we often can't say for sure how to fix them.

3\. Finally, we pursue but one goal with our articles - to demonstrate the capabilities of the analyzer we develop. That is, we want to prove that our tool can find bugs in a real-life, living code. We don't aim at fixing bugs - we aim at proving that our tool can find them._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >So do implement it then to avoid the compilation and/or linking errors, but make it crash intentionally if called.

        void SimpleReferenceObject::operator delete[](void * /* pPtr */)
        {
          free(NULL);
        }

What will cause the crash? Passing a null pointer to free() is fine. Something specific to C++?

<comment><USER6> Per the spec, free(NULL) is fine and well defined, essentially a no-op. Not sure what they're thinking. abort would have been an option.... And hell, were they trying to invoke UB and assuming that would cause a crash? Wrong on multiple levels.

<comment><USER7> Spec is fine and all, but free(NULL) reliably crashes on Solaris and probably other systems.

<comment><USER5> The malloc(3C) man pages since 5.5.1 claim otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are especially interesting to me for the rules--it is not crazy hard to add things to Go's `go vet` tool (or write other checks outside vet with `go/ast`, etc.), and I wonder if "assigned variable twice consecutively" or "foo() == foo() looks suspicious" are good candidates.

</comment><comment><USER9> Could the first example, with "getColor() == getColor()", in general, be a false positive if getColor() has side effects?

      bool getColor() {
       static a = 0;
       static b = 0;
       a++; b++;
       a %= 3;
       b %= 2;
       return (a && b);
      }

or does something in the standard prevent this?

<comment><USER10> It's perfectly valid for the function getColor() to return different value for each invocation, e.g., think std::rand().

 _However_ , the function as you wrote, when used in the expression (getColor() == getColor()), results in _undefined behavior_. This is because equality operator (==) is _not_ a sequence point in C++, and thus by calling getColor() twice, you are modifying variables a & b more than once between a pair of sequence points (see "Undefined behavior" section here: [http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/eval_order](http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/eval_order)).

In general, you cannot be sure of the order of evaluation for a statement of form say, f() == g(). The relative order in which f & g are called is _unspecified_. Also, the behavior can easily become _undefined_ if you violate certain conditions in f & g (as in the case above).

<comment><USER11> >the function as you wrote, when used in the expression (getColor() == getColor()), results in undefined behavior

In C++14 (and I believe C++11), this is not correct. Specifically, §1.9/15 says, "Every evaluation in the calling function (including other function calls) that is not otherwise specifically sequenced before or after the execution of the body of the called function is indeterminately sequenced with respect to the execution of the called function;" this sentence is marked with a note that reads, "In other words, function executions do not interleave with each other."

Item 4 under the "Sequence point rules" section on the page you linked says basically the same thing. I haven't looked at the C++98 standard, but I imagine it allows this, too.

The two calls to "getColor" are _indeterminately sequenced_. As a result, the behaviour of evaluating "(getColor() == getColor())" is merely unspecified, not undefined. In fact, the behaviour is guaranteed to be equivalent to one of the possible orderings (§1.9/13: "Evaluations A and B are _indeterminately sequenced_ when either A is sequenced before B or B is sequenced before A, but it is unspecified which").

<comment><USER10> Thanks for correcting me _sjolsen_. You are right, the behavior is unspecified only.

I added a StackOverflow question ([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28816936/is-the-value- of-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28816936/is-the-value-of- expression-f-g-when-f-g-modify-same-global-variable-und)) to increase the chances of someone being able to find (hopefully authoritative) information when searching for it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I don't remember Google superior search reasults - <AUTHOR> http://utestme.com/clean-interface-versus-memory-fail/

<comment><USER2> The simplicity was important but more as a signal of quality.

I remember being frustrated at Altavista's or'ing of all your search terms; it often made attempts to refine your search counterproductive.

Google's results were just amazingingly good in comparison.

Also ..

DEC saw Altavista as way to publicise its "giant" computers. Eight Gb RAM back in 2000ish was amazing. But I and so many others could see that search was eminently suitable for a parallel solution. Using single (or few) large computers was missing an opportunity. This just reflected badly on DEC and Altavista. And I was reminded of Ken Olsen's famous quote of there being no need for a computer in the home. (unfairly apparently - it was taken out of context) It added up to a bad image.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actually I remember my first experiences with Google. It was very weird for me that the page was so empty and I kept using AltaVista and later MetaCrawler. They seemed to be more 'serious' :D However more and more I've started to notice that the most relevant links are provided by Google and that was it ...</comment>


Malware researcher Dancho Danchev gone missing since August - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/we-need-help-with-the-strange-disappearance-of-dancho-danchev/7897 <comment><USER2> The ICC color profile in the PNG has a copyright string of Apple 2011. If he took them mid-last year, this doesn't make a ton of sense.

Perhaps someone at ZDNet re-saved them. If that is the case, they should release the originals.

<comment><USER3> The article makes it sound to me like the original letter/photos were actual printer/paper, not digital.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is worrisome, I am curious whether publicizing his case may make matters worse than better. I would also be curious to see if someone would manage to contact relatives or friends in the area,

</comment><comment><USER5> It is quite common view of halogen lights wiring here (Bulgaria). I have the same in my bathroom. First photo is standard transformer and second photo is a job done by some electrician not doing his job well. I do not see anything suspicious. And yes, we are EU and NATO members. Most USA citizens visiting here happily spend they time and really enjoying the visit. Without more information what was the case with Dancho Danchev (Данчо Данчев) it is nothing more then paranoia.

<comment><USER6> Have you got one of those transformers too? Is the black double insulated side supposed to be the low voltage or the high voltage side of the transformer?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> In Bulgaria there is a list of people declared for national investigation (обявени за национално издирване). In this list there are people who need to be arrested, who need to be a witness in a case or who are missing(i.e. they are kidnapped or disapeared). If Dancho is truly missing since September then he should be on that list.

I tried to search for this list online but I couldn't find it (maybe it is not available yet). The article doesn't say anything about the official situation. It will be great if anyone can provide some official information.

</comment><comment> wang-chung A simple explanation of the transformer/wires is that he could be documenting an attempt to electrocute him.

<comment><USER8> Or, more likely, kill him in a fire that looked accidental.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to Dnevnik.bg ([http://www.dnevnik.bg/tehnologii/2011/01/17/1026425_ekspertu...](http://www.dnevnik.bg/tehnologii/2011/01/17/1026425_ekspertut_po_it_sigurnost_dancho_danchev_e_nastanen_v/)):

Dancho Danchev, an expert on cybersecurity, is placed in a psychiatric hospital in Bulgaria. The information was confirmed by two sources of "Dnevnik", although the hospital refused to comment.

[...]

[...]

[...] according to reliable source of Dnevnik he was placed in a Bulgarian psychiatric hospital since December 11.

</comment><comment><USER10> Both of the images are large PNG files, which leaves lots of room for steganographic data. Given that they're meaningless if interpreted literally (but seem to vaguely hint at meaning, which makes them good as red herrings), that seems like the most likely interpretation.

So the question is, who has the key? It seems like if anyone has it, Ryan Naraine should. But if he did, his post would be quite different.

</comment><comment><USER11> The electronic transformer looks like it could be used for low-voltage lighting. The wires look like they're running into mini LED or halogen lights.

<comment><USER4> I suspect that means someone is supposed to find that transformer. Presumably there may be something of interest with/in/near it. Its easy to hide a microSD

<comment><USER3> Presumably? If these photos were taken for proof/evidence they just don't cut it, especially coming from a security specialist/professional.

... Or, they could just be a photos of a shoddy light fixture installation.

<comment><USER12> They ARE photos of a shoddy light fixture installation... that is, unless government spying devices are dimmable!

The full text of the image once rotated reads:

ELECTRONIC TRANSFORMER MODEL: TE-60

(20-60W) PRI: 220-240V, 50Hz, CosΦ=0,99 SEC: 11,6V, max. 4.9A Ta: max. 50°C, Tc: max. 85°C

GTV (R)

Dimmable EMC Approved Surge Protection Overload Protection Short Circuit Protection

Symbols: CE, double insulated, don't throw away, and some I don't know.

I can't find it on Google, though.

<comment><USER3> That is very obviously what the photos appear to be. The discussion here is about whether, as the article claims, there is something else evident/hidden in these photographs.

<comment><USER13> From what's visible in the second photo, things look fairly legit (albeit shoddy) if the power feed is coming through the wall at the center of the image and the transformer is on the left below the ledge and the wires to/from it are going down through the hole and the wires heading out of the frame to the left are simply a splice between the feed line and the leads on the transformer.

Now if he cracked open the transformer and found a transmitter hidden inside - then it might get interesting...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is "current situation in my bathroom" in quotes like that?

</comment><comment><USER15> If "several" photographs were attached to his pleas for help, why did they elect to only include two of them?

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't mean to insult Mr. Danchev, but let's not dismiss the most obvious answer: He may be having psychological issues or otherwise be pulling some shenanigans.

There's no evidence to suggest otherwise at this point in time. The pictures don't suggest anything to me and he's perfectly capable of not answering the phone, email, or instant messages.

I hope he is ok, both physically and mentally.

<comment><USER16> If you're going to downvote me into oblivion at least counter my points with facts. What does the real evidence show here?</comment></comment>


Would a Ratting System Work? - <AUTHOR> http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/ratting_system/

<comment><USER2> I hope noone in a management position reads this. As a commenter on the site says:

 _You run the risk of creating an atmosphere of paranoia, where everyone is afraid of causing even the slightest insult to their coworkers for fear of anonymous reprisal. Of course, that fear depends on whether or not management acts on the anonymous tips, but if they do not, what's the point of the system?_

And that really is the crucial part, if it works, people get paranoid, if it doesnt work... there is no point.

 _Edit: spelling_

</comment><comment><USER3> I used to work at a place that did this.

We had an online system that everyone was required to use twice a year to rank every other employee from best to worst. You could also provide comments. When everyone was done they showed you what your results were and how your average ranking compared to everyone else. The results were anonymous (except for one time when a glitch let everyone see what everyone else said about them).

The comments were generally not very helpful, but for those used it to give good feedback it was mildly beneficial. Some people took it seriously and gave feedback which was useful. Other people used it to vent and others merely went though and added things like "Good employee" to meet the required number of comments.

Most of us hated it, but I think the management liked it. You could instantly see what your employees thought of each other.

When it came time for evaluations and raises, the results always closely aligned with the results of your peer rankings. Here's a question to ponder: in general, would you rather your raises be based on your peer's assessment or on your boss's?

</comment><comment><USER4> Whenever you come up with a system which is tied to advancement (even if just indirectly) you have to think what kind of person would most benefit from it, because given time and natural selection, that will be the only kind of person you have left. The kind of person I see most benefiting from an anonymous criticism system is one who makes believable shit up about his or her coworkers that is impossible to disprove. Because of the anonymity, no one would be able to challenge it. Because the other coworkers look bad, they fail to get promoted or actually get fired, leaving only backstabbers. Now, this system does have the benefit of promoting only believable, measured, devious backstabbing, which may in fact be of value in the corporate world, but good God would I not want to work at any place that promotes this sort of behavior, intentionally or otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER5> A fun addition would be an anonymous karma system. Tips that the boss finds helpful will be upvoted, tips that seem petty or false can be downvoted, and future tips will appear with credibility ratings depending on the anonymous tipster's karma, but without revealing their name.

Also, indicate in a vague sense how many prior complaints the tipster has submitted without giving an exact number. This helps with the concerns about workplace paranoia, since you don't have to worry about running afoul of the few idiots that make up lies about everyone they don't like.

</comment><comment><USER6> If management can't figure out what is going on without people deliberately reporting to them, they're not much good at their job.

</comment><comment><USER7> It exists, it's called writing an e-mail to your boss, requesting a private meeting. Anonymity is out the window anyway, if the boss isn't completely worthless, he has an approximate idea of tensions between his employees and probably even their styles in writing. If he is worthless, no amount of technological shenanigans is going to make that magically disappear.

</comment><comment><USER8> You could have anonymity without losing data. Assign everybody a random id. Do whatever data mining you need to, based on id number, to see how credible this person's opinion is.

I think this system can work ... if it's not abused. Intelligent analysis of the data will keep it from being abused.

You may actually be able to find inverse correlations among some of your more aggressive aspiring manipulators, where a down-vote from them actually ends up being a vote of support.

Let them do their worst. Statistics will out them, eventually.

As for the ethics of it. If the system is smart enough to avoid abuse, I think it has merit. When is ignorance ever the right answer? If there's data to be had as to whether you have, as an old boss of mine used to say "a leak in your payroll", why is it evil to attempt to determine that?

<comment><USER9> "I think this system can work ... if it's not abused."

Then by definition it can't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's really horrible. It's not hyperbole to compare this to the Stasi, and what we're doing is adding more and more power to corporate management structures, precisely the _last_ place that should be receiving more power to make judgment calls over people's lives.

Last week overstated ideas about intelligence when it's really power structures that helped the entrenched grow their fortunes, this week ratting systems. Hmmm, what's happening to Scott Adams? I guess he doesn't subscribe to ideas in _The Lord Of The Flies_.

</comment><comment><USER11> My experience is that most workplace issue come from, or at least start with, the boss. I sincerely doubt a toxic boss would fire himself just because of anonymous complaints, and good bosses don't need this system.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have a suspicion that my own boss is becoming less tolerant of people's crapola because of my presence. In spite of a serious medical handicap, I am almost never late (maybe once a year?) and I cash in leave every year. Although I am not a stellar performer, I usually make my numbers (and usually sweat bullets to do it, and my boss knows it). I think this is part of why some of the deadwood on my team has recently been cut. I think it has gotten harder for my boss to buy lame excuses and be sympathetic to reasons to fail to do your job. Yes, I require some minor accommodation for my handicap. No, this does not mean that I expect my boss to put up with me failing to do my job. That is not an "accommodation". That would be "charity", which I don't want, thanks.

There's some saying about a "good example being the best lecture"...or something like that. Whether my example subtly influenced my boss's decision or not, I'm pleased to no longer have to put up with some of these people, even though weeks later I am still cleaning up the messes left behind by one of them. But I wouldn't want to work somewhere with a ratting system. I think it would be a draconian environment and would sink to the lowest common denominator in the worst possible way.

<comment><USER13> I'm not really familiar with business jargon - what does it mean to cash in leave every year and why is it a good thing?

<comment><USER14> He means he doesn't take his allocation of days away from work but instead he sells those days back to the company.

Why is that good? Beats me. Unless he gets an above average holiday allowance it sounds terrible both for his long term health and for his productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Maybe in some sense it could be workable, but there so many implementation issues that it could collapse into worthlessness, or even create big problems within the company.

</comment><comment><USER16> cut-throat environment? rather not.

if i want to complain over an incompetent coworker, i do that under my identity, openly.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hope it doesn't !</comment>