Study: Today's dads are engaging more with their kids - <AUTHOR> https://news.byu.edu/news/study-today%E2%80%99s-dads-are-engaging-more-their-kids <comment><USER3> My dad lost his job when I was 7 years old and my sister was 5. He went through 5 years of un- and under-employment. It was harrowing for him and my mom. But he also said in his later years that he would not have been there to see his kids growing up if he'd maintained the steady career progression that he originally expected. I have many fond memories of doing things with my dad during those years. He showed me how to start programming the family Commodore 64 [1]. We did experiments from books of science fair projects -- not for science fairs, just to satisfy my curiosity. We went on camping and fishing trips during summers and school vacations. When I visited friends' houses their dads didn't show up until later in the evening. They were also usually too tired from work to play or work on projects with us like my dad did when I had friends over.

I wouldn't wish involuntary unemployment on anyone. My family was lucky that my dad found steady salaried work again before the savings account was completely drained. The stress could have broken a weaker marriage. But I also got something from my dad's extra availability that I wouldn't even have known to miss until adulthood otherwise. Kids will remember and cherish extra engagement with them, whether the time you put in is planned or not.

[1] I partially credit my own career to his early help with programming. My friends growing up used 8 bit home computers too. But they didn't have dads working through the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide with them. They learned just enough to load/run software and I learned to _write my own_. I know that some kids can just pick up a teach-yourself book and learn simple programming on their own. 9-year-old me couldn't. I needed help from my dad. (Thanks, Dad. I miss you.)

<comment> 52-6F-62 You were very lucky in more ways than the one. That's a great story, though. Those kinds of memories and meaning in your work are priceless.

My father was overworking most of the time due to his career as a pipefitter for Imperial Oil. He spent two terms unemployed— once when we moved to our small SW Ontario town (long story _why_ ), and another during an illness that lasted about a year. Because my mother had left her career in insurance to look after us, our college savings were depleted (the last thing they touched to make payments). I don't remember the times he was unemployed very much. Much of my family was ill at the same time he was and I spent a lot of time looking after them (with my thoroughly tough mother)— otherwise he was driving an 2-3 hours round-trip to the union hall every day to try and find contract work. So I didn't see much of the guy when I was young, and when I did he was exhausted and often cranky. There were some great moments in there, and he still taught me as much as he could while I was there, but I'm just remarking on the work and unemployment and family time thing.

Funnily, I got into programming because my mother had an [name I don't remember] 80286 from her work as an insurance analyst and I dug right into that machine. Then the internet finally came to town...

..

Really, thanks for sharing that.

<comment><USER3> _You were very lucky in more ways than the one._

Most definitely. I get a bit of existential vertigo when I think about how much of my often-happy life has depended on luck. It intensifies when I consider how many of those lucky circumstances were determined before my birth.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Existential vertigo— I'm going to have to remember that term

<comment><USER4> Same here - I've been trying unsuccessfully to put that feeling into words for 20 years!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I left the bay area in 2013 when my third kid was born. I'm about 110 miles north now.

I expected that as I withdrew from long office hours, replacing it with remote work, my income stagnate (or go down). The opposite happened - my income has actually gone up steadily.

Towards the point of this topic - I have been able to spend a lot of time with my kids. We walk (or bike) to and from school, I coach sports, and I'm able to see all of the recitals, performances, and various events. My kids are age 12, 7, and 5 for those wondering.

I do work quite a bit, but the work is performed at odd hours, and not during prime family hours. It helps to find companies that is geared towards projects and your performance over the long or medium term, rather than people who want to see butts-in-chairs when they are at the office.

I encourage everyone to try to replace their commutes with more time with loved ones. Move your working hours around, if at all possible.

<comment><USER6> I'm a newly single parent, and I've been considering my options in regards to remote work. Are you employed full time by a single company or do you find freelance work? The challenge and time investment of finding new clients constantly has me leaning away from freelancing. I haven't yet been able to find a full time position that's flexible enough (results based) though.

<comment><USER7> I have a "regular" (9-5) remote job and a wife who works full time. Working from home has been very helpful for childcare activities.

I pick up my kids at 2-3 pm and then get a babysitter for the afternoons while I am still working until 5ish. This ends up being, basically, just a late lunch.

If things go south with my babysitter the kids can play or watch tv while I finish up the day and it's not a big deal to _occasionally_ do.

I would try to get a stable/full-time job at a family friendly company, but that's just me all the time. Health care is expensive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My parents were both teachers, I got a lot of time with them as such.. However my dad was just never interested in really spending time with us, other than a good 5 minutes then he was bored and wanted to do his thing.

I spent A LOT of time with my mum, she taught me programming, and after a while I was teaching her newer stuff. My mum was the real MVP, my passion for everything comes from my mother.

My father however.. well he would talk about loving to play games like pacman and galaga as a kid, but wouldn't play games with me.. Later after smartphones and facebook, he now just disappears completely.

Now I'm a father, the difference is huge, I play with my daughter, I teach her stuff.. Recently I decided to build her first computer (shes 2, same age as I was when I first got to use a computer) .. so we together restored a Macintosh Classic, and upgraded it with modern components [https://cherubini.casa/macintosh- classic-948301f14cbd](https://cherubini.casa/macintosh-classic-948301f14cbd)

<comment><USER9> Love this project! My son is turning two in August, and he loves smashing the keyboard on my laptop. Having a dedicated PC for him would be fun. And he'd love to help build it, I'm sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Although it's worrying if it's partly due to women being less involved with their children, on the face of it, I believe this is a good thing for both fathers and their children.

Largely, I think it's a sign of the times. My generation's fathers came from an era where "hard work" was still considered a necessity for happiness. My own father as well as most of those of people I know work and worked very hard. Technology, the economy, and society changed significantly from the time that our fathers grew up to when we grew up, and we sons saw our fathers work countless hours, leaving us to wonder how life is even worth living if it's made up of overtime hours and a series of useless meetings. Despite my father being the type to overachieve in the workplace, I would not wish that kind of lifestyle on him. I know a lot of men my age who saw their fathers work slavishly and realized that it's not worth it for them to spend their early life working to promote someone else's excessive success. I'm sure there are women out there who feel the same about their labor in contrast to that of their fathers, although women are also working more than ever(outside of the home) so it's not as much their issue as that of men and their rapidly changing role in society.

<comment><USER11> On average, child-care is so heavily tilted toward women that for many, doing a bit less would be good for their health. Also, it's not zero-sum -- parents can both be involved at the same time -- but I also enjoy the times when my wife is not around and my kids give me _all_ the attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My employer just increased their family leave from 12 weeks to 20 weeks, which is a great perk. These days nobody seems to differentiate from maternity vs paternity leave, which is a great idea because, aside from the value it provides fathers, it also gets rid of the idea that the mother should get more time because mothers should be more involved. (alas, you can argue that it ignores the physical sacrifices the mother makes, but as long as there is parity by raising men's leave up rather than reducing a woman's leave, who can argue with it?)

I don't have kids but I've often thought if I could get 6-12 months off for having a kid it would change the equation from impossible burden to work around to actually a pleasurable experience to learn/grow/bond/etc.

<comment><USER13> Google has a cool system where everyone with a new child gets (very long and equal) parental leave. If you physically give birth, you get extra time for preparation and recovery (e.g. men and women adopting, etc. don't get it). I think this is a good way to recognize the extra burden of parents who give birth while being fair on the parenting front.

<comment><USER14> Seems weird to discriminate against adoptive parents... I understand the reasoning but seems weird. It would probably be better to have a medical policy applicable to everyone.

<comment><USER15> I think you are framing it incorrectly as discrimination.

If one stretches such an analogy, one could reason that paid sick leave is discriminating against healthy people. Not many people would agree with that one.

As you've stated, a sensible medical policy for everyone would be good. I would imagine that Google has a one.

<comment><USER16> Absolutely I agree that paid sick leave is discriminating against healthy people. If you're going to pay people to not work, everyone should be equally eligible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One of my earlier memories is my dad going away to GW1. And when it wasn't war it was training or night flying or exchanges or just on standby while we were away. After my dad left the air force he worked in Saudi for 10 years or so, during which I spent much of my time in boarding schools.

Conversely I work from home and see my kids all the time, albeit they're still younger than my own memories. Only last week I had to two days work in London, about 3 hours commute each way, but I came home rather than stay in a hotel. It's rare we don't all sleep under the same roof.

I don't see my dad as having negative masculine attributes though, or myself as being any better. He was often used as a threat by my mother when we were misbehaving, but more often than not we were just pleased to see each other when he came home. I'm proud of him and the decisions he made, he did the best for his family often to his own detriment and the choices I was able to make just weren't available to him. At 6'5 there reverse is also true, or I'd have been doing all I could to follow the same path.

<comment><USER18> Sorry if I'm obtuse but I guess it's because that's too tall for the air force?

<comment><USER17> Yeah.

At the time at least (this is also UK) you had to be under 6'1 for fast jets and although in theory you could be up to 6'4 for the big slow stuff or rotary wing initially they wouldn't know what aircraft type you'd be streamed for, so everyone had to be meet the lower height limit. I wasn't particularly interested in anything other than the fast jets either.

That said, I was also told the measurement that really mattered was the thigh length (jokes about losing kneecaps against the canopy if you ejected). So you could potentially still be accepted if you were a little over 6'1 but carried more of your height in your torso and a doctor measured your thigh length as being below a limit. I figured I was way over though and my legs don't look particularly short for my height.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hypothesis: Today's dads _behave_ more like kids, compared to previous generations.

I mean, 40 year olds dress like teenagers (sneakers, t-shirt, jeans, sometimes a cap), they often have the same hobbies as teenagers (e.g. video gaming), and responsibility is low because there is a high level of social security.

<comment><USER20> Interesting point.

I don't think behaving more like kids is something confined to dads, or even men as a whole either. It seems modern adults are maturing far more slowly or even showing some signs of regression now.

I don't have anything to compare it with, but grown men burning their evenings in front of a games console, playing games aimed at children, and grown women slathering pictures of themselves all over social media in an attempt to garner attention and social acceptance, with both groups seeming to want to be their kids' "buddies" more than ever, doesn't seem to be a positive direction for things to go in.

Who knows. I may be bah humbugging here. I'm young enough that I can't reasonably say "in my day adults were adults!", just that the direction things appear to be going in (socially, and as role models for children) does not appear to be promising.

<comment><USER21> > _I may be bah humbugging here._

You are. Two things:

1\. How is spending (not burning) an evening in front of the console any worse than spending it in front of the TV?

2\. You're painting with a really, really broad brush there. Some grown men play a lot of video games, and some women post a lot on social media, but not all of them do, and in any case, I'm not entirely sure what the problem with socializing online is.

<comment><USER20> 1: I'm not advocating in favour of spending it front of the TV. Both are a waste.

2: The damage being done by social media and the rise in narcissism, toward society at large, towards children and towards mental health, is pretty well documented at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I feel like the article is pushing a false dichotomy between being a "tough guy" and caring for his children.

Why can't I be warm, understanding and available to my children and still be a "tough guy" (with "toxic masculinity") towards strangers, or colleagues, or my team mates in the soccer club?

After all, there is a very different level of trust within the family.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm a relatively new dad so maybe the novelty just hasn't worn off but I can't understand fathers who don't interact with their kids. I do it as much as I can, it's the best. Not always easy but always good.

<comment><USER24> I'm a new dad too, but my father is a 30-year veteran of fatherdom, with the benefit of some new experience as a grandfather thrown in. He and I recently had a heart-to-heart about this. He lamented that he didn't spend more time with me when I was an infant, a toddler, and a kid - he left that to my mother, due to a socially conditioned view of tasks like changing diapers as her responsibility.

He still has an instinct to ask my mother whenever my son needs something, and I remind him "No, Dad, I can cook/bandage/clean/change that. We don't need to ask Grandma to take care of it. Why don't you cook up a few of your famous hamburgers and I'll get the boy ready for dinner?" \- and he's still a bit hesitant to watch his grandson when grandma's not home.

But through his hindsight, he agrees that (1) the novelty doesn't wear off, it changes way too fast, (2) do it as much as you can, because time is limited, and (3) it definitely is the best. Though you may get a reprise as a grandparent someday, which is possibly even better because you can send them home with new noisy toys after they've been spoiled and are on a sugar high.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for the input, I am very thankful we have less pressure in our culture to follow traditional father roles. Not that those fathers were uncaring but they were expected to be a bit more removed and constrained than we are today. One thing is for sure is that time definitely goes by twice as fast!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I run my own internet based business teaching full stack dev out of a bedroom converted to an office. My 2 daughters (5 & 8) are homeschooled.

It can be extremely challenging at times trying to work, but I am able to be in their life a lot more than your average dad.

I flew out to Cali to record a course last year and it was my first time away from my family for a few days. Before leaving, I thought it was going to be awesome to take a break from them. I realized just how damn attached I was to them during that time. I never experienced home sickness like that before. I was like a little baby.

</comment><comment><USER26> Simple question: But is this a positive? For the dads? The moms? And most importantly, the kids?

More is more. More is not better.

<comment><USER27> I don't imagine these kids growing up saying "I wish my dad hadn't spent so much time with me." Maybe in the helicopter parent sense, but an increase in quality time with your dad doesn't necessarily mean a decrease in independent play, or child-led play. If it does, then I would likely be concerned as there is mounting evidence that decreasing independence is not good for kids.

<comment><USER26> Whether the kids would say that or not is (semi) irrelevant to my point.

You are a by-product of your parents. What you've learned from them - <USER2> life, as well as a model of parenting - often carries forward. The problem is this: you wanting to share what you've learned doesn't mean what you learned is worth sharing.

In short, for some percentage of these kids, this increase could be bad news.

The question is: How many? And in what way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I consider myself lucky that my dad had less conventional work hours. He would leave for work around 6:30 in the morning, and be home by 4. He was always able to help me with my homework, and do other activities.

</comment><comment><USER29> Study: Today's moms are engaging less with their kids

</comment><comment><USER30> I believe that is a side effect of increased productivity and prosperity but is this study conditioned on the children having dads in first place? Because I believe single mother phenomenon is on a rapid rise in USA. What about children who dont know their dads ?

<comment><USER31> They were studying fathers, so their denominator was fathers, not children. There's plenty of research showing that fathers make a big difference in their children's lives and happiness. From what I can tell this study doesn't speak to that one way or the other.

<comment><USER30> My point has been that even though fathers are spending more time with children on an average all children are receiving lesser fatherly attention on an average. May be fathers who love children are staying in marriage thus giving a bias to the whole study.

<comment><USER32> > all children are receiving lesser fatherly attention on an average

Provide some facts to back up this claim.

> May be fathers who love children are staying in marriage

It sounds like you are saying that fathers that leave marriages don't love their children? Is that what you are saying?

<comment><USER30> > It sounds like you are saying that fathers that leave marriages don't love > their children? Is that what you are saying?

There is this excellent tool called google that can help you get all the numbers. You should consider using it Sir.

Check this resource: [http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the- extent-of...](http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-extent-of- fatherlessness/)

Let us just consider African Americans. around 70% of Black children born last year did not have a father. Are you saying these people loved the children and yet for some unknown reason would not be present to take care of the child or provide child support ?

As of today 1 in 3 children in USA are growing up in a household without a father. Are these fathers spending time with their kids ? You tell me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I don't want to take away from the results from the study. But it would be a great area to study the relationship between men and interaction with women, especially those displaying toxic femininity, in the context of fatherhood.

Don't know if anyone coined the term toxic femininity, but it should obviously be a field of study, just as toxic masculinity is.

<comment><USER34> What would 'toxic femininity' look like?

<comment><USER35> If toxic masculinity is defined by exaggerated gender role behavior that is a negative for the individual and society, then toxic femininity should be defined in the exact same terms.

Female gender role is strongly associated with motherhood and personal appearance so toxic femininity could for example be exaggeration of those aspects. Two examples would be possessiveness of children and the abuse of plastic surgery.

The question is why people are using such gendered terms that so easily get perceived as derogatory if all we want is to a term to help discussions around exaggerated gender role behavior that causes negative effects. Personally I avoid using both and see those that do as pushing an agenda rather than addressing the core issue that we have gender roles and those have a negative impact on society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am the 'good cop' here in da house :D

</comment><comment><USER37> I was trying to understand andrewclunn now dead comment below. Basically he was saying there was no need for the author of the article (not the study) to write "toxic masculinity" narrative. When I clicked on the PDF, to scan for the word "toxic" I was unable to open the PDF. Did the author of the article Jon McBride artificially put this narrative spin on the study?

If so, I don't understand why somebody would do this. Studies like this bring us wonderful news, there is no need to add negative connotation. Sure the tone of andrewclunn comment is debatable, but given he is a father, I think he is entitled to be upset about this because I am also. What do you think HN.

<comment><USER38> I don't see the comment you're referring to, but McBride was quoting one of the authors of the study. Technically this isn't "spin", Toxic Masculinity and Hegemonic Masculinity are both fields of study in psychology having to do with promotion of dominance and violence. I think both fields influenced this study. It looks like they developed a Parent-Child-Conflict scale that included spanking, hitting, or threatening physical harm to measure some of this, but the study is much more broader than just this.

<comment><USER39> Spanking is considered to be a "toxic" display of masculinity these days?

<comment><USER40> It's against the law in New Zealand for example.

You may restrain a child for their safety but the use of force for "parental correction" is treated as assault and can be prosecuted. The police are encouraged to apply discretion.

<comment><USER41> Generally speaking, It is not illegal in the US unless you leave visible marks (e.g. bruises). Even then, it would be reported but little action would be taken unless there are additional issues with the child's safety.

It is still common in many places for a "whooping" to be used to keep kids in line.

<comment><USER42> I do not support criminal prosecution for parental spanking but I consider you've already failed as a parent if you need to "whoop" a child. In another world where child welfare services have a better reputation, I might even suggest that such parents should be forcefully relieved from parental duties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Something I find bemusing are the never ending slew of studies that aim to evangelize 'new ideas' in parenting and child rearing contrasted against the negative changes in outcomes of children and young adults in the US today. Children and young adults in the US today are, compared to decades past, suffering sharp spikes in mental illness, obesity, as well as performing relatively worse academically and even exhibiting lower average IQ.

It seems that something we have done or changed has resulted in an incredibly negative change in developmental outcomes. Yet there simultaneously seems to be no little to no effort to see what we were doing so well before, or what we're doing so poorly now in. Instead studies such this one instead seek to constantly demonize past practice and evangelize for new change for reasons that seem to be almost exclusively driven by ideological bias.

Or shall we simply remain in denial?

<comment><USER34> " suffering sharp spikes in mental illness, obesity, as well as performing relatively worse academically and even exhibiting lower average IQ"

There's been really quite a _lot_ of research into these kinds of thing. There is no doubt that in many respects the environment that kids are being bought up in today is more stressful, distracting, uncertain, unstable etc.

I don't think you have to look at changes in parenting style to account or them.

<comment><USER43> What!? Kids in earlier times, even as recently as the 80s grew up in a time where they were constantly facing the very real threat of nuclear annihilation at moment's notice! With nuclear drills only being ended sometime in the 90s. In the 80s the we had a political era that included real assassination attempts on the president, the pope, and more, violent crime was at record highs, and more. Today is more "stressful, distracting, uncertain, unstable, etc" how exactly?

And you're again doing what I think is actually quite dangerous, yet also standard practice in the social sciences. While I think your presumption is wrong, you're assuming that not only is it true but if it were true than it would naturally have a causal explanation for another factor. Yet I think there is an extremely strong argument that your presumption would actually have a causal effect in the exact opposite method of which you imply.

Humanity excels when dealing with crisis. Nearly all of our evolutionary existence has been living in times of great adversity. I think the fact we live in such relative comfort and safety now a days is something may be interacting negatively with our evolutionary wiring (such a hypothesis would even explain things such as 'outrage culture' and internet activism - in lieu of problems, create them!) As I mentioned IQs are decreasing (and literally _decreasing_ \- not 'increasing more slowly' towards an asymptotic zero), but this is something that's only happening in the developed world. In the developing world, where lives are still much harder and threats more imminent - IQs continue to increase, academic performance is increasing, and so on. Vietnam for instance, today is ranked 8th in the world in science - as they teach with a per student budget a tiny fraction of ours, even parity adjusted. There are clearly many factors to progress that we seem to just have 0 interest in considering.

<comment><USER34> I grew up in the early 70s and while the threat of nuclear annihilation was ever present, it rarely impinged on every day life. Meanwhile we were playing in the streets after school and riding our bikes around during the school holidays from 10am until 5pm.

Bullying was restricted to the playground and the few kids that you kept away from. If you were lucky, your folks probably had a job that they would stay in until they retired, and there was far less homework and exam pressure than these days.

The fact is that no-one really understands why the Flynn effect is apparently reversing. It's likely that the extraordinary increases in from the 1948s until 2008 were prompted by improvements in nutrition, education... or possibly that people got better at the skills needed to do well in the test.

The hypothesis that improvements were down to hardship and adversity is certainly a novel one. Novel and speculative. Novel, speculative and unsupported. Still, if it makes you happy, make sure you scare your kids every night.

<comment><USER43> A couple of the things. The first is that if your explanation, which is the most convenient, to explain the Flynn effect was correct we'd expect to see a decline approaching some asymptotic zero as we experienced diminishing returns from things like nutrition and education. But this is not what's happening. IQs are getting literally lower (not growing more slowly), and substantially so. 84% of people fall within the first standard deviation, which in IQ is normalized to 15 points, and we're seeing declines of multiple points that don't seem to be stopping. That's really something that I think should be extremely concerning, but socially we seem to have a bit of head-in-the-sand defense mechanism in play.

On support. I'd say my hypothesis is just about as supported as the average view in social sciences. I could certainly formulate an experiment of passable merit to confirm my biases. Of course that by no means means the hypothesis is right, but rather that the notion of scientific support in social views is something I think we should take as a default to be practically meaningless. There are so many ways to quantify and qualify various aspects of society that near any hypothesis can be proven if you play with the data enough. This paper is evidence of such:

 _" To date, however, research on the relationship between adherence to masculine norms and fathering has yielded mixed results, which may be due in part to the fact that many studies use measures of masculinity that do not fully capture hegemonic masculine norms. ...we address this question and extend the literature in three key ways. First, we use a multidimensional and more comprehensive indicator of masculinity than used in prior studies... we consider whether masculine norm adherence influences fathering in different way...._"

Or to put another way, 'previous research has not yielded the results we wanted to see, so we spun the data in a way such that we could get it.' It's really quite absurd.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


You can type anything here to visualize its grammatical structure - <AUTHOR> http://nn.bb/1Hy/ <comment><USER2> Have fun with a long sentence:

"Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the water of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist's arm- chair and confuse his "Rinse the Mouth —- rinse the mouth" with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us – when we think of this, as we are frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature."

</comment><comment><USER3> This confuses it utterly: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffal...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo)

<comment><USER4> Did it claim it was going to diagram it correctly? :)

My test was to see if "Have you ever seen a rich man fish?" is parsed the same as "Have you ever seen a red fish?" It is, which is incorrect.

The ambiguity in the structure has to be resolved by knowing there is neither a "rich man fish" or a "man fish"; although there can be a "clown fish" or a "pilot fish".

It also incorrectly parses "When shall we three meet again?" Compare its diagram to "When shall we all meet again?" In the latter, "all" is described as an "appositional modifier" to "we", but in the former, it is a "number modifier" to "meet".

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "the red cup and saucer on the table" parses as the (red cup) on the table and saucer. but both are red and both are on the table, if the default meaning of the phrase would be understood.

also, i like the idea of the composer, but the rephrasing only works on small phrases (that are easy), when actually bigger ones would be the real value here.

WIP i guess?

</comment><comment><USER6> If by anything you mean certain things.

"[Imperative] [subject or object]" is interpreted as "[Noun] [noun]," which makes no sense.</comment>


Comtracts - <AUTHOR> https://www.comtracts.net <comment><USER2> Site doesn't work without Javascript, but also doesn't tell you that you need Javascript enabled.</comment>


Ask HN: Porting an X11 App to Mac - <AUTHOR>

A friend of mine uses a gesture-based app on Linux and I'd like to port it to OS X. The code is open-sourced and available on Github but I have no idea where to start.<p>Got some tips, articles that could point me in the right direction? <comment><USER2> You could start with macports or homebrew. Those tools allows you to install open source software in OS X.

One example is XQuartz the X11 port for OS X <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/Releases>

If you know what are you doing probably this is a good point to start, and if you need other libraries then you should look there too.

</comment><comment><USER3> First, Apple still has a X11 server on MacOSX, so you can just compile and run your X application there.

Otherwise, learn Objective-C and Cocoa, and rewrite the user interface. Works better when the application is well modularised to begin with.</comment>


RethinkDB 1.9: Indexing and query runtime performance - <AUTHOR> http://rethinkdb.com/blog/1.9-release/ <comment><USER2> I've been experimenting a bit with RethinkDB within the last few days. Its stability is definitely not there (too be fair, they've made this clear), so it's crashed when I needed it most. But here are the finer points:

1) Their team is extremely responsive. In fact, the most responsive team that I've dealt with on Github. I've posted at least 4 Github issues during various times of the day and evening and I've gotten a response in less than 10 minutes. Most of the time, more than one member responded.

2) They are not over selling their product like MongoDB did. They are very clear about what their product does and doesn't do.

3) Clustering is stupidly simple. You can have one setup within minutes and have your servers geographically located throughout the world.

4) The web UI makes administering the databases easy and fun.

After they get the kinks (stability & docs) fixed, this database will definitely have a bright future.

<comment><AUTHOR> slava @ rethink here. Could you link to the crashing bug you're referring to here? (just so other people have the benefit of learning about it)

EDIT: also, thanks for the kind words!

<comment><USER2> [https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/1419](https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb/issues/1419) :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thanks. This OOM crashes have been lurking for a while. @srh is working on this now and it should be gone once and for all after 1.10. Sorry you ran into this!

<comment><USER3> I've asked this before and you replied, but it was lies, all lies! I will ask again: What have you done with Marc and why is he never on Steam? We lost a perfectly good DOTA2 player and all-around good guy!

<comment><USER4> Haha, I mentioned it to Marc the other day-- he's out of the office now, but I'll be sure to ask again for you. :)

<comment><USER3> Alright, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's great to see an amazing product like RethinkDB move so quickly and improve so much. Since I've been experimenting with it, the performance has improved dramatically.

RethinkDB + Docker is a great setup for me and has made upgrading between versions of RethinkDB less painful, and when combined with tinc, clustering is really easy as well (DigitalOcean, where I'm experimenting with RethinkDB, doesn't support Amazon VPC-like functionality and only recently added support for a private network in one region).

<comment><USER6> _It 's great to see an amazing product like RethinkDB move so quickly and improve so much_

The counter-argument is that they can move so quickly and improve so much because so much is so poorly implemented. While it may seem cynical, I have formed a habit of eliminating projects that still see magnitudes performance improvements from such rudimentary activities. Once they get to the point where a yearly release are a couple of syntax improvements and some minor speedups, it is more likely to be production ready.

<comment><USER7> You have a point in general, because that is how these things usually go, but these guys spent like three years working on the foundation for what they're doing now. This level of rapid improvement may be the visible payoff of a lot of careful design and engineering.

<comment><USER8> Speaking of which, for the rethink people on the thread, how much of old "key- value store for SSDs" code is still active? Is the document store at all a layer on top of that?

<comment><USER9> Most of that code still exists, extensively modified. Here are some things that don't:

\- Talking to files with libaio -- we now only support use of blocking I/O calls in a thread pool.

\- Use of block devices instead of files, and code optimized for older SSDs that spread writes to different parts of the disk.

\- A fsck utility and a utility for extracting data from a corrupted file.

Most other stuff has been rewritten and refactored, though -- RethinkDB was once implemented entirely using callbacks on an epoll loop. Then we introduced coroutines (cooperative green threads that sit atop an epoll loop) into the codebase. Nowadays almost everything is implemented in terms of coroutines -- there aren't many APIs left that take a callback and say it'll get called sometime later. There's even still a secret memcache interface.

The storage engine itself does a bit more now than it used to. Support for secondary indexes, MVCC, efficiently bringing back out-of-date replicas, and better on-disk storage are the main ones I can think of at this hour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm currently using a columnar SQL database with a denormalised schema of about 1000 columns that contains several billion rows. 99% of our queries are SUM over some of these columns, with a few simple filters: WHERE order_id IN [...] AND date > xyz

It performs really well (sub-second queries over millions of rows) but it's licensed by data volume and (more importantly) it's a single-server solution - at some point we're going to need a distributed database.

Is RethinkDB suitable for analytics workloads like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> For your workload a columnar store will always outperform a row-based store (like RethinkDB). Rethink does work for analytics, but it can never compete with columnar stores (like Vertica, etc.) on the workloads those systems are good at.

<comment><USER11> Your honesty is much appreciated by the rest of us. Don't ever lose that please.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have to say, RethinkDB has piqued my interest. And I'm a pretty staunch MySQL/SQLite -based developer.

<comment><USER13> My condolences.

<comment><USER14> Why?

<comment><USER13> Because... MySQL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome no driver changes.

<comment><AUTHOR> For all the driver devs out there, there should be no more driver protocol changes until we hit an LTS release (unless we find some critical API bugs that need to be fixed).

<comment><USER16> With that being the case are there plans to spend a bit more time on driver support? At the very least a high-quality 1st party Java driver would go a long way. Even better if you provide Scala/Clojure/Groovy bindings.

<comment><USER17> Can anyone comment on the quality of the 3rd party Java driver ([https://github.com/dkhenry/rethinkjava](https://github.com/dkhenry/rethinkjava))?

<comment><USER15> I am biased, but It is a very straight forward implementation building directly on the protobuf interface. It lacks some of the niceties of the interperted drivers, but It is as fast as ( or faster in some cases ) then the official drivers ( as best I can tell )

The author stopped working on it for a little because he was tired of refactoring his code as the protocol changed and figured he would just add all the missing bits once they finished the protocol.

<comment><USER18> I was eager to give these a whirl but from my perspective the AGPL licensing is rather onerous considering that the official drivers are APL. Not sure if this was intentional or accidental.

<comment><USER15> Well Color me surprised. Your right. I just used the same license that RethinkDB is licensed under, I didn't see that they had the drivers under a different license.

By Tomorrow I will have them updated to APL ( luckily I can do this since no one else has really supplied a pull request :-( )

<comment><USER18> Excellent! I will check them out and send off a pull request if I run into anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I really like the idea behind rethink and the concept as well. I've also looked at documentation and it seems very simple to use.

Also, I understand that 'benchmarking' databases is extremely situational and generally inaccurate. However, without reasonable ways to measure an increase in performance, its really hard for me to make the decision to switch from mongo to rethink.

What I'm trying to ask is, does anyone have any information that can help me decide where, how, when and why should I use make the decision to switch from mongo to rethink? Not just for me but also so that I can show others in my team to get a consensus to switch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is performance the main motivation for your team? If so, we'll be publishing some results soon. In the meantime, there are some non-performance related comparisons with Mongo that you might want to take a look at:

* Technical comparison: [http://rethinkdb.com/docs/comparison-tables/](http://rethinkdb.com/docs/comparison-tables/)

* A slightly more biased comparison: [http://rethinkdb.com/docs/rethinkdb-vs-mongodb/](http://rethinkdb.com/docs/rethinkdb-vs-mongodb/)

<comment><USER19> Performance would grant us the best reason to switch. Because otherwise we are quite satisfied with mongo. I have seen the technical comparison. I will keep an eye out for the performance results. Thanks for letting me know.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: C library of generic, reference-counted data structures - <AUTHOR> http://theck01.github.io/offbrand_lib/ <comment><USER3> A small observation: CoreFoundation typedefs CFTypeRef (the generic object type) to void * , rather than having obj * be a separate type as in this library. This lets you pass pointers to any CF type to functions that expect CFTypeRe without the ugly cast: it's unsafe, as you can pass a pointer to any type without the compiler complaining, but so is explicitly casting. If you're not going to go the void * route, it would be nice to provide some macro like obj(x) to safely cast only valid types to object.

Anyway, it's nice to see a portable, modern CF-like library, although of course it's too slow for some cases where code specialization is called for.

Edit: On the general subject of C data structures, in case anyone's interested, I wrote a little portable C header that provides minimal hash table functionality using macros, with a large amount of control - <USER2> generic, but totally opposite to the approach used by this library, much lower level. It's modeled after the BSD <sys/queue.h> header, provides three versions (open, closed, and a higher level version), and is completely undocumented, but I'm somewhat happy with it as a proof of concept. Just throwing it out there. [https://github.com/comex/cbit/blob/master/hash.h](https://github.com/comex/cbit/blob/master/hash.h)

</comment><comment><USER4> I was interested to know how this compares with existing C libraries, so I "ported" the prime number example program to use GMP and GLib instead. It's not quite working yet (see the description) and I have to run now, but here's the code--I think it's nearly complete and would be interesting to benchmark once done. [https://gist.github.com/jzwinck/5787359](https://gist.github.com/jzwinck/5787359)

<comment><AUTHOR> Shoot, if I had known someone was going to do this I would have made the prime number program a bit more efficient. Since it looks like you've ported the algorithm exactly it shouldn't affect the result though. Let me know what the test reveals, I tried to write the fasted arbitrary precision algorithms I could.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> nice. it's heartwarming to see things like this in c. in my spare time i am working on struct-sql mapping. it sometimes feels like the popular c libraries don't try hard enough to provide the convenience we get in other languages. with a little imagination (as here) i think we can push things a little further...

<comment><USER6> Is your project hosted somewhere? I would love to see the source for that, no matter how early/unpolished it is.

<comment><USER5> sure, there's an example at [https://bitbucket.org/isti/c-orm/src/4ec76f741d756bf70c2b1b8...](https://bitbucket.org/isti/c-orm/src/4ec76f741d756bf70c2b1b8bcf98848638a09d63/example/src/phonebook3.c?at=default) but i don't have any text explaining it yet, and it's a bit hard to see what is happening.

but basically there's a python script that parses your struct definitions and then auto-generates a library (this isn't great i know, but what else can you do? if you don't want to use that, you can still use it as an SQL library, but you need to write your own callback functions to do the work of setting values in the struct). that library is

        #include "phonebook.corm.h"

in the linked code. then you can do things like

        static int find_name(isti_db *db, const char *text, name** name) {
          corm_name_select *select = NULL;
          *name = NULL;
          STATUS;
          CHECK(cname.select(&select, db));
          CHECK(select->name(select, "like", text)->_go_one(select, name));
          EXIT;
          if (status == ISTI_ERR_NO_RESULT) status = ISTI_OK; // see NULL name
          if (select) status = select->_free(select, status);
          RETURN;

}

(the STATUS, CHECK, EXIT and RETURN are just macros for the usual "return an int as status and goto exit on error" handling). the snippet above populates the name (a struct typedef) pointer with values (id and name value in this case) from the database. the thing called select is a struct with function pointers that generates SQL select functions (so there's the usual objects- in-C pattern of passing the struct in to the function in "select->name(select, ..." for example). and the SQL being generated is "select * from [table] where name like [value]". it's all escaped correctly to avoid SQL injection.

the API for the database backend is isolated out, but the only current implementation is sqlite.

the complete repo is at [https://bitbucket.org/isti/c-orm/src](https://bitbucket.org/isti/c-orm/src) (if you download it and run doxygen you should see better docs - but they're incomplete and not online yet)

if people are interested, email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and i'll get back to you when it's in a usable state (it mainly needs docs, polishing, and perhaps another database backend - probably postgres).

also, of course, there are many limitations compared to ORM systems. there's no way to retrieve related objects, for example (so if a struct has a pointer to another struct, that pointer isn't retrieved - the best you can do is also store a pointer to the primary key and then make a second call based on that). and currently table and column names must exactly match struct and field names.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Along the same lines, there is also CCAN.

[http://ccodearchive.net/list.html](http://ccodearchive.net/list.html)

[https://github.com/rustyrussell/ccan](https://github.com/rustyrussell/ccan)

And GMP for arbitrary precision math (integers and floating point numbers).

[http://gmplib.org/](http://gmplib.org/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I find that the decision to adopt a C library for a project frequently boils down to whether it is using a compatible naming notation. Especially for simpler libraries.

Linked library in nice, but how many C projects do you know that use camelCase() function naming as opposed to K&R's lower_case_naming()? If it were a complex library, like OpenSSL, then - sure, to the hell with the notation, just put a wrapper around it and use it anyway. It's barely an issue. But if it is a simpler library that is meant to be weaved into the code, like data containers, the choice of naming notation is always a thing to consider.

There is obviously an _indent_ tool, but resorting to it means using a modified version of the original with all the consequences that follow. Perhaps, it might be the next thing for GitHub to tackle - "Download in Xyz naming notation"... I know I'd use it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Was there a rationale to choosing performActionOnStruct() names instead of the perhaps-more-idiomatic struct_perform_action() style?

I strongly advise against putting identifiers like release() and getCString() in the global namespace, that's probably not the wisest idea if you plan to use libraries other than your own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some bad habits from Java are the only reason. I thought about having obrelease and obgetCString. Putting ob at the beginning of every function seems like overkill, and I don't like that only some functions had would have ob at the beginning if I didn't do a global name change. Any suggestions?

<comment><USER9> > _Putting ob at the beginning of every function seems like overkill_

That's "C-style namespaces" \- really the only sane way to avoid an identifier collision, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hello. May I suggest looking for some code by tptacek for the red-black trees. I am looking too, but so far , I haven't been able to find it. I read about it first in this link: <[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455225>](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4455225>).

I think your project looks very interesting. Reference counted datastructures is a great convenience.

Thanks, and Good Luck further.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been meaning to refresh and expand both my algorithms knowledge and my C programming with a project like this, myself (as an application developer I find I've barely used either since graduating from university). Was that part of your goal at all?

I think this is pretty cool. I like the presence of the tests as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just graduated, so most of the data structures are still pretty fresh in my mind. I started after getting tired of implementing data structures in my many C based classes, hoping that at least I would get some use out of them during school. Sadly after that I never took another C based class, but the project became interesting in its own right and I stuck with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Definitely forking this to provide a saner API. And some of the implementation is a little iffy (like objIsOfClass). But in general, very cool. Thanks for contributing to the C community!

Any particular reason why you're avoiding the C99 _Bool?

</comment><comment><USER13> I personally like and use uthash (no reference counting) but:

* only a header file * has hash, array, string, list, implementations

[https://github.com/ned14/uthash](https://github.com/ned14/uthash)

</comment><comment><USER14> This recalls me one of my oldest project: [http://libdacav.sourceforge.net/](http://libdacav.sourceforge.net/)

However I didn't do reference counting. Good job OP!

</comment><comment><USER15> star-able url: [https://github.com/theck01/offbrand_lib/](https://github.com/theck01/offbrand_lib/)

</comment><comment><USER16> What are "class[es] built from functions and incomplete types"?

I once built classes using structs and function pointers, but this sounds different?

<comment><AUTHOR> An incomplete type is a struct where the definition of the structure is hidden from the view of most of your source code. This makes it impossible to directly access struct elements, and is like data hiding in a object oriented language. Of course in this library you can always include the header containing the struct definition and go bananas so its a soft restriction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would suggest offering the ability to plug custom allocators.

<comment><USER18> If you feel a need to do that, check cmccabe's comment on the top about intrusive data structures. These let you do your own memory management, in a way that the data structure implementation doesn't need to know about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Glad to see this.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's nice that you made these available. You might also want to look at queue.h from BSD (see [http://fxr.watson.org/fxr/source/sys/queue.h](http://fxr.watson.org/fxr/source/sys/queue.h)) and tree.h ([http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/sys/tree.h](http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/sys/tree.h)), single-file "libraries" that can generate a few different kinds of linked list and binary tree. These don't require typecasting at all, since they generate functions for your particular type. They are also intrusive data structures, meaning you control your own allocation.

With regard to OBString: don't. Really. C strings are very flexible and powerful with just what's in the standard library. You don't need charAtStringIndex, for example: you have rindex and index. You don't need splitString; you have strtok_r. You don't need findSubstring; you have strstr.

If you think you need regexes, consider fnmatch, a libc function which matches shell wildcard patterns. It's always there, it's simple, and it's fast. Or you could bring in something like PCRE. In general, if you need full regexes in a small program, it might be worth rethinking whether your program should be in C anyway.

For some reason, I don't find myself using resizable array utility code much in C. It's pretty easy to do it yourself with realloc-- that's really one of the first things they should teach people learning practical C. Perhaps a small, minimal set of macros could wrap the reallocs and make it a little bit nicer.

<comment><USER21> > _You might also want to look at queue.h from BSD_

CPP macros, entirely. No, thanks.

<comment><USER22> I'm not a fan of macros either, which is why I've ended up implementing hybrid C data structures, with the logic in functions, and some optional type helpers in macros:

[https://github.com/pmj/genccont](https://github.com/pmj/genccont)

Anyway, these are largely intrusive and don't do reference counting, but that can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage, depending on the situation. (I use these heavily in kernel code) The hash tables (chaining and open addressed linear probing) use function pointers to be type-generic, which might not be to everyone's taste either.

<comment><USER20> Well, this is a good effort. I think you are quite right to leave out reference counting. Reference counting is something that you should pay for only if you need it.

I don't really understand the fear of macros. void pointers are much scarier than macros, since they open you up to the threat of bugs going undetected by the type system.

You're not by any chance maintaining one of those much-maligned "driver portability" layers, are you?

<comment><USER22> For better debugging and diagnostics, I like my macros to do as little as possible. Plus, if the generated code is the same for all types apart from an offset calculation, duplicating it is silly.

If you look at the slist, slist_queue and dlist, you'll find there are typed macros (via a container-of macro) that call down to the generic functions. I might try to extend this to macros that generate a full set of shim inline function for a particular type of list element, if it turns out to be less error prone. You won't see a void pointer being passed around on any of these.

Where function pointers come into play (binary tree, hash tables) I'll admit it's maybe not quite so clear cut as the indirection messes with branch predictors, etc. and the callbacks all take void pointer arguments. Maybe for those containers it would be better to have generator macros that produce function prototypes and implementations.

And no, I'm not doing anything particularly focused on driver portability. I mostly write OS X kexts, and the built-in data structures in xnu aren't terribly helpful. (the OSContainer family uses blocking memory allocations, can only hold refcounted objects and the map and set use linear search) Some kernel code I write _is_ designed to be portable, and I use these data structures for that code, but it's pretty much just a standard factored design - general core and platform specific setup and API use. Nothing with any pretence of being a general solution.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


George-orwell.org's free online version of 1984 no longer accessible - <AUTHOR> http://www.george-orwell.org/1984

<comment><USER2> Do you mean "accessible" as in, disabled-friendly accessibility, or as in it has been removed. Because from what I see it's still there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Accessible as in the permissions have been changed.

I last viewed the webpage (as I was reading the book) yesterday at 8pm PST.

Creepy no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hrm...on closer inspection, if you continue to reload the page you're able to get to it.

Looks like it's under heavy load or there's something odd going on with the permissions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> May just be a load balancing issue; as @beecr001 mentioned, if you reload the page continuously you can access the site and all chapters.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can we interpret this as a sudden rise in popularity? (thanks NSA).

In any case, there are many other sources. I like the formatting in this one for example: [http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/](http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79n/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess that is a good thing. Some 'people' seem to have been using it as a user guide.</comment>


Dropbox announces Webhooks - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/developers/webhooks/tutorial <comment><USER2> This was announced ages ago

<comment><USER3> It was announced 2 weeks ago. Prior to that it was in beta for many months...

[https://www.dropbox.com/developers/blog/90/announcing- dropbo...](https://www.dropbox.com/developers/blog/90/announcing-dropbox- webhooks)</comment></comment>


China is choking the Internet - <AUTHOR> I've been in China for just under a year, and in that time have found ever larger portions of the free internet cut off. At first it wasn't too hard to get around, using Google's cache, some web proxies and then Tor.
But the state is cracking down, cutting off more of these avenues. Google cache is now blocked, deep packet inspection is analysing traffic that comes from web based proxies and blocking anything... that's normally blocked. And finally Tor is being effectively tackled.
It's public list of access points to the Tor network is blocked, and now Tor bridges are being blocked hours and minutes after them being made available. Tor is being defeated.
Top this off with an ever growing list of useful websites and services being cut off; half of anything Google does, Dropbox, and now Zoho.com's services.
Just as I begin a small web development company based in China, we get our first customer in the U.S. and are about to start using Zoho to manage the project only to find that it's blocked (it was working yesterday dammit!).
What kind of damage is this doing to China's startups? I mean I can't be the only one that this is affecting?
I'm on a shoes-string budget and even if I had the cash I don't have a credit card that can make payments in $US to buy VPN access.
Sorry for the rant but first Dropbox and now this, it's getting ridiculous. Any ideas on dealing with this? <comment><USER2> Quite frankly I think you are nuts for voluntarily living in China. And trying to run a business off the books? The punishment for that is severe enough here in the US, I cannot imagine what it is there.

The only real solution to your problem is to move to a free country. Take it while you till have that option.

As far as technical solutions, how good are they at tracking down individual, private VPN sessions? Setup OpenVPN on a friend's server and don't advertise it.

<comment><USER3> I voluntarily live in China and in many ways prefer living here to living in my homeland (the US). Otherwise, why would I be here? The food's great, the economy's great, people are friendly if you try to understand the culture, cost of living is low, and there's plenty of interesting historical stuff all around. Not to mention it's a very fascinating time to be here as you can see the most populous nation on Earth rapidly undergoing social and technological change.

Just don't get so hung up on the politics and you'll find that the water's warm :)

<comment><USER4> Cost of living ain't low, unless you live in a village. Shanghai is more expensive than NY. A beer is 45RMB, and that's for a Bud, not a fancy micro. Live like a local and you forgo comfort for cost. Anything foreign or of genuine quality is 2x the price as the western world. Even HK is a deal, unless you have to buy or rent property.Every time I go for business, I do all my shopping for 100% originals, not fakes. The price difference is astounding.

By not caring about the politics, you enable the problem. The CCP is making a mint off the US and becoming unstoppable. Society is crumbling and the rights and freedoms of the average citizens are falling as quickly. Culture? Where does the CCP fit into that? Communism, when did that become China's culture?

Stepping on 1 billion people to raise up 300 million is not progress.

<comment><USER5> Really, you complain about China because a Bud is 45 kuai?!?! Of course anything foreign is more expensive than the west. You realize you are in the other side of the world, right?

About the CCP making a mint off the US: Keep in mind that is the US that's selling treasuries.

<comment><USER6> > Of course anything foreign is more expensive than the west. You realize you > are in the other side of the world, right?

Actually that has more to do with Chinese currency manipulation than anything else. By refusing to adjust their currency appropriately, foreign goods are unaffordable to most domestics. This is the reason their economy is growing at amazing rates -- it's not magic. Long term this will cause problems, such as local property bubbles and potentially tariffs imposed on their exports as other countries get pissed.

<comment><USER5> Funny how no one used to complain when it was the rich countries who dictated the rules of the game (via the IMF).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You could say that this is actually beneficial for chinese startups, because without access to foreign alternatives chinese users are forced to use their services. I don't think it's a coincidence if most segments of the chinese internet are dominated by a company from China, not the USA.

The other goal that the Chinese government is achieving, is that by pushing chinese users towards chinese companies, they make sure that they keep them under their thumb. It's much easier for them to take down a video from Youku than from Youtube.

<comment><USER8> That's slightly oversimplified I think, and risks ignoring e greater causes of why Chinese internet companies have succeeded beyond American ones in that market. Facebook ripoffs like Xiaonei were vastly more popular than Facebook itself even when no block was in place.

<comment><USER7> I didn't say that was the only cause, but I'm pretty sure it's one of the main factors in those sites' success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is a simple solution might help...Get a vacation out of China. Setup a VPN and done.

If you love Chinese culture and freedom, you better try Taiwan. It's a republic (100 years mostly), democratic little island with Chinese traditional culture inside. I think if you want to do a startup for your future business entrance into China. Taiwan might be great for you. Although the market is small, but you can think that's an exercise/evaluation in China market. After all, you won't sacrifice your freedom and social justice.

Oh, by the way, there will be a FTA (ECFA) coming up between China and Taiwan. Sooner or later there will be lots of trade activities going on between the strait.

<comment><USER10> Another vote for Taiwan.

People are friendly, the society is (mostly) free and you don't have to compromise your conscience. Food is great, diverse and safe. Granted, local driving habits are suicidal, but that not really different from the mainland.

The level of technical expertise around is very high. I've been doing hardware development in Taipei, and for about any component you can source vendor's field assistance engineer within a day.

The trade agreement though seems to be very heated topic there, with lots of lobbying pro and contra. But ultimately it is likely to come through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sign up for a $20 slice at slice host, install squid, and configure a ssh tunnel to it. Tell your browser to use the tunneled proxy. Voilà.

Edit: just saw two others recommended this approach.

<comment><USER2> The problem with this is the same as for services like dropbox. If enough people do this they will start blocking the slicehost IPs.

To be successful you need to have * IP usage distributed over a wide range * private distribution of proxy details * ability to switch to a new proxy when your current one is blocked

Tor tries to accomplish most of this, but from the OP's post it appears that it is being effectively blocked, either by watching Tor entry points or by packet inspection.

<comment><USER12> In practice, only services that are advertising themselves as a way to get around the firewall may get blocked. Using SSH through some arbitrary VPS provider in the U.S., the chances of it getting blocked are very low...low, as in I've done it for years with the same IP with no problems.

<comment><USER13> In practice the great firewall is still not blocking vpn, even a weak pptp is ok. Many very well known vpn services are still not blocked, and not because of ignorance from govt. Just search for vpn on taobao (chinese ebay), and you'll find plenty of options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Rent a VPS or dedicated server outside china and use an SSH proxy.

Linux: [http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/06/18/tunnel-web-and-dns- tr...](http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2008/06/18/tunnel-web-and-dns-traffic-over- ssh/) Windows: [http://www.dotcomunderground.com/blogs/2008/12/11/putty- ssh-...](http://www.dotcomunderground.com/blogs/2008/12/11/putty-ssh-tunnel- to-hide-ip/)

<comment><USER15> Expect everything going through the great firewall to be slow. Also I wonder if they will allow encrypted connections over a longer period at all if they already run a app firewall.

<comment><USER16> That's what I'm doing, it's not very slow (or at least I don't really feel the difference)...

I don't think they'll ever block encrypted connections because that would deal a major blow to the foreign companies working here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How long will China tolerate VPNs? While they are an essential tool for international business, they also completely defeat the firewall.

<comment><USER16> The chinese government don't care about VPN that target people with credit cards that can pay in US dollars because most local chinese won't have access to that and those that do are also likely to travel abroad and be exposed to all that information anyway...

<comment><USER18> Not always. Different ISP's block different things and work/home connections also have different rules.

Once I came home to find they blocked the port to SSH & VPN. After 1 month of fighting with the IT management in the local building they opened it again.

<comment><USER19> Yep! The Great Firewall is only the outermost layer of blocking inside China. The ISP blocks plenty: only last week they suspended my account for a few days, probably as a "threat". It seems officials develop connections with the ISP's to collect surfing histories of customers these officials have an interest in. There's no concept of "providing an internet service to customers" in the minds of the ISP managers. If you use a Chinese ISP for any sort of web-hosting, be aware it may be vandalized by anyone willing to pay 100 rmb (i.e. 15 US dollars).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, since you've been in China less than a year and you're finding out that it hampers your ability to run a business, why not state loud & clear to the government they'll be losing your business and move out?

It's not like you don't have options, as opposed to the majority of the Chinese population, for who moving out is not an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I came here because my wife missed home, and the business isn't official(that is, isn't registered which because I'm not Chinese takes a lot of time and money and could very well be flat out rejected, have a read of some posts at China Law Blog <http://www.chinalawblog.com/> , they cover the details).

Basically this is something I've just gone ahead and started, will work my ass off to make work, and if it does, and is worth while then I'll go official.

<comment><USER20> Ok. how about your own very private VPN to a machine abroad somehwere ?

I'm willing to host it for free for you if you play nice just to get you out of the bind you're in.

Mail me if you're game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, thanks, working great.

<comment><USER21> One down, one billion to go? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I also run a web company in Beijing, and feel your pain. Quite simply things like google groups which help in work, and access to coding/design blogs and material/advice. It's a fucking nightmare and pisses me off to no end.

I wake up, and click through HN feeds and 30% of them don't work. Even with a proxy you have to connect which might mess with your other settings, refresh, links come in slow. Then you need to disconnect since most VPN's tunnel ALL traffic via their servers. You are also logged off MSN so any conversations go missing.

China is like IE6. Only worse.

</comment><comment><USER4> As I write this I too am having to go through a VPN to access the world. Even when it works properly, I constantly have to "play the VPN game."

I really don't have the time to list out every item from jhancock that I disagree with, but pretty much all of them made me grimace. And I find it poignant that he no longer lives here. I too live in Shanghai and have for the past 5 years. I came here looking for another view on life and to see what all the media fuss was about.

Don't get me wrong, I love the food, the excitement of living in a foreign country, have a wonderful chinese wife and in-laws and now take the good with the bad. But I now see why the US is #1 in many areas and continues to bring positivity to the world, for the most part.

I fully understand why millions of people attempt to immigrate to the US every year. Clean water, clean air, freedom to buy property, move where you like and a legal system that can be counted on. Nothing is perfect and there are exceptions, but China is a land with no law and it really never was. What the emperor wanted, he got. Contracts mean nothing, police cannot be counted on for much, other than brokering bribes between parties on the street and judges feel if you are in front of them, you did something wrong, regardless of the situation.

I have run my own business as well, legally, and have seen actions on part of my partners and customers that have blown my mind. The scams and lies now make me smile and I take them as lessons on what a person can do. It is the wild west over here.

As for the internet service, forget about it. Without SLAs, your provider is obligated to give you nothing. Either pay or they turn off your service. My home service is 150RMB/ month, my office, 2500RMB/ month because I am in an office building and they think we can afford more. My home service works above and beyond my best day in the office.

IP also means nothing, so the West continues to get raped over anything that might bring a profit from SW to design to web 2.0 opportunities. It's about block and copy and we are letting them step all over the WTO guidelines. Cisco? MS? Those sell-outs? They built the great firewall! I can tell you, they have not made more money than they have invested, but they will never admit it. Everyones' hope to finally make a buck someday in the future over here. The dream of any foreign company.....that never comes. Ask Grumman. Ask Pepsi. Ask GM with their 49/50 joint venture.

The air smells, the water putrid and cars drive on the sidewalk. Oh, and what is a red light? A color. And this is in their greatest international city. The rest of the country dives into the 18th century. I have been from top to bottom.

US creativity and ingenuity in technologies, film, music , popular trends, fashion, social improvements were all built on a legal system that has lasted over 200 years and continues to roll with the punches. China? The CCP just hit 60 and they still don't know what to call themselves. Communist? Socialist? Quasi-capitalist? A little copy of all of them. That's confusion, not progress.

Mark my words, we will be dealing with the worst kind of monster, an enabled one. I am talking about the CCP, not the Chinese people themselves. Know the difference. Blocking the internet is nothing, remember Tienanmen? They killed their own students and that says it all. Those leaders are still in power and are about to "elect" their children in 2012.

Well, I guess I did cover most of his comments. ha! And by the way, this summer, I will be finally coming home for good and will kiss the ground of a National Park when I do.

<comment><USER22> America is better off currently mostly because it is newer. As time goes on the US will become more and more like China: more corruption, more pollution, less human rights.

<comment><USER23> I really don't think so. America can be "new", but Europe is much more old.

We are certainly having some problems on these topics, but we are far from being corrupted, polluted and without human rights. Especially in the northern european country, that are a big example of legality, human and civil rights and environmentally directed mindset.

I think that it's not a matter of how old a country is. To cite another example I know well, Italy is far worse than Europe, despite being first world, because, as a country, is really young (150 years compared to centuries for all other european countries).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 3 options :

1 - Playball 2 - Dodgeball 3 - Run ...

</comment><comment><USER25> I've said this in other China related threads but I think China will just end up black-holing themselves.

<comment><USER20> And risk a huge hit to their economy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are so many things that will require us dollars, euros, whatever over credit cards for your business anyway, so get a card that can do currency exchange anyway?

</comment><comment><USER12> You simply need someone to give you SSH access to a server outside China. Setup a SOCKS proxy through SSH and you can get anywhere you want.

Using some SaaS from inside China can be a problem (even with your SSH tunnel) due to latency and bandwidth. Find other tools. Folks have been building Internet companies for quite some time without needing cool JavaScript SaaS collaborative cloud thingies.

<comment><USER20> Already done. I gave him an account on one of my machines, it's up and running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't know that it damages their startups. If anything, they make me-too products that mimic those here for their own domestic market.

</comment><comment><USER28> There seems to be a great market DPI and other "security" focused technologies. You can always sell such products to Governments.

That being said, I find it hard to believe that the internet can be censored and regulated. It just takes too much time and effort to be worth it. Whatever the technology used, there will always be workarounds. There is no such thing as foolproof technology.

More and more its seems like a big con. The Government wanted it and some smart guy told them it can be done. He must be making a lot of money now.

<comment><USER29> The ruling class of the PRC is currently willing to keep power _by any means necessary_.

I'm hesitant to bet against a ruling class while it still maintains its own Gulag (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai>) and gets 65% of the country's organs for transplant from those it executes ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_in_the_People%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China)).

Yes, _someday_ it will likely all come tumbling down, although I think that history shows that tends to happen when the ruling class loses the will to engage in such extremes. Or if its own history is any guide it might split apart again.

But in the meanwhile they clearly think its worth the time and effort. And little mammals like us startup types need to be careful to avoid getting trampled underfoot.

<comment><USER12> Why does it have to come tumbling down? Can't you see a way forward where things improve without violence? There isn't one ruling class. I've seen government power change several times in Shanghai and at the national level over 10 years. You sound very pessimistic. What are doing to make the world a better place?

Here are a few suggestions:

* If you are a Chinese national, go home and become a member of the party, vote, and get involved in making your country better.

* If you have a method to fix one of the many problem in China (pollution, energy, etc.) you should go show it to the person in the Chinese gov that handles such policy. If you've got a great solution, I can get you touch with people that will listen.

<comment><USER29> It doesn't _have_ to happen with (a lot of) violence. The final denouncement of the Soviet Union was fantastically non-violent compared to what just about everyone expected.

But authoritarian regimes like the PRC's aren't very stable, they have legitimacy problems, succession problems, sooner or latter they tend to "tumble down".

The very fact that the ruling class is spending so much effort keeping a lid on things by continuing to build the Great Firewall of China (with all its collateral damage as we're discussing here), preventing _any_ alternative forms of civil society from getting big (organized religion, Falun Gong ... are there even Chamber's of Commerce that are independent of the government???) tells us important things.

And then there are the looming demographic issues. The One-Child Policy is leading to a nasty 4-2-1 generational aging---4 grandparents have 2 parents who have 1 child ... to support all the parents---and a nasty male to female ratio imbalance. Who's going to support those parents in their old age? Who are those unmatched 10s of millions of men going to marry? What happens if one or neither of those problems get solved?

Energy doesn't seem to be a big problem for the PRC (is the Earth about to run out of coal, uranium, etc.?). Pollution ... well, wealth and the rule of law are what solved it in the developed nations. We'll see how the wealth game continues in the PRC, but I don't see any possibility of a sudden outbreak of the rule of law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It will always be an unending battle between hackers and the 'filterers'.

Actually, I wonder if there's another motive behind the filtering. I reckon by blocking access to certain foreign sites, it is actually giving opportunities to the locals to come up with their own home-brewed version of the service. The government is helping you kill off foreign competition.

Maybe it should be a case of "when there's a big problem, there's a big opportunity."

</comment><comment><USER31> Move to Hong Kong?

<comment><USER15> The inet connection into mainland from that route is very slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> +10 points for HN I don't agree with a lot of points of view here but I'm so glad it's happening here on HN rather than on Digg or something. Almost everyone who expresses their political views have been in China or does business in China rather than just repeating what fox news said.

I have gained new respects for HN

</comment><comment><USER3> dublinclontarf, I live in and run a business in China. I solve my problems with a VPN. I find the GFW an annoyance, but not a huge one. It mostly just means my connection is slower when I access certain sites. Do you live in Beijing? I'd be happy to meet up with you if you're in the area.

<comment><USER18> I live in Beijing, post away

<comment><USER19> You mean: "Jingapore"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How much does a US-based VPN service cost? What would be a reasonable price?

If any China-based hackers are interested, I'd consider setting one up for a price on the short side of fair.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am well schooled in foreign policy, political and economic strategy. People have to realize that at this point in time China can't have completely free informational channels, as we enjoy here in America.

You have millions of rural uneducated people in china that if give the right motivation can destabalize the country. To prevent that destabalization from happening you have to control informational channels and the information being delivered on it, especially when China is going through a transitional period.

At the macro level on of the biggest threats to globalization is the integration of China into the global system.

</comment><comment><USER4> If nothing else, I think we can all agree that the "China" topic can bring an emotionally heated debate and it's great to have the platform to discuss such issues. Thanks to pg for that! Forums such as these are not as common in the rest of the world as one could naively believe. But to bring this back to dublinclontarf 's original comment, I will write my last words on the subject.

As we are becoming more and more dependent on this thing called the internet, we must begin to create and offer the same types of securities, rights of access, usage and opportunities to the world, equally. Under the guidelines of free trade, like the WTO, we should have these already in place in some areas As online businesses are businesses, none the less, they should be given their due protection.

By restricting internet businesses from others and controlling what can and cannot be said on them is wrong. As China grows to become more powerful and has more ability to control their internet, I can only see a darker future for the state of freedom in China.

What we see now, are only examples of the type of governing and leadership in the CCP today. Human rights, free speech, social stability and environmental well-being all grow from the same tree. That tree looks to be quite unhealthy.

Bottom line, you do not have the freedom to discuss what you like on the internet in China. Period. Do so and you risk anything from losing a business license or police harassment to imprisonment or worse, in extreme cases. You do not have complete access to the online businesses being created daily across the globe. These are facts.

These freedoms that we take for granted in the US (I am an American) come from a basis of law and order. As I said before it is not perfect. Nothing humans create is. But from that law, we have much prosperity. the clean air comes from regulations and restrictions on wanton over-development, national parks have come from the common man fighting big business to protect something pure. By the way, even our president had to use his constitutional power to save one of the world's most precious gifts, the Grand Canyon, from the might of big business. And millions of immigrants have found a home to raise their families and prosper in their own unique ways.

Governments that oppress these freedoms and deny those rights have never fully grown to become world powers and beacons of hope. They made money and won some wars, but were never considered safe havens.

The problems associated with Internet and Freedom in China are merely symptoms of larger issues looming on the horizon. As we build this world wide web ever larger and stronger, we will see just how those two ideas are so intertwined.

</comment><comment><USER35> For 20USD/mo you can setup a VPS and create your own vpn service using openswan. Is 20USD/mo too much?

<comment><USER29> From the original posting:

" _[...] even if I had the cash I don't have a credit card that can make payments in $US to buy VPN access_ "

And avoiding a paper trail is wise if things eventually get ugly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By the way the, VPNs of choice for China are Skydur and Freedur. Cheap and reliable.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sorry to hear this. Can't you move out ? Why China - or is there no option. Can you not split some work with another Asian country - India for example ?

</comment><comment><USER37> i've got a proxy or two you can use in the states, email me.

</comment><comment><USER38> dude i'm in china too.. Freegate for the win

</comment><comment><USER39> move to Taiwan?

<comment><USER26> Moving to taiwan/hk/macau and taking cheap flights to the mainland could be a good alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think it's your fault for choosing to move to China then starting a web business that needs US access. It was very well known what China was like with respect to the web before you did this. It's a bit like moving to the North Pole to start a beach resort then complaining about how cold it is, all the snow, etc.

<comment><USER19> In fact China gradually liberalized the internet in the months and years leading up to the Aug 2008 Olympics, and there was virtually no blocking from Aug 2008 to March 2009. Many foreigners here thought the Chinese had seen some sense. But then the restrictions started piling on. The ones I noticed: Youtube in March 2009, Blogspot in May 2009, Google Groups around Nov 2009.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The common theme about doing business in China is that China is very adept at making sure that money invested into China never, ever leaves the great financial wall of China.

</comment><comment><USER41> Protest!

<comment><USER42> But be prepared to die under the treads of a tank.

<comment><USER20> The Tiananmen Square protests were in 1989, well before the rise of widespread internet usage, I wonder if given the speed with which information moves around these days if the government of China would risk a second confrontation in the public eye like that.

While the OP states clearly that the government is doing a lot to crack down on communication with foreign entities I can't help but think that communication inside China is still on average a lot faster today than it was in 1989.

Are mesh networks illegal in China?

<comment><USER43> I think you're correct, but China still tries its best to crack down on this. Remember the iPhone is sold in China without wifi. Probably to cut down on this exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> china is a f __*ing country

<comment><USER45> Please clarify, it's the _government_ , not all Chinese people, who can be as friendly and kindly as every faithful human on the earth.

<comment><USER19> The government is made up of people. After living in China for a while, you soon find some Chinese people are friendly to your face, but are monitoring your emails thru your ISP, or tracking your movements around the city, or arranging for a breakin at your apartment. And these are young Chinese, just doing what their seniors showed them. Young Chinese don't have the concept in their minds that internet blocking harms innovation, and will do the same in government when they replace their elders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Move away from china. There's nothing for us there.

</comment><comment><USER47> Well. You're obviously not chinese. It is not your role to play.</comment>


Virtual goods: "precisely what you'd expect to evolve on the iPhone" - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2009/12/14/send-virtual-3d-gifts-with-little-world-gifts/

<comment><USER2> Testing.</comment>