Indonesia Plans to Move Its Capital Out of Jakarta, a City That's Sinking - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/718234878/indonesia-plans-to-move-its-capital-out-of-jakarta-a-city-thats-sinking <comment><USER2> I've read both _Salt Dreams_ and _Water for a thirsty land : the Consolidated Irrigation District and its canal development history_. The first is roughly the history of the Colorado River and water issues in Southern California. The second is the history of water development and water rights in Fresno County, California.

Fresno has a surprisingly rich history in that regard, one I never hear about outside of reading that one book. It is basically the modern day equivalent of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

When settlers first arrived in the area, it was mostly desert with some greenery along the rivers. After canal development, it became a lush landscape. The book contains incredible _before_ and _after_ photos.

After canal development, low lying areas turned into de facto lakes. They eventually turned some into groundwater recharge ponds.

During some years, Fresno has actually raised the ground water level, though it only gets 11 inches of rain per year. The county played a critical role in the creation of water rights laws in the state of California, as well as in the history of water development tools and technology. Multiple patents were developed in Fresno County.

If you are concerned about these issues or do work related to such, I highly recommend reading the book.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land- the-...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-the- consolidated-irrigation-district-and-its-canal-development- history/oclc/36954078&referer=brief_results)

( _Salt Dreams_ is also an excellent read.)

<comment><USER3> > When settlers first arrived in the area, it was mostly desert with some > greenery along the rivers. After canal development, it became a lush > landscape. The book contains incredible _before_ and _after_ photos.

Except for the photos, this is a good match for the development of Iraq several thousand years ago. As far as I understand, it's back to being desert everywhere today.

<comment><USER4> > As far as I understand, it's back to being desert everywhere today.

Not entirely. The once massive Mesopotamian Marshes (which were largely drained by Saddam to destroy the local Shia population) have been partially restored, from about 10% of the original size to about 50%. It will probably take many decades for the ecosystems to be restored, but it is nonetheless good news.

Edit: Worth seeing here [https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=31.16454,47.12287...](https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=31.16454,47.12287,7.817,latLng&t=2.63&ps=50&bt=19840101&et=20181231&startDwell=0&endDwell=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > Jakarta's problems are largely man-made – the area's large population has > extracted so much groundwater that it has impacted the ground levels, and > many surface water resources are polluted.

<comment><USER5> > "Decades of living dangerously in terms of water resource management, urban > planning, waste and wastewater management, is taking its toll on the > megacity. This is made possible by poor city planning, environmental and > conservation policies, enforcement and practices."

What are the chances that Indonesia's incompetence won't be incompetent at managing the environmental impact of their next capital city?

<comment><USER6> I recently had the chance to visit Jakarta after over 10 years away, and they're finally starting to get some things right. The recent emphasis on public transport is particularly promising: the first MRT (subway) line finally opened this year, there's a lot more on the way, they've beefed up the commuter railways, Jakarta airport T3 is head and shoulders above the old ones, etc. Some bloggage on the topic:

[https://driftingclouds.net/2019/03/28/jakarta-by-rail-mrt- op...](https://driftingclouds.net/2019/03/28/jakarta-by-rail-mrt-opening- week/)

[https://driftingclouds.net/2019/04/01/jakarta-by-rail- airpor...](https://driftingclouds.net/2019/04/01/jakarta-by-rail-airport-rail- link-and-skytrain/)

Much of the credit goes to recently re-elected president Jokowi, who's the least incompetent leader Indonesia has had in a while (possibly ever/since independence?) and who's also the prime mover behind the new capital idea. That said, I'm not entirely sold on the idea myself, the track record of other SE Asian countries trying this -- Putrajaya in Malaysia and particularly Pyongyang-in-the-tropics aka Naypyidaw in Myanmar -- are not encouraging.

[http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2017/07/naypyidaw-myanmar- gho...](http://www.thebohemianblog.com/2017/07/naypyidaw-myanmar-ghost-city- capital.html)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and Putrajaya barely qualifies as moving the capital, given it's still part of KL's metropolitan area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The plan to move Indonesian capital city has been around since Sukarno's era (1957) [0]. I hope that it will really happen this time.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_future_capital_city...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_future_capital_city_proposal)

<comment> forgot-my-pw It better, they only have 3 decades left...

> Jakarta faces massive challenges. As the BBC has reported, it's the fastest- > sinking city in the world, with almost half of its area below sea level.

> "If we look at our models, by 2050 about 95% of North Jakarta will be > submerged," Heri Andreas, an expert in Jakarta's land subsidence at the > Bandung Institute of Technology, told the broadcaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> People should really stop growing megapolises and start developing smaller cities, interconnection infrastructure and regional decentralization (decentralization is already fine in the US with its states system but near- zero in e.g. Russia (Moscow everything) and I dunno about Indonesia).

<comment><USER10> Basically all of Java is as dense as a mid-sized American city. Java (2903 / mi^2), Atlanta (3547 / mi^2). Here, Java's population density includes its 12000-foot peaks. Or, to give an alternate picture, it's a third of the size of California, with four times as many people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is a complete understatement of how bad it is. Traffic is unreal. Getting to the airport from a hotel that would be 20mins away with no traffic takes 4+hrs.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what the cost comparison looks like between moving and trying to fix sinking issue

</comment><comment><USER13> Moving makes sense I think, not just because of environmental issues but because it's not healthy to have all the country's leadership and wealth concentrated in one place. Hopefully they can figure out a way to move the capital that results in less consolidation of power and not more, and that isn't bad for the people and environment around where the new capital is placed.

<comment><USER14> "because it's not healthy to have all the country's leadership and wealth concentrated in one place."

Has there been any research on this? It seems a pretty common pattern to have the gov't capital, financial center, largest population center and largest GDP producing cities all be the same place. This holds true in (more or less) stable industrialized countries like France, Japan, S. Korea, etc. as well as in many 3rd world countries.

I have a vague feeling its unhealthy, but that's admittedly probably at least partly because I grew up in the States, where it isn't the case and gives me something of a bias against it. And presumably there's a reason its such a popular model, even if it hasn't been a conscious decision in most cases.

<comment><USER15> I was going to say it's pretty common not to have the major city (largest finance/population/GDP, pretty much all correlates of one another), but it's actually not. Excluding countries that explicitly moved their capital from the largest city (e.g., Brazil), the major countries with this setup are Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, Canada, Ecuador, Morocco, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, US, and Vietnam. And most of those countries boil down to "we took several regions and agglomerated them into one entity," where the capital is either unchanged from one of the old constituents (e.g., Turkey--Ankara was the capital during the Turkish rebellion) or was sited in a middle point to not favor one constituent (e.g., Canada).

It's just that I'm more familiar with the exceptions than the rule.

<comment><USER16> This list is suspiciously incomplete, how are China and India not on it? In both of the world's most populous countries, the largest city and indisputable financial centre is not the capital. I would guess the majority of the world's population lives in countries where this is the situation, so it's not just you.

<comment><USER6> The commercial cities in question, Mumbai and Shanghai, have never been the capitals of India or China.

Delhi was built as a new capital by the British Raj, taking over from Calcutta. Beijing's history is long and complicated, but it has been the capital of unified China since 1421, give or take a few blips during wars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting. It looks like Korea and Egypt are also moving their capitals.

[https://qz.com/1608402/indonesia-like-egypt-and-south- korea-...](https://qz.com/1608402/indonesia-like-egypt-and-south-korea-plans- new-capital/)

I wonder if it is due to overcrowding or to separate business and political centers?

</comment><comment><USER18> I am glad that the politicians finally want to do something about it.

The capital also unnecessarily pulls all of the country's resources into that one city causing even worse wealth inequality and poverty.

</comment><comment><USER19> A city on Samosir, on the island of Lake Toba would look spectacular but quite impractical.

<comment><USER20> not sure what do you mean by spectacular, but Lake Toba already got plenty of problems with its environment [1].

[1]. [https://aquaculturemag.com/2018/09/25/indonesian-fish- farmer...](https://aquaculturemag.com/2018/09/25/indonesian-fish-farmers-get- early-warning-system-for-lake-pollution/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Miami next.

<comment><USER22> And New Orleans.

<comment><USER23> Miami sits on porous bedrock. It has much less of a chance of survival than New Orleans.

<comment><USER22> Maybe.

"After a $14.6 billion-dollar upgrade, Army Corp engineers have confirmed that New Orleans' levees are sinking. Today, 11 months after one of the largest public works in world history has been completed, the system could stop providing adequate protection in as little as four years."

[https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/new-orleans- lev...](https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/new-orleans-levees-are- sinking-city-in-vulnerable-position/ar-BBWdUHs)

<comment><USER24> Previously on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19696096)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Every Startup Office Should Have - <AUTHOR>

Feel free to add your list of things a startup office should have.
Personally, here's a list of things I need to have to be fully productive and passionate on what I do.
Every startup office should have at least the following:
1. A bed
2. A shower
3. A masseur
4. BBQ
5. Fridge with Beer and Soda.
6. Addicting games. (ie. SC2, Dota)
7. Monthly vacation trips
8. Beach access
9. Alcohol
10. Outdoor office with a big patio umbrella and wifi
11. Best audiophile headphone on the market <comment><USER2> Any "startup" that meets your criteria is not a startup, but either a) a very successful business with money to burn, or b) riding the VC train to shutdowns-ville.

Ask not what your startup can do for you, but what you can do for your startup.

P.S. Calling these "needs" makes you sound incredibly entitled

</comment><comment><USER3> Provided it isn't anywhere near direct sunlight: a plexiglass greenhouse. Perfect scribble-everywhere breakout space. As inspired by Hub Westminster.

</comment><comment><USER4> What about a Capuccino machine... and as many Macs as you can afford.

</comment><comment><USER5> are we talking about a startup or a resort?

</comment><comment><USER6> A good idea.</comment>


The Tragic Case of Alfie Evans - <AUTHOR> http://quillette.com/2018/04/28/tragic-case-alfie-evans/ <comment><USER2> Barely mentioned in the article: Alfie Evans had an incurable neurodegenerative condition that had already destroyed approximately 75% of his grey matter. He was, in clinical terms, brain dead, with no prospect of recovery.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Everything Falsifiable? - <AUTHOR> If I decide to judge 'believe' (non-scientific, non-falsifiable) as probabilistic function (easy example - Pascal wager) isn't, ultimately, everything falsifiable? Including the most bizarre of the statements, ie. I believe that there are green skinned trunk people living at the edge of Antarctica.
Only after I add additional constrains, like time, space, frequency or other, I can truly talk about statement being falsifiable in relation to those constrains.
There is also, of course, Gödel.
PS. I realize roots of falsifiability are within philosophy of science and I myself try to extend definition from simple and well defined statements to complex and undefined. It's an exercise. <comment><AUTHOR> > What do you mean falsifiable?

Testable. Ability to approve or dismiss idea. This ability seems to exist only within some defined constrains (time, space...). That's my question at its roots.

Of course we assume that statement which fails to be 'tested' within those constrains is 'false' or at least probabilistically closer to 'false' than 'true'. However, without those modeled constrains, statement 'hangs' in some quantum realm of uncertainty until some final resolution happens.

Hence the question, isn't ultimately everything falsifiable? I could always give my 'test' a little more time or define bigger space for it to work until one day it would work. In other words, I can wait infinite amount of time for something to become true, where false happens in finite amount of time.

Ie. What if I waited 1bln years until green skinned trunk people will start living at the edge of Antarctica?

It seems to border on [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demarcation_problem)

> Could you elaborate on what you mean by "there is also, of course, Gödel"?

I referred to Incompleteness Theorem, namely - problem of consistency. In case of falsifiability:

a) Impossibility to establish the internal logical consistency, unless one adopts principles of reasoning so complex that their internal consistency is as open to doubt. b) Models cannot be made in finite number of observation. c) Even if theorems already deduced do not contradict each other, there remains possibility that the very next theorem deduced may be contradictory.

Honestly guys, uff... But I do try to get deeper understanding of 'falsifiability' and its limits :)

</comment><comment><USER2> What do you mean falsifiable?

> I believe that there are green skinned trunk people living at the edge of > Antarctica.

Critical thinking and objective analysis can be applied. If you ask me to believe that,I would ask you to present me with facts I can independently verify.

You mentioned words like 'believe' and 'judge'. What thought process are you following? If your judgement is flexible enough anything is falsifiable to you. Indeed some believe everything is relative and truth comes in shades.

Pascal's wager is interesting because he states truth is binary,which I personally agree. Some things are difficult for people to prove as truth so I think we resort to believability based on varying metrics as opoosed to a binary true/false verdict.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could you elaborate on what you mean by "there is also, of course, Gödel"?

Isn't the statement "This statement is false" non-falsifiable?</comment>


Open Source made me the man I am - <AUTHOR> http://cubiq.org/open-source-made-me-the-man-i-am <comment><USER2> I contribute to some FOSS projects with hundreds of thousands of downloads and it's healthy from several points of view.

On the one hand, I made some great "online" friends and feel great as I write code that I know people will use and appreciate. On the other hand, I've learnt so much and I know that some of the skills I've acquired during these years will help me when I'm old enough to get a job and start "actually" working. _I feel like I can also say Open Source will make the man I will be._

To me, it's amazing how I can sit back in my desk and shape projects being developed and used by people from all over the world. I rarely have time to think about the awesomeness in that, but when I do I always feel so fulfilled.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of the time I used to contribute to the enlightenment project. e17 was still not released, and very rough around the edges, I had commit access, so I wrote a theme selector app and put it in the repo, it eventually got picked up and included with the default installation of e17. Was the best feeling at the time to have something you wrote used by people all around the world.

Of course the project then moved on and my code was replaced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Open source is one of those rare times when "build it and they will come" holds true. I built a testing gem for stripe, and with zero marketing I've had eight complete strangers come in and make useful contributions through the magic of github. Open source is truly fascinating.

<comment><USER5> Link to your stripe testing gem?

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/rebelidealist/stripe-ruby- mock](https://github.com/rebelidealist/stripe-ruby-mock)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I liked that, and open source has similarly helped my career over the decades (I write this wearing a FSF tee shirt :-)

One warning to the author: he might be more careful about posting his rate for specific customers. I am also contracting at Google and my contract says that remuneration is confidential.

<comment><USER7> thanks for the heads-up. My standard hourly rate is public (you can find it in the "hire me" section too), long term hires are then discussed on a per project basis. I actually didn't disclose how much they spent :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good article. If you looking for an idea for your next article I would love to know how you publish your open source code, how you introduce your projects to the first developers? any interesting hack there? or simple post in HN is enough?

<comment><USER7> I'm the author of the original article. I actually haven't posted it on HN and it was a pleasant surprise.

I believe the best way to "promote" yourself is by being active in your community. Connect with other developers, discuss on forums, groups, g+, etc...

Just logging in to push your open source project is pretty useless and quite lame. You have to be believable and you need to gain the trust of your community first. It's a long process but it pays back.

<comment><USER9> What if you have an open source project for which you can't easily find a community? For example, I've got what I feel is a fairly good backup utility as an upgrade for people using rsync snapshot backups. But it would feel improper to mention it on any rsync backup tool mailing list (as it technically competes with these tools).

The only thing I can think of is to make packages for various distributions and see if they want to include it. But I'd like to get a bit more testing and feedback first, with maybe a couple dozen users before going mainstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does a few weekend projects on GitHub and blogging about it really count as "developing open source software"? Isn't this more like using the Open Source term to promote oneself? Compared to guys like Igor Sysoev churning away year after year working on nginx and _not_ using time to blog about it.

<comment><USER11> >Does a few weekend projects on GitHub and blogging about it really count as "developing open source software"?

Yes.

<comment><USER12> Definitely. I spent a lot of time at looking at code for microcontroller projects, Arduinos, AVR, STM32. For some people with experience they may take a weekend or two, but for someone who learns by reading code it's the building blocks of your career and success(or future success in my case ;).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's nice to hear about such success stories. Unfortunately most OSS projects never gain such a user base to be able to make a living off of it. I'm currently evaluating changing the license of our GPL-ed software to use something more restrictive or even dropping OSS and make it freeware only without providing sources. Read these emails if you want to know why: [http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce- firstname.lastname@example.com...](http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce- email@example.com/msg00214.html) [http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog- firstname.lastname@example.com...](http://www.mail-archive.com/nxlog-ce- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg00215.html)

Let me know if you have some advice.

<comment><USER14> My advice would be to setup a paid support arm ASAP, and tell the person complaining they have two options:

1) Log a bug against the windows build process, and you'll look at it when it reaches the top of your priority list, or

2) Engage you for paid support to investigate the issue.

You are under no obligation to make your softwear buildable on any platform. If he chooses to disagree,he can refuse your license, delete your software and move on.

<comment><USER13> Paid support is already there. There is a "support" menu on the webpage, the issue tracker has a polite note saying that this is available. Some people have been contacted directly in email to see whether they'd be interested.

For example some users at a big Taiwanese laptop maker company were after windows2000(!) support. When they were politely offered support saying "please decide whether paid support would be of interest or not", the response was "ok, thank you for your information but when can you fix the bug?". I could give countless other similar examples.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions. I'll heed the advice and will change the website to make this more clear for those who are only after the free labor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can echo a lot of what the author is saying. While I have seen less financial success, my project (respondcms.com, if interested) has taught me a lot about writing code, designing UI, and dealing with complexity. I am definitely a better developer for doing it, and at the end of the day, it is definitely a good feeling when someone finds value in what you are doing.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am bootstraping startup which will turn my long time hobby OS project into full-time job. I am almost always tired, cranky and my social life sucks. I think it is safe to say, I would be better man with normal hobby and 9-5 job.

<comment><USER17> That's the pressure of a start up rather than the specifics of the project though isn't it?

Going it alone and giving up the security of a steady pay check is going to be hard whether you're setting up a software company or a sandwich shop.

I suspect for every entrepreneur blogging about how being self employed has given them a great work life balance, I suspect there are 20 in the same position as you. It could be that you're not suited to the life but, more likely I suspect, it's just part and parcel of the early stages of setting out on your own.

<comment><USER16> No pressure, I have long runway and dozens of job offers to fallback to. And I just turned profitable.

This is not a rant, I love what I am doing and freedom it brings. I just want to point out that being OS nerd, does not always line up with being "better man".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I write open source code — some stuff I'm tidying up before I release, since I just whack it on GitHub unusable for the 99% — but don't have much exposure? I have plugins built for Sublime Text which have around 4k downloads.

[http://github.com/jbrooksuk](http://github.com/jbrooksuk)

<comment><USER9> How do you track your number of downloads on Github?

<comment><USER18> Ah, I don't. All of my Sublime packages are in Package Control, so I can check the downloads through wbonds site; [https://sublime.wbond.net/browse/authors/jbrooksuk](https://sublime.wbond.net/browse/authors/jbrooksuk)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cool. Stories like this are why I'm building a marketplace for freelance programmers that have contributed to open source.

Of course, it's open source- [https://github.com/CodeDoor/codedoor](https://github.com/CodeDoor/codedoor)

</comment><comment><USER20> Using and/or contributing to open-source software also means that you help society use its resources in a more economic and intelligent way:

You can invest the resulting savings in projects which will in turn advance society.

Also in _this_ sense you become "a better man".

</comment><comment><USER21> Open Source has been berry, berry good to me! (Anyone else old enough to catch the reference?)

It's really an amazing social phenomenon, something unexpected and unique, that seems to go against the grain, or at least usefully counter, the market- driven, proprietary, DRM, locked-in, control-freak sensibility that is so prominent today in mainstream high tech.

</comment><comment><USER22> Open source is definitely the most amazing philosophy on software development.

Recently a guy at Facebook recruiting staff contacted me by email for a position inside the company saying that they liked what I've been building and publishing as open source.

I'd highly recommend to everyone that contributes with open source to attach their github/bitbucket/googlecode/etc accounts on their resumes.

I'm doing exactly that on my linkedin summary and it helped me a lot to introduce myself. [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/juan-manuel- garc%C3%ADa/29/4a5/2...](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/juan-manuel- garc%C3%ADa/29/4a5/214)

</comment><comment><USER23> I feel a little apprehensive about sharing my code online, Im not sure if its an ego thing or from seeing some of the rude comments people have made over twitter about X pull request being made on github. Am I just being silly about this?

<comment><USER24> Not "silly" per se, but I think that concern is overblown. I write bad code and release all of it that I can, because we don't get better in a vacuum. Also, what's terrible code to you is likely highly useful to somebody else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I only have one project[1], but the communications from its users (always constructive or requests for information) makes me proud of the way it makes the average Java Selenium user's life easier.

[1] [https://github.com/elisarver/selophane](https://github.com/elisarver/selophane)

</comment><comment><USER26> Perhaps it made him a "better" programmer but claiming to have made him a better "man" is a bit exaggerated.

I guess he's super excited about how far he's come and how programming helped him attain a certain level of satisfaction and happiness in his professional life.

<comment><USER27> Personally I can't see a path forward for me from high school till now without open source.

I own a home, stock, work a great job, have gotten to travel the world, and do exactly what I want to do for a job. Purely as a result of having the tools and instructional material I needed available libre on the internet.

I can't help but think that without that kind of alternative, dropping out of college would have sunk me for life - I'd probably still be working odd jobs in my hometown and living with my parents, no career, no future, depressed. I could even imagine an alternate present where I had enlisted in the military and gotten deployed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> "two weeks ago i couldn't spell open source, now i am one!" (kidding)

but seriously, open source certainly helped make me the person i am, as well. by working on open source projects, i got my first gig (in a field i'm not professionally trained in, either), and i have been fortunate to have been surrounded by generous, bright people who i have always tried to learn from.

my own story is why i recommend to people to get involved in open source projects in their learning.

</comment><comment><USER29> Great article. I have only just started my own opensource projects (this year) and find it so much more satisfying.

<comment><USER30> if you don't mind what is your project? just curious

<comment><USER29> One of them is a security-camera system for Raspberry Pis, the other is me just messing around writing an artificial-lifeform type thing in Python.

Nether are ready for any kind of public exposure just yet ;) hackernews will be the 1st to know about it when I do though!

Cheers

<comment><USER24> If you have code and it kind of runs, it's ready for public exposure. You never know when somebody will make a suggestion, give you a pointer to improve your code, or even send in a patch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." \--Isaac Newton

</comment><comment><USER32> I m an open source contributor. But my contri has been small. Any tips how I can improve it?

<comment><USER33> Start with documentation. And learn how to read other people's code.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have you moved to another country? - <AUTHOR> Hi! I'm a fellow hacker from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The country is in a long process of continuous decadence and this pandemic made the things even worse. Along with the daily changes of rules that we have to experience and adapt, the insane amount of taxes, the inflation, the devaluation against US dollar and the growing insecurity it's becoming a pretty difficult place to live.
I've a pretty good financial status here, I'm a contractor/consultant with a nice local network, I own a home and enough savings to last for several years without working. All my family is living here and leaving them would be pretty sad. Those are the things delaying my decision to move to some place in Europe (I've Italian citizenship) and start a new life there with my wife and newborn.
Have you moved to another country? What was your experience? Did you move with a job lined up? <comment><USER2> good point of view: when you are unable to do anything to change, and the future does not sound good in your country you just leave it! I did the same: some call it "voting with your own feet" :)

I suggest you would totally avoid Italy due to very high taxation, but most of all a _huge_ mandatory pension rate if you are a sole trader that is well known to give you nothing back: the rate was over 27% had to become almost 32% but fortunately they locked and now lowered to about 26%).

U.K. is much much better (taxation is human, and the best of it is that you know very clearly what you do have to pay, it is all written very clearly on the gov website): it is harder to get there after brexit, but I still strongly suggest it.

I would give a try to Romania, Malta, Portugal.

</comment><comment><USER3> I moved from the US to Mexico. I'm retired. I spend half my time in Mexico, then come to the US to visit family who are spread out over 3 states and then to take up a part-time summer job.</comment>


Book of Inspiring Stories by Refugee Teenagers - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/book-of-inspiring-stories-by-refugee-teenagers/x/11090378#/ <comment><AUTHOR> A bit about Stories From,

In 2013, Stories From self published and released 'Almost home'. The book began as a simple class project, whereby university students visited a local community to learn more about the people within it. While there, the students collected stories, which would later be adapted for Almost Home. This book featured the stories of refugee and stateless children living in Malaysia, and took more than 100 people a year to complete. In the process students, staff and members of the public learned a great deal about this specific community. The project was then revisited when the recollections from the special needs community were featured in a book called 'As Life Found Me.'

In 2015, our team will publish stories from three different refugee communities. The stories in the book come from the recollections of refugees living in Malaysia and were collected from a number of learning centres in and around Kuala Lumpur. These stories were then shared with writers from Malaysia and beyond who then adapted and turned them into stories. Next, a team of designers from Taylor's University took the stories and used them as inspiration to create illustrations. The last stage of the project is layout and design whereby all the stories and illustrations are pieced together.

for more information, please reach out to us at email@example.com

our website : [http://www.storiesfrom.io](http://www.storiesfrom.io) our fb : [https://www.facebook.com/communitystories](https://www.facebook.com/communitystories)

learning centres that we collaborated with, fugee school, [http://fugeeschool.com/](http://fugeeschool.com/) , Pandawas Academy [https://www.facebook.com/pandawasacademy](https://www.facebook.com/pandawasacademy) and Alliance Chin Refugees Malaysia.</comment>


Android Honeycomb not immediately open sourced - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/24/google_will_not_open_source_android_honeycomb_on_release_of_first_devices/ <comment><USER3> Google is between a rock and a hard place. They release Honeycomb source, then a bunch of makers will rush out with phones (this move is clearly about phones and not tablets) running an OS they don't want on phones yet. And if they do, the headline would be "Steve Jobs vindicated: Google Android is fragmented as hell". Of course, ignoring that Apple did the same exact forking and then merging move with iOS.

Personally I would err on the side of openness and let the shitty manufacturers run wild, but at least this way the blowback is just a bunch of philosophical arguments on nerd sites and not actual customers buying bad Android products.

<comment><USER4> One could argue (and I do) that it is the life they chose, they want their cake and to eat it too. But absolute control over the user experience is pretty much incompatible with 'open'[1]. As someone who was privileged to here some of the debate about this pre-1.0 launch I can tell you that the things that have come to pass are not 'surprises.'

An alternative way to deal with this is to execute well and have you're stuff be the 'best' by virtue of the fact that you have a bunch of great focussed folks working on it and delivering new updates, but that is a hard strategy to execute successfully. There are a lot of folks 'outside' vs 'inside' when you are truly open.

In one such internal discussion, when the question of lots of people outside of Google trying lots of different UI's and form factors, it was noted (with a well known cliche) 'that is a good problem to have.' I guess not so much :-)

[1] Submitted as exemplar the KDE vs Gnome "discussion."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bit of an inaccurate title there - honeycomb will not be open sourced until they decide it's ready. Android is still open.

Oh, and Steve Jobs has already been vindicated by selling billions of dollars of tech.

<comment><USER6> Isn't honeycomb just a codename for the latest version of android though? Isn't that like saying: Ubuntu LATEST will not be open sourced until...Ubuntu OLD is still open ? In my mind, that makes it a whole lot more closed than open.

<comment><USER7> Unlike say, Ubuntu or Google Chrome, Android has always been developed behind closed doors and then opened, usually a few weeks after devices ship with it preloaded.

That is a difference on the spectrum of openess, and on that measure Chrome or Ubuntu has always beaten Android. The only difference for Honeycomb is the time between device and code reveal.

It's a bit of a philosophical question as to whether changing that 2 week delay to a 2 month delay moves you from "open" to "closed".

<comment><USER8> I think it's salient to point out, too, that that shift on the spectrum is tiny compared to the spectrum-distance between Google and any other player in the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To me, 'Open' is not the same as just 'Open Source'. I'm not really that interested in whether Android is open source or not.

What I am interested in is whether the device lets me do what _I_ want - <USER2> is, it allows me to download and install whatever software I choose to, in what manner I want. Android lets me do this. That is why Android is 'Open'.

Whilst I understand for most consumers this is not an issue, and I have no qualms with people who go along with that, for me personally as a programmer, I will not buy any other smartphone platform if it does not afford me that same liberty.

<comment><USER10> How is Android open under your definition? My phone has a locked-down bootloader that will only load an OS that has been signed by Motorola, I can't get root, I can't flash it, and I can't upgrade to the latest version of Android. Right now I'm feeling pretty closed.

<comment><USER8> Google's position on this has always been that they're open to the carriers/manufacturers doing whatever they want with the software, and when they do something bad, well, people do bad things sometimes.

I find it amusing that when Google is open to carriers/manufacturers doing whatever they want, people (usually non-android users, though you're an exception here) complain about how they're not open, and when Google tries to take more control of the development process to protect the user experience, people (again, usually same non-android users) complain about the same thing.

That said, I think Google could definitely do things better. I, for one, wish Google would exercise their "Google Experience" branding to enforce unlocked boot loaders and root access. On the issue of open sourcing Honeycomb, I could really care less. On the spectrum of closed to open, they're way farther on the open side than anyone else in the industry so I don't find it hypocritical at all for them to claim to be open.

(NB: I also own a Motorola device with a locked boot loader. I was very surprised and delighted by how much the devs were still able to do, but I definitely wish I could get some custom kernels installed.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand these "Google Android is not open" arguments. Can you go to <http://source.apple.com/> and download iOS 1.0? No. Can you go to <http://source.blackberry.com/> and download their OS? No. Sure, Honeycomb isn't coming out right this very moment, but at least there's _something_ there.

By any definition Google is at least several orders of magnitude more "open" than Apple. Apple releases _no_ source (other than what is required of them, and only after a few weeks or months). Google releases _all_ source (sure, after a few weeks or months).

<comment><USER12> Apple doesn't hammer its competitors over the head with moralistic claims about how 'open' they are. Google does.

However, I will point out that some of Apple's open-source work (Webkit) is far more widely used than anything Google has done with Android.

<comment><USER13> You do realize that Android's browser is built on webkit, yes?

<comment><USER14> I'd think that would strengthen the point.

That said, I'm sure you could argue over who gets to claim WebKit as their own these days since I've seen a few people refer to it as "Google's WebKit" since they surpassed Apple in checkins at some point (or had for a month at least, it's not something I care to follow that closely).

<comment><USER13> The fact that Google does more work on it would tend to weaken the point. Also, the fact that Google is using Apple's software tends to undermine the Team A vs Team B regime that's the premise of most of these discussions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's a big difference between

"On Thursday, the company said that as its select partners release the first tablets based on Android "Honeycomb" – the latest version of its mobile operating system – _it will not open source the Honeycomb code._ "

And "But there was no indication that the code wouldn't be promptly open sourced as the first devices were released. What's more, Google did not make a public announcement that it will keep the source closed. "

I'd be surprised if Google has manged to rid every last piece of GPL'd software from the OS. Otherwise, they're going to have to release the source.

Check here for updates <http://source.android.com/>

<comment><USER16> > I'd be surprised if Google has manged to rid every last piece of GPL'd > software from the OS. Otherwise, they're going to have to release the > source.

They have to release source to the GPL parts (WebKit, the kernel and stuff that links directly to it, like drivers and possibly other stuff they use). From their glibc-like Bionic and up (including the userland, Dalvik), everything is BSD-style and they have no obligation whatsoever to release anything. Not even to manufacturers.

<comment><USER17> FYI, Webkit is not GPL. There are pieces in LGPL, and the majority is a BSD license.

<comment><USER16> I stand corrected. KHTML is LGPL not GPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _But the reality is surely that Google and its partners don't want smaller name manufacturers eating into their tablet sales. Or perhaps they don't want larger names nabbing pieces of code for their own tablet OSes._

Why would they be worried about this? Isn't the purpose of Android* to increase global pageviews and sell more (local) ads? Don't 2nd tier OEMs and competing platforms further these goals?

While I am not sure if you can take google at face value in terms of their reasons, the author's conclusions seem wildly unsourced. Unless someone would like to expand on his reasoning?

<comment><USER19> One example: RIM wants to ship their Playbook with support for Android apps. They probably need the Android source code in order to do this. They've annouced that Playbook will only support Gingerbread Android apps. With the Honeycomb source code they might be able to support apps that work better on tablets.

<comment><USER20> That's an interesting point.

It seems to me however as an Android watcher, that when Google developed Honeycomb in parallel to Gingerbread, they created an internal fork of Android to specifically support tablets.

What needs to be done and it seems what they intend to do is heal the fork, so they have a single codebase again. The real issue is whether they manage to do that in time for Ice Cream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones. Until then, we've decided not to release Honeycomb to open source."

The _until then_ part strikes me as pretty important. It sounds like Google is just delaying the release of the source until they reach a certain milestone. This is a very reasonable position to take. I think the author of the piece is jumping to conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER21> For Google, open-source is a marketing strategy. Not more and not less.

<comment><USER22> I don't get this argument. Does it matter what open-source is for Google?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> At least they intend to eventually. Still a long shot from iOS.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was planning on purchasing an Android tablet, but no sale until the source code is out there. I own an Android phone and have been happy with it, but I'm not interested in giving up my freedom just to have my hands on the latest toy. I am extremely disappointed in this decision. I wasn't under any particular illusions about Google, but I actually believed they were comitted to Android as an open source project. If they get their act together and get their source code out the door soon and don't repeat this nonsense for subsequent Android releases, they will keep me as a customer of devices based on their operating system. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

<comment><USER25> Not to nitpick here - but "not interested in giving up my freedom"... ever wonder what freedoms you've signed over with your carrier?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's a bit premature to say that Steve Jobs is vindicated in so far as Android is concerned from a journalistic standpoint and claims of "vindication" seem to be a bit more editorial than factual. However, timing is everything when it comes to linkbait.

</comment><comment><USER27> Does this have anything to do with Rim's tab not being able to support Honeycomb-based apps, but previous Android version apps?

I would guess that if rim had the source, they would support Honeycomb apps on the playbook and it would be a selling point for them.

</comment><comment><USER28> Open sourced means "source released with binaries".

It does not mean "All code available with all checkins at all times"

Because community projects pretty much have to function that way does not mean that's the only way to do open source.

            --An iOS developer and ex-embedded Linux/Linux kernel driver developer who's a little POed that everyone thinks only their way of doing open source is "True to Freedom" or whatever

</comment><comment><USER12> Once again, Google's 'principles' become a way for apologists to excuse bad behavior, rather than something that actually informs their actions.

</comment><comment><USER29> so stupid. so when they release honeycomb, will there be an article saying how google have suddenly decided to make android open source?

</comment><comment><USER30> If Honeycomb is Android 3.0 "for larger screens", what happens in the future for 4 or 5 inch screens?

</comment><comment><USER31> Open is not a bool, it's a float. Android may not be "open" but it is still far more open than IOS.</comment>


Buttered Coffee Could Make You Invincible. And This Man Very Rich - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-04-21/buttered-coffee-could-make-you-invincible-and-this-man-very-rich

<comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of this kind of profiteering. Coffee + Butter is good for you? Great. Selling your own brand for a premium, I think, is awful, empty advertizing hype at it's best.

Where's the transparency and duplicate studies about coffee bean mycotoxins and toxicity levels? What's the effective dose, LD50? And how much is in a "poisoned" cup of coffee?</comment>


David Lynch's Elusive Language - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/david-lynchs-elusive-language <comment><USER2> I've only seen a couple of Lynch's films. And those I've seen, I've only seen once. Yet, _all_ of the most vivid film scenes that I can replay in my head, drawn from all the films I've seen in my life, are composed by Lynch.</comment>


How to make a great looking video for your startup on a budget - <AUTHOR> http://minimali.se/creating-a-great-looking-video-for-your-product-or-service/

<comment><USER2> Great job. Thanks for the tip on <http://fiverr.com>. Great voiceover is a huge plus.

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally had planned to use voicebunny.com but when it came down to it I just couldn't justify the price.

The voiceover via Fiverr was even synced with the video.</comment></comment>


Intel Launches $125M Fund to Back Startups Led by Women and Minorities - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/intel-launches-125-million-diversity-fund

<comment><USER2> Excellent, especially for getting women involved in startups and tech. An important thing to note is that startups created and led by women may look significantly different from startups created by white guys. The fund should be sure to not try to pick companies based on how closely they resemble existing successful white dude startups.</comment>


Level 3 vs. Comcast: Peering Dispute or Breach of Net Neutrality? - <AUTHOR> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/11/29/level-3-vs-comcast-more-than-a-peering-spat/ <comment><USER2> > _"Level 3′s position is simply duplicitous," said Joe Waz, Comcast's Senior > Vice President for External Affairs, in a statement. "When another network > provider tried to pass traffic onto Level 3 this way, Level 3 said this is > not the way settlement-free peering works in the Internet world. When > traffic is way out of balance, Level 3 said, it will insist on a > commercially negotiated solution. Now, Level 3 proposes to send traffic to > Comcast at a 5:1 ratio over what Comcast sends to Level 3, so Comcast is > proposing the same type of commercial solution endorsed by Level 3."_

I believe Comcast is pointing at when Level 3 blocked Cogent for pushing too much traffic onto Level 3:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/105790/Level_3_Cogent...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/105790/Level_3_Cogent_resolve_peering_dispute_renew_deal)

An interesting article on why de-peering matters:

[http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/22/1316...](http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/22/1316514.html)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that second link. I think Comcast is clearly drawing a line between L3's CDN and their tier one backbone. The following press release (from 2004) details Comcast's use of L3's fiber:

[http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail...](http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.ashx?PRID=183)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fishy. From Slackerboy @reddit:

      > Yeah I have seen the peering agreements with L3 and Comcast,
      > this story is complete BS.
      >
      >> Before Level 3 Communications landed the Netflix CDN deal,
      >> it sent approximately the same amount of traffic to Comcast
      >> as it received.
      >
      > This is a flat out lie, end consumer networks like Comcast ALWAYS
      > receive FAR more traffic then they send. Note how you get something
      > like 5 megs down and 1 meg up... wonder why? Because as an end
      > user you are not allowed to run any servers or serve any services.
      >
      > When you request a YouTube video you send maybe 20KB up stream
      > and receive 50-200MB back. Comcast has NEVER had more then 5%
      > upstream.
      >
      > I am smelling a Comcast fed story here.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/edxjp/level_3_ou...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/edxjp/level_3_outbid_akamai_on_netflix_by_reselling/c17dvwd)

<comment><USER5> It's wrong to assume that Comcast does not send a lot of upstream traffic. They actually sell IP transit at relatively small prices.

<comment><USER4> They have about 16 million users of broadband asymmetric access. I doubt any IP transit sold would balance that. It'd be nice to see real numbers instead of conjectures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Comcast and Level3 are both being disingenous, really. Each is pretending they're operating as a transit provider (because they both do at times, Level3 more than Comcast), but neither is actually doing that at the moment. In this case Comcast is the eyeball network and Level3 is the CDN.

I have no doubt that Level 3's CDN traffic went through the roof when they took on Netflix. I also have no doubt that Comcast went "oh, we have them by the balls, lets get more money". It's not really a simple thing to take sides on.

It is a problem, though, that Comcast is operating as a de facto monopoly with their connected consumers. That's kind of the breaks of giving them that sort of leverage. Thank your congressman. Level3 is sure using that story to their advantage.

\--Edit-- Also, Comcast apparently _does_ charge other CDNs like this. My opinion has tilted slightly in their favor, it sounds like they're at least being consistant. CDNs always have the option of not using a peering connection but going through paid transit.

</comment><comment><USER7> I always thought that Google should buy NetFlix. Netflix's market cap is $10B or so (maybe they pay $12-$15B in a buyout). Seems like a better deal than $6B for Groupon.

I'm sure Google has a lot more leverage in peering negotiations.

<comment><USER8> And let's not leave out Level 3 and the perennial rumors that it is a prime acquisition target for Google in order to gain a strong fiber backbone (not that I think it will ever happen: I don't).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's funny when evil telecoms fight each other until I realize no matter which one wins, we lose.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, does this mean that Comcast is no longer merely a content provider since they are now actively filtering/determining what content is allowed on their network? If so, then Comcast should now be held liable for any and all illegal/pirated content sent across their network.

RIAA maybe you should find a few Comcast subscribers downloading and sharing illegal/pirated music then go after Comcast (who actually has the money to pay the fines) for not actively filtering said content out of their network.

Comcast, you are walking on a rope next to a slippery slope.

<comment><USER11> This is not what is happening.

Comcast is an ISP. Just about every CDN out there pays to peer with Comcast to deliver bits faster and cheaper to Comcast eyeballs.

Level(3) is an ISP. Because they carry traffic Comcast customers want they have been able to peer at no-cost to Comcast historically. Now Level(3) is building and selling a large CDN. Level(3) is taking advantage of these existing peering circuits to be able to offer lower-cost CDN than their competitors because they don't have to pay Comcast to exchange traffic. As a consequence, their CDN has grown very large. They now dump far more traffic onto Comcast's network than Comcast sends them. Comcast says their peering policy is based on equal traffic ratios. Therefore, unless Level(3) can balance their peering circuits, they will be forced to pay.

This has little to do with Net Neutrality and has been happening between various ISPs over the last 10-20 years.

In IPv6 it's even worse. If you have Cogent as your ISP you can't reach Hurricane Electric's network over IPv6 because neither of them has transit and they don't peer with each other. :-(

<comment><USER12> This entire model is duplicitous on Comcast's part. They complain when content providers dump too much content on their network. Never mind the fact that Comcast's entire infrastructure is built to deliver lots of downstream traffic. If, for example, a lot of Comcast customers started seeding BitTorrent traffic to L3 customers, generating upstream traffic, Comcast's network would collapse because it is not designed to do this.

Comcast should be thankful that their peer is sending them content directly, and that they don't have to pay transit costs from their upstream provider.

This is clearly an attempt by Comcast to put up a pay-wall for content from 3rd parties.

I've noticed more and more cable company manipulation of CDNs. For example, nothing scientific, but a few days out of each month, Cablevision, my ISP in Connecticut, starts randomly delaying traffic to Akamai CDN which serves Hulu content. It is difficult for me to scientifically prove anything is wrong, however, when the entire Internet is working flawlessly and a few random Akamai CDN content addresses, which just happen to have Hulu content, stop working, or are throttled, something stinks.

<comment><USER11> I guess we disagree. I don't find anything you wrote to be very factual.

Most networks charge their neighbors -- be them customers or peers. That means when one neighbor sends traffic to another neighbor via the ISP, they both usually pay.

If you call that duplicitous, then every network is duplicitous.

Also -- Comcast's network is symmetrical to the head-ends. It's true the head- ends are configured to allow more spectrum to be used for download than upload, but that's easily changed if people's surfing habits changed. I imagine in the future it'll be dynamic, per customer (if we even continue to use this model for cable modems, which I think DOCSIS is starting to move away from).

<comment><USER12> Most peering agreements don't work like ISP customer agreements. Peering agreements are usually entirely agreements NOT to charge for traffic which terminates directly on your network. Transit agreements are more like typical ISP customer relationships, where I pay you to transit traffic that has an endpoint on some other network.

Ignoring the fact that the entire DOCSIS standard was designed around downstream distribution of content, and simply would not function well if you try to reverse the flow, how do you determine who pays who in your world? If I'm Comcast, do I have to pay L3 because they have content my customers want? Or should L3 pay me because I have customers they want to deliver content to?

You see, it is not so cut and dried as "everybody pays for bandwidth." ISP customers pay for bandwidth because they are asking the ISP to transit traffic through their network. Peers typically don't pay because they are both endpoints.

<comment><USER11> 1) How do you know what peering agreements look like? What you write is simply untrue from my experience. I peer with about 200+ networks today. Who are you? Illumin8 me please.

2) Of course DOCSIS works if you reverse the flow. You already have separated spectrum in each channel. The wider one is typically for downstream, but could easily be converted for upstream. As I said, I think in the future it'll be dynamic.

<comment><USER12> You said: "That means when one neighbor sends traffic to another neighbor via the ISP, they both usually pay." This is true, if they are both customers of an ISP, and they are using that ISP to transit traffic to each other, they both pay. But if we have a lot of traffic destined for each other, it would make sense for us to peer and reduce our bandwidth costs from our upstream providers.

DOCSIS only works in reverse if you are willing to install cable plant equipment at a customer site, which would mean a rack full of head-end gear at every house. Not feasible, and won't happen tomorrow.

I used to handle BGP and peering for a tier 1 ISP and CLEC in the western US, so I've seen my fair share of peering agreements, and I've run my fair share of DS3, OC3 and OC12 circuits to peering locations.

It sounds like you have a lot of credentials working for OpenDNS, so I don't mean to denigrate your experience, but OpenDNS seems more like a bandwidth customer and less like a provider/peer. I have a lot of experience with cable plant equipment because we provided cable modems and DOCSIS equipment to a lot of small business/enterprise customers in the late 90s/early 2000s.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Getting 100x better search performance on Riak - <AUTHOR> http://blog.clipboard.com/2012/03/18/0-Milking-Performance-From-Riak-Search

<comment><USER2> The deficiency with AND queries due to term based partitioning reminds me of a hack I did a few years ago trying to build a basic IR system on simpledb:

[http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2008/04/simpledb-full- tex...](http://codingthriller.blogspot.com/2008/04/simpledb-full-text-search- or-how-to.html?m=1)

Of course, I was backed into this corner by the various constraints at the time, and this was just a fun hack. It sounds a bit precarious to consider using Riak for text search, at least compared to something like Solr, if it truly has issues with the basic bread and butter of search like sorting by recency and conjunctions. (of course I am only going on what is in this post, I have no experience with Riak)

<comment><AUTHOR> It really isn't all that bad. When you compare what we had to do compared to keeping two big data systems in sync (instead of Riak, which is a breeze), I think we got off easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Mecha is being built to directly solve these exact problems:

<http://vimeo.com/30396564>

</comment><comment><USER4> What's the baseline? When the baseline is terrible, getting 100x performance is not a big deal.

No good engineer would cite "100X improvement" without quantifying the baseline level. This is PR, not engineering and not science.

<comment><AUTHOR> The baseline was a substantial test corpus that we scaled several orders of magnitude over a series of runs, all meant to simulate typical clip size with typical word frequencies. The 10-100x gains had two contributions that each was in the 3-10x range. We tested it against the standard search which incorrectly performed pagination because of the misorder on sort versus slice. We also tested in on two types of map/reduce jobs that correctly implemented the sort and slice (and had been in production).

Ideally, we would have kept the data around to give a fuller a report. But the truth is we did this over 9 months ago and didn't save the data. After informally sharing the impact with a lot of people, we heard a lot of encouragement to share the techniques.

And you're right, this is not hard core science nor engineering. But it is a good tip, which you can take or leave.

<comment><USER4> I'm still not seeing you report something that says "an operation that took X ms now takes Y ms." Note the absolute numbers whose units are in seconds. That's what I'd like to see for a baseline.

And I won't even comment on the "we did this 9 months ago and did not save the data" part. That kind of stuff would not fly in medicine or science or most traditional engineering fields. Why should you be exempt?

<comment><AUTHOR> To be clear, operations in our test corpus that took X ms on average took 100X ms. Is that the statement you are looking for?

One thing that I think you're missing is that while we experienced a 100x gain for our application, our findings aren't strictly empirical in the sense that the gain is always 100x. In many applications it will be more. The insight in the blog post is analytical, not empirical. Specifically, most people (I think) would assume a text index to be document partitioned. In Riak it's not. On a fundamental level this means that AND operations take time O(max(|A|,|B|)) instead of O(min(|A|,|B|) where |A| and |B| are the sizes of results that match query A and B, respectively. If you pick words at random from a power law distribution (which is typical in all natural languages) you will more often than not see many orders of magnitude difference in the |A| and |B|. If you sample queries from real query streams, you will see the same. For some intuition, just think about a query which has a common tag (like "funny" used in the example) and something restricted (like a particular user). The first will typically be an understood fraction of the size of your corpus while the second will have size that is more like a constant.

Putting this all together, the savings that we find for moving the intersection where we did will only grow on a relative basis as we get more users and clips. This hack costs 2x the storage size but always give O(min(|A|,|B|) complexity results instead of O(max(|A|,|B|)). 100x win is just shorthand for saying that those two set sizes typically varied by two orders of magnitude because of power law distributions. But in academia, we refer to that as "really fucking big".

The "presort" option that we added will scale differently, but have equally dramatic impact because pagination is effectively broken in Riak search if you do not use relevance sort. In this case, the O(.) argument is murkier because one version is done entirely within the index (which is usually in RAM) and the other has to hit the disk. In formal engineering circles, we refer to this type of boost as "unfucking real".

So, we could have measured things with more precision, but this was such an obvious win that it was almost pointless to calibrate it further.

<comment><USER4> You have a knack for producing a lot of text with no supporting evidence. Especially of a quantitative nature.

This might go over well with a certain class of people, but it offends my engineering sensibilities.

<comment><USER5> Hi TPSReport - You realize that "gwf" is the Gary William Flake who has written an award winning complex book that is used in colleges worldwide as well as has run R&D for many companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Overture right? I'm sorry to say this but personally I'm finding your comments on this post as well other posts negative and lacking value. It would be great and helpful if you have any constructive/positive ideas, tips or experience to share to add value to the community. I'm sharing this in a positive constructive spirit. Thanks.

<comment><USER4> Let me reiterate my constructive suggestion that the OP provide actual data. I can see how the author wrote a pop book, as he is quite verbose, but any engineer can tell you that he is also quite evasive on technical questions. "What's the baseline?" should not pose a tough question for anyone writing about performance improvements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi Gary!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Josh!

<comment><USER6> Man, it's downvote central over here.

<comment><AUTHOR> The hive mind is cute when it's temperamental.

<comment><USER7> Well, you guys could use email or IM for this trite stuff and reserve HN for meaningful discussion.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What style for an image-resizing service? - <AUTHOR> I'm building an image-resizing service (long story).
I was wondering what style is better for the URL-based API. If your image is https://example.com/images/logo/test.jpg, which one is better:
https://app.imagekick.io/example-com/images/logo/test.jpg/resize/500x/flip/hoz/
https://example-com.imagekick.io/images/logo/test.jpg/resize/500x/flip/hoz/ (can be CNAMEd to images.example.com)
https://imgk.io/example-com/?src=/images/logo/test.jpg&width=500&flip=hoz
Passing the image as a GET parameter makes it easier to import external images: https://imgk.io/example-com/?src=http://external.com/images/dog.jpg&width=600 versus https://app.imagekick.io/2y789/fetch/http%3A%2F%2Fexternal.com%2Fimages%2Fdog.jpg/resize/600x/
What do you guys think..? I personally like the URL-based solution because it's somewhat quicker to type, and the operations can be chained. Passing instructions as GET parameters makes it easier to specify external images. <comment><USER2> > I'm supporting images that end in .jpg, .png, or .gif. So currently I know > that anything after the extension is parameters.

How do you know that is the extension and not a directory with a .jpg in the name? It is too complicated to convert to your URL scheme.

For me the URL based solution isn't quicker to type since I have to think too much. Also, how often is this going to be typed by hand verse scripted anyway? It will be easier to script if the URL is the same and only the GET Params change.

I prefer the get parameters, it is more obvious.

Another option that isn't as clean, but I have seen before is to Base64 encode the image URL. You wouldn't be able to easily type but you could keep your URL scheme, and still possible to script.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like most people like the GET parameters approach, so I guess it makes sense to just opt for that.

I seem to be alone in caring if it looks good or not (rightfully).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you want to import external images, I would lean towards preserving the URL. Therefore, a GET param for the image.

Also, what if the URL of the image has the word "500x" or "resize" in it?

The non-GET-param solutions make me think too much:

1\. Take the domain, and change any dots to dashes. What if there's a subdomain, or three levels of subdomains? 2\. Add the domain as a subdomain on imagekick.io 3\. Take the rest of the URL and add it as the path 4\. Add the transformations on top of it

The transformation instructions can still be passed as part of the path, or as a GET param. Heck, support both.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also, what if the URL of the image has the word "500x" or "resize" in it?

I'm supporting images that end in .jpg, .png, or .gif. So currently I know that anything after the extension is parameters.

> 1\. Take the domain, and change any dots to dashes. What if there's a > subdomain, or three levels of subdomains? 2. Add the domain as a subdomain > on imagekick.io 3. Take the rest of the URL and add it as the path 4. Add > the transformations on top of it

The rationale was that to create a resize/manipulation URL you only had to change the domain. For instance:

//example.com/image/dog.jpg becomes: whateveryouchooseassubdomain.imagekick.io/image/dog.jpg

Also, if you don't add parameters the image is served via a CDN, so potentially one could use this just to easily add a CDN to his images.

> Heck, support both.

Yes, I thought about that as well. It could be kind of confusing to explain, though. I'd rather pick the best way and just do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> This project looks pretty popular and they are using a URL based API, maybe you can copy their URL structure.

[http://thumbor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/](http://thumbor.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

</comment><comment><USER4>
        https://imgk.io/rs?s=http://external.com/images/dog.jpg&w=600

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback!

So you're saying the shorter, the better?

I wonder if there's any value in chaining transformations, it's kind of cool though.</comment></comment>


Mr. Amazon Steps Out - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/jeff-bezos-amazon.html <comment><USER2> You can learn far more about Jeff Bezos from watching a few long interviews. He recently did a very interesting interview with his brother: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq89wYzOjfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq89wYzOjfs)

He's very much the kind of person you want in the supremely high position that he's found himself in. He's basically another Bill Gates but more upbeat and creative.

<comment><USER3> This is great and all, but I don't want any person making the amount of money Bezos is making. He makes more in 5 days than most people make in 5 lifetimes. He wields immense power that will only get stronger as corporate consolidation increases.

For example, in the race for states to try to get Amazon's HQ2 in their city, the future of corporate power is so apparent and scary. One city offered that all employees of Amazon would just pay their taxes directly to Amazon instead of to the state to try to entice Amazon. That's something that happens in cyberpunk like Snow Crash, and it's already beginning to happen in real life. We just don't pay that much attention to it because the companies don't have scary names like the Tyrell Corporation, they're instead fun things like Amazon, Disney, Google; and being okay with the massive power Bezos wields because he's a nice guy seems kind of short-sighted to me

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can only imagine the PR backstory for this puff piece.

<comment><USER5> Bezos is gearing up to be a major player in DC, and the times wrote that infamous piece on how bad Amazon is. Although that's sort of a conspiratorial theory, which may or may not be true.

<comment> rising-sky It's also possible that he's now the richest person ever (not accounting for inflation), so it's a good time to write an article about such an individual. There are probably a bunch of similar articles on Bill Gates from his tenure.

<comment><USER6> Bezos has been quite elusive when it comes to publicity and interviews since the dotcom bubble era ended (until recently). He went from being quite public early on, to being very tamped down after, heavily limiting press access. Perhaps his experience during that era, what Amazon went through with the press after everything soured, caused that.

From the mid 1980s forward, Gates was always in the public light, always prominent in the tech world in terms of press and interviews, always at CES and doing industry conferences, speeches, et al. He was Microsoft's chief promoter and an extremely public persona. Nearly the exact opposite of how Bezos was from ~2003-2015.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's nice to see some image reparation work going on for Jeff. I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating.

Aside from his decision to buy the WaPo, I think he's shown himself to be one of the few people who really understands long term bets.

So while Google keeps trying to make Android devices sell for iPhone prices, Amazon just sold me a Kindle Fire for $25 that outperforms my Nexus 7.

The impact of Bezos' infrastructure vision is likely to put Google and Apple out of business in the next few decades. He's playing a much more long-term strategy and he's not afraid to take big risks.

<comment><USER8> _> I've been finding all of the pictures of him that are meant to evoke Voldemort quite irritating._

This just made me wonder if there's any media or perceptive bias against bald people in leadership positions.

It seems Steve Ballmer and Jeff Bezos for example are/were criticized disproportionately more than Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, for example, even though all of these people have plenty of reasons to be disliked.

<comment><USER9> Was Steve Jobs not bald? A sorites paradox for tech magnates.

<comment><USER8> Even in the later stages of Steve Jobs' life, he was not fully "bald" (as is Bezos or Ballmer) even though he appeared to be losing his hair. For example: [http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp- content/uploads/...](http://community.digitalmediaacademy.org/wp- content/uploads/2011/08/steve-jobs-resigns-apple.jpeg)

And the Steve Jobs of early and mid Apple was _definitely_ not even close to bald: [http://www.designbolts.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/08/steve-...](http://www.designbolts.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/08/steve-jobs-in-suit1.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Because we systematically impoverish students, we can only count on the largesse of the fabulously wealthy to rescue a lucky few.

<comment><USER11> What would happen if everyone just... didn't pay? What would a default of $1.5 trillion USD held by a government against millions of its citizens look like? Presumably the administrative costs of hunting down that much money from so many sources would be prohibitive. I'd guess that an attempt to garnish the wages of half the country would end in rioting, so that wouldn't work well.

<comment><USER6> > What would a default of $1.5 trillion USD held by a government against > millions of its citizens look like?

It wouldn't be half the country first of all. It's a small minority of adults having problems paying their student loans (mostly those that were wildly reckless in their easy borrowing). The median student loan is a mere ~$13,000, against a median full-time wage of nearly $50,000.

If you took out $250,000 in student loans for a career path that pays $65,000 max per year, that's on you for being so financially foolish. It's not difficult to look around at cost effective alternatives to such a crazy student debt load.

You can easily go to extremely high quality in-state public universities at a modest cost. A four year degree in the US will get you a $60,000 salary on average right out of school. The typical person holding the median full-time job making $50,000, does not even have a four year degree. After five to seven years in the job market, your income is going to be $75,000 or more. You can do better than that in engineering fields. The unemployment rate with a four year degree, is typically about half the national U3 level, you practically can't not be employed.

Here's the fact of the matter: US wages are so extraordinarily high, a four year degree is a steal, just so long as you don't do something crazy like take on $200k in debt for a path that can never pay a good wage.

Go to an in-state public university, pay $10,000 to $15,000 per year _net_ (a part-time job, as was very common in decades past, is still a good idea, along with seeking grants), get a job making $60,000 and work your income up to closer to $75,000 to $90,000 over time. That student debt becomes meaningless. It is not complex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title made me think that Bezos leaves Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER13> Jeff who?

</comment><comment><USER14> I would love to see Jeff Bezos run for President in 2020. The trust he has built in the Amazon brand, the value he has placed upon investigative journalism and the survival of the free press, his deep knowledge of and interest in technology, his (presumed) familiarity with U.S. tax law, and the enormous success he's achieved as a businessman would all work in his favor. I think Donald Trump senses this, and that's why he singles Jeff out for criticism.

<comment><USER15> The very last thing we need is another megalomaniacal billionaire handed the reigns to an excessively powerful executive apparatus.

People need to remember that billionaires are not your friends. The only thing that can improve society is concerted, collective action. The fetishization of hyper-competent business leaders as the solution to society's problems is a quasi-fascistic fantasy; it's of a piece with a yearning for a "strongman" or those thinkpieces that glorify Singapore or the CCP's supposed technocratic excellence.

<comment><USER5> That's really not the only thing that can improve society. Singapore, as you note, improved without it. Well, many places have. You may not like the consequences that come about from a quasi-fascistic techno-reactionary government, which is fine. On the other hand, there are benefits to such systems. If Amazon owned Seattle, do you think there would be such filth and homeless squalor throughout the city? Or the daily opioid deaths on our streets. Would Bezos be okay with that? How about our traffic? It is funny to me that a city with perhaps the top logistics talent and management in the world has an ineffectual transportation system due in part to the challenges of collective action and the biases in underfunding public goods endemic and researched in the study of the interaction between representative government, taxation, and investment.

Don't misinterpret me as advocating for that world, radical change tends to do more harm than good. But there is nothing wrong with holding a clear view of why people find it an enticing proposition. It's a little intellectually dismissive to just call it some base fetishization or fantasy. Or at least that's how I interpreted your comment, perhaps my interpretation was uncharitable.

<comment><USER16> Spent 2 years in South Lake Union and just moved to Texas about six months ago. Bezos does own a large part of Seattle, he has evicted low wage undesirables, junkies, and for the most part cars. It's a cultureless void of amazon dormitories packed with 20 something white, indian, and chinese dudes. It's expensive as fuck and has a great business propoganda museum on the waterfront.

They have a stand that gives away blemishless perfectly ripe bananas daily but good luck finding a half decent place to eat open past 7 on a weeknight let alone a dive bar that hosts interesting bands on a small stage.

Clean and perfect! Ready to work! Thank you master for selling me the future I always dreamed of! May I die happy in service of your almighty brand!

<comment><USER5> Yeah, SLU lacks culture. I couldn't stand to live there, and during the day working there it's somewhat depressing. I'm also growing tired of the rich culture in cap hill though, which comes with homelessness, addiction, and filth. I'd prefer some metaphorical place between the two.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's Time To Kill New User Confirmation Email Links - <AUTHOR> http://quist.co/post/4296898464/its-time-to-kill-new-user-confirmation-email-links

<comment><USER3> _Perhaps I've missed some obvious reason why the industry still does this._

Because if you get a random email from some site you've never signed up for, there are two possible scenarios that you cannot distinguish between:

1) Somebody has maliciously signed you up to a legitimate site. 2) A malicious site is trying to get you to click a random link.

This proposal suffers from a common flaw, in which people assume they can change just one thing and have everything else in the world stay the same. Systems don't work like that.

<comment><USER4> The author addresses the first issue in the paragraph preceding the one you quoted.

As it currently stands, most 'confirmation e-mails' I get also provide an 'if this isn't you' section. All the author is arguing is that we can do away with the confirmation part and keep the 'if this isn't you' part for those edge cases where a person's email address has been used by someone other than said person.

<comment><USER5> But the "if this isn't you" part could be a scam. It would make you click on a link in an email you did not request, which is a bad idea.

<comment><USER6> That's already the case, isn't it? All emails contain the "if this isn't you part", so the case of the person who didn't request the email is unchanged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just want to attach an anecdote here and explain why I prefer confirmation emails.

One day, somewhere in the last couple months, I checked my email box and saw a message from some craft site. It was informing me that my paid subscription was activated and that I was entitled to X, Y, and Z services. I ignored it. I received another related email the next day. I ignored that, too. When I received a third with another advertisement, I realized this was legitimate and that someone had accidentally used my email address! My inclination was to find someone in control of the site and let them know the mistake so that the original person could see their offers and track their subscription. I headed to the website and noticed the login form on the first page.

Curiosity struck me. Was this one of those sites that people make fun of online with bad security? I clicked the link saying I forgot my password. They asked not for my username but for my email address. So I entered that. Next thing I know, my Inbox has an email from the craft site _with the registered user's plaintext password_!

Uh oh. Is this for real? What if I was a malicious user? I had to see how bad this situation really was. I logged into the user's account. I was able to find their home address and phone number, but thankfully (dear Lord, thankfully), the website made no mention of credit card numbers. I did not look to see if I could order more service; at that point and in my shock over the situation, I felt I was deep into some weird grey area and was way past my welcome. I logged out, found an online contact form, and explained the situation as well as how they could improve their system to avoid harm to their users.

The security mistakes in this situation were compounded.

(1) Email alerts went to the wrong person. If you verify the email, the right people get the messages. If you do not verify the email, the wrong person can mark your site as spam or take advantage of the situation.

(2) The site stored plaintext passwords. This was a craft site... By the name of the victim and other factors, I realized that this was some old lady who has faith in the trustworthiness of the Internet and probably, like most typical people, uses the same password for multiple sites. And this site happily handed it over to a stranger. That, my friends, is scary.

People make honest mistakes. If the email address is important for account management, _send a verification email_. And give the user an opportunity to fix the problem in the event that that verification fails in some way.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article misses a key point. If you want to confirm that the person who opted into your service is who they say they are. Otherwise, you're looking forward to abuse complaints from email recipients, and it only takes a few of those to suspend your Mailchimp (or whatever delivery service) account. You can also add non-compliance with spam, privacy and other laws to the list of fun things that could happen if you take this article's advice.

<comment><USER4> _"In the edge case, where some unauthorized person has signed up using my email, then include some directions at the bottom of the email that instruct me how to deal with the abuse. And an extra benefit: If I have a good experience with your site reporting the abuse, I'll be more interested to legitimately check out the site."_

I'm not sure if I just don't understand what both of you are saying, but it seems he addressed this point towards the end of the post. I can't see how his solution ('click here if this isn't you') is any different than 'click here to confirm this is you' as far as potential abuse is concerned.

<comment><USER3> Because if you're the innocent target of a malicious sign-up then you shouldn't have to take any further action - _particularly_ action that could expose you to further harm, such as clicking on a link randomly emailed to you from some site you've never heard of - to avoid having your email address associated with the account.

Edit: You also shouldn't have to be watching your email like a hawk 24/7 just in case somebody signs you up for something, so that you can stop them from impersonating you before they do any damage.

In short, it's the difference between opt-in and opt-out. Identity theft should almost never be opt-out.

<comment><USER9> More than that - a number of services (for example B2B SaaS) depend on knowing the email identity of their user. Are you John Jones <firstname.lastname@example.com>? Of course you are, you signed up with that email address and the system accepted you.

If a system like, say, Woobius, doesn't confirm emails, people will abuse this lack of feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article assumes that people are happy to click on a link within an email from an unrecognised source, in order to cancel a fake member account. This rings all sorts of alarm bells, I would never do that.

If I got an email like that, I would click the spam button and the server would probably face regular spam blacklist issues from big providers.

<comment><USER11> This. Silence is not consent, and if you start mailing me regularly because I did not browse to some URL telling you not to, you are a spammer and I will treat you as such.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm more annoyed by having to pick a (unique) username. My name is too long and too common, all of the nice short versions are always already gone and why the hell am I so often not allowed to separate my first and (abbreviated) last name with a dot? Use my email address as the unique identifier and let me enter my first and last name or a nickname (which doesn't have to be unique), please.

Don't make me think. You should never ever have to show me the "This name is already in use." message. Your design shouldn't even need it. Not everyone has or would like to have an (as unique as possible) nickname on the web they would like to use.

(Unique) usernames are the one vestige of the old web I would like to get rid of post haste. Call me Michael. (I still positively remember signing up to Facebook because I didn't have to pick a username.)

<comment><USER13> the easy solution to this is your email as a username/login. that way it's guaranteed unique. the only problem is multiple john smiths confusing people

<comment><USER14> Email addresses may be unique at one point of time, but assuming that they are unique identifiers for people is problematic because they can legitimately change hands. For instance, my work email address is <firstname>@<company>. I'm not the first <firstname> at <company> \- the other one left before I joined, but two months after I took over the email address I'm _still_ clearing up the accounts with services that made an identity assumption over email addresses.

<comment><USER15> Isn't there a problem if you sign-up to services with your "temporary" work email? Get a gmail account and sit on it, what's wrong with that?

<comment><USER14> I don't have a "temporary" work email. I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "When I'm checking my email, the last thing I want to do is context switch back to the app."

Umm you are signing up for a service, when you click the "register" button, you are usually presented with a message "check your email for a confirmation link" so you go do that. Where is context switching here?

Most of the users don't signup for something and then forget about it until they, by accident, stumble upon the email when they check their inbox the next time. Or am I wrong?

<comment><USER17> I agree. When I sign up for a service the confirmation email is generally already in my inbox by the time I switch tabs to gmail. Then the confirmation link takes me back to the site and logs me in, no hard work involved.

Also, I've never registered for a service and decided not to immediately check my email to activate my account when I'm prompted to. I can't recall a single time when I've come across a confirmation link while casually checking my email.

<comment><USER18> I think your experience is the ideal, however I see sometimes 1-2 _days_ before I've gotten the confirmation emails. Probably once every few months I'll sign up for something that offers a confirmation email and then - <USER2> happens for 5, 10, 30, 45 minutes. Frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Perhaps I've missed some obvious reason why the industry still does this._

It's called double opt-in. It proves you're giving consent to be a member.

</comment><comment><USER20> Apple id seems to implement the proposed solution. They send a verification email but you don't actually have to click the link, you can just ignore it and your account works.

This can turn out bad though. I thought I had an apple-id when buying something on the apple site recently. But my standard passwords didn't work so I reset the password (via an email sent to me personal email address from the password reset sequence). When I logged in I found that my email address was actually registered to someone else, and I had their name, full address, phone number and credit card number but with the first 12 digits X'd out.

The person has a similar name to mine, and my email address is my initials and last name, so I believe they just made a typo in the email address when they signed up. But it seems pretty bad that you can do that without verification when doing so can give someone your personal information.

A motivated scammer could register a bunch of typoed email addresses and try resetting apple-id passwords. Then you have a 1 in 333 chance of buying stuff with their credit card because you have to guess the security code (I'm guessing you get 3 chances but you might get more).

</comment><comment><USER21> Strongly disagree. All of the identity issues aside, ensuring deliverability is another key issue. Some email providers can be very aggressive when it comes to marking emails from new services as spam. Getting a user to pick a confirmation email out of their spam folder and click "Not Spam" is the most important action that user can do as part of the signup process, otherwise you will never reach that person's inbox again.

<comment><USER22> Yes, and besides aggressive spam filtering, it's just a good way to confirm a usable communication channel before you need to use that channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "When I'm checking my email, the last thing I want to do is context switch back to the app."

Because it's really that hard to Ctrl+click a link in an email, archive it, and move on to the next email?

</comment><comment><USER24> In short, we can summarize the reasons why e-mail confirmation is necessary:

1\. It's required by law in many places. That's why newsletter/auto-responder services use double opt-in.

2\. If someone or something does sign-up on your behalf, why should you have to specifically opt out? So, it's always better to have someone confirm their e-mail, instead of having random users having to "opt out" of services they never signed up for.

3\. Many a times, if it's some random site, the activation e-mail can go directly into your SPAM box. If an "opt out" type e-mail ends up in your SPAM box, then you probably won't see it, and it can potentially cause more damage.

4\. For features like password reminder, it is always better, security-wise, to send the reset link to an e-mail you know for sure belongs to the account holder. If you mistyped your e-mail, and never received the conformation, you'd try creating an account again. However, if the account was activated by default, and you started using it right away, then you'd have all your e-mails going to someone else.

There might be more reasons...

I don't see how e-mail confirmation can be counted as "wasted seconds." It is to protect you. It's like taking a backup of your website. Many of them don't do it, because the few minutes it takes doesn't sound worthwhile. However, if the server crashes and your data is lost, only then you realize that those few minutes could have saved months of efforts.

</comment><comment><USER18> For all of you folks who say that confirmation emails are a bad idea, let's talk about a service in which the user can download large files once they are "confirmed". I'm thinking of a site like <http://www.shutterstock.com/>. They offer two free downloads per week and those files can be up to 30MB each.

Let's say that Shutterstock wanted to expand - they want to allow new users to download ANY two images they wanted for free.

Would you advise them to go with a confirmation-less email routine? If so, how do you prevent bots from creating bogus signups and then (a) stealing your images at will, (b) so that they can resell/rehost them in Russia/China and make money/compete with you, and (c) clogging up all of your bandwidth?

For example, the bot signs up with email@example.com then downloads 60MB files while another bot uses email@example.com then downloading 60MB in files, etc.

And please - no solutions that require manual intervention or cannot scale.

<comment><USER6> Confirmation won't help here. In your hypothetical example, I set up a mail server at bulkdownloadrobot.biz and get my bot to use 00001@, 00002@ etc. The bot follows the confirmation links before downloading 60MB for each account.

Now, you might detect that bulkdownloadrobot.biz is a bad domain and blacklist it, but all I have to do is to register a new domain each time that happens.

So now you implement a heuristic that detects patterns of signups from domains. Now, I start buying Gmail accounts created by workers in a CAPTCHA- solving sweatshop.

You've increased my costs slightly, but you haven't solved the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They can't be avoided in most cases. Among a host of other reasons, there are the opt-in laws in the US & EU <http://www.lsoft.com/resources/optinlaws.asp>

</comment><comment><USER26> > In the edge case, where some unauthorized person has signed up using my > email, then include some directions at the bottom of the email that instruct > me how to deal with the abuse.

The same tactic (along with 1x1px images etc) was already used by spammers to determine "alive" addresses, whose owners do read spam and do click on provided links.

That's the reason I'd be very annoyed if I'll get such email.

</comment><comment><USER27> >> Perhaps I've missed some obvious reason why the industry still does this.

You have indeed. It is called "double opt-in" and legally required in many jurisdictions, before a web site can send you regular automated emails. Otherwise it might be considered Spam.

</comment><comment><USER28> Let assume someone signs you up for a dating site, creating your fake profile there. And uses some of your less frequent used email addresses, which you might be checking just a few times per year. Are you comfortable with scenario like that?

</comment><comment><USER29> I'd much prefer sites to have the confirmation requirement.

Personally with a fairly generic gmail address I see way too many random un- asked for messages with no opt-in confirmation.

And 10 lines of Perl? Lousy coder :P

</comment><comment><USER30> A site needs to know email is valid before allowing it to be used to log in. In OP's world malicious attacker can do whatever between time they register and time (if ever) email's owner clicks the "wtf, not me" link.

</comment><comment><USER31> So the overwhelming attitude here is that the advice in the link is bad, so why does it still have 32 points and waste my time by being on the front page? Please down vote articles like this.

<comment><USER32> It probably has that many points because there are some interesting discussions going on in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> We have a better way of signing up on qbix.com

Try it :) The email is used to set up your password, but you are able to use the app the first time without it! That way you will likely visit the app again when you check your email.

<comment><USER25> Doesn't that make it even easier for malicious users/bots to cause problems? How does qbix.com strategise against that?</comment></comment>


A Commitment To Net Neutrality with Twitch (YC S07) and Namecheap - <AUTHOR> https://www.beaconreader.com/blog/a-commitment-to-net-neutrality-coverage

<comment><AUTHOR> Matching funds is a new thing we're trying at Beacon and so far we're really happy with how it's going. Happy to chat if anyone has any questions!</comment>


How can I get this to Bezos? - <AUTHOR> https://flippa.com/9021676-appmazon-com <comment><AUTHOR> 2AM here. Just finished a coffee & just thought of this domain. To my surprise, it was free. Instant purchase and 3 minutes later it was on Flippa.

Mr. Bezos? :)</comment>