Have we let the LED indicator light go too far? - <AUTHOR> https://tedium.co/2020/07/10/led-indicator-light-history/ <comment><USER2> Decades ago when I was training I was lucky enough to work under a very smart engineer who taught me that the ergonomics of indicators and how people interact with them was important (and thus ergonomics itself is also an important part of engineering). The issue arose after I raised the question about why the indicator lights on the racks of communications equipment that we were developing in our prototype laboratory did not light up when the power was applied.

He explained that in large plants such as a telephone exchange where there were hundreds of racks of essentially identical equipment that the only important indicator when all the equipment was working was a lit green bezel at the base of the rack immediately above the plinth to indicate that the rack had power. Thus a tech peering down a row of racks all of whose bezels were alight was informed immediately that all those racks were working. If a bezel was not lit then power to that rack had failed.

Indicators on individual items of equipment in the racks remained off unless a fault developed within the unit upon which a red indicator would light up. Maintenance and faultfinding was much quicker if the presence of a light indicated a fault rather than no light at all. If the tech peered down a row of racks and saw a red light he knew exactly where the fault was located.

This went hand in hand with what's known as the _fuse indicate_ which is a led or globe in series with a resistor and wired across a fuse. Only when the fuse failed would the fault light appear (because of its simplicity such indicators are highly reliable).

Simply, using too many indicators is confusing. Unfortunately, these days, the baubles, bangles and beads brigade of designers who use leds for just about everything has never understood this. Similarly that green indicators should be used to indicate power is present and red to indicate fault. Unfortunately, no one bothers with these conventions anymore.

The Christmas tree panels in submarines and in just-in-time manufacturing plants are similarly designed—strategically located/placed lights on the panels only light up to indicate trouble (such as water breaching a watertight compartment, etc.).

I've never understood why such an important subject as human ergonomics isn't mandatory in university engineering degrees.

<comment><USER3> Airbus is known for their "dark cockpit" concept which is similar. Essentially, the presence of indicator lights or icons on MFDs should indicate to pilots that some action needs to be taken. Ideally, the action needed is the same one done by pressing the button that has lit up. This should make it easier for pilots to identify what needs attention, especially when something abnormal happens.

A similar strategy they've taken, which the computing industry could learn from, is a central fault management system which prioritizes any faults or alarms that occur during flight and only minimally alerts pilots (e.g. single warning light) if they do not require immediate attention. Instead of distracting pilots with minor alarms, minor faults are displayed for review after landing, when they are actionable by reporting the problems to maintenance. If an emergency does occur in flight, having all fault indications displayed in one place by severity hopefully makes it faster/easier for pilots to understand the problem.

<comment><USER4> If the fault can be resolved by pushing a button and the system knows which button, why not remove the button entirely?

If a human decision is needed before pushing the button then there may be some risk in making it too easy since the human will just push any lit up button.

<comment><USER3> I think one easy example to think about is a landing configuration alarm. This usually sounds when the altitude is below a certain altitude (must be landing) but the flaps are up (or something else is not according to the handbook landing instructions). Could also be landing gear up but I think that was a common enough problem that newer commercial aircraft tend to have a dedicated "gear not down" alarm just for that case.

It's a situation where there's a pretty clear action to be taken (extend flaps) but that change will meaningfully impact flight dynamics, will need application of elevators and changes to trim, etc. and so changing it without pilot input could be a real hazard.

I think a lot of more subtle situations fall into the same category of there being a pretty clear corrective action, but the pilot needs to have positive awareness of when that change occurs, and may decide to delay action or do something else.

We can pretty easily draw analogy to this kind of thing in computing. Database migrations are one I've run into - nice for them to be completely automated in routine situations, but because they can result in downtime or old versions not working in some cases it's a good idea to run migrations with an engineer "in the loop" for uptime critical software. If it's automated they click the button and do nothing, but having the button to click ensures that they're aware of the change and present in case of problems.

<comment><USER5> I think you touch on what might be an easier example to demonstrate with here:

"GEAR NOT DOWN"

So the plane has determined you are close to the ground, but the landing gear is not extended.

What is the proper course of action?

If you're trying to land on a runway or other normal surface (i.e., 99 cases out of a hundred type of thing) the appropriate action would be to extend the landing gear.

In that other case though, extending the landing gear in preparation for something like an emergency water landing is certain to take something which has a surprisingly good survival rate and turn it into a mass casualty event.

So we're left with the choice between "do the usual thing automatically, and rely on the pilot to remember to override it in the rare event of an emergency" or "alert the pilot and rely on them to evaluate whether it's the right thing for their current situation and conditions".

I would definitely argue for the latter. Especially in this specific example increasing cognitive load during exceptional situations to make the unexceptional more convenient is probably not what we want to do. The plane is not aware of the actual situation the plane is in. The pilot is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with indicator lights is, that they're useless, until you actually need that info. If i turn my head just a bit, i can see a 48 port ethernet switch with 50+ blinking lights here in the office, and 99.9% of the time, they're all useless. But, if something doesn't work, one quick glance, can tell me if the switch is on (lights), if the data is sent through (random blinking), if the ethernet connection to my pc is up (one specific light), is it waiting for spanning tree to set up (light color), is there a loop (all lights on, or blinking synchronously), and also if the connection is slow during a calm time, I can see who's sending most traffic (frequency of blinking).

I literally never look at them when all is ok, but when it's not, i get the status info in literally a second.

Same with my home router with 8leds (especially the "internet" one), same with my PCs (on/off, hdd activity) etc.

My prefered solution would be just to keep those things away from the bedroom. Currently, in my bedroom, there is only one visible led (TV), and even that one is very very dim red.

<comment><USER7> Electrical tape for complete blackout, and little small black dot stickers for LEDs you want to dim instead of completely cover.

For the black dot/circle stickers, just search for "black dot" on Amazon. The 6mm / 1/4 inch ones tends to fit neatly over most LEDs.

The electrical tape is easy enough to remove and reattach or replace for the rare occasion I actually need to see an indicator light.

I thought I'd need to remove it more often when I "snapped" and put electrical tape on _every_ device in my living room a while back, but I've yet to remove a single bit of it. I'm sure I'll have to now and again, but it's worth the hassle.

<comment><USER8> I sleep with a fan at night - when my fan from college finally died after a decade of use, I replaced it with a similar tower fan. It had a nice speed, timer function that went long enough for me to use the auto-shutoff as an alarm clock to avoid being jarred awake by an actual alarm. Oh, and it also had

FIVE, HUGE, BRIGHT BLUE LEDS WHICH WERE ON CONSTANTLY WHEN IT WAS RUNNING.

What idiot thought this was a good idea? Oh, and snipping them from the circuit also made sure the fan wouldn't work in high speed for some reason. So I had to solder a piece of wire from one end of the removed leds to the other.

<comment><USER7> My theory is that the prevalence of blue LEDs to this date is an after-effect of people who grew up back when blue LEDs were rare and expensive, and who came to see blue LEDs as a way of signalling higher value and who got used to wanting to put blue LEDs in everything for that reason long after the signalling effect was lost.

(it was first in the early 90's that bright blue LEDs became available, at least at reasonable price points)

<comment><USER9> I suspect there's a lot of truth in this.

This reminds me of going for an interview at Durham University in the early 80s. A professor in the physics department proudly showed me a prototype blue LED that they had developed. It was indeed quite a novelty at that time.

Ah, yes - a quick search confirms there was research in this area going on at the time: [https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3727/16/6/02...](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3727/16/6/021/pdf)

<comment><USER2> Undoubtedly I agree with both of you. Unfortunately, since the introduction of blue LEDs little thought has been given to the way people react to them. From my experience, they seem to raise the most criticism of all colored indicators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is one of my main pet peeves with modern life. I've never seen it discussed before, and no one I've brought it up with seems to share my annoyance.

It's currently the middle of the day, and my microphone has a visibly bright blue LED that I can't disable without dismantling it or unplugging it.

When I turn my monitor off at night, it has a flashing white LED, presumably to assure me that it is in standby for when I wake back up and decide to turn my computer on again. A note for any readers: to disable this LED, you need to turn the monitor off by navigating through the menu and choosing 'monitor off', and not by hitting the power button itself.

My router and modem light up the other side of my apartment with red and blue flashing lights.

The solution seems to be to cover everything up with unsightly black tape. That will solve everything except for the microphone, which has its LED buried deep within its bowels somewhere.

<comment><USER2> A simple solution and less obvious than tape is to paint over the LED (dob it) with nail varnish. Depending on the applied thickness, the LED can be blanked out completely or simply just attenuated to your desired amount. (The tiny brush that comes with the varnish is just ideal for the purpose.)

The nail varnish can be diluted with varnish remover or when necessary just removed by it. HOWEVER BE CAREFUL - TEST AN INCONSPICUOUS PART OF THE SURFACE OF YOUR APPLIANCE WITH BOTH THE VARNISH AND REMOVER AS BOTH CONTAIN ACETONE WHICH CAN SOFTEN, MARK OR DISSOLVE PLASTIC.

Incidentally, I keep a range of nail varnishes of various colors in the workshop, they're very useful for locking the position of coil slugs and potentiometers, and the varnish can be snap-broken without damage to the components (and nail varnish is usually easier to obtain than coil dope).

ANOTHER WARNING — BUY YOUR OWN (DON'T STEAL IT FROM YOUR BETTER HALF OR YOU'LL BE IN DEEP YOU-KNOW-WHAT (I KNOW FROM EXPERIENCE)).

<comment><USER11> Back in the day, I'd use nail polish/varnish to color over the windows of EEPROMS that I didn't want to erase. And we used to use red polish on EEPROMS with classified/secret data on it for military contracts.

And also, back in the day, we'd sit in the lab and paint our nails with the red polish while we were waiting 30 minutes for the Data General Nova to compile our code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's mainly Cheap D-Brand Chinese hardware like external harddrive enclosures that really take the biscuit IMO. For some reason these use ultrabright non- diffused blue LEDS that leave a big blue spot on the wall across the room even in moderate darkness :P They're still stuck in the early 2000's "Wow cool blue LED" era.

However, I usually end up fixing that with a bit of black electrical tape. Overal indicators don't bother me.

One of them (which was not even a D-brand but more like B-brand: StarTech), I covered once with a Post-It note because I couldn't find electrical type quickly (and the benefit was you could still see the light somewhat). A month or so later I took it off and found that the paper had gone all white from being blasted by the UV light in the blue LED :P Definitely don't want all that in my eyes. I really don't know why they do it.

<comment><USER13> Remember when LaCie had this huge blue light/button on their drives? (thankfully you could turn it off)

<comment><USER12> Ooh yes those big extruded aluminium ones with the huge round button. I never had one of those :)

I have to admit I kinda enjoy my 'skyline' of flickering lights in my network 'cabinet'. Switches, modems (fibre and 4G backup), a unify router, my home automation raspberry. It really makes it feel like stuff is working away there.

But these are all red, orange and green. I have a special hate for those harsh blue LEDs. For some reason they really irritate me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The worst are wireless chargers on the bedside table. Too dim, and you can't tell they're charging in the daytime. Too bright, and they're obnoxious at night. And the lights are actually needed because the chargers are so finicky to position, so you can't just slap a piece of electrical tape over them, which is my usual solution to LEDs. I suppose manufacturers could have the brightness level adapt with an ambient light sensor, but then the price goes up. Ugh.

My personal least favorite LED ever, however, was a temporary apartment I lived in that put a wifi router with a blinking blue LED directly over the bed. WHY?!

<comment><USER15> I agree wireless chargers are super finicky, but don't most phone screens wake up when they start charging? I always used that as the indicator for when I had gotten it to the right spot.

<comment><USER16> My phone's LED blinks occasionally when it's charging and the screen is off. It's just the right brightness.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately many newer phones don't have notification LEDs :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The first thing I usually do in a Hotel room is to unplug the TV.

What drives me really crazy is that lately there seems to be a trend to have smoke detectors with regularly blinking LEDs above the bed in Hotel rooms. I make sure I always have some stickers with me when I go to Hotels, but I find it really hard to understand how anyone could think this is a good idea or even acceptable...

<comment><USER19> And the staff seem to re-plug them every day in many places, quite annoying.

<comment><USER20> First thing I do on a business trip is ask for extra towels and put the Do Not Disturb sign on. I don't take it off until I check out.

The staff re-plugging the TV makes sense since their checklist likely requires them to ensure that the equipment in the room is functioning correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I suffer from migraines. And like many migraineurs, I am very sensitive to light even when I'm not having a migraine. Given that ~15% of humanity gets migraines, and many of them are (to some degree) in the same boat as me, I find this obsession with bright & blinking lights utterly _appalling_. It's negatively effecting millions of people, with hardly benefit.

Useless bright lights are everywhere. Often without any way to tone them down or turn them off. I don't mind getting funny looks for wearing sunglasses on cloudy days, but I don't want to wear sunglasses indoors ... and yet people keep slapping more and more LEDs on absolutely everything. I have little globs of Blu Tack all over my house, covering LEDs on the most ridiculous appliances.

Stop it. Just. Bloody. Stop. How hard can it be for a product designer to ask the question "does this LED convey useful information?", and just scrap the bloody thing if the answer is no?

<comment><USER22> I have a stereo that has had a bit of modeling clay on its power button since the day I bought it (in 2003) because in some really smart design choice, the power button lights up red to let you know it's _off_. When the stereo is on, the light turns off but the display screen lights up. So even turning the power off to get rid of the lights in the room merely just turns a different light on.

<comment><USER19> There is one single place that design choice makes sense, and that is the light switch in the kitchen, bathroom or hallway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Bought a PC case last year which has a green power LED. It's infuriating how bright it is in the dark, and despite being placed below my desk I can still see it e.g. when playing a game in the dark. I wrote a message to the manufacturer and suggested that this is pretty annoying. They were quite dismissive and replied that it's "impossible to make it darker". I'm not an electrical engineer but I'm positive even I could accomplish that task with some additional resistors.

Edit: I should also add that the LED is part of the power button, so it's not so simple to just tape over it. If I want to play in the dark, I put a piece of paper / cardboard on top of the PC.

<comment> frosted-flakes On my desktop PC, the plug to the power button + lights is actually split into its component parts, and each component is labelled. So I can connect to each pin on the motherboard header separately. This made it easy to yank the power and HDD activity lights, while keeping the power and reset buttons enabled.

<comment><USER24> My fractal design case actually uses a separate _cable_ for each of them. It's great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My trick for really annoying ones is Kapton tape. They amber color really cuts down on the passed blue light but you can still see them. If one layer isn't enough you can add a second layer.

</comment><comment><USER26> Multiple layers of electrical tape on most of my devices to bring the lights down to a reasonable level. A brand name battery charger and an off-brand HDMI splitter are the worst things I own for intensely bright blue LEDs.

And why do my friends' Bluetooth speakers have both a power on light and a loud sequence of beeps when you turn them on or off? Not to mention the beep when you press a physical volume button on them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Classic NEMA color coding is:

\- Green - status OK.

\- Yellow - status abnormal but does not require urgent attention.

\- Red - you should be doing something about this. No red light should be on for long periods.

\- Blue or white - on, no particular meaning.

This is still seen in industrial plants, often in the form of stacked cylindrical lights on a post on top of a machine. Anyone can look at the whole shop floor and see what needs attention.

LED color coding is

\- Red - 1970s.

\- Green - 1980s.

\- Blue - 1990s.

\- Color changing - 2000s.

<comment><USER28> Literal LCD display with touchscreen to display status - 2020s (see [https://amplifi.com/](https://amplifi.com/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Just buy aluminum foil tape (or use aluminum foil + regular tape) and cover them all.

Aluminum foil blocks all light and is thin and cheap.

You can also cover windows in places without effective light blocking devices like roller shutters.

</comment><comment><USER30> LEDs are cheap. It would be awesome to replace them in many applications with a cheap, reliable indicator which doesn't emit light but to my knowledge something like this doesn't exist. Flip discs don't seem like they'd be reliable or cheap enough for a consumer product. What you'd want is almost something like a single pixel e-Ink dot. AFAIK, no one makes such a thing, and even if they did, it probably would cost 4-5x an LED.

<comment><USER31> Non-backlit LCD is a possibility. If you need several indicators, you can combine them into one LCD.

The downside is they are hard to read, especially cheap ones and especially at weird angles.

<comment><USER32> I'm sure I own some product with a non-backlit LCD where you can push a button to have the backlight turn on, which times out after some time. Can't for the life of me remember what product that's in though.

<comment><USER31> Yeah, that's pretty common.

I have an Opus BT-C2000 battery charger that does exactly that. Pressing any button causes the backlight to come on for about 30 seconds.

Also a Garmin Forerunner FR220 running watch which has a dedicated button for this (with a light bulb icon). LCD is a good choice for it since it's used outdoors a lot and LED (or AMOLED) wouldn't be readable in direct sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Something no one discusses is this is part of the death of brick and mortar retail.

In the 70s you'd go to a warehouse-superstore for electronics lit by incandescent bulbs or maybe old school buzzy flicker fluorescents and it was DARK as electricity cost money.

By the turn of the century its all palaces of consumerism bright lit with modern florescent bulbs.

Now a days the remaining electronics stores sometimes have bright as heck LED illumination.

The stores are more brightly lit than most homes; a device bright enough to stand out on a showroom floor as the bright one will be blinding in an average home.

As brick and mortar retail dies out, somewhat more sane levels of illumination will be acceptable in products. Even now, its already getting to the point that nobody cares about the stylish box if amazon is going to deliver it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER34> Cheaper than buying a pack of single-use round stickers is using a sewing needle to make a tiny hole in a piece of electrical tape, and sticking that over the LED such that just a little light can come through the hole. It's enough to see the state of the indicator when you care, and also enough to keep it from annoying when you don't.

<comment><USER35> I use this to reduce the volume on piezo buzzers. A needle hole punched in cellophane tape over the port. With sewing needles, the tip has a taper so you can tune the volume by gradually opening the hole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I just use electric tape and tape them all ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER37> SOoo much electrical tape around my house covering LEDs and displays. Products are designed in isolation - where one crazy-bright blue LED might be tolerable (in the bright testing environment). But get a house full of devices, and that's a lot of LEDs.

The one that annoys me the most is my thinkpad. Apple made the slow, gentle "heartbeat" indicator when your laptop was asleep. It was a unique, delightful touch... for a while. Then everyone copied it (making it far less unique and delightful) - except they made the blinking faster, and the light red?!

Then Apple realised it was annoying and useless, and got rid of it... but everyone else kept them.

Thankfully there is electrical tape.

<comment><USER38> I hate both solutions. Many ThinkPads are okish with just a faint red led. But some also have a pulsing heartbeat blue light on the side when they're sleeping. How is that useful?

On the other hand with Macs now you can't tell what it's doing sometimes. Doesn't turn on, but the haptic feedback works on the touchpad? Is it just waking up from the disk? Is it hanging? Is the battery below minimum? Who knows...

The small red led on x1 carbon is my favourite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have a small RGB to YPbPr adapter that I use for my old TV which had a alarmingly bright high intensity blue LED on it for seemingly no reason (it's just a few op amps and resistors in an enclosure). I opened it up and removed the offending light source and have been happier since. Honestly the amount of Power on/standby lights in my house is staggering

</comment><comment><USER40> Agreed that there's a market for home electronics that doesn't try to sell on looking coolest in a store, but are reliable and work well in real life. No beeps, no unnecessary LEDs or LCDs, no fancy branded™ features. Just simple, basic, sturdy design that looks right in a home.

You could probably sell commodity hardware with high margin if you sold it with this promise and story.

<comment><USER41> _Agreed that there's a market for home electronics that doesn't try to sell on looking coolest in a store, but are reliable and work well in real life. No beeps, no unnecessary LEDs or LCDs, no fancy branded™ features. Just simple, basic, sturdy design that looks right in a home._

Start reading magazines about gardening, retirement, group travel, birds, and other topics that skew 40+. Plenty of ads for such things there.

<comment><USER40> I get an inkling that this is very different from what I was trying to suggest, but maybe not. Is there some way to read more about these products without subscribing to some magazines I don't care about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The display on our old cable box was green, and I had no trouble reading the time from across the room; whereas the replacement has a blue clock and I really struggle to read the numbers (the look-to-the-side-of-the-thing-you- want-to-see trick kind of works).

I always assumed bedside clocks were red due to it being least detrimental to your night vision

<comment><USER43> Your eyes can't focus the blue light. That's one of the reasons blue LED displays are so irritating. A low-intensity LED segment or dot panel is the best for a clock, but because they require a driver module and calibration to not look terrible, they cost a lot (relatively speaking).

A calibrated amber 5x7 matrix is, to me, an unsurpassed technology in digital display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I put power strips with switches on most electronic stuff to make sure they are switched completely off when I don't need them. Gets rid of the annoying lights as well.

I especially like those with foot switches on a separate cord. The power strip on all the power adapters can remain hidden, but you can still easily switch everything on and off.

<comment><USER45> Oh god, I hate these foot-switched power cords. I still remember my second job, when in the middle of some work I accidentally stepped on the foot switch. Hearing the distinctive "click", I froze. At that moment, I felt like a character in a war movie, who just stepped on a land mine. Instinctively, I pulled a knife from my pocket, carefully slid it under my shoe, held the button down with it, asked a co-worker to fetch me my bag, and duct-taped the switch along with the knife.

The switch stayed that way ever since, until eventually we had to move to a larger office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> One of the reasons I bought a FRITZ!Box was that I can control all the LEDs. Lets me change the brightness or completely turn them off. I wish more devices had a feature like this.

<comment><USER47> My wireless access point (a tp-link eap245) has a single LED, and that can be turned off in the webinterface. I wish every device had such an option.

<comment><USER48> My tp-link actually has a button next to the LEDs that turns them all on or off. If I want to know whether it's my router that's broken or if the DSL line is down, I press the button and look at the indicator for DSL. The same-brand powerline adapter has it in the webinterface, I find that less nice but it works as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> My last ADSL router/modem from Vodafone (UK telecoms/broadband company - unsure who the OEM was) was amazing in this respect. You could configure it to have all the lights off by default, and it had an infrared proximity sensor built into the top - wave your hand to activate the blinkenlights.

<comment><USER50> LEDs on most networking equipment are software-controlled. I can disable them on my OpenWrt devices and even the Devolo stock firmware also included a feature to disable LEDs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> There is something about LEDs on metal parts that is very "sci-fi cool" to me.

To pick one category, status indicators on older Dell Latitudes and Macbook Pros.

These were small, pleasant, and very useful.

The "breathing" pattern is also amazing. So simple, yet nice.

<comment><USER52> Sir, these lights are blinking out of sequence. What should we do? Shatner - "Get them to blink in sequence"

[https://youtu.be/kG-0V-85H_0?t=101](https://youtu.be/kG-0V-85H_0?t=101)

<comment><USER51> Haha, that's classic.

Reminds me, Dell Workstations have multiple numbered LEDs on the front panel that pretty much describe an error in binary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Masking tape it's going to be then. It's interesting how such design choices really highlight the lack of design that happens with most products, consumer, pro, or otherwise. My tv has a red led that is on when the tv is off. Clearly not a single second of actual thought was given to this design. I don't need a light to tell me the screen is off. Almost all appliances with a light are the same way. Designed completely without thought to their practical use and consequences. Now that we know about the negative effects of light, energy saving led bulbs look extremely unattractive. I'm definitely not going to fill my house with them just to save a few bucks and contribute a minuscule and irrelevant reduction in greenhouse gasses. Apple used to be egregious with their lighted Apple logo on the back of its laptops. Talk about unnecessary bothersome light. Sony and their PlayStation controllers with interminable bright blue light is another example. And then there's the thousands of other manufacturers who just copy designs without a single thought to how they might negatively affect the user. On the plus side. Sonos lets me turn off the light on their speakers and it's a very dim white light to begin with but a blessing indeed.

<comment><USER54> Yes yes and yes. I have a box of cheap self adhesive dots for the purpose. They're so cheap that the average blue light bleeds through them slightly, so anything I actually do want to have an indicator I use one for, everything else gets two.

I always assumed those Apple logos were just using the screen backlight rather than utilising an additional LED just for the logo.

<comment><USER55> Yeah they are. If you have sun shining directly on the back of the screen you can see the apple logo on the screen as the sunlight passes through the backlight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Yes There is no reason to have an off light.

Don't get me started on the useless beeps and talking everything seems to do. It's amazing how many things beep for no fing reason.

</comment><comment><USER57> Had a keyboard once, with three brightest high intensity leds ever seen directed at your face.

Got an icepick and stabbed it until it was no more. Highly satisfying.

</comment><comment><USER58> Mildly related, in the chapter Blinkenlights, Michal Zalewski describes the led indicator technology, and how it can be used for passive reconnaissance of serial data: [https://nostarch.com/download/silence_ch05.pdf](https://nostarch.com/download/silence_ch05.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER59> The power LED on the sub-base next to my TV bright I couldn't even watch TV as I was squinting. I put about five layers of masking tape over it to dim it enough that I could still see when it was powered, but it didn't light the whole damn room up.

The clock in my bedroom uses an orange display, which I figure is better than one emitting blue light when you're trying to sleep.

And speaking of blue light when you're trying to sleep: a CPAP machine with blue back lit control panel so bright that I drop a face washer over it to block it out. That one feels particularly ironic.

</comment><comment><USER60> And then you have the cell/mobile phone devices that have done without this simple trick for notifications. Do I need to wake the screen to know I have a new message or a new emai? I wish I didn't.

</comment><comment><USER61> I bought a fairly pricey, but sturdy pedestal fan to endure the hot Australian summer. I read a couple of reviews and they were fairly favourable, but in the end I missed the key flaw: it has a giant bright white LED indicator to show the fan speed. It does not have an option to hide the LED indicator and so I've had to cover it up with paper to avoid my room lighting up at night.

I know the message has been echoed by a few people in this thread, but how hard is it to allow these indicators to be disabled or simply not install them on the device?

</comment><comment><USER62> Seems like at least one company solved this problem. I have Asus TUF monitor (I don't remember exact model, but they should be similar) and LED indicator is almost unnoticable at night, but enough to see if the monitor is on.

[0] [https://www.pcomp3000.pl/images/produkty/Monitory_32/VG32VQ/...](https://www.pcomp3000.pl/images/produkty/Monitory_32/VG32VQ/1.jpg) (I couldn't find higher resolution image, the indicator is on the bottom right)

</comment><comment><USER63> I have put black masking tape over so many LEDs in my life. Often more than one layer. Once I can no longer see them lighting up the nearby environment when the lights are off, I am done.

</comment><comment><USER64> I seriously hate LEDs on things. Please at least turn the LED off after a while, or have some mode to do it. My logitech speakers in my bedroom have a blue light on the volume knob, which is meant to sit on a desk or table. I had to put two layers of electrical tape on that one to block it out it was so bright. Without that it would light up an entire room. (Then again, I am somewhat light sensitive)

</comment><comment><USER65> This is why I like my Ubiquity AP and my Sonoff wifi relays with Espurna firmware - I can programatically switch them off, on etc.

</comment><comment><USER66> It would be nice if the root cause was solved. Until that happens I just put a bit of black electrical tape on annoying indicators. Especially on my notebook with OLED screen, which emits next to no light when in terminal/dark mode, the power indicator (white LED) was incredibly bright and quite distracting.

</comment><comment><USER67> I've got a set of $30 wireless earbuds, the Soundpeat Trueaudio, which are surprisingly decent for its price, except for one fatal flaw. It has an indicator light that blinks when it's on. Which is fine when it's bright, but in a dark setting the blinking is so obnoxious it is pretty much unusable.

<comment><USER68> If you permit me an unsolicited suggestion, I've had success using a black permanent marker to dim overly bright LEDs to an acceptable level. For really bright ones, which are causing trouble when the area is otherwise dark, I've also had success covering them with black insulation tape. It leaves them bright enough to be clear but not so bright as to cause annoyance.

<comment><USER69> Nail polish should work quite well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Leave the freaking indicator lights alone. Advocate that manufacturers let you turn them off if you like, but I loathe devices that don't have them. Especially when they direct you for some damn app when I could just glance at an indicator light the majority of time to figure out what I need to know.

</comment><comment><USER71> I have 2 LaCie Little Big Disk firewire drives. They each have a 1/2 inch diameter blue LED for hard drive activity. Needless to say I have to turn them around to face the wall otherwise I would go blind and insane.

<comment><USER72> The power indicator on my rack mount server has a single blue LED that projects a 2 foot blue circle of light onto the wall about 2 feet away from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> As someone who sleeps with the lights on I don't get what the fuss is about.

</comment><comment><USER74> I don't have an issue with them, unless they are in my bedroom. I need absolute dark to sleep, so anything with an LED indicator in my room gets some black duct tape over it.

<comment> em-bee i had this one device that had such an obnoxiously bright blue led that it would almost light up the whole room, once the eyes got used to the dark. completely unnecessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Kylie Minogue - Your Disco Needs You

[0} [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqtzMue6Izw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqtzMue6Izw)

</comment><comment><USER76> next: animated car turn signals

<comment><USER77> I don't know why these infuriate me so much, but this is the absolute worst. Maybe because it looks so obnoxious. It seems like it should not be legal.

<comment><USER24> Before animated turn signals, NA's red turn signals should be illegal. And even more so the utter insanity that is using the same light as turn and braking signal.

A turn signal should be amber and absolutely not confusable with a brake light you absolute monsters.

<comment><USER77> Alec, is that you?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1lZ9n2bxWA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1lZ9n2bxWA)

<comment><USER24> I wish. But I re-watched that video recently, he's just so righteously _correct_. That volt is such obvious _nonsense_ it's infuriating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Dark red nail polisher works like a charm to (semi)permanently turn bright blue LEDs into dim red ones.

<comment><USER72> I've been using black sharpies, they work well enough for most situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> I was pleased with Vanatoo speakers that allow for dimming or shutoff of the LED lights.

</comment><comment><USER80> Both my TV and my router have options in the menu to turn the indicator lights off.

</comment><comment><USER81> Lithographer's tape switches the light to very dim, but visible red.

</comment><comment><USER82> My asus router has a phyical button to turn the leds on/off.

</comment><comment><USER83> I paint over them with either nail polish or model paint.

</comment><comment><USER11> I frequently paint over LEDs with black nail polish

<comment><USER2> Exactly! (See my comment above.)

</comment></comment><comment> mark-r I always find it funny when I see a claim that blue LEDs were invented in the 1990s. My 1985 VW Golf used one for the high beam indicator.

<comment><USER41> My 1984 VW Rabbit had a high beam indicator that looked like a blue LED, but it was actually just a super-bright regular light bulb behind a blue piece of plastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> My TV confuses me, where a solid red light, indicates the TV is off. But a blinking red light, indicates the TV is on. I've had this TV for years, and I still can't remember how to understand the LED lights.</comment>


MI6 defaces Al Qaeda website with Cupcake-making recipes - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/mi6-hackers-hit-terrorist-website-with-cupcakes-20110603-1fk8l.html

<comment><USER2> Voltaire wrote, "I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it."

It looks like MI6 have the same idea, to make Al Qaeda look like a bunch of chumps in public. This is some quality propaganda, precisely because of how silly it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> While it's entertaining to think of wannabe terrorists reading materials about cupcakes, surely this is a missed opportunity?

Wouldn't it have made sense to plant almost-correct recipes for bomb making, back-doored advice on computer security, and lukewarm calls to Jihad?

(Maybe this has happened elsewhere - and this is just MI-6 thumbing their noses at the website owners)

<comment><USER4> The problem I suspect, with only slightly altered bomb recipes, is that you leave room for experimentation. A potential terrorist could try and work out how to correctly concoct a bomb after your supplied recipe has failed, he might even succeed.

Also, explosives by their very nature are unstable and providing a recipe slightly wrong could lead to premature explosion: 'Great!' you might think 'One less terrorist!' but terrorists don't often operate in seclusion, they operate in residential areas (look at the London 7/7 bombers, for instance). Meaning innocent people could be injured by their bomb making.

The deliberately bad computer security advice would seem a better idea, like 'Download the official Al Qaeda security suite! That only COINCIDENTALLY sends all your personal information and location to the security services!'.

<comment><USER5> It was reported on the news that the 7/7 bombers rejected the use of GPG or similar as being too imperialist, so they made up their own crypto software called Mujaheddin Secrets. Only it wasn't as cryptic as they thought!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remember kids, when the civilians hack other people's webservers it's "cyber- terrorism", when is the Government the one that does it, it's "cyber-warfare".

<comment><USER7> Similarly, when I kill my neighbor I'm a "murderer", but when I kill my country's neighbors I'm a "soldier". Such distinctions are important.

I would be careful trying to equate hacking into Sony with hacking into Al- Qaeda.

<comment><USER8> If you or your country did not follow established protocol and international law for killing your country's neighbors, you are both a "soldier" _and_ a "murderer".

Likewise, if MI6 defaces an online magazine without following established protocol as well as international law, they are engaging in "cyber-terrorism" in addition to "cyber-warfare".

Such distinctions are important. :)

<comment><USER9> Perhaps there will be a Geneva Convention for cyberwarfare in the future. Though perhaps a different city for the international protocols to be signed in is in order.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This seems to me like spook marketing. They wanted to get in on a little of the lulz action and dislodge it from its antiestablishment roots.

</comment><comment><USER11> They shouldn't have sent people to Ellen DeGeneres, who is just a civilian. Someone might decide to direct their retaliation towards her.

</comment><comment><USER12> Is it just me or does this read like a spoof?

</comment><comment><USER13> If it's a PDF there would be much more insidious things to do like embed an a tracking pixel. This really doesn't sound like spooks.

I wonder if they inserted any CPA offers into the cupcakes article. This whole lone wolf thing sounds like the perfect demographic for some online dating offers.

<comment><USER14> you can't embed external resources (e.g. tracking pixels) in PDFs, adobe stopped that a few years ago.

<comment><USER15> You'd be surprised at how many totally outdated pirated virus-ridden WinXP (or worse) installs are still around in developing countries. Sure, you'd only catch _stupid_ wannabe terrorists, but I suspect that's a rather large fraction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Should have used this [http://elainerecipes.blogspot.com/2008/07/bombe- surprise.htm...](http://elainerecipes.blogspot.com/2008/07/bombe- surprise.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Its a nice way of messing around with people's minds. Makes AQ sound like amateurs... kind of like Sony. (couldn't resist)</comment>


Show HN: A study of GitHub's homepage, with some improvements - <AUTHOR> http://www.williamghelfi.com/blog/2015/06/04/github-home-redux/

<comment><USER2> I think they took this darker blue color to give it a modern UI look which bring back this Microsoft feeling.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A quick job, but I feel I spotted some weak points and then I tried to turn them to strong ones.</comment>


Show HN: Queue YouTube videos on the fly with Queuetu.be - <AUTHOR> https://www.queuetu.be <comment><AUTHOR> I decided to scratch my own itch as I like to play music via YouTube with friends when we're together and usually this involves switching between two open tabs on YouTube. It was also a nice project to warm up again after a long sabbatical and to try some things I've never played with before (Front-end programming, Responsive design, Hosting static site via AWS).

I've got some ideas on how to improve it if there is interest (to be honest it scratches my own itch so well I'll probably make the improvements anyway :) ).</comment>


A simple guide for getting started with git - <AUTHOR> http://rogerdudler.github.com/git-guide/ <comment><USER3> I don't get this. Sure, the tutorial looks very pretty, but it does not explain any concepts.

"Create a new repository." What is a repository? What do I do with it?

The HEAD is a tree "which points to the last commit you've made". Huh? A tree can point? The one in my garden can't. Also, what's a commit? I thought "commit" was a verb, not a noun.

And so on.

It's nice that people want to make something as complex as git accessible, so I applaud the effort. Nevertheless, this just makes me feel like a moron for not finding it simple. After all, the layout and the pictures make me feel like I should find it simple. But I don't, so it must be me, right? I think it's tutorials like these that keep people on TortoiseSVN.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. I've been using source control of various flavors for 15 years now, and that "Trees" section is completely unparseable by me. Why are there 3 of them? Why do I _care_ that there are 3 of them? What do I use them for? If I don't use them all directly, why are we talking about them?

Further, why are we talking in terms of the actual command-line commands? Surely a version control system as popular as this has tools at least as good as TortoiseSVN so that I don't have to actually type commands into a command prompt like some bearded guy from the '70s. I'd much prefer you tell me the name of the popular Windows/Mac client and walk me through the workflow I'll actually use on a day-to-day basis.

<comment><USER5> > I don't have to actually type commands into a command prompt like some > bearded guy from the '70s

Really? I mean, really?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. I am aware that lots of developers seem to like the command line, but I can't for the life of me understand why. I think visually, so looking at a visual interface such as Windows Explorer is several orders of magnitude more productive than fiddling around with cd/ls to give me a picture of what's going on. Once I find what I'm looking for, I'd much prefer to right click on it and get on with my day than open up a terminal, type out a path, then try to remember some archaic command syntax.

As I say, lots of programmers claim to be more productive from the command line than they are in a visual interface. It doesn't make much sense to try to dispute that, but I still find it quite baffling.

<comment><USER6> Note that source control in particular is particularly amenable to the command line, since the output of source control commands is blobs of text that refers to text files on disk; grepping around in it and wanting to access, process, or modify those files by name is a common operation.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure I agree with that; I mean I use TortoiseSVN and before that TortoiseCVS as my main interface to version control, and have done for the last 10 years. It works perfectly and I don't feel I'm missing the command- line at all.

(A goal of Subversion was that its command-line commands produce output which is both easily parsable by humans and machines. But still, I never use it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The idea is nice, but the implementation is crap.

I don't use git but I'd like to. I guess I'm the target market in a sense. The key to simplifying a tutorial is removal of jargon. Just tell it like it is.

FYI: This is the line at which I closed the tab: "checkout a repository" - wtf. I don't know what a repository is and now I'm checking it out? is checkout a typo? maybe it should be check-out? either way, I have no way of knowing and confusion has set in. Unfortunately, tab is closed.

<comment><USER9> Really? You don't know what a repository is? Or are you just being hypothetically ignorant?

I believe that somebody googling git usage is going to be a little bit conversant in the topic of version control.

<comment><USER8> Really. For me a repository is somewhere I might leave something...storage...like dropbox maybe? I don't know what it means in the github jargon sense. I have no idea what version control is specifically, but again, I guess it is v1.0 v2.0 etc.

<comment><USER10> It is very much like dropbox, in that a repository is a special purpose folder that the git application can run against.

One difference is that you can have multiple of these folders, not only on your local machine but also on remote servers.

<comment><USER8> So let me see if I get this right.

A repository is like a slave folder to a master folder, when the master folder is updated (the github folder) the contents are automatically copied to all repositories. In this way, it saves from having to update all folders manually and keeps everything in one place, with only one thing needing changes, which then propogate automatically to where they are needed?

Any idea what version control is?

<comment><USER11> i use git and here's an example.

you can think of a repository as a git-aware folder of code. if you go into your My_Documents folder, type `git init`, it's now a repository. if you click New Repository on github.com, navigate back to your local My_Documents repo, type `git remote add my_github_repo email@example.com:brador/my_documents.git`, you can then push your local repo into that repo with `git push my_github_repo` from your local repo. or if someone else commits to my_github_repo, you can pull changes downstream with `git pull my_github_repo`. git will check repos against eachother for conflicts.

i don't think a "master folder" really makes sense. if you're developing an app, you generally start with that local git init repo, and then you may push it to github. but then you may delete that local repo or go to another computer and type `git clone firstname.lastname@example.com:brador/my_documents.git` and it creates a local repo that you can resume working on. i think the point of decentralized version control like git is that there doesn't need to be a master repository. you can always merge repositories into eachother.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, that explanation actually makes quite a lot of sense!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Make a tutorial that follows the workflow of a bad developer, and you can get a lot of people on board. Show us how to undo terrible mistakes. Show us how to work with other bad developers and working with their terrible mistakes.

To get people on board with Git, you gotta show that anyone can use it, efficiently. That's how you get the most number of people to adopt - when they can easily see themselves using and trusting Git.

</comment><comment><USER13> The giant font doesn't make it any easier to understand. Stuff like 'your local repository consists of three "trees" maintained by git' only makes sense to people who already know how git works.

<comment><USER14> I'm always happy about better wording. Any ideas?

<comment><USER15> I think the problem is that the guide doesn't explain the vocabulary it uses at all. There are programmers (and definitely non-programmers) who might not have heard the word "tree" used to describe a directory filled with files and other directories. It's immediately clear once it's explained, and the guide even has little drawings that look like a directory tree, but for people new to version control and people who have used CVS or SVN this use of the word might be foreign. The same with "commit" since someone coming from another system has a different idea of what that means and someone new to version control has no idea.

Honestly, I'm not even sure you need to talk about "trees". The first chapter of Pro Git doesn't mention them at all, and this section describes the working dir, the index and HEAD without using the word: <http://progit.org/book/ch1-3.html> Instead he talks about "snapshots" and "stages".

<comment><USER14> I found it pretty helpful with the use of the word "tree" (got it from <http://progit.org/>). But I definitely need to add some kind of glossary to the page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hey pixeldude, there's a lot of negative feedback on here that seems pretty hostile in tone. Don't let it get you down. It's not perfect yet, but you're writing something that I specifically wanted to give others at multiple points in the past.

Some constructive criticism: don't align=center absolutely everything, it makes it difficult to read larger sections of text. If _everything_ is centered, then _nothing_ is centered.

<comment><USER16> And a little more, I would suggest changing the focus of branches from isolating "features" to isolating "changes" as that's more generalized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Why not just download Eric Sink's "Version Control by Example" ? <http://www.ericsink.com/vcbe/>

The book is free or can be purchased and explains both git and Mercurial with similar examples. We use it at our office to get novices up to speed on source control.

<comment><USER18> It was available in paperback for free a few months ago too (may still be, not sure). I got it, for free, in Europe. From the states. I have no idea how that works financially, but it's a great book on a number of levels and Eric has my utmost respect because of it.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the tip! I just ordered one. There's a lead-gen form you fill out in exchange, but if the book's legit, that's a reasonable price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "There's just one thing, Dude. Do you have to use so many cuss words?" -- Big Lebowski

Joking aside, there is really no need to ruin a great guide by swearing in the subtitle.

I'm not sure I'll ever understand why developers think they need to swear in articles. In this instance, is it because the author is writing in nerd (addressing a seemingly technical concept) and needs to show his article has some universal accessibility by using one of the most understood terms for excrement in the subtitle?

I mean, I'm glad he warned me there is no deep poop in the subtitle because I won't read ANYTHING that has deep doo-doo in it.

Show some maturity: s/shit/stuff (that'd be Sed for replace the word 'shit' with the word 'stuff')

<comment><USER21> Holy stuff, Batman, you're the guy using the word "doo-doo" unironically while asking adults to "show some maturity".

<comment><USER20> Hehe, sorry. The "doo-doo" was used sarcastically - meant to show exactly how out-of-place it is to talk about excrement (using any synonym) in the context of a git tutorial.

Next time I'll be sure and add in my <sarcasm/> tags for clairty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You should mention the "git gui" command alongside gitk. It's a really great way to see the changes in your working tree, stage files into the index, and finally commit. You can even right click on hunks in the diff and select "Stage Hunk for Commit" to stage just parts of a file. Generally I'm a command-line person but git gui is a lot easier to use than "git add -i" Also, git novices whom I know have generally reacted well to git gui.

<comment><USER23> I particularly like "Stage Line for Commit".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice. I will definitely show this to people who are new to SCM.

How about adding Linux install instructions? Something like,

      apt-get install git

for Debian based distros.

<comment><USER24> pixeldude,

Incoming pull request, in case you don't see it.

<https://github.com/rogerdudler/git-guide/pull/2>

<comment><USER14> Thanks, I've seen it. I need to gather all feedback tonight and bundle it for an update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The tutorial does not mention a Windows GUI for git.

There exists TortoiseGit:

       http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/

<comment><USER14> Thanks, I'll add that one to the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is neither helpful to an expert, nor to a beginner. A beginner will have no clue what the article is talking, like tree etc. An expert cannot really use this as a quick reference or something. Looks flashy, but is it anything more?

I would recommend <http://gitimmersion.com/>

<comment><USER27> I have been using Git for a couple of weeks for my personal projects and got frustrated with it. I literally just finished moving all of my stuff back from Git to SVN before checking HN and reading this. The link you posted is making me have second thoughts and now I want to give it another go. Thanks... I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How hard is git that we apparently have needed a new "getting started with git" guide every week for the last 3 years?

<comment><USER16> If it were an easy problem, it would have been solved a long, long time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think git is not easy to use, and the proof of that is that at least once a month there is a "how to use git" tutorial on the front-page of HN.

I'm not saying git is a totally bad system, but I disagree with people who think git is easy to use.

You don't see thousands of tutorials on the web, and tutorials hitting the HN frontpage on "How to use Subversion", "My personal Subversion workflow", "My .bashrc file containing my aliases for Subversion". I assert the reason is, that they are not necessary (and not, for example, that nobody uses Subversion, or nobody who reads HN uses Subversion.)

<comment><USER11> I think tutorials just follow what's hot and what people are using, not necessarily what people have trouble understanding. Git is central to HN as a community, so we upvote things like git articles, and other HNers are more likely to try to learn git because of exposure. Coding projects on HN generally link to a github repository. Someone might create a new git cheatsheet tomorrow, but it doesn't indicate that nobody can understand any of the other git cheatsheets you can find in a google query.

See, we also incessantly upvote the latest oneword.js "gimmick", and it'd be inaccurate to assume that these javascript weekend projects fill any sort of demand half the time just because they're so prevalent. I think the community just tends to circulate things that it uses and has an interest in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am a designer first and fiddle with programming second. Although I use GIT I am no expertert in it and actually this tutorial made a few things fall in place for me.

So for what it's worth, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER29> It looks like a lot of people have a case of the Mondays today. Seriously, these are about the number of commands I had sketched out when first starting on GIT, which I assume is your audience. I do have to say that I get a little tripped up between trying to use page-down and having to position the page. A full page side-swipe presentation format would work well here.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think this guide needs some general explanation of what git is, and what the thinking behind it is (like here: <http://progit.org/book/ch1-3.html>).

Of course you can get started with this guide, but you have no clue what you are doing. It's learning by following the recipe versus learning by understanding.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have found gitimmersion (1) to be really useful for beginners.

(1) <http://gitimmersion.com/>

</comment><comment><USER32> One thing that is missing is how to revert your working directory back to a tagged revision. Is that done with checkout?

<comment><USER33> Moving between refs is almost always done with checkout

        git checkout tag-name

Tags are just a fancy label pointing to a commit so you can use them anywhere you'd use a sha1 or branch name.

<comment><USER34> Or, if you don't want to keep untracked files:

        git reset --hard <commit>

<comment><USER35> Please note that this does more then what the parent suggests doing by "git checkout".

This destroys untracked changes and resets your current branch-pointer to <commit>, removing all the commit-history that comes after <commit>. (You can still recover them from the database, e.g. with "git reflog")

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I just wrote a post about my even simpler system for using git for people who know SVN/CVS: Teach yourself git in 2 minutes [http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/teach-yourself-git- in-2-minu...](http://www.jperla.com/blog/post/teach-yourself-git-in-2-minutes)

<comment><USER37> Thanks! This is the best intro I've seen. Maybe now I finally have a hope of figuring out how to use the blasted thing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thanks for putting this together, it looks great. I should mention that the word "shit" in the title of this will make it challenging for me to share this with many professional colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER39> I love this, and I've bookmarked it to email it around when I need to, but I'd love to read something that simplifies setting up git on the server side as a central location for repositories.

But that aside, coming from SVN it makes sense to me, and I've played around with git without really reading into it too much. It's of added interest because deployment and branching seems much less of a hassle with git than with svn.

<comment><USER40> Git is a decentralized scm. It means there's no concept of a central repository. You can push and pull between any repositories.

A good reading is the online book Pro Git which has been mentioned in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> A 2-3 line "this is why git is useful" at the top would be probably be helpful.

I'm forwarding this my friends who are yet to be using version control. Good stuff.

<comment><USER14> Thanks, I'll take this into account for an update!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This community gets to me on occasion, parallel to that meme with the asian father saying 'Why you no get A+'?

I know what git is. I know what source control is. To my knowledge toolbox, you just added an explanation of how a git commit->master is different than a push->remote server. Mission accomplished. Win. Author, please continue executing your work and making this world a better place.

</comment><comment><USER43> It so happens that I started using git just 2 days ago. Reading the git help was pretty useful, but I didn't want to spend a week reading pro git(the ebook). This tutorial is pretty useful to get someone quickly up and running, and certainly a better alternative than spending my time learning git (not that I won't study the details as I go along) rather than the actual project.

<comment><USER44> I would advice you to read "Pro Git".

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I like it. Good start for beginners. I agree that Linux setup instructions are required. Also how to modify the global config.

</comment><comment><USER46> I got stuck on the setup stage originally. Its not idiot proof enough - <USER2> everything to do with *nix and buddies.

<comment><USER14> Hey, I think I need to add some more setup instructions. Thanks for your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Here I summarized major differences between Subversion and Git -- I wrote this just to avoid explaining the same things to my customers. I hope someone finds it useful:

[http://txlab.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/moving-from- subversion...](http://txlab.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/moving-from-subversion- to-git/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Although I already learned how to get started in git "the hard way", I think this guide is really helpful for beginners. I know I would have appreciated it. As a matter of fact, the first repo I pushed to github was a guide on how to do do stuff in github =D

</comment><comment><USER11> In the example where you `git checkout -b feature_x`, I believe you also want to `git merge feature_x` after you `git checkout master`, as the `-d` flag on `git branch -d feature_x` will only delete the branch if it's been merged.

</comment><comment><USER49> For me the best Git guide is John Wiegley's "Git from the bottom up" @ <http://newartisans.com/2008/04/git-from-the-bottom-up/>

</comment><comment><USER50> Completely off-topic, but what tool did you use to create those diagrams?

<comment><USER14> These are hand-made drawings done with a Wacom Intuos Graphic Tablet.

<comment><USER50> Kudos, they look nice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Please add Git Extensions ( <http://code.google.com/p/gitextensions/>).

It's the best Windows Git client I've found so far.

<comment><USER14> I will, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> It's weird it says "create a new branch named "feature_x" and switch to it using ..." but it doesn't give you the command to create the branch.

Is that a "bug"?

</comment><comment><USER53> Using gitx (<http://gitx.frim.nl/>) really helped me grasp some of the concepts you talk about.

<comment><USER54> That one has been mostly abandoned by the author, for one that is regularly updated take a look at <https://github.com/laullon/gitx> which is a fork of the original GitX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Mac OS X Lion ships with Git by default. So no need to download Git for that platform.

Also, brew is a better choice for installing and keeping git up to date.

</comment><comment><USER55> Having used SVN, and in the process of starting a new job where they use GIT, this actually helped quite a bit. It was quite timely for me.

<comment><USER56> You may also be interested in this: <http://git.or.cz/course/svn.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What's the point of including instructions for downloading git for MacOSX, when it's already installed in the system by default?

<comment><USER15> I don't think Git ships with OS X, does it? I think it's bundled with XCode but not with the base OS.

[http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18470/why-is-git- no...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/18470/why-is-git-not-found- after-installing-os-x-lion)

<comment><USER37> Quite possibly; all of the Macs I have on hand already have Xcode installed so I can't check. But I don't think that's a big issue; if you're developing software you're almost certainly going to want to install Xcode and all the accompanying dev tools anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Isn't pull bad for some reason? I thought you were supposed to use fetch and merge separately. I can't remember why though.

<comment><USER15> Pull is the same as doing fetch and merge individually. It's only "bad" in the sense that it might do something you're not ready to do yet. If you fetch first, you can inspect the changes before you merge them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Thanks in the name of all visual impaired, but for 30px font is simply to large for me to read.

</comment><comment><USER58> The biggest problem with Git is the insistence of using command line. Just so you know, when you install the software it provides a simple GUI where you can, you know, click on buttons instead of memorizing commands.

</comment><comment><USER59> What is that font and why does it look awful on Windows?

<comment><USER14> It's a Google Web Font. I'll check that later. Thanks for the hint!

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Git is an ungodly, half-baked, cobbled-together, overcomplicated mess.

If it weren't for git's speed and Linus' name attached to it, I'd be shocked to see any experienced developers using it.

<comment><USER47> no, it's pretty easy to use and pretty consistent if you try to understand its internal logics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Please could you fix pagination so that page down works correctly? (Other sites that use the same format have it working)

<comment><USER19> I don't understand; you want page down to go to the next "block"? That would be neat. I'm asking because pagedown seems to "work" as expected on my browser (scrolls down one viewport-height).

<comment><USER61> Yes, next block. (If I remember which other sites do this resolution independently, I'll update my post)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I wish git (and mercurial for that matter) could properly backup large files. I have some sql files > 100MB that I can't check into source control.

<comment><USER63> Why not?

edit: I use git for game development, and we check in some big asset files (uncompressed .wav music tracks etc.). As long as these don't change too often, the repo stays manageable. Up to 10gigs is still a reasonable repository size IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I don't think this is better than any of the other thousands of git tutorials that any web search would uncover.

</comment><comment><USER65> Jesus, I'm stupid not blind!</comment>


Ask YC: All things being equal, why would a browser render pages differently?  - <AUTHOR>

I recently reinstalled my operating system, and reinstalled Mozilla Firefox. For all practical purposes, my configuration is exactly what it was two days ago.
However, now I've noticed that margins are a few pixels off in FF3. I'm concerned about designing on this box now, as my CSS might be a few pixels off.
I'm wondering, what might be the cause of this discrepancy? <comment><USER2> I really doubt its the margins.

What kind of fonts are on the page? I bet the problem is that you don't have Microsoft fonts installed. (they're not included with Linux distros, for example)

</comment><comment><USER3> You need to provide more info: what is your O/S, what is your baseline (markup and stylesheet developed/tested first in FF/firebug/Safari vs. IE 6 or 7?), whether your sure this is not an IE 6/7 "feature".

</comment><comment><USER4> how can you tell that they are "off"? what do you mean by "off" ?</comment>


Science Ignorance in Maine Leads to defeat of the Smart Grid - <AUTHOR> http://www.pressherald.com/news/PUC-approves-smart-meter-opt-out-options.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I grew up in Maine, and while this may not be surprising, the opt-opt program deals a tough blow to what would have been a major infrastructure upgrade for the state. According to a friend involved with Central Maine Power and the installation opt-out rates are extinguishing a lot of the benefits that federal stimulus dollars are going towards since much of the overhead is paid for up front.

I worry more, however, about what this says about the future of smart grid technologies elsewhere when those ignorant of the science are allowed to have such strong influence in this policy.</comment>


Findr – Discover what the internet knows about you - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/findr-find-your-online-personal/id1201439669?mt=8 <comment><USER2> Where is the data being sourced from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! We've built an API that searches the web for information</comment></comment>


Adventures of an Enclave (SGX / Tees) - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/adventures-of-an-enclave-sgx-tees-9e7f8a975b0b <comment><USER2> The most common use case for SGX is Digital Restrictions Management. The purpose being to deny ownership. You do not own these devices, for they obey Intel and not you. You may do with them what Intel permits you to do.

GPDR, prviacy, etc, these are side projects to the actual purposes of "trusted computing". Its so your property DISTRUSTS you at all times.</comment>


WebRTC 2-player 2048 on same board with matchmaking - <AUTHOR> http://instapainting.com/2x2048/

<comment><USER2> I think it would be interesting to have a 2048 variant where every player starts with same board and after every move, the same random next piece is given to all the people who made that move. The server would track over time how many people have made a series of identical moves to you. This wouldn't be synchronous but accumulated over time as a history of moves in a given situation is stored.

Starting board: 103,044 players have made identical moves

After 1st move: 70,333 players have made identical moves

After 2nd move: 18,231 players have made identical moves

...

After 7th move: 3 players have made identical moves

After 8th move: You are unique - no other player has made the same 8 moves as you.

All kinds of neat data could be generated and turned into illustration of the branching over time and where each particular set of moves ends.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Matchmaking is a bit slow, but two player competitive works fine. Basically you go head to head on the same board, Red vs Blue. Your goal is to merge as many of the opponent's tiles.

Whoever gets to 2048 first wins, or if no moves are left, whoever has the most points (added up value of all tiles on the board).

</comment><comment><USER3> Love it! Got the whole office involved in our game.

</comment><comment><USER4> Two player should have a bigger board. 32768 anyone?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can merge your opponent's tiles. We tested it with a 6x6 and it just makes the game take too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wait, who is blue and who is red?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can move when it says ____ color, then you're that color.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> that's pretty nice. :))</comment>


Galaxy S10 review: Too many compromises for the sky-high price - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1461913 <comment><USER2> I don't get "high end Android."

You don't get software updates. The platform is a dumpster fire. No matter how good the hardware is it is held back by the software.

Is the market just people who get $2000 of value because they think people will be impressed they spent $2000 on a phone and they just can't buy Apple for some reason?</comment>


Camera Hack: How to find a lost camera - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewmcdonald.net.au/a-pictorial-guide-to-avoiding-camera-loss/

<comment><USER2> Nicely done. The only comment is that everything seems readable on a small camera screen, exept for the most important part: Your email adress...

</comment><comment><USER3> Storage space is cheap, and it's pretty cool that this guy has realised that and has taken the time and effort to make an entertaining (at least the first time) plea.

In the days of chemical film cameras I always made sure the first shot was of a card with my name and a contact address. I recovered three films that way which had been delivered or given to the wrong people by the people developing the film. For the cost of one photo per film, it was definitely worth it.

I need to go do this again, although if I lost the camera, I doubt I'd get it back. If a reward is offered, returning someone's photos is clearly a win for the person who has them, whereas the camera might be of greater value than the (reward plus warm fuzzies minus effort).

Then again, maybe not. I'm off to take a photo ...

</comment><comment><USER4> Just have a text file on any drive you're worried about losing.

<comment><USER5> For something like a camera the average person wouldn't notice a text file, but may notice photos.

For phones, I generally include my email in the greeting/home screen message.

For my iPod, I select the engraving option and use '$100 Reward. Contact: my_email'

<comment><USER6> For my bicycle, since it's more likely to be stolen than lost, I have little bits of paper inserted into lots of places that bike mechanics are likely to find.

"If this bike has not been brought into your shop by [insert your name] then it is stolen, please call me immediately on [insert your number]".

These little pieces of paper are in places like the stem, the bars, under the bar tape, in the bottom bracket, under the inner tubes, under the rim tape, in the hubs. Literally anywhere I can put them where they are likely to survive undetected by a casual user of the bike but that is likely to be discovered the first time the bike is taken into a shop for servicing. Obviously I use little bits of plastic and a permanent CD marker for the places likely to get wet (the ones under the innertubes).

I don't expect to get the bike back days after a theft, but weeks or months later I think it would work well.

<comment><USER7> I like this idea alot. I do have my doubts that someone who has stolen a bike is going to take it in for servicing. Though they may sell it to an unsuspecting person who subsequently takes the bike to a shop so maybe it does have a shot of working. Good concept either way.

<comment><USER8> I'm always amazed by news stories about people being prosecuted for possession of child pornography, found when they took their laptop in for servicing/fixing. So in light of that someone taking a stolen bike for servicing doesn't seem that far-fetched..

<comment><USER7> Truth. Just thinking that they might be more likely to steal another bike rather than bothering to get the first stolen one fixed.

<comment><USER6> In London a sizeable quantity of bike thefts appear to be pre-meditated and part of organised crime. The bikes we've recovered (I run <http://www.londonfgss.com/> ) have turned up as far afield as the coast and as close as Brick Lane.

Down Brick Lane market on a Sunday morning there is literally a fence... a chicken wire one from which stolen bikes are sold. Lord knows what the buyers are thinking, and the police are well aware of what is happening too (but are doing very little about it).

We are now tracking (within the community) where bikes are stolen from, the measures used to protect them and evidence of how they were circumvented as well as where and when the bikes are turning up. With a large enough community (over 12,000 users in the same city) we're able to recover a fair amount of our own property after the event... not to say we're lax about protecting it but that by taking as many precautions and steps that you can you stand some chance of being re-united should the worst happen.

Opportunist crime wherein someone just steals something because it's easy to and then they keep the item now seems rare.

Oh, and if you're interested in bike security these guides on my site are good places to start:

Guide to which locks to use (which are primary security, which should be considered secondary): <http://www.londonfgss.com/thread17938.html>

Review of a motion alarm: <http://www.londonfgss.com/thread24813.html>

We also have private areas of the site for tracking stolen bikes, and have worked with companies like Kryptonite to help make their locks better, local police to try and get them to do stuff about the 'fence' and the local cycling associations to try and raise awareness. We're collectively writing guides on bike security too which we hope will be released under creative commons on a wiki and then from there we can encourage bike shops to distribute copies with every new bike sold.

Anyhow... I am more than wandering off the point, which is that most stolen bikes in London are stolen to be sold and that the buyers tend to be regular people who do take them into bike shops after a while, from where some bikes have been recovered. More successfully though, we've recovered bikes from Gumtree and eBay classifieds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If the search engines could do an image search based on camera serial number then you could locate some stolen cameras that way. Just search for any images uploaded from that camera since it was stolen, and then you could have some evidence to use in tracking it down. EXIF data can include serial number but apparently it's not very standardized right now.

<comment><USER10> Some picture noise removal programs allow you to supply a "noise profile picture". This involves leaving your lens cap on and taking a long exposure so that the only thing in your picture is the noise inherent in the camera's sensor. The noise pattern on any given sensor is fairly unique, unique enough that these programs can then use that profile to "subtract" noise from pictures you take.

Perhaps people could register their noise profiles with a service like Flickr and, if their camera is stolen, this noise profile could be detected in pictures found on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Or use an eye-fi card so it wirelessly uploads all photos (hopefully, i.e. if there's a standard/open network nearby).

Disclaimer- portfolio company

<comment><USER12> I bet you could sell more Eye-Fi's if there were an easy way to upload new firmware to the card. It's a fundamentally interesting product but I think you could get a lot more creative uses for it from opening it up more to your customers.

<comment><USER13> You could also sell more Eye-Fis if they supported CompactFlash in addition to SD. I thought I could use an SD to CF converter, but they are apparently pretty dodgy.

I'm shocked that there isn't a way to wirelessly send pictures to a tablet PC for instant studio proofing with a DSLR that saves to CompactFlash, but there doesn't seem to be.

<comment><USER14> Yes, rogupta - to Martin's point here... if EyeFi is in your portfolio then I would urge you to push for CF version... I only use pro camera gear which doesn't take SD.

I've talked to the EyeFi guys about this but it seems to fall onto deaf ears.

I also agree that there should be an open platform option for these -- you could sell a ton of these if people could use them for their own uses that go beyond the original concept of uploading to the internet.

<comment><USER11> thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Actually "Camera Hack: How to find a lost memory card"

</comment><comment><USER16> Not a hack, but a good idea anyway.

Except that I can't read the email address.

Maybe just put a sticker on the outside of the camera?

<comment><USER13> While I couldn't stand a sticker on the outside of a camera, I always print labels with my email + phone number and stick them on the memory cards and removable batteries.

<comment><USER17> That's a good idea too. However, I think the photos add a little emotion and increase the chance of the person who finds it to return. Just a thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> it was great idea. i wanted to know who have this beautiful camera. and i know it. i promiss to keep ur camera very well and take pretty photo. dont worry buddy

</comment><comment><USER19> wow ..I liked it... what a nice way of representing things?

</comment><comment><USER20> LOl That was actually pretty funny=-)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do to make sense of your thoughts over time? - <AUTHOR>

A generic question that comes back often is how to put one's thought in consignment somewhere so as to not let this potential "big idea".<p>My question is further down the road: once all the ideas have been streaming and been written or stored somewhere: how do you assembled them together ? how do you review this product several months later ? Are you happy that you have been mindmapping your thoughts correctly ? has this had an influence on how you conducted your "business" ? <comment><USER2> I don't even bother trying. Hoarding "ideas" doesn't make any sense to me.

I will always have ideas. The Halfbakery website is full of people's ideas. My mom has ideas. Everyone has ideas. Someone's probably had the very same idea already.

Ideas are so cheap and common, they're almost worthless by themselves.

I put far more value into execution. Actually making an idea happen, that's where the value is. In order to make ideas happen, I need resources, so what I need to concentrate on right now is developing lots and lots of resources.

Whenever I need an analogy, I think of ideas as being seeds. You can go to just about any store these days and pick up a little packet of seeds for real cheap. Each one of those seeds has the _potential_ to become something beautiful, but only if you give it soil and water and sunshine and a place to grow.

So before I go trying to figure out where to store all my piles of packets of seeds, I should figure out how I'm going to get the farmland I need to grow them all in the first place.

<comment><USER3> Ideas have value. Most good ideas are a result of the unique perspective of the person who has them. Many years of life experience (working in an industry, talking to others, etc) usually go into coming up with a new idea, not to mention research and detailed thought about specific problems.

Ideas are very common, every person has them. But _good_ ideas are rare. Consistently coming up with good ideas is difficult, and it might be worth it to give some thought to the process.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am of the opinion that good ideas are generally the sum of worthwhile but small ideas and that there is in fact the need for "coagulate" these together to have something worth it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a little cl script called 'do'. It requests a name, description, and tag list for anything I think I might like to 'do' in the future. For instance:

      Name: Gideon Series
      Do a series of new-primitivism photos, Goldsworthy
      pieces, except environment is cheap motel room. Bible,
      towels, bad art, curtains, etc.
      Tags: art, medium, moderate

Then I can forget the idea. When I feel the need to begina new piece, I can ask for ideas about art:

      > do art

And one will appear for my perusal. 'Medium' and 'moderate' refer to difficulty and time required.

      > do short easy

Helps to fill spare moments, when I don't have much attention to spare.

<comment><USER5> Have you open-sourced that? I'd like to use that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't worry about that. It's the process of writing down ideas that matters to me. Writing it down forces you to think clearly; gives your idea structure. If the idea is still good when you read it to yourself: great. You'll be able to reconstruct the idea at a later time if you need it. If the idea doesn't sound that good anymore, just forget about it. So I don't file ideas anywhere. I often don't even bother to save the files with all my ideas when I reboot my PC. Saving stuff I'm not going to look at later isn't worth it.

You write ideas down so they don't distract you while you're trying to work. Ideas interrupt your train of thought: they're harmful. Write them down clears your mind -- and a clear mind is far more valuable than any single idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice solution, writing the thought or blogging about it is definitely a good way to anchor it in one's memory for future reuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The process of collecting the ideas is super easy for me. I use the all-time- and-devises-compatible .txt file. I am attached to 5 different machines. My laptop (Linux) , office PC (WinXP), Home server (Linux), Pocket PC (Wm6) and the work UNIX servers (HP-UX x 4). Whenever I have an idea I fire the minimalist text editor I have. Usually [ ~> vi idea_description.txt ] then I write whatever on my mind. I don't care that much about the writing; just a mind stream. Considering me as a media carrier, the 5 devises are in some kind of a network. Every couple of days I collect the ideas from the different machines into single directory called [IN BASKET] in my laptop. Usually through the FTP, email and/or bluetooth.

I don't care that much about making the ideas real. If they are worth living they will occupy my mind a great deal. Which means the .txt file will get bigger and bigger over the time. At the end I will naturally make them happen. By just executing the .txt file in the life environment :P.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Once again it looks like one cannot be sophisticatged neither in the thought collection mode nor in the eventual growth of certain ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Right now, I'm using the "Someday" slot in Things to represent concepts, ideas, and other things that don't have an immediate "plan" attached. It works well enough for _storage_ and _search_ , but that "assembling together" process has brought up another idea for something that would work better: basically, a program that shows you all your ideas as little fridge-magnets, allows you to move them around and draw relationships between them, and group them together under "named entities" (e.g. for a novel, character traits could be moved around and grouped to form characters.)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what mindmapper like freemind allow you to do. I am very much interested in hearing about the next step. When one has one or several mindmaps, how do these grow old ? do we see a larger mindmap of the smaller ones, something else ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two things:

1) I use an iPhone todo app (<http://www.appigo.com/todo>) to jot down ideas as I get them in a "Projects" category. This lets me quickly browse through them at a later time. You can add notes too if your ideas are elaborate and you want to jot them down too.

2) Keep a journal. Write down what you're thinking. There's nothing quite like reading something you read six months ago and wondering, "What was I thinking?"

</comment><comment><USER10> I have re-do the whole thing - that helps me coagulate everything and throw out the redundancy and unnecessary.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice solution. But in that process you don't really have a history or version control of this document.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's really simple for me...

1\. I write everything down in an unlined spiral notebook with perforated detachable pages.

2\. I file every page into a labeled green file folder in a file cabinet.

3\. I keep all of it.

I've been doing this for 30 years. I have _everything_ I ever wrote. If fills 3 two drawer file cabinets.

I don't print and save anything which is already stored digitally. I hardly save much else.

About once a month I pull out a folder a go through it. Obviously, there's a lot of stuff that appears to be of little use now, but I never fail to find _something_ of value.

I give away or donate any that is replaceable (which includes all books). But not my own writings. I don't remember how I handled that issue 12 years ago, but I do know that I can find all my notes on it pretty quickly. This way I don't have to remember every detail, but I always have my younger self and much of my experience as a resource at my disposal.

<comment><AUTHOR> once a month you go through that month's folder, once the folder has been viewed what do you do with it ? do you put in the drawer file cabinet never to be seen again ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I almost wrote you a detailed response but then I realized you didn't even proofread your post. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a shame.</comment></comment>


Russia to reveal location of US military satellites in free space database - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/news/347744-russia-satellites-database-norad/ <comment><USER2> Most of them are already tracked by amateurs who determine and discuss their orbits on open mailing lists, so this data won't be a huge revelation.

What will be more useful is a source of derived orbital elements for non- classified satellites; NORAD provide sets of data but about ten years ago added a licensing restriction that forbids redistribution of that data or calculations based thereon. A second source without that nonsense would be very useful.

[https://www.space-track.org/documentation#/user_agree](https://www.space- track.org/documentation#/user_agree)

<comment><USER3> For part of my master's thesis, I made a real-time visualization using some of the TLE data you mention from an amateur who compiles it. Should geolocate you and show which ones you have a line of site to you at the moment.(Sorry it's not mobile friendly.)[https://explorejs.space/demos/cSats/](https://explorejs.space/demos/cSats/)

<comment><USER4> That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yet another example of the dubious benefits of secrecy: the Russians know all about these satellites, from launch time on. Meanwhile civilian work is made more complex and dangerous so the MIC can keep the information away from their _true_ enemies: the taxpaying public.

<comment><USER6> Russians aren't the only one who are targeted by geospatial surveillance, and some countries and organizations that are don't have the same intelligence and space monitoring capabilities that the Russian have.

I don't see how this makes civilian work any more complex or dangerous since all space launches in the world are cleared through UNOOSA this isn't like SpaceX nor anyone is going to run into a US KH super platform on the way up.

So while it is true that you can't keep your spy satellites a secret (for long at least) from nation state like Russia, smaller countries and various non- state actors that are the targets of surveillance can be kept in the dark, the GRU doesn't brief north Korea or ISIS.

This is a dick waving contest between the US and Russia a kin to the cold war, but claiming that this information is held because the public are the enemies of the state is ridiculous. While the location of space based intelligence collection platforms does intrigue me I don't see any more justification for it to be public than to have every surveillance drone and military aircraft appear on flightradar24.com.

<comment><USER5> Can we imagine a scenario by which some entity that USA might wish to observe, and which might want to avoid said observance, might be capable of using this information to do so, but wouldn't be capable of obtaining this information in the first place without the actions described in TFA?

I can't. First of all, there are numerous satellites parked over the relevant portions of the Middle East. That was true before ISIS began, and ISIS has never been unaware of that fact. Second, if some group operating in e.g. Indonesia wanted to make sure they weren't observed in some particular operation, there's no plausible way for them to go from this spreadsheet to a schedule for their operation. Maybe they could hire a black hat astronautical engineer?

 _I 'm_ not an astronautical engineer, but presumably the USA MIC hasn't given some UN agency the secret formula? So, every time a civilian orbital maneuver is planned there is some sort of multi-party telephone-game protocol? Eliminating that would seem to result in less complexity and more safety.

<comment><USER6> There are countries and entities that do take precaution against EOS but do not have up to date information on all platforms, if you want to take the middle east for example then tactical intelligence from time sharing on EROS-B for example which is a civilian EOS which several governments around the world use also for intelligence gathering purposes is considerably poorer than using platforms with less predictable position when targeting local nation states and non-state actors.

As far as safety goes the UN coordinates with all the government and non- government bodies around the world regarding space matters, the process is complex but like anything to do with space it's complex for the right reasons it needs to be thorough and methodical even if there was a database of all US non-civilian platforms online no one in their right mind would use it to base orbital maneuvers that would be considerably less safe than the process we have now unless you want to bet your multi-million dollar platform on how accurate or up-to date that information is.

Everything regarding space is planned months if not years up front, and every time it's verified and validated by coordinating with multiple national and international agencies, when it comes to space one thing you don't do is "save time".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _While the catalog does not disclose data on America's own military or dual- > use satellites (...), it does feature Russia's defense satellites._

So the Russian satellites are on the US list, and the US satellites are on the Russian list. Fun!

</comment><comment><USER8> The article talks about using telescopes, which is odd. NORAD uses a radar system designed to provide early warning of Russian ICBMs to track satellites. I assumed Russia would use a similar system.

<comment><USER9> Well, radar will get you a location, but lacks detail. Russia's Krona system[1] apparently uses radar to find the satellites, then illuminates them with a laser so that optical telescopes can get imagery and precise measurements.

[1][http://geimint.blogspot.com.au/2008/06/soviet-russian- space-...](http://geimint.blogspot.com.au/2008/06/soviet-russian-space- surveillance.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't there already several other open databases available?</comment>