The most extensive Commodore 64-versus-iPhone 3G S comparison so far. - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2009/06/21/commodore-vs-iphone/

======
dejb
User programmable?

      Commodore 64 - Yes. Ships with Basic.
      iPhone - Not available

------
noonespecial
Can release apps without permission from on high?

------
pmjordan

      Total applications available: C64: 10,000; iPhone: 50,000

Wow, goes to show how niche the industry was back then if the 27-year-old
device has 1/5 the software of the newcomer. I suppose barrier to entry on
commercial distribution was higher for the C64.

------
rw
> Commodore 64 compatibility? > C64: 100% > iPhone: Sigh


Temperatures in France cross 45°C threshold for first time since records began - reddotX
https://www.euronews.com/2019/06/28/france-records-highest-temperature-since-records-began-at-44-3-celsius-meteo-france
======
tomhoward
I'm an Australian taking a short European getaway. We're currently in northern
Italy - Veneto region.

Holy crap it's hot.

High 30s every day, and perhaps because the towns consist of stone streets and
buildings, and perhaps because there's not much wind, but it feels much hotter
than the equivalent temperatures we're used to in summer at home. (Edit:
Others have pointed out humidity would be a factor too - perhaps the biggest.
That may be the case, though at around 50%, it's not as humid as I've
experienced elsewhere, including in Australia at times.)

We're heading to southern France next week, and the forecasts suggest the heat
wave will still be in force then.

I mean, no complaints, we're feeling lucky to be here and are still having a
great time, but boy, this is not what you expect in Europe.

~~~
Tade0
For such weather I recommend Trento. Even though the temperature is the same
as everywhere, the city itself is filled with greenery - I was there last week
and comparing to e.g. Bologna it was much more bearable.

Also if you disregard the signs while climbing to Cesare Battisti's monument
and go through the tunnel meant for cars(which are allowed only at certain
hours) you'll experience a few minutes of much needed cooling.

~~~
point78
Looks like trento is much much cooler than bolzano even tho bolzano is further
north, (bolzano 40s in July, trento high 20s) is that true every year?

~~~
idiocratic
Yes. Bolzano is curiously one of the hottest cities in Italy during the
summer.

------
fillskills
Climate fluctuations are becoming more and more of an emergency. I was at a
farmer conference and the main speaker spoke about how bad it is for them.
Lots of crops are dying. Some GMO crops customized for this climate are able
to survive if they are timed to perfection. We should be very worried about
our food sources

~~~
bit_logic
This is the part of climate change that the media has really failed to talk
about. It's always about sea level rise, but that doesn't make most people
worry enough (just move or build levees). The real impact is that the climate
will change everywhere. Good farmland will become bad. Areas with bad farmland
will become good. And it's not easy to just shift the agriculture industry
from one place to the other, and there's no control over where this happens.
Also climate change doesn't care about borders. A country that has a lot of
food production could suddenly have almost nothing. And even if a country is
lucky and suddenly has good farmland, it's still a food crisis until that
country can get their agriculture industry up and running.

~~~
jay_kyburz
If I were a large investor, I would put some money into working out how to
farm food inside.

Not just a glass house, but an air tight box, with a complete ecosystem
inside.

From the fungus in the soil, to bees for pollination. We need to understand
how it works and how to manage it.

~~~
pertymcpert
Uhm. You will need to input some carbon into the system because otherwise the
plants won't be able to obtain raw materials to grow and actually produce
food.

~~~
chronolitus
[http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-
bottle-g...](http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-
garden/)

~~~
pertymcpert
Right, so?

Where did the plants get the carbon from to build their organic structures?

~~~
jay_kyburz
I imagine that in some distant future we are going to have to have near
perfect recycling. Human waste, and even our bodies will have to go back into
these closed ecosystems.

I wonder if the energy from the sun is enough external input to sustain human
life.

~~~
chronolitus
It's certainly possible, since earth doesn't need much external input other
from sunlight to sustain life.

The question is, how scaled-down a self-sustaining ecosystem can we create and
manage, which is capable of sustaining human life?

------
akgerber
I spent summer 2018 biking across Europe & everywhere I went, from Spain to
Scotland, was much hotter than the climate data I looked up on Wikipedia
prepared me for. It definitely felt like the climate had tangibly changed—
especially if the same thing seems to be repeating this year.

I guess everyone in Europe will be moving towards installing air conditioners,
and they'll need to add peaker plants to power them on hot summer afternoons.
Hopefully solar & storage will be cheap enough that it isn't too bad for the
climate.

~~~
jacquesm
The cruel bit here is that installing air conditioners substantially increases
the per-capita carbon footprint which in turn will lead to a further
greenhouse effect. It's a positive feedback loop with many components.

~~~
VBprogrammer
I hope that Europe doesn't ever reach the same level of insanity with regards
to air-conditioning that you see in, for example, Florida. The last time I
visited (admittedly 20 years ago) I remember having to walk outside of
shopping malls / supermarkets for a few minutes to warm up, having been
subjected to the frigid level of AC inside.

~~~
war1025
I think a big part of the "all kids do is play inside" thing people like to
complain about has to do with everyone having their AC on all the time. If its
hot inside and hot outside, you go play outside. If its hot outside and cool
inside, you sit on your ass and look at a screen.

------
wongarsu
45°C in the desert or in the arid climate of the middle east is very bearable.
45°C in Europe is so terrible because of our high humidity. The more humid it
is the less effective sweating is, and when the outside temperature is above
~37°C sweat is the only way we can cool our body to stay alive.

~~~
djd20
Having lived in Dubai for the last 6 years - believe me there is nothing dry
about the summer heat here. 45c and over 90% humidity regularly.

~~~
Filligree
That would imply a wet-bulb temperature of over 40 C, which shouldn't be
survivable. Does everyone spend all their time indoors? What if there's a
power outage?

~~~
dleslie
> What if there's a power outage?

And this is why the existence of Dubai is a testament to the hubris of
humanity.

~~~
rayiner
Yeah god forbid a bunch of people who happened to be born in the desert want
to enjoy the fruits of civiliation.

~~~
ulfw
They enjoy it so much, they invite millions to their homes to enjoy it
together!

(The population is composed of just 15% native residents, with the remaining
85% being composed of expatriates, see
[http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-
populati...](http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/dubai-population/))

------
throwawayvvvv
I’ve come to the conclusion that the deliberate ignorance of climate
change/greenhouse effect/global warming is being fueled by deep-pockets in the
fossil fuel industry, who are hacking the current weaknesses in democracies to
sow doubt and confusion, and to sap political will (just as other hostile
groupings are doing). The GFC also happened just as schemes like carbon
pricing started taking hold, and they ended up losing momentum, which hasn’t
been regained.

The UK is a notable exception because Thatcher broke the coal industry for
ideological reasons but I don’t think countries like the US will be able to
take meaningful action. Heck, a major reason for Australia’s recent election
outcome was the question of a major coal mine being granted permission to
open.

It’s either going to take major regional climate changes in some part of the
world that the media cares about (Europe or North America) before political
and public opinion shift decisively enough for meaningful action to take hold.
By then it will probably be too late, except for those who are wealthy enough
to buy their way into places which benefit from climate change. The rest of us
will be left to fend for ourselves.

~~~
Throwaaybbbbbb
I'm taking a mooc on climate change denial 1, and creating confusion is listed
as one of the main reasons for denial. For example, when faced with scientific
consensus about tobacco causing cancer, the industry invested a lot in
creating doubt - doubt makes change stop or slow down.

Personal biases are also a big factor. Eg: a conservative is more prone to
believe global warming when presented an article about "free market solutions
with nuclear power" than "government legislation against co2", which are just
different takes on the same underlying truth.

1
[https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UQx+Denial101x+1T2...](https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UQx+Denial101x+1T2019/course/)

------
Scarblac
For Americans: this village in the south of France is at about 43.8 degrees
north latitude, about the same latitude as the Great Lakes.

~~~
isostatic
Europe has far milder weather than the States due to the gulf stream. While
New York (40 degrees north) can get a foot or two of snow dumping several
times a year, Rome (41 degrees north) gets an inch or two once or twice a
century.

~~~
logfromblammo
Visualization of Earth oceanic currents:

[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/orthographic)

Stick around to play with the other options in the hamburger menu in the lower
left.

~~~
ralphhughes
Thanks for sharing that, I notice they have an overlay for ocean temperature
as well, so you can visualise both the heat flows and absolute temperatures on
the same map:
[https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents...](https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/surface/currents/overlay=sea_surface_temp/orthographic=-36.08,41.80,671)

------
baud147258
"2015 European heatwave"

I remember that one, it coincided with high air pollution: so much that one
evening while leaving work, I realized that the Eiffel tower, quite close to
the workplace, was barely visible in a haze of pollution. Also that heatwave,
compared to the current, was made worse by a lack of wind, as far as I
remember.

------
JohnTHaller
When higher temperatures have you down, just remember the conclusion on the
final page of a buried 1980 report on climate change from the American
Petroleum Institute: "At a 3% per anum growth rate of CO₂, a 2.5°C rise brings
world economic growth to a halt in about 2025"

------
adrianN
> According to the European Environment Agency, 2018 was among the three
> warmest years on record in Europe.

The five hottest summers in Germany since we have reliable temperature records
have been 2008, 2010, 2003, 2016 and 2002. This year also also going strong
already.

~~~
Shivetya
"reliable" is the means by which all previous records are dismissed. makes it
easy to forget the 30s in America or that in 1947 France was close to 44C in
some areas.

always watch when they start adding new terms to dismiss history.

~~~
adrianN
With reliable I mean since 1600 or so.

------
baq
this is what the oil industry in USA had to say about CO2 in 1980:

       CLIMATE MODELING - CONCLUSIONS

       LIKELY IMPACTS

       1C RISE (2005) : BARELY NOTICEABLE

       2.5C RISE (2038) : MAJOR ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES, STRONG REGIONAL DEPENDENCE

       5C RISE (2067) : GLOBALLY CATASTROPHIC EFFECTS

[https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/...](https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/AQ-9%20Task%20Force%20Meeting%20%281980%29.pdf)

just saying

~~~
ulfw
And they did shit all about it

~~~
JamesLefrere
That's not quite fair, they funded the climate denial movement.

------
blue_devil
>The year-to-date globally averaged land surface temperature was 2.68°F above
the 20th century average of 42.8°F. This value was also the third highest for
January–May in the [in the 1880–2019] record.

source: [https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-
climate-201905](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/global-climate-201905)

------
bayareanative
Spain and the south of France will be bad. And, Spain is already desertifying
like crazy and climate models show it's screwed long-term. I would expect
climate refugees leaving the Iberian peninsula in greater numbers soon,
farmers in Spain are already leaving (I saw a docu by Journeyman Pictures on
Spanish olive orchards dying and being abandoned).

~~~
logronoide
Climate refugees leaving Spain? That must be the reason why retired Europeans
buy a house in Spanish coasts...

Yes, climate change is impacting how we live in Spain... but please don’t
underestimate how humans can adapt and modify our environment... we have been
doing it here for 2500 years. Romans digging to extract gold, Kings cutting
forest to build ships (and today are deserts), seas of plastic nowadays to
feed Europe of vegetables all seasons...

Even under a heavy heat wave like this, the impact will be much higher in
other countries; because we are already use to it. The news about France are
more scary than Spain’s.

------
open-source-ux
This is from 2018 but has good advice on what to do during a heatwave and how
our bodies react

 _Why some people suffer during heatwaves:_

[https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2018/07/23/why-
some-...](https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2018/07/23/why-some-people-
suffer-during-heatwaves/)

------
rwoodley
How much are we all going to have to suffer before our governments actually
take constructive action on the climate. Not to mention personal action as
well.

~~~
starbugs
A lot. Even if we start now, it will be a long time before our actions have
any effect. And since we don't start now, and probably won't soon, again, a
lot I'm afraid.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Our actions are just going to slightly reduce the rate at which things get
worse. No matter how much energy transition we do in the developed world,
things will continue to worsen. Even if we outright banned all combustion
overnight, things would still get hotter due to feedback loops, especially
while the methane still exists for the next century or two.

~~~
mooseburger
Even discounting the feedback loops, an energy transition only in the
developed world would do very little.

~~~
justaaron
be prepared for rich nations/people to aid poor ones.

there can be no winners in such a disaster, let's stop jostling for position.

(We, the USA, are literally the only unilateralist nation with regards to this
issue. We are an outlier, some would say a criminally negligent outlier. Time
to make up for past misdeeds!)

------
boyadjian
I live in France near Paris, and I can tell you it's very hot down here. I did
not go to work today ( I work only 4 days a week), and I had a headache all
through the day. I had an appointment in town, that I cancelled because it was
too hot.

~~~
Havoc
Drink more water for the headaches. Water drinking patterns tend to be
habitual not weather related &people just don't drink enough for extremes

~~~
boyadjian
Yes, that is what I did, and also taking showers. Now it's midnight, and still
hot. Wonder what weather it will be tomorrow.

------
baud147258
I've been hearing about the heatwave since last week, but it's been bearable
so far in Paris, helped by a constant wind when outside (and HVAC in the
office). Also I think Paris is not getting the worst of the heat, but I've not
checked.

~~~
TremendousJudge
How's the AC situation there? When I went to Europe last year I found it rare
for a home to have air conditioning (extremely commonplace here in southern
South America where I'm from)

~~~
baud147258
I think I've ever seen AC in a flat or a home only one time and it was a
portable air conditioner in a rental home in the South.

But malls, offices and the like have AC.

I've never been in South America, but I'd say that the average weather
conditions in France (less heat and humidity) makes AC less important.

~~~
jrimbault
I'm also in Paris, and just yesterday someone told me that, I replied : "made
AC less important". Clearly things have changed in the last 15 years. Paris
and London haven't adapted yet to this change.

~~~
baud147258
I don't think we're yet at a point where AC is important as important as, for
example, South America. The current temperature is a record high, not an
average temperature.

------
NeonTiger1992
My girlfriend's family are visiting relatives in France at the moment. They've
been going for the best part of 20 years and they cannot believe the
temperature.

It's quite scary. Even in the UK, it's been unnaturally warm for most of this
year and there were times in February and March where it was unseasonably
temperate.

------
tarr11
45c = 113f

------
Asmod4n
That's desert like hot, holy shit.

~~~
mathieuh
Well the source is winds blown in from North Africa so you’re not wrong

~~~
bonzini
Yeah at least here around Milan the silver lining is that there's some kind of
breeze and it's not super humid. During the night you can sleep if you keep
windows open.

------
linux_devil
This will impact the tourism industry to some extent and also high time for
governments across the world to take positive steps in the same direction as
this will eventually affect all of us. I stay in India and recent news related
to water scarcity across cities are trending which is not usual.

------
tomalpha
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
europe-48795264](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48795264) has a map
of the worst affected areas

------
abstractbarista
Glad to see the title was edited to be more correct and less sensationalized.

------
40acres
Truly hope that those in the region can stay safe, as mentioned the last heat
wave of this magnitude in Europe killed thousands.

That being said: I'm taking a mental note to purchase some 2019 vintage, the
heat must do wonders for the grapes.

~~~
WhompingWindows
The heat does wonders if the proper variety of grape is planted in the proper
place. If you've got chardonnay grapes in cabernet climate, you're going to
have a bad time.

------
supercall
Climate crisis

------
AcerbicZero
Edit: My bad, nevermind.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Hell no!

Wars will be all over the place long before your pseudo "climate engineering"
will mitigate global warming – and long before we will start bearing the
unforeseen consequences of your apprentice sorcery.

Wars will impact individual behaviors in big ways – for bad, obviously. At
that point, you'll certainly realize that human beings can do collective
things for good, too. Politics matters, always (like it or not).

There really is no point to wait for war to try and avoid it.

------
013a
Its unfortunate how many people are using the word "Climate" in their replies
here. When Trump says "Its cold out, global warming is fake" we rightly say
that it's _Weather_ , not _Climate_. That's what this is too.

Global warming may be responsible to some degree, but we can't have it both
ways. Language is important.

~~~
rwoodley
I don't get the point of splitting hairs on the terms "climate" vs "weather".

However, the term 'global warming' should be avoided in favor of 'climate
change', for obvious reasons.

~~~
TallGuyShort
I like the distinction (though not so much as seen in the GP comment) because
the science behind things like ocean acidification seems much more sound and
conclusive than some of the data I've seen on temperature increases (which can
lead to more constructive discussion with deniers who at times, do have some
valid points in counterarguments). It's not just about seemingly small
increases in temperature - the effect of greenhouse gases is disastrous in
other ways too.

------
8bitsrule
I grew up in a house with a basement with concrete walls. When I complained
about the summer heat, I always heard: 'Basement!!'

Makes me wonder if heat waves (or cold waves) were the cause of most of the
world's cave paintings. Or the underground cities of the Middle East.

------
chewz
I do not miss cold, rainy summers of my youth and failed crops.

The summers in Central Europe are getting pleasantly mediterranean. Everything
blossoms and ripes early. People stay at home instead of going to Spain for
holidays. Agriculture is booming. Outdoor cafes and restaurants grow around
every corner.

Plus since yesterday temperatures suddenly dropped from 34C to 22C with
pleasant, fresh breeze. Still sunny.

------
amyjess
In the last few months, I've been getting into dry wines (which I've avoided
for most of my life but have been making up for list time on), so this really
has me wondering what the effect of this on the wine industry is going to be
("this" = not just this specific incident but the whole pattern of climate
change).

I've particularly fallen in love with GSM wines from the Rhone, and I
understand that these varieties thrive in warm climates, so could one of the
silver linings of climate change be a _fantastic_ 2019 vintage for Rhone
appellations?

~~~
saalweachter
Basically, photosynthesis doesn't work good above 40C. Plants stop making
sugars and start consuming them instead. This is unfortunate for us, because
agriculture is basically the art of convincing plants to store as many extra
calories as possible.

So there's a major difference between "warm" and "hot" climates.

~~~
amyjess
Thanks for the information!

------
downrightmike
If the US Democratic National Committee hadn't rigged the last election for
Hillary, we'd have Bernie Sanders who actually gives a shit about climate
change and would do something about it. Hopefully, the DNC won't pull a fast
one again with Biden.

~~~
gbear605
I preferred Bernie over Hillary too, but an article about France is really not
the place to bring up three year old American politics.

------
vinayakkulkarni
Lol.. That's the normal temperature during summer in India.

~~~
kitten_smuggler
If this is happening in France, then you can expect India to see similar
temperature anomalies in the future. Not much to laugh at really.

~~~
neffy
The future was two weeks ago - 50+ degrees Celsius:

[https://phys.org/news/2019-06-india-heatwave-temperatures-
ce...](https://phys.org/news/2019-06-india-heatwave-temperatures-celsius.html)

The problem isn´t just that humans can´t breathe underwater.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1cMnM-
UJ5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1cMnM-UJ5U)


An open social media network that encrypts your posts and distributes via RSS - espeed
http://www.fastcolabs.com/3016147/this-open-source-twitter-replacement-is-absolutely-brilliant
======
est
> We are building the first fully-conforming trsst server, plus an open source
> web client including javascript libraries for core functionality like the
> cryptographic functions.

Wait, wat?

From the first glance it looks like they just patched buzz words together and
decided to call it bitcoin-like decentralized syndication network on a PKI

What about anonymity? Anyone who has the whole signing chain could track down
the author. The anonymity of bitcoin is achieved by mixing hubs[1], you can't
split a blog post in half and mix it.

[1]:
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity)

btw what happened to Open Source today? You have to hype on Kickstarter and
waiting for people throwing money at you in order to start coding?

~~~
derleth
> javascript libraries for core functionality like the cryptographic
> functions.

Clientside JS for crypto? No. Bad idea.

[http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-
cryptography/](http://www.matasano.com/articles/javascript-cryptography/)

Their reasons:

> Secure delivery of Javascript to browsers is a chicken-egg problem.

> Browser Javascript is hostile to cryptography.

> The "view-source" transparency of Javascript is illusory.

> Until those problems are fixed, Javascript isn't a serious crypto research
> environment, and suffers for it.

~~~
iuguy
I spent some time working on a project to create an encrypted contact form for
people to use on websites. Thought it might make for a good wordpress plugin,
but I was wrong.

Having gone from a position of "why not" to "oh hell no" on javascript crypto,
the fundamental problems as I see them (aside from the ones outlined in your
comment):

* Each javascript engine is different, with different (or sometimes no) sources of differing (or no) levels of randomness, which is essential for crypto to work.

* Most browsers support some level of javascript introspection _whether you like it or not_. Sure, things like Content Security Policies can be used to limit access from other tabs or domains but it's not just secure delivery to browsers that's a problem with javascript, it's execution integrity too.

* Most of the Javascript crypto libraries I've seen are ports of C libraries using tools such as llvm. As such they were not designed with javascript's functionality in mind, and as such are unlikely to have been anywhere near as scrutinised for side channel leaks as something built from the ground up.

The final nail in the coffin for my project was the fact that I'm not
supporting a set of browsers, I'm supporting a set of ecosystems. Anything
from plugins and extensions to minor version changes can affect the behaviour
of a javascript engine in an unexpected way with potentially dangerous
outcomes. I couldn't in good faith release a tool that lets grandma contact
you without having to install PGP but in reality may mean she gets black
bagged regardless because she used a dodgy tablet with no randomness source.

------
burke
The name is absolutely horrible. And they shouldn't just re-use the RSS logo,
even at this stage.

~~~
adriancooney
I think it's a play on "trust". Maybe capitalize on the current v for u trend
and name it Trvst? It's slightly more legible and won't be a kick in the ego
to change.

~~~
na85
[http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tryst](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tryst)

------
comex
I'll leave aside the comparisons to tent.io, app.net, StatusNet, and many
other services...

Considering that most Twitter users seem quite comfortable with publishing
their posts for all to see, marketing a Twitter competitor as a post-Snowden
measure seems somewhat opportunistic to me, especially when there are many
other benefits to decentralized/open Twitter replacements.

------
thesteamboat
Their whitepaper can be found here:

[http://www.trsst.com/paper/](http://www.trsst.com/paper/)

------
codezero
Can someone explain this system? I see the word decentralized thrown around,
but the Kickstarter seems based around them building a server and hosting
this. What is decentralized about them controlling the user ids? Basically:
What am I missing here?

~~~
james4k
Yeah, I'm not sure I get it either. They call it a "syndication network"
which, for me, gives the impression of a distributed network that is strictly
controlled, which defeats the purpose. I hope this is just poor wording.

------
GregorStocks
When I click this link I just see a picture with no text. Is this brilliant
open source twitter replacement limited to zero characters instead of 140?

~~~
sirsar
I saw nothing but a picture of an RSS icon, and thought that was the joke: you
can "follow" people by subscribing to their RSS feeds, and RSS already exists.

~~~
AsymetricCom
I don't see what the problem is. RSS works, why reinvent the wheel?

~~~
zanny
Twitter became popular because browsers didn't elegantly handle feeds. Tumblr
blogs (or blogs in general) with post comments and following are much more
open and just as usable as the Twitter platform, _if_ you provide easy to use
rss syndication and browsers support easy to use feed browsing without having
to search out a google reader replacement.

------
troni
"Looks and feels like Twitter"

(actually uses screenshots from twitter to pitch product)

------
miguelrochefort
Why does this crap gets upvoted at all?

Everyone and their mother can build a Twitter clone in 24h. Add a week for
encryption and security.

There's absolutely nothing new about this idea. Nothing. They don't even have
a working prototype. All thin air.

On top of that, what's the big deal with privacy nowadays? It's the opposite
of what we should aim for as a society. Transparency is not only unavoidable,
it's a good thing.

Market this as a tool to organize protests in countries where privacy is a
necessary evil, and maybe it will make more sense.

~~~
kintamanimatt
> Why does this crap gets upvoted at all?

Who'd have guessed? It's an article about tech on a tech site.

> What's the big deal with privacy nowadays?

We found out about wholesale global surveillance.

> It's the opposite of what we should aim for as a society.

Just as I want to poop with the door closed, I also want to discuss private
matters privately. Not everything in my life should be public and I should
have the final say over that. Should every start-up be subject to absolute
transparency? Kinda eliminates any competitive advantage if your competitors
know what you're up to.

> Transparency is not only unavoidable, it's a good thing.

Transparency of government, yes. For the rest of us, mind your own damn
business.

> ... privacy is a necessary evil ...

The good thing about having the option of privacy is that it's not forced upon
you. If you're not happy with your life being private, you're free to share.
When that option of privacy is eliminated, however, you're forced to share
everything even if you don't want to, and that's pretty much the opposite of
liberty.

------
unknownian
I wonder when people will realize that Twitter is not the enemy. I do believe
in decentralized social networking, but some software package you throw on
your web server doesn't seem like the solution. We need a new Internet
protocol.

Even so, I wish this team luck and hope it to gain traction.

~~~
intslack
Due to their centralized nature, and the result of being located in the US as
one of the largest communication platforms, Twitter has become the enemy. It
was probably not their intention to become the enemy, but that's the
consequence of being located on US soil and being one of the largest service
providers (just as Facebook and Google have.)

When you decentralize, where providers are only responsible for a relative
handful of the overall userbase, 'hoovering' is much more difficult.

~~~
unknownian
I already know about its centralization and being in the US. So what? I don't
put sensitive information into Twitter like I do in Google services.

Do you expect your blogging service to be encrypted and private too? I guess
the private messages should be secure but oh well, I've even heard Twitter
demanding warrants for giving out DM info.

Edit: I do wish we could expect "private messages" to be private.

------
rabino
Is there any intrinsic value in Twitter other than the plethora of people
using it?

~~~
privong
> Is there any intrinsic value in Twitter other than the plethora of people
> using it?

s/Twitter/[any social network]/

The point is the people using it.

~~~
rabino
My (not explicit) point exactly. All this fad about twitter clones makes no
sense to me.

------
troni
Sigh. There are so many people doing this. I couldn't access the main article
but read the Kickstarter page. From what I understand this is a plea for
funding for (basic) components that are already built by other teams, but with
an extra layer of encryption and a copy-cat UI.

Why not just focus on encrypting content on an existing decentralized network
project like pump.io or GNU social? Or any other open network? Build on some
momentum that is already there rather than debug message transport for life?

~~~
kintamanimatt
It's cliché, but competition stimulates demand.

------
ulisesrmzroche
I'm not entirely sure I understand what's going on. I suggest changing the
explainer video to at least a talking head - yes, old, but they have much
better recall and have been proven to change brand preference (even with
cigarretes)a and try to find a better synonym for 'encryption' \- Good luck.
Going against Twitter is a tall order.

------
rdl
At first glance there's stuff I like and dislike about this, but the strongest
thing is probably separating out how the messages move around from how the
keys move around.

Moving encrypted blobs around is easy, as long as you don't care about traffic
analysis. Handling keys is a bit harder. Separating those makes sense.

------
lucb1e
Thought about this before, but there is one problem: you still leak loads of
metadata just like with e-mail (whom you're communicating with, when you're
communicating, how much you're communicating, and perhaps other things).
Because of this, I didn't see any advantage.

------
zalew
Do they hope to be as successful as Diaspora? _" open social media network
that encrypts your posts and distributes via RSS"_ sounds like a great summary
of a killer project that nobody will ever use.

------
dsizzle
Uh, isn't the primary purpose of Twitter to make your posts PUBLIC?

Edit: I guess the focus is on the private messaging aspect, which I never use.
Perhaps this is more popular than I realize.

------
chatman
These people look unprofessionals, judging by their intro video.


Ask HN: Imagine a Post Pandemic World, How Internet Use Will Evolve? - multiversecoder
I ask myself this, because I believe that the lockdown will permanently change our psychology and our way of dealing with everyday life, and since the internet and services will forever play a fundamental role in our society, I am trying to understand how the relationship between man and services will evolve.
For example, what do you think will be the Fundamental Applications for a Post-Pandemic World?
I believe that P2P, decentralization, cryptography and virtual reality will create a new universe of services that will become more and more present.
But this is just an assumption. What do you think?
======
tucaz
“ I believe that P2P, decentralization, cryptography and virtual reality will
create a new universe of services that will become more and more present.”

If anything it will be the opposite. All you mentioned is a concern of a very
small part of the population.

I believe that in this regard we will be seeing more control and
centralization from governments in order to try to predict/prevent future
occurrences.

~~~
multiversecoder
I fully support your thinking, and I believe that the high number of
restrictions will create as a consequence a greater number of distrustful
people who will suffer greatly from the controls and will look for
alternatives to feel more protected and free. I mean as a feeling, even
placebo, of having full control and not being controlled.

Of course there will be those who will not take care of these options and will
not look for them.

But now more than ever there is a human need to support the growth of these
services, at least I think, to ensure a safe area and a private space for
anyone.


Remembering Sydney Goldstein, Founder of City Arts and Lectures - chmaynard
https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/sydney-goldstein-founder-of-city-arts-lectures-dies-at-73
======
ecabraser
Belated gratitude to Sydney Goldstein for the brilliant insight, impeccably
and consistently implemented, that great conversation enriches the cultural
and intellectual lives of all who listen- and she enabled us to listen in to
some of the most fascinating conversations ever. I got hooked on City Arts and
Lectures- and did my best to hook others, too- that was easy. We take our
cultural riches, and those who labor to bestow them, for grated far too often.
Thank you Sydney from a city to whom you gave so much.


Why were mid-century futurist predictions – like flying cars – so wrong? - JacobAldridge
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3188/why-were-midcentury-futurist-predictions-like-flying-cars-so-wrong

======
Gravityloss
What if there was no global warming and oil costed a quarter of current? We
could have a lot more turbine machines for example, including aircraft.


Why The "Star Trek Computer" Will Be Open Source and ALv2 Licensed - mindcrime
http://fogbeam.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-star-trek-computer-will-be-open.html

======
m0nastic
I don't have any kind of knack for predicting things, but I'd argue that it's
at least as likely for the "Star Trek computer" to be what things like Google
Now turn into (which as far as I can tell, isn't open source at all).

I would be very surprised if the aggregation of technology required for this
type of interface doesn't require a company with a lot of services know-how to
champion (I could see Apple, for instance trying to go down that path, but I
don't think they've ever shown any aptitude for online services).

Maybe after someone makes it, a shitty, open-source knockoff will show up; but
I don't think what's laid out in this article is a foregone conclusion.

~~~
mindcrime
_Maybe after someone makes it, a shitty, open-source knockoff will show up;
but I don't think what's laid out in this article is a foregone conclusion._

Perhaps not. But nobody wants to read a headline like:

"Some reasons why I think that it's possible that maybe, just maybe, something
like the Star Trek Computer might come along someday and it might, with some
luck, be open source, and it could be Apache Licensed, but maybe not".

At some point, you have to say _something_ , and while I'm not big on
headlines that are outright "linkbait" if you write stuff, you typically want
people to read and comment on it, so the headline has to be somewhat catchy
and maybe even a little controversial.

The key point here, isn't really the posit that the Star Trek computer _will_
be Open Source and ALv2 licensed, it's that a lot of awesome work is going on
in various semi-related ASF projects right now, some or all of which could
well become part of something like the Star Trek Computer. But, again, that's
too long and wordy for a headline.

~~~
obviouslygreen
So you're suggesting that articles without compelling content should still
have compelling titles?

The goal is certainly to gain readership, but adding controversy to a title on
an article that doesn't contain any isn't a good idea. It's a
misrepresentation of your article, and what extra traffic it does bring you
isn't likely to result in happy new readers.

Some articles just don't appeal to a lot of people because of their content.
That doesn't mean a title that reflects what's in the article is a bad idea;
it just means the author should either have realistic expectations regarding
the exposure their article can reasonably expect, they should be writing
something that _is_ controversial, or they should be writing something else
entirely.

If your goal is to communicate specific information and your title doesn't
reflect it accurately, all you've done is fail at titling your work.

~~~
mindcrime
_So you're suggesting that articles without compelling content should still
have compelling titles?_

Not at all. Obviously this exists on a continuum and is somewhat subjective,
however. I would never advocate posting low quality content with a flat-out
link-baity title like "Learn About Bill Gates and Ada Lovelace's Secret
Lovechild: Mark Zuckerberg" or something. But I think you have to create a
title which is as compelling as you can, while being faithful to the content.

But, as in all cases, there will always be people who agree and some who
disagree about whether you've accomplished that or not.

All I'm getting at is that a headline shouldn't dissemble and be wishy-washy
and say nothing. It's an opinion, that I'm asserting (that the "Star Trek
Computer Will Be..."), but even I won't go quite as far as saying it's "a
foregone conclusion". There is evidence to suggest that such a thing may be
the case, and that's what this post was about.

In this case, I'm perfectly happy with the congruence between the headline and
the content. If others aren't, then I'll be curious to hear their POV on it.

------
mindcrime
On a related note, there are two interesting (older) posts "out there" on "How
to build your own Watson". And while you probably aren't going to win Jeopardy
with your garage built supercomputer, a lot of the basic technologies are out
there to enable you to do some pretty cool stuff.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/ibm_watson_qa_system...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/21/ibm_watson_qa_system/)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2011/04/14/build-y...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomgroenfeldt/2011/04/14/build-
your-own-watson-with-open-source-software/)

~~~
teawithcarl
Thank you.

------
sp332
The Star Trek computer is already here, and it's closed-source and owned by
Google. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5750148>

~~~
mindcrime
Funny you would mention that... I wrote down the title for this blog post last
night or yesterday sometime, inspired by something (don't remember what,
exactly) then sat down and wrote this piece this morning, without having seen
that post. But it is funny how related they are. I guess it's just something
that's "in the air" right now... some zeitgeist thing or whatever.

That said, this blog post is one of those where I had the seed of it in mind
for at least a year, but "the moment" to actually pull the pieces together and
write it didn't happen... until it did. Why now versus 6 months ago, or a year
ago, or 3 days ago, I could not tell you.

Anyway, there will be - IMO - plenty of room for competition between the Open
Source stuff and the closed-source stuff. I'm just really excited about this
little ecosystem that has formed around the ASF, and some of the cool stuff
that's being worked on.


Software Companies Tech Competency Matrix - ojhaujjwal
https://geshan.com.np/blog/2017/06/software-companies-tech-competency-matrix/
======
rgbrenner
Some of this is just completely wrong. Like the entire row titled code
performance.

Level 4 isn't going around your codebase shaving milliseconds from execution
time.. Level 4 is knowing that not everything needs to be optimized.. In fact,
most code doesn't need to be optimized at all. The only parts that actually
need optimization are those that have been deemed to be too slow (because of
some external reason--ie: effect on users, for ex) or that are on a hot code
path.

I'll go one step further... all new code should be written for clarity only.
Optimized only if necessary.

No one cares if your function thats called once a month takes an extra few
seconds to run.

~~~
sbov
> I'll go one step further... all new code should be written for clarity only.
> Optimized only if necessary.

I'm not saying you do, but many people I run across who have this point of
view do a poor job at measuring the "if necessary" part. You aren't really
prepared to detect it without some form of production performance monitoring,
meaning on the chart, a level of around 2.5. I would say they should probably
change this section of the spreadsheet to emphasize knowledge of performance.

~~~
endorphone
To add to that point, in my experience the laissez faire optimize-later
attitude is often pursued under the notion that you'll just optimize that hot
code path or that single function and everything will be glorious. The best of
both worlds. In reality such implementations are often death by thousands of
cuts, where endemic poor performance makes it impossible to fix without
enormous re-engineering. Where users get delighted when a competitor's product
is just a little bit faster.

This applies at virtually every level. From your web page being just a
_little_ bit faster than a competitor, to the sense of fluidity of an app, to
being able to host a profitable service on a reasonable set of hardware (we've
watched countless Ruby services fold when a trivial system serving a small
number of users needs to be scaled across dozens of machines). Performance is
one aspect that seldom goes without payoff.

~~~
rgbrenner
It's not that simple. Optimization is almost always additional complexity.

So an argument in favor of optimizing whenever and wherever possible, is an
argument in favor of introducing unnecessary complexity.

Optimization isn't free. It has a cost to implement (slowing development) and
another cost whenever the code is read/refactored/extended/etc (also slowing
development time). That second part is incurred by every developer working on
that piece of code now and in the future.

So the danger in unnecessary optimization is both wasted time and slowing of
development, delaying product market fit or making it difficult to respond to
competitors introduction of new features (for example).

What is the more common story: start up died because competitor was slightly
faster; or start up died because they never found product market fit.

~~~
endorphone
I don't disagree with what you wrote, or the spirit of its meanings.

But optimizations in a modern sense seldom means implementing a section in
assembly. In most cases it means a skillful, well-considered use of
appropriate technologies, appropriate algorithms (e.g. a hash table instead of
a simple linked list for a lookup heavy section, appropriate database designs,
etc) and a coherent design.

When you start from day 1 thinking "performance matters", it doesn't and
shouldn't demand any added complexity. But it does demand constant
consideration as implementing requirement.

Of course the counterpoint is that of course we should use appropriate
technologies, algos, designs, etc. Who could argue otherwise? But whenever
I've seen the premature optimization boogeyman appear in a modern context, it
is usually in the context of just such a discussion. A sort of "performance is
a concern for another day".

~~~
rgbrenner
I don't consider appropriate use of algos (where no additional development
cost is incurred), and coherent design to be optimizations.

I'm not sure how to respond to this. You're using a definition I've never
heard before.. this sounds like basic competency being called optimization.

Nothing I've written here should be misconstrued as an argument in favor of
sloppy code.

~~~
endorphone
This is the cycle of every "premature optimization" discussion, ever. Someone
discounts optimization, but when countered with optimizations states that they
aren't actually optimizations.

Your root post states "In fact, most code doesn't need to be optimized at
all". That is de facto meaningless if we go under the assumption that
optimizing itself -- ergo implementing optimally -- doesn't count as
optimizing.

~~~
rgbrenner
You've thrown a lot of stuff under the label of optimization.

Take coherent design. I started off saying everything should be written for
clarity, and having a coherent design is part of that.

A coherent design can mean the code has lower performance than an incoherent
design.

How could this possibly be considered an optimization? An optimization now
includes things that reduce performance?!

Edit: Also "implementing optimally" is not the definition of optimization.
optimal: "best or most favorable." optimize: "rearrange or rewrite (data,
software, etc.) to improve efficiency of retrieval or processing."

~~~
endorphone
I think you should revisit the line in the linked page that you disagreed with
so strongly. It doesn't say "go back and rewrite in assembly", but simply asks
that you develop with performance in mind (with an awareness of the costs of
the choices you are making). Your comment was that performance effectively
doesn't matter, deal with that later.

Optimization in the context of "premature-optimization" doesn't refer to going
back and rewriting code early. It refers to a mental concern about
performance, where there is a very wrong, but persistent and common, attitude
that performance is something you can add later. But in most cases that simply
isn't true, and it's one of the biggest lies in this industry, trotted out
like it's grizzled experience and wisdom when it's the foundation of countless
project failures.

------
andrewvc
Oh, this old chestnut. It keeps coming around again and again and again.

Instead of complaining about this thing point by point I'll just ask a
question. Has anyone taken this self-serious pseudo-quantified thing and tried
to actually put it into practice? Have you found any quantifiable results?

This, TBH, seems like an arbitrary yardstick for insecure people to measure
themselves by IMHO.

------
ChuckMcM
I don't agree with all the levels and their description, but I do think this
is an excellent way for a senior engineering leader to ask themselves "What
can I do to make the engineering team better?"

You'll notice that a lot of the different items are directly under the control
of a VP Eng/Dir Eng role. "Do you insist on code reviews? Yes we do/ No we
don't" etc.

So if you find yourself in such a role, whether you've inherited a "good"
organization or one that needs work, its a good methodology for stepping
through and figuring out what to improve.

------
joshribakoff
So I use custom written scripts to deploy instead of Capistrano. Automatically
I'm a lower level developer according to this chart. And somehow using docker
is objectively better than Capistrano? I disagree. There are pros and cons.
Docker adds complexity and has "setup costs" just because someone uses the
simpler tool doesn't mean they are any less of a developer. If anything it
shows pragmatism and humility

~~~
scaryclam
There's a _lot_ wrong with this article.

The matrix feels really rather cargo-culty to me. If deployment is pushing one
file then use scp. If it's coordinating a world wide fleet of servers, use
something more sophisticated.

I find it funny that we've seen a "You're not Google" article today, and then
this gets posted.

At the end of the day, as long as you've cut out as many manual steps as you
can, without being stupid about it (don't spend two weeks creating an all
singing all dancing deployment pipeline for a microsite that's going away in
three weeks), you should be happy with how you're doing things, regarding
deployment. If that's running scripts, so be it.

~~~
dasmoth
_The matrix feels really rather cargo-culty to me. If deployment is pushing
one file then use scp. If it 's coordinating a world wide fleet of servers,
use something more sophisticated._

Agreed. And critically, if you can stay in a world where scp deployment (or
something comparably simple) is working well, that's a _good thing_.

------
k2xl
I don't know if "competency" is the right word to use.

As the OP points out in the "Assumptions", if you have a company with 5
engineers working on completely different codebases, you may make a conscious
decision to not be at "level 4" code review status. Doesn't mean you are
incompetent it just means you are practical.

A lot of small business operate efficiently by electing to not overly
complexify their development process. So maybe instead of "competency" using a
word like "sophistication" would be better

~~~
CorvusCrypto
The infrastructure one had me chuckle a bit. Just go straight to large
clusters or platform service plans guys. 2ezpz

------
s3nnyy
This is also handy for recruiting.

Stackoverflow includes the famous Joel Spolsky 12-steps-to-better-code list to
its job ads ([https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-s...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-steps-to-better-code/)). I think it needs an update after 17-years.

This blog post might be something in that direction. I usually do a similar
evaluation when I decide if whether to recruit for a company. (Content
marketing: I am programmer and now I source, assess and hire engineers for
tech firms and startups in Zurich, Switzerland - see
[https://www.coderfit.com](https://www.coderfit.com), and
[https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-
moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to-
switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90))

It is rather challenging as different things carry different weight to
different people and there is also the thing that what is good for a big
company, or high-growth startup might not make sense for a web agency that
will stay below 20 people forever.

Nevertheless, I'd be super happy to brainstorm with like-minded people about
what makes a company good from an engineering perspective.

~~~
noir_lord
I just got hired on as developer #1 at a 150 year old company that has until
me depended entirely on outsourced developers (at great expense and you can
imagine what the codebase looks like).

I'm the first developer but not the last so one of the things I'll be doing
will be setting the engineering standards going forwards, I might drop you an
email.

~~~
Tenhundfeld
Slight tangent, but I'll just comment that the business world runs on
generally bad software – if they even have "software" and don't just use
insanely complex spreadsheets. It's one of those surprising things I've
learned doing consulting for the last decade+. At first, I thought it was just
the clients I happened to have, but given enough data points, a pattern
emerged.

Most software is bad, especially at places that don't consider themselves
software companies, e.g., they don't sell a software service/product, they
just use software for efficiency.

I don't mean this as a judgement of the developers who wrote it. I've written
plenty of software that looks bad in retrospect, from the outside. When you
have the context of how decisions were made in the past, more often than not,
you find a lot of small decisions that were reasonable in isolation but added
together equal a big ball of mess where technical debt was rarely/never paid
down, refactoring rarely/never took place, etc.

It's not that hard to convince non-technical business folks of the value of
paying down technical debt, but I've found it is hard to convince them to
prioritize it. It always gets planned for the future, after whatever super-
urgent CEO-driven initiative is currently happening, which is quickly followed
by another and another.

So yeah, I can imagine what the codebase looks like but not because of
outsourced developers. You could just as easily say, "150 year old company
depended entirely on overworked internal developers (you can imagine what the
codebase looks like)."

~~~
noir_lord
I completely agree except in this case the software is just outright bad.

I found a function yesterday that was 15 lines and reduced it to one, it was a
Boolean check but they hadn't just returned that.

Its mostly php and they declare all variables and then immediately overwrite
them, I'm not convinced the main programmer had a good grasp of PHP tbh.

In any case its mine now. :)

~~~
Tenhundfeld
Yep, there are definitely exceptions to my "generally reasonable in isolation"
idea, where the software is just bad, in any context. I've seen 'em. Hell,
I've probably written 'em.

Anyway, good luck. I've been in similar situations. It can be overwhelming,
but if you have executive buy-in, you have a big opportunity to establish a
new direction and effect significant change.

------
taeric
Is this just a stripped down CMM for people that don't believe in things like
the CMM?

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

~~~
nradov
It's hilarious how some developers reflexively criticize things like the CMM
in the abstract, and yet are unable to provide any hard data to show that
specific elements of the CMM produce bad results.

~~~
gaius
One company I worked for decided to offshore, opened an office in a faraway
land, six months later, that office stuffed to the gills with fresh grads,
having never shipped a single line of code to a customer or into production,
achieved CMM level 5 certification. It's a complete farce.

~~~
taeric
There is a distinction, though, between feeling that certification can be
gamed and thinking that the goals outlined are poor.

And I am sympathetic on both ends. Nobody likes admitting that you will
basically always start at level 1. More amusingly, folks that have progressed
to later stages forget some of the advantages you have in earlier stages. If
this was a completely solved problem, we would just set the counter at max and
be done with it.

Taleb had a quote about this that I have misplaced, so I'm game of someone can
find it. Basic gist is that even if you know what the end result should be,
that does not mean you get to skip the steps that brought it about.

~~~
gaius
_There is a distinction, though, between feeling that certification can be
gamed and thinking that the goals outlined are poor_

In that debacle they laid off 6000 people in the West, including me. Shortly
afterwards they realised that they were unable to ship or even maintain the
product. Shortly after that, they were taken over by a rival. The CEO who
drove all this pocketed an 8-figure sum and walked away... It's clear what the
"goals" were.

~~~
taeric
That seriously sucks and you have my sympathies.

I think this ultimately runs into the field that as soon as you define what
the grading criteria is, then there arises the serious risk of gaming the
system. Especially when that grading criteria is a proxy of the actual value
that the company is creating.

That is, at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is value delivered
to the customer. Any other proxy measure ultimately doesn't matter. Good for
prediction capabilities up to the point that they are gamed for the same
prediction capabilities.

------
swsieber
One thing to note is that competency as it's used here is _often_ a stand-in
for process - how much process a company uses around a particular feature.

------
tovacinni
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for VCS, isn't it generally bad practice to
unnecessarily branch off and introduce complex structures?

In my experience, branches generally lead to people feeling like they have
free reign and introducing a slew of issues (reduced code quality,
difficulties in merging, broken builds, etc)

~~~
rimliu
What do you mean by "unnecessarily branch"? At least for git it used to be
"new branch for each discreate task". Atlassian tools even support this: you
have "Create branch" option for JIRA task. We use it and are very happy with
this. Take a task, create branch (which automatically moves the related JIRA
task to "In progress"), when done—create pull request (task status once again
is updated automatically), when merged kick off automatic build and
deployment. It all would be a lot messier without branching.

~~~
tovacinni
I think it really depends on the atomicity of the said "tasks" and how often
branches get merged back into the master branch. It's very easy for branches
to get abused and merging long-standing branches in with the master branch is
always expensive task that's bound to have scary issues.

In an organized enough team with a large enough project, tasks should be able
to be carried through concurrently on a single branch for the most part.

~~~
sangnoir
> It's very easy for branches to get abused and merging long-standing branches
> in with the master branch is always expensive task that's bound to have
> scary issues.

You only get scary merge issues if you do not frequently pull in changes from
your upstream branch! Daily works for me, and not once have I been let down
when squash-merging back - even for large, multiweek changes. I'm always
surprised to hear this is not common practice on HN.

------
theGimp
There is no one-size-fits-all approach for measuring competence. Different
companies and different teams have different dynamics.

What makes sense for your team and the things you work on can be very
different from mine.

The tools and process my team settles on can achieve better results despite
looking more primitive on your measuring stick. Complexity is not the end
goal.

------
m0llusk
There are many valid points raised here, though there is clearly room for
argument with every metric. What strikes me about this article is the site and
content itself. Reading this article loads layers upon layers of javascript
which collectively download megabytes of content, the vast majority of which
is utterly useless crap that contributes absolutely nothing to the experience
of reading the article.

The intent of this article is to propose some metrics for maturity and
capacity of technology development, but careful measure of downloading shows
that this site is an abomination beyond reason that shuts out users lacking
broadband and fast machines with plenty of memory.

If you really want to learn about technology development competence then
compare how this page is served compared to a static plain text version of the
same content.

------
iLemming
JIRA? It is sad that even in 2017 people still promote JIRA. There are better
alternatives to that ugly, clunky, stupid piece of junk. Clubhouse is one
example.

------
jarsin
Got a job at a level 1 once early in my career (2 years experience). Before I
started the COO told me that the his team was the best and given I was just
starting out in my career I had a lot to learn from them. Massive warning sign
in hindsight.

First day on the job...so you guys really don't have source control?

~~~
majewsky
"Only idiots need source control. We know what we're doing 'round here!"
_proceeds to edit PHP source file directly on production server_

~~~
nradov
There's a story somewhere of Paul Graham making live changes to the Viaweb
production Lisp code while in the middle of a customer tech support call. OK,
the bug should be fixed, try it now...

~~~
majewsky
And that's precisely the problem. A handful of people _can_ work this way and
do great. But their visibility will make others try to emulate them, usually
with disastrous consequences.

------
corpMaverick
Nice. I don't agree with lots of things but it is a great way to think about
how software organizations work.

It focuses a lot on whether or not tools are used. IMHO, the fact that a tool
is used doesn't tell you much. Often is the wrong tool for the wrong problem,
or the tools is not properly being used.

~~~
majewsky
Another instance of Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it
ceases to be a good measure." When companies introduce certain tools because
they heard that successful companies use that tool, rather than because they
want to use it to improve their processes, it won't help much.

------
buro9
Ruined in the very first line by suggesting that JIRA is somehow a project
management tool.

JIRA manages issues.

Advanced use of JIRA may mean that you can use it as a risk log, or a
milestone tracker, or an epic planner... but let's not mistake "advanced use
of JIRA" with "advanced project management".

Just try and use JIRA to determine a critical path, or to track the impact on
one project when a deliverable expected from another project slips, or to
alert when the threshold of a slipped due date is exceeded. JIRA cannot even
auto-promote a risk (something that may happen) to an issue (something that
has happened) based on a change in circumstances (i.e. time-based overdue, or
some threshold being exceeded).

Just try and use JIRA to go beyond a single project, and to manage a program
of projects delivering multiple things as part of one complex product. If that
sounds like jargon, imagine trying to use JIRA to project manage the the
construction of a new vehicle, with multiple teams in different facilities
providing the chassis, drivetrain, etc.

This is all basic stuff for good project management software, and only those
not versed in project management make the mistake of thinking that JIRA is an
issue.

On a project management tooling scale, JIRA itself would never pass the first
level of maturity.

Few tech companies manage projects well. Few identify risks, few track inter
project dependencies, few can determine whether there are resource issues
(headcount availability) 6 months out due to multiple projects needing
delivering at the same time and competing for the same internal resource.

JIRA is not a project management tool. It is a glorified issue tracker that
allows the unskilled to imagine they are managing projects.

I guess that's a strong statement, but it does need to be made. JIRA can work
for you, but it is only a simple tool.

~~~
UK-AL
"Few tech companies manage projects well." \- That's because your comparing it
to traditional style project management. It rarely works well in software.

If this style of project management worked, then companies that used it would
be at the top. But they aren't.

The only companies that seem to use it are government projects, or
corporations where software isn't their main concern. In my experience
software output by these organisation is basically awful.

They don't get software development is more of discovery and learning process,
where you become increasing better at serving your customers as you learn
more. It's not a gather requirements, implement then finished thing.

~~~
walterbell
This is good book on learning in software dev,
[https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Software-Development-
Collabo...](https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Software-Development-
Collaborative-Approach/dp/0932633404/)

~~~
nradov
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. That is a good book. I wouldn't
necessarily follow everything in it, but every software manager could learn
something from it.

------
coldcode
If you meet their assumptions it might make useful, but it's a very
opinionated list which is likely not applicable to many companies. I am not
sure you can make such a list that is generally applicable to enough companies
to be useful.

------
gaius
The author of this is level 1 and only imagining the other levels.

------
Dowwie
Is there no way to export this?

------
aemus
0ow


Show HN: Ligify iOS App – One-Tap Save or Share Your Live Photos as GIF or MOV - hboon
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1048863900
======
hboon
I created an iOS app called Ligify that lets you one-tap convert your Live
Photos to GIF/MOV for easier sharing. It was previously called Lively. I also
wrote a little story about the idea behind the app and why it was renamed:

[http://hboon.com/story-behind-ligify-one-tap-save-or-
share-y...](http://hboon.com/story-behind-ligify-one-tap-save-or-share-your-
live-photos-as-gif-or-mov/)

Couple of promo codes:

JYHHJTA4EXJY

63636APWYTPP

Y43P4MJ66J79

PPFFYTPKLKE4

J9J6ARKPKHFJ

KMT7PXW4F6W4

PJRP7A4P6M3H

FLY9XX3JKXEW

J63HJP973AL9

JEK6F94AAKRA

~~~
revorad
Thanks for the promo code!


Show HN: Quick apply to any online job application - thekyle
https://jobs.hoxly.com/
======
thekyle
Hi HN, A few months ago I was applying to internships and noticed that most
online job applications are rather tedious and repetitive. They often involve
creating an account, uploading your resume, and then copy and pasting
different parts of your resume into a form (education, work history, skills,
certifications, etc.). I assume this is done so that the hiring manager never
actually needs to look at the uploaded resumes and to making automatic
screening of candidates easier.

Some job search sites offer “Quick apply” where you fill out all of your
information once and then apply to participating jobs with one click. However,
the number of supported job applications is quite limited and there’s a good
chance jobs you’re interested in won’t support the feature.

So that’s why I created Hoxly Jobs which offers universal quick apply to any
job application available online.

------
CoreFailure
Really cool idea! Good revenue model too, I can easily see $1/job being an
easy value proposition.

One thing that gives me pause as a prospective user is that I don't know what
will happen if there's any "essay response" style questions in the job app.
Given that the jobs I'm paying to apply to are probably jobs I'm interested
in, I'm less likely to risk using it on an interesting looking job.

That said, I really dig the minimal look of this website. The gifs are a great
way to show program flow and are much easier to read than a jumbotron.


The Web's next act: A worldwide database (discusses Semantic Web) - _pius
http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/11/09/Linked-Government-Data-feature.aspx

======
_pius
It's worth noting that Department-level CxOs in the Federal government read
this publication.


Show HN: Streak.ly tracks what you do daily and I'd love feedback on the concept - kylebragger
I've been working on a side project called Streak.ly with a friend of mine for the past month or so; it's intended to help keep you motivated to do otherwise mundane daily tasks (like do 10 pushups, read for an hour, etc.) by letting you log "streaks" — consecutive days in a row of doing something.
It's in private alpha/beta/gamma/whatever right now (has some rough edges to clean up), but is more or less functionally complete and pretty stable.
I'm a big fan of the Seinfeld calendar, and have seen other services which do similar things but were unsatisfying to use, either from an aesthetic or functional perspective. Streak.ly is designed to be simple, good-looking, fast, fun, (and hopefully addictive). (FWIW, it's also a place to experiment with user stickiness stuff I can potentially roll back in to Forrst.)
There are also some in-progress social/game/motivational features I plan to roll out in the next few weeks that hopefully contribute to the enjoyment factor of the app.
Streak.ly uses Twitter for authentication, and I've set up a URL to let HN folks in early: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn
I'd love any and all feedback and/or criticism you may have.
Thanks!
======
il
For a simple webapp like this, please don't make me get a twitter account/sign
in to use.

Generate a unique URL for me to use, or hash my email address or something
like that. Reduce friction, I want to be able to use this with 1 click.

~~~
jm3
really? creating a twitter account takes about 15 seconds. if you're not one
of the 150 million people with a Twitter account, then why not just be
patient? i'm sure kyle will get around to supporting other login methods
eventually.

i believe you're genuinely trying to be helpful with your suggestions, but
comments like this reminds me of the vocal 0.1% of users who exercise
troublesome preferences like disabling javascript, or installing ad-blocking
plugins that break half the web, (which is fine!), but then complain that
their (pathological) preferences prohibit them from enjoying the experience
(which is not so helpful).

feedback like, "i can't be bothered to log in to give you feedback because i
don't like your login" isn't great feedback. it might even be viewed as a sign
to you that you're not the intended user. yet.

~~~
il
I wasn't aware not having a Twitter account was considered pathological in our
Web 2.0 world.

Why do I need to sign up for a microblogging platform to use a completely
unrelated calendar app???

Anyway, my comments about reducing friction aren't based on my own
preferences, they're based on dozens of multivariate split tests I have
conducted across many thousand unique visitors.

Every single time, forcing the user to sign up, login, enter their email or
anything of the sort before getting to use the site SIGNIFICANTLY decreases
engagement, time on site, conversions, and pretty much every other metric you
should care about.

~~~
jm3
The "signup friction" argument's a straw men; no sane startup seeks to _add_
friction to the signup process. the bogus (implied) assertion in the comment
is that requiring a Twitter account to use a new web app in beta is overly
restrictive / cumbersome.

The only way that would make sense is if beta testers don't have Twitter
accounts, since OAuthing with an existing account _reduces_ friction.
Twitter's been around for four years and seems fairly well established among
early adopters like HN readers, so counting on a critical mass of beta testers
to have Twitter accounts hardly seems a stretch, even if those users aren't
very active tweeters.

i for one was very glad not to need to enter an email address, pick a login
name, etc; the oauth process handled that for me. ymmv

~~~
michaelbuckbee
I think the suggestion was to not require a form of authentication (email or
twitter) first. Instead, let the potential user "test drive" the app and then
when they are a little invested prompt for a signup of some kind.

------
sraquo
Here's my somewhat similar homebrew GTD system:
<http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6109/progressb.png>

You see time spent (in minutes) coding (+) and anything else done at the
computer (-) taken from RescueTime, along with basic efficiency score and
stuff done / to be done for my main project (game) and everything else (misc).
Coloring is manual, blue = "worked well", red = "could have done better".

The file sits on the desktop and is the place where I keep my general to-do
lists, so it is always open. Works well for me.

 _Note: censored some "misc" stuff, so don't think I normally work 4 hours a
day :)_

~~~
kylebragger
This is really, really cool.

------
kylebragger
Clickable: <http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn>

------
sacrilicious
I really do like the idea of positively "completing" a task every day.
Outliers-wise 10,000 hours is a lot, the sooner I get started the better.

The only thing I'd add, besides the request for OpenID love, is that the FAQ
needs to put "we won't spam your twitter" higher up - that's what I wanted to
know _immediately_ after signing in for the first time(the serious faux pas
being "My streakficiency is blahblah, what's yours?").

Besides that, just one detail: the FAQ(which is great, btw) wasn't in the
first-login "we're very beta" notice at the top, which would have been easier
to find.

------
zeedotme
nice looking but pretty limited for the moment. Honestly think most people who
use tools like this will be looking for simplicity in their lives...and so
convincing them to add another tool to their daily tools list is going very
difficult considering all it can currently do (i realise it's alpha mind)

~~~
kylebragger
Thank you, and totally makes sense. Hopefully there is a nice middle ground
where this could fit. My theory is also that if I can a) show value to enough
folks that they start to realize, "hey, this is pretty useful and I can
probably manage to use it 5 mins a day" and then b) get them to invite small
groups of friends, the upcoming features in that vein will create a stickiness
in those groups. Probably obvious to most but makes sense in my head at least.

------
rocktronica
Nice and simple! I like it!

Looks like you've already given some thought to iPhone support. I might also
suggest adding fullscreen mode once the app is added to the home screen:
[http://building-iphone-
apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_...](http://building-iphone-
apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_id35932771)

The "new thing" text input could use some CSS for smaller screens too.

Apologies if you already knew all this...

~~~
rocktronica
Also, it'd be good if I could edit the text of each entry after it's been
going. Just in case I dont't like the wording or something.

------
lfborjas
This app looks rad, I've been using [calendar about
nothing](<http://calendaraboutnothing.com/>) for my opensource hacking needs
and the seinfeld calendar way of being motivated definitely works for me, I
saw some of the teasers on forrst and am eager to give it a try; keep up the
awesomeness!

~~~
kylebragger
Thanks so much :) Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

------
tomjen3
My first feedback - I don't intent to give your my twitter account, so if you
want me (or pretty much anybody) to review your site and you are dead set
against using the standard create a user that works pretty well (because we
now have ways around all the problems) use OpenID.

tldr; use openID, nobody is going to want to share their twitter account with
the world.

------
thesethings
heya Kyle,

This is great. Just signed up. I am familiar with the Seinfeld calendar.
(Though not because I've seen it on the show, but it was explained to me in
some other geek GTD blog/system/something.)

I have an idea for a visual aid that might appear in two places on your site
for folks who might not know the basic idea behind the Seinfeld calendar, and
for those who _do_ know it, but might want to an incentive on their Streakly
page:

A visual of a calendar week with a streak (or 2, or 3) through it.

This would appear on the front page, and in another form, on an individual's
Streakly page.

I realize you probably already something similar to this already sketched out
(along with many other features). So as you were, take your time!

I respect the MVP process :D

~~~
kylebragger
Glad to hear it!

There are indeed plans for a more visual display of your completed days. The
cool thing is that it's built in such a way that gives us a ton of cool data
to play with. Just a matter of displaying it well.

------
john2x
Just signed up. I'm probably gonna try and use it for working out. :)

First thing I noticed was that there are only 3 "reminder times", but I'm sure
that would change in the future.

And being able to set different "reminder times" to different things would be
cool.

------
jm3
feedback re: the reminder portion of the app - would be nice if:

1\. i could get the notice as a tweet (DM) instead of an email. since you're
using oauth, i'm betting you're facile w/the twitter api.

2\. you offered a fuller range of hours for the reminder. the first task i
added to streak.ly was, "cook breakfast", but 10am was the earliest reminder i
could pick in the list, which is too late for me ;)

~~~
kylebragger
Thanks very much for the feedback;

1\. is a great idea and I'll definitely consider it (it does have the
advantage of probably showing up as an SMS, too)

2\. yep, I had a hunch the list was too short but wanted to try it out. I
wonder if there's a happy medium between an 0-23 type list and what exists
now.

------
joshbert
I'm really enjoying the app the whole 5 minutes I've been using it. I'll use
it for a week and see what kind of results I get.

For the record, I do realize that results will vary according to the type of
person that uses the application. I'm a serial procrastinator, so maybe it'll
be worth something for your Customer Development process.

------
aik
There shouldn't be a need for the page to postback when
adding/deleting/completing items. A necessity for a site like this is for it
to be faster and more convenient than anything else. My notepad++ session is
more practical than this in a lot of ways, just because of the speed.

~~~
kylebragger
Yep, 100%. Have not added any AJAX goodness yet.

------
greenlblue
This is good stuff, let me know when the API rolls out because I think these
kinds of apps are better when they are on a handheld device because you can do
a lot more stuff when you can carry the reminders in your pocket wherever you
go.

------
whimsy
Check out Joe's Goals. <http://www.joesgoals.com/>

What's your edge?

------
jm3
nice idea. i'm sure you know about <http://www.freshapps.com/streaks/>
already. wonder if there's an integration point, there, where you could
leverage their app with your data.

~~~
kylebragger
yea, I really dig what they're doing but wanted something web-based.
Streak.ly's got an API coming soon; would be awesome to integrate somehow.

------
samh
Great idea. A similar inspiration to Jason at www.HabitMix.com I think.

------
bradybd
Another solid web app from the Bragger-Matic. Keep it up Kyle!

------
kloncks
Question: What's the Seinfeld calendar?

~~~
luminarious
It's a productivity method named after Jerry Seinfeld. I first heard about it
from this lifehacker post: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-
productivity-se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret)

Basically you decide to do or practice something every day. If you forget or
otherwise fail to keep up, you mark it in red on your calendar. Goal is to try
to see how long you can go without a red mark. And get things done in the
process.

~~~
jeebusroxors
You're wrong. The inverse is correct and is the driving force behind the
idea...

 _He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X
over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the
chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially
when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break
the chain."_

------
magic6435
Coming soon to Streak.ly... Serial killers

~~~
dhorrigan
I just completed "Kill Someone" 14 days in a row on Streak.ly


A Recommendation for Google's Webspam Team - duck
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-recommendation-for-googles-webspam-team
======
WillyF
I like Rand's proposed solution, and I'm confident that the folks at Google
can come up with something even better and more effective.

I'm finding that natural link building is getting harder and harder. Much of
this is because social media sites (that often use nofollow) are now how
people talk about stuff they like. And when they do have a Tumblr or
Wordpress.com blog, the links aren't very valuable.

Most of the valuable links that I've been able to build lately have come from
my asking people to link to my sites. In a way, we're seeing more and more
PageRank inequality. The people who control the sites with the most link
equity know what they have, and they're not willing to share.

I'm lucky that my niche isn't completely commercial, so there are still plenty
of easy, valuable links to build, but I can't imagine how tough it would be to
SEO a site in a competitive, commercial niche.

------
jefflinwood
Rand's blog post demonstrates that there's now a pretty big disconnect between
anchor text keywords and actual link quality - he makes an excellent point
that natural links aren't likely to put the keywords directly into the anchor.

It's such an interesting problem - on one hand, you have autoblogs populating
the internet with Made-For-Adsense keyword-stuffed content that would soak up
long tail search results, so Google can't just ignore inbound links as a
measure of relevance, and on the other, you have keyword-stuffed anchor text
links that aren't particularly relevant to the content of the page they're on.

What other page metrics would one use to measure relevancy today that wouldn't
be as susceptible to SEO gaming?

------
praptak
The proposed solution requires a lot of manual tweaking: _"Have manual spam
raters spot check through a significant sample size of the pages"_ , _"If the
false positives follow some easily identifiable pattern, write code to exclude
them and their ilk from the filtration system."_

Google seems to avoid this kind of thing as a principle.

~~~
lmkg
Not really. This step basically says either "Look at the data and use that to
guide how you write your algorithms" or "manually curate a statistically
significant set of training data." You're not having the humans look at the
data and include/exclude links or sites, you're having them look at the data
to figure out heuristics for applying to the eight hundred billion pages they
didn't look at. This step doesn't need to scale, so manual labor is not an
incorrect solution. Given the context, and the ever-evolving nature of SEO,
having human review is necessary part of the process, and this is the best way
to add that human element in a scalable fashion.

------
tnorthcutt
What is the purpose of only notifying 65% of the sites found (and publicizing
it that way)? Is that to create some uncertainty, so that even sites that
weren't discovered by this method will give some thought to changing, for fear
that they are part of the 35% not notified?

~~~
bryanh
I thought it was for exactly this reason. He doesn't elaborate though.

------
ladon86
Great post. I don't know a lot about how well this would work in practice
(perhaps Matt Cutts could comment), but anchor text link gaming is a huge
problem and this sounds like a decent solution.

Many of Google's results have started to 'feel' really bad lately - I'm doing
a lot more wading through crap and a lot less finding what I want quickly.

------
pornel
Maybe they're not tackling this problem, because they realize it's futile?

If exact keywords stop working, spammers can easily start adding extra words
or variations to anchor text (with something like Markov chains one can create
lots of believable variations).

------
DanielBMarkham
The only thing I would add would be to make sure the links are cross-domain.

I can imagine several different websites operating in a target niche, say home
mortgages, that might have menus and pages and such that reflect common search
terms in that area. In fact, if you think about it, if you're writing for a
niche you should anticipate what people want to know about that niche, and
search terms give you that, so there's quite a bit of commonality.

But as long as the links were cross-domain, sure, makes sense to me.

I just wonder if there aren't a lot of more edge cases like this. At the end
of the article he kind of waves his hands around and says something like "and
if this doesn't work, then you can use artificial intelligence and machine
learning"

That's a sign that perhaps there are many more holes in this line of attack
that he just doesn't care to deal with. Don't know.


Ask HN: What would a site with threaded bump-order ranking look like? - heartbeats
There's a lot of forums, like this one and Reddit, which have threaded discussion and voting. Classic blogs often have threaded comments, but just sorted on date posted.
Classic forums move the thread to the top each time someone responds, but they don't thread the comments.
This seems like a much simpler solution, which is much harder to game. Yet I've never seen a site actually use it in the wild. How come?
======
josquindesprez
I imagine for popular posts, you'd get way too many low-value bumps: lots of
leaves in the comment tree would be low-effort back and forth replies of
uninteresting content (e.g. Reddit). If there's a voting system, the top-level
thread would get bumped a lot but it'd be difficult to find that low-value
content. The signal that the bump is trying to convey (there's new and good
stuff here!) wouldn't match the value of the information that the user gets
(the scattered dregs of many conversations). If there isn't voting and you
sort by newest content, the experience would probably be like 4chan in slow
motion: bump ordered blasts of low-value replies.

In a classic forum, since posting something not only moves the thread to the
top, but puts your post in a highly visible place (the end of the thread),
it's a lot harder to have too many deeply branching side conversations with
low value replies: there's a social norm against polluting threads.

For something like HN where comment trees don't get too deep and the replies
are always meaningful, I think threaded bump ordered ranking could work.

~~~
heartbeats
No, posting somewhere moves the whole subthread to the top.

Before:

      ├── a
      │   ├── b
      │   │   ├── c
      │   │   └── d
      │   └── e
      └── f
          ├── g
          │   ├── h
          │   └── *i* <- this is new
          └── j

After:

      ├── f
      │   ├── g
      │   │   ├── i <- moved to top of its thread and its thread moved to the top
      │   │   └── h
      │   └── j
      └── a
          ├── b
          │   ├── c
          │   └── d
          └── e

------
gshdg
I’ve seen classic forum software that supports comment threading.


Against Tolerance - mbrubeck
http://tim.dreamwidth.org/1844711.html

======
chrismcb
The author says "But we know that Brendan has already inserted his views on
our relationships where those views don't belong: into the workings of the
government, by means of making a political donation. " Isn't the whole point
of democracy to insert your views into the workings of the government. To make
political donations to people that you think have similar points to you? If
you can't make a political donation, with your own money, then what can you
do?

One thing I don't get, do people think this guy is going to be a miserable
leader and a bad businessman? Does the author think only people who believe
the same things as the author can lead?

The title was "against tolerance." I thought the author was going to rant
about how intolerant some gays are. But instead he is saying he won't tolerate
someone else having an opinion that differs with his own.

I would be willing to bet every CEO out there has made a political
contribution or voted for someone that "interfered" with the authors personal
life.

------
jedanbik
It's incredibly bold to make a public statement like this.

------
angersock
Author notes that, while Eich doesn't enforce his personal beliefs at work, he
may be forcing them through his political donations.

Which raises the point: same criticism goes to anyone who votes for anything
you don't like--as long as you have democracy as well as acknowledging your
government's authority, you will from time to time find yourself put-upon by
somebody else voting to support something you don't like.

Tough shit--don't let it get in the way of your work. The old saying "I
disagree with what you say, but I'll gladly defend your right to say it" is
perhaps more relevant today than ever before.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Author goes on to say this issue rises above normal political disagreement.
Its not taxes or zoning laws at issue; its who's fully human, with full
rights. Its easy for those not involved to give a pass to coworkers that
donate to restrict somebody else's life.

~~~
angersock
A basic human right--one much less arguable than some idea of state-granted
civil union--is to have one's actions and words weighed thoughtfully.

Throwing the technical leadership of Eich out over what amounts to a
difference of opinion (on perhaps an important matter) is rubbish.

Marriage is a societal compact, and as such is a product of the community in
which you live. We, somewhat luckily, live in community where we can vote to
establish norms. There is nothing wrong with having somebody else in the
community vote or contribute with an opinion different than yours, because
that is how the community comes to a consensus about its societal norms.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Lots of whitewashing there. What if it was, for instance, slavery? Does that
fit your definition of societal contract? Will you go quietly to the back of
the bus, if for instance, we vote that supporters of 'traditional marriage'
must do so?

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angersock
So, your two examples there: one is denying me rights as a person (instead, I
become property, which has no natural rights whatsoever), and the other is
infringing on my right to association and free movement.

There is no such thing as a right to "marriage", because such a thing exists
only as a construct of various institutions.

Indeed, forcing churches or municipalities to marry people whom they don't
want to is infringing on _the members of the institution 's_ right of free
association.

(Now, the fact that they're close-minded homophobic shitheads is perhaps true,
but that's not important.)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Please. Moving to the back of the bus is >> denying marriage? That institution
that has repercussions in housing, taxes, rights throughout our society? Vs
where you get to sit?

Every 'right' is a social construct. I'm beginning to think you're trolling.

And nobody is requiring churches to do anything. This is straw-man nonsense
put out by the fearful.