Trevor Paglen had a similar project for US military SIGINT. It's interesting how much more "serious" the Russian insignias are than the US patches. I have a few pictures here: https://schmud.de/books/i-could-tell-you-but-then.html

The web browser app paradigm changed everything. The Windows API isn't nearly as important as it once was.

Then again, using Linux has no obvious advantage anymore, as you don't "own" most software you're running anyway.

Being able to trust your OS is an incredible advantage.

Too bad then that desktop Linux is so easy to pwn.

Obtuse gotcha. Trust and security are two different things. And Linux is as secure as anything else against physical attack.

edit: local, not remote attack

When you write, "physical attack", what do you mean? Laptop theft?

I don't understand why this would be different than the Microsoft Office/LibreOffice situation. Adoption has been really slow in Europe (though it is happening - to the credit of European bureaucracies) even though the software packages essentially have feature parity.

This is also what landed with me.

The issues we experiment with are usually quite broad - improvements to logging, routing - but the implementation is always more narrow. Still, it seems like there is still more room for more refinement and focus now that you mention it.

Yeah - we're doing something like one-on-ones that drive these explorations. Maybe we need to make the "20%" more formal.

The real missing part is discussed in the "knowledge building" link. I'm on board with Peter Naur's idea of building software, but it's very difficult to share individual knowledge with a team as it is being formed.

For example, reading someone's implementation as a work in progress is a different than reading an implementation that is a complete idea.

A work in progress is a lot easier to read with a design document in hand, but that design document that is full of assumptions that might be better explored in short feedback loops on production.

Engineers log/blog!! and informal team interaction (documentation, notes, etc) : http://betterprogramming.pub/advices-from-a-software-enginee...

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Leading Effective Engineering Teams : http://www.oreilly.com/library/view/leading-effective-engine...

The Pragmagic Engineer (various formats: youtube / news letter / book(s) ) : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42584241

I haven't enjoyed the ecosystem of text editors on the web as much as I have local apps. HackMD was really hitting the sweet spot of simplicity and shareability.

I'll give it a shot. At first glance it seems like it has the simplicity of a text editor and all the sophistication has gone into collaboration. Kinda what web apps should be about.

Sharing this seems like an appropriate way of commemorating David Kahn's passing (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39233855). <3

It's astonishing (and sad) how few opportunities exist for basic research.

Donald Braben's book touches on what's changed pretty well I felt (published by Stripe press too): https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Freedom-Civilization-Donal...

Ah nice tip. Will put it on the reading list!

Before folks jump on the business model aspect, one should keep in mind that many (all?) online communities go through a similar growth curve. Wikipedia included.

But this article goes into the details of what makes this feel different. Quora is aesthetically much worse than it ever was.