YouTube Regrets - <AUTHOR> https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/youtube-regrets/ <comment><USER2> I gotta say this is terrifying. Not because Mozilla is trying to hold YouTube responsible for not doing a better job fine-tuning their addiction-machine (who hasn't found themselves sucked into the one-more-video vortex) but because we're now happy to blame some algorithm for our shortcomings and take no personal responsibility for our actions.

I personally went through a 3-month journey starting from travel videos to getting sucked into the "look how awesome mirrorless cameras are and all the beautiful content I can create with them" and ended up spending about 15k on camera gear (body, lenses, gimbals, lights, etc). I eventually managed to reign myself in but I didn't think I can now turn around and blame Google or some algorithm for spending far more than I should have. Shouldn't I be accountable for my own actions and lack of impulse control instead of expecting a corporation with an ad-revenue business-model to do it for me?

<comment><USER3> YouTube does have problems, but I'm not sure what Mozilla tries to accomplish by hosting this once-sided set of gripes. The first one I saw was from a father concerned that his daughter would watch dance videos and would want to become more physically fit. A healthy response would be to say "Great! Now let's find a gym or studio where you can do this safely, effectively, and work toward your goals."

For my young children, I hand select videos for them. Videos I've watched or know about. Just like parents have done for kids for the past 30 years or more.

<comment><USER4> We were raised by TV. Come home after school and watch re-runs of 90's American sitcoms, Discovery Channel, History Channel, some Cartoon Network. Watch TV, do your homework, snack around, then your parents come home 3 or 4 hours later and your freedom stops.[1]

Today kids are raised by YouTube.

The crucial difference is that when I was a kid there was common consensus that hey maybe we shouldn't play the goriest and sexiest things on TV between 2pm and 7pm when kids are watching.

YouTube doesn't have that. Yet. I'm sure eventually it will have to.

[1] I learned more than I care to admit about human interaction, personal relationships, and how the world works from American TV shows. But I also learned so much English that people often confuse me for a native speaker.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that YouTube tries to have that and fails.

For once kids I had been spoken with (~12y) where aware that there are thinks they don't want to see.

But then we have that problem that it's no longer obvious what is "bad" and what isn't. For once youtube removes/age locks videos which are obvious not teen safe (gore, porn). But this mainly gives a illusion of safety.

The problems are normally not the obvious "bad" videos but such which seem to be fine. Except that they aren't because they either change their stile/content midway or are bad in a more subtile way.

EDIT: Just to be clear old TV also had manipulative content, but this was normally only about advertisements and politics due to curation. YT has manipulative content of cults of all kind, often with noticeable risks to mental and/or physical health. And the politically motivated manipulative content seems to have become much more wild/dangerous as it's practically way less restricted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some of these are incredibly dehumanizing. "my dad believes weird things now its all youtubes fault!" Your dad was and still is allowed to believe whatever he wants regardless of whether someone told him it was true. The next one, a guy is upset his EX is paranoid. Why are people no longer allowed to believe what they want regardless of how others feel about it? You only liked him as your dad when he agreed with you.

I honestly find this whole thing disgusting, it's one thing to be upset that you got deceived but to assume someone else has been and to demand the freedom (to be deceived, to choose what you believe) be removed from another is insane. Youtube is full of plenty of shit, if someone wants to believe it or if someone accidentally "falls for it" that's their problem and theirs alone.

<comment><USER7> the same feeling I got after reading the page, maybe not disgusting but rather a little silly for blaming youtube for it when it's clear some of these people are either mentally ill on their own or just way too gullible.

<comment><USER6> It's disgusting because they're trying to force others to conform with their beliefs and assuming things are wrong simply because they've been told so. The teacher is upset because there's "anti-American propaganda" on youtube. Is everyone the world over supposed to love america and is dissent no longer allowed? It's disgusting because despite essentially claiming to be standing against what one would call brainwashing, they're actually calling for MORE of it, as long as it's the right kind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know an older couple, good people who are the kindest, most thoughtful neighbors one could ask for. I've been called over to help with various technical issues, and when I see their YouTube recommendations my heart sinks.

The entire feed is conspiracy theory videos which have led them to believe some really awful things. Virtually any tragedy in the news has some conspiratorial take; the victims are actors, it was a false flag operation, the school doesn't exist. Over time the viewer builds up the impression that every news story is meant to deceive them, and then completely loses their ability to judge truthfulness or apply skepticism.

I've even heard them talk about leaving their idyllic home because of misplaced fears. For the rest of their lives they will believe the awful lies that YouTube has served them.

<comment><USER9> _> The entire feed is conspiracy theory videos which have led them to believe some really awful things. _

_> the victims are actors, it was a false flag operation_

You don't know what led them to believe what. And false flag operations are common, so is staging photos, videos for war propaganda. Those are not conspiracy theories, but our terrifying reality. Truth doesn't exist in wars.

One big problem with your story though, just like with every story on this Mozilla page, is that it's impossible to verify. And when it's impossible to verify things are often made up. Furthermore, emotional propaganda of such stories is pushing people to take some rumors, change them and claim them as their own, creating this "me too" movement of fake stories.

Another problem, is that the stories are so poor, that there is no perspective, baseline or any room to make any conclusions of supposed negative effects on people. Just fallacies. Do some strange things get recommended to some people? Of course they do. Do they even have enough reach to even theoretically be able to affect people? Certainly not nearly as much as a family friendly content of a girl living in a van with a snake.

<comment><USER8> Are you suggesting that these stories of my friends' and others' corruption through conspiracy videos are themselves part of a conspiracy? I don't even know what to say to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Meh. Pretty lame. Feels like someone is generally not happy with a large share of videos on YouTube. There is also not solution proposed. Censorship is one that comes to mind, and which of course won't work well. I think it is important to realize that YouTube is merely a mirror of our societies.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what they want! I expected to scroll down and see a new alternative YouTube being launched. I was puzzled when I didn't see it. What's their point? That they don't like one of their competitor's products?

<comment><USER11> I expected someone at Mozilla discovering a tracker blocking trick making YT not notice you watched particular video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The first example about the guy looking for "fail videos where people get a little hurt" is a strange anecdote to open with for this campaign.

> Let's send a message to YouTube that they need to recommend responsibly...

I don't think there's such a thing as responsible recommendation at the scale YouTube operates at. At least not in the way people think by responsible anyway.

<comment><USER13> We need a radical change in the way recommendation systems work. They should always be designed in a way so that they are controllable, trainable and customizeable by consumer (or responsible guardian) input. We need to be able to interface with that aspect of the web instead of having a black box shove stuff into our throats.

<comment><USER14> Even a simple way to blacklist channels, videos and keywords would be great. There is a "not interested" item in context menu, but it doesn't seem to work very well...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of these stories read as overly dramatic and it often feels like the author is begging for sympathy in situations that don't seem to be very regrettable...

</comment><comment><USER16> Some of these complaints are because many people don't realize that their YouTube watch history is separate from your browser history (watch history is stored on their servers, associated with your Google account). If you want to fully reset your recommendations you need to use Google's privacy tools to clear your watch history and also unsubscribe to all channels. Google/YouTube could be more clear about this but it's not a totally broken system.

If you realize that you are getting weird recs due to a particular video you watched, you can delete that singular video from your history. I'm not particularly concerned about this aspect of Google/YouTube's behavior.

Finally, if you're upset about your dad watching conspiracy videos, consider that maybe he's always been a nut job and you are just now realizing it. People don't keep watching videos that they don't like, they started down the rabbit hole by clicking on videos that looked interesting (maybe the rabbit hole got deeper because they feel asleep, but they did start it on their own).

<comment><USER11> You can Not disable recommendation learning algorithm despite whatever Google claims in their documentation. Deleting/disabling watch history does nothing.

<comment><USER16> It most certainly does something. I do it on a regular basis whenever I feel that the recommendations are getting too "fine tuned" and I want to have more broad recommendations.

If you are not seeing fully refreshed recommendations it's probably because you are still subscribed to channels or have liked videos or the other pieces of information that goes into recommendations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You can clear your watch history:

[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725?co=GENIE.Pla...](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/95725?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en)

You can also configure it to automatically clear anything older than 3 or 18 months.

Or follow this link to go straight there: [https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube](https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols/youtube)

<comment><USER18> As far as I can tell, this doesn't reset the algorithm for YT recommendations for your account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I understand that some people are more sensitive than me, and they want to feel protected from the things that trigger them. But sometimes they ask things without taking into consideration how their demands would affect those that aren't like them.

In the same way that each one of your (positive) rights is just someone else's obligation, every case of censorship is someone else's lack of freedom. While YouTube is not a state institution (hence they're not morally obligated to cater to anyone's needs, or be a platform for any kind of video), they want to make money, and if their best way to make money is through automatic recommendations, then I'm afraid that YouTube is not for people that don't like automatic recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure what Mozilla Foundation is trying to accomplish with this page. Maybe make people more conscious about Internet content consumption habits. Maybe sparking discussions like this in online forums and other media. It's a little bit odd that they choose YouTube ignoring other social networks with the same addictive effect (it's ironic to have Twitter and Facebook share buttons at the side).

On the YouTube topic. As a product designer, I think that YouTube product managers and designers have a lot of responsibility. Video recommendations are designed to be addictive. They don't stop, and while there are options to turn auto-play off they are not the default. It's not a problem of the "uninformed user". It's by design. People in the comments mention creating playlists and curating content. But there are many design gaps there too. For example, YT Kids has some time controls, but the content curation options are minimal.

"Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral" - Melvin Kranzberg

</comment><comment><USER21> YouTube has far bigger issues in how it handles copyright claims. Right now a firm can unilaterally shutdown any channel and abuse of the system is a daily occurrence.

Another issue is in how they're now demonetizing any piece of content that mentions anything remotely controversial, making it even less profitable to do any kind of journalism. Want to talk about the Kurds in Syria? Be prepared for having the video be immediately demonetized.

The recommender system comes far third in this list, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER22> I do believe that "something needs to be done", about the various internet dis-info machines [0]. However, while the link shows a bunch of relatable stories, all it offers in response is a "sign up to Mozilla" button. That's it. A newsletter. A bit disappointing and anti-climactic.

[0]. I have no idea what.

EDIT: I signed up to the newsletter.

<comment><USER23> I like the conclusions they come to in their letter to social media, where they are requesting allowing researchers more insight and control, essentially enabling them to sample/simulate the recommendation engine and get more insight into how it clusters or relates contents. Furthermore they want to reduce limits on API keys so that more comprehensive academic research can be performed.

They know the issue isn't so much the algorithm as those that are gaming it to empty extraction of peoples attention (== money), extreme, or harmful ends. In doing so we might better understand the problem and then provide tools or recommendation to social media and the public on the topic.

<comment><USER24> interesting!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> You can click "Not interested" on each of the videos recommended to you and you will get fewer videos of that kind or from that channel. Half of those stories are about helpless people or people having mental health issues, in which case unrestricted internet access will always be a problem. I personally don't get the point or suggested solution of the article, could anyone explain what their suggested solution is?

<comment><USER26> I don't know what OP's suggested solution is, but if I had my way, I'd just eliminate recommendations entirely, in favour of perhaps some kind of category- or tag-based search (eg "give me more cute puppy videos"). Especially since so many people seem to have so many problems with recommendations, it's clearly not bringing value to life, so just get rid of it.

Of course Google won't, because it would dramatically reduce watch time and their advertisers wouldn't like that. But a man can dream

<comment><USER27> > in favour of perhaps some kind of category- or tag-based search

Because the people looking for visibility on their conspiracy video would _never_ tag their video with high-visibility keywords like "cute" and "puppies"!

Dumb metadata-based search and content recommendation is not the way forward. Google's original contribution to the web was pulling us out of that tarpit - SEO prior to PageRank was a wreck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I had many of these problems until I straight-up turned off viewing history. Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is precisely how I like them.

Not to say that for some folks a complete abolition of YouTube might be well in order.

<comment><USER29> > Now my recommendations are trash because they're too generic, which is > precisely how I like them.

Do one better: Consider NewPipe [0] instead, if you're on Android.

[0] [https://newpipe.schabi.org/](https://newpipe.schabi.org/)

<comment><USER28> I am not an Android user, nor would I like to have [my Google account suspended]([https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/2723](https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/issues/2723)).

<comment><USER30> The user who created that issue refused to provide any evidence of their Google account being suspended for using NewPipe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Was hoping Mozilla was working on a free video hosting alternative.

Would also love a free webmail alternative.

<comment><USER32> Free video hosting loses huge amounts of money.

<comment><USER33> I don't see how. Popular videos show ads what feels like every other minute. I find myself zoning out staring at the bottom right where the Skip Ad button shows up and I can't even recall a single ad I've ever seen on YouTube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> These are my uBlock filters that I use to block all of Youtube's recommendations. I think it makes the site much cleaner.

##.ytp-pause-overlay ##.ytp-suggestion-set ##.ytp-endscreen-content youtube.com###related

I personally try to hide all recommendations everywhere.

<comment><USER35> i did the same! I had to explicitly search for videos and click from there.

I also fixed the video in place so I could scroll through comments of howto videos to see if any of the commenters had corrections or improvements to the methodologies without losing the video content itself. It does that on mobile by default, but not on a desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >" I don't know how I can undo the damage that's been done to her impressionable mind.

Here's an idea: Don't give your children unsupervised access to the internet. Yeah she might still access this stuff at school, but when I was in middle and highschool pre-2007 there's no way I'd ever get away with watching videos on a school computer during class. It's hard to imagine teachers are somehow more relaxed about this in 2019 and I'd be amazed if youtube wasn't blocked on school networks anyway.

There's nothing a 10 year old NEEDS internet access for on private computer or phone.

<comment><USER37> > Don't give your children unsupervised access to the internet.

What phenomenally useless advice, and an utterly uninformed perspective.

Who and how do you propose offer this "supervised access" in a meaningful fashion?

How do you adapt for the fact that children, when supervised, specifically avoid play that might subject them to additional scrutiny (for example, not using youtube, etc).

How do you address the lack of supervision in environments that aren't specifically at home, or when one parent finds different content problematic than another parent?

How do you ensure that two parents who are at odds (e.g. divorced couples, etc) coordinate what is permitted or not in an environment where the child has different rules in different environments?

Far from children not having internet access at school, the school my children attends recognizes the need to teach children how to think critically about online content, and both my 8 year old and 10 year old have had assignments to use youtube and other media sites to learn more about specific topics.

Far better advice would be to periodically review content your children view, and then have meaningful discussions about the content they are consuming, what makes it "good" or "bad", and encourage children to make better choices, and to discuss what they are seeing and learning.

As awful as Youtube is, it's not possible to block it out of kids lives, any more than porn magazines and other objectionable content could be kept out of the hands of children 30 years ago.

<comment><USER38> Blocking YouTube access doesn't have to be perfectly implement to be useful.

As you say in your last sentence, it's impossible to keep porn magazines out of the hands of children, but yet we as a society are determined to at least try.

It's all that's suggested here, try to limit access, make it clear that some things aren't to be watched at a young age.

Can you image what society would be like if people just had given up on restricting porn and said they could sell it to 10 year olds and play it in elementary school libraries?

<comment><USER37> Unfortunately if you limit access to content, children who are curious will simply bypass those limits. For some children they will do it through social means, for others (puts up hand) they will learn how to bypass technical controls, but in general, if they are curious about it, then parents have a choice: teach them about it, or let someone else is. Most parents hope that it's school that teaches stuff they don't want to, but it might be a friend, or someone worse.

I am not arguing for wholesale abandoning of parental controls, but there are relatively innocuous parental controls (for example, my kids tablets don't let them do anything between 10:00 pm and 9:00 am; they don't need it after bed time or before school, and if they do, then I can override it). On the other hand, there is invasive surveillance that copies off all traffic so that parents can review it, keystroke loggers, and other "spouseware" that makes sure that parents can intrude into every interaction. There are no doubt a subset of children who merit this kind of surviellance - children with health issues that need supervision so they don't harm others or themselves. For those edge cases, those tools make sense, but for most children, a more effective strategy is to listen to your children, respect their feelings, agree on boundaries, and have consistent and reasonable consequences for breaking those rules.

Anything else says to children that you don't trust them, and that will lead to them developing a habit of keeping secrets and hiding things from parents, and that is a pathway to children not talking to parents when there are unsafe interactions because they are afraid of the consequences of asking for help and admitting that they broke the rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This was a terrible article. The fact that Mozilla endorses this content is extremely disappointing.

<comment><USER36> Agreed - this isn't a Youtube problem. It's a people problem. If you don't want to watch this stuff and have it recommended to you, put down your phone and do something else. Or use the limitless other streaming video services out there. Youtube doesn't owe us anything and relying on them to do anything other than maximize use is a waste of time.

<comment><USER40> There's shared responsibility with any product/consumer relationship so I think the point is that YouTube is not owning up to theirs. IMO, pretty fair argument to make when you think about people who are not in tech.

We hold cigarette companies responsible for letting us know their products may cause harm. We hold food and beverage companies responsible for what they put on their labels. We label coffee cups with a "Hot!" warning.

I hear you on personal responsibility, however, I think that comes from a place where you have or had time and space to educate yourself on this (apologies: using "you" very generally here and don't mean to imply you specifically). Most readers here have deep experience with YouTube and the consumer web--I've been on the web since Compuserve in the mid 90s and a hundred people who read this thread can one-up me. Think about how many people are coming onto the web for the first time. YouTube is a source of truth to them. They're told that Facebook has a "News" feed--and that's what they think is in their feed: literal and true news.

I'm trying to consider it from that perspective. My first reaction is to say: if you don't like it, just ignore it. If you don't want to get addicted to something, don't try it. It's up to you, as an individual, to own your life. I still feel that to be true, however...

I'm still considering how I feel but I think it's more complex than that my gut reaction indicates. We're not making decisions just for the informed 10% and I do think there is ground to be given up by the platforms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The stories highlighted seem to be split between "content I don't like exists on YouTube" and "content I don't like is recommended to me."

I think adding tools to help users address the latter is worthwhile, but I don't think the former is actually a problem.

<comment><USER42> > "content I don't like exists on YouTube"

"... and YouTube irresponsibly recommends that content to people who are likely to be negatively affected by it".

<comment><USER41> I think there's a big difference between YouTube actively recommending things vs. people searching for things and not liking the results they get.

The latter is what I meant by "content I don't like exists on YouTube".

From the article:

>I started searching for "fail videos" where people fall or get a little hurt.

>My 10-year-old sweet daughter innocently searched for "tap dance videos"[...]

<comment><USER42> In both of those cases, the videos that showed up from the search weren't the problem. The problem was the videos which were recommended based on a history of having viewed the videos in the search results.

The same pattern applies to many of the other stories in the article. (There's more than just the ten on the first page. Click "load more stories" at the bottom of the page.)

<comment><USER41> Oh, I think you're right. I misread those.

Also didn't know there were more than the first 10 because I browse with js off by default, which hides the "more" button.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm glad there's beginning to be a wider conversation about this. We are what we consume, and it's incredibly easy to consume via the YouTube sidebar. I think most of us derive some portion of our beliefs and values from things the see and learn on the internet, whether it be here, reddit, YouTube, etc. When you consider how many thoughts are shaped by that algorithm that has virtually no human oversight, driven purely by engagement metrics, it's humbling and frightening. I think entities like Google that have become so influential are going to have to start taking more responsibility for the effects their algorithms

</comment><comment><USER5> Just as a side note, YouTube removed the "Not Interested" functionality if you are not logged in from mobile (web) and I can't find it either on the desktop web version.

Sure it's still there if you are logged in, but if you aren't you can only clear the browser (cookies) etc. To get ride of annoyances, but this isn't a feature a less technical versed use is aware about, especially because they are "annoyed about youtube not their browser, right?".

Well anyway the main problem doesn't lie with youtube specifically but the idea that this kind of systems are a good idea.

\----

This kind of systems ==> in the sense of very complex, opaque interwinded systems of targeted advertisement and recommendation system which are not meant to give you the best experience but keep you as long as possible on the platform. Which also through constant change of rules try their best to prevent people from gaming the system but in the end only end up hurting quality content providers through constant changing rules, and their recommendation system _still_ gets hijack frequently by all kind of people (from stupid annoying hidden advertisements, over *phobic hate propaganda, subtle political propaganda to cults like thinks).

Anyway in the end this is not only a technical problem but also a social one one more than one layer.

Also tbh. I would be more worried about many of the other modern user provided multimedia platforms then youtube.

But well, one problem is that many people have the misconception that youtube (and others) are safe. It isn't especially not for young kids, even if it doesn't contain porn or other "obvious" adult stuff.

</comment><comment><USER26> I fundamentally do not understand people who watch recommended videos. They are almost never relevant to me.

I watch videos on youtube either if they come from channels I have chosen to subscribe to, or specific videos I have been linked to from outside (friends, reddit, hn, etc). The idea that I would watch, say, anti-LGBT videos that were auto-recommended after watching a drag queen's channel just seems silly. Why would I just click into those hateful videos? I didn't want them! So I don't watch them!

I'm sympathetic to the idea that borked recommendations algorithms can be frustrating and obnoxious but at the end of the day, every video I watch is a video I _chose_ to watch, and I just choose not to watch garbage. I don't understand why other people seem to find making this choice to be so difficult

<comment><USER13> There is a thing called auto-play and it's on by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I really don't have "Youtube Regrets", I do have lack of content syndrome though.

</comment><comment><USER45> YouTube never forces you to watch the videos, True but Youtube and several other companies have designed their algorithms to keep you engaged with it for long duration of time. It is built by people who understand how the human brain works and how to take advantages of the shortcomings of the human brain. That is why so many people inspite of knowing that it is bad for you are still unable to get rid of their habits.

Sure people can quit watching those recommended videos anytime they want, but the feed is carefuly curated to make you keep watching and watching and potentially also altering your beliefs. That is I believe YouTube crosses the line. It has to remain responsible.

</comment><comment><USER46> We think our temperature perception is strictly temperature, while a large component of our temperature perception is not temperature but change of temperature. (We have both really...)

Similarily our experience of sadness and happiness tends to be a comparative assessment (compared to 5 seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks ... ago).

So if you are a platform that generates income from advertisement, and if advertisements must be felt as positive, you optimize for negative background (content) videos, such that the advertisements are relatively positive as a result. Now is that a reflection of the consuming individual's character flaws? I think not

</comment><comment> jerome-jh It is not a matter of free-speech vs individual responsibility as I read it in most of the comments. It is a matter of big money vs the people.

Everybody knows deep pockets buy fake views to promote their content. Youtube in turn favors them to promote virality, and people are exposed with uninteresting or unwanted content, but still addictive. The more addictive, the more profitable.

They do have a responsibility, unless you think a company can make money selling weapons. Oh wait!

</comment><comment><USER47> This is more or less an instance of the "paperclip maximizer" problem[1]. Complicated systems optimizing for simple goals often have unintended consequences.

Surely the billions we threw at safe AI must be paying off anytime now right?

[1] [https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Paperclip_maximizer)

</comment><comment><USER48> If people weren't doing this with YouTube/TikTok/Netflix, they'd be doing with television. The difference is you actually get to choose what type of garbage you are addicted to watching. I consider that a huge improvement.

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, until now YouTube had broken autogenerated subtitles in Firefox on Android and no playback on thumbnails in FF on desktop (at least I don't think my plugin setup is at fault). Gotta watch out for what will be broken tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER50> Another kind of YT regret is finding a great video that YT then removed, which you will never see again. No chance of contacting the channel author (deleted).

A YT user must develop the habit of downloading anything that appears valuable.

</comment><comment><USER51> There's a similar effort tracking the bias in Youtube's recommendation algorithmn: [https://algotransparency.org/](https://algotransparency.org/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Gotta wonder how a story that gained 100 points in 1 hour managed to fall off the front page.

Hope that the irony of a story like this getting pushed away from the front page by an algorithm isn't lost on people :)

</comment><comment><USER52> I watch a lot of YouTube content and sometimes I refrain myself from watching a video because I know that it's going to mess up my recommendations in a way beyond repair :)

</comment><comment><USER53> Adding these lines to uBlock Origin filters helps me waste less time on youtube:

      www.youtube.com##.html5-endscreen
      ##.ytp-pause-overlay
      www.youtube.com###secondary

</comment><comment><USER54> I've started using a large number of separate web browser profiles (and a different Google account) on a per-subject basis.

It's really nice having one account used purely for music (with all the associated music recommendations), another for consuming news etc.

Bypassing soft paywalls becomes easier as they're different sessions (that aren't incognito, so don't trigger incognito detection). Having a 'no.JS' profile is the fastest way to skip soft paywalls.

</comment><comment><USER55> One time I clicked on a silly animated music video about how Mussolini screwed up invading Greece, and watching this whole 60 second clip flipped my entire youtube into alt-right mode. It was like night and day and it happened immediately.

I started getting suggested things like "Biggest Hillary Fails" and "Jordan Peterson DESTROYS WHOEVER" over and over and over, and it got quickly got darker with things about how problematic immigration was and weird fan "documentaries" about senior SS leaders.

I'm way too suspicious (to a fault) of everything I take in, but I can imagine other people going down real holes if they were served the same terrible suggestions.

<comment><USER56> Unfortunately watching any videos related to father's rights in custody battles leads down the same path. I'm guessing it's not just a case of "people who watch x also watch y" but rather "video y is sticky and increases total daily watch time for those who watch video x".

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> All I get are car repair videos and lawyers.

</comment><comment><USER58> Off topic: is the intro animation designed for trackpads or something? It's advanced by you scrolling, and since I'm using my scrollwheel and it's a stuttery mess. This design seems to be pretty widespread as well. Are all these designers assuming that everyone uses touchpads for scrolling?

<comment><USER59> Keyboard is even worse; advancing by page with Space, as I normally read, skips half the text (perhaps a blessing in disguise).

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Mozilla is just so consistently off the mark with every new product offering they make. They have top-tier engineering talent but leadership seems completely out of touch and irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER61> Dunno about regrets but this clearly shows that neither of those two institutions aged well.

</comment><comment><USER62> I feel like a large part of where we are in the world now is because in 2015 or so, YouTube mindlessly and singlehandedly funneled millions of apolitical young male gamers into gamergate extremism. It took forever for YouTube to stop giving me personal recommendations for various alt-right content no how many times I told it I wasn't interested.</comment>


Any new laptop with traditional docking station? - <AUTHOR> I am afraid to buy a new laptop, because of shaky support of USB-C docks. My current Dell docking station connects one horizontal 1920x1600 screen, one vertical 1600x1920 screen, a mouse, a keyboard, a printer, a backup device, an USB sound card/mixer, a mike and a headset. Nothing unusual.  But I am afraid these won't work with USB-C docks on Linux  with decent latency.<p>What are my options? <comment><USER2> Your objections to a USB-C dock are pretty justified: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9bwqt8/dell_tb16_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/9bwqt8/dell_tb16_dock_rant_seriously_dont_buy_this_thing/)

There's a number of Latitude models that support traditional docking stations. Some are mentioned here.</comment>


Why Berlin should not look up to the Valley - <AUTHOR> http://thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/ <comment><USER3> I don't think the problem is with the Californian model. Silicon Valley knows how to do technology right for its own sake, and every technologist everywhere can learn a lot about how to do technology right by looking at Silicon Valley. Sure there is a gold rush mentality driving media and politics, and there is a lot of greed at play as well. But rich guys in Silicon Valley are no more greedy (and the true technologists among them are probably less greedy) than rich guys everywhere else in the world. The big difference between finance and tech is that deep down at the heart of tech is a natural curiosity and passion for problem solving, whereas finance is fundamentally about arbitrage.

In order to take the right lessons from tech's failings you need to separate the tech from its social consequences. The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs. It is about seeking greater efficiency in all things. This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech. It would be great if everyone could move up the food chain in terms of creative and technical work and that tech could create more jobs, but the problem is that by its very nature, the 1% in the tech world will be more efficient than the bottom 90% no matter how much training they receive. 100 great developers will produce better returns than 10000 bad developers. There's no way around this fact. Hell, if you have a powerful enough intelligence that was orders of magnitude smarter than the smartest human then it could obsolete developers entirely by being more productive _on its own_ than all the worlds smartest developers.

Increased efficiency is theoretically good, but we're reaching the point where we don't have the social capabilities to cope. We are wired to work, and to need to feel needed, and to feel that we have an upward trajectory in life. These things make it very difficult to cope with the impending unemployment crisis and the environmental consequences of a ballooning disposable culture. Tech is at the very heart of these issues, but Silicon Valley is not the cause of these problems, it's just one microcosm of them.

<comment><USER4> > The fundamental problem with tech is that it kills jobs.

> This is why politicians are wrong to try to solve unemployment with tech.

The second does not follow from the first. Technology will always be killing jobs, and local politicians can do nothing to prevent that. The only difference they can make is where the profits from the old jobs go to; if they just stand by and watch, they will all go to companies in a few global tech centres, most in the US. However, if they encourage the development of a local tech scene, the efficiency problem might be solved by local entrepreneurs, meaning that they can still tax the profits, etc., making the local population better off.

Also, I strongly disagree with your claim that "We are wired to work". We are raised to work. And by "we", I mean particularly the people far away from the equator, who always needed to work to survive. Personally, I would not work if I didn't need it for survival (or more free time in the future), and I'm certain there's many more people like me in the world. Why do you think kids play in their free time, and teenagers party?

<comment><USER5> That's not really the problem. The problem is that tech combined with capital kills jobs and concentrates power/money with a very small group of people who then do everything they can to gut the public sector.

There is still an immense amount of work to be done in schools, hospitals and social services that is not being obsoleted by technology anytime soon. It is not being done or done well because of a lack of money.

The solution then is much more taxes on capital, much less on human labour and way more redistribution.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. But all of these is easier if the companies/people you want to tax live in your city/country, not halfway around the globe.

<comment><USER5> I can imagine a situation where Germany levies an import tax on Facebook at the border of the secure European internet.

<comment><USER6> I think it would be the French putting that idea first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A powerful critique. As developers we have the ability to effect profound change. But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions.

Our industry leaders (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) are all monopolies which pay little tax and employ anti-competitive practices to squeeze out competitors.

And few seem concerned with inequality.

Let's shape our companies towards something better.

<comment><USER8> > But mostly we funnel our expertise into better advertising solutions.

That's the thing that pays most. For some reason our society rewards advertising platforms. Everything from popular films and music, to every successful medium ever, was founded as or taken over as an advertising platform.

Maybe we as a society simply value advertising above all?

Personally I try to only work with companies whose business model is providing values to users directly, but I can't argue with the fact that I am far more willing to give my money to advertisers (so I can make a profit), than I am to services that help me make the products I advertise.

Why is that? I don't know. But I think the feedback loop from "put money in, get money out" is much quicker with advertising platforms than it is with services I use during creation.

<comment><USER9> Well, if you have a product, you also need some form of advertising to let people know your offer.

Sad thing is of course, that modern advertisement is based on subconscious influence to make the product part of your lifestyle instead of presenting you a balanced presentation of the benefits and drawbacks.

Shameless plug: I released a desktop app for project tracking in the Ubuntu Software Center a few days ago as side project. Here is a non-subconscious manipulating presentation about it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA_KckRueLQ)

Note: the initial package has a dependency issue. A fix is in review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the author states the tech sector does not directly employ Berlin's currently unemployed and has to import talent from outside (disclaimer: I'm such an imported talent into Berlin), it still creates demand for services and increases employment in other sectors as it grows, and gives an option for the city's youth to consider the tech sector for their future.

However as the author states, the sustainability of the tech sector is very critical, but this not specific for Berlin. Even in the silicon valley there is a trend towards more sustainable growth models as the hundreds of SaaS startups here on HN would testify.

Being a really open and relaxed city with a high quality of life, Berlin stands a good chance of attracting talent, allowing them to try out their ideas and hopefully create an IPO or two in the next ten years. I can't see why the author categorically dismisses that option.

<comment><USER11> I asume that's due to his insight in the germany industry at general. I'm german and I don't see that neither. I try to explain that, at least a little bit.

Germany, despite being technologically strong, is not very inovative. At least not in the sense of new, scaling products. One of the most famous examples is MP3. Also, Germans in general are quite risk averse. And if new companies are founded and are successfull, they tend to end up in the mittelstand model. While that indeed is one of the cornerstones of the german economy, these companies are most of the time too small for an interessting tech IPO.

Yet another reason is the way the german industry is structured. We are very manufacturing driven, which extends all the way back to education. And manufacturing companies is what the german economy wants. So, if a start-up devlops a new way to manufacture, say, ball bearings there are basically two outcomes. They either find enough investors to built an own construction site and / or the necessary structures to outsource production and sell to the various industrial customers. That's expensive, especially compared to the archtypical SV start-up, that's risky which drives of most banks and goes against the common risk aversion and takes time and people. People, again, are hard to come by since most tech people (read: engineers of all colors, mathematicians, physisits,...) all want to work for one of the big names instead of a small, newly founded company. More on that and education later. The second outcome is that they either get bought by some existing company or the patent is liscensed or bought. In this case it doesn't really matter wether the product in question actually the light os day or not, the company simply doesn't IPO.

Finally, what in my opinion makes it very unlikely that a company has a sucessfull tech IPO in germany anytime soon is people. There's education, focusing on producing people for the existing technologies and, even worse, companies. Some universities have programs for entrepreneurship, but these programs are small, young and mostly producing start-ups that end-up aquired. But it's at least a start. Another problem start-ups are facing on the people side is that most students in technical domains want to wrk for, say, BMW or Audi. Meaning these companies can pick the, at least in theory since there's always the chance of missed talent, the brightest people leaving the rest for the smaller players. And for a start-up to succseed you need the brightest (try to beat BMW here). Finally, failure and unemplyment carries a certain stigma in germany. So once you tried a start-up and failed in terms of future emplyment you are facing two major problems:

\- You failed, by definition that's your fault and we don't hire losers (slightly exagerated)

\- You have been your own boss for a while, which means you are unable to work under a boss. We can't need people like that.

And finally, German engineering and technology tends to be over engineered. And the shows in all aspects, be it tech, processes, products, you name it. That's great for existing products since it usually produces quality (if this quality is actaully needed or not is completely different question). But that also makes things like a MVP very hard to built and almost impossible to sell in Germany. And why building something in a market you can't sell to.

That's my take on why the author and I see a (major) tech IPO out of Berlin unlikely.

<comment><USER12> > Germany, despite being technologically strong, is not very inovative. At > least not in the sense of new, scaling products.

That's the result of a tech-centric worldview (read startups, sw). Quite the opposite is true, for instance in the area of 'Green Tech'.

> While that indeed is one of the cornerstones of the german economy, these > companies are most of the time too small for an interessting tech IPO.

I don't your argument here. You mean success == IPO here? There are plenty of highly profitable Mittelstand companies with a profit and revenue much higher than e.g. LinkedIn. What does that mean here, that LinkedIn is unsuccessful or that the other Mittelstand'ish company is? IPO is not a value of its own as some reports might indicate. Looking at Mittelstand, as the author wants us to, is about the values surrounding a company, for instance to re-invest money in a sustainable way, that it is not about growth for growth's sake (which seems to be an inevitable by-product of going public!) but making better products.

> Finally, what in my opinion makes it very unlikely that a company has a > sucessfull tech IPO in germany anytime soon is people. There's education, > focusing on producing people for the existing technologies and, even worse, > companies.

For University-level education, this definitely and absolutely does not apply.

<comment><USER11> Actually, I mean IPO. Not in the case of success, but general success wasn't the question. Beyond that, I agree with you here, both linked in and german mittelstand companies are successfull in their own right. Yet, they are very different.

Green Tech is en vogue right now in germany, yes. But after what happened to the solar industry and is currently happening to the wind power industry leaves me a little bit sceptical. But I have an opinion all of my own on all of the green tech stuff which I'm pretty sure is very different to yours.

Having studied in Germany, I disagree with you regarding education. My experience was that trying out new things, experiment and question the status- quo is not actually encouraged. Sometimes quite the opposite. In Germany, a lot of effort is spent on improving exiting technology, which is, again, one of the key strength. But as strengths go it can be really weakness in a different context. And when it comes to disrupt things (which start-ups should do) this attitude becomes quite a handicap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks, an erudite contrarian view like this is always stimulating.

I had heard about but did not know very much about Mittelstand.

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

We have lessons to learn from European paradigms as you point out. However I think you are a little harsh on founders, the pursuit of fame may be an issue for a small minority but is hardly a universal issue.

</comment><comment><USER14> Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:of5dj13mn20J:thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&hl=en&gl=de&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is a re-post of the blog post: [http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week- note...](http://thirdwaveberlin.tumblr.com/post/64289810298/week-note-158)

Sorry, I wasn't prepared for ending up on hacker news. Thanks for the feedback so far, will try to answer to some of the comments soon.

</comment><comment><USER6> Having now manged to read the article the author does seem to have a chip on his shoulder and is writing this from a distinct political stance making glib remarks like "our spying American friends" doesn't really help in this context does it.

In addition "rich white men" comrade who do you think owns all those Mittelstand companies - Germanys far less diverse than the US or the UK in that regard.

Mittelstand is all very well but there are a number of problems with then in that they are very tightly controlled secretive family businesses - <USER2> appears to be no worker participation in the ownership of these companies what so ever.

Mittelstand companies have also recently benefited immensely from the Euro selling all those Porsche Cayennes to Greece

I think possibly German concentration on traditional engineering means there is less hinterland to build tech start-ups from – and I suspect that IT training has been starved as mech and electrical engineering probably played the political game better.

<comment><USER16> Just out of interest, how much worker participation does big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple or Facebook really have? From what I can tell it is all perceived participation and the CEO and more importantly the investors have the final say. There is a massive difference between worker participation and investor control, workers are rarely investors or share holders in big companies.

<comment><USER6> You haven't seen any of the stories on here about RSUs and stock options which are widely distributed in SV Companys?

My Mate will be getting over £60k's (tax free) worth of shares next year from his FTSE100 employer this is just the basic share options that every employee has access to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a really big problem, and I can feel it myself. Now that I've got customers and seed money, should I try to create a sustainable business that grows organically? Or should I move to London - I'm in Rome now - and try to enter the VC game as soon as possible, as a mentor insists?

The sustainable business way appeals a lot to me, but what about the risk that competitors with lots of money crush us just by out-spending us? And what about the ecosystem? But the places with the best ecosystems are very expensive, how can you enter them without VC money?

The problem is that there is no proof that the mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can.

<comment><USER18> >The problem is that there is no proof that the Mittelstand model can work for tech startups, while there is proof that the SV model can.

To me it seems pretty obviously that one is the antithesis of the other. Mittelstand seem to work well in established markets with a sensible good quality product or in niche markets where they could often be the only manufacturers worldwide. It does not strike me as the kind of enterprise that aims to grow fast and disrupt markets.

Besides, there is already Middelstand tech businesses. They are the software houses that write niche B2B software like time table schedulers for schools and such.

<comment><USER15> Disrupting market is not easy, but it significantly easier, if the first priority of the company is not being self sustainable and instead rely on on venture capital. Twitter is an interesting example in that context. A company that surfaced a unique user behavior and created utterly new communication patterns. Yet, because it didn't focus building a business, it ended having to rely on archaic business models to finance itself while in the process disregarding the people who helped make it grow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A serious question speacially to the German crowd of this post:

Im very interested in alternative cultural models for tech products in the digital age, specially because technology has such a impact in peoples live, and can improve the quality of life of everybody in so meaningful ways..

So, where can i find more about the Mittelstand? is there some discussions about it somewhere? is there any group trying to think new models that contrary to the status quo can create a virtuous cicle in the whole community and not only for a particular group of privilege?

I am very interested at this, and as a Brazilian i keep an eye in what Europe are doing, and how they are thinking , since they are not taking the SV model for granted, and just repeating.. but trying to get a new meaning out of it, without forget its own cultural values.. (at least it was what i feel and are confirming by reading the posts from the german fellows)

Im asking this, because is that what im trying to do too.. I dont want to just launch what i have in hands in the current model.. i think we can do better.. so im interested in all movements over this topic.

Note: im specially interested in social groups, and less in literature about it.. as i think this is still in formation.. and new cultural models(if any) are in its infancy

</comment><comment><USER20> Can't open the article right now, but here is one question I have that might fit: hasn't Sillicon Valley actually started in the middle of nowhere? These days the saying is to go there because that is where the investors with the money are. But the money is there now because some people succeeded with their factories built in the countryside?

Here in Germany there are also quite a few towns that are built around one big company, for example Wolfsburg for VW.

No doubt Berlin is attractive at the moment, but the things that make it attractive are quickly disappearing - cheap cost of living, lots of empty buildings, lots of diverse culture.

I for one don't look forward to the living conditions of the valley, where people have to share rooms at extremely high costs just to be able to be there. It seems very ironic that while it is presumably one of the richest places on earth, the valley sounds like a horrible place to live in.

<comment><USER6> SV started where it did because land was very cheap and large government contracts for "blowing stuff up" (tm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The author is correct. After attending a recent JS conference I didn't notice any of the hartz IV people there but just a bunch of exiles from other tech cities who had moved to berlin for something exotic. Unfortunately this will mean a direct copy of silicon valley as all the people moving here to create the tech boom know nothing else to copy. Would be good if the tech here was a focused on solving real world problems instead of creating the next latest and greatest advertising model...

<comment><USER22> Excuse me, but have you been to the Valley? I have not. But I have been in Berlin, and I can assure you that I have seen my fair share of hipster copycats. Not that there are not rock solid tech companies operating in the region. It is just my impression the startup scene in the german capital is a bit one sided: mostly marketing, media and marketplace platforms. Is that the future of mankind?

I have found a few people that have a tech/scientific background and take up the fight in the startup scene, but so far all but one them have moved to the US.

I would be greatly interested to connect and meet with people from technology/science that would like undertake a venture in wet-/soft-/hard- ware. But alas, there are few of them into the startup scene in Germany, for most a heading to the industry sector after their dissertation/master.

So, if you are one of the above --> contact me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Site down, cached text version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://thirdwaveberlin.com/2013/10/week-158/&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER19> I cant open this link, the domain name cannot be resolved :(

$ nslookup thirdwaveberlin.com

> Non-authoritative answer: __* Can 't find thirdwaveberlin.com: No answer

</comment><comment><USER24> _Tech is the new finance industry._

That would be a good thing, right?

<comment><USER25> yes.sure

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In simple (and sad) words:

There is no passion anymore</comment>


Digital Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/digital-drugs

<comment><USER2> Does it dilate your pupils? Well it is based in the use of binaural beats, which are used in Meditation CDs and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming, not Natural Language Processing)CDs

</comment><comment><USER3> I give it a few days before some small-town "legit" news organization references this article as proof, totally missing the sarcasm in the article.</comment>


Show HN: Day[0] – I started a weekly security podcast that gets technical - <AUTHOR> https://dayzerosec.com/posts/episode-38 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I'm one of the hosts of the podcast (zi).

I co-host with Specter (and sometimes Anti, a friend who works in threat intelligence) and we both do vulnerability research and exploit development. Neither of us are world-renown security experts or anything but we do get our hands dirty at a technical level, a perspective we think has been missing in other security podcasts. Specter's best known for his work in the PS4 scene, whereas I've been quietly working in appsec doing manual security assessments for most of the last decade, and was a magician turned developer before that.

I'd be the first to admit that there are some individuals where who on HN that have forgotten more about this than I've ever known. None-the-less we thought there would be some interest at least within our little niche in hearing the thoughts and discussion from a couple of guys who are in the weeds of exploit dev. We make mistakes and are open to being corrected.

Most episodes have three rough sections, we start off talking about news and some soft-topics. This week, a bit about a ransomware campaign, a "$500k" Zoom vuln and Binary Ninja's new decompiler/HLIL. Then we move into talking about exploits released or detailed in the past week, this week included some stupid issues like an OTP disclosure ("the request which sends the OTP also returns the OTP in the network response"), and some lower-level privilege escalations impacting Linux, Windows, and Solaris (whodo/w buffer overflow).

Ending with some research, often fuzzing or exploit mitigation related but really on a whole we just talk about things we find interesting.

We are available on all the major podcast platforms if you search for dayzerosec, but we also stream it live on Twitch (@dayzerosec), Mondays starting at 3 pm Eastern and take questions from the chat as we go.

I'd love feedback on all levels from content to distribution and quality issues.

<comment><USER2> Will you host guests at all? If so how does one reach you?</comment></comment>


Autoworkers of our Generation: A Repsonse - <AUTHOR> http://dave.cheney.net/2013/09/04/autoworkers-of-our-generation-a-response

<comment><USER2> Programmers in USA are paid 100 000 USD a year, when in Eastern Europe best programmers available will hapily work for around 36 000 USD a year. It's still much more than almost everybody else earns here, and they don't have debts after graduating cause university education is free here.

Even if automation of software development won't happen jobs will be transfered to deveoping countries. No reason for that to not happen. Salaries will average out worldwide, and that means they will fall in USA more than rise elsewhere.

So I think the analogy is quite good.

</comment><comment><USER3> My father was a computer programmer in the late 60s to 90s. Throughout his career he saw several of his skills automated but his approach wasn't that he was out of work, rather his tool chest was increased. With each automation there was more time to explore a new tool.

What makes us as a valuable source isn't how we use the tools today, rather our ability to understand and apply the tools to come.

<comment><USER4> Computer programming is inherently a skill that tends towards full automation like any other field of labor simply because of exponential increases in efficiencies and scale. If one programmer can do the job of 5 programmers because the level of automation and the number of available tools allows him to, then the total number of programmers able to enter the market for programming will diminish unless demand for programmers rises at the same or higher rate of automation (a trend that has never occurred in any industry). We're probably not very close to that point just yet, but it may not be too far off.</comment></comment>


What Was Lost in Brazil's Devastating Museum Fire - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/09/brazil-rio-de-janeiro-museum-fire/569299/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> That is absolutely heartbreaking. The poor staff that cared for the collections, depite the lack of funding, must be devastated.

Some really interesting details in the article. Fire destroys labels and water create mold. Even if something survived the flames, it's just "rocks, bones and logs" without the data.

<comment><USER3> I do believe the staff cared for the collections. But the museum director kept a minibar hackishly installed in John VI's former bedroom, which was used as the director's office.

[https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/MN3.png](https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/MN3.png)

[https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/MN10.png](https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/MN10.png)

[https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/mn11.png](https://cdn.oantagonista.net/uploads/2018/09/mn11.png)</comment></comment>


How much traffic should I expect from hitting the Reddit front page? - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone,
An article I wrote ended up on the front page of reddit (got like 30k upvotes), peaking at spot number 13.
I'll get an analytics report tomorrow (not my website, so can't track stats in real time), but I'm impatient AF. What do you think, how many visitors has my url received? Cca? <comment><USER2> That's a good question... I'd love to hear from you what you saw.

Any estimate at what live simultaneous users on your site peaked at?

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing is, it is not my website (I just write articles for these guys) so I'm not able to track visitors in real time. Gotta wait for the Google Analytics report.

Will let you know as soon as I get it.

From past experience: it's really difficult to tell. Sometimes a post gets 2k upvotes in a 500k subscriber sub and a few thousand people actually click through and read the article. Sometimes you get a lot less upvotes, but more visitors.

I think redditors sometimes just read the title, upvote/downvote, write comments, without even reading an article. It's strange.</comment></comment>


Court Filings Suggest Google Fighting Feds Over Megaupload Emails - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-court-filings-suggest-google-fighting-feds-over-megaupload-emails/ <comment><USER2> Note, that the connection to the megaupload case is 100% based on speculation by the Paidcontent author (unless he was tipped to the existence of the documents in the docket.. he doesn't say how he stumbled across them).

What we do know for sure is that Google received a 2703(d) order (for non- content and subscriber info) and a search warrant (which could reveal communications content). Google later asked the court to unseal the orders.

I'm not sure why the government would seek both a d order and a search warrant for the same account (since a warrant also allows you to get everything that a d order delivers).

One possible option might be that the warrant (probable cause standard) was for one particular target for which the gov had more evidence, whereas the d order was used for other targets in the same investigation for which the government could only meet the "relevance to an ongoing criminal investigation" standard.

The recent order related to the continued sealing of the 2703(d)order: [http://ia700807.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.vaed.27...](http://ia700807.us.archive.org/32/items/gov.uscourts.vaed.277148/gov.uscourts.vaed.277148.1.0.pdf)

The related order regarding the continued sealing of the search warrant: [http://ia600804.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.vaed.27...](http://ia600804.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.vaed.277150/gov.uscourts.vaed.277150.1.0.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I see a re-occurring theme here, The government is trying to use corporations to help it control the people. I just had a thought, how about we start creating corporations that make it easy for the people to control the government? No doubt this would be probably considered evil, about as evil as what the government is doing now, enforcing American law all over the world.

1\. Use corporations to get bills pushed through or stopped in congress.

2\. Corporations to get people freed from prison, people put into prison, without due process.

3\. Corporations to apply pressure and pit agency against agency to get gag orders on government waste machines that flush taxpayer money.

4\. etc.

The government is trying to use corporations all around us to turn the citizens into slaves without freedom. In Florida here the government is farming out automated traffic law citations and collections to some company in new york. If you fight it, you are punished with more fines.

We need to get the corporations back on our sides, get them on the side of the entity who pays their light bill.

<comment><USER4> If there isn't a profit motive behind the actions, it's hard to see what you'd gain from the burden of being incorporated instead of being a non-profit. Getting laws passed where there _is_ a profit motive is not really a problem.</comment></comment>


"possible malware being sent in disguise of a puush update" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/puushme/status/582296580532801536

<comment><USER2> "puush.daemon.exe" seems to be the executable to look out for [1] if you've been running Puush. Possibly in either %appdata%\puush or C:\Program Files (x86)\puush

[1] [https://twitter.com/puushme/status/582313699320299520](https://twitter.com/puushme/status/582313699320299520)

</comment><comment><USER3> Their Twitter feed is an excellent lesson on how to handle a breach: [https://twitter.com/puushme](https://twitter.com/puushme)

</comment><comment><USER4> yup they have been hacked. Rip Puush. [https://twitter.com/puushme/status/582323259363864576](https://twitter.com/puushme/status/582323259363864576)</comment>


Finnish MeeGo Startup Jolla Reveals First Phone With Customisable Shells - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/20/finnish-meego-startup-jolla-reveals-first-phone-hardware-with-customisable-shells-e399-price-tag-coming-at-years-end/ <comment><USER2> I was kind of hoping the cover would slide to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, it was one of the main reasons I got the N900 which I use to this day. Its getting pretty dated so it will probably be either Jolla or a FFOS phone, which is looking pretty good too.

In fact, if there is anything low-endish on FFOS with a QWERTY ill probably just get that.

Edit: I should probably say I'm also using a low-end Samsung with Android, and its a pretty shitty experience, although only half of that is due to Android OS (signing me out in weird moments, things unremovable from notifications, poor task management etc), granted Im probably stuck on some old version.

<comment><USER3> I've used firefox-os (the developer release phone) & I honestly don't see any significant improvement over ios or android.

It mostly felt like a much slower version of android tbh.

I would wager that your shitty experience is due to under-powered phone with old 2.x os. A high end device with up do date 4.x would be much more pleasurable to use.

<comment><USER4> I have a Samsung GT-S5830i. I don't have a lot of additional apps installed - maybe two games and a Twitter profile manager. It, generally, feels sluggish when switching between applications, such as messaging to web browsing.

My new Geeksphone Keon with FirefoxOS feels much more responsive than the Samsung with Android. And the Firefox browser works much better on the Keon!

Unfortunately, a couple of functionality things with the Keon prevent me from migrating across - as far as I can see contacts can only be imported from Facebook or a SIM card. Also email only supports some webmail options (e.g. Gmail) and IMAP, no POP3 or Exchange server support. I'm not complaining though, as I know it's a developer release. I'm just hopeful someone with better skills than me will enhance the relevant applications.

With respect to this Jolla article, I'm unimpressed the phone is priced so high. My initially gut feel when I saw the article was "damn, I just got this FirefoxOS phone." After reading that the price point for Jolla is EUR399, I'm pretty happy with my EUR125 Keon purchase.

<comment><USER5> > as far as I can see contacts can only be imported from Facebook or a SIM > card

Did you update FxOS after you bought the phone? There is a new "Importer" app which sync'ed contacts from Google/Gmail. Works well.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, and I haven't looked at contacts again since the update. I appreciate you pointing this out to me. I will have another look at contacts this evening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Jolla's handset will cost €399 ($513) and is slated to ship at the end of the year.

I find Sailfish an interesting product due to its technological heritage but that is rather a lot. I wonder what their marketing strategy is for this device.

From a developer's perspective you can't help but compare that price to how much it would cost to get a Firefox OS development unit. FxOS also promises you access to a larger, if less affluent, audience. On the other hand, a higher price might prevent the kind of shortages we are currently seeing with Geeksphone Keon and Peak.

<comment><USER7> If you're looking to sell apps, both FF and Jolla are a bad bet I believe. If you're looking for a mobile computer like the N900 (or to a lesser extent the N9) was, then I don't think FF really qualifies...

<comment><USER8> "The device is powered by Jolla's Sailfish OS but can also run Android apps, giving it something of a leg up."

Did you even read the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This will be interesting to see.

Of all the new entrants with new mobile OSs, Jolla has the most experienced crew. They also chose Qt as an app runtime, so they do not rely on Web apps to become mature and efficient on mobile hardware.

Since it does not rely on anything heavy-weight, the Sailfish OS should scale down to budget smartphone hardware at least as well as Android.

The also have a lot of drive to prove Nokia wrong, much the same way Andy Rubin was driven to succeed after Danger failed to make headway with OEMs and carriers. There is a lot to be said for the power of smart pissed-off people.

</comment><comment><USER10> God I wish one of these companies would release a decent candy bar qwerty. Am I really the only one??

<comment><USER7> What about Blackberry Q10, or the likely more affordable Q5?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I sure hope that the back-cover thingy is more than just splash of color. Well, maybe they are trying to score some nostalgia points from old 5110/3310 users :)

<comment><USER12> There's some sort of NFC detection of the current cover and apparently you can hack some settings based on which cover you're currently using. See <http://www.jolla.com> and scroll down.

<comment><USER13> that is a painfully bad gimmick.

<comment><USER14> That depends on how much it affects the display - if snapping a cover on and off is easy, I could see myself using a blue and an orange one as a sort of hardware f.lux switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> After reading i felt like their main selling point was the customisable shells, which indeed is a nice feature, but nothing that would make people switch in my opinion.

Is this a special video just focused on the shell or is this really what their marketing wants to display?

</comment><comment><USER11> So the main launch present is over now. They didn't tell anything new about anything. I hope the press can get something out of the Jolla guys, I felt bit disappointed. Not about the device (pretty much impossible to be disappointed about something I know nothing about), but about the event.

<comment><USER16> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxv7iXwIgno>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The specs sound ok for the price, but then it will be available by end of year... It sounds like too weaks specs for the price compared to what you will be able to get at that time.

</comment><comment><USER18> First smartphone maybe, but not first phone. It's appropriate that a team of ex-Nokia people have recycled the idea of Xpress-On covers.

</comment><comment><USER19> What kind of connector in the Other Half? If it can be used for a battery extension and/or qwerty, count me in!

</comment><comment><USER20> hands-on demo of the device: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxv7iXwIgno>

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks very good. Was the back cover added just for show to this sleek phone or it actually covers sth bulged?

<comment><USER22> It covers the removable battery. I don't like the sandwich look, it's a design trick to make the phone appear thinner. The front half by itself isn't bad, with clean lines and no silly "design elements" that don't add to usability.</comment></comment>


That "Five Monkeys Experiment" Never Happened - <AUTHOR> http://www.throwcase.com/2014/12/21/that-five-monkeys-and-a-banana-story-is-rubbish/ <comment><AUTHOR> There are a few commenters on the blog page essentially arguing that the supposed experiment has value as a metaphor which outweighs the negative value of its non-factuality. Some even attack the "religion of science". A rather interesting contrast to the scientifically minded commentary I'm used to.</comment>


Hola – Access Any Website - <AUTHOR> http://hola.org/

<comment><USER2> Nice... but how could this be free? The only free cheese is in the mouse trap!

<comment><USER3> [http://hola.org/faq#in_cost](http://hola.org/faq#in_cost)

They use you as a peer

<comment><USER2> Duh! Thanks for pointing this out!</comment></comment></comment>


Fork the Law - <AUTHOR> http://forkthelaw.org

<comment><USER2> This needs a discussion medium more sophisticated than inline highlight comments.

For example: It is my contention that criminalizing noncommercial DOS attempts is highly inappropriate. They are a very good analogue for protected speech in the form of traditional protest picketing, trying to temporarily drown out and deny painless access. So long as an individual is only committing their own bandwidth to a pingstorm, this seems to me like something that should be handled as a tort. Torts have Constitutionally-limited punitive damages of ~9x demonstrated damages, fractionally allocated to the participants. A hundred thousand 4channers should damn well be able to pingstorm the Westboro Baptist Church's closet server into temporary unavailability.

Botnet-driven DDOS ordered by one person are very different beasts because they can have such a disproportionate impact, because they can be utilized for commercial goals, because they're operating from hijacked hardware, and because rent-a-botnet is common & thus more likely to ask for returns rather than be an expression of speech.

How would I go about making this change based upon consensus though?

<comment><USER2> It would also be useful, at least for me, to present the indentations implied by the outline-style lettering of bill-writing.

<comment><USER3> That's a high-priority forthcoming CSS fix, you just bumped it higher. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Whole-heartedly agree with what they are trying to do, but I wish they were using a git repo rather than a text control that requires you to be online.

<comment><USER3> forkthelaw.org dev here. What you're seeing now is a weekend prototype using banged-together open-source projects, focused on a UI experience for people more on the tech-law end of the spectrum (the Jennifer Granicks and Cathy Elliott Joneses of the world -- in fact, Cathy's helping us out with alpha testing). It's also specifically focused on the CFAA for timing reasons: in just under three weeks, I and a whole bunch of my infosec colleagues will be in DC for ShmooCon, so we can all go visit our representatives while we're in the area anyway.

Over the next few days we'll be building out the site with more information about the upcoming ShmooCon lobbying trip as well as our feature roadmap. The short version is that we'll be pulling the entire United States Code into darcs, updating it via GovTrack's APIs, and providing a UI to select and fork specific sections of the law for people to collaboratively work on.

The site's going to change quickly in the coming weeks as we add more functionality. Maybe we shouldn't have launched _quite_ this early, but there is a bit of a time crunch.

Edit: IAC, if you're interested in more DVCS-like, offline/command-line functionality, I'm totally down to support that. Tell me more about how you'd expect to interact with that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally understandable if it makes the most sense for the people you see as your primary customers for this.

Out of curiosity, did this come out of the aaronsw Hackathon at Noisebridge this weekend?

[wish i had been able to make it there, but was unable]

<comment><USER3> Basically the way I view it is like this: we know that lawyers and hackers only have some overlapping domain expertise, but we'll need to work together in order to achieve good tech law reform and everyone's going to have to get out of their comfort zone to some extent. Whatever markup tool we deliver, a wide range of lawyers should be able to find it not too hard to use; hackers will be more unforgiving about a UI that has, say, latency issues ( _guilty look_ ), but a good UI shouldn't have those anyway. Finding the right balance of user needs to satisfy with the resources we have available is of course going to be an ongoing process, so we're just gonna have to keep an active ear out for what people are asking for.

It sort of dovetailed with the aaronsw Noisebridge hackathon, but we started hacking on it independently about a day before. Christie, who's a Noisebridge member, realised the hackathon would be a good place to present it, and did. Via that, we met the <http://hypothes.is/> guys, and things have continued to snowball from there :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Laïcité and the High Stakes of Restoring Notre-Dame - <AUTHOR> https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/laicite-and-the-high-stakes-of-restoring-notre-dame/#.XN2NyMT1mVF.hackernews <comment><USER2> The author is right. While rebulding Notre Dame might be difficult and expensive, _changing_ it would be catastrophic.</comment>


Canada will require all air travelers to wear face masks - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/17/americas/canada-air-traveler-face-mask/index.html <comment><USER2> I think this is a great idea and I suspect we will also see this happen in the US.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, this is probably the "new normal" in most places.</comment></comment>


Weebly (YC 07) is having a US$10k theme design contest - <AUTHOR> http://themes.weebly.com/contest/

<comment><USER2> These kinds of contests have really turned design into a commodity -- bad news for designers. Designers argue vehemently that they are _unethical_ and _implore_ other designers not to participate in them.

I wonder when there will be $10,000 contests for the best CRM or the best Supply Chain Management System.

<comment><USER3> _Unethical?_ Seriously?

1\. Could you back up your claim by linking to someone who you feel speaks for the designer community on the subject?

2\. If you need a CRM or SCM other than one of the existing projects, then you clearly have very specialized needs and need to hire a contractor; no one is going to go to all the work of creating a custom CRM (and, presumably, providing future support and maintenance) just for a shot at winning a contest.

I think it's great that we live in a web where there's an abundance of free designs, in part thanks to contests like this one. There will always be demand for truly talented designers for the small fraction of websites that need (and can afford) that level of customization. That's not Weebly's target market.

<comment><USER2> The no-spec team is one of the most vocal anti design contest groups: <http://www.no-spec.com/articles/design-contests/>

Here's another: <http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/position-spec-work>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course if you don't win they can still turn your entry into a theme. Sounds like a really inexpensive way to increase their 70 custom themes to several hundred for only $13k.

<comment><USER5> Point taken, but they still have to invest a lot of man hours in slicing and building the theme to work in most popular browsers.

<comment><USER4> Depends on the complexity of their template system and theme engine. I doubt that it's that big of a deal if you look at the majority of their existing themes the engine and capabilities of the site are extremely simple. There are plenty of sites/designers/companies out there that will turn any PSD into html/css for between $99 and $299 including ADA compliance and cross browser compatibilities.</comment></comment></comment>


48 Psychological Facts You Should Know About Yourself - Business Insider - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/48-psychological-facts-you-should-know-about-yourself-2012-4# <comment><AUTHOR> At first it looked like this was going to be one of those silly slideshows with no real meat, but each item is a more detailed article. An example of the "chunking" of information it discusses. Ironically the front page introducing the article doesn't do anywhere near justice to the content that follows.</comment>


Ask HN: What kind of programming languages do you know? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> "kind" as FP, OOP, etc. or C-like, Lisp-like, etc.?

</comment><comment><USER3> Different. Why?</comment>


Automattic Buys Simperium (YC S10), Maker of Simplenote - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130124/automattic-buys-simpermium-maker-of-simplenote/?mod=tweet

<comment><USER2> Very good. I brought a project to Automattic a few years ago and was able to work on it with nearly the same autonomy and freedom I had when I was on my own. Well, one difference, I had more resources and reach to see how far I could take my ideas. Automattic is a great company and one I use as a model for my current venture as it grows up.

</comment><comment><USER3> I manage most of my life on Simplenote. Congrats Mike and Fred and I hope to see you soon!

</comment><comment><USER4> Congratulations! Exciting that they're open sourcing some components, and good to see Automattic is going to keep them going/grow the product.

<comment><USER5> Seconded! Congratulations Mike, Fred & team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hope this results in them improving Simplenote. I find it pretty buggy.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I experienced a big. Bug the other day that appeared like it deleted all my notes on my iPad and online and this caused me to finally bite-the- bullet and move my notes to Evernote from my offline iPhone for fear of never being able to access them again.

Was a painful upgrade experience (and the bug resolved itself in 24 hours), but I've suffered similar sync bugs over my time with Simplenote over the past 2 years and I didn't feel safe with the service anymore.

<comment><USER8> We've had a few growing pains, particularly with 3rd-party apps. We're working with developers to move them to our latest API. If you ever encounter problems, you can email us at firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll do our best to help you out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks everyone for your congratulations. We're really happy to join a great, growing team with alignment on culture, technology, and vision. There's still a lot of work left to do though. Now back to building things.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats guys on the big news. In the brief opportunity that I had to get to know them, they were incredibly intelligent and super-nice and helpful guys.

I sat next to Fred at Startup School a couple of years ago and his encouragement was a big reason that I decided to apply to YC.

Keep doing great stuff!

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been a paying Simplenote customer for nearly three years now and love it. I use it for all my TODOs, notes, and other snippets I need to have easily accessible. It's the perfect companion to Notational Velocity.

Congrats, guys!

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a big thing for Simperium. I really hope that Simplenote won't disappear. It is the best notes app for the iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congrats! I've been using SimpleNote (iPhone) for years with Notational Velocity and quite happy with the sync.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good for them. Simplenote is a solid service, I've found, although the apps and interface are hit-and-miss.

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope they plan to open source Simperium server to allow self-hosting.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congrats guys!!

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats Mike and Fred!

</comment><comment><USER17> <http://i.imgflip.com/dk9r.gif></comment>


Act more like a PC, less like an NPC - <AUTHOR> http://meaningandmagic.com/pc-laws-of-life

<comment><USER2> Okay, it took me a few minutes to figure this out, not being a gamer: "PC" means "player character" and "NPC" means "non-player character." So the title, roughly translated, means "Act more like an actual person, less like a character in a video game driven by a poor AI."</comment>


Ask HN: Writting a book on success in real time - <AUTHOR>

I have read many books on success - starting from self-improvement books, to books about starting a business, startups, etc.
And there is one pattern in all of those books. The authors write how they succeeded. But, it's really rarely that any author write even a little about his failures.
Authors write only about how they succeeded, but not about this how many times and in which way they failed, before they got a success.
So I came to an idea. I (or anyone else) can write a book about success in business. I didn't succeed still, and it's a question will I at all. I have two failed web startups behind me, and a lots of important lessons learned.
I would write the book for years probably, until I succeed in business, or I finally give up of it.
People could follow the book progress on my website, and I would offer a some parts of the books for free, as I write it.
I think that would be a first realistic realtime book written on success.
What do you think? Have you seen any similar book? Do you like the idea? Would you like to try to write your own book in this way? :) <comment><USER2> People like reading about failures -- but only (a) when they hear what someone learned from the failure and (b) when the individual eventually succeeds. If you haven't succeeded yet, then the reader justifiably feels that your estimates of what-went-wrong were off the mark, so how can _she_ learn anything from it?

Unless you are really funny. Anything is forgivable when you're funny.

<comment><AUTHOR> People like reading about failures - Totally agree

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> They've been around for ages - they're called a blog :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe you're right. If someone would keep blog focused only on his main topic.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you use Docker v.1.12 swarm mode successfully in production? - <AUTHOR> We have a few bare metal nodes (on debian jessie) and we would like to migrate our server stack to docker. I've tried to use kubernetes but it seemed complicated to set up for debian, I spent 2 days on it and was not able to make it work. I tried docker swarm mode and I love its simplicity. Last night I checked hackernews and I found a post that it is not ready for prime time yet and now I am worried. Please let me know if there is anyone of you using it with success. I have only 3 nodes, so very small setup. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Context for my random thoughts from the internet: I don't use Swarm in production but I read the blog post.

1\. Everyone has their definition of 'prime time'. Kubernetes is a 'third system' designed by Google to meet Google's 'prime time' needs.

2\. The odds are that if your company's 'prime time' needs were similar to Google's, writing your own container orchestration layer would be a viable option and there's a good chance it would already have been done.

3\. My take on the blog post was that the author was probably imagining a context containing more than a few bare metal nodes.

4\. If Docker Swarm works for your organization, there's no reason not to use it. A few bare metal nodes seems to be one of the use cases for which it was built.

The difference I see is that Kubernetes is a solution and Docker Swarm is a product. By which I mean that Kubernetes was designed around Google's internal technical needs and Docker Swarm was designed around the needs of Docker's customer base.

That doesn't make either right or wrong in general, but it may mean that one or the other is a better fit for a particular organization.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for the answer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Docker V.1.12 was released very recently and I'm 100% there is no apps in production with swarm mode.

We are evaluating different clustering/orchestration frameworks, Kubernates seems to be the most appropriate but its learning curve and initial setup is a huge pain especially when you are not in GCE or AWS .

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, my experience is the same setting up kubernetes seeems hard. Thanks for sharing your view.</comment></comment>