"What's a Browser?" – Remembering the Non-Tech-Savvy User - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/08/09/inexperienced-users/ <comment><USER2> Here's the kicker: most of these non-tech-savvy users are not the older generation.

They are the younger generation.

The generation that is used to tech that "just works", without ever having to figure out why it doesn't.

<comment><USER3> As a teacher of Computing, I couldn't agree more. I've blogged about it here [http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use- co...](http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/) Habits I see daily include: typing domain names into search bars, using Caps Lock to type a single uppercase letter, holding down off buttons to 'shutdown' a computer, using passwords like asdfg1234.

<comment><USER4> The whole issue with the industry (specially here) is that the drive to just make it work completely obliviates the user. Maybe we should strive to better inform while making it just work.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion there's no fix for lack of curiosity.

<comment><USER6> Well, the "smart"phones of today hardly inspire curiosity...

<comment><USER7> I've seen plenty of non-tech savvy users become curious on how to mod their Android device. Most don't go very far past "1 click root," but there's always a small number that have dreams of learning to compile Android or even learning how to do some coding.

Heck, I've even had a few people in their 40s and 50s quietly messaage me on Android forums asking for how they can learn more about development and recommendations for learning the basics for programming. Most of that is just from someone that one day decided to root their device and then it opened up a "can of worms" that lead down a path of curiosity. I'd say if a person has the spark of curiosity to learn, they will do it regardless of device. It matters more though on if they're encouraged and are shown that even they can learn what many people think of as "magic" (even though we all know it isn't :) ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I got her to show me how she used the computer; she got into Facebook by > typing Facebook into Bing and clicking on the search result.

This is so common to non tech-savvy people (I observed this dozens of time) that it makes you wonder why browsers adopted single bar for searching AND entering the URLs so late. This, when implemented properly, solves the problem, because usually you only need to type just few letters from site name and hit Enter to go there.

<comment><USER9> The problem is you have to know that behavior exists. Many of the users that "search to site" will _still_ type Google into the omnibox, and complete the process as they always have (by searching Google for Facebook and clicking the link).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the glory days of AOL I ran into non-tech savvy users who thought that it was the internet. I was met with blank stares when I opened another IE instance.

In many cases, companies that develop software for non-tech-savvy users go the extra mile to make things easy to use. For me, it's been easy to believe that it was somewhat predatory to make your "thing" a complete portal, but I can see now that it is really a consequence of trying to approach users at their level. What irks me is when it seems like a conscious lock-in strategy.

<comment><USER11> To be fair, initially it was a portal to itself. As in AOL did not original provide internet access, heck it was pre-www days. When they added it making it part of the existing portal interface was logical for various reasons including reducing customer service. But yeah, they also wanted people to use their content over internet sources.

<comment><USER10> Thanks. I forgot all about that. What it became makes a lot of sense in that light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Working in Windows IT with small businesses you run into a lot of non-savvy users. We tolerate a lot of simple issues, I mean simple issues are our bread and butter sometimes, but it can be a little ridiculous. I expect the average office user to know a few things. To remember their username. To be able to choose a different printer than the default. My opinion is that their job, their paycheck, depends on their work on the PC. And they've been using it for decades in some cases, you'd think something would get through. For some though I think its just too abstract, they don't have a good mind for thinking about the computer. And that's ok.

I often feel bad for small business users. If they're living in Microsoft's world and without volume licensing they are forced into whatever new flavors of Office and Windows are in the pipe when they get a new computer. You try explaining that no Office 2013 isn't really all that much better for basic functionality than Office 2003. Or anything about Windows 8.

<comment><USER13> heh, reminds me of office ladies using calculator to _type_ a proper sum of a column into XLS (using computer for 10+ years doing THE SAME THING)

<comment><USER5> I've heard worse. One such office worker is tasked to duplicate an Excel file. She does so by printing the original one, manually drawing the grids with pen and ruler, labeling the columns, and then typing it all in cell by cell.

She works by the hour and earns massive amount of cash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I imagine most fields have a lot of jargon too; it's just that technology is one of the few areas that has become essentially ubiquitous, so we notice the difference between technology-savvy and non-technology-savvy more often.

I imagine that in the eyes of tax experts, we are all totally ignorant of how we could make the most out of the tax system.

<comment><USER15> In my opinion, that's exactly the problem. I don't understand how people don't do the math in their head that spending half an hour learning* to be more efficient at something that you use for hours and hours every day is worth it. I couldn't get my oft-texting mom to switch to T9 (back in the era of dumbphones) because she didn't want to "waste her time" (though she was fine constantly pecking out texts more than twice as slowly as she could have been). I finally convinced my mom once she saw that it only took my _grandma_ a day to pick it up.

*Even just by asking a friend. In my experience, tech-savvy friends (including myself) are extremely willing to explain how things work, since it's a welcome respite from "just fix it"

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Having done loads of tech support for old people, I've really got used to being sensitive about the terminology I used - and their 'alternative' terms.

Some of the best examples: \- 'the green' for the desktop (that teal desktop background from Win98) \- 'e' for the internet ("So when I'm on e...") \- 'the computer' for the screen - particularly hard to diagnose over the phone

Also, several times I fell foul to the old bash.org facepalmer of physical action when I ask if they can "open a window". Skeomorphism can be confusing.

<comment><USER17> It's not like these things have labels on them. (Well Win8 finally has a button that says "Desktop".) "Window" and "cursor" and "icon" etc is really just jargon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Many people _don 't_ struggle to understand how to use computers. They don't understand them particularly well, but they don't struggle to understand them either. They rise to a level with the problems that they want to use the system to address and then... their understanding is adequate until something goes wrong.

What possible motivation would they have to learn more? Okay, they might use a computer in their job - but inefficiency there is often their employer's problem, and considering you can't run arbitrary code on most companies systems (their IT policy generally excludes this) they benefit nothing from learning a programming language.

What does that leave them with? A games machine perhaps, a glorified typewriter with some telecoms capabilities to all intents and purposes.

The concept of computers as a general tool simply does not exist to many people. Consequently it's little wonder that they know next to nothing about them.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've always assumed younger users were sharper at correcting problems and knowing most of these terms since electronics were available at younger ages. Seems like more opportunities to accidentally discover fixes/areas/tools/etc.

Our recently created business targets relatively older users, so we had to make adjustment for knowledge levels similar to what this article mentions.

Favorite quote from article, "This fix was easy: switch to Chrome (remove 5 different search toolbars!) and voila, baby and cat photos and Bubble Safari all working as intended."

Thanks Mark Zuckerberg!

</comment><comment><USER20> Some of my friends (no maxi geek but 30 yo, gamers, smartphone users ...) still type google.com in chrome bar in order to type Facebook in google and then access FB via search results ... Mindfuck

<comment><USER21> I'll bet they also don't use the scroll wheel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Related: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ) Asking passersby in Times Square what is a browser.

<comment><USER23> What's most interesting about this, I think, is people's unwillingness to admit they don't know something. No one wants to look stupid, or ignorant, or uneducated, even in front of complete strangers. I'm certainly guilty of this, I suspect most of us are.

<comment><USER15> Hell if anything (at least for me), doing it in front of complete strangers makes it way worse. I freely admit ignorance to people I know even slightly well; they already know I'm a certain level of intelligence, so I don't worry as much about one contradictory data pt. By contrast, in front of strangers, the only thing they'll know about me is my ignorance in that situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Back in 1996 I had a side gig teaching Internet 101 to people who generally had just bought their first computer at WalMart and were afraid to open the box. Every class the first mention of "mouse" caused a few hands to go up and ask what a mouse was. Most of them had the mouse in their other hand at the time. We used Yahoo for search, and Alta Vista for the 'Advanced Search Strategies" class.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why do we need to remember these people? Car manufacturers don't have to say "wait, what if they don't know what a door handle is."

<comment><USER26> A door handle is much simpler concept. Car manufacturers do have to say "wait, what if they don't know what a transmission is?"

<comment><USER15> I don't know about that. It seems like the complexity of operating a car (at least in terms of "# of things you need to know about") is pretty similar to that of a computer (at least on Linux/Mac systems; Windows is needlessly complicated for the non-tech-savvy user imo).

In a car the things you HAVE to understand are the shifter, (P/D/N), the interplay between gas/brake/coasting (which is more complex than it sounds; just ask any new driver), the array of necessary controls for auxiliary devices (headlights, windshield wipers, side-view mirror controls, etc). EDIT: forgot the emergency brake, and all the rules/mechanics of the road (stop signs, parking on a hill, left turns, right turns, etc etc etc etc)

For a computer, for most people's day-to-day usage, the only things you really need to understand are: logging in to the computer, the browser, Google, and the URL bar (technically optional, as many people use Google directly for everything). I understand that, complexity-wise, each of these don't match up one-to-one with the car example, but the fact remains that with very little effort, and almost no "under-the-hood" understanding, you can become what passes for "savvy" these days.

Anecdotally, my dad has always been extremely non-tech-savvy; He had _years_ of being set in his cargo cult usage of his computer (in which he didn't really distinguish between having a browser open and being on his att yahoo homepage, having a window minimized and having it closed, logging into yahoo and logging into the computer, etc). I was able to explain to him the 3 or 4 pieces that fit together using a simple example (e.g. "websites are places you go, the browser is the vehicle that gets you there", etc). He still doesn't necessarily understand anything even marginally under-the-hood; But he understands the operation of a computer (for his purposes) pretty solidly, and no longer has the issue of being helpless when the situation he encounters deviates slightly from what he's used to (i.e. opening the browser and not being logged in to yahoo, for whatever reason).

<comment><USER26> I think you're glossing over things. How to use a mouse. The difference between moving your mouse cursor and focusing a text field. How to double click. (most new mouse users have trouble with this) How to turn the machine on and off. Clipboard. I don't have much experience with non-Windows OSes, so I won't comment on that. But everything inside a computer is necessarily more abstract than a door handle, since it doesn't physically exist. IMO that makes it harder to understand necessarily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Every conversation I have with someone who's having browser troubles:

"What browser do you use?" "I don't use a browser, I use the internet"

I then know exactly what the problem is.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is interesting, many of the people I talk with believes that the browser is "internet". Which makes me giggle a bit inside everytime.

</comment><comment><USER28> It reminds me: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ](https://youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ)

</comment><comment><USER20> Remembering ? Those people are the huge majority.

<comment><USER29> 'Remembering' as in 'bearing in mind' rather than 'looking back nostalgically' (i.e. as in 'remember to look both ways before you cross the road'). My first instinct on seeing the title was the same as yours.</comment></comment>


Inside Intellectual Ventures, the most hated company in tech - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57496641-38/inside-intellectual-ventures-the-most-hated-company-in-tech/ <comment><USER2> IV is simply milking the hole in patent system that you don't actually have to produce anything real to get the patent. The actual model they keep talking about (like laser zappers) are just "token" stuff that they can show to journalist to make case that they are not like other trolls. The fact is that IV have far many troll patents than real stuff they have built to show off.

Not sure why Nathan needs to do all these things to hurt technology world when he is already billionaire and enough money to last several generations. Person with his brain power could do much better things for tech world. He is in essence showing patent trolls how to be socially acceptable even if you are doing the bad stuff for the current and next generations. He has innovated successful trolling business model that is going to hurt a lot to humanity at the personal gain of trolls.

IV is legitimization of patent trolling in the same way lobbing is legitimization of bribery in political system.</comment>


RS-232 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232 <comment><USER2> I use Rs-232 almost every day at work. So I guess this does not seem that exotic.

@OP what was your prompt to post this?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps he just discovered it?

It's no longer ubiquitous as it used to be, PC motherboards don't even have the 10 pin IDC header anymore.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, just discovered it on my BenQ projector.

<comment><USER2> Ahh! Thanks for the clarification.

I feel old :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox Transfer - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/transfer/about <comment><USER2> Good to see them finally doing something addressing actual user needs for a change, instead of chasing greener pastures. Given my informal observations over the years, I wouldn't be surprised if transferring large files was the main need that drives users to Dropbox - when dealing with individuals and companies outside tech, I frequently saw them giving the advice to "get a Dropbox" when someone needed to send them more files than fit in an e-mail.

<comment><USER3> I suspect the bundled OneDrive in Office365 is hurting them. Dropbox is better, but hard to justify if you already have something that's good enough.

<comment><USER4> I left Dropbox because they count shared space against everyone involved, which makes me cannot share the "photos" folder with my wife (unless we both purchase the 1T plan). Not sure whether they changed this practice. I am a satisfied OneDrive+Office365 user now.

<comment><USER5> I had this happen recently. Our photographer from our wedding shared the photos on dropbox but we couldnt see them because we didnt have dropbox pro and the folder was over the free size limit! Why does it matter how much space I have if someone else is sharing them with me?!?!

<comment><USER6> It's not about your space, it's about your payment. If someone like a pro photographer shares their stuff with clients all the time, then their dropbox subscription won't necessarily cover all of that bandwidth. [1] Companies like dropbox only mention bandwidth in fine print or buried somewhere deep in the FAQ, but bandwidth is a key resource that every dropbox user consumes and dropbox has to pay for.

\--

[1] It might if dropbox was a more lean operation, but it isn't.

<comment><USER7> If it's the bandwidth that's so important, why isn't Dropbox charging the receiver for Dropox Transfer files?

The postal system solved this problem ages ago, you charge the sender postage. Done.

<comment><USER8> You'd have to increase the plan's price (bad) or charge a fee per share (horrible).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Check out [https://send.firefox.com](https://send.firefox.com)

<comment><USER10> I've used that a few times to send myself files. I like the option to set max downloads. However, the dropbox option seems to add the custom logo option which is kind of cool for SMBs.

<comment><USER11> Firefox Send is open source, so you could brand it yourself if you want to self-host. Dropbox wins if you want to provide a payment method and let someone else deal with running it though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the first thing Dropbox has done in a long while that makes sense to me as an external observer. Great product idea and totally reinforces the prime Dropbox use cases.

</comment><comment><USER13> Collected alternatives from the comments here:

[https://wetransfer.com/](https://wetransfer.com/)

[https://swisstransfer.com/](https://swisstransfer.com/)

[https://transfer.midrive.io/](https://transfer.midrive.io/)

[https://send.firefox.com/](https://send.firefox.com/)

[https://transfer.sh/](https://transfer.sh/)

ps: I _really_ wish HN supported basic markdown so we can make bullet lists and other simple formatting controls, nothing wild like citation/footnote support just the top 5-10 markups. Trying to make a list of URLs to share looks like ass here.

<comment><USER14> I've been building a list[1] of file transfer tools with their perks, there's a few new ones from this thread that I will add.

I used to run a transfer service myself but it wasn't up to scratch with the competition and it was costing me money so I decided to aggregate them instead.

\-- [1] [https://fastest.fish/](https://fastest.fish/)

<comment><USER15> > I've been building a list

I just curios when found that MediaFire[0] service not added in this list yet ;)

[0] [https://www.mediafire.com](https://www.mediafire.com)

<comment><USER14> Added, thanks!

I definitely don't have them all!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I do music production as a side hobby. Virtually all the producers and studios I've worked with use WeTransfer. It's fast, efficient, and free.

I can't see any reason to switch.

<comment><USER17> That's a really nice service, thanks for the rec. From the name I expected it to feel cheap like WeChat but I'm very glad to be wrong, it seems pretty much perfect.

<comment><USER18> How is WeChat cheap?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can we really trust Dropbox for such activity ? Just wondering... I Get it , we can of course encrypt file before sending anything to dropbox, but anyway... Just curious on your opinion ! There is also send file from Firefox, with lower limit of course....[https://send.firefox.com/](https://send.firefox.com/)

<comment><USER20> That depends entirely of your threat model. One can't simply issue a blanket statement that could suit any potential user of Dropbox.

E.g. if a marketing firm would like to send over a company presentation video to a client, perhaps that artifact isn't sensitive at all. It all depends on the specific circumstances, IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "try for free" \- can't see what the pricing for this is anywhere. Does it require Dropbox plus?

<comment><USER22> You need Pro to change the expiration date or set a password.

<comment><USER21> Thanks! Looks like Firefox Send is the better free tool for now then.

<comment><USER23> For occasional uses and normal transfers, Firefox send is really better. Dropbox transfer becomes useful when you want to share files that you already have in your Dropbox.

I use both and they both have their users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's cool that they're doing something obvious and obviously useful this time.

It's sad that we don't have a better way to send files to other people than to create a Dropbox account, upload files, then send a link over email.

I've written [https://filemap.xyz/](https://filemap.xyz/) so people are able to send files and links without having to send URLs, instead you just agree on a common geographical location -- but of course this isn't the best possible solution yet.

<comment><USER25> That's... interesting. Could you share a bit about how you arrived at this approach?

<comment><USER26> There's also the problem that _anyone who knows your address will be able to download your files_ , whereas most other services either seem to have strong access control or unguessable links.

That said, it's an interesting and novel approach.

<comment><USER27> There's a password option...and the world is large. (Although I agree that inhabited regions are far smaller, people are likely to choose their own address, and possible address data collection is a concern: even though it doesn't seem to happen here, not sure if I want to share my location with the recipient)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I use [https://www.swisstransfer.com/](https://www.swisstransfer.com/), which even if it only supports 50Gb and not 100Gb, it is totally free and doesn't need a account to upload the files. Way easier

<comment><USER29> How does Swiss Transfer make money?

(As a Swiss, I love the sound of it. But need to figure out what their model is, otherwise surely if I'm not the customer, I'm the product)

<comment><USER28> They hope you'll use their other products (it's infomaniak.ch, a hosting provider, that operates the service)

<comment><USER13> I found a news article from February with a bunch of info: [https://news.infomaniak.com/en/swiss-alternative- wetransfer/](https://news.infomaniak.com/en/swiss-alternative-wetransfer/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does normal Dropbox have "download notifications"? Is this any different than just emailing a link to a shared Dropbox file?

<comment><USER23> Dropbox transfer notifies you of views and downloads. I'm a paying user and using transfer to send files to friends. It's very useful.

Transfers auto-expire after a week and links invalidate so it's maintenance is minimal for the normal user.

<comment><USER31> The annoying thing is that you can't turn off those notifications, which pop up in your tray and e-mail box. If there were options for turning off notifications it would be perfect for my use case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So I need to have a Dropbox account to be able to use Dropbox Transfer. And Firefox requires me to sign up to be able to use Firefox Send.

Why not MiDrive Transfer. [https://transfer.midrive.io](https://transfer.midrive.io)

<comment><USER33> Firefox Send can be used without signing up. The limitations are 1 GB instead of 2.5 GB, a maximum of 1 download instead of 100 downloads, and a maximum of 1 day instead of 7 days. So it's still useful in certain circumstances.

Why not MiDrive Transfer? I haven't heard of it and don't know how reputable it is. And is it in beta? So it could be buggy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Their answer to Firefox Send?

send.firefox.com

<comment><USER35> Unlikely. I have seen 0 send links around and wetransfer is still king of the office.

I'd like to see some numbers, though.

<comment><USER36> > Unlikely. I have seen 0 send links around

Do you routinely monitor a large portion of file sharing that goes on in the world? Sorry, but this is just a weird (but common) way to make a claim that [something in the tech world] is not used...

I personally use Firefox Send all the time. Works very well and I trust it to do the job.

<comment><USER35> > Do you routinely monitor a large portion of file sharing that goes on in the > world?

I routinely receive assistance requests for expired links that lead to data loss (as in at least once a week) during work hours and assistance requests like "how to upload a folder of files, not just that file" or "where do I put the email ?" or "why are the files gone ? I just sent the link again but my contact says it's not working".

None are about FF send (not for a lack of trying).

> Sorry, but this is just a weird (but common) way to make a claim that > [something in the tech world] is not used...

I monitor enough, without having all the variables in the world and the number of TCP packets that went through Firefox send at hand, to form an opinion that goes something like: "Yeah, that FF send thing isn't catching enough users to impact wetransfer usage significantly any time soon or to force Dropbox into releasing their own spin of the thing." Hence my question - that you conveniently cut off - for numbers. It shows that I am ready to change my mind, that my opinion is just... my opinion.

Yeah, people navigate the world with intuition and mushy feelings and opinions. What's weird is that you are surprised by it and feel like pointing it out.

Of course there'll always be people using niche things... doesn't mean it's relevant at large.

Hacking Gameboy ROM in your free time ? Pretty cool. Guess what, that console is still dead.

> Sorry, but this is just a weird (but common) way to make a claim that > [something in the tech world] is not used...

I don't believe for a moment that you are "sorry".

Sorry, but this is just a weird (but common) way to try to pass for being polite while truly offering a condescending and insincere apology before telling someone that he's wrong.

Do you have numbers to add to the conversation ?

> I personally use Firefox Send all the time. Works very well and I trust it > to do the job.

So do I. So big what ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Dropbox is not going to win me back as a user. Not after they chose to drop support for non-APFS/HFS+ filesystems on macOS without sufficient explanation.

<comment><USER38> What filesystem are you using? ZFS? You don't have any HFS+ or APFS volumes?

<comment><USER37> Correct, I use ZFS for my home directory. I do use APFS for everything else. But I'd have preferred to keep my Dropbox folder under my home so I got rid of Dropbox altogether.

<comment><USER38> To be honest the market for ZFS support must be quite small, and the semantics just different enough to cause unpleasant bugs, so I wouldn't blame them for that.

Interestingly, there are signs that they have been working on support for a wider range of file systems: [https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-brings-back-linux- filesystem-sup...](https://itsfoss.com/dropbox-brings-back-linux-filesystem- support/)

<comment><USER37> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Not sure how I feel that security is casually referenced as a passing thought on that page.

Compare it with something else, like Firefox Send, which puts security and privacy front-and-center in its description. [https://send.firefox.com/](https://send.firefox.com/)

Why should I trust Dropbox Transfer over Firefox Send?

</comment><comment><USER40> Seems useful, and a step in the right direction. I think the future of file sharing is permanent URLs to files stored on decentralized hard drives, with dead simple access control settings (ie here's the list of email addresses that can access this file). You need either ipv6 (plus an ISP that allows port 80), or some sort of proxy for this to work. Range requests must be supported. Also I think it needs to be designed from the ground up for sharing not just with people, but also with apps, just like you can access Google drive data using their API. It's surprising to me that WebDAV is the closest thing we have to an open protocol for doing this sort of thing. I think we need something simpler, with a standardized auth protocol. Maybe RemoteStorage, but honestly it still looks complicated to me.

<comment><USER41> This is a great idea. We can named it hftp :p

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> i prefer [https://glft.gucci.com:3443/](https://glft.gucci.com:3443/)

<comment><USER43> Nice hidden internet gem

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> My company (Fortune 500 Aerospace/Defense) has implemented something like this for years now.

I've personally used it to send CAD files to outside manufacturers/suppliers who are under an NDA.

I've really grown to like the service and always wished I could use it for personal stuff so I will definitely be trying this out.

<comment><USER45> If you want to self-host, Nextcloud has this service and it works incredibly well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> 100 GB only in the Professional plan though ($19.99/mo)

<comment><USER38> Doesn't really seem good when Google has:

$ 1.99 100GiB

$ 2.99 200GiB

$12.99 2000GiB

<comment><USER47> But doesn't google scan the files and use them for advertising and profiling you? Yeah I know you can encrypt the data, but my point still stands for "regular" users.

<comment><USER48> I've never heard this before. Is there any evidence (not speculation) that this is true?

<comment><USER49> Is there any proof that Google does not? Scanning user's private data to target them with ads is the primary reason Google offers services. Absent other evidence, the default assumption should be that Google scans as much data as they can.

<comment><USER48> Proving absence of something is an unreasonable standard. Your answer does sound like "no, there is no such evidence" to my ears, though.

<comment><USER49> I guess I wasn't clear. I had something in mind like a public statement from Google saying that they do not scan a particular set of data. I would accept that as evidence. Absent a statement from them either way, I assume they read whatever is uploaded to their servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> When I saw this I thought, Finally, A Way to Transfer Large Files. But alas, it is only for small files, up to 100GB. And it gives no indication of using resumable and fault tolerant transfer.

If you want to transfer a large amount of data (like backups or any big data collection, like a couple of years of RAW photos) via the cloud (e.g. because of NAT and firewalls) it is still better to rent a machine from Linode/Digital Ocean/OVH and use a tool like BT Sync or rsync (simple but low bandwidth).

<comment><USER50> > And it gives no indication of using resumable ... transfer

Don't you get that from HTTP?

And while I'm sure 100 GB is small for your domain whatever that is, surely you can't be so unaware to know that this is going to be sufficient for the vast majority of consumers, businesses, and academics?

I don't think I've ever handled a file that was 100 GB and I'm not a non- technical person.

<comment><USER38> Individual files sure but apart from sending one file there are many more transfer jobs. People can buy 4TB HDDs from their office supplies store, and the fastest way to transfer data remains putting it in the mail, not because of bandwidth but lack of services. Cloud backup is much cheaper than buying a tape array and administrator, but at present that is all you can do with it -- backup. You should easily be able to have TB of personal data in the cloud and send any file/directory, without worrying about how big it is.

Resumable transfers seem to fail a lot with http. Block level differencing (like dedup) can also make things a lot faster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> i'm a huge fan of magic wormhole for simpler workflows (e.g. send some files in a dir within a local network). it's CLI based, so not for your average computer laborer but it's easy, secure, compact, and awesome for moving things around.

[https://github.com/warner/magic-wormhole](https://github.com/warner/magic- wormhole)

</comment><comment><USER52> Ha. I could do this with git, an ec2 instance, sftp a few Perl scripts and 200 lines of JavaScript.

Why would I use this service?

<comment><USER53> Jab at this... right?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Been a loyal user for years. Recently switched to pcloud for better pricing and Linux compatibility.

They also offer a free 5gb transfer tool: [https://transfer.pcloud.com/](https://transfer.pcloud.com/)

</comment><comment><USER55> This was from back in July right? Or is this something different? [https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/product-tips/send-large- file...](https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/product-tips/send-large-files- transfer)

</comment><comment><USER56> This is amazing, but I wonder if traditional enterprises would accept Dropbox to be secure. In the startup world, this will be great though.

</comment><comment><USER57> What's wrong with GG Drive? In my country people use GG Drive to share all kind of files.

<comment><USER58> Is this specific to Eastern Europe? I've never had anyone send me a GG link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> 100 GB is a great value proposition. Is it E2E encrypted?

<comment><USER60> I doubt it would be. Dropbox's model for file storage has always been to encrypt the data with its own key on the server.

<comment><USER61> .. and to also de-duplicate files across users to avoid repeatedly storing the same file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py that endoplasmic reticulum staircase animation was totally worth turning on JS for, can't wait for someone to make one of these IRL

</comment><comment><USER62> Sounds great, what about E2E encryption though?

</comment><comment><USER63> So like Firefox Send with a bigger quota?

</comment><comment><USER64> If you need to send large files to someone, you can use Firefox Send:

[https://send.firefox.com/](https://send.firefox.com/)

The file is encrypted, the urls are expiring, it costs nothing.

<comment><USER65> This is limited to 1GB. Dropbox is limited to 100GB file size.

<comment><USER66> That's their pro version. Free is limited to 100MB

<comment><USER67> Given that we hit a file size limit with the paid version of Box at the work the other day, this is welcome news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm done with Dropbox. I spent years preaching the Dropbox gospel to my family and friends. When Dropbox decided to fuck their free users by limiting them to three devices I got over a dozen pissed-off phonecalls blaming me.

<comment><USER69> I would have asked them why they felt entitled to space, bandwidth, and computing power on someone else's computers.

<comment><USER70> Why offer it only to yank it?

<comment><USER69> I don't know what the offerer's motivations are, but I do know from experience that there's no reason to expect an indefinite supply of free stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I dropped my paid Dropbox account when they instituted "two factor authentication" because it broke the use case of file transfer between trusted parties using a single account. Now I'm going to drop my OneDrive account for the same reason.

<comment><USER72> You can also share the MFA private key if you really want to, and it's excellent security for 99,999999% of the use cases otherwise.

Or just use 2 accounts and share the file...

<comment><USER71> I don't use MFA because it requires me to provide a phone number. SMS is not a reliable authentication method anyway - it's only an improvement for people who can't manage passwords.</comment></comment></comment>


10x is a state of being. It's not a type of engineer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/1c5cb0a61a1d

<comment><USER2> His last question: "How do I prevent my engineers from performing at 1/10x?"

Did he mean 1/10x, or (1/10)x, or (as I suspect based on the substance of the discussion) did he mean (1/10)(10x) = x ?

You would have thought that a _real_ 10x programmer would not make an operator precedence error like that!

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah... the conclusion got complicated, but I hope the point remains :)</comment></comment>


Which College Degrees Get the Highest Salaries? - <AUTHOR> http://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/ <comment><USER2> I'm more curious; which jobs out there have the highest starting salaries? College new grads with a bachelors in computer science are likely to clear at least ~150k in total comp at the large tech companies. Are there other fields which have higher entry level compensation?</comment>


CSS Space Shooter - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelbromley.co.uk/experiments/css-space-shooter/

<comment><AUTHOR> This reminded me a lot of Starwing/Starfox -- simple mechanics but a nice feel to it.</comment>


GitHub removes 5 years of One Hour One Life designer's work - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/jasonrohrer/status/1136092621149880320 <comment><USER3> Jason Rohrer [1] is the author of Passage [2].

His latest game, "One Hour One Life" [3], is a massively multiplayer online game where your character has only one hour of life. You start off as a baby and are dependent on others for shelter and heat before you're able to be autonomous. Eventually you die of old age but your impact on the world/server persists.

I recommend anyone interested to purchase the game [4] or at least look at video stream of gameplay [5].

When I purchased the game, the source code came with it and as far as I could tell was dedicated to the public domain. This was client code so I'm not sure if the server code is released anywhere (maybe this was what was taken down at GitHub).

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_\(video_game\))

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

[4] [http://onehouronelife.com/](http://onehouronelife.com/)

[5] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu7kXKuShks&list=PLcA1QDRup-...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu7kXKuShks&list=PLcA1QDRup- hZXT8_lcVXaXcRyR-nJgfih)

<comment><USER4> He's also idiosyncratic in the approach to the rest of his life. When he practiced 'simple living,' in his front yard he had (or still has?) a small wild garden with uncut grass, where he of course walked barefoot and his children played naked (iirc). He was taken to the court by neighbors on the issue of grass, and appeared there with a tome of paper citing local laws and research that says cut grass exudes harmful substances. Whereupon he was left to do as he pleases.

The article on Rohrer, which included this anecdote, theorized that his court appearance proved his gardening choices to be a matter of principle and not just negligence, thus changing the perception of him by the neighbors.

Meanwhile, his 'Passage' is in MOMA's initial videogame collection, and he's had a solo exhibition at The Davis Museum.

<comment><USER5> It would seem that he has some idiosyncratic neighbors, then. But they are not alone, a certain amount of people are strangely obsessed by the grass of their neighbors. My kids loved the dandelions of my grass and I let them grow, but then I received regular bullying by the old lady next to our place, who had a "perfect" french style garden, and looked at us as if we were some kind of savages. I actually found this bevavior rather funny.

<comment><USER6> Dandelions used to be both cultivated and consumed, it is only in modern times that we've decided it's a weed.

<comment><USER7> I have often purchased dandelion greens at my local farmer's market - they are great sautéed!

<comment><USER8> Be sure to harvest when they're new. They turn tough and bitter with age.

Like us.

<comment><USER9> Or worse, bitter and weak.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> <Big corporation> removes <large body of work> without notice or consultation.

How often do we have these articles? Averaging once a month? Maybe more?

How often does it need to happen before people realise that your $10/mo means jack shit to a multi-million dollar company, and "accidents" like this are just a cost of business to them. Solving the problem properly would cost a lot more than just letting people fall through the cracks of automation.

<comment><USER11> So what should we do? What price do we need to pay to exceed the "jack shit" threshold? Specific recommendations please.

<comment><USER12> Do your own backups on physical drives you own of anything truly irreplaceable

<comment><USER13> Or host your backups on DigitalOcean.

<comment><USER14> Maybe not the best choice in light of them deleting this guy's entire app, db, and backups the other day: [https://twitter.com/w3Nicolas/status/1134529316904153089](https://twitter.com/w3Nicolas/status/1134529316904153089)

<comment><USER15> I'm guessing GP was making a joke, considering the recent DO "scandal".

BTW as was made clear by multiple HN commenters in other discussions about this incident, nothing was actually deleted, the customer's account was suspended for 30+ hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The frustrating thing to me is that this guy will get this solved and we'll all move on. He's reasonably well known and had enough Twitter juice to get attention. All the small people who end up in this situation, whatever it truly is, without those resources will remain screwed.

<comment><USER17> I get what you're saying, and agree to a degree.

On the other hand this is like not backing up your hard drive. Having a single point of failure and expecting anything less is...

Like you said, he's big enough to shout into the abyss and get a response, while others have to accept that a single point of failure is exactly that.

If we changed the headline to hacker deletes '5 years worth of work', the response would be different; two-factor should have been enabled, should have used a strong password, one password per account, yubi-key, etc. The onus would have been on the developer.

There are plenty of free hosting services for repos, so there's no reason IMO to not maintain a mirror.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> According to an earlier tweet [1], the reports are from users who are mad they were banned from his discord server.

> Actually, it seems like this "report" to discord came on the heels of us > banning a member for posting offensive content. That member then, to seek > revenge, reported the entire server to Discord, and told us about it. Nice.

I've experienced similar immature behaviour in the Minecraft community back when it was at its popularity peak.

[1] [https://twitter.com/jasonrohrer/status/1119751548542652416](https://twitter.com/jasonrohrer/status/1119751548542652416)

<comment><USER19> I've helped run a forum in the past, and holy shit is it scarily easy to make stupidly-determined enemies. Even people who joined just to spam offensive content would act like they were the one victimized when banned and would do all sorts of things to "even the score". I think these people would emotionally forget that they joined looking for a fight and earned their ban in the first place, and would then ride the high of righteous indignation.

<comment><USER20> Online forums for random topics used to be the last refuge of the mentally unstable. I've moderated several forums and saw this behavior first hand; a banned user would spend so much time and effort trying to stir the pot and get back at the forum's owners for their Injustice. I often wondered why would they choose to waste so much time in a niche forum rather than go do something productive.

Naturally, nowadays they have online forums that _cater_ to this kinds of individual (4chan, some subreddits, etc). Nature, um.. finds a way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That is terrible and a good reminder that using the "cloud" means that you don't really control your destiny. A quick googling around reveal a couple of options for backing up everything from github (but I'm not sure what you'd do with a backup if you got kicked out like the OP).

<comment><USER22> It's also a good reminder of why data portability is important. For the git part, you can just git push to another service, even a selfhosted one, and be up and running in no time, and GitHub does keep pages and wikis in git... but all the tickets, that's a problem, and why I don't trust GitHub to be a canonical source for development.

<comment><USER23> Gitlab has a feature to copy an entire Github repo including issues and issue threads, etc.

You can also enable options for it to act as a mirror or to make GitHub act as the mirror for Gitlab. I'm not sure whether there is a mode to keep the issue threads synced as well without manual intervention. That'd be full data portability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Must have been a mistake. It's there again: [https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife](https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife)

I also found this comment on his site:

Tarr (1,819.0 hours on record) Posted 42 hours ago

"Can't recommend the game to anyone who either doesn't have 15+ years of game development or doesn't know Jason personally. Game dynamics are too rich for a filthy casual like myself. If you want to make a suggestion please learn to read spaghetti code and hope the copypasta is as delicious as it is hard to untangle."

Which is interesting, because Jason's C++ code is one of the very best I've ever read. I normally hate C++, but his code is beautiful and very readable. Like out of a book or tutorial. E.g. [https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/blob/master/gameSourc...](https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/blob/master/gameSource/AutoUpdatePage.cpp)

Also his dischord game support channel is filled with hate about him. Not only by this guy, but by many seemingly childish individuals. Looks like another gamer gate to me.

<comment> V-2 I'm admittedly not proficient in C++, but I can't see what's beatiful about the code. Looking at the specific example you linked to... inconsistent formatting and "magic values" aside, what's the point of, say:

            if( !relaunched ) {
                printf( "Relaunch failed\n" );
                setSignal( "relaunchFailed" );
                }
            else {
                printf( "Relaunched... but did not exit?\n" );
                setSignal( "relaunchFailed" );
                }

Instead of simply:

            if( !relaunched ) {
                printf( "Relaunch failed\n" );
                }
            else {
                printf( "Relaunched... but did not exit?\n" );
                }
            setSignal( "relaunchFailed" );

?

Such copy-pasta style redundancy does count as somewhat sloppy in my book.

And do C++ books or tutorials recommend cramming over 20 KLOC in a single file? [https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/blob/master/gameSourc...](https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/blob/master/gameSource/LivingLifePage.cpp)

I don't have any bone to pick with the guy, whom I don't know and who I'm sure may be very talented.

I only fail to see why code quality, beauty even, would be considered a forte of this particular project.

<comment><USER25> It's probably a mistake done after refactoring. The guy is only human you know.

<comment> V-2 Magic strings and numbers all over the place are less likely to be refactoring artifacts.

Of course he's only human, but it wasn't me who picked this little (80 LOC) file, of all the codebase, as an example of code being like "out of a book or tutorial" :)

And what about stuff such as 20 KLOC in a single file? This _is_ spaghetti, no matter how you spin it. I wouldn't want to work with such codebase.

<comment><USER26> It isn't really clear that splitting up your code into a bunch of files is always a good thing. Sometimes it becomes harder to search, for some people switching files incurs a sort of mental cost (like walking through a doorway), it can make compilation slower, and depending on your editor you might have to do some extra configuration to work well with your directory structure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nat Friedman just replied to this tweet:

> Sincere apologies Jason. We will investigate what happened here and learn > from it.

[https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1136216389054881792](https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1136216389054881792)

</comment><comment><USER28> [https://www.softwareheritage.org/](https://www.softwareheritage.org/)

"We collect and preserve software in source code form, because software embodies our technical and scientific knowledge and humanity cannot afford the risk of losing it.

Software is a precious part of our cultural heritage. We curate and make accessible all the software we collect, because only by sharing it we can guarantee its preservation in the very long term. "

</comment><comment><USER29> FWIW, [https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife](https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife) appears to be there at the moment (20190605T0812+0100) (along with 22 other repositories.)

<comment><USER30> Yeah, seems to be back up. That link (along with [https://github.com/jasonrohrer](https://github.com/jasonrohrer)) was 404ing when this was submitted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> From being on the other side of this kind of "big company screws little guy for no reason"...

In ~80% of cases, there is more to the story than meets the eye. For example maybe a legal complaint came in, or someone was DoS attacking that repo and it put the whole GitHub service at risk.

<comment><USER32> so in 20% of the cases it really is a big company just screwing a little guy for no reason?

<comment><USER33> Or there are more than 2 options I suppose

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Setting up your own git remote takes minutes. Github is just a pretty interface with bells and whistles. I think more people should go self hosted. It's cheaper, and none of the features are truly needed.

<comment><USER35> > none of the features are truly needed

I think ease of contribution and discovery shouldn't be underestimated. I find it hard to believe that our little project [1] would have had 90+ contributors, of whom ~8 made very substantial contributions, if we'd self- hosted it. The project would have been far lesser without those contributions, and I probably would have abandoned it out of lack of interest.

That said, most other projects I see around have much more uneven contribution levels, with typically 100:1 ratios from the core developer to the second biggest contributor. Maybe we're just weird.

[1]: [https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/graphs/contributors)

<comment><USER36> well shepherding a project is truly important if you want contributors - <USER2> have to tag issues that are good for noobs, help people with pull requests, not blow off issues that are requests for more documentation of how a module works etc etc. a lot of which i can see you're doing by looking at your issues tab.

Another sad fact of life nowadays is that github issues reduce friction but a lot of "hardcore" developers prefer email or some other offsite system that has lots of friction to people getting involved(i see this a lot in gitlab/bitbucket/sourcehut hosted projects). which means an open source noob is going to look at another project instead of getting involved with yours(again not an issue with you). for better or worse github is king here.

most open source projects don't bother and tend to rely on interest levels to keep them afloat. this works for the popular ones but tends to sink niche projects

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> How does this keep happening, across all these different services? The very least you could do is give the account a few days' warning via email, which is totally automatable. There's no excuse for not doing that.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seems it's been a busy week for these reminders not to trust centralized services.

I think the the "Fediverse" will become more popular over the next few years.

<comment><USER39> There are in fact people who are already trying to "federate" code collaboration [https://nth.io/notice/7652](https://nth.io/notice/7652)

<comment><USER40> That's interesting. IIRC Linus Torvalds even came up with a tool to make "distributed/federated" code collaboration quite easy, avoiding any reliance on a single centralized host. Maybe we should start making use of it.

<comment><USER39> Is this a sarcastic comment? Because it sounds like you're comparing two completely different things. Federation addresses a completely different problem than tracking file changes. It's supposed to make it simpler to collaborate across different platforms, whether you're using the command line or a platform the likes of github, gitolite, gitlab, or a desktop IDE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Huh? It's a game. On Steam.[1] It's not a copy of anything; it's quite original. Has good reviews.

[1] [https://store.steampowered.com/app/595690/One_Hour_One_Life/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/595690/One_Hour_One_Life/)

</comment><comment><USER42> I feel like I need more information.

<comment><USER43> Twitter in a nutshell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> We need to hear 2 sides of a story. Github does not just 'delete' files. Author should contact them first and resolve any issues there is. And if github refuse that, than you can cry a river.

<comment><USER45> Is it not incumbent upon Github to contact the author before deleting his account?

<comment><USER15> Maybe they did but it ended up in his spam filter or he unintentionally ignored it? As GP said, we need 2 sides to the story to make any judgements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I just backed up ~100 repos & ~500 issues, totaling ~100 MB of json and git tracked code.

Everything's right there waiting for you.

[https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github- backup](https://github.com/josegonzalez/python-github-backup)

</comment><comment><USER47> 5 years of work

doesn't have a backup

can't be that important

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm sure he'll get it resolved.

But come on people, "in the cloud" doesn't mean it is safe. If you care at all about what you're storing in the cloud, make copies to store locally and offsite.

</comment><comment><USER49> well the beauty of git is that the entire repository is more than likely cloned in a few different places and is easily reproduced. Also makes it nice and easy to move elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER50> there is fork [https://gitlab.com/_zed_/OneLife](https://gitlab.com/_zed_/OneLife) (with keyboard as it says)

</comment><comment><USER51> What solution exist for me to keep a complete copy of my github account offline or keep an uptodate backup? Mainly all the repos, I started and just forked.

</comment><comment><USER52> Surely they weren't keeping everything only on GitHub, and had locally stored copies, right? Right?

</comment><comment><USER53> I suppose it's good to review all your big assumptions once in a while.

OP assumed GitHub would hold his code (and make it available) forever, seemingly a good assumption. Now he's massively inconvenienced.

Time for me to look around, consider all my big assumptions....

</comment><comment><USER54> What's the reason? What the heck is Github doing.

</comment><comment><USER55> I don't understand, doesn't he have the repo locally?

<comment><USER56> Might be annoying if he uses Github wikis, pull requests, issues, etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> The only lesson to be learned here, one that needs to be repeated time and time again:

Don't put all your eggs into one basket.

<comment><USER58> Don't put all your projects in one cloud

And... Use Gitlab

<comment><USER59> Gitlab too had incidents, remember db backup fiasco ? I know few devs that lost issues and wikis that day.

Just backup your repos once a year, lets not be paranoid.

<comment><USER60> In case of GitLab, the incident was caused by a human error, and they worked hard to fix it afterwards. GitHub and DigitalOcean (to name the ones recently mentioned on HN) have delibrately set up automated kill switches with no possibility of appeal, sans crying on Twitter. Sure, when data is lost then it may not matter in the end, but I'm still more sympathetic to the former.

<comment><USER59> Indeed, how GitLab handled the incident was exemplary. That is entirely different topic.

<comment><USER61> Here's the blog post about it [https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/01/gitlab-dot- com-database-...](https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/01/gitlab-dot-com-database- incident/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Saying "they removed my life's work" when you has a local copy of it is, at best, intellectually dishonest.

<comment><USER63> Not really, that's what physically happened.

Local copy may have been deleted. Developer may have just got a new laptop and traded the old one. Argue at length over having multiple redundant backups perhaps, but the simple truth is his work was deleted, and it's only by luck (or foresight) he has a local copy.

That it even happened is a huge problem, whataboutism aside. My trust in the longevity and stability of the service offered by GitHub is significantly eroded by this news.</comment></comment>


Ruby Rogues Podcast - Security Exploits with Patrick McKenzie - <AUTHOR> http://rubyrogues.com/093-rr-security-exploits-with-patrick-mckenzie/

<comment><AUTHOR> Patrick on the RubyGems exploit, "The ultimate nightmare scenario would have been ... to put back doors or root kits into commonly used Gems. And then, anybody who types bundle update, or Gem install anything for a period of weeks or months before it's discovered, would have their machines rooted. That's the ultimate nightmare apocalypse for the Ruby community kind of disaster. I think we missed that by minutes. It was a very close thing. I hate to sound overly dramatic. But it's kind of like Cuban missile crisis level, as far as software is concerned, right?"</comment>