In Praise of Walking - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jul/28/its-a-superpower-how-walking-makes-us-healthier-happier-and-brainier <comment><USER2> January 2001, ten weeks of chronic sinusitis turned to pneumonia. This was followed by sleeping 18-20 hours/day for about 3.5 months, plus twice-weekly doctors appointments while they called me _crazy_ for fearing I might die while they ran more tests, stumped as to what was wrong with me.

In May, a sweat chloride test came back positive. The verdict: _atypical cystic fibrosis._

I had already stopped being largely bedridden the month before in April. Many years of rehabilitation would follow.

Walking played a very large role in my recovery. At one point, I was homeless and my daily routine involved walking six to eight hours per day for some months.

The lymphatic system is a key part of this.

Lymphatic fluid is basically your blood stripped of red and white blood cells. While in your blood, it gets moved around by your heart.

But it doesn't stay in your blood vessels. Like water in the Earth's ecosystem, it isn't confined to the creeks and rivers of blood vessels. It seeps out into your tissues like groundwater, becoming _interstitial fluid._

It carries nutrients with it to nourish your tissues as it flows out. It carries wastes with it as it flows back into your blood stream.

While out in your tissues, it is beyond the reach of your pumping heart. Its return trip is typically sluggish.

Unless you are in motion. Then your skeletal muscles fill in where your heart can't reach.

Interstitial fluid returns to your blood at several times it's normal rate when you are active. When, in a word, you _exercise._

Walking helps your body take out the trash, a necessary element of the healing process largely overlooked by our current medical mental models where we think to add inputs in the form of drugs but mostly don't talk about throughputs.

<comment><USER3> This is very interesting to me. An Aunt of mine is a professional Rolfer, and from what I understand the Rolf system heavily emphasizes the existence of non-blood fluid in the body and the importance of moving/loosening it. Perhaps there's more to it than I had thought.

<comment><USER2> Massage and warm salt baths seem to both be helpful and can be especially useful where exercise is not an option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My personal experience with walking began six years ago. I weighed 270 pounds, felt tired and lethargic all the time, huffed and puffed any time I had to climb stairs etc. I decided to make a change, dropped sugar from my many daily coffees, and started walking two miles every night. I mapped out a route around our house and for the first five years I took our dogs with me. Where we live is hilly and initially each night felt like a struggle and I didn't want to do it much of the time. That sort of perversely made it a point of pride to do it regardless, and we went even on nights when it was drizzling or very cold. Six years later the transformation has been pretty satisfying. Down 60 pounds, so much more energy it's hard to describe the difference. I make the whole walk now in 30 minutes easily maintaining four mph up hills and down, and I could hold a conversation while doing it and not sound out of breath. It is now a well-established habit and on those nights when I can't go I feel like a slug :).

<comment><USER5> This is the kind of things that makes me believe that part of the potential collapse will yield very good things. Bad diet, low activity .. all these are super detrimental and are double penalty both financially and existentially.

I'm betting a pinky that we'll all be happier doing "more" simple physical things.

<comment><USER6> I assume by "collapse" you mean economic and social breakdown provoked by climate change and other chaotic forces. In which case most people will die of starvation, and the world will become very nasty indeed.

I agree that modern society is very sick, but I don't think it's productive to look forward to the day when it all falls through. I do not aspire to die of starvation, or (if I survive) to live in feudal society of medieval technology. No matter how much exercise and fresh air I get. We need to think of a way to heal ourselves without losing the social and technological progress we have made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I worry sometimes about the actual effects of exercise on our health, and the legitimacy of these studies. It's impossible to detach these studies from the confounding factors - if your health declines (for any reason), you will stop exercising. I feel like we have to take any studies that use correlations with a grain of salt.

How do you study the effects of exercise when there are such massive confounding variables?

<comment><USER8> I exercise a lot. But I do it mostly for the intrinsic fun part.

I doubt it has a big impact on our health and longevity. Once a research says regular medium intensity exercise could potentially prolong our lives by 3 to 5 years. But that is it. If you exercise for 50 years, 3 times a week, and 1 hour per session plus 30 minutes preparation, that is actually 12150 hours in total and translates into about 2 years of productive life.

So its ROI from a longevity perspective is really not as high as some of us think.

<comment><USER9> The ROI argument is one reason why I commute by bike. 7 days a week no problem, no real preparation time. Takes up time I would otherwise be wasting sitting in a car or public transit.

Last week according to my log I rode for 213 minutes. That's a bit more than 30 minutes per day.

<comment><USER10> You have to take into account that riding a bike is way more risky than using a car.

<comment><USER11> Citation requested.

I've been looking for information on risk, overall, by passenger miles travelled, by trips, and by time-in-mode (which adjusts for typical trip length).

Only partially successful, though I find:

30,690 overall auto fatalities.

\- 6,067 cycling & edestrial fatalities, combined.

\- "More than 90% of pedestrian fatalities occurred when the victims were hit by automobiles and light trucks."

\- "A related study on risk factors for on-road cycling commuters indicated that prior to car-bicycle accidents, 89% of cyclists were traveled in a safe and legal manner. In addition, vehicle drivers were at fault in 87% of the events."

[https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transpor...](https://journalistsresource.org/studies/environment/transportation/comparing- fatality-risks-united-states-transportation-across-modes-time/)

The risk externalities of motorised vs nonmotorised transport appear far greater.

<comment><USER12> The parent didn't mean to say whether cyclists or drivers were more or less at fault, but for every minute/mile spent on a cycle instead of a car, the likelihood of injury is probably higher.

<comment><USER11> Understood. However it's interesting to note that motor vehicles are the major _source_ of cycling risk, all the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In his book _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ , Daniel Kahneman says that walking slowly helps with thinking, while walking fast "brings about a sharp deterioration in my ability to think coherently".

[https://books.google.com/books?id=ZuKTvERuPG8C&q=walking#v=s...](https://books.google.com/books?id=ZuKTvERuPG8C&q=walking#v=snippet&q=walking&f=false)

<comment><USER14> I can relate to this. While cycling I think about stuff and the intensity really determines how focused I can be thinking. During really high intensity cycling my thinking is usually reduced to just a looping line from a song or "go go go"

I was considering if a modification to a standing desk to make it a cycling desk would be a good idea but now I think there is just no point because you will be half assing both exercise and focus. Really what you want to do is do some high intensity effort while doing nothing else and then low intensity stuff while working. A walking desk might still be a good idea if you set it to 2-3km/h. I find standing to be a little uncomfortable for long periods but walking is fine.

<comment><USER15> The issue with a walking desk is that the treadmill only goes one speed, you have to manually adjust it, it doesn't just let you walk naturally. It just wound up being distracting. It's not like the experience of walking and thinking at all.

I would pay good money for one that did.

<comment><USER16> Look into non-motorized treadmills. The curved ones are popular now, they are easier to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The relationship between physical activity and neuroplasticity touched on in this article is also deeply discussed in the book:

Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

[https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science- Exercise-...](https://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise- Brain/dp/0316113514/)

<comment><USER18> Read this quite recently, indeed a very good read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Couple of suggestions for prospective walkers (or rollers) out there. Successful walking is about fine-tuning yourself to your environment. In order to do so you need couple basics straightened out.

Do yourself a favor and get a flat footwear. Zero-drop shoes will help body realign your lumbar spine and neck (heels push the butt outwards, forcing the spine to compensate). Enthusiastic walking, like running, is a repetitive stress activity so you want your joints in their evolved alignment to avoid fatigue or even damage seeping in. Note, if you choose minimal (or the nowadays called barefoot) footwear- go gradually, allow your foot to build it's strength back up.

Be aurally aware of your environment. Apple earbuds (wired or wireless) are very good in this regard, as these'll let you hear stuff around you. Bone- conducting headphones are also a good option.

<comment><USER20> > Be aurally aware of your environment. Apple earbuds (wired or wireless) are > very good in this regard, as these'll let you hear stuff around you. Bone- > conducting headphones are also a good option.

Or, you know, just focus on one thing at a time and don't listen to music/take a call while walking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Personally I am a lot more productive during + after walking in nature. It saves me a lot of time if I walk through a forest before or during writing code. Better code, less mistakes, less refactoring etc etc. The effect (again personally) is far less if not nature but a city for instance.

<comment><USER5> Last week I alternated reading programming books and coding with jogging sessions. Every time I hit a mental block or just coding fatigue. I'd leave and run a bit. It wasn't super effective but overall it avoided stress and gave room for free mind wandering and new ideas.

<comment><USER21> That's why I went from short jobs to long walks; I can pretty much do most my work (70%) while walking (in forests; not in the city; I would get literally hit by a truck). It seems it does not give me the same fatigue is setting and taking pauses in the office.

<comment><USER5> > from short jobs to long walks

I fail to parse that

<comment><USER21> Sorry, jogs... I was actually walking when talking to my phone to post that :) Unlike software, it did not generate a syntax error.

<comment><USER5> haha, I thought about that but really wasn't sure

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm all for walking... Just be mindful to cover up if you take a stroll on your lunch break like I often do. UV damage is scary.

<comment><USER23> >UV damage is scary.

Can you expand on that? Curious to know through your experience.

<comment><USER24> I have fair skin in New England, use facial spf 35 sunscreen daily from May- September, and use spf 70 whenever I'm outside for longer than 15+ minutes. It's important as skin cancer is just bound to happen if you don't use it, as a fair skinned person. Not doing so would mean pieces of face/ear expensively sliced off when you're older. Both my parents grew up w/o sunscreen and got intensive burns, both of them got skin cancer on their face.

But even before old age and cancer, your skin will be healthier and look younger for much longer if you use sunscreen daily, use a hat, avoid 10am-2pm exposure, etc. The last one is interesting because during midday, the sun is directly overhead, meaning there is much less atmosphere between you and it, so even less UV is blocked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I walk 1+ hour per day to commute to and from work (+train).

It's free, great exercise, and on busy days it's a great feeling to overtake all those people trapped in traffic ;)

</comment><comment><USER25> Ever since phones started having pedometers, I've made it a habit to walk around the room while watching TV. During football season, I was often sedentary all day Sunday and am now instead walking for miles. One of the simplest things I've done that has a very positive effect on my health.

That said, when I watch the games in bars on Sunday, people think I'm a bit strange...

<comment><USER26> Yes I pace with most things now. My friends have gotten used to it but anyone else gets nervous and anxious with my constant pacing. I lost the multi-year habit where I averaged about 120K steps/week until quite recently. Now I'm getting back to closing in on that number. Last few weeks have been 110K steps/week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I run from home to the subway station and from the station to home everyday. I can't imagine my life without it anymore.

</comment><comment><USER28> One more reason Lime Scooters suck.</comment>


Ask HN: A clean, simple and helpful Whois bash script replacement - <AUTHOR> I'm having a hard time finding a good bash script to supplement Whois on OS X & Linux. I've searched Github and Stack Overflow.
I can certainly create one, I'm thinking of a wrapper around the current Whois command with additional such as dig. I would like to know if there is something already out there, before I go this route.
Reason for this is, the large amount of unsolicited information returned by Whois e.g Disclaimers, ToS etc. And the lack of information at times. I would like a clean, simple and helpful output.
For example:
domain: example.com ... owner: John Doe ... registrar: GoDaddy ... hosted on: Amazon Cloud ... software: Wordpress (this would be cool) ...
P.s If this turns out to be an idea for a nonexistent thing, I'm happy to take this to Github. <comment><USER2> nothing like that existed yet</comment>


Tom Petty has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-rock-iconoclast-who-led-the-heartbreakers-dead-at-66-w506651 <comment><USER2> This is subjective...

On my list if all-time greatest albums is a slot reserved for Tom Petty. It holds what I feel is his greatest album: _Into the Great Wide Blue_

It is one of the last good albums to be made as the dying art which was the whole album telling a story, or of a concept, in its entirety. Today, the goal is a couple of singles and some filler, and is a small market behind other delivery methods.

The album talks about him, what he has been, and what he had hoped to be. He talked about ideas such as being a rebel without a clue to taking control of his life and not living up to the expectation of others. He spoke about having some fun and just being able to make some noise.

It was a very riveting and passioned album, full of tracks just far ahead of average to be good - but telling a whole story that is great. Is there any one single phenomenal song? Not really... There are no bad songs, either. It's just above average, which is a feat to do across a whole body of work.

It was typical Tom Petty and, I think, the best of his work and thus belonging in my list of favorites. He will be missed.

<comment><USER3> > It is one of the last good albums to be made as the dying art which was the > whole album telling a story, or of a concept, in its entirety.

I was just thinking about that the other day, listening to "Wish You Were Here." I miss that. Maybe it's still out there, and I just haven't found it recently.

<comment><USER2> I have heard some claims that they still exist and I can't argue they don't, only that they are rare and that I don't really enjoy the music from any of the examples I've been shown.

I understand that it is one of the reasons people are enjoying some of the new material on vinyl. As before, the album art ties in with the story/concept.

My struggle is finding some that I an appreciate. I love music from all sorts of genres and music that spans the ages. I have difficulties finding more modern examples to appreciate, unfortunately.

There's a whole bunch of new music. The ability to create and distribute music has never been higher. Discoverability has been difficult, in my case. I struggle to find anything that I can really appreciate.

Note: I am intentionally being careful to not say that the music is not good. I am not in a position to decide what is good. I can only authoritatively state what I enjoy.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept_albums](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_concept_albums)

[https://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2010/11/the-18-bes...](https://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2010/11/the-18-best- concept-albums-of-the-21st-century-so-far.html?a=1)

I am a fan of

Janelle Monae – Metropolis, Suite I: The Chase (2007), The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III) (2010)

what about Deltron 3030, even though its almost 20 years old?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a tragic 24 hours, with the terrorist in Las Vegas last night.

I finally got to see him live this summer with my wife, it was such a highlight of the season. He came across as just a genuine, unpretentious rock and roll star. He was just doing his thing, singing, enjoying the time. His show went on for such a long time I was wondering how he could take doing that night after night on his tour - I was exhausted the next day, after standing for hours, second hand pot smoke everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER6> First concert I ever saw was Tom Petty on his "Hard Promises" tour. In the middle of the set, Stevie Nicks pulled up in a limo and a did her duets with Tom Petty. When you have never been to a rock concert, probably anything would be amazing. But I think back now about how lucky I was to see that.

<comment><USER7> If you haven't seen the 2006 Gainesville, FL DVD, I think you should. Obviously can't pull a limo into an arena, but I experienced a similar moment and couldn't figure out how right before an introduction they snuck a microphone with scarfs onto the stage without me seeing it.

<comment><USER8> Out of the 10 or so TP concerts I have been to, the 2006 Gainesville was my favorite. There was just so much energy in the arena.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _End of the Line_ \- The Traveling Wilburys

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

</comment><comment><USER10> So young. I'm disappointed I missed him this tour :/ Really hope this doesn't turn out to be drug related.

<comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, how old are you? I'm 45 and I don't consider 67 to be young ;-)

<comment> mark-r 67 isn't young, but it isn't an age where you should expect to die either. According to the Social Security tables [1], he should have lived another 17 years. At 45 you should expect 34 more.

[1] [https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html)

<comment><USER12> Not be too persnickety, but your math doesn't add up.

67+17 = 84

45+34 = 79

<comment><USER13> Life expectancy does not go down by 1 year for each year that you age. One way to see this is to look at the fact that, in the US, male life expectancy is 34 years when one is 45 (total of 79 years); yet, the average 80-year-old male is clearly going to live to be more than 79 years old, as they have already survived all of the things that were going to kill them by the age of 79.

Useful data: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_08.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr65/nvsr65_08.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> He is one of the greats, RIP.

@Today - Just go away already..

</comment><comment><USER15> Tom Petty was truly an amazing musician, songwriter and guitarist.

It's said that when he played live he used a different guitar for every song to get the exact perfect sound for each song.

Sort of like how a sommelier can tell the difference between wines that most folks think taste the same, he was like that with guitars and their sound.

<comment><USER16> No offense but a sommelier is a closer comparison to an employee at a record store than a musician. I think you are confusing them with winemakers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well I know what's right I got just one life In a world that keeps on pushin' me around But I'll stand my ground And I won't back down (I won't back down) Hey, baby, there ain't no easy way out (I won't back down) Hey, I will stand my ground And I won't back down

</comment><comment><USER18> The news of his demise has been greatly exaggerated.

<comment><USER19> [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lapd-clarifies-cannot- confirm-t...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lapd-clarifies-cannot-confirm-tom- petty-death/)

<comment><USER20> Why is the LAPD speculating about his medical condition? Does the LAPD run a hospital now and have doctors and nurses on their staff?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My first arena concert at age 14. My friends and I thought we had 'mature taste' compared to the others our age and drove 3.5 hrs to it. Going by the age of the crowd, were were correct. This was 1999.

</comment><comment><USER22> Lots of great memories with his music as a soundtrack, he was nothing less than a legend.

F

</comment><comment><USER23> I loved Tom Petty. He made great music by himself, with the Heartbreakers, and with The Traveling Wilburys.

I will miss him.

</comment><comment><USER24> What a horrible day D:

</comment><comment><USER25> Just watched his documentary (on Netflix) over the weekend and highly recommend it. This guy is a legend and truly hustled to make it to where he did.

<comment><USER26> I watched it over the weekend too, three hours long but a great documentary. In the documentary there was a scene about Roy Orbison's death. Tom's wife told him about it and mere minutes later there was a phone call from George Harrison. George said "Aren't you glad it wasn't you?" and Tom replied "Yep.".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> There is a great footage of him being interviewed in the recent hbo documentary The defiant ones.

</comment><comment><USER28> Was it atherosclerosis? Anyone know?

<comment><USER29> Isn't that something that comes out of an autopsy? If so, it's a little early to hear about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Tom Petty's heart broke :(

</comment><comment><USER31> I remember taking my dad to see him at Tinley Park in Chicago in 2005, very memorable.

</comment><comment><USER32> He may still be alive, albeit barely. [https://twitter.com/tmz/status/914953557614268416](https://twitter.com/tmz/status/914953557614268416)

<comment><USER23> "EMTs were able to find a pulse when they found him, but TMZ reported that the hospital found no brain activity when he arrived. A decision was made to pull life support. CBS confirmed Petty's death. He was 66."

EDIT: Thanks to @erickhill and @protomyth for letting me know that he hasn't passed yet.

<comment><USER33> [https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/status/914956939443920897](https://twitter.com/LAPDHQ/status/914956939443920897)

"(1/2)The LAPD has no information about the passing of singer Tom Petty. Initial information was inadvertantly provided to some media sources"

"(2/2) However, the LAPD has no investigative role in this matter. We apologize for any inconvenience in this reporting."</comment></comment></comment>


Comcast, Mozilla strike privacy deal to encrypt DNS lookups in Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/06/comcast-mozilla-strike-privacy-deal-to-encrypt-dns-lookups-in-firefox/ <comment><USER2> Let me make sure I've got this right:

* Comcast sniffs / records / tracks their user's DNS traffic

* Mozilla announced they would enable DoH by default, to protect end user's DNS data from shady ISPs like Comcast

* Comcast then raised hell about Mozilla's decision (presumably because they would no longer have access to this data)

* Now, Comcast and Mozilla come to some sort of agreement which effectively restores Comcast's access to their customer's DNS traffic?

\---

I'm really confused why Mozilla would agree to this. I _really_ hope this isn't one of the ways they're exploring to "diversify" their revenue streams but, in the last few years, Mozilla has made a lot of decisions that I don't agree with so I suppose I really wouldn't be all that surprised.

<comment><USER3> > Comcast sniffs / records / tracks their user's DNS traffic

Actually not only does Comcast say they don't do that ([https://www.xfinity.com/privacy/policy/dns](https://www.xfinity.com/privacy/policy/dns)) but now has signed a contract to this effect as well, thereby meeting the same level of commitment as the other TRR operators. This means IMO that Mozilla is doing a good job leading the industry on DNS privacy and convincing many of the merits of a strong pro-privacy philosophy.

(disclosure: I work for Comcast and have been working on encrypted DNS)

<comment> Paul-ish If Comcast sells DNS data now, they open themselves up to penalties from the both FTC and Mozilla. FTC because they enforce privacy policies, and Mozilla because of the contract they have.

I would say this Mozilla changing the overall ecosystem for the better.

<comment><USER2> Do we know what the actual penalties are? I have trouble believing that they are of any substance.

Additionally, I think it's safe to say that Comcast has years and years of experience in finding "loopholes" and/or other "workarounds" in its agreements.

> _I would say this Mozilla changing the overall ecosystem for the better._

You obviously have much more faith in Comcast than I do. Let's hope you're right.

<comment><USER4> > _Do we know what the actual penalties are? I have trouble believing that > they are of any substance._

So long as the penalty is less than the value they derive from violating the agreement, they will abuse it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Considering that Comcast sniffs, intercepts, and injects into HTTP web sites for their customer notification system(data cap overages and such) this just screams suspicious to me even if it seems like it is meant to be a good announcement. I am not sure how I am supposed to trust that they will do the right thing for their customers.

<comment><USER6> There is nothing that Comcast can do that would increase my opinion of them re privacy. In my security regime ISPs like them are on the other side. Last-mile ISPs are unsecured public networks that shouldn't be trusted any more than free airport wifi. I want them blind to everything I (and my client) does online. Encrypt everything. Route DNS to trusted non-profit entities. Serve me the encrypted data I request but otherwise I don't want to even have a conversation with Comcast.

<comment><USER7> > Route DNS to trusted non-profit entities.

I'm sure you know this, but some readers might not. DNS is totally insecure. Even if you change your DNS server from the default to 184.108.40.206 or whatever, your ISP can and does still read and/or intercept these requests. This sort of interference is absolutely trivial to implement, even at scale. Don't think it isn't happening to you.

<comment><USER8> ... which is exactly why DoH is gaining attention.

But I keep wondering: Can't the ISP trivially correlate the accessed IP addresses with their corresponding sites even without DNS query data?

<comment><USER9> Only for sites with dedicated IPs. If they're hosted on some sort of cloud service then the ISP has to sniff the SNI data. And with ESNI coming to encrypt it that hole will be plugged soon.

<comment><USER10> That just means moving from the ISP in a prime position for snooping to various CDNs being in that prime position.

You traded one master for another.

<comment><USER11> > _You traded one master for another._

No. By definition, last mile ISP sees 100% of net-bound traffic. "Various CDNs" itself already represents a dilution of that view, and are not universal themselves. It's an inherent improvement even outside of other factors. But there are other factors, including a decrease in the level of natural monopoly. Last-mile ISPs often have zero effective competition, and even with one or two there are often high change over costs, longer term contracts involved, etc. The closer you get to the net's core however, the more bandwidth there is and the more players there are and in turn vastly more competition potential. That's not a guarantee sure, but it absolutely makes a difference. There's also a limiting factor principle at work: even if you do trust a given ISP, how does that help you avoid CDNs anyway?

It's the same reason that spinning up your own instance of an algo VPN on some VPS and funneling all your home and mobile traffic through that may have practical benefits. Sure in principle the VPS (or data center if you go on your own metal) provider could try spying as well. But competition there is fierce, the average technical level of users is higher, major business interests are involved in reputation, and swapping to another provider is utterly trivial. The incentives and business models for the likes of Amazon/DigitalOcean/Google/Microsoft/OVH/Scaleway/Vultr/[...] in their compute offerings are completely different from the likes of AT&T/Charter/Comcast/T-mobile/Verizon. So it is in fact reasonable to expect a difference in the level of shenanigans too, and hey, if not you can easily move, which _also_ in turn makes it much easier as a practical matter to retaliate (sue), which virtuously further decreases the likelihood of shenanigans.

<comment><USER10> You have a contractual relation with your ISP and they're in your jurisdiction so at least in theory you have legal recourse.

Advocating for ESNI on the other hand means argueing for more centralization towards entities which are far more removed from you where you have little recourse. So as far as incentives go they may be more beholden to some law enforcement agency than you the non-customer.

There are difference, but it does not appear to be an obvious improvement to me.

<comment><USER12> I think you bring up good points but your takeaway is 180 off.

Different jurisdiction means less likely to be answerable to your local government should they be oppressive.

The fact you don't have a contractual relationship with a CDN is a good thing because it becomes trivial simply to stop using them, should the need arise. Don't like Cloudflare? block them. Your choice of websites will be reduced greatly but you still have an operational internet connection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Mozilla in November accused ISPs of lying to Congress in order to spread > confusion about encrypted DNS. Mozilla's letter to Congress criticized > Comcast

> NCTA cable lobby that Comcast belongs to wrote a letter to Congress > objecting to Google's plans for encrypted DNS. Comcast gave members of > Congress a lobbying presentation that claimed the encrypted-DNS plan would > "centraliz[e] a majority of worldwide DNS data with Google". Comcast's > lobbying presentation also complained about Mozilla's plan for Firefox.

Compromise, 2020 style: Comcast retains access to it's users DNS data and Mozilla doesn't dogpiled by NCTA-purchased legislators.

<comment><USER14> This says to me they've cleared the "but what about encrypted DNS in Firefox?" excuse from the boards so they can focus all their lobbying power fighting the only other encrypted DNS implementation (in Chromium.)

Comcast's anti-DoH argument doesn't work with Mozilla as an adversary. The basis of it is squarely anti-Google so having any other reputed organization backing DoH against them sinks that argument.

This is potentially a very evil move and Mozilla is not only complicit but actually aiding. Concerning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >Comcast told Ars yesterday that "Firefox users on Xfinity should automatically default to Xfinity resolvers under Mozilla's Trusted Recursive Resolver program, unless they have manually chosen a different resolver, or if DoH is disabled.

How would this work? Is the detection done once, everytime firefox starts, or everytime the network changes? Would you ever get into a situation where you're not using comcast, but are still using comcast dns? eg. you have VPN enabled or your laptop moved to somewhere else.

>Joining Mozilla's program means that Comcast agreed that it won't "retain, sell, or transfer to any third party (except as may be required by law) any personal information, IP addresses, or other user identifiers, or user query patterns from the DNS queries sent from the Firefox browser," along with other requirements.

And how is this enforced? If comcast breaches the agreement, is anyone going to sue them for punitive damages? Given the current state of the US legal system (eg. what happened equifax after the breach), these assurances are worthless to me.

<comment><USER16> My understanding is that Comcast signs a legally-binding contract with Mozilla which imposes the requirements on them [0]. This obviously isn't perfect protection, but it substantially increases the risk of failing to adhere to the requirements. Mozilla claims "We intend to publicly document violations of this Policy and take additional actions if necessary." [1]. Presumably the additional actions include suing for damages pursuant to the breach of contract.

[0] [https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2020/02/25/the-facts- mozi...](https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2020/02/25/the-facts-mozillas-dns- over-https-doh/) [1] [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/DOH-resolver- policy#Enforc...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/DOH-resolver- policy#Enforcement)

<comment><USER17> Surely damages will be approximately zero? There has to be something else to sway Comcast's executives to abide by the contract, surely. Like the CEO agrees to forfeit an amount equal to their previous years total earnings, from all sources, ... that would be an interesting contract!

<comment><USER18> If Comcast breaks the contract then Mozilla will simply change the default back to Cloudflare DNS.

<comment><USER19> Out of the pot into the fire.

24 years ago a group of Stanford students started Architext. They took a few million from Kleiner Perkins, called themselves Excite, and started a search engine and internet provider. They were a good, ethical, well ran technology company. Over the years bits and pieces were chopped up and merged and acquired and spun off based on what generated shareholder value. Parts of that old soul live in on now in the current Comcast.

The same thing will happen to Cloudflare. Matthew Prince will move on, or retire, or get hit by a bus. The board will be taken over by an activist investor. It will get merged with ExxonTacoBell, which also now owns the 2nd largest ad network. They will figure out the data gold mine the company built under total ethical pretenses, and the stock price will triple. There isn't a damn thing a single current Cloudflare employee can do to stop it except stop participating in the centralization of the internet behind a single MitM proxy.

<comment><USER20> I sure hope that Mozilla writes contracts so that they can't be transferred by sale or merger. That's the most basic protection from your friendly counterparty joining your sworn enemy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm confused. For me, a major selling point of DoH is it hides DNS queries from your ISP, which has detailed personal information about you. And if you're locked into Comcast, you're operating with completely eroded trust from the get-go.

Clearly, DNS statistics are extremely valuable to Comcast, or they would not have engaged with Mozilla to get back the data, nor would they have raised hell with Congress.

I would not have expected an organization like Mozilla to sign a data deal with Comcast, even if Comcast is now theoretically restricted on how they use the data.

This is a weak move.

<comment><USER22> Mozilla cannot enable one provider by default. People already complained that Cloudflare was initially the only choice.

Users at the moment are expected to choose their provider anyway.

This deal is about Mozilla picking Comcast by default for Comcast customers. This is essentially as if they'd be using the network's default, because Comcast is the network's default already, being what people get via DHCP.

They can always choose a different provider. And Mozilla apparently struck a privacy deal with them too.

<comment><USER21> I understand the arrangement. From a Comcast user's perspective, very little has changed, depending on how much trust you assign to a "we promise" privacy agreement. Are Comcast users better off than default? Yes. But decoupling DNS from ISPs which sit in such a privileged position is, for me, 85% of the threat model.

I'd like to read more about how the choice will be presented to users, beyond about:config. I'd also like to understand more the community's reaction to Cloudflare default.

What if there was a round robin setup between neutral operators? Pairing Comcast users to Comcast just seems like a wtf move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Everyone is complaining:

\- No DOH: "DNS is trivial to snoop"

\- DOH with Cloudflair: "DNS is not longer distributed"

\- DOH with ISPs: "Great, the ISPs get the data again"

Well, guess what? With the current changes we get rid of the arbitrary snooper problem while preserving DNS as a distributed service: not bad, not amazing, but strictly better than before this all began!

Of course ISPs are sketch, and Comcast in particular, but I rather have multiple providers to play off against each other. The upcoming IETF draft they mention would also restore the ability of network admins to adjust the default DOH (just like with regular DNS)---also good.

Actual anatomized and distributed DNS querying would require vastly different technology that anything being proposed in these comments.

<comment><USER24> > Actual anatomized and distributed DNS querying would require vastly > different technology that anything being proposed in these comments.

I hope the _everything should be solved with blockchain!_ crowd don't get any ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know how we can have privacy and Comcast in one sentence. We have a saying where I come from that translates roughly to "Putting the Wolf to Guard the Sheep".

If you don't have any other option but to be with comcast my recommendation is to run Pi-Hole + DoH.

<comment><USER26> I do run PiHole. Any tips on how to do the `DoH` side of the equation?

edit: this looks to do the trick: [https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns-over- https/](https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/)

<comment><USER25> Sorry, just saw the reply. Yes, cloudflared is what I do at the moment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Tin foil hat time but I can't help feeling a lot of things promoted as privacy solutions like VPNs and DoH are just aggregating data in a handful of locations so it is easier to intercept. Sure they have privacy policies but are they worth the paper they are written on when state actors are bound by a totally different set of rules?

I recently changed my local dnssec resolver to forward to quad9 and cloudflare using DoT because I was sick of the high latency with DNS resolving on boot. I would forward to my own DoT server if there was some authentication built into it and I could deny other traffic. But I have gone from dns requests being aggregated at my ISP for easy inspection my the democratically elected government of my own country, to a my own dns resolver which while it isn't aggregated is still easy enough to intercept under warrant for local law enforcement (which I generally support) to aggregating my queries in a few logs which are likely in foreign countries where I have no say in how they are used or abused. I am not sure what problem we are trying to solve with this technology.

<comment><USER28> Indeed. As it stands, trust is merely being shifted from one set of parties (ISPs) to another set (big DNS/CDN providers). Apparently that's attractive enough to a lot of people who prefer to send their queries to a foreign company than to their own ISP, but has it changed anything fundamental?

<comment><USER24> The hope is that it's a change away from an untrustworthy provider, toward a trusted provider. Not sure if it counts as being a fundamental change, but it seems worth doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> At home I've got a pihole handling my DNS, including using DoH to Cloudflare.

I assume that this configuration is superior to whatever FF is doing natively, and I should disable FF's DoH support?

<comment><USER30> If you do not disable Firefox's DoH support, it will by pass your Pi-Hole entirely. So you'd lose all the benefits of that and be limited to just the protections Firefox provides (which are great, to be clear. Just not as good as a well-sourced Pi0Hole)

<comment><USER31> This is why I absolutely despise DoH. SysAdmins have no direct control over it. In my organization we have blocked direct IP access from userspace VLAN's to all known public DNS servers thus forcing all clients to rely on the company DNS servers, which is not the most ideal way to do things.

<comment><USER32> Why do you want them to rely on the company DNS servers?

<comment><USER2> 1\. Internal names won't resolve if a client is using, for example, 1.1 as their DNS server (breaking, among other things, logging on to an Active Directory domain!)

2\. Many companies have established DNS logging and monitoring in place for security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a net increase in privacy for most people on Comcast networks, I'm glad to see Mozilla striking a deal like this -- especially with the privacy agreements Comcast is signing. _But_ you should still switch your encrypted DNS provider to someone else like Cloudflare or similar.

In short, good move, but you personally can make better moves than trusting Comcast.

</comment><comment><USER34> > "Adding ISPs in the TRR program paves the way for providing customers with > the security of trusted DNS resolution, while also offering the benefits of > a resolver provided by their ISP such as parental control services and > better optimized, localized results," the announcement said.

What? No! Why would DNS have "optimized, localized results"?

<comment><USER3> > Why would DNS have "optimized, localized results"?

Any content that is CDN-based (which is most content) dynamically responds to DNS queries based on network and geographic location - to support CDN localization. In this way, Akamai for example knows the end user is in Boston on a Comcast network and will send the recursive DNS server a dynamic response that points to a directly-connected local-to-Boston content server.

<comment><USER35> Any serious CDN is doing that with anycast, not with geodns which has tons of drawbacks.

<comment><USER36> That's not the case - many use hybrid approaches, and GeoDNS is still used heavily in the industry. Anycast sucks too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is this the same Comcast that:

1) created an RFC to inject JavaScript into non-TLS pages 2) created an RFC to intercept failed DNS lookups / connections with their own error page

Both of which I reported to the FCC as MITM attacks. Comcast followed up referenced the bunk RFCs saying "it's fine."

</comment><comment><USER38> Weird that a network or OS level concern is being moved to the application layer. But considering that trust in all the other layers has been lost, from the ISP to the OS (specifically Windows), maybe this makes sense.

<comment><USER39> The whole newroling stack needs encryption etc. This is one reason why you see everything moving of the layers. The other is, that Http servers are widely available, tested and easily scalable

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Would be Comcast able to intercept the TLS SNI requests anyway and see at least were the traffic is directed?

</comment><comment><USER41> "Let's encrypt DNS queries but send them to the ISP which can associate the query with subscriber info!"

</comment><comment><USER42> Regardless of how good this deal actually is, I have a knee-jerk reaction to anything regarding Comcast.

I would not trust them with anything whatsoever.

Mozilla even if they made a good decision here seems to be taking a step backwards just by virtue of associating with Comcast in any slight form whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER43> How does FF know my DNS is a Comcast-provided one? Is there an IP list kept inside of browsers and updated?

<comment><USER2> Comcast's ASNs and networks are documented in ARIN's WHOIS database and various route registries. Hell, Comcast probably publishes a list on their own web site.

So, yeah, Mozilla can easily determine if a user is on the Comcast network just from their IP address.

Also, while Comcast actually has a bunch of DNS servers spread across the country, I believe that nowadays they're mostly "promoting" the use of 126.96.36.199 and 188.8.131.52 (which, AFAIK, are anycasted and direct end users to their "local" DNS servers).

<comment><USER43> > So, yeah, Mozilla can easily determine if a user is on the Comcast network > just from their IP address.

I mean, how can the determine it's a Comcast DNS server configured on my network? I might be a Comcast customer w/ a custom DNS server configured. If it's a fixed IP check, I suppose that list is in the browser.

<comment><USER44> What makes you think they are doing that? To jlgaddis's point, they are likely checking what IP address you are coming from over the public Internet. They can see who operates it, and knows that it's Comcast. Then they change the options in your browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've never understood the purpose of DOH. It doesn't really hide your traffic from any party, does it?

<comment><USER46> It encrypts your DNS traffic over the public wire in a way that only the DOH endpoint operator can decrypt, preventing plaintext interception/modification attacks by unauthorized malicious actors positioned between you and the DOH endpoint

It represents your DNS traffic over the wire as encrypted HTTPS traffic, which decreases the effectiveness of deep packet inspection and traffic shaping systems operated by some network providers.

When hosted at heavily-used CDN endpoints that receive other (non-DOH) HTTPS traffic, it requires a network provider who wishes for whatever reason to block your DNS traffic to block all HTTPS traffic to all CDN endpoints.

<comment><USER47> OK sure but what good is that when my next TCP/UDP activity after a dns lookup is to actually connect to that host? The upstream ISP knows exactly where you are going right? They can store and reverse that info and do with it as they wish.

<comment><USER48> An IP address is often less specific than a hostname, and will become less useful over time due to IPv4 address space exhaustion and concentration of internet services among a small number of cloud providers. Widespread use of DOH therefore makes it harder for ISPs and middleboxes to interfere without collateral damage. It's far from perfect, but it'll help.

<comment><USER49> You might want to read this study on that topic:

"What can you learn from an IP?" [https://irtf.org/anrw/2019/slides- anrw19-final44.pdf](https://irtf.org/anrw/2019/slides-anrw19-final44.pdf)

<comment><USER48> Interesting reference, thanks. I'm surprised there are so many site-unique IPs. Fingerprinting is less compelling in the case of blocking (I think?) but is certainly still a privacy problem.

Ultimately, all security is about raising the cost for attackers, and I think it's a good thing that DOH will make middleboxes more expensive and less accurate. It would be a mistake to pitch it as being even close to a perfect solution to any problem, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> CKN23-ARIN If you can run your own local, recursive resolver, you should.

</comment><comment><USER50> Headline announces opposite of what has happened.

<comment><USER20> "Encrypt" !== "Protect"

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Why can't mozilla roll out a encrypted dns service in a form of a browser setting or plugin? Does the browser not have control over how the dns is resolved ?

</comment><comment><USER52> So Mozilla wanted encrypted DNS Comcast did not. Now they made a deal. Comcast agreed in writing not to monitor DNS. So what did Mozilla give up to make this deal? Mozilla wont encrypt DNS on Comcast connections? Something does not add up.</comment>


Google Feedback Loop - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=amalgamous&spell=1 There's just no way to spell this word correctly! <comment><AUTHOR> There's just no way to spell this word correctly! [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=amalgamous&spell=1)</comment>


Most "mad scientists" are actually just mad engineers - <AUTHOR> http://cowbirdsinlove.com/46

<comment><USER2> Mad engineers with super engineering powers at that. I work in robotics -- in real life, the amount of effort necessary on the part of many engineers, some with Ph.D.s, to get even a simple robot like one of our AUVs assembled, integrated, and functioning with acceptable reliability is phenomenal. Yet Dr. Robotnik can build a whole robot army numbering in the thousands of many different types, a fleet of airships to deploy them from, and a chaos-emerald- powered world-shattering satellite -- all by his lonesome, all over Sonic's summer vacation, and all without having to worry about malfunction except via high-speed impact by blue hedgehog.

<comment><USER3> rofl > high-speed impact by blue hedgehog

really, he needs to write better unit tests.

<comment><USER4> I believe you've uncovered one of the great flaws of standard testing procedures. The tests cannot test anything the developers don't think up. Robotnik has a big blank space where a blue hedgehog should be.

<comment><USER2> Despite his monumental engineering feats the guy didn't account for some pretty basic deficiencies. If I were him I would set up a test jig consisting of a cannon which fires spiked cannonballs at high speeds, and make sure my killing machine's armor could withstand at least that before deploying it. I would also take care that it never enters a failure mode that involves exposing its power core, CPU, or other delicate parts; and I would license Tony Stark's arc-reactor technology to power it, as the very rare mystical gems I would otherwise need tend to be either highly sought after by ambitious hedgehogs or guarded by fierce echidnas who would stop at nothing to ensure their safety and sanctity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "just" mad engineers? :-/

I am not sure if I like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> The notable exception being Nikola Tesla, who was both a mad scientist and a mad engineer.

<comment><USER7> The Manhattan Project physicists occupy a dual space as well. Their ultimate hypothesis was "hmm, maybe building a bomb this way will work", and the experimental setup was "build it and try exploding it in the desert", which is a pretty engineeringy kind of science experiment. (Of course, there were plenty of earlier, more basic-physics experiments leading up to it.)

<comment><USER8> My favourite part of that experiment was that they believed there to be a non- zero chance that it would trigger an uncontrollable reaction that would ignite the atmosphere and end the whole world _but did it anyway_.

<comment><USER9> Crazy, isn't it? But I guess they felt the risk was worth it. I assume that's how the scientists working on the LHC feel.

<comment><USER10> Nah, the LHC dudes think there's an actual zero risk. The LHC doesn't produce collisions of any magnitude greater than collisions that occur in the upper atmosphere (from what I understand). That was the ultimate debunk of things like the whole "microscopic black hole will eat the earth" thing.

<comment><USER11> The black hole would evaporate so quickly it wouldn't be able to pull in any matter.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Noboby will tell a story about a mad scientist that's just a scientist and who can't build a giant death ray because no publication will accept his paper on it and he fails to get his department fund it.

Mad engineers are dangerous. Mad scientists are harmless.

<comment><USER12> Actually I suspect the origins of the term do in fact refer to scientists. Victor Frankenstein was in fact a scientist in the traditional sense (nor was he originally written as a villain).

But yeah, it's a lot easier to make a "mad engineer" villain than a "mad scientist" villain. Mad scientists tend to be more suited to being secondary characters-- somebody so obsessed with discovery that their goal of scientific discovery conflicts with the protagonist.</comment></comment>


This is what a website's Privacy Policy should look like - <AUTHOR> http://ycombinator.com/legal.html

<comment><USER2> As much as I love that, you do realize we're all logged in, no? The fact that it explicitly omits what they do with your data once you are logged in would be disconcerting if I was one to worry about things like that.

This is probably due to the fact that the "privacy policy" is older than Hacker News is.

The terms of use rock though.</comment>


The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits from Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://robertreich.org/post/863304269/the-great-decoupling-of-corporate-profits-from-jobs

<comment><USER2> I think many of the jobs will return, but fewer than before. With each economic cycle the amount of work which can be automated increases. This is a long term trend which began a couple of centuries ago, and eventually I expect it to culminate in campaigns to divorce income from jobs, with the introduction of a "Citizens Income" based upon taxing mostly automated companies (each citizen assigned some percentage of GDP per capita). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_dividend>

<comment><USER3> Except that much of manufacturing isn't automated--building and maintaining the robots would be too expensive. Instead companies pay third-world workers next to nothing to assemble products by hand. Go and read Bunnie Huang's blog posts about manufacturing the Chumby in China. (bunniestudios.com) The Chumby is assembled almost completely by hand. Even big things like industrial equipment are often welded and assembled by hand.

The problem is this:

Say a company is going to sell 1,000 of a particular heavy assembly per year and profit $1,000 from each. There's no way they can afford to build and maintain an automated assembly line to support that product. Each individual robot might cost $50,000+. Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products, or where one line can make several closely related products (e.g. a tractor plant that makes front loaders and dozers.)

I know this doesn't fit with the techno-futurist ethos around here. Maybe in another 50 years robots will be cheap and flexible enough to truly automate manufacturing.

<comment><USER2> "Robots are really only feasible for high-volume, high-profit products"

Untrue. Many low profit consumer products are made using robots.

Currently human labour can still compete with automation, and companies seek the cheapest labour costs by outsourcing. But there will come a point, which has already been reached in a few niche areas of manufacturing and agriculture, where no human labour, however cheap, can compete against automation in terms of productivity per unit cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been wondering lately if high profits per employee could be a negative externality for society. That is, if enough jobs aren't being created to give people something meaningful to do, then idleness and disruption (a la dctoedt's excellent comment) become a problem. While America is wealthier overall today, it seems like the previous 100 years did more to spread the growth in wealth across the whole population and make _society_ wealthier as people benefited from universities, roads, better health and housing, etc. These aren't fully formed or vetted ideas, just thoughts.

Regarding the article, if GM is selling and making more cars overseas, then maybe just owning 60% of the company and profits is the best outcome. Structurally, they were never going to employ 500,000 American workers again.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is one of the issues with overly strong and long IP policies: Humans aren't required to license IP out the wazoo.

</comment><comment><USER6> And what's wrong with lesser jobs?

It means that eventually a society where life and status is not defined by mere employment emerges. Currently we have few reasons to be unemployed that are acknowledged as okay: for example students and pensioners, maybe some others.

When the illusion that mostly everyone ought to be employed somehow, it means that it becomes ok to not do things that are seemingly productive in the short-term, like work. It will allow more acceptance for production of human values that can't be done under the traditional employer—employee relationship, like arts such as writing, composing, painting, and hacking.

The only reason to think everyone ought to have jobs is to be in a position where you benefit from it. Like manufacturing and selling things to people. But when production is efficient enough and/or people decide that they have enough, the bubble breaks and you will find the society with lots of unemployed people.

</comment><comment><USER7> First of all, business is about providing value to customers, not jobs to neighborhoods. Sorry if that sounds callous, but really, think about it. We don't want a thousand people making a iron boiler for a steam engine anymore. If one guy could push a button at GM and have robots make a thousand cars? Then we are continuing in a pattern that has done us well over the last thousand years.

So instead of looking ass-backward at economics, it might be better to ask yourself the question a million entrepreneurs are now asking: What do all those companies sitting on all that cash _want_? Because it's not savings either: companies are not in the business of savings.

Perhaps the companies are dumping all the profits to investors. Fine. What do _they_ want? Money got to go somewhere. And whoever's got it wants stuff.

Instead of a sad-sack, belly-button-gazing lament at how GM actually gives Chinese folks jobs, it might be a better use of time to continue to find where value can be added. That's what the smart folks are doing. (And those smart folks are more and more in small businesses and would really appreciate it if you didn't lump them into some big bucket with Ford and GM just so you can slide in your partisan tax barb, Bob)

<comment><USER8> > First of all, business is about providing value to customers, not jobs to > neighborhoods. ... We don't want a thousand people making a iron boiler for > a steam engine anymore.

The value-to-customers part is the truth, but not the whole truth.

If a government's economic policies _don't_ result in jobs being provided to neighborhoods, then three things are inexorably going to happen:

1\. A non-trivial number of (usually) young men with too much time on their hands will do things that we really wish they wouldn't but that we have a very hard time suppressing, especially when they can use communications technology to their benefit: Street gangs. Drug cartels. Jihadist groups.

2\. People will blame their governments because they perceive that Bad Things -- unemployment, drugs, crime, terror -- aren't being fixed;

3\. Disruption will result, because people won't passively accept Bad Things indefinitely:

(a) In a democratic society, the government will be thrown out and policies will be changed -- possibly not for the better -- and with switching costs in any case;

(b) Even in a non-democratic society, there will eventually be unrest as people get mad as hell and refuse to take it any more (cf. the Honda strike in China, but then there's North Korea as an apparent counterexample);

I'm a life-long moderate Republican, but it's only been in recent years that I've come to appreciate that, unlike some conservatives, liberals 'get' these fundamental truths of human nature.

I wish these truths were otherwise, but to paraphrase Lazarus Long, you don't argue with the weather, you deal with it. (That's one reason I'm encouraged by the favorable reports I've been reading about the educational policies that the Obama Administration is pushing.)

ISTM that some liberals have unrealistic views of _how_ we should deal with these truths -- some of them likely would be happy having a thousand people making a boiler -- but that's another debate.

<comment><USER9> Not to mention that even without risks of total upheaval, if nobody but the top 1% has any money, who are you going to sell goods to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Umm, quite interesting till the last paragraph:

"The reality is this: Big American companies may never rehire large numbers of workers. And they won't even begin to think about hiring until they know American consumers will buy their products. The problem is, American consumers won't start buying against until they know they have reliable paychecks."

I'm not sure they is any link between hiring US workers and what US consumers are buying. I mean plenty of stuff is made my Chinese workers that is purchased by American consumers. Why couldn't it go back the other way?

<comment><USER4> [http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/flat-or- declining...](http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/flat-or-declining- revenues-soaring-profits-is-it-sustainable/)

"When consumers in the U.S. finally fall off the edge of the cliff, where will demand come from? The reflexive answer is always "from consumers China and other emerging economies." There are a few problems with that: (1) workers in China and other low wage countries don't make very much and, therefore, have less to spend. (2) Those low wage workers have a very strong propensity to save, rather than consume. (In China the saving rate may be as high as 30%, and consumer spending is only around a third of GDP v. 70% in the U.S.) (3) It would be extraordinarily naive to think that the Chinese government will not manipulate things to insure that the vast majority of sales in China go to Chinese companies (in many cases companies using technology transferred from the West as part of China's industrial policy.)

The fact is that we are very far indeed from a place where consumers in countries like China are going to pick up the slack when consumers in America and the rest of the developed world finally fail to get the job done. And there's yet another problem: While China has benefited from globalization, it is by no means immune to the impacts of automation. In the long run factories and other business in China will also automate, and unemployment will become a serious problem. In fact, this is already occurring in industries like textiles where automation has been progressing at a rapid rate."

<comment><USER10> I can't help but feel arguments about how high degrees of automation will lead to mass unemployment are almost reframed Luddite fallacy arguments. I mean compare the amount of automation now to 250 years ago, and we don't have mass unemployment.

I was wrong to say Chinese consumers, but it's not to say there aren't things American could produce. I mean Chinese use Google/Facebook/Youtube/Starcraft.

I mean in manufacturing, if you look in Chinese factory often their machines will have been made by Japanese and German companies.</comment></comment></comment>


How often do you doubt that you have the right cofounder(s)? - <AUTHOR>

(in the startup you are working on right now) <comment><USER2> Take what I'm about to say with a massive grain of salt as I don't know you, your cofounders, any back story you guys may have, or anything else with the following opinion.

My personal opinion is if there's doubt, usually, you should probably back away. Take it from someone who has worked with many people. The times that I've had success with those I've worked with, there were never any doubts. Debates, disagreements, among other things are common but doubt was not one of them. If you have doubts, its a sign of potential problems not worth having that could escalate or unravel the startup later.

<comment><USER3> I have to agree. I'm lucky enough now that I have a great cofounder who I'm excited to work with, and who will put as much as I do into our project. I've been in situations though that I should have walked away from a lot sooner than I did. Instead I hung in there out of a misguided sense of loyalty and thinking I could change the company. almost a year of my life wasted.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get small funding or free developers for a project? - <AUTHOR>

Hello!  My name is Josh Lewis, I am a designer more so than a developer from South Carolina.  I have an idea that seems to have a lot of potential behind it.  It's not revolutionary or "world changing" as soon apps claim to be, it's just another thing to help bring something traditionally on paper, online.  I've talked with firms and business owners and they both seem to think it's a great idea.
That being said, I'm not a great developer.  I don't know much PHP or any other language really to build a full scale app like the one I have in mind.  I need a developer, or a couple to help bring this to life.  I have mockups for the app and everything mapped out.  Someone suggested I get funding or find developers that wouldn't mind donating time.  You will get part of the profits in the end.  I'm not greedy.
Edit:  It's basically a post-scheduling app for businesses. <comment><USER2> You are asking for technical co-founders. Search for the term and you'll see many, many such requests. Ideas come to many people, good hackers are rare. Good hackers who are available to work on your unspecified idea that someone random thinks is great, are virtually non-existant.

Go read the other requests for technical co-founders, and read the responses. Then come back.

Oh, and tell us that one of your prospective customers has actually given you money for the promise of a product. Tell them they'll get a refund if it never appears. If you have one paying customer, people will pay attention.

<comment><USER3> If I may add to this...

Step 1: Create a landing page using Unbounce, you do not need to know how to code in order to do this. Describe your idea and begin promoting the landing page to collect email addresses of interested people. This will work best for "low touch sales" ideas.

If your idea needs a more intensive sales approach, try and get a letter of intent (non-binding agreement to purchase the software when ready) from potential customers.

Step 2: Once you have an idea of how much interest there is, you would then be able to approach potential tech co-founders with a more substantial proposal - "looking for a co-founder for a startup with X interested users, offering Y%" might be more attractive than "I have a great idea, can you build it for me".</comment></comment>


NSA whistleblower dropped from Australian cyberconference at govt request - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/08/us-whistleblower-thomas-drake-says-speech-was-cancelled-due-to-government-pressure <comment><AUTHOR> I was at this conference today. The keynote was Kevin Mitnick giving step by step demos on how to steal gmail session cookies and clone prox access cards but apparently discussions of anonymous digital dropboxes are out of bounds

<comment><USER2> Is there a recording, paper, or blog post on the gmail session cookies to which you could point me?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is a link to the conference:

[https://cyberconference.com.au/](https://cyberconference.com.au/)

They were recording so I guess the talk may go online.

It was a fairly standard phishing attack, though, using a poisoned pdf attachment.</comment></comment></comment>


Music Sales by Format and Year since 1980. [Animated GIF] - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/1664837/infographic-of-the-day-an-animated-gif-of-the-music-industrys-death

<comment><USER2> An area chart of format sales over time would have been a better choice than an animated pie chart.</comment>


MongoDB 2.4 Critical Advisory - <AUTHOR> https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-9087

<comment><USER2> Here we go again... Is this a Critical Advisory? Sounds like Mongo is working exactly as expected to me.

<comment><USER3> I've been running mongo for 2 years now with out a single dropped document or data corruption. so I don't believe this is a case of "Sounds like Mongo is working exactly as expected to me".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> First reported by Samuel Clay (conesus on HN) from NewsBlur: <https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-9059>

</comment><comment><USER2> Sorry I was thinking of MangoDb <https://github.com/dcramer/mangodb></comment>


It's Not Just Google: The Many Feuds of Rap Genius - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/27/its-not-just-google-the-many-feuds-of-rap-genius/

<comment><USER2> Can we just decide not to feed these guys any more attention?

Rap Genius has always hung a lot of attitude on a really thin thread. Their product is not special or defensible. Their main claim to fame has to do with their winning a sizable investment and acting like jackasses in public.

Are they delivering anything of value that couldn't be better done on a wiki? No.

As near as I can tell, their main talent is hype; but hype without a product is like discount fireworks; a lot of noise and banging on, but all you're left with is a mess that someone has to clean up.

<comment><USER3> _Are they delivering anything of value that couldn 't be better done on a wiki? No._

It seems many start-up ideas have defaulted to this. Take something people would do for free and try to exploit this behaviour. It's an unfortunate trend. Although, if you believe that premise...sunlight is the best dis- infectant. Worth considering, at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The real questions are: why have these scumbags been able to raise 15m? What kind of light is this shenanigan casting upon the whole startup scene?

On a side note: I can't help noticing that the author misspelled Berkshire Hathaway pretty badly and that somehow ruined the entire piece for me.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is so scary to think what Google can do to your business in no time, from a successful website with lots of traffic into a website no one can find. This is why kids you should all try and play clean, wearing your white hat to work :)</comment>


Ask HN: Good alternatives to ZenDesk? Something free for bootstrapped startups? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if there is any good alternative to zendesk? And if there is also a free one or one with a free plan for bootstrapped startups?<p>Would be nice if assistly had a free plan w/ 1 agent... <comment><USER2> Take a look at PhaseWare Tracker. We are working on a version specifically for very small, even one person business. Give us a call so we can talk about it. <http://www.phaseware.com> 866-390-3492</comment>


PaperCoin - paper offline Bitcoin wallets - <AUTHOR> http://papercoin.org/ <comment><USER2> Using a Bitcoin address provided by a web site to store your coins is Extremely Unwise. You would be giving the owners of that site the power to steal your money later.

Promoting a site which gives a small convenience in exchange for the power to steal your Bitcoins is _not okay_. Even if the site's original creators are trustworthy, it can be broken into and perverted. You risk creating a repeat of MyBitcoin (an "online wallet service" run anonymously that predictably ran off with everyone's deposits).

<comment><USER3> To be fair, at the bottom of the page he links to source and a zip that you can use to run internally if you so desire.

If it concerns you, then run it on your own machine.

<comment><USER4> The generation could still be deterministic in some way. I haven't looked over the code yet, so I don't know.

Even if it is securely created, there's nothing stopping the code being modified to some clients.

<comment><USER5> It would be neat to have something like this as JS application. Of course again you have to check the code or trust the author, but I think an audit would be possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> This of course is JavaScript application. And it is downloadable and locally runnable (read footer on the website).

<comment><USER5> Great! Sorry for not checking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate dinging hobby projects, but then it's Bitcoin and people seem to be actually trusting hobby projects with non-trivial fractions of their (extremely notional) net worth, so I'll just point out that transferring a public/private key pair which allows people to spend money together over HTTP is not a security best practice.

<comment><USER7> This appears to generate the wallet in your browser, so the key is never sent over HTTP.

That said, I still have difficulty trusting hobby crypto.

<comment><USER8> That's true, but the code that generates the wallet is still sent over HTTP, so there is an opportunity for an attacker to insert malicious code. It would be a lot better if this was served over HTTPS, but then you still need to trust the author.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can still download the code (as ZIP archive from github) and run it locally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Note that <http://bitaddress.org> was the pioneer in this field.

Bitaddress.org has more options, and includes all necessary code in a single .HTML file. So if you download it to run it locally/offline -- _as you should_ \-- whether you grab it from your browser, or from the Bitaddress github project, there's just one file and hash to check against the published hash from others who have reviewed the code.

Papercoin adds the 'printer' graphics and the folding-friendly layout, but trust should be the top quality in any such utility, since private key secrecy is everything.

</comment><comment><USER10> Safari gets redirected to a URL like this: blob:<http://papercoin.org/some- big-hash>

This, of course, doesn't work. When I try to remove the "blob:" it throws a 404.

Edit: works in Chrome, just not in Safari. Neat idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems this is a bug in jsPDF - the same happens with their basic example. I might look into that, but for now please use Chrome/Firefox.

<comment><USER11> In Opera it opens a new tab with: papercoin.org/undefined

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, same kind of error ... :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There seems to be some confusion about this project, so I'll try to explain: PaperCoin creates paper Bitcoin gift cards. You put money on the address, then you give the private key to whoever, and now they own the wallet. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not the author.)

It all happens client-side using jsPDF, and you can run it locally by downloading the .zip in the footer.

It's really not meant to replace any financial infrastructure. It's just a novelty thing. Don't use this to store your life's savings, or anything unless you understand the risks. Who knows, maybe it will inspire the next person build something cool in a further direction.

I like it. The design is pretty swell too. Good job.

<comment><USER13> The design may be swell, shame they didn't care enough to include useful instructions or explanations in that design!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some related apps:

optar - <http://ronja.twibright.com/optar/>

PaperBak - <http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/> <https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/WalletPaperbackup>

<comment><USER15> Have you experience with paperback?

I tried optar and did everything wrong i could find. I upscaled with gimp, upscaled not by a natural number, used a horrible laser printer with lots of artifacts, gray, thin, checkered recycling paper, folded it and it still worked. I was stunned. The decoder seems to be quite good, it can handle distortion reasonably well.

But it was only 50kB per page.

How does it compare to paperbak?

<comment><USER14> I also only have experience with optar, which worked for me. However, here are some reviews of PaperBak:

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/the-paper-data- stor...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/the-paper-data-storage- option.html)

[http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134427-a-paper-based- back...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134427-a-paper-based-backup- solution-not-as-stupid-as-it-sounds)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only person who can't follow the instructions?

What is the finished product supposed to look like?

<comment><USER17> I am not a Bitcoin user and I also don't get it. Could anyone else please explain what this hash on the piece of paper is? Is this an address used to send Bitcoins to?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sequence starting with "1" together with the QR code are the Bitcoin address where you can send Bitcoins to. Sequence starting with "5" inside of the wallet is the private key, which you use to redeem the funds sent to the address in the first step.

<comment><USER18> exactly HOW do you redeem the funds sent to address in the first step?

<comment><AUTHOR> For example Electrum client (electrum.org) allows you to import these keys. Or you can use MtGox Redeem code feature. I'm pretty sure other clients and web wallets have also this functionality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why would the receiving party trust that they are receiving the amount promised? The paper itself holds no value, and as clearly both the "buyer" and "seller" are privy to the wallet access code, the "buyer" could simply put 0 BTC in the wallet, or remove it at a later date.

<comment><USER20> Given a public key you can look up the balance in the blockchain. Casascius has a cool system where the private key is hidden behind a tamper-evident hologram so you can be sure money hasn't been removed, but obviously that's not a DIY option.

<comment><USER19> Of course they can check at the point of sale, but times where paper money is most useful and times where you have immediate access to the blockchain do not exactly overlap. If they can check right then and there, might as well just do it electronically and skip the paper.

My point is basically that paper money is a store of value while these "paper bitcoins" are a _proxy_ for a store of value, which introduces problems. It's almost like a fiat currency backed by bitcoin, except it has none of the governmental power used to make fiat currencies work.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I don't think paper Bitcoins are useful for trade. I think they're more useful to keep private keys from getting stolen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a hard time following the origami. After folding 1-2-3-4, I have a retangular cube. How am I supposed to accomplish fold #5? Sorry for being dense, not an origami guy. Anyone got a pic how how it's supposed to look like?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fold 180 degrees. Not 90.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't help noting the irony in reverting to to paper cash; I figure it can only be a matter of time before I see a case titled 'United States vs. 2633.5 Bitcoins.'

</comment><comment><USER23> How is this randomized? I notice the generating javascript is sent in the clear (HTTP).

</comment><comment><USER24> Does/will bitcoin make Cypriot (or anyone's) capital controls ineffective?

<comment><USER20> Not if you wait until after capital controls have been introduced, because then you have no way to convert your EUR to BTC.

<comment><USER24> You can amass cash in Euros by slowly withdrawing it from chas machines then instead of leaving the country with the cash, you can use a local bitcoin trader to buy bitcoins with it, then turn them back into normal currency when you have left the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> so basically bills?

</comment><comment><USER26> Yeah, I love the web and webapps, but generating paper wallets is still something I prefer to do with a native app running in Tails or something similarly secure to avoid eavesdropping or other leakage of the private key.</comment>


Cloudflare Workers Opendoor: Landing Page Infrastructure - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/opendoor-labs/cloudflare-workers-opendoor-landing-page-infrastructure-824853a34551 <comment><USER2> Opendoor Eng here - Cloudflare workers with Optimizely Full-Stack A/B testing have been awesome for improving experiment velocity without ugly URLs or any client-side experimentation code.</comment>


'Affirmative Consent' Will Make Rape Laws Worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-07-01/-affirmative-consent-will-make-rape-laws-worse <comment><USER2> _Ezra Klein wrote, "men need to feel a cold spike of fear when they begin a sexual encounter."_

As a person who spent years with the kind of anxiety problems that gave me a spike of fear doing mundane everyday actions, I can assure you this is a healthy reaction to sexual encounters.

<comment><USER3> Would you care to elaborate? I don't see why you would want to inflict unjustified fear spikes on half of the population.

Unless, you know, you are a class-A jerk and happen to belong to _the other_ half of the population.

<comment><USER2> I was being sarcastic. I don't wish it on anyone, as it is not a healthy reaction to normal situations. I'd reserve the 'right' time for that reaction to things on the order of "I'm going skydiving and it's time to jump."

What Klein probably means to describe is a brief bit of fleeting trepidation that can be waved off with a few seconds of thought, but that wouldn't show off his political bonafids.

<comment><USER3> I see, sorry... sarcasm does not carry well in text.

Sorry to hear you went through this on a regular basis. I know what you mean by the fleeting trepidation thing. Won't go into details, but I had a quite unnerving experience some weeks ago. Not pretty.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any academies in San Francisco that teach Ruby on Rails? - <AUTHOR>

I saw this http://codeacademy.org/ and thought it looked great. Wanted to ask if anybody had recommendations for something similar in San Francisco. <comment><USER2> We have a lot of people in the Bay asking us for a program like this, so I don't think there is anything out there like us yet! Keyword is "yet."

<comment><AUTHOR> In a quick google search I've come across a few things. Like <http://www.academyx.com/training/san_francisco/ruby/rails/> and [http://marakana.com/training/event/ruby/ruby_on_rails/san_fr...](http://marakana.com/training/event/ruby/ruby_on_rails/san_francisco/2011-07-18/1946.html).

But they don't look as official as the one listed in the question so I wanted to see if there were any recommendations.

<comment><USER2> Ping us off list to see how we can get Code Academy running up in SF! mike AT codeacademy DOT org</comment></comment></comment>


Team behind Mac image editor Pixelmator plays David to Adobe's Goliath (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/11/09/the-team-behind-mac-photo-editor-pixelmator-plays-david-to-adobes-goliath <comment><USER2> I think Affinity is closer to being David vs Adobe's Goliath.

With existing Windows / Mac vector and pixel tools, and a forthcoming Digital Asset Management (1) tool like Adobe Lr, they can take on Ai, Ps, and Lr.

I've been enjoying Lr for years but am turned off by Adobe's subscription cloud pricing model. The standalone hasn't been updated with features in quite some time. I think Adobe needs some competition.

(1) [https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13981-digi...](https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13981-digital- asset-manager-asap/)

<comment> open-source-ux I agree - although I think Affinity (and Sketch and Pixelmator) might not necessarily displace Adobe's design apps, but rather dent their market share.

What's nice about the Affinity apps:

\- they are cross-platform: Windows and Mac (unlike Sketch and PixelMator)

\- they are not subscription-based (like Adobe)

\- they cover vector (Affinity Designer), Raster (Affinity Photo) and DTP (still-to-be-released app)

\- they are much more affordable than an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription

\- they feel faster and much less bloated than Adobe's apps

However, the sheer amount of tutorials and design assets available for Adobe apps means that Adobe will remain popular. And there are some apps like After Effects that simply don't have any serious rivals.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any details about the DTP app?

<comment> open-source-ux No screenshots or feature list for the DTP app (called Publisher) have been released yet.

Here is a post from the Affinity forums from October 2016 from one of the Serif staff on the current state of the app:

[https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/26715-why-...](https://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/26715-why- publisher-shouldnt-be-released-anytime-soon/#entry129110)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Haven't tried Pixelmator, but for the past 7 or so years, Acorn has been very useful to me for most of the same stuff I would have used Photoshop for.

[http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/](http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/)

<comment><USER5> I'll second that recommendation; it really is top notch. Loads of tutorials/documentation on the website as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the Pixelmator UI, but it's severely lacking in some basic features. For example – it can't even open or import an SVG file, in spite of having an entire "Vectormator" mode.

</comment><comment><USER7> I snagged Pixelmator for I think $15 at the time, well worth the price, as it's a pretty solid editor. However I spent most of my time in Capture One these days. It does basically everything anyone would want to do to a photo, without the super processing available in a Photoshop type app.

<comment><USER8> Pixelmator is also fairly nice and relatively capable on an iPad. Just wish they would add support for 16-bit images and wide color on iOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What does "[flagged]" prefix in the title mean?

<comment><USER10> It means enough users have flagged the submission that it's been marked "[flagged]".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Pixelmator is great - I use it all the time for basic image editing. It's so much snappier. On startup pixelmator is like 'yep!', whereas ps is like me getting out of bed in the morning - it takes a while and there's a lot of grumbling.

</comment><comment><USER12> I like what Gravit.io has done for an online app it's my go to for getting anything out on Twitter fast ( quick templates). I read somewhere Gravit started out as the old Macromedia Freehand base code - don't quote me on this one. Go kick the tires , they also have YouTube videos up. ps. I have also used Affinity Designer beta it was fast and I liked it. I have also used Affinity's lighter weight InDesign software X8 an that worked well for an ebook / PDF.

</comment><comment><USER13> And it's going to have a David-size market share until they make a Windows client as well.

I don't think the "but our program is so fine-tuned for the Mac!" excuse is going to cut it anymore. Other competitors _will_ build a Windows app, too, and they will be the ones to actually eat Adobe's lunch. And who knows how much Apple will even care about macOS in the future, so Pixelmator may already be looking at a _decreasing_ market share in the future.

</comment><comment><USER14> I remember Deluxe Paint for DOS and the Amiga before Photoshop existed.

I also remember Quark Express.

Somehow Adobe ran them out of business or at least trying to compete with them.

<comment><USER11> It was Quark that lost the game for themselves, mostly. Hubris and bad timing.

Quark was _really_ expensive, didn't support transparency (had to make shadows and overlays in PS and import in as TIFFs), and they totally botched the OSX transition with v5 which was again expensive and buggy.

Adobe releasing Creative Suite which worked on OSX and cost less than the new version of Quark, meant it was a no-brainer considering you still needed photoshop and acrobat anyway.

In its defence, Quark was really snappy - something Indesign has never matched.

<comment><USER10> _It was Quark that lost the game for themselves, mostly. Hubris and bad timing._

That was my impression, too. Kinda sad.

 _Quark was really snappy_

I remember QuarkXPress 3.32 being snappy; v4 seemed more sluggish, if memory serves. Moved from v4 to InDesign.

Oh, boy. This is bringing back memories of system crashes. That's been a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pixelmator is still trying to catch up to Windows paint.net and is still not even close.

<comment><USER16> Care to elaborate please?</comment></comment>