Ask HN: Recommend biographies of lesser known fathers of science and technology? - <AUTHOR>

By now everyone has probably read one or more books on the life of Alan Turing or Richard Feynman or John Nash and a small number of other figures who were influential scientists.  And I'm not even talking about the "big" names like Einstein.
But... there seems to be another group of folks, who never get much attention, but were probably just as influential and probably have interesting stories to hear.  I'm thinking about folks like Claude Shannon, Herbert Simon, Norbert Weiner, Vannevar Bush, and others.
So, how about it HN? Does anybody have recommendations for good biographies of these, and other, important scientists, that we should all familiarize ourselves with? <comment><AUTHOR> Just to seed the discussion a bit... I wrote a paper on Claude Shannon[1] in college, but I don't have a copy anywhere handy, nor do I recall what sources I used. But he is a fascinating character, and, as the father of Information Theory[2], has had a tremendous effect on pretty much every one of us. Put it this way... his paper _A Mathematical Theory of Communication_ [3] provides the theoretical basis behind pretty much all digital communication. I believe the term "bit" was actually introduced in that paper. So if bits and bytes mean anything to you, you owe a debt to Claude Shannon.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_E._Shannon>

[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory>

[3]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Commun...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Communication)

</comment><comment><USER2> I recently read Douglas Coupland's biography of Marshall McLuhan: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935633163/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1935633163/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=morgasuthe-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1935633163)

After having read some of McLuhan's work, which provides theories that explain much of the effect information technology continues to have on our society, this helped me understand much better where he is coming from and what his opinion was on what he saw in his time (which he omits in his work).

<comment><AUTHOR> Mondo radical! That's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. I'd never heard of McLuhan until now (or had forgotten him if I had) but from reading that summary of that book, I now see that he's someone I'd like to know more about.

<comment><USER2> Go ahead and read Understanding Media while you're at it: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262631598/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262631598/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=morgasuthe-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0262631598) !

Incredibly insightful book, totally transformed my understanding of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've recently enjoyed a biography of Kristian Birkeland ([http://www.amazon.com/The-Northern-Lights-Unlocked- Borealis/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Northern-Lights-Unlocked- Borealis/dp/0375409807/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358774882&sr=8-2&keywords=Kristian+Birkeland)).

Birkeland worked to find the source of the northern lights, but he sold other inventions in order to fund his research.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's a biography of Von Braun: [http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3D...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search- alias%3Daps&field-keywords=von+braun)

Von Braun was a chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and later on became one of the fathers of the U.S. space program. His accomplishments in space technology are mindboggling.

</comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed The Seashell on the Mountaintop,[1] a book about Nicolas Steno,[2] who many consider the father of geology. An unabridged audio version is available.

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0525947086>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Steno></comment>


Ask HN: Do companies need commercial support for open source software? - <AUTHOR> Millions of open source projects don't have a vendor that provides commercial support (i.e. RedHat). The best support comes from developers who built the software (project maintainers), and many of them need funding.
What is the best way of connecting them? Would companies pay for support from project maintainers to improve quality and speed of their development? Would they prefer support contracts or on-demand support based on developer's hourly rate?
I'd like to get a deeper understanding of requirements that businesses have. Any insight is very appreciated! <comment><USER2> I work with many big companies that use open source software, and the answer (as usual) is it depends.

If we're talking about a well-understood open source product like Apache -- probably not. Most companies will just have people on staff who understand those tools very, very well. Same goes for libraries (or really anything in the software dev toolchain). If the codebase is small enough for a single developer to understand reasonably quickly, there's no value in support.

But if we're talking something like a database server or operational software -- absolutely. You want an expert you can call who will help you fix your problem within a certain amount of time (SLA). Customers really only need support for production outages: assume your customers are at least as smart as you are, and given enough time they can figure their problem out. But they don't have time, which is why they want to be able to call you.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm part of an open-source project commercially supporting two main libraries, a deep-learning framework, Deeplearning4j -- [http://deeplearning4j.org](http://deeplearning4j.org) \-- and a scientific computing library, ND4J (Numpy for Java), to power it. [http://nd4j.org](http://nd4j.org).

The amount of support companies are willing to pay for depends on how much they need the open-source library, and how complex it is.

There is a perverse incentive, of course, for some open-source projects to become overly complex so that users will end up having to pay them. A certain large open-source e-commerce platform comes to mind...

Companies can and do pay project maintainers for support and additional features all the time. We see this in the world of Java-based scientific computing, for example. I think you'll find that Java projects, because of their role in enterprise software, are more likely to become commercial than others.

Most open-source projects have enterprise distributions that vendors commercially support, like RHEL or CDH4... Those distros often include additional features. In Red Hat's case, they added a security layer that was a compelling value prop. In Cloudera's case, they often include supplementary packages like a management layer.

Support contracts usually indicate that there's a lot of demand and a company large enough to serve that demand. Hourly fees tend to correlate with a sole maintainer, and they can be very high.

</comment><comment><USER4> At GitLab we see a lot of customers that need 24/7 support because our application is central to their delivery pipeline. In the beginning we had a lot of consulting engagements too to perform upgrades. As GitLab became better and the upgrades easier there was a shift to organizations paying for features in the form of GitLab Enterprise Edition.

</comment><comment><USER5> One data point: What we use our open source commercial support contracts for, and what we'd love to have offered by more open source packages, is 24x7 emergency support and break-fix diagnostics and patches.

When a big website running on JBoss starts falling over at 2 AM, and initial triage points to JBoss, being able to get a Redhat engineer involved immediately and get a custom hotfix created if needed, is worth the money we pay.

The problem with this model for a lot of the smaller open source projects is they aren't setup or staffed to be able to provide effective 24x7x365 support.

</comment><comment><USER6> It depends. I've paid for a support contract for our frontline loadbalancer (loadbalancer.org). It's too essential to our operation to be down for any extended amount of time.

We have many other OSS applications that don't need that level of response. If I can't fix it or tweak it myself I'll pay the developer or the consultant to do it for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> The answer, as always, is "it depends". Certainly many companies desire to pay for commercial support for many OSS projects, but by the same token, it's obvious that there are some projects that nobody is paying for support for.

In my experience, when companies pay for commercial support, it's ultimately about paying for the comfort factor of knowing that somebody is "on the hook" to fix things if the shit hit the fan. There's a certain level of "CYA" in there as well. If you approve a project using an unsupported OSS project, and it falls over, and the company loses money, then you may suffer some serious repurcusions. OTOH, if their is a vendor behind the product, and they are called in the fix the problem -- and even if the company _still_ loses money -- the vendor absorbs the blame.

Like others have said though, it depends on how complex the software is, what it does, whether or not the firm has deep knowledge of the product already on staff, etc.

Beyond that, a few more thoughts: subscriptions for OSS software, ala the way Red Hat work, are desirable in many ways. For example, with a subscription, you know you always get the latest version as long as your subscription is up to date, so no "big bucks" version upgrades are required. You're also paying with future, inflated, dollars as opposed to todays dollars which are more valuable (assuming the economy doesn't go delfationary). It also aligns incentives between the vendor and the customer, as the vendor has to continue to provide a solid, functional, operational product, for the company to keep renewing their subscription.

Of course all that's true even if the software is proprietary, but the subscription model seems really popular for OSS stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> In my experience (and depending on the cost/product) a lot of open source commercial support gets bought for "peace of mind". The larger the organization, the more the higher powers want to be able to say "We've got vendor support" to assure everyone around them that everything will be "OK". The trench workers end up wanting the same vendor support, not because they think they need it, but because it gives them someone to blame if everyone goes sideways.

In the past I've paid for pfSense gold because it was only $100/year and it made my bosses feel more secure. We never needed it, never used it, but everyone slept better. Of course, that also goes back to how important the product is (which others have mentioned). If you're talking about support for OpenOffice (or whatever it's called these days) the likelihood of that getting bought is minimal.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is one of those classic "caught in the middle" problems. Small companies won't be able to afford decent support contracts, big companies will vertically integrate by developing/hiring in-house expertise.

The last place I worked was a medium-sized software company (60 people, $xx mil ARR) and we paid about $8k/month for MongoDB's enterprise support (generally quite good) as well as for AWS Enterprise support, which provided faster escalations when getting limits raised (EBS sizes/counts, EC2 instance counts, etc), as well as advance notice of upcoming features and architectural guidance on building our app. I probably wouldn't pay for AWS's service again, to be honest it feels like Amazon built it because bigco enterprise wants to pay for support, whatever diagnosis they did invariably pointed right back at our own configuration/operational error when dealing with AWS (gotta love those security group rules...)

I've long wanted a service where we could sponsor roadmap items for open- source projects. Not sure how putting $ into the equation would interact with an existing open-source product roadmap, but it's de facto what happens today, when fb/yahoo/etc. staff projects with their own developers, who they pay to develop features relevant to their own businesses.

</comment><comment><USER10> In my experience a lot of firms don't necessarily want direct _support_ \- but they may want an SLA.

The nature of the open source market has changed, and I've found that most people conflate free as in speech with free as in beer. As a result, people are picking up open source projects specifically because there's no cost involved, making support - or any kind of license or subscription - a very tough sell.

The only predictable way of selling services on top of an open project I've found has been to hold a piece back and make it commercial, which I think cuts against the principle of the thing. Nonetheless, eating and paying rent are important, so that's the way it goes.

One-off customizations are another matter, but the expectation is that because you gave away your code to begin with, you're going to work for a below-market hourly rate.

Disclosure: I've cofounded two end-user open source projects (elgg.org and withknown.com). At this point I could not be more jaded. It's possible the dynamics are different for infrastructure projects, but the state of OpenSSL et al suggest not.

</comment><comment><USER11> There be dragons.

OS support is either so bad it's not worth the cost, or so good it makes your in-house crew look incompetent and so the advice is thrown out the window in the interest of protecting silos.

There could be a market for on-demand support, perhaps. Get a marketplace of engineers with very deep knowledge of a bunch of domains, and price them as 24x7 support for some crazy amount of money.

Practical problems in enterprise: on-demand engineers will have 0 access to the client network and won't anytime soon without a full onboarding process, destroying the nature of the "fix this quick" benefit. Spending decisions go up a long and slow tree.

</comment><comment><USER12> I explored this not too long ago. The basic gist was to offer a managed service that did everything for small businesses (run, host, update, upgrade open source software) for a low monthly price. The technical side was simple. Using docker on top of amazon servers to run whatever software was needed. But I was unable to sell it properly. Dunno where I failed. I moved on. :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm running a small company supporting pypy (baroquesoftware.com). I would _love_ to somehow outsource the bizdev for my projects.

</comment><comment><USER14> Has anybody looked at BountySource.com? Seems like an interesting model for funding targeted features / bug fixes in oss.

<comment><USER7> They have a new feature called "Salt" which is based around generating recurring crowd-funded revenue for OSS projects. We have been looking into the possibility of giving it a spin, but haven't committed yet. But yeah, it definitely looks interesting.</comment></comment>


After OTF takeover, USAGM CEO faces pressure from lawmakers and courts - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/21301542/otf-usagm-michael-pack-lawsuit-congress-open-technology-fund <comment><AUTHOR> > The senators call on Pack to maintain OTF's technical advisory board and its > support for open-source security audits. In particular, the letter calls out > OTF's requirement that supported projects open-source their code, a > requirement that many were hoping to sidestep to direct money to the > Ultrasurf project.

 _> "We are concerned by statements from OTF's former CEO that USAGM is now seeking to steer its funds to programs that do not meet this necessary qualifications."_</comment>


Ask HN: Noise from new furnace; How to effectively record? - <AUTHOR>

I know from reading comments that some here have more than a passing acquaintance with audio recording.  My new furnace is making noise intermittently; unfortunately for diagnosis/service, largely in the later afternoon and night.  Next Tuesday will mark 11 weeks I've been living with this, including disrupted sleep and worry.<p>I'm becoming desperate to get this fixed -- effectively.  In order to demonstrate to the contractor -- and now wholesaler and manufacturer what is happening, I need to be able to present good recorded examples.  I don't have a lot of money to keep trying different equipment; I'm hoping some advice from HN can steer me in the right direction.  What recording device and microphone might serve well, having flat response across the audible spectrum and not missing nor aggressively filtering out what it decides is undesired noise -- even and as that may be the sound I am after? <comment><USER2> Something like this would be a good, inexpensive option for a microphone:

[http://www.amazon.com/MXL-770-Cardioid-Condenser- Microphone/...](http://www.amazon.com/MXL-770-Cardioid-Condenser- Microphone/dp/B0007NQH98/)

For a recording device, most people use their computer. You'd need to add an audio interface into which you can plug both the microphone (XLR) and the computer (Firewire/USB, generally). Lots of options. The cheapest one would probably be fine for this purpose. Then use, say, Audacity software on the computer to record.

<comment><USER2> I've never used this one, but this may also be a fine option, and would eliminate the need for a separate audio interface:

www.amazon.com/CAD-U37-Condenser-Recording-Microphone/dp/B001AIQGUO/

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for both responses. I looked at the first item and will look at this next.

If it's not inconvenient, could you expand briefly on what kind of audio interface you are speaking of? This is all quite new to me, and I'm as yet unclear on what I should be looking for. (I don't know -- yet -- how such a set up hangs together.)

Audacity I'm passingly familiar with and think I can further figure out.

P.S. I'm also looking and can probably figure out on my own. So no worries if it's not convenient -- this already gives me a/the direction to look in.

P.P.S. Browsing Amazon now with the browser that does not have NoScript, I see links to interface products appearing on those pages. Operating on 5 hours of sort of sleep, here...

<comment><USER2> Sure. Something like this would probably work just fine for your needs:

[http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB/](http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB/)

There's all sorts of more expensive interfaces (and microphones) that you can buy, but for what you're describing, they likely wouldn't help much. I don't think you're needing to do professional foley recording of your furnace for a major motion picture. :-)

So in sum, if you went the separate interface/microphone route, you'd have something like:

\- microphone sitting on microphone stand, say, eighteen inches away from the furnace. If you don't know exactly where the sound is coming from, set the stand so the mic is about half-way up the height of the furnace.

\- XLR cable running from microphone to audio interface

\- audio interface connected to your computer via USB or FireWire or whatever cable (based on your selection of interface)

\- For that particular microphone, it needs to be powered by the interface, so press the 48v button on the interface to activate the power to the mic.

You'll need to adjust the input knobs and such on the interface ensure getting adequate audio signal. I can't tell you exactly what to set it to without being familiar with the particulars, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out. (You can record digital audio at a very low level and it still turns out usable, but if you record too high, it clips, and is pretty much ruined. So favor too quiet rather than too loud, if you're not sure, and boost the level in Audacity, if needed.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I ordered the USB microphone with next day shipping (a bit excessive, but that will ensure it's here in time for our next major transition to colder weather).

If that doesn't do well enough, I'll follow up with the microphone that requires a separate interface. This gives me a little more time to investigate those details and to talk myself into the $200 or so.

Thanks again, so much. I knew there must be good choices out there, but wading in with zero knowledge felt kind of overwhelming, especially on top of the stress of the circumstances.

Years ago, people would tell me I should do voice acting (voice-overs -- whatever the right term is). (I never really heard that, in my own voice.) Who knows, maybe I'm inadvertently on the cusp of my new career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I realize this may be a bit OT for HN. My karma here's generally decent, and on a personal level I could really use the help.

Also, this and some other experiences with noise have me thinking again about learning to design products and services that help people document unreasonable noise and get it addressed. Whether a malfunctioning appliance or piece of equipment, or the neighbour kids with the booming subwoofer. Timing, localization, and calibrated measurement of intensity.

\--

It's actually been a series of noises that have changed after each of the two attempts at repair. I have an older analog tape cassette recorder whose built- in microphone captured the first sound fairly well.

The built-in microphone of an old iAudio MP3 player with a record function didn't capture that sound well, but it did capture the lower sound made after the first repair.

Between the two devices, I assumed one would capture the "in between" sound that followed the second repair. However, both built-in microphones seem to be "dead" in that frequency range.

I borrowed a Sony "stick" digital voice recorder when the first repair produced the second noise profile, but it did not seem to register this at all. I don't have the manual for it, but I've played with / guessed at its settings, and it is now picking up the third noise following the second repair to some extent, but not too well. It does have a microphone in mini-jack.

P.S. While I've learned that more minor noise with this unit hints at the real trouble to come, I'm not what is just a minor background noise. I'm speaking of "wake you in the middle of the night", give you headaches at your home office work desk types of noise. Unfortunately, since particularly the more recent noises are intermittent, I can't count on them manifesting for the very limited time a service technician may be on-site.</comment>


Taking GNOME to the Next Level - <AUTHOR> http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/taking-gnome-3-to-the-next-level/ <comment><USER2> > The way that the tray is triggered has also been changed. The hot corner – > which many people had problems with – has been replaced. Instead, the whole > of the bottom screen edge now acts as a trigger area; letting the mouse rest > there for a short period will cause the tray to appear. We plan to improve > this behaviour in subsequent releases, so that a certain about of pressure > against the screen edge is required to open the tray (we need to wait for > changes down the stack before we can achieve this).

Honestly, this makes me nervous. The Gnome team often seems far too willing to ship a bad experience because it will help "drain the swamp".

<comment><USER3> I'm looking forward to it - at worst, it means they've just increased the area in which that bar can be activated.

I have a dual-screen setup with the primary on the left; that bottom-right corner is often (but not always, weirdly enough) quite hard to hit if there isn't a notification there. This will be a boon to users like me, and I don't see a downside - it seems strictly an improvement, even if they want to improve it further later on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What I find amazingly idiotic is that when I try to access the url from India, I get this message

"The URL you requested has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom(CHNN). URL = afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/taking-gnome-3-to-the- next-level/"

Now, why the department of telecommunications is taking down articles on Gnome, one can only speculate. But, I think that they think Gnome is a bittorrent client. It's the only reasonable explanation. :)

<comment><USER5> Sigh. India, where bureaucracy and logic are at war with each other.

<comment><USER6> Bureaucracy and logic (and common sense) have been in perpetual war everywhere since the invention of the concept of government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Gnome may not be dead and it's nice to see them work hard to achieve a suitable user experience. However, I personally don't like the _look_ of it. To me it seems the windows don't fit the rest of the U.I. The borders are too big, in my opinion and the buttons don't "feel" right or look right.

Usability wise, it's still lacking, I think. I'm a grumpy sob, I guess. I hope they succeed but I have to be honest, I don't think they will.

/end grump

<comment><USER8> Thankfully, for those of us who prefer our desktops to work well rather than look good, there are always third party options for themes. I personally combine the "Holo" Gnome Shell theme with the "Adwaita Dark" Gtk theme, and I think the result is a vast improvement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I want is to be able to use the Gnome Shell at the same time as a panel. Currently you can only pick one. Gnome Shell (and Unity) suck at managing multiple instances of apps or their windows which covers most of what I run due to a dual screen setup. So I need the panel for that, but then can't use the Shell.

I did have both working in an earlier release, but the panel was from a third party and they break on every gnome release.

<comment><USER10> KDE could be easily configured to behave like that.

disclaimer: KDE contributor.

<comment><USER9> It has been a while since I last tried KDE so I tried again - using Kubuntu. All I got was a bottom panel and never found any way of getting an equivalent to the Gnome Shell.

But it also reminded me why I have never liked KDE - it just feels too busy with too much going on. I prefer things simpler visually as well as functionally. Yes, I'm one of those people who are quite happy when Gnome go around removing configurability (right up till the point it is an option I use). I try to use defaults as much as possible and find it important that they are appealing and well thought out.

<comment><USER10> Well, you should look for 'Screen Edges' in System Settings. There you can define the proper action for top-left corner (set it to Present Windows effect). Also, you can remove the bottom panel and/or configure it to look like windows, mac or gnome shell.

But if you are a person who prefers to stick with defaults, well, KDE's defaults are very old and plain.

<comment><USER9> That isn't what Gnome shell does - many window managers can do that and it is mostly useless to me since I have so many windows (that are the same) open - taskbars work easier.

The useful bits of Gnome shell show up when you press the Windows key (far easier than trying to find a spot on a dual screen setup). Sure you get the window selector, but far more usefully you can start typing stuff and it finds useful matches (apps, contacts etc). It also has a nicer notification system, as well as improved 'tray' (whatever they call it).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Taking GNOME to the Previous Level?

</comment><comment><USER12> tired of gnome PR.. gnome is dead, let it RIP

<comment><USER13> On what planet is it dead?

Gnome is still the default GUI on a lot of operating systems. In fact, I'm quite fond of Gnome Shell on one of my laptops.

What bothers m most is what I perceive as a need to follow Microsoft. I fear things like the lock screen thing will prove confusing for many users.

<comment><USER14> As fair as I am concerned GNOME is dead and rotting but the major distros, seemingly blind to this, have left it sitting at the head of the table.

Among the linux users I know, there are two categories. Those who change their DE, and those who complain endlessly about it.

<comment><USER15> Every linux user I know (except maybe two) runs gnome3/gnome-shell and loves it. One of those two run gnome3 with unity. So only one user I know isn't running gnome - he runs kde. He plans to try out gnome for a month after watching me with it.

I love where they're going with gnome3. I understand the frustration people have, because there are some places where it superficially feels like 2 steps forward, 2 steps back. However, if you use it you can _feel_ how good the platform decisions seem to have been, and if you watch it improve with each point release you really get a feel that these guys are _enjoying_ providing top notch Free Software again (gnome2 was stagnant). Also, if you want to use gnome2....just freaking do so.

<comment><USER16> I have yet to meet anybody IRL who actually _likes_ Gnome3. I see a few posters on the 'net from time to time who claim to like it, but that's it.

OTOH, I see a lot of people saying they've switch to Mate, or Cinammon, or KDE, or XFCE, etc. Personally, I've switched to KDE and couldn't be happier. Good riddance to Gnome, as far as I'm concerned.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uber's New Tipping Policy Is a Mistake - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/05/ubers-new-tipping-policy-is-a-mistake <comment><USER2> Here in the UK (where tipping is a different beast entirely to the US) every taxi I've ever taken has been paid for in cash. I think this is still the norm because every fixed-fare I've had has been priced a few ££ below a round- figure in expectation of "keep the change".

That said, if I was paying by card via an app (and I've never used Uber) I would absolutely expect _not_ to tip or have to talk money with the driver at all. It just seems rather unprofessional.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lyft has been doing quite a lot right relative to Uber recently.

Due to my employer, I had been a frequent user of Uber's platform. A few weeks ago, I decided to give the Lyft app a try again after a longish hiatus. I found the app comparatively uncluttered and performant. Whereas Uber's app has six billion options along the slider bar, Lyft doesn't bombard users with mostly unused choice.

Coincidentally, I had a friend visiting who tried Uber's app for the first time right as Uber had rolled out some pretty massive changes to the UI and service. When his app defaulted to an interstitial prompt for carpooling, I thought he'd hit UberPool by accident, and had him back out to try again. When it happened again, I assumed something was janked with the app, and had him kill the app and restart it.

Lyft's focussed approach to on-demand mobility may be an in-road against the "do everything" approach of Uber. The subsidies they are offering means I have no cost incentive to use Uber for the moment--instead I roll a large portion of the $5/trip savings into tipping. This bumps the price back up to unsubsidised Uber levels, but I _feel_ like I've gotten a bargain, and I know those dollars are going to the driver. In that sense Lyft is getting double duty from their subsidies. Clever, considering the goal is to build both the supply and demand sides of their marketplace.

Now the tipping feature in the app all of a sudden feels less of a liability and more of an asset. All told, Lyft's been handed some lucky cards and has been playing them well.

</comment><comment><USER4> People claim tips as a business expense? I did not realize this. I always kept the gratuities off the receipts whenever I travelled on business. Doing otherwise would have felt dishonest, as I viewed these as a private transaction between myself and the person serving.

<comment><USER5> Best example I can think of is going out to eat with 10 and picking up the bill to expense, you will probably want to include that on expense due to amount.

Same thing for uber with multiple co workers. That would warrant a non negligible tip.

<comment><USER4> That makes sense. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> May be the start of Uber's downfall :(</comment>


1TB Micro SD Memory Card [Fraud] - <AUTHOR> https://www.amazon.com/1TB-Micro-SD-Memory-Card/dp/B01M7Z2IMH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486152675&sr=8-1&keywords=1tb+sd+card <comment><USER2> Interestingly, there are two sellers that sell it, and both of them just launched and have no customer feedback:

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/B01M7Z2IMH/ref=dp_ol...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer- listing/B01M7Z2IMH/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all&qid=1486152675&sr=8-1)

The photos show a generic package that has no brand name on it.</comment>


Why Yale Library decided to preserve 3000 horror and exploitation movies on VHS - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/saving-the-scream-queens/401141/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> The success of Blockbuster video may have in part been due to its cleanliness, but from my experience it was because your mom 'n pop shop would have two copies of a new blockbuster movie so you'd never get to see it, and Blockbuster would have a hundred waiting for you. These old movies are awesome, they bypassed the MPAA and touched topics that a studio would've considered too risky for general distribution, indie VHS really took over where drive-in movies left off. But in the end most people didn't care, they just wanted to watch the Matrix and Blockbuster had two shelves of it stacked two-deep. I don't know what's taken over since VHS. Maybe crowdfunding could fill this gap, but nothing will have the "feel" that these movies did, because nowadays with the Internet nothing can be truly "obscure" for very long.

When I lived in Iowa City in the 1990's, I used to go to a tiny video store called The Tofu Hut (How's that name for a deep 90's culture reference) which did a marvelous job of picking a selection of foreign movies, anime, fetish pornography and independent and exploitation films. There will never be places like that again. They existed in a small gap when VHS was thriving and Blockbuster wasn't dominant.

<comment><USER3> It would help if video content on the Internet were not centralized and commodified at huge impersonal sites like YouTube. There definitely ought to be such communities on the Internet. It's easier than ever to make film and it's easier than ever to connect with others and share.

<comment><USER4> What's your complaint about youtube? They host exabytes of video and make it freely available worldwide. There is no better resource for video creators.

<comment><USER3> Youtube decides what content is permissible by being one of the large gatekeepers for distribution. They also are a large lever for large copyright holders to push on to hurt small content creators who have less recourse for action (DMCA and whatnot).

Youtube is ultimately private property. It is not a commons. That's my complaint. The whole Internet is a commons but there's no commonly shared infrastructure on the scale of youtube for content distribution and relating content to other content and to communities of people, unless you count search engines as that infrastructure.

<comment><USER4> That's why it exists. There can never be a commons. There can be large private sites or small ones. Large ones like youtube are more useful.

<comment><USER3> > There can never be a commons.

Why not?

<comment><USER4> Because there isn't one now and there's no reason for one to ever come into being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a great (and possibly NSFW) tumblr dedicated to this genre: [http://the-scandyfactory.tumblr.com/](http://the-scandyfactory.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> It cites controversy about the collection but doesn't really go into what the controversy is. Why is it controversial? Or is it just not controversial?

<comment><USER2> There's no controversy, it's just an affection of the writer. They mention further down that there may be film purists who insist that movies are only correctly made and preserved in celluloid, but that luckily there's a "new generation of scholarship" interested in the history of home video. Apparently Leonard Maltin was part of this "new generation" when he wrote the Complete Guide to Home Video in 1981 :-P I find it extremely hard to believe that there's anybody academically involved in the history of cinema that would see this collection as without value and recommend putting it into the dumpster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a documentary about VHS movies:

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

It's somewhat reliant on nostalgia for the medium, which I don't have because I didn't have a VHS player, but even so, I found it interesting. It makes it clear why VHS is culturally important and why so many people care about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Um duh, cause it's a Library. (One of) Library's jobs is to preserve our culture as expressed in the media arts. Library's don't judge that culture. They maintain it so current and future society have a chance to.

<comment><USER9> I wonder if there has been art that was acceptable or at least tolerated once but is now illegal or so out-of-fashion that even libraries won't keep it? This certainly doesn't seem to be such a thing though.

An example might be if the age of consent for being in a porn video or having sex has ever been lowered. Then the older work might become illegal to keep in a library.

<comment><USER10> Pictures of naked children have fallen out of fashion, and even platonic pictures of naked children have fewer collectors now than before the anti- child pornography laws went in to effect.

I'm not arguing for or against, merely pointing out that in Victorian England, such collections were made and have trouble being maintained now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't really get it. Digitize the movies and their boxes. Keeping the actual physical items seems like overkill.

<comment><USER12> Do you feel the same way about books? Or paintings?

<comment><USER13> I'd say this approach is fine for books if you scan them, but not if you OCR them and keep the resulting text. I've seen a lot of OCR errors, and archival copies are often not vetted before being archived.

But for paintings... an image of a painting is the painting. The only advantage of the original is that, if you believe that it's the original and that it hasn't changed with the passage of time (e.g. by fading), you can prove that the original really looked like that. As soon as you have trouble with either of those assumptions, the archived copy is at least as good (and in the case of fading over time, better).

There's a problem in philosophy asking whether you believe that a molecule- for-molecule copy of a painting is metaphysically equivalent to that painting. Obviously, there's no way for any test to tell them apart, but a lot of people will say that nevertheless the original is metaphysically different. Are you one of those?

<comment><USER14> If we expand "image" to include a 3D relief map of the brush strokes, then I might agree.

But there is still forensic analysis, spectroscopy, etc. that can only be done with the original.

<comment><USER15> This. You have not seen Van Gogh's paintings until you've seen them in person. He heaps on gops of paint on his canvasses, and the third dimension is an aspect of the paintings that cannot be appreciated fully in 2D reproductions. As a corollary, the lighting of a painting is an important aspect of viewing it, as the angle of light will affect highlights and shadows, especially for some paintings which use glossy paints.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft's partnership with Cyanogen Inc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/microsoft-google-cyanogen/ <comment><USER2> This article's title is terrible, but just to make clear what confused many in the Ars Technica comment section, _Cyanogen Inc_ is partnering with Microsoft, which is a totally separate effort from CyanogenMod (except that Cyanogen Inc is trying to commercialize it).

CyanogenMod meanwhile has announced that things are going to continue as normal, with no Microsoft apps to be found:

> _We are not bundling or pre-installing Microsoft (or any Cyanogen OS > exclusive partner apps) into CyanogenMod_ [1]

[1] [http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/microsoft-and- cm12-1-nightli...](http://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/microsoft-and- cm12-1-nightlies)

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say it's a 'totally separate effort'. Much of the core CyanogenMod dev team are also Cyanogen Inc. employees.

I assume what you meant to say is that CyanogenMod is entirely separate from Cyanogen Inc.'s commercial product, Cyanogen OS, which has always been true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amazon tried the same thing and has been at best marginally successful, and they went to the trouble of building an appstore and ecosystem around these services.

Just offering Microsoft versions of Google Play Services functionality (maps, games, locations, billing, sync, messaging, etc) only gets you in the door. To actually be successful, you need to make all the apps peolple want work with your services rather than Google's. That's why this isn't scaring Google one bit.

Ars Technica went into a fair bit of detail about this a couple years ago.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and- sl...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-slow-oems- step-aside-google-is-defragging-android/)

Now if Microsoft came in and decided to fork Android similarly to Amazon, and put their full weight behind it, with their own appstore and such, now _that_ might scare Google. But that's not what they're doing.

<comment><USER5> All they really need to do is duplicate the Google Play APIs, then the existing apps would work with your version of those services.

I agree that it doesn't seem like they're doing this yet, but it doesn't seem like it would be a big undertaking for somebody like Microsoft--given that they already have their own mapping, email, messaging (Skype), app store, and billing infrastructure. You just need a shim layer to convert Google-format APIs to Bing-format.

And you don't even need to sell it to consumers, just to phone OEMs. Samsung is pretty clearly already chaffing under Google's yoke, I bet they would easily jump on board the MS Android train.

<comment><USER4> That's a pretty substantial oversimplification. Amazon did that, and like I said, they were at best marginally successful.

<comment><USER5> Amazon is playing a totally different game with Kindle. They're not trying to compete with Google for general-purpose Android devices, they're trying to make limited-purpose Amazon-machines that help users consume more content from Amazon.

<comment><USER4> Amazon isn't stupid. Yes, obviously they're in the game to sell their content, but they are well aware they need to offer general-purpose devices to compete, and they are absolutely on that correct path.

Their execution hasn't been great, but they know what they ned to do and they're trying to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The title seems a bit hyperbolic. Google still controls the "real" Android; without the Google Apps, Android is missing quite a bit[1]. Sure, bundling OneDrive might help Microsoft take a few users from Google drive, but I would hardly characterize it as taking over Android's future.

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip- on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android- controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

<comment><USER7> The title is _incredibly_ hyperbolic. A more accurate title would be "Microsoft OneNote to be pre-installed on the YU Yureka and Alcatel Idol phones". That's literally all this is. That's the only customers for CyanogenOS, and that's the extent of this partnership. They're still shipping google apps on the phones, it's still Google's android, and this doesn't affect CyanogenMod. Microsoft is just shoving their foot in the door.

Microsoft apps being pre-installed on the new Galaxy S was much bigger news.

<comment><USER8> > _Microsoft apps being pre-installed on the new Galaxy S was much bigger > news._

Reportedly leveraging their Android patents to do so: [http://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-cuts-patent- fees-f...](http://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-cuts-patent-fees-for- apps-600824/)

<comment><USER9> That's brilliant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel the headline is quite exaggerated.

It is interesting news. We heard a while ago that Microsoft was investing in Cyanogen, and it turns out that this isn't just a financial relationship. They are also going to have the Microsoft set of apps as an option on Cyanogen.

Still, this isn't "taking Android's future out of Google's hand." The Android code is and has been open source, which is what enables things like Cyanogen to exist, so there is nothing new there.

All that we learned of here is of an option to bundle Microsoft apps on Cyanogen; that might interest some vendors, but it doesn't seem like a game changer. Other apps have been bundled on various non-Google Android devices in the past.

<comment><USER11> Samsung was getting close to having a viable Google Play alternative bundle of services/apps with their "S" collection but they seemingly bailed on that with their latest Google agreement. I think that left an opening for Microsoft to step in with their cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm just happy I wasn't taking a sip of my coffee when I read that title. Is this what passes as tech journalism these days? Did they get Buzzfeed to give them pointers or something?

</comment><comment><USER12> For me, the one compelling thing about CyanogenMod -- the only thing keeping me on the platform -- is the ability to control app permissions. Google looked like it was going in that direction with the "App Ops" control, but that's gone now.

</comment><comment><USER13> Wasn't this the whole point of Android in the first place?

I remember just before, or around the time Apple were releasing the iPhone, Google partnered with a bunch of other organisations to create the Open Handset Alliance

Android was a product of that partnership and developers/companies were free to fork the platform should they so wish, like Amazon did with their flavour of Android.

[http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html](http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html)

<comment><USER14> > Google partnered with a bunch of other organisations to create the Open > Handset Alliance Android was a product of that partnership and > developers/companies were free to fork the platform should they so wish

No, OHA members never were allowed to fork Android as Amazon did. In fact, the very objective of OHA is use the same Android base with a certification process

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looking forward to some virtualization/docker type functionality on my phone so I can run apps from any major OS without having to be tied down to a particular platform. Makes life a lot easier in the data center and can't help but think it could make it easier for developers to support multiple platforms and for new platforms to enter the market.

<comment><USER16> Virtualizion of 3D graphics/animation is challenging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So this is it, then. The "Microsoft GNU/Linux" distribution that slashdot kept joking about? Who'da thunk. :)

<comment><USER18> Well, other than the lack of Gnu in Android.

<comment><USER19> How much GNU is in the Android toolchain? They're still using GCC to build the kernel at least, right?

<comment><USER18> They now have llvm and gcc toolchains now, so imagine they are planning to switch (although it is still GNU ld/gold even with llvm), although that is for userspace, the kernel is not really part of Android and would still be gcc compiled for now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord AOSP is still in Google's hands, and most major companies which ship Android devices are contractually forbidden from using derivatives as part of their membership in the OHA.

It is evident that Microsoft wants to propel CyanogenMod in a more competitive direction for their own benefit, but it is far too early for any conclusion to be drawn here.

</comment><comment><USER20> This seems like a step in the right direction for open mobile coupled with paid software. It doesn't seem right that phones come with software you can't remove like "NFL Mobile", and for the most part we accept this.

</comment><comment><USER14> > WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENT that Microsoft would partner with the truly open- > source, Android-based Cyanogen OS

...

> A more open Android is on the rise, and Microsoft just provided a powerful > updraft.

How it is more open or truly open source when both of them rely on proprietary apps and services?

</comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know if preinstalled app are limited in Europe?

</comment><comment><USER22> Can anyone predict how this will affect Windows Phone?

<comment><USER10> The article says there are no plans for Microsoft hardware with Cyanogen on it.

I imagine Microsoft will continue as it has been with Windows Phone. This is just a way to use the Microsoft apps across both Windows Phone and Cyanogen devices that want those apps. There is benefit to Microsoft from growing that ecosystem, so that switching between Android devices and Windows Phones is less jarring.

<comment><USER23> MS really needs to allow Android emulation on Windows Phone. It's just too painful because so many apps don't exist or have shitty WP hacks only. Controlling a speaker? Playing Go on various servers? Sending secure messages (TextSecure/Signal)? I've no high performance needs, but WP simply lacks the apps I need.

Also, their store is a disgrace of crap, shovelwear and outright scams. They even had a fake Windows 8.1 Update pass their "approval" process. Even when I find a non scam, the quality is usually poor.

<comment><USER10> It's obviously not quite the same, but Microsoft supporting Android apps on Windows Phone reminds me of IBM supporting Windows apps on OS/2\. Supporting your competitor's apps can prevent some immediate suffering by users, but it isn't a good strategy for an ecosystem.

If people end up mostly running the emulated apps on your OS, you might as well just use that other OS, and run those apps on it natively, for the best experience. And figure out a way to run your ecosystem on top of that. Specifically here, that would mean for Microsoft to switch to Cyanogen for its devices, and ship a .NET runtime so Windows Phone apps can work on it.

I doubt that's a great idea, but I think it's better than emulating Android apps on top of Windows Phone. I'm just guessing here though.

<comment><USER24> On the other hand, Parallels Desktop, VMWare and Bootcamp helped a lot of people switch from Windows computers over to the Mac. Sometimes it can work out & bring more customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> and how is this different than with Nokia X?..wrong title..overblown hypebole

</comment><comment><USER26> Sensationalize much?

</comment><comment><USER27> Ugh. More pre-installed apps I'll never use and can't remove.

<comment><USER28> According to the article you can remove them. Agree on the "I'll never use" part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Now if someone can just figure out how to get this "watch" app off my iPhone.</comment>


The truth about Purism: Why Librem is not the same as libre - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/?

<comment><AUTHOR> This was posted two days ago here but I think it's worthy of discussion</comment>


Repo companies have passively scanned & uploaded locations of 9B license plates - mark-ruwt https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne879z/i-tracked-someone-with-license-plate-readers-drn <comment><USER2> I think the scariest part of is in the first part of this; the collection of data was _voluntarily_ crowdsourced by repo men all acting as independent actors. While right now there is still a centralized corporation that can be targeted to stop the practice, I can see a future where this stuff becomes decentralized in the same lieu as software piracy sites and their infrastructure is done today, maintained by "helpful" repomen/investigators that each have a pervasive interest in maintaining such a resource.

<comment><USER3> The fundamental problem is that technology has made collecting this information too cheap. Instead of manual entry and uploads, it's automated with essentially zero marginal cost over and above putting the cameras on cars or buildings.

The solution is to make license plate collection expensive again - <AUTHOR> people to install license plate covers that people can manually lift to read the plate and automatically retract when the car is started.

<comment><USER4> I'm a huge proponent of this core idea -- that networked technologies have changed the cost structure that underpins our 20th century implicit understandings about privacy, and that one stopgap approach is to rework the economics of surveillance in a way that re-approximates the cost structure under which our legal and moral consensus was developed.

For example, it was never possible to read, secretly and automatically, in bulk, everyone's correspondence in the 20th century. With email, it's a commonplace that governments do it routinely. Encryption doesn't make it impossible to figure out what someone's corresponding about, it just makes it more expensive (as the investigator may need to devote resources to shoulder- surfing or other means instead of auto-collection). It used to be fairly expensive to have to go to the post office and steam open an envelope, copy it, and seal it back up without detection.

Likewise for various other surveillance technologies, such as the ALPR/ANPRs. The people who (still) write our laws were raised watching TV cops listen for a radio APB on a license plate. For their intuitions about this matter to be valid, it should be roughly as costly in manpower, time, and attention to do a "live alert" on a license plate today as it was for those TV cops.

A pen register used to be an actual box you put at the central office on a specific bad guy of interest, not an excuse to sweep up and cross-correlate every dialed number ever. Again, several orders of magnitude cost difference here, in a way where the difference of degree (cost) becomes a difference of kind.

The big danger IMO is when you have well-meaning legislators and jurists opining about network-enabled privacy intrusions using intuitions and examples formed with 20th century cost expectations.

Eventually those expectations will need to reflect current technology, but in the meantime, anything that can be done to raise the cost of pervasive surveillance is IMO a good thing as it buys time for legal and moral intuitions (much slower rate of change) to adapt.

<comment><USER5> That was such a great comment that I sent it to a few of my friends. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I saw an ALPS vehicle a few months back in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart (AZ). It was rolling slowly up and down the aisles searching for what at first I presumed was a parking spot closer to the front doors.

Closer inspection revealed it's true nature. Mounted on the trunk lid were four cameras, two on each side, angled slightly downward.

The vehicle was an old piece of sht Ford Crown Vic P71 with white doors, black body, black rims, rusted spotlight, and slightly visible police decal adhesive. The kind you purchase at government auction for $750. It looked like something Reevers would use as a daily driver.

Certainly not as classy as a Google Maps car, but apparently getting the job done because parked in the outer lot was a shiny-new, jet-black, "deluxe" companion tow truck with chrome rims and full stealthiness -- waiting for a hit.

</comment><comment><USER7> As someone pointed out below, the entire purpose of license plates is to easily track and identify cars. There's no reason to require the outward display of a license plate otherwise. In fact, there's _already_ a more accurate and up to date piece of information that isn't required to be displayed: your registration card.

I'd never seriously thought about this until reading this story, probably because they've been ubiquitous for decades and as a little kid I loved seeing the different state versions, but I'm surprised that I've never come across a serious discussion about the privacy implications and whether or not it's Constitutional (if it's been addressed, would love a pointer to the case). It doesn't seem like a huge logical leap from the idea of digital anonymity.

<comment><USER8> >privacy implications

I think you voluntarily giving up a certain amount of privacy when you choose to drive on the road. Sure yes you can argue most places you don't really have a choice since you need a car. But then I could argue back- if you value that type of privacy SO MUCH then you can choose to move to an area where you can walk or use public transportation.

I just think this is one of those times where the pros heavily outweigh the cons. Criminals and people who should not be on the road can be way more easily tracked with license plates. I can't really think of a situation where I would care that someone is passively recording my plate location as I drive by?

Also what if you are illegally parked somewhere. How is an officer supposed to issue you a ticket without your plates?

<comment><USER9> > But then I could argue back- if you value that type of privacy SO MUCH then > you can choose to move to an area where you can walk or use public > transportation.

This same style of argument when applied to freedom of speech leads to the appropriately criticized "free speech zones". I have a right to travel and a right to privacy. Saying that I can only use one of these rights at a time is absurd. My opinion on this specific instance might change if the US invested as much into public transportation as it does into roadways, but that is not the case.

> I can't really think of a situation where I would care that someone is > passively recording my plate location as I drive by?

Driving to a union meeting? Driving to an abortion clinic? Driving to a church of a different religion/denomination than your family? Driving away from an abusive partner?

<comment><USER8> > I have a right to travel and a right to privacy. Saying that I can only use > one of these rights at a time is absurd.

You are so fixated on the car in this mindeset.

Do you have the right to fly an airplane and have privacy at the same time? If you don't have it in the air, why do you think you should have it on the roads?

<comment><USER5> Good point with the car fixation. We're very close to easy personalized air travel (eg: the English Channel hoverboard crossing of earlier this summer). License plates are made for objects with a clear front and back, traveling mostly forwards and backwards. How will we identify personal carrier drones? Maybe the answer to this question will move us out of the box and provide a more robust solution to this general license plate issue, and then we can apply that to cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Those interested in this issue will definitely want to check out Grassland. It's basically a blockchain project to democratize video surveillance. [http://grassland.network](http://grassland.network)

"Grassland is a self-organizing , self-sustaining and self-correcting, anonymous network of AI software that quickly and cheaply turns any 2D video feed from any single-perspective camera into live 3D models and can organize data captured from millions of cameras around the world into a real-time, secure, global simulation. It lets humans view the world in a manner like the games SimCity® or Civilization®[1] and lets machines internalize, understand and interact intuitively with the real world."

Previous Hacker News discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19529921)

</comment><comment><USER11> A word of advice for those of you that live in the 19 states that don't require a front license: always back into parking spots to make it difficult or impossible to read your plates. There are other good reasons (like increased safety) for backing into parking spots and keeping your travel history private is just one of them.

<comment><USER12> don't back into parking spots that are right in front of an apartment window or the entrance of a store though, you'll be piping escape gases in people's faces, especially with a truck.

<comment><USER12> I would REALLY like to know what's controversial about this statement.

<comment><USER13> Probably the exhaust/escape typo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To clarify: the DRN database contains 9B _scans_ of license plates, not scans of 9B license plates.

</comment><comment><USER15> Privacy is dead because technology enables ubiquitous surveillance and economics and politics drive it to the limit.

I don't like it and I'm not advocating it, but the question of what a truly, deeply post-privacy society will be like is fascinating.

A very important question is whether or not the administrators of the system were subject to it as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> This would be an interesting database to play with. Using the data here you could backtrack where all the customers in a business live and work. Or you could go forward and figure out where all the people in an area shop. You can do the same with google maps and Apple data but idk if that info would be accessible

<comment><USER17> If by interesting you mean horrifying then yes. Let's be clear, tracking people this way potentially gives you information about their job, religion, health status, clubs, friends, romantic relationships, and family members. It is a massive data liability, comparable to the credit score companies.

<comment><USER16> It's nothing compared to the database chase has. Chase can tell you not only the above but they can break down what brand of mustard each neighborhood consumes and what color and style of underwear you prefer. This just seems like it would be easier for a startup to get access to.

<comment><USER18> Are merchants sharing purchase-level information with credit card companies now?

<comment><USER16> I think the corporate chase card breaks down a lot of the purchase details for my employer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Once I asked a company how they calculated the conversion rate of a billboard ad, I was told they got data from smart billboards reading car plates and linking them to people's online presence.

<comment><USER5> Wow okay, that's terrifying. Especially since it's so passive!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is it legal to hide your car's license plate while the car is not in motion? Seems like a 'privacy shutter' that deploys when the car is turned off could be a useful feature.

<comment><USER21> I think it varies by jurisdiction. For example, Oregon requires plates to be visible on any vehicle being operated on public roads, which might be interpreted as excluding parked cars (assuming that taking up parking space does not constitute operation). But the city of Portland has an ordinance specifically requiring parked cars to have visible plates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A story of repo cars driving and scanning tags has been seen on HN first time many years ago. Meanwhile a buddy of mine works for a "secret" company that has cars driving around ten most criminal infested cities (such as Detroit) and mass-scanning people's faces behind mirror glass. A single car in a busy city is able to scan over 25,000 people daily. This info is later fed into the system and usual clients are Sheriff offices and bounty hunters. I wish someone like VICE did the story on it, but my buddy only showed me screen shoots, no company name, nothing.

In 2019 you cannot assume you have any sort of privacy once you leave your door step, literally.

<comment><USER23> In NH we banned automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including private use and law enforcement ones. I think this option will get more popular, like SF banning certain facial recognition scanners.

<comment><USER8> Why shouldn't law enforcement be able to use it?

I mean.. wouldn't it be great to know if people are driving without valid registrations? Or if a criminal is trying to get somewhere, and you have their plates?

Not sure I see a downside here...

<comment><USER23> They tend to get put into databases that are abused, sometimes by LE officers looking up family members or exes, and sometimes by hackers. Also it's creepy for the government to keep tabs on millions (well NH is only 1.4 million) of innocent people. If there's some specific car you're looking for, humans can keep an eye out for it. Anyone can still track the plates etc. but it's harder to make a all-encompasing database without automated readers.

Live free or die, eh?

<comment><USER18> Ban collection. Permit surveillance with a warrant.

There's currently an amber alert for a 5-year-old girl (presumptively) abducted here in NJ [1]. They don't (that I know of) have a license plate but if they did I don't think any person nor court would have an issue with a warrant enabling automated surveillance of that plate number.

In an idyllic scenario, you could even enable automated collection and storage but only allow access with a warrant.

[1] [https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new- jer...](https://nypost.com/2019/09/18/amber-alert-issued-for-new-jersey-girl- dulce-maria-alavez/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Because of this problem, do we have recourse now to hide license plates until requested by law enforcement? Is there an opportunity for us to update (change) the old law?

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone else feel like paying for everything in cash again? This is so creepy, and it's nothing compared to the data cell phone companies and credit card companies have on you.

<comment><USER26> I've wondered whether cash serial numbers are scanned at ATMS and bank deposits. The metadata could be quite informative.

<comment><USER27> I'm pretty certain that they are. Can't remember the source at the moment though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Another reason to take a bus ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it legal to build such systems? What if tomorrow someone will decide to replace the government with a private system like this? We've done something like that in the area of finance, with cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER30> Not legal in Europe.</comment></comment>


Why I Had to Buy My Wife's Inhaler on the Dark Web - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-i-had-to-buy-my-wifes-inhaler-on-the-dark-web

<comment><USER2> "We had just obtained health insurance through Kentucky's health care exchange... a plan with low prescription co-pays...the total ... with insurance applied, turned out to be around $300."

I have Cystic Fibrosis, so I understand expensive medicines.

There's the co-pay, but also the deductible. At the beginning of the cycle, you have to meet the deductible before you start seeing the low co-pay.

In my situation, I know January is always a big hit, where I automatically spend $1000, since in a given month I take tens of thousands of dollars in medications. Every month after that, I may spend tens of dollars for the same prescriptions.

<comment><USER3> Tens of thousands sounds high, even for CF. I am curious if that means you are taking Vertex.

(No obligation to answer. I also have CF and the figures are usually more like $2-3k/mo, last I checked. So, just wondering.)

<comment><USER2> No, I'm not on Vertex (Kalydeco), since I'm delta f508 homozygous, and that treatment was just approved.

Obviously I'm referring to retail cost. A quick peek at the most expensive ones, according to my insurance plan: Creon ($4500), Tobi ($7300), Pulmozyme ($5400), Cayston ($7200).

<comment><USER3> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's depressing that our medicine is so incredibly overpriced in this day and age. This is the problem we need to fix before we worry about getting everyone health care, in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> look up Hydroxyprogesterone Caproate. $1500 a dose to keep a baby in the womb.

<comment><USER6> My step father has to take a pill that costs insurance $800 a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have respiratory problems. I used to pay insurance claims for a living. At one time, I was studying to become an urban planner. In order to get off the prescription drugs, whose side effects were killing me, I have pursued a whole lot alternative treatments for my medical condition.

I will just say that there are a great many things wrong in the world that contribute to this kind of scenario. For one thing, asthma is on the rise due to pollution. We are slow to address problems like that, even while documenting the connection, meanwhile we are happy to keep prescribing drugs for it and then complain about the financial cost. Being sick all the time and needing drugs all the time costs a lot more than mere money.

I hate the state of things in America today and I hate how insurance works. But there is really a lot more going on than just that. It's sad that we seem unable to have good discussions about other underlying causes and mostly just want to talk trash about pricing.

<comment><USER7> Isn't pollution in the US on a fairly steady decline? I know for instance modern cars make 5% of the junk cars in the 80s did.

<comment><USER3> I don't know if overall pollution is on a fairly steady decline. I do know that population is up and there are studies that correlate poor air quality in certain neighborhoods with increases in asthma diagnoses, need for medications, frequency of attacks, etc. This is something urban planners used to concern themselves with -- how the built environment and development impacts human health -- and that focus is much less common these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've bought my Albuterol rescue inhalers from an overseas pharmacy for years.

Price of one, _with insurance copay_ , at Walgreens: $15

Price of one (I never order just one) from overseas: $4.50

</comment><comment><USER9> WHat an informative write-up to get a layman started with darknet. It is also reassuring that people could trust it to some extent.

We live in a world that is turned upside down \o/. The good way is just the bad way turned inside out. As it is above; so it is below!</comment>