Maximize your tweet's chance of discovery via hashtags - <AUTHOR> http://ritetag.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a cool idea, but can someone explain why this requires the following Twitter permissions?

\- Update your profile.

\- Post Tweets for you.

\- Access your direct messages.

In general I'm at loss why so many apps require so many permissions. They must lose a ton of customers from this. Anyone care to explain? Is it just a spam app meant to create a botnet or what?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I am a co-founder of RiteTag. Don't worry we are not any spam bot. But unfurtunately, Twitter has only 3 types of permissions:

1) Read 2) Write 3) Direct messages

We cannot go only for Read because we need to allow users to sent and schedule tweets via RiteTag. But we do not send anything that user hasn't manually approved.

Write permission goes automatically with Update your profile even though we don't use it at all. As developers, we cannot select only Posting tweets. That's Twitter's policy. It doesn't make sense for us either.

Lastly, we were playing with direct messages a year ago. We don't need them now and we could turn them off. But in the meantime we got more than 7000 users and if we change the permissions RiteTag would stop working for them until they re-authorize it. This means all the tweets they have scheduled would not be sent.

Here is more info from Twitter, if you are interested: [https://dev.twitter.com/docs/application-permission- model](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/application-permission-model)

<comment><USER3> Regarding not wanting to turn off the DM permission in order to avoid a disruption to 7000 users, as the DM permission is a disquieting thing that will prompt complaints as this gains popularity and 7000 isn't that high a number, you might want to just rip the band aid off and get it over with now..

<comment><USER4> Founder of RiteTag here, and always available @osakasaul in Twitter (Saul Fleischman). FWIW, in regards to 7K users not being a high number, it took us 25 months to get to 7K users. Many signed up well over a year ago. Asking them all to remove permission in Twitter settings and then auth in again, we'd lose so many people who are not used to going into Twitter settings, and would simply go away. But thank you very much for the feedback - and also, a worthwhile opinion on the problem with Twitter permissions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I played with twitter bots before, and I tried different ways to maximize the exposure of my "automated" tweets, sometimes by parsing dictionary words, other times by targeting trending hashtags, but that didn't seem to generate much traffic.

I would be really interested in any statistics regarding the effect of hashtags, or statistics about users who actually browse/search through hashtags.

<comment><USER6> I submitted a post yesterday I wrote about using statistical analysis on Instagram hashtags: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7458540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7458540)

The key takeaway is that there's a lot of variance in the amount of engagement even after optimizing your hashtags. Twitter would be _worse_ since there's an implicit hashtag cap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can I give you some unsolicited feedback?

\- On Firefox 27x the "Most Popular" note is overlapped on top of the pricing, making both hard to read

\- the jump from free to lite seems a little large... is there no room for, say, a $5/mo plan?

\- after authorizing Twitter in order to sign up, the site blanked out and I had to go back to ritetag.com manually, after which I was logged in

\- I can't tell a difference between the colors for "tweets with low chance" and "tweets with high chance". I'm assuming one is orange and one is green, but like a sizable minority of your users, I'm essentially unable to distinguish between the two effectively given the shades you've chosen.

\- Related, "tweets with a high chance of being discovered" wraps to the far left, instead of just below (so it looks like on the other side we have "tweets with no chance of being discovered discovered"

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to exploring more -- interesting concept, and I personally haven't seen this done before.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! We will check the Firefox issues and learn more about color- blindness to make RiteTag more accessible.

Regarding the cheaper plan, we'll need to think it through as small amounts are not profitable due fixed costs per transaction.

<comment><USER8> Obligatory Bitcoin reference... Check out integrating with Coinbase?

<comment><USER4> Founder, here. Few ask for bitcoin for payment, but the bigger truth is that when we need to show investors that people see value, we actually can't risk being told "right. people paid you with something that cost them nada to acquire." This is not my stance on bitcoin, but we do need to respect the big wigs' decision-leading standpoints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do people actually watch hashtags that aren't event specific?

<comment><USER10> My thoughts exactly. They always look a bit #desperate #tryingtoohard #inauthentic PLEASE RT!!!

<comment><USER11> That would be a funny contest: most desperate tweet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> torrent-of-ions I thought this was a joke then I came to the comments and everyone is being serious. I guess they've changed what "it" is.

</comment><comment><USER12> You can also look up the hashtag and check traffic there. If there is a tweet every 2s => too much traffic to get discovered. If there is a tweet only every 30min => chance high. Don't get why I would pay $15+ for such a service.

<comment><USER13> One of our goals is to make it easy for our users. It will reduce the amount of time spent on evaluating hashtags and guesswork. We are also integrated in places other than Twitter, such as Hootsuite, SocialOomph and Buffer. We have functions other than checking hashtag traffic where we allow you to schedule tweets, check for associated hashtags, and many more.

You can try out our service for free first to further evaluate the value of RiteTag. I hope you will reconsider!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've tried to download the browser extension and got 404 error, tried to find the app in google store and no luck. Is it geographically limited? What can be the reason? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi. Here is the link:[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ritetag-find- the-b...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ritetag-find-the-best- has/flookmlccbimcdpnbblpdjhpmjlblfgg)

We'll check the links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sounded really helpful, then I tried to use it and ended up with this: [http://i.imgur.com/LsPHVd6.png](http://i.imgur.com/LsPHVd6.png)

Derp.

<comment><AUTHOR> RiteTag shows associated hashtags that are often used with your query. We didn't make that up. That's what people really use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does this account how often people search for each hashtag? Do people really discover tweets with generic hashtags like #Guide?

<comment><USER17> There is personal experience - from our people and the many that talk about hashtag successes. As examples, "operation wallstreet" rallied tremendous community support with #ows and then related hashtags like #owsboston etc. When there was media blackout about a rigged election in Iran and phonelines were even blocked, a hashtag spread the truth. What's more, it was my personal experience, during the big earthquake and tsunami (tidal wave) in Japan, and seeing how I could find very relevant tweets from hashtag streams rather than the cover-up on Fukushima on TV that led me to understand that hashtags have power - but that no one knew which was any better than another.

</comment></comment><comment> adam-_- I clicked around a few pages and couldn't see anywhere which explained what the different colours mean.

<comment><USER13> I apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for the feedback. I'll link you to two of our blogposts that explain a lot of the RiteTag functions.

Pink is "overused", Blue is "good" and Green is "Great". The blogposts will explain more of our functionality!

[http://ritetag.com/hashtag-academy/workshop-2](http://ritetag.com/hashtag- academy/workshop-2) [http://ritetag.com/hashtag-academy/hashtag-virality- measurem...](http://ritetag.com/hashtag-academy/hashtag-virality-measurement- visualization)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow cool!

Would really like to see related tags, built in the usual big data algorithms / search UX way.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll soon release an API if someone wants to play with hashtags ;-) [http://ritetag.com/rest-api](http://ritetag.com/rest-api)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What? I thought this was Hacker News, not Marketing News.

<comment><USER17> Actually, hashtags are not just for marketing, nor is RiteTag. People get plenty done, such as bringing people to #hackforgood or hackathon events, search for lost children, and more. But without a hashtag grading system, they really have no idea which hashtags are best for getting discovered.</comment></comment>


How WeWork's "Fiasco" Could Threaten Silicon Valley's Rich and Powerful - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/24/20882174/wework-adam-neumann-softbank-ipo <comment><USER2> Before you put a dime into a business look for the paper. If they can't supply it run like hell. If they have no plan for profit for at least 3 years don't invest. There are some many IPO's filing were the CEO walks away with golden parachute of $50 million whether it succeeds or fails. Its not just Silicon Valley. I've seen it recently in exercise equipment and office space rental.</comment>


The Quest for a Pandemic Pill - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/the-quest-for-a-pandemic-pill <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/mJLf4](https://archive.vn/mJLf4)</comment>


Owners of the new MacBook Pro say their speakers are crackling - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/10/owners-new-macbook-pro-say-their-speakers-are-crackling/ <comment><USER2> The same thing happened when I first used an iPhone X, and the random crackling/popping sound persisted for a long time until Apple issued a software update.

Though, it seemed to happen primarily with my own produced sounds and music, which I aggressively edited to back away to lower volume in the meantime. This helped a lot but the occasional pop or scratch never really went away until they changed the OS, and I haven't seen it since.

My theory is that if a sound has a high enough volume all by itself, it doesn't "mix" well with a lot of other sounds that have sufficiently high volume. And with music, unless each of the instrument tracks has a moderate volume, an overlap of enough notes with high volume could go off the top and be clipped, producing a horrible scratch.

It could be as simple as speakers that support a better frequency range. Perhaps something used to be done in software that is now done with higher- quality audio hardware, allowing imperfections to come through that were not noticeable before. I remember firing up old games with better speakers for instance, and being shocked at how flawed their sound really was; better equipment just didn't _exist_ when the games were made so they didn't edit past the perceptible range of the audio equipment of the time. Sometimes you really do need to experience sound with the equipment that existed when it was produced.</comment>


What should your company stop doing? Ask! - <AUTHOR> https://www.rekommend.io/freestrategytool <comment><AUTHOR> Here is an example how the question will look like... [https://www.rekommend.io/SAMPLECOMPANY_1D60/1440](https://www.rekommend.io/SAMPLECOMPANY_1D60/1440)</comment>


Pit Ponies: ghosts of the coal mines - <AUTHOR> https://www.horsejournals.com/popular/history-heritage/ghosts-coal-mines <comment><USER2> This reminded me of a Polish primary school reading: [https://www.amazon.com/Lysek-pokladu-Idy-Morcinek- Gustaw/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Lysek-pokladu-Idy-Morcinek- Gustaw/dp/8375685992)

Exactly on this subject.</comment>


"Why will the 20th person join your company?" - <AUTHOR> http://community.cengage.com/GECResource/blogs/gec_blog/archive/2011/11/21/what-peter-thiel-looks-for-in-startups.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to the full video: [http://online.wsj.com/video/thiel-how-can- government-help-sp...](http://online.wsj.com/video/thiel-how-can-government- help-spur-innovation/1E796AF9-F1E9-4912-A97B-53D452DACFF7.html)</comment>


Patriarch of Pandemics - <AUTHOR> https://demystifyingscience.com/blog/2020/3/4/patriarch-of-pandemics <comment><USER2> > The Great War destroyed the stability of a generation, and took 20 million > lives

That's an understatement. Rather two or three generations, since the Second World War is pretty much a direct consequence of how the First one ended.

<comment><USER3> The middle east is _still_ a clusterfuck because of WWI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The 1918 pandemic, deadly as it was, is still around today in the form of a > mutated seasonal flu. Following global exposure and culling of the most > vulnerable populations - middle aged adults that were most affected by the > negative effects of the war - the lethality of the virus is significantly > less.

OK, but was there some kind of seasonal flu before that? That is the real question to me.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but this just became the big dog.

Like how there were other hominids before us, but now it's just us.

<comment><USER4> Can we infer from this that flu prior to 1918 was less severe on average? Or is the result not that strong?

<comment><USER5> They likely followed the same pattern.

Severe initial outbreak when a new super strain appeared, then a gradual decline in severity as immunity developed and the strain continued to evolve.

Rinse and repeat.

1918 was the first time that a flu benefited from modern transportation speed and the massive movement of humanity to and from Europe because of the war.

So in the past an equally deadly flu would inadvertently be contained simply because infected carriers couldn't move to new, uninfected areas before they were dead or and beaten the virus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Do babies inherit the developed immune systems of their parents? If not, how do the gained resistances from survivors pass on to the next generation?

<comment><USER7> I believe there is some heritability. What's more, long term human couples tend to have dissimilar immune systems [0], allowing their offspring to have a more diverse spread of immunities.

The fact that humans are somehow able to _detect_ properties of a potential partner's immune system is _super_ interesting to think about.

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Social-Animal-Sources-Character- Achie...](https://www.amazon.com/Social-Animal-Sources-Character- Achievement/dp/0812979370)

<comment><USER8> Wikipedia links for disassortative immunological mating:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_compl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex_and_sexual_selection#In_humans)

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

<comment><USER7> I did not know the name for this - thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If so, then over the next 100 years it has killed many more than 40M.

<comment><USER10> The World Health Organization estimates that worldwide, annual influenza epidemics result in about 250,000 to 500,000 deaths.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but it is not contagious as covid19 is.

<comment><USER12> That's not true. The problem is that a subset of persons require ventilation to survive more so than flu

<comment><USER13> Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu, in one chart [https://www.vox.com/science- and-health/2020/3/18/21184992/co...](https://www.vox.com/science-and- health/2020/3/18/21184992/coronavirus-covid-19-flu-comparison-chart)

on edit: furthermore [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/keyfacts.htm) says the range of people catching the flu per season is 3% and 11% whereas the estimates for catching Covid-19 are generally around 40-70%

<comment><USER3> the second number will decline after everyone catches it, obviously.

<comment><USER13> what is the second number you refer to?

<comment><USER10> I believe they meant the "40-70%" figure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's fantastic to me that pandemics were possible many centuries ago, though maybe the definition applied is different than to a current outbreak.

> The outbreak of influenza reported in 1173 is not considered to be a > pandemic, and other reports to 1500 generally lack reliability. The outbreak > of 1510 is probably a pandemic reported with spreading from Africa to engulf > Europe. The outbreak of 1557 is possibly a pandemic. The first influenza > pandemic agreed by all authors occurs in 1580.

<comment><USER15> people have been trading for a long time. the modern point-to-point connections didn't exist, obviously, but east asia and western europe have been indirectly connected through trade routes since ancient times [0]. as long as the disease wasn't virulent enough to kill most hosts in a single leg of transit, it could be spread across all of asia and europe. the world-wide spread would be slower, but intra-community spread would probably be even faster due to the lower standards of sanitation and medical understanding.

a truly global pandemic probably wouldn't have been possible with the lack of connectivity between eurasia and the americas.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Following links gets you to this article which tries to explain that the Neolithic decline happened also because of a plague.

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

</comment><comment><USER17> Very interesting how in a matter of days, the Spanish flu has been renamed to the 1918 flu. Cancel culture writ large. It's actually impressive.

<comment><USER18> The "Spanish" part has always been a misnomer, since it likely began in the United States.

<comment><USER17> Yeah I don't care why. Theres a lot of things that are misnamed. I was just commenting on the power of the internet and outrage culture. I don't use social media outside HN so I don't feel the same sense of injustice.

<comment><USER19> It's never a bad thing to use more accurate terminology, or to update language as society and culture develop.

If my grandmother can learn a better word for "brazil nuts," you can learn a better name for the 1918 flu that started in Kansas.

<comment><USER17> This has nothing to do with accurate terminology. It's 100% political.

<comment><AUTHOR> what's political, not calling an epidemic that was carried by migrant workers and Frontline soldiers into Fort Funston Kansas thé "Spanish Flu?"

<comment><USER17> in the 90s i would imagine seeing a "Fun Fact" on the back of a cereal box saying "Did you know the Spanish flu actually started in Kansas?". And me going, "huh, mildly interesting"

These days people choose weird things to focus on. To the point where they will correct you if you say Spanish Flu like its offensive.

There's is definitely an effort to remove any instance of "The <country name> <disease name>". Regardless of accuracy. Renaming something isn't inherently political, but the choice of which misnamed things to rename is political.

<comment><USER20> It's more like people are talking about the Spanish flu a lot, and at the same time realizing that the "Spanish" part actually misinformed them.

I was talking to someone about the Spanish flu and they casually commented "oh last time it's Europe now it's Asia's turn". Took me a few more minutes to inform them it's not from Spain. Both of us now realized that's a bad name. It's also the first time we mention "Spanish flu" in our lives, there's no problem using a more accurate name.

I see this as a community effort to use a more convenient word. It's not that political, no political party or government agencies are actively pushing for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd also add that there is a very real possibility of people using the origin of the flu for political purposes - and it's worth asking yourself if you want to play into that ugly game - left or right. Speak and think for yourself, and recognize that language is the only thing we've got. What kind of person do you want to be? What do you want your legacy to look like?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Find Gifts For Your Facebook Friends Based On Their Profile - <AUTHOR> http://fastgush.com/facebook/handy-etsy-lets-you-find-gifts-for-your-facebook-friends-based-on-their-profile.html

<comment><USER2> etsy.com has a cool widget for this. It reads the keywords of the account's info page (interests etc) and matches with tags of etsy products.</comment>


Unix To PowerShell - Find - <AUTHOR> http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2009/04/29/unix-to-powershell---find.aspx <comment><USER2> The only major switch I remember making is adopting GNU tools and conventions, and that's because they had a few big things going for them: they were _ported_ to all the OSes I was using, they _fixed bugs_ in the equivalent native tools, they added _consistency_ , they were _open_ , and they were _similar_ to what I was using before.

Microsoft isn't really offering enough of these things. And it is never as simple as knowing how to replace a particular command; people have years of well-tested scripts written to leverage Unix. (Not to mention what comes naturally at the command line.)

So my question is, why would I ever want to translate my Unix command background to PowerShell? I end up with more work (porting every script I have), less capability, much more verbosity, less portability, unwanted ties to Microsoft, and tools that are not nearly as well tried as the multi-decade- old Unix utilities that they'd be replacing.

Facing this kind of investment, people are better off ignoring Microsoft's "technology", and spending their time porting scripts to Python or Perl. At least then, you end up with something that really is portable, tested, open, etc. and could be a step forward from basic Unix.</comment>


The dangers of HFS+ for Git repositories - <AUTHOR> http://vhf.github.io/blog/2016/02/04/the-dangers-of-hfs-for-git-repositories/ <comment><USER2> Case insensitivity by default on OSX is probably because there are so many important legacy apps that used to (and probably still do) fail spectacularly or subtly when running on a case sensitive file system. Photoshop, Steam, and many more fall or fell into this category. And as long as it remains the default, sloppy app developers won't pay attention to file name casing, perpetuating the situation.

On iOS, there's no such legacy, and Apple decided to make that the default there. Which is something to keep in mind when working with Xcode's iOS Simulator...</comment>


Ask HN: What's the value of Hacker News points/karma? - <AUTHOR> I finally got over 500 points a while back (earning the ability to downvote comments), and more recently posted a few things (I'm on vacation, if that explains it). It's neat when stuff gets on the front page (or that kind of upvote velocity). I like that. I also like getting points. It's a way of keeping score. I can look at someone's profile and think, "Wow, they have contributed 10 times the value that I have." and get the sense that they're an old pro, while others might seem more like peers or new to the site.
But aside from that, what's the value in the points? Does anyone care? If anything, I've seen myself get over-confident and think that what works on one site works on another, or that my reputation or credentials mean anything to another site - and so it might even hurt me elsewhere. Is there any privileges you get beyond the ability to downvote comments with enough points?
TL;DR - What's the value of Hacker News points? <comment><USER2> I'm just 3 points away from having enough to redeem for the giant stuffed panda -- please upvote me!

But seriously, I think it's meant as a sort of credibility metric and/or a disincentive to create troll accounts (e.g. if new accounts had the same "powers" as existing accounts).

I think it would be more meaningful if it included a time metric (e.g. 503 points, 37 in last 30 days), since there is a wide spread of time since account creation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it helps me gauge how much people appreciate (or for that matter - don't appreciate!) my comments.</comment>


Dropbox Versus The World - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3042436/tech-forecast/dropbox-versus-the-world <comment><USER2> I only started the article, but it's too over-the-top to continue. I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?

> Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service—and perhaps the > only startup—ever to compete simultaneously against Apple ($748 billion > market cap), Google ($369 billion), Microsoft ($357 billion), Amazon ($173 > billion), and Tencent ($160 billion).

> Unlike his amply financed competitors, which were all founded during the > desktop computing era, Houston has been embedded in the cloud for eight > years, ever since launching Dropbox in 2007.

> No one yet dominates the new global network, but Dropbox just may be the > most adroit cloud company in the world, the one that has solved more > problems for its users than any other.

<comment><USER3> It's called native advertising and unfortunately it's what publications are betting on to survive in an era of ad blockers.

<comment><USER4> So you're saying that Dropbox paid Fastcompany to run this piece?

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying Dropbox paid Fastcompany to run this piece. I was responding to: "I wonder how you get media to write about your startup like that?".

Native advertising is a thing, one I wasn't aware of until recently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Dropbox has the distinction of being the only cloud service--and perhaps the > only startup--ever to compete simultaneously against Apple, Google, > Microsoft, Amazon, and Tencent.

If you're wondering who Tencent is, you're not alone:

[http://www.thestreet.com/story/13095109/1/how-tencent- up-140...](http://www.thestreet.com/story/13095109/1/how-tencent- up-14000-since-its-ipo-is-still-a-relatively-unknown-chinese-internet- giant.html)

They sold games on feature phones, then smartphones, then made WeChat, which is IM, I think, and massive in China. They also have a payment service, and the short version is, they're a competitor to Alibaba.

<comment><USER6> Tencent also is the majority interest of Riot Games. Riot Games is the creator of League of Legends which is probably the biggest selling game right now.

<comment><USER7> Candy Crush likely still owns the distinction of the biggest game when it comes to on-going revenue generation. King Digital did $2.2 billion in sales last year ($586m last quarter), almost entirely on Candy Crush. Estimates put League of Legends at the $1 billion ballpark for 2014 (up from $624m in 2013).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Your whole computing environment ought to follow you around," explains Houston. "Your financial records, your health information, your music playlist . . . anything that's 'mine.'

I really hope no one is storing their financial records and health information on Dropbox...

<comment><USER9> Of course they are. When I was buying a house, it was a nonstop game of scanning and shuffling financial data everywhere. Office scanner, office email, office computer, cloud storage provider, personal email... and because of cloud storage provider, all other linked machines in my house, .. not to mention the email accounts of the bankers...

You can try to get away from it, if you like. But then you're just wasting your time, faxing the same amount of data over immensely slow connections to your bank, who's just going to digitize it anyway and put it god knows where....

And anyone who has done this knows it's ALL time sensitive, and you have other responsibilities in life, so the most convenient/fastest method is the only real way of getting it done.

<comment><USER10> Special case of a general principle: user experience trumps everything. it trumps freedom, security, privacy, openness, cost, flexibility, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Glad I am not the only one thinking that its almost a paid advertisement for Dropbox. It looks particularly suspicious given the Amazon unlimited storage announcement.

</comment><comment><USER12> > _From the start, Dropbox was almost magically simple: Install Dropbox's > folder on your desktop, and by simply dragging files into it you could > suddenly access them from anywhere._

That was simple in 2007, but this kind of synching model (also used by Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive) doesn't feel simple anymore to me. Most applications still save files in other locations by default. Having to save them in your Dropbox, or having to move them to your Dropbox afterward, turns out to be a massive friction.

If the goal is that "Your whole computing environment ought to follow you around", you need to remove that friction. I know at least one person who lost access to some important files when she needed them because she forgot to drop them off in the right box.

One possibility would be to do what Microsoft does with Office 2014 and OneDrive, and try to force you to save all your files inside the synched folder. But that quickly gets annoying, especially since most people already have mountains of files stored and organized elsewhere.

That, and the lack of client-side encryption, is why I'm a loyal customer of a Dropbox competitor that allows me to sync any folder on any device with any other folder on any other device. I set it up to sync my entire $HOME partition, so I don't need to care where my apps store their files. That, Mr. Houston, is how you get me to hand over my "whole computing environment" to you.

<comment><USER13> symlink your home directory into your dropbox folder?

<comment><USER5> I'd be wary of a Dropbox folder that contains a link to a parent directory of itself, with the possibility of an infinite loop.

<comment><USER14> They've taken care of that edge case (and many others).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The retort for Houston is:

You mean in the same way that IBM dominated personal computing (besting that little start-up Microsoft), and Microsoft dominated search (besting that little start-up, Google), and Google dominated social (besting that little start-up, Facebook)?

Turns out, no matter how big or successful you are, you can't dominate everything. That is something Dropbox has going for it in battling Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> Proud user of Dropbox, lot of people around me using it as well, even received 50gb of storage with my S3. I guess I know what it does, but thinking about Business version - anyone here with any cons? Especially in terms of sharing stuff in/out of the company?

<comment><USER16> Found some cons [http://www.drop-dropbox.com/](http://www.drop-dropbox.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I only wish competitors (Drive in my case) would copy their sleek OS integration and the public folder functionality. Sadly since Condoleezza Dropbox is not an option for me.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cloud storage is good for many things, but storing financial records, health information and other sensitive data is not one of them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Love this following paragraph:

"Houston is also working hard to ensure that Dropbox feels like a collection of peers, at all levels of the company. It's a philosophy that appeals to many Dropbox employees. On a chilly night in San Francisco's Financial District, Ilya Fushman, head of business and mobile products, and Agarwal join Houston and me for dinner at the Battery, an exclusive restaurant and private club. Despite the posh surroundings, Fushman and Agarwal wax poetic about the egalitarian culture Houston and Ferdowsi have created. "It's really hard to pull off creating an environment of peers," says Agarwal, a former engineering director at Facebook who oversaw the development of its News Feed. "We hold ourselves accountable to expectations, and at a bunch of companies, that ends up being centralized. Drew's my boss, but I prefer to think of him as a peer and friend.""

I really don't know if the author was being facetious or the surroundings really did distort his perception of reality. But either way, as someone who grew up in a communist country, I really can't believe how people in SV are spewing these kind of second rate propaganda while keeping a straight face.

<comment><USER20> This is purely a PR piece. I'd guess there's not much editing going on, so claims like that will go through to the reader as long as they make it through Dropbox's PR (which is originating the piece to begin with.)

So, yeah, those are some extraordinary claims there, and nobody's going to check on them. Journalism is mostly dead in this country (except for some rare exceptions.)

<comment><USER21> A HNer made this same point in a different thread today. The child comment pointed out that (i'm paraphrasing) "people don't pay for journalism or content, so the only way to monetize it is as a vehicle to drive traffic and push ads.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely. My thinking is the problem in today's world, specially on the web, is that you can't tie people down to consume the advertisement, so you have to fool them into consuming it.

In the good ole' days of pre-cable/pre-TiVo TV, people who wanted to watch a program would have to sit through the ads because they didn't know when the next segment of the show would start. Websites can't constrain you the same way because you are free to take an action against the ad: close the tab, change tabs, install an ad-blocker.

So what's the solution? You mask ads as content. You get a press release from a company, do some basic editing on it so it doesn't look exactly the same as in the other 50 or so blogs affiliated with the PR company, and you are good to go. You get paid, the client company gets good publicity and the PR company gets their slice. The consumer is none-the-wiser and thinks s/he got something for their time. Win/win/win/kinda-lose.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Just started a tech book club, book recommendations? - <AUTHOR> I literally just started a tech book club. It just got approved by Meetup. I only have 3 sign ups so far so I have no clue if it's going to succeed or not. One thing I think that would help is if built a respectable list of books for future consideration.
I do want to do what I can to make it succeed. I think I picked a solid good first book, "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" and I've started to make a list in pinned discussion thread of books for consideration for future meetups, welcoming members to contribute ideas, too.
I'm realizing as I re-read what I wrote that I make rather bold claims on what reading and discussing these books, though I do think it's true.
Anyway, if anyone wants to take a look and offer critique on any aspect of it, I'll listen with an open mind and won't take offense by criticism. I consider it a favor when someone takes the time to offer a cogent critique. I'd love recommendations of books to that you think fit the bill for me to put on the list as having a deep reserve of really good books can make all the difference.
https://www.meetup.com/eugene-tech-book-club/
Write up and a couple videoes for the first Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/eugene-tech-book-club/events/239429596/
Thank you! <comment><USER2> Peter Thiel 0-1

<comment><AUTHOR> What did you learn from it? I've not read it yet.</comment></comment>


I, Cringely version 3.01 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2013/01/28/i-cringely-version-3-01/ <comment><USER3> I grew up reading Cringely and this is the first time I have visited his blog in years. He seems to want to blame external factors on his decision to stop writing and concentrating on books, but the fault lies with himself.

There are thousands of bloggers with a lot less experience and a lower level of writing quality who survive and do well from blogging. Cringely misplaces the blame on the advertising market, which has only been growing in the time period he describes.

For some reason he thought he could register a wordpress blog, insert some Javascript from a cheap ad network and then 'file' his columns once a week and that would work. He has done little to take advantage of his brand, the community around him, or adjust to how blogging and the explosion in consumer internet and apps changed technology journalism.

Outside of HN I have never seen his columns or posts promoted, or read a comment from him on Twitter, or reddit, or Facebook, or any other blog - <USER2> anything that would get his content infront of potential readers.

The world overtook him and blew him over, and he doesn't seem to realize why or what happen.

<comment><USER4> Disagree, a lot of bloggers get as far as a book deal and that's the end of blogging for them. I think you're reading too much in to the why he's stopping - I think the new projects he's embarking on are more interesting than his blog.

His posts tend to get around tech sites, you mentioned HN already, <http://www.theregister.co.uk> run a lot of his stuff, also:

<http://slashdot.org/tag/cringely>

<http://www.reddit.com/domain/cringely.com/>

<comment><USER3> I interpreted his post as "While I am now 60, I can't retire yet as I have 3 young children, but I can't support myself from blogging - since that market crashed - therefor I am going to write a book"

It is the other post that goes into the blog ad rates falling: [http://www.cringely.com/2012/11/02/ad-networks-are- killing-t...](http://www.cringely.com/2012/11/02/ad-networks-are-killing-the- internet-my-answer-is-cringely-3-0/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Watching Triumph of the Nerds with my Dad in the mid-ninties is one of my fondest memories, and played no small part inspiring me to study computer science and subsequently get involved with starting companies.

Accidental Empires (the book), remains full of detailed insights into the emergence of Silicon Valley and startup culture. The fact the show was set in the mid ninties may make it seem a tad dated by today's standard, but it was fascinating to watch Cringely talk with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, John Sculley, folks from IBM, Xerox, and more.

As a 15 year old watching on a sofa from 6,000 miles away, I was incredibly inspired by the tales of dedication to product creation and hyper growth. It's a part of what inspired me to move to the Bay Area years later.

I look forward to re-reading the annotated version of Accidental Empires and hope Bob continues to write (and interview!) for many years to come.

<comment><USER6> This may sound pendatic, but Accidental Empires is a must read, even after all these years. Particularly if you did not live through the initial rise of the personal computing industry or were too young for it to have any conscious impact on you.

I take it as a humbling record of just how grueling this industry is. But also just how much it spins on happenstance, timing and of course interpersonal politics.

If any lessons come out of that book, it may still be true that putting your effort being creating (or undermining) a standard is one of the core engines of this space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have mixed feelings about this announcement. On the one hand, I really enjoyed Triumph of the Nerds. On the other, Cringely came off as a self- oriented, egotistical guy (I remember the scene where he threatened the TV crew with a piece of bat when his plane build project wasn't going well) with few unique insights and little depth.

Now that I think about it, these two facts are in line with his announcement. What he brought to the scene was to act as a tech interpreter for the baby boomers. The novelty has worn off and he's tapped out. This seems very similar to what happened to Dvorak, and what happens to a lot of bloggers: he exhausted his material and the world passed him by.

<comment><USER8> For me, Cringely was the documenter and Dvorak mistook his own place in history for credibility in analyzing the future. The tech industry is exhaustively self-documenting now, and so I hold out hope that Cringely can find his place in the modern world since I've looked to him as something like "Uncle Computers" ever since the before-times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really miss the old header image, it's still on the server:

[http://www.cringely.com/wp- content/uploads/cringely_header_2...](http://www.cringely.com/wp- content/uploads/cringely_header_2012_960x250.jpg)

<comment><USER10> It's still on the front page.

<comment><USER9> That's crazy. Can't see it with Firefox, but with Chrome!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the drop-in-advertising rates the most interesting item. I don't follow this closely, is revenue-per-click actually dropping?

<comment><USER3> No, it is growing, and growing really well. At a macro level more and more advertising spend is moving to online. It is being sucked out of newspaper and television and sunk into online, which is now a $15B market (for display ads only) - 23% growth from 2011-12[1].

As for CPC rates, this link has a nice table showing the increase[0]. Anecdotally I can tell you that my own data corresponds with what they see (across a number of clients/startups I have worked with in past 5-6 years):

[0] [http://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/je-hochman- benchm...](http://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/je-hochman- benchmark.shtml)

[1] [http://cdn.crowdscience.com/blog/2011/11/online_advertising_...](http://cdn.crowdscience.com/blog/2011/11/online_advertising_market_size.gif)</comment></comment>


Facebook Has a 'Black People Problem,' Ex-Employee Writes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-27/facebook-has-a-black-people-problem-ex-employee-writes <comment><USER2> A tweet by the memo's author, about the disapproving response he received from "senior leadership" when he shared it internally: [https://twitter.com/marksluckie/status/1067494650259345408](https://twitter.com/marksluckie/status/1067494650259345408)</comment>


How is the Apple Watch doing? - <AUTHOR> http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/8/2/notes-on-apple-watch-and-friction <comment><USER2> >tapping 'Answer' with your nose

I've finally found a reason to purchase an Apple Watch!</comment>


What missing too much sleep might be doing to your body - <AUTHOR> https://globalnews.ca/news/5053369/sleep-problems-health-effects/ <comment><USER2> In college I used to suffer from really bad insomnia, to a point where I actually went to a doctor about it. I got some ambien I was more or less cured but the sleep was definitely less restful. I eventually dropped out of college, in no small part because I was afraid that it was causing me too much stress and leading to this.

I mostly got over the insomnia (largely due to me taking some medication for depression) but occasionally I get spells of it. Thus far, I've found that the best way that I have reliably been able to get good sleep has been to exercise (almost) daily.

I'm willing to accept that it may be placebo, but I also figure that it's not going to hurt me to exercise daily.

<comment> toper-centage As someone that is mostly healthy I also get occasional insomnia spells. Like for a week, any little thing will wake me up. Anecdotally, I send that doing sports daily even if just a 20 minutes jog in the morning, helps keeping my cycles intact.</comment></comment>


Email threads for groups suck - so we built plan.nr (150 invites - private beta) - <AUTHOR> http://beta.plan.nr/beta/HNVIP

<comment><USER3> Great great step by step guide. Did you guys do that inhouse or used a framework? I'm in need of similar feature. Good job on the design, it looks great. I think I had similar problem with the fb import, once it kicked back from FB, it showed me "Oops.. Plannr is currently in private beta and your details dont seem to be on our beta list. Add your name to the signup list below, and we will contact you as soon as we have a spare invite. If you think you deserve to skip the queue drop us an email to email@example.com and tell us why!"

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback.. its all in house using jQuery, but wrapping it up into some sort of plugin would be a nice idea.

give us a shout if you want some more details..

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks good! One thing that seems weird: after signing up I'm asked to connect my social profiles to be able to invite people to my Plans. However, after connecting my Twitter profile I'm redirected to <http://beta.plan.nr/beta> which tells me I'm not on the beta list.

Is that supposed to happen?

Ninja edit. One more thing: why not use Gravatar for the profile pics, or make that an option at least?

<comment><USER4> Hey, if you email firstname.lastname@example.com with your details (primary email is the important thing) we will take a look into the twitter issue. It definitely shouldn't be doing that...

I had not really thought about using Gravatar, but it does seem like a nice way to provide profile pics for those who use it, we will look at getting it implemented in a future update.

Thanks

<comment><USER5> Thanks for your reply, I'll shoot you an email.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While trying it out, I could not find a "delete account" button. Is there anything like this, as i really do not like services, that trap me inside.

glad I used one of my bullshit-spam mail-addresses...

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have that in yet, I'll make sure we get a fix into the next update as you're right it's important. In the meantime if you want your details removed please email me - email@example.com and I'll make sure it's actioned.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just bumped the server with an update to the social connection issue - <USER2> be back online now. Thank you so much for your feedback so far it has been really useful.

Please keep it coming!

<comment><USER4> Yep, sorry for the downtime, we only have a single server at the moment, so no redundancy for doing updates, and it seems a few people were having the social connection issue, so it needed an emergency patch...

Everything should be all good now :-D

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would love to get some HN feedback, we've just launched into private beta in the last few days.

<comment><USER6> Adding one honest Feedback. At first glance i found the "tutorial-function" quite interessting. The service is showing me, what i have to do/can do. But, being a little bit more savvy in using these kind of apps, I missed a "Stop the tutorial" button.

So I had to wait, before I could start making a plan. this friction was too much after some time and my mind just closed.

Very good idea for "not so savvy" users, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a skip button, but it clearly isn't clear enough. I think it probably needs to be more directive 'skip this and let me plan' - thanks for feedback</comment></comment></comment>


The Guardian and Washington Post win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2014-Public-Service <comment><AUTHOR> Journalism geekery: the "Public Service" award is often considered the best of the Pulitzers, partly because it is relatively equally distributed among smaller, lesser-known organizations as well as the big organizations...so it's sort of a implicit statement on how great journalism shouldn't be dependent on market size and staff resources.

So when a big organization like the Washington Post, and the Guardian US, win it, that's a strong statement. They could've just as likely been given the National or Investigative reporting awards.

(also, unlike the other prizes, there is no cash prize for the Public Service award)

The WaPo has won it before, including for Watergate and the Walter Reed investigation: [http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Public- Service](http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Public-Service)

</comment><comment><USER3> In terms of importance, I think this was practically a given, but I've seen statements from people doubting if the Pulitzer Prize Board would have the courage to make a decision that still wouldn't sit well with certain powerful people.

Turns out they did. I'm very pleased to see that. Congratulations to the winners!

<comment><USER4> Glad to see they didn't pull a TIME magazine...

<comment><USER5> (please explain?)

<comment><USER6> Time Magazine has an annual feature called "Person of the Year", in which they devote the cover story of the issue to talking about the most influential person of the year.

There is a perception among some people that the selection process is biased away from controversial figures. Last year's Person of the Year was Pope Francis; some people thought it should have been (e.g.) Edward Snowden. He was the runner-up.

<comment><USER7> > There is a perception among some people that the selection process is biased > away from controversial figures

Its's more than a perception, they've tacitly admited it. Wikipedia:

 _As a result of the public backlash it received from the United States for naming the Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979, Time has shied away from using figures that are controversial in the United States due to commercial reasons. Time 's Person of the Year 2001, immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, was New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, although the stated rules of selection, the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news, made Osama bin Laden a more likely choice. The issue that declared Giuliani the Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to elect the Ayatollah Khomeini and the 1999 rejection of Hitler as "Person of the Century". The article seemed to imply that Osama bin Laden was a stronger candidate than Giuliani, as Adolf Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein._

<comment><USER8> It's kind of sad, really. Person Of The Year should not necessarily be a positive thing - just the most important person of the year. But we're long since past that now.

<comment><USER9> Well, the phrasing "X of the year" is almost always taken to mean "best X of the year". Consider "movie of the year," "book of the year," and so on. Probably they should have called it "Most Influential person of the year" to avoid the default fallback of "Best person of the year".

<comment><USER10> Decades ago, Time had enough credibility that their awarding "Man of the Year" was seen as an influential act. I don't know if it was Khomeni, economics, or what, but Time has driven their brand into the ground far enough that they are now awarding it to "gosh I hope so" recipients like the pope, similar to Obama's Nobel Peace Prize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting to see that the runner up - Newsday - was selected for using digital tools to expose shootings, beatings and other concealed misconduct by some Long Island police officers. This highlights the increasingly complimentary role of digital tools and traditional reporting.

Anyone know what kind of digital tools they used?

Anyone know of other digital tools journalists/the press use to investigate/uncover content?

<comment><AUTHOR> Data journalism geek here: All sorts of tools, but really, Excel and Access are adequate enough to be game-changers...this is because data has no standardized form when you get to local jurisdictions.

Jeremy Singer-Vine, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, was named a Pulitzer finalist for National Reporting this year ([http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014?](http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014?)):

> _John Emshwiller and Jeremy Singer-Vine of The Wall Street Journal - <USER2> > their reports and searchable database on the nation's often overlooked > factories and research centers that once produced nuclear weapons and now > pose contamination risks._

HNers may remember some of Jeremy's stuff recently making the front page, including:

Reverse Engineering xkcd's Frequency: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7290868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7290868)

Txtbirds: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4763147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4763147)

<comment><USER12> _Excel and Access are adequate enough to be game-changers_

Without doubting your point here, do you think access to data is driving the underlying ability to leverage these tools? Or is it just people have now started to look harder at the problems with an analytic toolkit in mind?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think _access to data_ is key. One of the hardest challenges is dealing -- in an empirical manner -- with paper documents, or anything that doesn't come in a spreadsheet...which, until relatively recently, was the norm of information distribution.

But I think we (as a society) are just beginning to make _use of data_ , in terms of analysis and general computational thinking. To go back to the domain of journalism...Aron Pilhofer, who heads the interactive news team at the New York Times, said that in "one day...we can teach you the skills that if mastered would allow you to do 80 percent of all the computer-assisted reporting that has ever been done" ([http://knight.stanford.edu/life- fellow/2012/times-editor-say...](http://knight.stanford.edu/life- fellow/2012/times-editor-says-media-not-driven-to-data-journalism/))...I think this is still the case.

As an example, you don't have to go back much further than last year's Public Service Pulitzer...probably my favorite winner in modern times: [http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2013-Public- Service](http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2013-Public-Service)

The reporters took a sensational story (off-duty cops being caught on YouTube egregiously breaking the speed limit) and opted to do an empirical analysis. But of course, what they were trying to find -- cops who broke the law by speeding -- was inherently non-existent, in terms of public records (because it is the cops who determine whether the law is broken). So instead, the reporters requested toll booth records, which recorded the passing through of each cop car. Taking distance divided by time, they were able to prove so convincingly how egregious the abuse was that Florida police stations pretty much rolled over and immediately repented.

Besides whatever database they used to hold the data, the analysis here is literally elementary level. This is not to say that the reporters' had it easy (they still had to do all the footwork, interviews, confrontations, and fact- checking, among other things), but it just goes to show you how many important stories are out there, in every jurisdiction, that only need someone who cares enough to do some counting and arithmetic. I kind of love the Public Service awards because of how they recognize these relatively non-sexy, but incredibly important stories done by determined and clever journalists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ...while Edward Snowden, the source of all the information they published, is being hunted down and prosecuted.

Hmm.

<comment><USER14> Reporting what was discovered and obtaining such information are separate actions that deserve their own consequences. It doesn't automatically make it right nor does it automatically make it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great news and well deserved. I hope that the price strongly motivates those in charge at either news company to press on with their coverage.

</comment><comment><USER16> So I guess Glenn Greenwald is officially a journalist.

<comment><USER17> Greenwald isn't named in the award announcement. He'll still be listed as a blogger in the traditional press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The awards are for breaking the Snowden secret surveilance revelations.

</comment><comment><USER19> The full list of winners[0] and runners-up[1] is available on pulitzer.org.

[0] [http://www.pulitzer.org/node/8501](http://www.pulitzer.org/node/8501)

[1] [http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014](http://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/2014)

</comment><comment><USER20> No love for Der Spiegel?

<comment><USER21> Pulitzers are US only. Technically, The Guardian US (and not UK) won.</comment></comment>


The Comeback of Xerox PARC - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/business/39222/

<comment><USER2> «The mouse, the graphical user interface, and the drop-down menu were all born at PARC—but it was Apple and Microsoft that commercialized them and made them cornerstone inventions of the PC industry.»

The mouse was never invented at PARC! <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart>

<comment><USER3> It seems the ball mouse was: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse#Mechanical_mice>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was thinking Yesterday that it would be nice for HP to return to being the kind of company Steve Wozniak wanted to work for, or others from that era to form or reignite a similarly desirable company. This is good news, I hope to see more of it.

<comment><USER5> > _it would be nice for HP to return to being the kind of company Steve > Wozniak wanted to work for_

The soul of that company became Agilent when HP/Agilent split a decade ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> After companies get to be a certain size it gets tougher and tougher to do basic research. Part ofbitbia corporate culture part is fear of undermining existing products.

The examples where this isn't true (lockheed Martin's skunkworks, Apple) are very rate. More common are large companies shifting from innovation to services (IBM an GE).

This makes sense. Will one company necessarily know how to commercialize a technology? This is one reason the Angel and VC models work. They separate the innovation from big company politics, and create an enviroent where killing old products is encouraged.

<comment><USER7> I would argue the exact opposite: larger companies tend to have enough resources floating around to be able to perform research. e.g. Bell Labs, PARC, Watson, BBN...

VCs have their place, but they fund ideas with shorter runways. It's the opposite model to research.

<comment><USER6> They have the resources to invest, but struggle to commercialize. This is why so many of Xerox's great inventions were commercialized elsewhere. Even when they have success stories (ibm's first PCs) they are usually hives off from the rest of the firm.

Smaller firms lack development dollars but have more flexibility in finding a market niche. For early stage innovation, being small also can force simplicity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This observation about technical innovation being only half the work in getting new technologies to market is something you could say about universities: my belief is that university research only goes about half the way necessary to get new ideas into the commercial world. Academics start companies to partly address that problem but mostly these operate in very specialized spaces; the academics get rich but the wider world sees little benefit. What if universities did what PARC is doing now?

<comment><USER9> That kind of "academics" is done at Microsoft Research et al. If your focus is "papers", you will very often only do the first part as you mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hope this will mean cheap printed rfid tags for us!</comment>


Stanford ramps up coronavirus testing to help other hospitals - <AUTHOR> https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/03/18/stanford-ramps-up-coronavirus-testing-to-help-other-hospitals/ <comment><USER2> Lots of people in these coronavirus threads have been confusing "confirmed cases" as reported by various countries, vs the actual number of cases, and using this to propose various conspiracy theories about governments downplaying or suppressing information about the situation.

Here is an interesting analysis including analyses done by Chinese health officials to estimate the actual number of cases in the past on a given day, based on symptom data collected from confirmed cases.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCa0JXEwDEk)

Other countries should follow suit.

Chart:

[https://miro.medium.com/max/5376/1*r-ddYhoUtP_se6x-NOEinA.pn...](https://miro.medium.com/max/5376/1*r-ddYhoUtP_se6x-NOEinA.png)

Commentary:

[https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or- peop...](https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will- die-f4d3d9cd99ca)

> This is one of the most important charts.

> It shows in orange bars the daily official number of cases in the Hubei > province: How many people were diagnosed that day.

> The grey bars show the true daily coronavirus cases. The Chinese CDC found > these by asking patients during the diagnostic when their symptoms started.

To be precise, even the grey bars are an underestimate of the true cases in reality, since they would exclude unreported cases as some people were turned away from hospitals. (In the UK they are advising people with non-severe symptoms to stay at home, where they can't be tested.)

It's encouraging that a retrospective analysis confirmed that the Wuhan lockdown had the intended effect however, to reduce the true spread of cases.

<comment><USER3> > It's encouraging that a retrospective analysis confirmed that the Wuhan > lockdown had the intended effect however, to reduce the true spread of > cases.

If Wuhan is a guide, we should know starting Saturday if the lockdown in Italy is also having an effect.

<comment><USER2> It takes a few days to confirm a trend so I'd wait until late next week before drawing any conclusions.</comment></comment></comment>


Chinese telecoms must use "AI and other technical means" to identify phone users - sahin-boydas https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/china-introduces-mandatory-face-scans-phone-users-doc-1mp8yr2 <comment><AUTHOR> All: if you comment in this thread, make sure your comments are substantive and that they stay off the nationalistic indignation track. That is all too easy to fall into, and it's off topic here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER2> @dang I sincerely appreciate what you do. Euphemistically, it's not easy. Please consider unflagging: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679829)

Code is speech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just offering another perspective than most others had done here:

I grew up in China and have been in China a few times in the past 10 years - the amount of Robocalls and phone scams was overwhelming (in fact, it was so bad that dual SIM mobile phones became popular because you can have a disposable SIM card for non-essential website registrations and one for family members that you keep private use). I had my identity stolen after somehow I went into China Mobile pop-up service storefront in PEK airport to get a local SIM card. People on the line on my back was so close to the counter and peeking application forms with all sorts of private data, which made me very uncomfortable. There are also organized gangs that are operating in selling people's private identity data like mobile phone numbers. Later it made sense how my identify was stolen in retrospect.

Also, mobile phone number is essentially Chinese citizen's digital identity in a way in that 99% of the website/online services use mobile phone number instead of emails for authentications and 2FA. It's nearly impossible to sign up for any Chinese website without giving your mobile phone number to complete the sign up.

Given China's mobile-centric Internet boom, the amount of phone scams and frauds and identity thefts going on and all businesses (including financial institutions) are relying heavily on, it's a reasonably measure to counter fraud with real identity tying in with mobile phone number issuance.

So no I don't think it's a political motivated move, even though the side effect is making the abuse much more convenient.

<comment><USER4> I think you gave too much benefit of doubt to the CCP. The CCP can't care less about phone scams and frauds. As a totalitarian state having total control of the society, the government can track down the scammers anytime they want to.

There is no reason to believe the CCP does this to solve the robocalls or phone scams. It would be laughable to think XiJinping and his gangs put this issue on his priority list. The only reason is to locate every individual has a different thought against the government.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious about one thing here. And maybe someone has ideas.

Both China and Soviet Union (probably others too but I don't know), pre- liberalization were your typical socialist state with lots of means to control people, so they did but... but people didn't engage in much petty crime or gang crime.

Those types of crimes were more or less very unusual. But in those same states today with more tools to control people, petty crime and gang-related crime (as well as corruption but that kind of always existed), are through the roof.

And it's not like either are soft on crime.

So what has given a rise to that criminal activity which for practical purposes didn't exist before. Is it opportunity? That is there was nothing to gain from it before?

<comment><USER6> There wasn't much organized crime, in the sense of street gangs, in the more urban areas of the Soviet Union. (The various rural provinces, especially in the Soviet-occupied middle east are another story.) There was, of course, plenty of petty crime, smuggling, and un-organized property and violent crime, etc. [1]

The reason for this isn't surveillance or the harshness of punishments.

The reason for it was that when there's an easy default roadmap for your life (School -> Gainful employment), you're not going to drop out of civilized society, and into criminality at the age of 15.

It's not that there's more to gain from criminality now, compared to fifty years ago. It's that there's less to lose. Instead of a social contract that guarantees[2] employment, a shitty apartment, and food on your table, if you just go through the motions, it's a dog-eat-dog-every-man-for-himself world. Unsurprisingly, many people find it easier to drop out of that, and make a living through crime.

[1] Without even mentioning the truly mind-blowing amount of low-level, and high-level corruption that the USSR experienced.

[2] Employment wasn't _guaranteed_ \- people had to go apply for jobs, have their employment and social records get checked, there was competition for getting into good jobs, etc - but 100% employment was an official goal of the state. This is not the case in either the West, or the East, anymore.

<comment><USER5> Thanks I think that explains the carrot portion. The various stick options likely helped too—the various efforts to "eradicate counterrevolutionaries" and decrying leniency and favoring resoluteness and setting goals for executions likely has an impact.

<comment><USER6> After destalinization, nobody doing law enforcement in the USSR had execution quotas, or was inventing counterrevolutionaries to eradicate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They are already monitoring the chat apps. If you say unseemly things, expect this: [https://twitter.com/intypython/status/1200466904734785536?s=...](https://twitter.com/intypython/status/1200466904734785536?s=21)

Edit: changed link to original source

<comment><USER8> My wife has had a few messages "disappear" from WeChat (the Chinese Facebook), and that were not removed by group admins. It seems that at the low end, at least, they're content do just censor, and not take action against the speaker.

<comment><USER9> > My wife has had a few messages "disappear" from WeChat (the Chinese > Facebook), and that were not removed by group admins. It seems that at the > low end, at least, they're content do just censor, and not take action > against the speaker.

Is she in China or overseas? WeChat has different censorship policies for domestic vs foreign accounts, and silent blocking sometimes occurs when foreign accounts communicate with domestic accounts about sensitive topics [1]. It's also not encrypted, and it appears messages are automatically getting forwarded to the local (Chinese) police for investigation [2].

[1] We (can't) Chat "709 Crackdown" Discussions Blocked on Weibo and WeChat: [https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-crackdown- dis...](https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-crackdown-discussions- blocked-on-weibo-and-wechat/)

[2] Over 300 million Chinese private messages were left exposed online: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18250474/chinese- messages-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18250474/chinese-messages- millions-wechat-qq-yy-data-breach-police)

<comment><USER8> _Is she in China or overseas? WeChat has different censorship policies for domestic vs foreign accounts_

Fair enough. This was with an account that was registered within China, but the traffic is physically originating from the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The title sounds intentionally provocative -- "face scanned" appears to be just "have their photo taken". I can't find a single source that suggests anything more than that.

Which isn't much different from having your photo taken for your driver's license, passport, or at the border, all of which the US does.

Burner phones are mostly associated with criminal activity, so tying phones to identities feels like a legitimate function -- which many countries do. And if criminals are trying to register phones through identity theft, this seems like it would be an additional protection.

If you're concerned with privacy, that's what encrypted communications are for, and if you don't want to be tracked by radio, then don't take _any_ phone with you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, we've put "photo taken" in the title above. Thanks.

<comment><USER11> It's not "photo taken"

[https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/12/02/china-tightens- cybersp...](https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/12/02/china-tightens-cyberspace- controls-introducing-mandatory-face-scans-phone-users)

A China Unicom customer service representative told AFP that the December 1 "portrait matching" requirement means customers registering for a new phone number may have to record themselves turning their head and blinking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks—that's a better article. I've switched to the AFP version of it. (Submitted URL was [https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614781/all-new- cellphone-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614781/all-new-cellphone- users-in-china-must-now-have-their-face-scanned/.))

Reading it closely, though, the evidence on the face-scanning point seems weak. The source is a customer service representative who said _may_. That's two weak points: a customer service representative is not who you'd normally ask about policy, and "may" also means "may not". Also, that's the only thing that particular source is quoted about.

I'm not sure what to do, because there doesn't seem to be anything unambiguous in the English-language press. All the articles I've looked are reporting on the same directive that was issued in Sept and took effect Dec 1. So I guess we'll quote the directive in the title above. If anyone can suggest a more accurate title we can change it again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not that there's any moral equivalence, but when I'm in Australia visiting in- laws, I have to provide my passport or similar ID to get my PAYG SIM activated. I just have them swipe it at the airport and my SIM is on in 10 minutes. My wife admits it's a lot easier in the States to get a PAYG SIM; AT&T doesn't care who she is as long as there's money in the account.

I'm not sure why Australia does that, but it's really annoying.

<comment><USER13> I just drove around Africa, and I bought a pre-paid SIM in about 30 different countries. Every single one of them required a copy of my passport.

<comment><USER14> In Morocco at least they do ask for your passport if you want free or discounted cell service, but you can always go to a corner store and just get a Sim card from there.

<comment><USER13> Sure, and it stops working a few days later. I had that happen a few times, then stopped buying SIM cards from random people on the street (or corner stores) and so would go into the actual carrier store (MTN or whatever)

<comment><USER14> Well, at least in Morocco when I lived there I got my SIM card from the corner store and used it for a good year and a half.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel there are rising tensions in China between their pseudo-free market and their apparent attempts at controlling and micro-managing the lives of their people. It would seem the rise of their consumer economy would also give rise to a demand for more freedom on a day to day basis to allow for innovation. It's interesting to see China going simultaneously in both contradicting directions.

<comment><USER16> I can't imagine the cognitive dissonance required to go to university in the U.S. for 4 years then return to China after being exposed to uncensored media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> SIM cards bought in Italy have long required showing photo ID in person and also some kind of SSN like number used for various financial transactions.

I needed to acquire that fiscal SSN when buying wine from an Italian web shop but weirdly it's a computed value, not a unique ID you get from some organization: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fiscal_code)

<comment><USER18> SIM cards bought in Spain require you to show your ID card, which means the authorities can link such SIM to your name, your face, and your fingerprints.

<comment><USER19> It's very common around the world in general. That doesn't make it right, of course - it just means that the surveillance state is more widespread than commonly assumed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> China's decisions are easy to understand if you grok the underlying motives. HN should know better than most how things become more difficult at scale. Governance at China's scale is a different beast. Clearly the way the CCP is tackling it is by prioritizing efficiency and the good of the whole, over individuals and personal liberties. If you want to effect change then think about how you might make a case against that philosophy. The west certainly isn't doing a good job right now. Not sure if democracy has ever looked worse than it does today.

<comment><USER21> I feel it's important to make reference to primary material [0] to bring more attention to CCP goals. It certainly helped me in becoming aware of their actions as another major state actor.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Traveling to Germany I had to provide my passport to get a SIM card. When I was going through customs stateside I had a photo taken with my passport. Not sure if this is the new standard but other countries are implementing the same laws/procedures and while I disagree with china we shouldn't hold them to a different standard than other nations.

<comment><USER23> There are countries where getting a SIM card always required an ID or passport.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm confused about the enforcement here. I just bought a temporary sim from [https://www.3gsolutions.com.cn](https://www.3gsolutions.com.cn) (which I've used multiple times before when visiting) and didn't provide any id.

<comment><USER25> The SIM you bought was almost certainly registered by an employee of the company. Unless you do something that makes the authorities want to find the person behind your phone number, it's unlikely they'll get in trouble.

<comment><USER26> Wow, that's brazen. Explains how I was able to top up my WeChat wallet through PayPal once before a visit, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does this affect foreigners? If I have a AT&T plan, it should work out-of-box in China via roaming? Hope that is the case...

<comment><USER28> Always roam when in China for short trips. The way cellular networks work is that roaming plans tend to route back home, so that your access is unfiltered.

The plan could affect foreigners but it was hard for years already, in that most cellular stores require a Chinese ID to register monthly service (not all take passports). I used to get the salesperson or security guard to lend their ID in my stead, and this is exactly what this policy seems designed to prevent. Hotels and train stations have operated under facial authentication for a couple of years too for Chinese nationals. This seems to be along the same vein, to ensure the person is who the ID says they are. In other words, it's handing over the ID-checking from a person to an awkward police- sanctioned box.

<comment><USER29> The China Mobile stands in the airport that sell SIMs take passports...you'll find them in international baggage claim, and also in the terminal.

I've only successfully roamed with T-mobile on WiFi. Maybe its better now?

<comment><USER9> > I've only successfully roamed with T-mobile on WiFi. Maybe its better now?

I roamed on T-Mobile pretty successfully using a cell connection last year, but I had to buy a $20 1G data pass and some other passes for it to work. It was worth it for the reliable unfiltered internet access.

My current T-Mobile One plan was worse for this than my old grandfathered (Select Choice?) plan, which could limp along at 2G speeds out of the box and only needed the data pass for usable speed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> for point of comparison: map of European countries that require ID to buy prepaid sim cards[1], worldwide list[2]

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/cCFX1wC.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/cCFX1wC.jpg)

[2] [https://prepaid-data-sim- card.fandom.com/wiki/Registration_P...](https://prepaid-data-sim- card.fandom.com/wiki/Registration_Policies_Per_Country)

<comment><USER31> It's been 10+ years since I signed up for a cell phone. What is required today when you get a new account at the major carriers today in the US?

<comment><USER32> SSN and hard pull at all postpaid carriers, even if you bring your own phone.

Most major[0] stores I've seen check ID at checkout time before activating a prepaid SIM.

[0] Go to any immigrant-dense area, look for a corner store, and you can probably just top up in cash and ignore this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I live in China for over 10 years and I don't see the purpose of this.

Remember that this doesn't apply to roaming users or people buying Travel SIM for China, but those people are not a big worry.

To get a SIM card right now in China you need to have valid identification. The only ones that are acceptable are: 1) China Resident Identity Card; or 2) non-Chinese passport. Both of these already have photos.

</comment><comment><USER34> I searched for the law. They need a photo id for a new phone number to reduce phone scams. I think it is good.

<comment><USER35> Spammers don't use cell phones to make their calls. Most often they just spoof calls using random peoples phone numbers. This would have no effect on spam calls. (I assume you mean phone-spam when you say phone scam?)

Not to be paranoid, but you really created a HN account just to add this comment?

<comment><USER36> I'm not the person you asked, but I create throwaway accounts when commenting on sensitive topics so I don't get harassed irl and since you can't delete accounts on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> China has been requiring IDs to buy SIM card for at least 20 years.

Chinese also already have ID cards, 'hukou' (a sort of domestic passport), etc. so I would imagine that the government already has everyone's face on record.

Thus, this seems about enforcing the requirement to provide ID when buying a SIM, because enforcement of rules can be problematic in China.

Which reminds me...

They are (obviously?) having problems collecting sales tax. So at one point they are issuing formal receipts as vouchers that eg. restaurants had to buy form the tax office. A sort of advance payment. When a customer asked for a receipt the restaurant gave them a number of these vouchers.

The smart idea is that they had turned these vouchers into scratch cards to encourage people to request a receipt...

</comment><comment><USER38> In South Africa we have had to abide by FICA act for many years already, months of bank statements, identity document, proof of address etc., there has already been abuses of this information to identify corruption leaks to reporters...

</comment><comment><USER36> At first I got the impression a photo was required when buying a new cellphone, but this appears to be just for new numbers.

China already requires an ID to get a number, so I don't see how requiring a photo will help them track people even more? Maybe it gives them an updated photo? However, if you don't get a new number every few years, then it's useless.

My own country requires a photo ID to get a number and I've been to several other countries that do as well. I guess I'm just used to it now. Similar to how we put our photos on resumes, but my American friends were shocked by that.

<comment><USER39> Photo's on a resume is still a pretty strange request in America because it factors into possible discrimination.

However identification is required in the US only when starting a contract phone servie (for Credit inquiries). If you don't want your name attached to the phone number it has to be prepaid. Which always made me chuckle considering the two most common people to give us obviously fake names for prepaid phones were drug dealers and police. I've had days working in phone retail where someone came in and started a prepaid line under "John Doe" and paid for it out of a roll of 100's in their sock. Then an hour later I've got an officer in uniform handing me a name and address he needs put on a cheap burner prepaid phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Are we any different? I want to think so but drivers licenses and passports are scanned photos. The California DMV even sells this information.

<comment><USER15> Just look up videos on youtube of westerners who live in China so that you can easily understand the giant chasm of difference between the cultures and system. Even if CA does something similar, there are ways to keep your privacy protected, especially if you're willing to go out of your way and get a lawyer. In China you're basically owned by the government and good luck trying to find workarounds without feeling like you're a wanted criminal.

<comment><USER41> > especially if you're willing to go out of your way and get a lawyer.

That is out of reach for the vast majority of Americans

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> All cellphone users in India also have their biometrics (Aadhar) linked to their phone numbers..

This has been a requirement for a while now..

</comment><comment><USER43> I am not going to defend it nor denounce it.

Having reread Oath of Fealty recently I am really of the belief it won't be long before we end up with heavily monitored enclaves simply out of a desire of many to not put one thought into their own safety and security if surrounded by like minded individuals who all give up privacy in order to guarantee the safety and security of the group.

All the photo apps today that are associated with youth involve many many pictures of themselves they tag with identifiable information so it is not a big leap to think that this level of privacy is not something they consider a big deal. To them their image is their identity and they want to be recognized. Privacy would only mean protecting what they chose not to make public.

There certainly is this odd occurrence where we have many denouncing loss of privacy who at the same time ask the government to do more for them which requires giving up more information to more groups. It really comes down to, which items of your identity are public and private. your image certainly is public and why would you in any sane society be afraid of that association?

</comment><comment><USER44> I already wrote about this in the past and assumed it was the case in the USA. Hard to get a burner phone in person these days. As long as our infrastructure is run by centralized or federated organizations, this is what will be the case.

I suggested sending in homeless people to get the phone if it's a prepaid one.

But more to the point, if you want anonymity in such a regime, you have to commandeer other people's accounts and hope they don't get in trouble. This is what botnets do, etc. But you may be able to use payphones or libraries or hotel phones etc. as long as you cover your face, fake your gait etc. and even that may not be enough when we are talking about heartbeat signatures, infrared signatures and so on.

Timing attacks, style of writing analysis etc. can also be used to easily out someone these days. Anonymity is quite fragile.

Read more about the mechanics here... it goes back to the Digital Imprimatur of 2003 which started it all for me

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114)

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting, slightly credible claim they got caught jaywalking through facial recognition and had their account automatically deducted with a fine.

They are unsure how -

[https://youtu.be/taZJblMAuko?t=1535](https://youtu.be/taZJblMAuko?t=1535)

</comment><comment><USER46> Registering a sim card in Vietnam also requires your photo to be taken. Is this an Asia thing ?

<comment><USER47> Kazakhstan implemented identification for SIM cards few years ago, just ID, no photo. Also recently it implemented identification for IMEI numbers as well. I'm not sure why, apparently they want to fight phone stealing, but I'm not very convinced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> In Germany you can't have a SIM card without registration (address, ID and everything).

</comment><comment><USER3> Interestingly, there is another post about a tangential topic about privacy and data collection. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21684708)

</comment><comment><USER49> Getting a SIM card in Taiwan also requires a photo taken at the computer (for foreigners) in addition to passport. In HK, you can buy sim for roaming use in mainland and Taiwan without any form of registration.

</comment><comment><USER50> This doesn't seem much different from Spain, where I need to scan my passport to buy a SIM, and they already have my face on record?

</comment><comment><USER51> In Brazil, was taken a face picture when lost a phone and had to get a new SIM card, no change in number or contract.

</comment><comment><USER52> When a nation is a superpower, it is able to influence the behavior of weaker states. It will exert its influence for a variety of reasons, but it is inevitable that with power comes the exertion of influence.

China will use its power to prop up autocratic regimes across the world and export its technology and methods to make such autocracy possible and sustainable.

China represents a threat to global democracy which must be recognized and must be treated as such.

<comment><USER53> Without agreeing or disagreeing with them, we should accept that people have said exactly the same things about the USA, about the Soviet Union, about Russia, about Britain... And on and on.

I am not trying to play "whatabout," but I do ask: Is there anything different about China's behaviour as a superpower? Or are we just seeing a shift in which superpowers have world influence?

At the moment I write this, the front page of HN has an article about China and facial recognition... But also an article about US schools monitoring student emails.

Which seems to me like training a generation of citizens to understand that they live in a prison without walls.

<comment><USER52> I think comparisons like this ignore something fundamental, which is the values that both countries champion.

The USA is a democracy and has by and large championed democracy around the world. China is ruled by a 1974 style dictatorship, a country ruled by a single Party not the rule of law.

Comparisons between the US and the CCP conveniently ignore this, yet it is what really matters.

Law enforcement will always exist in a nation of laws, yet the simple fact that law enforcement exists both in a dictatorship and in a democracy does not lead us to conclude democracy and dictatorship exist on an equal moral footing.

The underlying values matter.

<comment><USER54> If you look at China's constitution they value the same stuff as the United States. They are a democracy by their values, just like the U.S.

Words are meaningless if not backed up by action.

<comment><USER55> Interesting! As I was completely unfamiliar with China's constitution, I pulled up the Wikipedia article and the source document. Supporting your point, here is a particularly surprising (to me) article:

> Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of > speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of > demonstration. [0]

Also, from the introduction section of the Wikipedia article:

> Though technically the "supreme legal authority" and "fundamental law of the > state", the ruling Chinese Communist Party has a documented history of > violating many of the constitution's provisions and censoring calls for > greater adherence to it. Furthermore, claims of violations of constitutional > rights cannot be used in Chinese courts, and the National People's Congress > Constitution and Law Committee, the legislative committee responsible for > constitutional review, has never ruled a law or regulation unconstitutional. > [1]

[0] [http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html](http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China)

<comment><USER56> The Constitution of China changes every few years. There's no enforcement or practical meaning at all

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Canadian here: Ezra Levant is far, far right. He was part of the now defunct Sun news Network. This may be a case of a broken clock being right twice a day.

He's basically the Canadian version of Breitbart.

<comment><AUTHOR> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685294) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER7> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I've had past accounts shadow banned for what I assume is posting in threads like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to mention specific links we can take a look at what happened there. Without links, though, a comment like this doesn't add much information.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685327).

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> When I was younger I wanted to visit China. Currently I have no plans to ever do so, China is a scary country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and definitely not nationalistic flamebait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER60> I think 'nationalistic flamebait' should be better defined; as time goes on it feels as if any negative comment about any world power is being pigeon-holed into that category, and I think that's incorrect.

It's important to talk about the worlds' woes. Shining light onto issues is how they're resolved.

This thread's topic is about yet another step to reduce anonymity in China. This trend of full-disclosure with regards to any kind of society move ( getting a cell phone, paying a bill, boarding a bus, etc ) _IS_ scary, regardless of the country that employs it.

Lots of countries, not excluding China, have terrible human rights violations that need to be talked about. These kind of issues _do_ make the place a scary proposition to visit for foreigners and tourists -- and furthermore I share the commenters opinion; as a younger person I wanted to travel around China, as an older person who has witnessed recent events, I no longer want to. It's not flamebait, and it's relevant to the thread; these kind of societal decisions sway tourists like myself away from your coutry, regardless of which country it may be.

Can't we reserve 'nationalistic flamebait' for the really ludicrous and racist comments that float around the nation-based threads, rather than the useless anecdotes?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you've picked a bad example to make this argument about. "China is a scary country" is an unsubstantive negative statement about an entire country. It isn't nuanced. It's not qualified in any way. That easily falls under whatever moderation rule we might apply.

People often seem to think they're making nuanced factual statements when they're actually making blanket emotional ones. Those have degrading effects on discussion here when they're about entire nations, entire classes of people, and so on—and they're easy to avoid if one chooses to.

Part of the issue is that HN threads feel like intimate conversation—which is wonderful and something we consciously cultivate. But it's all fully in public and the audience is large and highly international. Because that gap isn't obvious, it leads people to say things which might be inconsequential in a small group, but are just the opposite here.

It only takes a little objectivity and/or empathy to get what it must feel like to come to HN and encounter putdowns of one's country or one's demographic. That's not cool, and fortunately it's not necessary, so commenters here are responsible for clearly disambiguating their comments from that.

<comment><USER59> You are really insulting. If you want to remove my comment, remove my comment. Don't sit there and make up crap about it. Please tell me how it's an emotional statement and not purely objective unless you wanna hide your head in the sand from the horrific things China has done and is continuing to do.

Edit: seems you can't even follow your own rules, both for insulting me and "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did." So is my comment egregious and shouldn't be replied to, or is it fine??

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I had to provide a passport to purchase a throwaway T-Mobile data SIM in Germany. Seems normal to me.

</comment><comment><USER62> The irony is that the people complaining about this are the same ones who are gleefully sharing their personal details and narrative on social media, and Facebook in particular. The only difference between mass surveillance in the US and China is that 99% of the US population happily opts in or doesn't care.

<comment><USER63> I don't disagree with you, but government compulsion makes this a different animal entirely.

The bigger context is that in the US, there is SUPPOSED to be a system in which companies can successfully resist government demands (remember that Apple did this to the FBI when they wanted to crack a criminal's phone passcode), whereas in China, that cannot happen. So yes, people give away their data for stupid conveniences, but Facebook/Google etc aren't supposed to share the data with the government. They have done so, as Snowden revealed, so this is by no means a perfect system.

What really upsets me about China's system is the bigger system of social credit this ties into. You can't get on flights want your score gets too low. The guy exposing fake martial arts masters isn't allowed to leave the country.

<comment><USER64> There is much less "government compulsion" in the US, but in its place is still de facto compulsion. In general, comparisons with the US are difficult because in the US large corporations are given the power of defining much of societal policy.

Saying that " _Facebook /Google etc aren't supposed to share the data with the government_" only makes sense in some abstract sense of it wasn't supposed to be like this. But power tends to coalesce - the only "supposed to" is in some abstract moral stewardship sense, a responsibility that has been long forgotten by the business community, if it ever existed in the first place. Facebook/Google want to agglomerate data from the financial surveillance bureaus, and the (nominal) government buys the proceeds from both of them in a "free market" transaction. And then on the output/control side, companies use these surveillance databases to weed out "undesirable" customers, with their competitors following in lock step lest they end up with even more undesirables.</comment></comment></comment>


Recent Changes Camp - <AUTHOR> http://rcc2008.blueoxen.net/

<comment><USER2> The world-wide "unconference" for wiki developers, users, and admins. The 2-day event is free of charge for all participants; anyone interested in wiki or related community and technology issues is welcome to attend. Schedule is decided on the spot, and all attendees are expected to be part of the peer-to- peer talk sessions.

</comment><comment><USER2> May 9-11 2008, in Palo Alto, California</comment>