Deep learning has a size problem - <AUTHOR> https://heartbeat.fritz.ai/deep-learning-has-a-size-problem-ea601304cd8 <comment><USER2> The article starts with NLP models and then mentions the successes of increasingly smaller vision models. NLP seems to be an outlier in increasingly becoming a pissing contest. The models are too big and not particularly useful. openAI spread FUD about their model but after their release , it's rather underwhelming. Yeah you can output some text that's readable and paraphrasing reddit, but what about understanding , intention, doing actual useful stuff with text? Hallucinating text in itself isn't interesting. It seems this line of nlp with transformers has hit some kind of deadend and they are trying to brute force the next breakthrough - doubtful that this will happen though. And then we have bizarre decisions like microsoft releasing dialoGPT yesterday without including a generaiton script because "it might be racist". This whole seems more like marketing than research

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Large transformer-based models like BERT and its ilk are not only useful to hallucinate text. They have achieved measurable improvements in various (although not all) classic NLP tasks, such as parsing, entailment recognition or question answering. Google has reportedly used BERT to improve their search algorithm, so indeed it's being used to do "actual useful stuff with text".

It pains me to say this, as I'm a researcher from an institution without the huge resources of the big tech companies, so I can't compete in the pretrained model arms race (and also, it has made the field more boring, as creative solutions to problems become outperformed by approaches that just pile up more millions of parameters). But it's the truth. Although I think it will only be a stage of things: at some point, performance will plateau and we will need to put our minds to work again, rather than our GPUs.

<comment><USER2> google seemed to make a genuine effort to make a model that is useful rather than record-breaking with bert. But i think it's wrong to consider it the "final" model upon which everything else will be built.

<comment><USER3> BERT is already outdated, but still useful as you need only 1 Titan RTX to retrain its BERT_large model via transfer learning.

<comment><USER4> What methods make BERT outdated? Do you have pointers to other options?

<comment><USER3> e.g. XLNet:

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.08237](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.08237)

<comment><USER5> XLnet is Bert with a bunch of additional training tricks.

<comment><USER3> BERT is a Transformer with a bunch of additional training tricks. Transformer is self-attention with a bunch of additional training tricks...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO this is not a problem. The people building insanely huge models are expanding the set of tasks that can be done by a computer. Who cares how much memory it takes?

Historically, computationally expensive methods eventually become cheap. In the 1980's, researchers had access to Crays to develop physics model, graphics, etc. requiring lots of floating point math and memory. Meanwhile, for the home computers, game programmers had to implement all their math in fixed point. Nowadays, game engines run the same algorithms that were running on the Crays before.

Same with learning. It's great to use tricks to make models fit on phones. Even better: use tricks to make training new models within the budget of a small academic research lab. That doesn't mean we should invalidate all the work that requires a huge cluster.

<comment><USER7> _IMO this is not a problem. The people building insanely huge models are expanding the set of tasks that can be done by a computer. Who cares how much memory it takes?_

But are they? The example in the article describes an incremental improvement in a benchmark in exchange for a massive increasing in training time.

Deep learning has achieved success on a number of tasks that previously computers had been unable to do. Since the initial period of success, it is an area of debate whether deep learning has expanded it's basic area of applicability or whether is has incrementally on it's initial achievements.

And if it is true that deep learning is stuck on just expanding what it's already doing, it might be the fundamental next advance might come from one person with one machine rather than a massive team with a massive machine. Consider that neural nets as a theory had been around since the 1990s if not the 1960s but the fundamental advantage of DL came when grad students could use GPU in the 2010s, not when massively parallel machines came into existence (quite a bit earlier).

Here, the further wrinkle is that moore's law is gradually ending. We won't access to that much more computing power twenty years hence - so making less do more does make sense.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. There are lots of advancements that DL has yet to fully realize with even the current technology. You're focused on commercial applications but applying neural network models, especially CV models to many types of scientific research has yet to be explored due to lack of funding.

<comment><USER7> I'd like to think I put my comments "as potential problems" since I can't claim to follow everything that's done as deep learning.

Still, to continue the devil's advocate position. Deep learning comes up with a lot of things that are _suggestive_ but not tight enough in their approximation to be useful.

I would guess there are huge number of correlations that seems plausible but aren't really causations. You can apply employ a monster stream of sort of intelligent seeming claims and predictions and find they don't yield any progress in any firm scientific domain. The application of deep learning to finding cancer and related diagnosis processes has been "exciting and promising" for a long time but effectively yielded nothing so far because "quite accurate in highly controlled situations" turns out to seldom be that useful, at least not so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How did they use an elephant as cover image without mentioning von Neumann's famous and relevant quote: "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."

A great article on it: [https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit- an-elep...](https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/06/21/how-to-fit-an-elephant/)

<comment><USER10> That came up in The Dream Machine! Reading it now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I never understand such remarcs

> Given the power requirements per card, a back of the envelope estimate put > the amount of energy used to train this model at over 3X the yearly energy > consumption of the average American.

So what? Training model is the hardest part, then you just reuse results

> First, it hinders democratization. If we believe in a world where millions > of engineers are going to use deep learning to make every application and > device better, we won't get there with massive models that take large > amounts of time and money to train.

So what? I can't run weather simulation on my laptop.

<comment><USER12> _So what? Training model is the hardest part, then you just reuse results_

I doubt anyone is going to want to run a 33GB model on their phone.

 _So what? I can 't run weather simulation on my laptop._

You only need to run the weather simulation once and then broadcast your forecast to everyone's devices. You can't do that with NLP. In order to be useful, NLP models need to run on different input data for every user. With a giant 33GB model, that means round-tripping to the data centre.

If you have to run everything in the cloud, your applications are limited. The cost is also very high, given that there are way more user devices than servers in the world. That means you need to build more data centres if you plan to run these giant models for every application you want to offer your users.

<comment><USER13> > I doubt anyone is going to want to run a 33GB model on their phone.

Why not? Many modern phones have upwards of 512GB of storage. 33 GB for a useful model seems entirely reasonable to me.

<comment><USER12> That's for one application. Phones have dozens of apps. If they all use different, giant models like this, then 512GB won't be nearly enough.

Moreover, what is the performance going to be like? It can't be too spectacular if your model doesn't fit in RAM. 33GB is manageable on a beefy server with a ton of RAM. You're not going to have the same luxury on your phone.

The other major aspect of it is memory bandwidth. If the model was designed to run on a high end GPU, with all 33GB stored in graphics memory, then it's going to perform terribly if it has to be paged in and out of flash on a phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not such a problem, except if you want to train from scratch a large model (NLP or CV), not if you want to fine-tune it for a related task. So one trained model can be reused many times. In general training data is scarce, only in a few situations it is abundant.

</comment><comment><USER15> The MegatronLM example is a weird one. Neural network language models are replacing n-gram language models that grow to several terabytes for SotA results; 8 billion parameters is tiny by comparison.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are already past the point of no return. RTX 8000 is now an entry-level GPU that allows training some of the latest NLP models. Attention is spreading over to computer vision models as well, so one could expect memory bloat coming there quickly. Only large companies that can deploy thousands of GPUs in parallel will be able to compete.

<comment><USER16> I am working on it... (well, the company I work for)... except instead of thousands... it is hundreds of thousands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seems to focus on reducing the size of existing models through optimization. Better would be to find ways to train smaller models to start with. Still interesting.

<comment><USER18> why would that be better?

<comment><USER19> Compressing it means it may take less storage, but not having to look at it in the first place it the win. It simply takes time to process all the data. Less data: faster computation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Size matters. If you want intelligent neural network, you need some watts. There is nothing astonishing in that. It is also because of constant progress in hardware performance that deep learning has become what it is.

</comment><comment><USER21> I just hope Hinton finishes his Hinton Network idea that is supposed to replace these NNs.

</comment><comment><USER22> > I don't mean to single out this particular project. There are many examples > of massive models being trained to achieve ever-so-slightly higher accuracy > on various benchmarks.

Sounds like particle colliders and Big Science in general.

</comment><comment><USER10> Deep learning doesn't parallelize well. Would be cool if you could loan CPU cycles on your phone or home computers while at work.

<comment><USER23> In what way does it not parallelize well? There are mounds of research in federated learning.

<comment><USER10> I've read that you can't split up large layers to be trained on separate processors either horizontally (one layer per processor) or vertically (parts of many layers).

<comment><USER24> On a shared memory system there's little need to do that - there's much more parallelism to be had from accelerating fine grained operations, like matrix multiplications to compute each layer's output.

On a distributed system, splitting up layers between machines to do distributed training is pretty much what Google initially designed Tensorflow for. Generally it scales less well due to the need to communicate massive amounts of data between nodes and much lower network throughput than what GPU/TPU memory provides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It doesn't parallelize well. Would be cool if you could loan CPU cycles on your phone or home computers while at work.</comment>


As US Stream-Ripping Increases, Almost Half of Rippers Are Educated and Affluent - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/as-us-stream-ripping-increases-almost-half-of-rippers-are-educated-affluent-190531/ <comment><USER2> Did anyone ever truly believe that streaming would put an end to piracy? Pure wishful thinking. You can't send data to someone but make it impossible for them to save it. It just doesn't work that way.</comment>


Windows Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/microsoft/Terminal <comment><USER2> Saving you a click: "The Windows Terminal is in the very early alpha stage, and not ready for the general public quite yet. If you want to jump in early, you can try building it yourself from source.

Otherwise, you'll need to wait until Mid-June for an official preview build to drop"</comment>


Google+ grows 43% in June - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/114259566451209869276/posts/ZNrsoqPWRA2 <comment><USER2> Sigh. We're drawing conclusions from Compete again?

I've said this before and I'll say it again; using Compete for quantitative traffic comparisons is flawed, particularly with social sites that utilize embeddable content. Their data has been proven wrong countless times. Until recently, Compete claimed Reddit (<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/reddit.com/>) had less traffic than Digg (<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/digg.com/>).

I don't have anything against Google+. But lets hold off on the congratulatory praise until we're sure the growth is real.

<comment><USER3> Agreed.

According to one of Google's own services, google+ is pretty much dead:

[http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=google+plus&graph=wee...](http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=google+plus&graph=weekly_img&sa=N)

compare with fb:

[http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=facebook&graph=weekly...](http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=facebook&graph=weekly_img&sa=N)

edit: thank you downvoters for illustrating the bias on HN. A fake stats piece promoting google as #1 on the frontpage? This place is turning into /. but with more google employees. I'm out.

<comment><USER4> Ugh. You can't divine traffic numbers from search volume and news mentions.

If that were the case, Mitt Romney should start a social network because he's crushing Facebook: [http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=romney&graph=weekly_i...](http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=romney&graph=weekly_img&sa=N)

<comment><USER3> lol, romney doesn't even register when compared to fb:

[http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=romney,+facebook&grap...](http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=romney,+facebook&graph=weekly_img&sort=1&sa=N)

red=fb, blue= romney

The reason this _is_ relevant in the discussion is that when you type in the url in chrome (arguably the top browser) the word in the domain and subdomain count as search words that show up in trends. So when you type "plus" for the g+ url it's added to trends. You can check that little fact by looking at the trends for "plus".

<comment><USER5> If you've already been on Plus, and you're in chrome or (I think) Firefox, it won't do a search when you type "plus" as the top autocomplete suggestion will be "<http://plus.google.com>. To search, you'd have to key down the list of suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Lots of impressions here.

MySpace is so small now! And shrinking! Let us never forget that history.

Tumblr and pinterest are adding a lot fewer users than I thought.

Gosh just look at the page. Google+ looks very clean and beautiful compared to Facebook these days. I'm reminded of when everybody used to say "Facebook looks very clean and beautiful compared to MySpace these days".

Google has a big leg up here as Google+ ads can always be less intrusive and more relevant than Facebook ones. They can also afford to be cleaner by simply not making much (if any) money off of Google+ itself, just on the fact that it gets you into the google ecosystem.

One thing that really bothers me about new Google web properties is that Google made this browser, Google Chrome, with a search functionality that highlights the matched words in orange on the scrollbar. Then they went and broke this feature on every single scrollbar possible by using custom scrollbars on every Google web property except Google search itself. How silly!

\---

Back to the topic at hand. I love the format of Google+ compared to Facebook. It sits between blog and social network, and long-form posts and answers seem much more natural and acceptable on G+ than on Facebook.

Think about it. _Lots of people link to Google+ posts here._ Nobody links to the equivalent Facebook thing, wall posts. (And extremely few people use Facebook "notes" which were an attempt to fill that gap and have falled by the wayside.) I think this is one of the most telling things of all.

I think Google+ has great opportunity for it to mature into more than just a social network, but a social network + blog for those who cant be bothered to make (and visit!) traditional blogs + interactive press release platform (important for both companies and users).

I don't know if G+ will "win" any long term battle, but I do hope that when social networks mature into more refined, less annoying versions of themselves, they will look more like G+ than like Facebook or MySpace. I think the trend is clear, anyway.

<comment><USER7> _Lots of people link to Google+ posts here. Nobody links to the equivalent Facebook thing, wall posts._

That's a bit misleading, because one of the few places G+ has gotten traction is among developers, mostly in the Google ecosystem (go figure). That's a big and important ecosystem, so it's not shocking that people from there would post stuff that occasionally is of interest to HN.

Facebook wall posts aren't used in the same way by the tech crowd -- probably mostly because they didn't work like blog posts or G+ posts until after G+ launched -- so they don't get HN links. But in other communities people definitely link to wall posts. I work in politics and it's not unusual to see a politico use their Facebook wall as a kind of proto-blog. (Sarah Palin, or some nameless flack on her team at least, is/was a master at this.) It then gets plenty of links from political media.

<comment><USER8> > That's a bit misleading, because one of the few places G+ has gotten > traction is among developers

I remember the same about Twitter, most users were devs and rails devs at that. Doesn't mean G+ will be as successful as Twitter though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yes, but I know dozens of people on LinkedIn. I know one active Google+ user and he's a bit of a Google fanboy to begin with.

None of the non-techie people I know use Google+ or even mention it at all.

<comment><USER10> _Yes, but I know dozens of people on LinkedIn. I know one active Google+ user and he's a bit of a Google fanboy to begin with._

Why is there the need to respond to data with anecdotes? If I give a Google+ growth anecdote, does that invalidate yours?

I have no idea why Google+ is being compared to LinkedIn. They have very little overlap. Even among Facebook and Google+ the overlap is limited.

Nonetheless Google keeps iterating on the product and it seems to be paying off. The Android Google+ client is now superb, and the content richness seems to be greatly improving, particularly in the tech field. Which is important because the tech field is what generally leads the growth curve.

<comment><USER11> Because data can also lie. The key here is that the number reported is "unique visitors" – what, exactly, is this telling us?

Not much at all because it says nothing of intent, much less duration of stay on that page or frequency of use.

In the absence of that additional data, anecdotes can be useful to express doubt or confusion about data that seems to not pass the sniff-test. It can be as minimal as "is it just me, or does ... ?" sort of constructions or it can be more formalized to say – "This doesn't fit with my personal observations".

The mistake is thinking that anecdotes add up to data – they don't – but put enough of them together and they can be heuristically valuable – and one on its own, in the absence of other real data, is still a completely valid construct for conversational purposes or to challenge (albeit weakly) some over-cooked claim, like what I'm seeing here, with the google+ traffic data. The refutation of such an anecdotal experience with sound evidence doesn't mean the the anecdote was worthless – hardly. It was valuable _because_ it was provocative.

<comment><USER12> OP: Wrong.

Anecdote: Wrong.

incongruity: Two wrongs make a right!

<comment><USER11> George E.P. Box is quoted as saying: "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

I would adapt that and say that all anecdotes are wrong, but some are useful.

<comment><USER13> Surely you have to make an actual argument as to why it's useful though? So far all I've heard is "my friends don't use G+".

<comment><USER11> Truth be told, I'm not arguing strongly in support of the original bit of anecdotal evidence. I was more responding to the quote:

 _"Why is there the need to respond to data with anecdotes?"_

I feel as though I made my case pretty well for a generalized reason, above. In this particular case, as I said:

 _"The key here is that the number reported is "unique visitors" – what, exactly, is this telling us? Not much at all because it says nothing of intent, much less duration of stay on that page or frequency of use._

I think there's much ado about little data. So, in the face of not all that informative of data, I think a weak bit of anecdotal pushback is wonderful if it gets conversation started.

<comment><USER12> Conversation is pretty worthless when it's speculation piled on speculation. If that's your thing, then well... okay.

I mean... if there's much ado about little data, why is it that MORE ado is better?

<comment><USER11> The simplest answer: see work on abductive reasoning and hypothesis building.

But, more fully, anecdotes aren't speculation. They're individual experience. They are not, of course, a statistically representative sample. That doesn't mean it's worthless – it's just not authoritative, but it is still some person's real experience (internet truthiness aside). The all-or nothing view of validity and knowledge is problematic – and likely not reflective of how you or anyone else actually deals with reasoning.

Beyond that if it sparked discussion that either spurred the uncovering of real data or identified the requirement of further considerations, it's still of value.

<comment><USER12> > Beyond that if it sparked discussion that either spurred the uncovering of > real data or identified the requirement of further considerations, it's > still of value.

Which it didn't. We're not going to get better data until Google releases it, and Google is clearly not going to be doing so.

> But, more fully, anecdotes aren't speculation.

This claim would be okay if the anecdote was offered in a neutral environment. Here, however, it's being offered as contradictory evidence. The speculation isn't in the anecdote: it's in the purpose of offering the anecdote in the first place.

The anecdote was about the same as a TIOBE survey result coming out and responding with, "Oh, but I know a lot of Haskell programmers and don't know any Python programmers." That's wonderful for you and all, but your experience is seriously not relevant, nor does it prompt useful discussion or the discovery of useful data.

I agree that anecdotes _can_ be useful. That's half the purpose of journalism: finding anecdotes.

I disagree that they are useful _here_.

<comment><USER11> _> Beyond that if it sparked discussion that either spurred the uncovering of real data or identified the requirement of further considerations, it's still of value._

 _Which it didn't. We're not going to get better data until Google releases it, and Google is clearly not going to be doing so._

It most certainly _did_ spark discussion – I'd point out, somewhat ironically that you've been involved in one of them yourself – but there were a number of other replies. Some of which (mine included) addressed the data issue head-on.

 _> But, more fully, anecdotes aren't speculation. This claim would be okay if the anecdote was offered in a neutral environment._

There is no such thing as a neutral environment, so your premise fails from the start.

And, no, hits to a web page or unique visitor counts are not tantamount to real usage figures for a social media site. So the analogy to a TIOBE survey breaks down as well.

 _I disagree that they are useful here._

Well...

I said, explicitly that I was addressing the larger point of the other poster asking "Why is there the need to respond to data with anecdotes?" I started directly by pointing out the failing of "data" in this case – I find it to be an over-played trope to always say "anecdote BAD!" and yet people fall all over themselves if someone puts a shitty graph or table up, not stoping to consider what the "data" means and what possible failings it might have.

And that led me directly to the value of anecdotes in general terms – something you now say you agree with, so we'll call that point made.

Given that we agree about the general value, I think it's clear that in the face of crappy, blindly accepted data, a mere (and admittedly weak) piece of anecdotal observation does, in fact, point out that the emperor has no clothes – the data pointed to here is very, very lacking. The anecdote was weak, but sufficient for what should have been an obvious task of poking holes in questionable data.

Instead, you prove my point by digging in your heels even more because someone tossed out an anecdote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm on Google+ because I have a Gmail account.

I'm on Linkedin (and Facebook) because they offer value.

<comment><USER15> The irony is that most people use Facebook (and LinkedIn) as glorified publicly-facing email accounts with automatic reply-to-all and attachments set to auto-open and display in-line. The only thing added is a rudimentary voting system.

<comment><USER16> I use Facebook to share and chat about photos.

I use LinkedIn for recruiting.

I use neither as "publicly facing email accounts".

At some level, any application can be described as "forms with some text inputs and some submit buttons".

<comment><USER15> "I use Facebook to share and chat about photos."

Which I'm sure you used to do in email. Smaller circle, same user task.

"I use LinkedIn for recruiting."

I still use email sometimes for that. Smaller circle, same user tasks (attaching resumes, getting contact info for screenings, planning meet and greets).

Actually, it was Monster.com + email, so yeah, I guess LinkedIn replaced those.

<comment><USER16> You can easily do HN via email too; it's called a mailing list.

<comment><USER15> Definitely. But that's the thing. GP said he only has G+ because he has GMail, but uses those other email workalike interfaces because they are superior products. Just pointing out that they work in strikingly similar ways to email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> <sorry, meta> Is there a way to perhaps add revision history to mod-altered post titles?

It's confusing and maybe even counter-productive in some cases when these ninja-edits happen.

If there is a reason to change the title, let people know why. This adds to the available collective information as to what's acceptable or expected.

Example: user w submits post with good intentions and unintentionally uses an x title which is not appropriate. Title is changed by mod and user checks history. User sees title wasn't appropriate because y. Next time, user thinks about it and tries harder to be more concise/accurate. Progress.

</comment><comment><USER18> Given the way Google has been using high-pressure onboarding through several of their existing customer bases, I'm not surprised. And "visitors" likely counts people who got linked to a single post.

<comment><USER19> It's akin to a grocer refusing cash and instead only accepting payments made with their branded store card, for the customer's benefit.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a legal challenge to this.

<comment><USER20> Not sure why you have been downvoted.

What Google is doing is very much reminiscent of what got Microsoft into so much trouble. Using a monopoly in one area to extend into another.

<comment><USER21> what area does Google have a monopoly in? Surely not search, email, or the browser. MS wasn't just cross-marketing, it was bundling IE and setting it as default which was unfair competition given that getting netscape required a lot more work (knowledge of the alternative, pre-broadband download and install). That plus bullying OEMs into unfavorable contracts. It's a poor analogy because Google doesn't own the web platform, and it's incredibly easy to switch services (just change your bookmarks).

<comment><USER19> > and it's incredibly easy to switch services

Not when you have your entire team/company using gmail as a paid service. And when you factor in the part about the user being the product in social networking, basically you're forcing a paying customer of one product to become a revenue stream in another.

Monopolies find themselves in trouble over this all time, just like when a customer service agent from your credit card company or local energy conglomerate passes you onto a sales rep from a third party without your knowledge. It's how they scam the old, ignorant and uninformed.

tl;dr: you cannot change your bookmarks when you have no other options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice try. I have to sign up for Google+ to read on article about Google+? If this is the dodgy tactics used to drive up usage numbers then Google+ must not be offering any intrinsic value. As for now, LinkedIn is providing me greater value. Actual value, without gimmicks.

<comment><USER23> You can't view the post? I can view it without signing in, using incognito mode. Regardless, the post is by Morten Myrstad, who works at Kontxt, not a Google employee.

<comment><USER24> I've noticed that viewing G+ posts on a mobile device requires me to log in, but not with a standard OSX/windows device. Pretty infuriating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Please keep in mind that Compete's data is from ISP data, so any http request to plus.google.com will count as a visitor. Which is why sites like, atdmt.com [1], have more "visitors" than google plus. I wouldn't trust compete's data for Google vs Linkedin because, the "uniques" could be coming from integrations with other google properties.

[1] <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/atdmt.com/>

</comment><comment><USER26> 1\. Google+ is a lot more open. I get to interact with variety of people through public posts.

2\. I have gotten rid of RSS Reader and now get all updates on G+ and blog. One less thing to worry about.

3\. Too many people make too many posts on Facebook. Circle on G+ is growing on me.

4\. I like everything Google.

<comment><USER20> 2\. Google+ doesn't replace RSS at all. 95% of feeds I read for example have no Google+ equivalent.

3\. Then filter those people from your feed or trim down the number of posts they make.

4\. Even the privacy violations and anti-competitive behavior so serious they are under multiple investigations ?

<comment><USER26> I ditched RSS reader because it's a huge investment of time. I get all social media updates in G+. Most blogs would email you blog post. I have integrated all my RSS needs in programs I already use - G+ and Gmail. It is my own personal minimalist experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How does he define a 'visit'?

It's a vague concept now - from an ISP perspective hitting a page with G+ (or T or FB) button on it when signed-in takes down a 'visit' sized payload.

When I +1 a page using Chrome Extension - is that a visit?

Same with mobile apps - what's a mobile 'visit' - an API GET?

<comment><USER28> I'd like to know also. I mean, all this post says to me is "Google+ gets more traffic than LinkedIn". That isn't much of a feat when you consider Google integrating G+ into searches, the use of browser extensions, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A likely cause for this that I haven't seen noted yet is that they are slyly directing people to G+ without the user even knowing. If you click on a Google Maps result to get the full information page, it's no longer a Google Maps page, it's a G+ page. These traffic numbers clearly include lots of people who got to G+ in this manner.

<comment><USER30> Yep, first noticed this a week ago. Lots of services redirecting into G+. Definitely going to skew the numbers WRT the concept of active vs passive growth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I rarely use G+ for the actual plus.google.com site. Instead, I add interesting or helpful people to various circles, and they augment my regular search results. But before you do that you might want to follow these tips for dealing with the random people showing up in your chat contacts <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3472283> and flooding your "stream" [https://plus.google.com/u/0/115948050407884269063/posts/Nd61...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/115948050407884269063/posts/Nd61YC5CbHJ)

</comment><comment><USER32> Driving first time visitors doesn't mean anything for a social network unless they have _retention_. Show me that Google+ visitors return to the site regularly and I'll start to think this is more than just measuring the size of your car's engine to determine its top speed. Anecdotal evidence tells me otherwise -- there are tons of people on G+, but nobody uses it.

</comment><comment><USER33> To anyone late to the party, the original title of the post pointed out that G+ has apparently surpassed LinkedIn in usage, which might explain why many posts focus on LinkedIn as a site for comparison.

The post was on the front-page with the original title for _hours_ , I don't know why a mod decided that was the time to change it.

</comment><comment><USER34> These numbers are showing G+ just a bit smaller than twitter traffic wise. I'm just not buying it.

</comment><comment><USER35> It would be interesting to know if their definition of an "Active Google+ user" has changed. Otherwise those stats don't mean a thing.

</comment><comment><USER36> Sure. I have a Google+ account, two even, because they are both attached to my private and business Google accounts. Same goes for almost everyone I know, they all have at least one Google+ account.

Only nobody I know, ever, ever uses Google+.

I'm guessing many visits I make to Google applications whilst logged in count as Google+ usage. In reality, I haven't used it since after the first month or two, and that is pretty much reflected by the people around me.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm on Google+ because I'm not cool enough to say I only know one person on Google+.

</comment><comment><USER37> Let me know when Google+ actually works with my google apps email address. It says you have to enable it but I did enable it (terrible documentation/help to do so) and still could never get it to work with no useful error about what's wrong.

It should just work by default.

And if it's disabled, they should stop sending me emails asking me to sign up when they know perfectly well that they won't let me.

</comment><comment><USER38> Somewhat off-topic, but this has been bugging me for years: for countries that use , instead of . in decimal numbers, how do they pronounce it? ie For the number 12.3 million, I could say "twelve point three million" or "twelve dot three million." For 12,3 million, do you say "twelve comma three million"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Here in Brazil we do say "twelve comma three million", even tho our word for "comma" is much harder to say than our word for "dot". But since everyone says it, it just sounds natural anyway.

<comment><USER38> Thanks for the insight. One more thing I can't figure out based on your reply is: how do you differentiate a decimal number from a list of numbers? For example, consider the list:

        12.3, 7.6, 3.2

It's easy to see the three different numbers. But otherwise, wouldn't it be:

        12,3, 7,6, 3,2

And how would you dictate that? "twelve comma three comma seven comma six comma..."?

<comment><AUTHOR> Those would be grammatically correct around here, I don't think I ever seen anything like that in the real world. In actual math classes people will usually just put parenthesis around numbers: (12, 3), (7, 6), (3,2). Sometimes people will actually replace the comma for the dot to avoid confusion (there's no hard rule set on stone, as long as you're being clear, it's ok). Sometimes people will just space them differently like you did and hope that's clear enough. For dictating, I don't think anyone would dictate the commas between numbers, you would just space them when speaking "twelve comma three.... seven comma six".

If you think that's confusing. It's funny to know that we often also use the dot as a multiplication sign. So "12.3,7" actually means "twelve multiplied by 3.7" in english. Btw I'm curious, does other countries also use dot for multiplication or is it only us?

<comment><USER38> I'm used to seeing parentheses around numbers when talking about ordered pairs, or in the context of matrices and dot products, etc.

We do use dots to represent multiplication, but they're not on the "ground", they're mid-height, aligned with -

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I would vaguely say Facebook is a social network people actually want to be on. LinkedIn is a social network people might believe they _need_ to be on. The two aspects are at least somewhat contradictory - a some significant portion of Facebook users are there to share things they wouldn't want an employer or potential customer to see whereas LinkedIn is fundamentally about selling one's self.

If Google+, using a tighter identity and so-forth, happens to replace LinkedIn, that would be one way to not be in direct competition with Facebook. But also to guarantee a certain limit to growth (at least until everyone in the world has to sell themselves to potential employers and customers all the time - sadly real possibility but one that thankfully isn't appearing tomorrow).

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm reminded that Google+ hasn't caught every time I log on.

Between visits, I think I forget it even exists.

<comment><USER41> I know exactly what you mean. I created a Twitter account a couple years ago but never really followed anyone; the few times I've logged on I've had a chuckle about how apparently Twitter has zero users and then forgotten about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Can we know the number of _members_ instead of _visitors_ ?

<comment><USER43> Worldwide Google+ has 270 million opened accounts. That is June figures, compared to 170 million in April. According to Google 150 million people worldwide log in to Google+ monthly, and 75 million people daily.

<comment><USER42> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I cannot believe no one has brought up the fact Google's Chrome web browser updates have been practicing evil, and thus the impressive growth. Essentially, it tricks people into signing up as a Google user. The push to corner a phenomena, which has reached its peak, by Google has been rather jaw dropping. The next generation is about to change everything and only a few will guess correctly what they will make the next must-have service will be.

</comment><comment><USER45> The only person I know on Google+ is my brother who works there. It's a good product, but it'd be a lot nicer if more people I knew used it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Google+ is okay for early adopters but as long as my family and friends are immersed in facebook, the G+ is a hard sell. But since most people use google, and google has unified login system, it is very easy to join google+. But actively use it? I don't know. Does the average user spend so many minutes on google+ everyday like they do on facebook? I don't think so.

</comment><comment><USER47> I would like to see how many people sign up for (and visit) Google+ due to the Instant Upload mobile photo feature. That's certainly my use case. I occasionally end up on Google+ from a search, but that's maybe once a month.

I love Google+, but the only reason I specifically visit the site is to view my Instant Upload album.

</comment><comment><USER43> There are two sources confirming the same trend for Google+: Compete shows a growth of 43% - in monthly visitors - from May to June. Experian Hitwise shows a growth of around 35% - in monthly visits - in the same period. So I would think: Two analytical firms would hardly be wrong at the same time?

<comment><USER21> (unless they use the same flawed methodology)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The numbers are impressive but whenever I login to G+ my timeline is always like this: [http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/239/d/f/forever_alone...](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/239/d/f/forever_alone_by_foreveraloneplz.png)

</comment><comment><USER49> "Larger" is a relative term. How many people pay monthly subscriptions to LinkedIn vs Google+ ?

</comment><comment><USER50> But who actually pays attention to it?

The main consequence from Google Plus is that I see Kingsley Idenhen's face every time I do a query connected with the semantic web.

For the life of me I can't figure out how to send people messages or get into a hangout or do anything with plus...

</comment><comment><USER51> To quote Chelsea Handler (who doesn't get mentioned enough here on HN I think), G+ is a hot mess. It takes forever to load, it's confusing and opaque, and it simply doesn't, and probably won't, ever have the reach to be relevant.

</comment><comment><USER52> Facebook has been putting a lot more ads in the newsfeed lately. I find it irritating because I can't just avoid them like I do with the ads on the right! These types of actions may lead more users to Google+

<comment><USER53> Ironic. Google is the world's biggest ad company. But people will run to Google to avoid ads?

<comment><USER54> Maybe until it becomes like youtube

Having said that though I still trust google more not to abuse their ad showing to the point of degrading the user experience

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Maybe, maybe not. I signed up for a throwaway Gmail account today and along with it came a Google+ account. I didn't click on the G+ link, but how may people have, only to never visit again?

</comment><comment><USER56> those numbers seem really really low for Facebook and Youtube.

<comment><USER57> They are US only

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> ... But far less valuable, so far.

</comment><comment><USER59> A less interesting title would have been "Gmail is (and always was) larger than LinkedIn."

<comment><USER43> Gmail is not integrated into gplus.google.com, so the numbers does not include gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> gmail was already larger than linked in, and google can just flip a switch to "join" gmail users to google plus. How is this metric not BS?

</comment><comment><USER61> Morten Myrstad: Google's Meat Loaf doppelgänger.

<comment><USER43> Which means?

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> And it's still unavailable on Windows Phone...

</comment><comment><USER63> I guess, the title was moderated again.

</comment><comment><USER64> Only 158 million of Facebook's 800x million users visit in any given month?

<comment><USER65> This is only US data, not global.</comment></comment>


Let your mortgage go? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10FOB-wwln-t.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

<comment><USER2> An excellent point.

People who treat their homes as investments should remember that, should the investment completely lose value, it's reasonable to cut their ties and take the loss, not continue to take losses on it indefinitely.

That is to say, it _is_ an investment, and should be treated appropriately as one.

If your house is a home rather than an investment, you can ignore this suggestion ;-)

Disclosure: I have a mortgage, but it's not underwater and is doing just fine.

<comment><USER3> Right, there are non-investment related values to a house for most people. Kids friends in the area, nice neighbors, the landscaping you did last year, etc. So even if you couldn't sell and recoup your mortgage, doesn't mean the value of your house is worth walking away from.

On the other hand, investment properties are almost entirely dollar based. Which is why (in theory), banks require a higher down payment on them - to get you invested.

<comment><USER4> This might not apply for new homes, and those are the ones that are underwater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article says that fears of damage to your credit rating, if you do this, are "overblown". But surely the damage to your credit rating among rational creditors should be _really_ severe?

If I were a bank and I found out a borrower had walked away from a previous loan leaving their creditors holding the bag, there's no way in hell I'd lend them a single cent, ever.

<comment><USER6> They'll have trouble getting another mortgage, that's true. But that's surmountable if you're happy with renting and/or can find a co-signer for your loan. Similar things are true for automobile loans.

But generally when people talk about "damaged credit", they mean an inability to get a credit card. And there, I'm willing to bet there are plenty of banks willing to do business with people with foreclosures on their records. The revenue model for credit cards is based on fees, not loan risk.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if credit card companies prefer people with a slightly dodgy credit rating, as they are more likely to get hit with late fees?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just in case anyone knows.. why are mortgages in the US structured in this lax way? In the UK, if you don't pay your mortgage, you're still entirely liable for the debt even after handing the keys back. If you can't meet the difference between what they make on a quick sale and the owed amount, they will, and do, bankrupt you over it.

<comment><USER8> The system you describe puts 100% of the onus of appraisal onto the borrower. It's in the bank's best interests to inflate the value of the home as much as possible and get a borrower on that inflated amount, because now, regardless of what the property is actually worth, the borrower is on the hook for the full amount.

The bank is normally the one who approves the appraiser, which is a clear conflict of interest. In our system, ideally everyone is best served when the appraiser is neutral and competent because the borrower doesn't over pay, and the bank isn't exposed to much risk since the collateral can actually cover the obligation.

The system you describe has a huge loophole because lenders hold all the cards and could easily collude on the sly with appraisers to drive prices up at the expense of the individual. It wouldn't even need to be an explicit collusion -- sort of like the default swap stuff, no individual player (who could see that the system was a sham) had any incentive to bring it down. On the contrary, they had incentive to keep up the bullshit in order to make their numbers. A similar pressure could result with laws that heavily favor the lender.

<comment><USER9> Lenders typically lend up to a maximum % of the purchase price - 90% is typical.

So if you default on the loan, they'd have to sell it for less than 90% of the value for you to owe them anything on it. If you default though, it's their home, they're free to sell it for whatever they like.

As far as the actual house sale goes, the bank/lender has little/no power in the UK. If they don't want to lend the money on the house there are others that will. The price is decided by the seller/estate agent, and the obviously the buyer. The main critera the bank has is that you pay a % of the purchase price - they'll lend typically only up to 90%-95% or so.

I like the UK system personally. I think it's responsible. Not to mention the silliness of yearly home tax?! in the US and other craziness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As my father (A Real-Estate Developer/Mortgage Broker/Car-Hock moneylender) used to tell me:

"A loan that isn't backed with readily liquidated collateral should be considered a gift with no expectation of return"

Money lenders aren't stupid. They realize that anything that isn't covered with collateral is money that they have a 90% chance of losing. It's is utterly beyond them why _any_ borrowers would not consider walking away from an underwater mortgage once the ROI hit the sweet spot (Credit Record Hit, and possible law suits being two costs factored in)

The NYT article was an excellent summary of the issues though.</comment>


Prison Sentence of Ex-Enron C.E.O. Skilling Cut by 10 Years - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/prison-sentence-of-ex-enron-ceo-skilling-cut-by-10-years-2/?hp

<comment><USER2> He might have got off easy, but he paid the iron price: his son died. There may not be a definitive connection but it's probably related. Madoff's son's suicide, meanwhile, has a confirmed connection to the old man's transgressions.

Conclusion: don't be a scumbag robbing the little people of billions of dollars or your kids will kill themselves out of shame.</comment>


San Diego Hacker News Meetup Tomorrow (2/26), 8:30 PM - <AUTHOR> http://cses.ucsd.edu/wiki/index.php/San_Diego_Hacker_News_Meetup#Upcoming_Meetups

<comment><AUTHOR> Come join us for our second meetup, and bring a friend!</comment>


Why a Dead Alkaline Battery Bounces [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrGV7zKEdtU

<comment><USER2> I think one of the bits I liked most was "Romeo (Retired Old Men Eating Out) Club" \- looking at its website it seems like quite a large thing over there. I know that my Grandma goes to something similar (restricted to just tea and bingo), but it makes me wonder if a similar organisation exists in the UK; a lot of the older folk I know just aren't very social any more, simply due to the fact that their social groups have died off or are spread out and have restricted travel options. Social interaction seems such a huge part of our existence to be missing for any individual (unless that's what they want of course).

Again, anecdotally; I've found amongst the older folks that those engaged in discussion and interaction keep their wits about them longer/easier than those bound by isolation.

Anyway, enough babbling on - time to go do some research.

<comment><USER3> One excellent organization is U3A [http://www.u3a.org.uk/](http://www.u3a.org.uk/) My father runs one of their groups that specializes in studying geology, and they regularly have a hundred people turn up to the seminars they run. Science and social go well together when you've lots of free time.

<comment><USER4> My father also runs one of these to help people learn Photoshop (mainly for editing family photos). It's surprising the topics that can be learned though these groups

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They could go further with the experiment to check if a material of which the battery content is composed matters or if the stiffness of the content is the only important factor.

They could for example check how bounciness changes when a battery is filled with a gel-like substance which could then be frozen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is the transcript if you don't like watching the video [http://bit.ly/1uD31Uz](http://bit.ly/1uD31Uz)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to me that using the height of the bounce against the ground for estimating the spring constant is worse than using the height of the bounce against the battery.

<comment><USER8> I don't really agree with that part of the test setup. The mass and springiness of the battery versus the slug dropped mask the fact that this is a _double_ spring setup, there is also still the bottom of the battery contacting the base it all sits on so you can expect some of the bounce to be transferred to the battery which would not jump a whole lot. So at a minimum there would have to be a hard connection (clamped or glued in place or something like that) between the base and the battery to compensate for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What would the inside of a recharged battery look like I wonder.

<comment><USER10> It's not the same technology and I wouldn't recommend tearing a lithium battery apart to look inside. Actually, I wouldn't recommend tearing apart any kind of batteries, lots of nasty stuff inside.

You can find plenty of videos on youtube showing you the process, for instance: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliWUHSOalU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliWUHSOalU)

<comment><USER11> After watching that it made me think that lithium batteries could be turned into a weapon on a plane by terrorists.

Assuming that they are that easy to accidentally short them out.

Should they not be a banned from being taken in the cabin?

<comment><USER12> It's probably not banned because someone who could take over a plane with a lithium battery could take over a plane without a lithium battery.

<comment><USER13> But someone who could take over a plane with a nail clipper could probably manage without it, too.

<comment><USER14> And the TSA allows nail clippers in the cabin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The method has even been patented! [http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5567541](http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US5567541)

<comment><USER16> The patent was drafted very generally, but seems to focus on the volume (rather than elasticity) of the internal components. OTOH, it would be great if it were even more generally drafted, since its priority date is in 1995. 1995+17 = 2012, so the world is now wide open for innovation in this area, unimpeded by patents (IANAL).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Probably not the best idea to open a battery without gloves and a mask (though lithium batteries are worse in terms of gases).

Still very interesting to see the electrolyte though.

<comment><USER8> The quantity and variety of things that I've opened up during my lifetime without 'gloves and a mask' would probably scare you very much. The worst mistake I made to date is grinding off the top of a BLY90 as a kid before I knew what a MSDS is. So far so good, I think these folks will be fine as long as they wash their hands afterwards before eating, cleaning up after you've dropped a fluorescent tube is probably a lot more dangerous than this.

Don't go and turn anything into a fine powder!

Probably the most risky thing they did here was cutting up the batteries with a hacksaw which will create a bit of sawdust composed of metal and some electrolyte. But that's pretty easy to get rid of and won't become airborne. Using a grinder for the same job would be much more dangerous.

<comment><USER18> As to what people would play with without "gloves and a mask":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core)

 _" After Slotin's accident, hands-on criticality experiments were stopped, and remote-control machines were designed by Schreiber, one of the survivors, to perform such experiments with all personnel at a quarter mile distance."_ Note: _" After"..._ so what was the situation before?...

<comment><USER19> They would raise and lower the top half of the core with their bare hands, a screwdriver, and lots of shims. Literally hands-on criticality experiments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For some reason, it upsets me that he refers to spent / empty / used batteries as "bad", as if they were faulty.

<comment><USER21> He managed avoid the "flat" vs. "dead" controversy by making up a new convention altogether.

<comment><USER22> I think "consumed" would be most appropriate.

<comment><USER23> I'd say "depleted" but we're all missing the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Url changed from [http://lifehacker.com/test-if-your-batteries-are-dead-by- dro...](http://lifehacker.com/test-if-your-batteries-are-dead-by-dropping- them-on-a-h-1630525062), which points to this.

<comment><USER25> Due to a Feedly bug (I think), this actually makes it much harder for Feedly users to comment. When an HN story links directly to YouTube, Feedly omits the link to the comments that is normally present in its display of HN RSS.

I think this is a Feedly problem, not an HN RSS problem, because it works fine in Digg Reader.

I'm curious if others have noticed this. I believe when someone posted a poll question here asking what RSS readers people switched to after Google Reader went away, Feedly was one of the most popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Electrons change things, yo™ :)

<comment><USER27> It has electrolytes!

<comment><USER28> It's what plants crave.</comment></comment></comment>


The Windows killer: Chromebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245119/Steven_J._Vaughan_Nichols_The_Windows_killer_Chromebook

<comment><USER2> "As Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said "Dell sells only those things that people are going to buy. They're not into taking risks.""

XPS 10. 'nuff said. :)</comment>


How can I protect myself from government snoopers? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2016/nov/24/how-can-i-protect-myself-from-government-snoopers <comment><USER2> Brilliant first recommanded comment by "stpman" in the article to answer all those saying "I don't have anything to hide":

 _" Why should people care about surveillance? Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being recorded. You don't have to do anything wrong. You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion, even by a wrong call. They can use this system to go back in time and scrutinise everything, and derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer." -Edward Snowden

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu_

You may not have anything to hide, but you should hide as much as you can anyway, because anything you say or write may be one day used against you in a court of law.

<comment><USER3> I fully agree with the quote above, but I don't find this as clear a cut issue as perhaps many on HN do. It's undoubtable that surveillance is becoming harder now and that groups who would bring great harm to innocent people are using the internet for research and communication. I don't know what the answer is, but encrypting everyone's communications end-to-end with no-one able to ever intercept does sound like it will make protecting us very hard indeed. And yes, I know these tools for strong encryption are out there and they can't be un-invented - but I can see why Governments want to do "something". I am just saying what that "something" is becomes difficult to define.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that domestic mass surveillance is not that effective at stopping these people. Everytime there is a terrorist attack or mass shooting it seems that we get the same story of "they were known to the local police/FBI" or that their family had concerns. Spying on everyone is just increasing the size of the haystack and making it harder for someone to follow up on actual hard intelligence.

Another alternative is to have limited surveillance that requires a judge to sign off on it after seeing a good reason to suspect someone. Personally I have no issue with that - it's a model that has worked for decades and strikes a balance between public safety and personal liberty.

Terrorism and mass shootings are going to continue until we address the root causes and even then we will still have occasional incidents. The public need to have realistic expectations and stop with knee jerk reactions that result in security theatre like the TSA.

<comment><USER5>
      > Spying on everyone is just increasing the size of the
      > haystack and making it harder for someone to follow up
      > on actual hard intelligence.

No no, you see, because big data. Probably also clouds. /s

Seriously, I think this ship has sailed; we can only find new ways to operate under our new circumstances, rather than preventing them from coming about as we could have done up until maybe 15 years ago.

The most charitable interpretation I can find for the nascent global surveillance state is that world governments are (quite reasonably, in my view) collectively anticipating great upheaval in the near to mid-term future, and recognise that they must do _something_ to keep a hand on the rudder.

I do not believe that a unilateral panopticon (i.e. "we are watching you, but you may not watch us") is the right response, and I dislike that it is being presented as an anti-terror/anti-piracy/anti-{localized-name($bad-people)} measure, rather than described honestly. What worries me enormously is that the nationalist right is _also_ on the rise at the same time.

If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity in the long term, but I am not hopeful that this will transpire within my lifetime.

<comment><USER6> > If we are lucky, it may all lead to greater worldwide unity

In order to reach that point, we need to protect diversity in the middle of all this integration that is happening with the internet. "Integration in differentiation", and "differentiation in integration", are necessary principles for a healthy society.

Practically protecting diversity would mean protecting privacy, the right to express political views the right to be different. If we can't protect diversity we get to the regime of 1984.

There is a profound biological reason for this concept - neurons in the brain are differentiated by being differently connected, and are integrated by virtue of said connections. So they are both diverse and integrated, and the result is conscious mind - a system that can handle both highly complex dynamism and balance. The theory of integrated information is one of the most respected theories about consciousness. We should strive to be more like the brain.

Another practical point is that concentration of power is detrimental. It leads to a decrease of diversity.

If we want to become a happier society we need to protect both integration and diversity. These two principles have many other social and technological applications.

<comment><USER5> You're describing a fear of civilisation becoming "unconscious"?

That's not a possibility that ever struck me before, so thanks, you've just fuelled my nightmares for months to come now :-s

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What truly terrifies me about this is how little control most users have over the websites they "visit". This law requires ISPs to log the domain name of websites users connect to. All it takes is one dodgy advert on an otherwise ordinary website to incriminate you. Worse, you might not even know this has happened, as the ad itself might be completely innocuous. But by virtue of being hosted on a website the government considers suspect, you find yourself on a list.

I don't know if this actually happens in practice, but I have heard stories of bad actors using adverts to distribute malware - it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to see the same bad actors using adverts to generate false positives to the authorities.

Ad blockers are going to become more important than ever.

<comment><USER8> Yeah I was curious about what level of detail will be recorded. According to the article: "The law forces internet service providers to keep a record of all the websites – not the actual pages – you visit for up to a year."

If they aren't recording the pages, I'd doubt they've be recording the ads embedded on the page.

But who knows, I imagine it's down to how the ISPs implement the legislation.

<comment><USER9> They can't record the pages if the request is over https, as per most web sites these days. The IP address is known because it's necessary for routing traffic, but the content of each HTTP request and response is encrypted, and that's where the rest of the URL lives.

<comment><USER10> Gov't can easily MITM HTTPS connections.

<comment><USER9> True. Anyone know if this new IP law allows the gov to do this? I.e. if they tried to prosecute and it came to light that the logs were obtained using a MITM attack, would the evidence be nullified?

<comment><USER10> I don't know.

I imagine that MITM on a large scale is par for the course for GCHQ.

<comment><USER9> Sure, but can data obtained by that be used in a court of law. I /think/ those are two different things (but not sure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is no technical solution to such a problem. There is only a political solution. Either force government to change politics, or change government.

Some background of why I believe this. I grew up in communist East Germany (GDR) and lived there for 27 years, until - yes - we changed the government. Trying to change politics beforehand was not so successful after all. As you may know or may not know, that state was based to a good extent on the soft terror of broad surveillance. In the 70s and 80s of the last century, to achieve this a lot of human power was needed. Nowadays, surveillance can mostly be based on technology. I'm much concerned - given my life experience - about the trend over the last years to undermine democracy in the name of saving it - all over the (yet) free world. At least I know how a society looks like, that is no longer democratic.

The technical solutions like VPN or whatever are similiar to what we called "inner emigration" back in the past. It was a widespread phenomenon in that society. But only once many people have stopped this kind of hiding, and have publicly stripped off their fear, the system began to tumble. In the end, all the surveillance could not save it. They did know what happened and they could not stop it, simply because the people did not play their game anymore.

That petition mentioned here elsewhere is the right way. Sign it if you are a UK citizen. I'm unfortunately not, but I would do it now.

<comment><USER12> True. We tend to forget the lessons of history very fast.

<comment><USER13> Human memory is short. Currently hoping I'm not watching a slide into fascism around the world.

<comment><USER11> As long as we keep watching - maybe. Once we start acting - maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Like I said in the other thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035114)

I am not from UK, but listen to me if any folks from UK are reading this.

This is one of the things that is harmful to your privacy. Should the list of websites that you visit be available for government unless you are under active investigation? Its not just the list of websites but every packet data that your devices send out, which means government could see your messages, data sent to dropbox, online spreadsheet like google docs etc. This is mass surveillance. You should be proud that your government have a website were you can start petitions. Now please use this feature and sign the petition so that this surveillance law can be repealed.

The petition against this bill is at: [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199)

You sign the petition and ask your close friends and family to do the same. What you do not need is an intrusive government. I am voicing this because even though I am not a UK citizen, I do not want law makers in my country thinking "Oh those chaps has a fine surveillance law and their citizens are okay with it. Lets adopt that law".

Now get to action. Sign the petition at [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199)

<comment><USER13> I signed it, though I'm pretty sure that the government e-petitions are a well crafted wind for people to piss into.

At least I become a +1 in the count of people who object.

<comment><USER11> Don't worry. If the petition does not help, there is a lot more in the political toolbox. Next maybe a public demonstration.

<comment><USER13> Honestly not sure how well those really work either. As long as a majority (or lets face it, significant minority, see US election) can be manipulated into voting against their interests the only thing politicians need to fear are actual threats to their power.

Maybe I'm too cynical :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have taken to sending all traffic through my own IKEv2 VPN hosted in Germany.

I have a script to automate setup [1], which I will be updating shortly to use Let's Encrypt and to generate an on-demand Mac/iOS configuration profile that keeps one constantly connected.

I have half a mind to set up some semi-commercial service on the basis of complete transparency and the motivation to avoid the Investigatory Powers Act (most existing VPN services seem to come across as very shady).

[1] [https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup](https://github.com/jawj/IKEv2-setup)

<comment><USER16> What makes you think Germany is a better exit point for your traffic?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_des_Brief-,_Post- _und_Fernmeldegeheimnisses)

Much more comprehensive German version: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermit...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artikel_10-Gesetz#.C3.9Cbermittlung_von_BND- Erkenntnissen_an_andere_Staaten)

<comment><USER17> What is a good country to host an end-point in within a reasonable distance of the UK?

<comment><USER18> >What is a good country to host an end-point in within a reasonable distance of the UK?

Iceland.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Please sign [https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199) to help get rid of this disgusting invasion of privacy.

<comment><USER20> ...and be put on the list of state enemies?

<comment><USER21> I have a brain and think they are (damn near) all hopelessly corrupt, someone once said you can define a man by his enemies.

I'm at the point where I actively think the current round of politicians is actively bad for the country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >But if they are not out to get you, why act as though they should be? It's probably better to be as inconspicuous as possible, while limiting the amount of data that might turn up in some bored agency's random fishing expeditions.

This makes me so sad.

<comment><USER23> So what this person is saying is that under something like the Nazis or Stalin, they would have cruised right along. That is what they are actually saying, and that's all they're saying. Saying "I don't have anything to hide" really translates to "I am so far away from any adult responsibility and intelligence that I don't even realize I should be hiding that.", and anyone over 20 still saying shit like that you can write clean off, as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER24> "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."

\--Edward Snowden, my favorite thing he's ever said.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Some questions for anyone who happens to have been following this closely:

1\. What exactly is being stored? I have seen stories/comments saying it is domain names visited from web browsing but does it also cover other internet activity? Or is it being left vague?

2\. Does the requirement to keep data for one year come with a corresponding obligation to delete it after that? Are they allowed to keep it longer (perhaps summary/derived data for cost reduction) ?

3\. Can the organisations with access make bulk requests for all the data or do they have to request records one ip addr/person at a time? (yes, I know an IP is not a person etc).

4\. If the data does have to be destroyed at some point does that only include data collected by the isp or also include copies made by those with access?

5\. Are there any published numbers on roughly how many people will have access to collected data?

</comment><comment><USER26> I just bought a subscription to F-SECURE FREEDOME VPN after a bit of research but also heavily influenced by Troy Hunt's recommendation.

It's currently discounted with the coupon code BlackFriday.

Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router tonight will take longer I suspect...

<comment><USER27> > Setup on the iPhone took 2 minutes, setting it up on my OpenWRT router > tonight will take longer I suspect...

I think you'll be disappointed: [https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use- fre...](https://community.f-secure.com/t5/F-Secure/i-want-to-use-freedome- directly/td-p/77919)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Small point.

This is about protecting yourself from ISP logging now required by government. Using a VPN and to tunnel your connection via [another country] may not be sufficient to avoid the government snooping Snowden talked about, as referred to in the article.

<comment><USER29> You're quite right. It's more akin to drawing your curtains and locking your front door. Anyone with enough motivation can break in but at least it's not all out on display.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The surveillance self defense kit from the eff is a most excellent starting point for anyone serious about this:

[https://ssd.eff.org/en](https://ssd.eff.org/en)

</comment><comment><USER31> How about VPSes in UK datacentres, e.g. Linode, London? Should one consider moving them to e.g. Germany?

</comment><comment><USER32> In spite of the virulent dislike for the Daily Mail usually expressed in these pages, I'll stick my head out and offer a link to a list of the folk who'll be snooping on your browsing if you live in the UK.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-4...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3971214/The-48-organisations- entire-online-browsing-history-delete-it.html)

Edit: If that's a step too far . . . here it is.

Metropolitan police force, City of London police force, Police forces maintained under section 2 of the Police Act 1996, Police Service of Scotland, Police Service of Northern Ireland,British Transport Police, Ministry of Defence Police,Royal Navy Police, Royal Military Police,Royal Air Force Police, Security Service,Secret Intelligence Service, GCHQ,Ministry of Defence,Department of Health, Home Office,Ministry of Justice, National Crime Agency,HM Revenue & Customs, Department for Transport,Department for Work and Pensions, NHS trusts and foundation trusts in England that provide ambulance services,Common Services Agency for the Scottish Health Service,Competition and Markets Authority, Criminal Cases Review Commission,Department for Communities in Northern Ireland,Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland,Department of Justice in Northern Ireland, Financial Conduct Authority,Fire and rescue authorities under the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, Food Standards Agency,Food Standards Scotland, Gambling Commission,Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, Health and Safety Executive,Independent Police Complaints Commissioner,Information Commissioner, NHS Business Services Authority,Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Board, Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Regional Business Services Organisation,Office of Communications, Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, Scottish Ambulance Service Board, Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, Serious Fraud Office,Welsh Ambulance Services National Health Service Trust.

</comment><comment><USER33> One way to protect youself is by writing a program that sends random requests every few seconds to an URL of a database of millions of URLs. Then they will have to find out which your actual visits were and which not.

<comment><USER34> So when you're hauled up in front of a court, the prosecutor can cherry-pick the worst possible subset and sequence of all of those domains?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you are in the UK then sign the petition (please don't sign it if you are not).

[https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199](https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173199)

60,000 so far, less than 100,000 means it will be ignored out of hand.

There is another HN discussion about it at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13035996#13036348)

</comment><comment><USER36> For one, stop idolizing the people that promoted it under his administration: President Obama. It started under Bush, but Obama should have killed it.

</comment><comment><USER37> I suspect on site level there won't be too much to allow effective identification of threats without a lot of false positives. This may be intention as with a "reasonable" suspicion more invasive procedures can be justified.

The biggest practical near term threat could well be to the spouses of all the parties that can request the data. Other likely threats are employers, particularly public ones.

</comment><comment><USER38> They didn't mention TOR in the article; is there a reason for not mentioning it? Is it still legal to use TOR in the UK?

<comment><USER39> Tor is really for anonymity, not privacy.

<comment><USER38> They can't log your browsing history if you use TOR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> If you need minimal no-fuss, pay for what you use type of setup, you can use Amazon Lambda to proxy for you. Hook this up to FoxyProxy or something like this with some good rules and you will be on a good track in terms of your default browser.

That being said, VPN will be always better and it doesn't cost very much to set one up on DO.

</comment><comment><USER41> Check [https://prism-break.org/en/all/](https://prism-break.org/en/all/) and [https://www.privacytools.io/](https://www.privacytools.io/)

</comment><comment><USER42> An interesting movie on the topic, filmed before everything blew up, The Listening (2006) [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_(film)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Listening_\(film\))

</comment><comment><USER43> Using someone else's computer (internet cafe) with a different set of usernames/identities while not having your smartphone with you.

Using a laptop running a live Linux CD using public WI FI while leaving your smart phone at home. Using fake log ins online.</comment>