Opentrons raises $10M for scientists to automate lab experiments with robotics - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/27/opentrons-raises-10-million-for-scientists-to-automate-lab-experiments-with-robotics/ <comment><USER2> For those who are un-aware of laboratory automation, this is not a new industry. There are MANY automated liquid handlers on the market. Beckman, Eppendorf, Hamilton, and Tecan are the larger names.

What's new is the way Opentrons is offering value: thru low-cost hardware and open-source software. With the OT2 they ditched the use of a manual pipetters with dedicated 8 and 1 channel pipetters (a good move). The software looks more polished... but not caught up the industry yet. Definitely catering to the DIY crowd.

The larger, highly capable robotic liquid handlers cost in the $100-500k range (examples: [https://www.beckman.com/liquid- handlers](https://www.beckman.com/liquid-handlers), [https://www.hamiltoncompany.com/products/automated-liquid- ha...](https://www.hamiltoncompany.com/products/automated-liquid- handling/liquid-handling-workstations), [https://lifesciences.tecan.com/products/liquid_handling_and_...](https://lifesciences.tecan.com/products/liquid_handling_and_automation)).

This little guy is the smallest of the batch, but interesting to keep an eye on.

<comment><USER3> > The software looks more polished... but not caught up the industry yet.

most industry software in this area is garbage. i've seen the tecan software in operation; those folks should be embarrassed.

> Definitely catering to the DIY crowd.

i'm tempted to get one and see if we can't get it into production. the up front cost is only a bit more than an annual service contract for a tecan machine which doesn't do much more, and is less flexible.

<comment><USER4> My god I couldn't agree more. I used a Tecan liquid handler for years and wow did I hate it. It was very easy to fuck something up or make a change in the software without an error being thrown or the user being notified; the GUI was absolutely a black box to new users and I had to write my own manual to walk labmates through what to do to run known protocols; there was 0 attempt at optimizing movements to save time; the machine required manual calibration every single time it was used in a shared environment to make sure that someone hadn't changed tip alignment, plate holder position, or plate specs manually or accidentally by crashing a tip; it was trivially easy to break the arm or tips if you weren't paying attention and they cost a fortune to replace; there was no version control etc etc.

Their hardware was also total crap. Both the main pump and tip cleaning pump failed on me two times without any notification being thrown, the arm failed once, tips broke countless times. Our regional Tecan rep was on a first name basis with me for awhile and I wasn't even the owner of the machine.

I almost ended up taking a Tecan engineer certification class just so I could use the equipment as a knowledgeable user. Tecan also wanted to charge me something like 15 grand for an arm and tip solution which would handle 1536 well plates which I was able to replicate with 1 cent worth of plastic shims and a few of their black 10 uL tips -_-

I will absolutely recommend that my lab looks into buying one of these.

<comment><USER5> This is exactly the pain we are trying to help in the lab -- your story is all too common!

It is crazy to me that we are the first lab automation company to bring best practices of consumer tech UX and engineering to the wet lab, but its true. We're the first to use continuous integration / delivery, Agile development, usability testing, easy APIs / DSLs -- the list goes on. Would love to work with you and restore your faith in what lab automation can be!

<comment><USER6> We're a distributor to many start ups and biotech companies and it's so refreshing to hear this area being taken on!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And we're hiring! Come work at the company democratizing sophisticated biotech tools with open-source lab robots [https://opentrons.com/jobs](https://opentrons.com/jobs)

<comment><USER2> Will/have you open source the hardware for OT2 like you did for OT1 ([https://github.com/Opentrons/otone_hardware](https://github.com/Opentrons/otone_hardware))?

<comment><USER5> yes, we will be open-sourcing the hardware, though not in quite the same way as with the OT-One. All the OT-One parts are off the shelf, 3D printed, or laser-cut, so putting all the files on github makes a lot of sense. But the OT-2 is a lot of custom parts injection molded / extruded / CNC'd by our production team in Shenzhen, and it is a lot harder to both share those designs on our end, and to make anything out of them as a hacker. So we'll be releasing a lot of high fidelity CAD files of the full assembly, as well as deeper dive documentation like this whitepaper on our new pipette designs: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/opentrons-landing- img/pipettes/OT-2...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/opentrons-landing- img/pipettes/OT-2-Pipette-White-Paper.pdf)

<comment> the-dude Sounds like no.

<comment><USER5> sorry if my answer is confusing. the short answer is: yes, there will be more (and more in-depth) open-source documentation of OT-2 than with OT-One, and not just limited to dumping everything in a github repo. This is rolling out in the coming weeks as things get finalized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats! We've had a good amount of fun playing with the OT-One (and also some frustrations). I think the large range of volumes is great, along with what seems to be more streamlined/accurate pipetting. I think the enclosure is also a solid feature.

One of my favorite features is the ability to use a simple Python API to define a protocol. Will this still be the case or do people have to use the GUI?

Is there a reasonable (cheap) path to upgrade?

<comment><USER5> hey, thanks! to answer your questions:

1 - yes, our python API can still be your main tool for creating protocols, no one needs to use the GUI if they dont want to. In fact, OT-2 runs a jupyter notebook onboard so you can just connect over wifi / USB, pull up the notebook in your browser, and live code to the robot (as well as run a python script through the App same w/ OT-One).

2 - yes, all OT-One users get a $2000 discount on the OT-2, so starting price for you is $2k :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats! I want a OT-2! When does it ship? Also, when's the 96-well plate head coming?

<comment><USER5> Thank you! Would love to work with you! We are already shipping OT-2 robots, and right now with the amount of demand we have there is a 6 week lead time (though it is increasing fast).

The 96-well head wont be an addition to this robot because it would make it too top heavy and risk tipping it over -- best we can fit on this guy is the 8-channel pipette already available. We'll start considering things like a 96-well head when we decide to move up-market and start making bigger robots, but for now we are very happy to be making lab robots accessible to labs with smaller budgets that today have to do all their pipetting by hand.

<comment><USER8> OK. Will put in an order soon. Sri

<comment><USER5> awesome! excited to work with you!

<comment><USER8> Order #: 1304 It's for a stealth newco that we just started. Looking forward to playing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congrats!

Are the newer machines still using Smoothieware?

<comment><USER5> yes, we love smoothieware! it's existence is one of the main reasons we're able to offer this tech at such an unheard-of low price. we've forked it (available here: [https://github.com/Opentrons/SmoothiewareOT](https://github.com/Opentrons/SmoothiewareOT)) to work with our OT-2 motor controller, which has more stepper drivers than the smoothieboard and is designed to fit on the head of the robot to minimize cabling. full board design (as well as all of our electronics designs) are going up on github in the next few weeks!

<comment><USER9> Great to hear. I work very closely with the project (hardware QA), as well as RepRap. I have followed your machine for quite some time. I have mentioned it to pretty much everyone I know who is in the field of chemistry/biology or does fluid handling.

I bet things are a lot easier now that Smoothie has true 6 axis :)

It is great to see so many OSHW projects get going in the last few years. Excited to see what the next few years brings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> congrats!

<comment><USER5> Thanks Jay! :)</comment></comment>


What is this real-time web you speak of? - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/24/what-is-this-real-time-web-you-speak-of/ <comment><USER2> That's not real time, real time is measured in nanoseconds, this is just a bidirectional socket. No one really cares about the *asS crap, TCP sockets aren't some kind of mystical technology.

If you've worked with a protocol other than HTTP this isn't really a 'miracle'.

Just add ZeroMQ to your app, a few triggers to your DB, you're pretty much done. Or apt-get install ejabberd and add something like XMPPFramework to your app, again, this stuff is a day or two of dev work.

How exactly do proprietary APIs, protocols, and formats democratize something as simple as adding a few more files to your project?

<comment><USER3> Realtime is measured in whatever you need to measure it in. Realtime means that the system will guarantee to perform its function within some timeframe. If it violates this (even by a nanosecond), it's failed. Think of the airbags in you car. If they function perfectly 2 seconds too late you simply don't care.

There are plenty of realtime (often termed hard realtime) systems where that action can take minutes or hours, but if it isn't performed by then lives can be lost.

The "realtime" people usually talk about is soft realtime. Trying to perform tasks as fast as possible (or within some average response time), but if the odd task takes longer that's OK.

Anything involving a dynamic open network would be soft realtime.

<comment><USER4> Agree. In terms of web and user experience, realtime often just means way faster then before. If you had to wait a year before your computation is done, a day is essentially realtime.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps a better synonym for the recent usage of the term "realtime" would be "interactive" or "continuous update".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Real-time is definitely the future of development, but disappointed to see no mention of real-time client side technologies like the one I'm working on ([http://playir.com](http://playir.com)). That allows you to update client- side source code across mobile web & native platforms.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm disappointed not to see SignalR listed as an option. I've used it and have no complaints.</comment>


A Lonely Plea: 'Anybody Need a Grandma for Christmas?' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/us/grandma-for-christmas.html <comment><USER2> I've tried to be open and generous to others during the holidays and it almost always results in serious awkwardness. There's a matchmaking problem here. I wish I could magically know who in the neighbourhood I could just knock on the door of and say hi and invite them to the extra seat at our table.

I've had luck at retirement homes. And holy cow if you have little kids, you are so welcome there (as long as you've met the administration and they feel comfortable with you). Joy disobeys the laws of thermodynamics and young children effortlessly generate joy in the elderly.

<comment><USER3> What is so horrible about awkwardness?

I've witnessed people talk about it like it's the plague.

It's just a bit of discomfort, and then you move on.

<comment><USER4> The point of social interactions is to connect with someone. If most of an interaction is awkward, you're not connecting. At that rate, you're just wasting time, and might as well do something alone.

In the context of TFA, connecting is about filling a need for social interaction. That cannot be filled by awkwardness.

If it's business or there's some other ulterior motive: sure.

<comment><USER5> Awkwardness is due to lack of social graces, and communication skills. Perhaps one can train on these in the absence of other, live humans--read, for example, "How to Work a Room," or "The Fine Art of Smalltalk"\--but ultimately, one must learn to navigate awkwardness.

In fact, I might go so far as to argue that the "connection" you're talking about is generated only by _resolving awkwardness_. Where there's none to resolve, there's no connection to be made. Relationships worn smooth by years of resolution aren't valuable in the same way.

<comment><USER6> You can effortfully apply all the social graces and make correct small talk, and still come away from an interaction thinking, "that was excruciating." These situations can be even more awkward than when someone actually commits a faux pas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Shout out to religion here. Everyone in my faith is assigned one or two people to "minister" to and everyone also has someone ministering to them. Instant friends. And no need for the elderly to be completely alone and have to turn to craigslist. I can't imagine this need going unfilled in the structure of my local church community.

Obviously with the decline of religion, this situation will only become more common. People need a built in community structure, and nothing has stepped up to replace church yet. I don't think r/atheism is going to fill that void anytime soon.

<comment><USER8> I wish there was a practical way to keep these parts of religion without having to believe in the supernatural or the truth of one specific ancient book.

<comment><USER9> I think you can, but I wonder if it's possible to separate the positive role of religion with what makes it toxic, even in secular form.

In particular, I think one of most toxic aspects is exclusion. If a person doesn't conform to a certain set of ideas or lifestyles, then you're not welcome to participate in the community. In extreme cases, exclusion could even mean execution. Our history (and present) are full of examples of this, which is why secularism and separation of church and state are such important ideas.

But at the same time, this known conformity to a shared set of ideas is what creates such a strong community. Even if a person is a stranger, you generally know how to interact with them if you have a shared religion. This eases social interaction and helps create a foundation of trust in larger groups where you can't intimately know every person. In fact, the tighter you constrict what people are allowed to believe or how they're allowed to live, the less unknowns and the greater the benefit.

Of course, this creates some horrifying situations for people can't or won't conform to the rules of the community around them. An obvious example is homosexuals born into religions that don't see that as an acceptable lifestyle. At best, they spend their lives in a state of constant shame and self-disgust, maybe suffering under clumsy attempts to "pray the gay away".

This is the first time I've tried to put words to this idea, so I may not be expressing it well or hitting the truth quite right.

<comment><USER10> I like your thoughts on this. Have to disagree about exclusion being the problem.

If community is a product, exclusion is it means of production. The problem with religion isn't exclusion, it's a partially outdated set of rules by which the filter is applied. (And a missing update functionality for the source code, respectively an inherit problem with the rate of change, as too much change in too short of a time defeats the purpose of rules, exclusivity and therefore community).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I come from a family of immigrants. Growing up, I at times felt oppressed by the constant throng of cousins and uncles and aunts and family friends at our home...but now that I'm older I greatly appreciate the dense social fabric that envelops my life. I sometimes think that the dark side of a society that extols individuality and independence is the possibility of immense alienation. I'm grateful to live in a country that creates space for self- expression and agency, but I sometimes think that for those who are not used to being part of a big community, life can become quite lonely.

<comment><USER12> It's something I'm struggling with now, tbh. I'm not an immigrant but my extended family is fairy close, even out to second cousins (my grandmother's brothers are super close to her, so our families get along; same with part of my grandfather's siblings), and I know I'll miss it. Yet, sadly, there's not many jobs here and if I stay I'll likely stay teaching, which isn't bad but I'm not sure how I long I'd last before burnout.

I've got an offer to leave and study Quantitative Finance in a completely different country (one I want to move to and have visited many times) and am wondering if it's worth it. Man, it's difficult. Not to mention all my friends being here too (though I do have some in the new country, thankfully). Having that social inclusion and closeness is super nice, and I know I'd miss it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As an immigrant (moved US->Southeast London) who probably won't be able to have kids, I find that I really wish there was a way to become an 'uncle' somehow. Modern society gives us a lot of choice and mobility, but also a lot of ways to find ourselves unrooted.

<comment><USER14> The LGBTQ community originated the concept of "Chosen Family", people you willfully make a connection with as deep as blood family ties. As you can imagine, this is a particularly pressing need for people who are forcefully severed from their families, often at a very young age.

Some of us have to work mindfully to get something many people take for granted. Hopefully naming the idea gives you a way to talk about it with other people.

<comment><USER15> > The LGBTQ community originated the concept of "Chosen Family", people you > willfully make a connection with as deep as blood family ties.

I thought that started with the mafia..

<comment><USER8> Maybe in the future, the mafia will specialise in the two things it's really good at, pizza delivery _and_ helping people find social connections as deep as blood family ties?

<comment><USER16> I needed this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting to see this here tonight. Just a few hours ago, my wife mentioned to me what she heard from some nurses: apparently, Christmas is one of the busiest times in hospitals, because a lot of people with elderly parents and grandparents would invent illnesses (or even cause them, by e.g. hiding or substituting medicine) to get them admitted to hospitals during Christmas, just to avoid having to have a Christmas dinner.

She also told me that some time ago, there was an ad aired about this problem in Poland; it featured an elderly man who tried, year after year, to invite his family for Christmas, to no effect. He eventually posted a notice about his own funeral, and as the family came and was surprised to see him alive, he brought in the dinner and said, "because that was the only way I could get you here".

Stories like this make me sick in my stomach. No matter the bad blood that can be present in a family, I just can't imagine how one can treat one's own parents this way.

<comment><USER18> It's not the kids responsibility to make sure their grown adult parents have a social life. That's even more depressing.

I totally understand where people are coming from with that though -- the parents gave life and raised the kids, so shouldn't the kids repay them? The only thing is, the kids didn't (as far as we know) choose to be brought into life and have the experiences with the family they had. Maybe they were terrible or at best for some, neutral. Then, why would they feel the need to "pay back" for that?

Finally, would you rather someone hang out with you because they feel guilty obligation to do so versus happy freeness to do so? I wouldn't want someone feeling guilted into spending time with me because they "owe me one." If it was from a place of "happy freeness," then sure.

<comment><USER19> > It's not the kids responsibility to make sure their grown adult parents have > a social life. That's even more depressing.

Jesus, we're not talking about setting the parents up on dates, we're talking about a single Christmas dinner with family.

<comment><USER20> Honestly I would feel more comfortable managing my mothers online dating accounts until the day she dies(not that she has any that I know of anyway) than attending yet another christmas dinner. And I don't have any problems with seeing my family, it's just christmas is such an awkward time all around - to me at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >The woman in Tulsa, who identified herself only as Carrie, said she had been fighting cancer and was estranged from her daughter, who has refused to let her see her granddaughter even though both live close by.

>"I really thought the feeling would go away, but my heart is so broken," she said in an email. She posted the ad on Dec. 11, then went to her granddaughter's dance studio and sat outside, hoping to catch a peek of her through the window.

interesting that this is sprinkled in there, this is super weird boundary breaking behavior. I wonder if its related to why they no longer talk.

<comment><USER22> This is a pretty clear case of stalking. When children cut the connection to their parents, it is super easy to side with the poor mother. However, people tend to ignore that the pressure for the children must have been quite high to go to such an extend. This makes me sad, since I know how it feels if your parents dont respect boundaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unpopular opinion, there is always more complexity and culpability in these sentimental stories.

Even in the broken social fabric of Western culture, there are still many opportunities to contribute to and find genuine community.

However it requires a sense of humility and focus on others overself. Among other things.

I know of many 'lonely' people who are highly dysfunctional and have burned their family and other communities that have tried to engage them.

Sometimes people do get a raw deal and are genuine victims. Other times people reap the whirlwind of their own bad behaviours and attitudes. Sometimes a mix of both. Life is messy.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just want to chime in that there is nothing wrong with spending your time alone during the holidays. I have family but I'd rather travel during this time for leisure. What's so bad about being alone? I prefer it honestly. It allows me to contemplate on the past year and reflect on myself. With family all you will get is petty family politics, gossip, bringing up things that happened years ago, etc.

<comment><USER25> Do this every year for the next twenty and see if you feel the same way.

In the case of elders, they often lack _any_ tangible social contact. Let alone with that of their own families.

A small subset of people will be fine living life completely aloof, but we're social animals -- this would drive the majority of us crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anyone from the UK, I would urge to join up for [https://www.ageuk.org.uk/services/befriending- services/sign-...](https://www.ageuk.org.uk/services/befriending- services/sign-up-for-telephone-befriending/)

It's a brilliantly organized scheme - you get online training and a telephone interview before you go live and it just requires you to give up 30 minutes of your time a week to talk and listen for 30 minutes. I signed up and it is brilliant- and so well organized

</comment><comment><USER27> One thing I don't understand about American culture is thanksgiving and how it interracts with Christmas. If your family meets up for thanksgiving does that mean Christmas isn't so important to meet up with extended family?

We have an elderly neighbour who has 3 children and I'm horrified to find out she'll be alone at Christmas, but they all met up just a few weeks ago so I'm not sure if its normal or not.

<comment><USER28> As an American, I wish we would just combine Thanksgiving and Christmas and take a week off. The mere month between major holidays is weird. And, culturally, Christmas is a bigger deal, but Thanksgiving has the guaranteed long weekend, so it's the one you can count on traveling for.

<comment><USER29> Or move it to October, like Canada, since Americans don't seem to get a holiday in October.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I host Christmas Orphans parties. Anyone who does not have a place can come and have lunch.

</comment><comment><USER31> God I need one . So damn lonely in the LA suburbs; moved from Russia, no friends, no coworkers, no relatives, basically it'll be a usual day in the office for me. I could cook a meal, but I have noone to share it with.

<comment><USER32> Living in a densely populated city like LA just compounds the loneliness as you are constantly surrounded by happy people and groups of friends/family. I went through it myself for a few years. The best thing i did was to go find a random spot to eat out. Eating alone used to be really hard for me, but i got over it and i would come home feeling 100% better mood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> People will likely create an app for this, not realizing they're contributing to the culture creating situations like this.

</comment><comment><USER34> These are the kinds of problems I'd love to be able to figure out how to solve with technology.

<comment><USER35> Isn't that basically what dating apps are trying to do? I think "lighter" variants exists, for meeting friends, not just dates.

Not that the situation couldn't be improved, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My mom must feel this lonely during the holidays . Simply brutal.

<comment><USER37> I have to wonder why you notice this and write it here? Can't you or don't you want to connect to her?

<comment><USER36> Families often have more than two people and sympathy for their feelings means sometimes folks get left out. If your family gets to avoid this pain , count an extra blessing this holiday .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not meet up with other people in the same situation (possibly also elderly)?

I have at times invited friends who didn't want to celebrate with their family. But a complete stranger would be too much for me (with little children).

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm not Christian, so I may have some terms wrong here, but:

Isn't Christmas a religious holiday? Can she not attend a mass or a Christmas service and participate in Church events around the holidays? Isn't this one of the main functions the Church provides? Wouldn't there be many opportunities in nearly any Church for social activities?

My local Jewish minyan is having an event tonight with a public menorah lighting, traditional food, games (including an Oculus VR Hanukkah experience!). There were plenty of opportunities to meet people the past few days and during the week. That's one of the functions of a religious community. We sent out public notices on Nextdoor, etc, and invited everybody in the community.

<comment><USER39> As someone who grew up in europe, let me introduce you to the wonderful world of catholic atheism. We celebrate christmas, easter, and have saint nick. We even know all the stories and the lessons.

But we never go to church and don't believe god exists. Or at least the stories are just stories and lessons, not reality. It's a cultural thing. Tradition.

In Slovenia where I'm from some 65% of the population self identifies as Christian, but only 32% believe in there being any form of higher power.

<comment><USER40> Don't know why you're being downvoted, that's a pretty accurate description of christianity in most of Europe.

I grew up in a family that self identified as catholic, I was baptized, and yet we never went to church and frankly religion is not something that was ever a subject of much discussion or interest in the family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I was reading this post and found it interesting enough to reply too. I am also a grandma so I know what pleasure it is. I had a son and a daughter, my son died when he was in his early 20's, he had one daughter that I do not get to see. I was blessed with a daughter that shared her kids with me, I always thanked her and I knew without a doubt I was very blessed. 14 and a half years I pretty much raised these kids, I didn't ask to but was more than happy to do so. Mom and dad were good parents until my son died then the second child was born and something happened. They weren't interested in the kids at all, they were consumed with computer games. Then came a third child, my daughter kept getting more and more violent toward me but as long as it was toward me we were fine I just wanted the kids to be safe. Long story short, after 14 and a half years of being with these kids daily, living with the girls the last 2 years my daughter turned into someone I didn't recognize anymore, she was violent toward me and the kids. We lived in the same house I was in the basement they were upstairs, I kept the payment up on the house and other bills because they wouldn't they took my money but didn't pay the bills. It got very dangerous with my daughter so I tried to help my grandkids. In the emotional state of mind I was in everything I did turned out backwards.My daughter lied of course to everyone said I was controlling and wouldn't let her raise her kids. I am sure she looked this stuff up on line. I fell apart because of what my daughter was saying. I ended up seeing a councellor trying to get back on track, dfs gave the kids back to mom and dad, mom and dad high tailed it out of the state with the kids leaving behind loans they took out and never repaid. With the help of DFS and other people my son in law and daughter were able to change the kids, immediately I hesitate to put this in here because I have been accused of so many things in order to make me look bad. Mom and dad left the state and I have tried to talk to the kids on pinterest but they told on me. Im guessing that's how they get their attention. I worrt about them daily how is this going to affect them, I have had the hardest time understanding how you could turn one human against another, the parents and others told the two girls that grandma didn't want them, they made the girls feel like I didn't love them and I never did. They have somehow convinced these two girls of this. I have not been allowed to see these kids in two years, this has actually been harder to deal with than my sons death. My sister is on GitHub here and she creates hacks to watch me constantly. The harrassment has been horrible. Its been very heartbreaking and eye opening. Parents can have mental problems but if they have never been arrested for drugs then they are good people. My heart has just been shattered, I used to sit along the bus route hoping to see their bus go by just to get the tiniest glimpse, I meant no harm I was just so homesick for them. Lately I have been needing to hear their voices. Im deemed as a bad grandma but I never lied I never did anything against my daughter I didn't even bye presents for them without asking. So the point of this post don't always assume grandma has done wrong just because mommy said she did, maybe mommy has some problems of her own. I feel so badly for any grandmother that has to be away from their grandkids right now. Have a merry Christmas and thanks for letting me post!

</comment><comment><USER42> Sometimes I feel it's only the crappy people who need families. The people not enjoyable enough for others to willingly choose to put up with them, they need a form of forced social duty and enact it through guilt and pitty.

That said, especially for elderly people, it could just be circumstances of life that has played into them being lonely.

The issue is, if I'm to open up and invite a stranger in, how do I know which category they belong in? I feel probability wise, chances are they're of the former, and are probably boring, judgmental, uptight, have issues, etc. Which is why they're lonely in the first place.

So while I'd be okay opening up to lovely people, the risk of doing so is too high right now, without it happening organically.

<comment><USER43> I've seen people saying elsewhere this story was shared that they lived in the area and replied to the CL post, the lady turned out to be some crazy nutjob and it became apparent that there were very good reasons that she had nobody to spend Christmas with.

<comment><USER44> It's clear just from the NY Times article she was the problem and there's good reasons people don't want to be around her. Most people don't take estranging their parents lightly, especially when they have young children.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I really dislike emotional article titles like this.

There is a bond or there isn't. Honestly, I feel like it's better if we can 'retire' emotionally like we do from a job. Getting old is inevitable(for now)..when someone is in their 60s-70s, their children are probably in their middle age dealing with their own families and crises.

Children are insurance for our genetic material. Not financial or emotional crutches. Some might not feel that way, but I think having expectations and cultivating detachment as one grows older is a better attitude. Heck! I have been trying to cultivate detachment from the time I hit 35 and it's a process. I hope to get it right by my 5th or 6th decade, at least!

</comment><comment><USER46> Any loneliness discussion is incomplete in today's age, especially on a forum like HN, without a discussion on AI/conversation-bots.</comment>


Ask HN: Is the "G2 Crowd" business software review website a scam? - <AUTHOR> They seem to be legitimate based off of a search. I initially clicked based a Facebook ad from them promising a $5 Starbucks gift card to take a survey based on what business software I use.
I took the survey and listed out the software I use and connected my LinkedIn and stuff like that. They then promised more gift cards if I individually wrote reviews for the software I listed (or other software, I believe).
I figured I would see if I received the initial $5 gift card before devoting any more time to writing actual, well thought out reviews. So I opted to wait.
Then I received an email weeks later:
"Thank you for telling us about the software you use at work.
Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm the validity of the information you provided during our moderation process, and therefore cannot accept your submission.
We manually check each submission and user profile to ensure the responses are authentic, first-hand feedback on software used by real business professionals. Thanks for your cooperation and understanding."
So that leads me to believe it's a scam of some sort. Possibly a data mining operation or something (I did connect my LinkedIn). If nothing else, I think it's bad business practice to entice someone with something to do work for you, or take surveys, and then back out.
Has anyone else had experience with this site? <comment><USER2> We run an open, technology focused Slack community at ([https://TechMasters.chat](https://TechMasters.chat) / 1000+ members) and recently we got "attacked" by G2Crowd, they had some intern join the group (registration is open) and then went through the profiles of each member, copying the emails then proceeded to email them unsolicited offers for reviews and feedback in exchange for gift cards.

luckily, we're based in Canada, where anti-spam laws (CASL) apply.

we proceeded to contact them in social media / email to ask them to cease this activity and delete the collected emails.

they fought back at first, claiming it was legit and only would put emails under do-not-contact list, we did not accept that, again citing CASL laws, their actions were in clear violations. they stopped responding to our emails.

We have proceeded with a legal consult and have further contacted their legal representative for further action.

G2Crowd has been extremely un-cooperative, and seem to clearly lack understanding of laws and legalities outside of the US.

(edit: corrected some typos)

</comment><comment><USER3> 100% scam. I'm surprised they've been able to get away with this for so long. Voting this up!

</comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, I once got an email from them. Because I use email aliases (<email@example.com>) I knew exactly where they farmed it from, because they sent it with the + intact.

Definitely didn't provide consent to communication.

</comment><comment><USER5> yea big scam. plus they harvest email without permission.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have personally worked with the founders of this website, as well as performed reviews on the site. It is most definitely not a scam.

The email you received tells me that they probably were not able to confirm that you are in fact a user of the software that you reviewed.

<comment><USER7> Since your account is new and this is your only comment, it seems fishy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with this. The account is brand new and has exactly one post, popping in to defend G2 Crowd.</comment></comment></comment>


Understanding and mitigating NTP-based DDoS attacks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/understanding-and-mitigating-ntp-based-ddos-attacks

<comment><USER2> Very interesting (and frightening) about NTP, but I am afraid the first part of this claim about SNMP is not accurate:

" _Luckily, there are few open SNMP servers on the Internet and SNMP usually requires authentication (although manly are poorly secured)._ "

A 2012 study revealed 13k+ open SNMP servers amongst 25 million Dutch IPs scanned [1].

[1] [Dutch] [http://www.itsx.com/files/2012-11-SNMP- paper-v1.0.pdf](http://www.itsx.com/files/2012-11-SNMP-paper-v1.0.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Well, yes and no. They could make the argument that in "internet scale" (sic) that still qualifies as "few" (at least when compared to the number of open DNS resolvers).

On the other hand, the number of open DNS resolvers used in the attacks described in the presentation (slides 7/8) were around 30K, and with a much smaller amplification factor, so these numbers can still do some damage.

It would be interesting to know if there have been "hybrid" DDOS attacks, utilizing multiple spoofed-origin+amplification methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, we have noticed this on a customer installation that has its traffic increased from 47 to 69 Terabit/s during December.

Oh well, at least it only affect our installation and should not affect the customer network more than that. They have a stupid amount of capacity.

</comment><comment><USER5> If your on Debian it's as easy as 'disable monitor', restart ntp and your safe.

<comment><USER6> Isn't the default pretty ok anyhow ? Atleast looking at the ntp.conf on a raspbian/centos/fedora here, there's

       restrict  default kod notrap nomodify nopeer noquery

The noquery stops you from dumping the peer/monitor list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The request packet is 234 bytes long. The response is 10 packets... toalling 4,460 bytes."

What is the size of a TAICLOCK response? (TAICLOCK is a more precise NTP alterative.)

<comment><USER8> Between 20 and 256 bytes. The packet received is modified and sent back, so there is no amplification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of our instances rented on Hetzner got involved a few days ago. 80GB of outgoing traffic. We got blocked swiftly and unblocked quite soon after fixing the problem.</comment>


The Lazy Man's Guide to Losing Fat and Building Muscle - <AUTHOR> https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/05/how-to-pack-on-muscle-and-lose-fat-with-minimal-effort/ <comment><USER2> It's only a guide to make you eat healthy and not a good one: the astounding amount of protein is just too much and unnecessary. Protein won't make you strong, exercise will.

The basics of eating healthy is simple. I don't get why there are some many discussion about it?

Here's what you can read everywhere (but with different packaging):

Eat mainly whole food (vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans and peas), with small amounts of high quality vegetable oils (olive, avocado, ...), meat/fish (not only muscles but also giblets), dairy.

Eat a lot of different things but don't over-eat.

Avoid refined or processed foods.

Then if you have issues with specific group of food (meat for example, or grain or dairy), do your best to replace it with something similar.

Physical activity is needed to be healthy. You can go for a 30 minute walk; that's a simple and effective way to be started.

Then you can find a activity/sport you really like - this is better than "forcing" you to do swimming or whatever, because if you like it, it'll become a good habit.

Finally, make sure you are doing activities to relax (stress is bad for health): cooking, reading, yoga, meditation...

</comment><comment><USER3> Just meat, vegetables, eggs, healthy fats, nuts/seeds and fruit.</comment>


Man born with "virtually no brain" has advanced math degree - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/28/man-born-with-virtually-no-b.html <comment><USER2> Here's a link to the actual article: [http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116](http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116)</comment>


The meaning of life in a world without work - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/08/virtual-reality-religion-robots-sapiens-book?CMP=share_btn_fb <comment><USER2> I am fortunate enough to have retired at 56. I am 60 now.

My working life was mostly in startups, which is intense and all-consuming, and honestly, I let my work substitute for many other things in my life. I have a wonderful family, and I am close to my children, but I don't have a lot of hobbies. So here I am at 60, bored some of the time. I still enjoy writing software, so I do that, but it's difficult to stay motivated. There is _so_ much great software available for free that it's not obvious how I can contribute. (Yes, I suppose I could find an interesting open source project and contribute.) I am also relearning enough mathematics to make some progress in understanding machine learning -- after seeing the promise of AI crashing so many times, it is very cool to see it being fulfilled at last. I am teaching again, (I started out as an academic).

My wife has suggested that I go back to work. There are two reasons why I don't. First, I left because working for a company ruins what I enjoy about writing software. Idiot managers, endless and pointless meetings, rushed deadlines forcing bad compromises, poor product management. And of course, I lose the complete freedom I have in doing what I want when I want.

Second, if I am bored and missing a purpose in life at the moment, going back to work would only hide the problem. Early in my startup career, I would adopt the founder's idea as my own, and it became my purpose in life. Now, I am more realistic about founders and their ideas (or maybe I'm not running across any that I like). No, substituting work goals for personal goals seems like a mistake. The real problem is finding something to do with my time that is both absorbing and meaningful to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think we will ever be in a world without "work". The nature, and possibly definition, of work will change.</comment>


OS X and the Unremovable File (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://galvanist.com/post/67485688849/os-x-and-the-unremovable-file <comment><USER2> My impression is that the author wants this to be a bigger deal than it is. You found a bug, well there's hundreds of thousands of bugs in OS X, just like any other commercial OS. Maybe the author should file a bug report, and give readers the radar # so we can add impact.

Not that it's wrong to alert users to the problem, but it's more important, and not difficult, to alert Apple that this bug exists and users care about it.

</comment><comment> martin-adams I've experienced issues on Windows before where a path has been too long to remove. Renaming the long directory names to something short can get around it.

<comment><USER3> Try creating a file like `nul.txt` sometime.

[http://superuser.com/questions/282194/how-do-i-remove-a- file...](http://superuser.com/questions/282194/how-do-i-remove-a-file-named- nul-on-windows)

<comment><USER4> My favourite filename trick on Windows is to create a file called "1", then rename it using Windows Explorer using Alt-255 to create a blank character (not a space, but looks like a space).

<comment> martin-adams That reminds me of creating a directory called * with root permission in the root file system on linux then asking the intern to remove it.

      sudo rm -rf *

They'll learn the hard way to use double quotes around the directory name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When removing files in odd situations on unix systems, I'm a big fan of:

       01:30 shephard:shephard shephard$ touch foo
       01:30 shephard:shephard shephard$ ls -li
       total 0
       102600870 -rw-r--r--  1 shephard  2000  0 Nov 20 01:30 foo
       01:30 shephard:shephard shephard$ find . -inum 102600870 -exec rm {} \;
       01:30 shephard:shephard shephard$ ls -li

But - it doesn't work in this situation of long symlink. Wild.

       shephard:~ root# ls -li $str1/$str2/$str3/$str4
       total 8
       102601971 lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  3 Nov 20 01:37 L -> ftw
       shephard:~ root# find $str1/$str2/$str3/$str4 -inum 102601971 -exec rm {} \;
       rm: 1.../2.../3.../4..../L: No space left on device
       shephard:~ root#

<comment><USER6> Why would that behave any differently than just calling rm directly? find isn't somehow invoking rm with the inode, it's just passing the path to rm.

<comment><USER7> Just guessing but maybe the shell is eating the filename rather than rm eating it?

<comment><USER6> The article demonstrated trying to make the syscall directly and still receiving the error, which rules out any shell shenanigans.

<comment><USER7> My bad. I should rta.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> On a related note, does anyone have experience with grayed out folders in Finder? I understand OS X sometimes sets the btime of these folders to a certain value if a copy operation failed, but I would specifically like to know how to reproduce them. I am working on a new kind of sync tool and managed to get a grayed out folder once, but could not reproduce it again.

</comment><comment><USER9> To evangelize Emacs as the most powerful general purpose Unix tool ever, I used to leave a file called README at the top level of my public ftp directory that contained:

        README: No such file or directory

When people emailed me asking about why they couldn't read the README file, I'd tell them:

Just run "emacs README" and you'll be able to read it with no problem!

Nobody ever got back to me after that bit of advice, but I hope it taught some people to love Emacs.

<comment><USER10> vi can do that too, you know ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My bet is on an off-by-one error somewhere amongst all the fixed-length- buffers used to handle paths. In some ways, I'm surprised that modern operating systems still make extensive use of fixed-length-buffers and manipulate paths as strings, since other representations like arrays of inode numbers or even a linked list could be simpler and more efficient to manipulate while avoiding some of the strangeness and edge cases with respect to path parsing.

<comment><USER12> You cannot represent file paths as inode numbers if you support hardlinks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> HFS+ has to be the worst widely-used filesystem out there. It's a dog's breakfast of this kind of stuff.

<comment><USER3> FAT32 is still fairly prevalent, and I'd say worse, having dug through the structures of both and gotten intimate with their limitations.

But I doubt that HFS+ is to blame here. It sounds like it's just a bug in the filesystem code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's been some time I don't use OSX on non-HFS+ filesystems (or case-sensitive HFS+). Would anyone with such experience like to comment?

</comment><comment><USER15> Does linux/ext3/ext4 have quirks like this?

<comment><USER16> Note that this is likely an issue of PATH_MAX being used, a constant which is often used as the maximum path length when constructing buffers.

Different programs might have different limits which are irrespective of the file system itself (and the filesystem has usually a different limit for a single name - PATH_MAX is usually relevant for symlink lookups).

linux/limits.h defines it as 4k, which is longer, but you would be surprised that many tools often define their buffer sizes arbitrarily (with 256 being _quite_ too common).

Given that each fs might have different limits, it's kind of bad practice to assume some fixed length as the maximum path size (I don't know if linux actually enforces PATH_MATH in vfs as a ceiling for all fses anyway).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Posted 730 days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6764014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6764014)

</comment><comment><USER18> Hey mods/submitter, can we add a (2013) to this? The post is dated November 19, 2013. Thanks!

<comment><USER19> At your service.

<comment><USER20> dang, dang at our service. dang.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> so what's the situation like on el capitan ?

<comment><USER22> On ElCapitan:

        sh-3.2# pwd
        /var/root
        sh-3.2# ln -s ftw $str1/$str2/$str3/$str4/L
        ln: 1.../2.../3.../4.../L: File name too long

<comment><USER23> Yay, that's actually the right error. MAX_PATH in xnu (the OS X kernel) is 1024 so it's not unsurprising that things get weird when you have paths at least 1025 characters long as in his example.

<comment><USER24> > MAX_PATH in xnu (the OS X kernel) is 1024 so it's not unsurprising that > things get weird when you have paths at least 1025 characters long as in his > example.

What is surprising is the asymmetry: you can _create_ the symlink, but cannot _remove_ it.

<comment><USER25> If you make a directory tree "a/a/a/a/a/a/a" and then rename every directory to "aaaaaaa (x255)" starting on the inner directory... How does other OSes deal with this? Does every rename at a top level folder check the filenames recursively first?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Spielberg to Propose Oscars Rule Change That Would Disqualify Netflix Films - <AUTHOR> https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2019/03/steven-spielberg-may-propose-oscars-rule-change-to-disqualify-netflix-films <comment><USER2> Netflix should create their own awards show.</comment>


Changing Our Approach to Anti-Tracking - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/08/30/changing-our-approach-to-anti-tracking/ <comment><USER2> _> Blocking pop-up ads in the original Firefox release was the right move in 2004, because it didn't just make Firefox users happier, it gave the advertising platforms of the time a reason to care about their users' experience._

Wow, I had completely forgotten about what a scourge pop-ups used to be, and what a relief it was to finally be free of them. The fact that what used to be such a prevalent scummy tactic could be completely abandoned due to pushback from browser manufacturers gives me a tiny bit of hope that maybe pervasive tracking isn't an irreparably permanent feature of the web after all.

<comment><USER3> Too bad they've now been replaced popups that occur in the same window as the website you're viewing. Is there a name for this new type of popup?

<comment><USER4> We're working on blocking those too. Feel free to install this addon to help submit data on these:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page- pop-u...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/in-page-pop-up- reporter/)

<comment><USER5> Let me turn off Javascript more easily. And back on again easily. I usually need it gone for like 5 seconds, and then I need it back on, each of which is one key and one click in Safari and an entire journey to the moon and back in Firefox.

<comment><USER6> It would be cool if I could enable js on a per site basis

<comment><USER7> One word: uMatrix. NoScript lacks control on per-site basis, but is still ok.

<comment><USER8> IIRC, Noscript had per-domain JS controls before Umatrix existed.

<comment><USER9> But lacked fine grained control, at least the last time I used it. With uMatrix I can tell the browser to disable something (cookies/script/frames/media etc.) here but keep it enabled else/everywhere and the other way around. It gives the finest possible control but of course requires some time to whitelist the good stuff on new pages. A minor annoyance compared to the control it offers.

<comment><USER10> I wish it allowed for even finer control, though. What if it could prevent one specific function from running? Or replace tracking functions with no-op ones? Or hook into HTTP APIs in order to let you audit, modify or interrupt communications?

<comment><USER7> I guess you could use GreaseMonkey for that, though I can't imagine how you could keep track of everything. Might be useful for smallish modifications though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a big fan of Mozilla, and I'm really glad to see them focusing on Firefox instead of troubled projects like FirefoxOS.

While they are not immune from poor decisions I really believe they try to do the right thing in the end. That's more than I can say for many other companies.

<comment><USER12> FirefoxOS was out last hope for good and accessible mobile operating system - it was supposed to give people who can't afford iPhone something open, instead of evil data-slurp that is Android.

Without it, billions of people in developing world are going to have every every second of their lives snooped by Google.

It failed, but it was still a good idea.

<comment><USER13> Let's not forget the upcoming mobile Purism OS coming with the Librem 5.[0]

I believe the development kit for apps is now available.

[0] [https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/](https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/)

<comment><USER14> Librem5 has iPhone class pricing. It's no alternative to FirefoxOS. I earn decently, have mid-range need for security, and I won't buy iPhone nor Librem5.

<comment><USER15> Its all open source so someone can get it running on a cheap android device if they want.

<comment><USER16> Cheap android devices don't have free software drivers, and I thought some connection between those drivers and Google is what holds back a free Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm posting this from Firefox. I think this article, on top of other recent efforts by Mozilla, is the final push to switch me from Chrome to Firefox. I trust Mozilla a _lot_ more than I trust Google these days.

<comment><USER18> The thing that tipped it over for me was the Multi-Container Tabs[0] Mozilla extension. Aside from being a fantastic privacy and security tool, it is also wonderful for development.

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi- account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account- containers/)

<comment><USER19> I stopped using them when I realized they can switch into a "Facebook" container when I visit Facebook, bit they can't switch back out of it when I subsequently visit another site.

This was a common feature request. Has it been implemented, yet?

<comment><USER20> Seems high-risk to me: All Facebook needs to do is set up a redirector that isn't at a domain considered "Facebook", and include a tracking ID in the redirector URL, and they'll be able to try and de-anonymize your non-"Facebook" container when your tracker-laden link opens in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Uh oh, I just learned that Mozilla injects Google Analytics tracking code into Firefox itself. When you go to about:addons, it sends tracking data to Googles servers.

Is there a way to get rid of that? It seems to be not blocked by a default umatrix for example.

I think we really need a browser by a more trustworthy party. Maybe Debian could make a Firefox fork that is more user friendly in terms of privacy? Is there a way for vote for this or sponsor such a development?

<comment><USER22> Apparently it respects Do Not Track, according to some discussion above and at [https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785](https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785)

The link also seems to say you can block it in uMatrix, but it isn't by default

<comment><USER21> No, you cannot block it via umatrix or any other extension. If you read the whole discussion you will see that this only was possible in the old extension tech that Mozilla meanwhile replaced with webextension. And those can't.

They injected a non-removable external tracking system right into the browser that they market as privacy focussed.

<comment><USER23> Actually, if you read to the bottom of the discussion [0] you'll see that it was fixed, and FF respects the Do Not Track setting.

In addition, they negotiated with google special terms for their analytics. This is the description [1] and this is the resulting options they got [2].

[0] [https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785#issue...](https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785#issuecomment-315212909)

[1] [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14)

[2] [https://bug697436.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=73207...](https://bug697436.bmoattachments.org/attachment.cgi?id=732070)

<comment><USER21> It is _not_ fixed. You still cannot disable the tracking via an extension like umatrix.

And no, I do not set the 'do not track' thing. Because that is one more bit of data sent out. To _every_ website. Not just to Mozilla.

Actually more then a computer 'bit' by the way. What percentage of users use the 'do not track' setting? Let's say 1%. Voila. Setting it is worth about 7 bits of data to identify you.

<comment><USER24> I don't mean to be rude, but if you're worried about the "do not track" setting identifying, you honestly shouldn't be on the internet. Or you should be using it like rms does [1] (scroll to "How I use the internet").

[1] [https://stallman.org/stallman- computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been blocking 3rd-party cookies since a decade now. I have never witnessed any website breaking. And I do regularly buy from online shops (ebay, amazon, lots of others) _while_ blocking 3rd-party cookies.

I'd _really_ want to know which websites do break, and if they do, in which fashion.

<comment><USER26> Do you use an add-on to block cookies? If not, how?

<comment><USER27> I also recommend Cookie AutoDelete for firefox[1] and Chrome[2].

1 - [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie- autode...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/)

2 - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookie- autodelete/...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cookie- autodelete/fhcgjolkccmbidfldomjliifgaodjagh)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems to be a blacklisting solution. Some third party code gets filtered.

I prefer a whitelisting solution. umatrix is a very elegant tool for this. You can say

        On domain thisandthat.com allow scripts from domain
        soandso.com'

Or

       On domain funkycars.com allow images from
       domain carimageserver.com

That is exactly the level of whitelisting that feels logical to me.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/umatrix/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/umatrix/)

I wonder how closely Mozilla analyzes the addons they offer for download? Are they as trustworthy as Firefox itself?

<comment><USER28> Whitelisting while keeping every website moderately functional seems impractical for the Mozilla team, which means the burden of choosing what to allow falls on the end user.

While that's a great approach for privacy, the usability loss would probably drive the average person away from Firefox. I think the listed approach is likely best for the average user, but I think it would be nice to have an option for a power user to turn on a whitelist-only mode. (One could argue that "install an extension" is an appropriate "option" for the power user, but as you mention, it's nicer to not need to rely on third party extensions)

<comment><USER29> > Whitelisting while keeping every website moderately functional seems > impractical for the Mozilla team, which means the burden of choosing what to > allow falls on the end user.

I've used NoScript for a long time, and the hardest thing is knowing what the domain is doing so I can decide what to allow. It's hard to tell the difference between opaquely named ad-networks and opaquely named media player providers.

It would be nice if someone could start compiling a database that

1\. groups together the domains used by different sites and services (e.g. website.com and website-images.com) and

2\. includes a brief description of their purpose or business.

So, doubleclick.com and doubleclick.net could be grouped and easily identified as an ad network, google tag manager is a tracker, etc.

I doubt such a list would take any more effort to maintain than the current ad-blocker lists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm not entirely sure why the solution to the tracking problem isn't seen as simply scoping cookies to the domain of the top level page. I'm dubious that there's any value to cross site cookies that _isn 't_ in service of tracking, since oauth-style flows provide a better and more open mechanism for providing cross- or multi-site login mechanisms anyways.

Is there some value I'm missing? Why blacklist this? I'd rather whitelist it.

</comment><comment><USER31> This post has third party JS in it from Google Analytics that looks to be accepting a bunch of fairly unique looking parameters.

<comment><USER32> However, Mozilla has a special agreement with Google Analytics that ensures all data is anonymized.

Some discussion which mentions that here: [https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785](https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785)

<comment><USER21> Jesus, that is not about Google Analytics on Mozillas websites but on the about:addons page of Firefox. That is terrifying.

<comment><USER33> See also about:telemetry to see if anything enabled. If enabled, they are sending a bunch of information with unique id. Even if disabled, the telemetry is still always being gathered, just not sent.

<comment><USER34> > If enabled, they are sending a bunch of information with unique id.

That is not the issue. The issue is when they send Firefox user's data _to google_ of all places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The new options that are available in Firefox Nightly: [https://i.imgur.com/GMHGDvy.png](https://i.imgur.com/GMHGDvy.png)

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm sure the ad industry will find new ways, but the speed increase was pretty big for me after adding a Pi-Hole.

<comment><USER37> Main difference is that browser makers (Mozilla, Apple, Google for non-Google ads) are becoming hostile to ads and tracking rather than trying to be neutral.

<comment><USER38> Why is that a _bad_ thing?

<comment><USER37> It's a good thing! Browser makers being more adversarial will limit the ability of tracking and advertising to 'find new ways'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good news. They should also refine their approach of "containers", and I've listed some ideas here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16866086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16866086)

(perhaps their new approach comes close to these ideas)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they are, slowly. See the Firefox Weekly 44 ( [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2018/08/29/these-weeks- in-f...](https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2018/08/29/these-weeks-in-firefox- issue-44/) ) and search for "Contextual Feature Recommender": they're starting by experimenting pushing their Facebook Container addon.

Screenshot: [https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2018/08/f712ffde-1c33...](https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/files/2018/08/f712ffde-1c33-441f-927b-3868b915923e.png)

<comment><USER40> The Facebook Container plugin has features that aren't available in the Multi- Account Containers plugin, such as limiting the container to a domain so it doesn't follow you when you click a link. Facebook containers should just be a default/recommended setting for the core containers plugin rather than something that requires its own special plugin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They should expose the switch to turn off Javascript... this should be table stakes for any browser. Yes I realize it can be accessed by a series of steps that include leaving the page you're on, but there is too much friction in that interaction flow.

</comment><comment><USER41> How will this interact with other privacy tools such as Privacy Badger? Are they safe to use together? Will they negatively interact?

<comment><USER40> The most annoying thing from the current version is that when a site doesn't work, even completely turning off your privacy plugins won't necessarily fix it. You have to remember that this is another thing that you may have to disable to use a site. Other than that, it should be fine.

<comment><USER42> I use another browser for those sites. So Firefox with all the fancy add-ons for 99% of my browsing and then Edge for those times I really can't have it failing on me (any sort of payment, that's pretty much it).

<comment><USER43> I do the same. The Open With extension is nice.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open- with/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/open-with/)

[https://i.imgur.com/7roeIBf.png](https://i.imgur.com/7roeIBf.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> > Firefox will strip cookies and block storage access from third-party > tracking content.

I'm curious how this will work with things like Google Hosted Libraries[1] (for just one of countless examples)?

The site will stop working if you block the request, but the tracking will keep working if you don't block the request.

[1] [https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/](https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/)

</comment><comment><USER45> _"Firefox will strip cookies and block storage access from third-party tracking content."_

This sounds ambiguous to me. Does it mean they won't block third party cookies for NON tracking content?

We rely on third party cookies for Single Sign On auth. The question is, how will this continue to work?

Ideally, these browsers should finally allow access to client side certificates functionality so you can authenticate with websites without being tracked by the certificate's issuer!

XAuth was a step in this direction. We need a place to store these certs or private keys. But are all major browsers even close to supporting it?

Update: Firefox supports them but it's so clunky. Focus on letting any site install a certificate with the user's permission, firefox!! Apple already allows web based download of configuration profiles, which is far more insecure:

[https://developer.apple.com/enterprise/documentation/Configu...](https://developer.apple.com/enterprise/documentation/Configuration- Profile-Reference.pdf)

[https://medium.com/@sevcsik/authentication-using-https- clien...](https://medium.com/@sevcsik/authentication-using-https-client- certificates-3c9d270e8326)

<comment><USER46> I think this explains which cookies would be blocked:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking- protection#w_b...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking- protection#w_block-lists-in-firefox)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is the control I would like (and maybe someone has tried it...): for a given URL, I control which additional URLs I permit for that page. So, for example, if I type "nytimes.com" as the top level URL, I might allow "nyt.com" as well. The GET or POST for any other URLs on that page will not be sent by my browser.

<comment><USER48> Try uMatrix! That's almost exactly what it does. Further, it lets you control requests by type, like stylesheets, images, scripts, XHRs, iframes, etc.

Its original name was HTTP Switchboard, which I thought was a great descriptor for what it does (and for its interface).

<comment><USER47> Fabulous! And informative! Just wish there was one for Safari... Thanks for the lead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm developing an embedded commenting system that runs in an iframe. Each blog has cookies at `blog-name.example.com` and one gets different cookies at different blogs — there's no tracking.

Still Privacy Badger and apparently iPhone believes the cookies are tracking cookies. Privacy Badger doesn't see the difference between unique cannot-track cookies on `per-blog-sub-domain.example.com` and tracking cookies on `example.com`.

If you have time: How will the new Firefox browser deal with such cookies? (unique per blog cookies, different on each subdomain)

Maybe I'll have to make the commenting system work completely without cookies in any case, because of iPhone and Privacy Badger.

</comment><comment><USER50> I recently started a new job and took a fresh laptop as as good an excuse as any to switch to Firefox. It's great! It's fast, dev tools are good. I don't miss anything from chrome apart from the automatic google translate - joys of being in the EU.

</comment><comment><USER51> Unclear from this article is how they determine what is a "tracker"? I assume there'll be a curated block list, maybe based on anonymously collected data. But that detail is key to whether this is a success or not.

<comment><USER52> Yeah, I'm left wondering the same thing.

Apple's Intelligent Tracking Prevention (version 2 of which will ship in Safari/iOS 12 in September[0]) uses some sort of ML-based solution to decide what is and what is not a tracker, blocks cookies from being sent to domains that haven't been visited in a first party context, and has an explicit way for the user to opt-in to cookies being sent upon interaction in an iframe (e.g. the FB "like" button). Unclear how this Mozilla version stacks up.

0: [https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention...](https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention-2-0/)

<comment><USER53> Funny thought: Does ITP use ML to determine that googleadservices.com is a "prevalent" domain?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm curious to see how the blocking of slow-loading trackers will affect browsing ability. I put a pi-hole on my network and have found that some sites become extraordinarily slow to load (like more than 20x as slow as without the pi-hole), presumably because there's something being blocked that prevents the rest of the site from being loaded. Needless to say, this makes the pi-hole a win-some-lose-some proposition.

Hopefully Firefox's implementation will avoid this pitfall!

<comment><USER55> sounds like your setup simply blackholes instead of returning blank resources, this might lead to retries and waiting for timeouts

<comment><USER54> That sounds about right. Anyone have tips for how to improve performance on a pi-hole? I've googled but not found anything that looked spot-on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Dear Mozilla: I hope your browser have all the internal data flows accounted, i.e. how much of your cookie, location, keystrokes, files goes to each site should be presented to a user. This can be complicated due to cross-site login credentials and whatnot, but it can be visualized nicely in a graph format. This would probably require engine-related changes and affect the performance, but definitely a direction I'd like to see in future.

</comment><comment><USER57> What's going to happen is they will just change their code to use postMessage or similar to facilitate the tracking. It's really not hard to persist a UUID across many different TLD's using techniques other than tracking cookies.

I'm sorry but this isn't going to help motivated companies who have businesses and teams of engineers. It's just going to be some JIRA ticket that says "fix tracking for firefox users".

</comment><comment><USER58> Shameless plug - for browsers that don't yet block trackers, I have a little social sharing buttons project that cuts out all the usual cookie and http- request garbage you usually get from social icons:

[https://github.com/QuadrupleA/private-secure-sharing- buttons](https://github.com/QuadrupleA/private-secure-sharing-buttons)

</comment><comment><USER59> > select "Trackers (recommended)" to block cross-site tracking cookies.

What exactly is it they are blocking? Do they have a black list of sorts, or a heuristic?

</comment><comment><USER60> As a Web Dev I am split on a movement like this. I understand the need for users to control what data they allow companies to have on them, but if other browsers do not follow suit, what will that mean for deployment and making sites consistent across browsers? If Firefox is blocking popular libraries or scripts that end up breaking some webpages the user experience still suffers

<comment><USER61> I think that's effectively already the world we live in. As a uBlock user I occasionally run into sites that are broken because they wrote code assuming that some function provided by an analytics library would exist, and it doesn't because that library got blocked. I file bug reports when I can, and I'm concientous about handling these cases in my own code.

Writing code to handle the failure to load of third party scripts like this should really be a best practice anyway. Even if you use subresource integrity checks on all the external scripts you load, what if some analytics provider's site is down for a while? Do you want your site to still work? I do. (Obviously this does not apply to scripts that are actually necessary for the core functionality of your site, but that doesn't really apply to analytics/tracking tools for the most part.)

Making this the default behavior of FF will make this sort of breakage more visible to more people, it's true. If anything maybe this will encourage sites to write their code to handle failure more elegantly and I'll spend less time annoyed. One can dream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Right thing, but why it took that long? Safari made ITP enabled by default year ago, and upgraded it to ITP 2.

[https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention...](https://webkit.org/blog/8311/intelligent-tracking- prevention-2-0/)

</comment><comment><USER63> What about evercookies?

Why a website needs to know what fonts I have installed?

Why a website needs to know my plugins?

Why a website need to know the gazzilion of data points tools like evercookie are uaing to fingerprint users.

I asked for a website. Just give it to me. I will render it if I can. If I can not - too bad for the website.

<comment><USER64> >Why a website needs to know what fonts I have installed?

So it can render the website in an appropriate font, while avoiding unnecessary network downloads.

>Why a website needs to know my plugins?

Plugins used to be used for rendering applets. It made sense to see if you had Flash/Java installed before trying to insert one.

Thankfully, plugins are now going away.

<comment><USER15> You can set a list of fonts to use and the browser will keep trying until it finds one that is installed. Usually the last one in your list is serif or sans-serif that always works.

<comment><USER64> That's true, but my comment goes further than that. Webfonts require network requests if they aren't available locally. It might make sense to scan the available font list for similar fonts before initiating a download.

<comment><USER65> Couldn't a browser do that without necessarily revealing the list of fonts?

        if (!isFontAvailable(font)) {
          downloadFont(font);
        }

It's not like a tracking script is going to try to iterate over every single existing font out in the wild for finger printing purposes. Doing so would be too easy to detect and block at the browser level. In the meanwhile, a script can get the list of fonts directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> That's great news, will this be on par with Ghostery features wise or will it be less granular?

</comment><comment><USER67> What are the requirements for what gets blocked and what doesn't get blocked? Is there a heuristics based approach to tracking blocking or is it all still cat and mouse with block lists? I'm not up to speed on any breakthroughs in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER68> It's a great initiative but I am afraid it will only change business mode of tracking providers to offer self hosted software that will no longer be 3rd party ...

<comment><USER69> That would achieve the stated goal of removing cross-site tracking.

<comment><USER68> I imagine self hosted solution would still forward the information to the third party in the backend

<comment><USER69> That alone doesn't allow cross-site tracking. You need a way to identify that the person on one site is the same person on another site, which is the role the third-party cookie plays. Firefox is eliminating the third-party cookie, and working to eliminate cookie-less fingerprinting techniques as well. Who hosts the information is not the concern.

<comment><USER68> Good point, that's a great improvement. I just believe you would still be able to identify and fingerprint individuals across sites if you simply pass data through self hosted solution to 3rd part aggregate

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> What's worse, knowing you have no privacy, or having the illusion that you have privacy? Companies with deep pockets and skin in the advertising game can still track you. Anytime a defense is put up, they just pivot to another method of tracking. When you have an army of the world's best engineers and unlimited resources a way will be found. We need to start living with the reality that privacy is already dead. Weep if you will, but at least accept the truth that Mozilla can't protect you, and that your data IS out there somewhere.

<comment><USER71> No.

This is a fatalist attitude that ignores things like ethics still remaining in developers, the fact that the cat-and-mouse means the defenses ARE working, and the fact that the engineers you are so awed by aren't really magicians.

Yes, there are data breaches and tracking, and it will continue. But the fight has moral and practical value, and I appreciate Mozilla for continuing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Keep in mind that mozilla is financed by google.

Which means they might always find loopholes like these to track you:

[https://github.com/mozilla/addons- frontend/issues/2785](https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785)

Search 'telemetry' and 'tracking' under about:config .

Set all true to false where appropriate.

search for google and mozilla, remove all url entries.

or just wildcard-block them via dnsmask.

<comment><USER72> I was going to say that they aren't financed by Google, there's just a search contract, but I found this tidbit online...

"Historically, search engine royalties have been the main revenue driver for Mozilla. Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation's $330 million in total revenue."

The default search contract went to Yahoo between 2014 and 2017 then back to Google after that. Looks like they do get most of their money from Google.

<comment><USER59> thanks for confirming (and data)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Maybe I missed in the article but how does a browser block cryptomining scripts? Same goes for fingerprints.

<comment><USER74> There are known trackers involved with non-consensual crypto-jacking, and fingerprinting. Those domains can be blocked completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> How does Brave's approach compare to Mozilla's in this area? Are they about comparable?

</comment><comment><USER76> _Firefox will [...] block storage access from third-party tracking content._

Is that an impact on LocalStorage?

</comment><comment><USER77> While I applaud this, Firefox is consistently the slowest browser or both Android and MacOS.

</comment><comment><USER78> ..How can anyone protect you against html5 canvas hashes? Seems like an impossible task.

<comment><USER79> The TOR browser simply blocks access to the canvas itself. Seems like a good addition to the "would you like to grant access to" list.

<comment><USER80> The patch for that has been already uplifted to Firefox and is behind the pref "privacy.resistFingerprinting": [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=967895](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=967895)

By the way it's spelled "Tor" ;)

<comment><USER79> Tangentially, that's bothered me since it's "The Onion Router", and such abbreviations are typically capitalized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> So is this "First Party Isolation on by default", or something else?

</comment><comment><USER82> Turn off JS - Done!

</comment><comment><USER83> From reading the title, I thought Mozilla were going to set telemetry, Cliqz spyware, Pocket ads, etc. as opt-in. Sad that I was wrong :(

</comment><comment><USER84> performance is the wrong motivation behind blocking trackers. they should be blocked because they're wrong, not because they slow website load pages.

<comment><USER85> Why not both? I agree with you that they should be blocked because they are wrong, but I'd also agree that they should be blocked because they are slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> This is the wrong angle to take. Plugins are the correct solutions to these problems. A browser should implement the standards. Period. If this breaks a site users want or need, they will go to another browser. If Mozilla wants to fix things, they should be fighting for new standards. Start with a standard that says all third-party content requires a user prompt to enable, always, no whitelist, no blacklist, no way to disable the prompt. Same with all JS hardware API calls. That's how it should have been from the start. Any browser vendor that goes against the standard would be forced to admit they're enabling gapping vulnerabilities.

<comment><USER71> There is no web standard for ethical tracking. Web standards are rendering video, images and text, processing JavaScript, interpreting CSS, and so on.

<comment><USER86> Maybe your right. I looked quickly but didn't find anything. Is there no standard out there stating, for example, that JavaScript MUST NOT be allowed unrestricted access to local storage or that the location API MUST request permission? These are just accepted as obvious best practices?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87>
      In the near future, Firefox will — by default — protect users
      by blocking tracking while also offering a clear set of
      controls to give our users more choice over what information
      they share with sites.

Sounds promising. However, having Google as the default search engine is a good enough reason to discourage one from using Firefox. Wonder if it would ever change.

<comment><USER88> And what would you suggest as alternative, given that normal users (e.g. people who've never even heard of HN and make up the majority of browser users) expect to search with Google?

As far as I recall, the Google search is part of the funding agreement (because Mozilla is still a non-profit, the money has to come from _somewhere_ and we, the users of the browser, sure aren't paying them?) with the explicit agreement that it is trivial to change the default search engine for people who don't want to search with Google.

Click on the drop-down on the left of the search field in the browser, you click "change search settings", you pick your preferred search (options for which include "duck duck go" these days) and you're done forever. That... feels like a perfectly fine way to go about offering people what they want: make what the majority wants the default, and make it trivial to change for people with different wants or needs.

<comment><USER33> What about no default ? Just Prompt user after installation which search engine they want to set as default.

HN users will switch to something they prefer, normal users wouldn't know there exists anything other than google. By making what you think majority wants as default, you are forcing something on people who doesn't know any better.

<comment><USER89> Google pays Mozilla a bunch of money to be the default search engine, and Mozilla needs the money as they are a non-profit.

If somebody cares about their online privacy, they can change the default search engine very easily - I think what we should be doing is teaching the average web browser what kind of tracking goes on so that more people are willing to switch to things like Firefox/DDG.

<comment><USER87> So Mozilla should clearly state that being a non-profit they need funds and that they are willing to compromise the privacy of their users.

<comment><USER88> No need to lie just to make a point. Firefox does not "compromise the privacy of their users" by using google.com as default search engine. You're going to have write quite the detailed explanation if you want to make that case and make a credible claim at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> So if our SaaS service relies heavily on third-party cookies for single sign- on, how does this impact us? Is there some kind of whitelist we need to apply for, or do we need to completely rethink our product?

</comment><comment><USER91> So if our SaaS service uses third-party cookies to do single sign-on, what does this mean for us? Can we apply for some kind of whitelist somewhere, or do we need to rethink how our entire product works? We aren't using third- party cookies for advertising purposes.</comment>


My iphone, your server – Exploration on mobile based web server - <AUTHOR> http://baizhuzhu.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/my-iphone-your-server-exploration-on-mobile-based-web-server/

<comment><USER2> I wrote a proof-of-concept which does something quite similar on Android: <http://pagekite.net/wiki/Howto/GNULinux/AndroidPageKite/>

It is just a proof of concept, because like author of the article said, it's not immediately obvious how to make compelling use of a web server on a mobile phone (yet).

I suspect there may be some interesting applications to do with identity and user-friendly access controls, real-time integration of phone resources with in-the-cloud web properties... but I'm still on the lookout for something really amazing. :-)</comment>


With Dropbox IPO and Filecoin ICO, storage won't be boring in 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2017/07/dropbox-ipo-filecoin-ico/ <comment><USER2> I got my already programmed ATM card to withdraw the maximum of $50,000 daily for a maximum of 30 days. I am so happy about this because i got mine last week and I have used it to get $100,000. MR James Carl is giving out the card just to help the poor and needy. he also advice us to help the needy around us when we get the card so that God will keep blessing all of us. get yours from him now. Just send him an email: firstname.lastname@example.com or +16026337400</comment>


Ask HN: Good engineers in Seattle? - <AUTHOR>

If this describes you:
-substantial experience building web-applications
-deep knowledge of python, django, mysql, etc.
-move fast
-live in seattle
-reliable, nice, and get things done
please contact me. I'm hiring a part-time (mainly back-end) engineer for my local advertising / location-based startup.
Thanks!
email@example.com (please put "Hacker News" in the subject line of your email) <comment><USER2> Try posting to the Digital Eve list there -- it's free, and my previous startup got good candidates for other roles.

<comment><AUTHOR> have link?

edit: nm, found it; thanks for the suggestion.</comment></comment>