California's quality of life is the worst in the country? - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/28/california-has-the-worst-quality-of-life-study-says/ <comment><USER2> Here are the criteria: [https://www.usnews.com/news/best- states/rankings/quality-of-...](https://www.usnews.com/news/best- states/rankings/quality-of-life)

 _Among the measures used to evaluate states ' natural environments are drinking water quality, air quality and total toxic chemical pollution per square. The ranking also considers how much each state puts its citizens at risk for long-term, chronic health effects from pollution. Social environment, on the other hand, investigates how involved people are in their communities. Two of the measures, community engagement and social support, are based on surveys where people shared how often they participate in community events and how often they spend time with family members, friends and work colleagues. Political involvement was also determined by evaluating average voter turnout at the 2016 presidential and congressional elections._

North Dakota -- a desolate wind-swept plain littered with fracking wells -- is #1 for Quality of Life, which makes me _seriously_ question the metrics used here.

<comment><USER3> That says more about you than about the study.

Have you ever lived in a place like that? With real community? Neighbors that care about you? Who know who you are? Who notice if you are having an issue? Who go out of their way to help you if you need it?

Could you, right now, walk over to a neighbor and say "I need to go to xxx for reason xxx, could you watch my kids for 2 days?", and expect them to either say yes, or help you find someone who can?

<comment><USER4> While I don't have kids, a friend of mine in San Francisco does. She's good friends with the neighbors who have a son the same age as hers. If she had to leave suddenly, I'm certain they'd do anything they could to help.

Outside of Silicon Valley where I grew up, in the Santa Cruz mountains, we also had neighbors we could trust who would help us if they could.

I do feel that Silicon Valley is less friendly than nearby Santa Cruz, but anecdotally we do have neighbors who will help.

<comment><USER5> Knowing a few neighbors is different from knowing entire community, participating in town events, walking around the town and seeing familiar faces everywhere.

<comment><USER4> Certainly. That just isn't what was discussed in the original comment. If it's about knowing lots of your neighbors then I would say I haven't had that in California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've mentioned this a few times here on HN, but I fled California (San Francisco) in January for Nashville, TN and couldn't be happier. I moved over my California LLC and businesses to a Tennessee LLC (no state income tax). People for the most part are super friendly (almost awkward friendly), and that southern hospitality is really a thing.

Costs are out of control, lawmakers and California state laws are backwards and anti-business, taxes are high, and open borders / sanctuary cities (my personal political opinion) are detrimental.

<comment><USER7> Counterpoint: Tennessee is very religious and also backwards as hell[1], and if you aren't white you will have a difficult time fitting in.

[1]Just one recent example: [http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tennessee- lawmakers-pass-...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tennessee-lawmakers- pass-god-trust-school-bill-53929916)

<comment><USER6> Backwards is relative. Being religious, anti-globalization, or conservative doesn't make you a horrible person. The bay area is probably the most intolerant place I've ever been. I've personally seen people unfriend friends because of politics without even being able to have a thoughtful and educated discussion about the issues. The bay area is group thinking "madness of crowds" at its worse.

I encourage watching Peter Thiel explain why he left San Francisco (albeit for LA): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=5V8YXmkBHok...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=5V8YXmkBHok&app=desktop)

<comment><USER8> Let's be real. Aren't you just trading one groupthink (liberal west coast) for another groupthink (conservative south east) that meets your desires? Do you really think a thoughtful and educated discussion would have really helped?

<comment><USER9> Wow you're trapped in a bubble. The valley is the most close minded place I've ever lived. Live in NYC for a bit, it's the polar opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'll spare you the effort of going through this because I went through the methodology behind it:

Qualify of life is based on 7 factors:

Natural Environment (50%):

\- Drinking Water Quality (13th)

\- Low Industrial Toxins (20th)

\- Low Pollution Health Risk (45th)

\- Urban Air Quality (50th)

Social Involvement (50%):

\- Community Engagement (44th)

\- Social Support (38th)

\- Voter participation (49th)

The whole Social Involvement section, which is 50% of QOL, is basically completely bunk. The first two are based off surveys that I'm sure have methodology issues, and who cares about voter participation? My quality of life isn't affected by whether or not my neighbor votes in the presidential election of which your vote in California has no impact. I also have no doubt if voter participation was adjusted for demographics, named age and race, California wouldn't do so badly.

The air quality stuff is fair game, but California is a big state and there are lots of places with better air, in addition to the fact that I can think of 50 things which impact my "qualify of life" more than the things listed: Traffic, Parks, Restaurants, Walkability, Bikability, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> I left California last September. Moving someplace cheaper allowed me to get back into housing. That was all I expected to get out of it. Other than getting off the street, I didn't expect significant improvement in quality of life. I moved to a small town that did not have all the stuff I wanted. I expected to kind of put up with it in order to be able to afford housing.

But after getting here, our mantra has become "Thank god we have moved to civilization." There is no bag ban here. The library system here is better than anything I saw in California. Public transit is better. There are multiple things open 24 hours a day within a short walk from my rental.

Unemployment is high and there is a homeless problem, things I would like to try do something about. But homelessness was high all over California and I was one of the homeless there.

I really love the place I moved to and I am just jazzed to be here. At this point, I can't imagine going back to California.

The problems here look solvable to me. The problems in California look entrenched and like they can't be solved without some things changing in terms of state policies. That seems unlikely and it seems to me that even if someone can figure out how to fix it and somehow pull it off, the transition would be painful.

I really liked California for a lot of years. It saddens me to feel this way about the state.

<comment><USER12> [There is no bag ban here]

Seriously? Single-Use Carryout Bag Ban a concern for you?

<comment><USER11> Yup.

[http://michelerebooted.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-lawful- awful...](http://michelerebooted.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-lawful-awful- california-bag-ban.html)

<comment><USER13> There is also this theory that it's caused a Hepatis outbreak: [http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis- crisis/sd...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/hepatitis-crisis/sd-me- hepatitis-outbreak-20170624-story.html)

People who are homeless would often use plastic bags as a bathroom, and then throw it in the trash. No more plastic bags, so they can't do that...

Not sure what real evidence there is for it, but I always love an unintended consequences story.

<comment><USER14> I'm not so sure that's a cautionary tale about unintended consequences as much as an illustration of the lack of public toilets. Do we really want people doing their business in plastic bags?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Slightly amusing that on the Quality of Life Rankings page [0], the hero image they went with is of.... California.

0: [https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality- of-...](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/quality-of-life)

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm 33. Literally no one my age or younger I know owns a home unless they live in a smaller city somewhere in mid-america.

I'm a senior engineer at a large tech company. I cannot afford a home where I live unless I want to live in a shitty condo, which I do not. I cannot work remotely, so moving is not an option unless I want to find another job, which I'm considering.

Once baby boomers start retiring and moving to assisted living homes, a large supply of houses will enter the market. This should hopefully alleviate some of the cost issues. But millennials are a ticking time bomb. So many millennials have no hope for lucrative careers, unless they're engineers or in finance, which is a small percent.

<comment><USER13> I suggest lobbying your state and local representatives to allow fast and easy approval of building more high-density housing and to upzone your neighborhood. The reason California is so expensive is because the generations who already own homes have long asked to maintain the status quo with low height limits (most of San Francisco is 40 feet!) and density limits. This creates an artificial shortage. And those homeowners have somehow created a political coalition with lower income renters afraid of gentrification by offering them things like rent control and token amounts of subsidized housing. The thing is, if you do the math, it quickly becomes obvious that there is no world where we create enough subsidized housing to make a dent in the problem. And rent control works to keep people in their homes but at the expense of everyone else. Subsidized housing is a lottery, and always will be in California. We don't suggest buying lottery tickets as a solution for income inequality; we shouldn't for housing inequality either.

The only viable long-term solution is relax zoning laws, and make new construction approvals easier and faster.

SB-827 is a start in the right direction.

<comment><USER17> This.

If SB-827 doesn't pass, we'll know that California's priorities are not with the young/it's future - it's with those who were lucky enough to get in the right place at the right time.

I'm not very hopeful, and the insane cost of living/owning a home is the primary reason I've pretty much given up on moving there at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you are a tech person, I'd say you should seriously consider the Silicon Prairie.

For example, it doesn't surprise me this article emphasizes Nebraska. Whereas this article mentions not owning a home in California, you can readily afford a home out in the Midwest. If you don't want that, grab a two-bedroom apartment that costs you less than a $9,00 per month. Insane commutes don't exist.

Places like Kansas City have Google Fiber and other places like Lincoln and Omaha don't have Google Fiber, but still gigabit Internet or even 300Mbps Internet plans (for $60/month)

For a while, the fastest growing company in Nebraska was a tech startup called Hudl ([https://www.hudl.com/)--which](https://www.hudl.com/\)--which) you really can't even call a startup anymore since they're big enough to be building their own buildings now.

<comment><USER7> Kansas is awful - don't move there. Governor Brownback's insane low-tax plan has starved government services and thoroughly ruined the state over the past decade.

<comment><USER19> Citations would be helpful...

<comment><USER7> Here: [https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/sam-brownback- kansa...](https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/us/sam-brownback-kansas- budget-override.html?referer=https://www.google.com/)

Brownback's tax plan was so awful for the state that _Republicans_ called him out on his bullshit and overrode his veto of a tax increase bill. Article has more details and links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> EZ-E From a foreigner point of view who keeps reading about California, it seems both like a fascinating and terrifying place. So advanced yet so backward in some ways

<comment><USER20> To be clear, it's absolutely not terrible or backward by any stretch. Please visit and see for yourself.

Expensive, sure. But there's a reason (another word for price in a decent market is 'value'). And not every city in California is San Francisco in terms of cost of living.

<comment><USER21> Our most central and highly-trafficked sidewalks and public transit stations are _de facto_ public restrooms and homeless shelters. The plaza around our government and cultural center is densely populated with open drug use and varying degrees of mental health crisis. Begging and tent encampments abound. The cyclist-advocacy and homeless-advocacy groups are at each other's throats over whether the takeover of bike lanes by encampments should be permanent. Violent mental health breakdowns on the sidewalk are not considered worthy of the attention of any government service, least of all the police.

You can learn to tune these things out and live with them, but it is absolutely 100% backwards for place so rich and so ostensibly progressive and compassionate to blithely incubate such shocking and pervasive displays of desperation and public neglect in its own backyard. Property values are in a sustained, meteoric rise and we choose not to tap them to address these issues in any meaningful way, not from a compassionate perspective, and not from an enforcement perspective either.

EDIT: more detail.

<comment><USER19> Having seen how places like Chicago treat the homeless in the interests of keeping the things you're pointing out hidden from sight - I appreciate SF's more tolerant, somewhat live-and-let-live methods, in lieu of better, more compassionate solutions.

Hopefully having all this on display in SF will eventually provide enough impetus for the better solutions to emerge. Until then, I hope they don't decide to start being agressive and violent towards what is a largely mentally ill and incredibly vulnerable homeless population.

My admittedly limited understanding is that much of this problem is the result of mental institutions being closed across the state in the face of federal funding vanishing in the 80s. [1]

I've also heard numerous anecdotes about mentally ill patients and the homeless being forcefully bussed to San Francisco from not just other parts of California but other states, precisely because of the city's tolerance. If there's a shred of truth to this, it's a trivial to see why it's such a persistent problem.

[1] [http://sfist.com/2016/06/27/san_francisco_homeless_history_1...](http://sfist.com/2016/06/27/san_francisco_homeless_history_1982.php)

<comment><USER21> San Francisco had 3,146 sheltered and 4,353 unsheltered homelesss people in 2017 [0]. Chicago had 4,096 sheltered and 1,561 unsheltered. [1] Despite having 3x our population and a more centrist political climate, Chicago has fewer homeless people but provides shelter to both a greater proportion and a greater absolute number of them.

Your comment is illustrative of why accelerationism doesn't work here: San Franciscans are much more interested in the social climate and ideological purity than material conditions and effects. Worsening blight only makes us congratulate each other more vigorously for tolerating it. People then opt out quietly when they can (see: private transit) or more openly when they can frame it as selfless concern for their children (see: the near-universal social norm of leaving the city, if not the region, to start a family) or their neighborhood community (see: NIMBYs). Everyone agrees that something should be done, unless it involves any tradeoffs or taxpayer money.

Lack of federal funds is not an excuse. California cities would have some of the most enviable property tax revenues in the world (also less insane housing markets) if California voters would allow Prop 13 reform.

[0] [http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF- Poin...](http://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017-SF-Point-in- Time-Count-General-FINAL-6.21.17.pdf)

[1] [https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/fss/sup...](https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/fss/supp_info/Homeless/2017PITSummaryReportFinal101817.pdf)

<comment><USER19> The statistics you cite say absolutely nothing of how CPD treats the homeless, or how many of their homeless are off the streets because they're instead incarcerated.

If you applied Chicago's policing practices in San Francisco, you would have a whole lot less homeless people.

Chicago also enjoys the luxury of being relatively unattractive as a destination for the homeless. San Francisco is a magnet for the homeless, which certainly contributes to the disproportionately high numbers for its size.

San Francisco obviously has the resources at its disposal to do good things about it. I look forward to something positive in the future. I am not an SF resident, nor do I own property there, though I have spent quite a few years in the area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> From the article:

> _In case it makes you feel any better, while California stinks in terms of > quality of life at least it didn't rank dead last in the overall rankings. > We came in at No. 32 overall, although that's well behind New Jersey (at No. > 19), Florida (at No. 15), and Nebraska (at No. 7). Ouch._

> _The bottom line? The state performed well in terms of its economy, coming > in at No. 4 (hello, high tech boom) but it fared terribly in categories such > as citizen opportunity (No. 46) and fiscal stability (No. 43) in addition to > the dreaded quality-of-life assessment (that scarring No. 50). Of course, as > anyone who has tried to buy a house in the Bay Area knows, fiscal > instability is basically our motto at this point._

I think it's also interesting that Mississippi, Arkansas, and New Mexico were in the top 10 for "quality of life," but bottom 10 overall: [https://www.usnews.com/news/best- states/rankings](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings)

<comment><USER23> It would be interesting to see the correlation between overall ranking (or economy) and quality-of-life ranking. Looks like many comments point out that they're often opposite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> >The state performed well in terms of its economy, coming in at No. 4

This isn't surprising. The reality is California's good economy, relatively good school system, attractive West Coast appeal, and high influx of immigrants make California VERY competitive (i.e. overcrowded), which brings down the quality of life for all.

This is an end result of sorts of our global society. A California will always exist.

<comment><USER25> What does this even mean? Your comment is vague and nonspecific. California chose its path at the polls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Unless you're rich of course. Then it's fantastic!

<comment><USER27> Not bad if you're poor, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a bit weird...

"Quality of Life" is, in my understanding, a synonym for happiness. But just asking people to rate their happiness doesn't really count as research.

So this appears to be a two-step process: Find certain objective factors, such as time spent with family or environmental factors that are good determinants of peoples' reported levels of happiness.

Next, rank areas according to these factors.

The first part is obviously useful, because it sets specific goals to inform policy that otherwise doesn't really know how to make people happy.

But the reverse step seems unnecessary complicated. And while I wouldn't dismiss the results completely just because they are counter-intuitive, I do believe people tend to do well on judging their own happiness. And there'd be a lot of people moving from California to North Dakota if the results are completely true.

</comment><comment><USER29> The older generations that have owned houses for 20+ years are the problem. Seen Lafayette or Orinda lately? They oppose _all_ development, call affordable housing "the ghetto", and are of course protected themselves by prop 13. Heck they even elected a Republican assemblyperson.

</comment><comment><USER30> Came back from walking along the beautiful Santa Cruz coast this afternoon and read this. All I can think is this is a genius way to slow down the immigration rate until legislation and housing developments can catch up :)

<comment><USER31> I take it that you went nowhere near _downtown_ Santa Cruz.

<comment><USER30> I like it weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does this apply to tech workers in the Bay Area? Because it seems like the quality of life should be very high with what they're getting paid.

<comment><USER33> When you take the cost of living in to account, the QOL on the peninsula sucks. I live in Gilroy, which is ~40 miles south of SV, and like it a lot. But I also almost never have to drive north.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Don't worry, the #1 quality-of-life state is North Dakota so clearly the methodology is wack.

Have you ever heard someone say: "man, when I finish my internship, I hope I can go to North Dakota where there is lots of happiness?"

No. Because it's -40° there half the year.

<comment><USER35> As much as I'd like to buy a house outside of California, I can't imagine living in cold weather constantly. I really need sunlight/warmth, and I can't help but feel like I would miss California's weather.

<comment><USER36> Luckily, there are plenty of other states with similarly nice weather.

<comment><USER37> Specifically?

The thing that I like about California is that it's warmer than the rest of the country in the winter and cooler in the summer, generally expressed by the locals as "if the temperature is below 60 or above 80, everyone complains."

Even inland California is too damn hot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Mischaracterization in the title. Actual title, which I think matters, is: "California's quality of life is the worst in the country: Says who?"

Perhaps correct? It does change the tone.

<comment><USER39> It does set a tone, but after reading the article, I failed to find a justification for "says who?" There doesn't seem to be a defense or rebuttal for the quality of life assessment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pure comedy.

Being homeless in coastal California confers a better quality of life than having an apartment in most other states in USA.</comment>


SSGs Part 2: Modern Static Site Generators - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2016/06/10/ssg-overview-gitlab-pages-part-2/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is the best explanation of SSGs and the surrounding tooling i've found so far. I really like the part about the SSG limitations and the provided solutions. Well done by the GitLab guys.</comment>


Expanding Google Cloud's Confidential Computing Portfolio - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/identity-security/expanding-google-clouds-confidential-computing-portfolio <comment><USER2> Is there anything else to these confidential machines other than feel-good, security theater or certification checkmarks?

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but I don't quite understand the target audience.

For basic security and isolation between tenants as well as intrusion prevention from third parties, I'd personally trust Google's SRE team more than any other cloud provider in the world. They seem to have a great historical record and if they had any slip ups there, their business would be impacted for years.

For access to state actors, I'd trust these machines not any bit more than conventional ones. If the key is held in memory, it's accessible. Even if it wasn't, the data would be captured at the storage layer boundary if it was of any interest.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't trust Google for security of MY data. I'd trust them for security of THEIR data. Examples:

* Planned obsolescence for most Google devices (Chromebooks, Android device, etc.) where security updates disappear after a few years. Contrast Linux, Windows, MacOS, etc.

* The number of Android devices silently running without security updates

* Google using basic security features as an upsell on GSuite. Pay us money, or your data will be compromised.

* Android app versus iPhone app security. Android apps scarf up all sorts of information about you, and you can't make it stop.

* Chrome versus Safari/Firefox privacy/security. Chrome makes tracking/ad/etc. blocking neigh impossible.

Good B2B companies take the attitude that if my business fails because of something they've done or could have prevented, they've failed. They're trusted partners. Azure and AWS operate somewhat this way. For GCE, I'm a statistic. If they do something which costs me $1,000,000 and saves them $1000, that's good business. That comes out of their consumer-as-a-product business lines, but it makes them nearly useless for B2B.

It's hitting their bottom line long-term; very little repeat business, and their reputation is in the gutter for B2B, but it's great for short-term metrics.

<comment><USER4> > Planned obsolescence for most Google devices (Chromebooks

Google has only EOLd two Chromebooks ever, the Cr-48 that was supported from 2010-2015 and the Pixel, from 2013-2018. The current model is guaranteed to get updates through 2026. What's wrong with this?

<comment><USER5> The main issue is that it's a huge step backwards from PCs to treat laptops like phones that require model-specific updates. There are tons of Chromebook models that Google has abandoned, just not ones they themselves manufactured. The list is here: [https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en](https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en)

And yes, it's Google's choice to kill these, not OEMs: Chromebooks are built according to certain platform specifications Google hands down, upon which they then support for a given amount of time. So claiming Google has only dropped updates for two Chromebooks ever, ignoring all of the third party manufactured ones, is dishonest.

Meanwhile, Windows, Linux, and macOS machines generally can run the latest version long past when the manufacturer supports it heavily. (Less true with Apple, but Apple's lifecycle is insanely long anyways.) You can actually take machines built to run Windows XP and install the latest release of Windows 10 on many of them. (It sometimes even runs decently too, if you use an SSD!)

Ironically, you can run the latest version of Chrome, via Windows 10, on PCs built for XP, but plenty of Chromebooks sold since then can't.

Additionally, Google has, like phones, positioned Chromebooks as disposable computing devices. $200-300 price point devices that you'll end up replacing in two or three years. Which is a massive e-waste problem, particularly given Google's push to get schools to force every student to buy/use them. For a supposedly green company, the entire Chromebook initiative should be seen as an embarrassing gap in good stewardship.

Note that this entire subthread is pretty off-topic to the original article though.

<comment><USER6> The underlying problem is Linux's driver model. To support new features, you have to support a new kernel. To support a new kernel, you have to port the device drivers to that kernel. Vendors don't like to maintain their code and changes in the kernel often break drivers, so vendors often just give up. That is basically the end of life for anyone that chooses hardware with bad drivers, which I guess some OEM Chromebook manufacturers did.

I did a 20% project on Chrome OS when I worked at Google. At the time, I happened to use a Wacom tablet as a mouse and Chrome OS as my primary OS, and so I backported all the upstream Wacom drivers to the various kernels used by the variety of Chrome OS devices. It was a ton of work, and I really only did it because I needed it myself and there was one really nice person on the bug tracker who supported the tablets at his school. But it doesn't scale -- this was the easiest and most trivial porting job imaginable, and it took me several hours each patch; not because applying the patch was hard, but because validating that it worked as expected took a long time. It was a 15 minute build per device, then I had to reflash, then I had to try all the Wacom devices I had laying around. Now imagine doing that with WiFi -- where your laptop has to work with hundreds of craptastic access points. It's a multi- week effort for every (device, patch) combination.

I don't work there anymore so I have no idea what the official policy is... but understand that it's, to some extent, the OEM's problem. They choose a WiFi chipset that breaks every kernel upgrade, and only they use it -- that's their validation to do. If they don't want to do it anymore they say "hey we saved three cents on the WiFi chipset, now throw away your laptop."

As to why this doesn't affect Windows... Microsoft has spent years building in compatibility for binary blob drivers. On my fresh install of Windows 10 I have drivers from 2008 that are running (for my USB webcam, sadly). The code hasn't changed, so they don't have to revalidate it. It just works, forever. But with Linux there is no such option; you have to make your code compile against the latest kernel, or your device stops working. Hardware vendors (and OEMs) are very lazy, and you can see that in action -- Android and Chrome OS devices stop getting updates because nobody will maintain the code. This, I suppose, is the cost of building atop a GPL-based operating system. Hardware is "design once and forget". Linux is "evolve and grow forever". The impedance mismatch between hardware vendors and software engineers leads to a bad user experience.

<comment><USER3> I guess I've never had that problem on my Linux desktop. I've had it for around a quarter-century now. There's a philosophical question whether it's the same desktop, since it has none of the original parts. I guess I've reinstalled the OS too, probably twice in the time.

I'm sorry, but the problem here is Google. You're looking at this at a 10 foot engineer's view. I'm looking at this at a 10,000 foot view. Google has all the power in the world in this ecosystem. If it requires you to use one particular type of hardware... it can do that. If it requires you to open source all drivers... it can do that too. If it requires 20 years of support... that's within it's power.

And if it was a Linux problem, you couldn't get around it by installing Linux on some of the now-deprecated devices; I've seen people do that too. So Google doesn't just break the devices that are no longer supported. It's 100% planned.

<comment><USER6> Remember that Google has to convince OEMs to get behind their experimental free OS instead of Windows. They can't say "hey, you can have the OS for free, but now you need to keep specialty embedded engineers on staff until we say it's okay to stop maintaining drivers, which will be never" when Microsoft will probably happily negotiate down the cost of a Windows license to near $0 and pick up the driver maintenance as well.

The question then is, why bother with OEMs? But it's necessary to drive adoption: nobody wants to get fired over their choice of laptop vendor, and nobody ever got fired for picking Dell / HP / Samsung. But if you pick the weird upstart OS and anything goes wrong, you'll be blamed. So the OEMs exist to attach their credentials to the transaction -- "we'll be happy to sell you whatever laptops you want; you can have our Windows laptops for $2000 each or Chromebooks for $200 each". Now you at least have some excuse if things go bad -- "HP misled me! But we saved $1800 per student" or whatever.

When taking on a huge established incumbent, price and technical merits are not enough, and you can't go it alone. I don't think I'm looking at things from a "10 foot engineer's view" when I say that it will be very difficult to take on a company with 80% market share and 40 years of industry experience with your new Linux thingie. The OEMs are crucial there -- they have sales contacts, they have a brand that people trust, and people need to gradually warm up to the fact that there's a new OS in town that might save them some money. The cost there is that OEMs don't always do everything you want -- they have their own business to run and don't really need you to stay alive.

<comment><USER5> > Remember that Google has to convince OEMs to get behind their experimental > free OS instead of Windows.

I think this argument held for the first year or two of Android, where they were a small player in the market.

...It simply doesn't hold today, where Google is a monopoly in mobile and one of the largest platforms in the education laptop space. OEMs live or die on Google working with them. Sales reps from major PC OEMs try to convince me to buy Chromebooks when I call them about Windows machines I need to buy.

There's no realistic claim today that Google doesn't have the clout or leverage to ensure their OS is supported properly. It's a choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If one can give strong proof that everything done in a VM is encrypted, then would it be possible to create a "decentralized cloud provider", in which data center owners agree to a common spec for services?

<comment><USER8> Not really, physical access to the machine violates pretty much any chain of trust you can conceivably have for most (all?) security models.

Federated distributed computing relates to what you're thinking of, but it is an extremely difficult topic, and veers into the realm of blockchains and things like that. There is also the whole area of Zero-Knowledge Proofs/Compute that deals with these matters: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/229.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/229.pdf)

If your threat model falls under the uber-paranoid category, you have to on- prem everything, preferrably inside your very own bunker. There is no getting around this afaik, and if there is there will probably be major tradeoffs (like the blockchain thingy) instead of a "drop-in" replacement for traditional compute.

<comment><USER9> Fully Homomorphic Encryption does also work. But there's other issues that make it infeasible outside of very specific niches (an explosion in the compute cost).</comment></comment></comment>


Startup Funding Declines in 1st Quarter 07 - <AUTHOR> http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/4/10/go-big-small-business-funding-review-_-q1-2007/10128/view.aspx <comment><USER2> VC bloggers and linkedin.com must be killing their paid subscription based website. $45 a month for a basic plan and no info for their pro plan. No wonder their startup funding leads have dried up in 1Q07.

"The Go BIG Network Small Business Funding Review is a comprehensive report, compiled quarterly, that tracks the detailed capital raising trends and habits of the startup company and small business community. Requests for funding are made directly by small business owners and entrepreneurs on the Go BIG Networks Web site and are made available to angel investors, private equity investors and venture capital firms looking to fund new businesses. The report includes the requests for funding made within a given quarter of a year."

</comment><comment><USER3> Those data points look so small, I'm not sure what level of correlation this may have relative to the overall tech funding scene.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe it is based on the member base who submit a funding request on their site (per the bottom of the post).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Boston is no where listed...which is funny since other surveys say it's second only to California

<comment><AUTHOR> Which survey?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> the decline is in the average amount requested, not funding requests as a whole.</comment>


IPhone owners do everything but talk ("the iPhone is a computer that just happens to make phone calls") - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2008/04/04/iphone-owners-do-everything-but-talk/

<comment><USER2> It's called a trojan horse. People who think iPhone is a fancy phone are exactly like people who thought the original PC's were fancy typewriters.

iPhone will eventually dominate everything from video game handhelds to medical devices to credit cards to GPS to car ignition locks to cameras.

This is the science fiction future I was promised as a kid. This is the first device that beats a tricorder. It's here people.</comment>


Tag a Tune's input-agreement is even more clever than the ESP Game's output-agreement - <AUTHOR>

Check out the paper:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~elaw/papers/tagatune.pdf
Basically, output-agreement doesn't work that well with more subjective domains such as music.   Input-agreement is an improvement in that respect. <comment><USER2> Or play it:

<http://www.gwap.com/gwap/gamesPreview/tagatune/></comment>


Ask HN: What kind peering agreements does Netflix have? - <AUTHOR> It makes little sense for any ISP to peer with Netflix because of the amount of traffic Netflix pumps into their network while receiving pretty much no traffic. Do the ISPs peer with Netflix to give their (ISP's) customers a good experience ? Does Netflix also do subtle arm twisting to make the ISPs agree to peer with them ? Or does Netflix pay transit to a big backbone carrier and let them push the Netflix content through the provider's peering ? <comment><AUTHOR> [https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix- came-t...](https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay- comcast-for-internet-traffic/)

From the details here it looks like Netflix was actually getting arm twisted by Comcast first and then other big last mile carriers. What this article says is still relevant ?</comment>


Elsevier's profits swell to more than £900M - <AUTHOR> https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elseviers-profits-swell-more-ps900-million <comment><USER2> All publicly funded research should be freely available to the public ... its sad academics have allowed themselves to become enslaved by parasitic publishers ... academics must launch a full court massive grassroots revolt away from publishing their research at such journals ... a short term period of chaos during the transition period over to open journals is a small price to pay for such freedom

<comment><USER3> Scholars can often make their work free via pre-print. The issue is that the published version isn't free, and the pre-print is hard to find and often not as nice looking.

I made a github repo of my last paper published in an Elsevier journal. This was cool because I could put the latex and simulation code for others to copy. [https://github.com/lewis500/distribution-of-trip- lengths](https://github.com/lewis500/distribution-of-trip-lengths)

The final version differs a little bit because they had a copy-editor go through and make some good improvements, even after the referees made their comments. Interestingly, the journal was fine with my linking to the repo within the text of the paper, as a way to share the code.

There is nothing like real open access though. This journal has wonderful typesetting and such and is totally free: [https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/835/860](https://www.jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/835/860)

It's funny what tricks they use to justify their existence. Always emailing me about bizarre author features no one will use. Makes me sad to think of the engineers sitting in a big room year-on-year polishing features no one will use.

<comment><USER4> In the same spirit, our lab is experimenting with a new approach to scientific publishing via Github: [https://twitter.com/AndrewGYork/status/965765089373515776](https://twitter.com/AndrewGYork/status/965765089373515776)

No paywall, no delay, straight to the web. Open data, open code, interactive/animated figures. Transparent, rolling peer review, version control, CC-BY license, citable DOIs. I was worried no one would read it, but it turns out science twitter is awesome. Very positive experience, so far.

<comment><USER5> That's good, but it is not a substitute for preprint servers. In particular, preprint servers are archival and more discoverable.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like we're pulling in the same direction re:improving scientific publishing. At the risk of debating an ally, do you mean to imply that preprint servers are "more archival"? I'm guessing you're familiar with CERN/Zenodo; you trust bioArxiv's continued existence more than CERN's? I rate them as similar, arguably with an edge to CERN.

My experience with publishing is that discoverability is a stronger function of advertising and (especially) getting cited than the publication venue. I do agree that bioarxiv and arxiv are nice advertising venues, but there are lots of ways to skin that cat.

<comment><USER5> I'm actually only familiar with the arXiv, for physics and computer science research. I don't know much about biorxiv or Zenodo, but they both seem much better than a personal website or github page.

The arXiv has overlay sites, such as [http://www.arxiv- sanity.com/](http://www.arxiv-sanity.com/) or [https://scirate.com/](https://scirate.com/) , that improve discoverability over the basic arXiv interface; for example, you can browse all the papers in a given area posted in the last two months, sorted by some proxy for "interest." Of course there is also Google Scholar, and perhaps there are better ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sometimes it can be intimidating to see the resources and lobbying power that these behemoths have. They have a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

At the same time I'm inspired by projects like Discrete Analysis ([http://discreteanalysisjournal.com/](http://discreteanalysisjournal.com/)) and Fermat's Library ([https://fermatslibrary.com/](https://fermatslibrary.com/)) - there are actually a lot of smart, well intentioned folks pushing for a move towards more openness and collaboration in science and research.

</comment><comment><USER7> News like this, despite more than a decade of regulatory and protests against their locking up of scientific knowledge, really gives one faith in our collective ability to influence policy. Apparently that doesn't even work on the very local level.

Really gives one faith in what will happen with things like global warming policy, or economic cooperation.

<comment><USER8> It is basically the prisoner's dilemma. The free publication platforms do not yet have prestige because few prestigious researchers publish there; but only few prestigious researchers publish on free publication platforms because they are not prestigious enough.

The only way to overcome a prisoner's dilemma is education and trust.

<comment><USER9> I'm computer science, everyone is publishing on arxiv.org . why can't other fields?

<comment><USER10> arxiv is great, but for getting your PhD and a future career in academia, publishing there doesn't count nearly as much as publishing in peer reviewed journals does.

<comment><USER9> I mean, in combination with conferences, not just there, obv

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's pretty weird that 25 years into the internet age we have students paying through the nose to attend university and universities paying through the nose to subscribe to publications.

</comment><comment><USER12> As part of my work, I've had t o read (and implement in code) papers from Elsevier journals.

The authors included Chinese, Turkish and Slavic people. And I didn't even have to look at their 35 dollars for a paper when they don;t even have the decency to help authors with some English copy editing.

<comment><USER12> Dammit, the browser mangled my comment.

Fixing:

The authors included Chinese, Turkish and Slavic people. Not all of them could write well in English. And I didn't even have to look at their names to guess nationality, because they would have English grammar mistakes that would make it clear what their native language was.

I really resent paying 35 dollars for a PDF from a company that can't even do some copy editing to help such authors. Elsevier has no respect for the researchers or their readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> By the way, anyone still able to access scihub?

<comment><USER14> You can always find the working links on Wikipedia.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Next to Equifax, and Wells Fargo, this is the company I'd most like to see metaphorically burned to the ground. Wells Fargo at least provides a service, albeit corruptly, but Equifax and Elsevier are just holes in the ground that eat money.

Edit: What does it mean that my comment is automatically collapsed?

<comment><USER16> In the case of wells Fargo it wasn't just corruption but outright fraud. Hundreds of people should have been brought up on criminal charges for the last of their many scandals

<comment><USER15> That's a good point, of course in the last decade the DoJ is all about _not_ prosecuting, and just collecting fines. Sad state of affairs which must change.</comment></comment></comment>


Full Deno Tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://lyty.dev/deno/deno-tutorial.html <comment><USER2> I have experimented with node.js in the past, I'm an outsider to the modern webdev community who had to work on a node.js project and I didn't enjoy it at all. This tutorial has shown me that Deno has solved most of the pains I suffered when using node (namely package management and webpack). I'd like to use it for my next toy project.

PS: your readFileSync example is using readFile instead of readFileSync.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried ts-node? You do not need webpack for a nodejs project. Also package management is not really "solved" by deno I think.

<comment><USER2> I haven't, as I said I haven't worked with node except for that project a few years ago. I know webpack is not a requirement but the alternatives I could find at the time were even more complex (that may have been due to my lack of experience). I think directly importing dependencies from their URLs looks simpler from a new user point of view than using a package.json or similar and having to decide between several very similar project managers (npm, yarn, pnpm, etc).

I read the ts-node GitHub readme and I think it has the same friction as node for me. My main issue has been having to either clutter my global (root required) space or doing a local install and having to mess with either PATH or one of the alternatives to executing locally like npx. From what I have seen Deno is just a download and you are ready to go single executable, from an usability point of view nothing beats that.

I am mostly speaking from my little experience and ignorance so correct me or suggest better alternatives if you think I'm wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


If a Best Buy technician is a paid FBI informant, are his searches legal? - tuna-piano https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/if-a-best-buy-technician-is-a-paid-fbi-informant-are-his-computer-searches-legal/2017/01/09/f56028b4-d442-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html <comment><USER2> The FBI is acting in bad faith. If this is found to be permitted, then search warrants are no longer necessary in many situations since the police can simply hire anyone who is not a LEO to conduct a warrantless search on their behalf.

Given that the file in question was in the deleted free space, the technician didn't just stumble into it accidentally and then report it. He went looking for it to begin with. And he was searching for such files because he was paid to do so.

<comment><USER3> Why has law enforcement suddenly become allergic to warrants? Warrants used to be a rather boring, but important, process that police had to fulfil to show that they had even a very flimsy case.

Now it seems like law enforcement and politicians who serve their whims are outright pushing to remove the warrant requirements from as much as possible. But why now? Warrants aren't new and the landscape hasn't changed that much, why are law enforcement suddenly pushing so hard on this?

Is this just a general theme on the broader problem of police oversight (or lack thereof)? This is one of the few areas of actual oversight left (judicial) so they're trying to remove that too.

<comment><USER4> The landscape has changed hugely since 50 years ago. Individuals now have a lot more power than ever before thanks to the proliferation of technology, and individuals who want to subvert the aims of the state have a greater chance of doing so than ever.

The state is beginning to recognise this and is taking steps to try to claw back some power.

<comment><USER5> _The state is beginning to recognise this and is taking steps to try to claw back some power._

My perception is opposite. Over the last 20 years we have gone from a fairly free country to what feels like a police state with the most effective surveillance in history.

Are you actually familiar with, for example, the extent of Snowden's revelations? What an erosion of liberty the Patriot act is? Or how unusual it used to be to see armed security guards in random office buildings?

<comment><USER4> Yes. These measures are being taken _because_ individuals are getting more powerful. In the long run, I don't think the state is going to succeed, but it will be an arms race for a while.

<comment><USER5> Can you offer evidence for your theory?

My theory is that the state took advantage of the combination of panic over terrorism and falling costs of data storage to put their dreams into action. The threat that they purport to be protecting against isn't real. The threat that the state poses, sadly, is.

As evidence I can point to the fact that dramatic increases of power increased after 9/11\. Much of which was spent in security theater and clear power grabs with proven ineffectiveness. ( _cough_ TSA *cough) Anyone who was around in tech knows about the dramatic drop in costs for data storage, and knows how it has driven big data in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is interesting:

> The search of Rettenmaier's hard drive has a further wrinkle. The image was > located on "unallocated space," which is where deleted items reside on a > computer until they are overwritten when the space is needed. Unallocated > space is not easily accessed — it requires special forensic software.

> Prosecutors said that the Geek Squad technician who searched the unallocated > space was merely trying to recover all the data Rettenmaier had asked to be > restored. Riddet argued that the technician was going beyond the regular > search to deleted material to find evidence the FBI might want.

It's not difficult to recreate files that have been deleted but not fully wiped from the disk. But it's also not trivial. If the Best Buy techs are finding things in those regions of the disk then that means they're explicitly looking at what's there. It's not just a matter of, " _Hey the desktop wallpaper of this guy 's laptop is kiddie porn, I should report this!_", these guys are actively searching people's computers on behalf of the Feds.

<comment><USER7> _these guys are actively searching people 's computers on behalf of the Feds._

Seems so, and $500 is a good incentive for a Geek Squad worker.

<comment><USER8> Statistically, and with $500 as a reward, it seems plausible that a technician from time to time might plant something to collect the bounty. I would wonder what the 'chain of custody' is and/or the specific techniques used that would prove this was not possible. After all from what I read they aren't even looking for corroborating evidence just parts of files w/o knowledge of how they even got there.

<comment><USER9> It's a valid concern, but on the cases I have seen, convictions don't come from one piece of evidence, the initial evidence leads to far more.

But even a dead end investigation (from a mistaken or false pretenses) can be a large burden on the accused

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is pretty clear cut and I hope it gets decided the right way. The 4th amendment doesn't apply to private actors acting of their own accord, but _does apply_ to private actors acting as agents of the government. The payments make this a slam dunk--the Best Buy employees were working as agents of the FBI and any searches they did require a warrant.

<comment><USER11> But where does that put 'mandatory reporters'? Many folks in a position to observe children are required to report signs of abuse. Are they 'agents of the government'? I imagine this complicates their job e.g. health care where they ask very personal questions.

Also, no warrant would be required to perform a search _when requested by the citizen_ , right? "Please, officer, look in my trunk!"

<comment><USER12> Mandatory reporters aren't conducting searches.

 _Also, no warrant would be required to perform a search when requested by the citizen, right? "Please, officer, look in my trunk!"_

No, of course not. (Actually, I believe that accepted doctrine has changed since "99 Problems" was written and a locked trunk is no longer safe from warrentless search.)

<comment><USER13> At least the last time I was searched (11 years ago), it was still "requested" by the officer, so I'm assuming I could have said no and he would have had to get a warrant, etc, but he let me know that he could either search my truck or ticket me for my tire hitting the white line (which may be illegal, or may not be, I don't know).

Had I been smarter, I would have taken the ticket and fought it in court, but as a scared 18 year old, I allowed myself to be cuffed, placed in the backseat of a cop car while he tossed my truck. He had ever opportunity to plant anything he wanted, and thankfully he wasn't too corrupt of an officer - <AUTHOR> than coercing an illegal search.

That is why I have a slight anti-police bias. I have family in the force, so I try to be respectful of police, and I know plenty of amazing police officers, but there are a lot of bad apples that spoil the bunch.

<comment><USER14> I was "asked" to exit my vehicle by no less than 6 officers pointing their service pistol directly at me and yelling at me...

I was walked backwards, hands on head to a police car and cuffed, thrown down on the hood and very physically frisked (ever had someone literally pull your balls down ... yeah)

I stood with my hands behind my back for 10 minutes sitting on them, very painfully (i am a big dude, but i was larger then, over 420lbs (this plays into the story later)

I was talked to like i was trash while officers begin looking through my truck, throwing everything out of place...

...

Want to know why this happened? Because 10 minutes earlier someone robbed the store i was driving behind. His description was a SKINNY male (the word "skinny" was specifically used) with dark hair and a beard. Even through the window of my truck, if you could tell i had a beard, you could tell i wasnt skinny. I was of course let go... but basically my truck was ransacked, left completely a mess, and I was left feeling rather victimized (its not a good feeling knowing 6 guns are loaded and pointed at you with no safety on... its a lot more impactful than you think before it happens to you) ...

At the end of the day, any one with common sense isnt going to think the person who (on foot) robbed a store is going to drive right by the store, surrounded by police officers, 10 minutes later... and i didnt even match the description... yet somehow their warrantless search of my vehicle and self were totally legal and fine...

These were just assholes who wanted to get all hopped up on being the hero that day...

Oh, and at the end... the whole thing ended with the last words of the cop being "you're lucky we arent citing you for your license plate light being out" ... thats how cold cops are, thats what law enforcement is in America... its a bunch of losers who get handed power (because what kind of person seeks out power through a badge and a gun) and in turn, look for every opportunity to use said power in extreme ways to get their kicks...

Warrants are just peices of paper... intimidation is the way of the police now. That's their preferred method of getting what they want

<comment><USER13> You know what always left me the most pissed about the whole thing. My truck being left a complete trashed mess. It took me 15-20 minutes to get it back to 90% organized.

I had tapes and CDs (remember those) thrown out of their cases, my clipboard for work was broken, my flashlight was opened and the batteries thrown about.

Had he been respectful of my things, it would have just been a laughing matter about how I used a "drug dealer's" driveway to turn around, but instead he ripped apart my truck looking for god only knows what, just to drive off without helping put anything back in its place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If the Best Buy employee is paid for a successful find, what's to prevent an entrepreneurial employee from placing his own images onto a computer?

<comment><USER16> And it's not like we haven't figured this out already: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hasn't chain of custody been broken then? How can we be sure that the Best Buy tech didn't put illegal images on the machine.

<comment><USER18> 'Chain of custody' only starts on seizure. There are no 'chain of custody' issues either when a drug lab is dismantled - sure, some guy in a ski mask might have broken into that garage the night before and put all that stuff there, doesn't make it a chain of custody issue. More similar to the OP, when an electrician finds a mj plantation when doing routine network maintenance (replace a meter, maybe), there is no chain of custody problem either.

<comment><USER19> So then it is on the FBI to prove _beyond a reasonable doubt_ that the files were placed on the computer _by the owner_. Not by the technician.

Which in court will effectively end up being _computer forensic expert_ vs _computer forensic expert_ lecturing a jury of people who don't understand computers.

<comment><USER18> Sure, but (unless I'm misreading your undertone) what's the problem then? When the police find a bloody knife on somebody's kitchen table and the blood matches that of the victim that bled out outside, they also have to prove that it's the owner's. Everybody in this thread is up in arms how there is no way to 'prove' the files were the owner's, like it's some sort of special case that no lawyer or judge ever had to consider before. There's nothing special about the 'evidence' angle of this issue.

<comment><USER19> The main issue is things get pretty harry around computers. Primarily because you can modify the state of a computer without physical entry.

For example if I plant murder evidence in your home either myself, or an associate of mine must of physically entered your residence. We likely came into contact with the physical item, handling it, etc. Furthermore the associate if caught is _very_ likely to roll on me.

For computers none of these are true.

I could automate placing child-porn on THOUSANDS of computers. If done properly there would be little to no evidence the owner did not do this themselves.

I could plant child porn in your computer _while_ I'm _pretending_ to be somebody else (IP + MAC + login location + OS + credentials, etc.) so even if the CP was _proven_ to be planted it is traced to somebody else and they prosecuted.

There is no parallel to this in the real world. The game theory of bribing somebody to do your dirty work is far far messier then a bot. Computers offer ways of hiding that make the physical world laughable.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, no. I know that us 'computer people' like to think that it's different but it's not. Anything you do digitally leaves traces. Sure, 'if done properly' (like if you're some sort of Mission Impossible or CSI: Cyber style 'hack god'), anything is possible. But that's the same for physical break ins - if you do it 'properly' you can frame someone else, too. No sure why you think the 'associate' scenario would be different between digital and physical either; why would a computer tech not 'roll on you'?

This discussion is in the context of evidence. People are insinuation that somehow digital crime is different because you can't 'prove' one thing or the other, because anything could be faked (that's the gist of the argument). My point is that this is vastly ignorant of the hundreds of years of experience dealing with such uncertainty in the judicial system. Sure, it's not statistics and it's not 'logic' the same way 'we' (i.e., quantitatively, closed-system oriented people) interpret those terms, but that doesn't mean we're now somehow in a completely different world. Put differently, the STEM mindset doesn't have a monopoly on 'the truth', as much as we like to think we do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Something I'm sure is missing from this discussion is that there is a specific legal duty to report anything that constitutes child pornography to the authorities.

The NCMEC is the clearinghouse for this sort of information and my former employer had regular training on what our legal responsibilities were with respect to this.

[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A)

I can't be certain about this case, but I'd suspect that this was somehow wrapped up in the reporting requirement and things went off the rails after that.

<comment><USER21> The initial reporting suggests that abandoning this reporting requirement is basically the problem here.

Specifically: the (good) reporting requirement holds that discovered content must be reported. The new setup effectively pays bounties for anything discovered, and there's a lot of concern that it will prompt fishing expeditions without cause. It also blurs the lines of private search since it's possible to put bounties on other content without a reporting requirement.

And, of course, the FBIs initial filings in the case appear to have systematically tried to hide that this was anything other than normal reporting.

<comment><USER22> It also taints the evidence- how can the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the files weren't planted their by the technician in order to collect the bounty?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This article isn't about searches; it's about the technicians reporting something they happen to see in the course of their business relationship with the customer. I don't see how this is any different than a CI reporting information to LEOs on crimes "in the street".

In other words, a warrant is still required before LEOs can look for information themselves to persue charges.

If the FBI were really asking Best Buy to search everything they work on for illegal/contraband items, that would be entirely different.

<comment><USER24> > This article isn't about searches; it's about the technicians reporting > something they happen to see in the course of their business relationship > with the customer.

If I witness a hit-and-run, will the local police department pay me for it? If I wave a traffic cop over to an illegally parked car, do I get a cut of the fine the driver pays?

<comment><USER23> I've heard of local PD paying for tips/information on things like petty crimes and misdemeanors (though, maybe not parking). I have no proof of such a thing, but I can't see why they would not do it if circumstances allow.

> If I witness a hit-and-run

IANAL, but I suspect that's the important distinction. You witnessed something, you didn't search for it. Just like these Best Buy technicians witnessed the illegal/contraband items.

<comment><USER25> I think that the issue comes in when people have the option of both plain sight and searching. For example if an electrician is paid by the local PD to report drug paraphernalia they now have an incentive on future calls to poke around where they don't strictly need to be. How do you know whether they conducted an illegal search (as an agent of the government since they are paid if they find something) vs. saw it in the regular course of their duties? To me that is the key. The person is already in a somewhat privileged position, not just standing on a street corner with their eyes open. The payment creates a conflict of interest, thereby making anything they find suspect.

<comment><USER23> I agree with you... What I'm saying is even with someone reporting information from a "privileged position", the Police _still_ need a search warrant to gain that knowledge in a way they could charge someone with a crime.

If Police want to move forward with charges based on information from a paid CI alone, they are certainly able to do so. However, I doubt it happens very often because they know they need evidence collected via the correct legal process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As a political independent, one very concerned with personal privacy, yet also with conduct in society as a whole according to rules / laws / expectations, I think here's the crux of the argument:

> _The case raises issues about privacy and the government use of informants. > If a customer turns over their computer for repair, do they forfeit their > expectation of privacy, and their Fourth Amendment protection from > unreasonable searches?_

This would be a good piece for the legal eagles on here to mull over I think. In my view, a business transaction should be defined; in the way First Amendment doesn't mean diddly on Twitter, Fourth Amendment doesn't apply in a private party exchange that is open ended.

> _Best Buy searching a computer is legal — the customer authorized it, and > the law does not prohibit private searches. But if Best Buy serves as an arm > of the government, then a warrant or specific consent is needed._

Well how about that! Pretty clear cut, except for the interjected of OOOOH BUT WHAT IF GOVERNMENT angle. If an Electrician stumbles upon a drug lab after being hired by a private party, then reports the crime and is potentially compensated, do I have a problem with that? The Electrician was functioning as an Electrician, not as a government agent. I'm actually kind of okay with private citizens having concerns about inheriting illegal activity knowledge and being, well, powerless. That leads to vigilantism maybe?

I'd like to think, hard as it might be from time to time, that the justice system will function as intended, and this is a Defense Attorney holding a deck of cards that pretty much all allude to guilt, so attacking the source is a reasonable move. Get the evidence thrown out, right? Except I don't think it's so easy in this case. Maybe when somebody starts going door-to-door offering computer repair services but really are just on the payroll by an LEO, yeah, a line has been crossed. Hm.

<comment><USER27> I think it comes down to whether these people are acting on their own initiative or whether they're being told to do this stuff beforehand.

To take your electrician example, I have no problem with the scenario you present. Where I'd have a problem is if the police set up a program to recruit electricians and ask them to keep an eye out for illegal activities, and promised them payment if they find stuff.

Protections against illegal searches can't be this easy to work around, otherwise what would be the point of having them? If this was sufficient to satisfy the 4th Amendment, then any time the police wanted to search a house, all they'd have to do is, say, contact a local utility and have one of their employees pretend to check the property and report back all the illegal stuff they saw. (And I'm sure someone will post a link to a story about police doing exactly that.)

<comment><USER28> > And I'm sure someone will post a link to a story about police doing exactly > that.

I'm pretty sure it's been done, yes (though I don't have a case that I can cite). What's more interesting to me, though, is that it's not done _all the time_.

Why isn't it? I suspect because the courts take a dim view of this kind of stunt (again, I don't have a case to cite). But in the current climate, if this would pass muster with the courts, wouldn't the police do it frequently? Frequently enough that we'd hear about it somewhat regularly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So, would anyone care to comment on the analogous, "offline" scenario here for a better baseline? Consider the two scenarios. Do either (both?) have legal or moral standing?

1\. I bring a suit to the dry cleaners. I leave a firearm in the pocket. The feds visit me to inquire about the firearm.

2\. I bring a suit to the dry cleaners. I leave pictures of child porn in the pocket. The feds visit me about said porn.

<comment><USER30> the nuance is how big or small the "pocket" is. If your dry cleaner opens up your suit examining every nook and cranny, even areas between the fabric which you have no access to, then collects the dust particles and scans them in a chromatography machine and calls the cops when they find one particle of cocaine, they _knew_ without a doubt came from your suit, and forward the chromatograph results to the FBI who prosecutes you for drug possession. Thats a closer offline scenario to whats going on here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The US is more and more looking like East Germany, everybody spies on everybody else.

</comment><comment><USER32> Forgive the petty distraction, but did anyone notice the outdated dress code in the picture at the top of the story? They've got people doing manual labor in a repair shop far from customers, and making them wear white shirts and ties.

They try to compensate for the inappropriate dress code by wearing loose and short-sleeved clothing (they probably have to do something to hold their ties too), but that only makes it look more awkward.

Is this common in computer repair? Is it common in the eastern US?

I had hoped we had moved past that era. Or perhaps I've become too prima donna since I've become a developer. But the oppressive dress code hurts my soul as much as the FBI using geeks to search for child porn.

<comment><USER33> It may have to do with the "geek squad" name and image. Historically, a short sleeve dress shirt, necktie, and polyester pants, were considered to be the uniform of an engineer or service tech. There was no corresponding stereotype for women, but I remember during my summer internship in a computer facility 30+ years ago, that pretty much everybody held to a similar aesthetic.

<comment><USER32> I can understand why they might want to project an image, even an outdated image if, for example, their customers are older.

But who are they projecting that image to? There's no customers around and I don't think that projected image holds the same meaning to the millenials in the picture. To them, it sends the message that they work at a company like Initech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So the Best Buy employees were in possession of child abuse material and even used it to make profit? Sounds like they should be charged for abusing children. Merely viewing it or possessing it harms children, so no excuses. Even the FBI shouldn't be allowed to posses it.

</comment><comment><USER35> No offence but if the Washington Post wants to convince people that computer technicians should not be able to report to the FBI whatever they find in their costumer's computers, they should use examples other than a doctor having child porn in his drive.

<comment><USER36> Did you miss the part where the FBI is paying this technician to specifically look for any potentially questionable material?

No-one is arguing that reporting something that you stumble upon while doing your job is wrong. This isn't what happened here. This tech was paid to go out of his way to search the computer for the potential of incriminating data.

Aka, this is a search without a warrant.

Also, of course the media is going to use and abuse "think of the children". This is how politicians convince the public to accept more surveillance and give up their freedoms.

<comment><USER35> I don't agree with the "search without a warrant" part, because it sounds like they specifically were going after this doctor, when they were just looking for whatever they could find in any consumer drive to report it.

There is also no proof that this technician was looking into unallocated sectors of the drive just to find something to incriminate customers, since looking into unallocated sectors is standard practice to recover missing files.

<comment><USER37> _> because it sounds like they specifically were going after this doctor, when they were just looking for whatever they could find in any consumer drive to report it._

Walking into every house on a street or in a city and searching it for drugs is still a highly illegal search. Whether or not a specific person was targeted is entirely beside the point.

<comment><USER11> Walking into a house when the owner says "Please walk into my house and look for my lost stuff. I'll pay you" changes the equation, right?

<comment><USER24> Not if the owner says "Walk into my house and fix my boiler", and you start digging through his underwear drawer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> >"There was no evidence of how the contraband got onto Dr. Rettenmaier's hard drive," Riddet wrote, "and it could have gotten there before he possessed the computer or against his will."

Ha ha ha, no mention of his cell phone which contained ~800 images of (fully and partially) nude girls. [1]

Another article I saw on this was claiming it wasn't child pornography because it wasn't depicting a sexual act. While that is true on a technicality, you still have multiple devices with pictures of underage girls. The image found on his computer was of a prepubescent girl, which a choker on, on all fours. [2]

I am in computer security. If you allow someone else to access your computer (or your traffic, see: ISP) and they find something, and report it, I don't see how that constitutes an illegal search. I had some friends on FB freaking out about this case and the fourth amendment, I am totally fine with it. Good on the Best Buy tech and good on the FBI. This guy had pictures of under age girls on his devices and works in a position of power (gyno doctor). I'm glad this has come to light and I hope he goes to prison.

1\. [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fbis-use-best-buy-geek-squad- inform...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fbis-use-best-buy-geek-squad-informants- exposed-long-running-child-porn-probe-1600279)

2\. [http://www.ocweekly.com/news/best-buy-geek-squad- informant-u...](http://www.ocweekly.com/news/best-buy-geek-squad-informant- use-has-fbi-on-defense-in-child-porn-case-7794252)

<comment><USER39> Is there any actual evidence of those phone pictures, besides "sources reported"?

Also, he had photos in his unallocated space. Which could happen to you, if someone sent you an email or link, you opened it, and immediately deleted them. Sure, you might be aware enough not do this. Should we jail someone because they aren't?

It's easy to forget the legal protections when it's someone we have prejudged. Hopefully they will still be around when they come for you.

<comment><USER38> Is there usually evidence provided to the public in ongoing court cases? There is just as much evidence that the Best Buy employee was paid by the FBI. We have what is reported in the news.

So, with the reported deleted photo, and the reported photos on his mobile, yes, I have prejudged him. He can be innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the state, I am not the state though.

In this article [1] it says "prosecutors said", is that a good enough source? If a fact is not proven in a laboratory setting and peer reviewed do you disbelieve it?

1\. [http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-geek-squad- child...](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-geek-squad-child- porn-20160521-snap-story.html)

Edit: Oh, but what if someone emailed him those 800 photos, he only opened them momentarily and then deleted them? Get your head out of the sand.

<comment><USER39> _He can be innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the state_

Why? That's just another of those legal protections, like the 4th Amendment, which you don't seem to care much about.

 _In this article [1] it says "prosecutors said", is that a good enough source? If a fact is not proven in a laboratory setting and peer reviewed do you disbelieve it?_

If a fact is claimed by the cops when they are trying to convince someone based on nothing but a few deleted files, I sure as hell don't take it as a matter of faith. Cops and prosecutors lie all the time, especially to the press.

In fact, notice how they don't claim the girls in the phone pictures are underaged? For all we know, the guy simply likes to download perfectly legal pictures of nude 18+ girls for some file sharing sites, and happened to mistakenly also download a few illegal pictures, which he deleted.

But regardless of facts, his life is now ruined, because many people will have prejudge him based on almost nothing, and he'll probably never be able to practice again even if he's acquitted.

For the feds, that's just Monday, of course.

\---

In any case, my real point isn't whether you should think he's guilty, but that we shouldn't take away his legal protections just because we think he's guilty, because the whole point is that they must be universal. Cases against unsympathetic defendants are exactly what prosecutors use to further the erosion of legal rights. For everyone's sake, don't play their game.

<comment><USER38> Authorizing a third party to work on your device does not constitute an illegal search. I would expect the exact same legal protections as he got. If I authorize a third party service to work on my device I assume they will be viewing the files. If I have illegal material on my computer I respect their duty to report it.

Getting a 500 dollar payment from the government does not make you an agent of the state. At 15 dollars an hour that would buy ~33 hours of the employee's time. Two months later his coworker discovered the photo. Oh, and it lead to a search that discovered more child pornography. Should there be no reward system for crime tips?

>Authorities say they also found child pornography on a laptop, multiple hard drives and an iPhone belonging to Rettenmaier.

Maybe all those hard drives were just mailed to him though and he was in the process of deleting them. This is just someone trying to get out on a technicality.

You can email the author of that article if you have questions on the sources. Maybe he can point you to court documents.

1\. [http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt- me-0521...](http://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-0521-best- buy-update-20160520-story.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elements of Programming - <AUTHOR> http://elementsofprogramming.com/ <comment><USER2> If you want an intro to the content of this book you can checkout Stepanov's phenomenal lectures on A9:

"Efficient Programming with Components" \- [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHxtyCq_WDLXryyw91lah...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHxtyCq_WDLXryyw91lahwdtpZsmo4BGD)

"Programming Conversations" \- [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGvfHSgImk4Y1thqJLpcS...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGvfHSgImk4Y1thqJLpcSscMTwgN- XM9l)

I warn you though, this is a philosophical and painstakingly detailed intro in to this way of thinking that takes an entire series of videos to build up a single algorithm, in C++, bit by bit, episode by episode. It also happens to be one of my favorite lecture series.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like Stepanov, he shows integrity. And I'm ever grateful for his influence on C++.

I'm also fairly experienced, having spent the last 30 years or so writing code. Every kind of code you can think of in any language. Which means I'm fairly used to juggling abstractions.

But I just couldn't crack this one, I lack the motivation needed to work this elevation for extended periods of time. I need some kind of real-world connection now and then to make sure what I'm learning is at all useful.

I got the book when it just came out, and haven't tried since, but I'm pretty sure the problem persists. I have even less patience with academic abstractionitis these days.

I would be very interested to learn how and why people find the information contained in the book useful.

<comment><USER4> After reading this book, I built a high throughput, multi-threaded processing system in C++ that didn't use any mutex because I was able to define my operations as both commutative and associative. Because I was able to start thinking at that level thanks to this book it led me to a better design of my system.

It's worth reading, you will get something out of it! But it is a lot of work!

<comment><USER5> That's really cool!

Do you mind maybe explain how you were able to communicative and associative props to avoid using semaphores/mutex?

There seems to be a lot of complaints here about the formality of it all. My preference is usually for more formal literature, just because it tends to lend for a more powerful tool for me. With that said, did you find it to be too formal?

<comment><USER4> those properties allow you to divide up work on data in a way that guarantees that no two processes will work on the same data at the same time. You can then take data, divide it up, use 'const correctness' in the language to guarantee original data doesn't change and then you don't need a mutex because you know only one thread is working on that piece of data.

A typical approach is if you can divide your algo into map/reduce, you can do this. Going back to the properties of you computation allows you to reason how to apply something like map/reduce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This book is non-trivial. Programmers without a background in Mathematics should take care not to be intimidated by the formalism and lose heart while studying this book (i myself have not finished it). Some knowledge of Discrete Mathematics, Logic and in particular; Abstract Algebra are prerequisites. I can recommend [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201179571/ref=dbs_a_def_r...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201179571/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0) for the reqd. background. It is one thing to know mathematical concepts and quite another to know how to apply it to programming. That is where this book comes in.

</comment><comment><USER7> OMG, that's great. i have the follow-up book, from mathematics to generic programming -- hardcore read for someone who is no expert at maths or cplusplus but still a phenomenal read.

i have had elements of programming on my wishlist for a while and saw the price skyrocketed on amazon. the book is being sold used for $200+ on amazon right now. i am just going to get the lulu paperback because that's a steal right now. big fan of Alexander Stepanov.

<comment><USER8> Wow, thanks for sharing your recommendation. I would not have considered reading this book, if I hadn't read your comment.

And I'd never heard about _From Mathematics to Generic Programming_. I'm definitely going to check it out! It seems like a really cool book.

<comment><USER9> While you won't have any trouble finding "From Mathematics to Generic Programming," you may be interested in the book's website, [http://www.fm2gp.com/](http://www.fm2gp.com/) , which includes a sample chapter and links to interviews about the book, including one with Lakos:

"John: ... How — and please be brutally honest — would you contrast your experiences of co-authoring a book with Dan versus Paul?

"Alex: The goals of the books were quite different. Both books have their place.

"Paul convinced me that it is essential to write a very formal treatise in order to unambiguously define the foundations of generic programming. He thought that the conversational style of my lectures undermines the seriousness of the subject. I agree with him. We wrote a very terse, but — in my opinion — elegant book. Some people appreciate it; but it is clearly not for everyone. I am very grateful to Paul. He is and will always remain my close friend. I would gladly collaborate with him on another book.

"Dan had a different idea. He thought that what was needed was a more accessible book, and I agree with him as well. And he led the work in such a direction. I would love to collaborate with him on another book as well."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This book is really good, really dense but the ideas have inspired a generation.

In this video, Sean Parent, at the time working at Adobe on Photoshop, estimated that if PS codebase followed ideas from this book, the codebase could be reduced from 3,000,000 LOC to 30,000 LOC.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4moyKUHApq4&t=39m30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4moyKUHApq4&t=39m30s)

<comment><USER11> so if you put Sean Parent and Alan Kay in a room, they'd reduce the sum of all programs running in the world into a single floppy

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Stepanov's work on the STL was revolutionary. I personally came to mathematical programming via the Dijkstra/Scholten route, but this is an excellent work at an unbeatable price.

<comment><USER13> Programming using std::algorithms feels very mathy in general (for better or worse).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This book was a huge influence on me when it came out.

<comment><USER11> Any similar books come to your mind ?

<comment><USER14> If you mean something that's influenced my way of thinking: not a book, but some transcribed lectures: On the meanings of the logical constants and the justifications of the logical laws by Martin-Lof [0]

If you mean something that takes a very mathematical approach to deriving programs: Algebra of Programming by Bird and de Moor [1]

[0] (pdf) [https://ncatlab.org/nlab/files/MartinLofOnTheMeaning96.pdf](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/files/MartinLofOnTheMeaning96.pdf)

[1] (pdf) [https://themattchan.com/docs/algprog.pdf](https://themattchan.com/docs/algprog.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Thanks, these looks great

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems clear that theories of software should continue to develop this level of formalism if we ever hope to trust it with our lives (eg software-piloted automobiles, safety mechanisms, nuclear technology, etc).

Imagine if car manufacturers had formal proofs of their claims regarding self- driving car software and it's predictability / reliability. This is not a situation for trial-by-error.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thank you very much for posting the link! This book is phenomenal. The prices for previous editions were pricing me out; now ordered a paperback for myself.</comment>


The First Rule of Startup Mentorship: The Entrepreneur Is Never Wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/first-rule-startup-mentorship-entrepreneur-never-wrong-roee-adler/ <comment><USER2> The first rule of reality: Those who believe they are never wrong always are.</comment>


Show HN: cdnjs - RSS & Atom feeds for new JavaScript libraries - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
Now that we host over 300 libraries and regularly receive  updates from the community we have added an rss/atom feed for cdnjs.com that keeps you up to date with the latest library additions and updates.
The feed is located at http://cdnjs.com/rss.xml and http://cdnjs.com/atom.xml
Try the feed here:
http://feedreader.com/myfeeds/add.html#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdnjs.com%2Frss.xml
If you have any feedback or suggestions we'd love to hear about it over at https://github.com/cdnjs/cdnjs/issues. Thanks to everyone who contributes and CloudFlare for hosting the service. <comment><USER2> Cool, thanks for sharing, I was juts checking it and have generated an extended feed (using <https://www.feedsapi.org> ) with the full code delivered to my reader and my email inbox, here's the link: <http://goo.gl/UGfK3> OR the longer version [http://www.feedsapi.org/fetch.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdnjs.com...](http://www.feedsapi.org/fetch.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcdnjs.com%2Frss.xml&key=8&hash=f7d8ce419b76a059d68502487c15b845ab017a7b&email=&max=10&links=preserve&exc=)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool. Now we just need a service on top that will filter it out for just the libraries we care about! Will be perfect for staying up to date with all the libraries!</comment>