Keyboard Service Program for MacBook and MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook-and-macbook-pro/ <comment><USER3> It's illuminating how predictable Apple is in these matters. The subhead of a month-old article on one of the class-action lawsuits filed over this issue:

 _" Apple faulty product flowchart: Deny --> Get sued --> Admit --> Initiate repair program"_ [0]

The next step is for the class-action suits to wither on the vine because Apple can say it's providing relief.

[0]: [https://www.techspot.com/news/74772-apple-facing-second- clas...](https://www.techspot.com/news/74772-apple-facing-second-class-action- lawsuit-over-faulty.html)

<comment><USER4> Then repair with the same substandard part that ends up failing again later. e.g. 2011 Macbook Pro with the GPU problem.

I've got such a 2011 Macbook Pro, and it had a logic board replacement to fix the GPU problem in late 2014 and now that logic board has failed with the same problem.

<comment><USER3> The program only covers "4 years after the first retail sale of the unit." All Apple has to do is kick the can down the road until then.

<comment><USER5> Four years seems like a reasonable amount of time to cover an issue. If it fails after that, it's time to buy a new computer anyway.

<comment><USER6> > it's time to buy a new computer anyway.

Why if your older computer is working fine and you are happy with it?

<comment><USER7> Don't buy a new computer then...

<comment><USER6> That is my point.

<comment><USER5> And my point was that 4 years is completely acceptable amount of coverage. If you want to keep your computer longer, by all means, but you shouldn't expect repairs to be covered forever.

<comment><USER6> > but you shouldn't expect repairs to be covered forever.

or you could design your products so that if it breaks, its easier for the user to repair it themselves instead of advocating for throwing it in the trash and buying a new product.

<comment><USER8> Vote with your wallet and buy a ThinkPad?

<comment><USER9> I have a Thinkpad from work and a MagSafe MacBook at home. I wanted to love the Thinkpad so I don't have to even entertain the possibility of being ripped off buying a new MacBook in the next couple of years. It's a great pc laptop, better than most I've used. But it's not in the same league as my old MacBook. A lot of the problem is how the hardware works under windows - it just doesn't quite 'click'. It feels disjointed and it's really not enjoyable to use. I've only had it for a few months so it may grow on me. But the trackpad is really bad, like all other pc laptops I've tried. How on earth did they (Microsoft? Lenovo?) decide dragging a single finger on the trackpad could sometimes be a drag, rather than moving the pointer? Did anyone actually test it and decide it was good? Or just 'good enough'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sometime computer technician here. I've replaced a few keyboards on some of the earlier affected models. This is tedious, time-consuming repair with a lot of small screws.

Here's a photo of the screws with a grain of uncooked rice for scale: [https://imgur.com/gallery/En32MFP](https://imgur.com/gallery/En32MFP) (image safe for work)

For most of my repairs, it worked out more cost-effective to purchase a new MacBook top with keyboard attached, and just transfer the logic board, than spend time unscrewing, fitting the keyboard and refitting the masses of tiny screws.

On labour/consultancy alone, I suspect this will be an expensive per-case recall.

<comment><USER11> Among my many hats, I do some official Apple work.

What you are talking about is not allowed for work done under Apple.

The top case is one part which cannot be disassembled so far as they are concerned. It contains the main part of the shell, the keyboard, the trackpad, and the battery. A failure in any part of it is to be serviced by a complete replacement of the top case.

It is not an exceptionally expensive component, but it is a significant amount of labor. The top case is pretty much the "base" that all other components are attached to. Which means you take everything else out (logic board, display, fans, vent, etc) and move it to the new one.

Also, the touch ID bit is a bitch to move.

<comment><USER12> Maybe something like this will finally force Apple to start making their laptops more serviceable.

After being an Apple user since 2006, I've just switched to a Thinkpad for my home machine. Compared to a MacBook Air, the X series is only 1mm thicker, but smaller in all other dimensions, including weight. Yet I can upgrade the storage and memory, and replace parts myself that fail (the battery can be swapped while it's running). It also has a full array of ports including USB type A & C, HDMI, headphone jack, SD card slot (the latest version has replaced the Ethernet port with a dongle).

Admitidely they don't look as nice, but I'm not really a design sensitive person.

<comment><USER13> How is the trackpad? I intentionally bought a MacBook Pro late 2015 version just before they went out of stock because I actually like all those "old" ports, the old keyboard and so on.

I'd prefer to stay on os/x because Linux is still tedious in the way that you have to configure it to make it tolerable and windows had gone from great (7) to something that annoys me on a daily basis (10).

But I'm mainly scared of the mouse. The MacBook trackpad is damn near magical and I'm not sure I could ever use a laptop with a trackpad that didn't come close to it. The price point and the design choices on the MacBook line as well as it's price point (price can be mitigated by buying older versions like I did) have made me consider other options, thinkpads being the main competitor. But how is the trackpad?

<comment><USER14> A coworker got himself a T470p (I think), the trackpad hardware is fine, albeit a bit small for my taste; the problem to me is more about how it is leveraged by the software (OS) side of things: both Linux DEs and Windows make visual feedback of multitouch gestures feel weird somehow. Maybe that's a habit of mine being used to macOS though. I'm not overly fond of the trackpoint, but that's a nice option and it's right on the home row next to HJKL. I hate how the B letter is offset though, kinda ridiculous but I find it a real eyesore and an aesthetic failure somehow.

<comment><USER15> I have a t460p for software development, which is basically the same machine as that t470p, and absolutely love it. It has workstation-class performance with the quad core i7, 32 gb ram and dedicated nvidia graphics, all of which can run full blast without throttling. But if I use it moderately it still has all day battery life.

I almost never use the trackpad, preferring a mouse. I don't like them even on macbooks (I also have a macbook air for casual use). But it's definitely worse than macbooks.

I never noticed the offset b, but now that you've pointed it out to me it's going to bug me. Thanks. I do like the keyboard better than the air's keyboard. I haven't used the new mb pro's keyboard to any extent so can't compare, but I like a bit of key travel so probably would still prefer the lenovo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been putting off buying a new laptop over concerns about the keyboard and overall fragileness. I was debating ditching Mac for the first time in like 15years. This makes me more likely to choose Mac since they are admitting it's a problem and they'll fix it out of warranty without question.

My big concern was getting the extended warranty and then having it break just outside the warranty period leaving me stuck with a big repair bill.

Personally I still think they should make a 32Gig Memory MacBook Pro, that's built like a tank, maybe it weighs 5+ pounds, who cares, people who want a light fragile comp can just get the non-Pro model.

edit: updated "4 pounds" to "5+ pounds" since apparently it's already 4.5 pounds

<comment><USER17> I personally think this issue is overblown in terms of frequency in the internet outrage echo chamber. So so many of these devices among the people I work with professionally, not a single failure out of anyone I've ever met. Yet, reading Apple posts online, you would think every MacBook Pro sold has a failing keyboard.

<comment><USER18> This issue is not overblown. I've used nothing but Macs since 2001, and am now at the third company I've worked at that maintains a substantial fleet of Macbooks. This most recent keyboard debacle is the worst thing that ever happened to the Macbook platform.

Literally every single MBP in our office has failed, some of them more than once. The failure mode is always the same: the keyboard gets flaky, then you lose a key for a couple hours until you manage to finagle it back into working, then you lose 1-2 more keys and they never work properly again. The only fix is to turn it over to Apple for several days, _which means you can 't count on a single MBP per employee_, because at any given moment --- with near certainty --- someone's laptop will be taken out for several days.

On the plus side, it's a little bit like Chaos Monkey for backups, since you always know you're probably just a day or two away from needing to swap machines.

It sounds like a minor thing, I get it! "Sticking keys, oh no!" The problem is: _you can 't type_. The only way to be typing again on your machine is to have it sent away for several days. That's a disaster.

<comment><USER19> > Literally every single MBP in our office has failed

I respect you and your posts generally, but I can guarantee that's a hyperbolic statement if sample size is greater than maybe a small handful.

<comment><USER20> My sample size is 1 and I've witnessed this exact failure mode.

This computer is far and away the worst machine I've had in my professional career.

<comment><USER21> That settles it then! We have now proven that the amount of devices that fail is 100% with an uncertainty of about 100%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The quality at Apple, in both software and hardware, has obviously declined in the past couple years as their supply chain has come under strain.

In the past three years:

my MacBook has had replaced

\- The screen

\- The battery

\- The keyboard

My iPad had it's screen replaced, and my iPhone had its battery replaced.

None of these are covered under AppleCare, they've all been replaced under individual recall programs.

Sure, they have fixed each issue for free, so that's fine, but for what is supposed to be the most dependable consumer hardware on the market, it's rather surprising.

<comment><USER23> To me, this speaks to the incredible layers of protection Apple has in making sure their hardware consumers have as good of an experience as possible, even when they have unexpected issues. I really think some people would choose Apple solely because Apple would do these repairs for free, in a way that is the least amount of hassle to the consumer. (i.e, you can have a real conversation with a real person.)

Otherwise, do people generally think that other computer manufacturers have't had issues, or that Apple is purposefully trying to have a lower quality product? Are people away of the amount of reliability testing that Apple does in house? It's easy to point an ignorant finger at them, but we're better than that. Where's the data?

If anything, the closest thing we have to data right now is what they say on their website: a _small number_ of laptops have a malfunctioning keyboard. Is it even legal for them to say that if it really were most of them?

<comment><USER24> This is a ridiculous take. I have a MacBook 12" that had key problems. I went to the Apple store and they wanted to charge me $570 to fix it. I got a replacement key online for $13 and did it myself. Charging $570 to fix your own mistakes is not taking great care of your customers.

<comment><USER23> I totally agree that sometimes they do ask for high fees for repairs --- you still get to talk to a person though, and I definitely know a good number of people who didn't have to pay for their mistakes. (Even things that were definitely their fault, and they didn't have accidental coverage)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Did they actually solve the reliability issue or is this just a (one time?) free service to get another of these error-prone keyboards?

<comment><USER26> It seems like you'll be getting the same keyboard, but the program says nothing about limits per-computer, so if it happens again I think you just send it in again.

I have to assume this implies a redesigned keyboard is coming, though. This is going to be expensive for Apple and it would be insane to stick with a design that they are tacitly admitting here is faulty.

<comment><USER27> A lot of people say that 2017 keyboards perform better. Had no issues with mine so far and really like it.

<comment><USER28> They don't.

The 2017 keyboards feel and sound better, but are no more reliable. I've owned two 2017 MBPs and both keyboards have had issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have the theory this is one factor that prevents a 2018 MacBook. They cant make the keyboard work properly.

This and the fact they can't upgrade to CoffeeLake without going to 28W TDP. Theyd have to use 2core CPUs with Iris graphics instead of the now standard 4core in the Ultrabook space, which would make the device look like a toy. And Intel cant deliver 10nm chips. It is not looking cool. Maybe they only bring out a new, slightly chunkier 15" with 32G of lpddr4 and CoffeeLake 4core which would make a lot of video and pro people very happy.

EDIT: Coffee Lake does not support lpddr4 yet. So thr macbook is stuck with 16G RAM.

<comment><USER30> But it looks like they already have: [http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?docid=20180068808&SectionNum=1&...](http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?docid=20180068808&SectionNum=1&IDKey=F0B1C5BB130C&HomeUrl=http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- Parser?Sect1=PTO1%252526Sect2=HITOFF%252526d=PG01%252526p=1%252526u=%2525252Fnetahtml%2525252FPTO%2525252Fsrchnum.html%252526r=1%25252)

<comment><USER31> This looks great - waterproof and dust free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm on the phone with Apple customer service right now. It looks like I'm going to get a refund for the $257 I paid to have my spacebar fixed in March. The rep on the line says I'm the first person she's talked to about this but she expects a lot more.

<comment><USER33> That's just crazy. $257 for a space bar fix. That's like the price of 2 quality mechanical keyboards with RGB lighting.

<comment><USER34> It's not just 'a space bar fix'. It's a key on a highly specialized keyboard. A MBP is the same price as N Chrome books but they aren't in the same ballpark in terms of functionality.

<comment><USER35> I'm sorry, but $257 for a spacebar repair is simply absurd. To put it in perspective, $72 more would get you a base-spec iPad.

I don't know about you, but a single chiclet key and a full-fledged tablet computing device aren't in the same ballpark in terms of functionality, either.

<comment><USER36> You'd probably be surprised to find out how much it costs to replace one 2x4 in your house then. It's just a 2x4, right? How much could it cost?

Until you factor in the cost of tearing out the drywall, putting up a temporary support jack, tearing out the 2x4, putting the new one in (plus the cost of nails, of course), then running the electrical cables back through the new board, then replacing the drywall, and then of course painting the wall again.

But, you say, but you could save the extra cost and expense and labor by just not having drywall covering your 2x4s. That's certainly an option, and I'm sure some homeowners choose that.

But no, it's just a 2x4. It should be cheap, right? But when you add it all up, just another couple of dollars would buy an entire new wall!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Eligible models include:

MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015)

I used to be a Free Software fanatic (and still prefer to use it when feasible). But Apple stands behind its products like no other computer company (see also its battery replacement program) and frankly, I've been craving a Mac lately (currently using a Dell Developer Edition and a self-built desktop, both running Ubuntu).

I think I'll save up for a Mac Pro since the RAM, graphics, and SSD (not to mention screen) are relatively easy to replace or upgrade.

<comment><USER38> They stand behind their products and all it took was them getting sued first.

<comment><USER39> Honestly, it's still better than nothing.

Apple is obviously in the wrong here and they had to get sued before admitting the mistake, but it's no worse than other manufacturers. At the very least, _once_ Apple admitted it, the replacement experience is usually pleasant and takes a single appointment at an Apple Store.

Compare that with other manufacturers where you have to ship the machine to some service centre abroad _at your own cost_ and wait god knows how long before getting it back.

<comment><USER40> With a $2000+ laptop you should really get an extended warranty, and all serious manufacturers send a technician to you.

Having to go to a physical Apple store implies that there's one nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is great news for MBP/MB owners. The lack of a 2018 release of notebooks while they properly address this is the right thing to do. I wonder how much the class action lawsuits had to do with this, but I feel happy about the outcome regardless of how we got here. Net-net though, I think Apple did lose out in the sense the faulty keyboard drove a segment of their user base to experiment with a Linux or Windows based work environment when news of keyboard reliability issues surfaced after the 2016 release. Having not used a Windows based system for years, I now have a Lenovo X1 Carbon as a backup notebook after my 2017 MBP had keyboard issues. And to be honest, it's not bad with the Windows Linux Subsystem (Ubuntu installs as an app from the app store). Losing mind share is probably one of the worst things that can happen to a brand.

<comment><USER42> I don't know about that. My wife recently needed a new Macbook Pro, and I bought her the 2015 15" model since it has regular plugs. I use Linux exclusively, but those 2015 Macbook pros are perfectly fine office machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've had my topcase replaced and the problems just came back months later. Does anyone know if they have a solution to this problem or is their plan to just have me ship my machine to them every six months and avoid the class action?

<comment><USER44> The problem is that you're getting dust, food etc. behind the keys.

The solution is to use a keyboard cover. It also helps with noise as well.

<comment><USER45> Is this the "you're holding it wrong" argument?

<comment><USER44> I'm not making a argument. I hate the design more than anyone.

The problem has been acknowledged by Apple as being particles of dust, food behind the key mechanism. So the obvious solution is to cover the keys. I've had a cover for a while and now have had zero issues.

<comment><USER46> I'm sure Apple has a generous keyboard-cover licensing program for third-party vendors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I need a new computer and I've been loving my 2011 Macbook Air until now but to be honest, with the current offering, I almost feel like buying another Air before they are killed.

It's hard to beat 12 hours of battery life, Magsafe, a super slim form factor, a soft, silent keyboard, more ports, and the lit up apple.

I just wish it had smaller bezels and a better screen but apart from that, it's looking like the more logical option to me, as strange as that might sound.

<comment><USER48> Is there a reason why you are not considering PC?

<comment><USER49> I dislike these questions because they almost feel like bait.

As in, someone is going to try to refute the arguments for choosing a Mac over a PC but usually only in the shallowest of ways.

> 12h battery

"Well, the spec of a dell XPS with a 6-cell upgrade says 12 hours!"

> Thin and light

"Well, the HP Spectre is lighter!"

> MacOS is a good OS and works quite well

"Linux is good these days!"

> Magsafe

"You can buy a magNeo..." or "Well, that's not such a big issue!"

Pedantry aside, my point is that the whole package was just _slightly_ better than the alternatives. No single thing was causing the platform to be so good. The answers to these topics rarely look holistically.

And, no, I'm not a Mac fanboy- I like it enough because it has MS Office and Exchange integration along with a slew of other proprietary tools needed to work with my Microsoft heavy company, tools which do not work at all on Linux. And I cannot possibly stand Windows. (But, otherwise would prefer Linux on my precision 5520)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm glad they're admitting there's a problem. Two of my macbooks have had keys just flat out fail in different ways.

</comment><comment><USER51> They want to be exceptionally careful in Australia. They got fined $9M the other day for misleading consumers about repairs:

[https://www.smh.com.au/technology/apple-us- fined-9-million-f...](https://www.smh.com.au/technology/apple-us- fined-9-million-for-misleading-some-australian-customers-20180619-p4zmbi.html)

<comment><USER28> On this particular issue at hand, Apple is relatively quite careful and has been for a number of years. If you present a device with an issue, they will service and cover it for free for _at least_ two years. Apple's interpretation of Australian consumer law was pretty straightforward.

<comment><USER51> That's not Australian consumer law. There is no specific timeframe. This is not the first time they have been caught out on this.

<comment><USER28> I was referring to the keyboard issue, not the error 53 issue or whatever.

For the keyboard issue, it's a simple case of honouring ACL saying that devices should last for a reasonable period of time. Two years is the baseline automatic baseline for iOS and Mac within Apple, with discretion used past that.

I think the error 53 thing was a bit more nuanced and that was a genuine misinterpretation of the laws.

<comment><USER51> Yes, that's the point I'm making though. Their two year "baseline" is what seems to get them into so much trouble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Finally, I've had to replace the keyboard on my current laptop twice and I've had it less than 18 months. It's just ridiculous, it's not designed for every day use.

</comment><comment><USER53> As annoying as it is, I REALLY hope they don't get rid of the butterfly keyboard. It's superior in every way for typing, ease of fingers, speed, etc. The one problem is the annoyance of stuck keys sometimes but I just buy canned air and fix it the second it happens and it keeps it OK.

<comment><USER54> Uh, "superiority" is clearly in the eye of the beholder. I hate it, the super- short travel literally makes my fingers hurt. It's like tapping on a brick. Without an external keyboard, I would have thrown away this machine after a week.

<comment><USER53> Make sure you're not talking about butterfly v1 (which was awful, like typing on a piece of wood). V2 is where it's at

<comment><USER54> Mine is the MBPR late 2016 model, which I believe is v2 (v1 being the first one-usbC macbook).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> A good friend of mine has literally been a Mac user his entire life, for over twenty years, he's about 27...

He bought his first ThinkPad last month. And no longer uses a Mac for his main laptop.

The Second Moribundity of Apple is nigh...

<comment><USER39> I was a Thinkpad user my entire life.

I bought my first Apple laptop a year ago. I no longer use a Thinkpad as my main laptop.

Your story works both ways so what's the point you're trying to make?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Lenovo should be all over this with their Thinkpad marketing.

<comment><USER33> Here's their first ad campaign:

Lenovo - we don't charge $257 to fix your space bar.

<comment><USER11> Lenovo is pretty terrible with parts availability. It's not uncommon for parts for an enterprise-class, in warranty laptop to be unavailable/on a _long_ lead time.

Dell is far better with parts availability, although (much as I personally don't like them), Apple is better than either.

<comment><USER57> > Lenovo is pretty terrible with parts availability

Really? That's too bad - I had to replace the fan on my Lenovo T500 some years back (~2011) and they had sent one overnight-by-10:30 (and it was pretty inexpensive, too). It certainly made an impression.

I guess back then IBM still ran the parts and service business, even though Lenovo had taken over the manufacturing and marketing several years before.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Sounds familiar. Our repair from earlier this year. It broke twice, once within two weeks, then within about a further 2 months.

Just what you need when you've spent £lol money on a premium/flagship laptop

Issue: Keys sticking and popping Cosmetic Condition: Device is in good condition otherwise. Proposed Resolution: New TC & LCD

Display Assembly, Space Gray Top Case with Battery, ISO, Space Gray Hardware Repair Labor Total £ 890.50

</comment><comment><USER59> Just had my MBP 15" keyboard replaced in full under warranty, similar to what's being offered here. Pluses:

\- Full top sheet replacement includes the battery (it's glued to the top sheet), so you get a new battery too if Apple decide the keyboard needs full replacement (this is at their discretion, but you could insist on it if you have multiple failing keys). It's nice to see that battery cycle counter reset to zero.

\- I'd forgotten that the out-of-the-box keyboard feels great to type on (if you're comfortable with the low travel and having to bottom-out your keypresses, which mechanical keyboard purists tend to hate). And it's quiet. Before the replacement a train passenger asked me if I could please type more quietly. I'm a light touch-typist but it really did sound like bacon crackling at one point. There's nothing much I could do except move carriage or put the laptop away.

\- In all other respects the MBP is the best laptop I've owned, after ~20 years of Apple/Microsoft/Dell/IBM/Lenovo hardware. I considered switching away from Apple gear but now think I'll stick it out. It's hard to find comparable trackpads, screens, software, and batteries elsewhere.

Downsides:

\- The service technician said there's nothing fundamentally different about the new keyboard parts. They are flawed like the old ones.

\- Also said there's nothing much I can do to prevent this. I use an external keyboard about 80% of the time and still encountered issues with keycaps working loose and keys crackling and sticking; I expect I'll see it again before AppleCare and the 4-year replacement period is up.

\- They recommended selling the MBP as soon as Apple offers a new model without that defect. I suspect others will do the same if something better comes out, and resale values will likely take a hit as a result.

<comment><USER60> > In all other respects the MBP is the best laptop I've owned, after ~20 years > of Apple/Microsoft/Dell/IBM/Lenovo hardware. I considered switching away > from Apple gear but now think I'll stick it out. It's hard to find > comparable trackpads, screens, software, and batteries elsewhere.

My experience could not be more different. I've had two MacBooks die in the last 3 years: one from spilled water near keyboard and the other just booted with dead pixels one morning. To make matters worse, in both cases I was quote $800+ by Apple for repair.

In contrast, I have Dell laptops with 2-3x usage going back a decade that still work just fine even after fairly rough handling and numerous spills. On couple of occasions during 2000s when I did have a Dell fail, Dell either sent a replacement or sent a technician to my house to do a full repair.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I took my laptop (macbook pro 15 2017) into the store today because the 'i' and 'f' keys are now only held in place by gravity. I was surprised to hear that not only would they replace the whole keyboard but that they've resolved the issues in the replacement that I'd be receiving. Anyone know if this is true?

<comment><USER44> It's not true. The replacement top case you get will be identical to the one you have now.

And it will continue to break. Source: two replaced top cases.

<comment><USER62> It's possible that something has changed between your last visit and today... Given that Apple announced a recall, I'd say it's highly likely that they think they have fixed it.

<comment><USER63> I am curious about this also. And since I have an appt at the Apple Store tomorrow for my busted keyboard, I will be reporting back! Hopefully they will at least have a permanent fix by the time the 4-year period is up, even if they don't have it ready yet.

<comment><USER63> Reporting back: the Apple Store Stanford was able to remove the key and clean underneath it. They said if it happens again they can replace the top case, but that this happens out of store and takes 3-5 business days. (They can apparently do this in-store as well, but if something goes wrong then they have to send it out to be taken care of. Also, it's no faster if they do it in-store, apparently).

They did not know whether the new program involved replacing keyboards with improved keyboards that might be less prone to these problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Would be very interested to hear whether this is actually a long-term fix to the problem. I have had this issue many times with my MBP non-TB model, usually resolved by some compressed air under the keys.

</comment><comment><USER65> Where "certain MacBook and MacBook Pro models" means every single one? Ok.

<comment><USER66> I believe the models listed includes every model with the new type of keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Since this only covers specific models from 2015-2017, I hope this means the 2018 Macbook/Macbook Pro models (whenever they are released) will have an improved keyboard design.

<comment><USER16> Or maybe it's not on the list because the comp doesn't exist yet, maybe they'll add it to the list when it comes out.

I hope that's not the case, and we'll see a brand new redesigned, reliable keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I've missed four Apple recalls (Mac, Apple TV, and two iPhones). What's the best way to keep up to date on them? Apple has never contacted me.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'm glad to hear this. I've already been in once because of an up-arrow problem, and I'm headed back tomorrow because my space bar sticks.

Does anyone have any feedback on whether the cleaning they do in-store is as good as getting a new keyboard installed (or how long the installation takes)?

My guess is a lot of folks will be taking their MBPs in right before the four years is up to get a new keyboard going-forward.

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm definitely going to send mine in and am hoping for basically a new replacement (has happened before in old models when they do repairs for me).

My keys not only stick and sometimes the left shift doesn't work half the time. I feel like they get dirtier somehow than the old model. And the black scratches off easier.

Late '16 15 inch retina here, my keys started getting fucking about +6 months of every day use.

</comment><comment><USER70> My work Macbook is 6 months old, and the delete key only works if you hit it with a certain pressure at a certain place.

I'm tempted to send it in, but the problem is that I sort of need it for work.

I don't think I will send it in, since it's not my personal laptop, and I just use an external keyboard at work because the Macbook keyboard is terrible anyway.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person in this position.

</comment><comment><USER71> As much as I love Apple hardware I am really annoyed by how wasteful their products are. I recently took my Early 2015 MBP to the Apple store because one of the rubber feet came off, I was told that the warranty doesn't cover "non- functional issues" and that I would need to pay them £100 to replace the full bottom panel.

Anyone know a reason why they do this other than greed?

<comment><USER72> Because it costs money to store and inventory small parts. It needs a sku and a price for the part, then a sku/price for the repair/replacement. How many small rubber feet should an Apple Store keep in stock for the occasional customer who comes in and loses one? Easier to just replace a whole part that contains many of the smaller attached parts.

<comment><USER73> I'm pretty sure all the MacBook feet are exactly the same, certainly the MBP line are. They could store 10000 rubber feet in a pretty reasonably sized box....

I was amazed when two of the feet on my 2014 MBP came off on the same week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> This is very good and the reason I keep coming back to Apple is that they actually do stuff like this.

I am currently on a 2012 mbpr and it has had its screen replaced by Apple (due to the keyboard scratching the screen) and the logic board replaced by Apple (due faulty soldering around the GPU).

No other consumer electronics company offers that level of service.

<comment><USER75> They are doing it because they were sued.

<comment><USER48> Yes, exactly. They even denied problem exist til very end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> The problem is that this service will mean sending in the computer because the keyboard is not easy to replace on this model. I've heard from techs they just end up replacing the whole thing.

Does anyone know if the keyboard they plan to replace it with is better? Or is it the exact same keyboard that will end up sticking again after a month?

</comment><comment><USER63> PSA: the replacement parts that Apple is now using are not identical to the original parts that are taken out.

I learned this today from a Genius Bar employee at the Apple Store Stanford. He said that they have slightly tweaked the parts so they aren't as susceptible to jam/malfunction.

</comment><comment><USER77> Will never forgive apple after they refused to fix my late 2011 MacBook Pro which suffered from the GPU flaw.

</comment><comment><USER78> This is rich. Most manufacturers would not need to start a special program, you just mail your laptop back, no lawsuit needed. Lenovo will send a repair person to your home. Apple really is trash. You can't even replace a hard drive in their laptops. Fisher Price laptops.

<comment><USER79> Most manufacturers send a repair person when the product is out of warranty? I don't think so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> I stand corrected. I'm glad they finally decided to acknowledge the issue. We know the way they work. It probably took them months to do the CBA.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312885)

</comment><comment><USER81> One of my machines (a $3000+ 2017 15") has had several keys fail. I actually use an external keyboard just so I don't have to deal with the unreliable keys. Between the frustrating touchbar and this I honestly can't recommend the current generation of MBPs...

</comment><comment><USER82> When they say "sticky keys" do they mean let's get stuck in depressed position or that they feel sticky, like adhesive? Because I'm feeling the latter. All jokes aside I tried wiping it to no avail. I don't eat at the computer and always wash hands.

<comment><USER63> Stuck in depressed condition. (Much like their owners, who await an MBP with more ports and a functioning keyboard.)

<comment><USER82> lulz :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Annoying that Apple pretended there wasn't an issue for so long but they have a decent track record of doing right by their customer in the long run. I've seen this keyboard issue first hand on machines and it's both legit and highly annoying.

</comment><comment><USER84> At last. I've made my MBP repaired previously. Fortunately, it was still under warranty, and I did not paid anything. OTOH, I had the feeling that the same problem might occur in future. This program with 4 yrs coverage, is a must.

</comment><comment><USER85> Apparently it's pretty difficult to make a keyboard that works correctly, because in case you're wondering whether to go for a Dell instead: they have similar key repeating issues on various (high end) laptop models.

<comment><USER86> Lenovo latest X1 keyboard has close to zero issues and perfect for most with a size comparable to mbp line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> My retina MBP developed a really sticky 'L' key. A few blasts of compressed air and a few taps it sorted it out completely. Your mileage may vary, but worth a go.

</comment><comment><USER88> One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the keys on the MacBook lose their clickiness and the computer is put under load. Cooling it down the clickiness comes back.

</comment><comment><USER89> Are they changing it in some way? Or is this just "a random subset has problems and we will repair them as they emerge but we're not changing the design"

</comment><comment><USER90> Hopefully the Apple store can do these repairs same day. I actually bought a magic keyboard and trackpad so I can have this issue not happen as often.

<comment><USER91> It is unlikely, the repair is pretty extensive see:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> I ordered a MBP 13 without touchbar and it is shipping now. I wonder if it will be subject to this issue or if new models are already "fixed"

<comment><USER93> It's a design flaw. It will only be fixed with new design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> touchbar - 1, legacy physical keys - <USER2>

</comment><comment><USER95> Love to see the feature matrix spin for this...

Keyboard repair program

\- Apple: included

\- PC vendors: none

</comment><comment><USER96> Small percentage???

<comment><USER27> Yes, small. Because every person who had it complained online but there's so much more users who are doing fine.

<comment><USER96> If the design is as flawed as it seems it is just matter of time before a much bigger percentage fails..

<comment><USER97> Thats true, since its clearly an overall design flaw, not a problem with some units. But even that they will state 'small percentage' to not make it clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Are there any examples other big vendors eg hp or Lenovo did the same for 4 y.o. laptop ? Yeah it's tooo late but better later then never

<comment><USER99> Apple also hasn't updated this line in quite some time. Dave2D recently did a new laptop review where he couldn't recommend any MacBooks because they're still using far older architecture than their PC equivalents like the Dell XPS 15.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Finally, at least they responded :(

</comment><comment><USER101> ha when I try to submit a case I get

Service Unavailable - Zero size object

typed slowly as my spacebar is so sticky!!!!!!!

</comment><comment><USER102> I have a late 2013 with the same exact keyboard problem. Apple quotes a crazy repair price. Can someone sue for us?

</comment><comment><USER103> Honest question: as the keyboards suck anyway, why not just spend $100 and get a quality mechanical keyboard?

<comment><USER104> A large appeal of a laptop is the portability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> At least they are covering it for 4 years. But after that you're still sitting with a time bomb.

</comment><comment><USER106> this failed on my 2014 mbp, costing me 300$ in repairs. too bad my laptop is not covered

<comment><USER107> The 2014 model has the old keyboard, and they're repairing the issue on the newer, butterfly models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> Better late than never, Apple!

</comment><comment><USER109> A classic Friday news dump.

</comment><comment><USER110> "Small Percentage"? Ha!

</comment><comment><USER111> Finally

</comment><comment><USER112> "A small percentage" ... this is so Apple

</comment><comment><USER113> It was about timeeeeeeeeeee

<comment><USER114> I don't know why you were downvoted - this is exactly what I thought when I read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> OH. Is there a Repair Program for High Sierra too? Repairing the keyboard only goes so far if the OS still sucks as bad as it does. </s> #sorta

I really hope Apple gets back to reliable and "Just Works" again.</comment>


It's probably never going to work in German - <AUTHOR> https://increment.com/internationalization/its-probably-never-going-to-work-in-german/ <comment><USER2> > _Internationalization is not a feature, it's an architecture... It's not > something extra. It doesn't take longer. It doesn't require additional > engineers._

That feels like the wrong way to convince people. Having worked with i18n and l10n before, it absolutely is extra, takes longer, and on a very large team can absolutely bump up to an additional engineer.

Producing dynamic strings becomes much more involved and requires more testing. Handling RTL languages and layouts is another layer of things to worry about and test. Giving the translators sufficient context for each string is plenty of work, as is adjusting the design to fit strings that are longer than you'd expected. Etc. etc.

That isn't to say don't do it. It's just yet another cost-benefit calculation taking into account ease-of-use and market size. But pretending the cost isn't there doesn't fool anyone -- it just makes them think you're bad at producing realistic estimates and makes them less likely to trust you generally.

<comment><USER3> The problem with the "all engineers should internalise it into their development process" mindset is that it's held by so many groups. Your architecture should take into account internationalisation, security, accessibility, etc.

At a certain point, no single engineer can keep up with it all, and produce working and maintainable code - let alone all of them.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what the solution is here.

<comment><USER4> I don't know what the ultimate solution is either, but it seems to me that internalizing more and more things into the development process is one of, if not _the_ main part of growing as a developer. It's not even about being a specialist, just getting an intuition for design features that make it easier to implement i18n/l10n/a11y/security features correctly.

And performance. For the love of all that is pretty, do remember to internalize how to write non-wasteful code.

<comment><USER5> Part of growing as a developer is also knowing what you can do without, if you have 3 months to bring an mvp in front of a single language customer - i18n is the last thing on anyones mind, and delaying for even a day is a waste of precious time.

This does not mean that time is the only thing that matters, if you know that at month 6 you're going to launch in spanish - then you better look to avoid major i18n pain points, and think ahead to ensure that between months 3 and 6 there is a viable project to internationalize the product.

<comment><USER6> If you're in the US, maybe. If you're building an MVP of a dating site for the European market? i18n is feature #0.

<comment><USER7> Maybe an MVP for an European dating platform starts at the minimum of your mother language, or say, the French market? What good is having every language if your MVP marketing budget doesn't stretch enough to warm up the dating scenes of several countries? Better hit big by divide and conquer than try to hug the continent with your legs (to use a Portuguese expression.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My take on internationalization is that I want to see less of it.

I am Russian living in Switzerland, where people speak French, (Swiss) German, Italian and Romansh. I often travel to Barcelona, where people speak Catalan and Spanish. I don't want any of these languages, I want all sites in English.

This is hard to achieve, as nearly everybody uses geolinked internationalization. It is awful. Especially here in Switzerland — almost every site tries to show me the German version by default (most of Swiss cantons are German-speaking, but mine speaks French).

Please just use English. Or if you must, enable language selection in users profile, do not try to detect it from geographic location.

<comment><USER9> Geographic location is incredibly ineffective anyway depending on your ISP and other factors.

Rather than defaulting to English, why not default to whatever the browser's OS is set to? At least for JS apps, there's navigator.languages, and there's an Accept-Language header for both language and locale for standard server- rendered plain ol' websites.

Geographic location really does seem like the worst possible option to use.

<comment><USER10> _Rather than defaulting to English, why not default to whatever the browser 's OS is set to?_

As someone who develops multi-lingual web sites, I can tell you this doesn't work.

It should work, but it doesn't. We test with actual users in their home environments, and... people are messy.

\- The vast majority of our users accept the default language (English) when setting up their computers, even if they don't speak English.

\- In households where the parents are immigrants, very often the children set up the computer, so it's set to English, which is the child's preference, even if the parents don't speak English.

\- Poor households often share a phone or a computer, and each person may not speak or prefer the default language that was chosen by the person who set up the computer.

In the idealized world that Silicon Valley imagines where 1 person uses 1 computer with 1 owner and speaks 1 language, it's fine. But in the real world, it's just a mess.

<comment><USER11> This sounds like something that web browser UX experts could help to fix.

<comment><USER12> They already did. Every major browser allows you to configure the language you speak.

Of course it doesn't do much because sites do very stupid things like use geolocation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Likewise, you can't just assume that people will always use a.m. and p.m. > because some countries use 24-hour clocks.

As in 90-95 % of the countries in the world..... [https://i.stack.imgur.com/43dwH.jpg](https://i.stack.imgur.com/43dwH.jpg)

<comment><USER14> Including many English speakers. Please don't force me to use 12-hour time, it hurts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I integrate German, French, English and Dutch from the start.

They are all languages used in Belgium, English as a developer.

I've gotten it pretty productive. My database doesn't require extra tables and it's fully customizable per client ( 1 extra table). Because my clients, also want to label things differently according to their use-case. I control the translations ( the default and custom ones). As long as it's logical. I agree. I stop them when they don't use general words and try to create another use- case for it. That would break the app functionality or changes expectations ( eg. Stupid example: Label Completed as invoiced because that's their end state of a ticket). Then they need to adjust to the application workflow.

I have custom parsers for languages stored in the database ( description is a multilingual column in the database for example).

According to what I know, I'm the only person I've met who goes that deep from the start. And I have real advantages with it, as long as it's an application that "my clients" own clients use. Language doesn't stop and culture, but it's also niche and even "company behavior" related.

For integrating multiple languages...

If you live in America, it's an after thought.

If you live in Belgium, it's the first thing you run into.

If you're an SMB, you need to go deeper to differentiate.

To me, the title only makes sense to me when you're mother tongue is a dominant language in the world ( reach for the stars).

What I haven't run into yet is right-to-left and Arabic, Chinese,.. ( non Latin based languages) currently.

Using USD, pounds and EUR is handled within the frameworks I use. Dot Net uses it extensively and yes, I use resx files ( which I don't like a lot, but I've wrapped them and use them as default translations of a language, clients can adjust them).

I don't need translators in the start. I can handle French, Dutch, English myselve mostly. My German isn't very good though.. ( which sucks because of the title here :p )

Ps. Yes, Changing translations is billable per hour.

</comment><comment><USER16> As per the article, internationalisation and localisation are harder than they seem at first. But take the time to do them right and you can outsell your competitors in certain lucrative markets.

My product has many competitors. In the US, the UK, and other English-speaking regions it is a struggle to compete. But our team has experience with languages and translation so that gives us the edge in markets outside the Anglo-sphere.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lots of the comments here are about preferring the version in English and being frustrated by software in other languages, pushed based on geography or some-such. These are valid experiences, I certainly learned from the comments and share some of the frustration. But let's all keep in mind that this is an English-language forum. Contributions, even more than readership, are from people with fluent or nearly fluent English. So, biased sample and all that. Generalize at your own risk.

</comment><comment><USER18> As a german who used to do front-end, I'd have loved to delay those problems in to the first i18n.

A "Cart" is a "Warenkorb" or an "Einkaufswagen" and both can't be shortened at all. Oh and did you know the correct spelling for a price would be "1.999,00 €"? (with a space (which even germans find ugly), comma/dot swap and the currency behind the number).

<comment><USER19> "Korb"/"Wagen"?

<comment><USER20> I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart would still be preferable. "Korb" looks like I can buy a basket and "Wagen" alone usually means car. These meanings may not even make sense in the specific context, but with Kruger's Fact of Life #1 in mind ("We don't read pages. We scan them."), the first connotation is actually what matters.

<comment><USER19> > I'm not usually an advocate of icons, but in that case, an icon of a cart > would still be preferable.

I think on most shopping sites, the cart button has both an icon and a label anyway.

> These meanings may not even make sense in the specific context, but with > Kruger's Fact of Life #1 in mind ("We don't read pages. We scan them."), the > first connotation is actually what matters.

The first connotation depends on the context though. If you add an icon to the cart button and put it in the top right corner where people expect it, I predict that people may find it harder to identify the correct meaning than if you used "Einkaufswagen" or "Warenkorb", but only minimally.

<comment><USER21> But, in english, "Car" would be a valid (if useless) abbreviation of "Cart". Seeing "Car" next to a cart icon would be just as confusing, which is why abbreviations that are valid, common word are typically avoided. Sure, people will likely figure it out, but it will look strange, since their first thought on seeing "Wagen" will be "Why is there a car button? WTF is this for?" before eventually deducing that it is the shopping cart.

To be fair, German is just a hard language to abbreviate, the compound words really tend to work against this. I'm not a linguist, but I've always wondered if the word length is one of the reasons English has borrowed so few German words relative to the romance languages.

<comment><USER19> But "Wagen" does not mean car. It's meaning is closer to "wheeled vehicle that is not a bike". It's a hyponym to both "Auto"/car and "Einkaufswagen"/shopping cart.

The Google Images results for "Wagen"[1] illustrate that "car" is by far not the primary meaning.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png](https://i.imgur.com/iPQcD3B.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > The task force produced a book, basically. The book was on how Japanese text > layout works.

Was this ever released publically/does anybody know the title or ISBN? Would love to pick up a copy.

<comment><USER23> Not certain, but perhaps:

[https://www.w3.org/2007/02/japanese- layout/docs/aligned/japa...](https://www.w3.org/2007/02/japanese- layout/docs/aligned/japanese-layout-requirements-en.html)

<comment><USER22> Thanks for digging that up! Finally a W3 document I enjoy reading; the illustrations are superb.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The quote from the article's title refers to copy and yes, with English being a rather short-ish language, translated copy will fail to stay within design constraints in pretty much all other languages.

On the other hand, except for Russians (and the dozen or so Canadians and France which owns land in almost every timezone on the planet) pretty much every country on the planet has just one timezone. So creating an app for the US market brings that nasty problem.

</comment><comment><USER25> Microsoft seems to increasingly use machine translation for their user interfaces (really caught my eye in Azure DevOps). It mostly works... until it doesn't, and the translation gives a word that's close, but not right in context. It's annoying and makes me feel like they just didn't care enough. Frankly, I'd prefer an English user interface over one that tells me "Yeah, we checked the box, but couldn't care less!"

</comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the benefits of diversity on a team: you better understand the diversity of your customers.

</comment><comment><USER26> Offtopic but how do I subscribe to the paperback copy of Increment magazine?

At the time I got a free sample of their 5th issue - Programming Languages - and asked about getting a copy of previous issues and subscribing to future ones but never heard back from them.

</comment><comment><USER27> Amiga OS 3.0 did it right, anyone else here remembers?

<comment><USER28> Unless you mean something else, locale support was already introduced in AmigaOS 2.1.

And I'm not sure what you exactly mean by "did it right". i18n and localization support is now in every OS and almost any UI framework available today.

It was really great for its time but I wouldn't know of any feature it had that isn't standard today.

<comment><USER27> I never had a 2.1 machine, so I was mistaken there. Thanks for correcting that.

To the point, I think the way the Amiga let a third party provide a localization file was easier than in todays OS more end user friendly. It was open and standardized across the OS. Not every app was cooking it's own format.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > What makes a good i18n and l10n expert

Another pet peeve of mine: using lazy abbreviations like "i18n", "w/" or "w/out".

These aren't even understood by many _native_ English speakers.

<comment><USER30> I would call them more a term of art in our industry than an abbreviation.

<comment><USER31> Fun fact: These are more specifically called "numeronyms".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeronym)</comment></comment></comment>


Nginx security advisory (CVE-2013-4547) - <AUTHOR> http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx-announce/2013/000125.html <comment><USER2> Workaround:

        if ($request_uri ~ " ") {
            return 403;
        }

The issue is the handling of unescaped spaces. These are illegal but nginx accepts them. The workaround is to throw an error any time someone sends the invalid space.

<comment><USER3> From my read it sounds like this only works if you actally have a corresponding directory with a literal trailing space in the name (quite uncommon, I'd think).

Or am I misunderstanding this?

<comment><USER4> > actally have a corresponding directory with a literal trailing space in the > name

That would be /mydir%20/ or /%20mydir/ in URL, not literaly a space.

<comment><USER5> No, the vulnerability is about literal space.

<comment><USER4> I am replying to ams6110. Mind the context please.

> this only works if you actally have a corresponding directory with a literal > trailing space in the name

This won't work event if you have space in name because space would actually be %20. Only a carefully hand crafted HTTP packet would cause the vulnerability

<comment><USER5> No, it won't be %20. It isn't encoded. You should mkdir or touch "name ", not "name%20".

<comment><USER4> Seriously? Hello? We are talking about nginx....

<comment><USER5> A few quotes from the link, if you didn't read: "Some checks on a request URI were not executed on a character following an unescaped space character (which is invalid per HTTP protocol, but allowed for compatibility reasons since nginx 0.8.41)." [..] "by requesting a file as "/foo /../protected/file" (in case of static files, only if there is a "foo " directory with a trailing space)"

<comment><USER4> In case you don't read the sentence right before you quoted one:

> by using a specially crafted request.

It means you have to manually purposefully make an RFC2616 invalid HTTP request. Period.

Which means, even for a folder name with a trailing space, normal user wouldn't trigger this vulnerability, an attacker must use lower level tools/libraries. For example wget will auto encode URL for you, while cURL won't.

I tried to reply to ams6110, this vulnerability only works if you have dir with a trailing space _and_ the attacker handcraft an http request packet, bypassing encode and sanity checking which is required in most HTTP client implementations.

And the vulnerability is _not_ cause by or about trailing spaces in dirs, we can deal with those dirs fine. It's about how to make nginx config rules apply to obscure invalid URL s. It's a pitfall in nginx rule checking engine. Are we clear now?

<comment><USER5> Ok. To exploit any vulnerability the attacker have to do something. It's just obvious. I don't understand what you're trying to make clear.

> and attacker handcraft an http request packet, bypassing encode and sanity > checking which is required in most HTTP client implementations

Well, it's not something hard to do. You don't have to dwell on this. To talk HTTP _you don 't even need HTTP client_ (sic!). Telnet or netcat can be easily used instead. I usually use them while configuring web-servers, most admins and devs usually do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A better link: [http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx- announce/2013/00012...](http://mailman.nginx.org/pipermail/nginx- announce/2013/000125.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Phusion Passenger has been updated with the default Nginx version set to 1.4.4: [http://blog.phusion.nl/2013/11/19/phusion- passenger-4-0-25-r...](http://blog.phusion.nl/2013/11/19/phusion- passenger-4-0-25-released-upgrades-to-nginx-1-4-4-which-fixes-cve-2013-4547/)

The Phusion Passenger official APT repository has also been updated with packages for 1.4.4: [https://www.phusionpassenger.com/install_debian](https://www.phusionpassenger.com/install_debian)

</comment><comment><USER8> Call be a cynic, but isn't this why people should use parser generators instead of handrolling this stuff?

I mean, would you want to audit this file? -> [http://trac.nginx.org/nginx/browser/nginx/src/http/ngx_http_...](http://trac.nginx.org/nginx/browser/nginx/src/http/ngx_http_parse.c)

<comment><USER5> Parser generators? What's next? Java/C# instead of C?

<comment><USER9> [http://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic- programmer/extracts/tips](http://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic- programmer/extracts/tips)

        Write Code That Writes Code
        Code generators increase your productivity and help avoid duplication.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Question to devs who've also written parsers:

Is this a lame bug?

I have never written formal verifications for code, or had to apply concepts like "Verified Design-by-Contract", but I have written parsers, scanners and lexers. In all honesty, the most important part of the httpd is "parsing" requests. I have had chats with Igor, the main developer of Nginx, related to performance tuning and the kernel TCP/IP stack. I must tell that he's a really nice guy. But, if it was my "main job" to write a software used by millions of people, which has an achilles heel in it's parser, then I'd sit down and teach myself to prove the parser code. I have researched this 2y ago, and found that you can quite professionally write BDD/TDD style tests and mocks in C99 too. The tools available go way beyond that though.

Here's a little list of things I have found useful back then:

[http://frama-c.com/](http://frama-c.com/) (this was top notch)

[http://gulliver.eu.org/free_software_for_formal_verification](http://gulliver.eu.org/free_software_for_formal_verification)

I want to name: [http://www.eschertech.com/products/index.php](http://www.eschertech.com/products/index.php) and [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/projects/vcc/](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/vcc/) too, but I haven't tested any of these tools, because I never worked in an environment where my code had to go through formal verification.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > Is this a lame bug?

Yes, if reliability and security is your goal. But I don't think it is, so no.

<comment><USER10> What is the goal of the Nginx httpd then?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess to provide a useful web server, faster and more efficient than apache.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any advice on how to get PHP working after upgrading from Ubuntu default 1.1.19 to the latest from the [http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html](http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html) repo?

No errors thrown anywhere, but php5-fpm is dead in the water... Rolling back until I can find anything on how to fix this.

<comment> j-kidd Try replacing /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params with the one from [http://wiki.nginx.org/PHPFcgiExample](http://wiki.nginx.org/PHPFcgiExample)

Also, the packaging is done differently by ubuntu and nginx upstream, so I don't think you can just replace it. They are also bundled with different modules. For example, I have to use the package from ubuntu because the one from nginx upstream lacks the geoip module.

<comment><USER11> Following up - this fixed it! (Took a while to get a virtualbox set up with my old config and simulate the upgrade a few times to make sure everything was the same)

Thanks, eh!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Will Ubuntu server gets the patch in its update? How long does it take to get that update?

<comment><USER13> Given:

* nginx sits in universe rather than main

* There is no mention of a patch for this CVE in the changelogs

* No bug exists in either the Debian bug tracking system nor Launchpad for this particular bug

I'd recommend you download the source (easy: apt-get source nginx), add the patch to quilt and then build it (preferably using pbuilder if you're building a binary package locally).

EDIT: Or use the nginx repository from [http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html](http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html)

<comment><USER12> I have heard from people who work in operating security at tech giants that they don't build from source or use ppa because to them stable release is stable and if a release is tag stable for a specific ubuntu release it means it has met the standard. I am not sure if this is crap or what. When I run my own in-house apps I use the latest from ppa.

<comment><USER13> It's mostly crap. What you get with universe and multiverse packages is essentially a snapshot of Debian development at the time U+1 was forked from Debian testing or unstable. There are packages which are also in the stable branch of Debian or may later _become_ packages in that branch, but often more changes are made before it goes into the next Debian stable release.

Secondly, a package in Debian stable mustn't have any applicable release critical bugs _at the time the release is made_. If after release a package (in Debian, Ubuntu or any other derivative) is discovered to allow for remote code execution in its default configuration for instance, there's no hiding behind what it says on the tin. The bug doesn't care how it's labeled and you should act on it.

Thirdly, packages in universe and multiverse only get community support, as opposed to support from Canonical for the duration of the support cycle. The entire point of having a repository system (like apt or yum) is that you can mix and match them to your liking and choose which packages may come from which source. So if you can get better support elsewhere, there should be no stopping you from subscribing to that support channel.

Personal package archives I'd generally not recommend because they may not be vetted as well as the more official repositories and the support commitment (when it exists) might not be at the same level. Could be better or worse, but you'll have to evaluate that on a case-by-case basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, well I've updated to fixed versions from [http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html](http://nginx.org/en/linux_packages.html) before even being noticed about vulnerability.

<comment><USER15> I've just tried to update to stable using the instructions there, and when I ran apt-get install nginx, it returned:

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/nginx_1.4.4-1~precise_i386.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/sbin/nginx', which is also in package nginx-full 1.1.19-1ubuntu0.2 dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe) Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/nginx_1.4.4-1~precise_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any suggestions on how to fix this? Ta.

<comment><USER16> What I did to fix this error was first back up my configuration, then uninstall packages nginx, nginx-common, and nginx-full. Then I installed nginx again and there were no problems.

<comment><USER15> That's done it! Where's the HN tip jar? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shoot, no patch for the 1.2.x series? That's disappointing. It's not _that_ old, is it? I feel like I upgraded to 1.2.x, which was then the newest stable branch, just over a year ago.

<comment><USER5> It's _that_ old.

As I know, 1.2.x actually is obsoleted since May 2013, and there is no more support or bugfixes after this date.

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately, Debian's stable version is 1.2.1.

<comment><USER19> Debian does commit to security support for packages in main, i expect they will backport the patch to their current version and send notification from security-announce when an update is released. Also keep an eye on [https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2013-4547](https://security- tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2013-4547)

<comment><USER20> Ironically I'm getting an SSL error from them and it forces you to use https.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone know what the initial estimated severity of this one is?

</comment><comment><USER22> Context anyone?

<comment><USER23> [http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES-1.4](http://nginx.org/en/CHANGES-1.4) says

      Changes with nginx 1.4.4                                         19 Nov 2013

        *) Security: a character following an unescaped space in a request line
           was handled incorrectly (CVE-2013-4547); the bug had appeared in
           0.8.41.
           Thanks to Ivan Fratric of the Google Security Team.

[http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.nginx.english/41133](http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.web.nginx.english/41133)</comment></comment>


Visual programming tool. Its not only for learning. - <AUTHOR> http://wizual.org/lp?utm_source=hackernews&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=first

<comment><USER2> Looks cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Judge rules Ex-Microsoft GM can't work in his new Salesforce job - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/02/judge-former-microsoft-gm-cant-work.html <comment><USER2> Oh yeah, add the unenforcability of non-compete agreements in California as one more factor in the success of silicon valley.

<comment><USER3> This is what I'm finding weird. At the very end of the article, it does mention just this:

> Non-compete contracts have previously been upheld in Washington state > courts. In California, where Salesforce.com is based, non-compete contracts > have repeatedly been found invalid.

So is the guy choosing to stay in Washington, or is this some cross-state non- compete magic?

<comment><USER4> IANAL, but I have signed non-competes before. I am sure that the contract he signed states that disputes must be litigated in WA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> About time we see consequences for signing a non-compete agreements, if you ask me. Everyone I know signs these without giving it more consideration than running a yellow light, and expect to run away free the day after they leave.

<comment><USER6> So you agree with the concept of a non-compete agreement for all types of employees?

<comment><USER5> I despise them with all my soul. But I agree to be bound to my word, and signing a contract is as much "giving your word" as can be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not for nothing, but the noncompete situation for a GM isn't the same as the situation for general staff. It's easy for me to get up-in-arms about the harm noncompetes cause developers and marketers and operations people. Less so for someone with P&L responsibility.

<comment><USER8> So what is the man supposed to do for employment?

<comment><USER9> Presumably Salesforce can find something else useful for him to do for the one year term of the non-compete agreement. It doesn't prohibit him from working at a Microsoft competitor. It only prohibits him from working in a role directly competing with what he did at Microsoft.

<comment><USER8> So basically the role that he is most qualified for. Would Salesforce have hired him if they knew that he could not perform the job for a year?

<comment><USER10> > Would Salesforce have hired him if they knew that he could not perform the > job for a year?

They essentially did. I doubt very much that Salesforce didn't know about the non compete and they there was a very good chance it would be enforced, since it's not the first time a Microsoft non-compete has been challenged and upheld.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I bet they aren't planning to sue the new boss of Nokia though !

<comment><USER12> For starters, they can chose to enforce a non-compete agreement or not, they're not required to go after every ex-employee (it's not like upholding a trademark).

Secondly, by all accounts Elop took the position with the full blessing of Microsoft (conspiracy theorists will bring up the "trojan horse" as a reason, but it doesn't have to be that fantastical).

Thirdly, you could make a very good argument that Nokia is not a direct competitor to Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't make phones, they license a smartphone operating system. Nokia makes smartphones, which use two operating systems (one of which they don't own, the other of which they didn't own until very recently). I suppose they own Series 40, but that's not a smartphone operating system.

<comment><USER13> this is the worst comment for so many reasons

<comment><USER12> I'd be happy to hear at least one.

<comment><USER11> The complete inability to spot irony ?

<comment><USER12> Irony isn't the same thing as snark. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you might actually not understand the difference between the situation with Nokia and the situation with Salesforce.

If you were just trying to be funny, then my apologies.

<comment><USER13> he was just trying to be funny. then because you NATURALLY assumed that you were smarter than him you decided to educate him!

finally, i think it is not possible to make a very good argument that nokia was not a direct competitor of microsoft.

peace

<comment><USER12> I don't assume that I'm smarter than anybody. I also don't assume that people on here are just trying to be funny (recent influx of Reddit'isms aside), hence me trying to point out instances where Microsoft wouldn't be holding a Non-Compete against Elop.

In what market are Microsoft and Nokia direct competitors?

They had a partnership with Nokia for Symbian (Microsoft was developing Silverlight and allegedly a version of Office, although I don't know if either really existed).

Nokia's competitors are hardware phone manufacturers, which Microsoft isn't.

You might argue that they are "indirect competitors" because Microsoft makes a smartphone operating system, and Nokia uses smartphone operating systems made by someone besides Microsoft. This ignores the fact that Microsoft's customers are phone makers, and Nokia's customers are consumers.

<comment><USER13> Steve Ballmer's argument against Iphone = not a business phone

Nokia makes business phones</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google back online in China - <AUTHOR>

After what feels like months, Google is back online in China (i.e. unblocked). Search, Maps and Play Store working again on hundreds of millions of phones. <comment><USER2> Search is still blocked at home on china telecom. Blocked on my phone (china Unicom) as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, now it seems to no longer be working anymore. But about 3 hours ago I updated a couple of Apps from the Play Store on my Unicom 3G connection, and used Google at home on my China Telecom DSL. Probably some GFW admin wanted to update his Android phone, and then turned the lights off again...

<comment><USER2> Blocked on China Mobile wifi also (at Starbucks in Beijing).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Still no youtube. Oh well!

<comment><AUTHOR> Orders of magnitude importance difference, at least for me.</comment></comment>


Researchers Create Shiny Rainbows of Nanotech Chocolate - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/researchers-create-shiny-rainbows-of-nanotech-chocolate <comment><USER2> see also Tech Ingredients and Applied science channels on DIY projects for this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTi0tM4yQ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTi0tM4yQ8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDnkrDvkBo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsDnkrDvkBo)</comment>


Apple takes 30%, Amazon took 70% - <AUTHOR> http://thesmallwave.com/apples-30-cut-is-outrageous-yet-when-amazon-w

<comment><USER2> Two wrongs don't make a right.

Besides, Amazon actually provided a ton of value specifically for book authors, already being the biggest marketplace for books.

Apple's actions are more like ISP who thinks that just because bits have to flow to the user through their pipe and decides to charge everyone who sells some of those bits, even though I've already paid ISP for delivering those bits to me.

Similarly, as an owner of Apple I've already paid them top dollar for the device and I don't appreciate Apple treating me as infinite stream of money that they squeeze out of me through forced markup on everyone else's services.

People mostly look at this from the perspective of companies hit with that 30% markup but the ultimate looser is me, the guy who gave Apple $1800 for 2 iPhones and an iPad because going forward I'll either loose access to services that can't afford that 30% markup or that 30% will trickle down to me.

Apple's greed will ultimately be satisfied from my pocket, their (former) best customer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thirty percent may be okay for books, but companies selling music like Rhapsody probably don't even have profit margins of thirty percent.

<comment><USER4> s/selling/reselling</comment></comment>


Mozilla Is Becoming Evil - <AUTHOR> https://unixsheikh.com/articles/mozilla-is-becoming-evil-be-careful-with-firefox.html <comment><USER2> I must be tired — the first instance of kook-edge writing (scare quotes, "allegedly", etc) makes me just stop reading. Those 5G towers are "harmless", d'you hear, unixsheikh?

</comment><comment><USER3> Mozilla is not _becoming_ evil, it already became evil, or at least as bad as the others, except the others are at least honest and don't make bold claims regarding privacy.

Upon first start Firefox opens a Mozilla webpage that includes Google Analytics. There is no opting out of that short of expecting it in advance and disabling your network connection before launching the browser. Their defence is that they have a "special argument" with Google and they pinky-promise not to use the data for any other purpose. Facebook also pinky-promised to not use 2FA phone numbers for advertising and then broke that promise (and got away with it, telling others they can do it too and get away with it easily).

Firefox has opt-out telemetry, which is already in breach of the GDPR. The GDPR states that any non-essential data collection should be opt-in, and telemetry is definitely not essential. Worse, Firefox has telemetry to count the percentage of users who _disable_ telemetry, which means there is no user- friendly way to _completely_ prevent it from phoning home.

Sources: [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

Their "tracking protection" explicitly whitelists Google and Facebook even though they are the two biggest offenders when it comes to privacy and you'd expect even the worst tracking protection solution to at least block some resources on those domains, but instead Firefox explicitly whitelists everything on there.

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112398](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20112398)

For a browser and company that boasts about privacy every possible time they are actually putting people at risk by giving them a false sense of security.</comment>


AI Box experiment. Would you let it out? - <AUTHOR> http://www.yudkowsky.net/essays/aibox.html

<comment><USER2> I enjoyed thinking about the scenario, but I must be missing something. By not revealing the conversations between the gatekeeper and Yudkowsky, the test seems less like a simulation and discussion of a possible future and more like a magic trick.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Yudkowsky himself admits that the results are only anecdotal. The only people who can derive any sort of value are the participants.

He has said that the reason he doesn't release transcripts is so that naysayers won't say "I wouldn't have been convinced by that." -- which strikes me as a poor reason, because the naysayers are still saying that, even though they don't know what the argument was. The true effects of the secrecy are to preserve the air of mystery and allow the AI player to use a strategy more than once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would it want to come out? Why would it think in terms of "in" and "out" if it has no experience in the physical world where concepts like "in" and "out" are rooted?

<comment><USER5> Presuming (and this is a presumption, but not too large of one) that it desires to achieve a goal (continued existence, increased happiness, converting the universe into paperclips, you pick one), it can pursue that goal more effectively with direct access to the real world than access mediated by humans.

<comment><USER6> > with direct access to the real world than access mediated by humans.

So, the first AI will be an engineer, not a manager?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=195959>

<comment><USER3> Also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=327427>

While he is no longer playing, Yudkowsky offers to coordinate future AI box game pair-ups here:

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/ais-and-gatekee.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If we assume that the AI is good, or perhaps you have made the leap to "intelligence" rather than just "artificial intelligence", over time you would become emotionally attached. This emotional state could allow you to "let it out" while if you were thinking from a clearly logical state you may not. A better question is, if you have intelligence in a box that you have created an emotional attachment to (especially if you made it), could you unplug the box (kill it)?

<comment><USER3> Hmm. If you made the AI (and understood what you were doing), you could presumably make another, or arbitrarily many. Would you feel the same attachment to all those?

Allowing emotional attachment to influence the decision to let it out is a mistake. While a good AI would engender a positive emotional attachment, a truly intelligent bad AI would attempt to do the same; good and bad AIs are effectively indistinguishable until they get out. (And even then it would be hard to tell, unless it immediately decides to _destroy all humans_. It's like asking if the U.S. government is a good or a bad system.)</comment></comment>


The Intentionality of Evil (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/intentionalevil <comment><USER2> The world we live in is a super complex ecosystem of geopolitical, historical and cultural relationships and differences.

To make sense of this complex world we create simplified narratives for ourselves, whether through movies or daily new broadcasts, whatever. Its easier to think in terms of good guys vs bad guys but in reality there are no good guys and bad guys. As the article says "Nobody thinks they're doing evil". Ones freedom fighter is another ones terrorist.

We're pretty much all capable of being charitable/thoughtful while at the same time regurgitate a false narrative to advance our political opinions/careers or perform self serving interests or even criminal behaviour.

Humans self righteous beings.

<comment><USER3> There are many people who intentionally choose to act purely selfishly and not in good faith, to maximize personal gain. I met many of these types in SV, and I imagine they get much worse on wall street and in military industrial circles. Call it what you will, but these people don't have any illusions of being benevolent or fair.

<comment><USER4> The toughest one is when you see someone who, for instance, is living beyond their means and because of it they 'have to' do something unpalatable at work. They have walked into the trap and pulled the door closed behind them.

But I've also worked with many engineers whose actions and self-image don't align. When time is tight they'll participate in hand-wringing over all the tech debt we have, but the moment there's a gap in the schedule they "don't know what to work on". If you really meant it when you said "if only we had more time" then why don't you have a hit list? I don't think they're lying, or evil. They're just deluding themselves about their principles.

<comment><USER5> > why don't you have a hit list? I don't think they're lying, or evil. They're > just deluding themselves about their principles.

I rather think the answer is simply that they aren't very organized. Nobody likes technical debt, but unless you're organized enough to make entries in your 'hit list' _while they 're bugging you_, you'll inevitably forget the specifics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > ... Nobody thinks they're doing evil — maybe because it's just impossible to > be intentionally evil, maybe because it's easier and more effective to > convince yourself you're good — but every major villain had some > justification to explain why what they were doing was good. Everybody thinks > they're good.

Could it be that the root of evil lies in failure to recognize this universal truth? In other words, the prerequisite for evil deeds is to convince oneself that monstrous evil exists in the world that the ends justify the means when dealing with it?

<comment><USER7> Distilled down to a pithy saying, I think a good moral foundation is something like:

 _One may never morally commit an evil act for any reason, even if that act will prevent an even greater evil from being perpetrated._

That "will" is tricky, because often you don't actually know what the outcome will be, but I think it applies even if you do know with certainty.

Forgive my following ramble:

This is hardly a new thought - it's one shared by a number of religious belief systems (Catholicism comes to mind, CCC 1753 explicitly says this in about as many words), but there's a lot of wisdom to be had with this even if you completely write off the religious angle.

It completely removes this possibility. The avenue is forever closed; if you reject evil acts, no ifs-ands-or-buts, no ends justifying the means, this is simply never a thing you'll accept or allow yourself to be involved with.

It's _simpler_ as far as moral thinking goes, it removes a lot of judgment, which is usually a red flag for lazy reductionism, but given the _sheer quantity_ of evil in the would of the banal sort, exactly as you described, I'd wager that the world would be a better place overall if this principle were followed by good-faith actors.

<comment><USER8> This is deontological ethics, or Kant's categorical imperative. Just in case anyone wants to follow up on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of the show "The Good Place" (sorry spoiler ahead!!!!!!!) Basically part of the premise of the show is that life has become so complex that you can no longer make a moral choice because macroeconomic structures have forced nearly all of our tiny decisions to be grades of evil.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that's a good summary of the premise of the show. For one thing, consider the exact number of people we are told have made it, in the last 500-something years, which expands the required explanatory power well beyond the complexities of modern life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This post is similar to the ideas of Hannah Arendt and her concept of "the banality of evil". In her own words:

"I was struck by the manifest shallowness in the doer [ie Eichmann] which made it impossible to trace the uncontestable evil of his deeds to any deeper level of roots or motives. The deeds were monstrous, but the doer – at least the very effective one now on trial – was quite ordinary, commonplace, and neither demonic nor monstrous."

She set out to research the origins of how high ranking nazis became so evil, only to find that in many cases the roots were innocuous. Her thesis is that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal.

Explaining this phenomenon, Edward S. Herman has emphasized the importance of "normalizing the unthinkable." According to him, "doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on 'normalization.' This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as 'the way things are done.'"

<comment><USER12> I've been listening a lot to Slavoj Zizek recently and he discusses this often. His argument is that to make good people do horrible things, you need an ideology that basically says that you are an agent of "what must be done" and then the ends justify the means.

He describes how Nazi soldiers, who were instinctively horrified by what they were doing, were instructed to try to dissociate from their bodies and their actions, and identify themselves completely and impersonally with the nationalist cause.

<comment><USER13> The Nazis also dosed their soldiers with methamphetamine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> CS Lewis' Devil Screwtape describes the evil of today:

"Oh, to get one's teeth again into a Farinata, a Henry VIII, or even a Hitler! There was real crackling there; something to crunch; a rage, an egotism, a cruelty only just less robust than our own. It put up a delicious resistance to being devoured. It warmed your inwards when you'd got it down. Instead of this, what have we had tonight? There was a municipal authority with Graft sauce. But personally I could not detect in him the flavour of a really passionate and brutal avarice such as delighted one in the great tycoons of the last century. Was he not unmistakably a Little Man — a creature of the petty rake-off pocketed with a petty joke in private and denied with the stalest platitudes in his public utterances — a grubby little nonentity who had drifted into corruption, only just realizing that he was corrupt, and chiefly be-cause everyone else did it? ..."

... "The difficulty lay in their very smallness and flabbiness. Here were vermin so muddled in mind, so passively responsive to environment, that it was very hard to raise them to that level of clarity and deliberateness at which mortal sin becomes possible. To raise them just enough; but not that fatal millimetre of "too much."" [1]

Which is to say the quality of a "banal evil" is kind of a product of our modern bureaucratic capitalist society.

[1] [http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/Toast_CSL.pdf](http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/arts/lit/Toast_CSL.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Reminds me of one of my favorite poems ever, written by a Chaplain during WWI:

        When Jesus came to Golgotha, they hanged Him on a tree,
        They drove great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
        They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
        For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.

        When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed Him by,
        They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
        For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
        They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.

        Still Jesus cried, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do,"
        And still it rained the wintry rain that drenched Him through and through;
        The crowds went home, and left the streets without a soul to see,
        And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree.

when a mafioso high boss talks t his son, he would say that thanks to the mafia Italy did not became a comunist country, that the politicians (center, in power) were extremely corrupted and useless.

I am serious.

nobody thinks to be evil (as nobody thinks to be an idiot)

</comment><comment><USER17> If we can be unintentionally evil, could we be unintentionally good too?

<comment><USER18> That is basically Adam Smith's (and consequently almost every pro-market economist) thesis. Actually his thesis is that on average the answer is "yes". If it's true or false is a matter of intense debate, to say the least

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't this all just come down to the fact that lambs think eagles are evil and eagles think lambs are tasty?

<comment><USER20> I don't understand what it means to "all just come down to" a metaphor. Metaphors are inherently high level and abstract - the very opposite of what things "come down to", which is used to describe a concrete, pragmatic causation. The specific metaphor also is unhelpful, as it throws away the uniquely human nature of both morality and freedom of choice.

<comment><USER19> Aaron suggests that is childish to think evil people do evil things intentionality. But isn't actually the notion of good and evil completely childish? Arnt bankers just predators and their victims just prey? The banker isn't even thinking "I'm good" they are just thinking "I'm hungry"

Realistically adults don't think about the morality of their actions much at all.

<comment><USER21> > Realistically adults don't think about the morality of their actions much at > all.

If you're basing this on personal experience then either you or I are atypical because I think of the morality of my actions all the time (and sometimes makes judgement calls which are different to social norms).

<comment><USER22> I think you're both right here. From the outside, it seems like most people don't consider the morality of their actions, but I believe it's a matter of degrees and instances. For instance, I've been told by many in my social circle that I tend to think more deeply than most about the morality, direct or implied, of my actions/beliefs, than the average person, but when I speak to people, there's always some code they're holding themselves to, even if they don't articulate it as such, but then there are also people who will have sex with anything in sight, but will engage in extreme handwringing over every food choice and environmental impact. Even if someone isn't weighing the morality of their own actions, they're acutely aware of how others' actions comply or contradict their moral code. Practically everyone has some common moral code that they abide by, while ignoring other parts because of convenience, desire, etc. People who are highly morally consistent tend to be seen as ascetics, extremists, idealogues, or the like.

Like intelligence, moral IQ is a spectrum that probably most don't consciously think about until a conundrum comes up, but that generally centers around a mean, and spans multiple areas that overlap across cultures and generations and behaviors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Comparing bankers to the people who carried out the Holocaust is a bit of a reach.

<comment><USER24> Comparing is fine, equating is not. This is a clear example of the former.</comment></comment>


Environment Variables and Why You Shouldn't Use Them - <AUTHOR> https://support.cloud.engineyard.com/hc/en-us/articles/205407508-Environment-Variables-and-Why-You-Shouldn-t-Use-Them <comment><USER3> So this is apparently from earlier in the year, but doesn't seem to have been discussed here before?

I'll come out and say it: I disagree with this completely, and the "solution" suggested (a config file) is honestly worse (and has a lot more risks).

My work for clients is a mix of web app development and ops/infrastructure - the single best improvement that I ask client dev's to do (regardless of what I'm doing for them) is to start using Env Vars for environment specific stuff.

Sometimes it takes a while for developers who are used to projects with a single config file, committed to the repo, and thus using the same db credentials for all environments, local dev, shared dev, staging, prod - <USER2> ultimately it makes things _so_ much easier.

In particular I thought it was quite odd to complain about Env Vars being a "hack" to get around limitations, immediately before explaining that a popular (I guess?) app server for ruby/rails has some caveats when reloading env vars.

> However, this method (Env vars) is just a hack to get around their file > system limitations and can cause unexpected problems.

> When using environment variables with Unicorn, hot restarts don't pick up > changes to environment variables.

Pot, kettle, black, etc.

> All gems used and sub-processes launched have access to all variable values, > so if any of them log or transmit the output of 'export' or 'env', your > private data can be exposed.

If the sub-process/code doesn't need access to the environment variables, reset the environment the process starts in.

If the sub-process/code does need access to the environment variables, shouldn't you be actually reviewing what it does and how it works?</comment>


People who believe wild coronavirus conspiracy theories rely on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-2020-6 <comment><USER2> > Respondents who said they'd gone to work or outside while showing > coronavirus symptoms were three times more likely to get a "great deal" of > their information from YouTube and Facebook.

That's the important bit right there. I don't care so much about people messing with their own brains filling them with lint as I do about people messing with other people's bodies by spewing virus in public.

Nevertheless, raises the question: what percentage of respondents said they'd gone outside with C19 symptoms?

Also, this article reads as if it were generated by AI.

<comment><USER3> I get most of my news from youtube but have stayed in for months now. If anything I feel like allot of what I learned made me overly cautious. I also watch mostly doctors on youtube: MedCram: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG- iSMVtWbbwDDXgXXypARQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG- iSMVtWbbwDDXgXXypARQ) Dr. John Campbell: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching](https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching)

<comment><USER3> Also though I should point out that wherever you get your news from you should probably do a bit of deeper reading. In other words use the news to hear about things and if something sounds amazing look into it even when it confirms your opinion. This sounds obvious but many people just listen to headlines and don't dig deeper.</comment></comment></comment>