Announcing ClearCrypt: a new transport encryption library - <AUTHOR> https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/rust-dev/2014-May/009761.html <comment><USER2> What's the point of announcing something that doesn't exist?

Don't waste your time on the link. It's pure vaporware.

Actually vaporware usually usually has a design, but this is more like "write something in rust, but we're not sure yet what (but it sounds good)".

So let's call it "nothingware"

<comment><USER3> We're aiming for a project where all commits receive public scrutiny. This includes how the project is governed.

We're discussing contributing guidelines here:

[https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/2](https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/2)

Initial code PR with a ChaCha20 implementation here:

[https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/3](https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/3)

<comment><USER4> It would be nice if some of the items in the pre-commit checklist from [1] could be checked at compile time somehow.

[1] [https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/3#issue-327877...](https://github.com/clearcrypt/clearcrypt/pull/3#issue-32787754)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> CurveCP sounds good, but what's Noise? And could CurveCP be improved by using QUIC instead of UDP?

<comment><USER6> [https://github.com/trevp/noise/wiki](https://github.com/trevp/noise/wiki)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Emphasis will be placed on simplicity, clarity, and audibility.

Most projects start with this as an implicit goal. Unfortunately they tend to grow out of control as the code base gets larger.

<comment><USER3> We aim to make it an explicit goal, rather than implicit. Wherein other projects this is a "would be nice", in this project it's an absolute necessity for the project's security and therefore success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, you can announce stuff before it's actually built now?</comment>


Ask HN: Dealing with EU clients requiring EU compliance - <AUTHOR>

Hi
Currently I have a company from the EU wishing to use my SaaS. Without going into detail on what I do, I collect data on behalf of them and am a "data importer" as concerned by the EU.
They have provided me with a standard EU based contract (Article 26(2) of Directive 95/46/EC) to sign.
I am Australian based and have servers in the US but nothing within the EU. I only handle email and IP addresses and only ever give access to this information to the promoter or for internal use within my company.
However this contract increases my liability and obligations in reporting any data handling of their data and an obligation to respond to any person who entered data in our system and provide them access to their information or deal with how they wished. Currently this client only represents $150 per year and I am wondering what others have done in this situation, if they have faced similar situations dealing with companies in the EU.
I decided not to sign the document and give them a refund, was I over reacting? I am not a lawyer but the additional liability didn't seem worth it. <comment><USER2> I think you did the right thing. The (potential) customer wanted to unload a set of obligations onto you - for small compensation.

We have a small (Local Authority) customer who keeps trying to get us to indemnify their risks when upgrading networks and other infrastructure (will we guarantee our software will still run and they will suffer no data loss?) - all for a similarly priced software purchase quite a few years ago. We simply refuse but it does not stop them trying and they don't even pay for maintenance.</comment>


For Me, College Is Not Worth The Time Or Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.thintz.com/essays/college-not-worth-time-or-money <comment><USER2> CS isn't the only thing you can learn at college. If you feel you can learn CS much faster on your own then major in something different like advanced Math, Business, etc. It will make you a more rounded person.

I got my BS degree in CS 8 years ago and although I learned some stuff from my CS class that I probably wouldn't have been exposed to if I learned on my own (like assembly, db query tree optimization, or 3d graphics).

Sure I _might_ have learned those on my own; but I probably wouldn't have given that if I wasn't in college I'd probably be churning out business apps for a megacorp or something leaving little time to explore.

I think my time in college would've been better spent majoring in Business and then learning programming on my own. That would've given me a better edge in the startup world. But it is what it is.

<comment><USER2> Secondly no offense, but Michigan Tech? Maybe try for a school somewhat closer to where you live better known for their CS program like CMU, etc?

<comment><USER3> Such a comment is mind-boggling to me. What crazy universe do you live in where college tuitition is free? A 4 year degree at CMU is a $160k proposition, and 4x more expensive than the equivalent in-state education at Michigan Tech.

This bit of advice is like telling someone complaining that their Honda Civic just isn't worthwhile for them anymore to try out a Ferrari.

<comment><USER4> I think he meant "Central Michigan" rather than "Carnegie Mellon."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe pick a better school? I'm not from the area, so I've never heard of Michigan Technical University and don't know what their merits are from a CS perspective.

Also, dropping out near the end of your junior year seems a poor return. You've paid 3/4 of the tuition and are getting no benefit from the degree. And if everything was as easy as you say, then you should have a near perfect GPA.

As for why your employer cares. It's an easy screening criteria. Chances are % of people who don't have a college degree and are any good, is pretty low. So, it's easy to just interview the ones with college degrees, good GPAs, and come from good schools. It's an employers market out there.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not part of the American system, so my two cents might not help much. Anyways I agree with you that college slows down whoever has a greater learning curve than the average college student.

But it turns ou that whatever comes next and is more challenging, requires a degree (masters program, whatever you pick). So I got to this dead end, where I __had__ to go back to college and finish it because I really wanted to get into a master's program once I'm done with it.

About employment, I'd say it's relative. Big companies nowadays are already leaning towards the idea that interpersonal skills, individal behavior end up being more important in the long term run. Of course a degree has its value, but it isn't the most important thing when you look at someone's CV.

Also, what happens here and seems to be slightly different than the north American scene is that a high percentange of the college students in Brazil have full time jobs or start on internships right after joining college, since the market is in a urge for IT professionals. Saying that, only people on State/Public colleges (which are the top notch institutions here) or with wealthy families, have the change to opt-in for extra credits, different graduation programs and so on.

Just as a conclusion, college is a decent experience if you have the time, and money (unfortunately) to enjoy it at its maximum. It is indeed a really huge investiment, and is still a requirement for most of the jobs, since if you ever get the change to be a project manager or anything like, a MBA would be a nice trophy and for that you'll need a degree for example. I'd say you should graduate, just to raise your employment chances since you seem to be a good self-taught person.

</comment><comment><USER7> "For me, you are not worth the time or money."

That's what I read when I see statements like this. Why? Well, as an employer, I'd think you were inexperienced and undisciplined. That said, starting your own business will certainly teach you discipline and give you experience, but it will also show a potential employer that you don't need them and that you're likely to leave.

Going to college teaches you how to interact with others and deal with their idiosyncrasies (and maybe discover some of your own). You get socially acclimated, and have the chance to meet some crazy intelligent people. Can you do that on your own? Sure, but the density at college is much higher, thus the probability of a meaningful encounter is also much higher. See dating, as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> Bravo! Good for you -- we need more people questioning the assumption the college is always worth the time and money. The opportunities for those who have demonstrable abilities without traditional credentials are steadily increasing. It's a good curve to ride, given the upside and opportunity cost.

</comment><comment><USER9> Like you have discovered, a class needs to go at the pace of the average learner. If you are a person who can learn at an above average pace, classes will only slow you down.</comment>


Recent progress in Debian/kFreeBSD - <AUTHOR> http://robertmh.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/recent-improvements-with-debian-gnukfreebsd/

<comment><USER2> FreeBSD is noticeably faster on every PC I've used it on, compared to Linux. (The downside being the terrible packaging system and not-quite-so-wide variety of packages and device drivers).

So Debian packaging + FreeBSD kernel sounds like a winner to me!

I'm off to try and install it in a VM.</comment>


Tesla cars are accelerating without warning, prompting government scrutiny - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/17/21070324/tesla-sudden-unexpected-acceleration-nhtsa-petition <comment><USER2> > a handful of people who have been killed while using Autopilot.

Links to a report of two deaths, both the tractor trailer cases where the owners ignored the fact that their Teslas are _not fully autonomous vehicles_ yet.

Also in the source (Reuters) for the entire article:

> Many of the complaints report sudden acceleration incidents when attempting > to park vehicles in a garage or at a curb.

What's up, The Verge?

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't we already go through this with Toyota? People are really bad at telling the difference between pedals. Especially if they are wearing shoes with wide soles.

Seems like a bit of a hatchet piece.</comment>


Show HN: My solo project - an iOS app to build a mini-responsive website - <AUTHOR> http://www.placeunit.com/hnn

<comment><USER2> Looks great! I think this would be great for anyone looking through online classifieds, so that posters could include a mobile friendly media (placeunit) link. Is that your main target?

Do you have any plans to charge for this service?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many "angles" for utilization. Mobile friendly linking is a great idea. There is an auto implementation for Twitter cards in the Units BTW.

As for charging, it is a little premature, but if you want to attach a domain this will be a paid service.</comment></comment>


Scientists Say They've Found the Driver of False Beliefs - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/feedback-study-explains-why-false-beliefs-stick <comment><USER2> The title is pure irony, triple distilled, and concentrated to its purest crystaline form. Confirmation bias confirming confirmation bias. Amazing.</comment>


Sony and Ericsson part on good terms - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edbbff24-00a9-11e1-ba33-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1c1AFr0hN

<comment><USER2> FT.com articles are only available to registered users and subscribers</comment>


Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: the cloud platform of choice - <AUTHOR> http://insights.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-14-04-lts-the-cloud-platform-of-choice/ <comment><USER2> Red Hat is the largest single contributor to Open Stack[1]

IMHO Ubuntu gets a free ride because every distro _except_ Ubuntu has to set up an external CI server in order to get their drivers and changes in.

[1] [http://activity.openstack.org/dash/releases/](http://activity.openstack.org/dash/releases/)

<comment><USER3> The single largest contributor _by the metrics you posted_. There are other types of contribution, integration and distribution for example, things that Ubuntu has traditionally focused on instead of raw upstream work.

By head count, Red Hat is 10 times the size of Canonical. This means that Canonical would not be expected to show in the graphs you linked to, given the same level of activity averaged per employee. Yet Ubuntu is the distro of choice for OpenStack. That speaks to the strength of the community around OpenStack on Ubuntu, the skill and commitment of the people working on it, and the quality of the experience.

As to the grumble about spinning up an external CI server: you'll be glad to know that Ubuntu is really easy to spin up on bare metal or in VMs, and you don't have to buy licenses ;)

Disclaimer: I work for Canonical, so I am totally biased. I don't work on OpenStack, but I know many of those who do.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean when you say Ubuntu is the distro of choice? Looking at openstack's install docs, they list install guides for Debian, SUSEs, Red Hats, and then Ubuntu (in that order). Is there some place on the openstack site that indicates a preference toward Ubuntu?

<comment><USER3> I may have overstated then.

From rwmj's comment that "every distro except Ubuntu has to set up an external CI server in order to get their drivers and changes in" I gathered that Ubuntu was the distro of choice for CI, so that's what I should have written: for _CI_. I didn't mean to say that Ubuntu is the OpenStack project's preferred choice for deployment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We use virtual servers and all of them run different releases of ubuntu and for the life of me I don't understand why they're not running debian. You never start an X session on a server and what admin would want to use Unity anyway so what's the point in using Ubuntu rather than stable debian?

<comment><USER6> Surely you do not install X on a server.... I don't get your comment

<comment><USER5> Aren't those the big selling points of Ubuntu - graphics drivers and unity? Both of which as you say are irrelevant on a server, I agree.

<comment><USER7> On the desktop you bet, it beats Windows for me. On the server, check the other comments, LTS and the ability to run newer stuff but still be very stable. I really don't see why you're having an issue, Ubuntu Server is plain and works well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really don't know what to do about 14.04 landing. I maintain a few systems which are in devops territory on top of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, a single desktop machine and a laptop. 12.04 is EOL in 2017 and we plan to replace them next year (we operate a 3 year standard cycle).

With the other major distributions moving towards systemd and eventually wayland (that includes the base of Ubuntu: Debian), I'm not sure I really want to move onto 14.04 and continue this cycle further and risk it on Mir, Upstart, Unity and various other Canonical worldview items.

I'm considering ignoring this release and moving to CentOS 7 when it hits the ground.

<comment><USER9> Ubuntu is also now moving to systemd, following its Debian base: [http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1316](http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1316)

Assuming that you're not a toolkit (or further down the stack) developer, can you explain why Mir affects you?

What other "Canonical worldview items" affect you?

<comment><USER8> As follows:

systemd - glad to hear that. Missed that one.

Mir affects me because of the inevitable _safety in numbers_ that going with the majority display server technology. Graphical stacks are terribly complicated and terribly involving for hardware manufacturers. Canonical are pretty much on their own with it and it takes a hell of a lot of people to keep the plates spinning on this. hell they can't even get X, DRM, GLX etc stable after all these years and thousands of eyes.

Other canonical worldview items:

Unity. Sorry but this doesn't actually work properly. Various applications have focus problems still after years of it, it's unstable, inconsistent, breaks apps (menus for example) and has incredible usability problems. I know you can use gnome but it's not a priority support item for Canonical so various things don't work consistently.

Launchpad. Launchpad is a total pile both from a tracking and management perspective. It's basically a baron land of neglect.

Probably more that I've forgotten.

<comment><USER9> You're claiming "safety in numbers" by moving _away_ from Ubuntu on the desktop? Surely you're joking?

> Unity

So don't use it. Ubuntu is more than just priority support items from Canonical. I'm using Xubuntu right now - it works great.

> Launchpad is a total pile both from a tracking and management perspective. > It's basically a baron land of neglect.

As opposed to...Bugzilla? Again: surely you're joking?

<comment><USER8> Yes 100%.

I want stability. In fact I need stability and there's nothing more stable than a boring corporate desktop so...

CentOS 6.x's Gnome desktop despite being considerably older is an order of magnitude more stable, works flawlessly on every bit of kit I've tested it on and doesn't fall over on minor patches or kernel releases. I lost count of the number of times I've had power management and display regressions on 12.04 LTS. The only reason I ended up with LTS is because the NetworkManager VPN stuff that I need on my laptop is tied into later versions of NetworkManager which aren't supported on CentOS at the moment. I will say that they don't actually work on 14.04 either and I have to resort to manually adding a route because NM doesn't handle default routes properly.

On my personal laptop (Lenovo T400) I binned Ubuntu and actually run Windows now because the PM regressions were unbearable and the battery life was shitty even with 30 minutes pissing around with powertop.

Yes comparing to bugzilla. People haven't managed to displace bugzilla for a good reason: it works pretty damn well on massive projects.

<comment><USER10> I think what you are seeing is the ancestry of these projects coming to the fore. Ubuntu is, to my eyes, first and foremost a desktop OS that is trying to make inroads into the server OS space (replace OS with distro if if helps helps lower your pedanti-meter). RHEL/CentOS have always been very server/workstation based (and I do consider a workstation different than a desktop).

You can see this in how they focus their work. Ubuntu, while it's contributed much to the ecosystem, has focused quite a bit of those contributions to ease of use and graphical stack items. These are important, but less so to workstations (of a particular breed) and servers. Red Hat has focused on stability and management. Need a full virtualization stack? RHEL has developed a stack they are pushing as competition for VMWare. Want directory services? It's an officially supported component with documentation (as of at least 4-5 years ago). Want a bug tracker with lots of info on exactly what's going on and what to expect? Use Bugzilla. It's overkill for most user-facing projects, but for IT staff who may be expected to file a fair number of bugs over time, after you've invested some time to learn it, it's great.

Ubuntu is a great OS/distro, but I don't think they've reached the same level in the server space as RHEL yet. Similarly, I wouldn't necessarily push RHEL/CentOS for desktops for home users or most businesses needing Linux on the desktop, unless there was a need for a much more controlled environment, and the long time between versions is not an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I installed the 14.04 LTS beta on a laptop to kick the tires last week. Overall it seems really nice. I was happy to see GCC 4.8 is the default compiler.

The only major glitch I had was hitting this bug where external debs (like Chrome, Dropbox, etc.) won't install in software center: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software- center/+b...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/software- center/+bug/1290228) Luckily they just fixed it, so the official release shouldn't have issues.

</comment><comment><USER12> Whose choice? Not mine... not that I have anything in particular _against_ Ubuntu (in fact, I'm on an Ubuntu system as I write this, because it's our corporate standard desktop here), but I still prefer Red Hat based distros, whether it's RHEL, CentOS, Fedora or what-have-you?

"Why?" you might ask. Well, TBH, a lot of it is just familiarity - I've been using RH based distros since the Red Hat 5.2 days, so it's what I know already. But more to the point, it just works. I haven't felt any pain using Fedora, CentOS and their ilk, that has ever compelled me to go looking for a different solution. And that's even more true for servers, where I don't care about prepackaged video codecs or sound or anything.

The one big thing that everyone has always touted as the edge that Debian/Ubuntu have over RH systems, is apt. But after having used Ubuntu for 2 years now, I still haven't found any regard in which is apt is particularly better than yum. Yeah, yum _used to be_ dog slow, but that hasn't been a problem in ages. And I don't know about you, but it still annoys me that I need one command, yum, to both search for packages and install them on CentOS/RHEL/Fedora, but I need apt-cache and apt-get to do the same thing on Ubuntu.

Anyway, props to the Ubuntu folks for the release. I do lean towards Red Hat derived distros, but I won't say that Ubuntu is _bad_ or anything.

<comment><USER13> > but I need apt-cache and apt-get to do the same thing on Ubuntu.

apt 1.0 in Ubuntu now contains an `apt` binary, which means this is finally fixed! See also: [http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/](http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/)

<comment><USER12> Aah, well that's handy to know. It's always bugged me a bit, even though it's admittedly a minor nit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suppose it was a good PR move, but I wish Ubuntu hadn't added Docker to an official repository (albeit the universe one) yet, since Docker hasn't hit 1.0. Especially since Ubuntu is packaging it under the name "docker.io", whereas the official package is called "lxc-docker". Seems bound do generate confusion.

<comment><USER15> They can fix the name issue with a meta package, I've seen that happen a few times.

Personally I'd rather they just leave a lot of this stuff to PPAs and external repos.

<comment><USER14> I'm ambivalent about distro package repos versus official packages or PPAs. On the one hand, having all the packages one needs in one place can be quite convenient. On the other hand, Debian (and by extension Ubuntu) has rather strong views about how the whole system should fit together, which it imposes on its packages. So the way a piece of software is packaged in Debian and Ubuntu can be quite different from what the upstream developers intended. I'm reminded of this blog post that a Riak developer wrote last year:

[http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/z_packagers- dont-...](http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/z_packagers-dont-know- best/)

and its follow-up:

[http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/zz_packaging- and-...](http://vagabond.github.io/rants/2013/06/21/zz_packaging-and-the-tide- of-history/)

The Docker package in Ubuntu trusty (which comes from Debian testing/unstable) is certainly more Debianized than the official package provided by the Docker team. Whereas the official Docker binary is statically linked (and the build process has to go through some contortions to make this work), the Debian/Ubuntu build is dynamically linked. Consequently, the Debian/Ubuntu build has to run a separate "dockerinit" binary inside containers, whereas the official build uses a single binary on both sides. Naturally the official build is tested much more extensively, so I'd recommend using that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have an experience with OpenStack? How much worse is it than AWS?

<comment><USER17> It's not worse, it's not better. It's got very different approach to many things. It also depends who deploys it and with which features/services enabled. Rackspace is different than HP cloud is different than ...

In comparison to AWS: The best thing in OS for me is the very flexible network configuration where you can define exactly what your environment looks like. The worst is lack of customised authorization / access control. Unless you need any specific part of AWS integrated into your environment, OS should give you most of the things you need. You can also mix&match services (just watch out where the internal data rates no longer apply).

<comment><USER16> Thanks (you and other commenters). I had a closer look at OpenStack and it looks way better than I've thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ubuntu still _phones home_ too much for my liking.

That said, I appreciate how much the OS has improved since I first gave "Breezy Badger" a spin a few years ago, and Ubuntu is the obvious choice when I recommend an alternative OS to my non-tech savvy acquaintances.

</comment><comment><USER19> Very marketing-buzzword heavy.

<comment><USER14> I found the buzzword-laden marketing-speak quite annoying, but we (hackers) are probably not the intended audience. This is probably written for a non- technical decision maker who wouldn't understand anything written at a much lower level of abstraction.

<comment><USER20> So if I had seen this article, I probably would not have posted it to HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I really hope we get a contender for the linux servers space. Maybe it will be Canonical, maybe not, but having Red Hat/CentOS everywhere (in new deployments at least) is starting to tire me.

<comment><USER22> Isn't Ubuntu already dominant in cloud deployments?

<comment><USER23> In personal and small projects, yes. But not necessarily for large, scaled, infrastructure.

<comment><USER24> not sure which distro is dominant on scaled projects but Ubuntu gets plenty of use on large projects too - from the article:

"Global enterprises including AT&T, Bharti, Bouygues Telecom, British Telecom, China Telecom, China Unicom, Cogent Communications, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, Korea Telecom, NEC, NTT, Numergy, Orange France, Time Warner Cable, Turk Telecom, Verizon and Yandex, as well as leading web scale services such as Netflix, Instagram, Hipchat and Quora are all building next generation services on Ubuntu"

<comment><USER25> "Article" is one word for it, a more specific phrase would be "press release".

It's hard to tell from these lists how seriously a lot of those companies are relying on Ubuntu. Obviously some are (HP for example). But I've seen my own employers listed in press releases where us implementors were wondering "do we really still use that stuff? Oh yeah I think there may be a box or two still running that from when we were testing the waters."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm happy for them, I really am, but I think that it's a real shame that we don't see this level of support for Debian.

</comment><comment><USER27> Ubuntu is far too opinionated to be a stable "cloud platform".

<comment><USER28> yeah.. we should all use a distro based on something unopinionated.. like systemd ;-)

personally i'd rather benefit from solid pkg management with updates and bits available for free (as opposed to only paid subscriptions) and with wide availability of the same cloud images across cloud platforms (published by the distro themselves).

sometimes opinions are good and beneficial, and become widely adopted because its just a better way of doing things ergo, ubuntu cloudinit for declarative userdata based initialization of cloud instances, has promulgated far and wide across other distros and operating systems.

<comment><USER29> How about a distro that moves carefully, making an effort to not use their users as test subjects?

I've switched to Debian Stable for all of my stuff. Life is too short to be beta-testing for Fedora/Ubuntu for free. RHEL/Centos/Scientific is another reasonable choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So what does Ubuntu do that Debian doesn't?

<comment><USER31> I know my reply will sound a bit provocative but I'm genuinely interested, so I dare to ask, what does Debian do that Ubuntu doesn't ?

<comment><USER32> Be the upstream project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Until now I agreed and have used Ubuntu for several years. I was however taken by surprise by how out of the mainstream Ubuntu seemed to security folks when Heartbleed was being identified and it's fix promulgated. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7592244](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7592244)

It left me wondering if Redhat's contributions to the security community give it a leg up. Any "cloud platform of choice" needs to be a first tier security platform. The Heartbleed bug shows that it may not be.

<comment><USER34> That timeline shows that Red Hat knew about Heartbleed exactly 14 minutes before the other distros did. Hardly sounds like a "leg up" to me.

The Heartbleed disclosure was kind of botched, but in general things go more smoothly, with all the major distros being informed ahead of time and having time to prepare patches. For example, see the Xen privilege escalation vulnerability in 2012, and the PostgreSQL remote execution vulnerability in 2013. In both cases, Ubuntu was informed ahead of time and had updates ready to roll when the vulnerability was publicly disclosed.

<comment><USER33> Several of the OpenSSL contributors are RedHat employees. I would presume that Redhat learned of the problem when OpenSSL learned of the problem.</comment></comment></comment>


Crytek has not paid wages, employees are leaving - <AUTHOR> http://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/source-crytek-is-sinking-wages-are-unpaid-talent-leaving-on-a-daily-basis/ <comment><USER2> Strangely enough, a few days ago someone who seemed to be an employee of Crytek Budapest posted a plea with similar contents but it was flagged...

Edit: Looks like it's since been unflagged:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13140938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13140938)

> Crytek haven't paid their employees in Bulgaria in 3 months and all workers > in that office are currently owed 3 full salaries. The company is not > looking to pay these salaries any time soon and have spent the last few > months lying about the availability of this money in order to keep as many > employees as possible. > The Yerli brothers (Avni, Cevat and Faruk) are now > looking at the second delay in the last 6 months (after finishing up a delay > of 2 months just before the current one) and the third payment delay in the > last two years.

> The former director of the Sofia studio, Vesselin Handjiev, left several > months ago and the studio is entirely at the mercy of Crytek Frankfurt's > leadership, which has proved to be unsuccessful in stemming the current > bleeding for 6 months.

> Anyone who has an offer or is otherwise considering joining Crytek is > advised to steer their ship elsewhere, as the current situation is rumored > to apply to all studios within the company, even after the closure and > selling off of several of the Crytek studios around the world.

<comment><USER3> > _Looks like it 's since been unflagged_

Some users flagged it and other users vouched for it, which is one way for a story to get unflagged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's sad, but it shouldn't be surprising. Game companies are constantly trying to hit deadlines and push out new products; often stressing out developers, artists and the rest of their production staff. From what I hear, it seems as bad as the movie industry. Some companies get one windfall, think they have room to relax and then run out of money (often spending too much on fancy offices or stupid crap in the process).

Games got me into computer science, but after reading articles and talking to people I know who went down that route, I'm glad I never got into it. Don't get me wrong, the engines and games people design are amazing and I still enjoy playing them, but it takes a toll on the designers for sure.

<comment><USER5> When I was in high school I wanted to be a game developer. I loved playing video games at the time ( late 90's), why not get paid to make them as well! Then I read an article in Next Generation that discussed the games industry and then that dream vanished. After reading about crazy deadlines where husbands didn't come home for weeks and couples having conjugal visits in the office I decided that wasn't for me. Sounds like a lot hasn't changed in the past 20 years.

<comment><USER6> Hey I'm a freelancer with a home office. Conjugal visits in the office are one of the perks!

<comment><USER7> [https://www.amazon.com/Webcam-Cover-Laptops-Pad- Devices/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Webcam-Cover-Laptops-Pad- Devices/dp/B004Z0XSY6) || [https://www.amazon.com/Electrical- Tape/b?ie=UTF8&node=256161...](https://www.amazon.com/Electrical- Tape/b?ie=UTF8&node=256161011) || Work Ethic ;) (That was mean, but still worth saying tough love and all that)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how long till somebody either buys them out, or they die out. It is a shock to me and a shame. I've always appreciated game engines as a programmer knowing full well the amount of work regular software takes, their engine still astounds me. I hope the best happens, it would be a huge shame to see those developers be lost. There has to be a company out there that would benefit from such engineers. Maybe Valve, Microsoft, Apple? Google even? I say big players because it would put them in a competitive area of the gaming industry. Just thinking aloud. I hope for the best for those employees, and I hope this is a lesson to us all that money should be managed wisely, regardless of if you're running a company or your own personal finances.

<comment><USER9> Plenty of Microsoft execs/share holders who'd be glad to see the back of Xbox and games altogether.

<comment><USER10> Why?

Games are an insanely huge market and Xbox seems to have been amazing at keeping the Microsoft brand relevant in the consumer space.

<comment><USER11> Games are a huge market but it's also extremely competitive and difficult to build a lasting advantage over your competitors. It's all hits-driven, so in many respects competing is closer to running a Hollywood studio than a tech- driven or even sales-driven company.

Contrast this to a group like Windows or Office where Microsoft _knows_ they will be making billions of dollars off of it over the next 10 years, even if they also know it's in decline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Reminder that wage theft is estimated to cost workers over $50 billion a year, more than the cost to victims of all robberies, burglaries, and larcenies combined: [http://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft- costing-w...](http://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing- workers-hundreds/)

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure I see the relevance. A company failing to pay money it doesn't have is not the same thing as stealing money.

<comment><USER12> IANAL, and from what I understand the laws about pay schedule vary by state, so I'm not going to make some claim I can't substantiate. But my guess is if you're 5 weeks late paying your employees you're most likely committing wage theft (probably also not paying payroll taxes on time). You have to liquidate assets, conduct layoffs, or close the business from what I understand.

Crytek is also German, right? So I have no idea how that works there.

<comment><USER14> I like the Norwegian approach: If you are not paid on time, you can sent a letter by recorded delivery, demanding payment. If you have not been paid within 4 weeks, you can have your employer served with a bankruptcy notice with two weeks warning. If they have not paid within that time, you can start bankruptcy proceedings, which will effectively put an administrator in charge.

When the person starting bankruptcy proceedings is an employee with outstanding salary payments, said person can start proceedings with _no money down_ , and the state covers all costs of the proceedings that can't be recovered from the company.

On top of that, as long as your demand is timely, your salary up to a certain limit can be recovered from a government insurance system if the company is truly insolvent and the money can't be recovered from the estate.

This strongly incentivises employees to not put up with any nonsense over unpaid salaries, as there are few costs involved, and while it will take some time to get your salary paid, you will get it eventually (and Norwegian unemployment benefits are substantial enough that getting them is certainly far better than waiting for an insolvent employer to drip-feed you payment).

And as a result it strongly incentivises employers to prioritise salary payments or otherwise negotiate a suitable agreement with staff rather than just stringing people along, and quickly weed out insolvent companies that often would otherwise be able to drag things out by sweet-talking creditors - it's harder to string staff along when they can demand you bankrupt if you don't treat them properly.

<comment><USER15> In germany it's different, you need to send a adhortatory letter and set a deadline, you can also require additional intereset and damages after 2-3 month you can actually stop working but still getting paid ("right of retention"). you can also go to court or resign without further notice and demand a compensation. Also if the employer is actually in a bankruptcy prceeding you can get social money up to a certain degree.

<comment><USER16> Also the invsolvency-administrators can be thief's. As in Lawyer-chambers, that win no matter how hard they run the company into the ground, by simply having it in as many legal battles as possible and billing it by the hour for those very legal battles they caused- bills which override the claims to the bankruptcy assets of all other Creditors.

Yes, the norwegian system is superior.

PS: The german legal system is full of those laws that cause extensive legal- battles, shipping the money of the cause to the laws soldiers of fortune. To navigate around these black holes of law is quite a art.

Take the outrageous concept of the "Erbengemeinschaft" as example. If a companys owner does not have a last will, the company ownership gets by default split up on all descendants and their descendants, making it basically impossible to continue such a company- as this creates a hostage situation with anyone, who is unwilling to get paid out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't imagine sticking around for this long if the problems have been going on since June. I would've been looking for a new job the second my first check was late and would've executed a move immediately after the second was late as well.

I get the idea of 'if you leave maybe you never get paid', but if you stay you've obviously got no guarantee of getting paid either, and you'll at least be doing something that hopefully does pay while fighting for what's owed.

<comment><USER2> Maybe there isn't much of an overlap in positions that seek the skills those working at the studio had, and open positions nearby.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is anecdotal evidence, but I had two friends at two separate companies that missed to pay salaries. The two people individually found comfort in the environment, and at first neither was not seeking a move. The motivation was led by the persons' belief that the situation will go back to normal, not by a lack of qualifications or demand thereof. Both people were/are highly qualified and had skills in demand.

Their situation can be unique to them, I can't know the motivations of developers I don't know.

<comment><USER18> also a month's pay is a lot of money, and you know if you leave you will never see it. the hope is by staying you will eventually get your back pay too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got into programming and software development due to my love of games. I've created independent games and worked at major game studios. If this is article is accurate then unfortunately I'm not surprised. There are major business model related issues across the industry. Top talent getting low pay and doing it just because of "passion" which can only last so long (for an individual) but the then new blood arrives for the cycle to continue. Games and game engines are hard to create and require excellence across multiple disciplines and customers do not value games enough to pay what they are used to already. Prices are similar to what they were for triple-a titles as back in the 90s when games were simpler. Add HD/4K graphics and the latest networking, audio, other modern jazz and all the staff required and what they're charging for a game is a joke.

<comment><USER19> What they're charging is plenty.

\- programming has become much more efficient due to better tools (such as engines) and the ability to waste a few clock cycles here and there.

\- The market for games has expanded dramatically since the 90ies. There are 10x as many people with the hardware and money to buy your game (not even counting mobile).

\- Piracy today is significantly lower than it was in the 90ies, mostly due to constant network connectivity.

Here's a nice chart, showing revenue quadrupled since 2000: [http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna- cdn.com/wp-c...](http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/global-video-game-sector-revenue.jpg)

<comment><USER20> You're forgetting that AAA game creation today requires way more art assets than it ever did. I'm no insider to the industry, but it's obvious that there's far less reuse of assets, and assets are also far more detailed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My understanding is that a company which fails to pay the wages is automatically liqudated (after someone triggers the official process and they still fail to pay). For employees it is actually problematic to continue working if they don't get paid in full.

<comment><USER22> I've personally been through this twice as an employee. "Everything's fine." "Everything's fine." "Everything's fine." "We're shutting down operations today and locking the doors, clean out your desk and leave the property."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What bothers me the most is that, in my limited view, these companies can do shady stuff like that, close down and it's end of story. What's in place to punish the owners so they have less incentive to try this again?

This extends to startups that sign support contracts for their products X years in the future and go belly up, leaving customers with dead weight equipment. A colleague, frustrated at such an event, said he would seek legal reparations to which he heard back "who are you going to sue? The company doesn't exist anymore" and that was it.

What's in place to go after irresponsible _individuals_ in those situations?

EDIT: I understand there are risks in every business negotiation. Would this be an example of customer naivety (in not performing due diligence before acquiring products/service from companies if they expect long-term support?) Is the customer to blame for not knowing how to properly play this game?

<comment><USER24> No, they cannot do that. Delaying filing for insolvency is a crime in Germany. Unable to pay wages is reason enough to file for insolvency. German courts don't take that lightly.

<comment><USER23> So the owners can go to jail or get their personal property confiscated for this in Germany? That's reassuring.

The situation I described happened with a US startup. I'd be curious what we should have done in that situation.

<comment><USER24> They can go to jail, yes. But confiscation of property depends on the company type. Crytek is a "GmbH", which means that the property of the owners is usually safe, unless they unlawfully took assets out of the company.

<comment><USER25> If you delay in filing for insolvency you become liable with your private assets in Germany (certainly true for GmbH).

<comment><USER26> Same for Australian corporations (directors become liable for knowingly trading while insolvent). Normally they're treated as completely separate legal entities, but not in this specific case. I'm sure there are instances of this in US law too: I'd always thought the term 'piercing the corporate veil' originated from the US...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Having friends there here in Frankfurt, this makes me deeply and profoundly sad, and angry.

This seems to be the result of the founders disregard for anything but their own fame and glory. The lesson should probably be that some humility, pragmatism is definetly needed.

<comment><USER28> I just hope the IP stays in Germany. Really sad to see that one of our internationally better-known game forges seems to die. Like so many good studios before them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Rather than building on stronger IP like Crysis, Timesplitters or Ryse, Crytek has tried its luck with VR and free to play projects, which aren't paying the bills."

I wonder what costed them the most resources VR or Free-to-play games.

<comment><USER30> I really don't understand why studios aren't doing VR revamps of existing succesful games. The Doom 3 mod shows how successful this can be. It's one of the best experiences out there and it's a free mod made possible by the fact the source for Doom 3 was released by ID. Yeah - the textures could do with being a bit higher res and not everyone can stomach the locomotion - but come on - throw stuff out there and see what happens

There's not a massive user base but it's chicken and egg and repurposing existing content could be a great boost for the sector.

<comment><USER31> Your last sentence answers your initial inquiry. There aren't enough VR users to be worth the investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We also had this post on Who's Firing last month: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12853270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12853270)

</comment><comment><USER33> I loved the first Crisis and the Warhead add-on, but every game after that was not even in the same league. Quite sad.

</comment><comment><USER34> Seems weird. A week ago in linkedin they were still looking for new people to multiple sites internationally.

<comment><USER35> I worked for a company that ended up failing to pay wages (long story with a lot of lying and shady owners).

They were hiring until the bitter end. The last hire never got paid by the company at all.

<comment><USER36> I'm a contractor:

I got hired by a company that wasnt paying it's wages. Nobody told me about it but in hindsight, it was probably clear given the churn of the employees. I started bankruptcy proceedings when they failed to pay me and got paid because of that, whilst others who didn't quite share my immediacy never got paid.

I left for another company that had form for not paying it's bills and again it still had workers, both employees and contractors that didn't really make me aware until I was already owed quite a bit. I tried the same tactic when they failed to pay me, but they disputed my work (which thus requires court proceedings). Unfortunately the intermediary I was using winded up and I lost any ability to follow up the case and thus this company is no doubt still hiring consultants in and not paying them.

Both companies are still around in one form or another despite having IP that they've essentially stole. On the bright side I learnt a lot about business and binned off the intermediaries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sounds like a delayed filing of insolvency.

</comment><comment><USER37> When you achieve a certain size, you need a layer of conservative power, to keep company going.

</comment><comment><USER38> How does this affect Amazon 's game engine? Btw the way anyone know if the aws game engine is successful?

</comment><comment><USER39> nomen est omen

</comment><comment><USER40> They should open source the engine and tools (as in proper FOSS), if they are to shut down. At least it won't be wasted.

<comment><USER41> Probably it'd be sold by creditors.</comment></comment>


All Children Are Supposed to Be Proficient. What Happened? - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/10/11/354931351/it-s-2014-all-children-are-supposed-to-be-proficient-under-federal-law <comment><USER2> Nothing happened. Educational achievement remains largely heritable.

 _GCSE scores were obtained for 13,306 twins at age 16, whom we also assessed contemporaneously on 83 scales that were condensed to nine broad psychological domains, including intelligence, self-efficacy, personality, well-being, and behavior problems. The mean of GCSE core subjects (English, mathematics, science) is more heritable (62%) than the nine predictor domains (35–58%). Each of the domains correlates significantly with GCSE results, and these correlations are largely mediated genetically. The main finding is that, although intelligence accounts for more of the heritability of GCSE than any other single domain, the other domains collectively account for about as much GCSE heritability as intelligence. Together with intelligence, these domains account for 75% of the heritability of GCSE. We conclude that the high heritability of educational achievement reflects many genetically influenced traits, not just intelligence._ [1]

Even a major educational reform is just tinkering around the edges. Of course, people don't want to hear that so politicians will lie and give us exactly what we want. In this case, illusion that school matters a lot and they can significantly improve it. When it inevitably fails, we will blame them and hang our hopes on a different curriculum, "focusing on growth," getting ivy grads into teaching, or maybe just game the stats to tell ourselves it worked.

Next up, all new episode of democracy in the Middle East.

[1] [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/02/1408777111](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/02/1408777111)

<comment><USER3> Playing devil's advocate: in a perfect world with perfect schooling for everyone, wouldn't you expect a very high level of heritability due to the fact that this is the only source of inequality left?

That's like cancer becoming the primary cause of death - not because cancer is getting more dangerous, but because other, competing causes are eliminated.

<comment><USER4> The paper explicitly says this (that changes to equalise the educational environment will thereby increase heritability) which makes it odd for it to be cited in support of the thesis that the educational environment doesn't matter, because academic success is so heritable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >But, he adds, "I think it's safe to say, and we anticipated this early on, that policymakers erred. They turned an aspirational goal that inspires support, into a target for accountability, meant for consequences."

Unfortunately, this is how nearly every department of the government views pretty much anything. That is why the regularly fail, and its also the reason why intelligent, talented people rarely want to work for the government.

<comment><USER6> This is pretty much literally what "accountability" means. When you say you want an "accountable" government or support politicians who talk about "accountability," measuring things and then firing people or cutting funding based on those measurements is exactly what you're asking for.

Accountability is maybe the solution if the problem is laziness. If your problem is _anything_ else, greater accountability won't solve anything.

<comment><USER5> When I talk about accountability in politics, I want accountability for the near-universal corruption. I want the 500+ member royal family we have established in the United States to follow the same rules as everyone else, and to go to prison when they don't.

As far as accountability in public programs, now that you have made me think about it a bit more, I suppose the greater issue is the fact that the federal government is absolutely terrible at coming up with metrics. Whenever they measure in order to take accountability, they seem to focus on the wrong things.

I think metrics can be helpful in some cases, but in our education system, it would have to be an extremely complicated system, else we would just end up preparing children to take unhelpful standardized tests like we do now.</comment></comment></comment>


British minister hails NZ military's Power Point might - <AUTHOR> http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4566274/British-minister-hails-NZ-militarys-Power-Point-might

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to know where my tax dollars are going...</comment>


Dad takes son to Mongolia to get him off his phone - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50830944 <comment><USER2> As soon as I finished this article I immediately thought of a thread from last week, "Focus has become more valuable than IQ"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21906727)

Watching energetic young kids run around, I can see how tempting it is to give them an interactive device which consumes their attention and makes them easier to handle. But phones seem designed to encourage the shortest possible attention spans and rabid multi-tasking, the opposite of deep focus. So what do you do? Is it as simple as banning phones, if you're willing to give them the needed attention? What about friends' phones and the Internet in general? What if they fall in love with web programming at the age of 8? You want them to be familiar with technology and ideally to be able to drift between multi- tasking and deep focus. I haven't read much on how to achieve this from a practical parenting perspective, though.

<comment><USER3> As much as I am wary of being negative towards children's behaviours that don't match my own, focus related criticism is something that I feel is really valid. I've watched children below the age of 13 Snapchat and watched any number of children aged 2 and above using YouTube. The same behavior shows up where before a video has finished, the children are reaching out to tap to another one. I try not to judge but I do cringe when I see 2 year olds spending 1 minute on a baby rhymes video, then reaching forward, tapping to another one while the first still has 15 minutes to go, and then doing that again and again and again. The older children swiping without fully watching even a Snapchat video is equally bothersome for me. I'm seeing swipes and taps happen in the range of 2 to 3 seconds.

This behaviour is not unique to children though. I watch adults at the hospital using Facebook and it's the same. It's almost like they just want to swipe rather than look at the content for real.

I have no idea what the long term effects of this behaviour are. Perhaps it's nothing and I'm fretting over it needlessly. But I've experienced it myself and it took behaviour similar to rehab to come out of it and be able to slowly enjoy content again. And it always feels easy to slip back into. It's terrifying.

<comment><USER4> Doesn't sound qualitatively different from the way people have read a newspaper for decades - title, first paragraph, move on.

<comment><USER3> It isn't qualitatively different. I appreciate the term there. Quantitatively however, the abundance of information and the way networks choose to constantly show new content (that is more likely to appeal to you too) makes for a very different scenario from decades ago.

Pick up the news paper, and it's the same thing you have to browse/skim through. Pick up the phone and it's tens of new items every few minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you already have an inclination to travel to Mongolia, this makes for an interesting "last straw" to justify going. I like the relative desolation of the American Midwest, in part because of the no-tech/no-connectivity of large swaths; any excuse to go there is appreciated.

Once that hurdle is cleared, going to such an extreme for disconnecting helps hammer home the point to the kid: cellular connectivity isn't just a few feet of separation from phone, or a few miles outside cell service, it's far enough that disconnection is absolute & profound - you can drive (not just walk) for _days_ and still not get a connection.

The real horror is a society so deeply dependent on something they use so intimately yet so completely fail to understand. Getting kids "back to the Earth" is very important, full & complete disconnect from "technology" so they can grasp their own ability to live & thrive without it. Clarke: "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"; we're there, and while the benefits are good, the psychological dependency & mystery isn't. Go somewhere distant from technology, forage/hunt food, make a meal over an open fire, and sleep under the stars - so vital for a child's psychological well-being.

[ETA: "Midwest" referring to roughly the boundary between central plains and Rocky Mountains.]

<comment><USER6> Where do you draw the line on technology? Are you hunting and foraging with your own hand made weapons? Is the tent you sleep in composed of furs? Technology is all around us, no matter how far you move or hide, and it seems arbitrary to draw the line at "cell phone bad", then argue that you need to get kids to go "back to the Earth". That's idealistic romanticism, and unless you're running around in leather skins with a wooden bow and hand woven string, it's all pretending that one can survive without the trappings of modern life.

<comment><USER7> I know people who are unable to navigate without their phones. If they spent some time in the wilderness, they would start to learn, intuitively, which direction is north, south, etc. They would learn how to read a map, including topo maps. They would start to learn how to create a mental map of their surroundings or at least remember where they had been. They would start learning what do when lost. All very helpful if the internet is down, their phone dies, or they get caught up in a natural disaster back in civilization.

<comment><USER6> That seems like two different use cases. While that helps you to tell direction, it doesn't help you navigate to 9134 Grocer Place, which is what I think most people use Google Maps for, and for which a topo map would be less than useless. Do you know people who Google Maps their way camping?

<comment><USER7> > Do you know people who Google Maps their way camping?

Yes. Google Maps has pretty good coverage of popular trails and topography and can be used if you have signal.

> it doesn't help you navigate to 9134 Grocer Place

It absolutely can if you have some familiarity with the area and no signal. If from previous experience, you generally know where Grocer Place is then finding 9134 just takes patience. You don't even need to have necessarily been to that specific street before if you have a mental map of the area.

> a topo map would be less than useless

For finding a street address, true. But knowing how to read a topo map helps someone learn how to read and navigate natural landmarks which can be helpful in a natural disaster scenario or in a city if they are lost and no signal. I invite you to spend some time orienteering, I think you'll start to understand where I am coming from.

<comment><USER8> >You don't even need to have necessarily been to that specific street before if you have a mental map of the area.

I, for one, am not going to waste my mental energy making a mental map of Houston. The city PROPER has an area of 670 mi^2, which is equivalent to fifteen San Francisco's. The metropolitan area is over 200 San Francisco's. I regularly drive 40 miles to get from one side of the city to another, for whatever particular errand I need to run that day. The Houston metro area is officially over 10,000 square miles - that's larger than (pick one): Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Maryland.

I'm not building a "mental map" of an area larger than the entire state of Massachusetts. Saying it's on par with the total area of the country of Switzerland would not be much of an exaggeration.

Maybe the city was different before cell phones. Maybe each neighborhood either had everything you needed or you just went without. Now, because GPS/Google Maps exist, the highest quality businesses pop up in super random spots around the city, and you'll never be able to have a clue how to get to them all without Google Maps.

"Back in the day" you didn't live in an integrated metropolis the size of Switzerland. But we do now...so the tools we need to enable that are now legitimately "needed" and non-optional. This very well may be hazardous to our health, but its not really an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > But he also says getting to know his dad was worth it, especially the time > they spent off the road in their tents or yurts just cooking and bonding.

> "I was surprised that when he's away from a work environment and family that > he acts maybe closer my age," he says.

> Similarly, Mr Clarke was surprised to learn how mature his son was when they > weren't confined to their typical father-son parenting dynamic.

This was what I took away as the most important part from this. It's definitely a surreal moment the first time you experience your parents as real people, peers even, and no longer as only a parent. I remember when I first experienced that with my own dad. Finding the opportunity to facilitate a moment like this is something special. I'm looking forward to whatever that might be with my own son one day, likely many years from now.

</comment><comment><USER10> I regularly retell a story where I was waiting in line with a woman at the DMV who used a smartphone as a pacifier for her toddler. The kid had a full-blown meltdown when she had to take the phone to make a call. This is the kind of behavior we are putting in our children when we take the easy tech-enabled route.

Similar points can be made about the ubiquity of surveillance tech: giving up key personal rights in the name of "convenience".

<comment><USER11> You're reading too much into it. Kids have full blown meltdowns over nothing _all the time_.

Your story might just as well have been about candy.

<comment><USER10> I left context out for the sake of brevity, but since you are addressing its absence:

The entire time I was there (and remember, this is the DMV, so it was a while) the kid was glued to the phone. There is a difference between engaging with a smartphone and being engrossed by one. This case was certainly the latter. Yes, again, toddler worldviews have limited scope and the thing in front of them is usually the most important thing ever, but even so this child was clearly addicted.

<comment><USER12> No you're still misreading that - because you could be talking about my nephew holding a torch or a toy truck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> His son's reaction reminds me of the first time I quit social media. I remember just walking about, living my life, and then a thought would occur--a clever remark or an interested photo I could take. And then I had to grapple with _not_ sharing that thought with anyone. The thought would just linger in my head for a bit, then disappear, and there would be no record of it at all. That's been default for 99.9999% of human existence, and in a few short years of social media usage, it became a strange and foreign sensation.

I'm glad I went through that to readjust and see just how much my mind had been warped. I use social media much less than I used to and I'm happier for it.

<comment><USER14> That goes for passing, trivial questions, too. One pops in your head now, you _itch_ until you answer it, because you _can_ answer it. Pre-ubiquitous-web, fewer such thoughts reached the level of conscious awareness and they were rarely actionable, so, if not important, maybe you ask the people you're with ("hey, who was that guy in that one movie?") and if no-one knew or had the relevant coffee-table trivia book handy (so, most of the time), it went unanswered and the thought just went away. No itch.

I also find I burn a lot of time on meta-media (best-lists and such) and low- value reading ( _cough_ ) because there's a ton of it available at the command of a whim, where before one had to spend real time seeking out or paying for that sort of thing (magazines and such). It's a pretty serious indictment of my Web activity that I wouldn't pay any money at all for most of it, if the choice were to pay or not to have it (Internet service doesn't count—I pay for it for the few things for which it actually is very useful, not for those).

Actually that word might best describe what we've done with this new environment: we've given vastly more power to whims. The Age of the Whim.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes I kinda miss just idly pondering a question and having to come up with plausible answers yourself. Of course I have the option to not look up answers -- which I often don't -- but then you still mis out on idly pondering with a group of people. Someone will have their cellphone out before you finish stating the question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "While his father has climbed Everest twice, Khobe had never climbed a > mountain so he had to practise that, too."

This dude has climbed Everest, twice?! I'm starting to think this family would have gone on a vacation to Mongolia regardless of whether there was cell service.

</comment><comment><USER17> > "Oh my God, that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!"

> "I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone, > essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."

> "What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs?"

Holy fucking shit this poor kid!

What are we doing to ourselves?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, if he's so bored, why can't he do drugs and have unprotected sex like the teenagers of his parents' generation?

<comment><USER17> I had three responses, take your pick:

A.) At least those activities take place in meat-space.

B.) Because those are the only options, right? Phone or delinquency?

C.) You think that's it? The parents are druggies who had unwanted children and so they are content to let the phone raise them? The 60's did it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always been skeptical of "screen time addiction". In most cases I've seen someone addicted to screentime, there's an underlying issue that's the real cause. Like a messy divorce causing kids to lose themselves in World of Warcraft, or my own example of picking up coding to "hide" in my own world due to a traumatic childhood. Other cases, I'll see more normal people binge games or screentime, but usually they pull themselves out and do fewer IRL screen activities after that binge. They don't lose themselves like I did as a kid trying to escape something.

<comment><USER20> I have a similar experience. But it's still super helpful for me to first break the content addiction part so that I have the mental space to try and confront the underlying problems...

<comment><USER21> Right but tools vs solutions. The tool is a screen timer, but the solution is to resolve the underlying problem.

<comment><USER20> Yup. Screen timer is a tool to do help break my addiction, which is the first step of the solution (because without doing that first step, I don't think I'd have the mental capacity to deal with the underlying problem).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just these days I was discussing this matter with my partner. I have 3 daughters - one of the yet a teenager, the other 2 over 20 years now - from a previous marriage. We were talking about the issue of eventually having to give a phone to our 6 yo daughters. Here are just a couple of things I know think I could had done.

Handling a phone to a kid shouldn't be an "all or nothing" predicament. Just as you don't let kids drive 24 hs after the learned how to. There's should be a concrete set of rules that could - and should - be enforced: First a foremost, a notice or similar from the school due to incorrect usage of the apparatus (Say, in the middle of a class) would led to confiscation of the phone. Same for using it whenever the family is gathered on special and not- so-special occasions (Say, watching a movie together). this last rule should apply also to parents, thought.

Of importance as well should be not usage at all of the phone after a certain time in the day (say, 20:00).

I think the most important thing is to let the kid know that the phone is a "lended" item and not something that belongs to them.

<comment><USER23> > one of the yet a teenager

My teen also wanted to be a yeta. That's where I put my foot down. "You can be a gay cross-dressing jew, I'm good with dat. But NOW WAY YOU GONNA BE A YETA." I says.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > _Khobe admits that at the time he was angry that he had to go, and miserable > because without Snapchat or Instagram, he had no idea what his friends back > home were up to._

Who cares what "his friends back home were up to" to that extend?

He could catch up with them when he's back, it's not like they'll have some groundbreaking change in their lives and he'll blink and miss it. Are they even close friends or just people he watches their selfies and shots of brunches on FB?

</comment><comment><USER25> Not to sound callous, but I have trouble understanding crippling device addiction in general. I grew up constantly on a computer, I'm still on it regularly, I'm a pretty heavy phone user, but I have no problem without these things and I do other things. If i'm with people, I don't fuck around on my phone, I don't feel any sense of missing out or loss when I can't be on it. I do other things that don't involve phones or computers at all.

I just tend to look at them as tools that just happen to be handy for a shit ton of things. It sucks when I cant use them, but it's really not the end of the world and i've probably had more screen time than some of these kids or even teenagers have been alive for.

<comment><USER26> If you focus on apps designed to live on dopamine feedback, and on users who hit adolescence with that in hand, I think a reasonable case can be made for an addiction.

<comment><USER27> It's the « People are boring » effect, compared to even a Youtube video which is a compacted speech that constantly catches your attention.

However, relationships are also broken, and we should do something about it as much as decrease phone usage. I'm not sure which way is the causation here, but countless times I have told my needs to people/relatives (I need to avoid being constantly put down as a man, specifically, I have cleaned my room and I have a six-figure job after all) and people are wired to reject that idea and claim men as a class don't deserve to be told positive things. I retreat to my phone by despair, not because the phone is interesting. More recently I have found far-right friends, but again, it's just because they respect me, not because it's awesome: It's a palliative, not a solution.

It's discussed in the book « The boy crisis » of Warren Farrell (former president of NOW, the National Organization for Women), but hey, people claim he is « controversial » so no-one's gonna take it into account.

Men — need — some — love. Or they'll find it elsewhere.

<comment><USER26> What group of assholes believes that? It's sexist bullshit.

If you're surrounded by that, it's got to be incredibly unhappy. Some thoughts (unsolicited, I recognize):

\- to make space in your life for better people, start deprecating the toxic ones.

\- there are lots of positive groups of men. Not always, but places to look: Dojos, Freemasons, sports groups (not necessarily very athletic groups, either).

\- some independent fun helps. A motorcycle is fun.

\- or start bodybuilding to get some of these assholes to fear you a bit. People compliment those that they fear.

Unsolicited, given, but HTH.

<comment><USER28> > What group of assholes believes that? It's sexist bullshit.

Yet fairly typical in modern Western society. I can't count the number of times people have open insulted and/or discounted "males" and particularly "white males" in my presence. "Oh, but you're different". I have no idea how to even respond to that.

I can't even imagine people doing the same to women or minority males 25 years ago without (justifiably) being excluded from polite society (it _was_ happening to gay people back then, and I'm very glad those days are pretty much over, or at least much better).

<comment><USER18> I'm curious, since it doesn't match my experience: where in Western society have you lived, if you'd be OK with sharing?

<comment><USER28> Ok, to be fair, the "many times" is counting online interactions (including w/fellow devs). So it was misleading in that sense. I should have mentioned it. But it's also happened in life with coworkers (several times) and even with my own family (a big source of discord). I can even tell you the context of some of the recent interactions: discounting political candidates because they're "just another white male". Probably, you will argue that's not an insult, but can you imagine someone saying they weren't hiring a woman because she's "just another woman".

And it's usually in the form of "men" and "white men" and not "white males" although people have used those terms, too, in front of me.

As I'm sure you know, this is in the US. I've lived overseas in several European countries and never gotten anything like this. It's also a recent phenomenon, within the past 5 years or so.

But the fact that you asked that question has made me reflect on how I made that assertion (in an exaggerated/misleading manner, since the "many" includes online interactions). If I could, I'd edit it. I'll be more careful in the future when discussing this.

<comment><USER18> > As I'm sure you know, this is in the US. I've lived overseas in several > European countries and never gotten anything like this.

Well, I suspected it, since my experience in Europe, but it's not like I lived in more than a few countries here, so I was curious. I have to admit it does rile me up a bit when people generalize the US as "the West" :)

I do wonder why that hasn't seem to have crossed the pond significantly.

<comment><USER28> Fair enough. I'll be more careful about "Western Society". It's been over 10 years since I last lived in Europe (France, at that time), and I've not been back since (except for a 2-month stay in Turkey), so I'm not entirely use how much of this identity politics has permeated European society.

I think it's only a matter of time before it crosses over to Britain, and then possibly on to Germany and/or Scandinavia. I can't see France or Spain moving in this direction any time soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I daydream about spending, say, a month in a cabin in the mountains with my kids, but... I couldn't work without an internet connection myself.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you're in the States and looking for something closer to home, I go on camping trips up in the Adirondacks fairly often. The cell coverage is either nonexistent or voice-only, and it's a beautiful area.

There are a few good backcountry campsites I've found that do have 4G - working remotely out of a tent is definitely an experience.

</comment><comment><USER31> I do have the problem with my daughter that I have to make sure she is almost always on some sort of project, outside, with a friend or something or she is back on the computer playing Roblox, but I haven't considered going to Mongolia yet, so far the local amusement parks seem to suffice in even the most dire situation.

</comment><comment><USER32> You don't have to go nearly that far. Even within a dense urban area, I can go up the hill 10 minutes from my house in the Oakland hills and the various small valleys in the hills have no cell service.

Now I have a Delorme Inreach satellite messenger so I can stay connected, its cost prohibitive to use excessively, however.

</comment><comment><USER33> This kind of thing always reminds me of the 'Doctors' entry in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

[https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/d/694485](https://sites.google.com/site/h2g2theguide/Index/d/694485)

<comment><USER34> As well as:

[https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Crisis_Inducer](https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Crisis_Inducer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I thought this was a related or a supplementary story for the BBC programme shown across 6 episodes in March-April 2019, titled: Race Across The World. It featured a father-son team bonding over their experiences whilst travelling from London to Singapore on a budget of £2,000, without directly using modern technology or flights to reach their intended destination and competing with other teams.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002tvs](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002tvs)

Spoiler alert: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_the_World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Across_the_World)

</comment><comment><USER36> I do a five day food and technology fast every year [0]. It's an instructive experience to go without these two dependancies. If I have kids it is something I'd want them to partake in when they are the right age, but these extreme measures can't be the only action taken throughout the year.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21921462](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21921462)

<comment><USER37> I use the tools at hand and if those tools are electronic I have no compunction about using them.

My ex pronounced that by day 3 of an international trip I'd be crawling up the walls wanting to check my email. Turned out I wasn't the one crawling up the walls on day 3... I abstained day 4 just to prove the point, and caved in the middle of day 5. And honestly, it wasn't that satisfying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I like the opening quote about being on a motorcycle and being completely distraction free. A number of years ago I rode a couple thousand miles to key West from my home town in ks. That was one of the most incredible things I've ever done. I had to ride through a tropical depression, heat, cold, but mainly I just got to listen and look at scenery. I'll do it again someday!

</comment><comment><USER39> You can't help but feel that the Dad has some attention deficit issues that need addressing, let alone having to approach issues in such an indirect way instead of directly.

Though that whole aspect that this made the news, does somewhat fuel my initial thoughts about this.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if this will still be possible in/after this new decade (when we get all these satellite-based ISPs, ie. SpaceX, Project Kuiper, Apple).

</comment><comment><USER41> > "Oh my God, that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!"

> "I had never before that experienced a weekend without my phone, > essentially," Khobe told the BBC. "It was very weird for me."

I cannot take this article seriously at all. From the title, to the premise, to idea you have to go to Mongolia to get your kid to put down their phone and interact with you. You can go literally anywhere or nowhere (stay home) and have the exact same experience.

We can absolutely celebrate a father/son camping trip but the idea this is what parents have to do to pull their kids away from their phones is both false and clickbaity as hell.

> "When you're in a group of people and you're supposed to have social > interaction time, but everyone's on their phone, that's when I've tried to > change my habits," he says.

> "It's rude to not give people your undivided attention."

That's true, it is rude to not give people your undivided attention also if everyone in your "friend" group is on their phones the whole time and not paying attention then you might want to look for better friends...

<comment><USER42> I don't think the article suggested this is what parents _have_ to do, but maybe I missed it.

I agree that this is a bit "extra", but you obviously haven't experienced what it's like for someone to have a crippling addiction to their smartphone.

This dad feeling like he had to do something extreme is probably not ill- founded. Sometimes people have to pull out all the stops to accomplish something, especially when dealing with an addict (that's what interventions are). Staying at home could have worked, but much harder when you have to trust and rely on the son using his phone responsibly. The dad just avoided all the pitfalls by doing something extreme. Agreed that it's extra, but I think you're dismissing this hastily.

<comment><USER43> Agree completely. I personally know an otherwise normal healthy teenage girl that cries and can't sleep at night from anxiety if she doesn't have her phone. I think there are many more people like this than we realize.

<comment><USER42> Yeah. I myself dismissed concerns that people have expressed because I tend to be suspicious of alarmism. But there is a real problem, a real addiction. Sure, it might not be the same as a chemical addiction to alcohol or something, but that doesn't make it any less real. I've seen firsthand how relationships have been destroyed, in large part, due to smartphone addiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> make him visit baotou toxic lake on the way

</comment><comment><USER45> If all parents would have that kind of money...

</comment><comment><USER46> A part of me wants to respond to this article with a simple "OK Boomer" because it's easy to see people using this story as justification for a weak "technology bad" argument. However... there really people who are hopelessly addicted to social media. They are a minority, but they exist.

I think of social media the same way I think about alcohol. It can be great at times and in moderation, but it's highly addictive and can absolutely ruin you if you're not careful. The big difference is we don't let minors drink alcohol without supervision.

</comment><comment><USER47> This may be politically incorrect but I think parents should be able to take a page out of the Asian parents handbook and corporally punish their kids. I find a certain amount of fear in very specific cases works to get kids to focus initially until it becomes a part of their daily routine.

<comment><USER48> Much more effective would be to follow the Asian method of channeling that energy into something requiring a lot of practice and focus, like martial arts or an instrument, and bonus points if it looks good on a college application.

(If they don't like the current thing you're focusing them on though, consider switching lest they dislike you for the rest of their lives.)</comment></comment>