My 10 UNIX Command Line Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/my-10-unix-command-line-mistakes.html <comment><USER2> One of my worst was `source ~/.bash_history` via accidental tab completion. I was expecting .bash_profile. The nasty part was, I couldn't kill it because of all the mess (system instability) it was creating. A couple of 'cd ..' calls and a 'rm -rf *' ended up biking some root directories.

I ended up restoring from backup.

<comment><USER3> You have just added a new reason to my list of reasons never to put `rm -rf *` into my command-line history again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With so many SSH accounts all over the place, I've started using color-coded prompts for all my connections:

<http://i.imgur.com/KKQHj.png>

This way I can be sure I'm typing `halt` into the right box, because it's easier to spot the wrong color than the wrong hostname in 10pt text.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered using 'screen' instead?

<comment><USER6> I find a prompt better than a status line for reminding one of where one is, much like including the CWD in the prompt.

I use a similar style:

        [alfie] ~$
        [rupert] ~$

etc. for my SSH connections, but not for local shells, even though I also use screen. I also use color-coded prompts for selecting particular PATH and other environment variable setups for different branches of our corporate dev tree, to remind myself which compiler etc. I'm using.

<comment><USER7> This is one of my strategies too (along with screen labels). Add to ~/.bash_profile :

PS1="\\[\033[0m\\](\\[\033[0;36m\\]\u\\[\033[0m\\]@\\[\033[0;33m\\]\h\\[\033[0m\\])(\\[\033[1;34m\\]\w\\[\033[0;0;0m\\])"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _I wanted to shutdown VPN interface eth0, but ended up shutting down eth1 while I was logged in via SSH_

Not done that exact one, but I've added firewall rules that cut me out in exactly the same way.

Another favourite is typing "shutdown -h now" into the wrong terminal: I know a few people who have admitted to doing that.

<comment><USER9> I always hated remote firewall changes. I usually had two terminals open. In one, I'd run my "cya" script that slept for a minute, restored the old firewall rules, slept another minute, then did a reboot. In the other terminal, I'd run the new firewall rules. If I didn't screw up, I'd go back to the other terminal to stop the "cya" script. If I _did_ screw up, the worst case was a few minutes of downtime that I'd hope nobody would notice.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could also just save the current firewall config, and then have the script restore the saved config after a minute. No need to reboot.

<comment><USER9> The script was: sleep 1 minute, then restore rules, sleep 1 more minute, then reboot. That first rule restore was so I could conceivably get things back in order before the reboot. I had the final reboot there in case the new firewall rules somehow killed my ssh session. This never happened, and I might have been able to ssh in again at that point, but I wasn't going to count on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _I wanted to append a new zone to /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf file., but end up running:_

 _./mkzone example.com > /var/named/chroot/etc/named.conf_

in at least tcsh, "set noclobber" will help with this. when you try to overwrite a file that exists (usually from doing > instead of >>) you will get an error that the file exists instead. if you really want to overwrite the file, you have to use ">!".

<comment><AUTHOR> It's similar in zsh. Unless CLOBBER is set, you need to use ">!" or ">|" to overwrite a file when redirecting output.

A nice safety feature that's already saved my bacon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My worst:

`cp -r folder backup` turns out folder was a symlink. Then I messed up my script and deleted all of the contents. Backup was destroyed with the original since I copied the symlink instead of the directory. Luckily I had just setup a slave server and was able to copy 95% of the files from there.

Recently I did a `rm -rf /directory/` instead of a `rm -rf /directory/directory2`. Once again luckily I had real backups.

Every-time I screw up, or a system has problems (stupid hard drives) the belief that backups the most important part of a system is reinforced. It basically doesn't matter what you do if you have proper backups you can recover.

The catch there is that no backup is truly a backup until it is tested.

<comment><AUTHOR> _"no backup is truly a backup until it is tested"_

Unfortunately, even that is not enough, in the long run.

You have to periodically _retest_ your backups, and transfer them to new media as they age.

It's also a good idea to store backups off-site (preferably in multiple geographically-dispersed locations).

And, it almost goes without saying that the more frequently you do backups, the less data you'll lose when you actually have to restore from them.

Before long, it's a full time job just to keep the backup system humming along smoothly, testing and retesting backups, and transferring them from old media to new.

Of course, this problem gets a lot harder and more time consuming as the quantity of data you need to backup/restore grows.

I keep reading about the crazy amounts of data generated by projects like the LHC, and my mind boggles at what the challenges in doing backups of that amount of data must be like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's a compendium of tips for avoiding mistakes like these, largely culled from other comments here, but some from the article.

1\. Never `rm _`, especially `-rf`. If you must, `rm -rf ../tmp/_ ` or similar. You do not want this command to be in your history. Especially in the form `rm -rf * & cd; trn`.

2\. Set up backups early on. Use `git` or similar for as much as possible.

3\. `noclobber` (or not setting CLOBBER in zsh) may help. I found `noclobber` irritating because it also refused to append to nonexistent files.

4\. Take three deep breaths after typing and before executing a `shutdown` or `rm -r` command, or typing a password at a password prompt. (Did you just give your intranet server password to whoever has backdoored your weekend-project VPS?)

5\. Keep backups in a format that you can readily verify is usable. `rsync` with `--link-dest` is handy for this, as is `git`.

6\. When referring to a directory that you believe exists, don't say `foo/bar/baz`. Say `foo/bar/baz/.` so that whatever command doesn't try to create the directory `baz` if it doesn't exist yet.

7\. Color-coded prompts or terminal windows by server.

8\. Tab-complete to ensure that things exist.

9\. Use `sudo` instead of root shells.

10\. Keep your config files in source control. RCS is okay, but Git is better.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice idea. Usually you see blog posts with the latest success or the code you are proud of but showing mistakes and errors is not that common. I'm dreaming to see the academic papers where instead of all the wonderful results you'll see the errors path to reach the final result.

<comment><USER13> _> Usually you see blog posts with the latest success or the code you are proud of_

I'm observing the exact opposite. While the official project sites show indeed only success stories, I'm observing a trend that those sites increasingly add a "blog" section where the developers talk freely about their experiences and mistakes.

 _> I'm dreaming to see the academic papers where instead of all the wonderful results you'll see the errors path to reach the final result._

This would not only be great, but should be mandatory (maybe by law) in order to get rid of the publication bias. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The worst I've done is unplug the internet connection of an ISP, who happened to be a competitor of the company I was working at. Not a good day at all...

</comment><comment><USER15> First day at college the lecturer says "As soon as you've finished editing your programmes, type 'rmcobol < a.txt > a.out'".

So, having finished first, I type "rm cobol < a.txt > a.out", and I spend a while wondering what "cobol not found" means before I realise what I've done.

[unix syntax from memory, may be wrong]

</comment><comment><USER16> i once did `sudo mv . /var/www/` when in root... i had been copying files to my webserver.. before i knew it my connection had closed and i couldn't ping the server, after running to the colo i find i had no backups my rsync had been failing for the last couple of days and i had failed to check the logs, after pulling and old copy of the site from what i think it was one of the developers laptops, i was able to get the site running, old and w/o the latest db, after a while i mounted the drive and for my surprise everything was still there, lesson learned always check your current path... i always find myself just typing as fast as i can and sometimes while switching from tty's i loose track of where i am...

</comment><comment><USER17> My worst was uninstalling libc on a linux machine. I had been going round and round trying to get the right packages and versions on the machine and ended up getting it in a bad state and for some reason got it into my head that it'd be a good idea to uninstall libc and install a newer version. Note that when you do so (at least on debian) you will not just be given a y/n prompt, you have to type in some sentence such as "Yes, I know this is a very bad idea." at the prompt before proceeding. When I'd reached that point I figured why the hell not, it'll be curious to see what the result is. The machine became pretty much unusable after that and I ended up just reinstalling from scratch, IIRC.

</comment><comment><USER18> _On Linux killall command kill processes by name (killall httpd). On Solaris it kill all active processes._

As a young programmer on my first real programming job, an online stock broker in 1999, I did this. I had been running Linux since -95 and was familiar with Solaris from college. I had no idea about this though. I was so ashamed, but I didn't face any dire consequences.

I will never forget my lesson (then again, I will probably not be managing Solaris anymore).

I have also done variations on "ifconfig eth1 down" (or messing around with iptables) on a remote computer.

<comment><USER19> I'll cop to the same - though thankfully it was my workstation and not a production server (and more than a decade ago).

I would imagine just about everyone from the same era who was newly exposed to administering both sunos/solaris and linux probably did the same thing. (the longbeards who already new Sunos/solaris would already know better)

But seriously.. what a stupid command. What was the practical value of "killall" on solaris? seriously?

<comment><USER20> From what I understand, Solaris killall is used in the final stages of system shutdown. Why it has to be on the default $PATH I'll never understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been burnt the first time I used 'rsync'. It seems natural that when you are in a computer and you do "something another_computer" you are in the 'client' and the 'another_computer' is the 'server', like when you check out an svn or whatever code locally from a server. rsync has this backwards from this convention, I added the -delete option to 'merge' files (so it didn't copy the ones I already had locally) and I ended up deleting files in the 'server'.

<comment><AUTHOR> When doing stuff like this for the first time, I like to try it out on some test files before going for the real thing.

<comment><USER22> "rsync --dry-run src dest" will show you what rsync would do, without actually doing anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> quoting :

 _4\. Use CVS to store configuration files._

using CVS ? even if it was written 2009 that still pretty backward...

<comment><USER24> Heck, I've used rcs in the past five years because the server didn't even have cvs installed. It's not exactly like you need advanced branching/merging, atomic commits, and a distributed system for a one line change to /etc/hosts.

<comment><USER23> Yeah I can see RCS useful for a quickly ci a couple of files but CVS is hell of a setup compared to it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> One of my worst errors was trying to find a function definition while I was coding on a c++ project. I managed to execute 'grep operator> *'. First I found it strange that the grep operation didn't return anything. Then I started opening my files, and they were suddenly all empty. It took a few minutes before I realized exactly what I had done... (Of course, I hadn't committed anything the previous 5 hours.)

</comment><comment><USER26> I pulled the classic more then once:

mv stuffwithoutbackup tosomeotherplacewithatypointhepath

 _curse at typo_

rm -rf tosomeotherplacewithatypointhepath

 _curse more vigorously_

<comment><USER27> The best way I have found to reduce typos in a pathname is to use auto complete, even when just typing the path would be faster.

<comment><USER28> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2268720>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> # on windows box

scp file linuxbox:~

# on linux box # I now have a file called /home/me/~

rm ~

# some stupid error...

rm -fr ~

# that's taking a while...

NOOOOOOO!

<comment><USER29> ...OK, I have to ask. Why would you name a file "~" in the first place?

<comment><USER30> You missed the part where they said they were on a windows box trying to copy a file to their home directory. Instead of copying the file to the home directory, it made a file called ~.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> No mention of the (likely) most common mistake, 'sl' instead of 'ls'.

Its no type, its a steam locomotive. <http://www.freebsdsoftware.org/games/sl.html>

<comment><USER32> I actually alias sl=ls for exactly this reason...

<comment><USER33> Then you miss out on the steam train!

<comment><USER32> It also means I miss out on the embarrassment of having my Solaris box blare a train whistle over the onboard speaker for the entire department to hear, regardless of what my volume settings are, or whether I have headphones plugged in...

<comment><USER33> Fair point - I have only ever used sl on a box with no sound, didn't know it did that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> On the systems I used to maintain, every single configuration file was generated by a script. If you make a mistake, you just re-edit and re-run the script.

</comment><comment><USER35> > On Solaris it kill all active processes.

*nix newbie here - how is a process determined to be active vs not? Wouldn't this completely tank the machine?

<comment><USER36> killall is used by shutdown(1M) to kill all active processes not directly related to the shutdown procedure.

killall terminates all processes with open files so that the mounted file systems will be unbusied and can be unmounted.

killall sends signal (see kill(1)) to the active processes. If no signal is specified, a default of 15 is used.

Try and guess where I got that info from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I once did rm -rf * in a chroot... only to realize I had a filesystem mounted with --bind. I had a backup :)

</comment><comment><USER38> One classic missing from that list: Typing "halt" into the wrong terminal window.

<comment><USER39> Actually, it is there (Typing UNIX Commands on Wrong Box). If anything, it's a classic lesson to log out of the root shell as soon as you're done with the task that required it. Tellingly, that lesson is missing from that list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just last week, I had some root-owned hidden directories in my home directory. So I did:

sudo chown -R me:mygroup .*

Fortunately, I caught it before it made it out of /home, so only some user directories were affected, and the cleanup was relatively straightforward.</comment>


Gigabit Fiber in Portland - <AUTHOR> http://maxogden.com/portland-fiber.html <comment><USER2> Gosh, fiber tucked on utility poles. How backwards is the US, that's ridiculous.

Fiber has to be digged into the ground and properly isolated from the environment by laying the fiber inside pipes.

<comment><USER3> Why?

<comment><USER2> Poles can and will be damaged due to external forces (car accidents, lightning strikes, wind, snowfall) all the time.

A properly buried cable (buried below freezing depth) will last as long as no one manages to hit it while digging.

<comment><USER4> At amazingly huge expense. It's way cheaper to re-string it every few years on the pole when it gets damaged then to avoid the myriad of other cables already underground.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple IIe Mini powered by C.H.I.P - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Cupcakus/AppleIIMini#apple-iie-mini-powered-by-chip <comment><USER2> Previously here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572298)

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like something you'd see on 8-Bit Guy.

</comment><comment><USER4> That project is so smoooth.. wait, what is C.H.I.P and how to get one?

<comment><USER5> [https://getchip.com/pages/chip](https://getchip.com/pages/chip)

<comment><USER6> Pocketchip on hold, the rest "contact sales".

Honestly wish someone would clone the pocketchip for use with the PIZeroW.

<comment><USER7> Its so underpowered though, other Allwinner SBC vendors already have H2+to H5 boards for cheap (eg: $6.99 for an OrangePi Zero), even an H2+ chip has 4x the cores at a similar clock as the CHIP.

<comment><USER8> This market moves so fast that you have to release new products 1-2 times per year to stay near the top in performance in a given price band.

C.H.I.P.'s claim to fame, as far as I'm concerned, is that they're the first kickstarter I bought that delivered on time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Seas - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html <comment><USER2> It's a good read but... I don't see the whole point about "From a Dutch mind- set, climate change is not a hypothetical or a drag on the economy, " is a bit weird.

Climate doesn't matter here. 1/3rd of the country is already under sea level TODAY. The billions we spend on engineering and developing water defense structures have no relation to our believes about climate change. We are ALREADY beneath sea level!

Look at this [https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5a/75/f8/5a75...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5a/75/f8/5a75f8224f90bd258dd44037a90db43f.gif) Gives you a perspective.

Hell, we even have our own little Trump, denying Climate change and blaming all our faults on Moroccans in stead of Mexicans. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders)

Some more reading for those interested: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlan...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlands)

<comment><USER3> Climate does matter here!

We are expecting a lot more heavy rain fall and rising rivers. That's also why we spend billions on inland water management. In our area they are even discussing "garden pavement taxes".

So I don't agree with you that there is no relation to our believes about climate change.

<comment><USER4> Sorry could you explain what a "garden pavement tax" is? It sounds interesting but googling gave nothing.

<comment><USER5> Not European but I'll take a guess. Hope this helps:

In the UK (and maybe elsewhere in Europe) a "garden" is what people in the US would call a "yard"; an open space near a residence. Often, but not necessarily covered in grass or plants.

"Garden paving" would mean covering it with something impervious to rain, such as concrete or asphalt.

So a "garden pavement tax" would be a penalty for people who choose to cover up soil with an rain-blocking material, to encourage them to use an alternative which allows the ground to soak up the rain.

As an example, in my town there is a public park in a flood plain, its driveways are made with "permeable pavers"[1] which are basically thick brick tiles with holes in them. They allow the rain to go through to the ground instead of building up and flooding the parking lot.

[1]: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=permeable+paver&iax=1&ia=images](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=permeable+paver&iax=1&ia=images)

<comment><USER6> We have similar drainage fees here in Houston, based on the amount of impervious ground cover on the property. We've had a lot of flash flooding in the past 20 years because of the growth of neighborhoods and commercial properties with large parking lots on what used to be prairies on the perimeter of town. New commercial construction typically has to have catchment basins, permeable concrete, or other runoff mitigation strategies. There is, however, a lot of legacy properties which don't handle their runoff, and an outdated storm sewer system, so we still have problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever flood control in The Netherlands is discussed, it's worth looking at this detailed elevation map:

[http://www.floodmap.net/Elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=NL](http://www.floodmap.net/Elevation/CountryElevationMap/?ct=NL)

The elevation profile of the entire country is one where the coast is much higher than sealevel, and then gradually slopes downwards to bits of the interior that are entirely landlocked, but are say 1 meter below sealevel. In other words we have pockets of land that are below sealevel, but they're surrounded by and protected by land that's not.

The facts on the ground are very different from claims being made by a sibling comment that "we are ALREADY beneath sea level!". This is why the NYT article is talking about "reservoirs for when the seas and rivers spill over" and "to let water in, where possible". Managing the water is largely about protecting these pockets that are below sealevel.

<comment><USER8> Actually looking at this map, I'm still seeing significant flooding without anything holding water back. When I read your comment I assumed you somehow provided evidence that worrying about the water/coast is nonsensical, reading the map I see the opposite.

<comment><USER7> Worrying about the water & coast is a very real concern in The Netherlands. I didn't mean to give the opposite impression.

The intent of my comment is to explain that the mental image many have of The Netherlands (even some natives are guilty of this) that it's all effectively under sealevel held up by some above-sealevel walls facing the ocean is false.

Most big population centers are above sealevel, those that aren't are usually "landlocked" below-sealevel areas, i.e. surrounded by land that's not below sealevel.

Flooding's still a major concern, but it's as much about ensuring that these landlocked areas don't turn into big puddles whenever it rains as it is about holding storm surges from the ocean back.

This is why the top comment in this thread stating that "we are ALREADY beneath sea level!" is BS. The nominal state of The Netherlands is not to be under sea level, but just barely above it.

This means that it's vulnerable to heavy rains, storm surges etc. But it also means that it's no more prepared than most other countries if the ocean were to rapidly rise and start overflowing & eroding the above-sealevel costal areas that protect the under-sealevel inland areas from being permanently flooded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing I'm thinking about is about much is how money the Dutch (and their southern neighbors, the Belgians) are going to make once the rise in sea levels will have a direct impact on wealthy regions.

In the world top 5 of dredging firms 4 are either Dutch or Belgian firms. And once prime real estate, in for example Florida or the Hamptons, is in direct danger large amounts of money will change hands to reinforce the coastline. And those top 5 dredging firms have all the engineering expertise needed.

Moving extremely large amounts of rock & sand like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Jumeirah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Jumeirah) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Suez_Canal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Suez_Canal) are just warmup exercises for the amount of work that needs to be done in the next 50 years.

</comment><comment><USER10> The Netherlands has had to deal with flooding for many hundreds of years[1]; it's been a problem _long_ before the industrial revolution that so many point to as a primary trigger of AGW, so acting like this is a matter of climate change is just politically-motivated BS, to be honest.

The thing we _should_ learn from this is the fact that whether or not you subscribe to AGW, the solutions are found in technologies that protect us from the harsh effects of climate (however they may be caused) rather than naive attempts to proactively change the course of the climate itself.

Think about it: even the strongest proponents of AGW seem to agree that at this point, there's very little we can actually do in terms of suppressing or reversing the trends (people argue that any improvement or slowing is worthwhile, but that completely ignores economic principles like the law of diminishing [marginal] returns and opportunity cost).

The truth is, we have _fewer_ climate-related deaths per year now than ever before. Why is that? It's not a result of cutting down carbon emissions, that's for sure. Instead, we are simply more adept at living safely in a variety of climate conditions thanks to technology and industrialization. Developing countries have seen the greatest improvements as a result of technology, but we all benefit.

Can we count on people to dramatically change their lifestyles in response to economically-inferior proposals based on politicized science? Absolutely not (how has that track record been globally?). What kinds of incentives _can_ we rely on for changing people's behavior? Answer: clear economic interests[2]. If and when it makes economic sense to deal with climate-related challenges, the market will incentivize the most practical solutions via innovation. The Dutch have proven that point (and not just recently).

If you don't believe we need technology to keep us safe from the climate, I encourage you to pick a random spot on earth and try living there on your own without any form of modern technology or any of the products of industrialization. Your struggle - and increased risk of death - would have been the same (at least in scale) at any point in the earth's history.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Floods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands#Floods)

[2] Referring to natural market-based incentives rather than artificial government-imposed incentives.

</comment><comment><USER11> This headline is misleading. The Dutch don't have solutions, they have workarounds.

</comment><comment><USER12> separate from the content, can we all take a moment to appreciate the NYT visuals? Definitely a pro to non-paper journalism is the ability to use complex graphics. Not saying this is their best work but its subtlety great.

</comment><comment><USER13> bunch of nonsense. people dont cause climate change and they can certainly not stop it. This means, that you can either try to live under sea level like a stuborn fool, or relocate to a safer place once the danger increases too much. Building higher walls will just end up with higher and higher walls... just piling up shit on shit. a solution to a problem is something that makes it go away, not hide it behind a wall, wtf.

On another note, all this awsome dutch flood control, totally destroyed the environment here for a lot of bird types (migratory ones mostly) and a lot of other animals, so its destroying nature by combating it, like ignorant people have been doing for centuries now. lets combat nature, good fucking idea. >.> work with nature ffs, cause you are nature.

tl;dr: 1) a work around is not a solution 2) dont fight what you care about... take care of it and respect it!

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder when the rise will begin to affect ocean-side property prices?

<comment><USER15> Actually it won't, as there is relatively little ocean-side property to affect in the first place. With the exceptions of a few coastal towns like Scheveningen, property development is illegal along the coast as it would hinder future coastal protection. Consequently private ownership of coastal area is also unheard of here. Because there are no buildings on them, the most cost effective way of improving our coastal defences is relatively easy and low-tech: just add more sand to the dunes and beaches.

<comment><USER16> And as a side-benefit, we have a beautiful coastline for taking walks or bike rides.

Michaël Dudok de Witt's _Father and Daughter_ [0] shows this beautifully (and, incidentally, depicts a polder being reclaimed from the sea over the years)

[0] [https://vimeo.com/48076471](https://vimeo.com/48076471)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Prevention costs far less than remediation. But the future business opportunities; can no longer sell you big cars, big homes, large tracts of land, but we can sell you clean air, clean water, and keeping the water out of your domicile. Here's your air filtration/water desal/water pumping bill, so go to your job.

</comment><comment><USER18> their solution only makes the sea levels higher for everyone else.

how about seasteading instead (sic)?

</comment><comment><USER19> Anyone know how much water is 1cm sea rise? Mars needs water and Musk is interested in footing the bill, even if a mass driver is probably more apt to the issue than rockets.

<comment><USER20> The surface of the earth is 510,082,000 sq. km. The oceans cover ~70.9% of that, so 510082000 * 0.709 * 0.00001 = 3616.48138 cubic km.?

<comment><USER21> That's what I got.

And then 1 cubic km of water is ~1 trillion kg.

<comment><USER22> So rockets aren't going to work. Maybe instead of a space elevator, we need a space fountain. Pump water up until centrifugal force takes over.

I bet it's going to be spectacular.

<comment><USER23> That won't work. You'll need to accelerate each individual molecule of water to orbital velocity or you'll just be making a lot of rain. Water molecules are not connected tension wise the same way a space elevators' tether is. Even ice has a tensile strength that is way too low so the fact that it is going to be below zero still won't help (might turn your rain into hail or snow though).

<comment><USER22> My comment was in jest, but if you want to take it seriously, it's not the tensile strength of water that matters, but that of the tube it's being pumped through. That would need to be the magically stronger than nanotubes material that we also need for a space elevator.

If you make the tube narrow enough, you might even take advantage of capillary action in some way.

<comment><USER24> Instead of using the Hyperloop for transportation, let's point it at the sky and fire water from it.

<comment><USER25> Call it the Hyperloo. Say "have one on me!" with each flush.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Banksy Authenticates His Work - <AUTHOR> https://reprage.com/post/how-banksy-authenticates-his-work <comment><USER2> There's nothing cryptographic about this. It's a central authority that either says "yes it's real" or not. The system revolves around trust in that central authority. Everyone can easily fake a certificate which cannot be independently falsified without asking that central authority, who will be more likely to check their books than to do anything related to the actual certificate.

<comment><USER3> Does cryptographic imply decentralized?

<comment><USER4> Cryptographic implies math is used, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

<comment><USER3> That's a rather restrictive definition of cryptography, don't you think?

<comment><USER4> Well yes _strictly_ speaking it's not just math, but _usually_ it does imply math.

What are some examples of cryptography without math of some kind?

<comment><USER5> Character substitution comes to mind, as described in [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Dancing_Men)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Drug traffickers use the same technique as receipts for drug drops: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20484197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20484197)

<comment><USER7> Circular reference detected

<comment><USER8> That always happens on HN. Someone linking to interesting content in threads is a common way for them to hit the front page later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm missing something here.

Anyone can produce a torn-in-half "Di-faced" fake banknote with Lady Diana's face on it, with a handwritten ID number across the bill.

Hell, I'll validate your Banksy pieces for £64.

Where's the authenticity coming from, and whats even the point of the torn note?

<comment><USER10> The point of the torn note is (as far as I understood) that the authenticator keeps the other half. So anyone can contact the authenticator and ask them if they have a counterpiece for any given note.

I don't see how this prevents someone with visual access to the note and the painting from creating a fake though. (The article mentions the tear is hard to reproduce but I doubt that.)

Additionally I don't see how this prevents anyone from distributing a valid note with a fake or wrong painting.

<comment><USER11> They'd have o create a precisely matching tear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Couldn't I sell a fake Banksy with the real authentication?

<comment><USER13> Yes but then you now have a real Banksy that will be labeled a fake because the fake print #18375 has a letter of authenticity while your real #18375 does not.

You would need to get Pest Control to keep issuing certificates for the same print, which they probably won't do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This probably should be considered in the context of the work that shredded itself once the auction was completed. You'd think twice about having your expensive "Banksy" authenticated after the fact by sending it away to parts unknown.

There's always someone dumb enough in the art world or someone who wants the story and has far too much money.

I quite like Banksy, tbh, but overexposure is a thing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Possibly not great for any artists maintaining anonymity/pseudo anonymity but...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fluids_in_art](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fluids_in_art)

Semen, due to the ability to sequence the DNA and difficulty obtaining a sample, is a fine genetic watermark.

</comment><comment> awinter-py the original meaning of 'symbol' meant this -- it was basically a ticket stub used to authenticate a document

(it only took on its modern meaning in a 16th century poem)

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/symbol](https://www.etymonline.com/word/symbol)

</comment><comment><USER16> Somebody named Banksy using a bank of bank notes for authentication?

Sounds like a old joke with newfound currency to me.

</comment><comment><USER17> Similar way of doing business as the drug cartels [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20484197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20484197)

</comment><comment><USER18> Neat way to protect authenticity especially within art</comment>


Asciinema – Record and share your terminal sessions - <AUTHOR> https://asciinema.org/

<comment><USER2> Looking at this project, what I'm most amazed by is how the author of the presentation on the frontpage only made one typo the entire presentation. I mean, that's amazing :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to admit, I'd be concerned about accidentally leaking a password. Damned cool concept, not sure I'd want to actually use it.

<comment><USER4> The docs say you can change the api url to your own instance pretty easily: [https://asciinema.org/docs/faq](https://asciinema.org/docs/faq)

I haven't tried it, but the server is available here if you want to give it a shot: [https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org](https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks. I'm already using it for tutorials ascii-casts. Works great so far.

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't help but pronounce this "ASCII enema" :/

</comment><comment><USER7> The moment when it told me to copy paste blew my mind.

<comment><USER2> Shut the front door - that's a nice feature!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> what is the difference with showterm?

<comment><USER9> I've been meaning to try something like this at work for training and documentation. Haven't yet, but here's the previous discussion of showterm:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6190600](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6190600)

A couple of interesting repositories mentioned in that discussion:

[https://github.com/chjj/term.js](https://github.com/chjj/term.js)

[https://github.com/chjj/tty.js](https://github.com/chjj/tty.js)

There was also mention of ascii.io (currently unreachable) and shelr.tv (domain squatter).</comment></comment>


Computer-Generated TCP for Network Connections That are Twice as Fast - <AUTHOR> http://hothardware.com/News/MIT-Researchers-Develop-ComputerGenerated-TCP-For-Network-Connection-That-are-Twice-as-Fast/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this finds it way into the internet</comment>


Ask YC: Yet Another Voting Scheme Idea - <AUTHOR>

Reddit, Digg, News.YC.
What if the number of votes would be invisible? They would still influence the ranking, just the values were not public. Otherwise it's difficult to escape the reflex of upvoting stuff that is already at +50 or downvoting stuff that is at -10, perhaps one would think more about how to vote.
Or, perhaps the number could be visible to the poster only? <comment><USER2> What if we created a democratic republic, and voted for leaders to vote on stories for us.

<comment><USER3> This discriminates against those who rarely post but when they do it's a gem.

<comment><USER4> !@#!@!#!

Is it just me, or is this one of those problems where when you fix one part of it another part comes undone?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Displaying the number of votes is a key factor in usability and feedback. It is a very effective way of providing instant gratification to voters and submitters alike. Hiding it would be a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER3> A better way is to change the algorithm to compensate for the extra votes a story gets AFTER it becomes popular. For example: votes after the story made it to the home page get half the weight.

Hiding votes removes one of the critical 'social' components of this type of web site.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm the opposite, actually. I usually upvote something if I feel it hasn't gotten enough votes already. That is, if I think a comment is a 3 or a 4, and it only has 2 votes, I'll add another. If it has a 5, I'll leave it alone.

</comment><comment><USER7> I like this idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> Along those lines, how about giving the votes to the poster and not the article? Then you put a picture of the poster and his total number of points next to the article. That way if I'm a great poster, I'll have a huge score. But the articles would sort based on something else.</comment>


Hiring Juniors - <AUTHOR> http://ryanbigg.com/2016/04/hiring-juniors/ <comment><USER2> That image from Julia Claven is excellent.

<comment><USER3> Why thank you @grayfox! Here are all the Diagrammatic Musings [http://juliaclavien.tumblr.com/](http://juliaclavien.tumblr.com/)</comment></comment>


YouTube Political Disinformation Dataset Using NLP – Plasticity (YC S17) - <AUTHOR> https://media.plasticity.ai/youtube-disinformation-report/ <comment><USER2> 8.2 million view total. Tim Pool gets this much each month, and just on his main channel. Does not seem like a huge campaign, compared to a good mainstream political commentary.</comment>


Exact Numeric Integration - <AUTHOR> http://conal.net/blog/posts/exact-numeric-integration/

<comment><USER2> It took me a little while to work out what he's doing here, so here are a few notes for interested readers.

0\. Key point: the goal here is to do infinite-precision integrals. Not merely "arbitrary precision", where you get to choose a number of decimal places and then do the integral, but "infinite precision", where the result of the integration is an object you can get arbitrarily many decimal places out of.

1\. His key data structure is a "lazy number" (not his term) that represents some specific exact real number, and which you can query somehow (he doesn't really say how) to get an arbitrarily good approximation to its value. For instance, you might be able to say "give me an interval of length at most x that the number is guaranteed to lie within".

2\. So he does everything with interval arithmetic. In particular, you need to have a way to do an interval evaluation of the function you're trying to integrate. That is, given an interval [a,b] you can get values lo,hi such that lo <= f(x) <= hi whenever a <= x <= b, and if you let these intervals shrink to a point your lower and upper bounds converge on the value of f at that point. (Note: he never states that last point, but it's important.) Let's call these lb(f,a,b) and ub(f,a,b) for "lower bound" and "upper bound".

3\. Clearly the following two things are true. (a) The integral of f between a and b -- call this I(f,a,b) -- lies between (b-a).lb(f,a,b) and (b-a).ub(f,a,b). (b) I(f,a,b) = I(f,a,m) + I(f,m,b) where m = (a+b)/2. (Or indeed where m = anything else.)

4\. (3a) gives us a crude way to evaluate I(a,b) roughly. Typically it's very crude, but it's guaranteed correct and as a,b get closer together it converges on the right answer. (3b) gives us a way to evalute I(f,a,b) more accurately, by using integrals over shorter intervals.

5\. So, he defines I(f,a,b) = (3a) intersect (3b), where that's a lazy intersection on "lazy numbers". The idea is that when you query it, it uses (3a) if that's enough to get the accuracy you need, and otherwise it uses (3b) to do better.

6\. There are a whole lot of details being swept under the rug here. For instance, when you take the (3b) branch, how much accuracy do you need from the two subproblems to get the requested accuracy for the final result? (This question is relevant only if the unspecified functionality provided by his lazy numbers really is "give me an interval of length at most L containing the correct value". If instead what you get is "tell me whether the correct value is above or below X", there's a different problem, which is that if X happens to _be_ the correct value then the computation will continue for ever until you run out of memory or terminate it.) One possible answer is that you demand twice as accurate a result from each sub-computation. I think that in this case the algorithm will in general not actually terminate, but I haven't thought it through carefully.

7\. So the whole thing is a bit like the following (with apologies for absence of formatting):

integral(f,a,b,tolerance) = let lb,ub = bounds(f,a,b) in {if abs(b-a)abs(ub- lb) <= tolerance then (b-a)[lb,ub] else let m = (a+b)/2 in integral(f,a,m,tolerance/2) + integral(f,m,b,tolerance/2)}

except that (a) it uses lazy evaluation to make it so that you call integral(f,a,b) and then repeatedly feed tolerance values to that, (b) because of this it's presumably able to do less redundant recomputation when you do the calculation repeatedly with different tolerances, and (c) the actual way in which the tolerances are handled may be different.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for this - helped my understanding of the original article.</comment></comment>


PCI Security Standards Council Publishes New Standard for Contactless Payments - <AUTHOR> https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/about_us/press_releases/pr_12042019 <comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like this means United States can now use contactless payments at the restaurant table.

<comment><USER2> I'm in the United States and have used contactless payments at restaurants already.</comment></comment>


Google Uses Web Searches to Track Flu's Spread - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin <comment><USER2> There must be so many innovative uses of real time search data. I can't imagine what people would come up with if they opened it up. I suppose there are some privacy issues to work out of course.

I wonder if companies with that kind of data are ever tempted by insider trading? For example, imagine if you saw all kinds of job searches coming out of IP addresses known to belong to say GM. You'd get a head start on shorting the stock.

<comment><USER3> The only problem, as was demonstrated with the AOL fiasco, is that many people use their searches to target themselves. It's very easy to track some percentage of the world's population down by looking at their search history.

That and if opening search data became known, people would suddenly start restraining their searches. And caution's something I'd rather not have enter the search process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Larry Brilliant (google.org director) has been interested in using online data gathering for predicting and containing outbreaks for a while.

Mining google search queries is a step up from Brilliant's previously advocated method of automatically correlating reports of illness from news outlets around the world.

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> This is very smart. Other things to monitor in real time: allergies, weird disease symptoms, SAD and other mental symptoms, flooding?, crime.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's too bad that "flu" is often used for many things besides influenza, most notably the stomach flu which usually lasts 24 hours. That's way more common than influenza. I run across a lot of people that even think the "flu shot" is for those kinds of flus...

</comment><comment><USER7> A concrete example of why its not always terrible to have logs data sitting around.</comment>


GitHub Is Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.githubstatus.com <comment><USER2> see: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20499070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20499070) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20498983](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20498983)

</comment><comment><USER3> I never really understood why sites like GitHub use a "fun image" and quirky message do display error codes. On the other hand, at least they bothered to display a proper error code instead of some abomination like this[0].

[0]: [https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594](https://twitter.com/cherrikissu/status/972524442600558594)</comment>


Someone left old TVs outside 50 homes in Virginia while wearing a TV on his head - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/08/14/someone-left-old-tvs-outside-homes-virginia-while-wearing-tv-his-head-no-one-knows-why/ <comment><USER2> Possible explanations:

 _Everyday, I 'm shuff-lin'._

or

 _Have you any idea how successful censorship is on TV? Don 't know the answer? Hmm... successful, isn't it?_</comment>


Flutter: A Framework to Surpass React Native - <AUTHOR> https://rainway.com/blog/2019/08/06/flutter/ <comment><USER2> Our team has a lot of latitude for choosing technology we use and, since at @Cognitive Class we are helping people learn the latest and greatest tech I thought it might be good for us to look in to Dart and Flutter. I thought the team would embrace it without any hesitation. To my surprise they were very reluctant to do so. When I asked why, they said "it is Google so they will probably drop the project in a year or two". Not the answer I was expecting but there is a lesson to be learned here.

<comment><USER3> It seems unlikely that Google will drop Flutter. It is picking up a ton of momentum, and I think they are smart enough to know they have a winner on their hands.

They are putting serious resources into the developer experience; Flutter for the web has progressed from a POC to a product they intended to promote / support. Flutter is the preferred UI for Fuchsia. While not officially supported, Flutter for the desktop looks super interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rainway continues to impress me.</comment>


2D Liquid Simulation in WebGL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Erkaman/gl-water2d <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good "Show HN".

Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


US Trade Deficit with China Has Shrunk 15% So Far in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://thesoundingline.com/us-trade-deficit-with-china-has-shrunk-15-so-far-in-2019/ <comment><USER2> Makes sense when the tariffs will cost the average household $2,031 per year. Less to spend on cheap products or imports from China but also less for everything else.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/09/09/trump...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2019/09/09/trump- tariffs-will-soon-cost-us-families-thousands-of-dollars-a-year/#21782ebf5b4b)

<comment><USER3> Your article cited was written in September and doesn't take into account the latest trade agreement developments with China. It is unlikely that the household cost will be anywhere near that value.

<comment><USER2> It's 3 months old but the ballpark figure has been repeated since this time last year based on economic data available at the time. I've seen this in costs increasing above inflation for many items especially cheap stocking stuffers this holiday season. We went with a smaller Christmas this year to compensate.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Open Sources Its AI Hardware as It Races Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/12/facebook-open-source-ai-big-sur/ <comment><USER2> ugh, Wired is the worst. Here's an actual blogpost from engineers on the project: [https://code.facebook.com/posts/1687861518126048/facebook- to...](https://code.facebook.com/posts/1687861518126048/facebook-to-open- source-ai-hardware-design/)

It seems the main thing here is 8 GPUs in a box that doesn't need "special cooling and other unique infrastructure to operate", it can just go into existing racks. The "flexibility to configure between multiple PCI-e topologies" sounds interesting, but there's no more information on that.

edit: oh, already been submitted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10712038](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10712038)

</comment><comment><USER3> Has anyone here ever built an Open Compute box, or is it only the kind of thing that makes sense by the rackful? I guess there is nowhere to buy 1 or 2 cases?

I would like a high end server box at home, with GPUs, and it would be nice to have a configuration known to work, down to the Linux distro and drivers. Though I'm guessing they are louder than I would want, because they don't care about noise as much with server hardware.

<comment><USER4> In this case the price is prohibitive. That server has 8 Nvidia K40's, each between 1500-2000$. So you're looking at a 15-20k$ server!

<comment><USER3> Well I was asking about OpenCompute in general, not just the new GPU box.

And in theory, the price per FLOP should be better than almost anything out there... if I actually needed those FLOPs it would be cost effective :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And how much does one need to spend on implementing the design? For software one can clone, build, and start playing with the APIs. The cost is almost 0.

</comment><comment><USER6> Facebook and some others started out one upping myspace (myspace one upped friendster) and was a weak technology company. Text entry boxes and messaging do not make you a strong technology company especially when you're copying frameworks. Google's started in AI and as a strong algorithmically based technology company and has continued.

Facebook has a long way to go along with many other companies.</comment>


Discussion if Google Fonts is GDPR compliant - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1495 <comment><USER2> Or website operators could stop embedding objects hosted by Google. GDPR protects _users_ to some extent, but sites should protect themselves, too. The information available to hosts of embedded assets is quite valuable, especially when those assets are in the form of scripts, and sites should seriously consider monetizing that information themselves rather than just giving it away.

<comment><USER3> Except that a shared CDN which everyone uses results in better performance.

For the popular fonts, a user probably already has them in their browser cache from other sites, so they load instantly.

Having sites redundantly host identical font files separately is a step backwards for users, who wind up waiting longer for a page to load, or experiencing the jarring FOUT (Flash Of Unstyled Text).

<comment><USER4> > Except that a shared CDN which everyone uses results in better performance.

This is thrown around a lot, but very rarely with hard numbers to support it. A cold DNS cache costs at least one roundtrip, a cold SSL session cache costs several, a new SSL connection (presently) costs at least 2.

Meanwhile, all the above is necessary to talk to an origin site anyway, and networking performance for the best part of 10 years has been dominated by latency (i.e. roundtrips) rather than throughput.

Hoping the user had an idle connection to the Google CDN when measuring cold request start is wishful thinking

Meanwhile self-hosted reuses all of the above and enables assets to be combined into a single transaction, which vastly improves the behaviour of TCP cold start

<comment><USER5> From googling: [https://www.keycdn.com/blog/web-font- performance/](https://www.keycdn.com/blog/web-font-performance/)

Skip to "Here is a comparison of hosting Open Sans locally vs Google CDN."

They found it was faster to use a Google CDN. One of the things this article suspects is that CDNs will have better world-wide coverage, and therefore overall latency, than hosting your font yourself.

I'd like to see a comprehensive study of your counter point, though.

<comment><USER4> This test was performed with a single client based in LA, and concluded the fastest font - Open Sans - downloaded in 476ms. The test fails to measure how much of this is setup time vs transfer time, or account for behaviour of TCP during the transfer. You will find, and I will measure this for you if you really want, that setup time absolutely dominates this cost.

If setup time is amortized across all assets on a site, as it is when self- hosted, the true cost of the 220KiB font download will be vastly lower -- closer to 100ms assuming a sufficiently warm TCP connection over even an 8Mbit link, and significantly less again with faster links.

As for browser-side caching, this is once again wishful thinking and there is no room for it in any kind of engineering discipline

<comment><USER6> Does Google Fonts even use TCP? It might be HTTP2+QUIC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The joke is that nothing is gdpr compliant.

I've not met 1 company who met all aspects of this law.

I'd guess this also means that any asset in a 3rd party CDN would be non compliant with gdpr

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't using cloudfront be compliant, because it's your bucket? Turn off the logs, then it's anonymous. Or did I miss anything?

<comment><USER9> It may be your bucket, but Amazon is still a third party. Does turning off logs disable _all_ logging on the Amazon side, or just your copy of those logs?

<comment><USER10> You really think Amazon doesn't have logs for security and troubleshooting?

What about all the networks between you and Amazon?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can absolutely store IP addresses (and other personal information) without consent and be GDPR compliant. You just need to explain what you are storing, for what purpose, who you share it with, how long it's stored, and comply with the "rights" put forth in the legislation. GDPR merely constrains what information Google can _share_ without your consent and requires them to be more explicit in stating what information they gather about you.

<comment><USER12> Indirectly you share the users IP by letting their browser sand a get request to google. The problematic is the same for any CDN you use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As far as I can see, the request that asks for the font is a simple GET. So does this mean that an HTTP request to third-party X, who will log the user's IP, User-Agent and possibly the origin, will now require an agreement with X and explicit consent from the user? If so, will the consent need to be established before the request?

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure you need a contract for data processing at least. I'm absolutely not shure if you _also_ need consent. (please let me know if anyone found out!).

npr.org went back from WWW to what feels like WAP for those not giving consent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Think of all the lost productivity wasted on stuff like this...

<comment><USER14> Think of all the abuse prevented. It's a tradeoff.

Of course, if you're someone who profits off of abusing users, you may see the GDPR as wholly negative.

<comment><USER15> This is generally dealt with through market choice, with people choosing the trade off that they perceive as optimal for themselves. Instead we now have one standard for data handling being imposed by the EU, and precluding a vast number of potentially more optimal interactions.

<comment><USER14> Your solution didn't work for users. It was a market failure that produced huge negative externalities borne by users, for which there was no practical means of redress.

Because users were faced with a raw deal, now we have regulation.

<comment><USER15> The practical means of redress was the government empowering individuals with public funding for development of anonymity technologies, public directories comparing services and their abidance to voluntary data protection standards, and possibly public service announcements educating people about what data they disclose while browsing non-anonymously, or browsing particular types of websites, and how that data can be shared and used by private data collectors.

Regardless, I don't think it's clear that the benefits of the market being left to itself haven't outweighed the costs. My snap judgment (which isn't that useful when assessing massively complex topics like this) is that the benefits dwarf the costs.

Much of the internet services that have emerged over the last 20 years have been paid for by personal information that users have traded away in exchange for these services. Everything from Gmail, to Google searches, to Facebook, to millions of Youtube videos, to the vast amounts of self-help content one can find about any topic, is ad-funded, which depends in large part on this exchange of personal information for web services.

The problem is people are taking all of these services available on the web for granted, and recklessly assuming we would have all of them without the ability to target ads using collected PII, and with the added burden of complying with the onerous GDPR requirements.

<comment><USER14> I like your proposals and I think they're a good start, but I don't think they are practical for a large portion of the population. They are only realistic for the wealthy, and most of us aren't wealthy.

People who are struggling to get by are not going to have the time, energy, or expertise to comparison shop. And when their identities get stolen because their personal information was leaked by a provider, they're just going to get crushed.

Those proposals of yours didn't happen for a reason: they are not in the interest of the capitalist class, and the way modern markets are set up, capitalists have way more power than other individual citizens.

Denied effective means of organizing to protect themselves from exploitation and abuse, is it any wonder that when the masses vote for politicians advocating regulation?

Find a variant of market Libertarianism where the majority of the population can actually defend their rights rather than get steamrolled and you'll see less regulation.

<comment><USER15> >>People who are struggling to get by are not going to have the time, energy, or expertise to comparison shop. And when their identities get stolen because their personal information was leaked by a provider, they're just going to get crushed.

The cost to innovation is too steep a price for the additional safety gained. As it is, we don't live in a safe world either way. We are constantly struggling against the forces of uncertainty.

It is only through innovation that we better enable ourselves to contend with these forces.

Look at all of the web innovation that has arisen over the last two decades. It's given us a significant boost in our ability to manage the world around us.

Restrictive regimes like GDPR inhibit the free flow of action that generates innovation. It's bad bargain.

>>Those proposals of yours didn't happen for a reason: they are not in the interest of the capitalist class, and the way modern markets are set up, capitalists have way more power than other individual citizens.

I don't agree with your classist categorizations, but let's just say there is a powerful special interest that stands in the way of a given political solution.

I'd argue that any effective solution would need to be implemented over the lobbying and resistance of one or more of said powerful special interest groups.

If a political solution didn't need to be implemented over the objections of one of these groups, then I'd argue that it's almost certainly not effective, for one or more reasons.

So I'd say it's better to not implement a political change, if the ideal solution is not viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is Google not answering that they do not track IPs ? it is likely they are tracking them, so are they tracking the IPs for security reasons or they mining the traffic.

Someone that knows more on how this work can you answer if Google can see more then your IP? like user agent or cookies ?

<comment><USER17> probably, at the very least for avoiding DOS attacks on important common assets. GDPR is one of the most shortsighted laws I've ever read

<comment><USER16> If you have read the law or this linked github page you have seen that security was considered, search for this text

The processing of personal data to the extent strictly necessary and proportionate for the purposes of ensuring network and information security, i.e. the ability of a network or an information system to resist, at a given level of confidence, accidental events or unlawful or malicious actions that compromise the availability, authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of stored or transmitted personal data, and the security of the related services offered by, or accessible via, those networks and systems, […] by providers of electronic communications networks and services and by providers of security technologies and services, constitutes a legitimate interest of the data controller concerned.

Did you read this and it was not enough for you, Btw is DDOS and not DOS attacks (in case it was not a typo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Never mind Google Fonts, what about SafeBrowsing? What about Chrome?

</comment><comment><USER12> I already saw the first legal actions against users of it...

</comment><comment><USER19> Just based on the fact that Google's business model is inherently incompatible with privacy, I'd stay away.

It is in Google's best interest to sneakily track people despite claiming not doing so, and they can be very good at it and do in a way that's undetectable from the outside. In fact, I would be surprised if they're not doing this already.

<comment><USER20> Elaborate on this.

Are you saying Google has crossed the line into social intelligence territory like china has?

Is there evidence for this, beyond "google is bad!!1!" ?

<comment><USER21>
         (Notes wifi is "off")
         (Notes GPS is "off")
         (Notes Location sharing somehow got turned on)

Hey, we need your help! How was $eatery_you_ate_at_last_night ?

Can you give us direction how busy the $Business_you_parked_nearby is?

And, this [https://www.google.com/maps/timeline?hl=en&authuser=0&pb](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline?hl=en&authuser=0&pb)

Google shouldn't even be collecting this. But they are. We know not how they use it. But if you have the data, of course you're using it!

<comment><USER22> [https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?visit_id=...](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687?visit_id=1-636633858417735392-1191870611&p=location_history&hl=en&rd=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Please change the title to "Discussion if Google Fonts is GDPR compliant".

In the current form the title "Google Fonts not GDPR compliant" is just FUD, as the argument "Google Font is ok because Google LLC is certified under the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks" holds some water imho.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the suggestion.

The original title was however not FUD: Some Web site owners in Germany have received legal warnings for their use of Google Fonts which was considered as not GDPR compliant ( [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https:/...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.datenschutz- guru.de/die-ersten-dsgvo-abmahnungen-sind-da) .)

<comment><USER23> The article you are linking to says that it is not clear if those German cease and desist letters are based on any facts or if they are itself just FUD.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The real question is why you used Google Fonts in the first place. You're telling me downloading another megabyte (or more) of _stock fonts_ — no actual corporate branding — is worth both your and my time? Yeah, no. Stick to core fonts which actually work and render well within the UA, or bring your own custom branded fonts, but don't bother me with half-baked stock fonts.

The same question for using random-js-library from googleapis.com: You're trying to tell me that giving Google (and anyone who somewhere between me and them takes control of that domain) full arbitrary code execution privileges within your origin is worth saving a one-off download of some JS library? I don't think so.

<comment><USER25> Using subresource integrity "random-js-library" hosted on a 3rd party isn't "arbitrary code execution", as the useragent will refuse to run the script if it's hash changes in any way from what you provided.

The same can be used with all other "subresources" like stylesheets and fonts! However Google specifically makes this hard as they have been known to update the served font from time to time, which if you are using SRI will break the font entirely.

<comment><USER24> > Using subresource integrity "random-js-library" hosted on a 3rd party isn't > "arbitrary code execution", as the useragent will refuse to run the script > if it's hash changes in any way from what you provided.

That's true, but SRI is still rarely deployed; and no surprise there: the official Google docs don't use SRI in their "paste this into your code" examples: [https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/](https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries/)

Also, Edge still doesn't support SRI.

So, yes, for some UAs this specific problem (resource integrity) is a solved problem, but like I said, it's far from the default.

The other issues - lack of necessity, load time, degraded visual quality, giving user data away for free to an advertiser etc. - remain untouched.

<comment><USER25> I completely agree that it needs to be more widely used, and I absolutely think that google could go a long way toward making it more common.

But to be completely honest, lack of user agent support shouldn't be a reason to not use a feature. Edge doesn't support it, so Edge users are less secure. There are also user agents that have CORS restrictions disabled or don't support HSTS, but i'm still going to use and rely on both of those for security.

And it sounds like you and I disagree completely on the usefulness of fonts. For me a font isn't "unnecessary" any more than paint isn't necessary on a house. Sure, you could live in a house without paint, but I want paint on my house. As for longer load times, and degraded visual quality. The previous is being dealt with via new font-display css descriptor, and in browsers that don't support that they have timeouts of normally 3 seconds at most, and the former is an opinion that I absolutely don't share.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Tug autonomous medical robot - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/02/incredible-hospital-robot-saving-lives-also-hate/

<comment><USER2> Wow - this is the first time I've seen a robot like this outside of a manufacturing environment. I imagine it would be much more difficult to implement in an existing hospital than one built around it.

I also wonder if its possible to tell if Tug reduces the spread of disease.

<comment><USER3> If you can build the hospital around something you might as well sue conveyer belts or pneumatic tubes. Being able to use existing infrastructure is the big reason you buy a delivery robot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        (●--●)   - Are you satisfied with your care?
      //   ♡ \\
      U\__ / U
         U U

</comment><comment><USER5> My gut says this is just an MVP and there is actually a small person inside manually doing things and navigating the robot.

<comment><USER6> No, there is a line in the article that says its been in use since 2009... "Just down the road in Silicon Valley, El Camino Hospital has been using the bots since 2009"

<comment><USER5> _-whoosh-_

I was joking.

<comment><USER6> Sorry Shostack, I was just responding to the MVP part...as for the "small person"...I was disappointed too...my dream job has always been to be the heart and soul of a robot.

<comment><USER5> Hah, no worries. Per your point, definitely not an MVP at this stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's an autonomously rolling cart, I fail to see why we would need special new laws for that.

<comment><USER6> The "autonomous" part is the problem.

Any robot capable of hauling "1000 pounds of linen" would probably be pretty heavy itself (batteries, motors etc) and can probably crush your toes if it runs over them, even at low speeds.

I guess that means just adhering to the first law preventing injury to humans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stanford Hospital was using sample-delivery robots as early as the 90s... I remember being amazed that they could use the elevators. They were a lot bigger and clunkier than the TUG, of course, and probably one-off prototypes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Our competitor has an article in wired! I'll just say that the QC Bot has the ability to plan around obstacles it's detected instead of stopping and it has a friendly touchscreen for giving it directions.

<comment><USER9> +1 for QCBot, that is one slick robot

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would absolutely love to see a good human-computer interaction study done at this hospital.

Also, I wonder how they handle full elevators, or blocked hallways (somebody left a cart in the way, for example)?

</comment><comment><USER11> The future is _cool_.

Only a matter of time before someone figures out how to combine this with Spot and a legion of four-legged robots start delivering your groceries, mail and pizza.

<comment><USER12> Or better yet: [http://www.tacocopter.com](http://www.tacocopter.com)</comment></comment>


Wikileaks – The HBGary Emails - <AUTHOR> https://wikileaks.org/hbgary-emails/?bb <comment><USER2> Am I missing something or weren't these emails released by anonymous in 2011?

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/how-one- security-...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/how-one-security- firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price/)</comment>


Why Diaspora will fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/05/21/diaspora-social-network-fail-kickstarter-facebook <comment><USER2> I don't know about the merits of or prospects for Diaspora one way or the other but I have dealt with founders of every stripe for years and understand how people can get carried where money is involved.

If a nascent founder group raised $170K from hundreds or thousands of small and unsophisticated investors by traditional means (i.e., by offering them stock in the company in exchange for their small investments), and if those founders did so based on public advertising and without offering those investors any opportunity to learn the material facts about the startup's finances, product plans, founder backgrounds, etc., such an offering would be illegal, plain and simple, and every investor would have a right to get his money back not only from the company but also from each of the founders who controlled this offering. There is a valid reason why securities laws exist, and it is precisely to protect innocent investors from being induced to part with their hard-earned money based on fast and loose pitches that may or may not correlate with reality.

Now, I am not saying that Diaspora has done anything wrong here, or has misled those who have contributed, or any such thing.

My point has to do strictly with the crowdsourcing funding model as a legal tool for raising money. That model attempts to bypass the securities laws by using a donor model, and the key to its attempting to remain legal is to avoid at all costs having the contributors be characterized as "investors." I think that Kickstarter does this legitimately and appears therefore to be operating well within the bounds of the law.

But here is the Achilles heel of crowdsource funding: if the cause being supported does amount to some sort of hustle job (hypothetically speaking and not intending to impugn Diaspora), crowdsource funding enables those who might operate with less than pure motives a loophole by which they can make a mass appeal to potentially thousands of unsophisticated persons who might fund a venture without having to be accountable to those persons in any significant way. In effect, it is like an open ticket (legally speaking) to take their money and do what one will with it.

When there is no legal accountability ultimately for how such funds might be used, that means that the founders of a crowdsource-funded company basically are telling the public "trust us, we're good for it," which may or may not bear out in reality. This is a genetic weakness with this model of funding that is bound to lead to problems at some point down the road, however well it might play out in the Diaspora case.

<comment><USER3> While you raise a legitimate point, I think you discount the basic fact that, on balance, most individuals behave in a trustworthy manner. Society depends on this fact. We trust people to drive cars, and not intentionally run people down. Stores trust that most individuals will not shoplift.

Will there eventually be a large scale case of someone untrustworthy duping people via crowdsourcing? Probably. Does that mean the model is fundamentally flawed? No. Plus, crowdsourcing spreads the risk around so the loss is minimized. It's not like Bernie Madoff who insisted that investors invest all their funds through him.

<comment><USER4> It only takes one guy to play on that and steal millions. Yes not millions at a time, but pitch 20 ideas as different aliases and have 200k investments in each. Its not hard to appeal to desperation and mass fear.

<comment><USER3> The average Kickstarter is not pulling down anywhere near 200k, and it would take a remarkably clever con to pull off what you propose. Why would a clever con target Kickstarter, something that is trivially traceable? Also, why target a large group of smart, motivated individuals who know quite a bit about how to track people down on the internet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Online video -> NYT article -> $170,000 handout -> lots of hard work -> great, successful product

The order and substance of these events are _not_ how new, big, innovative things have been built in the past. If anything, it's like this:

lots of hard work -> failure -> even more hard work -> skepticism, ridicule (optional) -> failure -> even more hard work -> early adopters "get it" -> small successes -> more hard work -> big successes -> mainstream adoption -> donations/funding/etc -> NYT article -> success

<comment><USER6> What you're describing sounds like what I'm going through now with Braintrust. A small subset of people "get it" but there's still a lot of hard work ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The reasoning in this article is pretty specious and circular. Some of the author's arguments can be summed up as:

* Diaspora will fail because it sounds similar to something someone else tried one time that failed.

* Nobody will use Diaspora because it will fail.

* Diaspora will fail because nobody will use it.

* Nobody will use Diaspora because it will never ship.

* Nobody will want to pay for Diaspora because nobody will want to pay for it.

* Diaspora will fail because the creators are young.

I don't know whether or not Diaspora will succeed. The old school cypherpunk in me wants to see Diaspora, or something similar, succeed. I would be more curious to see a well reasoned article on the obstacles Diaspora has to face with getting traction, and finding a viable business model.

<comment><USER4> 1) It will only succeed if it integrates into shit like facebook. (as in can pull friends from there)

2) It will only succeed if setting it up is only a tiny bit more difficult than facebook.

3) It will only succeed if a hosting service provides basic plans for say 300M of storage of an automatically set-up account. The idea is its as easy as facebook BUT you own an encrypted account instance which can't be used by the hosting service. The service makes money by people investing 1-10 bucks a month for their super awesome more space service.

I cannot imagine it ever succeeding if these conditions are not met. (1) is an uphill battle, (2) possible, (3) idk what the cost possibility is.

Maybe 1 is not so bad, but when FB started MySpace was not the size of facebook today, and it was sort-of crap. Will people be willing to just leave facebook and their friends and stuff to go to this new service? Its like why people still use AIM today. AIM protocol ain't great, but if your friends are on there, you can't use google talk, because everyone you know is not there.

But yea the article is all about "kids cant succeed" and circular arguments.

<comment><USER3> Facebook did not integrate in to MySpace, and managed to unseat it. I agree that ease of use is key, and this is what has crippled cypherpunk projects in the past; it's why STARTTLS protects so much email, and PGP protects so little. Also, most people using IM service today use Adium or Pidgin, which supports multiple networks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _They [Diaspora] offer anyone who donates $2,000 or more a brand new computer specifically "configured" to host Diaspora. Again, it had better at least be a Mac Mini, because I'm having a hard time coming up with any reason that a server for this sole purpose should cost so much money._

That's such a bizarre criticism. It's a donation. The server is a thank you gift for your donation. It's not supposed to match that cost of your donation, or else what's the point of the donation?

Incidentally, when I saw this server offer on the Diaspora website, I thought that was too big a gift for only $2000. Not only is there the cost of the hardware, but also configuration time, and probably support time too.

<comment><USER8> I agree. I'm pretty sure the diaspora team wasn't expecting such a huge response and priced their rewards accordingly. "What is someone donates 1/5th of what we need? Let's send em a computer!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That is one highly negative, pessimistic viewpoint, but I have to agree that he does have some valid points. I can't see that many people will have the technical skill to install Diaspora. They don't know what a server is and think that the internet is somehow magically inside their computer. Unless Diaspora finds some way to make running the server extremely simple people won't adopt it. Also they would have to educate their users on the basics of server operation. (Otherwise someone will start their Diaspora server, then turn the computer off and wonder why no one can see their profile.)

It sounds like a mess to me, and I agree that only the geekiest of people will even attempt to adopt it, and of those I wonder how many will stick with it.

<comment><USER10> Each server is single-profile? If so, I agree that that's a terrible design. I'd assumed that it was more jabber-like in that anyone could start a server, rather than having to have one.

<comment><USER9> It sounds like each server is single-profile, though perhaps the server could be shared for a household. But if you want the true privacy of Diaspora then yes you would need to host your own Diaspora server.

<comment><USER11> "need to" points to biz opportunities.

If people actually care, there will be a number of services providing "servers" under various conditions. Some will be advertising supported. Some will be for-pay. Some will be subsidized. Some will be shared. Some will be virtual. and so on.

<comment><USER10> This is exactly what I assumed. This model would allow the Diaspora developing company to host their own set of servers to jumpstart the network effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I happen to agree with most of the press about Diaspora being doomed to fail. According to phrases and ideas all of us throw around, it's doomed to fail.

If I were the Diaspora team, I'd print out every piece of negative press and post it up on the wall in front of me. Then I'd make a pot of coffee and get to coding, using my "bad press" wall as my motivation to beat the hell out of the naysayers with a fantastic product a few months down the road.

The number of stories where the underdog or unknown in the start-up world surprises everyone and creates something unbelievably successful is staggering. I guess that's why I can't help but root for them. The odds are stacked against them, for sure, but that kind of pressure has brought forth some world-rocking products, and it's not my place to declare something dead before it's even been born.

<comment><USER13> > If I were the Diaspora team, I'd print out every piece of negative press and > post it up on the wall in front of me. Then I'd make a pot of coffee and get > to coding, using my "bad press" wall as my motivation to beat the hell out > of the naysayers with a fantastic product a few months down the road.

They're too busy making flyers: [http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/04/24/awesome-flyers-are- he...](http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/04/24/awesome-flyers-are-here.html)

<comment><USER14> Surely it's relevant to point out that those are from a month ago, during their fundraising push?

<comment><USER13> Sure. But it shows you where their priorities are. Rather than actually work on Diaspora, they're working on raising money for "a bunch of ideas" in exchange for the promise of releasing Diaspora as aGPL software.

On their blog they say "We think a project focused getting something out there should be priority #1." Their priority #1 was fundraising and talking to the press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Basically, this sums up to two things criticized:

1) the decentralized architecture: people won't install servers

2) not concrete enough: they only pile buzzwords and money for now. See also the 37signals criticism <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2330-diasporas-curse>

While I mostly agree with (2) I think that we can't criticise (1) based on the current situation on the web because the whole innovation -- if it happens -- is precisely the way all this will be done. Just saying "people having servers? crazy!" is just as pointless as saying "people having personnal computers? crazy" was 3 decades ago ago: people sort of already use servers all the time: DSL boxes and smart phones on the hardware side, bittorrent on the software side. So of course it is not easy, but don't forget that if there is a need for such a thing, it will eventually made easy to use. And concerning diaspora, it's not even about servers, it's about standards: think rather about something like email. The question is rather if will we go towards more decentralisation of the data and more autonomy for the users on the net.

<comment> loup-vaillant > So of course it is not easy, but don't forget that if there is a need for > such a thing […]

I'd rather say "if there is a _perceived_ need". The actual need is there for quite some time. The hard part is to collectively realize that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yeah there's no way a bunch of university students can compete with a big, established social networking site! Oh wait ...

<comment><USER13> I don't think the article argued that they can't compete because they're university students. It mentioned that this idea has been tried in the past and failed. Also that the average Joe won't want, likely even know how, to set up their own seed. People probably don't want to pay to host their own seed. Not mention you're going to go where your friends are. People aren't going to leave Facebook in droves because a couple of their nerdy friends left. Did you even read the article? Granted it's rather negative, but some of the points are valid.

<comment><USER17> It emphasized that the creators were "kids" who had "high school English". If he didn't state it outright, he implied it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the key points here - that it won't get critical mass and that people aren't going to host their own are both demonstrably solvable. Hosting: there will be an open market for people to set up hosted seeds of every level and flavour and Flickr showed that people will pay for a social service. There's nothing stopping someone offering free seeds with advertising. And nothing stopping someone selling pre-configured VMs with gobs of storage.

The network effect is more interesting. Diaspora is designed to hoover content from other networks, I can see how I could use it as much as a distribution and management system as a network in and of itself. It's a meta-network, an identity framework on which services can be built. That mechanism will hopefully provide base utility from day one, as well as an open platform on which people can easily build new and innovative services without those ideas being dependent on either a 3rd party's infrastructure or building one themselves.

I'm not convinced it's going to succeed but I'm hopeful.

</comment><comment><USER19> I imagine this could work if a third party steps in as a seed hosting service. Perhaps how domain registrants or OpenID services work. "I have my seed through SeedFactory" but it shouldn't really matter who's seeds are through whom, much like the way DNS works today.

The article is correct. Not even nerds are going to install their own nodes, if that is the model they are relying on.

</comment><comment><USER20> I too think Diaspora will fail (got a blog post in the works with more specific reasoning) but I think this is a little too pessimistic.

Sure they've got a lot of money; which is not a good thing really. Sure their plan (as much as we have seen of it so far) has serious hurdles to overcome.

Im pretty sure that it won't be the solution everyone is looking for.

But we should let them give it a shot. Hell if they had come to me asking for $10K I'd have given it to them and let them at least try.

There is technical merit in the idea. It is going to raise the profile of privacy in general and moving away from FB in particular. And at the end there will be things to take away and work with.

It might even fluke out and take off - wierder things have happened.

We can _criticise_ now, but lets not judge.

</comment><comment><USER21> Sorry if this has already been commented on - how in the hell can anyone insist that "no one will want to setup their own seed because it will be too difficult"? It hasn't been developed yet so how does anyone know what setup will be required? What if they figure out how to automate configuration?

Maybe I'm missing something, but bittorrent is wildly popular, typically requires little to no configuration, and acts a "seed" (node) in a distributed network. I don't understand why the prevailing assumption is that diaspora will necessarily require some complicated configuration that is beyond the capabilities of your average, competent computer user.

<comment><USER20> By "no one" we generally mean "the vast majority". As tech-able people we make up a small minority of social network users - many many people struggle with aspects of Facebook. Setting up a Diaspora seed (while possibly not beyond them to learn!) is an immediate turn off :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's an interesting, if severely opinionated, analysis. The author makes a sound argument, but I think he's wrong. The landscape has changed a lot in the two years since Appleseed was abandoned.

Also, it used to be that facebook was only used by the savvy folks. Now my grandmother has a facebook account.

If they made a one-click installer that ran on my iMac and automatically discovered all of my media, then configured it into a personal web server, then allowed me to friend people via email, I'd probably love it. I might even pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Diaspora will be a geek resource at best, possibly backed by a nice network in academia. For the vast majority of people who post photos of their weekend (mis)adventures to share with family and friends, it just isn't going to work. No-one in my family in the UK is going to host their own seed. Thus, I will use Facebook, where my non-technical friends and family are. If I want to share ideas with the nerd set, I hammer out a blog post, link in some Gists and have Posterous fire off a notification via Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER23> Someone really needs to start a nonprofit Facebook with the same basic design goals, a steering board, and probably some nominal monthly costs for accumulating more than 2GB of photos. Facebook solves the Internet anonymity problem, but it does so in a business-oriented way, which is gradually eroding the benefits of verified identity.

Only a non-profit with the stated mission of facilitating private and consensual friendship between existing, identified private individuals can really solve the problem.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm sorry, but why are people even _talking_ about this thing? It's...nothing.

Hey, guys, I'm going to start a new social networking site and it's going to, uhh...solve all the problems that facebook has! I'll call it "beehive". (Oh, wait, that might actually make sense)

Me and my "team" are going to pose around for a bunch of hip shots of us sitting around and being hip.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound so harsh, I just _don't get it_ with all this buzz over this non-project.

<comment><USER25> I think a lot of the buzz is meta-buzz, especially here on HN. Like you said, there is no product, just an idea. I think what's interesting is that with only an idea they were able to generate a lot of cash through donations.

I don't think any of us here would expect to just have an idea and then see 170 grand fall into our laps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Now that we have much more money than we asked for, our situation has changed a little." --Diaspora Team O.O

What does HN think about gift donations instead of money as a funding platform? A site that simply allows startups to request the raw materials/skills they need and people pledge those things. Kind of like a potluck but for funding.

</comment><comment><USER27> IIRC, offering a hosted version ala Wordpress.com is part of their plan. I'm not positive they'll succeed, but I don't think there's an intrinsic reason their plan can't succeed.

Depends on the quality of what they build (apologies for this blatantly obvious commentary, but really, that's what will matter, I think).

</comment><comment><USER28> I doubt that this product will become successful.

I'm not concerned so much with the publicity and the undeserved donations. The article does bring up a good point about having these "seeds" serve their own mini social networks. I don't see how the average user will plan on taking up this task.

</comment><comment><USER29> Well, at least when it all comes crashing down, we can call it _"Disaspora"_.

</comment><comment><USER30> If we could only channel all the pointless effort that went into writing this article, and others like it, into some way to contribute to projects like Diaspora, we could actually accomplish a lot.

<comment><USER31> There will always be more critics than makers; the trick is to remember which really matters.

 _It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood..._

<http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Where did people get the idea that you'll have to set up your own seed? Most people can't install WordPress either; hence WordPress.com and a viable open- source business model.

</comment><comment><USER33> the article has no merit, younger people get the technology and are open to try it out.

</comment><comment><USER34> Ugh, this post is irritating. Did you fund Disporia? No? then why do you care about its success? or its funding? or the buzzwords? or whatever?

Let them try before condemning them to failure.

"By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you... just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?"</comment>


Ask HN: How to learn cold outreach as an engineer? - <AUTHOR> Looking for tools or resources you recommend for an engineer learning how to do cold email outreach <comment><USER2> Are you looking to eventually do sales? Is cold emailing the first step?

If so, there are some good books for engineers who want to transition.

If not, the books are still probably good because they help you learn how to talk to people outside of your product / app / business.</comment>


Sex, Drugs and Unix - <AUTHOR> http://www.litvision.org/morton.html

<comment><USER2> err this is terrible mental masturbation.

We like it for exactly the reasons why it is bad -- it allows us to fantasize about a world where we are the hero and we are "cool" and all our enemies get defeated.

Not to mention that the girlfriend character reveals a lot of fucked up attitudes about women from the author -- the writer's idea of the perfect woman is someone who is easily controlled because she is dependent on him for financial support, she gets sexually aroused by the thought of making more money, goddamn she doesn't even have a name, she's not allowed to be a real person, just a fashion accessory for the protagonist.

If you really liked this story, you should examine yourself for unrealistic expectations of what you deserve to get from society and how much work you are willing to put in to get it.

<comment><USER3> What's wrong with mental masturbation?

<comment><USER2> Nothing, in and of itself. Just as there is nothing wrong with eating an ice cream, in and of itself.

But if you get into the habit of eating ice cream all the time, if you start eating more and more ice cream to the point where you are neglecting normal food, you will end up with a nutrition imbalance which will result in decreased mental ability, decreased ability to concentrate for long periods of time, and oh yeah you will get fat, which most people consider to be a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good story. I didn't realize it was fiction until some post-read googling.

<comment><USER4> I could not believe you can make money with unix for the desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> More realistic would've been better. Had good parts though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yep... this is pretty much the greatest story ever.

</comment><comment><USER7> Awesome reading.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very fun, although it could've used more profanity.</comment>


Fukuyama: Why we all need a drone of our own - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9cc59dce-5e27-11e1-8c87-00144feabdc0.html

<comment><AUTHOR> _What will the world look like when not just the US but many other countries around the world operate fleets of drones; and when powerful, sophisticated drones are owned by lots of private individuals? […] Only when people start thinking through the nature of a world in which drones are cheap and ubiquitous will they start to get worried. That's why I want to build mine now, before the government makes them illegal._

</comment><comment><USER2> My willingness to listen to a bush-era stooge is very low.</comment>


Reinventing Marketplace for Developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.colaxy.com <comment><AUTHOR> Information technology is growing faster than any other technology has ever grown, and yet there is none sophisticated marketplace for the developers to showcase their talent or the innovative work they have been doing all the time. Every industries has a thousand of marketplace to sell their product. Digital world has always been confused with either open source or Licensing terms! What the heck! If I am good at something that has potential to change the way things work, I would like to sell it to enhance and innovate without dealing with licensing stuff. Money is just a rewards for contribution towards innovation. Its time to think about reinventing marketplace for the IT developers, let them build their own digital shop just like every other industries has. Information technology is grown so much, yet it has just born about 60 years. From one wheel to car to airplane, it took thousands of years, can't imagine the infinite possibility of digital world. Lets expedite the innovation even faster with platform that I am envisioning with Colaxy.</comment>