Ask HN: Could EU residents comment on how the GDPR has improved their privacy? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious if the GDPR is working as intended, and if it has actually reduced or eliminated online tracking of EU residents. <comment><USER3> I'm an EU resident with a SaaS business storing EU personal information.

It's forced us to think more carefully how we build systems to pick up, retain and scrub data. So all clients (>1,000) and their clients (likely in the millions) have benefited

They absolutely won't have noticed a difference - by design!

Unbeknownst to downstream users, there are now more rigorous systems in place to manage this information and reduce the surface area where it might be captured

<comment> Y-bar I work with e-commerce in the EU and my experience mirrors yours.

Almost all clients took an honest look at data collection and retention policies.

Data was classified and tools built around the GDPR framework to allow customers to be able to fully retrieve, request changes to, or delete their information from servers.

Most clients ended up collecting less data and retaining it for a shorter time.

All in all from my perspective it seems the law did much of what it was designed to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Immediately many EU companies just dumped their data that they were arbitrarily collecting because it became a liability overnight instead of something that may be an asset in the future.

Many of these companies didn't have consent to have the data to begin with or at least no way to show that they collected it.

A good example is Wetherspoons Pub chain dropping their email database they used to spam people with. I've noticed I'm not caught in any more breaches according to Troy Hunt whilst before I was getting my email breached once a year by some company. According to Troy Hunt's breach DB, over a dozen companies with my credentials have been breached forcing me to never use those email/password combinations again.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, the cookie popups have helped me become more selective in my browsing. If they don't make it reasonably easy to opt out, I just don't open the site.

But the real benefit is this:

Some random online store that i bought something from once decided to send me a spam sms around black friday.

One email and 24 hours later, all the data they had about me was deleted.

Of course, this only works if you're in europe buying from an european store so they're subject to fines from some trigger happy privacy authority.

Assholes like Google still do not ask for consent. Guessing someone at the EU is working on gathering a mountain of documentation so they can fine them that famous 4%.

<comment><USER6> The cookie pop ups were a thing before, I guess being able to opt-out is a neat feature but there are certainly companies who do not comply when you choose to opt-out. (Looking at you Verizon, yes I know it's you behind "oath".)

<comment><USER5> If i see the "oath" message when following a link, i close the browser tab :)

<comment><USER7> Same here, it's like they don't even bother getting their systems up to date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes it has. Companies are now forced to build architectures that take data classification and privacy in mind. It's been a really great addition and a important check on the data economy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you still receive targeted advertisements (assuming you have not opted-in to them)?

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, yes. I haven't knowingly opted-in to anything. This may be a problem with the whole "click here to accept all these cookies" bullcrap that is on every site. I dont think this apparent benefit of the GDPR has worked - at all.

However, in the organisations I have worked with professionally, GDPR is absolutely working - user data collection, storage and security is now a leading conversation - whereas it was a afterthought before, at best. Of course, this isnt generally visible to the end user, and there are undoubtedly still businesses who ignore this - but i guess we wouldnt know unless there is an incident - in which case I would expect the EU to come down HARD.

I think its web-tracking and marketing in particular that still needs fixing.

<comment><USER10> Accept cookies has nothing to do with GDPR.

GDPR has to do that if you provide your phone/mail to some shop or other service they can only use it to contact you with information directly related to their business, like processing your order etc. They can not send you marketing stuff unless you explicitly consented and must remove you from lists if you ask. Even delete your account if you ask (not the data tho).

<comment><USER11> GDPR added the bit where you can opt out of cookie usage on a case by case basis (by use case or by data processor). American companies usually don't implement that part in a correct or legal manner (they have no incentive for doing so; they're only pretending "your privacy is so very, very important to them" for PR reasons). European companies doing it wrong are on shaky ground, since it's a matter of time until some regulator somewhere (which one depends on their country) slaps them with massive fines.

On data removal: [https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/refo...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/dealing-citizens/do-we- always-have-delete-personal-data-if-person-asks_en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes - from inside knowledge, the lead/customer data being sold from business to business has either massively changed or completely stopped.

Personally, I barely receive any out of the blue marketing calls or texts anymore. If someone dubious market's me via phone or email, I know my rights and I can follow how they acquired my data and who sold them my personal details.

As a software developer/entrepreneur, it made me think more about personal data and has affected my architectural decisions.

<comment><USER13> > I barely receive any out of the blue marketing calls or texts anymore

That's strange, as anti-spam legislation is completely separate from GDPR and has been in place for much longer. The only connection I see is that data brokers got a harder time selling your data to these third parties that would call or text you, but what those third parties were doing was already illegal and still is for the same reason (so not because of GDPR).

In the Netherlands it hasn't been legal to cold call someone that opted out of cold calls (using a national register of phone numbers that don't want to be called) since 2009. Any marketing call you do receive has to offer enrolling you on this list to prevent future calls.

For email, again speaking of Dutch laws, companies are not allowed to send you unsolicited, promotional messages. Not sure as of which year this is, but it has been the case for as long as I remember.

I assume most EU countries have similar constructions (I'm not sure if our laws are based on a EU directive).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Popups everywhere. Insane bureaucracy, even at the doctor. And when it matters, it's just being ignored. Most (medium-sized) companies haven't even realized there is a new law.

<comment><USER15> I haven't noticed any "insane bureaucracy" at the doctor, but there's a new box to tick in the signup forms

> And when it matters, it's just being ignored.

Where is that? Though you're welcome to point those out to your country regulator.

> Most (medium-sized) companies haven't even realized there is a new law.

Actually they have, I was surprised at getting emails from medium sized, non- online business about it

<comment><USER16> > > And when it matters, it's just being ignored. > Where is that? Though > you're welcome to point those out to your country regulator.

Blanket forced consent in terms "we need to track you because we have a business need, take that or leave", despite being explicitly prohibited in all GDPR-related guidelines is still something you get away with.

Also one word: Facebook.

<comment><USER15> Yes, I agree that most websites continue to do that, though to be honest the cookie management works in several websites

But I use ad blocking/cookie blocking so I guess it works the way I want regardless of what they think

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I pretty much prefer to have a popup that I have to "accept" prior to the website I visit can "legally" start storing identifiable information about me, it allows me to just close the webpage if it's not something essential I'm visiting. Like 90% of the links on the web, lets say more or less, are not really worth my data, sort of just a "let me check" curiosity, that 99% of the time, after you would finish the article/post wtv, you would go "that was another turd". This doesn't mean it's completely effective or not at all but it's at least some legal backing/precedent.

I still hope we'll be able at some point to come up with a more refined protocol than http (or better sandboxing of the browser/device), where you could selectively reject loading JS resources and where resources would need to explicitly say what they were gathering, where pixel tracking would need to be announced (and only after your consent would those resources run/load). Totally ok with the site not loading either if you didn't gave the permissions. Probably never going to happen, but that would be a true handshake, "I want to check this out", RE: "Sure, we want your location, track your navigation across the website and we'll sell this as part of a dataset, including your IP, so that someone else then can buy several different datasets and create a proper picture of your activity", "Sorry, thanks, not interested". (and yes, it would need to be written in a way that's understandable, not 5 pages of crap). The same applied to mobile phones/computers/apps.

Or better yet, a browser/device API, where you (the developer) would need to declare all resources you wanted to access (DEVICE_IP_ADDRESS, DEVICE_LOCATION, MOUSE_POSITION etc) this would compile all of them into legible manifest that you could read before it being un-sandboxed and allowed to run. Any attempt to read such information from the browser/device where one of those permissions weren't granted would return null (might be the best argument for the existence of null).

</comment><comment><USER18> It's fantastic.

A lot of sites throw up a modal that just disappears when you say no. And I've verified that in most instances this completely kills all telemetry.

I was involved working at a SaaS that provided first party personalisation at the time GDPR was introduced and heard a lot of stories about clients just dropping pointless and long term data.

I have family in the school system that called panicking that this was a disaster... then a few months later admitted it meant that they actual handle their data well and no longer accidently leak personal info (financial, medical, behaviour, attainment) to other families, kids, teachers, or third party companies. Oh, and their emergency fire list is now kept up to date.

I've used the powers of the GDPR to eliminate some low level harrassment of my grandfather.

Google, Facebook, and the Yahoo auth group are still diddling with data they shouldn't, but on the whole it is a much much better world.

</comment><comment><USER7> This has improved privacy awareness, curbed data hoarding and reduces tracking across the board. It also made people aware of which companies don't have their IT in correct order. (i.e. those that outright ban EU traffic, or don't prompt to ask if they can hoard your data)

<comment><USER13> > [those that] don't prompt to ask if they can hoard your data [don't have > their IT in correct order]

It's kind of the opposite: if they need to ask for your consent, that means they're doing something that is not part of the standard exceptions.

For example, if they only use your data to do what you asked them to do, they don't need consent. If I ask Contoso to ship me a horse, they don't need my consent to process my address.

Every time you see a cookie banner, the message is: we want to invade your privacy.

If you want to find those that don't have their data protection in order, look for sites without privacy policy, or policies that were updated prior to ~2016 (that's when the GDPR text was finalized, i.e. the earliest time they could have updated it to be compliant with new requirements). A cookie wall is a signal that it's bad, not that it's good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> All marketing email has an unsubscribe link if it didn't before, and you know it actually works now to stop the emails, not just confirm your email address works.

You also know you can get all the information a company has on you, and get them to delete it if you need to. I haven't made use of it yet, but I've read of people who have.

From inside the business side, I see most companies thinking about GDPR compliance when developing new products and features. What was never the case before and you notice now is they try to minimize PII collected to avoid headaches, and they are very careful about how data is shared with 3rd parties, asking for consent before doing it, etc.

<comment><USER13> > All marketing email has an unsubscribe link if it didn't before

GDPR says nothing about marketing emails. I can only speak for the Netherlands, but our laws about unsolicited commercial communication is what applies there.

What GDPR has to do with it is that they need your contact details to send you anything, so they process personal data. The predecessor to GDPR (called DPD, from the late 90s) also required companies to ask consent if there was no need to process your data for things like fulfilling a contract (same as with GDPR: they only need consent if it's not for a certain set of exceptions).

> You also know you can get all the information a company has on you

This was also the case under the previous law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I operate a B2B SaaS. We sell a service to other SaaS companies. To deliver our service, we are sent PII from our customers which we process as a subprocessor under GDPR.

From the perspective of selling a B2B SaaS service, GDPR has been incredibly successful at making Security & Compliance an important discussion that is had during the sales process. Most leads will have security/compliance as an agenda item during sales calls, while before GDPR this was much less common.

GDPR has effectively turned Security & Compliance into a selling point and a point of competitor differentiation (it was this way in the past too, but much more so after GDPR). I think in the long run, this has/will result in companies having a heightened awareness of security/privacy and budgeting more time and money on security, simply because GDPR has connected it more directly to the business's bottom line.

I think it's good in the long run. In practice, the result is probably a decrease in risk of data breaches (less companies have your data, and the ones that do are more aware of their responsibility to treat it properly).

It's important to note that this benefits everyone (not just people of the EU). Very few companies will go through the trouble of treating EU data differently than non-EU data. Everyone is benefitting.

<comment><USER21> We're not a SaaS - but we noticed GDPR appearing as a requirement in RFx's

Our software does contain customer information, but isn't the focus. As somebody actually designed it properly, compliance wasn't particularly arduous. Huge sections simply didn't apply, and where it did we could just link each requirements to the relevant details, API, logs etc.

As you mention, I think the main benefit is just formalizing something that should already have been designed.

Another benefit is that it's driven 'bottom up' \- Customer doesn't have to pay every vendor to provide them a new feature for say "scrubbing a customer". All their providers supply "here's how you scrub in my product" and customer just needs to stitch these mechanisms together to give their customers the ability to be scrubbed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've used the new laws twice now to close online accounts with companies that were uncooperative or too 'clingy' (looking at you, OVH and Microsoft). Much easier to send a registered letter than waiting on hold or searching for an online option that was deliberately made hard to find, or which may not exist at all.

I have also used it to stop unwanted postal ads from local companies. I get to find out how they obtained my info, and also stop some junk mail.

For the sibling comments mentioning the GDPR popups / cookie notices, why not add a blocklist for these to your adblocker? At this point adblockers should be considered basic security software, like a firewall or antivirus. These lists exist are are pretty comprehensive.

As an American living in Europe I think it's a great law and I wish there was something comparable to protect my friends and family stateside. And as someone who administers a fair amount of business and client data, I do not find the law inconvenient to comply with. I am very pro-privacy and protective of user data, and I didn't have to make any major adjustments.

<comment><USER13> > Much easier to send a registered letter than waiting on hold or searching > for an online option that was deliberately made hard to find

This hasn't changed. Every EU country implemented the Data Protection Directive and you could just have sent a letter since the late 90s (the exact date depending on your country).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The GDPR is working as intended.

For many of us software people, it isn't that revolutionary. These are things we should've been doing for a long time, and many of us have been doing.

But many companies are massive and bureaucratic. Everything from random giant companies to schools, hospitals, etc. These people don't really care about 'privacy', and many abused the hell out of people's privacy, many unintentionally (just careless). And since they make up big processors of data it was necessary to have them improve their practices. Now they actually think about how data is being processed rather than just chucking it around.

The GDPR's biggest impact or purpose isn't to reduce online tracking. It's to secure data rights for citizens in general. And the biggest abuses of that didn't happen due to advertising or tracking.

</comment><comment><USER16> General data handling guidelines: moderate success. Web-facing "consent", cookie management etc: total disaster.

</comment><comment><USER24> Professionally, I have not had to deal with a GDPR request luckily, as we have a lot of anonymized legacy data that is hard to track back to specific participants in our studies.

Personally, I feel the conversation on data in many organizations has helped me feel more secure in my privacy considerations. Although it may not be because of the GDPR, I feel I can make facebook/google/<data_aggregator> accountable about my personal information, if I really wanted to. Although I have not done it yet.

</comment><comment><USER25> The big impact for me was on the non-online tracking and mishandling of private information. All kinds of local non-online service providers and companies (e.g. store 'loyalty programs') started to take data privacy and (non-)collection much more seriously, significantly changing their policies and activities. There are still all kinds of unacceptable activities, but now they're (a) rare and (b) clearly forbidden, so we don't see local corporations flounting 'sorry-not-sorry-we-did-nothing-wrong-and-will-keep-doing-it' PR after they've been caught doing something shady.

So there's been a big change on how my data is being handled in the real world - any effect on random websites online are just a nice-to-have bonus, it's sort of moving in the right direction but it's obviously not a priority in enforement and a better treatment for that can be tweaked in a next version of GDPR, the important thing was to tackle all the big relationships (and privacy abuse potential) people have with e.g. their cell phone provider, supermarket chains, lenders, etc, which are now mostly 'clean' and the major online players such as Facebook, Google, etc which will probably require years in courts.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd also be interested in knowing the tangible results on a individual level so far.

<comment><USER7> As an individual, closing accounts is much easier, including getting your data deleted or getting a copy of the data they have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> After a data breach, a custodial cryptocurrency wallet site forced me to log in to change my password. I assumed it was a test account with no value inside, but wasn't sure. Upon login, they didn't let me access my account, asking me to fill in a KYC form with a lot of personal data. The form was empty, but I didn't know what data they had anyways, certainly wasn't going to give them more data, but couldn't see the wallet balances.

So I sent them a GDPR request, and they told me exactly what data they had and which data they didn't have (confirming that it was next to nothing, and thus that I didn't have to worry about the breach too much). They also confirmed which wallets are in the account (allowing me to confirm that they were empty, as expected, thus giving me no reason to fill ou the KYC).

Without GDPR, I'd be faced between the choice of giving them more data, or not being able to confirm that the wallet is empty (thus potentially losing out on cryptocurrency that I had forgotten about). In the end, I'd have probably provided the information, potentially exposing it when they will inevitably have the next breach.

Before that, Germany already had GDPR-style laws. I get very little spam, because people don't sell my address. I think there was one case where my address was passed along - I demanded to be told who passed it along, deleted, and the deletion request be passed on too, and the spam stopped. Doesn't work for completely fly-by-night companies and proper spammers, but does work for the ones who try to stay on the shady-but-not-illegal side (losing one address doesn't matter to them, and is certainly not worth the trouble of not complying with the deletion request).

I'm literally not using a spam filter.

</comment><comment><USER28> A shop belonging to a big electronics chain registered me as a member without my consent.

After I contacted the chain about it, within a few days my information had been erased and they said the clerk did not act appropriately and they'd also contact the shop in question to make sure this is not repeated.

It's a long story, but when purchasing, the payment terminal asks "Member?". If you answer in the affirmative, apparently somehow one becomes a member. In this case, the clerk reached out from behind the counter and pressed the button on my behalf while I was busy putting my card away. The receipt had the text "member" with a membership number and so on.

In retrospect I suspected that the clerk's KPI contains the number of new members. Most people probably won't care enough to raise noise about it.

Before GDPR, and actually before the improved EU privacy laws in general, say, 20 years ago, fixing this would have likely involved navigating some sort of swamp of dark patterns with several phonecalls and tons of queueing, with a long lead time for the removal and so on.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm positioned quite well to comment on this, our company looks at the back- end of various web services on a daily basis because we look at their infrastructure and associated bits and pieces prior to investment or acquisition.

In the run-up to the GDPR we saw an increase in companies that started to take security and privacy a lot more serious than before. Before the GDPR all data was viewed as an asset and more was better.

After the GDPR went live - and especially after the first fines were issued - this has substantially improved, most - but definitely not all - <USER2> that can afford it now have their security at a reasonably high level, they've hired in-house specialists to help analyze the risks of their operation. Typically access to live databases is now far more restricted and so on.

There are some downsides as well, but that was to be expected (such as: the GDPR being used as an excuse to do things via web portals that used to be done via email, of course that same email can be used to reset the password to the portal...). Overall I'd say the improvement is vast.

</comment><comment><USER30> Having used the ICO to try and stop a company illegally collecting biometric information for access to a gym I am not confident it is very effective. Not only did the gym not stop but the ICO all but rubber-stamped what they were doing. Just like the data protection act before it on a daily basis on the web you see companies openly breaking the law with the wrong defaults and reports just disappear into a pit with the ICO.

The law exists but it isn't enforced by the regulator and the way the GDPR law is set up there is no way to bring private prosecutions to enforce fines and get the law applied. So since the regulator isn't doing it the law is effectively useless. Some companies are complying but the bad ones are seeing no consequences and the compliant ones are bound to notice soon that they can safely ignore it completely soon enough. It has no enforcement currently, there is no rush to ensure your company complies.

</comment><comment><USER31> We make file sharing and sync platform with GDPR specific functionalities. In high level GDPR and the fines have forced companies to take inventory of PII data they have and also limit the collection and storage of them. Also companies have started appointing DPOs. Thats a welcome addition.

</comment><comment><USER32> I explicitly have to give my consent to certain processing, and my relationship as a customer is not affected if I do not give consent.

For example, I now am far more willing to consider signing up for a loyalty card, as long as they don't use my data for profiling purposes. I didn't have many cards before, but the number has grown.

Same thing applies to online shops: I am far more willing to create an account when I see that my rights are being observed, and I can eg delete my data easily.

This, of course, assumes a processor that would rather be compliant with the GDPR in its current form, rather than fight it. Facebook, for example, _needs_ to profile, and is using an IMO ridiculous interpretation of the GDPR to weasel it out of the consent issue. Let's hope the courts do the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER33> I was able to get my account and data deleted from a crypto exchange with relatively little fuss.

Had I not been protected by GDPR I would have had to submit documents to prove my identity, none of which was even required to operate the account in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER34> I had high hopes for the GDPR, a 4%-of-turnover fine would get any company's attention, but in practice the regulators are completely toothless and bad actors such as Google and Facebook continue completely unchecked.

</comment><comment><USER35> Had an old debt I never honoured, but still under law it became invalid and extinct. Yet it gets resold and some specialist companies try to get anything from you, under 'amicable' terms.

They were harassing me, calling etc, and I wondered how they got my details after so long. Made requests for data they held on me, and complained to CNIL about their practices. They dropped everything and are now being investigated by CNIL on how they handle GDPR.

</comment><comment><USER36> I am an EU resident and privacy activist. I did about 100 GDPR-Article-15 request for access to my personal data. For me, it is important to know what data a company has stored about me. I found many unlawful collections by this and filed complaints about that at the supervisory authorities. It is important to know which data is collected and processed ant which data is ALLOWED to collect.

</comment><comment><USER37> Most remain invisible to customers and externals. However, inside just one company, there are dozens of smaller projects that's fixed security and privacy issues across all the horizontals: front end, ESB, middleware, databases, applications, you name it.

Without GDPR the majority of those hidden improvements would've been postponed indefinately.

I do regard spammy notifications as regressions though.

</comment><comment><USER13> In terms of what a company has to do, not that much changed since GDPR's predecessor. The difference between the previous law from the 90s and GDPR is mainly publicity (privacy wasn't as big a topic in the 90s) and higher fines, so what I notice as an EU resident is that more companies implement it. (Also companies abroad, but I can't say that e.g. Google's update impacted me beyond annoying banners: they still say "you consent to us doing anything we like" and that is probably legal.)

The previous law was optional to implement for member states but I lived in a member state (the Netherlands) that did (as "Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens") and I think most other states did as well. Any company that wants to do business in the Netherlands had to comply with that law already (just like you can't come here to do business that is illegal for any other reason).

The main features as I see them are that companies have to obtain consent or have a valid reason for processing personal data, and you have a right to view your data. That was the case and is still the case. I've done data access requests prior and post GDPR and the responses are identical.

A number of details changed, but if you complied with the previous law and you're not a personal data broker, then you have to do very little to comply with GDPR. To give an example, consent now has to be "freely" and unambiguously given, whereas before it just had to be unambiguously given, which means that an employer can't ask you for consent due to the power relation and it's popularly interpreted to also mean that you can't bundle it ("consent or don't get the service") because then it's not "freely" given.

<comment><USER7> But it did change for everyone else that didn't have those laws. Also, the impact of a brach is much bigger now.

<comment><USER13> > it did change for everyone else

OP was asking for EU residents to comment on how it impacted them. This is how it impacted me. If someone else is very happy with GDPR because their country didn't implement the previous law (DPD), they should comment separately.

Edit: actually, all EU member states implemented the DPD: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive#Impl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive#Implementation_by_the_member_states)

So this is actually representative for everyone else.

> Also, the impact of a [breach] is much bigger now

Indeed, as I mentioned, the fines are higher, and that's the only change in that regard.

Note that the requirement to report data breaches to the authorities is not a GDPR thing. The Netherlands introduced a separate law for that prior to GDPR.

And the reason you can be fined for a breach is not because you had a breach. It's not a crime to become the victim of criminal activity, so that's also not new with GDPR. The reason for it resulting in a fine is that it often highlights inadequate security of personal data, which was also illegal under the previous law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My personal stages of gdpr experience:

Stage one: these cookie consent popups are empowering. I'm glad the people won.

Stage two: I am getting a bit sick of having to understand custom consent forms on every site.

Stage three: what have we done, cookie consent has made the internet suck even more!

Stage four: I wonder what all this privacy stuff is really about (goes and reads about it).

Stage five: The internet is a strip mall crossed with a red light district run by the mob - we are doomed.

Stage six: This is something the government will be bad at for quite some time, and I actually have the power to take control of my personal privacy and freedom with minimal effort (relative to say overthrowing a tyrannical government).

<comment><USER16> Stage seven: we probably need more smooth cookie consent management UX integrated into the browsers.. oh wait they had it from the day 0 and it was dropped because everyone agreed it is useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It has given you a quite powerful lever against unsubstantiated paymant demands. It happens quite often that company A has a (debatable) claim to person B but ends up demanding money from person C. Happened to me once because B used my address and twice because A thought we had a contract, which we did not.

In each case, A had no legitimate reason to store or process my data. In particular the GDPR forbids them explicitly to exchange C's data with any third party. Doing so could lead to severe penalties.

In all three cases I only had to point out these facts once to stop the whole claim. Very comfortable.

</comment><comment><USER40> I love it. I've submitted several GDPR data deletion requests to various companies demanding they delete my data for various reasons. Each one complied.

</comment><comment><USER41> US expat in Berlin: I hate the cookie consent pop-ups. I wish it just banned cookies altogether. But that would probably break too much.

A friend of mine has used the GDPR give-me-my-data / delete-my-data email to expose companies doing shady stuff as they're afraid of penalties under the law.

</comment><comment><USER42> GDPR is trade restriction as the notion of "digital privacy" is perpetrated by those who want to restrain US tech companies.

<comment><USER7> Is it? Because if a consumer protection is a trade restriction, would requiring electric devices to be insulated so they don't electrocute the user be a 'trade restriction' as well?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> No,it has not, just made things annoing and complicate for companies. I think it's a goal of supervised EU communists to make our business less effective and competitive.

</comment><comment><USER44> It has definitely reduced the tracking. Due to degraded usability I use European websites less, so fewer companies have my data.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't know about privacy, but it certainly increased the amount of popups I have to click through daily. Thanks, wise European bureaucrats.

<comment><USER46> Blame the content providers who are unnecessarily tracking you, and not the legislators that force them to now tell you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It does give you a (perhaps false?) sense of having some level of control over what is stored where and how much tracking happens. Also, as an unintended side-effect, it helped boost my productivity a bit, as when I open some link and the page keeps twisting my arm to accept all the cookies, I just close the whole tab and go do something more useful instead. And lots of sites, especially news and media related, do this - I skip like 1 in 5 pages because of badly implemented or hostile privacy dialogs.</comment>


I thought I was being 'blacklisted', so I demanded to see colleagues' emails - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/university-blacklist-academic-phd-a9016186.html <comment><USER2> Anecdotally, I met someone who stopped updating their linkedin profile because he found out someone was making anonymous comments and allegations to his employers. He didn't know what they were or who it was because it came second hand from a colleague who told him that an exec had asked about him because of an anonymous message.

Also, whisper networks in tech are very much a thing and they are full of just the quality of people you would expect to find in them. When asked about people I truly can't stand, I say I am sympathetic to the barriers they faced to success and we didn't know each other well. It's not a code, it's the truth. I don't give much weight to the opinions of people who are cruel or have axes to grind either. This is a rare view.

Keep your public social networks well-pruned. Don't talk about plans, the future, or uncertain opportunities, and if you work for crappy people, get out as fast as you can before you give them an unlimited option on causing your reputation harm for the rest of your career.

<comment><USER3> Whisper networks just mean powerful people who talk among each other and do their research. That will always be the case. In politics isn't that just the standard form of discourse?

<comment><USER4> Whisper networks are less-powerful people warning each other about more- powerful people. People with power don't need to hide their communications so much because they are less vulnerable.

<comment><USER5> Have we learned nothing from Wikileaks? Quite the contrary! People with power _rely_ on private/secret communications. And, without power, what is there to communicate, for what you say likely has no _value_.

I am reminded of Napoleon's dictum: "the secret of war lies in the communications". Sun Tzu would disagree as well, having well documented the value of secrets and spies.

"(private) knowledge is power."

<comment><USER4> Sure but I've never heard one of those referred to as a whisper network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think people should keep a few things in mind.

First, we have only one side of the story. The claim is the advisor never spoke to her about the problems he had with her, and we shouldn't simply assume the claim is true. OTOH, I can easily believe it is, given my experience in grad school. While some professors were quite fussy about quality in the thesis, others accepted that most PhD's (in engineering) are not targeting scientific research after the degree, and lower the standards to allow them to graduate. But they absolutely will not support such people in getting a research position at a university or a government lab. Some are open about it: "If you're targeting research and want my recommendations for that endeavor, this is what you need to do. If not, then all you need is X, Y and Z." Unfortunately, not all advisors are as frank.

Also keep in mind that the person may well have been a very competent researcher, while simultaneously being hard to work with. It's quite fair to point it out when asked, and it's quite fair to disrecommend someone because of it.

I don't think the article presents any evidence of _active_ blacklisting, where one is going out of their way to tell everyone (without solicitation) "Don't hire this person!"

Finally, the _real_ issue: What role should references play in the hiring process? I personally would love a world where we never rely on letters of recommendation and references - I think they are the weakest link in the hiring process. However, if we do accept references/letters of recommendation, then everything in the article is fair game. If you ever asked someone what they thought of a candidate before hiring them, you are part of the same culture that this person's advisor is.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a fellow Aspy, I started reading this thinking, I bet he's a bit of a difficult person. Maybe an Aspy.

> Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class > background, my northern accent, and my Aspergers could be a reasonable > explanation.

Ah! Yes, I can guess which one of those three is the reason people found you difficult.

<comment><USER8> I know plenty of people on the spectrum that are pleasant to be around and work with.

Engaging differently socially, while difficult in some sense, isn't necessarily unpleasant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> An interesting outcome of the GPDR! Does the author have any recourse? Can they sue?

<comment><USER10> For what? Someone's negative opinion of them?

<comment><USER11> The UK has famously strict libel laws, and notably the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove the truth of their defamatory speech.

[https://www.burnetts.co.uk/publications/blogs/libel-and- slan...](https://www.burnetts.co.uk/publications/blogs/libel-and-slander-laws)

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

<comment><USER12> I think there needs to be an act of publication for defamation law to be engaged though. It might be rather hard to argue that private emails reach that bar.

<comment><USER11> I'd note that the relevant definition of publish isn't the common-sense use (i.e. make available publicly), but merely "the communication of the defamatory matter to a third person" [0]. Indeed the first link in my prior post specifically calls out defamation via private methods of communication (texting) as something that may be actionable.

[0] [http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/court/reporti...](http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/enforcementguide/court/reporting- defamation.htm)

<comment><USER13> It seems like the reform act of 2013 might make these comments in-bounds:

Honest opinion: It is a defence for defamation, to show the statement complained of was a statement of opinion; that it indicated, in general or specific terms, the basis of the opinion; that an honest person could have held the opinion on any fact which existed when the statement was published, including any fact in a privileged statement that was pre-published. The defence is defeated if the claimant shows the defendant did not hold the opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can generally do the same thing in the US for emails to/from public university addresses with a FOIA request.

This seems kind of wild to me, but apparently it works.

<comment><USER15> > You can generally do the same thing in the US for emails to/from public > university addresses with a FOIA request

No, you can't, because FOIA applies to federal agencies only. Some official communications of a public university might be subject to similar state sunshine laws, but not all email to and from public university email addresses (even some official communication would be protected by FERPA or other privacy laws, and therefore not disclosable under a state open records law.)

<comment><USER14> OK, you're correct that it's not the federal FOIA law that is the issue, but most states have similar state laws that have been used in the past for this sort of thing.

See, for example: [https://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and- features/P...](https://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and- features/Pages/Legal-Watch-0112.aspx)

<comment><USER15> > but most states have similar state laws

Which are addressed in the part of my post after the first sentence (which is entirely consistent with your link): they don't generally apply to all email from a public university address, or even (because of both express exceptions in the state laws and superceding federal law) all university _employee_ communication using such addresses.

<comment><USER14> Heh, ok. I think we're agreeing then. :)

Definitely some variation from state to state. And definitely some restrictions due to things like FERPA and other privacy laws.

But I think it's good for state university employees to know that this kind of thing can happen at all. I think that many of them would be surprised to learn that the general public can make any kind of request at all for copies of what they consider private emails.

I know that my wife, who does some work in areas that can be politically charged, was when she took a job at UNC and someone told her this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see > all emails in which my name appeared ..."

How are different people with the same name distinguished in these cases?

Name might be (almost) unambiguous for some people, but lots of us have many, many namesakes. Is the institution required to reliably tell apart which of the messages were meaning the person making the information request, and which were talking about someone else? What are the penalties for leaking emails that were discussing someone else who has the same name?

</comment><comment><USER17> I actually think I've been "blacklisted" at a government agency in my country, or at least someone with hiring power must be working there who specifically does not want to hire me.

Two reasons -

1\. some years ago there was a job listing at the agency for a programmer with experience in a governmental specification that I was the technical guy in the working group that made the specification, for heavy experience in some technologies I am very good at, including some international standards in which I am thanked as one of the contributors to the standard and when I applied I got the standard reply some months later they went with someone more qualified which is their choice however I can say with 99.9% certainty there was only one other person in the country possibly more qualified than I am (given the technologies involved and the time) and he wasn't applying.

2\. another time they put up a technical challenge and normally when I complete a technical challenge of the particular sort I did the potential employer likes to meet me (they put it online and said try to do this and see if you would be someone we might like to hire). And they said they decided to go with someone else but they did not have any comments on my technical challenge.

So what I'm saying I would really like to get all details from any communications regarding possibly hiring me from that ministry because it might be interesting, but then again I am also of the kind of personality that it just might infuriate me - and what good is that?

<comment><USER18> You could be right, but "more qualified" doesn't have to mean "technical expertise in this exact standard". They could easily be weighing factors such as previous leadership experience, team/group experience, stated career goals, stated interests, demeanor, or experience in other tangential technologies.

<comment><USER17> there was nothing stated about anything like any of that in the announcement, I mean it was such a close match to me that I was awfully tempted to send back an email "what do you mean more experienced, who is the more experienced person in the country for these things you say you want than I"

<comment><USER17> The only thing that makes me think I'm wrong is the consideration that maybe my CV at the time was too crowded, I later had someone improve my CV and after that it started getting more uptake, but even so it was too weird, to make an example here (and note to make the example mean anything I have to use someone famous enough that people will understand it, I am not making any equivalence between us), it would be equivalent to a job announcement saying:

You have a very strong background in Ruby on Rails, understanding of Instiki Wiki, and the Basecamp project management software. You have developed at least one open source project that is used by many people, and you should also have developed at least one project management software. Over that it would be nice if you know something about racing cars, and have won the "Hacker of the Year" award at least once.

And then when David Heinemeier Hansson applies waiting months to send a reply "we decided to go with someone more qualified" without even interviewing him.

Note: I hope I don't get any of those I you are really conceited to compare yourself to Hansson comments, since that is not what I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see all > emails in which my name appeared in either the subject line or the body of > the email

Hmm, I don't think I like this, and I don't understand how the GDPR allows you to do this.

While I understand that stored emails that mention you are technically "data about you", I wouldn't consider them "your data".

Emails are a form of personal communication, and are only really accessible by the author and recipients. Furthermore, those emails would contain PI about _other_ individuals - what of _their_ rights, or indeed the rights of the email authors (regardless of the message content)?

I support the GDPR, but I don't think using it like this falls within it's intent.

<comment><USER20> The GDPR does say "the right to obtain a copy (...) shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others", but it doesn't spell out what that means.

Still, your work email account can be monitored by your employer (though in the EU they have to provide notice of that monitoring), so you don't have the same protection as in a private account.

OTOH, it could be a violation of privacy / data-protection for the author of this piece to be divulging the contents of these emails, even if they have a right to a copy.

<comment><USER21> >though in the EU they have to provide notice of that monitoring

There is an interesting exception; if private usage of your work mail account is banned, it should not contain private data and therefore, it's free to be monitored. Same for internet usage. This is usually coded into your contract when you sign.

<comment><USER19> Work emails can easily contain private data too. I might send an email to my manager asking for time off for deeply personal reasons, or informing them about very personal circumstances (e.g. health). There are of course numerous less impactful examples.

An employer monitoring Internet usage is a very different case - in almost all cases it will be fully automated, and the logs only available to HR on request; not just any employee can request your logs.

<comment><USER21> Those are still work related mails, though they get a better set of protection than normal work related mails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Victim of nasty blacklisting myself. My advise is to be way nicer and make far more friends in the industry than the blacklister. Especially if you are autistic spectrum, you need a good support network.

<comment><USER23> In other words, the solution to someone thinking you're unlikeable and hard to work with is to become more likeable? Who could have guessed ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> >Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class background, my northern accent, and my Aspergers could be a reasonable explanation.

Easier to resort to such hypotheses than be self critical, I guess.

Do we really fall in the category where one student with apparently decent thesis results gets ostarcized by her advisor AND the examiners, where no one in the faculty or comittee would stand for her, even though successfull students do bring a lot of prestige to their team, lab and advisor ? Would it really be in their interest if they have no reason to ? She is doubtly their first tutored PhD ever, and I guess have they seen enough to give feedback that is relied on by other actors in the field ?

I mean, we're all old enough to have met people that despite competence are hard to work (or be) with and would rather not have to deal with.

And considering she did a smart and unconventional GDPR request, and she's legitimately pissed off about its results but goes as far as to publish in the press about it...

<comment><USER25> Doing this behind her back, and without recourse, refusing to talk about it to the person in question, basically the whole way this happened, does _not_ shine a good light on the advisors here.

Plus, you may have noticed, she wrote under a non-identifiable name (outside maybe people already in the know) and didn't name the people in question, nor the institutions. So yeah, she's pissed, IMHO rightfully so, especially since this is a career breaking thing and without recourse.

<comment><USER24> So personal recommandations should be disclosed ? That kinda goes against the point of trying to have an open discussion about a potential appliant. And what would the recourse be anyways ?

What good would a talk do, since admittedly it's a person and not a work problem ? Do any good come out of people explaining how they despise your attitude, especially with high stakes, where no response will ever bring closure ?

Yes, btw I hope the publisher has more insight than the reader and does a background check.

Edit : though I agree that the team should've hold a discussion, as sterile as it probably would've been, for it's own reputation.

<comment><USER26> If she knew that her academic career prospects were being sabotaged by her advisor rather than having her mental health deteriorate while failing to pursue an academic career in her field, she could have pivoted to industry or a separate topic.

<comment><USER25> In which case she might be able to burn bridges, and call out people, and just tell her side of the story, if she... dunno... published it somewhere.

<comment><USER26> I doubt she views her current situation as better than the alternatives she would've had if she had been told in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> i feel for this person. my mother got blacklisted in her teaching profession, this stress triggered in her dormant traumas from her childhood, and she's been on medication now for 20 years due to these people pushing her over the edge with such behaviours.

no matter how good you feel about yourself, give others a chance, even if they dont 'gel well with you'. don't feel 'threatened' by other people who are talented, feel graced by their wits and try to grow from them instead of kicking them down.

lack of respect and integrity at its worst, it's an epidemic in our society.

</comment><comment><USER28> >I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see all emails in which my name appeared in either the subject line or the body of the email.

The scariest part is that this is apparently possible in countries under the jurisdiction of GDPR now (and possibly even outside of it). Your private emails talking about a third party might be exposed at the request of the said third party. Does no one else consider this _extremely_ concerning?

<comment><USER29> I'm pretty sure that this would only apply in the contexts of business dealings -- anything you produce from a business you work for should not be considered your private anything, it's work material you produced for that employer, and the actions became the employer's actions after executed.

<comment><USER28> Even in business context this can be weaponised. For example two executives in a company discuss some sort of business strategy and mention the competitor's CEO by name (also the competitor's company happens to be named after its CEO so it's impossible to discuss it without saying his or her name). The competitor's CEO GDPRs the emails and learns of the secret business plan as a result.

<comment><USER30> _Even in business context this can be weaponised._

Indeed. Just imagine the fall-out if someone started a movement where everyone who got turned down for a job they applied for then submitted a SAR for all of the internal commentary and communications about them. Suddenly every business that hires staff has an extra overhead, even small businesses need industrial- scale HR/legal mechanics for the application process, and the number of lawsuits for every conceivable type of discrimination skyrockets.

<comment><USER29> This is already a concern (not the absence of hiring documentation, but extreme caution around what is captured into electronic long-term storage), pre-and-post GDPR. "Pick up the phone" is a very real piece of advice around hiring-related conversations and for good reasons. I think it's incredibly contorted to believe the world falls apart here (in fact, the world would have to be pretty broken in order for it to go down that way).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Where my personality was called into question perhaps my working-class > background, my northern accent, and my Asperger's could be a reasonable > explanation.

It's quite likely that ones background and developmental disorders shape one's personality. However, it's still their personality. So what if it has a reason?

This touches on the dark abyss of "free will". In some sense all we are is a cellular-automata chugging along according to the laws of physics. In that sense everything one does has a "reason". Yet we live our lives, and shape our societies, with the idea that sane adults have an ability to chart their own course, in some sense. (in contrast to children or "insane" people who are considered more reactive/automatic hence not responsible for their actions).

What part of my actions are my responsibility (and therefor have consequences) and what part is beyond my control (and should be forgiven, at least partially)?

<comment><USER32> Free will is an illusion and simply it doesn't exist.

You cannot make either a choice or decision that's truly your own. Simply, you cannot without being effected by the system you're in.

People don't choose the life they're born into and why does anything that comes after birth be assumed differently. The answer cultural conditioning and from religious ideology that has rooted deeply into society. The belief that god gave humanity free will.

No part of your actions are truly the responsibility of you as a person but the fate of cause & effect and everything outside one's control. The system of society with genetics & environment being imperfect makes bad people. Otherwise we would just have 'people' in a system of perfect equality.

<comment><USER33> Let's suppose you're right and non-determinism doesn't exist. (Quantum physics apparently disagrees, but never mind that.)

It doesn't matter. Treating people as though they have agency is still necessary, because how we treat them would affect their deterministic state function.

If someone commits murder and we say it was only a product of their environment and they have no agency, therefore we shouldn't punish them, well, that's the sort of "choice" that, on a systemic level, causes more people to commit murder. Even if they have no "choice" in the matter -- especially then -- creating an environment in which murder has personal benefits outweighing the personal costs is societally maladaptive.

And so it is with everything else. If we want people to give to charity and go to college and not steal from others then we have to act as if they chose whether or not to do those things and reward or punish them accordingly.

<comment><USER34> Also, the paradox is that it doesn't matter one bit whether free will exists or not.

Because either it does and we are making conscious choices and everything that normally follows with that. Or it doesn't and _everything_ we say, do, and think is predetermined.

However, if that's the case, then you are predetermined to be someone to be swayed by certain arguments. You are predetermined to either believe or not in free will. And you cannot change that. Because even if this convinces you one way or the other, I had no choice in typing it, and you had no choice in reading it. This was going to happen based on whatever determines things.

So free will not existing wouldn't change anything. Because some people are predetermined to believe that regardless of the reason, murderers should be punished.

<comment><USER32> Well, I'm proclaiming free will doesn't exist. Neuroscience exhibits supporting evidence that we don't have free will. There hasn't been anything exhibiting that we have free will.

Your rhetoric that nothing matters could have been used when people assumed the world was flat and others were challenging that popular assumption. Nonetheless, the world gets better overtime and when people have a realistic understanding of reality.

So change does happen but yes it's going to happen whether we like it to or not. That's a thrilling thing to observe and to be aware of that nature of reality is a good thing.

> murderers should be punished.

No, they should be rehabilitated and educated of the cause & effect for their actions. Otherwise humanity is failing the unfortunate that didn't have any real control.

<comment><USER20> If there's no free will, the people punishing murderers have no choice to rehabilitate instead. Choosing between punishing or rehabilitating requires free will.

<comment><USER35> No, I think the point made above is that you can still choose punishment because even with no free will involved, the future decision calculations need to observe a strong penalty to deciding yes for murder. This doesn't require free will any more than an if-then I write in code requires it.

<comment><USER34> But your if-then exhibits no independent action. It just is. It can't "choose", it just takes input and gives a predetermined output based on that input.

If free will does not exist, you do not have a choice. It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to proclaim that we should do anything. Or that we can make any sort of choice.

<comment><USER35> > It's disingenuous to both argue that free will does not exist and to > proclaim that we should do anything.

Not at all.

Maybe you are a free-will-lacking if-then bot that takes whatever suggestions someone says we should do and executes them, and maybe I am a free will lacking robot that periodically burps out suggestions. No disenguity or "true choice" required.

<comment><USER34> But if free will does not exist and you believe that, then you would know that whomever you're making the suggestion to is incapable of changing whatever path they were going on in the first place.

By suggesting a course of action, you are implying there is an actor with agency out there.

Now, while the actor itself may not actually have agency, that does not absolve you. Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will.

<comment><USER35> > Any attempt to persuade is an implicit acknowledgement of free will.

> But your if-then exhibits no independent action.

Attempts at persuasion don't imply free will, they just change the input to the if-then in a downstream deterministic process.

If bash script A calls bash script B with a command line flag to make it follow an alternate behavior, nothing is implied about the free will of either bash script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> _There are new EU-wide data regulations, known as the GDPR, that were introduced in 2018. These regulations allow people to make a data request, called a Subject Access Request, to any institution that holds any data on them. The definition of data is pretty broad, and I was able to ask my PhD college, and several other institutions, to see all emails in which my name appeared in either the subject line or the body of the email._

While it may now be legal in the EU to request a copy of all emails that mention you by name, socially it would be a terrible betrayal of trust. Ironically, this seems like clear confirmatory evidence of the sort of red- flag behavior that would cause an advisor to send private emails strongly discouraging others from hiring you even if you were qualified on-paper for the position.

<comment><USER37> That doesn't seem fair since the emails were sent long before the writer made the requests. If she had never asked for the emails, the same things would be said about her.

<comment><USER36> Sure, I don't mean that it was evidence at the time, rather that suspicions held by the advisor seem to have been proved true. I presume that advisor felt justified in warning others that the author might be a problematic hire, and a scandal like this is evidence that the suspicion was correct.

I think the right question to ask is whether an advisor is obligated to give positive recommendations for an advisee if they come to regret having taken them on. My sense is that the advisor was correct to notice that socially something was "off" about the author, and correct that others might regret hiring her, just as he(?) had come to regret choosing her as a student. I don't know though whether it's legal under current EU law to act on these observations and experiences.</comment></comment></comment>


After 18 months of reporting on homeless crisis, this is what I learnt(LA Times) - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-08-15/la-street-within-homeless-crisis-what-we-learned <comment><USER2> >>They struggled to pay bills, get along with new neighbors, stay healthy, find work. Their lives, as battered and scarred as they were, suddenly were no different from anyone else's, and the future was theirs to either win or lose.

This is the part that most people miss when they talk about fixing the homeless problem. Getting people into homes is only part of the problem. Homelessness is the result of a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed too.</comment>


Hackers and Painters - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html <comment><USER2> See <http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm> for an amusing counterpoint to PG's original post

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought it was submitted earlier, wanted to see discussions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most of the book is a recompilation of his essays so if you introduce the link of an essay in HN probably there is already is a thread for it.</comment>


Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-1000-again-overstock-sales-130000/ <comment><USER2> This is just ridiculous. If Overstock is the biggest retailer in the world accepting Bitcoin, and on their opening day they only manage $130,000 in sales (130 BTC), what does that tell you about the volume of Bitcoin actually being used in trade and commerce rather than speculation?

There are 12.5 Million BTC in circulation. I don't doubt that Bitcoin will become a revolutionary system of payments and money storage down the track, but the price of coins is outrageously inflated at the moment.

<comment><USER3> Why would I want to spend Bitcoins that are increasing in value? I'll spend them on the way down, not up.

<comment><USER4> 1\. They are not guaranteed to increase in value

2\. Spending bitcoin helps the ecosystem, thereby increasing the value of your other coins in the long run.

3\. Having things now is often more desirable than slightly more later.

(You can't eat bitcoin. If bitcoin is all you have to spend, you will spend it on food, because food now is worth more than more valuable bitcoin later. If you also have dollars, then you'd just spend the dollars. If you have dollars and bitcoin, you can spend the bitcoin to help support the system, and replenish it immediately with your dollars.)

<comment><USER5> I would describe #3 more generally by saying that holding BTC creates an _opportunity cost_ , unique to each person's circumstances.

Some more reasons:

4\. Lower transaction cost (especially for international transactions)

5\. If you want to help out the merchant, he may get a lower transaction cost out of it too (if the alternative is credit card, for instance).

Edit: Oh, and let's not forget the spend-and-replenish BTC strategy to keep your BTC holdings fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel sorry for those buying bitcoins at prices $900+, seriously! China has two more weeks until the shut down - so far Huobi and a couple of other exchanges still allow bank transfers into the exchanges and the Chinese are making their last profits. When Yuan stops flowing into the exchanges (or becomes much harder), the only Yuans you can get to buy is when you sell. I'm sure people will figure out to buy via friends from outside the country, but you can't really do the current level of speculation not having quick transfers in and out. Keep in mind most of the trade volume is in China! Mt.Gox has ridiculously low volume, yet, both Bitstamp and BTC-e follow it although they have much more volume now. Remember on the 14th the Taobao restriction also kicks in. Also, hearings won't be very positive this time as it looks. Anyway, November was a great month, but not every month in November! Also, the initial excitement about Overstock will quickly subside. It just can't get any better than this.

<comment><USER7> Don't feel sorry for those people, exchanges exist for a reason. If people feel like they do not want to hold on their cryptocurrencies anymore, they can still sell them. Moreover, as long as there are enough people willing to buy those coins at a higher price, it can only keep rising.

I'm not a bitcoin booster or super believer or whatever the term is (even though I have some), but even if we are to follow your arguments, and assume that Chinese traders got the price that high, we can say that with a market cap as low as $10B, China hadn't likely injected as much money as Wall Street would if they entered the market. My point is that even if the price crashes because of some bad news in China, it still has a chance to rise again when Wall Street comes (if we are to believe that those companies still want to enter).

It really looks like speculation is what keeps the btc/usd pair rising, but with such good news coming, I can't think of a lot of reasons why people would stop speculating. Keep in mind that there is no short supply of people who want to get rich with little work.

<comment><USER6> You cannot deny that the current high price is due to the extremely high demand in China. Get China out of the picture, add a bit more due to Zynga and Overstock, the price should be less than $300.

<comment><USER7> I'm not denying it, just pointing that some other factors could have the same effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think this really helps justify Bitcoin as a viable currency to the public. Seeing relatively large sales being done with Bitcoin at a well-known retailer is a big confidence booster.

<comment><USER9> _Seeing relatively large sales_

For comparison, overstock sold 1.1B in 2012.. which is 2.6M in 21 hours vs 124K in 21 hours

<comment><USER10> So what you're saying is that on the first day of availability, Bitcoin made up 5% of their sales by volume. I'd consider that a pretty big success.

<comment><USER11> Check back in a few days. It's almost certainly going to go down, not up.

<comment><USER12> Has anyone been following what BTC price Overstock is allowing?

Because I seriously doubt you get market top or even average price in BTC for something.

<comment><USER13> Coinbase aggregates a few different markets to determine the price in real- time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The press must know by now Mtgox is an inflated price, but they still continue to reference it as _the price of bitcoin_.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps it's moderately inflated, but it is still the most well-known exchange among the populace; therefore, they're going to go with it. It's sort of like real currencies. Yes, on the spot market they're worth X, but when you're on the street trying to exchange it, it'll be worth X * 0.9.

<comment><USER16> It's inflated because USD withdrawals are severely delayed, often taking months to clear. There are people waiting since June 2013 for withdrawals.

Domestic JPY withdrawals seem to happen smoothly so some people use that route to get fiat out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The price of bitcoin reached $1,000 again today on Japan-based bitcoin > exchange Mt. Gox

The headline is misleading. I would expect CoinDesk to use their _own_ Bitcoin Price Index or at least a regular exchange like Bitstamp as a reference rather than an exchange from which no one can withdraw money in a reasonable time.

</comment><comment><USER18> MtGox is a poor indicator for going rate of Bitcoin. Because it's so difficult to withdrawal USD from MtGox, their exchange rate is always higher than the going rate. Example, MtGox is currently $992/btc, where as both bitpay and bitstamp are $887/btc.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if anyone will ever write an article about Bitcoin that doesn't quote some crackpot who thinks the Federal Reserve is destroying our money.

<comment><USER20> Well, in this case the crackpot in question is the CEO of Overstock, so it's kind of relevant.

I think the real issue is that in a disproportionate number of the big cases of Bitcoin being used in actual transactions, one or the other of the participants _is_ a crackpot who thinks the Federal Reserve is destroying our money, despite the dollar's impressive record of price stability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How is adoption of bitcoin as a payment technology a bullish indicator for bitcoin as an investment? The prices on Overstock are still in dollars and bitcoin as a payment technology works equally well whether bitcoin is priced at $1,000,000 or $0.01.

<comment><USER5> If you believe that overstock will lead to increased demand for BTC (perhaps not due solely to overstock but a wave of merchants who follow suit) and that the demand outpaces BTC's inflation (i.e. the ~3600BTC mined into existence each day), then BTC's value will rise as a consequence.

<comment><USER21> The Overstock case doesn't increase net demand for bitcoins. This is how Overstock works. I have dollars and I want to buy something on Overstock. I buy some bitcoins with my dollars. I send bitcoins to Overstock and Overstock sends me the product. Overstock then sells the bitcoins to convert back to dollars.

So there is a buy and a sell for each transaction which creates no net demand for bitcoins. And if you consider the alternative where I already have bitcoins because I mined them, then I have bitcoins and I send them to Overstock who sells them for dollars. In that case you actually create downward pressure on the bitcoin price (against the dollar) since there is no buy on my part to net against Overstock's sale of bitcoins.

<comment><USER5> It's true that the Overstock transaction itself doesn't create new demand.

But it may bring new users who buy/hold BTC, if they see it as a useful store of value or just for convenience sake to make future purchases. Overstock's CEO said they may start holding it for longer if they can pay their vendors in BTC or have derivatives that allow them to hedge against decline in value.

Also, because the exchanges charge a fee to convert to/from fiat (e.g. 1% in coinbase's case), that creates some incentive to stay as BTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I sure hope Overstock's opsec people are securing their bitcoin wallets. Worst news to hear would be that someone took their bitcoins out of their wallets the next day.

<comment><USER23> Overstock isn't accepting BTC, they are accepting USD from Coinbase, who in turn accept BTC. Coinbase bears the security risk.

<comment><USER24> so swap the reference to the opsec of Overstock with coinbase's.

as soon as there's enough money, well funded organizations will start attacking, and robbing a bitcoin wallet is probably less risky than a bank...

<comment><USER25> I believe Coinbase holds the majority of their BTC in offline wallets distributed in multiple bank vault around the world.

They are probably one of the groups with the best BTC storage security (while maintaining usability). So yes, if they WERE to be robbed, then that would basically mean that no one is able to properly secure BTC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There was a lot of volatility in a short span of time from the China announcement to Overstock adoption.

<comment><USER6> Yes, lots of trading bots at play, too!

<comment><USER6> BTW, I wondered, will actually having a higher transaction fee on the API transaction, in fact, reduce volatility? Let's say, at Bitstamp with volume, you can get down to 0.02% fee (no so hard with even a few bitcoins and a few trades). If API trading fee is always at 0.05% or higher, then bots will slow down a bit.</comment></comment></comment>


5 Entrepreneur Ideas That Investors See Too Often - <AUTHOR> http://www.alleywatch.com/2014/08/5-entrepreneur-ideas-that-investors-see-too-often/

<comment><USER2> The rationale for not investing in the first three areas is that there's already an 800lb gorilla in each.

What I see is an environment where if you can chip away and get a very small percentage of a big market, it's still financially rewarding. I'm actually surprised at how I've fared against some massive competitors on some small projects in Google SERPs.</comment>


Free online courses from top universities - <AUTHOR> http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses <comment><USER2> The breadth of open resources has never been greater than it is today, but unfortunately, it's useless without some semblance of structure. If you have very specific gaps you're trying to fill, it's easier to pick out from the lot, but what I think will be more helpful is aggregators making clear tracks, as many MOOCs have now done (in many cases as paid offerings, although you usually can audit for free). I'd rather my choice be around what I want to be able to do or what broad specialty I'd like to pursue and someone else with the knowledge tells me what specific courses to take--much like we do at university!

<comment><USER3> > it's useless without some semblance of structure.

If you are starting out (so literally know too little to provide your own structure), then looking up student handbooks is a good place to start. Here is the relevant section of Harvard's: [https://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/book/fields- concentration](https://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/book/fields-concentration)

You obviously do not get a course for course match, but from there you can pull up the syllabi or go off course titles.

Personally, I think the biggest weakness with MOOCs is the lack of academic recognition. I can take a MOOC course from Harvard, do the work, and get no credit. But if I put down $3,000 and do the same exact course through Harvard Extension school; all that work is pseudo-magically accredited and can be used for things like degrees and satisfying pre-requisites. And to be fair, that $3,000 gets me access to a TA and sometimes the Professor (if they field questions or host their own office hours), but the price tag for "accreditation" leaves a foul taste in the mouth.

I hope future generations judge us harshly for this.

<comment><USER4> > I hope future generations judge us harshly for this.

Although I agree that the accreditation is a problem that needs to still be solved, it's with this last sentence that I don't agree at all.

Judge us harshly for what? For creating all this free and accessible education, plus the whole infrastructure and technology that makes possible something that never was?

I find this constant anti-human sentiment and lack of gratitude worrying. As if everything should be perfect all the time.

<comment><USER5> I think you are deliberately missing the point of the last line. Of course free access to a wide variety of education is a good thing - no one is doubting that.

But gatekeeping recognition for that education behind a paywall ensures that we are judging students not solely on their ability, but also on the size of their wallet.

There is nothing "anti-human" about acknowledging that, in an educational era of plenty, our systems are still failing those without the means to pay.

<comment><USER4> I have nothing against acknowledging problems. That's how we fix them. What I take exception to is the sentiment embodied in that sentence.

The gatekeeping behind a paywall issue is not what I was referring to.

But since you bring it up, I don't think that the analysis is so simple.

For one, I agree that there has been an over-inflation in the cost of universities, at least in the US and the UK (less so in other countries).

This paired with the fact that such education is going down in quality, most of that money pays useless bureaucracy and committees and you cannot default on education debt is a serious issue worth considering.

On the other hand, I also think we have to consider other factors.

For one, people value more things that come with a cost. This has been shown in studies. I recommend on the topic, "Influence", by Cialdini, for example.

In fact, raising fees in the UK seems to have increased attendance (1), although data seems to be contradictory on this one (and that's why I think it's a hard problem)

Anecdotally I can also say that in my business people value more the material they pay for and are more likely to follow through. I know this to be the case for other businesses too.

We have always to pay attention to the fact that the cure might make things worse instead of better. This is often the case with this type of interventions.

For example, countries with higher gender equality actually increase gender differences instead of reducing them (2). No one expected that, but that is the result.

(1) [http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-what-happens-to- stu...](http://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-what-happens-to-student- applications-when-university-fees-go-up-39837) (2) [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153857)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was looking at a course and noticed this:

"This course material is only available in the iTunes U app on iPhone or iPad."

That's lame. For years, iTunes U materials used to be available in iTunes store, accessible via macOS and Windows. Now Apple wants me to buy an iPad? Hell no.

[edited for concision/focus.]

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I've noticed that apple is increasingly locking down their ecosystem as they strive to meet investor expectations. People need to move away from the apple ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah, I would like to learn everything but I actually end up learning nothing. The blame should go to my own laziness but I prefer blaming the vast number of choices. If only the brain machine interface was available. I'd download it all straight to my brain rather than a computer.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wonderful link, I have bookmarked it.

Unfortunately, if you try to access it through HTTPS, you get an invalid certificate, and a permanent redirect to the HTTP version. This could be better, nowadays.

      $ curl --insecure --verbose https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
      [...]
      > GET /freeonlinecourses HTTP/1.1
      >
      < HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
      < Location: http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

<comment><USER10> i was expecting a github pages with custom domain because of that issue, but it seems that the server is an AWS EC2 instance, so yeah... he could've just used lets encrypt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 3.9 MB and 300 requests to 28 different domains when visiting this website. It's a really good page but I wish they would cut down a bit on the advertising and tracking, especially since they try to block anyone with adblock from viewing the page.

</comment><comment><USER12> Inaccessible sections (math, at least) with adblocker turned on. Which is their right.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=math+courses&t=lm&ia=web](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=math+courses&t=lm&ia=web)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd like to also mention this[0] crowd-sourced list of courses[1] on Tech Ethics. Please add your course/class as well:

[0] [https://twitter.com/cfiesler/status/931200575873490944](https://twitter.com/cfiesler/status/931200575873490944)

[1] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jWIrA8jHz5fYAW4h9CkU...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jWIrA8jHz5fYAW4h9CkUD8gKS5V98PDJDymRf8d9vKI/edit#gid=0)

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice, but too many of them are behind some closed service like iTunes. Such stuff should be in public access really and not requiring any registration.

<comment><USER7> Agree. I think the best platform for these courses is to just create websites that aren't relying on some company's distribution network (ie. itunes).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I highly recommend Sam Altman's course "How to Start a Startup": [http://www.openculture.com/2016/07/how-to-start-a-start- up-a...](http://www.openculture.com/2016/07/how-to-start-a-start-up-a-free- course-from-y-combinator-taught-at-stanford.html)

I watched it on my lunch breaks, it's a great, thorough introduction.

</comment><comment><USER16> > The Ethics of Jazz (Lecture Series) - Free Online Video - Herbie Hancock, > Harvard

</comment><comment><USER17> Most of these links are dead.

Examples:

Russian for Beginners 1 - Dalarna University -- playlist is private

Russian Essentials - Cambridge University -- page does not exist

Introduction to Economics - Martha Olney, UC Berkeley -- youtube playlist does not exist</comment>


The Secret Online Weapons Store That'll Sell Anyone Anything - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5927379 My jaw kept dropping lower and lower as I read this.<p>I know Tor encryption is good and all, but surely there must be SOME way of taking this site down? <comment><USER2> Being able to buy much the same weapons legally in the US kind of negates the whole drama, doesn't it?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This WSJ article says James Holmes, the Aurora murderer, bought a number of weapons and ammunition online: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044446430457754...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577541032679325726.html)

I wonder if he used this site?

(Also interesting to note that Gizmodo published the piece on Thursday 7/19, or the day _before_ the shooting. Weird coincidence.)

<comment><USER3> No, Apparently he bought all legally in several gun shops.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do people with successful careers play the game? - <AUTHOR> When you work in an extremely dynamic environment full of smart people and just good work is not enough to take you forward, what else (besides best quality work) should you concentrate on?<p>Edit - There's some incredible gems of advice in the comments here (especially for a mid-level career person like myself). I'd like to thank everyone for taking the time out and contributing and writing their thoughts down. <comment><USER2> Read this book: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Star-Work-Breakthrough- Strategies/...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Star-Work-Breakthrough- Strategies/dp/0812931696) and do what it says.

(I am a senior technical resource in an environment like you describe. Read this after I was pretty far along but it basically sounds like how I operated to get where I am.)

Don't waste time. Be mission/vision focused. Be polite to everyone always. Be helpful whenever possible. Be _insanely_ organized. Do not be That Guy/Gal who is always forgetting things, late to meetings, doing the wrong thing, asking stupid questions about stuff that's already been covered in meetings, etc. Seek and respond to constructive feedback on your work. Do the sh#t work without whining. All of this will build human capital with other people in the organization, which will both practically give you more resources of help from others to draw on in your work requirements, but also increases your visibility with people who aren't on the front lines doing the work (e.g. Management). That visibility gives you the means to move in whatever direction you might desire. It also (for want of a better way to put it) usually tends to help make you layoff-proof because people know you are competent, professional, and have some flexibility to work as part of a team.

None of this means you are anyone other than who you are. Don't kiss anyone's a##, but also don't be an a##hole. At the end of the day with two people even remotely similar in "technical" capability, personal behavior will matter for increasing your effectiveness within any organization.

<comment><USER3> Wow, i thought that was common sense..

<comment><USER4> Agreed - that book seems interesting, but I wonder how much is obvious workplace common sense and prudence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a truly dynamic environment there should be more opportunity to figure out where you can best contribute as a team member. (Work is about more than simple technology.)

Maybe you're blocked in some areas, but are there others where you can help with your unique combination of knowledge and experience?

It doesn't even have to be directed at the core of the project. Some teams aren't good at creating infrastructure; maybe there's a need in the areas of documentation, devops, or bug tracking and fixing. Stuff others don't want to touch.

Consider starting there. (And always be thinking about your next move.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Be helpful.

A lot of people talk about playing the game. You don't have to play any game. Besides delivering the best quality work, Be helpful to everyone around you - including your boss, his boss, your peers, etc. Emotional intelligence is a huge component in driving one's career forward. Be sensitive to everyone around you. Know when to say and what to say at which time.

In addition to marypublic mentioned about being organized, I would say being able to communicate/articulate your ideas and turn them from complex details to simple nuggets of information.

</comment><comment><USER7> Neil Young said it best, "keep your head down and walk forward". Don't just look at the people who you perceive are moving forward, look at the ones that appear to be standing still, and what do you think is the difference?. Sure there are those that have moved forward due to being able to dramatize with success the superficial things and say/wear/do/hangoutwith all the right things and trick higher ups into believing they have more real authentic capability than they actual do, but that only lasts so long. Where you really move forward is in your authenticity. If you authentically love what you do, and you excel at it, and you look forward to advancing it forward no matter where you work or what you're paid, then you're pretty much invincible. You will naturally exude passion for your chosen skillsets, you will embrace all that is thrown at you with gusto, and people will naturally gravitate towards that. Most of all, pay it forward. Mentor those around you in the same skillset area, and make a difference and demonstrate that even though you are an expert and SR level in your field, that the success of the team is rooted in the power of everyone being able to produce at the same level as you. When you do that, whether you are intentionally trying to impress your superiors or not, it won't matter, they will notice, and if they don't, then you have some choices to make. In field of dreams, the phrase, "if you build it they will come", applies to you as a person, if you become the highly skilled, sr level expert, that exudes passion and innovative mindsets, people will come, they will gravitate towards it and you will be successful. Maybe not as fast as those just phoning it in and playing the parts really well, but slow and steady always wins the race. I work in a highly competitive environment and I am not even a full time staff, yet because I practice what I just preached, whenever a PM needs dev work done, my name usually comes up very early in the conversation. That wasn't a calculated thing on my part, I didn't play a game, I didn't coax anyone my direction, I just work really hard because I love being a developer, I constantly evolve and advance my skills because I feel empowered when I build more advanced things with code, and my authenticity and passion is obvious and authentic and people with good intentions will always appreciate that and gravitate towards it. Now does this work EVERYWHERE? Hell no, but its up to you to decide what works for you in terms of where you work, and don't compromise your authenticity just to move up or make more, its not worth it in the end.

<comment><USER8> That was very well said. Thank you.

I knew a VP who always seemed to move up, even though his projects failed. It eventually caught up to him. He wasn't being authenticate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Every company/organization/group etc has multiple "dimensions" that they use to determine who is valuable and who is not.

For example, in a technical organization, one dimension might be ability to quickly create production level code. Another dimension might be ability to refactor legacy code.

In a sales organization the dimensions might be different e.g. ability to make existing customers happy vs ability to find new customers.

NOTE: even in the same company, one group may have different dimensions than other groups.

The key is to:

a. figure out which dimensions your company/group/manager are using to define value

b. if there are multiple dimensions, try to find the ones that are easiest/most natural for you but are hardest/least natural for others

c. focus on maximizing b

d. profit

Case in point: I once worked at a high frequency trading firm. I was one of the few people WITHOUT a STEM PhD. However, I was much better, relatively speaking, at over the phone customer interactions/support. Within a month of being there I was made Head of Customer Support purely as a function of being the group member with the best people skills.

Another key point, be wary of creating "Unspoken Covenants" e.g. "If I do X, my manager should do Y".

No they don't.

Go to your manager and say propose a mutually beneficial agreement. e.g.

You: "I would like an increase in salary/title/benefits/vacation days. I know that's a big ask but I know you value sales/code quality/production rate, correct?"

Manager: "Why, yes I do!"

You: "Great. I can improve that thanks to %ABILITY. If I do that can I get my initial ask?"

They should be saying "Hell yes!!" at this point. If not, you may have either misjudged what they value or you are dealing with someone who doesn't believe in mutually beneficial agreements.

</comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like a great place to be. I would say you should pick someone who you admire most in the group and try to emulate their behavior.

</comment><comment><USER11> I would work on finding an environment where only high quality work matters. If you're in an environment where ass kissing matters you aren't actually in a high quality environment.

<comment><USER12> This sounds intuitively true to me. I assume the reason it was downvoted was because someone thought it was terrible advice. I'd appreciate hearing the counterargument.

<comment><USER13> Here is a counterpoint:

To a certain extent, you always have to play some politics wherever you work unless it is just you with maybe one or two others. Some workplaces are less influenced by them (tech being an example when compared to finance or management consulting) and other games are played without realizing it on both sides (Do you tell your boss their idea is "stupid" or do you try to explain the reasoning why your idea is superior? Alternately, your boss won't be too excited to bring you in on a new idea if you only tell them their ideas are stupid).

You work in an environment with people. The better you do, the more people with whom you will likely have to interact and the more you'll probably have to play the game. Environments that deal with human interaction are going to be subject to some form of politics simply because people are going to be more inclined to assist those they like over those they don't (quality of work being fairly comparable).

If you don't like the political atmosphere of where you work, there is nothing wrong with that. The best option is to probably find another place to work that has fewer games (or more, if that's what your into). Politics tend to be a cultural thing and changing the culture of a workplace is... hard. Unless you are in a position of power, you won't be able to drive that change without bringing people to your side which, ironically, requires that you play some of the games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> networking, mentoring, Be a protege, evengelise your work, volunteering work not asked/expected from you.

Also be polite, respect others and smile.

Simple it may sound but it is often lacking for whatever reasons.

Also, don't confuse it with politics or playing game... it is as important as being smart and hard-working...

Nash, [http://joday.com](http://joday.com)

</comment><comment><USER15> What is a successful career to you?</comment>


Are you an Asker or a Guesser? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change-life-asker-guesser

<comment><USER2> Blogspam. Original (2007): [http://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle- ground-betw...](http://ask.metafilter.com/55153/Whats-the-middle-ground- between-FU-and-Welcome#830421)

<comment><USER3> The Guardian article adds significant original content, so I think it's worth reading as well as the original post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> bypassing the blog spam: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change- li...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/change-life-asker- guesser)

</comment><comment><USER5> Sounds exactly like Jeff Bigler's concept of Tact Filters (1996): <http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html>

>So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can't do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn't be taken that way. Both types of people need to be extra patient when dealing with someone whose tact filter is backwards relative to their own.

</comment><comment><USER6> Having a Japanese wife, I can confirm the validity of this! :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Dupe <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346241>

</comment><comment><USER8> Missed it and the original "Middle ground" post the first time round in 2007, so thanks for this.

</comment><comment><USER9> Asker.</comment>