A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebook-abusing-data-law-privacy-big-tech-surveillance <comment><USER2> I wish we could find a way to apply the model of the vending machine to mass commerce.

A vending machine doesn't make notes of who buys its products. A vending machine doesn't keep logs of its transactions or of the payment methods used. A vending machine does not make "recommendations" of what the consumer might like based on their past purchases. You give the vending machine a dollar, it gives you a soda. The transaction between consumer and vendor is done, and no tangible evidence of the transaction remains, other than the exchanged goods.

But we haven't figured out a way to scale the vending machine model yet, because when the machine gets stuck and fails to dispense its product, the consumer gets an attendant to help or kicks the thing a few times in frustration and walks away, because the lost dollar isn't worth the hassle. If someone paid $1500 for their laptop, however, they're going to want that convenience of being able to prove they purchased the laptop from XX retailer and be compensated if the thing is a lemon.

I'm not sure we can solve this problem, completely. But we might do better if we actively aspired to make our services more like vending machines.

EDIT: Yes, I'm aware that some vending machines these days can be paid by credit card. My university even had one where you could pay using your Student ID, which was linked to the balance allocated for your meal plan.

<comment><USER3> Problem is that vending machines don't scale. Consider that much of the "tracking" on a site like Amazon.com are to overcome the inherent problems of finding products in such a massive catalog.

<comment><USER4> To add to this, what if the vending machine was able to dispense 1000 things? And let's say that you are diabetic? Wouldn't it be nice if the sugar-free treats were easy for you to find? And the organic stuff easier for those seeking them to find? Etc. etc.

Somewhere there must be an intelligent balance.

<comment><USER5> > Somewhere there must be an intelligent balance

In practice though this is mostly biased towards the revenue of the company selling the goods, not towards your health requirements.

<comment><USER6> It's in the interests of the company to align those however - so these don't conflict. If your customer is healthier and lives longer because of your service, that is beneficial to both of you.

<comment><USER7> Good health of the customers benefits competitors too, so it's a type of commons. By the Tragedy of the Commons, it's in the company's interests to damage the health of their customers for short term profit. If they don't then a competitor will.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This seems like such a losing battle. Payments on public transit could become anonymous, but the video feeds would still be recorded, and facial recognition could be easily performed.

The cat is out of the bag. Information technology makes this data accumulation inevitable. Likely even for those who walk around with a face covering all day, pay only cash, and don't use smartphones. By doing those things you actually make yourself more noticeable, in a lot of ways, and are still trackable.

There are some cryptoanarchist ways to achieve practical privacy, to all but the most dedicated governments. Yet, those technologies have severe downsides for both individuals and society at large.

There's no obvious way out of this conundrum. The concept of the Participatory Panopticon is one proposed solution, and is less top-down, but not necessarily any less capricious than centralized authority.

The best safeguards are to create strong institutions, informed citizens, stable economies, and all the usual boring social reform stuff that tech geeks hate and think is mushy, unchangeable, hard to study, and likely irrelevant.

<comment><USER9> It's also interesting to look at Stallman's tone: he's defeated. "What can be done about privacy Mr Stallman?" " _Society_ needs to care more." It's the same tone JPB had when asked about how the EFF can have an impact on younger generations who take the internet for granted. "They need to care more. And education."

They're not wrong, of course. And your comment is very similar: the problem isn't the technology, it's the impetus of society that needs to change.

<comment><USER10> I mean, they're kinda wrong.

You can care plenty about these issues but not see an actual way to have impact such that your concerns are addressed. If society isn't caring, then either society doesn't see why there's a concern, or society recognizes that atomically it does not have _agency_ to address the issue, and the people who do have that agency are the ones that don't give a shit.

<comment><USER11> Saying "society needs to care more" is the last stop before the final destination of "this can't be done". Getting great many people to coordinate on something that's beneficial to them long-term, but carries an (even insignificant) short-term cost is one of the hardest (if not _the_ hardest) things to do, out of all the things humans ever tried.

<comment> dj-wonk I interpret "society needs to care more" as a challenge: what can we do to make society care more? Put another way, I view this as a collective action problem.

<comment><USER12> The classic solution to collective action problems is to have the government take care of it.

But here, the government is probably the biggest offender. You'll pry their databases and TSA inspections from their cold, dead hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Expecting groups of people (tech companies or government) to purposefully do something that is disadvantageous to their bottom line, for nothing more than ideals, is a pipe dream.

The real question is personal and harder to answer: "Do I really need this _information_ technology? Is it making my quality of life any better than my ancestors?"

The more I ponder this question, the more I'm convinced I could live an equally happy and fulfilling life outside of the majority of consumer technology that has been introduced in the last 20 years. I benefit from a career creating that technology, but I'm partaking in it less and less once I clock out.

<comment><USER14> Well, the example given here is Transport for London, which is almost impossible to travel without using an Oyster smart card. So yes, pushing for legislation along the lines proposed in the article would make sense.

<comment><USER15> The Washington DC Metro switched over to their equivalent a few years back, the "Smartrip Card", retiring their previous paper with mag-stripe cards in the process.

My 'solution' to not being tracked is that the Smartrip Card I was forced to then buy was bought with cash, and has only ever been refilled with cash.

So their systems know that card # 828272823 (made up number) has traveled here or there (I don't use it much, so there's not many trips on it anyway) but they don't know 'who' is using that card.

If they ever drop the ability to use cash to top up the card, then the card will go in the garbage bin and I'll not ride the system again.

<comment><USER16> Your (attempted) solution illustrates the potential dangers of data collection.

There are many companies with some timestamped location data about you: cell phone company, email or social media, credit card company, etc.

Just a bit of that data combined with Smartrip data would de-identify you as the owner of that card, and all of your anonymity about your metro trips is lost. For example, three or four trips where you used a cell phone at either end of the trip; credit card purchases in different locations; maps directions on your phone; or so on.

This is not far from plausible. I could see the DC Metro naively choosing to sell "de-identified" data to third parties, who can also purchase e.g. credit card data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love RMS but I'm not holding my breath waiting for any government laws to protect me.

For what it's worth, neither is RMS, if you've read about how he uses the Internet.

Let's keep building the free software tools so anyone can easily get the level of privacy they want for whatever they're trying to do. We've made so much progress but there's still so far to go.

Do not to look UP to authority for hope - look AROUND at your fellow citizens working hard to bring free privacy software to everyone - that's who's going to fix this, because no one else will.

<comment><USER18> One of the problems is that the software you run on your own computer hasn't been the major source of privacy concerns in a long, long time. That isn't to say that software on your computer doesn't track you, but it's dwarfed by the amount of tracking and privacy issues that you need to compromise on to use the vast majority of the internet.

It's noble and laudable to take the same stance towards freedom and privacy that RMS does, essentially check out of the modern internet, and reduce your web usage to calling wget on a shell, but that's not a workable solution for the vast majority of people.

<comment><USER17> Give me a break, is this not classic fallacy of making "perfect" the enemy of "better"? With an attitude like that, things never improve.

Privacy protection exists along a gradient. Just because one does not want to sit at the far end with RMS does not mean we just throw up our hands and say "well, I guess I have to give up all my privacy, because I can't do what RMS does."

And as I said, there's still a lot of work to do. So let's get to it and stop the nay-saying!

<comment><USER18> I'm not arguing that at all - precisely the opposite, in fact. I'm saying that so long as we put privacy in the hands of end users and don't hold service providers responsible (the point I was replying to), we more-or-less cripple our ability to utilize the internet that exists today.

<comment><USER17> We can use strong end-to-end encryption to evade snooping middlemen. Beyond that, we hold service providers accountable by not using their services if they are not willing or able to provide the security and privacy we require.

If you want an authority to hold them accountable, you are just shifting your trust from one entity you have little/no control over, to another entity that you have little/no control over.

Look around, not up. An authority will not solve this. We must solve it, together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The article raises good points. One important aspect is missing though; the reliance on web services, SaaS, and the like. Free software is not enough. We need free software that runs locally and offline.

<comment><USER20> RMS is also against SaaS (or Software as a Service Substitute, SaaSS), but AGPLv3 SaaS would be a step in the right direction. At least then you could examine the source code and see what data is collected.

Edit: s/GPL/AGPL/

<comment><USER21> The source you directly interact with perhaps. Can you say for sure that the code running at the server end is the one in the repo or tarball?

<comment><USER20> Of course not, but the same can be said for local software. You usually don't build from source. But at least you can inspect your own network traffic more or less reliably.

Having everything be AGPLv3 is not perfect, but I think it would be an improvement over the current state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Obviously this proposal will be rejected because both companies and governments are addicted to the power to control and manipulate that data gives them. We need a strong leader who will go against the grain of these massive entrenched interests and be willing to stand up to the media onslaught such a stance will bring. The mainstream media will attack anyone who threatens their advertising based business model. When will there ever be a leader that doesn't bend to the will of the media and deep state surveillance machine.

<comment><USER23> 1\. We don't need a strong leader. Fascism and authoritarianism have zero interest in the privacy of citizens. Never had, never will.

2\. Power corrupts, so the overall answer is: never.

<comment><USER24> Leadership != fascism.

Change from below requires organization and coordination, and those things require leadership.

Were MLK or Ghandi fascist, because they were effective leaders?

Frankly, I find more of a fascistic tinge in the stock HN response to surveillance:

\- Governments will never do anything; democracy is not fit for purpose

\- A 'natural elite' of hacker _Übermensch_ can avoid dystopia for themselves with hacking skills and expensive crypto currencies. The masses cannot be saved as they are inherently stupid and submissive. Things will always get worse, especially for them; abandon them.

Why such fatalism? The GDPR hasn't even hit the books yet, and it's having a transformative effect on how large US tech companies process data for _everyone_. We're just beginning to see the tide turn on public opinion on Facebook.

I've hope for popular interest in privacy and anti-authoritarianism yet.

<comment><USER25> Leadership != fascism

Leadership + time = fascism

<comment><USER24> Are you _really_ implying that all groups of organized people are fascist sleeper cells?

That MLK and Gandhi were saved from their Hitlerism by assassination by heroic ethnic-separatists?

<comment><USER25> I'm repeating the well-known saying that power corrupts. A leader is a baby fascist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There are LED street lights that also double as security cameras. Soon, you won't even see where the cameras are. The cameras are nearly impossible to spot. They are being tested in a few cities. I believe there is still an ongoing legal battle in San Jose for these.

The cameras are placed in the public domain, but they can see into houses on every street. I believe Google had some issues with peering into homes and storing that data. Will cities face the same issues? The Google car only gets data when they drive down the street. These cameras will gather data 24/7 using low-lux (low light) cameras.

</comment><comment><USER27> We need new business models which depend on user-owned data, rather than treating privacy like a charitable contribution for saving the trees.

Instead of citizens sending data to the cloud, corporations can send code to citizen-owned devices where local computation can take place, with data only leaving via an open-source content inspection engine that enforces citizen- consent policy.

<comment><USER28> You mean something like this?:

[https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm- shifts-f...](https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2017/12/20/paradigm-shifts-for- the-decentralized-web/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think creating a legal regime where corporations are financially responsible for damages created by misuse or leaking of personal data would discourage companies from collecting the data in the first place.

By all rights, the equifax databreach should have ended the company. Instead, they're likely to profit from it.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't know about this, but I'd love to see Apple make 3rd party data aggregators individually authorized or not via system dialogs. It would require some policing, but shifting these to opt-in instead of opt-out would be an amazing step in the right direction.

App authors would then be able to decide whether they wanted to let you use their app despite you declining to let them send/sell* your data to a third party.

* most app creators would claim they don't sell users data. But they need to acknowledge that when they receive free telemetry services for their app from a 3rd party, they are doing exactly that: selling user data in exchange for a service that would otherwise have some expense (in dev time or otherwise).

</comment><comment><USER31> > Video cameras should make a local recording that can be checked for the next > few weeks if a crime occurs, but should not allow remote viewing without > physical collection of the recording.

it would suck if the terrorist bomb also took out the cameras themselves.

I have cameras at my house wired to a local unit. It's mostly for convenience and looking for animals and not very serious for security; any well-respecting house prowler would want to take the recording unit from my server area so that I wouldn't have any video of who broke into my house.

<comment><USER26> The data could be stored encrypted on a VM and cycled off after {n} hours. With the right codecs and encryption, you could likely store a couple days of motion on a small amount of storage. If uploaded in chunks, you might miss a couple minutes prior to the unit being destroyed. I suppose protecting your internet uplink becomes important at this point.

<comment><USER32> Just store the encrypted files in AWS S3 (or equivalent)?

<comment><USER26> That works too. And maybe use ffmpeg to encode + 7-zip (p7zip 7za on linux) to encrypt and name the chunks based on date in a programmatic / deterministic manor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> irq-1 Well written and argued, but I have two issues.

First, it's arguing against the natural evolution of technology. Centralization is a re-occurring feature of software systems due to it's technical benefits. Data collection, organizational structure [0] and other considerations also affect centralization, but their existence doesn't negate the technical considerations. Whether an ATM or bus card system should be (de)centralized is partially a technical issue: what networks are available and how reliable are they, what's the cpu/mem/storage of the end points, how often do we update, etc...

Second, restraint of Governments might be aided by making collection more difficult, but Governments can deploy large groups of people for long periods, while individuals and smaller groups cannot. Youtube and cellphone cameras empower the weak, while the old technology of cameras belonging to local businesses [1] benefit only the Government (or very large groups.)

[0] "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law)

[1] "There is a gap in the footage from about 9:18 p.m. to 10:39 p.m., which covers the time when McDonald was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke on a nearby street." [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan- mcdona...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-shooting-laquan-mcdonald- burger-king-video-met-20151203-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER33> The Netherlands used to have [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipknip) but then it was retired. Weird, I thought it was pretty sweet, and anonymous. Maybe not, or perhaps it was too good and that's why it's gone

</comment><comment><USER34> I want OS vendors to wake up to this and give me a way of storing all the social-network'y stuff on a USB stick.

When I'm using that social networks interface, I put the USB stick in my computer - and _my_ computer makes that data available to the network. Then, when I'm done using it, I turn off the interface, take the USB stick out and put it in storage somewhere. The _only_ parts of the data that are available, are the bits I copied to the social network while I was using it, and it can have those bits while I'm away to do with as it pleases.

I truly believe this is a function and responsibility of the local operating system, not the network.

If only the OS vendors were paying attention to these issues instead of .. you know .. trying hard to be the next big social network.

</comment><comment><USER35> For a privacy-centric approach that is also compatible with GDPR and business needs, there's the MyData conference in the end of August: [https://mydata2018.org/](https://mydata2018.org/)

</comment><comment><USER36> The larger issue is the natural tug of war between government and industry. Pretending that such a 'law' could be passed - and globally, ultimately industry would find some way to effectively collect this data by doing something that is completely legal - based on the text of the law. In some cases (say a public data company...) there could even be a legal duty to do so, in order to comply with varying edicts already on the book.

The real issue is that people opt to ignore Stallman - he was right. By opting to use these services, whether you pay for them or not, you're acquiescing to being the product.

</comment><comment><USER37> Even if such a law would become effective somewhere I could imagine ways around this:

What would happen if a transportation service provider would also offer the service of collecting points dependant on the used stations and those points can be used for special offers.

This way they 'need' to collect movement data to check for abuse of the system in order to offer the 'basic' functionality.

I agree with RMS, but it might be difficult to express such law without loopholes for companies.

</comment><comment><USER38> So I can pay Amazon anonymously. That's nice. Now what about anonymous delivery? It could be done, with the address being sent to the Post Office as needed, for example; with Amazon not delivering the package.

RMS might want a law saying that whoever sold goods, couldn't also deliver them?

</comment><comment><USER39> Ironically, the article is published under a non-free license.

<comment><USER40> Look what I found at the bottom of the article: "Released under Creative Commons NoDerivatives License 4.0"

So you can distribute this freely, as long as you acknowledge the author. And since it's content, not software, it's not imperative to allow modification. (Fair use still applies to critical responses)

You're being way too picky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hoping that governments are going to outlaw surveillance, when they are the biggest practitioners and customers of surveillance, seems... optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER42> GNU Taler seems to be such a betrayal of the GNU project's principles. Baking state surveillance into software isn't something GNU should be doing.

It's as if GPG was an implementation of the Clipper Chip algorithm because, you know, otherwise it might be used for ~~tax fraud~~ terrorism.

<comment><USER24> Personally, of all the crypto currencies it's the one I'd like to pay with most. I _want_ companies I transact with to pay taxes, while preserving my psuedo-anonymity. I have no interest in using a volatile asset for an single transaction.

Happily there are plenty of others to choose from, too, but I'm glad that one with these overall design principles exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "There are so many ways to use data to hurt people that the only safe database is _the one that was never collected_.

...

The basic principle is that a system must be designed not to collect certain data, if its basic function can be carried out without that data."

Frills on the system, such as [some feature conceived by PM or developer], are not part of the basic function, so they can't justify incorporating any additional surveillance."

These additional services could be offered separately to users who request them."

The title is "A _radical_ proposal to keep your data safe."

But this doesnt sound "radical" at all.

To recap:

1\. Dont collect data when unnecessary for the user.

2\. Applications which perform a single function.

3\. Additional "features" (i.e. more code) that add more functionality and make applications more complex are fine but they should be _optional_ (e.g. not pre-installed or automatically added via "updates").

<comment><USER44> > But this doesnt sound "radical" at all.

It really is radical to the current culture of silicon valley where every product must be "smart," collect user data to provide recommendations and "analytics."

There is little restraint done by companies on what data they collect, only on access to that data once collected. It really is a radical culture shift for these companies, and all the engineers that work for them, to switch to a attitude of only collecting what is truly necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Tell me how someone anonymous travels from day to day and I will tell you who he or she is.

To decouple identity data from other data does already not work in theory. Moreover, it is also in conflict with the ability to retract personal data. If data is anonymized, it is not possible anymore to get rid of your personal records.

Homeomorphic encryption is the only method that might make a dent here. Laws will be broken.</comment>


Democrats want FCC to reject Trump campaign threat to broadcasters - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-campaign-ad/democrats-want-fcc-to-reject-trump-campaign-threat-to-broadcasters-idUSKBN21K2IG <comment><USER2> > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're > evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or > disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's > probably off-topic.

Why is this rule not enforced more, there is zero intellectual interest to be found on this topic, it's clearly a story about political asshattery. Just because the keyword "FCC" is in there doesn't make it relevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about that. Should have read the guidelines. Did not see them down there. I would suggest that the submission page include a link to the guidelines, or simply contain the verbatim "What to submit" section.

<comment><USER3> You've been on HN for (at least) six years and never noticed the guidelines?

<comment><AUTHOR> Knew they existed somewhere, did not know bother to read them. Careless? Yeah, probably. But it has rarely bitten me. Usually I'm good at reading the room.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is there no Web-based auction for securities offerings? - <AUTHOR>

I was thinking that with sites like SharesPost creating a second market for private companies, why is there nothing like that for funding rounds? The closest thing I can think of is Kickstarter, which is limited to "pledges" rather than investments.
Arguments against would include:
- limit of 499 investors, though this is presumably easy to cap via the fact that it's an auction
- requirement of accredited investors, though SecondMarket et al. presumably contends with this already
- not knowing necessarily who the investors are; this one seems pretty tricky
- issues of disclosure, particularly if the company wants to keep its accounting statements secret; this one is especially tricky
Is there something I've missed here? Could someone more familiar with securities offerings chime in with whether this has been attempted or what the barriers would be (beyond the obvious one of getting startups and investors to actually sign-up)?
Why is there no eBay for securities offerings? <comment><USER2> Securities laws are antiquated, rooted in the paper-and-ink world. This makes it difficult to do anything online, but not impossible. So why hasn't it happened? My guess is that it is the companies that are not eager to participate. They are shy about widely disseminating their business plans, their financials, their cap tables, their need for capital. So even though it seems madly inefficient to raise money the old fashioned way, knocking on one door at a time, and even though eventually "everyone" knows everything (so it's hardly secret), I suspect this company shyness explains the odd persistence of that old model.</comment>


Ask YC: Ads and The Internet - <AUTHOR>

I just sat through a 30 second flash animation advertisement on salon.com before I was even prompted the option to skip the ad before it looped back to the beginning.
Internet advertising has and will probably forever remain the bane of user experience.  But in some degree, ads have always had an escape plan.  Be it clicking the close button, finding another site with the same content but doesn't force ads on you, or just clicking the "Skip this ad" button.
Lately, escape vectors are becoming harder to find and content providers, in the sake of "keeping content free" have begun to sell out and cheapen the user experience by providing no means to escape advertisements.  Personally, I think this is bad behavior chiefly because it encourages bad tactics that will probably only get worse.
That prompts me to ask this: while we respect the objective of advertisements on the internet, do you think forcing advertisements on sites is a bad strategy?  What are your thoughts on giving users no escape vectors to see the content they came to see? <comment><USER2> One of PG's "Ideas we'd like to fund" was "Fix advertising". The idea being that advertisements shouldn't be something odious that you sit through; they should draw you in and be relevant to your own desires.

I gave some thought to it last month but couldn't come up with any ideas on where to begin. It's tricky: you're acting as middlemen between three parties (advertisers, site owners, and users) whose interests are usually (but not always) opposed, plus the chicken-and-egg problem of attracting advertisers before you've got sites and sites before you've got advertisers.

If my job hunt goes poorly I wouldn't mind spending some more time on this problem. It's so obviously broken: companies aren't making many sales off Internet advertising, websites aren't making much money off advertisers, and users hate what the other two groups are doing. For now I'm just trying to clean my open-source plate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting ads, at least on the internet, have such low return because the ratio of time/effort/money put into them vs how much they make is so low. If the return, in absolute terms, is the same as for an ad that no time/effort/money was put into (largely just mentioning the brand name, which is what a lot of ads are) is going to be a higher ratio and thus what people end up generating. It's purely economics.

Even video ads, on television, that could be considered to have "gone viral" may get a lot of face time in front of consumers because they are interesting, but they don't necessarily increase actual sales. And a lot of these more interesting ads may not focus enough on the brand--how many times have you seen an ad on television and thought "what exactly are they trying to sell me here?" or "is this really the message they want to send about this product?"-- and you may remember the ad but forget what it's about.

Making ads "interesting" isn't some silver bullet that is going to increase sales, but it most likely is some silver bullet that will get more eyeballs looking at your ads. When was the last time you saw a car ad that didn't have a bunch of meaningless data points (some defensible but largely irrelevant mention of "handling", damn even MPG is used like a throwaway data point in car ads) or show the car driving through some city scape or mountain pass? They _all_ show exactly the same thing.

I'd like to see more ads like the early radio ads (does Paul Harvey still these?) where something is specifically endorsed by a personality (rather than just being a paid familiar voice) and the ads are less fluff and catchphrases and more listing benefits and competitive comparisons. This would be hard to do because a lot of ads are purposely misleading or downright lies because they are advertising commodities or consumer items that actually have no benefits or are not differentiable. Truly informative ads might not be entertaining, but they would definitely be more useful than, oh, say having the "Tap The Rockies" Coors Light song in my head because I mentioned "Silver Bullet" up there. And I _don't_even_drink_or_intend_to_drink_ Coors Light (so that's a wasted ad on the part of the advertiser).

<comment><USER4> Good points, but that is hardly a wasted ad. They got in your head enough for you to mention it here as an example, potentially compelling a reader here to go buy some Coors.

<comment><USER3> Guh. When you can't effectively measure the effectiveness of each ad dollar or you don't have a meaningful or differentiating product, I guess you take what you can get. Even "I don't like X" is advertising for X. I think this says more about the advertisers and the products than the ads or the consumers though.</comment></comment></comment>


If Lyft can't keep its drivers as contractors, it may never be profitable - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-lyft-ipo-drivers-20190309-story.html <comment><USER3> I'm kind of torn on this. My father has been truck driver his entire life and for the last 20 years worked as a contractor, while driving his own truck and trailer, since it gives him more $$$ than average driver who works as employee. However, he has non-existent social net. No health insurance, no pension benefits. If he out of work or has serious health issues that ground him for months, he has to dig into savings and I also have to help him.

So, if Lyft driver who was "gigging" for them for years gets sick and he is out of work, what kind of help would he get ? None, at least in US.

<comment><USER4> If he's earning more than average, and professional truck drivers are pretty well paid, then can't be purchase that social net himself?

He can buy health insurance, pension, group income protection, everything you mentioned.

I know poor people can't do that, and that's the issue, but why can't a well- paid truck driver do it?

<comment><USER5> The supply side dynamics of trucking is crazy. There has been a driver shortage for 10+ years, easy. About 2/3 of the trucks on the road are owned by fleets of 5 or less, with most trucks being a 1 unit, owner operator.

The entire industry, small and large fleets, use owner operators as perverse cost savings. In some cases, you lease the truck from the large fleet, they charge you for gas and maintenance, insurance, etc; deducted straight from your check. You integrate with their comms / cpu systems, their tracking systems, etc. all for a price. You go where they tell you and when.

It's an industry that's almost impossible to run profitably as an owner operator, because those folks are skinned. But, people are in love with the idea of owning their own business - it's kinda like an MLM that way.

Now, I founded a trucking company that had as many as 15 trucks that ran over the road, both owner operators and company owned vehicles. At my size, there were very few economies of scale and we ran at a break even, at best - <USER2> after a few years. We paid teams .40 cents a mile, all miles, backing out the per diem and paying SS / payroll taxes on the balance - an ridiculously high workmen's comp (first year was 24%, went down to 16.5% later).

I could go into more detail, but you get the point.

<comment><USER6> I would be very interested in the details. I keep hearing about friends of friends who pull $80,000 driving a truck, $120,000 when they own one and half a mil once they own a couple. Too lazy to actually do the research, but curious how close these claims are to the truth.

Obviously you are seeing a very different picture, and yours actually comes from experience.

<comment><USER7> Maybe they are quoting the money coming in before expenses like gas/lease etc? Maybe they put it an above average investment of time?

<comment><USER8> Actually, time is pretty strictly regulated by the DOT. No more than 60 hours duty hours a week, no more than 14 duty hours in a row, of which no more than 11 hours can be actually driving, and must go off duty for at least 10 hours to reset the clock.

Sounds more complicated than it is... once the duty period begins, any stops (fuel, breaks, meals, etc) do NOT stop the clock.

This is why most long-haul operations use pairs of drivers... one will sleep in the bunk while the other drives.

<comment><USER7> By most jobs definitions how much of an individuals waking life is consumed by work in this scenario over the course of a year?

<comment><USER5> Trucking is a little different. I'm not sure the current regs, but driving time is logged differently than "on duty not driving" different than off duty. Typically, drivers are paid by the mile, so on duty not driving is unpaid, while doing tasks like DOT inspections, vehicle walk around, fixing stuff, tire pressure, break adjustments, shifting trailer pins, etc.

Long haul teams can drive as much as 300+k miles per year. This typically consumes 50 weeks of being in the truck at least 6 days a week, simplifying at little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This entire issue is a product of US health care costs. No one would give a shit about the classification of workers, if it weren't for the fact that health care is insanely expensive and brutal to manage without insurance.

The US needs to address this issue, and now. However, as someone currently working in the field, I'm starting to think that the size of the country, and the sclerotic, poorly incentivized bureaucracy that controls health, will make it impossible to address until there's a true crisis.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is really one of the bad problems with the gig economy in the USA. Even Switzerland, which requires private insurance, disallows group plans to detach insurance from employment, making labor markets more liquid and flexible (as well as preventing huge distortions in the individual healthcare market).

Your dad does have one social net: even 1099's must opt into SS and Medicare (paying both employer and employee shares, unfortunately), at least.

<comment><USER11> They can deduct the employer share though? Or is that just self-employment taxes?

<comment><USER12> SE tax _is_ the employer share, and its a bit complicated. As a 1099, you are required to pay the full SE tax generally minus (a couple?) deductions. But then, you are allowed to deduct half of what you pay in SE tax from your income for regular income tax. The SE tax is also paid I believe only up to some income limit. Then, there's the Medicare tax on top of that, which is not income-limited.

<comment><USER13> > SE tax is the employer share, and its a bit complicated

SE is equivalent to both employee and employer share, which is why you get to deduct half of it, equivalent to the employer share (which is not included as taxable income for other workers, either.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone else see these and think about how maybe there should be some other type of worker other than employee or contractor? Those are hard definitions, and creating laws to reflect this type of worker is incredibly difficult considering people and companies figure out loopholes, but really feels like there should be another category to go with this type of work that's going to become more and more common.

<comment><USER15> Another alternative would be to decouple health insurance and retirement plans from employment.

<comment><USER16> Are retirement plans coupled to employment?

Neither social security nor 401Ks are, in that you can often keep and almost always rollover (to a personal) 401K when departing.

Pensions were, but as I understand it, those basically don't exist anymore.

<comment><USER15> You can't really contribute to a 401(k) plan unless your employer sponsors one. When you leave the job you can roll it over to an IRA. Some independent contractors can contribute to an IRA, but it's inferior because the annual contribution limit is only $6000, and the income limits are lower. And of course employer matching contributions aren't available to independent contractors.

<comment><USER17> Independent contractors can contribute up to $43k to a solo-401k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this just typical legalese that IPO docs are required to say on caveat emptor? It's typically worst case.

<comment><USER19> This might be like warning labels on the side of ladders. Somebody somewhere did something stupid with a ladder, and then a warning label is added to every ladder to prevent a future lawsuit.

and of course, mentioning things like this then becomes "news", spawning articles like this:

[https://www.tesla.com/blog/misfortune](https://www.tesla.com/blog/misfortune)

<comment><USER20> That was a shitty response to someone dying in their vehicle.

Tesla's autopilot marketing is extremely poor.

[https://tesla.com/autopilot](https://tesla.com/autopilot)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Lyft can be profitable today if they wanted to. The only reason they aren't is because they are fueling growth by propping up the supply of drivers through driver signup bonuses.

Ride sharing is generally supply constrained (meaning there's plenty of demand but drivers are in limited supply). If they stopped paying driver bonuses to expand in new markets or maintain share of drivers in mature markets, then the number of drivers would likely start plateauing or declining (due to high turnover) -> prices would increase and/or rider wait times would increase -> rider demand would fall -> growth would stall.

In short, they're choosing growth over profitability because that's what investor want to see. As soon as they choose profitability (which they might have to after IPO), their growth will come to a halt and their share price will tank. Watch.

<comment><USER22> I took a look at some of Lyft's metrics [1,2,3], but would be interested in seeing a more nuanced breakdown of their expenditures. You mention driver signup bonuses are a major expense, and is _" The only reason they aren't" profitable today_. Is this a fact?

[1] [https://craft.co/lyft/metrics](https://craft.co/lyft/metrics)

[2] [https://dashboards.trefis.com/no-login- required/zrRBRShU](https://dashboards.trefis.com/no-login-required/zrRBRShU)

[3] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/10/10/a-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2018/10/10/a-closer- look-at-lyfts-valuation)

<comment><USER23> Wouldn't it be far more sustainable to just boost base rate with the money instead to reduce churn? It sounds like a perverse incentive of metrics to reward new drivers instead of total ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Self driving cars would change the economics and create profitability in the markets it's a viable solution within.

All ride sharing companies have the same problem.

<comment><USER8> This always seemed obvious to me that this was the play - that the initial gig economy period was just a stop gap to gain market share (at a heavy loss) until self-driving tech became available.

That has proven to be a much slower process than they probably expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Human drivers are just mechanical turks to build market share while self- driving cars become commercially viable.

<comment><USER26> _Human drivers are just mechanical turks to build market share while self- driving cars become commercially viable._

Don't they have to exist before we worry about commercial viability? You're not the only one talking like FSDV's are just minutes away, when the truth is that when you cut through the hype and wishful thinking, they're an indeterminate period of time away. The conversation around this subject reads like people in the 30's planning for the dawn of the fusion age.

The technology is not there yet, we don't know when it willl be or if the avenues being explored now will lead there. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something, like shares in a fundamentally unprofitable endeavor. I get it, self-driving cars would be very cool, and maybe we'll even live to see them. Maybe not. It's still a crazy company that can only profit if nonexistent technology emerges quickly! On the other hand I have some shares in my new space elevator to sell...

<comment><USER27> Aren't a few of the big players already piloting consumer-accessible taxi programs?

IMO, the stuff which has already been demonstrated is a bit too creepily good for comfort, even if we're talking about limited Tesla autopilot.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but we're still easily 5 years from "all traffic, all weather, all situations" car AI, which is necessary for fully autonomous vehicles.

They already have the cheapest solution for having a driver and a car go around town, so sending drivers with their "autonomous" cars in good conditions is an impressive step, but insufficient for full autonomy and not enough to fix their business problems — they need to be able to send the cars in real life situations with no driver.

So 5 years of technology and 5 years of regulation before widespread adoption is a long time for Uber to have to be spending investor money before they spend investor money on autonomous car fleets in every major city. (Or are they going to lease cars from other people? — it may be then that the cost of leasing vehicles from others never comes low enough.)

The better hope for their investors seems to be the rumor they're profitable in large, established cities and their costs are expansions and turf wars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If we assume this is correct what does it mean for the company and it's employees? They are going public which means there will be pressure to make a profit. How does it bode for their recruitment and in general well being of the company?

Also I cannot imagine Uber to be in any different situation.

<comment><USER29> It means Lyft and Uber are terminal and their insolvency is not about if but when. There are only so many $2 bills to sell for $1.

<comment><USER30> I never understood why anyone thought otherwise, unless you believed self- driving cars would be ready by now.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of Lyft and Uber and their experiments with food delivery, carpooling, and other endeavors. But scaling up does not solve the problem of paying your contractors more than they're making you - in fact it only scales up the problem.

Granted, I've thoroughly enjoyed my cheap rides subsidized by VCs for years. But it's just not a viable business, and I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary. I feel as though few VCs are looking to create value so much as they're looking to get in early and cash out before the house of cards falls over.

<comment><USER31> Even if self-driving cars _were_ ready right now, why would Lyft or Uber have an advantage? In theory, their current competitive edge over taxi services comes from pushing externalities to drivers.

If they had to worry about owning and maintaining all their cars, suddenly they're in a new and very capital-intensive line of business. I'd expect at least one of the established rental car chains- which have physical infrastructure like motor pools, mechanics and relationships with local auto shops, and logistics experience with all of the above- to eat Uber's lunch!

Every way I look at it, work on self-driving technology by rideshare companies is 100% smoke and mirrors to drive investment, and not a serious business plan.

<comment><USER32> There was a great post about Avis (I think) who had an incubator to explore ideas about what they could do with their fleet of cars. I think if you looked at rental companies, they are actively thinking about the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm fine with this if we get medicaid for all. This won't be an issue if all the 1099 workers did't have to take a 30% pay cut (or negotiate for 30% higher wages, I'm ignoring the tax issue of course) to be healthy.

</comment><comment><USER34> As far as I can see they have a good market position, if they can hold off the courts long enough for driverless to happen then they win, it they fall the other side they lose

</comment><comment><USER35> [https://outline.com/5F2Cyv](https://outline.com/5F2Cyv)

</comment><comment><USER36> The epitome of how capitalism can and will cannibalize itself. As corporations move towards maximizing profits for shareholder value, the individuals upon whom they depend on for profits are squeezed out of the system. The more successful companies can produce profits, the less people can afford the very products and services being produced and the companies will have no customers.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't see how they can't be profitable with direct hires. Nothing stops them from having a 75% part time workforce. Have those amazing rated drivers as FTE with benefits.</comment>


Antique Typewriters: The Underwood 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.antiquetypewriters.com/collection/typewriter.asp?Underwood%201#.Ve0B6nRHaK1 <comment><USER2> I love those antique ads.

"You See What You Are Doing All The Time".

If you have to write copy for any kind of ad, make sure to use the words "you" and "your" a lot. It worked for Underwood and it will work for you.

Even with a miraculous product like the Underwood 1, the customer cares most about THEIR work, THEIR speed, and THEIR efficiency. Underwood wisely focuses the ads around that.</comment>


Web 2.0 design style guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm

<comment><USER2> Great stuff. I'd buy the e-book except I hate e-books. Wonder if there is a real book available?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read, even if it's really no such thing as "web2.0 design".</comment>


Notsecretapp: what happens when anyone can tweet from one Twitter account? - <AUTHOR> https://mitroaccess.com/notsecretapp/

<comment><USER2> God, what a stupid idea.[1] Something like this could never amount to anything. It's nearly as stupid as that one I heard once about a site where anyone could edit any page: what did they call it... "wiki" or something like that?

[1] - intended as sarcasm</comment>


The State of SVG Animation - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/dreamweaver/2015/06/the-state-of-svg-animation.html <comment><USER2> As somebody who spent a lot of time and effort to figure out how to do Flash- style complex animations fully in SVG SMIL including reversed time loops, hierarchical time modelling via easings and to make authoring available for free in an online animation tool, I am very sad to see abrupt Google's decision to deprecate SMIL in Chrome without having a full replacement available. SVG + CSS can be used only for simple things, SVG + JavaScript competes with canvas + JavaScript and more efficient geometry formats, and in addition in both cases the declarative approach is lost. The goal of having Web Animations to take place of SMIL makes sense, especially with advanced time modelling, however there are still many cases where the current proposal can't do what SMIL does and it would take some time until Web Animations will become usable in all browsers at the expected level for professional animation. SMIL has its share of problems but it was more-less working on all relevant mobile browsers. Now we are basically left with nothing that can do the job.

<comment><USER3> This is the crux: "The goal of having Web Animations to take place of SMIL makes sense..."

Web animations are the modern approach forward. They are actively being developed in all browsers and work in both html and css. You can start developing this today using the polyfill: [https://github.com/web- animations/web-animations-js](https://github.com/web-animations/web- animations-js)

<comment><USER2> Obviously Web Animations look very good given they seem to solve the (IMO) worst weakness of SMIL - time manipulation. In SMIL to get the same effect you'd have to approximate local time by complex easings and cut/reverse parts of animation depending on the direction of local time. Web Animations took a much more reasonable approach (I was actually puzzled SMIL had such a flaw in its design).

However, as a producer of a professional animation tool I can't wait until Web Animations show up finally someday, but have to address the need expressed by customers that call for open vector animations working on all devices right now - and SMIL was the only one that could have address that. Now, there's nothing until web animations show up, and we can't be guaranteed that the final implementations will be anywhere near promised functionality.

Even just retaining SMIL in its current state would have been much better than just outright dropping it for any kind of continuity. We will obviously provide Web Animations as well, but with the deprecation of SMIL we lost a stop-gap declarative solution for majority of mobile devices, and frankly I don't understand such a haste in dropping it (just sustaining it in Chrome at its current state can't be very difficult)

<comment><USER3> Excellent points.

SMIL usage is high so it's just being deprecated in blink to get the word out, but not removed just yet. If you're planning to ship both web animations and SMIL, I hope we can get everything you need in web animations before SMIL is finally removed. If you have specific examples you can share, please do post on the smil blink-dev thread.

SMIL support is rough in the old android browser. I suspect using the web animations polyfill will be a safer path than trying to support the SMIL edge cases.

<comment><USER4> Can you elaborate on it being deprecated in blink just to get the word out? Will that not ship out to Chrome users?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it will ship to Chrome users. The effect will be a console warning that SMIL will be removed. You should start seeing this in Canary in the next 1-2 days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A very good article for anyone interested in SVGs!

TL;DR; There is 3 main ways to animate SVGs: SMIL, CSS, and JavaScript, but today you should go with the JS way.

To me, the most interesting section of the article was the : _SMIL vs CSS vs JavaScript_ . The authors main points in that section are:

SMIL: _The current and future state of browser support for SMIL is the main reason why I neither use it nor recommend using it anymore today. [...] I expect SMIL usage to drop even more in the future._

CSS: _As for CSS, it can only animate so many SVG properties, not all of them_

JS: _This is why JavaScript is currently my go-to tool for animating SVG, and my library of choice is Greensock._

I think this CSS/JavaScript comparison is true for much more than SVG: For instance, before having good Flex CSS properties for your layout you would need to use Javascript to do the job for you. CSS is clean but less bleeding- edge than JS.

</comment><comment><USER6> Related: [https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/608360576243388417](https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/608360576243388417)

Unfortunately the linked site is broken, but that GIF is pretty awesome.

<comment><USER7> Here's the correct link: [http://tympanus.net/Development/CreativeGooeyEffects/](http://tympanus.net/Development/CreativeGooeyEffects/) from [https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/608380499271290880](https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/608380499271290880)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is an excellent summary of the current state of things.

tl;dr: don't use SMIL.

Microsoft has (correctly, I think) publicly stated[1] that they do not intend to support SMIL/<animate>. It's best for our platform to double-down on the alternatives: javascript, css, and web animations. Dropping SMIL is painful but it's the only way to get to true interop and a consistent web platform.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/blink- dev/5o0...](https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msg/blink- dev/5o0yiO440LM/9CK6jFY9mUQJ)

<comment><USER2> I am of the opinion that SMIL has been dropped prematurely - there is no real alternative for the time being, web animations aren't finalized nor supported yet, and just keeping SMIL in the current state without developing it any further would be still better than the other alternatives (CSS/JS).

<comment><USER3> SMIL does not work in IE and is fairly broken in old Android browsers. It's not a viable solution anywhere, today.

I'm sympathetic to hobbyists and SMIL enthusiasts who are losing out here, but removing SMIL isn't changing what common sites can deploy to users today.

<comment><USER2> Actually SMIL is not that interesting per se, its importance stems from being the only open standard for professional grade declarative vector animations supported by most browsers _right now_ , i.e. equivalent to Flash.

As it's going to be removed soon, we would have to wait until Web Animations are finalized and properly implemented everywhere. Frankly, figuring out all the details of both specs and implementation deficiencies in browsers for SMIL wasn't the nicest experience (WebKit/Gecko/Blink), however there was a way to get it working in all of them in a single manner, and get 1:1 quality comparing to Flash animation. How long would it take for Web Animations to get there? As someone who was a member of a committee for an unrelated automotive standard as well as working with committee members of an enterprise messaging standard, I know very well how easily given various political interests this could turn into a solution nobody really wanted.

SMIL and IE have a complicated history. On a vast majority of recent mobile devices SMIL is perfectly usable (until Google drops the axe) and there was a surge of interest wrt SMIL driven by the availability of retina/HiDPI (small- form) displays and the need to scale animations properly, and we have an indication that our tool supporting SMIL was causing some waves in the industry as well.

I am also not sure why you'd assume only hobbyists and enthusiasts care about SMIL. I personally was dragged into it by the fact nothing else was anywhere near it functionality wise and it had to be implemented, while I could imagine much better standards myself. It was a completely pragmatic, non-enthusiastic reasoning.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to improve your self-control - <AUTHOR> http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/09/how-to-improve-your-self-control.php

<comment><USER2> Pretty fascinating the way self-control is a depletable resource.</comment>


New intelligence program for unconstrained face recognition - <AUTHOR> http://www.iarpa.gov/Programs/sc/Janus/solicitation_janus.html

<comment><USER2> The actual technical announcement is the [https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=84e6e3e3b059c15456bc67101c...](https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=84e6e3e3b059c15456bc67101c1d7a56) (PDF)</comment>


Ten Myths About Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pedromdd/ten-myths-about-machine-learning-d888b48334a3 <comment><USER2> > _Simpler models are more accurate ... simpler explanations are preferable > ... because they're easier to understand, remember, and reason with. > Sometimes the simplest hypothesis consistent with the data is less accurate > for prediction than a more complicated one._</comment>


Monthly running costs for Startups - <AUTHOR> https://www.startupcosts.co/ <comment><USER2> Costs. It answers the question "How much does it cost to run a startup?". Popular SaaS companies often talk about their MRR, but what about their monthly running costs?

Currently building the list of more open startups, but some interesting ones:

Blurt, recently launched writing/focus tool at $31.67 using DigitalOcean and Github; GoRails, 4 years old Ruby on Rails learning at $506, amongst others Wistia, Podia, Amazon S3, Krit, agency, amongst others, uses: CircleCI, Github, Heroku and Surge. Feel free to add your startup / side-project. Interested in hearing your thoughts.</comment>


Ask HN: How much data can be stored in a piece of paper? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Quite a lot, if you encode information in DNA [1] and then soak the paper in it. Densities of 5.5 petabits per cubic millimeter of DNA have been experimentally achieved. [2]

A typical sheet of A4 printer paper is about 6237 cubic millimeters in exterior volume (i.e. including interstices between fibers within the sheet.) Say you could soak a sheet of paper in soluble DNA and dry it such that you ended up with 6000 mm^3 of DNA in and on it. That'd be roughly 4000 petabytes.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_digital_data_storage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_digital_data_storage) [2] - [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22903519](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22903519)

<comment><USER3> Fascinating...how would you extract the data from the soaked paper?

<comment><USER4> that wasn't a requirement of this project

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> AFAIK a single character is 1 byte.

An A4 sheet of paper is 62370 sqmm. A good printer can print a 1 sq mm character. Therefore, at a minimum you have 62370 bytes * 2, so basically 0.12 of a megabyte, which is pretty bad.

However, say you store something on the piece of paper that uses the second from midnight as a translator, such that the contents mean something else, depending on which second in the day you read it. Let's also say this translation is not using a hash type function, but is completely arithmetic and the formula to do this can be stored on the back side of the sheet in its entirety. This would take the 0.12MB /2 (you're not using both sides now) and multiply that by every second of the day, until the next, so 86400 seconds * 0.06MB = about 5 gigabytes.

Honestly I think you could get into the zetabytes. There are other factors you could use that I haven't considered:

1\. Smell of the paper

2\. Electrical charge

3\. Feel of the paper (who said we're not printing in three dimensions)?

4\. Taste (you could use a single piece of paper formed from different types, which have unique tastes).

I think the main limitation is as you add more factors to increase the compression you increase the complexity and time in which it takes to decompress, or get the information back. I'm sure there's some sort of law on this. Let's add in the orientation, in degrees of the piece of paper as well. Let's say you can reliably use all 360 degrees to permute the existing formula. Now you have 5 gigabytes * 360 = 1800 gigabytes. Let's just call this 2 terabytes.

<comment><USER6> Even with such a function, aren't there limits to how much sensible data can be stored? Something something Claude Shannon something something. I forget.

Otherwise you'd have infinite storage capacity, on any medium, which is very obviously impossible.

Why infinite? Well, there are infinite numbers. If your algorithm was just "keep applying f(i,j) by an increasing integer to get the next page of the data" then yeah you've actually just discovered infinite storage.

This is literally a compression problem, isn't it? :)

Edit: [http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/65726.html](http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/65726.html)

Something I came across a long time ago.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. However, the hard limit here is the number of "discernible" and distinct characters that can fit on the page. The whole second thing is really just a way of permuting the existing data. So I'd say there would be infinite data if the amount of characters that could fit on the page were also infinite. Applying the function really was just a way to represent the mechanism that gave you each combination. The whole seconds from midnight thing may have been needlessly convoluted.

Though, for that portion of my comment, it would've been easier to simply say the information is approximately equal to the amount of characters that fit on a page and all combinations of its arrangement.

Of course, if the actual "processing" of the information lies outside of the paper, I feel like that's kind of cheating. What do you think?

<comment><USER6> I don't think it'd be cheating, just like using programs to compress files isn't cheating.

However, there's two ways to look at this.

1) designing "some kind of data" specifically for this problem.

2) a general-purpose solution, where you could could put any data on the paper.

You could hit some obscenely-high number for 1), using some tricks or whatever.

But 2 probably has some sensible solution on the order of MB.

Example: if our function is as simple as "raise each number in the sequence to the next" we'd get some obscenely-large number, and we can put that function right on the page.

But, finding an obscenely large number representing some kind of data that actually means something, then coming up with a rule like that to reduce it?

Anyway, my argument would be: no, having an external compression algorithm isn't cheating, but formulating your data to fit the problem is.

Anyway, there exists no general-purpose compression algorithm, so compression would largely be out of #2, unless we're taking a subset of the problem: "how many English words can fit..." which of course we can come up with a good compression algorithm for (I think!) which would make it work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reminded me of this (as in, I thought I remembered something maybe named something like "optar", and googled):

[http://ronja.twibright.com/optar/](http://ronja.twibright.com/optar/)

which I found via this repository, that makes a comment regarding apparent abandonment of the original:

[https://github.com/colindean/optar](https://github.com/colindean/optar)

Also from memory, there is at least one other such "ginormous barcode" utility/application that gained some attention, some years back. It may well be the "paperback" one that another commenter mentions, here.

At least one of these had configurable resolution and redundancy parameters.

</comment><comment><USER8> According to this article: [https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134427-a-paper-based- bac...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134427-a-paper-based-backup- solution-not-as-stupid-as-it-sounds) you can cram around 3MB of data (in a reasonably robust way) on the side of a sheet of paper - it is unclear if they mean A4 or Legal, though.

<comment><USER9> In the article they mention that they were using A4 sheets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bekenstein_bound)

</comment><comment><USER11> related to this question, I want to ask what is the best encoding method to store as much information as possible on a finite file size ?

</comment><comment><USER12> just tomorrow's winning lottery numbers would be good enough for me</comment>


Yes, U.S. authorities can spy on EU cloud data. Here's how - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/yes-u-s-authorities-can-spy-on-eu-cloud-data-heres-how-7000010653/ EU citizens and businesses are warned against using the cloud over the risk that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies can obtain your personal records. Here's how the U.S. can acquire your data, even if you're based in the EU. <comment><USER2> The assertion breaks down at this point: "So, Slicklizzard U.S. Corp. instructs its subsidiary—which it wholly owns, and therefore can order its London-based subsidiary to carry out actions, without reason or prior warning, to send all of Doe's data from its Dublin data center to its U.S.-based data center."

This involves ordering UK employees to move personal data out of the UK, and assumes that they're willing to be complicit. Most of the teams I've worked with would rather obey the law than a potentially illegal request from their US colleagues.

<comment><USER3> Per the article, it is not against the laws- under the safe harbor act.

A lawyer could argue that the FISA potential creates a situation where the USA is /never/ a safe harbor, but a third tier IS/Abuse/CST goon question a request for a legitimate type of report from above?

<comment><USER4> Ok, let's suppose it's not illegal to send the data to the US because of the safe harbor act.

What is the legal ground that prevents me, let's say, uk employee of an UK subsidiary of an US company, to tell the press that my UK company has been orderd by it's US owner to hand over private data to the US.

I mean, I cannot be possibly forced to abide by the FISA warrant, right? But can my company be in trouble (and hence fire/sue me? *) for this kind of action of an employee? I mean, how can the US law hold responsible an US company for an non-illegal action performed by a non US employee of a non US branch of that company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Former Microsoft privacy chief Caspar Bowden, speaking at a panel > discussion in Brussels this week, warned that U.S. law allows the government > to spy on non-U.S. citizens files and documents, and that new Europe-wide > data protection law proposals specifically allow such surveillance._

The ancient ECHELON programme tells us that the US (and others) have no problem spying on citizens, using loopholes to spy on their own citizens.

The horrible state of encryption means that most people can't justify encrypted cloud storage because the cost : risk : reward and threat modelling stuff is unfavourable.

It's pretty scary that all this stuff is ending up on random servers across the world.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by horrible state of encryption? why is it high cost to make a truecrypt container and use that as your interface? the only thing I can think of is it's inconvenient to be unable to simultaneously mount content from multiple places at once. That doesn't seem like an enormous cost, did you mean something else?

<comment><USER5> > why is it high cost to make a truecrypt container

Because normal people can barely use MS Word, how do you think they're going to be able to use Truecrypt?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The reverse is also true: [http://www.hoganlovells.com/files/News/c6edc1e2-d57b-402e-9c...](http://www.hoganlovells.com/files/News/c6edc1e2-d57b-402e-9cab-a7be4e004c59/Presentation/NewsAttachment/a17af284-7d04-4008-b557-5888433b292d/Revised%20Government%20Access%20to%20Cloud%20Data%20Paper%20\(18%20July%2012\).pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> What if Slicklizzard US is the subsidiary, could the US still request the information from Slicklizzard UK? Is any kind of presence in the US enough to enforce the FISA warrant?

<comment><USER9> I would assume that, if the US subsidiary decided to comply, but the UK parent did not want them to, then the UK parent could say "no thanks" and there's nothing the US subsidiary could do.

To punish the parent, the US government could presumably prosecute the US subsidiary for noncompliance and, if successful, shut down all the company's US parts (including US-based domain names like .com) and seize US bank accounts etc.

And maybe even brand them as a terrorist organization since, clearly, if the US government says it's a matter of terrorism, if you don't help them then you're a terrorist (never mind that doing so would involve breaking the law of the UK jurisdiction where you're based).

<comment><USER10> _And maybe even brand them as a terrorist organization_

They are saving that for ideological enemies, such as people who hold traditional American political values (e.g. freedom of speech, freedom from excessive taxation).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> All data that is not under your direct control must be assumed to be immediately accessible by the authorities.

Thinking at the extremes is a really useful thought model because it makes stuff like the above relatively unsurprising. It also modifies one's behavior to protect oneself from the most likely worst case scenario.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't't mean citizens shouldn't fight for better privacy rights, or at least enforce the ones they have, though. Comments like that always sound defeatist to me.

<comment><USER6> It's not defeatist because it doesn't imply you just can't do anything about it, it implies you should be responsible for your own key management and encrypt sensitive data appropriately. Government agencies silently seizing an appropriately setup truecrypt container are not a threat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Binding corporate rules for data processors was inserted into the European Commission's data protection regulation proposal with loopholes built-in which allow for FISAAA surveillance.</comment>


Don't be uncanny – 3 ways to nail your data driven demo - <AUTHOR> https://www.tonic.ai/post/3-ways-to-nail-your-demo-data/ <comment><USER2> I bet a big part of the success of Baremetrics is their live demo with real data. It's much easier to convince someone if you're willing to bare your inner workings to the point of sharing revenue data. I guess it applies at many levels.

<comment><USER3> Yeah they are definitely in a unique position to pull that off. Anyone else doing that well? BTW, I'm one of the authors of the post, so happy to answer any questions.</comment></comment>


Understanding Python decorators - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/739654/understanding-python-decorators#1594484 <comment><USER2> Learning decorators is usually one of the first 'a-hah!' moments in the experience of someone coming to python from another language. The wonders of the yield statement often follow. Here's the obligatory link to 'A Curious Course on Coroutines and Concurrency' which is an excellent introduction to one of Python's most unknown yet useful features. As he puts it, they are similar to 'lightweight classes' that you can use to encapsulate state and send messages to. In the video, he starts with generators, and eventually ends up with an entire operating system (scheduler, syscalls, etc...) based on coroutines.

<comment><USER3> Seems you forgot to include the link, so for those interested: <http://dabeaz.com/coroutines/>

<comment><USER2> Ahh yes, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A favorite topic of HN?

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=ti...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=title%3A\(python+decorators\)&sortby=points+desc)

<comment><USER5> It's the HN equivalent to Reddit's 'How a Differential Works' video.

[http://www.reddit.com/search?q=differential+works&restri...](http://www.reddit.com/search?q=differential+works&restrict_sr=off&sort=relevance&t=all)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even as an experience Python developer, I love finding explanations like this. Sometimes you forget about obscure aspects of a particular feature once you get in a groove and reading things like this usually makes me think back and go "Ohh, shoot, if I would've remembered that, I would have built X this way..." or something similar. This goes for about anything I feel like I "know".

</comment><comment><USER7> Decorators by themselves are easy.

      @foo
      def bar:
        ...

is just syntactic sugar for

      def bar:
        ...
      bar = foo(bar)

The hard part is first-class functions and what you can do with them and what you should not do with them.

<comment><USER8> but what about

        @foo('baz')
        def bar:

a bit more complicated to understand imho

<comment><USER9> Only a little:

        bar = foo('baz')(bar)

[EDIT]: Basically, whatever function is returned from the decorator line (the function itself, if there is no call, or the results from a function call otherwise) is applied to the decorated function.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a recent convert to Python, I have to say that decorators is one of the most useful features I have come across thusfar, both syntacticly and logically.

</comment><comment><USER11> For those who prefer learning by example: <http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonDecoratorLibrary>

</comment><comment><USER12> DRY. DRY DRY DRY.</comment>


What I learned from 9 years of blogging about startups and Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> http://www.vccafe.com/2015/01/08/vc-cafe-turns-9/

<comment><USER2> I particularly liked the posts linked in the section on "Understanding trends and industries". There are a few tools I was not familiar with, which I will definitely try. Thank you for posting this.</comment>


Show HN: Dashboard for tracking insider trading at S&P 500 companies - <AUTHOR> https://www.quiverquant.com/insidertrading/ <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this dashboard here back in March, but with the recent investigations into insider trading by Kodak and the USPS Postmaster General I thought it was very relevant once again.

There are a lot of sites out there which list off every insider transaction. That's good if you want to find more detail on a specific case of suspected insider trading, but it makes it difficult to quickly identify companies with suspicious activity.

Instead of displaying data at the transaction-level, I decided to aggregate transactions from a 6-month rolling period. I then created the "Insider Confidence Index", which measures a company's insider trading activity relative to their total market volume.

I also created a graph showing daily net purchases/sales across all S&P 500 insiders, to give an idea of the aggregate sentiment among insiders. It was interesting to see a huge spike in selling back in early February, and then again a couple of weeks ago.

I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you have on how to improve this dashboard, and if you'd prefer to see the data at a transaction-level.

<comment><USER2> Please don't do multiple Show HNs for the same project, unless there has been a major change. This is in the rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

(A dozen in a few months is way too much.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Daniel,

Mind if I do a non-Show HN post for this dashboard? I mentioned it in a thread last night ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24164904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24164904)) and there was positive reception. I think the content is very relevant right now, and I'd love to share in a stand-alone thread

<comment><USER2> That's fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Be careful when creating terminology in a regulated industry. Just because an insider exits a position, doesn't mean they have reduced confidence in the company and implying this could get you in trouble.</comment>


Show HN: Tabba, a better way to manage your tabs in chrome - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabba/chlaldlfbnejpjdeddpmmffedjedjjll <comment><USER2> It works well and I like the overall design. Why'd you make it?

The default keyboard shortcuts are a little awkward; using tab or the up/down arrows to navigate the list would be more intuitive. Also, it would be easier to distinguish tabs if the title were displayed before the hostname.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you find GC APM a good replacement for services like Datadog? - <AUTHOR> I wish if there was a good self-hosted alternative for Datadog, because I am confused on how to use those Google Cloud tools (like Trace and Monitoring), Datadog looks intuitive. What do you guys do to monitor your GC and AppEngine apps? <comment><USER2> Why do you need a self-hosted alternative for DataDog? Why not just use datadog itself?</comment>


Chatting with Glue: Cognitive Tools for Augmented Conversation - <AUTHOR> https://a9.io/glue-comic/ <comment><USER2> Google Wave: too early to market.</comment>