On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality - <AUTHOR> http://iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2017_Fall_Christman.php <comment><USER2> I grew up in the Midwest and moved to Silicon Valley. I think that people here don't understand what this author describes as "Midwestern history is a study in racial quarantine." I would go as far as to say that racial is the wrong word to describe what happens in the Midwest.

I think that communities in the Midwest have tighter cultural restrictions on what it means to be "one of us." This can be affected by where you live, where you work, where you go to church, where your kids go to school, what kind of car you drive, what you do for fun, how you dress, even how you talk. Midwesterners are happy to accept someone who matches them in all these areas regardless of skin color. This is why you get backlash from them when you call them racist because the criteria they use is not skin color its all the other stuff.

Yet on the other hand, most PoC in the Midwest have a culture that is different on most of the above. So when a white Midwesterner doesn't treat a black Midwesterner that speaks, dresses, even walks differently as a part of the community is it racism? I would say no since it isn't about race but is about culture. But on the other hand, when most white people do this to most black people, it sure does start to look like it.

This puts the Midwest in a really hard place because just about any white person can claim (truthfully) they are not being racist. Yet, the outcome of the collective actions of all of them end up with a pretty strong divide that is mostly along racial lines.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to fix this? One option would be to have the cultures integrate so there are not sub communities for PoC. This doesn't seem to have worked. But the other option is that you expect Midwesterners to treat people from outside their community the same as people inside their community. That isn't going to happen. So it seems like it is an impossible situation.

<comment><USER3> The modern left-wing view of racism is as a systematic, structural power relationship between races. Individual decisions branching on skin color is neither necessary nor sufficient to get there, although it can and historically has contributed.

For example, divesting from your neighborhood out of concern for your property value when PoC start to move in does not necessarily reflect an individual racial bias. It could be a purely rational economic calculation based on other people's biases. It's still the bread and butter of the system of racism.

Just like discrimination that branches on culture or class and only incidentally produces outcomes along racial lines.

<comment><USER4> The problem with this view is that it describes correlates instead of causes, and worse--that it confuses the two: most people understand racism to mean something like "differences caused by race", and thus something that is morally reprehensible. Your example is one that is _caused_ (though indirectly) by racism, but others examples are not causal but correlated (or at least so indirectly causal as to be meaningless)--for example, that midwesterners appear racist because they have a lower threshold for cultural differences, which is _caused_ by the _correlation_ between culture and race.

Besides this, the left-wing view is easily confused with the popular notion of racism, which is widely considered to be immoral, and I think often the proponents of this viewpoint abuse the confusion, deliberately accusing skeptics and dissenters of "racism" without being clear that they mean the probably-benign "systemic racism" instead of the clearly immoral "racism". Further, many of these proponents also tend to consider "questioning systemic racism theory" to be an act of (systemic) "racism" because it inhibits the consensus required to combat (systemic) "racism".

TL;DR I think the marketing was deliberately obfuscatory, and this has had a huge detrimental impact on our national racial.

<comment><USER5> I believe the reason that the root post is the top-voted comment is that it poses a helpful question: how do we fix this?

My suggestion is that people stop being so damn concerned about their moral status and start caring more about _actually fixing things_.

A system with de facto separate and unequal schools is just as bad as a system with de jure separate and unequal schools. Whether that's the result of an emergent phenomenon or explicit planning has little effect on the people stuck in the system.

If someone's fragile moral ego gets in the way of an accurate description of the problem... well, that person's ego is the problem.

FWIW you see the same problem in flailing engineering projects.

<comment><USER4> > My suggestion is that people stop being so damn concerned about their moral > status and start caring more about actually fixing things.

This is silly. Moral status is a necessary component of political capital. The entire reason the progressive left stuck to their confusing "systemic racism" term is because it conveniently allows them to strip dissidents and critics of the political capital necessary to implement their fixes or even advance the national discourse. Of course, we could think wishfully about a world where politics were irrelevant (as I sometimes do), but that's not productive.

<comment><USER5> What alternative term would you use to refer to racially disparate outcomes that are the result of how large systems operate?

The term "systemic racism" was coined and stuck because it's evocative of the actual idea, not as some sort of grand conspiracy to strip you of your honor.

But I don't care. We can call it "silly putty" if it means we can actually talk about it instead of closely defending our honor. And if you have an alternative name that is evocative of the underlying problem and doesn't offend you, I'd love to hear it.

 _> This is silly_

It is my experience that when people disarm themselves, productive conversations are possible.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But if so, then there's no solution anyways. So we might as well try.

<comment><USER4> It's hard to believe you care about advancing the conversation when you respond with straw men and ad hominems. Of course, I'm used to it because I challenge positions like yours a lot. Still, the constant need to redirect these bad faith rebuttals is exhausting.

To be clear, I don't care much for "my honor". Like I said, I care about making good outcomes politically tenable. As for conspiracy theories, that's literally what "systemic racism" is. And we _could_ talk about it if it weren't for all of the weasel words and slander.

If you cared about the conversation, you'd be trying to get rid of the weasel words instead of attacking the people who call them out.

<comment><USER5> _> It's hard to believe you care about advancing the conversation when you respond with straw men and ad hominems_

You're right. Chalk it up to frustration in a different thread. My apologies.

 _> As for conspiracy theories, that's literally what "systemic racism" is_

I mean, that's clearly hyperbolic, right? Systemic racism is a real thing -- see red lining or Jim Crow. We can at least agree that the concept is useful and refers to a real phenomenon, even if we're going to debate the severity/degree of that phenomenon in the present.

 _> you'd be trying to get rid of the weasel words_

I don't think systemic racism is a weasel word. I think it's a well-chosen, evocative, and just damn accurate noun for the concept it represents.

Again, do you have an alternative word?

<comment><USER4> > You're right. Chalk it up to frustration in a different thread. My > apologies.

Thank you for the apology; I understand the cumulative frustration bit. Hopefully I wasn't the cause of the frustration in the other thread.

> Again, do you have an alternative word?

I would say "disparate outcomes that correlate with race" or some such. I don't object to "systemic racism" when it specifically means "disparate outcomes _caused_ by racism" (e.g., redlining and jim crow); however, it's often used as a blanket term for any racial disparity whether or not there is evidence that it's actually part of the system and not simply the result of different choices made by different groups, or an artifact of documented historical oppression. In the latter case, its effect is to shut down any conversation about the actual cause of the disparity, because anyone who questions the systemic racism explanation is guilty of endorsing racism.

So if that's not a weasel word, it's something similarly nefarious and inhibitive of dialog.

I really think all parties (or at least those who aren't threatened by advancing the dialog) are better served by clear, meaningful terms, and I don't think that's what we have with "systemic racism". Insofar as it means what you say, then it's grossly and widely misused, which has the same effect as if the word were meaningless to begin with.

<comment><USER5> I don't think the line you're trying to draw is easy -- or even possible -- to draw.

What about cities that were originally segregated via red-lining, but now remain extremely segregated along those same geographic lines today even after those policies have been eliminated? Is that systemic racism?

In almost all cases, systemic racism is caused by a complex mix of historical racism, contemporary racism, and rational economic choices that aren't taken with explicit racial intent but none-the-less help sustain the inertia of the system.

<comment><USER4> > What about cities that were originally segregated via red-lining, but now > remain extremely segregated along those same geographic lines today even > after those policies have been eliminated? Is that systemic racism?

Disclaimer: This is mostly exploring a society where racism (as it is traditionally defined) has been completely removed. This isn't what we have (we both agree on this point), but the exercise is still useful in theory.

Assuming all such policies are removed, I would confidently say "no" for lots of reasons. Firstly, integration doesn't happen the moment racist forces are removed. Minority groups can and often do self-segregate for reasons that no reasonable person would identify as anti-minority racism (e.g., the social stability in a shared culture, hatred for people who look like historical oppressors [I guess this one is racism, but not one that is talked about under the rubric of 'systemic racism'], etc). Secondly, all else equal, a system in which wealth grows linearly would _still_ see a growing disparity between disparate races even apart from racism; this is not desirable, but it's still not "systemic racism" in any meaningful sense. Thirdly, there are economies of scale to be had by participating in the majority culture, privileging those who've integrated over those who haven't--if you remove barriers to integration and some minority groups haven't integrated, they're at a disadvantage. Some might argue that this is systemic racism because the system privileges one group over another, but it's only related to race insofar as races tend to correlate with cultures, and also because it is a universal cultural reality completely divorced from any racist motive. Lastly, (by definition) different cultures make different decisions in different distributions--if some cultures make decisions that lead to poorer outcomes _even if those cultures are the manifestation of historical oppression_ , it's _still_ not systemic racism if all active forces of racism have been removed from the system.

Of course, all of this goes out the window if "the system" encompasses minority cultures and "racism" is allowed to mean "any disparity between races"; however, no one uses it in that sense, or at least every time a moderate or conservative brings up one of these "different choices -> different outcomes" possibilities, legions of university professors and other esteemed progressives shout them down, "no, it's systemic racism!" implying that "systemic racism" excludes cultures that choose their own disparities.

Of course, this whole semantic exploration is testament to the ambiguous nature of the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > In a 2015 essay for Slate, "The Rust-Belt Theory of Low-Cost High Culture," > reporter Alec McGillis marveled at the cheapness—and, it seems, the mere > presence—of good orchestra and museum tickets in interior cities:

One fact of history that's often overlooked is that patronage has left an incredible legacy in places like Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc. For example, one of the finest collections of French Impressionism in the US is not in New York or San Francisco, but Philadelphia. The art museums in Pittsburgh are amazing, easily worth the (very affordable) trip out to see them.

We tend to define these cities by the decline of their industrial economic base, but we forget their history. The age of the industrialists started in about 1860. By 1900, Cleveland, Buffalo, Cincinatti, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Pittsburgh were among the 15 largest cities in the country (the top 15 also included Philadelphia and Baltimore—two cities which have phenomenal culture compared to what you'd expect based on their present economies). Cleveland, with its famous orchestra, was one of the ten largest US cities from 1890-1970.

<comment><USER7> Wait, is Philly considered Midwestern, not East Coast?

<comment><USER8> Not Midwestern, but Rust Belt.

<comment><USER9> Most of the East Coast, once you get far from the largest metros, _is_ actually Rust Belt. The entire canal system running from Chicago to New York was once shipping and manufacturing, so was New Jersey, so were parts of New England, Pittsburgh was steel, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice read! My wife and I just moved to Urbana/Champaign Illinois 4 months ago for my new job, and the Midwest really is different (from Arizona and California where we lived before). People are really nice, food is great, very inexpensive place to live, and there is real natural beauty here if you look for it. Anyways, we are delighted with this area.

<comment><USER11> Congrats on the move. I grew up in Champaign. I wanted to get out of there by the time I was 18, but now I get back at least once a year and have a new appreciation for the place. Go to Papa Dels pizza if you haven't been. Get the deep dish. It will change your life.

<comment><USER12> I've been preaching the goodness that is Papa Dels since I was out there for a conference and programming competition at UIUC in the very early 2000s. Happy to see I'm not the only one.

Just be aware, a slice of the deep dish is pretty much a meal by itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > ...humility is one of those words, like authenticity or (lately) resistance, > that serves mainly to advertise the absence of the thing named...

Humility is having a realistic view of your own abilities and worth while being OK with it. It's not a vacuum of self-worth or something. We have other words for that.

To illustrate, it's not _humble_ for LeBron James to say he's bad at basketball. It would be _humble_ for him to claim his ability while internalizing his limitations, both on the court and off.

So, to bring this back to Midwesterners, a Midwestern might say, "Yeah, I'm a great programmer, but it's not like I'm going to change the world through constructing elegant hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility. Pass the green bean casserole, please."

<comment><USER14> I think it just meant that someone who claims to be humble is probably bragging. Not that no one is humble.

<comment><USER2> I see humility as having a proper understanding of your own ability without arrogance. If I am at Thanksgiving dinner and my mom tries to brag that I am the best programmer in the state it is humble to correct her in saying that even though I have a great job, there are a lot of things I still cannot do.

<comment><USER14> But look at the context. "Authenticity" has been made meaningless, so any mass-produced focus-grouped consumer product can be called "authentic". And it's now the same with humble, which mean that it should describe something small, frugal, or at least not-ostentatious. But now big, splurgy things or places call themselves humble.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Speaking as a Midwesterener, it was a valiant attempt to examine the Midwest without descending into contempt and cliches, but alas, it ultimately failed, and failed _hard_. Partial credit given for making it for a few paragraphs before descending into the usual trite analysis.

<comment><USER16> Speaking also as a Midwesterner, I would disagree. I was born and raised in Michigan, and have not really left much other than to couch hop and envy the lives of my friends who've moved out to the coast. I feel that the contempt the author descends into is self-inflicted, and may representative of the culture and authors midwestern upbringing. From what I've observed, midwesterners are brutally humble, almost to a fault, probably stemming from the deeply rooted conservative values. Being midwestern, to me, is not its own identity, but rather a lack of the other negative identities of the regions. Speaking in terms of stereotypes I hear here (not trying to discredit these regions) the vibe is: I'm NOT a no-patience jerk like on the east coast, I'm NOT lazy and pretentious like on the west coast, I'm NOT shallow and two-faced like in the south, therefore, as a midwesterner my strongest identity is defined by a lack of those negative associations. Midwesterns choose not to be defined by what they are, which I see as no-nonsense and generally pretty authentic and genuine, but rather by what they are not. "We are not all of those bad things those other people in those other places are, and that's our best quality." But through my travels I've learned that not all people in those places are like that, and not all midwesterners are nice, but in general they prefer to be viewed as collective lack of bad things, rather than a collection of good things. This, plus an underlying more conservative and humble perspective, I feel gives light to the lack of regional identity that is perceived by people both inside and outside of the Midwest.

<comment><USER9> >From what I've observed, midwesterners are brutally humble, almost to a fault, probably stemming from the deeply rooted conservative values. Being midwestern, to me, is not its own identity, but rather a lack of the other negative identities of the regions. Speaking in terms of stereotypes I hear here (not trying to discredit these regions) the vibe is: I'm NOT a no- patience jerk like on the east coast, I'm NOT lazy and pretentious like on the west coast, I'm NOT shallow and two-faced like in the south, therefore, as a midwesterner my strongest identity is defined by a lack of those negative associations.

Thanks for letting us know that some people think it's humble to be xenophobic. Funny thing: my in-laws are from the Midwest, and they've _never_ spoken like this.

<comment><USER17> I am from the Midwest, currently living in the South, and I think "shallow and two-faced" may actually be putting it too mildly. The idea that these assholes may actually elect Roy Moore after he unconstitutionally rammed his religion down other people's throats in an official capacity is bad enough, but after mounting credible evidence of him habitually creeping on 14-year-old girls as a grown-ass adult man? No f'kin' way.

Jared Fogle (the Subway creep) went to my high school in Indiana, and if he showed up to a reunion after getting out of the pokey, he would _not_ get the same reception as Roy Moore currently gets in Gadsden, Alabama. Fogle couldn't win an election for _county roadkill remover_ , much less senator for the whole state.

We don't rag on other regions as a matter of course, but we do judge them by their perceived shortcomings, even if we don't call them out on it.

And Midwesterners are stereotyped. We're small-minded, prudish, unfashionable, uncultured, suspicious, avoidant, passive-aggressive, and boring. We drink pop and weak beer and eat fried cheese. Didn't you know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> An observation ... just the fact that many here treat the "midwest" as one place in their comments speaks of maybe misunderstanding/ignorance or even arrogance. As a person who has lived in Wisconsin (suburban and rural), Minnesota (urban and suburban), and Chicago, there is an absolutely astounding difference in people, attitude, and culture in all 3 areas. Granted none are really like the east or west coasts, but they are all vastly different places to live.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, the whole idea of "midwest" is pretty flawed. Like a lot of places you really need to look at the migration patterns that made up the communities (including what tribes got shoved where). I've often said that all these scifi maps about the breakup of the US that have ND and MN in the same country just don't get how far the area has diverged. Heck, the difference between St. Cloud MN and Minneapolis MN is amazing.

<comment><USER20> Well yeah, because St. Cloud is the armpit of Minnesota.

<comment><USER19> St. Cloud actually has nice people who get mighty offended when you won't let them help you. I reserve derogatory comments for some of the Twin City suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> le-mark I found this piece to be interesting, but rather odd too. For example from the middle;

 _I took the first option. As a child, I accepted without thinking that my small town, a city of 9,383 people, contained within it every possible human type; if I could not fit in here, I would not fit in anywhere. ("Fitting in" I defined as being occupied on Friday nights and, sooner or later, kissing a girl.) Every week that passed in which I did not meet these criteria—which was most of them—became a prophecy. Every perception, every idea, every opinion that I could not make immediately legible to my peers became proof of an almost metaphysical estrangement, an oceanic differentness that could not be changed and could not be borne. ... I knew that cities existed, but they were all surely just Michigan farm towns joined together n number of times, depending on population. Owing to a basically phlegmatic temperament, and the fear of hurting my parents, I made it to college without committing suicide; there, the thing solved itself. But I worry what would have happened—what does often happen—to the kid like me, but with worse test scores, bad parents, an unlocked gun cabinet._

This sounds like the general lament of an intelligent, intellectually curious person growing up than anything specific to the midwest. Of course ones ideas aren't understood, and if too many big words are used then one marks themselves as "talking funny". There are a great many under the 75th percentile after all.

The one thing I found missing from the present article was the nearly total absence of _oppurtunity_ in all these rural midwestern towns. A whole lot of my peers put a trailer on Mom/Dads (or Grandma/Grandpa's) land, and eked lives _somehow_. I honestly don't know how. The poverty, the grinding hopelessness is endemic for the region. So yeah, there's nothing else to talk about, so you talk about the neighbors, or that strange kid at school who wear's the sweater with puff balls. And don't by any means be different lest you be gossiped about as well.

<comment><USER14> _This sounds like the general lament of an intelligent, intellectually curious person growing up than anything specific to the midwest._

But in a larger city you'd encounter more kinds of people and feel less weird. You'd also be more likely to meet people who are actually relatable.

<comment><USER21> But that has little to do with being in the Midwest. You'd meet a bigger variety of people in Cincinnati than 29 Palms, CA. People seem to conflate "small town America" with Midwest while overlooking their own rural backyards and ignoring Midwestern cities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems odd to do an analysis of Midwestern culture and not bring up its religious differences with the rest of America, especially the South, which is generally more Baptist and charismatic.

</comment><comment><USER22> _" reporter Alec McGillis marveled at the cheapness—and, it seems, the mere presence—of good orchestra and museum tickets in interior cities"_

I'm always impressed that foreigners (I'll call them that, since they tend to think the same of us) discount art from the heartland simply by being shocked it even exists.

<comment><USER23> Are you implying that them being aware of the place, possibly relocating there and participating in local government is better?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Flatness is mentioned five times. Not where I grew up and there are certainly days in the warm months when I struggle to ride my bicycle up hills that I wish all of the midwest was flat.

<comment><USER25> I'm from Kansas, I get so sick of hearing how flat it is here. Florida and Illinois are both much flatter, and oddly enough I hear how flat Kansas is from residents of both.

Nobody carries on about Texas being flat and boring, yet it's only marginally less flat than Kansas.

<comment><USER26> <i>Nobody carries on about Texas being flat and boring...</i>Well then, you heard it here first. What's the worst thing about Texas? There's so much of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> born and raised in michigan, lived all over the state. I hope i die here. This nerd doesn't know shit

<comment><USER28> > This nerd doesn't know shit

While you probably have a point, this isn't a very professional or productive way of expressing your opinion.

edit: To those downvoting me, can you please explain why? Is "This nerd doesn't know shit" really the kind of dialog that we want to promote on this site?

<comment><USER29> I didn't downvote you, but calling him out on his language is significantly less interesting than the thing the parent said. If your quote was the only thing he said you'd be right. I think the quote added a lot of context and information his message though.

> born and raised in michigan, lived all over the state. I hope i die here.

That statement on its own communicates he likes Michigan, has no interest in moving.

> This nerd doesn't know shit

Adding this sentence modifies my interpretation of the first. This guy _loves_ Michigan. He feels strongly about his community and the contents of the article offend him. We can nitpick the insult on the end or the language he used, but I think what he had to say about Michigan was "putting himself out there" a little bit that makes it harder to do. It didn't feel like trolling to me, felt like a genuine dude with genuine things to say.

<comment><USER28> > We can nitpick the insult on the end or the language he used, but I think > what he had to say about Michigan was "putting himself out there" a little > bit that makes it harder to do.

I didn't say he was trolling. In fact, I said "While you probably have a point," emphasizing the fact that there may be a substantive post within the comment.

However, it says in the Hacker News Guidelines[1], "Don't be snarky. Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." His comment contained too much snark and not enough civility to be a productive post. If those kinds of comments are left to multiply, this site may lose its capacity for substantive, nuanced discussion of topics that many people disagree with.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Strahler and Strahler's college text charted how people like their own region and dont like others as much. Perceptions are strong

Having 50% midwestern life and 50% east coast, i size up the people first before i say im from (midwest state) or (eastern state).

Also, rent a car with same-state plates when you move into a new house from out of state. Most of your neighbors will make assumptions about you if the state plate is different. Once you get cars registered put on the new plates and return the rental.

Where are the new neighbors from?

"New York" "Montana" "Florida" "Massachusetts" "Iowa" "Utah" "California"

Pushy,outdoorsy,poor or old, liberal, farmers, Mormon, nutty

</comment><comment><USER31> I grew up in the Midwest (Kansas City) .The first problem is no one knows who is being described.

"Midwestern" \- It's a term used by the media. They tell us it includes Oklahoma and North Dakota (which are insanely different?). It's supposed to include Chicago, Milwaukee, Omaha, and Topeka?

Half of the West coast thinks "midwest" includes the South?

They need a new term....badly.

</comment><comment><USER32> Just moved out of the midwest.. I was originally from the East coast and moved back.

I'll just say this, being a minority, I was shocked at how much contempt people had towards middle-easterners and black people. On numerous occasions people have said they've been "dirtying up the neighborhoods which is why they moved to another burb... they need to take better care of their lawns, etc". Out of all the companies that I've worked in the midwest, I've ever had a co- worker that was a black software engineer. People are put down in unfortunate ways. it's really fucking hard to climb up the corporate ladder than either coasts

Pay is crap.. people have been clamoring that the midwest is going to be the next silicon alley.

There's a reason why Chicago was the only major city to drop in population the last couple of years. There aren't that many interesting projects happening, it's not conducive to start-ups. i've had more arguments in the midwest with people that think tesla is a POS company for not following the rules. there's a lot of people averse to change.

<comment><USER33> _Out of all the companies that I 've worked in the midwest, I've ever had a co-worker that was a black software engineer._

The only black software engineer I've worked with (as in, on my team and writes code) since moving was the guy I hired. And I live in Seattle and I've worked at Microsoft. It's a big shock moving from Indiana, where I'd had several black coworkers over the years. So I'll see your Midwestern Rednecks anecdote, and raise you a Coastal Snobs Shocked That Midwest Has Internet.

 _i 've had more arguments in the midwest with people that think tesla is a POS company for not following the rules._

Buncha rubes, not going gaga over an unprofitable company getting Federal subsidies so that rich people can buy new toys. So you're saying you absolutley lack the ability to fathom why someone might not share your enthusiasm?

<comment><USER32> Why'd you move out of Indiana my friend?

|So you're saying you absolutley lack the ability to fathom why someone might not share your enthusiasm?

Also I can empathize why people are against Tesla, it's just the general mindset in the midwest when it comes to new technologies. There's no wrong or right it's just the way life is out there.

<comment><USER33> One -27F January day, I looked at my wife and said, "this is America, and we don't have to live like this." So we moved to North Carolina, then eventually got a gig with Microsoft. Haven't worked at Microsoft in twelve years, but Seattle area suits us so we never left.

 _Also I can empathize why people are against Tesla, it 's just the general mindset in the midwest when it comes to new technologies._

More than just the politics are conservative. :-)

<comment><USER34> When it is -27F outside, what do you do? Do you go to work? Do you crank up the furnace and huddle under an electric blanket and wait for it to get above 0F again?

<comment><USER33> At the time I got on the internet and gave this new website called monster.com (stupid name for a job board, it'll never last) a shot, narrowing my search parameters to "charlotte, nc". True story.

But seriously, you stay inside if at all possible. Cars often don't start, and as a consequence businesses don't open. If you must go somewhere in the car, dress like you'll be walking. If you don't, and your breaks, you can die. OTOH, that's Indiana. Whitehorse, Yukon, they probably shrug their shoulders with a "feels like it might be warming up, eh?" And sub-zero F temps didn't stop from playing outside as kids. We just didn't stay out long. Cover every exposed body part, layer on the insulation, won't kill you _right_ away. Hell, I've gone on a nice, brisk training run when it's -10F. Again, don't skimp on the clothing, file a flight plan with the spouse/SO/roommate (these days I just carry a phone), tell your friends later about your epic run this morning.

Though extreme cold can probably kill you faster than extreme heat, like anything else if you just use some sense and respect the fact that you _can_ die in such conditions, you'll be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A little too much liberal hogwash for my taste - e.g trying to explain as much as possible with skin-color identity politics. But glad others liked the article.

</comment><comment><USER36> I appreciate the effort the author put into this (and he/she is clearly a good writer), but as a Wisconsinite I can't help but chuckle at the length and type of content - it's thousands of well-chosen words in an academic voice describing... the Midwest. To me, nothing is more definitively a real metaphor for "boring" than my home.

</comment><comment><USER37> The author here implicitly assumes the truth of the descriptions of the Midwest and Midwesterners that he discusses. Further, also assumes that nothing changes, nothing happens in the Midwest. (I particularly liked the intro; now try describing the Midwest to someone who _doesn 't actually love there_.) Everyone is _from_ the Midwest or _describing_ the Midwest, no one seems to be living there.

Here's a hint: there is no Midwest. That should be obvious; it's roughly twice as far from Oklahoma City to St. Louis as from London to Paris.

If you want to read about the past of the central part of the US, can I suggest a brilliant writer who isn't mentioned in the article: Walter Prescott Webb. See _The Great Plains_ or _The Frontier_.

<comment><USER38> Lumping the west plains and midwest together into one region seems weird. In my mind, midwest is purely the great lakes states.

<comment><USER37> To an extent, that's true. But they really have more in common than either does with any other region.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> What I'd like to know is if any other place is substantially different. I lived in Texas for a while, and met relatively few people who behaved like stereotypical Texans.

I live in Wisconsin, and it is a divided state. There is heavy racial segregation, plus strong red/blue and city/rural divisions. That makes it pretty hard to identify a single unifying culture.

Perhaps all the Midwest lacks is branding.

</comment><comment><USER40> I moved to Minneapolis last month after working as a software developer in NYC for twelve years. It still feels like I'm on vacation in comparison, with all this space and a reasonable cost of living. My main concern is career development with the thinner tech scene out here (Chicago didn't seem bad when I looked, although I'd prefer somewhere smaller).

<comment><USER41> the tech scene isn't very broad, but there is a lot of depth in the medical device scene. Also, surprisingly, a lot of developer jobs with some of the bigger banks and the insurance companies.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, US Bank, Wells Fargo, American Express, and Ameriprise have significant presences here.

Also lots of tech jobs at Target and Best Buy, and firms like UnitedHealth Group, General Mills, and Cargill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was raised in Mitchell, South Dakota, a midwest town of about 15,000.

The vast majority were white, a small number of Native Americans (we all called them Indians back then) and just one black family. The black family's father was elected mayor, he was popular.

There was some racism, not as much as people seem to think. IMHO, I've seen more racism in bigger cities.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sorta related, vox had this great article and interactive poll as to which states are actually in the midwest, really interesting.

[https://www.vox.com/2016/1/27/10825534/which-states-in- midwe...](https://www.vox.com/2016/1/27/10825534/which-states-in-midwest)

</comment><comment><USER45> This is about tribes, not races. Midwest is very much a rural vs. urban notion more than a racial one.

</comment><comment><USER46> Growing up in Indiana, I thought my home was backward and boring, and wanted to see what the rest of the world had to offer. After spending 10 years in a variety of cities across the world, I was relieved to find that Indiana houses were still cheap enough that I could buy one and move back.

</comment><comment><USER47> > the vast majority of humans have worked hard, or been worked hard, for all > of recorded history

Huh that's an interesting way of saying that...

> a person might explain these tropes of featurelessness by pointing out the > similarities imposed across the Midwestern landscape by capitalism.

Oh. That's why. Trash article.</comment>


Papyros – Arch based OS with material design - <AUTHOR> http://www.papyros.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently this is just another name change from Quantum OS which was originally called Quartz OS.

[https://plus.google.com/app/basic/communities/10402418756809...](https://plus.google.com/app/basic/communities/104024187568091297094)</comment>


Spark 2.0.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://spark.apache.org/news/spark-2-0-0-released.html <comment><USER2> Spark 2.0 was released last week and submitted about 10 times, but the only time it hit the front page ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171026)) it received _zero_ discussion. The behavior of data science HN submissions is always weird. :p

I spent the weekend playing around with Spark/PySpark 2.0 for a blog post which will be released in a couple days. PySpark is almost on the parity of scikit-learn in terms of available data structures and algorithms. (Although some Spark design decisions are more enterprise-friendly than personal user- friendly. For example,Spark 2.0 is the first update with the ability to natively _read CSV_ s. And let's not get started on _exporting_ CSVs: [https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/759830773893509125](https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/759830773893509125))

<comment><USER3> Speaking of Python wrappers for Spark, do you know if this release allows use of GraphX from Python? Or is that still only available through the Scala libraries?

<comment><USER2> You may be thinking of GraphFrames: [https://databricks.com/blog/2016/03/03/introducing- graphfram...](https://databricks.com/blog/2016/03/03/introducing- graphframes.html) (apparently it is not ready for 2.0)

There is no native support otherwise.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the pointer to GraphFrames. I was unaware that effectively supersedes GraphX.

I had been thinking back to [https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-3789](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SPARK-3789) and now that I've doubled checked that issue, I see that Python-bindings for GraphX are moot, given GraphFrames.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For anyone interested in Spark, I created [http://www.reddit.com/r/apachespark](http://www.reddit.com/r/apachespark) a couple years ago. It's a relatively small subreddit given the popularity of Spark, and could use more users :)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for creating it. It's one of only 8 subreddits I subscribe to.</comment></comment>


Emily Ratajkowski on Reclaiming Her Own Image - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/article/emily-ratajkowski-owning-my-image-essay.html <comment><USER2> Beautifully written and horrifying. Took me a few tries because it was so close to home.

I am one of those lucky dudes who was raped and beaten at a very young age and gaslit in many of the same ways as she describes. Ended up with what they now call body dysmorphia.

If you aren't raised that way then how she reacts to bad situations probably feels nonsensical at best and alien at worst. But when you're assured from a very young age that your grasp of reality is fundamentally wrong then it's easy to derive whole chains of logic where each successive choice compounds earlier bad decisions.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's still bizarre to me that clicking a shutter button is a "creative process" but being the subject of the photograph gives you no rights whatsoever. I've been on both sides of the lens and there has to be a better balance than we've struck in this country.

</comment><comment><USER4> Imagine finding a rock in the stream when you are ~10. Rock so beautiful you become center of attention everywhere you show it. Soon enough you start wearing it as necklace. People stop you in the street to strike conversations, take pictures, offer presents. Life is good, everything is easy. No roadblocks, no queues, no entry exams, all because of something you found as a child. You start to get paid for just standing still while people photograph your pet rock. Obviously you drop out of uni, uni is for lesser people. You dont need education, you dont need skills, you have your pendant, you are set for life!

With time you start to get jealous of people taking pictures. Its your rock! how come they get paid for its image? You are angry because someone managed to capture the side with slight blemish. It gets insane to the point you drop $80K on a picture of your own rock, so you can stand next to it for double the rockiness.

You learn rocks erode after a while. The horror of losing the only thing you ever had going for you finally hits hard. Its so unfair, you were supposed to coast on the cloud for eternity. Maybe there could be some legal avenues you could explore to exploit all of those photos of your rock after all? Will someone think of the poor rock owners?

</comment><comment><USER5> The fashion industry has huge problems. environmental damage and carbon cost of cheap throw away garments. slave/exploitative labor. copying. And so much more than Emily's story of huge problems perpetrated by a male dominated industry.

It's kind of shocking how big the male/female power differential is in both the number of men employed and the amount of power they have.

If you view fashion (especially photography) as art you can see parallels especially the high end fine art world. Gagosian was alluded to in the article.

If you're interested in learning more I highly recommend following Diet Prada and their new paid content!

They cover rape culture, racism, blatant copying (diet prada..), the environmental impact and more.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/CFLJvGKHPc5/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CFLJvGKHPc5/)

I'd also highly recommend reading the Diet Prada post which has a lot of comments and the disgusting misogynistic attacks from Imperial Publishing - the company that published a book of Polaroid's from one of the instances she details in her story.

They said "We are all deeply disturbed to read Ms. Ratajkowski's latest (false) statements to NY Mag in her never-ending search for press and publicity," the rep said. "Of course Mr. Leder totally denies her outrageous allegations of being 'assaulted.' It is grotesque and sad that she is so vindictive to lie in such a way to the press routinely."</comment>


Data hacked from U.S. government dates back to 1985 - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/06/us-cybersecurity-usa-idUSKBN0OL1V320150606 <comment><USER2> I really do not understand how the origin country of the attack can be so quickly identified, and that based on that it gets attributed to the government of said country. The source IP of attack usually tells you absolutely nothing about the origin, it's typically a hacked server or a desktop which can be in China or in France just the same.

I also heard on the news the so called "security experts" claim that certain "patterns" in the attack allow them to attribute it to a specific group of hackers. Anyone who's dealt with security for real knows that there are no patters (just like there really are no hacker groups).

In 99.9% of these cases the best you can do is identify and close the hole they used and any others they've left behind, assess the damages and notify the affected people. You will never find who did it, from where and why.

<comment><USER3> It could boil down to having other intelligence fingering China, but the US doesn't want to expose and consequently draw attention to the source of the information.

If the US doesn't have some 99.9999% assurance it was China and they made a statement like that with egg still on their face from the breach, it's pretty sad. I don't rule it out, but the US _probably_ has more common sense than that. From a technical perspective, it sure was a fast "investigation".

<comment><USER4> Because the US government has proven so trust worthy in recent memory with all the secret laws, torture, and murder of innocents.

What an endless parade of jingoists to ever defend the exceptional American empire.

<comment><USER5> Username checks out.

<comment><USER6> BURN

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone find it hilariously convenient the timing that as soon as something expired ... this announcement goes to all the papers within a few days while they basically pass a nearly identical thing?

<comment><USER3> I'm not clear how the Patriot Act (if that's the "something" you mention) has anything to do with a state-sponsored advanced persistent threat. Can you explain?

<comment><USER7> > The federal personnel office learned of the data breach after it began to > toughen its cybersecurity defense system. When it discovered malicious > activity, authorities used a detection system called EINSTEIN to unearth the > information breach in April, the Department of Homeland Security said.

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/politics/federal-agency- hacked...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/politics/federal-agency-hacked- personnel-management/)

They waited until Thursday to reveal it. The timing is more than coincidence. Lol.

<comment><USER3> So why not release it Monday/Tuesday? Thursday is sneakier?

<comment><USER8> They knew in April, they waited until right after Section 215 of the Patriot Act expired June 1st. Section 215 is the piece of legislation the NSA used as justification for its carte blanche collection of data in the US.

<comment><USER3> What I'm trying to say is that I don't think it furthers their goal.

It isn't like some terrorist act occurred which would've been uncovered with Section 215 still active. This happened on their watch _and_ under the so- called protection of the Patriot Act. To me, it seems like just another example of the Patriot Act _not_ protecting people.

<comment><USER8> You're right on both counts, but keep in mind how few people are going to understand that.

The media is going to report it as "rabble rabble rabble Chinese hackers because patriot act expired".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The sad part is this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/chinese-hackers-may- be-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/chinese-hackers-may-be-behind- anthem-premera-attacks.html?_r=0)

> WASHINGTON — The inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management, > which keeps the records and security clearance information for millions of > current and retired federal employees, issued a report in November that > essentially described the agency's computer security system as a Chinese > hacker's dream.

</comment><comment><USER9> For those wondering how bad a data breach of OPM is, this is what a typical OPM clearance form looks like:

[https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf](https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf)

<comment><USER10> That's an SF-86. You fill that out for clearances as low as Secret. The bar for a Secret is roughly "Are you blackmailable? No? Here's your clearance.". You can ship Secret material through the USPS if you ship it as registered mail. There's no need to hand-carry it.

There are many, many things that are classified as Secret that are either overclassified, are classified as such to cover someone's ass or prevent embarrassment. Secret material _can_ be sensitive stuff, but should never be serious spy shit. If it is, someone _seriously_ fucked up their classification guide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Too bad it wasn't encrypted.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are no secrets. We can't put the genie back in the bottle. We need to change our approach. We need to figure out a way to establish identity that doesn't rely on information anyone else has, such as names, dates, government- issued numbers, fingerprints, DNA, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone tried making a virtual person to be on social networks? - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone written a bot that pretends to be a real person on facebook?  Adding friends adding comments?  I think this would be an interesting project. <comment><USER2> Very early on in the days when ICQ still had an unencrypted client that allowed you to connect to a random ICQ user that was online I played around with a very simple human backed bot that would open a bunch of connections and if it ran out of stuff to say would IM the operator with a bit of context. The reply was then saved so that the next time around when it would get in to that situation it would have a reply waiting.

It was lots of fun doing that, and I can imagine doing this on facebook would be just as much fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> I made a couple on twitter... based on a hacked up AIML engine. This one is the best of the bunch though. <http://twitter.com/coolestalison>

@coolestalison

It was especially entertaining to see people trying to carry conversations with her, some even flirting. It wasn't perfect, but managed to fool quite a bit of people. I hadn't been running her for a while, maybe I should bring her back to life again.

</comment><comment><USER4> Robin Sage at the 2010 Blackhat conference: [http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/18/fictitious-f...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/18/fictitious- femme-fatale-fooled-cybersecurity/)

<comment><USER5> I saw this presentation, and despite the minor mistakes made, it was an incredibly successful project. Good to note that none of this was automated, and latency was one of the mistakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was part of a team for Yahoo's Hackday in London a few years back.

We worked on a project that took as inspiration a photo montage research thing that stated that the average of a stack of photos is the most attractive: [http://www.uni- regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychol...](http://www.uni- regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/durchschnittsgesichter/durchschnittsgesichter.htm)

For the hack day project we attempted to take a target user of a social network, and then to look at the friends to derive properties that we would then include (diluted) in our fake user.

The aim of the hack day experiment was to see whether the fake profile would both be convincing enough and attractive enough to then be befriended by the network of people that the target was a member of.

The experiment failed in the time given as hackday didn't last long enough and our target didn't log on. But I ran the code again later and it worked well (being befriended a few times before I figured that it was beyond the experiment and should be killed).

<comment><USER7> * (being befriended a few times before I figured that it was beyond the experiment and should be killed).*

These guys started hitting on you didn't they?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yes. I know a few people who have done it with so-call "social media experts" using a Markov bot that's trained on a handful of known SMDs. Scary part, most of them garnered over a thousand followers. :-/

<comment><USER9> but how many of those are other bots?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like spammers have done this (convincingly enough for at least some users). I don't have some foolproof method from telling a spambot from a spammer using copy/paste everywhere, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised.

</comment><comment><USER11> Been there, done that. Although, not on facebook, but a similar social network site, a good few years ago.

It was, indeed, an interesting experiment.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not on facebook, but there are tons on Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER13> Any ideas why this would be interesting (or useful)?</comment>


CeeVee opens up to offer a mega-simple CV page builder - <AUTHOR> http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/09/09/ceevee-opens-up-to-offer-a-mega-simple-cv-page-builder/

<comment><USER2> 'opens up' made me think there was some sort of API. There is not. Its just /another/ closed system.</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to learn new programming language and it's conventions? - <AUTHOR> Hello, I'll give the tl;dr first: tl;dr: Would like to learn C, best way?
So, I have been programming with some different, quite common languages, most of all - not a surprise - javascript. I... well, I don't really enjoy JavaScript, but it's what pays my salary and brings the bread to the table, so I can manage. I would like to learn some new language to improve as a programmer. I learned python quite "well" doing a school project using just python. Now, after reading some articles and posts, I would like to learn C (unless there's a better option? Haskell? Rust? Lisp?). The new language should be somewhat challenging, and I would like to learn some new "of thinking".
Why C? Well, I do a lot of work in unix (linux/osx) environment, and instead of doing bash scripts, I maybe could (when needed) use C instead of Bash/Python.
Thanks in advance for all the replies, I appreciate it. <comment><USER2> Read code written by others. In the case of C there is a large base of high quality open source code you can study. C is a simple language that is used for large scale, complex work so a vast amount of convention and idiom has developed. Those conventions vary from one code base to the next, but you'll find many commonalities and have no difficulty adapting once you've had enough exposure.

Reading working code is crucial; man page examples and language books won't expose you to enough real world usage. Programmers use the preprocessor. They do subtle and effort-saving things with enums and typedefs and designing a good struct is crucial.

Some well-thought-of C code bases include postfix, nginx, APR and lighttpd. After you've seen enough C you can just glance at a page of C code from across the room and know whether it's likely to be crap or not.

</comment><comment><USER3> C is interesting but old and unsafe, leading to memory corruption bugs. These bugs are often hard to find and compromise security. It is not always a good choice in real-world.

Rust, C++ and Haskell are much more complicated than JavaScript IMHO. Lisp is pretty old but there is a lot of modern Lisp-like languages.

Try them.

As cnnsucks said, reading code is important no matter what language you use. You can perfecly use JavaScript, Python, Go or Ruby and learn incredible tricks everyday, and these languages are used in the real-world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Syntax-wise, I've found learnxinyminutes.com to be a good introductory resource. I'm also looking for a good quality resource on programmatic conventions for different languages, including details on what unique/'cool' features each has, all in once place. So far I've not had much luck.</comment>


Tor Browser 8.5 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-85 <comment><USER2> Allow me to send a big shoutout and my deepest thanks to the maintainers and volunteers of both the Tor Browser and the Tor Project in general. You make the world a better place, even if the majority of the population don't realise they should pay more attention to your work. You're the real MVPs!

<comment><USER3> more people ought to use TOR so that the users who _need_ tor gets the protection of anonymity in a crowd.

If nobody uses TOR, then TOR users immediately becomes suspicious and nothing prevents the real world investigation from uncovering them.

<comment><USER4> I make everybody smile when I open Tor to watch some technical documentation. Still gave my boss a pause when I asked him if we were ever going to consider Google a competitor in any field (which we were in a niche field) and if he would be comfortable with a competitor owning the search history of all his employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm rooting for Mozilla and the Tor Project to uplift Tor into Firefox. Imagine a world where people need to opt in to get _less_ privacy.

<comment><USER6> It's interesting, the only way that would work is if they also turn every browser into a through node, which would be both highly controversial while also a great boon to the Tor network as a whole

<comment><USER7> Using "Tor mode" instead of "private mode" in regular Firefox would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there any casual users of Tor around? Someone who does it not for the sake of safety, but just privacy?

I'd happily use Tor, but the last time I used it (which was ~5 years ago), it was terribly slow for regular browsing (not streaming, or anything considered bandwidth heavy).

<comment><USER9> I use it (Tor, not the browser as much) just to bust NAT to my local computer when sharing stuff. It's so easy to create an onion service that links to a local web server.

<comment><USER10> Is that just sharing stuff with yourself, or sharing with others, because the recipient would also need to be using Tor to access it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Tor Browser might be the least mainstream safe browser on the Internet:

* It permanently tracks the lagging ESR Firefox.

* It puts its users on Tor, which "anonymizes" them but also flags their traffic as interesting.

* It collapses all those users down to a single set of browser releases, making it cost-effective to target exploits to.

Use Firefox if you really like Firefox, but use the most recent version you can possibly get. Mozilla's is not the best-hardened browser.

Use Tor if you really believe in Tor. But use it explicitly, not as part of a browser bundle. Your choice of browser has a significant impact on your operational security; don't let a bunch of volunteers at Tor make that decision for you.

<comment><USER12> > But use it explicitly, not as part of a browser bundle.

I hope you're conflating two issues here.

You surely aren't recommending users who "believe in Tor" install Tor directly and attempt to manually proxy their favorite browser traffic over it?

Not to say I disagree with your points against using TBB.

<comment><USER13> I do this, using an up-to-date chromium browser proxied through Tor for regular browsing. I do this instead of the regular Tor browser on the theory that there's less potential for 0-day exploits.

Of course, this does compromise anonymity a bit in some respects, since there are probably few people who run chromium on Tor and because it's not as resistant to fingerprinting as the regular Tor browser. That's acceptable to me, as I only use that browser on Tor, and use another browser for things that could potentially leak my real identity.

<comment><USER14> It also opens you to many subtle mis-configuration bugs that would result in your anonymity being removed completely. Are you sure you're tunneling DNS over Tor? IPv6? Are you sure that Chromium isn't phoning home with your real IP?

Tor Browser (despite its many faults) has lots of patches that are applied in order to stop these sorts of leaks. If it takes the people who develop Tor to continually patch Firefox in order to make it actually anonymous, I would argue you have a worse chance of making it work properly.

<comment><USER12> > Are you sure that Chromium isn't phoning home with your real IP?

Especially given that Chromium does make startup queries to Google-owned servers. (Not sure about runtime.) Probably for perfectly reasonable usability and/or security reasons.

But I agree that Chromium manually proxied through Tor probably looks vastly superior to TBB when you do a benefit analysis. :)

Edit: added smiley to make what I'm saying slightly more obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well thank you, we love you muchhh

</comment><comment><USER16> Dear lord, Windows antivir protection has gone full stupid with this.

I am on Win10 and it will not allow me to install it in Program Files. If I install it in Desktop, it will keep flagging tor.exe as a virus.

After marking 4 times that the Windows Virus and Threat Protection should restore the exe, i was able to start the browser.

Then the windows antivir went full dystopian mode, and flagged it again. Now it is asking me to reboot the computer to delete tor.exe from the device.

</comment><comment><USER17> How is this better than Brave browser?

<comment><USER18> Sadly, most of the replies you've gotten are terribly biased or uniformed. It is a good question. I'm not connected to any of this, so this answer is solely from my own understanding.

For those that don't know, the Brave browser has Tor tabs, which route through Tor. It also has the standard private tabs. Tor support currently exists only on the desktop Brave browser.

Here is the announcement: [https://brave.com/tor-tabs- beta](https://brave.com/tor-tabs-beta)

Brave has been supporting Tor, and running Tor relays to improve the network.

Brave is newer at the game. They have had Tor tabs less than a year. They can do fingerprinting protection and no-script, but it's still a full featured web browser, with a lot of risks. The fingerprinting protection isn't as good as the Tor Browser, and unless they changed something, Javascript wasn't disabled by default in Tor tabs.

The Tor Browser has been around for a while and is meant to be a secure web browser from top to bottom. It has had a lot of development looking to find and fix possible leaks and to ensure security. That is its primary focus, and it is pretty good at it.

If you want to use Tor casually, maybe access an onion site, or just get a big boost in your level of privacy, the Tor tabs in Brave are a nice option. They are really easy to use and give great privacy. It is good for casual Tor use.

If you want (or need) serious privacy, the Tor Browser is a better choice. That is its purpose. It is developed to be hardened for protecting the user and it will provide better protection.

<comment><USER19> It is also based on Firefox, and when possible improvements it makes to Firefox feed back into regular Firefox, strengthening their position in an ever-less competitive browser market. Not something everyone cares about, but it could be relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I wish people used the deep web for something besides illegal buying and child pornography

<comment><USER14> Less than 3% of Tor traffic is to onion services of any kind (which means 97% is to websites already accessible on the public internet), and the most popular onion service on the internet by a large margin is Facebook's (facebookcorewwwi.onion). More than 2 million people use Tor every day -- are they all bad people? Heck, government agents use Tor when traveling abroad.

Do bad people do bad things using Tor? Yes. Do political dissidents in oppressive regimes use Tor? Yes.

However the vast majority of people are just ordinary citizens using Tor to access the internet -- the cross-section of Tor users is the same as the cross-section of ordinary internet users.

<comment><USER21> > the most popular onion service on the internet by a large margin is > Facebook's

How do you know? It shouldn't be possible to collect this sort of data.

<comment><USER22> Exit nodes can track which sites are hit to a degree. CDNs make this more difficult, but it's not too hard to figure out what percentage of your traffic is Facebook. It also won't work if you're going to the Facebook onion site of course.

<comment><USER14> Exit nodes aren't used like that for .onion sites, so they cannot track usage of .onion sites.

The way it works is that the client and server pick a "rendezvous node" (the server generates 6 HSDir entries, each with 3 random nodes every day, and the client picks a random HSDir entry and a random one of those node to use). Then, they communicate through the rendezvous node which doesn't know who the client or server are (because both are connected through Tor circuits and neither reveals the .onion URL that was looked up in the HSDir).

The way the statistics work is that some Tor relays opt-in to sharing statistics about how many HSDir lookups happened through them, and then those figures are extrapolated to figure out how many .onion service accesses happen. The relay doesn't know which service is being looked up, and the rendezvous node doesn't know which service is being talked to.

<comment><USER14> (Correction, 3 introduction points and the client picks the rendezvous point -- so even a compromised introduction point is useless because the node used for communication is different for all communications.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: DBoost stochastic gradient boosting via Ridge with random dummies - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mikeskim/dboost <comment><AUTHOR> I'd like feedback on if this algorithm is new or has been published before. I think it's new, but I've been wrong before on these types of issues. Thanks: Mike.</comment>


Eve: community-developed computer – sign-up - <AUTHOR> http://www.eve-tech.com <comment><USER2> Note: Behind the link is a join-only website.

It's just a Windows 10 tablet

[https://medium.com/@evedevices/eve-community-platform- where-...](https://medium.com/@evedevices/eve-community-platform-where- flagship-killer-windows-10-tablet-is-designed-by-end-users-544716a6a477)

<comment><USER3> The lack of bloatware would be something of value so I would not so quickly dismiss their effort even though the website contains hype.

The community forum is where the action seems to be happening:

[http://eve.community/](http://eve.community/)

<comment><USER4> You can get laptops/tablets without bloatware if you buy them directly from MSFT store as "Microsoft Experience" ones don't come with crap.

If you consider windows as bloatware to begin with then buying a Linux laptop (ubuntu usually) from companies like Dell is always an option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is Slaptop's (artist) logo shown on the website?</comment>


Joshua Boyle speaks of his family's five-year kidnapping ordeal - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/10/14/after-a-lifetime-in-captivity-the-children-of-joshua-boyle-and-caitlan-coleman-begin-to-heal.html <comment><USER2> Seriously, this was pretty horrific and I'm glad they are out, but who the fuck takes their pregnant wife into a war zone.

<comment><USER3> She isn't a pet – he didn't take her anywhere.

\</comment></comment><comment>----

She has agency, and as an expecting couple they decided to embark on this trip together.

Presumably. Unless you know more than us.

<comment><USER4> I agree with parent, it is foolish to take your pregnant wife on a trip through a warzone. The children suffered for a decision they were not old enough to make.</comment></comment>


The end of thumbnails and the future of the web. - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1718750/the-end-of-the-thumbnail?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+fastcompany/headlines+(Fast+Company+Headlines)

<comment><USER2> I want full-page photo ads to die.</comment>


Should Google switch to Wikipedia as its ranking function for the whole web? - <AUTHOR>

Google could use Wikipedia as a way to process queries to determine the sorts of non-Wikipedia web pages that should rank highly.
For example, when searching for "8 queens variants", Google might use the information here to determine which non-Wikipedia web pages to rank highly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_queens_puzzle#Related_problems
Do you think this would be a good idea? <comment><USER2> I think it would lead to more spam on Wikipedia. So no, it would be a bad idea.

Note that Wikipedia already discourage search engines from interpreting their links as endorsements (rel=nofollow) for precisely this reason.

<comment><USER3> Agreed with your point (although I wasn't aware of wp's nofollow rule).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are already multiple search algorithms that have been proposed that use Wikipedia to cluster and sort search results based on the relationships gathered from Wikipedia. They haven't been able to show any meaningful increase in search accuracy over Google's existing PageRank algorithm though.</comment>


Making More Outside The App Store - <AUTHOR> https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2017/02/10/piezos-life-outside-the-app-store/ <comment><USER2> I think there is an elephant in the room here, which is that app stores (Mac, iOS or otherwise), besides all the requirements for inclusion (sandboxing, approvals, etc.) have become massively unmanageable dumping grounds, full of junk that is very hard to sift through for the normal customer.

Yes, they afford some credibility, trust and security (even though evil devs are constantly pushing the envelope), but even simple mechanisms like search are fundamentally broken on Apple's stores.

And it's not just about devs gaming the keyword rankings (I see enough of that when my kids search for games). It's just hopeless.

So no wonder RogueAmoeba makes more money off the App Store. Even discounting other factors, their (rather specialized and very, very cool) apps are just easier to find via web search.

<comment><USER3> There is a massive irony in the fact that Google yields better search results for iOS and Mac apps than the AppStore.

I've gotten to the point where I use the AppStore only in absence of alternatives.

If Apple wanted to get more into services, the AppStores would be an obvious and easy way to demonstrate their ability and willingness to provide, if not valuable, then at least usable services. And all they do is botch it.

<comment><USER4> Agreed 100%. The only time I use the App Store is after I know which app I want to install. Discovery is still very poor if you want to find something that wasn't featured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> App stores for mobile phones were very convenient at start because they provided a safe gateway to curated content, and globally enhanced the quality of what independant developpers released. But now it's clearly a hindrance. I wish the european union would force Apple to enable the installation of other app store (distributing legal software of course) on their device.

Actually, a good start would be to have the "don't distribute an app that has the same feature as a preinstalled one" clause declared illegal.

<comment><USER6> And I hate that idea.

I get people in my life to buy ios devices precisely because, even when they try, they are unable to install malware. That is not a feature any other OS has. Particularly the over-easy access to sideloading on android.

Just last month my MIL managed to get her bank account password stolen because she used it on her PC and installed who knows what from one of those fake Microsoft support pop-over ads. The solution is to only access bank accounts on ios.

It's really a major selling point of the devices.

<comment><USER7> I think you're both right.

IOS (and to a large extent, android) have genuinely found an OS paradigm that works for unsophisticated users and put more power and confidence in their hands. The appstore is a big part of that. The icon=app rule is another part, where removing an icon removes the app. Users have a much improved understanding of their phone's software on an iphone relative to a windows/osx PC.

That said, it also limits the more sophisticated user and puts more power into Apple/Google's hands than I'd like.

It's 10 years later now and it's time to fill in some of the holes. Allowing alternative appstores would be a good start and wouldn't affect most users who are happy with the app store as is. Removing anti-competitive curation rules and practices would be good too.

<comment><USER8> Why would Apple give up their 30% margins? It makes no sense. Not until they're somehow forced into it, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For context, the app (Piezo) in question was removed from the Mac App Store (not the iOS App Store, as I first assumed on reading!) by its developers.

It's an audio recorder which can record audio from other apps. The App Store introduced a sandbox which prevented the app from working, but they got around that by simply not updating the app and thus retaining the ability to work outside the sandbox. However, other apps introduced changes which broke Piezo, and which needed a fix which couldn't be distributed via App Store, finally killing that methods of distribution.

[https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2016/02/12/piezo-1-5-arrives-...](https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2016/02/12/piezo-1-5-arrives- piezo-exits-the-mac-app-store/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I still search for apps with Google instead of in the App Store, even for iOS apps, since the App Store is such a terrible user experience (poor search, slow loading, glitchy, limited information compared to websites)

<comment><USER11> App Store sometimes fails to find the app I am looking for, even if I know the name of the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think one thing that might make a difference in this regard is inclusion in the brew Caskroom list .. I've installed more apps through 'brew cask' than through the Mac App Store, that is for sure, and usually its because I was able to quickly and easily search, locate and discover apps very rapidly with a simple 'brew search' .. its at the point where I consider inclusion in the Caskroom repo's more important than App Store submission at this point. I trust the community software collections a _lot_ more than the 'official Apple' channels, for some reason - I'm sure its not rational, but more just a fear of corporate control and the ultimate denigrating effect it has on the quality of software.

Plus there's the whole 'brew update && brew upgrade && brew cleanup && brew doctor' factor, that gives me - rightly or wrongly so - the impression that I have far more control over the software on my system than that granted me by the graces of Apple.

<comment><USER13> I use Cask a ton too. But we have to be in the huge minority. No one I've shown Cask to has ended up using it. I'm mainly talking about slightly above average techies or a few people who are comfortable with the cli. I doubt any paid software listed in Cask has their download numbers change by more than a few percent, if that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This post is about the Mac App Store, not the iOS App Store.

<comment><USER15> It took me several paragraphs of wondering how they circumvented the iOS restriction until I realized that. They really should have added "Mac" to the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Someone mentioned it in the page's comments, but I'm really surprised they didn't even caveat what they get for paying Apple 30% (much of this is redundant if they already sold outside of the App Store); download/update infrastructure, payment (and refunds), security (serial numbers and piracy protection), customer support and service support for those things. At least as an individual developer, that's all stuff I wouldn't want to deal with if I was shipping something.

Clearly, Apple has dropped the ball on making the App Store compelling. It's sad that a classic indie Mac app brand like Rogue Amoeba only offers one app (Fission) for sale in it.

<comment><USER17> I think Rogue Amoeba was already doing serial numbers etc. for their other products.

re Payments: Have you ever seen how easy Stripe is?

<comment><USER16> I did mention that selling apps both in and out of the store requires you to set up many of those things. I was just surprised they didn't even mention it as a caveat because the way the article is worded it sounds like not being in the App Store equals 30% extra profit.

I haven't used Stripe (but have heard good things), but it's still not free. With the App store you don't necessarily need a webpage and all of the costs associated with designing, deploying, and maintaining.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My main concern about releasing outside the app store is the security of licensing. The App Store takes care of that for you, but common licensing systems for Mac and Windows Desktop (like Nalpeiron) are quite expensive. And there would be significant developer time integrating them. Are there better alternatives? Perhaps it is not as hard as I imagine it to be to roll your own payment and licensing service?

The App Store is also good if you want to sell app subscriptions. That too would seem complicated to do on your own.

</comment><comment><USER19> PWAs are the future :)

<comment><USER8> Have you seen what kind of software Rogue Amoeba produces? They can barely make it work without kernel extensions, let alone browser APIs that would take years to develop and mature.

<comment><USER19> Sure, but apps like that aren't the majority :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> the mac is dead. i said it. downvote. i don't care. but it's dead and so is the app store.

i hear they're rewriting the entire app store backend, ditching web objects. but i'm having a hard time seeing them rebooting the bloody thing in some serious manner to adress the issues.

$200b to spend and just a few things don't get better. it's sad.

<comment><USER12> They have to compete with brew cask, in my opinion, and that's just not going to happen in a way that pushes the homebrew developers out of the market.

Much better to have community-curation than corporate-curation in my opinion.

<comment><USER21> What is competing with brew exactly ?

<comment><USER12> Having an open community which curates apps on a regular and consistent basis instead of a closed hegemony which doesn't have its users interests as a priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not sure about this. I feel safe and secure thanks to App Store. Won't download any app outside it.

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't feel safe and secure without "Little Snitch" installed. Don't look for it on the App Store, it will never be there.</comment></comment>


Gravity Kills Schrödinger's Cat - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gravity-kills-schroedinger-s-cat/ <comment><USER2> It's a real shame that cats became the canonical subject of macroscopic quantum mechanical thought experiments because they're just too damn complicated. The interesting case from the point of view of GR is not whether gravity causes the cat's state to collapse, but what happens to spacetime when a macroscopic object is in a superposition of position states. So the interesting thought experiment is not Shroedinger's cat, but Shroedinger's neutron star: you get a (really really big!) sealed box with a neutron star inside, and somehow arrange for it to evolve into a quantum superposition of position states. Then outside the box you send a beam of photons past the box. The photons are deflected gravitationally by the neutron star on one of two trajectories. You then recombine the two trajectories (without, of course, measuring the photons en route). The $64,000 question is: do you get an interference pattern?

<comment><USER3> You'd need the box to block gravity, and have a way of letting only your single photon pass through the box to interact with the system. Otherwise the star's position would have already been measured by past light being deflected.

The two photon paths would _not_ interfere with each other. The injected photon's resulting position is entangled with the star's position, meaning you could tell which leg of the interferometer the photon had taken by later opening the star box, so it acts analogous to putting a detector on one arm of an interferometer and you get no self-interference.

<comment><USER2> > Otherwise the star's position would have already been measured by past light > being deflected

Well, this is the interesting question, isn't it. We don't actually know what happens to spacetime when you get a macroscopic divergence like this because we only have access to this one universe, and no good theory of quantum gravity (yet). It's possible (for example) that there is only one spacetime for the wavefunction, and that what is currently called "dark matter" is really the result of macroscopic superpositions of states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Luboš Motl wrote about this: [http://motls.blogspot.co.at/2015/06/sitting-and- experiencing...](http://motls.blogspot.co.at/2015/06/sitting-and-experiencing- gravitational.html)

<comment><USER5> Caution that Lumo's site crashes Firefox. Could be due to the 25 or so trackers he employs or one of his plethora of bizarre adds or maybe the Ajax math typesetter he uses for notation.

<comment><USER4> Works fine here, Firefox 38.0.5 on OS X, no extensions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is the relevant quote:

        "But from a deep, fundamental point of view, this is
        nothing new," he says. A gravitational field is merely
        another environment to interact with, so invoking it
        does not explain whether quantum behaviour might lead to
        classical reality if gravity's influence were
        mitigated—for example, by doing the experiment in
        gravity-free space.

It's an interesting piece of work, but doesn't seem to add anything fundamental to the discussion of gravity and QM. It just shows how gravity can result in decoherence if different parts of the wavefunction experience different clock rates due to gravitational fields.

<comment><USER7> I don't know the technical details but how would "different parts of the wavefunction experience different clock rates due to gravitational fields" ever not be the case?

Every particle in the universe is acted upon by every other particle, via gravity, so does this not mean that every particle, in some small capacity, "observes" every other particle?

<comment><USER8> AFAIK, the force of gravity propagates at light-speed, so every particle in the universe is not being acted upon by every other particle in the universe via gravity, because the distance between some particles is increasing faster than that due to the expansion of the universe.

<comment><USER9> All that means is that movements of particle A and thus changes in its gravitational field now will never reach particle B, which is so far away that the relative expansion rate is c or more. However the historical gravitational field of Particle A, the part of its field that is within particle B's light cone, will always affect particle B.

<comment><USER10> What if the light cones of A and B don't intersect at all? There are certainly places in the universe so far apart that light not only can't now, but could never, have travelled from one to the other; that is part of why the near- isotropy of background radiation is something that needs to be explained, I thought.

<comment><USER9> Are there regions of the universe that have never been causally connected? They all originated in the same event, so I'd be surprised if that's true, but I'm no expert. I know cosmic inflation during the big bang was superluminal, but I have to concede I'm not completely familiar with the consequences of that, so good point.

<comment><USER10> Indeed, the fact that they are moving apart at superluminal speeds is exactly _why_ they have never been causally connected. The fact that such non-causally connected islands still "look the same" is called the horizon problem ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon_problem)), and it is one of the issues that Guth's inflation might solve ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)#Horizon_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_\(cosmology\)#Horizon_problem)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The title of the article makes a claim that we don't know is actually true, as evidenced by the article explaining how we might test this in the future.

It's entirely possible that gravity doesn't reveal information about quantum state, and instead is derived from the superposition of states.</comment>


Show HN: WebRTC with shared pointers and microphone to read books - <AUTHOR> https://www.appblit.com/bookcafe <comment><USER2> This would be awesome if we could upload books!</comment>


Ask HN: Learn a programming language in a foreign language - <AUTHOR>

I've been looking around for a Japanese version of SICP to improve my Japanese and learn Scheme at the same time. Has anybody else here tried this? Tried to improve your ability in a foreign language by studying a subject in that language? How successful were you? Do you think it's a bad idea?<p>P.S. If you know of where I could find the full text of SICP in Japanese it'd be great if you could post it. <comment><USER2> I don't think this works well with technical topics, unless you are a very advanced speaker looking to expand your vocabulary into a technical field. Technical instructional material uses a very narrow slice of a language's vocabulary and grammar.

I worked in China for six months with an office full of guys who could discuss complicated security architecture, race conditions, closures and all kinds of advanced technical topic in English, but couldn't have a social conversation above the third-grade level. It made for a lot of silent lunches. You can see a similar phenomenon at international specialist conferences.

I think the suggestion to read young adult fiction is excellent. Just be prepared to feel humble.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've done this a lot, but specifically with novels, and more specifically, with action novels aimed at 14 year old boys.

There's a reason for this. The hardest vocabulary to memorise are the small words. The longer words are less common, and often share a root with the English (this is less true for Japanese, Thai, _etc_ ) Small words turn up more frequently in prose, so when reading a novel you get drilled on them more often.

Studying a technical work in a foreign language is something I've not tried - it's an interesting idea - but I personally would have trouble dealing with both issues at once - the language and the material.

Will you blog to let us know your progress?</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I find new clients as a freelancer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> For me its all about using contacts I already have. I've been trading for over 2 years and haven't had a single job come through that wasn't either an existing friend or a friend of theirs. Keep in touch with people. Talk about your projects. Things crop up, just not instantly. Depends where you are in your career. If you are just starting out then this may not work, but chances are you cna find a route to finding contacts. A local co-working space might make sense for a few months, or local business seminars. Again, depends on what industry you're operating in.</comment>


Old school Facebook interview.  - <AUTHOR> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6596533/site/newsweek

<comment><AUTHOR> just to give encouragement to all budding hackers out there...Take a simple idea, execute well, and have belief

</comment><comment><USER2> This is great, thanks.</comment>


William Shatner kicked off Google+ for 'saying hello' too much - <AUTHOR> http://blastr.com/2011/07/william-shatner-kicked-of.php

<comment><USER2> "Dammit Jim, you're a celebrity, not a Wal-Mart greeter"</comment>


The Story of Cap & Trade and why it does not work - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM&feature=player_embedded# <comment><USER2> Wow, just wow. Talk about slanted reporting. First, let me just quote one line from the video. "When it comes to any kind of financial scam, like sub-prime mortgages..." Uh, what? Sub-prime mortgages aren't a scam at all. Were they risky? Yes. Were they a scam or illegal? No. Were they securitized in a manner that distorted their value? Maybe. That has nothing to do with the underlying mortgage itself, and really is more reliant on interactions between banks, credit rating agencies, and shadow bank counterparties. This video loses all credibility to me at that point. The cap and trade is not a financial "scam." Yes, there are incentives that are given out to get people to sign on to the system. Yes, the incentives suck. Yes, it would be great if there would be a better way to get all countries to sign on. A carbon tax is one option, but there too we will need to add a ridiculous list of compromises to get countries like china or india to sign on. In absence of a better alternative, the cap and trade is a start. Details will need to be worked out, and some incentives may fall by the way side. The important thing however, is to do SOMETHING, and it is my opinion that this is the best option available at this time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't want to sound cynical, but what doesn't work is the producction of oil via using tar sands and polluting most of Canada's MidWest.</comment>


Tell HN: ATT apparently plans to charge for Netflix use - <AUTHOR>

I was speaking to a representative at ATT yesterday, and they told me that the company is going to start charging extra for the use of services like Netflix and Hulu on their network.
I realize that I have no "proof" of this other than hearsay from a (currently) 432 karma (or whatever it's called on HN) user, but it was a higher-level representative that informed me of this plan.
I just wanted to let everyone know what I was told. ATT is definitely not in favor of "net neutrality". <comment><USER2> I doubt it. This would more effectively be achieved by just creating tiered plans (e.g., 2 GB, 100 GB, unlimited).

Am I the only one that doesn't have a problem with tiered Internet access? I see nothing unreasonable about letting a grandmother that only uses Facebook pay less than somebody that watches 3 hours of Netflix a day.

<comment><USER3> Regardless of the system in place they will put it to work to extract as much money from people as possible. A tiered system only gives them a few more parameters to tweak to aid this goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think I would take everything CSR says with a grain of salt. Within ATT they are probably near the last to know of any official policy change. My hunch is that it's just a rumor.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention "charge extra for Netflix" could also mean they are working on some sort of agreement with Netflix whereby AT&T resells the service as part of some package.

Let's enumerate the possible ways this could be wrong:

1\. The OP is lying to us or misremembering the discussion with the rep.

2\. The OP misunderstood the rep's explanation of the new policy.

3\. The rep was lying to the OP.

4\. The rep misunderstood the new policy or thought there was a new policy when there wasn't.

5\. The rep was reporting something that he felt was likely but didn't actually have any evidence for.

6\. The rep thought the OP was a clueless non-technical user and said what he did so the OP didn't think Netflix was free.

There is no reason whatsoever to post this (or vote it up) without evidence. Of course it's just a rumor. That's what rumor _means_ , a story without evidence. I know I'm supposed to say this, but I flagged it, and I hope other users will do the same. Do we really want an HN of people posting theories unsupported by even the slightest shred of evidence?

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here!

It was one of the escalation reps, not just a tier one phone monkey.

Their quote was (more or less) "while we currently don't charge extra to use Netflix on our network, that will change in the near future".

I HOPE that the rep misunderstood the wording of a new agreement where you can bundle Netflix and/or Hulu with your ATT subscription or something similarly benign.

It's not explanations 1, 2, or 6. We had a pretty long discussion about ATT's services including the technical aspects.

I put "apparently" in the title because I wanted it to be clear that it was based on what a rep _told me_ rather than something that was in the ATT earnings report or shareholder meeting (if such a thing exists).

I appreciate your use of logic in the response!

<comment><USER6> Which service? Wireless? Home internet?

<comment><AUTHOR> uverse internet

<comment><USER6> Ok, I still think it's highly unlikely, but that makes more sense than with wireless. On wireless they're moving to contract-free plans (bring your own device setup, basically), and there are too many options in most areas. Unless competitors did the same thing, T-mobile is just one SIM card away, and Verizon (with some phones) may not require a new phone.

For uverse, they do have fewer direct competitors. But, at least for me, I didn't mind ditching cable for slower DSL when their service (despite the speed difference) became too expensive. DSL is still fast enough for Hulu/Netflix/Steam game downloads. People will vote with their feet if they're tasked with spending $x extra a month for a service they already pay for (unless this is a bundle of some sort).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>