Google Has Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/google-has-quietly-dropped-ban-on-personally-identifiable-web-tracking <comment><USER2> The marketers and advertisers have finally won. Google hasn't been an engineering company for the last 5 years maybe, but this confirms it. It's like Facebook, they're beholden to the non-developers and non-software engineers who frankly don't care about other people's privacy and only see the dollar bills.

So glad I'm evaluating other email providers and use Privoxy for ad-blocking.

<comment><USER3> This isn't a neat split along the lines of "All developers good, all marketers bad". What has won here is the pressure to grow, and the acceptance of society and governments to let them do it by any means. We are all complicit in this.

<comment><USER4> True, it's time to make a change and start educating family and friends about this issue and the alternatives.

I always believed Google was successful because it was pushed and advocated for by geeks, I feel that those days are coming to an end.

I use DDG and I think it's a pretty solid alternative, although it requires a little more effort when looking for certain things. Non-tech types have been curious about why I don't use Google, they seem to be getting the tracking is not good thing.

<comment><USER5> > I always believed Google was successful because it was pushed and advocated > for by geeks, I feel that those days are coming to an end.

Those days ended the day Google went public, and quite possibly well before then.

<comment><USER6> I think the change happened when Eric Schmidt left and Larry Page gave his "more wood behind fewer arrows" speech, which meant engineers down product managers up.

<comment><USER7> Maybe, but I want more details on what exactly is happening though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Earlier:

      We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with your
      personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in
      consent.

Now:

      Depending on your account settings, your activity on other
      sites and apps may be associated with your personal information
      in order to improve Google's services and the ads delivered by
      Google.

So opt-in becomes opt-out.

<comment><USER9> To opt out, or "Pause" as Google is tellingly calling it, from the article:

       To opt-out of Google's identified tracking, visit the
       Activity controls[1] on Google's My Account page, and
       uncheck the box next to "Include Chrome browsing history
       and activity from websites and apps that use Google
       services." You can also delete past activity from your
       account.

[1] [https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

<comment><USER10> Mine was already unchecked.

<comment><USER11> Mine was unchecked but the same settings on my phone were on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd just like to draw people's attention to a little bit of conflict-of- interest research some Stanford University researchers published a few years ago:

 _Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. For example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for cellular phone is "The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention", a study which explains in great detail the distractions and risk associated with conversing on a cell phone while driving. This search result came up first because of its high importance as judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the web [Page, 98]. It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers._

[http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html](http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html)

<comment><USER13> This really is an important point.

Somehow in this new age of technology companies we have forgotten that corporations, in the long run, will always converge on what is most profitable, regardless of the values of their founding team, who will eventually retire or have their influence diminished.

For that reason, I always pay more attention to a company's incentives than I do what they say about values. If a company derives the vast majority of their income showing me targeted ads, I can expect that that will take priority over any notion of privacy, and we all know that privacy is the bane of targeted advertising. Unless there is some seismic shift in Google's core business in the next several years, we should only expect more moves like this.

And as we head into the new era of "intelligent personal assistants," let's keep in mind which companies are pushing this most aggressively: two ad companies and one that wants us to make it easier (perhaps even not a conscious activity?) to buy things from them. It does not take a lot of imagination to see what these assistants are most interested in assisting us with.

That's why, for all of the valid criticisms of them, I still use Apple products. I'm just more comfortable with their incentives, which are, as of now, mostly to sell me shiny new hardware. Sure, this has led them to do some things that annoy me like lock down their iMessage platform so I can't use it to communicate with my Android-using friends. Still I'll take that sort of behavior over a wholesale disregard for my privacy.

<comment><USER12> Someday someone should write a modern Faust based on Brin and Page.

Yes. Incentives matter. Google thought they could ride the tiger. The tiger's riding them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > "Some new features for your Google account."

Oh, yeah, I remember that. I totally clicked "Ok, whatever."

How does one not be herded like cattle by the corporations, without making a full time job of resisting it?

<comment><USER15> Well, my wife and I just ordered dumb phones and an AWS 2FA key fob (remember those?) which will be here this weekend, we're selling all our screens except one family PC. I sold off my Oculus Rift and gaming PC a month ago. We're going to have to buy a flashlight, GPS or maybe just a map book, calculator, a CD player, a Blu-Ray burner, a day planner, a wristwatch, a kitchen timer, get a library card, a shared calendar on the wall, and we'll go from there. I'm excited but also nervous about it. A few months ago I spent 90% of my free time staring at a screen. I yelled at my wife if god forbid she wanted to spend time with me and not just shut up and watch whatever video game I was playing.

I figure it's a start.

<comment><USER16> I admire your dedication and would be interested in hearing more about your experiment in the future. Maybe some kind of update in the future here on HN?

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the kind words. I was with a group of developers in person last night and mentioned this plan casually and was amazed by how many questions everyone had. I'm start to feel like this disconnect is, paradoxically, going to result in me spending more time on social media talking about and setting up meetup groups with like minded people. I don't want to bury my head in the sand, and I'm not a Luddite – I just want to be more intentional about how I'm spending my time and go to sleep happy with how I've spent my day.

HN was a big part of the inspiration [0] and the few articles I've read about Tristan Harris have filled me with a desire to reclaim my life. We're in sort of a planning stage right now and are realizing there's quite a few things we're going to have to buy, which seems intimidating, but it'll be nice that my egg timer or flashlight won't become out of date in a few years. I was looking at a wristwatch [1] I feel embodies how I'm feeling I should live life lately. It seems a little silly at first but it really struck me as a timepiece that makes a particular statement.

We don't form memories of what life was like at 12:07 PM or 12:09 PM, at most we need to know the general time of day. I feel like even the exact time of day might be too much information. I've started checking email at work once a day and disabled the always visible clock in OSX and have yet to have any issues with this. If someone really needs me real time they'll come talk to me or send me a message on Slack.

I'm thinking about blogging about my experience, but it feels like that might be against the spirit of what I'm trying to accomplish. Then again blogging is a different sort of communication than writing 144 character responses, and may be appropriate to get the word out.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12678325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12678325) [1] [https://www.slow-watches.com/](https://www.slow-watches.com/)

<comment><USER17> Sharing your experience is a great idea. But I can see your concern with blogging it. Maybe just write in a physical notebook instead?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A recent podcast (TAL? Radiolab?) just discussed the retreats Google has made over time with respect to privacy and intrusive advertising. I tried to find it - someone have a link? This very much continues the theme. It is important to note how much Sergey and Larry hated advertising and the belief they held that any advertising based search engine would inherently corrupt itself.

<comment><USER19> [http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/10/17/498...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/10/17/498237314/how- free-web-content-traps-people-in-an-abyss-of-ads-and-clickbait)

They say what your last sentence said, so I'm guessing this is the podcast you're thinking of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm curious what bothers people most about the privacy issues?

Strangely I don't care that Google (and others) know about me. I probably should but I have just sorted have accepted the lack of privacy today.

What really bothers me isn't the privacy its them using that data to create a completely unfair advantage to continue the oligopoly that is quickly consuming all markets.

I used to be such a capitalist but as of the last few years watching what companies will continue to do to not just grow but grow exponentially with unfair and unethical leverage in every direction.

I'm curious if others share that feeling or is that just me. Or is it just invasion of privacy?

<comment><USER21> I do too.

People tend to want decentralised alternatives partly for privacy, partly for competition, partly for resilience (hurricanes, wars).

Lots of arts people I speak too also talk about cultural diversity - the lack of competition is part of that.

Capitalism has always been regulated. More than 10% of any market used to mean a monopoly. It should still.

There's nothing wrong with capitalism. What's wrong is the weird idea that a democratic state shouldn't/doesn't regulate it to stop extreme outcomes.

I run Redecentralize which is where I've got the needs from [http://redecentralize.org/about/](http://redecentralize.org/about/)

<comment><USER12> Do you have a reference on that 10% = monopoly definition?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For people who didn't read the article but want to opt out of this tracking:

 _To opt-out of Google's identified tracking, visit the Activity controls on Google's My Account page, and uncheck the box next to "Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services. " You can also delete past activity from your account._

Links from that paragraph:

* Activity controls: [https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

* My account page: [https://myaccount.google.com/](https://myaccount.google.com/)

* Delete past activity: [https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/465](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/465)

</comment><comment><USER23> Looking at the My Activity details is actually pretty creepy. Starting today working backwards, Google includes "Used Phone," "Used [my launcher]," "contacted [messaging site]," "Used [alarm clock app]," several overnight repeats of the messaging site when I received alerts, my Chrome-based website visits from yesterday, my foray into Android Settings yesterday, etc.

It all serves to make me happy that I'm using Firefox with uMatrix as my daily driver, and only use Chrome (with uBlock Origin) for the rare things that I can't get to load properly because of all the cross-site dependencies.

<comment><USER24> Using firefox? Did you tick "Send analysis data to Mozilla"? If yes, Mozilla has the very same information about your browsing habits and all clicks and actions you performed in Firefox too.

It's just that Google shows it to you, rather than not telling you anything.

Any sufficiently big Android/iOS app has the very same system in place so that they can see what people are doing with their app and anticipate interesting features, down to the location of your finger when you touched that button, the wifis you were seeing at the time, the battery level etc.

Admitedly though, Google has such a wide reach in all your day-to-day life that they gather an immense amount of data.

But don't be fooled, anyone else is also doing it. And they are far less open about it.

<comment><USER25> > Using firefox? Did you tick "Send analysis data to Mozilla"? If yes, Mozilla > has the very same information about your browsing habits and all clicks and > actions you performed in Firefox too.

That is blatantly false. The policy page here describes what is sent for each data feature in Firefox:

[https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/privacy/firefox/)

Mozilla does not have tracking cookies scattered through-out the web tracking you. Google via Google Ad's and Doubleclick does (as does Facebook via their social features).

Neither the Chrome browser nor Firefox sends "your browsing habits and all clicks and actions you performed" to their respective companies. If you turn on History sync, the clients encrypt all this data before uploading.

Disclaimer: I work at Mozilla.

edit: Chrome _can_ send all history unencrypted to Google if you ask it to, under Privacy Checkup, Web & Web App Activity: "Include Chrome browsing history and activity from websites and apps that use Google services". Supposedly this is to make the search more relevant. This was unchecked for me by default though.

<comment><USER26> > Chrome can send all history unencrypted to Google if you ask it to, under > Privacy Checkup, Web & Web App Activity: "Include Chrome browsing history > and activity from websites and apps that use Google services". Supposedly > this is to make the search more relevant. This was unchecked for me by > default though

Starting today, that is on by default, and existing users get a screen asking them to enable it – I just got it pushed to my Android phone, asking me to enable that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Google seems no better than Facebook when it comes to privacy, and I'm not just talking about how far they're willing to go in tracking users, but also how they are willing to _lie_ and violate their users' trust so they can collect more data.

Facebook is now getting into trouble in the EU for breaking their promise about not sharing WhatsApp data, and yet Google still goes ahead and does this. I hope the European Commission adds this as one more charge against Google.

Without real enforcement the companies will continue to do whatever the hell they want.

<comment><USER28> And when that happens every American on HN will go "look at that old crusty EU, getting in the way of progress again with their bloated regulations".

<comment><USER29> The free market fallacy.

<comment><USER28> I'm starting to hate the word "fallacy". What's the free market fallacy? The idea that not everything that's driven by free market is great? Why call that a fallacy, why not just call it being wrong?

<comment><USER29> A fallacy is really any argument that is wrong because of wrong assumptions or faulty logic, but leads to a believable result anyway. The free market fallacy is a fallacy because people who believe the free market solves problems base this claim on the assumption that human beings are rational and have access to all information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Cool.

Yes they deliberatly block chrome extension on mobile chrome, as then ublock usage on mobile would explode. Together with myth of mobile ads.

Do not evil. Riiiight. As long as it does not hamper our profit.

<comment><USER31> On mobile, rooting and using a hosts file to block malicious/ad domains is better anyway.

<comment><USER26> If you root, you won't be able to use Android Pay (an advertised feature of the device) anymore due to the recent changes to SafetyNet that now trigger if even the bootloader isn't locked.

<comment><USER31> Well, we have root access. Can't we completely stump and destroy this stupid safety net? This should have a very high priority for anyone who cares about open smartphone systems.

There should be a safety net remover that simply strips all safety net API calls off a program and inserts all valid flags by default.

<comment><USER26> The issue is the way it happens.

SafetyNet actually sends its results to a Google server, which validates that they're properly signed, and then sends a message to the backend of the app.

The only way to successfully break it is by emulating or replacing SafetyNet on the device, but as part of it runs in TrustZone, that's not easily possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is why we need the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Article 8 covers personal data, and can blocks things like this.

</comment><comment><USER33> [Disclaimer: shameless plug, and also previously announced as a Show HN a while back]

I would like to mention my search engine as another privacy-focused alternative: [https://solveforall.com/](https://solveforall.com/)

1) Does not track user activity. Hosted in Canada. 2) Does not leak referrer to visited sites 3) No ads. Will be considering affiliate links, a paid API, and/or "good" ads -- ads people want that don't compromise privacy 4) Integrated feed reader which also provides search results 5) Activation codes (like DDG bangs, so ?g instead of !g) 5) Plugins written in JS/data to be searched can be added at any time. 6) Deep search -- get results from the search results page of several sites at a time. Try [https://solveforall.com/answers.do?q=rx+480&client.kind=web&...](https://solveforall.com/answers.do?q=rx+480&client.kind=web&type=answers&engines=107&depth=1)

There clearly a lot more work to be done, and I plan on open sourcing this soon, but please try it out and let me know any feedback you have!

<comment><USER34> The UI on the left side could use some work. I followed your link, search for Ars Technica and then spent about a minute trying to figure out why it was showing me electronics. Everything feels just a bit too large and control information should probably all be above the page (at least a summary.)

<comment><USER33> Excellent feedback, thank you! I will work on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I use google and have chosen to give up a lot of my privacy to use their services.

One thing I was never willing to do though, and I had an instant emotional reaction to _not_ doing, was allowing them access to all my email.

They can have my GPS coordinates at all times, my web search history, etc, but they can't get into the inner workings of my life and my thoughts.

So back before I had any real use for it I just registered firstname.lastname@example.com and used that for my email address. It felt like a natural move. It does bother me still that a lot of the people I email do use gmail, so google still ends up siphoning of a lot of the contents of my email.

I see a lot of people talking about FastMail instead of GMail, but I don't know why more geeks don't register their own domain name which has several advantages (including looking better and more professional). The one downside is that mail search sucks. I'd love to get some decent search without giving up privacy somehow.

<comment><USER36> FastMail has incredibly good domain name configuration for custom domains. I just set it up this week. The problem is most users don't have the skill or time to manage a well-maintained email service. I'd like to, but the risk of losing important email is too critical to risk. (Even making the cutover to FastMail, I was super nervous!) And unlike Google, FastMail has a strong privacy strategy.

But what I did do, about a year ago, was move my email usage over to an address at my own domain, which was then forwarded to Gmail. By lessening the references to my Gmail account, it made it easy to switch elsewhere. ...I just repointed my domain to FastMail's email service.

And because I control the domain name people send email to me on, it's easy for me to move it again in the future if I have a problem with FastMail or find something better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> More and more changes that do not bode well for google, first they changed it to where they can track what numbers you dial, then they tried that with your google chrome history and tabs if you synced it to your account and now this? People wondered why i stopped being a google evangelist after 2014.

<comment><USER22> Do you, or anyone else here, know of a good, privacy-conscious personal information management system? Other than Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, or Apple?

Having a system that manages such critical info in a seamless way is huge. I'm acutely aware that free services are not truly "free," so if there is a good alternative that has a reasonable premium subscription plan, I would seriously consider it.

<comment><USER37> No the thing is i've had to learn all of this the hard way. using opera with a custom sync phrase, as well as using the opt-out addons that google provides. Canvas blocker, Ublock origin, and cleanlinks to get rid of the UTM strings on links. Oh and not using chrome whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is yet another reminder that it's important, especially for HN readers, to continue to give support to groups such as Mozilla and their Firefox platform. The more widespread Google and Chrome usage is, the more Google can push these changes with little to no resistance.

<comment><USER39> I wish I could pay Mozilla to host my custom domain e-mail, encrypted files and any other services they could offer

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Just to give you and idea of how big of a deal this is, go to [https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity](https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity) and check what third parties could learn from you, with your name on it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Like I have told under other similar discussions. Something in ToS has no relevance if data is collected. If data is collected then it will eventually be used (against you).

<comment><USER42> That's a good point: is this change retroactive (will old data be associated)?

<comment><USER43> Consider the path of least resistance - is it easier to just take one action across data, or multiple actions based on data age, user opt-in, and EULAs? Engineers are lazy, after all, and it's fairly easy to change an EULA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Does anyone know the specifics of Google's privacy practices for G Suite (formerly Google Apps for business)? They claim no advertising, but do they use your data for anything else, and do they still build shadow profiles? If you're already buying 1 TB of storage for Google Drive, then you can instead sign up for the $10 month G Suite plan and get 1 TB of storage with ad free versions of their apps.

<comment><USER45> It says so in their TOS, but if you're wearing your tinfoil hat you have no reason to believe that they're honest about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I think duckduckgo often becomes an alternative that isn't an alternative, in the sense yes its there, you are frustrated with Google's behavior and you persist for a whole day and then have to revert back to Google with tail behind legs so it's more of an alternative in name.

With the sheer scope of Google properties there is always going to be a tempation for 'value searchers' within the organization to give in to dark patterns and compromise users. I have been trying Yandex search and email and its fairly decent. Email is good, search appears to be a much more serious offering compared to duckduckgo but still some way to go.

However we need diversity and decentralization to prevent concentration and inevitable abuse of power.

<comment><USER4> To be honest DuckDuckGo is fine, you just need to put a little extra effort in. I'll admit it takes some getting used to but I happily use it now.

Also as others have stated the 'sp!' bang is handy.

<comment><USER47> StartPage is a mystery to me; they say they're "enhanced by Google", but what does Google get out of providing their search results to a competitor?

<comment><USER48> Also heard rumors about StartPage being very shady. Would be nice to get some confirmation on this or to learn that it was only a campaign by competitors. Google for "StartPage malware" ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I expect google will experience outages >15 minutes for core services in the comung months. This is based on significant uptick in ddos sophistication, this has been referenced by Schneier-- although not in ref to Goog.

If changes like this announcement convince people to move away; I am all for it. This just proves not only their power, but the danger of a single point of failure.

<comment><USER50> That is the opposite of my prediction. I predict that as ddos attacks become larger and more sophisticated, only Google and a handful of other huge operators will be left standing.

<comment><USER51> Realistically, if it reaches that point, why wouldn't the first response be action on the part of ISP and backbone providers? I get that right now it would be extremely difficult and expensive, but at a point where DDoS has a significant effect on the market share of a company like Google, I feel like something would have to be done.

<comment><USER49> > why wouldn't the first response be action on the part of ISP and backbone > providers?

Schneier points out that these have the shape of probing attacks and are executed across multifaceted services at the micro & macro level. I feel like something _needs_ to be done now. There is, I am sure, a fix but with something like Dyn and other major cloud management, infrastructure, ISP and backbone companies are getting seriously worked over. There is a saturation point.

The attackers have capabilities to hit so many different pieces of exposed surface area, that for small networks/apps/services/companies they are unable to be repelled. In between small companies and Google tier service, some can repel attacks, but they still cede some uptime and performance.

Cloudflare has released some insane reports and when you have motivated powerful attackers striking key pieces of core internet infrastructure, to some extent, you have to consider the entire system is under hostile attack.

> but at a point where DDoS has a significant effect on the market share of a > company like Google

I am certainly a layman here, but none of the targets made a choice today to be vulnerable. I am sure the entire chain is rapidly reinvesting and hardening the infrastructure, but this should have probably been done years ago. In between when the companies are pouring resources out (I suspect they are now) and when they gain enough of an understanding to withstand these attacks, there will be downtime. I think google will get hit soon. It was reported that a google core outage of ~15 minutes deadzoned about 40% of America's internet traffic. Even knocking google out for ~1-2 hours would show 2008 what too big to fail means. If google DNS, Chrome, google search, gmail, google apps, hosting, dns, ISP all activities ceased for 2 hours things would get bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I've already stopped using Chrome on my computers and phone. Getting pretty close to dropping them into my hosts file.

</comment><comment><USER53> Is it enough to install adblock on the router level? This would in theory block all domains tracking and serving adverts.

<comment><USER8> You could also try [https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts) to block ads. Quoting from the description:

      Extending and consolidating hosts files from a variety of
      sources like adaway.org, mvps.org, malwaredomains.com,
      someonewhocares.org, yoyo.org, and potentially others. You can
      optionally invoke extensions to block additional sites by
      category.

<comment><USER53> Great to see an updated hosts file. I've and others have been saying, routers need an easier configuration method. Preferably through an app and common API across firmware and manufacturers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Log out of Google. Now. And delete all their cookies. Consider deleting your Google account. Put your mail on an IMAP server. Your ISP probably offers one.

(I don't use a Google account. My last login to Google was in 2015, and that was to update a browser add-on.)

<comment><USER45> Your ISP probably offers the most basic mail setup you can build with the lowest effort. Your ISP as no reason to give a world class mail service because that's not something they're good at or that they could make money from. It's just one something they think is expected nowadays. I don't think this is wise advice from a privacy point of view, considering your ISP knows all your internet habits including all your connections to any service you'll ever use and that most ISPs don't have your interests in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Isn't Google moving aggressively to fingerprint-based browser tracking instead of cookies?

<comment><USER28> Possibly, but even right now when you open Chrome (non-incognito) you immediately get three google analytics cookies set, which are picked up by any website using google analytics (i.e. almost every website). If you put this together with the fact that Chrome knows about Google Account sessions, you conclude that Google is already keeping track of everything that you, as an individual, does online and has been for many years, even without fingerprinting.

<comment><USER55> I was thinking of the non-logged-in Google accounts with ad blocker case not being privacy protecting any more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> So there are a lot of talk about using DuckDuckGo instead of Google but I'm wondering if anyone have considered using Bing as a middle ground?

Sure they track you but in my understanding they actually suck at it. :)

</comment><comment><USER57> > If you want to permanently opt out of the DoubleClick cookie, you can > install the DoubleClick opt out extension.

</comment><comment><USER58> I sometimes wonder if why it is generally held that marketing sucks and advertisements are evil because they're so random, badly targeted and thus crappy.

I basically wouldn't mind seeing advertisements if they were relevant and spot on. And that probably hasn't been possible until all that big data is cross- indexed with user identities.

It may be that ads are considered bad because good ads happen once in a thousand.

</comment><comment><USER59> You have to be logged-in for the opt-out to be effective... so now they know exactly who you are...

</comment><comment><USER60> Don't be evil. Not all at once.

</comment><comment><USER61> Does this apply to paid accounts', _e.g._ businesses', data?

</comment><comment><USER62> That's weird. I guess they like making money.

</comment><comment><USER63> Bait and switch?

</comment><comment><USER64> google.com

</comment><comment><USER7> Also recommend that you read [https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Bo88vgre...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/Bo88vgre8Nw) , particularly the comments.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12483805](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12483805)

I was trying to figure out what was happening.

<comment><USER65> [https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/archive/](https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/archive/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> What are the best alternative email services with a privacy focus?

<comment><USER67> Maybe not the answer you were looking for, but self-hosting email can be a fun challenge.

Lavabit had a privacy focus and look what happened to them.

<comment><USER66> That is what I was thinking.

Right now I am debating an on premise email server or something on aws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> That diff in the article, does anyone know where it comes from?

<comment><USER68> Google offers it themselves: [https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/archive/](https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/archive/)

Click on "comparison" to see the changes between versions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> When I read announcements like these I actually get a bit hopeful. These companies seem somewhat scared, and their funding bases more fragile than they let on.

</comment><comment><USER70> As for now, there is no viable alternative to Google. There is no distributed, free independent search engine that provides such quality relevant search results as Google, and is caring for users privacy.

I do not think either it is financially possible to run such a thing, without someone's vested interest in metadata behind such possible endeavour. There is silent demand for such an effort however.

UPD: I know about DuckDuckGo, but look: [https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market- share.as...](https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market- share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=1)</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't you write functional tests? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious why some developers don't write functional* tests for their apps. My theory is that really smart & small teams just starting out probably don't feel the need. But when they get bigger, and have real revenue, users, and reputation on the line, they get serious about end-to-end testing.
But am I wrong?
Why don't you write end-to-end tests?
* I'm making a distinction between unit tests (e.g. no db/disk access, no I/O) and functional tests (e.g. full end-to-end test including the full server and web browser or mobile app)
(disclosure: I created a functional testing tool and started a testing-focused company.) <comment><USER2> My experience has been that functional tests are excellent and discovering that "something" is wrong, but less good at finding _what_ is actually broken.

Say my "log in" test fails: OK, I know auth is broken... but what part of it? Is there some JavaScript hijacking the form submission? Is my login view busted? Do I have an error in my authorization system itself? Is the LDAP server I'm authorizing against down? Has someone changed the schema? Etc., etc., etc.

I _do_ find functional tests to be a pretty valuable part of my testing toolkit, but unit tests seem to get me a bigger "bang for my buck", so functional tests tend to be something I don't spend a ton of time working on.

(I wish I _did_ write more functional tests, but clearly they're not valuable enough for me to prioritize them. Otherwise I'd already be using 'em more.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Jacob. :-) Follow-up question: Do you do monitoring in production? Does it have the same issues in that it tells you that /something/ is broken, but doesn't tell you what's broken?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Most of my "unit tests" are functional by your criteria, at least as far as things like file I/O and database access are concerned. Maintain a reasonable separation between UI and the rest of your code, and this remains fairly straightforward even without any tool more fancy than xUnit and a collection of SQL scripts to automatically set up your test database. I've also found it easier in many cases to maintain a single parameterized test loop along with a library of sample data and corresponding "expected results" than lots of little tests in code. This is especially true in situations where you're changing code (and adding tests) directly in response to specific inputs your system failed to handle. And you can frequently re-use the same test loop on larger collections of sample data for other sorts of testing.

More comprehensive testing including multiple servers, client user interfaces, and so on, tends to be labor intensive to set up and maintain even _with_ good tool support, so here I suspect most of the answers boil down to time and money.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a big fan of unit & functional testing. One reason for not writing functional tests though is that they are way harder to write than unit tests (assuming that your unit tests are relatively straightforward because your code is well factored)

I always find starting functional tests, especially in a new area of your program, to be a tremendous exercise. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. For example, last week we moved on to writing code that hits an sftp server - so our functional test spins up an sftp server locally & overrides the product code settings so that it connects to that. Getting this set up and working took me a couple of days, and this is such a tiny aspect of the code under test that I'm afraid I'm exhausting my teammates patience for "test first functional tests".

In other areas e.g. hobbyist opengl code, I think this initial barrier to getting started is so high (you'd have to write a sort of machine vision thing to analyse the actual output, rather than just what opengl calls were made) that truly end-to-end tests are a complete nonstarter. You have to give in and settle for integration tests instead.

I suspect many people are in that same place with regard to functional testing of web apps. Yes there are tools like selenium, but there are issues of test data & making sure product code connects to test databases. There are solveable, but people don't see that the value is greater than the costs of wrestling with that.

<comment><AUTHOR> "a sort of machine vision thing" -- You could use Sikuli or SimpleCV. I'm using OpenCV in my video game playing robot to find elements on the screen. (Of course, it's a bit of a Frankenstein to create and run.) At least it's good to know it's possible, though. But, yes, I can see why others would not want to go through this much work -- it is hard.

<comment><USER4> Hey. Out of interest, Jason, would you personally write a functional test that spun up a local SFTP server like I describe? As a developer who's better than average, it presumably wouldn't take you a couple of days to get that working, but even so, would you consider cheating a little and mocking out the sftp client calls? If so, would you still call it a 'functional test'?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Actually, I do write functional tests and I have been for a long time. However, I'm not a developer ... I'm a failed developer and figured I could best continue to develop if I had a QA title. The ammo that I always could use for functional tests was that they reveal a different dimension of wrong than a unit or integration test. And when you have unit, integration _and_ functional tests development speeds along at a pretty rapid clip.

<comment><USER4> An interesting aspect of the "different dimension" is that functional tests actually demonstrate that your application works. If your website is down after deploying a well-functionally-tested application, then it's often because of something beyond your control, like an Amazon outage. Functional tests give you the confidence to deploy often, or automatically, even after bold refactoring, because you can prove that the app works, which unit tests or integration tests cannot do.</comment></comment>


"Experts" Have Been Misleading People About Renewable Energy - <AUTHOR> http://cleantechnica.com/2014/08/12/experts-misleading-people-renewable-energy/

<comment><USER2> Color me surprised. People supporting the status quo have always been given credence they don't deserve. People hate/fear change. It's human nature. Sad but predictable.</comment>


Haskell Internals - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/artagnon/haskell-internals

<comment><USER2> link appears dead, and their search turns up nothing - mirror?

Edit: Working Google cache: <http://bit.ly/6HNZbs>

<comment><USER3> Something seems to be wrong with Slideshare. Almost everything seems to be a dead link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ouch, can't read this on my iPhone because of Flash.</comment>


The Problem With Django  - <AUTHOR> http://metajack.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/the-problem-with-django/ <comment><USER2> There are some interesting points in this article.

A lot of people (including myself) have a few Django bugs fixed in their private working copies but they don't contribute them back because the process is too complex. This doesn't mean that they are not willing to contribute. Barriers for contribution are way too high.

It's true that you must _continually fight people_ to help those people to fix their project. It shouldn't be so.

<comment><USER3> How is it too complex? Instead of letting the fix stay in your working copy, why not attach the patch to the bug?

<comment><USER4> For me it was not an issue of complexity. We use trac internally and we contribute to other projects that have similar guidelines for contribution (namely Twisted Python).

But the Django trac is quite hostile. Often your patch will be closed as a duplicate by a later patch. Sometime that later patch addresses a related but different problem. It's hard to get someone with "responsibility" to address the issue, even if the patch is fairly well done and rationale well documented.

When I say "continually fight" I mean that the bug is closed with some bogus explanation, and I have to go reopen it and provide yet more explanation, only to have it closed again. Months later someone smacks their forehead and says "Oh! Well in that case I'll commit this now". I feel like I've been treated like a child who just learned HTML and not a developer trying to make contributions to the project.

In comparison, Twisted bugs involve dialog, but the Twisted team doesn't go around closing bugs because they don't quite get what you're doing. They have strict code guidelines and policies, but at least they treat you respectfully the whole way through. It's not a fight. They also recently went through and committed many changes that had been abandoned by their authors or that the authors did not have time to finish tests for. This shows that they value their community's contributions a great deal.

Django is a great project in many ways, but it has a lot of room to improve with release and community management.

<comment><USER2> Wow. One of my patches (exactly the one I was whining about here ;) was just changed from "Unreviewed" to "Ready for checkin".

Thank you very much, Jack. Your blog post really helped!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have tried a few python frameworks and as a bit of a beginner developing webapps i found django to be a bit meh. felt big and cludgy.

I am currently using web2py(not webpy although webpy is a nice small framework too) and it seems so good. easy install(just download and unzip), easy to use(all through an admin interface).

I defy the bloat of modern software!

</comment><comment><USER6> The second comment is a really good response: [http://metajack.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/the-problem-with- dj...](http://metajack.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/the-problem-with- django/#comment-115)

<comment><USER7> great response from someone at the center of the django universe.

the django devs have said it over and over: django's release schedule isn't determined by an urge to increment version numbers, but to make sure things are ready for release and won't cause any backpedaling down the road. you don't publish a news article before the 'i's are crossed and the 't's are dotted, so why treat software the same way?

#2070 has been seemingly sitting around forever, but given the major changes that just happened with the queryset-refactor and whats going on with the newforms-admin branch and other major undertakings, some things _can_ , in fact, be relegated to the back-burner. i can understand why people think its been sitting around for too long, but consider the priority of what else is on the stove before focusing on getting it out of the kitchen -- especially when the development trunk has such a fantastic track record of stability.</comment></comment>


The Tyranny of Convenience - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/opinion/sunday/tyranny-convenience.html?referer=https://www.metafilter.com/172744/Technologies-of-Mass-Individualization <comment><USER2> Previous: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394027](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16394027)

</comment><comment><USER3> > Once you have used a washing machine, laundering clothes by hand seems > irrational, even if it might be cheaper.

It'd require some impressive mental gymnastics to consider hand-washing cheaper than a washing machine. The societal changes (improvements) that washing machines brought are immense, and fairly well documented.

> After you have experienced streaming television, waiting to see a show at a > prescribed hour seems silly, even a little undignified.

Renting vhs/beta/laserdisc/bluray/hd etc has long been preferable to watching something littered with advertisements every 12-15 minutes - leaving aside the frequent censorship, lower quality audio or video, the inability to pause or rewind at will.

The phrase 'streaming television' just seems wrong.

> To resist convenience — not to own a cellphone, not to use Google — has come > to require a special kind of dedication that is often taken for > eccentricity, if not fanaticism.

I know plenty of people that don't have a smartphone, but have a 4G / LTE 'feature' phone. There's no stigma there - it's down to a combination of cost, functionality, and signal range.

The suggestion implies there's a clear downside - an evil, perhaps - to using a cellphone or any of Google's services (naturally conflating the two is not useful).

<comment><USER4> Wait, why is a washing machine cheaper than hand-washing?

<comment><USER3> That's a good question -- I'm struggling to find a _well researched_ summary of the situation.

The biggest external cost with machine washing is the hot water, but most detergents now are optimised for cold / room temperature wash.

The biggest _actual_ cost for hand washing is the time consumed - you may call it opportunity cost. Historically the societal benefits of the shift from having someone (typically 'the woman' of the household) spending 10-20 hours a week attending to laundry, to requiring perhaps a half hour of someone's time, have been better studied.

<comment><USER5> Not to forget that you will use a lot more hot water hand washing than a typical front loader uses.

Yes, I'm aware top loaders are still popular in the US, which may change the economics markedly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a real trade-off, but the "convenient" choice is not always bad if you have control over the situation.

As a transportation cyclist, some people I know think I must have superhuman willpower. But the reality is that I don't own a car, don't like the bus, and live too far away for walking regularly to be practical. I structured my life so that cycling is the most convenient option. I do this to save money and stay in shape. (It's good for the environment too but that's not as convincing to me. My pollution is a drop in the bucket, cycling or not.)

Here's an example most would consider less extreme: Switching to a "feature phone" or not using a cell phone at all. In that case, calling from a feature or landline phone becomes the most convenient option.

Few would be surprised by the general principle: When possible, structure your life so that doing what you believe is right comes naturally.

What seems more surprising are the specific applications, perhaps because they often are personal and consequently not applicable to others.

<comment><USER7> > It's good for the environment too but that's not as convincing to me. My > pollution is a drop in the bucket, cycling or not.

Hey, don't sell yourself short! Of course an individual's pollution contributions are a "drop in the bucket". Just like a presidential vote is a drop in the bucket. In aggregate, these drops do a lot of good (or could do a lot of bad). You're walking the walk, so to speak. That inspires people to do the same. Keep it up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Inconvenience and boredom

People's lives are hyperoptimized leaving little room for random encounters and chance. They just take the shortest route from point A to point B.

Also, boredom is fought ruthlessly. Boredom wasn't useless. It was used to "entertain" the brain by pondering one's life problems, come up with solutions. Today feeling bored means it's time to check facebook.

<comment><USER9> Or ctrl-t n enter.

For this I made a separate chromium profile who's tabs reopen on boot, homepage is hn, and search engine is hn algolia. It's stopped the ctrl-t n enter habit successfully.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I noticed the "referrer=" parameter in the submitted URL is for MetaFilter.

> [https://www.metafilter.com/172744/Technologies-of-Mass- > Indiv...](https://www.metafilter.com/172744/Technologies-of-Mass- > Individualization)

I thought it'd be cool to see all the comments and discussion people are having about this: How can the comments on all three sites {MetaFilter, NYT, HN} be collated to into one discussion? Is there a service that exists for this that my morning brain isn't thinking of?

<comment><USER11> You could do three searches? Perhaps that's not convenient enough.

<comment><USER10> That could be a start for a prototype browser plug-in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Convenience is the most underestimated and least understood force in the > world today. As a driver of human decisions, it may not offer the illicit > thrill of Freud's unconscious sexual desires or the mathematical elegance of > the economist's incentives. Convenience is boring. But boring is not the > same thing as trivial.

The mapping of convenience to cost is called "transaction costs."

It's certainly prevalent in a lot of economic work!

<comment><USER13> That's not what transaction cost is. Transaction costs are expenses incurred when buying or selling a good or service.

Convenience is a factor in preference (ordering of alternatives based on their relative utility)

<comment><USER12> Disagree. Convenience is a factor in the cost of use and acquisition of the utility-generating bundle. Though I can see your view, if we were to take it to the logical extreme one could say that all costs are an input of utility/preferences, rather than a factor limiting the consumption set.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's certainly the force that is pushing a majority to willingly hand over all of their personal data to third parties. Presently, it is inconvenient to set up a virtual private network and application servers to host personal omnipresent applications ("PAO" applications) and share data with friends. But some of us insist on keeping personal data personal. Rather than store my data on third-party services, I use my own disks with a virtual network that makes the data available everywhere. Here at HN, similar-minded people are fairly common.

Convenience is simply one variable used in decision making. Some of us value it more than others. In many spaces, I value preference and self-ownership higher than convenience, so many of the examples in the article do not resonate with me. I see the described behavior in others.

As the article points out, technology evolves. Personal hosting will become simpler with time and perhaps at some point, we will hit the tipping point where it is approximately as convenient as third-party "cloud" data and application hosting. Incremental steps along this path that merges self- ownership and convenience (e.g., the work being done by ZeroTier) are visible if you're looking for them.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really agree with the author's point that there is something fulfilling about inconvenience and struggling.

After I started fishing in my spare time, I've had really good days where the fish are hammering my lures and I'm catching them every 10 minutes. Those days always start out well, but towards the end it's almost boring since I know they'll end up biting and there's no sense of accomplishment.

But the days where the fish aren't biting and I have to switch out lures, tie different rigs, and search for the fish make it much more rewarding when I do catch one.

<comment><USER16> Fishing for sport (not a significant source of food), at your leisure, is a luxury. A well-chosen luxury is bound to be pleasurable, it's the whole point.

A washing machine, or running water, or not having to bake one's own bread, are much less of a luxury, closer to basic necessities outside dire poverty. Washing by hand or bringing water from a river may be fulfilling and fun if you choose to do so, and are free to change your choice when you see fit. For basic necessities, it is much less so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a thought-provoking but ultimately unsatisfying essay.

Its exhortation to "resist the stupefying power of convenience" is unlikely to work, because convenience, which I would define as "getting what you need or want with less effort," gives rise to _economic incentives_ : Between any two otherwise equal options, the more convenient one requires a lower investment of time and work from you and is therefore, in the end, cheaper.

Exhortations against economic incentives rarely if ever work.

</comment><comment><USER18> > As if to mask the issue, we give other names to our inconvenient choices: We > call them hobbies, avocations, callings, passions.

Aren't those things also filled with convenience? We use convenient tools, places, etc. for them. As the author described earlier "By saving time and eliminating drudgery, it would create the possibility of leisure. And with leisure would come the possibility of devoting time to learning, hobbies or whatever else might really matter to us". Since this is most likely, at least to a point, true then couldn't convenience be thought of as something allowing us to advance in areas that are of interest to us instead of wasting time for things that aren't?

> "Even with all the new labor-saving appliances," she wrote, "the modern > American housewife probably spends more time on housework than her > grandmother."

Even if that's the case I'm sure it's not if we take into account more than a single generation. Imagine, for example, the convenience of the washer. Before it, washing the clothes was a very tedious and time-consuming task.

<comment><USER19> > Imagine, for example, the convenience of the washer. Before it, washing the > clothes was a very tedious and time-consuming task.

True; but I suspect that in the past, people didn't wash as many clothes as frequently as we do now. It seems possible that the total amount of laundry being done in a typical household has grown so that although the process is easier/more efficient, we still spend a similar amount of time on it.

<comment><USER20> I don't think this is true; see e.g. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of- economic-...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic- history/article/time-spent-in-home-production-in-the-twentiethcentury-united- states-new-estimates-from-old-data/59CAB406A472381356E80B92B90B6860)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made buying music > even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient beat out > free.

tldr; Convenient does not beat free. A convenient system with fees and with no propaganda against it whose use carries no risk of ruining one's life/finances/reputation beats a gratis system with widespread propaganda against it whose use, development, and distribution carries a risk to everyone's life/finances/reputation.

* you can get sued into oblivion for even _using_ the free option. This is such a danger that Bram Cohen, original author of Bittorrent, has stated publicly he decided from the outset _never_ to download content over it so that nobody could ever impeded his current or future work with threats of lawsuits over copyright infringement. (And the current debacle with Project Gutenberg shows how big a danger those lawsuits can be.)

* you can get jail time for publishing the locations of the free options

* you can be threatened with lawsuit and/or criminal penalties for developing an application like Popcorn Time that makes the free options discoverable and user-friendly

* you _will_ eventually get your domain name suspended if you ignore all the risks above and serve up an app/site for the free option

* even projects like Gutenberg and IMSLP which serve up content exclusively that is no longer under copyright have to spend considerable resources consulting with lawyers to make sure parties who would rather sell what they offer cannot simply strongarm them or sue them out of existence

Take all those risks into account, plus the fact that RIAA and Hollywood have enormous resources to throw against the free option. It is amazing that the free options have existed _at all_ , much less in the user-friendly and convenient form of something like Popcorn Time.

</comment><comment><USER22> See also The Tyranny of Stuctureless

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

and The Tyranny of Tyrannosaurus Rexes

[http://rarrrrrrrr.com/](http://rarrrrrrrr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I heard this concept the first time from Richard Stallman in the context of trading freedom for convenience.

I think it was this video [1] when discussing innovation at any cost.

[1] [https://youtu.be/SUJtMlEwd6Q?t=1012](https://youtu.be/SUJtMlEwd6Q?t=1012)

</comment><comment><USER24> > I prefer to brew my coffee, but Starbucks instant is so convenient I hardly > ever do what I "prefer."

How is this even remotely true? I always wait on spirit crushing lines at Starbucks. I guess you can order ahead, but the "planning factor" does take away some convenience.

<comment><USER25> The point would still stand even if Starbucks was indeed instantaneous. There's is something nice about being able to spend 2-5 minutes to prepare your own coffee. Sometimes you don't want to do it, but I think the point here is that if you have the convenient Starbucks alternative right in your face, you might "accidentally" surrender the pleasure of brewing your own coffee due to your laziness of the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "The Tyranny of Convenience" reminds me of a book I read called "The Paradox of Choice."

Basically, these things that modern technology and optimization have wrought tend to be burdens to those of us who tend to think more deeply about things.

It's good to stay aware of the pitfalls of modern life. However there can be no doubt that overall, the changes that bring about increases in convenience and choice are good for most people. Their effect on society is a little more nuanced.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have lots of problems with this article's arguments. He uses several simplified examples to show the "cost" of convenience.

> When you can skip the line and buy concert tickets on your phone, waiting in > line to vote in an election is irritating. This is especially true for those > who have never had to wait in lines (which may help explain the low rate at > which young people vote).

The youth vote has been on decline since the 1980's, long before Ticketmaster ever came along ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_vote_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_vote_in_the_United_States)).

> We are willing to pay a premium for convenience, of course — more than we > often realize we are willing to pay. During the late 1990s, for example, > technologies of music distribution like Napster made it possible to get > music online at no cost, and lots of people availed themselves of the > option. But though it remains easy to get music free, no one really does it > anymore. Why? Because the introduction of the iTunes store in 2003 made > buying music even more convenient than illegally downloading it. Convenient > beat out free.

This argument blows my mind how simplified it is. There are plenty of reasons someone would prefer iTunes over Napster, not illegal and more user friendly to name the two biggest. Why not use the example of a record store versus iTunes or even Napster? To show how conveniency can beat in human experiences or make you bend your morals to steal music?

> Americans say they prize competition, a proliferation of choices, the little > guy. Yet our taste for convenience begets more convenience, through a > combination of the economics of scale and the power of habit. The easier it > is to use Amazon, the more powerful Amazon becomes — and thus the easier it > becomes to use Amazon. Convenience and monopoly seem to be natural > bedfellows.

This argument totally neglects that Amazon was ever a "little guy." Amazon's growth is the embodiment of American's prizing competition. Without competition, Amazon would never have been able to steal customers from Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Kroger, etc. Also, Amazon's framework allows for "little guy" shops to start up with low cost.

> However mundane it seems now, convenience, the great liberator of humankind > from labor, was a utopian ideal. By saving time and eliminating drudgery, it > would create the possibility of leisure. And with leisure would come the > possibility of devoting time to learning, hobbies or whatever else might > really matter to us.

If this was a "utopian ideal", then we would not be able to read this article on the internet. There is a reason that only the wealthy elites were scientists in the past. It's because they didn't have to spend their majority of the day doing laborious tasks. Without conveniency, there would be a lot less engineers, scientists, writers, artists, gamers, etc.

This article has no leg to stand on. You can swap out the word conveniency for innovation at many points, which is completely counter-intuitive to human philosophy. I understand that the writer is saying it's nice to take things slow. To not multi-task your brain to death. What he should be arguing for is to practice patience not to wash your clothes by hand.

</comment><comment><USER28> Convenience is just another word for removing waste. Wasted movement, or time.

<comment><USER29> The author's point is that we've thrown out too much of what we've perhaps to broadly labeled as waste. We're realizing that some of the "waste" (to use your term) actually has value in it that we previously didn't recognize. It's a waste of effort to climb to the top of a mountain when you could've taken a vehicle to the top, perhaps, but for some folks that value isn't in the destination alone. Author's point is that we should be more aware of what we value, and how much of the "waste" a convenience a convenience removes is truly "waste" vs meaningful/valuable experience/effort for growth and fulfillment.

<comment><USER30> The fundamental problem with the author's premise, to use your example, is that the effort needed to climb to the top of a mountain every day, is ridiculous.

There's no outsized value in washing your clothes by hand every day, week, month. It's monotonous, very time consuming and physically punishing. There's also similarly no value in cutting your entire lawn by hand. These things are not comparable to climbing a mountain, which you're going to do rarely.

If you have to climb a mountain every day, take a vehicle. Your body will thank you. And so will your loved ones, because climbing a mountain is extremely time consuming, so you'll never see your loved ones again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why can't a publication like NY Times put 2 minutes into editing an article or op ed piece into something a bit more pleasant to the eyes? It wouldn't take much to add some subheadings, make key words/phrases bold.

Getting tired of publications where Wall of Text hits you for +100 hp...</comment>


Why Murdoch's media is gunning for your NBN (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://nofibs.com.au/2013/02/27/why-are-pay-tv-providers-and-news-limited-so-afraid-of-the-nbn-final-words-for-a-dying-beast/ <comment><USER2> Interesting but it doesn't get past the a priori objection to the NBN having been adopted without any economic or commercial assessment to justify it as a political fix when the election promise to provide better broadband at one tenth the cost of the NBN was shown to be hopeless and an embarrassing shambles. And it doesn't demonstrate that the a priori probability that a proven entrepreneur in the field of Internet based services would be able to do the essential job more cost effectively.

<comment><USER3> I agree, there are many absurd components of the NBN, the most obvious being the idea that the government should spend $2 billion to launch two satellites into orbit just to provide internet to the 400,000 most rural customers who can't get cellular wireless (yet).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not so ridiculous if you consider the fact that, with decent internet, that 400,000 might grow considerably in number, reducing housing pressure in the major urban centres and allowing Australia to grow without having to slather on MOAR INFRASTRUCTURE to Sydney and Melbourne's already groaning transport systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The same reason data casting and any kind of innovation in the digital TV rollout was killed off in 2000. Don't upset the status quo.

That was from Richard Alston back then, again the Liberal party.

<comment><USER5> Richard alston the worlds biggest luddite

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> NBN? Anyone know what that is?

<comment><USER7> Australia's National Broadband Network. The gist of the article seems to be that Murdoch wants to kill off fibre in Australia because it's a threat to traditional TV.

<comment><USER8> Not "wants to". Did.

What the Coalition did with the NBN is a national disgrace.

<comment><USER9> let's not even speak of the 2014 budget.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> NBN(fiber to the premise) is already killed off. The new government is adopting Fiber to the node for future installations.

<comment><USER11> Not even purely fiber to the node any more, they are going with a "multi- technology mix"[1]

So by the end of 2020, 98% to 100% of the population would have at least 25Mbps[2]. Which is maybe twice as fast as what we have now on average (as a guess).

It is also way behind schedule and over budget[3], when being quicker and cheaper were its main selling points against the FTTP solution proposed by the Labor government.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/malcolm- turnbul...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/malcolm-turnbull- directs-nbn-to-mixed-technology)

[2][http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/17/nbn- chairm...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/17/nbn-chairman- says-internet-speed-guarantees-have-lost-currency)

[3][http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/12/coalitions...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/12/coalitions- nbn-cost-12bn-more-four-years-longer)

<comment><USER12> To be fair, the company executing on Labour's vision - NBNCo - was also going much slower than originally projected too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah but by the time it finished, it would be far from being obsolete ;)

<comment><USER5> And not need significant repairs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a follow up, this is also interesting: [http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics- displa...](http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the- media-campaign-against-the-government-revealed,5071)

</comment><comment><USER13> Anyone else have trouble reading the upside down text?

<comment><USER14> Pipe down or we'll give you the boot!</comment></comment>


// If this happens, I am going to quit and become a barista - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20180205-00/?p=97965 <comment><USER2> Agree with the comment on the page "Should I suggest to the developer that they check if Starbucks is hiring? [/quote] No. The comment was clearly if you needed a million icons on the desktop. Not if he made a coding error."

</comment><comment><USER3> I gotta admit, I cringe a little when I see cutesy comments like this in professional code. I see it occasionally in our codebase, through stylecop override justifications "OMG this is the right way" or "// i hate this but whatever"

<comment><USER4> More than once, cutesy comments of frustration have led me to inspect something for side effects and avoid them.

<comment><USER5> Could it not be done through conventional ways like TODO or FIXME?

<comment><USER4> Sometimes there's not something to fix or do, for example, in pthread-using code. "Just be really fucking careful or we'll all cry a lot."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" Should I suggest to the developer that they check if Starbucks is hiring?"_

Why, because people actually _are_ putting a million icons on their desktop? Either this one is a swing and a miss on Chen's part, or I'm confused on what his point is.

<comment><USER7> Because the developer screwed up in the same code they were being flippant about.

<comment><USER8> That's implied but the context is shaky. What if, as the comment says, the format string did change from the original spec?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any coffee snob coders on here that think they would enjoy a part-time barista job??? I would be up to try it out, especially at a small business or cafe that takes care in the quality of their coffee.

<comment><USER6> Good luck, my wife actually tried that after she left a PM job at Microsoft. No one would hire her because they figured she was just biding time until the next high-paying software gig, and would leave shortly after being hired.

<comment><USER10> you don't tell them you used to be a 6-figure corporate employee.

<comment><USER11> Then what do you tell them? Employers will expect that an adult has some kind of work history.

Also, discrimination against overqualified applicants is now illegal in California, but I imagine it still happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> let ye who test all your logging strings cast the first stone

<comment><USER13> Hah, a hippie coder that roamed from place to place (obviously around Silicon Valley?) followed by 12 disciples, with teachable stories along the way, would make a cool book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm torn over these mini dsls that creep into code like printf and regex formatting strings. They are so useful, but so often a cause of bugs.

Any solution to then I've seen like doing them entirely in code (c++ io streams or many of the various regex builders) seen to overshoot too far in the safety direction and destroy their quickness and usability.

There has to be a better way to print stuff out that is useable in languages like C and Java without blowing the budget on code length, object creation, etc.

I once once wrote a zero garbage logging library for high performance java code and i just defaulted to essentially copying into a buffer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this why the barista's are so sloppy in Seattle? They're all ex-Microsoft employees?

<comment><USER16> No the seattle ones are burnt out ex-Amazon employees

<comment><USER17> So that's why the coffee is so bitter and constantly over valued?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is what happens when you keep deriving languages/libraries from C, for programmers who don't know C.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ain't nothing wrong with being a barista.</comment>


Migration from Golang to Elixir/Erlang - <AUTHOR> How do one approach in bringing about that change in software development org ? Why doesn't Golang sustain for a small-mid sized org in terms of building maintainable software ? Does Golang require more maintenance (more code -- > more bugs ---> more maintenance --> more developers needed ? - is that a valid hypothesis ? <comment><USER2> > is that a valid hypothesis ?

No, unless you have some solid studies at hand that would clearly support your "hypothesis", it is nothing more than a highly biased imputation.

Here is my antithesis: Elixir/Erlang doesn't sustain for a small mid-sized org in terms of building maintainable software. Elixir/Erlang requires more maintenance (higher learning curve -> much less clear code -> more bugs -> more developers needed).

Now does _this_ sound like a valid hypothesis to you? Probably not, until I would be able to back my claim by solid numbers.</comment>


Is Twitter Down in Europe? - <AUTHOR> https://downdetector.com/status/twitter/ <comment><USER2> Works for me (Germany)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seeing intermittent issues in India as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Just noticed, it's down for me as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Down for me in Johannesburg, South Africa.

<comment><USER6> Up for me in Cape Town, South Africa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Works for me in Skopje.

</comment><comment><USER8> Works for me in Sweden

</comment><comment><USER9> It's just down period.

</comment><comment><USER10> Works for me in Italy

</comment><comment><USER11> "Over capacity".

</comment><comment><USER12> up for me (NL)

</comment><comment><USER13> ye, can't load anything. few minutes ago it said twitter is over capacity. did pewdiepie break it? lmao</comment>


How breadpig made $30K (for charity) in 2008 selling magnets in our spare time - <AUTHOR> http://breadpig.com/blog/2009/07/22/how-breadpig-made-30000-for-charity-in-2008-selling-magnets-with-lolspeak-in-our-spare-time/

<comment><USER3> Time and again, it's been shown that businesses who seem to truly care for their employees, or just the People in general, are richer than any business that cares only to turn a profit.

A big thank you to breadpig for its charitable efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really just a ploy. You see, as people buy LOLmagnetz, more money gets donated to our local SPCA, which can save more cats and dogs, only to have them get adopted and create more pet owners, who will naturally be inclined to... _buy LOLmagnetz_.

Ta-da!

Admittedly, this just arose from a desire to create interesting stuff people wanted (it's such a calculable way to know someone likes what you've created). I suppose it's not far from the YC maxim.

We're in a lucky place because we don't need to do this to pay our own bills, so we can give it all away. But this element came from my frustration with how stale fundraising has become for most non-profits. People have become desensitized/jaded/bored by the typical plea of "help X, give $Y." Offering a product someone wants even without possibly knowing of the charitable implications (and I have anecdotal evidence to show that many don't know this about in our products) means a unique fundraising channel for the non-profits that benefit.

If I had my druthers, more people - especially nonprofits themselves - <USER2> copy not just our products (hehe) but also the model.

Oh, and as for caring for people, I am an avid believer in the great affect it has on business. But here's the best part, the bar has been set so low that you don't even need to _care_ , just don't be a dick. Or put inversely, be reasonable and kind.</comment></comment>


Go Remote Jobs – liberate from the office - <AUTHOR> Go Remote from anywhere! Check out this new start-up that makes the process of getting a remote job amazingly simple!
 https://goremotejobs.com <comment><USER2> Idea for a startup: niche site for six-figure remote jobs.

Because, most "openly remote" job posters look for cheap workers. So it would be useful to remove such noise from the way of job seekers who look for high quality/paid remote jobs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great Idea! In a later release I'll add an option to sort! Thanks for the feed back!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should resubmit this as a Show HN, with the link directly at the submission (no description text).</comment>


Show HN: Vers, a tool to version data models instead of APIs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TechnologyAdvice/Vers

<comment><USER2> What a beautiful and efficient way to handle versioning and control schema. Wish I had this on projects past. Props!</comment>


ARKYD Kickstarter Backers Offered FULL Refund - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arkydforeveryone/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0/posts/1584844 <comment><USER2> This project looks interesting, but what was so special about this project that $1,500,000 USD wasn't enough?

It's a "space telescope", about the size of a 2U CubeSat. Sending a CubeSat into space costs usually around $10,000-$30,000 USD. For a 1-off project, the funds raised seem like far more than what would be necessary to pull it off.

Is anyone a backer and have more details about what went wrong?</comment>


My favourite GitHub repos with knowledge instead of code - <AUTHOR> Hi, I wrote this article "6 Github repos for instant knowledge boost" (https://dev.to/mfarajewicz/6-github-repos-for-instant-knowledge-boost-3mo0) and it received a really warm welcome on dev.to and other comunities.
I wanted to share it more, perhaps some of you will find it useful. <comment><USER2> [https://dev.to/mfarajewicz/6-github-repos-for-instant- knowle...](https://dev.to/mfarajewicz/6-github-repos-for-instant-knowledge- boost-3mo0)

</comment><comment><USER3> Little advice for future submissions: title + (url OR text)</comment>


NASA presents unexpectedly successful Cannae drive tests - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/1/5959637/nasa-cannae-drive-tests-have-promising-results

<comment><USER2> "Unexpected" for a very good reason: it violates conservation of momentum, and is likely flawed. See [http://space.io9.com/a-new-thruster-pushes-against- virtual-p...](http://space.io9.com/a-new-thruster-pushes-against-virtual- particles-or-1615361369/1615513781).</comment>