Google Trusted Contacts - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/products/maps/let-your-loved-ones-know-youre-safe-our-new-personal-safety-app/ <comment><USER2> With regard to the cheerleaders saying there are no problems whatsoever with this feature:

1\. The reason people raise concerns about Google, and less so about iOS, is that Google and Apple are in different businesses. Google is in the business of profiting off your personal data and that of your family members. Apple is not, and iOS makes it significantly harder for rogue apps to get access to personal data without the actual user's direct permission.

2\. Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) place different priorities on security relative to other factors.

3\. Many of the naysayers are raising issues that do not single out Android, however fair it may be to do so. There are some issues that remain the same beyond the specific platform. For example: this kind of app creates social pressure for people to be tracked by their family and show trust that they may not sincerely feel.

4\. If you think they can "just" turn the feature off or "just" remove the trusted contacts when they feel uncomfortable, you are not thinking this through. These "trusted" contacts may be authority figures in the family and may be able to examine any settings done by the actual users.

5\. If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize personal and private information. Your kids do not deserve to be the targets of this kind of commercial activity. So even if you think the feature is good, it is tainted by the interests of the provider. But whether the feature is good or bad, Android is a bad way for children to get the feature.

<comment><USER3> > If your kids are carrying a cell phone, it should probably be a secure > phone, with strictly enforced app store policies, and with a secure OS that > is not provided by a company with every incentive to gather and monetize > personal and private information.

Pest or cholera. At least it allows you to tinker with it, as opposed to iOS.

<comment><USER2> You are suffering from a common misconception, that you can't tinker with your iOS devices. I tinker with my iOS devices all the time. As do many people, with their own devices. With help, encouragement, and software tools provided for that purpose by Apple. I just can't tinker with your iOS device.

<comment><USER4> Can you install a non-webkit web rendering/JS engine with that process?

<comment><USER5> You can. It won't pass cert for the app store, but you can.

<comment><USER6> Don't you need a mac+xcode to do that though?

<comment><USER5> Sure. But that's part and parcel to doing _anything_ on there. It's not really a big deal when you can get a Mac that can do it for $300 used--it's probably going to be cheaper than the phone was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am guessing that the nay sayers to this app probably don't have young children. I have two sons (16 and 13) who are always out and about socialising with friends, or at sporting / musical activities. My older son gigs with his band late at nights, and let me tell you - as parents, my wife and I do not rest easy until we either pick him up or he gets dropped home.

Any app that lets us check on our kids' whereabouts quickly and effectively without taking them out of the zone (Have you ever tried to get a teenager to call to let you know "Hey everything is OK"??) is a blessing IMO.

An app like this would be restricted just between my wife and I, and our two boys. No more than that. No more is needed. We are an 'absolute trust' group and quite frankly, the idea that any of us would want to hide our locations from each other is simply not even a thing.

<comment><USER8> Do your teens (you're hardly a 'young child' at 16) share your enthusiasm for sharing location at all time with their parents? I know I was not at that age. Learning to be autonomous is part of growing up. Setting up a one-click call for help with location is one thing, wanting to know the whereabouts of your 16 years old son at all times is something else entirely, that has little to do with his actual safety.

<comment><USER7> Just to be clear, I don't want this as a 24/7 thing, but rather on those odd occasions where a higher level of alertness is required, i.e. when my older son finishes a band gig at midnight in the seedier part of town.

I think I have a pretty good trust relationship with my kids, but there have been times where they have been half an hour late home from school or a gig etc. and the worry button gets hit. In all occurrences, it has been simple things like missing a bus, or staying back to get help with teachers etc., but those are the sorts of things that I'd like to be able to check on quickly before resorting to calling/texting.

The ability to notice something is amiss, then do a quick spot check to see "Oh, its OK, he is still on school grounds" or "He's on the number 10 bus homeward bound" is reassuring.

EDIT: I just realised that I forgot to answer your actual question re: Are my kids OK with it (the monitoring).

Neither of them have pushed back much on this. In fact, last year I developed a small iPhone app purely for the family to use to achieve the sort of tracking this Google system does. My sons were actually quite helpful in helping me design and test it out. End of the day I abandoned the app because I just didn't have enough time to maintain it, and there were other third party apps coming out that did the same thing.

As mentioned above, we have a pretty good trust relationship with our kids. Its not as if we track their every movement, and we are quite flexible with them spending a lot of time out with their friends and other sporting/social activities. It is just on those outlying times where we feel the situation is not completely 100% rosy that we like the ability to do a quick 'ping' check.

<comment><USER9> > Just to be clear, I don't want this as a 24/7 thing, but rather on those odd > occasions where a higher level of alertness is required, i.e. when my older > son finishes a band gig at midnight in the seedier part of town.

The disconnect here for me is that your hypothetical is hardly a new phenomena unique to our time. What would you have done in the 50s? 80s? 90s?

Let's put things in perspective here. The very fact that you can have real time updates on the metrics off the /device/ that is expected to be carried with your son means you have a direct channel of communication to your son's device. Worried? Give him a call. Problem solved.

<comment><USER7> I would really like to think that this technology we surround ourselves today would make things much easier to stay in touch, no? When I was a kid playing in bands etc. in the 80's, I had to actually put myself in MORE danger sometimes by walking down a street to a public phone to call my parent or arrange a lift after gigs. I am glad my son doesn't have to do that.

"Giving him a call" is all fine, except if they are mid set or are tearing down while another band plays - stages can be loud places, and not the best things for talking on a phone, or even texting when they are busy moving gear. A quick check to see "Oh, he is still at the venue" or "He appears to be at the band's storage lockup right now" is enough for me to know that it is pretty much ops normal.

<comment><USER9> There is no question technology can improve things. The problem is not the tech, it's society and actors in society. Google and alike are willynilly becoming institutions and "pushback" is not against tech in the least (cell phones are tech, right?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Used as intended this sounds like a great idea. However used by an abusive significant other or parent (even just an overbearing parent) it seems pretty scary. To mitigate the potential harm I would hope for two things

1\. Make it hard/impossible to be forever telling your location to someone (it's unclear if that's what the feel unsafe mode does in the first place, or if it just broadcasts it once)

2\. Make it easy to 'enter an alternate location' to tell the inquirer

<comment><USER11> Number 2 sounds like a pure win.

<comment><USER12> Even for simple things like buying your Christmas present for your SO, you want the app to let you lie sometimes.

<comment><USER13> Android allows this under debugging, click on "allow mock locations".

<comment><USER14> Or just turn off location services.

<comment><USER15> An abuser would know if the device was failing to report a location, or if the victim were to turn off the system, and could take action accordingly.

When user consent can be subverted, otherwise benign opt-in features that are deployed and marketed ubiquitously can have unforeseen consequences.

That said there is a utilitarian way to look at this, that for more situations it helps parents to keep their kids safe. The ethical question is far from cut and dry.

<comment><USER16> > An abuser would know if the device was failing to report a location, or if > the victim were to turn off the system, and could take action accordingly.

As much as we would like, technology will not solve trust issues in any relationship.

<comment><USER17> Well, no, but it doesn't have to facilitate them. Introducing a service that very obviously empowers abusers requires that the abused can be protected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't believe the amount of effort invested in this more cumbersome, much more specific use case solution rather than just bringing back Latitude -- a fully functional product (and exactly the same under the hood) that existed 6 years ago.

I trust my trusted contacts -- let me share my location all the time. (No, some backwater tab in the G+ app does not count.)

<comment><USER19> I use the G+ version. Its useful for my partner or I to check each others location e.g. your cooking dinner and want to decide to wait or eat. You quickly check the app and you can see if they are at the office etc.

When I've discussed, generally people steer towards the creepy side of being tracked and dont like it. Maybe this version finds a middle ground as it's selling it as 'keeping you safe' while giving Google the right to track your location to sell better targeted ads. Really, the latter is what this is all about.

<comment><USER20> If you think all that data is going to be used for is ads, you're probably mistaken.

All that data is stored. They know all your contacts, how you write, what your interests are, where you go every day. What if suddenly the country your in makes it illegal to do X, or feel Z. They decide to arrest everyone who meets the criteria, and there's nothing you can do.

Although, you are correct now, it is ads. But the risk is SO great I really don't understand not taking precautions

<comment><USER21> If the government decides to "dissappear" you, there's very little you can do. If you've been sharing your location with your family, they might be able to do something. If you've been publishing your activities, it's even more likely that your family can publicize your disappearance and help you.

So, in a way, this app is protecting you against an abusive government.

<comment><USER22> With your family and Google. It's like inviting Google (a multinational for profit corporation) intro your family.

<comment><USER21> I use a mobile phone on subscription and use a few credit cards. I guess a number of large companies are in my family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Coincidentally (or not), Facebook presented this as an upcoming Messenger feature today [1]

> If you can't find a friend and become worried about their safety, Messenger > could one day let you send a request to see their location. A timer would > begin on the friend's phone that gives them a chance to approve or deny the > request. If the timer expires on its own, their location would be sent to > you automatically.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-reviewed- cool...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-reviewed-coolest- facebook-hackathon-projects-2016-12)

</comment><comment><USER24> I am afraid most people are missing the target audience of this feature.

This is for people who live in unsafe areas and have trusted family member than they do want to watch over.

This is an app that should have been released in India immediately after Nirbhaya incident. For a Company thats supposed to move fast, Google definitely blew timing of launching such a feature.

</comment><comment><USER25> > Invite a trusted friend to virtually walk you home if you feel unsafe

As a parent, I find this tremendously useful. This is specially important for people in certain countries where walking/driving home at night is realistically dangerous.

<comment><USER13> Seems like false sense of security. It only updates every 10 minutes or so. If you are really worried have them just call you and put their phone in their pocket. That way you can listen in and call 911 if needed.

Waiting 10 minutes for a GPS update doesn't seem to actually increase safety in any noticeable way.

<comment><USER26> I go out for mega long bike rides in areas with very spotty cell coverage (Silicon Valley). This app is great because when my spouse wants to know where I am she can initiate the request, and I can keep my hands on the handlebars and keep rolling. I only wish they had thought to allow choices other than 'phone ring, wait 5 minutes'. I'd have prefered to set the notification type and delay. I hope the GPS battery drain for this feature is low (as compared with Garmin Connect, Strava or Glympse). 10 minute intervals sounds great.

<comment><USER27> AFAIK, the largest battery drain in GPS is for an initial fix, and small updates after that are much lower cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> An insinuation of this kind of tech is that if you aren't carrying a phone, you aren't safe.

I'm seeing in the comments that the level of trust in companies is higher than the trust in your government.

Both very sad things.

<comment><USER29> Companies are more directly accountable through $$$. Government is only accountable indirectly through elections; and you can win those with 51% of the vote [0]; the other 49% could completely disagree.

[0] With the Electoral College, you don't even need a majority of the popular vote.

<comment><USER30> Many US elections, emphatically including those of Presidential electors, are done by plurality rule, so you don't need a majority to start with -- which is floor(votes×50%)+1, not 51%. With the structure of the EC, you can, therefore, win with a minority of votes in states with a minority of the population.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Useful feature, yes, but I see this as a license to track locations of more people at all times. Also see: Uber's recent "always track" update

<comment><USER11> So, I've got some bad news for you:

Google is already tracking your location all the time if you're in the market for this product. This just exposes that data for what seems like a very useful user feature.

<comment><USER32> I realized this (well, "realized"... I knew it, but it became very creepy) the other day, when my phone popped up a notification while I was in a restaurant, saying "enjoying <restaurant name>? Why not take some photos for people to see?" or something like that.

I've lately been getting into the habit of turning location services off unless I actually need them on, and I would recommend it. It's a shame my phone gets my location behind my back without any indication by default.

<comment><USER33> You're lucky. A more creepy way of getting enlightened is having Google Now tell you, "I see you're at work, and it's about your usual time to head home. Traffic is heavy on the usual route, though, so it might take 15 minutes longer than normal."

(This all without you ever telling which location is your work and which is home.)

<comment><USER34> Do you see an issue with this?

<comment><USER33> When it comes out of the blue, yes. It's a useful feature, but also very intrusive, and that should be gated on a very, very clear opt-in.

<comment><USER35> Isn't Google Now opt in to begin with? Doesn't it give you a huge EULA to read before you activate it?

<comment><USER27> It always has for me, and not in tiny-font or legal language either:

"To help you through your day, Google needs to: Use and store your location for traffic alerts, directions, and more. User your synced calendars, Gmail, Chrome, and Google data for reminders and other suggestions."

This topic does come up a lot here, and yet this is as direct and concise a way to put it as I can imagine. I wonder what those who have been surprised by the services they have opted into would suggest to improve their understanding of what they are potentially agreeing to?

<comment><USER33> Yes, it is opt-in, which is good. But I feel that for a casual user "use and store your location" doesn't fully get across the point that it's going to track your location in near real-time and make inferences like "this place is your home" about it.

And this is a general problem - people share all kinds of private information about themselves, without full understanding of the kind of analysis that is possible on that data these days.

I personally don't have a problem with the tech (and I've used Latitude way back, so it's not like any of it is new).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Bad name. How about: "I'm here.", or "Where are you?". Trusted contacts sounds more like a FOAF vouch, or authenticated contact details app.

</comment><comment><USER37> This just promotes obsession and anxiety.

<comment><USER38> Well, of course. Would it be easier for me to sell you something if you were calm, relaxed and would't really need anything more to be happy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For anyone looking for a more privacy conscious version, I made Graticule[1] a few years ago.

Install the app, start beacon, send anonymous and platform independent link, done.

Optionally customize location technology (gps/network/passive) and beacon interval (from the default GPS/1 second).

No registration, no contacts, nothing else.

You choose when you're sharing your location and with whom.

Partially inspired by the old Google Latitude.

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo.graticule)

<comment><USER40> Does it have active users?

<comment><USER39> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I tend to feel that this is more for parents who don't trust their kids, rather than those who do. Many parents will say, "My kids won't have a problem with this because we have trust in _our_ family."

The truth is, if you trusted your kids, you wouldn't need the ability to obtain their exact location without having to ask for it. Parents who trust their kids will already know where their kids are supposed to be, or will just ask them.

On the other hand, I see no problem with the feature that allows you to request location and will automatically send location after a long non- response.

Of course, most kids (beyond a certain age) are going to occasionally go places their parents aren't comfortable with. This is a normal part of growing up and it shouldn't be impossible IMO. Even in particularly bad or dangerous cases, I would feel this calls for a normal punishment (maybe?). No TV, chores, etc. Not constant location tracking.

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure where you got that from. I couldn't find a single reference to parents or children on the page.

<comment><USER41> It will be primarily used for parents to track their kids.

They don't need to specifically spell out that use case with parent/child characters.

It seems obvious to me that this will enable parents (all kinds, good and bad) to track their kids with a pretty scary level of control.

But you're right in that this isn't just restricted to parents and children. In my post just substitute parent/child with a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Shrug, yet another product we cannot even try in Cyprus due to Location History being disabled country-wide, for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's always amazing to me how often Google takes something they... already had... renames it, and then announces it as a brand new thing. I used to use this six years ago, it was called Google Latitude.

<comment><USER45> User experience matters, and this works very differently from how Google Latitude worked. Digital products are not about revealing the truth stored in database records. They're elaborate fictions we tell each other about meaningless database records.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> And now, Google injects itself directly within and throughout the level of trust some people only place in their parents or spouses.

It used to be that certain truths were only know between two people, but now for many, it will be those two people, and Google.

Even if it were any other company, the totality of awareness a single organization has, from childhood on up should give us some pause.

Microphones, accelerometers, cameras, GPS, and now annotated depth of relationship, instead of presumed depth inferred from ancillary metrics.

At this point it's getting a little strange.

With software and services these days, there's almost nothing people _won 't_ consume. It's as if people will eat everything in a package labeled as food, even if most of the contents are inedible.

More and more, it feels like people know they're eating fish hooks, but maybe they'll pass the foreign objects they've swallowed, before any fisherman tries to tug the line and set the hook.

But even if you or I don't buy in, when everybody else does, the outliers still get hooked and still lands in the boat, just by implicit association and proximity.

The stakes are raised ever higher with each beat of this game. It's like the quote from Apocalypse Now:

      Ah, man... The bullshit piled up so
      fast in Viet Nam, you needed wings
      to stay above it.

</comment><comment><USER47> Thelma requests Elliot's location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was...one block away from Julia's apartment ha-ha.

</comment><comment><USER48> Google PI ;)

I very often wish for something similar, for instance when my mother is running a bit late in a park. I don't want to mess with her jogging or walk. But I'd like to be sure she's still fine.

Thing is, except for the current generation, smartphones are often silenced and forgotten in some pocket. So unless it's an invasive constant-on tracker .. it wouldn't work in my case.

</comment><comment><USER49> _Here's how it works: Once you install the Android app, you can assign "trusted" status to your closest friends and family._

I've got an android phone but my wife has an iPhone, does that mean this is useless for us?

Edit, it's in the works:

 _If you 're an iOS user, click here to get notified when the iOS app is available_

<comment><USER50> You can do one way sharing (from you to her) even now. You just won't be able to do the opposite direction until an iOS version is available.

<comment><USER51> It's inevitable that the forthcoming iOS version will require location history to be turned on for one's Google account. Therefore, I'd much prefer another cross-platform means of providing this information.

Owntracks hasn't been too bad for this; there are clients for iOS and Android and the the backend is self-hosted.

[http://owntracks.org](http://owntracks.org)

The only problem I've encountered with it is that the Android client has shown some instability from time to time, with high battery drain or missed location updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Should I think that it is coincidence that Uber wants 24/7 location data, FB wants it, and Now Google officially wants it.. Now, people like me who prefer to 'own' their digital lives, and not become part of this surveilled garden would be labeled as 'tinhat'.

Thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER53> I know. This is just getting sickening. Can't they focus on delivering real value without being just an 'advertisement company'. I know that advertising is like the only thing that makes money anymore, but does it really help people? No.

Be a science, engineering, and technology company, Goddammit!

Can someone brave please put their foot down and say enough? Someone?

And, it's even so much worse because they make it seem like they're such good guys by releasing these 'free' or 'cheap' services. It's just outright deceptive.

<comment><USER29> Advertising helps people. Why are they paying for it then?

<comment><USER53> When if ever has it helped you?

Meaning - yes, clearly it helps companies sell their products and services. But, as an individual consumer, how many times over the past year have you purchased something because its advertisement informed you of something that you truly needed but didn't know about?

<comment><USER29> 0

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> >assign "trusted" status to your closest friends and family

Would be great if we wouldn't have to assign the "trusted" status to Google(or any other 3rd party) too in order to use the app.

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting. Me and my SO use glympse to coordinate pickups, but we've been looking for a relatively low power consumption way to share location just generally.

</comment><comment><USER56> >Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot's location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was in the middle of the canyon.

The cynic in me thinks this whole use case is intended to normalize the idea of a company always knowing everywhere you go. See? Privacy is unsafe!

<comment><USER57> > normalize the idea of a company always knowing everywhere you go

This doesn't really make sense. Google already has this information. They're sharing what they already had access to with contacts you select. On the other hand, there was an interesting feature a few years ago, where you could share your location with friends without special requests. Since then it has been moved from a separate google service to google+.

What I'm saying is - this is nothing new. It's actually a new, restricted version of what's been available and happening for a long time.

<comment><USER56> I meant normalize in the social sense that people become more comfortable with google tracking them everywhere instead of feeling creeped out by it. It doesn't have to be new. Most, or at least a large fraction of, google maps and android users would probably be appalled to realize how extensively they're being currently tracked.

<comment><USER57> I heard that opinion for quite a while already. I wonder if it still holds up. Do people still get creeped out, considering how in-your-face google now is? I don't know many "normal" users, so don't have an answer really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I wonder if this would work for when I need to pick my kids up or some friend at the airport.

Basically tell them to wait inside while I share my location. Then have it alert them when I'm nearby so they can come out.

This would be really helpful for the airport situation, as I wouldn't even need to park.

</comment><comment><USER59> Is there any app that can send my location to a custom server of my own rather than Google's?

<comment><USER60> Owntracks does this

<comment><USER59> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> If you have concerns you can always use this. I am planning to opensource this

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spacetime](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spacetime)

</comment><comment><USER62>
        blog.google

It sometimes escapes me how much power google holds over the internet. It's moments like this that rekindle my fear in the "Don't be Evil" slogan (or for that matter, the removal of said slogan).

<comment><USER63> $200K buys you a gTLD, it does not translate to any "power held over the internet". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_dom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top- level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains)

And the "Don't be Evil" slogan has never been removed. [https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of- conduct.html](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Such a live tracking service exists for openstreepmap based OSMAND already (with privacy) [http://osmand.net/features?id=osmo- plugin](http://osmand.net/features?id=osmo-plugin)

</comment><comment><USER59> The app isn't working for me. I keep pressing Continue on the welcome screens and after the 4th or 5th screen Continue stops doing anything. Same thing when I restart the app, etc... anyone have this problem?

</comment><comment><USER65> It's this just a Google version of Apple's "Find My Friends"?

</comment><comment><USER66> What a great way for homophobic parents to keep track of their gay kids and make sure they aren't hanging out at that LGBT centre, or with any LGBT- friendly people!

</comment><comment><USER67> Is talking about distrusting this service due to government intervention a violation of the "no politics" rule? What about if it's just a nosy parent?

</comment><comment><USER68> How does it know your location when your phone is offline?

<comment><USER69> It doesn't, but it knows where it last saw you.

<comment><USER68> They should just say that! The marketing is deceptive:

> This new personal safety app lets you share your location with loved ones in > everyday situations and when emergencies arise — even if your phone is > offline or you can't get to it.

<comment><USER70> It's tricky because the access to your location data _is_ available when your phone is offline. They could have done better at explaining that, but probably not with just one sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Want an app just like this for iOS, today? Try out [https://goguardian.xyz](https://goguardian.xyz)

</comment><comment><USER72> Anyone want to take bets on how long until someone uses this to find his or her spouse's secret lover?

My money is going to be on "not very long".

</comment><comment><USER73> Or you can install Cerberus on your family's smartphones, and have all kinds of useful features besides determining their location.

</comment><comment><USER40> >assign "trusted" status to your closest friends and family

OK Google, we got the whole point of this app.

Nevertheless, it's a useful feature and can help many.

</comment><comment><USER74> I already have an app like this that lets me share my location and everything with my loved ones. It's called text messaging

</comment><comment><USER75> Dad has requested your location.

Your location will be auto shared in 4min 59seconds.

 _Loud Music Notification Not Audible_

Son is in Strip Club. Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER76> Reminds me of Google Latitude. Honestly, I prefer Latitude to this. This just smells of eternal tracking to me.

</comment><comment><USER77> This is nice. Definitely in response to Facebooks Safety Check and it's great to see innovation that makes the world a better place. I wrote about this: [http://richartruddie.blogspot.com/2016/12/facebook-google- sa...](http://richartruddie.blogspot.com/2016/12/facebook-google-safety- check.html)

<comment><USER78> Uh, I think Safety Check was inspired by Google.org's Person Finder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> \- google now has one more reason to collect your location and associate it with the rest of your activities

\- you are encouraged to use your phone even more, because doing so signals to your loved ones that you're ok. Using your phone pretty much means sharing even more data with google, watching their ads and buying stuff from their app store

It's a pure win. For google.

</comment><comment><USER80> I wonder if Google Apps accounts can use this? I don't have an Android phone to find out.

</comment><comment><USER81> iOS allows me to request location access as well as permanently or temporarily share my location. It would be great to get a "last known location" coordinate, but this feature is still very useful.

</comment><comment><USER82> How does it work when it is offline? Via SMS?

<comment><USER83> It looks like it just caches the last known location which is pretty useless.

<comment><USER33> It's plenty useful in some scenarios, like getting lost on a hike - it would significantly narrow down the search area for S&R.

<comment><USER84> It would depend on where you are. Here in Utah my cell service goes out within the first 5 minutes of the hike I do by my house. The hike itself is about 2 hours in and an hour out.

<comment><USER33> Hereabouts, I don't get mobile service on most hikes, but I do get it on many trailheads. So, at the very least, it would tell them which trail I was on when I disappeared.

This may be a thing that is specific to local conditions, though. It so happens that I live in upper Snoqualmie River valley, which has trailheads for many of the best and most popular hiking trails in the area. So, naturally, this is where most of my hikes are. And the towers that provide signal for the towns in the valley are on the surrounding mountaintops, so they provide coverage for a good chunk of wilderness around, as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> This is just an incident waiting to happen.

<comment><USER86> Can you elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> How far are we from being required to use a Google Buttplug in order to use gmail?

</comment><comment><USER88> Just remember that Google will be your most trusted contact.

</comment><comment><USER89> What's it?

<comment><USER70> There's actually a whole article someone prepared to answer that question, along with a video. If you scroll up to the top of the page you can click the link and go there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> I trust my contacts google. I don't trust your ideas. Got an idea... vote before implement. You ask us if we want the new feature looking at our data.

Just kidding. I like the idea.

</comment><comment><USER91> I'm not even kidding, I was thinking about this EXACT application / functionality yesterday and was thinking about making it.

</comment><comment><USER92> FTFY: Sometimes you just want to share your location with the Ad Sense team...

<comment><USER93> That's silly. They've had your location for years even without asking, they don't need an app for that. The TOS says you're already BFFs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Geez. Google is just getting carried away with this tracking stuff. It's like every day they release something new that seems to con people into letting Google track them.

I know advertising is a trillion dollar industry. But, you'd think that Google, of all companies, would be the ones to create real innovation and value without falling to the lowest common denominator.

<comment><USER53> WTF - I know Google employees troll this forum to build brand and influence, but squelch criticism? Come on. What ever happened to the 'don't do evil' company?

<comment><USER94> Or maybe that "criticism" is just not very good and merely a rehash of the same (weak) point made so many times on this very page already?

"con people into letting Google track them" \- how does this enable any _more_ tracking than existed yesterday? The only thing I see it enables is to share the data that already exists about the user with the people that user appoints (and trusts, hopefully).

Disclosure: Google employee, but nothing to do with location services.

<comment><USER53> First, I really appreciate the reply. So, thank you.

It may seem a rehash (and, it partially is). But, there are readers who are either unaware or have forgotten that Google doesn't give away services for free. Google is an advertisement and tracking company, not a benevolent technology supplier.

The Google collective is obviously way smarter than any of us. So, who really knows how they plan to profit from this service. My guess: It gives them further reach beyond Android devices. It requires people who may otherwise quickly turn off location services to keep it on. And, it allows them to bypass COPPA via implied parental consent.

Look, I've worked in this industry. And, tracking devices (AKA people) is massively profitable. And, the profit increases exponentially. That is, the profit per signal increases as the number of signals and devices grows. Furthermore, at the highest levels of coverage density, it becomes possible to even make accurate conclusions from the empty spaces (i.e. people without devices).

<comment><USER94> My (totally scientifically unfounded) suspicion is that people who decide to turn off Location Services also won't install this app (or will enable the app selectively, if they use LS that way so far)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> >When Elliot doesn't show up at the coffee shop, Thelma starts to worry. Because Trusted Contacts works even if a phone is offline, Thelma requests Elliot's location and in five minutes can see that his last known location was in the middle of the canyon. Thelma calls the nearest ranger station, they send out a rescue party, and find Elliot in a few hours.

Yeah because that has totally been a problem I've been needing a solution for.

<comment><USER96> I don't need it either, but it's uncaring to imagine that millions of people don't.

A young woman was abducted recently on a local trail. I don't believe she's been found yet. Perhaps this would have made some difference.

<comment><USER97> But cant police use the tracking info already once you report someone missing?

This just seems like a way for busybody and manipulative people to stir up drama.

<comment><USER96> It can take many hours to surmise that someone has been kidnapped. Getting people to pay direct attention to someone's whereabouts, without having to constantly nag the person, is a huge win.

Anyone who has ever expected an at-risk person to make contact at an estimated time can relate how worrying it is when that person is delayed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> This is not good. This basically gives a public opening into massive amounts of data which they could legally collect till now but now use it as a product? What happens when people disable location access.

And this:

>But if you're unable to respond within a reasonable timeframe, your location is shared automatically and your loved ones can determine the best way to help you out.

This does not seem like consent.I can think of at least a 100 situations where I was not near my phone and yet do not want to send my location.

Moreover how is this different from messaging someone/calling someone to ask them where they are? The only time I am trying to reach a person and cannot reach them is when they are out of coverage range.At that time, no app would make a difference.

This is nice when its a part of other apps (Whatsapp,Uber etc) .On its own, location based information as being the only purpose can prove to be quite disastrous.

Edit 1: People seem to miss the intricacies of human relationships here.I'd like to see folks tell their parents/loved ones/other close beings how they do not want to add "trusted contacts" and share their location continuously.

<comment><USER99> > _Once you install the Android app, you can assign "trusted" status to your > closest friends and family._

Sounds like the consent is explicit at the time of configuration. As long as it's a separate app an opt-in, I don't think this is bad.

More creepy is when it becomes a part of Android itself _and_ someone can add themselves as "Trusted" either via physical access or an exploit. It's a stalker's dream.</comment></comment>


GCC: Patch to change default C++ dialect to C++14 - <AUTHOR> https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2015-07/msg00073.html

<comment><USER2> This might be a terrible idea, but maybe it is a good time to scrap the concept of a default completely.

Wouldn't it be more future proof just to FORCE everyone to have to specify which language version they're targeting? That way when a new one is added it has absolutely no impact on the historical ones.

It isn't like c++14 is going to be the last version ever.

PS - If GCC is still in use in 2098 then things may get awkward.

<comment><USER3> >>just to FORCE everyone to have to specify which language version they're targeting?

There is a thought.

I see a lot of trouble from this proposal because the compilers and supplied libraries have a history of including extra things. Until quiet recently C++ headers would drop in C that nobody asked for. Personally, I was surprised to find that on Windows I could throw std::runtime_error.

At the end of the day a lot of code would break, because nobody is sure exactly what standard they are actually are using.

<comment><USER4> Is there a technical reason that would prevent the compiler from honoring a per-file pragma that allowed the developer to define how the code was expected to be interpreted by the compiler?

<comment><USER5> Haskell's GHC is doing exactly that. You can even mix and match pragmas for different extensions.

<comment><USER6> I find it terribly confusing. It means that Haskell is almost never something I can expect a lot from, but a weird combination of extensions changing to "non-standard" behaviours.

<comment><USER5> Never confused me. In general, on a bigger project you'll have a bunch of approved extensions, and everything extra goes through very strict code review to see whether it helps more than it confuses.

<comment><USER6> In a strictly controlled project, fine. But working with three different open source extensions that all use a different setup gets confusing quickly.

Point being the same: Haskell as used is never quite standard Haskell.

<comment><USER7> > Point being the same: Haskell as used is never quite standard Haskell.

In practice I haven't found this true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How long before this happens on Clang?

<comment><USER9> It's something we're discussing and exploring. The general thought is that Clang could do this for everything but sized deallocations (and it's unclear how much of an issue those would pose).

<comment><USER10> C++14 is awesome language, I didn't have much contact with C++ development for over a decade but I keep one eye on how C++ develops and am amazed of how flexible things became without abandoning strictness altogether C# "dynamic" kind of way.

Keeping strictness in the language allows for awesome tooling so I tried yesterday to find good IDE for C++14. There's not much on the market. Clion is decent but doesn't handle code completion for auto return type.

Clang does, so Atom code editor with clang based auto-complete plugin works better than Clion.

But I have luck for finding issues in the things I touch so I immediately encountered something that's not supported by clang autocomplete. It turned out of course that I'm not the first one to encounter this issue: [https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=14446](https://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=14446)

Since it's hanging there since 2012 I understand it's a low priority issue. Could you give me any pointers of how could I help with implementing this feature? Maybe point me to files that I'd need to alter to attempt to implement this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Won't this break stuff?

<comment><USER12> Maybe. For example, GCC 5 changed the default for C from gnu89 to gnu11 and that broke the build of some Finnish amateur project:

[https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/19/94](https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/19/94)

That's why projects that use GCC or a compatible compiler should use the -std option to set the targeted standard and not rely on the default.

<comment><USER13> Pretty much. Taking the "will this break stuff?" worry to the logical extreme would mean that gcc should default to a pre-standarization K&R dialect and g++ to a cfront dialect contemporary with 1st edition Stroustrup.

The world moves on. Though if you're an active project, moving along with the world is probably a better option than throwing in --std=c++really-old and deliberately refusing to use new stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> OH: "Now for updating the default C std"</comment>


Microsoft's dystopian pitch for remote work - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3683-microsofts-dystopian-pitch-for-remote-work <comment><USER2> Hypothetical: I get a call from my boss's boss at 7pm asking if I can create a weekly metrics spreadsheet for him for the meeting tomorrow. Because I'm a go- getter and want to help him out, I have three options:

1\. Wake up crazy early the next morning and head into the office early.

2\. Cancel my evening plans and drive back to the office tonight.

3\. Pop open my laptop while waiting for the next round of beers at Von Trapp's and get it done.

David's arguing that the third option is the least conducive to work-life balance. That's cool, but I'd rather have the ability to _edit that Excel spreadsheet during happy hour_ than have to shift my plans around to do it some other time.

(And it sits uneasy with me that 37signals has a book about remote work out and also makes linkbaity, low-content posts like these which blur the line between "signal" and marketing fluff.)

<comment><USER3> You _missed an option_. Maintain your work-life boundaries, tell your boss's boss you're sorry, but you have plans, and that he'll have a better chance of getting things like that from you with more lead time. I'm pretty sure David's arguing we should do that.

ETA: Actually I really think the idea of "work-life boundaries" is a useful framing to have alongside "work-life balance"

<comment><USER4> Given that the task is creating a "weekly metrics spreadsheet," something the boss had the time to plan for, I agree with you. But I remember my younger years very clearly, when something that sat on your director's desk for a week would plop down on yours at 6PM with a next-day deadline. Balking is a less attractive long-term proposition than grinding for a while. At that point, having the mobility options presented in the advert could be attractive.

At more senior levels, shit happens - servers blow up, deals come out of nowhere, and your top client with millions of dollars in arrears declares bankruptcy. It's generally unreasonable to declare all those situations unworthy of your consideration, let alone time, _ex ante_.

<comment><USER5> "At more senior levels, shit happens - servers blow up, deals come out of nowhere, and your top client with millions of dollars in arrears declares bankruptcy. It's generally unreasonable to declare all those situations unworthy of your consideration, let alone time, ex ante."

You're just reinforcing the culture that it's ok for these things to steal you life from you.

\- Outside of a young startup you should be paying someone to monitor/fix your servers overnight as their job.

\- It's very very rare that a deal shows up that can't wait until morning and by handling it right away you are telling the client that you'll drop everything to deal with them...which isn't a good or sustainable practice.

\- What could you possibly do at 10pm one night when a client declares bankruptcy? Deal with it in the morning.

By _not_ declaring all these situations unworthy of your consideration/time ahead of time you are saying to everyone that it's okay to interrupt you at any time for any reason...fuck whatever else you are doing at the time.

Such a shitty deal.

<comment><USER6> If you're in a product-driven business, then the idea of working during appetizers is pretty horrific. If you're in a client driven business, it's just what clients demand, and if you don't give it to them they'll find someone else who will.

That said, there is a flip side to the coin. In a client-driven business, you tend to have more flexibility when something isn't on fire. I used to work at a law firm and now I work for a judge. I liked my work-life balance substantially more at the firm. Before, if the baby had a rough night, I'd just sleep late and roll in at 10. Not so now. Uncle Sam expects me to be at my desk by 8:30 sharp. Before, if I wasn't busy I'd take a long lunch with my wife. Now, I've got 1 hour for lunch, minus 10 minutes to get through security. I don't take work home anymore, but I also don't get to go home when I don't have work.

So I guess I don't find that Microsoft ad as troubling as David does. To me it doesn't signify filling all the crevices of my life with work, but rather having the flexibility to do my work when I want to and need to.

<comment><USER7> A client driven business doesn't have to give in to every demand any more than a product driven one does.

David's contention is ultimately that work-life boundaries can result in better work than simply being on call at all times, because people are more productive when work is not in conflict with their significant personal relationships.

If David is right, then client driven businesses that maintain robust boundaries will perform better than those that do not.

If 24/7 responsiveness is the highest priority for your clients, the implication is that they themselves do not understand the value of work-life balance and that by going along with their demands, you are acting as a facilitator of a dysfunctional behavior that is also bad for you and your business.

<comment><USER8> It depends on the firm. Some legal and accounting firms offer 24/7 responsiveness to clients, and charge accordingly. Other firms provide work- life balance to their employees and make it clear to their customers that they won't be available after Xpm, or before Yam, and correspondingly charge significantly less for their services.

Moreover, the more-responsive firms compensate for the worsened work-life balance by paying their employees more. If employees would rather have work- life balance, they can always jump to a more balanced firm for a smaller salary.

<comment><USER9> You don't actually know any of this as fact, do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Microsoft is an enterprise software company and these advertisements are targeted to the bosses who bully people into working nights and weekends from home/bed/the bar/ their kid's soccer game, not to the people who are actually working nights and weekends. The fact that they've gone for brutal realism, if anything, just goes to show they're accepting this fact rather than pretending they are in the business of bringing joy to people's lives.

</comment><comment><USER11> As someone who just threw his smartphone out of a car this morning due to the stresses of having to work before my contracted hours, they can fuck off.

Waking up to work and going to sleep with work - not for me.

Apologies for the language.

<comment><USER12> > Apologies for the language.

None needed. Certain words exist to convey a very strong sense of emotion. The topic you're talking about is obviously one of those.

IMO, you used the word perfectly, and I hope you did it to their faces too :)

(They've been doing the same to me this week)

<comment><USER11> They did indeed get it to the face (well by email).

Thou who hire third parties to validate our dev process (which is a fucking shambles) and take advice from said third party, despite us crowing the same message for 6 fucking years, will recieveth face full of nasty language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I struggle with calling this dystopian, even though I partially agree. I think it's great that we push work-life balance, and I believe we should disconnect but I can see where these advertisements might be comforting to some.

Back in the 70's my dad worked in an office and wasn't home until 7:30. He only made it to a handful of sporting events and school events. If you asked him, in the 70's, would he prefer to be in the office making that phone call or be sitting at <insert kid's> <insert event> he would choose the latter without hesitation.

For a more recent example, my sister is in sales and will get phone calls any hour of the day. For her, being able to go out and do things with the occasional 5 minute interruption is an absolute game-changer. Not just answer phone calls, but to bring up the customer information and maybe write a quick email.

<comment><USER14> i agree, and i'm not sure this "pitch" can be really pinned on microsoft (alone), the entire tech ecosystem of the 00's made it happen, starting with blackberry, then apple, the wireless carriers, etc. it's a larger cultural/technology shift.

<comment><USER15> Why are you trying so hard to be an apologist for a shitty advertising campaign?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting, DHH has a book to pitch, and he has all these link-baiting, low quality posts that automatically get upvoted because it's DHH. And surprise, they're all about how working remotely is the best situation for everyone. It's not. Just like every other working style/paradigm, it works for some, not for others.

<comment><USER7> How is this post about working remotely being the best situation for everyone?

How is it linkbait?

<comment><USER17> It is. Because he's just over analyzing a bunch of ads. And picking on Microsoft is bound to draw the usual startup hate crowd. The ads just showcase the fact that you can access your work files online anywhere, which was previously unheard of anywhere. Twisting that and putting on dystopian airs is just link baiting

<comment><USER7> Firstly, accessing your work files anywhere has long been enabled by Dropbox, Google Docs, and iCloud, so there's nothing that was previously unheard of.

Secondly, the complaint is that Microsoft is celebrating people being distracted from family events by the demands of work. I think that's a valid complaint and not something to be encouraged.

<comment><USER17> I'm talking about Enterprises (fortune companies), that've been tied to IBM or Microsoft, access to files everywhere is new. And google apps for enterprises doesn't preceed o365 by that much

<comment><USER7> Fair enough. I guess you agree with the other point then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So it is, as with most things, complicated. Yes, having to work during your kid's soccer game is not great, but having the option makes some things possible.

Clearly there are toxic work situations where "the boss" is always demanding more than is possible and requiring a lot of free "overtime" to get it done. And this technology is an enabler for that type of supervisor, but it isn't the _cause_ of their mismanagement. Bad bosses are bad, they ask you stay late all the time, they ask you to come in and work weekends for this "sprint" they put a spin on it that it is good for the company but at the end of the day they are just trying to maximize productivity at the expense of their employee's work/life balance.

But there are also things that come up, they come up in random time zones far away and sometimes they need you to work at odd hours. At those times, when it is an exception that you're going to be working at an odd time and unexpectedly, it can be convenient that you can do that work on what you have with you (your phone or tablet) than feeling the need to carry around a larger amount of stuff 'just in case.'

That said, I don't know here Microsoft gets their ad agencies but this one and some of the ones poking at Apple are probably not the best way to express their intent. And sometimes a bad advertising pitch is identified by how easily it can be used against the company that funded it.

The rest seems to be 37signals taking advantage of a wonderful "straight line" as comedians would say, and spinning it to their advantage.

</comment><comment><USER19> For the millionth time. If you're going to tell me you don't trust me to work from home you'd better not be pushing to outsource to India. I mean how can you trust someone on the other side of the planet but you can't trust me 10 miles away?

<comment><USER20> I think it's because programmers in India cost less than you. It's easier to trust someone that cost less - if they screw up you've lost considerably less money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was ready to post some counterpoints, but that was before I clicked on the link to the full Microsoft ad. The images are truly awful. An example promoting that during my lunch, while walking in a national park, I should participate in meetings is ridiculous. A guy collapsed in bed clinging to his tablet that's pulsing with new work? Right.

<comment><USER22> Also, just try getting a decent cell signal on the rim of the Grand Canyon. And the wi-fi options in national parks are decidedly subpar.

The fact that I _know_ this saddens me greatly.

<comment><USER23> The wi-fi options in national parks is fantastic.

There isn't any. That's the way it should be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Microsoft has this weird knack for anti-marketing. They did this shit, too, with Windows phone. The launch campaign was basically a bunch of ads saying that using your phone was bad.

<comment><USER25> These ads are just fine for the product, which allows you to work anywhere, and is what they are touting. The only reason they are being hated on right now is because it is Microsoft, and around here Microsoft Is Evil.

<comment><USER7> No. They are being criticized because they are trying to persuade that it's good for bosses to demand that people work instead of paying attention to their families in order to sell tools that allow people to work anywhere to corporations.

<comment><USER25> Why aren't we outraged at Dropbox for letting you have access to your work documents at home so that you can work late into the night? Or Google so I can work on that spreadsheet during dinner and until late in the morning?

All companies that push cloud based easily accessible products will tout how you can work / play whenever / however you want thanks to their new tech.

This is just faux outrage because it is Microsoft.

<comment><USER7> There is no outrage at the technology or the idea of being able to work when you want.

There is outrage at an advertising campaign that celebrates being distracted by work from important family events.

<comment><USER25> Yet the ads are saying exactly the opposite. You don't have to be totally absent using 365 like you could before the product was available to you (which is a good thing when you are forced to work, vs not being there at all). People are just trying to find reasons to not like the product to fuel the MS hate in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> I think underlying the dislike of the ad is that it glorifies a situation where people as you say are _forced_ to work.

Certainly if you are forced to work at the whim of your boss, being able to do so while being able to attend a family event is better than simply not being allowed to attend family events.

Being waterboarded is better than the thumbscrews, but most of us would prefer not to have to choose one of them.

<comment><USER25> This comes back to my other comment in another thread, that everyone should be outraged at the companies enforcing this type of work/life balance, not Microsoft.

<comment><USER7> Microsoft is putting large amounts of money into celebrating this kind of behavior. Why on earth should that be ignored?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Those images are comically off-putting. The father looks like he's missing his son score a goal because he's on his cell. The guy in happy hour looks like he's awkwardly suffering boredom.

</comment><comment><USER27> First of all remote work is not only for the employee. The startup community should know better that working can also include monitoring, getting up to date on things, and even meetings.

Having a coworker that lives across the globe and needs a quick line edit help shouldn't punish you by means of staying at home OR him to a strict off-hours schedule.

That's all part of the work from home culture and tools.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find the image of the woman typing away at her computer while her date, boyfriend, husband, coworker even sits attentive to her, to be appallingly rude. Now I am much older than nearly all of you and I grew up when the only electronic distraction was a portable radio. I remember being at a restaurant with a date. She told me that she liked being with me because I paid attention to her and ignored all the people around us. My partner and I have been together for 12 years, but I still pay attention to her like it was out first date.

</comment><comment><USER29> Of all the things in the world to get indignant about this poster ranks pretty low in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER30> Obviously it is some kind of ironic marketing campaign. The full pr is here: [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/nov13/11-06ge...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/nov13/11-06getitdone.aspx) I don't get it because I'm picturing people that are working 8h in the office and _then_ working during the night thanks to Office 365.

<comment><USER31> I thought the posters were a joke at first, but I think the point is that people _already do this_. The posters aren't saying "now you can work from bed!" It's saying: you already work from bed, let me help you with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I get work done during work hours.

#GetItDoneAtWork

</comment><comment><USER33> microsoft's 'get it done' ad campaign reads more like a parody of bad marketing than anything else. The SNL skit almost writes itself.

</comment><comment><USER34> Incredible low-content article for how many points it has. Terrible linkbait. It seems more like HN likes to upvote anything anti-Microsoft. If you actually look at Microsoft's ads, they are definitely poking fun at these use-cases, while highlighting that these are actual REAL-WORLD use-cases, that people already actually do.

</comment><comment><USER35> For a second there, I thought DHH turned over a new leaf and wasn't going to drop the f-bomb in a post... wrongo...

That said, I agree fully with his thoughts from an employee perspective. However, MSFT is trying to appeal decision makers who write the check for their software, not the employees.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think some are missing the major point. If you are working from every where there is no "life" in the "work-life" balance message that they are trying to convey. "Work anywhere", yes. "Work-life balance", no.

</comment><comment><USER37> So everyone supporting this, don't you have on calls in your team? (assuming you work on a live product). Don't you have subject matter expertise split enough that you might be needed when your component conks? Don't you have aggressive targets that your whole team is rushing towards once in a while?

It might be a systemic issue. It might also just be an one off situation. You should fight back if the boss is just being lazy / incompetent, but most of the situations I have seen have been way too deep for the boss / current oncall to handle. You just suck it up and get to work - that's all. The onus is on you to equip your boss to handle it himself.

As always different shades - there are many cases where a set timetable isn't an option. In those cases, I welcome such tools that give me the option to work from anywhere rather than forcing me to drive back to office.

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps they should rebrand it, "Office Eternity".

</comment><comment><USER38> So, the idea is making remote work so unappealing that employees reject it actively?

</comment><comment><USER39> Eh, there are also less dystopian versions of this ad. Like the one where someone works on a presentation on the train while going to a customer meeting - more about squeezing out the completely wasted hours than about working during the really rewarding parts of your life.

</comment><comment><USER40> Microsoft is a toxic workplace.

</comment><comment><USER41> Isn't that the pitch of everything from Remote desktop to VPN?

From [http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/benefits.html](http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/benefits.html)

>For your business, this means every employee and everyone you work with can be productive from anywhere, using any device with an Internet connection.

>Free your team from cubicles

>Access your work from any device with a web browser – your computer, phone or tablet – and stay productive even when you're away from the office.

> _Need to attend a meeting from your kid's soccer game?_ Edit a spreadsheet > while at the airport waiting for a flight? Respond to an email from a hotel > business center computer? Google Apps makes it easy to stay connected to > projects you're working on and the people you work with, no matter where you > are or what device you're using.

Putting Microsoft and dystopian into the headline does get a lot more clicks, upvotes and outrage though.

<comment><USER42> Or really even what 37signals own features are implying:

"It's just the right amount of Basecamp when you're on-the-go."

[https://basecamp.com/mobile](https://basecamp.com/mobile)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Create an enemy. Great marketing DHH.</comment>


Show HN: ngrok – secure introspectable tunnels to localhost - <AUTHOR> https://ngrok.com <comment><USER2> This sounds technically similar to runscope[1] (reverse proxy via the cloud), although they are specifically focused on debugging/testing web APIs.

[1] [https://www.runscope.com/](https://www.runscope.com/)

<comment><USER3> ngrok is functionally equivalent to our Passageway: runscope.com/docs/passageway. Can never have enough tools out there though. Looks great Alan.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I made this tool with the intention of making it easier to develop websites and webservices as well as easier to share projects you're working on with friends or at hackathons. Happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER4> Were you aware of localtunnel "[http://progrium.com/localtunnel/"](http://progrium.com/localtunnel/") before you started this project? I think it does sort of the same thing. Obviously you have a lot more features than localtunnel does (SSL, HTTP Auth, Raw TCP/UDP tunneling), but it's something to be aware of.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of existing projects that have similar or subsets of ngrok's feature set. localtunnel was certainly one of the inspirations for building ngrok.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this "free right now" or "free forever"? Are you running this as a public utility or have an aim to turn it into a business?

<comment><AUTHOR> The intention is that the current feature set is free forever.

It's possible that in the future there might be additional new features worth charging for. If necessary, a small cost may be added for very-high bandwidth usage of the service, but as long as I'm under my network usage quota, that shouldn't be necessary.

<comment><USER5> Very interesting. I'm going to give it a whirl.

I like how simple your API is. The HTTP auth feature is also a great idea.

I run a distributed engineering team for a startup and this could actually be useful for when people share stuff with each other. Currently, we tend to just deploy to a "hack server", but there's often some local data & setup that is annoying to reproduce on a server, especially for an experiment. This could let people share their stuff more easily with each other.

I also like the idea of using this to share a locally-running IPython Notebook instance to share code with someone else.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! I really like the ipython notebook idea. I've kicked around the idea of having the server component keep track of which tunnels are currently open by all of the developers on an "account" and then exposing them in the web interface so you would have an easy index to your coworkers' dev work. That might be one of those extra features I try charging for since it's more business-targeted. Feel free to get in touch if you have any ideas of features you'd like to see built on top. contact (at) ngrok dot com

<comment><USER6> Would it be possible to support XMPP Streams like those used in the OLPC project? You could then share a service with other users over jabber, or browse the services exposed by a jid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Instant usefulness!

You might want to consider hosting the apps on a separate domain than your own to avoid some security gotchas. github did so recently and explains the rationale at: [https://github.com/blog/1452-new-github-pages-domain- github-...](https://github.com/blog/1452-new-github-pages-domain-github-io)

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice! I worked on localtunnel.me which has some similar goals. I like the SSL encryption option and the data capture. Could see that being useful for some use cases.

<comment><USER9> Is localtunnel.me the same thing as localtunnel.com, just with npm instead of a rubygem?

<comment><USER8> It is the same idea. I didn't like the user experience of setting up the SSH key nonsense and wanted it to just work.

<comment><USER3> Why reuse the name? That's just confusing (and a bit disrespectful).

<comment><USER8> It is a simple name and does similar functionality. I don't like naming stuff vague unrelated things and am not creative with naming stuff. If you come up with a better name that is available I am happy to consider it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Very cool idea. Right now I'm using autossh to keep a reverse ssh tunnel open. It works reliably, but the performance is awful.

Great work!

</comment><comment><USER11> Just what I was looking for! Excellent!

One thing I noticed, when I signed in with Github, your site didn't use my primary email address.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is really nifty, and Apache licensed to boot. Also, an excellent use of grok :)

Are you looking for open source contributors?

</comment><comment><USER13> The replay button in the local web UI is enough to make this instantly useful. Thanks for building this.

</comment><comment><USER14> really useful, quick to set up, nice console, and a lot easier than setting up port forwarding and dyndns. Thanks for an immediately useful tool!

P.S. I hope you're not retaining all the data that goes through your server. You don't want someone getting all snowdenny on you.

<comment><AUTHOR> ngrokd (the server portion) does not store any of the data. the only portion it inspects is the Host header to determine routing information. All of the code for inspecting the traffic is done on the client side on the machine you control. =)

Lastly, the code is open source at github.com/inconshreveable/ngrok if you'd like to audit it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> So if nginx is "engine-x" does ngrok "negro-k"?

Or is it a "y" sound like "nguyen"...?

<comment><USER16> It's pronounced "en-grock".

<comment><USER15> I was way off!

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> swell!</comment>


Intel Demos 48-Core Prototype Chip - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2356557,00.asp

<comment><USER2> Intel research page here: <http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/Tera- Scale/1826.htm>

Interestingly, it's x86 compatible, although the individual cores are only around atom-powered. It's built out of 24 'tiles' of 2 cores each with a 25gB/s internal bus, and: _Each tile (2 cores) can have its own frequency, and groupings of four tiles (8 cores) can each run at their own voltage._

Very much a lab project right now, but impressive nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> Interesting: "Each core can run a separate OS and software stack and act like an individual compute node that communicates with other compute nodes over a packet-based network."

I'm going to ding them a few points for trying to birth a new acronym though.

<comment><USER4> This hardware just screams: "run erlang on me plz"

<comment><USER5> The lack of memory sharing, plus the scalable low-latency network on chip, would be the Platonic ideal for Erlang.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This looks like nothing more than a rehash of the MIT RAW project from 10 years ago. (but this time with x86!) Tilera's shipping products look more interesting than this Intel research project. The power management might be interesting but I can't find many details about it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that this is separate from Intel's Larrabee project <http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU)>. Larrabee also has the potential to put 48 x86 cores on one chip but provides a fully coherent cache and a ring bus instead of a mesh network with message passing.

The other major difference is that Larrabee includes a wide vector processor in each core to run OpenGL/DirectX shaders or OpenCL kernels.

</comment><comment><USER5> No cache coherence? There's an interesting choice. I suppose it could be handy for companies running "cloud data centers" who just want a bunch of cores with a high-bandwidth low-latency packet-switched network going between them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Other similar (in some sense) systems include the Inmos transputer based machines such as the ParSys SuperNode and and Meiko CS-1 (and others), and Danny Hillis's Connection machines CM1 and CM2.

These ideas have been around for a long time and are constantly being refined. Not to say this isn't an advance, but I've worked on commercial machines of this ilk.

</comment><comment><USER9> Didn't Chuck Moore do this? And wasn't his version like a million times more awesome?

<comment><USER5> He took a bunch of really minimal stack-based processors, added local interconnect, and called it good. Intel is making something quite a bit more complex, with cores that can run a typical operating system (Linux, right now) and a full-fledged network for communications, complete with tiny routers.

<comment><USER9> In other words, typically Intel-style MASSIVE OVERKILL. Splendid.

<comment><USER5> No, it's not overkill; it's a surprisingly clever and practical design for data centers and (with a more FP-centric core) computing clusters. The cores are relatively simple and get high performance/Watt for x86, and by fitting a lot of them onto a die with shared motherboard/cooling/etc. and some amount of DRAM sharing, they can lower the costs of machines that would ordinarily be running a bunch of virtual servers on Xen.

As for the packet-switched network on chip, that's the way of the future: even with simple routers, it scales way better than bus-based communication methods, and is vastly easier to program than the nearest-neighbor interconnect that Chuck Moore used.

I'm not trying to chew you out or anything; I just want to impress on you that this is fascinating stuff, and not something to be simply pidgeonholed as "massive overkill".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Graphic designer wants to start coding? Help? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
I'm a graphic designer and illustrator who dabbles in photography too. I want to start learning to code to bolster my skill set and lessen the divide when I end up working with programmers.
Any tips? I have no idea where to begin.
Thanks :) <comment><USER2> I would suggest looking into transitioning from graphic design into "Front End Web Development", which in a nutshell is what they call translating visual designs into the actual website that people see and interact with. It is empowering to be able to build what you design. I'd start with learning HTML5, sass & css, javascript, php and ruby/rails. Smashing Magazine has some decent tutorials, also begin reading/subscribing to some newsletters like the responsive design newsletter. HTML and sass/css is pretty easy and isn't really coding, but they are "gateway drugs" into javascript/php and learning web frameworks. I would look into learning how to "theme" websites for CMS (content management systems) like Wordpress (beginner) and Drupal (tricky), and perhaps magento for ecommerce. Javascript, php and rails will be the hard part as it will require a completely different mental mindset from what you're used to working as a designer. There are tons of free tutorials online, but paid online classes are hit and miss, if Udemy is every having a $10 sale that's not bad for grabbing some cheap classes (be warned not all the classes are good but for $10 you can't go wrong when it comes to getting a general introduction to a topic). Lynda.com can be a bit general.

It will be challenging but don't give up. The hardest thing to deal with in being self-taught in programming is documentation, it's usually written in "developer-ese" rather than plain english making it difficult to learn from. It may seem like you will be copying/pasting code you don't fully understand at first, but it gets better over time as you understanding develops.

If you happen to be female, I'd recommend joining up with Women Who Code and look for WWC meetups in your area, they have members who mentor newer members.</comment>


Most detailed Github issue ever - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/3423 <comment><USER2> Thats actually not unusual for elasticsearch.

While not always including images, a lot of the new features start as something like this:

[https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/3376](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/3376)

<comment><USER3> Another good example is the Aggregations issue, which details a new faceting framework coming out soonish:

[https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/3300](https://github.com/elasticsearch/elasticsearch/issues/3300)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good search takes great minds, makes sense to see such a high quality post like that on a search engine project.

I didn't know github had self-hosted inline images.

Going to have to re-read the markup doc.

<comment><USER5> Self-hosted inline images in GitHub markdown are a little tricky, but the syntax that works is:

      ![screen shot](https://github.com/jloughry/BANCStar/raw/master/screenshot.jpeg)

...on a line by itself. The answer was found on Stack Overflow: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10935763/github- picture-p...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10935763/github-picture-path)

<comment><USER6> For issues and comments you can simply drag an image into the body area (or use the upload button) and it will upload to GitHub. You only need to reference from your repository for README or other files inside of your code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Bootstrap 3 ticket/discussion is also pretty epic. [1]

[1] [https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/6342)</comment>


How Failing Better Could Advance Science - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/why-scientists-need-to-fail-better <comment><USER2> I'm always shocked to read about how academia -- especially scientific fields -- punishes failure of the 'Experiment did not succeed' type.

My 6th grade science teacher was adamant that the scientific method is about testing, logging, and refining... While I get not working doesn't usually make for an interesting paper, isn't it important for scientists to share what _doesn 't_ work as often as what does?

Or have I just gotten the wrong impression from a few articles I've seen pop up on HN?

<comment><USER3> The basic issue is the intrusion of the MBA.

[http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/the-scourge-of- manage...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/the-scourge-of- managerialism-generic-management-the-managers-coup-detat-mission-hostile- management-rolled-up-as-described-by-some-men-from-down-under.html)

These MBAs have latched onto article reference rates as a way to measure "productivity", and negative results rarely gets referenced, thus producing a classic perverse incentive that is distorting the scientific method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Scientists are already doing what the author suggests. At least one very fine hydrologist and climate scientist of my acquaintance lived by Beckett's motto.</comment>