Apple will soon treat online web tracking the same as a security vulnerability - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/privacy/2019/08/16/apple-will-soon-treat-online-web-tracking-the-same-as-a-security-vulnerability/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this will undo, in large parts, the "new" web that's being worked on for the better part of this millenium. Third-party cookies are blocked, presumably YouTube-like redirection to make cookies first-party are detected, other cookies are held no longer than a week, etc. So advertisers will turn to browser fingerprinting, so soon we'll see requesting window/viewport dimensions as being flagged as insecure. Even CSS media queries aren't safe as they can trivially be used for fingerprinting (and I have seen CSS where max- width was beeing queried in steps of 3 pixels out of sheer incompetence). Also caching/timing "attacks" for fingerprinting. And finally, arbitrary JavaScript execution will be questioned, as it should've been a long time ago. It'll be interesting to see this arms race enroll, with Apple protecting their users (and also their apps and iDevice market) and Google protecting their version of freedom (and unchecked privacy invasion and monopolization of the ad space and web). Hint: I've recently purchased an iPhone

<comment><USER3> > And finally, arbitrary JavaScript execution will be questioned, as it > should've been a long time ago.

I run UMatrix and manually whitelist 3rd-party scripts, I've blocked web features like WebGL and Canvas behind prompts, and I regularly disable JS on websites that I think don't need it (news sites in particular). At the moment, if you're really worried about tracking, it is a very good idea to think about blocking most Javascript and culling down the language features your browser supports.

However, I want to stress _at the moment._ The problem is that pervasive tracking and device fingerprinting will go wherever the app functionality is. Currently, even with all of the many, many problems on the web, it's still better to use apps like Facebook via a website than it is to download them as native apps to your phone. The web has better fingerprinting resistance than most native platforms.

Again, doesn't mean the web is great. It just means we need to think about where Google Maps is going to end up if it's not on the web. What I'm getting at is that blocking scripting isn't a long-term solution to fingerprinting in general. We could get rid of Javascript on the web, it might even be a good idea. We will still need to solve the same problem with native apps.

Forget the web for a second, what it comes down to is that we need a way to run a turing complete language that is incapable of fingerprinting the host environment. That language doesn't have to be Javascript, and it doesn't have to be on the web, but it does have to be something, somewhere.

It's a really hard problem -- vulnerabilities like Spectre and Meltdown have made it worse. Now we're asking questions like, "is it actually reasonable for applications to have access to high-resolution timers?" People look at the web and say, "oh, this is a web problem." It's an everything problem. If we really want to get rid of pervasive tracking, we now have to think about how high- resolution timers are going to work on _desktops_.

What the web promised was a VM where anybody (technical or not) could run almost anything, without validating that the code was safe, and the VM would just protect them. We're finding holes in this particular implementation, but I still eventually want that VM as promised.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for your well-written comment.

I don't want to deprive you of the VM as promised, but that seems very hard to implement, and I don't have time to help.

I just want to solve the much easier problem of giving people some way to use the internet to read documents without getting tracked [1].

By "document" I mean a page of text, images, links to other documents and maybe some other _easy-to-implement_ non-privacy-compromising things.

The web is how almost all documents are made available on the public internet. Most document authors don't even consider or imagine any other way to do it. And the web is a privacy nightmare. That is the problem I'd like to solve.

I felt the need to write this because past discussions on this site of the problem I want to solve have gotten derailed into a discussion of how finally to achieve the vision of "a VM where anybody (technical or not) could run almost anything", which, like I said, strikes me as a much harder nut to crack.

[1]: and without the need for anything as demanding of the user's time or the user's technical skills as you described when you wrote, "I run UMatrix and manually whitelist 3rd-party scripts, I've blocked web features like WebGL and Canvas behind prompts".

<comment><USER3> We already have all the of the technology we would need to build a document- only web now. The biggest unresolved problems are asset caching[0] and IP addresses[1]. But for the most part, nobody would even have to build a new browser, they could just distribute a custom build of Firefox that turned off Javascript and a few other features.

It would be very fast, reasonably private, probably a lot nicer to use (at least where documents are concerned), and nobody would use it. I don't necessarily disagree with your goal -- it seems very reasonable to want a document distribution platform that isn't encumbered with JS. But given that news sites can _already_ speed up their pages dramatically by removing JS, and they don't, why would they support this new browser or platform? And without them supporting it, why would users move to it?

We've seen this play out with AMP. AMP is fundamentally flawed, but it did get one thing right: that news sites only care about search engine placement, and they do not care about user experience past that point.

I would (very cautiously) suggest that it might actually be easier to implement a VM that safely runs arbitrary code, than it would be to convince publishers to move to a user-friendly platform that only distributed documents. The only success I've seen in getting publishers to abandon scripting is via platforms like Facebook and Medium -- maybe that's replicable with a new browser or distribution layer on top of the web[2]? I dunno; I think that also might just be a really, really hard problem.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, I would happily start using a ubiquitous, script-free platform for document distribution.

\---

[0]: We maybe need to just bite the bullet and get rid of asset caching, or at least give asset caches a very short expiration date (<1 day). I guess making them domain-specific could help too.

[1]: IP addresses are a huge issue, and I don't think the tech community talks about them enough. TOR is not really scaling. The best solution for ordinary consumers is a VPN, and VPNs have a lot of pretty obvious problems.

[2]: My guess would be, someone would need to make publishing _much_ easier than building a website (ie, Medium), maybe by adopting the DAT protocol and just offering free hosting for everyone. That runs into the same IP address problems (DAT and IPFS are _not_ privacy friendly), but there's progress being made in that area. Or someone would need to find a way to get users to en-mass abandon the web and move to the new platform.

<comment><USER4> >it might actually be easier to implement a VM that safely runs arbitrary code, than it would be to convince publishers to move to a user-friendly platform that only distributed documents.

Would the VM that safely runs arbitrary code render existing web pages or would it be necessary to persuade publishers to adopt it?

<comment><USER3> The current strategy being pursued by Apple and Mozilla is -- yes. They're hoping to make Javascript into that VM without breaking the majority of web pages.

It is yet to be seen whether that's feasible. Apple and Mozilla are certainly making a lot of progress, but Javascript is very old, and was designed in an era where the attacks were much less sophisticated.

The most promising progress (I think) is in building tracking protection that is undetectable. For example, you can put a permission prompt in front of someone's location and block off the API if the user clicked "no", but you could also just lie about their location, which means you'd still be compatible with most existing pages, and publishers wouldn't be able to strong-arm users into turning off the setting. This is how Firefox currently handles high-resolution timers. You can request them, they'll just lie to you sometimes.

Again, it's yet to be seen whether that kind of stuff will work.

The other hope is that WASM may be good enough on its own to encourage wide adoption -- being able to use (almost) any language to compile to the web is very, very attractive, so WASM might overcome Javascript's network effects (no pun intended) and replace it as the dominant language on the web.

If that happens, WASM _might_ be an opportunity to rethink web permissions. _Might_.

If neither of those approaches work, then anything is fair game. At that point, we might as well try to make a document-only web, or migrate everyone to a new platform. I think that will be very difficult though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> According to this article, Goldman-Sachs is paying Apple a considerable amount for the privilege of facilitating Apple Card, expects to lose money for a while, but is confident it can make the deal profitable by employing brand-new technology. This suggests to me something highly intrusive. I cannot take Apple seriously on any privacy claims as they partner with GS and do things like develop iBeacon.

[https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/10/apple-card-goldman- comments/](https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/10/apple-card-goldman-comments/)

<comment><USER6> They could be desiring data (even anonymized) to assist leading edge prediction of market trends (purchasing, interest, etc) _immediately as they happen_. In a world of algorithmic trading and futures speculation, perhaps that matters a great deal?

It _is_ goldman though after all, so you could be right!

<comment><USER7> We know from this case [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-01-23/capita...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-01-23/capital- one-fraud-researchers-may-also-have-done-some-fraud) of insider trading based on spending data at Capital One that such data would be extremely valuable. But it sounds like it would probably be illegal because merchants wouldn't agree to let their data be used like that.

<comment><USER8> I don't see why merchants would have any choice, the payment networks hold the cards and they themselves sell it.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google- an...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and- mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales)

<comment><USER7> Retailers may sell data (via payment networks) to Google so the latter can use it for their advertising business, but it seems (at least to Matt Levine in the article I linked) that they can't/won't sell it to hedge funds to trade on:

> does that mean that Capital One was allowed to trade on this data for its > own profit? Wouldn't that be amazing? Surely the answer is no: I assume that > Capital One signed agreements with retailers (or rather, with Visa and > MasterCard, which signed agreements with retailers) in which it promised not > to disclose transaction data, or use it for nefarious purposes.

If you think about it this makes sense. A retailer selling material non-public information to a hedge fund which then trades on it is essentially the same as them executing trades based on the data via the fund, which is obviously insider trading.

<comment><USER9> No, I don't think that's correct. "Selling" data is typically enough to make it "public" (i.e. it's dissemination), after all most financial data isn't available for free (e.g. stock prices).

<comment><USER7> That can't be right, otherwise a CEO could "sell" their revenue figures to a golf buddy who then trades on them. Possibly allowing a reasonably broad set of people to buy the data is enough, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't it strange that an article that has a very specific title immediately changes the topic and starts promoting brave—a browser that practically nobody uses, and has a controversial business model—while there are companies like Mozilla, that have proven record of protecting users' privacy online? It's not the first time I've seen this aggressive, misleading, promotional articles, which makes you wonder about if Eich and friends are desperate to hype their Ware by injecting brave into this clickbait articles?

<comment><USER11> Yeah I'm fed up with unwarranted mentions of Brave. Indeed they are always "aggressive, misleading, promotional", and nothing close to informational. The article was supposed to be about Apple and Webkit, and Brave is just off- topic.

Brave is not a privacy-focused browser. It is an ad-focused browser and the business model of Brave is just this: ads, through Basic Attention Tokens. Privacy and BATs are in conflict and Brave will never be incentivized to respect the privacy of all its users. If you want privacy for you and for everyone, competition except Chrome is already better.

Brave is not a solution for a browser user's problem.

<comment><USER12> There is always something curious about an opinion so strongly held and communicated that is at the same time so wilfully ignorant.

Brave is clearly a privacy-focused browser: it takes very little time for a technically-minded, veteran HNer to kick the tyres on that project's focus and codebase to understand that privacy is their USP.

It's obvious the whole team believes in the idea of a user agent being an Agent of the User.

A little more time reviewing key figures, from Yan Zhu through to Johnny Ryan, reveals the calibre and integrity of people working on this project.

They are attempting to build a model that upsets the current surveillance capitalism status quo, so it's no surprise that there are attempts to spike perceptions around the project.

<comment><USER10> ROFL. Especially the "a user agent being an agent of the user". Who said surveillance capitalism has no sense of humor ...?

<comment><USER12> Browsers can and should be agents of the user: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent)

Google's Chrome has distorted that historical idea so they are agents of the ad network and advertiser, working against the user.

<comment><USER10> No sure. I get it. But the seriousness with which you attribute a for profit like brave a benevolent mission, as if. How many times do we need to go down the same road of talking about features vs what really counts: track record and who's actually standing behind the technology? Clue: people. Why would you trust Brave to begin with? Because Brenden Eich is such a role model (a racist homophobe last time I checked)?

<comment><USER13> You checked and found I am racist? Where?

As for homophobe, I reject your definition. Call me what you want there, but "racist" is a lie. Either yours or your "last I checked" source's.

From what you write, nonprofits are innocent and for-profits are guilty. I worked for a nonprofit or its wholly owned for-profit subsidiary for 11 years, and I can tell you that the profit motive does not go away in nonprofits. Check the 2017 form 990 on Mozilla's site for the top salary, >$2.3m. I never got 1/3rd that and went down to 1/15th to start Brave.

Brave uses all open source for auditability and we pay for audits as well as bug bounties. We pay the user 70% of user private ad revenue. For publisher ads (not yet done, working with publisher partners) we will pay users the same 15% we get - publisher gets 70%. So we won't make revenue without our users being happy and making more than we make. Let's see Firefox share Google search revenue (which held up tracking protection in Firefox for years) with its users, giving more to the user than Mozilla gets.

You ad hominem argument against an open source product is absurd on its face. Should right wingers use only software from righties? How many tribes must hive off and build their own software, and reject open source that's ritually unclean? Judge products on their observable design, implementation, and business properties.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We can just go all the way and call it counter-intelligence, with a significant component of sigint.

OS developers and browsers will need to emit statistical noise to mask a users identity/activity. That will mean all emissions down to wifi packet levels. Expect significant restrictions of what javascript can do in the future (No more window.history, etc).

There won't be the opportunity to lay back and say "This emission isn't trackable." very smart people at public and private intelligence agencies (Facebook, Google, GCHQ, Spetssvyaz, NSA) are working to find a way.

You might not think FB or Google are evil. But we live in a cyberpunk world now, there are criminals who are learning to act more sophisticated. Eventually they'll get leverage over an employee at Google/FB/etc and the data they get access to will be used offensively.

The current guys working in tech, tracking your every move are on the _friendly_ end of the spectrum. They just want to sell you things, or get you hooked on e-cigarettes.

EDIT: Also a note that iOS doesn't have any way to control app network access, I don't think Android does either. So there's another easy front.

<comment><USER15> > EDIT: Also a note that iOS doesn't have any way to control app network > access, I don't think Android does either. So there's another easy front.

I don't know about Apple/iOS, however Android has plenty of third party local vpns that exist specifically to filter per-app internet access (No Root Firewall, NetGuard, etc), as well as iptables GUIs like AFWall+ for those who are rooted. Without installing a third party app, while you can't entirely prevent an app from going online, there's a toggle in app settings, "Background data: Enable usage of mobile data in the background", though I'm unsure of the exact effect this toggle has. With more technical knowledge, you can leave the Android platform and run a pihole or a privoxy. It _should_ also be possible on Android to write a no-root vpn that switches between different proxies/profiles for various apps (ie, use squid/privoxy on browsers, use DNS proxies for native apps, whitelist as necessary). If you're rooted, you can also run your privoxy/pihole on the local device; I've had success with running a local dnsmasq, however it's far from battery friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In my opinion Firefox could take it one step further and build-in Ublock Origin into the browser. Give it extreme speed with native Rust code. Of course configurable but with a few malware lists enabled by default and a few trackers blocked.

That'd make me definitely switch if I'd get faster ad-blocking and only lose HW accelerated video.

<comment><USER17> You've just described Brave

<comment><USER16> Brave doesn't have enough of an userbase for any impact compared to say Firefox saying they're one-upping Apple. It also isn't mainstream enough that I'd trust it security wise, any steps behind me and vendor security patches is usually bad.

<comment><USER18> I'd give it a try. I disabled the Rewards button and everything else that I don't like and it has been working great for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This seems like more good news from Apple.

TFA is a little incoherent, however.

> Publishers and companies rely heavily on online tracking — i.e. collecting > _(anonymized)_ data about a user's activity on the web — to keep tabs on > your every move as you hop from one site to the other. [emphasis added]

> While this is typically used for targeted advertising, the implications go > beyond just serving relevant ads in that it allows marketers to create > detailed dossiers about your interests — resulting in significant loss of > privacy.

> This involves the use of cookies, tracking pixels, browser and device > fingerprinting, and other adtech-based navigational tracking methods > intended to amass browsing activities and build elaborate profiles of web > users.

None of that is at all "anonymized".

<comment><USER20> > None of that is at all "anonymized".

It sounds like many people now use _anonymized_ whenever there's no obvious personal identifier (name, email, social security number etc) in the data. Never mind that a thorough profile doesn't need one to identify individuals.

<comment><USER19> Exactly.

IP addresses are PII under GDPR, for example. And it's well known that many HIPPA-level "anonymized" datasets have been deanonymized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For a long time people have said that tracking will be an endless arms race between blockers and ads. You know what else is an endless arms race? Malware. However for many purposes the arms race has been "won" by companies like Apple: vulnerabilities exist, but they are not a major part of the daily life of Mac users. Apple provisionally won the malware arms race, maybe they can win against tracking too.

</comment><comment><USER22> They're essentially one and the same given how ad networks are being actively utilized as an attack vector.

</comment><comment><USER23> Great news, I'll continue to use Safari as my main browser (have done so the last 10 years). I'm becoming more and more skeptical to Google, just a shame that GCP is such a nice cloud platform.

</comment><comment><USER24> Online privacy for average people will never be a fair fight. Someone needs to draw tighter lines.

<comment><USER25> Privacy for average people will never be a fair fight in limited democracies. The people need to demand a more direct democracy to be able to draw tighter lines.

FTFY

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The point where this becomes annoying is, when you're building a third party app or experience that is designed to be embedded in an iframe. Not a hidden iframe to track users, or for advertizing, but as a first-class experience, which can be embedded and displayed on a page on a different domain, and interacted with by users.

I wish the latest round of privacy restrictions (which I think are overall a decent idea) would take these use cases into account, or at least allow a mechanism to request the user's permission to use third party cookies for sites they trust.

Native apps have pretty robust permissioning systems. Why shouldn't websites?

(For context, these are some of the things we use at PayPal to build embeddable cross-domain components: [https://medium.com/@bluepnume/introducing-paypals-open- sourc...](https://medium.com/@bluepnume/introducing-paypals-open-source-cross- domain-javascript-suite-95f991b2731d))

<comment><USER27> > Native apps have pretty robust permissioning systems.

They really don't, though. No better than websites. I was astounded when I first used Little Snitch and saw how often random apps were making network requests. For example, Translate Tab (a simple language translation app) sends every translation to Google Analytics. And you need a relatively sophisticated tool / expertise just to see this.

It made me rethink the superiority of native apps since all this is so hidden. I prefer websites over native apps because I can run uBlock/uMatrix. Native apps can do whatever they want when it comes to tracking. People aren't even talking about it.

Not only do native apps get off scot free, HN glamorizes them as superior with no questions asked.

<comment><USER26> That's a fair point. I wonder if 'make network calls' was ever considered as an app permission, or if it was just considered so ubiquitous that it would be granted by default. Or if there was any thought made around 'same domain' and 'cross domain' restrictions for apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One thing I've experienced with Apple's tracker blocking is that the WSJ guest pass doesn't persist across sessions. It's supposed to last for 7 days (and does on Chrome), but on Safari I have to enter it fresh every time. I wonder: if the WSJ took steps to make their guest pass persist, would Apple view this as a security vulnerability?

<comment><USER29> If the tracking is done by a site you directly visit, no. Only cross-site tracking, like Google do to build ad profiles, is targeted for blocking.

I guess the next step for advertisers will be to enlist the websites themselves to send through more user data.

<comment><USER30> I've been thinking that SaaS companies that provide JS code to embed could work around this by letting you attach a subdomain; so instead Of the js pointing to say adroll.com, it would point to ads.adrollcustomer.com (with dns set up to goto adroll.)

<comment><USER31> This could probably work, but remember that there's a lot of tracking that happens by programmatic ad exchanges. To get a sense of this, look at the dozens of sites in a media company's ads.txt, e.g. [https://cnn.com/ads.txt](https://cnn.com/ads.txt)

A big player like Facebook could ask media companies to set up fb.cnn.com or similar, but I imagine this is where we start to enter "security vulnerability" territory, where Apple uses different heuristics to ban this approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I supposed this doesn't bode well for the chances of getting AWS Cloud9 working properly on Safari, since it relies on some shifty third-party cookies to work properly.

</comment><comment><USER33> Guys, it might be possible that our people consider us an anti-privacy practicing company, given that we were listening to anonymized audios similar to what Google has/had been doing

Marketing - Might be. Let's put up a banner about it in every corner

Tech - Find the most sensitive/concerning topic, and let people debate.

</comment><comment><USER34> This article without JavaScript and other tracking: [https://beta.trimread.com/articles/98](https://beta.trimread.com/articles/98)

</comment><comment><USER35> Has anyone seen this error [1] before? A user reported seeing it the other day and I can't figure out if it was an issue with Safari, his ISP, or what. It only happens for him when connected via WiFi on mobile. My SSL certs are auto- updating and I manually refreshed them, yet he still sees this a day later. Thanks in advance!

[1] [https://imgur.com/j63UaIR](https://imgur.com/j63UaIR)

<comment><USER36> Looks like DNS-level blocking from the WiFi gateway or ISP. When a blacklisted domain is requested, it gets IP pointing to the site with that notification, not the actual IP of the requested domain.

This can be overridden by manually setting DNS servers on the phone or computer to non-filtering public DNS servers, eg. 22.214.171.124 or 18.104.22.168.

<comment><USER35> Thanks! I didn't know American ISPs would blacklist domains so easily. I'm also going to try contacting Comcast as I can't figure out what is "dangerous" about the site. It's just client-side javascript that queries content from reddit's API.

<comment><USER36> It's probably blacklisted because it is only a single typo away from reddit.com.

You can expect domains like revddit.com or hotnail.com to get blocked by anti- phishing filters.

<comment><USER35> I can prove that's not a typo people make, nobody visited the site for weeks when I first set it up =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's a reasonable perspective to treat it as a security issue because it is a security issue.

<comment><USER38> What about _offline_ tracking? I went to a big box store today, and after I got home, I got an email asking me to review my visit. Now, I'm sure that somewhere I ostensibly consented to any and every form of tracking, but it was startling to have my nose rubbed in the fact that every time I use my credit card and everywhere I carry my phone it is being tracked and linked to every available piece of information about me, which I'm sure is far more than I would like to be public.

I don't fill out surveys anyway, but I was feeling particularly pissed, just because it should be socially unacceptable to behave like this, just because you think you can legally do it and nobody can stop you. So I flagged it as spam.

Oh, and the chain store that did this has been in the news for data breaches, not long ago at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good

</comment><comment><USER40> Apple: only we can track.

</comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if I can blitz Apple's newly revamped bug bounty program to make a boatload of money by reporting websites that track?

<comment><USER42> That's not what the bug bounty program covers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is kind of scary, especially with sparse details. I'm always having to turn off ad blockers to support site's basic functionality, like forms and even navigation if they rely on ajax requests. What functionality can I support on which versions of Safari? Can I ensure items that talk to my origin are never blocked? Since this is now a 'security' issue will its implementation be opaque?

<comment><USER42> > Since this is now a 'security' issue will its implementation be opaque?

Security by obscurity doesn't generally work. FWIW, here's what WebKit has to say about what it'll block: [https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention- policy/](https://webkit.org/tracking-prevention-policy/). I hear that a specific list may also be released at some point.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for sharing. That is really helpful.

I work with an enterprise publisher that has literally every item listed as an essential part of how it does business, from running programmatic ads to SSO and Google Analytics. The Unintended Impact and No Exceptions parts would mean a rework of that entire business for all of WebKit. That is true of most web publishers today. I cannot overstate what a vast impact this will have on web publishing.

Maybe those things need to change. We want to move towards a member driven model and move away from ads, but in order to fund that transition ads need to continue running as the product is developed and user base grows. Even then, since we use Okta for SSO, that would also break or require a significant reimplementation to server-side auth, which could also break cache for authenticated users.

We have a grand, beautiful plan for creating a publishing model that is trackerless except for a first party event logger that hashes all PII before it's stored. We need data to operate, and some of it needs to come from the client. We would share client data with zero 3rd parties.

For now our pages are a brothel of 3rd party scripts. We hate it, we can't survive with our it, and forcing this change could force us and most web publishers today out of business.

Below is a quote from the link above:

>Unintended Impact There are practices on the web that we do not intend to disrupt, but which may be inadvertently affected because they rely on techniques that can also be used for tracking. We consider this to be unintended impact. These practices include:

Funding websites using targeted or personalized advertising (see Private Click Measurement below). Measuring the effectiveness of advertising. Federated login using a third-party login provider. Single sign-on to multiple websites controlled by the same organization. Embedded media that uses the user's identity to respect their preferences. "Like" buttons, federated comments, or other social widgets. Fraud prevention. Bot detection. Improving the security of client authentication. Analytics in the scope of a single website. Audience measurement.</comment></comment></comment>


New Insights into Self-Insight: More May Not Be Better - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-insights-into-self-insight-more-may-not-be-better/ <comment><USER2> Maybe it doesn't lead to being happier, but that doesn't mean there aren't other benefits.

<comment><USER3> I had a different take on this paper.

There's a well-known phenomenon whereby narcissism and self-evaluation is generally related to positive mood. It's part of an overall positive tint.

So one interpretation of this is that people who tend to be optimistic also tend to just feel better in general, for whatever reason.

It's not clear to me these "benefits" would transfer to all scenarios, nor is it really clear that it's about insight in general in the way people usually understand it.

<comment><USER2> I was thinking of benefits like being able to better learn to overcome your own limitations or put yourself in situations where you're likely to succeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Near-zero percent of people is any close to knowing themselves. Begin able to assess your expertise and capability in particular area is a useful skill yet it doesn't mean knowing your actual self. The first step toward actually knowing yourself is observing your own feelings, thoughts and behavioral patterns "from a distance" breaking free from the habit of taking them too seriously.

</comment><comment><USER5> We somehow hoped that the internet would improve the signal-to-noise ratio in human knowledge.

Whatever we're doing has to be making individuals more mature to be valuable.

Whether this research is a bug or a feature remains to be seen.</comment>


Enough Waiting — It's Time for Amazon to Buy Netflix - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2009/12/26/enough-waiting-its-time-for-amazon-to-buy-netflix/

<comment><USER2> Actually I think Netflix should buy Redbox. It's obvious how to put the business models together, and hell, even the colors are the same.

<comment><USER3> This actually makes a ton more sense. The business models fit almost like a glove.

Amazon and Netflix seem too disparate to be the same entity, they are more sales partner material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the sales tax issue is a big one, but I'm not sure it's really _that_ big.of a deciding factor for most consumers. I've been paying sales tax at Amazon forever (I'm in KY) and it hasn't discouraged me from using any of their services. I go with Amazon for the convenience and the fact that I can often find free shipping offers from them on many itmes, which more than offsets the amount of sales tax I have to pay.

That said, I could be entirely wrong. :) If I didn't live in a small town that was at least an hour away from all major retailers other than walmart, I might be using Amazon a lot less.

It would be interesting to see some statistics on their sales in states that pay sales tax vs. states that don't, provided they also took into account the overall spending patterns of the people in those states.

<comment><USER5> Amazon strategically places its warehouses just outside of the most populated states. Imposing sales tax would be mean they immediately lose a ~10% pricing margin on sales to states like California. That's quite a big impact.

If you look carefully at the way prices are set on some of Amazon's items, they actually set the price at just below the list price + sales tax for some populated state, such as California. So at first glance the price will seem to be higher than a competitor's, but it's actually cheaper since the competitor (i.e. a b&m retailer like Wal-Mart) has to charge sales tax.

<comment><USER5> For more perspective, check out this timely article: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/business/27digi.html?ref=b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/business/27digi.html?ref=business)

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does Netflix want to get bought out? The article doesn't really address that.

<comment><USER7> Netflix is public, so its not necessarily their choice. Resisting a buyout (even a hostile takeover) rarely goes well (e.g., Yahoo).

<comment><USER6> In the past, Netflix had a poison pill policy to prevent a hostile takeover:

[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5057/is_200403/ai_n1...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5057/is_200403/ai_n18418620/?tag=content;col1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apple will buy Netflix.

<comment><USER9> Please pardon my ignorance, but why would Apple buy netflix? It doesn't really fit with their brand.

(This is an opinion)

<comment><USER10> Not to mention, Apple is not in the business of physical content distribution (i.e., mailing DVDs), and already has a very popular streaming product available.

They could definitely do with the user tracking and recommendations side of Netflix, but that alone doesn't justify a takeover.</comment></comment></comment>


Best way to do Linux clones for your CI - <AUTHOR> https://www.kernel.org/best-way-to-do-linux-clones-for-your-ci.html <comment><USER2> Obviously not applicable to Linux since it is hosted on Git, but Mercurial has this "clone bundles" feature built in.

If you e.g. `hg clone [https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla- central`](https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central`) to clone the main Firefox repo, your client will connect to a CDN to download the pre-generated bundle then go back to the server to pull recent changes. Bitbucket also has the feature deployed.

After I deployed this feature on hg.mozilla.org, server-side CPU load dropped by like 90%. And with IP filtering to detect clients connecting from AWS that allows us to serve URLs direct from S3 (as opposed to going through a CDN), the total bill is like $20/mo for CI usage (S3 intra-region data transfer is free). Literally thousands of hours of CPU-core time and >500 TB/mo offloaded from the Mercurial servers.

<comment><USER3> (Assuming you're familiar with Git internals as well:) do you think there's anything in the architecture of Git preventing it from having this feature? And, if not, should we Git developers push for it / work on a PR?

It'd make a lot of sense to integrate it if it's possible, I think. The design direction of Git is somewhat subservient to the needs of Linux (i.e. Git is a thing Linus made to replicate BitKeeper, but it also was made to scratch—and continues to scratch—many of the LKML itches re: their unique patch-management workflows.)

So if Linux is having to do something re: "SCM ops" tooling, that could be better solved in Git, then why not solve it in Git?

(If anyone who was responsible for this Kernel.org Git bundle setup wants to chime in, that'd be interesting; I assume they likely considered making this a Git thing first, so there might be a good reason why it's not.)

<comment><USER4> I think Google has something like that for the Android repositories. They are always synced through Git and 70 GiB+ in size.

<comment><USER5> yeah, the "repo" command they use has support for getting bundles, and then pulling the newer commits from the gerrit server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Git bundles are pretty nice, they are just a packfile [1], with a list of refs prepended, that you can clone like a remote.

But this also means they have pretty inefficient compression, since every object (or delta) is packed using zlib on its own. For packfiles this is good because it allows random access, but for bundles it would be better to disable this compression (set it to level 0) and compress the whole bundle instead:

        435M default.bundle
        412M default.bundle.bz2
        410M default.bundle.gz
        401M default.bundle.xz

        978M uncompressed.bundle
        290M uncompressed.bundle.bz2
        330M uncompressed.bundle.gz
        245M uncompressed.bundle.xz

That's 245MB vs. 401MB, 40% space savings! It can't be cloned directly, though.

Produced using `git bundle create fname HEAD` on linux v3.0 after: `git repack -a -d -F --depth=100 --window=100` (default compression level) `git -c pack.compression=0 repack -a -d -F --depth=100 --window=100` (no zlib compression)

[1] [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technic...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technical/pack- format.txt)

</comment><comment><USER7> I think CI means "cluster infrastructure" but article refers to a "CI infrastructure" so I'm not quite sure.

<comment><USER8> Continuous Integration

<comment><USER7> Ah thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Karl Albrecht, Billionaire Co-Founder of Aldi, Dies at 94 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-21/karl-albrecht-billionaire-co-founder-of-aldi-stores-dies-at-94.html <comment><USER2> One thing that I found very interesting: upto maybe 6-7 years ago in the Aldi shops there were no barcode readers at the cashier. Instead, the cashiers knew the price of _all_ products by heart and they had an incredible speed in typing at the numpads. I was truly amazed, it was hard to keep up puting the goods back into the shopping cart. There were literally no queues forming, since they took only cash.

Now the shops are a little more modern, accept cards and the cashiers are rather mindless drones instead of numbers prodigies from before.

<comment><USER3> 'Never underestimate the person behind the register.' was one of the lessons we took away from a Point-Of-Sale system installation in a fast food restaurant. When the first customers came through the drive-through, we were surprised that the teenagers taking the orders had calculated the tax and order total, to the penny, in their heads. By the end of the day, we'd developed our rule, confirmed by further experience in other stores and other states.

<comment><USER4> Were they calculating it or had they "just" memorized the vast majority of common product combinations?

I ask that, because I worked at 7-11 in Oklahoma for awhile, years ago. The Ok 7-11's are their own separate corporation. We didn't have scanners for anything except cigarettes, and it didn't take long before you knew total price, including tax, someone would have to pay for various combinations of standards prices (.99 + .99 + 1.05 + .59 or what have you).

Mostly just a pedantic difference, but I thought I'd throw my experience into the mix.

Still pretty crazy when you get someone that's been there awhile and knows basically all of them.

I think my closest experience to this was when I was an order picker at a warehouse with no computers. We had guys on forklifts that seemed to know where _every single_ item was in a warehouse with thousands of bays, and could tell you not just where something was, but what the number of the bay was. Pretty crazy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We Al-Di in the end.

But, to contribute positively, what brands managed to build was trust in their name - you go to the supermarket and faced with 40,000 products, (10 new grocery items are introduced every day) buying a brand name means less gambling on whatever processed food you're faced with.

Aldi reduced the choice between the same item from brands and just had the choice between foodstuffs.

<comment><AUTHOR> They also sell brand items and no name items of a product made by the same producer. So, people who are brand conscious buy from the same supplier like the people who buy the no name of a product. Very subtle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's interesting to note that Trader Joe's " _has been owned since 1979 by a German family trust established by Aldi Nord 's owner Theo Albrecht._" [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe's](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe's)

</comment><comment><USER7> There's an Aldi near where I live so I thought I'd check it out. I've lived in Europe and spent extended periods in Asia so I've seen all kinds of shopping experiences.

For a place with an reputation for being innovative, Aldi seemed very downscale and out of step with tastes, even compared to the neighboring Wal Mart, never mind a Carrefour or a Japanese supermarket. Heavy on canned food. It seemed like something out of East Germany before the Wall came down. I'm surprised they thrive anywhere.

Did I have an uncharacteristic experience? What's good about an Aldi shop? It's weird that the same outfit operates Trader Joes.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does Bloomberg have a problem with umlauts?

\- Aldi Sued => Aldi Süd (i.e. south)

<comment><USER9> Spelling a German umlaut with the letter e is etymologically correct, and it is a convention well known to Germans and to German-speakers in the non- German-speaking world. Most of the news reporting about the German national team to the World Cup reported the names of the players with that kind of alternative spelling, for example "Götze" as "Goetze" and "Özil" as "Oezil."

<comment><USER8> I'm aware of this. As an English speaker in Germany this is my GOTO preference for my US keyboard when writing in German. I was just puzzled as to why such a large internet property chooses not to use them, or more likely, can't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't understand these old bilionaires. It seems there's so much work to be done, and possibly a great deal of low-hanging fruit, in anti-aging research. Who's to say what Aubrey de Grey et al would have been able to deliver by now if given a few billion ten years ago?

You can't take it with you. Give it to science, FFS.

<comment><USER9> From the text of the article kindly submitted here: "Karl Albrecht established the Elisen Foundation to support cultural causes, and his Oertel trust, which controlled a portion of Aldi Sued, also donates to medical research."

Any working scientist who is actively involved in anti-aging research can tell you that Aubrey de Grey is not going to deliver with his approach. The current Wikipedia article on de Grey is largely written by de Grey and his close friends, and the article there about his approach to anti-aging research is written mostly by fans of his research. Wikipedia is currently a biased source. But I have been going to the complete journal subscriptions of a large research university with a medical school, with updating Wikipedia in mind. The general approach advocated by de Grey (and pursued by other researchers) is interesting, and was worth looking at when it was first mentioned, but it is not panning out as a general approach to reduce risk of aging-related health problems. I think the billionaire mentioned in the article kindly submitted here, who lived into his nineties, knew more on a practical level about how not to age too soon than de Grey does. (Aubrey de Grey has no medical training, after all.)

<comment><USER10> Mea culpa. I didn't read the article. Glad to hear he was supporting medical research.

And I didn't really mean to say de Grey had all the answers - I'm by no means a fanboy. But I think his approach deserves a lot more attention and research dollars than it's getting. It's far too premature to write it off as "not panning out" \- with respect, the medical establishment's efforts aren't "panning out" either, with orders of magnitude more budget.

I am not a doctor either, but I am a student of history, and history is replete with established fields of study resisting disruptive (and correct) new ideas until the very last. I'm not saying this is the case, but it is something we need to consider when you write of the dismissal of all these "working scientists", with their educations and investment in the status quo. It seems extremely plausible to me that a maintenance-based approach will win in the end, and de Grey's work, while not perfect, is at least a decent first effort.

And I doubt this 94-yr-old had any specific knowledge. 94 is on the upper end of a normal lifespan, given healthy lifestyle and the best medicine money can by. It's a little disingenuous to claim that by pure dint of that longevity he knows more than de Grey, who has spent years studying the matter, doctor or not.

<comment><USER11> > Mea culpa. I didn't read the article

But then you commented anyway, with a lot of conviction and assumptions and no mention of you not having read the article. Why?

<comment><USER10> Well, because it's 1am, and as you say, assumptions. My bad.

But less assumption than you might imagine. If there had been massive investment by billionaires in "alternative" approaches to anti-aging like deGrey espouses, I probably would have heard about it. Of course it's possible that it's happening in secret, but unlikely.

I guess I also just have a different mindset. Maybe that mindset changes when you're a multi-billionaire, but it just seems so conservative. I mean, forget anti-aging if you like. A team in Japan reckons they can build a space elevator for $8B. You're dying, you've got $20b, fuckin' give it to them! If they succeed, you go down in history as the man who enabled the space elevator. If they don't - well who cares, you're dead. Whose kids need $20b?

Like I said, maybe this mindset changes, but shit, at age 90 and with that much money, I'd certainly be prowling the VIP section of kickstarter for some big ideas to make a dent in the universe.

I don't mean any disrespect by all of this. He seems a very decent man. But I think the reason Elon Musk gets so much love around here is that he's a billionaire who's actually willing to make some crazy bets, and that's so very, very rare.

<comment><USER11> > Maybe that mindset changes when you're a multi-billionaire,

I've always thought the rich man who doesn't want to die and is desperate to beat it with wealth as a cliché actually, a sign of the ultimate hubris of being wealthy. Desperate to forestall death while others are having a hard time living. Death is the great equalizer, rich and and poor die alike, but in the future I guess the rich will even escape death while some of us cheer them on.

<comment><USER10> Are you talking about yourself? Living in a first world country, access to first rate medical care, not dying of malaria in sub saharan africa?

Because you could be.

If wanting to live a very long time makes me hubristic then hell yes I'm hubristic. But I think your definition is way off. What's hubristic about wanting to live? Are thousand-year old trees "hubristic"?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone wants to come to Shenzhen? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I've been meaning to ask this question here for a while and I hope it doesn't sound like an ad since this is not the intention at all.
We are a startup here in Shenzhen and we see first hand how FAST things move here in hardware and software. It is incredible and words cannot describe what an great feeling it is to be going through the Huaqiang bei markets, doing plastic moulds, PCBA, etc.
So, if we could help our fellow HN friends come here and experience this mess of electronic goodness vs. you give some coding hours away would that be a good proposition?
If you don't fancy giving anything, we can just help you with visa and other questions you may have. The more hours you want to give, we can give you a place to sleep + food.
We are also HAX alumni (If that matters) <comment><USER2> Do you have any contact information?

email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> contact me email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Sent you an email!</comment></comment>


Deaths Draw Attention to Wall Street's Grueling Pace - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/business/dealbook/tragedies-draw-attention-to-wall-streets-grueling-pace.html <comment><USER2> My background is film production, which is an industry that I think has really tested the limits of how many hours a person can work without dying. If a film shoot could work their crew more hours, they would, but at a certain point your crew will die in car accidents on their way to and from set due to sleep deprivation. See a documentary called "Who Needs Sleep?" for more on that.

Thanks to unions in the film industry there are rules about how many hours a crew can work in a day without the production incurring very expensive overtime penalties. For example, once an actor is on set for 16 hours, they hit what is called "Golden Time" and they are paid their full day rate every hour. There's also a 12 hour turnaround for actors, meaning that if an actor is wrapped at 8pm, they can't be called to set until 8:00am the following day (there is a 10 hour turnaround time for crew).

Film shoots are extremely time-sensitive endeavors. You might only have rented a location for one day, so there is a lot of pressure to shoot everything you need for the movie at that location, no matter how far overtime the production must push their crew. This would quickly get out of control if overtime rules were not stringently enforced.

The result is that every day of a film production is scheduled down to the minute before the day even begins, ideally. Night crews and swing-shifts get scheduled, rather than working a crew for 24 hours straight, again ideally.

My point is that it is possible to do time-sensitive, high-pressure, complicated work without pushing people past their physical limits. It just requires tons of planning and scheduling. However the only way to get an employer to put resources into planning and scheduling is to make sure that there are incentives (or disincentives) for them to behave this way. There must be strict financial penalties that prevent employees at banks from working too many hours. A 29 year-old banker getting a $400,000 bonus is not going to tell his employer that he needs to leave the office by 7pm anymore than an aspiring Hollywood actress is going to tell her director that the crew must stop shooting because it is past her bedtime. In certain industries, where jobs are highly sought after and rewards are large, you cannot depend on workers to regulate themselves.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _You can't really stand out because most of what you're doing does not > require original thinking. So the only way you can distinguish yourself is > by sheer endurance._

Several years ago, when I was weighing junior roles in trading and banking, a private equity manager with whom I consulted advised: "nobody became a millionaire by being a grunt".

Hard work is important, but it shouldn't be your chief differentiator. On a broader level, I've always found firms that rely on over-working their junior staff to (a) have rotten pathways for internal advancement and (b) a sore bias towards throwing grunts, versus technology, at process problems.

<comment><USER4> Thank's for sharing this inside info. It's hard to imagine a better example to explain the importance of rest and sleep even if people are motived to keep on working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > there is no evidence that the incidence of suicide by young professionals on > Wall Street is higher than in any other industry.

Doesn't this undermine the premise of the article? The deaths are tragic, but if the suicide rate of Wall Street professionals is no higher than normal how can the suicides be tied to the "grueling pace" as opposed to whatever causes suicide in the general population?

<comment><USER6> For one thing, the people that work on Wall Street are highly educated, mostly Ivy League types (from the article). I guess the premise is that if you were smart/rich enough to get that, society expected you to succeed spectacularly, not jump to your death. i.e. the expectation is that the suicide rate be negligible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Junior doctors do similar hours, sleeping a couple of hours at the hospital when they can.

What is absurd is that the long hours juniors do in investment banking are terribly inefficient.

First because they spend them on tasks that could be automated or outsourced: compiling financials, formatting powerpoints (Microsoft shares a large part of responsability for their poor UI!).

Second because the more tired they become, the less efficient they are at what they do. It is often the case that they would probably get the same done quicker by calling it a day at 9pm and coming back the next day with a fresh mind. But peer pressure prevents that.

Third because even though they spend their time at the office they actually do not work continuously. Them staying late is more often than not because they were assigned something at 5pm with an unrealistic deadline. In this business managers usually disregard the implications of when in the day they give work or feedback. And I suspect it is often because they have been there, done that, as juniors, and have little sympathy for the juniors' time spent at the office. It's a kind of rite of passage.

<comment><USER8> Banker here. We actually have automated and outsourced quite a bit of the drudgery, although doing it within the framework of Excel and PowerPoint often requires some pretty strange contortions from a UI perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just finished the longest stint of work that I've had in my short career. Probably 80 hours for two weeks. I didn't really keep track.

I have mixed feelings. I got a lot done. The quality of work that happened around 8-10pm was pretty low, but it got done. I did no physical activity and my stress levels were through the roof, which led to some moments of intense mental anguish. On the other hand, I felt a great sense of accomplishment and knowing that I am capable of working that diligently on something is satisfying.

So I understand why bankers work these hours and even defend them. I also understand why someone might feel like killing themselves after working >80 hours for months or years on end.

<comment><USER10> I've done this too. I think it is dangerous, maybe even something that could become addictive. I know, the pressure to get the product out the door. If you truly have down time and can truly get away, maybe there is a way. But that is the trick, you may get trapped in that lifestyle and "just one more all nighter".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a friend who is a Market Maker on Wall St. He's very successful makes a lot of money, works very long, but he has a very low self esteem. He tells me "I don't know how to actually do anything of any use in the world." I don't really understand him but I think he ends up feeling like his life is worthless. At the end of the day he could be as rich as Midas but he hasn't figured out what life is worth even to himself.

Assuming your belly is full, I think if you're not curing cancer or something like that you'd better be doing something that makes you happy: the work itself has to be fun. Otherwise you could end up like this guy or my friend.

<comment><USER12> The funny thing is, when it boils down to it, many jobs in our society are superfluous... We survived without technology, with a less-developed finance sector, without cars and airplanes, yet here we are with entire sectors of the economy that probably aren't 'needed' for a happy life.

At least in finance you can get to a number where you can finally say 'fuck it', and go do what you really want to do...

<comment><USER13> I can't help it but comment on how much posts regarding work/life balance focus on optimizing for happiness, but rare is the article that mentions how important is finding meaning in one's work to leading a fulfilling life. I would argue, for example, that finding meaning as a grunt or even as a big fish in the financial sector is harder than say, being a doctor. It's much easier to work long hours as a doctor and feel content when you see that your work has direct impact.

All of this is obvious, but I rarely see it mentioned. We should optimize for meaning in our work, not happiness.

<comment><USER14> It's more then that.. it's about perception (how you spin things). For example, you could look at american doctors and say they mainly work on patients of self-inflicted diseases such as heart disease, obesity, etc. Then you could look at finance sector workers and see how they help people get jobs, loans and move the economy forward which leads to furthering humanity's progress and capabilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reality warps in some really weird ways, the more you do this. You stop being able to interact with your friends that aren't doing it; you stop taking care of yourself in ways that don't feed maintenance your ability to keep grinding; you're always "on" so you never really relax enough to reflect or see things in other contexts or perspectives; in the back of your head you might know there's something wrong but you maybe can't put the pieces together, and since you've always been told you were so smart, that scares you, and you become defensive; at some point the idea that you've been on such a wrong track for so long becomes intolerable and rather than cut your losses you decide that "saner" approaches are really weakness.

That's at least part of what I experienced, in a similar life style. At some point I realized if I kept doing it, I'd end up dead or crazy in ways I didn't want, and found alternatives that let me live and explore. But quitting was one of the scariest things I've done in my life.

</comment><comment><USER10> Greed is cruel. A lot of us here want to "make it big". Don't do this to yourself or to others on your journey. Behind every perverse way is a devil whispering in your ear, "its okay". Don't listen to that.

</comment><comment><USER16> The tragedy is that this is unnecessary. If Wall Street compensation can support paying enormous compensation, it can support hiring enough people to do the work. As with medical residents' brutal schedules, it's tradition over rationality.

<comment><USER17> I've no direct experience of this, but this is my take as well. Can anyone explain why two people doing 50 hour weeks at half the salary wouldn't be better for everyone (the employees, their colleagues, the firms that employ them, their clients, society)?

<comment><USER18> I think it would be better for most people but coordination cost doesn't grow linearly. So if part of the job imply coordination or communication you will need more than doubling to have the same output.

<comment><USER19> Very much this. Also: knowledge production isn't a linear function of time.

"If it takes one mathematician 12 months of work to prove a theorem, how long would it take 12 mathematicians?" ... probably 13 months :p

<comment><USER16> That would be true if each problem were unique, as it is in mathematics. FTA:

> _You can't really stand out because most of what you're doing does not > require original thinking. So the only way you can distinguish yourself is > by sheer endurance._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These three cases seem to be ill-linked in the correlation/causation department. One was a clear medical condition; another a suicide; and the third was linked to an event involved a relapse of substance abuse. Three deaths of this nature could easily occur in any industry with a presence in a major city like nY, sf, london, tokyo, hong kong, paris etc. How many creatives list similar CODs ? Heath ledger, amy winehouse, peaches geldof and many other creative types at varying levels of success. We can look high-risk activities and see near-suicidal behaviour in the extreme sports athletes (RIP dean potter and 250 others [http://base-jumping.eu/base-jumping-fatality- list/](http://base-jumping.eu/base-jumping-fatality-list/)). And similar medical related deaths and accidents occur in athletes even in standard sports ([http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and- fitness/healt...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and- fitness/health/conditions/why-are-high-performance-athletes-having-heart- attacks/article4100522/)).

Which is no apology for mis-management. Its just perhaps a larger picture issue than any single industry or particular niche. Glory and all that.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is not a new development and certainly not exclusive to Wallstreet or the City or Amazon or magic circle. It is part of the aura of these places—belief that the endurance necessary for this kind of over work isn't present _outside_ and that they are/will be better for overcoming this ordeal— that this makes them different from others this is part of the exclusiveness of these places along with the pay.

But there are many people working equally harder and sometimes even [harder].

Here is another story from less prestigious cousins of WallSt. and magic circle law firms: Big 4 auditors! A PwC associate overworked to [18 hours a day, 120 a week].

[harder] : [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/woman-n...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/05/woman- nearly-died-making-ipad)

[18 hours a day, 120 a week] :

1\. [http://offbeatchina.com/25-year-old-auditor-at-pwc- shanghai-...](http://offbeatchina.com/25-year-old-auditor-at-pwc-shanghai- worked-to-death-time-to-rethink-work-life-balance)

2\. [http://goingconcern.com/2011/4/did-a-pwc-auditor-work- hersel...](http://goingconcern.com/2011/4/did-a-pwc-auditor-work-herself-to- death)

</comment><comment><USER22> My rule is that no job is worth dying for. If the expectations are unreasonable, quit.

<comment><USER23> My rule is that unless yours or a loved one's basic well-being is at stake (e.g. you have family to support and no savings), you should not be putting up with a job that's causing you physical or psychological distress. Obviously situations can be complicated, but you should aim for that most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A lot of good talent is wasted on Wall Street. Fortunately, most (who don't care for the lifestyle/can't hack it) get wise and leave. The hard thing is knowing when to exit.

<comment><USER12> > A lot of good talent is wasted on Wall Street.

Why do you say that? Finance funds most of society's ventures, the 'system' would look much different without the capital and services that the banking sector provides...

<comment><USER25> What should we put as the price tag of 'increased liquidity,' just one of a few of the mantras that the middlemen of finance use to justify themselves?

[http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/graph-how-the-financial- secto...](http://www.tcf.org/blog/detail/graph-how-the-financial-sector- consumed-americas-economic-growth)

<comment><USER26> Liquidity is only tangentially related to what the financial sector does.

It's finance that funds ventures. Assesses risk. Decides what ventures will have good payoffs. Its' an incredibly important sector of the economy.

Tell me. Take a look at the services provided here and tell me which ones are "bad" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_services)

People that say we shouldn't like the financial sector are people that don't understand finance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I knew someone doing corporate accounting who left at 6 in the morning for work, and almost always came home after midnight. 7 days a week (because who needs weekends, right?). Since the work cycled quarterly trying to get "the numbers", the _only_ thing that resembled a break was the end of a quarter; and even then, this pathetic "break" was like a single day because they felt they had to get started on the next quarter.

He actually told me that divorces were fairly common among his co-workers. I wonder why.

He appeared to be paid well but (as others have noted) certainly not nearly enough when you divide a seemingly-impressive salary into an hourly rate.

And frankly I think peer pressure was a big problem. All throughout the chain, it's like they're all too afraid to be the first to say "wtf is this?" and propose a sane work week.

If I extrapolate this type of job to the number of large companies out there, I am astounded by the number of people whose lives are essentially ruined by quarter-to-quarter. It's garbage. Decades ago companies did not seem so pressured to show results each quarter or come up with insane ways to avoid taxes; they just pursued a reasonable profit.

</comment><comment><USER28> I was on Wall Street in the 1980s. Things weren't that bad yet. I was the only stock analyst in a department of ~50 who routinely pulled all-nighters, which was one of many reasons I was considered odd. There was only one guy who definitely flamed out on cocaine, and only a few others of whom debilitating substance abuse could even be reasonably suspected.

And I'm pretty sure that investment banking wasn't all that much worse.

</comment><comment><USER29> Many people work long grueling shifts in stressful positions for years and don't see the need to binge on alcohol and cocaine to manage. I feel sorry for anyone that dies, but I see this as a situation where this person suffers from symptoms of a weak character and/or mental issues.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hard work is important and it is the only effective and reliable way to be successful. This does not mean all nighters or alcohol-cocaine binges should be the norm, it must be the rare exception.

End of the day it's-just-not-worth-it over everything else.

If you think it is the norm or encourage such behavior, you're selfish, you're what is wrong with the society.

</comment><comment><USER31> Meh.

I can't imagine the mindset that would lead someone to sacrifice their entire existence on the pyre of working; what's the point of making big cash if you've got no time or people to enjoy it with? I think that these kind of aberrant/nauseating/maladapted pathological behaviors (working insane hours, money addiction) show a bewildering lack of wisdom that is intentionally selected for among the "most competitive" firms. They can't make a robot or computer program that completely replaces these people's ability to convert life into money, yet a robot is exactly what they need, and so they find folks who are willing to be that robot and dehumanize themselves.

There's always a lot of hubbub regarding Ivy league types landing in Goldman- esque shops then dying of overwork etc, and I think it's telling. Jumping through the hoops despite increasingly unreasonable demands is stereotypical behavior from these people, and it's very much to their detriment, as well as ours. Spinelessness has consequences. These are the people that society views as the elite, yet they're childish in their inability to reality-check the limits of their own lives, which results in poor mental health and suicide or drug abuse.

I can't muster empathy here. They worked hard for their chance to play brutal games, and then got brutalized as a result.

<comment><USER32> You can think this through a few ways. One is that they see finance jobs as desirable jobs, focus their whole lives up to that point on getting the job, get it - and find it's horrible. What do you do then? Do you go back to all the people who were really proud at your achievements and tell them you're a failure?

Another is that they really do think it gets better. If they can just make it through the first four or five years, they can go from 80 to 50 hours, and then if they get to MD, they can get down to 40-50. In the meantime, they're making great money, they can enjoy what exists of their personal lives, _if they just get past that first couple years_.

Characterizing these folks as "spineless" is perhaps accurate for some, but in the end, reductionist. A better conversation to have would be to ask:

\- Are the same number (proportionally) of people committing suicide in finance today the same as 15 years ago?

\- If not, why today? What's different about today?

\- What's to be done about it?

<comment><USER33> >One is that they see finance jobs as desirable jobs, focus their whole lives up to that point on getting the job, get it - and find it's horrible. What do you do then? Do you go back to all the people who were really proud at your achievements and tell them you're a failure?

Is it a surprise to those on that career path? I work with people applying to law school, and it's widely known that major firm jobs demand an incredible amount of your time.

I think people might, mistakenly, expect "I can handle it, I like a challenge", but the gist of what a job at biglaw requires is pretty well known.

I'd be surprised if finance is different.

I agree spineless isn't the word, though. Motivations for entering that type of job are simply very different from what motivates people who wouldn't even consider it. I can't say exactly what it is, because I'm very far from that type. But the people I know on that path (in law) certainly are quite able to stand up for themselves. They're very confident, capable people.

<comment><USER34> As someone who knows many who went into this field, some who burned out and some who didn't, it's one thing to describe the challenge of 100 hour weeks, and another to live it.

Biglaw is similar, but the gulf from 80 hours to 100 hours is very large.

<comment><USER33> I meant to imply that, but I guess I wasn't clear enough.

I hadn't realized 100 hours was the norm though. That _is_ a significant increase over 80.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Live by greed, die by greed.

</comment><comment><USER36> commenting on this quote from the article: "'I'm 29. This is what you do when you're 29"

I don't know what the fuck is it with this wall street culture. I find SV culture banal and disgusting but no where close to the shit show that is the wall street glamorized by movies and tv shows.

I would've done the same and I have done the same when I was 25. Working like crazy. You realize one day, this is bullshit. Everyone in this shitty place is fucking bullshit. A check at the end of the fucking month that translates into a measely minimum wage if you count the long hours and the office male bravado bullshit. High school never ends.

It's only after I was chewed and spit out, I realized, no amount of glamor or prestige is worth chasing if there's no chance at MY happiness and MY health.

This make it till you are 30 mentality bullshit has got to go. The anxiety it gives a person in early to mid 20s to feel like you need to keep moving to feel like you are moving closer to success.

Lot of young men like ourselves are conditioned to believe that giving up a decade of our youth to live like kings and gods the rest of our lives is a pretty seductive thought, no matter how unlikely the chances, society almost expects young men to behave and perform like robots, showing no emotion, just take it and bring home the bacon.

These days, I'm a bit older and beginning to think, good things, like all other things, take time. This kamikaze rags to riches type of mentality we see in movies, doesn't seem to work very well (you burn out quickly).

This quote from Frank Lopez in Scarface rings true here.

"Hey, Tony. Remember when I told you when you first started working for me, the guys that last in this business, are the guys who fly straight. Low-key, quiet. But the guys who want it all, chicas, champagne, flash... they don't last. "

Don't think I want to be part of any work culture where shitty cocaine mixed in some shithole in colombia and commiting adultery with overpriced hookers with plastic boobs .</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a reliable UPS for the Pi 4 - <AUTHOR> Can anyone recommend a UPS battery pack power supply that would work well for the Pi 4 with 4 GB of RAM? I would also like to be able to power one LCD screen (from the original Kano kit) from same UPS. <comment><USER2> I just use a regular clunky 650VA UPS with a lead acid battery. Disadvantage is size, but they do seem to work and the batteries last long enough. Most have USB output for getting info on what the UPS is doing, battery level etc, which you can then connect to the Pi.

<comment><USER3> I seriously don't recommended using it (at least without doing some researches first).

Many UPS units are optimized for 50%-80% load. If you put a very light load on an office UPS, like a lamp, a modem or a Raspberry Pi, some UPS's inverter will drain itself quicker before the load even drains battery. Some UPS have a light-load powersave feature, they don't even activate themselves when there's little load. Also, most office UPS is designed for short loss of power, not as a longterm battery-backup, so it will keep beeping until it's dead. Depending on what the OP is trying to do, this may be unacceptable.

Due to the above problems. If I chose to use a 110/220 V UPS, I would at least try finding one designed to supply backup power to routers and modems to ensure that they don't have this problem.

<comment><USER2> That's very interesting. I did not know this. I saw your other response, it almost feels like the other options are not really optimal either.

I guess the 5-volt power board is the best? But browsing through the Aliexpress results, I could not find anything that comes already wrapped up in a box and ready for use, as you would with a normal UPS. I suppose most people prefer that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For best results, you need to tell us: what are you going to be with your Raspberry Pi. Are you going to use it as a desktop? A server? If so, do you need backup power for your modem? Are you going to use it as an automatic control system? Outdoor? Do you need protection against momentary power-loss only? Or you need to have a longterm battery backup? How much runtime do you need?

But in general, there are three practical solutions. You need to choose one from your intended applications.

1\. Use an office/server UPS, 110/220 VAC. This is not recommended, many UPS are optimized for 50%-80% load, the conversion loss of the inverter is significant. If you put a very light load on an office UPS, like a lamp, a modem of a Raspberry Pi, some UPS's inverter will drain itself first before the load even drains battery. However, if you intended to use the Raspberry Pi as a desktop or server in your home or office, or you only need to protect brief loss of power, you SHOULD USE this option, since your LCD monitors, external drives, etc, probably also needs a UPS. You can also try finding one designed to supply backup power to routers and modems to avoid the light-load problem. Other advantages include strong safety guarantee, and a good UPS has a data port. But it seems that UPS units designed for modems, and UPS units that have a data port is mutually-exclusive...

2\. Use a 5-volt power board. There are plenty of low-cost little boards available on AliExpress ([https://www.aliexpress.com/af/Raspberry-Pi- UPS.html](https://www.aliexpress.com/af/Raspberry-Pi-UPS.html)). They are basically a 18650 Lithium-ion battery charging board with a boost converter and a USB output. The size and efficiency made them an ideal choice if you only need to power a single Raspberry Pi with some accessories (e.g. sensors, screens). But there is no way to tell how much power is left in the battery without hardware modification.

3\. Use a 12-volt backup power, with a 5-volt DC-DC converter board. Sometimes, powering a Raspberry Pi is not enough, the modem and router also needs backup power. In this case, using a 12-volt backup power intended for routers and IP cameras is preferable, e.g. [https://www.amazon.com/Monerator- Uninterruptable-Independent...](https://www.amazon.com/Monerator- Uninterruptable-Independent-Standby-Wrieless/dp/B07RPMXQ7M/). The 5-volt power can be obtained by using a 12-volt to 5-volt buck converter board, e.g. [https://www.amazon.com/Converter-DROK-Regulator-Inverter- Tra...](https://www.amazon.com/Converter-DROK-Regulator-Inverter- Transformer/dp/B01NALDSJ0). Also, there is no way to tell how much power is left in the battery without hardware modification.

4\. Use an open-source UPS specifically designed for Raspberry Pi, some have battery data output, but I don't personally know any. There's an overlap between (2) and (4).

WARNING: If you decide to choose (2), (3), or (4), remember: boards with poorly-designed circuits, defective Lithium-ion batteries, or exposure to outdoor environment can be very dangerous. Linked products are examples, I do not endorse any of the products. Caveat Emptor.

<comment><AUTHOR> My use case is to use the pi like a portable desktop. I would be doing:

\- run debian with exwm

\- some programming in various languages

\- browse web (run wifi)

\- occasionally play some non-resource heavy games

I would be happy if I could use the system powered by the battery for four hours at a time. I have a ups for the pi 3B, but it often reboots when I plug the sytem in while running. I definitely want to avoid a UPS that has a defect that results in a system shutdown when transitioning between battery and power from an outlet.

Thank you so much for your time writing this comprehensive answer. I think that options two or four are the correct ones for my use case.

Thank you also for the links. I will do some more research to avoid buying an unreliable UPS.

cheers!</comment></comment>


Millions in Asia still on Windows XP - <AUTHOR> http://visual.ly/millions-asia-still-windows-xp <comment><USER2> For the avg user that only needs internet, office, and music/movies Windows XP is good enough. What does Vista/7/8 offer a person using a Pentium 4 level computer? Nothing really worth paying for.

I am surprised MS doesn't get more credit for XP which could be seen as a relativity dependable workhorse. Problem is for MS of course they ended the need for the users to upgrade.

<comment><USER3> Improved security is a major feature that most people should care about (but they don't).

<comment><USER4> If my computer is letting me to play solitaire on my free time, I don't care which bot net it is contributing on its free time

<comment><USER5> Until it steals your important data, or crashes your system, or sets your laptop on fire from maxing out your cpu for bitcoin mining.

Depends on the specific malware obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course these users would likely be well served(for the most part) by a GNU/Linux distribution, and with many of them the difference between XP and Windows 8 may be greater than the differences between XP and a typical CentOS installation, or even some of the more adventurous environments. The great thing is, in relation to the concerns Microsoft has put on this infographic, Windows 8 is not the natural choice.

<comment><USER7> Except that they wouldn't - software incompatibility, browser incompatibility... It's similar to getting grandma to run Linux.

<comment><USER8> Software incompatibility certainly. But I don't think most people will notice browser compatibility issues if they move to Firefox or Chrome on Linux.

<comment><USER9> Why do so many commenters on tech sites believe "mum" or "grandpa" only run a browser?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not just Asia, I've yet to find something that I need beyond XP for, and the US government uses XP everywhere.

(though Firefox lack of mpeg4 support is annoying because we don't have windows media foundation on XP)

Will grudgingly look at Windows 7 in 2014 when security fixes cease.

<comment><USER11> One example: (As far as I know,) XP doesn't have TRIM support, and this makes SSDs on that platform far less less attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What on earth does it mean to say "Windows XP with SP3 is 56.5 times more vulnerable than Windows 8 RTM" ?

I guess it's this some attempt to quantify how often XP machines get infected vs Windows 8. But a good part of that is probably because XP users are less technically proficient than the kind of people who've upgraded to 8.

If you're a CTO for a business then most of these details probably don't matter. All they really need to say is "no more updates next year, so soon you'll be directly vulnerable".

<comment><USER12> According to Microsoft's research, 11.3% of Windows XP computers are infected compared to 0.2% of Windows 8_64 computers. That's 56.5 times more infected.

[http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/08/06/the-r...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/08/06/the- risk-of-running-windows-xp-after-support-ends.aspx)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the source.

I think using that that something is "more vulnerable" is misleading though. Do we really think that 8_32 is 4 times more vulnerable than 8_64? Isn't it more likely that 64-bit users are less likely to run random malware?

Of course I definitely agree that XP is "less secure" and everyone should be planning to move away from it. But for a well-managed corporate network it just doesn't seem like such a big deal as MS are making out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> South Korea's dependence on Windows seems to continue; I wonder how much is related to SEED, the weird crypto-via-ActiveX implementation that's held them hostage all these years. ([http://kanai.net/weblog/archive/2007/01/26/00h53m55s](http://kanai.net/weblog/archive/2007/01/26/00h53m55s))

<comment><USER14> That post is from 2007, are they STILL stuck with this?

<comment><USER13> Yep. It's hard to make that sort of hack just 'go away' without sunsetting most of Korea's e-commerce sites. At least as of last year, it was important enough to be mentioned as an election issue in Nov. 2012:

[http://www.geek.com/news/korean-presidential-hopeful- pledges...](http://www.geek.com/news/korean-presidential-hopeful-pledges-to- end-internet-explorer-monopoly-1528451/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The simple truth is that corporate users tend to be very cautious about upgrading (and who can blame your average IT department for its conservatism) and many individual users only upgrade when they buy a new PC.

In my feeling, by analogy, Windows 2000 was like when they first put modern electronic ignitions and truly reliable fuel injection in passenger cars (making a whole class of maintenance and problems a thing of the past). Now it's just like buying the latest boring mid-sized sedan with slightly different styling.

For me, Mac OS X, ten years ago, was like getting a Tesla. Desktop OSes have become such a commodity since then though.

As much as I don't like the iOS model and its restrictions and business model, it's probably the first serious innovation in "desktop" OS products in a while.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's funny - I wonder why we dont see any stats for India, definitely one of the largest markets.

sidenote: For those that believe that these guys can upgrade to Linux, that will only happen on the basis of a single piece of software - Excel. And no, OO/LibreO is not good enough.

</comment><comment><USER16> Asia is not stuck on XP because it's more or less secure. Asia is stuck on XP simply because of piracy (which kind of seems to argue it's less secure, but anyway).

Most people over there are running pirated XP. I worked at a company that had Asian partners and we found even legitimate companies over there had office consoles on Pirated XP. That was a shock to us.

The really shitty downside of this is most users are using IE8 or lower and sometimes newer versions of .NET couldn't be used in our software builds. Business dudes always wanted us to design our web pages to appease these customers, which became increasingly difficult as technology goes forth.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's not just Asia. Firefox has a global population of hundreds of millions of users and our data says that ~30% of the WORLD is still on XP.

</comment><comment><USER18> I just finished a project where I worked as a front-end lead developer using HTML5, CSS3, jquery, bootstrap, backbone.js and all I had was a trusted XP machine provided by my employer. It was fine and I don't see any point in this argument. Unless you are doing an earth shattering and mind numbing things. Honestly developers can live and work well with XP machine. I am the living proof.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Chinese government should try and switch the Chinese faster to the new national OS, Ubuntu.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntu-to-become-the- offi...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/03/ubuntu-to-become-the-official-os- of-china)

<comment><USER20> Faster? It's taking the French Gendarmerie a decade to transition to Ubuntu. It'll take much much longer to transition the Chinese government to Ubuntu (if that ever happens). The first linux distro designed to be used by the Chinese government was developed in 2001, and UbuntuKylin is a loose continuation of that, so we'll see how that goes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Mozilla continues to support Firefox on Windows XP precisely because of XP's huge install base in Asia. It is a struggle, though, because Microsoft would rather not spend any time or money supporting XP with Visual Studio's toolchain.

</comment><comment><USER22> And those users don't care for support or security updates. Majority are not using the genuine Windows anyway and Vista/7/8 don't really provide anything extra to a regular user over XP.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is likely due to privacy; particularly in countries like China.

</comment><comment><USER24> It has been my experience that small businesses, from book stores to car dealership, still use windows xp a lot. As soon as you put a price tag on upgrading its out of the question.

</comment><comment><USER25> Time to upgrade to GNU/Linux! :)

<comment><USER26> I could just imagine that conversation with my CTO...

Me: CTO, we're switching to Linux instead of Windows 7

CTO: Great! How much functionality will we lose with our applications?

Me: All of it!

CTO: Let's do it!

<comment><USER27> What do you mean "all of it"?

<comment><USER28> All of the custom internal applications written over the last decade or so that provide vital business functionality, I'd have thought.

<comment><USER26> Yep. I work at a hospital so switching to Linux would impact 100% of our applications.

I understand the desire (especially on HN) to switch to Linux, but it's just not a plausible solution for most institutions. It sounds great in theory if you don't think about how all of our end user applications are running on Windows, have specialized hardware and drivers, not to mention people love the shit out of MS Office.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Creating a New Source of Revenue for Open Source Software - <AUTHOR> https://triplebyte.com/blog/creating-a-new-source-of-revenue-for-open-source-software <comment><USER2> It is difficult to get grants if you are not in a university. It turns out that a common theme is "fiduciary handling of funds". Grant money usually goes to the bursar who takes 50% or more as "overhead". But what they assure the granting organization is that the funds are being spent properly (receipts, taxes).

I approached IBM and asked that they set up and hire a couple accountants who would receive grant money, track accounts, pay taxes, etc for open source projects. The accounting payroll could be paid from "overhead charges" so it wouldn't cost IBM anything. That way an open source project could apply for a grant and assure the granting organization that the funds were being properly managed.</comment>


My dismissal is scientific judicial murder - <AUTHOR> http://www.nogracias.eu/2018/12/15/my-dismissal-is-scientific-judicial-murder-by-peter-c-gotzsche/ <comment><USER2> Perhaps hiding the "serious neurological harm" is the whole point - who are the intended recipients of these vaccines?</comment>


Ask HN: Where to get a web designer/design? - <AUTHOR>

So I have a few small projects on-going that I play around with in my spare time, however I am having a hard time getting a decent web design created for them.
Examples:
1. WhatPortIs.com
The concept is fairly simple and the current design is basically made up of a landing page from themeforest that I butchered around, however it doesn't render great on some devices, fonts are awful, and you can just generally tell it's not fit for purpose.
Finally I want to add a lot more content on the pages which makes this design no longer scalable due to the layout.
Basically my problem is that I am not a web designer, web designers are quite expensive for a none profitable side project, and theme forest type designs that are in budget just aren't made with this kind of layout in mind, they are trying to satisfy the masses that want a business or shop website etc.
2. route.im
So after a few painful days of playing around with HTML/CSS this is what I managed to come up with, it's not amazing but does the job I suppose...
Still it doesn't look that appealing and there are also some layout issues.
---
So I suppose my question is, do i need to bite the bullet and pay for a web designer to create something that actually works?
Thanks! Tom <comment><USER2> Both designs are ok. I don't think the designs are turning people away from your product. You could post your site on reddit in r/webdesign or r/design an get feedback from those groups. Or post on r/startups and ask for some advice on how you can improve your design.

If you want a really nice design head on over to dribbble.com and they have a "find designers" section. They have lots of great designers on that site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not really, both these designs look allright for their purposes - if you can't get more visitors/usage, then I guess there is no mass need for this kind service - or you are doing a poor job at marketing aspects. Design won't fix that and you'll be better off spending money to get _traction_

EDIT: If you really want a designer I'd recommend checking <http://folyo.me>

</comment><comment><USER4> Try odesk.com (focus on eastern europeans, usually cheap and reliable)

</comment><comment><USER5> Give us a try www.edesignerz.com we can help!</comment>


Finding Communities of Collaborators in Paul Graham's Essays - <AUTHOR> http://www.faingezicht.com/pages/projects/pg-essays.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A very simple network analysis of pg's collaborators, based on who he thanks at the end of his essays. Source code[0] and clean data[1] are both available. This is an updated version based on pg's comments.

[0][https://github.com/avyfain/pg-essays](https://github.com/avyfain/pg- essays)

[1][https://github.com/avyfain/pg- essays/blob/master/clean_essay...](https://github.com/avyfain/pg- essays/blob/master/clean_essays.csv)</comment>


You May Have Antibodies After Coronavirus Infection. But Not for Long - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/health/coronavirus-antibodies.html <comment><USER2> Link to the Nature study:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6)</comment>


Battle Against Any Raid Five - <AUTHOR> http://www.miracleas.com/BAARF/

<comment><USER2> I don't see any suggestions for a replacement technology.

<comment><USER3> I use RAID-Z, a feature of ZFS. It works great.

<comment><USER4> It's slightly better than hardware raid5, but raidz2 is much better, and raid10 (also possible with zfs) is much faster as well as more reliable.</comment></comment></comment>