Ask HN: How to get out of Tech and still make a decent living? - <AUTHOR> I've been working as software engineer for over 15 years. I feel burned out and have no interest left in this field where learning new things just keeps you at the same place in life. And no respect for experience, unless you demonstrate on a whiteboard with your implementation of a sorted bubble tree list.<p>My question is, how to successfully get out of tech and still make decent living ($100k+).
Has anyone tried small business that worked out for you? <comment><USER4> I knew a woman once who went to law school, but burned out on the law before she passed the bar...so she went to medical school, but burned out on that before she completed her residency. What she eventually realized, though, is that there are very few people who have actually made it through both law school _and_ medical school, so she set up a career for herself matching doctors with lawyers who needed medical expert witnesses. You see, both law and medicine have their own unique jargon, and she could effectively serve as a translator between those two worlds. She made quite a pretty penny charging her finder's fee too!

If you have 15 years experience doing software engineering, you're half-way to the same sort of a position. Find some other field you're interested in and learn up on their jargon, or take your most recent gig and dive deep into whatever industry it is you're developing software for. Whether you call yourself "biz-dev" or "project manager" or just "consultant", there is a market for people who can effectively bridge the world of software engineering with the world of...everything else.

<comment> bjelkeman-again This is more or less what happened to me. I had worked in the sofware industry for 15 years, when I decided to get out. Not a developer, but a trajectory of pre-sales support/training, systems analyst, project manager, consultant, and doing a few startups that made me enough money to live, but nothing spectacular.

I took my hobby, sustainable large scale horticulture and tried to switch by starting with a degree in environmental science. Actually taking a degree as an experienced adult was a blast and I can really recommend it. Motivation, even if lectures where boring or subjects hard, was never an issue.

I ended up meeting people at conferences, in my field of study (geology/hydrology) who really needed help with data/information technology. We started a new organisation and I am the co-director of a foundation that run data services for sustainable international development. We have 25+ governments in Africa, Asia and Soth America, UN organisations and hundreds of NGOs use our open source services. Very satisfying work and a decent living.

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, your later-in-life college experience: what kind of school was it at? (Meaning: large state university, liberal arts college, Yale, for- profit, etc.) As a college dropout who was a terrible student, I've been wanting to go back more and more as time passes.

<comment> bjelkeman-again Stockholm University, Sweden, which is a decent university. Not sure how that compares to your experience. A government owned university with ~30,000 students. No fees for EU students. I was also a college dropout from Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Coincidentally 15 years ago a fellow engineer told me his plan was to keep the same job as long as possible, get to the point where it isn't demanding intellectually, clock in the minimum hours, and then find fulfillment through family, friends, and hobbies. He has built 3 homes in his spare time, is a millionaire, and has an amazing family.

It took me 15 years to realize he was right. I now work 4 hours a day as a .NET consultant and then spend the rest of day doing whatever I want. I am fulfilled, relaxed, healthy and respected.

Before abandoning what many believe to be a highly desirable profession, just cut back on your hours and revisit your feelings after a few months.

Lastly do not underestimate how smart and competitive people are in other industries. It can take many years before you build the skills and reputation where you can command $100k+. I'd argue it is 10X harder to for a small business owner to net $100k than it is to net $50k.

<comment><USER7> I once rubbed a friend the wrong way when he said "maybe I'll just get out of tech, take a few years of courses and become an electrician or something like that. Make 100k and be happy with that... leave the computer behind."

My response was: "Fine plan but don't think you'll just go make 100k after a couple years of trade school and not have any stresses!"

A few people showed me I was wrong about that but we were also living in Alberta while oil was still strong. Had my friend taken this path he likely wouldn't have made 100k for long if at all (until he had much more experience).

Anyway, point being, it's hard to go make decent money even though we all meet people who seem to do so with what seems like little effort. Lots of folks say they make good money but their interpretation of "good money" might be much different than the yours.

<comment><USER8> I would not advise a job in the oil industry if you are a minority in. I've heard lots of traumatic experiences from friends in Texas and Alberta.

Lots of good reviews in Norway though

<comment><USER9> Houston oil execs: we need you to help us negotiate with this Arab guy.

Iranian-American: but I'm Iranian. Not Arab.

Execs: _blank stares_ Same thing though right?

Happened. That said, I wouldn't expect one to experience any malice in a corporate Texas environment based on ethnicity or race. Rather, there's often a narrow perspective, in that they want you to be as Texan as possible, ideally an alumnus of their favorite Texas university, and stick to the norms, as opposed to say NYC where diverse experiences are appreciated more.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I've noticed if you have Texan culture in you, they welcome you with open arms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I hear you, and hope you can find something that works for you. A cousin of mine, an aeronautic engineer, went on to become a patent agent (editor/writer/evaluator) at a big patent firm. He needed to do some legal training, but it was less than a year -- not a full law degree. He couldn't be happier - he is paid to read and be up-to-date on a lot of interesting stuff, has conversations with interesting people all day and (at least in his firm), has a job that is as 9 to 5 as he wants it to be, no pressure, no crunch time, etc.

The down side is that patents are evil.

> And no respect for experience, unless you demonstrate on a whiteboard with > your implementation of a sorted bubble tree list.

I will be a dissenter here: I have interviewed people with 20 years of experience, and who have shipped products, who had gross misunderstanding about the tech stacks they are using -- to the point of taking multiple (2x - 10x) times of both implementation and resources than a reasonable solution -- just reasonable, not compared to an "optimized" (for resources) or "quick and dirty throwaway" (for time) solution. And most of the times, these people were oblivious to their (lack) of knowledge or understanding.

Your post reminded me of a specific interview, someone with 20 years of experience, who's answer to a question (essentially, a database join, which could have been done inside the select but wasn't), which was an O(n^3). Would have worked reasonably well even on an n=1000 table, but our table had n=10,000,000, and this was specified in the requirements. After grilling him a bit about runtime estimates (to which his basic answer "who cares? computers are fast enough nowadays"), he did acknowledge that as written it would take forever, but then added "But it doesn't matter, the compiler will optimize this anyway to the best possible O(n) solution, and it will be fast". This was about a C loop, in 2005.

I thanked they guy and declined his job application. I am sure his takeaway was that I was a snotty employer who only wants sorted bubble tree lists and arcane academic stuff, and that I couldn't appreciate him shipping products for 20 years. But had I taken him on our team, I am quite sure it would have been a failure: At that place, we had a successful fire-and-almost-forget shipping culture, which required doing back-of-the-envelope runtime estimates (among other things) to make sure things actually satisfy requirements -- and his attitude did not fit.

Another similar "20 year experience" story from a friend of mine who worked on a system running a moderately sized financial exchange: In small scale tests everything worked perfectly well, but once real load testing started, it was clear that it can sustain less than 10% of the existing load. (This was a 2nd- generation system, which was to take over existing trading). All measurements pointed to hard drives being the culprit, and a $50,000 SSD (whopping 10GB capacity, IIRC - this was 2002) was bought, and was able to _just_ get the existing load working, with very little room for increased capacity.

At this point, my friend was assigned to review that the solution was properly implemented, and he discovered to his horror, that one of the 20-year- experience authors was unable to figure out how to do a "sprintf()" with unknown-in-advance result size, so he instead created a temporary file, used "fprintf" into it, allocated the memory according to the resulting size, read the data, and deleted the file. Changing this to an snprintf-and-if-failed- reallocate-buffer-and-retry scheme sped the system up some 20x (compared to the SSD!), and made the SSD redundant. The original guy's response when shown the solution was IIRC, basically a dismissive "oh, yeah - I guess I should have known about snprintf, it wasn't there when I learned C, of course the SSD was the right solution given the constraints".

I'm not saying experience is useless, but it is an appeal to authority, which most of us (especially here on HN) dislike when we are expected to revere it. If one can't show competence without referring to (vague, abstract, generally unverifiable[0]) experience, then perhaps one is not as qualified for a job as one thinks.

Just to clarify: This is not personally directed at OP - in fact, the vibe I get is that OP can easily pass sorted bubble tree list interviews and just got tired of it.

However, I'm just pointing out that anecdatally, I've seen too many "experienced" developers who are oblivious to the costs/benefits of employing them, to the point that I completely disagree with the prevailing (even on HN) sentiment that experienced developers shouldn't need to do the kind of interviews that junior devs do.

[0] Being a member of a team that did well is not, on its own, proof of anything. the dailywtf is full of "Paula"s and others who have spend months -- even years -- on teams that shipped, and the real world is too.

<comment><USER5> There are two sides to this. That story from a few months back about the guy who wrote homebrew getting denied a job at Google because he flubbed some particular algorithm on a whiteboard is pretty messed up. On the other hand, I agree with you that experience tends not to be a particularly accurate predictor of actual skill, and that white board algorithm implementations are at worst a good faith effort to solve the problem of interviewing for competence.

<comment><USER10> I didn't follow the Max Howell / homebrew story when it originally appeared, but reading about it now from a year's distance, this[0] seems like the best summary (the other quora answers are also illuminating, as is the HN discussion from the time).

Regardless, assuming Howell's original narrative ("you couldn't invert a binary tree so goodbye") is the truth, I still don't see why this is "pretty messed up". It's not the olympics where the scoring system is repeatable, objective and well known, or court where lives and livelihood are irreversibly changed".

It's an employer, one of many, who decided -- for whatever reasons, which might have been the tree inversion failure -- to not hire Mr. Howell. There's Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, IBM if he wants to work for bigcorp. There's thousands of smaller companies. If someone else hires him, fine; If no one does than the narrative is obviously untrue.

[0] [https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google- rejectin...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejecting- Max-Howell-the-author-of-Homebrew-for-not-being-able-to-invert-a-binary- tree/answer/Joseph-Janos-1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This thread is full of personal stories so I'll add mine. Writing software is fun but burned out on doing it professionally for 10 years. Frustrated I was just making my bosses rich and building their dreams not mine. Frustrated at programming's long-term career trajectory (Nobody will hire you after 40). Dreamed of doing my own thing but no capital to start a company. Went into debt for an MBA, goal of getting into finance or somewhere without tech's various career limitations and "ceilings." Graduated from highly ranked MBA school. A month later Lehman and Bear explode and suddenly nobody is hiring MBAs (oops!). Back to programming. Programming is still fun, but I continue to just making my bosses rich. Moved into product management thinking it will be different. Still no career trajectory. Moved into project management. Still no career trajectory. Made it to 40 and still have a job but no capital to start a company. Still figuring out what to do when I grow up.

Lesson learned I suppose is you can change your role, your industry, your company, but it doesn't change the fact that you'll be stuck on the burnout treadmill building someone else's dream.

<comment><USER12> > Frustrated at programming's long-term career trajectory (Nobody will hire > you after 40).

Simply not true. At 40+ I'm making the highest salary of my career thus far, and have no problem switching jobs. Had three offers last time I switched (8 months ago). I post this as a warning to anyone less experience reading this thread and taking this as fact, when it is most certainly anecdotal.

<comment><USER13> I'm just curious but do you have a specialty? And if so is it domain or technical? Like the ruby guy, or the HIPPA guy etc..

<comment><USER12> Just Java and Spring, senior level, nothing special by any means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/)

I bring up /r/Entrepreneur because its about starting a business, not simply a tech business that you'd get insight for on Hacker News. I bring up /r/financialindependence because it'll help you reduce your burn rate and increase your savings.

Getting your burn rate down is critical; The less money you need, the more options you have for your future. The easiest dollar to make is the one you didn't need to spend in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've known more than one person who tried something else and went back to software. The unfortunate and not-so-easy-to-admit issue is that for many, perhaps even the vast majority of, software engineers have (on a 10-15 years forward looking basis) a global maximum of salary optimization in the software field. Also, most of us have no idea how easy (except intellectually) our job is compared to other jobs which are more demanding physically and emotionally.

On a 30-year forward looking basis, we appear to be fucked, though - the only 50-year old software guys I know are either self employed, or have been working at the same place for 20 years. Even "stable" employees who only switch jobs every 5 years have problem finding new jobs when they are older.

If you know of something else you'd rather be doing, and you are able to support yourself[0], and have a reasonable 10 year horizon, by all means do. But if there's nothing you are passionate about, then in all likelihood you would be just as burned and make less just trying to run an alternative method of income.

That said, I highly recommend reading Tim Ferris' "4 hour work week" book. Do not treat it as gospel, but do follow the math - it will give you a good idea (and possibly some inspiration) of where you need to be and possibly some steps on the way to get there.

[0] but, be honest with yourself - if you make less, will you still be happy enough outside of work? Many people aren't as happy once they find out what they actually have to give up. Just give the difference to charity for a couple of months to see how well _you_ manage.

<comment><USER15> _On a 30-year forward looking basis, we appear to be fucked, though - the only 50-year old software guys I know are either self employed, or have been working at the same place for 20 years. Even "stable" employees who only switch jobs every 5 years have problem finding new jobs when they are older._

Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable.

<comment><USER10> > Ageism is definitely a problem in software, but not in other specialized > fields, which suggests to me that it is fixable.

It will take decades to fix if ever, and the fixed state won't be recognizable.

In my opinion, ageism in software exists mostly because it is a fashion business, and (statistically speaking, and rather objectively), older people are not as good at catering to the latest fashions. This also happens in the real fashion business (that of clothes, makeup etc) and also in marketing and advertising, and acting.

The fields in which ageism is not a problem are mostly regulated fields (medicine, law, mechanical engineering), where someone can die or lose their freedom as a result of malpractice. People in these fields often need to prove they are up to date with recent methods and findings to keep their certification. I, for one, would NOT like to have to prove competence with hadoop or Angular (and then .NET WinForms, followed by WPF the following year, followed by Node.js the next one) to not lose my license -- and if software developers ARE licensed, the requirements will probable [d]evolve that way.

<comment><USER16> > It will take decades to fix if ever, and the fixed state won't be > recognizable.

It will fix itself. Software became popular with the rise of the Internet which didn't happen till the late 90's. If we assume people at that time were in their mid-late 20's, then they would be in their mid-late 40's now.

Basically, there just isn't that many 50+ developers out there. In another 10-20 years there will be a lot more and older programmers will be much more common and therefore won't be as out of place.

<comment><USER10> I worked with 30 year old programmers 25 years ago. I worked with 30 year old programmers 20 years ago. None of those guys are still coding. Some moved to management, some to consulting (as in, real consulting). None that I'm in touch with is still writing code.

There aren't as many 50 year old developers as younger ones, but there are enough to see a pattern (and for things like the Google lawsuit age discrimination lawsuit[0] - we'll have to wait and see how that works out). Whether it will change when there are more 50 year old developers or not - <USER2> bet is that it won't.

[0] [http://www.computerworld.com/article/3090087/it- careers/goog...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/3090087/it- careers/google-age-discrimination-lawsuit-may-become-monster.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I know of one guy who got burned out on corporate IT and opened a game store. Several years later, each year being just as close to bankruptcy as the previous, he realized it was the corporate BS he was burned out on, not programming per se, and he would have been far better off looking for a different way to earn money with his programming skills, but by that time it was too late, he was too committed to the game store to switch.

I recommend taking a few weeks off to chill out, relax, get the corporate BS out of your system, then think about less BS-intensive ways to earn money with your skills. Even if you have to take a big pay cut, you'll probably take an even bigger one switching professions at this stage.

<comment><USER18> I am absolutely incapable of working for most companies, because of corporate bullshit. I much prefer being an entrepreneur, making money online / building great products / dealing with customers. Occasional consulting is doable, because you're usually dealing with decision makers, who cut through the bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm in a similar situation, with a few kinks: I'm in Europe (where skilled developers are seen as prize cattle), did a few years of management (which were OK) and made the horrible mistake of going into post-sales at a US multinational.

My days are filled with e-mails, meetings with customers, PowerPoint decks and discussions about product features, and even though I'm in what passes for a senior "technical" position all people care about are sales quotas and bonus targets and my manager is clearly incompetent to run a technical team - all he cares about is making quota.

Lots of lip service towards customer satisfaction and ethical selling, but mostly passing the buck onto other teams and partners.

I do get around a lot, which includes getting a lot of face time with interesting people I might not otherwise have met if I'd stuck to a development role and do a fair amount of cool demos (whenever I'm given enough time to prepare) but the agony of not being able to build stuff and just pushing prepackaged solutions onto a customer is driving me nuts.

Pay is OK (slightly less than what I made as a manager, but with a bigger, utterly impossible to reach bonus), I get to work from home, free trips to the HQ, etc. the tech is good enough, and improving. But what irks me is the baseline, unspoken attitude of "sell and be done with it".

I'm respected for my technical skills outside the company but constantly grilled about closing the sale (even when the customer doesn't want or need what we sell - which is one of the current trendy things in our industry) so I, for one, would very much like to go back to a development role.

Let this be a cautionary tale of sorts - sales might seem like an easy half- way position towards something else, but there is more than one kind of intellectual burnout.

</comment><comment><USER20> Getting out is possible but it's quite hard. Whatever you are going to do you won't be able to reach your current income level in the long-term. These opportunity costs and a general insecurity when doing new stuff will pull you back to well paid and secure dev jobs very quickly.

Running your own business or getting into startups as a founder is an option but you need to learn toms of new stuff, so it wont be easy either. Most developers I know who went this path realized after few months that another life isn't much easier and reverted to cushy dev jobs with free lunch and all the perks you could imagine. _That 's_ the real problem, it is so easy and tempting to get a well paid dev job. Why try hard if you get free crack around the corner?

I still recommend to venture something new but make sure you have sufficient financial resources and strong willpower to stay on track and not fall back to your current profession. You will learn a lot and tremendously improve your people skills.

</comment><comment><USER21> Adjusting your quality of life to the pay scale of the ideal job may be worth it.

At least it could throw a smile on your face. My friend is a Engineer (controlling trains and jazz) who quit after 40 years to work in a greenhouse for 1/10th the pay. He doesn't live as well, and driving a used beater but he smiles now and enjoys facing the day. Took him a few years to slowly dial down his costs and ingrained habits though.

Consider as a method of last resort?

</comment><comment><USER7> One thing to note: when talking to people in-real-life about what they do for a living and how much they earn take everything with a grain of salt. I've had beers with guys that said "dude.. I'm making sick money doing X" only to find out later that "sick money" was $18/hour (in Canada). I've also had similar conversations with other people and found out they meant 300k a year.

</comment><comment><USER22> \- Owner Operator Truck Driver \- Owner Operator Plumbing Business Owner Operator Mobile Welding \- Owner Operator Concrete Pumping

It's relatively easy to make over $100k as an owner of a small business.

It's an order of magnitude more difficult to find a company that will pay you a software engineers salary without a decade or so of experience in that field and associated education.

</comment><comment><USER23> What part of tech are you in? Maybe you're burnt out on that niche's particular subculture, not tech in general. For example:

Tired of 10-person startups? Move to a bigger company.

Tired by the constant churn in front-end libraries? Move down the stack and work on server software.

<comment><USER24> I tried that! It works well to a certain extent but, obviously, it's not completely life-changing. I used to be a full-stack free-lance web-dev and later I was involved in a startup. I was bothered by how difficult it is, sometimes, to deal with non-technical people (clients, non-technical co- founders, etc). I moved to a larger company where I am part of a team of engineers and I have a boss who is a former software developer. We don't have to deal directly with clients, other managers or final users. I feel much happier now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am a very young developer (about a year and half out of college) so this might be a naïve thought. Isn't 15 years quite a long tenure for software development? I thought after 5-10 years you move into product/project management or something higher.

I mean I realize everyone is different but still. Being the inexperienced programmer I am right now I imagine myself happily coding until I am 50 (lol ask me in 15 years if I feel the same way)

<comment><USER26> I have about 3 years of industry experience, but it's been enough to teach me one very valuable lesson: don't transition entirely out of software engineering until you have some reasonable assurance of personal/financial security.

I once transitioned into a more client-oriented role for a brief time and was almost immediately scrambling to claw my way back out for a handful of reasons: (1) the value I was creating became nebulous and hard to define compared to before, (2) I lost the insane value-creation lever that software engineering enables, and (3) things became considerably less deterministic in general.

You really don't need to look any further than the various high-profile executive flameouts of seemingly intelligent people with strong engineering track records (e.g. Marissa Mayer) to understand the problem. You could even be a great manager/salesperson/product designer and _still_ fail because so much is out of your control. I saw this play out repeatedly amongst the various managers and executives at my previous company.

So if you're going to take the risk of escalating beyond the role of an individual contributor, make sure you have a parachute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You're in tech, so an experience you have that is over 5 years is largely useless. What you need to leverage is your wisdom gained from the 15 years of experience. Wisdom is what separates you from someone with "only" 5 years of experience, but who can code almost as good as you and work for less. So no, there is no respect for experience beyond a number of years.

I've been in tech for over 25 years and I am more engaged than ever in what I am doing. I've been a programmer (front and back end), sysadmin, dba, network engineer, project manager, and product manager. Looking back, through all of that learning, I was becoming a better leader. About 3 years ago I stopped coding and became a full time leader in tech. I now optimize people and teams, not code and systems.

I'm still very much involved in architecting systems, which is where wisdom comes in. If I can't guide them in how to build something, chances are I can provide equal value in telling them how NOT to build something.

I would advise pursuing a role where you can impart your wisdom and leverage your many years of experience to help others and make an impact that way.

<comment><USER28> Should there ever be a fear of being stuck with one technology, or language while at a job (or in a career?)

Currently I write .NET but I don't know if that would be the most interesting career to ~only~ write .NET (I'm a recent grad)

<comment><USER27> I think you should be afraid of only knowing one technology/language. You should strive to at least play with one new technology/language per year. "language" can be flexible, like CSS, SQL, HTML. It doesn't have to be things like Go, Erlang, or Haskel. It would be nice to be at a company that encourages that. Even if you just know why people like certain languages, that would be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The one lesson you should probably take from the comments here is that your should take a look at what you enjoy and how you might be able to make a living off it. If your main condition is a big salary and life in a big city, well the consultant world awaits, but it's also not as easy as many here make it sound.

Else, just be honest and see what you really like. A friend of a friend lives somewhere on the African coast and deals in shells. Locals sell them to him, he sells them on to traders abroad. He surely doesn't make 100k, but the change of location and lifestyle also means he doesn't need to.

So: think out of the box. Just make it a new life.

</comment><comment><USER30> >"No respect for experience"

I felt the same for few years. It takes getting used to

> "How to successfully get out of tech?"

Probably not get out of it, but move away from this role. Delegate, delegate and delegate. If consulting, take a huge pay cut for sometime. It is harder in the beginning, especially with that much experience and/or being an expert. But it is easier to "earn time" and probably respect by that way.

People, and mostly experts, sometimes say "I don't want to get into management". They like what they do and I can totally understand why. However, when they do not delegate and not teach a team how to do great things - <USER3> also end up doing a huge disservice to the industry. As a result, we have so many idiotic management guys who just shouldn't exist in the industry

Optionally, Banking and Finance is one industry where you might be able to get in and may be grow easily because of your tech experience. But you will definitely feel burned out and might be working 16-18 hours a day including weekends. After a few years you just know some things - like writing a for loop. You have to keep learning and exploring, but the basic framework doesn't change.

Medical school - It takes a lot of time to just learn and then you will be working for 12-15 hours. And the life you live isn't really independent as you might think. Docs make a really good living. You do have to learn new stuff, but its not like learning a new living organism every year (compare to language/frameworks). And experience is valued.

Law - same thing, good lawyers have to work a lot. And they make a huge living, 100K might be peanuts. Experience is valued.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yes, start a company or create an app (or several apps) that will pull in enough revenue to keep you going. This is either doable, or not really possible at all, so it should be obvious which situation you're in.

Also, meditate, listen to brainwave entrainment, maybe spend some time in a sensory deprivation tank, research DXM reset (6.4mg DXM per kg of body weight-- at most once every 2 weeks), then start taking N-Acetyl Semax and N-Acetyl Selank (both administered via a nasal spray). Also, you can research NSI-189, Deprenyl, and Cerebrolysin.

If you are burnt out due to lack of ability to do the job you'd like to do, rather than being tired of programming, then the best bet is to find a company you match well with (glassdoor, paysa, and comparably should help make this happen) or (as said above) create your own.

What else are you interested in, made curious by, or passionate about? If you can figure out what those things are, then you can look into their viability as a career or business.

<comment><USER32> Do you have any links for DXM reset? Is that similar to ketamine for depression? Interested in your burn-out reversal protocol.

<comment><USER31> Yes, it affects the NMDA receptors similar to Ketamine, though it's "safer" (when taken properly). Just search for DXM online. You can also read articles posted to Erowid. Another alternative is Memantine, but DXM also acts as a sort of SSRI and affects the mu-sigma opioid receptors, so for this one-off- once-every-2-weeks use it's more appropriate.

You can also research options like combining it with Phenibut (1-2g split across 2 servings the day and night before, as it can become addictive or problematic if used too often (more than 1-2x/week) or in high quantities (more than 1-2g/day)), 5-HTP, Melatonin, fasoracetam, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Oh, count me in. Any way out would be nice.

Can't believe I let anyone talk me into coding for a living.

</comment><comment><USER34> What other skills do you have? What else can you do that's equally valued by society?

</comment><comment><USER35> I can't believe no one has mentioned opening up a retail, foodchain (not a restaurant), coffeeshop or franchising. If you open one of these in a good location you can make really really good coin. It's crazy how much money coffee shops in my campus makes. There are more than 20 coffee shops in a 1km radius and they are all making insane profits for a medium size campus.

<comment><USER15> How much of that is paid in rent tho'? Classic landlord tactic, get a business in, if it's a success capture all of its profit, if it goes bust get another one.

As with all things, if it was easy everyone would be doing it...

<comment><USER35> Including the business outside the campus are around 100k-5million after rent. I have not seen any landlord doing what you've mentioned.

<comment><USER36> Those sound like good figures. How are you getting those numbers? Estimations or have you managed to speak to there book keepers. I always won D we about coffee shops, they seem to be popular but I wonder how much profit is actually made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> +1000 - any ideas? Stories of successful escapes?

</comment><comment><USER38> Have you considered moving to a better area of tech? Some of the new things being done with AI, Learning and Automation are pretty cool and might provide more excitement that your current job (since you didnt specify I assumed that you're in general product/solution development field)

<comment><USER39> I have been programming for longer than the OP, I have an advanced degree, and I can assure you: unless you have research-level skills in these areas, they will fall out of fashion and you will be stranded in a niche. Even if you do have PhD-level training, you'll still be in that niche...you just might be able to survive when the pond dries up again.

I know it doesn't seem like it to folks who haven't been around for long, but AI and ML is a fad, currently at Peak Hype. There will continue to be AI researchers in a decade, but they will be the people who are in it for the long term. The magpies who are currently swarming into the field will flitter away when the Next Big Thing comes along.

I point this out only because the OP specifically mentions how the treadmill of constant learning leaves you in place in this industry...and this is a great example of how it happens. If you spend your life chasing every five- year fad cycle in tech, hoping for continued relevance, you'll burn out. Moreover, you'll always be at a competitive disadvantage to the 20-something new grad who knows the new shiny as well as you do, and works for praise and pizza.

If you want to specialize, then really specialize. But be prepared to devote a big chunk of your life to it.

<comment><USER35> I've been looking for someone with this perspective. Do you think it is just AI and ML? Do you feel the same way about data scientists, data analyst (not actuary,statisticians,mathematicians, etc)?

What other domains do you recommend instead?

<comment><USER39> If you are new, I recommend that you pick a discipline with long-term proven value, and go as deep as you can into it. If you have a bit more experience, pick a second discipline, and define yourself as the specialist in X-meets-Y. Just don't be a magpie: make a choice, and stick to it. This is the hard part, because it will be excruciatingly tempting to follow all of the other magpies to the new field when they leave.

As for your other question: no, it isn't just AI. Right now, the "javascript engineer", "mobile developer" and "data scientist" are all magical creatures of the Unicorn Land. I can't predict what comes next, but I can confidently predict that none of these things will be as hot in a decade, because they're all just the latest variations on broader themes.

That said, there are often actual disciplines beneath these trends. For example, "data science" is practically the definition of a magpie fad: _science_ has always depended upon data, so putting "data" in front of the term is an indication of (fairly thoughtless) trend-chasing. But actuaries, analysts, scientists and statisticians have been around for decades, and will continue to exist long after the last 20-something "senior data scientist" has closed his Jupyter notebook for good. Specialize in those things, instead, and call yourself whatever goofy thing you need to say on a resume to get hired.

Any reasonably intelligent kid can pick up a data analysis tool in months, but it still takes decades for that kid to become an expert statistician. Prefer the latter.

<comment><USER40> While they might not realized, many programmers will already specialized in software development. Meaning their career will take them to technical lead, project manager, software architect etc. and not "number crunching".

<comment><USER39> That can be a valid specialization, but the bar is higher than most people realize. If you're going to be a specialist in software development, it isn't enough to merely work at a company or three and advance through the ranks. You have to become so skilled at the _process_ of software creation that your knowledge is recognized as universally relevant. You have to be in the top percentile(s) of people who do what you do.

It's the difference between being a middle manager at a tech company and being, say, Rob Pike or Jeff Dean. (Maybe that bar is set a bit too high, but hopefully you get the idea.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > unless you demonstrate on a whiteboard with your implementation of a sorted > bubble tree list

True ! But I wonder is that criteria for all the tech companies ? I know its a must do criteria big companies like Amazon and Google.

</comment><comment><USER42> Teaching is one way to get out, but probably won't make big money.

</comment><comment><USER43> i have similar concerns about the industry; programming, frankly, sucks in terms of career trajectory and i have pondered what the next phase might look like for me.

</comment><comment><USER44> maybe become a commercial airline pilot? won't make you a living wage in the valley but you can live well virtually anywhere else

plus you get to fly planes which is cool

<comment><USER45> Miserable job today. Start at $28K a year.[1] That's for experienced pilots with 1500 hours. Start by being on reserve, which means you're on 2-hour call for when they need someone.

An SF Muni bus driver is better paid.

It's one of those jobs which, like "game developer" or "actor", attracts people who really want to be in the business, even though the job sucks.

[1] [http://www.skywest.com/skywest-airline-jobs/career- guides/fl...](http://www.skywest.com/skywest-airline-jobs/career- guides/flight-jobs/#/payscale)

<comment><USER15> A senior captain at BA makes a very good living, but they got in when it _was_ a lucrative field and their union locked the benefits in. Nowadays without seniority in a union, you have nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'd also like more opinions and stories on this topic. My story is somewhat similar, started programming at a very early age, then worked professionally since 13 non-stop (first job writing credit card processing apps). Post- university, I've been in the industry for 15+ years as well. Excuse the rant that follows, but hopefully it will get others to chime in.

In University, I made an initial attempt to get out of the industry as I already lost my passion for it, so I majored in Statistics, Finance, Management Science, and did Computer Engineering as a safety. I had to pay for school somehow, so I also worked proper software engineering jobs while in school. Once I graduated, my father passed away a few days after and I was stuck knowing I'd never get any financial support, so I continued in the industry, always wanting to move out at some point. The familial responsibility, stress, company loyalty, etc. prevented me from ever getting out.

I've been checking all the job ads every few weeks, for years to find an alternative career. And of course I mean "all" types of jobs, not just tangential tech jobs. Currently taking some time off to recover from burnout by tired of dipping into my savings and ready to go back to work for various reasons. It's just sad because on a mental and emotional level, returning to a programming job depresses the hell out of me and I am not sure what else there is for me approaching 40. I worked on my own startup a bit and it was going well, but I struggled to find a reputable and competent partner, and the thought of doing it on my own and not pulling in a regular income for another year seems too much for now, so at the very least I need to work on my project on the side until something changes.

I've come to the point where I really hate computers, but I feel at this age it gets harder and harder to do something different. Sometimes I would rather just do something more simple, productive, and real. I worked in many different parts of the industry already and I've touched just about every major language there is, worked for startups, consulting, you name it. I've done sales engineering, team lead, project management, etc., but usually my dev skills would take the forefront and regardless of my job description because of necessity - lack of staff (ex: startups/wearing many hats), mistakes of others, being the most senior person skills/experience wise, and so on.

Programming only feels hard at this point because of awful colleagues, unreasonable deadlines/circumstances, and technical debt usually created by others. Just about every company's product bores me and most I wonder who needs what they make and why, and I get tired of the typical dysfunction and ridiculous "culture" be it brogrammers or overly enthusiastic corporate nonsense. I try to swallow my pride and be professional about it all, but I find myself secretly hating everyone and everything at most workplaces. I'm tired of working tons of unpaid overtime for silly reasons and likewise I don't want to work somewhere where the job/company is a joke.

I'd love to just do something "normal." I can't envision working in tech at 60 or being able to retire early either for various reasons. I can empathize because it's tough, especially when you get used to a salary and lifestyle. Lived overseas and had a much simpler life for a bit, but in the end it gets to be the same grind on a different scale, so I suppose it's more about the job than the pay. In the US though it's harder to make ends meet if your pay is very low, so I'm looking for something in-between at least.

Thought about teaching, but they make it very hard for many reasons to break into when you're older and I'm not sure I feel like grabbing a master's in education just to slash my salary dramatically. Private schools are an option of course, but much less stable in terms of long-term prospects, just seen too many friends in that world struggle long-term.

Anyway, I think for most people who are past early 30s, starting your own business is logical. The question is what, how, and with what capital depending on the business. Easier said than done.

<comment><USER47> Why not start a vendor company? Based on the tech stack you know, you can recruit competent people and sell them as business analysts or consultants for a lot of money. They earn well, you earn just as well. That's the kind of thing I'm currently in. Boss-men were two devs some 15 years ago, threw arms in the air in a 'fuck i quit' moment. Started consulting to their previously built business connections, then recruited people one by one for the different job opportunities that were vacant at their clients.

<comment><USER46> I worked in consulting and vowed to never go back. I suppose my clients would vouch for me but it's been a long time. I also lived overseas so really lost contact with lots of people for extended period of times. Let that be a lesson to the younger.

I suppose picking the right niche it can be better than your average small business custom dev consulting gig or something similar. I'm just so over the tech industry bs. I worked for Microsoft and some other names at times, and I fully admit those experiences can easily make one bitter. I'm trying to be positive and find light in it all, but it gets harder with each passing year.

In any case, thanks. I've had similar thoughts and wanted to find at least one person to partner with, but can't think of anyone interested I trust. Too many of the good people I've worked with are wife/husband kids people and don't want to take on the risk of their own business. One day though.</comment></comment></comment>


Chromium calls home even in incognito mode with safe browsing turned off - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=792580 <comment><USER2> Chrome can log SSL keys if you want. There's need to speculate about "unknown" data.

[https://www.imperialviolet.org/2012/06/25/wireshark.html](https://www.imperialviolet.org/2012/06/25/wireshark.html)

<comment><USER3> I'll add that I can't find a report of this issue upstream on the Chromium issue tracker. :/

If we remember the hotword detection issue from a few months ago, once the issue was filed, Chrome engineers responded rather quickly. (As of today, hotword detection is 100% removed not just from Chromium but Chrome as well).

If anyone can reproduce this issue, I'd like to help getting it filed so we can determine what's going on.

Edit: We've found the upstream issue: [http://crbug.com/498272](http://crbug.com/498272) In it, we've isolated two separate pings in this scenario. One is to grab an experiment status; we're looking into if this is neccessary. The other ping is for the component updater, to evaluate if your Chrome extensions should be updated. Neither of these pings report what sites you are visiting to Google.

<comment><USER4> Great response IMO. Thanks Paul!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think that chromium should call home at all but incognito mode is not about this... it is about not leaving traces of your browsing history on the local computer.

<comment><USER6> There's an implicit corollary that, if your trying to avoid leaving behind traces of activity on your own computer, you probably would also like to minimize traces of activity left behind on other computers as well.

This might carry the expectation that unintentional interactions with other systems should be eliminated, since, the fewer systems touched, means the fewer traces of said activity there are in the entire world, no?

<comment><USER7> That is a common misconception, but bears no resemblance to reality. As the other commenter noted, incognito mode (for any browser) only concerns with the local machine.

What you mentioned, "minimize traces of activity left behind on other computers as well", is a difficult task. Attempting to do so requires more advanced techniques that entail tough compromises. Consider using Tor, you are anonymous to the endpoint (e.g. the website you visit does not have your IP), but confidential data is not safe from prying eyes in the process. Alternatively you can use some sort of crypt to sign and encrypt your connection... your data is safe from prying eyes (potentially verified as well) but you are no longer anonymous. This can all be mitigated to some extent, but it is well outside the scope of a browser.

<comment><USER6> Certainly is an echo chamber in this whole thread.

Count the motivations to resist alterations that would doubtless improve Chromium's respect for privacy.

<comment><USER8> > Count the motivations to resist alterations that would doubtless improve > Chromium's respect for privacy.

That's a very indirect way of explaining motivations. I am certain that there are conflicting requirements that have tradeoff and not as black-and-white as you make it seem.

Firefox is a great contrast to Chromium since they are likely to have greater respect for privacy. Is there a privacy aspect that Chromium lags significantly behind Firefox? If not, then your hypothesis (on motivation) is wrong (proof by contradiction: Mozilla doesn't have the same motivations)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Chromium is an open source branch of chrome, offered as a convenience. It is not a standalone product with its own goals. Shouldn't there be a "Chromium- Privacy" project that branches Chromium and reviews code changes, to keep it aligned with such goals?

<comment><USER10> > Shouldn't there be a "Chromium-Privacy" project that branches Chromium and > reviews code changes, to keep it aligned with such goals?

Maybe Iridium is what you're looking for. From their fp:

> Iridium is a free, open, and libre browser modification of the Chromium code > base, with privacy being enhanced in several key areas. Automatic > transmission of partial queries, keywords, metrics to central services > inhibited and only occurs with consent. In addition, all our builds are > reproducible, and modifications are auditable, setting the project ahead of > other secure browser providers.

[https://iridiumbrowser.de/](https://iridiumbrowser.de/)

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately these forks -- of which there are many -- often fall behind Chromium's security updates and even introduce serious bugs of their own. E.g. "WhiteHat Aviator", another "security-oriented" fork, had this fiasco:

[https://plus.google.com/+JustinSchuh/posts/69qw9wZVH8z](https://plus.google.com/+JustinSchuh/posts/69qw9wZVH8z)

Maybe Iridium has a better record but with so few eyes on them it's hard to have much confidence.

Probably the best thing to do if you're worried about Chromium spying on you is to use Firefox.

<comment><USER12> More went wrong with Aviator than that: they munged up the code rebranding it and made it much harder to track upstream. It also didn't start out open source!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yep, that AS is Google:

        $ whois 2a00:1450:4009:80c::200d
        [snip]
        inet6num:       2a00:1450::/29
        netname:        IE-GOOGLE-20091005
        descr:          Google Ireland Limited
        country:        IE
        org:            ORG-GIL4-RIPE

</comment><comment><USER14> If you're using incognito mode for anything more than not recording local browser history, I think you're using it wrong.

<comment><USER15> I use incognito mode to get Chrome (or Firefox) to pretend to have an empty cookie jar. So that I can log into some site again with a different account, for example.

<comment><USER14> I stand corrected. No local history + cookies then.

<comment><USER16> And making sure there is nothing cached

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's this about?

The link doesn't contain any useful information besides that Chromium was somehow opened "in incognito mode" (there's no such thing, incognito mode applies to windows, not browser itself) and there are some connections spotted. No information whenever Chromium had sync enabled, whenever it has Google account associated, whenever it has any extensions installed, etc.

Say, I see a C2DM connection to get push notifications about updates. Whenever it's legit or not depends on the context. If browser's core has logged in user and a bunch of extensions installed, I'd say it's a bug if said connection is not present, even if no non-incognito windows are open at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe it's updating its list of sites that are known to be infected with malicious code? Firefox does this, and it seems like a good idea to me. (I wish it didn't.) How is Chromium's malicious site filtering implemented?

It's good to be transparent about this, but maybe this is something legitimate and safe that's already documented, and the Debian user and maintainer just haven't found the documentation yet.

<comment><USER19> That's what "safe browsing turned off" (or "malware protection" in the report text) is ruling out.

<comment><USER18> Oh, thanks! I didn't understand that part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is this the hotword component[1][2] again?

1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9758759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9758759)

2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9771212](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9771212)

<comment><USER21> No, the hotword component has been removed.

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/6wIqlx...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/6wIqlxPZq4o)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Using a web browser from a company basing most of its income on web advertising does come with such unpleasantness.

I was hoping mozilla would have their users' back, but a default install of Firefox also makes multiple connections to mozilla, google and other domains when started. Some extensions (notably NoScript and Ghostery) ping the mothership.

Safari connects to configuration.apple.com and the google website blacklist. uBlock for Safari tries to update itself even if no one asked it to.

Later edit: I have been told that I am perhaps being unfair to Mozilla. Let's see - I started reading [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop- firefox-making...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox- making-automatic-connections), to see how I can stop Firefox from connecting to servers without being requested to. While it's nice that they provide this page, this article's breadth only serves to prove that this browser is out of control when it comes to making connections to servers by itself.

I have the following settings:

* disabled Firefox health report

* disabled crash reporting

* never check for updates

* do not check for addon updates

* block reported attack sites

* block reported forgeries

After reading the page, it turns out that I also have to disable the following from about:config:

* the addons blocklist

* link prefetching

* DNS prefetching

* speculative pre-connections

* firefox Hello

* tiles, even if they were already disabled from the UI

* the default search engine geo-location

* the what's new page

* add-on metadata updating

* the heartbeat

For reference, here are the connections that Firefox tries to establish immediately after startup:

Outgoing to self-repair.mozilla.org (18.104.22.168), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

Outgoing to shavar.prod.mozaws.net (126.96.36.199), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

Outgoing to safebrowsing.google.com (2a00:1450:4001:809::1005), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

Outgoing to tiles.r53-2.services.mozilla.com (22.214.171.124), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

Outgoing to cmp-cdn.ghostery.com (220.127.116.11), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

Outgoing to search.services.mozilla.com (184.108.40.206), Port https (443), Protocol TCP (6), 0 B sent, 0 B received

<comment><USER23> > _Some extensions (notably NoScript and Ghostery) ping the mothership._

could you explain what this means? Been using uBlockOrigin+NoScript+Ghostery combo for quite a some time now and never realized how NoScript might be unsafe

<comment><USER22> NoScript is unfortunately quite sketchy, I don't use it any more.

It has a whitelist supposedly to not break "top websites", but this list contained IMO some questionable choices last I checked it. It also tries to connect to the dev's website for no reason at all (addons are updated directly from Firefox) and after updates, "to show the release notes".

Last but not least, this is the same dev which got involved in a scandal for trying to underhandedly whitelist the said website into an ad-blocking addon.

<comment><USER24> What list is that? I'm looking at it and I'm pretty sure I personally whitelisted all of those domains. The only ones that seem to have come from NoScript are the about:... ones

<comment><USER22> I reinstalled it to check again and it seems you are correct, there's nothing except about:* links. I remember it had some big portal websites I hadn't visited and would not enable JS for, however I am willing to accept I was wrong. Unfortunately, I can't edit my initial comment any more.

Thanks for checking and sorry for my confusing initial post...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Could be it is pinging home for synchronization and not actual browsing data.

<comment><USER26> What do you mean by synchronization?

<comment><USER27> Chromium & chrome sync all of your bookmarks, settings, etc across browsers. If I fav something in my mobile, it shows up in my desktop.

<comment><USER28> That should only happen when logged in, and given the context here, I assume the user was _not_ logged in (since when you're logged in, all privacy is definitely completely lost).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The maintainer's reply is a sad statement on how hard it is just to package and distribute a modern web browser.

<comment><USER29> Packaging and distributing _anything_ for endpoint devices is a profound exercise in pain and suffering. If your target is anything other than a Mac or a phone, multiply it even further.

It's a major driver of Internet centralization: things must be centralized to escape the deployment nightmare. It's exponentially easier to manage deployment on a handful of servers than it is to actually ship an app to users.

With our app, we test our Windows build on Windows Vista, 2008 Server, 7, 2012 Server, 8, 8.1, and 10, on both x86 and x86_64. It always passes before we ship. Then inevitably we get bug reports: the UI won't open, device drivers won't install, the app mysteriously crashes, etc. Investigation always reveals some weird little variation or clashing piece of software on the customer's machine. Every Windows machine is a special snowflake, and as Windows machines run they accumulate 'OS rot' and gradually become less reliable (due to the mutability of the OS and dependencies). To fully test deployment you'd have to test hundreds of thousands of VMs with different software install histories, etc. In the end we have to tell people 'sorry, we tested with clean Windows installs on eight different versions, you're on your own.'

Mac is the only tolerable deployment target and that's because it's a fascist dictatorship compared to Windows: uniform hardware, strict restrictions on OS modification, and enforced software conformity. Phones aren't too bad either but that's because they're also fascist dictatorships with locked-down OSes.

Basically the modern OS is broken. Things are mutable that shouldn't be, process isolation is a joke, etc. Server OSes are broken too but at least if you own all the servers you can make sure they're all broken in the same way. Even there the trend is toward statically linked binaries (Go) and packaging apps as entire containers with their own OS (Docker) to basically deprecate the OS and achieve predictable deployment.

<comment><USER30> Insightful! I didn't know it was that bad. Did your team ever consider using something like Turbo Studio (called Spoon Studio until recently), which is a bit like Docker, but different, and for Windows?

Their promise is that they basically solve most of the problems you mention, so I'm curious how well it stands up in practice or why you choose not to use it.

[https://turbo.net/studio](https://turbo.net/studio)

EDIT: I'm a bit confused: I just got two downvotes for asking a question. So just to be absolutely clear: I don't have any relationship with Turbo or whatsoever.

<comment><USER31> You shouldn't be confused. It's all just numbers and ideas. There isn't really such a thing as a "vote" or "clear" or even "Hacker News" apart from the idea you have of it in your mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Anyone monitoring their connections has already noticed this long ago, I know I have. It is not a bug. If privacy is a concern you wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) be using chromium in the first place.

<comment><USER33> > If privacy is a concern you wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) be using > chromium in the first place.

Privacy is a concern for everyone, whether they understand that or not.

<comment><USER34> So is oxygen, but I'm not going to carry a scuba tank with me everywhere. Just when I'm diving or doing something where it is equally important.

Same reason you don't use TOR on a virtual machine over a drone mesh network to starbucks for the majority of your internet browsing.

<comment><USER33> You can say anything with faulty analogies.

The fault in your analogy is that you seem to think that oxygen is somehow less important in situations where it's easily available. You say, "Just when I'm diving or doing something where it is equally important." But oxygen is _always_ equally important. It's just that in most situations it's easily available to you: all you have to do is inhale.

Your analogy isn't even internally correct, but even if it were, it still doesn't prove anything about privacy, because privacy _isn 't_ easily available, at least not over technological channels. Privacy isn't oxygen, so accurate claims about oxygen don't imply anything about privacy at all.

Analogies are for explanation, not evidence. If you can't make an argument without an analogy, you're may want to consider that you're wrong.

<comment><USER34> Analogies are inexact by semantic definition, and that doesn't make then "faulty".

Privacy is readily available through https, two factor OAuth, etc. just like oxygen generally is. What's your point?

<comment><USER33> > Analogies are inexact by semantic definition, and that doesn't make then > "faulty".

Well, it makes them useless as evidence. An argument by analogy simply isn't a valid argument. Don't you remember the "You wouldn't steal a car" ads?

> Privacy is readily available through https, two factor OAuth, etc.

HTTPS is broken by privileged man-in-the-middle attacks (attacks where the attacker has key signing power) and downgrade attacks. And that is when it's even available (it isn't always). And even against attackers with less power, it only provides privacy for _what_ you send over the wire, not _who_ you send it to. And finally, this all assumes that you're sending your data to an entity which won't simply sell it to whoever is willing to pay a few bucks (an uneducated user might think, for example, that data sent through GMail is private).

I'm not even gonna touch "two factor OAuth"; I'm not sure what kind of privacy you even think that provides.

In short, you clearly have no knowledge about what does and does not provide privacy. It would behoove you to not make claims on topics you are ignorant of.

<comment><USER34> Analogies aren't evidence, they're a tool for explanation, again by semantic definition.

It's committing a no-true-scotsman to say that "privacy isn't as easily available as oxygen" when you change it to "true privacy is is really _perfect_ privacy" when faced with HTTPs and OAuth.

All privacy & security tools are are imperfect, but most of us find the right level, rather than live in a faraday cage in our mother's basements (that's the point). Unless of course, copsarebastards, you need that level of privacy - then I'm not going to judge.

<comment><USER33> > Analogies aren't evidence, they're a tool for explanation, again by semantic > definition.

Agreed, that's what I've been saying all along.

So then why did you use an analogy? Did you really think the sentences "Privacy is easily available" or "People only have to use privacy tools when they are doing something that they want to keep private" needed explanation? Perhaps I assumed you were using it as evidence when you weren't, but you have to admit that's a reasonable assumption given that the analogy is completely pointless otherwise.

> It's committing a no-true-scotsman to say that "privacy isn't as easily > available as oxygen" when you change it to "true privacy is is really > perfect privacy" when faced with HTTPs and OAuth.

Imperfect privacy _isn 't privacy_. Either people are able to look at your data or they aren't. If people are able to look at your data, you don't have privacy. This isn't a complicated idea or a "no true scotsman" fallacy, it's the meaning of the word "privacy".

We have plenty of evidence showing that the NSA surveils data which is "protected" by HTTPS, ergo, HTTPS does not provide privacy. And the NSA isn't the only actor with this capability.

And OAuth doesn't provide privacy. It's not even the problem that OAuth _tries_ to solve. OAuth provides authentication, which is an element of privacy, but it takes more than simply showing that a person is who they claim to be to provide privacy.

> All privacy & security tools are are imperfect, but most of us find the > right level, rather than live in a faraday cage in our mother's basements > (that's the point).

That's exactly not what happens. The average user simply is not informed enough to make an educated choice about what level of privacy they want and make choices to get that level of privacy. As a result, people _don 't_ find the right level of privacy. Closeted gay people get outed by their Facebook friend graph, pregnant teenagers have their pregnancies publicized by their targeted ads, celebrities have their nude photos leaked to the public, adultery website users and corporate employees have their information leaked, women are found by their jealous law enforcement exes misusing surveillance technologies. Only a fraction of these people actually knew what risk they were taking when they friended someone on Facebook, searched for goods on Amazon, texted a nude photo to a lover, put their credit card into a website, gave their info to their employers, or made a phone call.

Obviously living in a faraday cage in your mother's basement isn't the answer: that's a straw man argument.

The answer, in my opinion, is both social and technical. Socially, we need to get people to prioritize privacy and use privacy by default, we need people in power to respect and protect the right to privacy rather than actively taking it away from people. From the technical side, we need privacy tools that are faster, more secure, and easier to use, and we need decentralization so that violating people's privacy is no longer an option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> but isnt chromium open source?

<comment><USER36> Sure. But the theory that open source prevents problems of this sort is a theory, not a universal law. The solution is social and based on trust.

[https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thomp...](https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf)

<comment><USER37> You mean hypothesis, not theory.

<comment><USER38> Working theory: This is not a useful distinction in colloquial usage of english.

<comment><USER37> Yes it is. Words have meaning, we would all benefit if we used them correctly.

<comment><USER38> And language evolves, c.f. "literally".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm not puzzled, at all. In fact, I'm puzzled that _your_ puzzled.

What's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence?

Does no one understand that keeping your mouth shut, and not accidentally blabbing packets across the network is ALSO a security posture?

Anyone between you and The Mother Ship now has a shiney new target to MITM payloads at.

Why do you hate freedom?

<comment><USER40> > _What 's hard to understand about maintaining radio silence?_

What's hard to understand about the fact that "radio silence" is a desirable trait in war (and that in certain circumstances only) -- not in desktop software, and even less so in one whose PRIMARY PURPOSE is connecting to thousands of addresses everyday?

And that, being up-to-date with the latest security patches, including for users who would otherwise wouldn't bother to install is better for everyone involved?

<comment><USER41> The point of incognito mode is to send out less information. The web browser can update itself perfectly well a) through the normal OS software update process b) when started in regular browsing mode.

<comment><USER42> Incorrect. The point of incognito mode is to record less information locally, not send less information. It doesn't store cookies (beyond the duration of the session), doesn't record history (beyond the duration of the session), etc. On the Chrome incognito start page, it clearly says:

>Going incognito doesn't hide your browsing from your employer, your internet service provider, or the websites you visit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> These codebases are too large to vet easily, and I've always been suspicious of someone hiding something like this in plain sight. I'm a FF user since before 1.0 and I never switched to Chrome, for obvious reasons. I did keep Chromium as a media browser on Linux, now I'm done with Chromium too.</comment>


Bluntly: Serverless, NAT-breaking P2P with public keys and BitTorrent DHT - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/danoctavian/bluntly

<comment><AUTHOR> proof of concept code for making secure connections between 2 peers by knowing only each other's public keys. (no servers or IP knowledge involved, featuring NAT penetration).

uses the bittorrent DHT. code is hacky, written for fun.

As opposed to Bleep and Tox, it works right now with no extra protocol or network.

<comment><USER2> The idea of piggybacking on bittorrent DHT network is great :)

Just out of interest, do you know of any other systems that do that?

<comment><USER3> Retroshare uses Bittorrent DHT [http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/](http://retroshare.sourceforge.net/)

<comment><USER4> Retroshare is fantastic!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like a flurry of work on Mar 25 & 26, then no commits since then. Do you consider this complete / ready for production?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not production ready, it's quite flaky because of the NAT penetration. it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. It's a POC, i don't have the bandwidth now to make it robust.It's meant to showcase it's possible.

i coded it a while ago and then though to post it just now. (it actually took longer but i just pushed all code in 1 day)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats, the idea is great (I have something similar in my TODO list).

Now the next step is to implement file transfer and self-hosted web server with social network app and you have decentralized internet :)

<comment><USER7> Don't forget adding some payment forwarding to enable federation: [http://dev.blockcypher.com/#payments](http://dev.blockcypher.com/#payments). That would also take care of the public key to public key enablement.</comment></comment>


If(fireplace && custom_stockings && accelerometer){ our_gift_to_you; } - <AUTHOR> http://shelby.tv/fireplace#team&shelby&loves&hacker&news&&stay&warm&friends

<comment><USER2> Any other nice demos of using accelerometers in webpages? Its a really nice little effect I think.

</comment><comment><USER3> ha. well played</comment>


Show HN: Reboot::Take a break and Do nothing - <AUTHOR> https://reboot.netlify.com/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for this.

A thought: it says "don't move your cursor" but that doesn't really apply when I'm on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome idea. My 2 pennies: \- listen to tab switches and reset timer \- listen to window focus loose and reset timer

<comment><AUTHOR> Done! The counter now resets on tab switches.</comment></comment>


Knuth Reward Checks - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_reward_check <comment> Iwan-Zotow Are there actual money set aside? Could checks holders bankrupt Donald Knuth in coordinated action?</comment>


Ask HN: Are startups friendly to new grads? - <AUTHOR> graduate in may
I have sent emails to some startups asking if they will hire new grads, but none of them say "yes"; they are more interested in senior developers...
Indeed, on their websites, there're no positions available for new grads, but they also suggest if you are interested in our company, please contact us. That' why I sent the emails. Does this imply they only need senior developers who are interested in their company? <comment><USER2> For one thing it is a bad idea for a hiring manager to advertise that the company wants a new grad because it can be perceived as age discrimination; they could get sued. What they can say is that the position is "entry level".

Startups often like to hire young people for various reasons but in a company that has 2 or 3 employees, everyone has to carry their own weight -- they usually cannot give you a lot of on the job training.

One trends I have seen is companies who hire young people to make cold calls; often these people have a PMA and some sales skills, but they don't understand the offerings they are selling well and don't have a complete set of sales skills.

An established company with name recognition and a well-worn playbook can get away with that, but I see many small (<25 employees) companies that struggle because there are two kinds of people you can talk to: (1) busy people and (2) people who will talk all day and never buy anything. Since you get one chance to make a first impression, an initial contact with a poor salesperson can be a very bad thing.

Don't ask "do you hire new grads?" because the real question is "will you hire me?" which can have a different answer if you communicate that you can bring something special.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here is what all startups are interested in: passion. All startups will hire a passionate new grad. So don't send 50 resumes! Don't ask if they are willing! Pick the one you want and focus. Make a video. Write a case study on their industry. Invite every single person in the startup out to coffee. Physically show up at their office. If you do even a fraction of these things they will hire you, really.</comment>


Ancient Jars Found in Judea Reveal Earth's Magnetic Field Is Fluctuating - <AUTHOR> https://www.aftau.org/news-page-astronomy--astrophysics?&storyid4699=2314&ncs4699=3 <comment><USER2> A geologist will say " yeh we know all about that and it reverses too"

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


How to learn with zero effort - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150429-how-to-learn-with-zero-effort

<comment><USER2> Calling it zero effort is definitely misleading. More effective would be more appropriate. Using a Spaced Repition System is still a lot of work, and it is (in my opinion) only good at teaching recall.

I'm surprised that memrise is made by memory experts. I always thought it was "just some guys" who wanted to make a gamefied, crowd-sourced powered version of Anki (www.ankisrs.net)</comment>


Show HN: Pngpal – CLI tool to losslessly Convert PNGs to PNG-8 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/donatj/pngpal <comment><USER2> Is this tool using different methods than pngquant[0]? Pngpal looks like it won't touch the image if it can't palletize it, whereas pngquant will resort to lossy compression. Would there be a benefit to using both in sequence? If so, which order is ideal?

[0] [https://pngquant.org/](https://pngquant.org/)</comment>


New Slack Design - <AUTHOR> https://slackhq.com/designing-the-future-of-slack-with-customers <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, design to me comes second: I find the desktop and mobile applications quite slow and memory consumption is quite high. Those that have tried Telegram, although features are certainly different, can feel the difference.</comment>


US cosmetics are full of chemicals banned by Europe - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/22/chemicals-in-cosmetics-us-restricted-eu <comment><USER2> Maybe because hundreds of millions are spent to lobby for it:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=H04&yea...](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=H04&year=2018)

<comment><USER3> Let's just call it what it is: bribery.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, "lobbying" should be outright banned.

<comment><USER5> Complex matter. There is legitimate lobbying, which is for expert groups affected by s policy to make their position known. The issue is that the process favours big commercial players that can cough up the cash for long- term professional lobbyists. Consumer groups, NGOs, etc. mostly have to resort to signature campaigns etc.

But lobbying is helpful. Consider niche technical issue where maybe 3-4 organisations do reply have established expertise (because they are commercially engaged). There is often on specific policy no established evidence at the moment in time when government has to make a decision, nor is the way forward obvious. Thus it's a matter of hearing everyone concerned and finding a nuanced path forward.

Wonlobbying is legitimately useful. But what has totally spun out of control is the US lobbying machine (which sadly is spreading to other places), which really often is just bribery in many ways.

<comment><USER6> Better yet, don't make laws that are understood only by a few people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I 100% agree that the regulatory process in the U.S. is insufficient and deeply flawed but this article is quite the piece of fearmongering. It's not enough to say, "in this one specific case this substance can be harmful, therefore it must be banned." You have to evaluate the conditions under which it is harmful and whether those conditions are like to occur in consumer use.

A lump of coal is a fairly harmless substance. Put it in your garden, on a shelf, sleep with it under your pillow. You'll probably never know a difference. Grind it up and breathe it every day for 10 years and you'll shorten your life by 5-15 years. Burn it and inhale it and you'll shorten it by 30.

This article doesn't concern itself however with how a substance is used. It's merely enough for something to have been harmful for it to be dangerous. Worse yet, there's no evaluation of the quality of the science indicating potential harm. They vaguely hint that a food dye is dangerous because one 2007 study showed it might increase hyperactivity in children? Give me a break. If that's our standard, that one study ever showed a possibility of potential harm we'll have to ban everything.

Again, I totally agree with the sentiment. The FDA should have its funding increased by 10 fold. They should be given the power to regulate supplements. They should be one of the most powerful and effective government agencies. But the standards of evidence are tremendously important. There's no reason to go full California and start serving coffee with a cancer warning.

<comment><USER8> Potential for harm is only one side of the equation, benifit needs to sit on the other. Considering we are talking about cosmetics minimal benefit is combined with direct contact, regular ingestion, and even occasional contact with the bloodstream.

Harm is also more of a continuum than a binary situation. Ten individual sources of say lead exposure may not be that harmful on their own, but they add up. When talking about public heath we have often gotten it wrong by saying it's low enough not to be an issue.

<comment><USER7> Good points. I generally agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >dioxins, used as an ingredient in Agent Orange, which the US sprayed during the Vietnam war.

Dioxins were not used as an ingredient. Small quantities of dioxins were unintentionally formed as side-products during synthesis.

<comment><USER10> iirc, thats the same thing w/ agent orange. Agent orange (in particular) was a combination of a herbicide and a fungicide. The manufacturing of one or both of those created dioxins as a side product. They did not refine them further to remove the dioxins.

<comment><USER11> And afaik, it was the dioxins that were the cause of the health problems with agent orange, not the herbicide and fungicide.

So "toxic dioxins created as byproduct and not properly removed creating a health hazard" sounds like a fair comparison, since they share that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This applies to so many other things: cosmetics, food, drugs, guns, etc. And now they're lobbying to influence other countries too (UK, Brazil, etc). Incredible amount of greed and lack of ethics.

<comment><USER13> Definitely! Growth hormone (rbGH/rbGT) used in American diary products has been prevalent for decades where those were forbidden in Canada and Europe. FDA practically turned a blind eye on this (and later research proven FDA's screwed-up) and nowadays market and producers are taking self-regulating approach. [1]

[1]: [https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1044/rbgh/about-r...](https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/1044/rbgh/about- rbgh)

And this is just one of hundreds if not thousands FDA mishaps out there. The lobbying influence is BAD.

<comment><USER14> Do you have any links you could share that show cow hgh increases human igf-1 levels meaningfully?

I went to the article but it mentioned a change was detectable but didn't link to the study.

<comment><USER15> Of course they don't have any links, because studies proving this don't exist. Another little known fact: even _human_ growth hormone is utterly pointless to consume orally: it gets destroyed by stomach acid. That's why people who take it go through the trouble of injecting it.

I also don't think I've ever seen dairy in store that doesn't come from cows "not treated with rBST". I don't buy organic unless the price is roughly the same, and for milk it's easily double, so I don't buy organic milk.

But even if it did boost igf-1 a tad, that'd be freaking great. People would start growing muscle, losing weight, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everyday, women are smearing formaldehyde on their body...story time.

I bought a new construction house a few years back and have been paranoid about formaldehyde. Prior to moving into it, I bought a formaldehyde detector. I had it on at my old house just for kicks. Once in a while, it would reach high values and flash red with a death symbol (no joke). We realized it flashed red whenever my wife was putting on cosmetics.

It contains an ingredient called DMDM hydantoin ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMDM_hydantoin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMDM_hydantoin)) which is basically a slow release formaldehyde, which prevents bacteria growth on the cosmetics.

You can argue it's minute amount...maybe. But certainly enough for a detector to detect it after dispersion from across the room. Shampoo has it too. I've since checked for this ingredient prior to buying anything, and probably substituting for another bad chemical.

</comment><comment><USER17> And is there a corresponding increased rate of cosmetics-related illnesses in the US compared to Europe?

<comment><USER18> I think this question is misguided. It is extremely difficult or even impossible to trace problems back to a specific source. The burden should be on companies that are creating an entirely new compound to prove that it is safe. See: talcum powder contamination taking decades to come to light even though it was a huge effect and a case of contamination instead of a new compound having some as-yet-unknown effect that we would then have to retroactively identify.

<comment><USER17> That's an impossible standard to meet though. If you're going to say "Prove that this new thing won't have any negative effects 50 years from now", that means it takes at least 50 years to release anything new. You might as well say "never make anything new".

> It is extremely difficult or even impossible to trace problems back to a > specific source.

Then why is the EU banning random things without being able to definitively attribute any negative effects to them?

<comment><USER19> _Then why is the EU banning random things without being able to definitively attribute any negative effects to them?_

That's easy. It's for two reasons:

1\. Trade barriers. The WTO mechanisms are full of holes. The so-called "precautionary principle" is just a justification to ensure that anything new the US invents can be instantly be made illegal in the EU until it can be "shown to be safe", i.e. the EU assumes everything to be dangerous by default until it decides otherwise. Actual science showing it's dangerous is not required. This is a great way to work around WTO rules on tariffs by abusing safety regulation and _in particular_ protect French farming from genetically modified American imports. Americans aren't exactly dying en-masse from eating GM food (except maybe from obesity because food is so cheap), but pretending it's dangerous is a great way to block imports whilst avoiding a WTO dispute.

2\. The EU regulatory apparatus is enormous. It has a staff of 32,000 people in the Commission _alone_ , and many more in associated agencies. Many of these jobs are created for political reasons, for instance, countries are theoretically able to appoint one Commissioner each (in practice the head of the commission, Juncker, blocks any proposed appointment he doesn't like - this isn't meant to happen by treaty but does) and each Commissioner needs a staff.

But more importantly, unlike in democratic governments, the Parliament does _not_ create law. The Commission does that, and as a consequence the quantity of regulations the EU creates is staggering compared to any normal government. The throughput of regulations banning things is limited in democracies by the size of the chamber: there's only so much a group of a few hundred people can do after all. But there are so many regulations being churned out by the EU that the Parliament has rubber-stamp votes over 1000 times _per week_. You can see a video about the deleterious effects this rate of voting has here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLh9DMuetm4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLh9DMuetm4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> TL;DR because Europe basically uses a whitelist model and the US basically uses a blacklist model.

<comment><USER21> And from the article it sounds like the US is reluctant to blacklist anything even when there are known harms. As someone from the UK, it surprised me to read that even asbestos is allowed.

<comment><USER22> Allowed? Perhaps. Is anyone _using_ it? Well certainly not that I know of... who in their reasonable mind would?

You have to remember that the U.K. is very much of the mindset that everything will kill you until they've proven, tested, provided warning signs and signals, etc.

The US is the exact opposite. Until there is a problem... go for it (with some caveats, obviously). Sure sometimes that causes a problem, but on the whole the market _does_ work itself out. Case in point? We're still alive.

<comment><USER23> > Case in point? We're still alive.

But we die younger than Europeans: 78.6 years in U.S. vs 82.4 in France or 83.3 in Italy.

I've always thought this was mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths, but now I wonder if there might be some environmental factors at play too.

Data: [https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at- birth.ht...](https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm)

<comment><USER24> >mostly because healthcare systems over there better tackle preventable deaths,

This is not a chart of life expectancy as a result of medical care. When you remove fatalities from car accidents and murders, the US life expectancy is in line with other developed countries.

<comment><USER25> The United States are also an outlier for medical expenses though. American healthcare is _not_ efficient, despite the common claim that US healthcare is expensive because it provides patients with the best treatments.

<comment><USER20> >despite the common claim that US healthcare is expensive because it provides patients with the best treatments.

To play devils advocate, nothing is cost efficient at the top end.

You can buy a Honda Civic that gets you from A to B just fine, a 'vette for under $100k or some super-car that's the absolute limit of what technology can do within the bounds of what's road legal and it costs an order of magnitude more than the 'Vette.

You can buy a rug at Walmart for $100, Ikea for $200 or you can buy some fancy pants oriental rug befitting royalty for a million bucks.

<comment><USER25> Right, but then the US should have a higher life expectancy in exchange for the cost. Instead it gets the same and only after correcting for murders and car accidents.

<comment><USER24> >Right, but then the US should have a higher life expectancy in exchange for the cost.

For plenty of maladies the US has the best care as measured by things like five year cancer survival rates for particular cancers.

>Instead it gets the same and only after correcting for murders and car accidents.

If the point is to use life expectancy to compare quality of medical care, then you have to remove causes of death that don't involve treatment. E.g. if I'm a 35 year old person in good health sitting on the steps with my homies and someone drives by and shoots me in the head and I die, how is that a failing of medical care? It should be done from all countries.

Ultimately, life expectancy is a bad metric to use anyway. It treats it as a score for bureaucrats to maximize. In the US, at least, people have the right to live in ways that will reduce their life span.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My wife is an aesthetician. She's had to put considerable effort into learning which off the shelf cosmetics are harmful to the point of uselessness.

</comment><comment><USER27> ^^ A few years back when in the US for a short while: "Uh, Mountain Dew, we don't have that." Turning the label, "oh, makes sense"... :P Sometimes one wonders if consumers can't read, or don't want to.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does the EU have a general policy of banning any substance determined to cause problems when taken internally from external use automatically? Lots of the things mentioned in the article make it seem like that might be the case. Formaldehyde in hair straighteners for instance... yes, formaldehyde is a carcinogen.... if you swallow it. If it touches your skin momentarily? Not aware of anything claiming that's dangerous. Same thing with the parabens... they cause problems when taken internally, but used externally there shouldn't be any problem.

<comment><USER29> > they cause problems when taken internally, but used externally there > shouldn't be any problem.

I don't know about parabens specifically, but that sounds like a reckless approach, akin to assuming a gun isn't loaded. You have _proof_ it's harmful under X conditions, but you're just going to _assume_ it's benign under Y?

<comment><USER4> > _I don 't know about parabens specifically, but that sounds like a reckless > approach, akin to assuming a gun isn't loaded._

Well, wait till you hear how the US considers gun ownership...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's amazing that all US critical posts are being downvote-bombed...

Also the claim that the US is not lax in its regulation is a bad joke. Half of the parties available literally made de-regulation their damn group mantra...

<comment><USER31> HN is traditionally quite pro-US to the point that many here were defending Boeing during the 737 Max fiasco. Not to mentions the vitriol against the EU when it fined American tech giants.

<comment><USER20> I find it amusing or at least ironic that you say "many here were defending Boeing during the 737 Max fiasco" when in reality the mainstream opinion here is very anti-Boeing and there is a down-voted and dead comment that says they didn't see anyone defending Boeing. Well of course, those people are/were a tiny minority so they got down-voted and buried like that comment. It's a perfect illustration of what it's asking about.

And this is going to get down-voted because of the first of fight club.

<comment><USER32> There are a lot of users on both sides of the topic, just like there on other controversial topics. But it always feels like the "mainstream" opinion is being the one most opposed to your own. The confident generalizations people make about HN are nearly all based on this feeling. That's why they contradict one another.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0)

<comment><USER20> I'm "anti-Boeing" here though and even I don't see much controversy. Everyone who isn't down-voted seems to think Boeing is solidly at fault to varying extents. There's no hostile media effect going on (from my POV on this issue).

<comment><USER32> There have been plenty of comments defending Boeing and not being downvoted, though probably not as many as are critical. That's a function of it being an indignation story, though. Indignation always wins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The Instagram influencers who push these products should be held accountable.

</comment><comment><USER34> In the US... products can list an ingredient as "Fragrance" at which point, it becomes a Trade Secret which is far less regulated... they could put arsenic in fragrance if they wanted. The US handling of Chemical regulations is a joke.

<comment><USER35> Removed unwanted opinion.

<comment><USER36> But for the fact that it's not true, yes, it absolutely shows exactly that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The very same goes for food: US regulations are extremely lax when compared to other wealthy countries.

<comment><USER38> "US lobby groups for agriculture and pharmaceutical firms want UK standards changed to be closer to those of the US in a post-Brexit trade deal." [https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47036119](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47036119)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> >A long list of potentially harmful ingredients banned in the EU are legally allowed in the US due to historically relaxed regulations

Maybe European regulations are overly strict?

US regulations aren't lax.

<comment><USER40> Clearly not as the US has adopted that mindset for new chemicals. From the linked article...

"The US has similar rules for new chemicals entering the market but no such precautionary principles for the thousands of potential toxins already in use"

<comment><USER41> Hang on - doesn't that mean that every single chemical that was used in US cosmetics but not EU cosmetics would automatically be banned by Europe rather than the US, regardless of whether there was any particular reason it would be unsafe?</comment></comment></comment>


Reconstructed debate about accepting SPIR-V in WebGPU - <AUTHOR> https://kvark.github.io/webgpu-debate/SPIR-V.component.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is the first cut of the "famous" debate reconstruction using Argdown. Motivation behind this was expressed in [http://kvark.github.io/tech/arguments/2020/06/30/technical-d...](http://kvark.github.io/tech/arguments/2020/06/30/technical- discussions.html)</comment>