See the things you've searched for, visited, and watched on Google services - <AUTHOR> https://myactivity.google.com <comment><USER2> Excellent, I like how it weaves my girlfriend looking for the perfect bra through my research on collision search strategies in physics engines.

Would Google in any way discern between those two sessions? Me sitting at the desk doing some hobby coding performing a query like "DBVTBroadPhase", her on the couch on my laptop looking for inspiration performing queries like "michelle branch instagram".

To a human it doesn't take much to jump to the conclusion that two totally different persons are using the same account at the same time.

But maybe that isn't even of interest to google. Me and my GF are basically one entity to them. We frequent HN and skinnycurvy.com, we like Michelle Branch and Steve Klabnik (;)), we do pilates at the gym while at the same time play underwaterhockey at the sports centre.

Any ads Google shows us might have a 50% chance of being shown to the right person, and that's probably good enough. Maybe they get lucky and I'll mention some womans brand I saw in an advert to my gf sometime.

<comment><USER3> Would it be worth the effort to set up some kind of "mixer" service, where your requests will be routed through random other people's accounts? The goal is to destroy the information value of your search history: "Yeah, I searched for horse costumes, but so did everyone else in the pool!"

Probably would be easier just to use an anonymous account for every search, but is it easy to destroy all the patterns associated with the searches that would indicate it's the same person.

(The concept is similar to those proxy services out there that pay people to let them use their "good" IP address to e.g. scrape sites that will otherwise automatically block "obvious" server farms. Also Bitcoin mixing pools.)

<comment><USER4> Check out Google plus settings, and others you can opt-out for everything. When I checked my activity with above link, my activity is absolutely nil. But I'm using that account for very long time. Opt-out every possible thing.

<comment><USER3> I think I'd have to trust google to respect that. :-P

<comment><USER5> I am surprised no one suggested [https://search.disconnect.me](https://search.disconnect.me)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ahh... It's so satisfying to see the stream of everything I was doing on Android suddenly stop when I switched to Cyanogenmod _and_ not linked my e-mail account.

The trick was to use K-9 Mail. Otherwise, when configuring the e-mail (Gmail), the default mail application adds the entire Google account and the link to the mothership is reestablished. Although I have installed GApps, I transitioned to a dummy account per device plus Xprivacy, plus NetGuard.

Long before Android, the stream had dropped to a trickle when I started sandboxing the Google account to a special session for Gmail. Everything else, searches, youtube went on an incognito window or to a separate Firefox profile.

I knew it to be effective from the constant e-mails I was getting that "Google does not recognize your sign-on". Guess what, Google, I want it that way! Now myactivity.google.com confirms it.

<comment><USER7> So I'm using stock LG G3 Android Marshmallow (completely stock manufacturer ROM). I have Google settings kinda locked down as much as possible and I've been carefully managing app permissions since I upgraded from Android 5.

My google activity shows only google maps searches from the device and some google website searches from desktop (probably from when I happened to be logged into GMail and made a search query via google.com).

I use Gmail on Android, Signal for SMS (no-one I know uses Signal) and Firefox with self-destructing cookies and uBlock origin (I use a similar setup on desktop too - to prevent persistent logins) I can't see any other activity being logged. That's not to say that it isn't flowing through Google's pipes somewhere or other.

My point is that I'm only conducting basic privacy measures but (as in, not having to root or reflash my phone) - and not having most of my activity recorded in this dashboard.

<comment><USER6> I'm a bit surprised, I was using the stock Android for Nexus and in my case the results were logged. Just as other people are reporting: every single application usage, call or what-have-you. I also had turned off everything I could find in Settings -> Google Account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm always surprised how little Google manage to do with all that info. I have a personal Google Apps account and their absolute highest achievement from knowing nearly my entire location history over the past three years, searches, current position, having all the contacts, calendar, list of my apps, even purchase history (through email receipts if they wanted it) is Google Now _occasionally_ correctly suggesting the next destination.

Other location suggestions? Crap unless explicitly entered in the Calendar. Article suggestions in Google Now? Crap. Despite having my entire Feedly info (300+ feeds) from which they pull most useless cards. Youtube suggestions in Google Now are somehow even worse than video suggestions in the Youtube app. Ads? Complete garbage and borderline fraud against all these companies paying to advertise mobile games which I almost never play and they know it.

Bizarrely, I have a Google Apps account at work with much, much less info and it's actually a little better.

<comment><USER9> Users who use Inbox instead of gmail should get a lot more rich inputs to Now. Appointments would be deduced from emails, for example, and Now will show you tracking information taken from orders in your receipts, and much more.

<comment><USER10> Now hasn't started reading email _now_. Somebody gleefully mentioned to me several months back that Now reminds her of bills (due dates and amounts) _automatically_. Essentially by reading emails from gmail. I was also told that by evening it'd start telling by itself the approximate time it would take to reach home.

For some such inputs are _rich_ , for others _scary_.

<comment><USER9> A computer program does not "read" your email in a meaningfully "scary" way.

<comment><USER10> The information thus gathered can certainly be utilized in ways that may be "scary".

Most don't care anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Only you can see this data"

Side-stepping for a minute that Google and governments can also see this data, this sort of wholesale data aggregation and presentation seriously ups the ante for account security.

Getting somebody's Google account from third-party breach-de-jour used to mean you got their email history, or could pretend to be them... But with this you have their browsing, app, search and location history. That is to say, you can discover: What they're doing. Where they're doing it. What they're thinking about (I search everything). Who they interact with.

Worse, I wasn't prompted for any sort of password. Physical access to my computer (and I assume phone) now gives easy access historical surveillance data.

Welcome to the new generation of identity theft.

<comment><USER12> I noted that even though I was already logged in, it still asked me for my password (and then 2FA token). That is one step at least.

<comment><USER13> It asked for my password but not my 2FA. Strange.

(I also had no results, though, because I've turned everything off.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Funny - I remember opting out of all of Google's data collection years ago. I went there fully expecting Google to have no activity recorded, as I have seen when this page (or its ilk) have popped up in the past.

Much to my surprise, it was well populated again, with my web browsing/searching, YouTube, and location histories all turned back on again. I don't use the Chrome browser (aside from compatibility testing), and I don't use Android. I'd be very curious to know how all of this was re-enabled without my involvement.

Very unfortunate, and another straw for the camel's back.

<comment><USER15> It gets put back on, by default, on every major update.. how convenient..

<comment><USER16> Citation?

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately I didn't click a picture upon my last update. It happened few weeks ago, maybe a month. Even google keyboard settings were reset. Also, I have two accounts on my Android and it opted back in on both of them. I needed to opt-out again on both accounts.

<comment><USER15> Right.. I'm getting downvoted because? Anyone? Just because it didn't happen to you folks?

Surely it was a mistake to comment without the support of evidences of any kind, but anyway, I just though I could share my experience.

<comment><USER17> Your original comment wasn't a personal anecdote it was a broad claim that you haven't substantiated. That's the comment that's being downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm glad to see this data provided back to me, however, I'm very concerned about Google knowing absolutely everything I do while on the web and on my Android device.

\- Used Messenger app, sent X messages

\- Used maps, with location data, search data

\- Use phone, with number of calls

\- Used (Any installed app) included how often and what I did.

I've since turned everything off.

While browsing on my phone last night I saw a new Google.com feature where they were using my email address to try sign me up to email lists at the top of search results.... Not cool.

<comment><USER19> It's even worse due to all the dark patterns Google adds. For example Maps will refuse to locally store your previous searches if you don't let google keep your location history, making the use of application extremely frustrating.

Trying to use Google Fit, Now, etc. will keep popping up requests to let Google constantly track your location and web searches with o clear way to disable those annoyances. And more and more.

<comment><USER20> This is, by far, the most important point. Google could make it very easy for you to use their apps offline, but they don't. The recent searches in Google Maps not being saved offline is especially annoying to me personally, and Google seems to think that it's impossible to store data if you don't send them to Google.

I can see them saying "we didn't want to confuse customers who thought syncing was broken when they didn't see their searches in other phones", but given how easy it is to tell the user "you have disabled sync", I don't think there's any excuse for Google to behave like this.

<comment><USER21> To me it seems most likely they have a syncing framework/library that takes care of both the local storage of recent items, forwarding those to the google cloud services, and retrieving them when necessary. And when you disable the cloud services, this framework becomes inactive.

Of course, you could say the design of the framework is hostile, or that they should fall back to something else, but I can see this being considered extra unnecessary work.

<comment><USER22> To me it seems obvious that adding these sync features was the original "extra unnecessary work". It is a dark pattern that Google is obviously engaging in to the detriment of their users. They went the extra mile to annoy their users to gather some more data.

<comment><USER21> Personally I think the syncing between devices is very convenient.

<comment><USER19> Yes, which is great. But note that they require Location history for it! So to get saved (and synced) previous searches you need to let your phone upload your location constantly to Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This site exemplifies something that really annoys me with Google's material design framework. On my 13" screen, I can see a grand total of four items at a time: [https://i.imgur.com/6YJxj0b.png](https://i.imgur.com/6YJxj0b.png)

I really wish they'd consider information density as a plus when designing pages like this.

<comment><USER24> It's more than material design, it's all modern design. Most modern websites, application UIs, game UIs, all have inches and inches and inches of whitespace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The frustrating thing to me about current sharing/observing of data is that everything is a "trapdoor": if your data leaks out, there is probably no way to regain control ("privacy panels" are nothing but a feel-good measure that still depends a lot on bug-free software and the goodwill of others). You only need to fail to protect your privacy _once_ , and after that it almost doesn't matter what you do.

We _must_ rethink infrastructure to the point where the only data that we transmit is data that is inherently useless after a time. If I do something like revoke my key, it should be _impossible_ for anyone to further use that data. Expiration dates should be baked directly into protocols so that revocation of keys and expiration are the same thing: either I revoke my key myself, or my software revokes it for me but _no one else_ (and their buggy or insidious software) gets to decide how to respect the expiration time.

<comment><USER26> What we need to do is build a Ulysses pact[1] into the infrastructure. This worked for a while with the w3c regarding patents. I highly recommend watching Cory Doctorow's (very) recent talk[2] on this idea, where he observes that engineers are vulnerable to incremental corruption of principles.

[1] An agreement, contract, or bylaw that prohibits some type of action (e.g. a union negotiator who's payment and continued employment is contingent on _never_ negotiation away the pension).

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlN6wjeCJYk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Funnily I've gotten pretty used to seeing my logged browser history the past week or so intermixed with a few other friends as I've built this webapp ([http://www.websee.io/](http://www.websee.io/)) that anonymously aggregates browsing activity from all the users and displays the content with the highest recent crossover, basically sharp peaks in browsing distribution across all URLS.

It's odd to me that Google collects all this data, but doesn't really seem to offer any specific applications that depend on it, individually or in aggregate. Even though they have trends, they don't have any lists like Alexa of top traffic websites, despite the fact they have a better sample than anyone, and could make such information available.

I guess I can just hope that between the more "interesting" ads they show me and whatever other magic they use the data for to improve their services, that it's worth letting them have it.

<comment><USER9> Your history is a silent input to search which radically increases search quality. Your browsing history would show up to you as chrome omnibox autocomplete syncing across devices and the ability to open on one device tabs that are open on your other logged in devices, if you use Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Extremely excited to learn that Google is tracking my DuckDuckGo searches from the ChromeBar.

<comment><USER10> If you are using Chrome, then you don't need to worry at all.

Your browser is uniquely identified regardless of your network location or browsing mode or profile or whatever.

<comment><USER29> Ok, that's it, time to switch to Safari. I was using private windows for searches for years but had no idea about unique browser ID.

Also Chrome crashes multiple times a week on macOS nowadays.

<comment><USER30> Honestly Safari is far more battery efficient than any other major browser available on OS X. Whenever I want to watch netflix or HBO and have only about an episode's worth of battery life left, I switch to safari and usually gain a real 10-15 minutes on the battery estimate. The CPU runs cooler streaming HD video than both Firefox and Chrome.

<comment><USER29> One more awesome thing: accessibility is always enabled in Safari.

Chrome and FF keep it turned off by default for performance reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It seems that this page lists activities I have done intentionally, such as queries I entered.

I'd be much more interested to see what data I gave to Google unintentionally - e.g. what Google-provided ads I saw on non-Google sites, what sites with Google Analytics I visited, etc.

<comment><USER32> This seems the closest thing [https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?product=27](https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity?product=27)

<comment><USER33> Kind of funny that these pages require you to log in with a Google account. I don't believe Google won't record _any_ data without the browser in question being signed in...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I immediately deleted all activity from all time, however, I do not trust this was truly deleted nor that it was never shared "anonymously" with third parties.

</comment><comment><USER35> It seems every few weeks some new account tracking feature turns up that I have to clear and disable. Considering this had stuff I though I cleared last time, I'm pretty sure "Delete" doesn't mean jack to Google. The only thing keeping me on Google is a pretty simple calendar and spreadsheet script I use to track my finances. If I can find an alternative to that, I'm Audi 5000.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can we start a thread (this one) listing the data that people see available, for someone who doesn't have a Google account and is curious what sort of data are collected?

There's some stuff scattered throughout the comments, but it'd be nice to have a single spot.

<comment><USER37> I don't own an android phone, so there may be some more I don't see, but heres my list:

Web & App activity (search activity on apps and in browsers)

Location History (Creates a private map of where you go with your signed-in devices)

Device Information (contacts, calendars, apps, and other device data)

Voice & Audio Activity (storing your voice and audio inputs to your account, for example, when you say "Ok Google" to do a voice search)

YouTube Search History (Store your YouTube searches)

YouTube Watch History

They all have an opt out toggle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> A long time ago I opted out of Google Map's search history.

A few months ago I searched for a business on maps, and had to type the full name. The second time I searched for it, it came up the top suggestion.

I do not trust these "privacy features" since.

<comment><USER25> Web sites definitely have the ability to attempt profiling based on what they are _allowed_ to see (e.g. your IP address, browser, OS, typical window size). They simply guess that it is still "you" and return what "you" just did.

<comment><USER38> It was on Android's Google Maps app using 3G

<comment><USER39> That could possibly be a local cache though.

<comment><USER38> I did some tests and you are correct! Nice catch

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's safer to assume everything you input into a device is being recorded regardless of settings. If I want privacy, I'll use Tails OS with Tor. Since that's a pain to use I just don't do or write anything on the internet I don't want tracked back to me.

<comment><USER41> I have this argument with my wife every few months. She posts things on a popular social media platform and sets them "private" in full expectation that the content will only be shared with those she selects. Then she gets pissed when she later discovers the privacy settings didn't work the way she expected.

Anything pushed to the internet should be assumed public unless encrypted using open source encryption tools you completely control in a safe zone (like in Tails). All internet activity should be assumed to be logged somewhere, somehow. I don't even 100% trust Tor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Stupid question, but can Google (or Bing) associate what you searched for or which link you clicked in incognito searches? I've always wondered how truly incognito they are.

<comment><USER43> Well of course. The only thing the browser incognito mode guarantees is that no local data will stay around (cookies, cache, history, etc), but beyond that there's nothing stopping Google or any other online service from collecting and extrapolating data, even if you are not logged in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> If I understand correctly, you can prevent Google to track your activity in this page: [https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

<comment><USER45> The frustrating part about both prevention and tracking is that you can't find out what Google is doing to you _without_ an account.

What, as someone who avoids Google accounts and most of their services like the plague, do you know about me? <= question I'd like answered

<comment><USER46> I am assuming it is on the same level as a guy sitting on a bench in a park watching people everyday. He notices certain people going to the same coffee shops around the same time of day, he notices others like to come out for a smoke a few times. He may even notice the types of coffee / clothes they prefer and build profiles in his head. All this without knowing the people personally.

Now this person could be doing this for fun, or he could be sent there for research (for advertising) or for surveillance.

Why is it then people are paranoid about a website collecting stats anonymously, but do not so about going into public places?

<comment><USER33> I don't know about you, but I'm not going public places in my underwear at 3 in the morning. It's a little absurd to state that there's _no_ expectation of privacy on the web.

That, and Google isn't like one man sitting on a corner. It's like a network of guys, on every corner - that compare notes every evening. Regardless of _why_ they do that, it's hard to call it anything other than surveillance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I might switch to DDG or StartPage now.

<comment><USER48> Why now? How did this page change your mind? If anything, it's a big positive. All web portals collect data about you - Google at least shows you what they know and give you some amount of control over it.

<comment><USER47> I did not realize google recorded which links you clicked. Edit: I knew they recorded it. I did not know they associated it with your profile.

<comment><USER49> That seems like quite a natural thing to collect to improve their search algorithm at the very least. "Are people finding what they're looking for?" basically.

<comment><USER50> It's not necessary to run trackers _on everyone, all the time_.

Sampling works. Randomly selecting accounts for inclusion _and immediately dissociating that account identity from the data_ would provide substantively useful data.

Much the same way as it is possible, on the basis of 100 - 300 _randomly selected_ G+ profiles to gain a strong sense of what the level of public activity _of all 2.2 billion profiles_ (in use as of early 2015) was.

Sure, you can increase accuracy, somewhat, by bumping up that sampling count to 50,000 profiles. As I did. Though that (and monte-carlo resampling of subsets of the profiles) substantiated the trends which were clear from the first 100 or so results. Or you can bump up the value to 500,000, as Stone Temple Consulting did. Which again, largely re-substantiated the results I'd found.

Google receives something on the order of _one billion searches per day_. Sampling a _very_ small percentage of those would provide _very_ accurate results, at far smaller _processing_ cost, and moreover, _at far smaller data disclosure risk_.

 _Data are liability._

Even if the concern were, say, edge cases regarding specific terms and the like, that would be possible to explore with targeted random sampling (stratified random samples). All very-well-established statistical techniques.

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/naya9wqdemiovuvwvoyquq)

<comment><USER49> Well just making sure people are finding what they want is only part of it.

Since so much of their revenue is from ads, the better their targeting, the more money they make. If they have all this data on a person, they can target on a per person basis. And that money is probably talking louder than any care about liability from data based on how much they're collecting. They're a business, they have to have revenue in some way.

I'm making some assumptions, please correct me if I'm wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> What are best practices for blocking tracking on iOS?

What I'm doing now is:

      Vpn
      Logged out of Google maps, YouTube, etc.
      Safari privacy settings to most private. Only exception was allowing cookies on current site only, rather than never
      Focus by Firefox with all privacy options checked
      DuckDuckGo for search.

Anything else?

Also, how do you do a non indented list in hacker news? I have never figured this out.

Update:

I added some stuff. I began using 1blocker. Disabled all cookies by default, but am whitelisting them on site only for a few sites I have to log in to.

Using this site to test. Now with Vpn on, only hardware, software and gyroscope are leaking. Not sure there is any way to block this on iOS.

[http://webkay.robinlinus.com](http://webkay.robinlinus.com)

<comment><USER50> Non-indented HN lists: seperate items by two carriage returns. I typically number mine:

1\. First item.

2\. Second item.

<comment><USER51> 1\. Thank you!

2\. It works.

3\. I'm happy. This will make for better comments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This needs a much more efficient way to purge everything instead of the three- clicks-per-day.

Edit: there is: [https://myactivity.google.com/delete- activity](https://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity)

<comment><USER53> Does this also delete location history?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is awesome. Crazy to be able to analyze activity so in depth.

Does anyone know if there are any opt-in data sources that feed into this? I'd like to keep it as comprehensive as possible.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm looking forward to using Firefox's new 'Contextual Identities' feature so I don't have to run separate browser profiles:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual- identit...](https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual-identities- on-the-web/)

<comment><USER56> I use this: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/multifox/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/multifox/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I _always_ browse and search incognito, lately on Opera with free VPN. That takes care of my desktop/work search history not being associated with my account/IP.

But what is particularly insidious is the mobile click tracking. I am wary of clicking news items or links in Google Now that might reflect on my intentions in an undesirable way.

</comment><comment><USER50> My history is refreshingly empty.

Or should I say "histories" \-- there are multiple Google accounts involved, few having any variant of the names I'm known by in meatspace.

Still, for some reason, there's a bunch of Google Shit I Don't Use which I cannot simply get rid of or turn off. Instead I've got to laboriously go through each one (for each Google profile), and ensure that all tracking and history are disabled.

It'd be rather nice to have that fixed. After all, linking G+ and YouTube accounts just went so well, right?

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/y0ss_vplsmhsagqvf23fiq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/y0ss_vplsmhsagqvf23fiq)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6746731](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6746731)

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm really happy to see this transparency. I wanna see Facebook doing something like this

</comment><comment><USER59> That last data points they have from me is April 20, 2015. Maybe I locked down all my privacy settings then. Or I guess it helps to be using an iPhone.

<comment><USER60> Perhaps you have these on OFF

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

<comment><USER61> Interesting use of the language here: Google does not allow you to turn settings off, it merely allows you to PAUSE them. Say what you want about the end result, but the way they weasel around with words here makes me feel uncomfortable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> It's only showing Youtube activity for me, I must have some privacy settings on search to disable this but can't remember changing anything...

<comment><USER63> Strange, it's not showing any of my YouTube activity, and that's the Google service I use the most.

<comment><USER64> Same here. In my case, I'd bet it's because I still use my old profile from before the G+ merger (I never agreed to use the new one, despite their insistence).

<comment><USER62> Yeah I have two types of Youtube accounts tied to my Google account. One is my official full name, and one is my nickname that I used before Youtube started trying to force people to use their full name. This activity site only shows activity from when I use Youtube under my full actual name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> For those of you interested, and I didn't see it in the above link, this is a link to all your Google Location History, it must only be Android because I'm not seeing a lot of travel I did while I had an iPhone:

[https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline)

<comment><USER66> It's not only Android. I use iPhone. I use Google Maps. I intentionally have location tracking on. I'm not sure which apps contribute but I assume all google apps can or do.

[http://imgur.com/g0St0b1](http://imgur.com/g0St0b1)

<comment><USER9> This feature has moved back and forth from maps to Google Plus and back to Maps over the years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> They don't show you the dossier if you don't log in, even though they certainly have one.

</comment><comment><USER68> Given all this, why does Google News ABSOLUTELY INSIST I live in St. Louis when in fact I do not?

<comment><USER69> They're probably doing some basic geolocation based on your IP only for Google News.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Got there, and deleted all of it. ~10 years of search, browsing history and all other activity.

I feel good.

</comment><comment><USER71> Excellent. Clicking on the drop down allowed me to delete everything.

I thought I'd already turned everything off, but there were still a few youtube searches in there from several years back, I guess from before I'd turned things off fully.

</comment><comment><USER72> Is there any way to dump the raw data?

My wife and I maintain a list of ridiculous oddball Google searches we've made in the past (no, you can't see it). It would be interesting to try to train an AI to find the ones we've missed...

<comment><USER50> Check the Data Liberation Front / Data Take Out.

Google actually are pretty good at providing that, and I think it _does_ include search activity, if requested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'm only seeing the very few times I've signed into Google to upload a video to YouTube. I infrequently use Gmail on my Android but no signs of it in my activity - aren't Gmail logins along with location logged?

</comment><comment><USER74> Wow the filtering controls are pretty terrible. No way to type in dates, for one.

<comment><USER75> You can use the epoch time in the url for the filtering. That is lot easier than using a picker.

<comment><USER74> Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Thanks - deleted all of my stuff and turned of all further collection.

gosh google...

<comment><USER77> Frustratingly, I think what " _deleted all my stuff_ " might actually mean is " _deleted my access to all of that stuff_ ".

<comment><USER40> Even if it did delete it, it could also be " _deleted this particular copy of my data_ "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Wow, my activity goes back all the way to 2006. While it is very interesting to see what I've been searching in 2006, it is also very scary knowing Google has this data.

<comment><USER79> There's a tool to bulk delete that data if you're not comfortable with it.

[https://myactivity.google.com/delete- activity](https://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity)

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Huh, I turned off web search tracking years and years ago. Glad to see they (apparently) honored that and the only thing that was being tracked was the random youtube visit.

</comment><comment><USER81> Just another way of saying that whether in the browser or mobile device and you're signed in to Google, any stuff you do that touches Google is being tracked.

</comment><comment><USER82> When I want to download my searches, it goes up to 1 year. Does google not keep more than 1 year of data? Is it required to them to remove data after 1 year?

</comment><comment><USER83> That is so crazy that do login is needed if you are already signed into Google. I am also surprised they are sharing this feature with users.

</comment><comment><USER84> No activity. Some activity may not appear yet. :)

</comment><comment><USER85> I'd switch to Apple the month it assures me _it_ doesn't store _all that data_ about myself.

</comment><comment><USER86> Hmm. I'd have to sign in, giving up even more data. I'd rather delete all of my cookies every day.

</comment><comment><USER87> I wonder how many Google staff can view these data for arbitrary user foo. Is LOVEINT an issue, as with NSA?

</comment><comment><USER88> Great, let me waste some time analyzing an in-depth report on how I waste my time!

</comment><comment><USER89> Yeah, all I have there are three Youtube videos I watched in 2015 (even though I do use my Youtube account almost daily). I'm content with this.

What I'm not content with is that they're showing it in a wrong language, but I guess I can't ask for good webdesign from someone like Google.

</comment><comment><USER90> Is there a panic button that I can press now to 100% opt out of this ____?

Google is effectively transforming itself from an ad company to a big/huge brother, the real big brother that now knows everything I do. Facebook is no better either.

<comment><USER90> the disgusting part is that, that activities logging is all on _by default_ , and when you delete them you have to pick one activity a time(there is no reset all logs to zero option), google you're indeed evil.

<comment><USER90> [https://myactivity.google.com/delete- activity](https://myactivity.google.com/delete-activity) that does have an option to delete everything, just did that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Their date widget is ridiculous.

It doesn't allow you to type dates. :sad:

</comment><comment><USER92> An Analytics solution on top of this data would be amazing ..

</comment><comment><USER92> I wonder if we can download/scrape all the data..

</comment><comment><USER93> I was not expecting to see my Reddit activity on that list.

<comment><USER94> Where'd you see that, I don't see anything on mine.

<comment><USER93> My activity is full of Visited "then some link on reddit". Guess reddit accounts for majority of my visits, so maybe that's why.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> "You can easily delete specific items or entire topics. You can also change your settings and decide what data gets associated with your account."

I guess that's nice. I wonder if they'd still keep the original data points.

<comment><USER95> I wish they made it even easier, a delete all would be great, or a delete between these dates.

<comment><USER64> There's a "Delete Results" option in the three-dots menu. You can just search between two dates and then use that feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> From a UX perspective, I thought I was only searching for certain things on certain accounts, but saw the majority of those searches index under my employer's non-default google apps account.

Thats not what I was going for at all.

</comment><comment><USER97> More like "anyone can see this data if you don't log out"

<comment><USER50> You _are_ required to authenticate again to see the information, so it's somewhat proof against casual access.

This does require a strong password though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Does anyone not feel that this is deeply problematic?

What's worse is the faux 'Silicon Valley' ethos / koolaid they put on us.

A regular company doing this does it for obvious reasons.

But Google sticks to their 'Do No Evil' mantra, which I find entirely hypocritical: 'We say we are Doing No Evil, ergo, we are not doing any evil'.

I find it doubly disturbing.

They're even worse than classical companies, and yet somehow through their own branding koolaid would have us believe that they are 'more moral'.

<comment><USER99> Cognitive Dissonance. F Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is just what they want you to think they know...

</comment><comment><USER100> Wow, I know Google knows a lot about me, but apparently it can predict that I'll use Telegram on March 15, 2016 at 4:53 AM!

(Either that, or my phone briefly had a very incorrect time setting.)

<comment><USER101> I don't understand this comment. "predict" "March 15, 2016". It's already 4 months past that date.

<comment><USER100> Whoops! It actually said 2061 but my fingers autocorrected that for me :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> I use three different browsers.

Chrome : Work related applications only. Minimal extensions.

Firefox: Locked down. (NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock origin) For general web browsing and searching.

IE: For gmail and google apps and nothing else. I like to see google frantically suggesting I use chrome every time I access GMail !

</comment><comment><USER103> I'm really happy to see that the last thing I did on any Google service while logged in, was June 27th. This means Self-Destructing Cookies is really working and all embedded Youtube videos in pages don't keep the cookie active.

<comment><USER104> Can you explain a bit more on this ?

<comment><USER103> Well I'm happy that it's a while ago that Google could attribute anything as belonging to me, from a privacy perspective.

<comment><USER58> I think he/she meant the self destructing cookies

<comment><USER103> Self-Destructing Cookies is an add-on that deletes cookies after they are no longer in use. When I log in to example.com and close the tab, all cookies set by example.com will be deleted (after a configurable time, default 90 seconds I think). It has a whitelist to prevent certain domains (that you want to stay logged into) from having their cookies deleted. It does the same for localStorage and other such technologies.

Very simple, but very effective in preventing tracking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> This is horrifying. Are they recording everything even when you aren't signed in to your Google account?

Why do I need this at all? Why do I care about what I searched for 5 years ago? Time to move off of Chrome. Does all my data with Chromium get hoovered up as well?</comment>


The Life, Death, and Legacy of iPhone Jailbreaking - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xa4ka/iphone-jailbreak-life-death-legacy <comment><USER2> Regardless of its eventual fate, I'm deeply grateful to the jailbreak community for speeding up Apple's implementation of the useful tweaks power users wanted most like 3rd party keyboards, picture-in-picture, control center, F.lux, etc. iOS is a better platform today because of the JB community, so cheers all around.

<comment><USER3> Third party keyboards are still second-class citizens on iOS. They lag on switching, they don't have access to native keyboard settings, they crash debugger, their layers can't be viewed in Xcode, they sometimes break on app update and then users blame developers.

<comment><USER4> I don't own an iPhone currently, but I haven't had any problems with Gboard on a number of iPhones that I've used that have it. Is your statement applicable to _all_ third party keyboards, or most of them?

<comment><USER3> [https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom- ios-k...](https://medium.com/@inFullMobile/limitations-of-custom-ios- keyboards-3be88dfb694)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who used to jailbreak devices almost instantly when a tool was out, I have found myself really not needing a jailbreaking in recent years. The OS itself has matured a lot, I seem to have outgrown the "tweak mentality" and no longer find join in it, but most importantly, the security implications of jailbreaking (breaking the sandbox, running untrusted 3rd party software at the root level and the jailbreak tool itself - blob binary that has rarely been open sourced in recent years). It's just not worth the risk anymore.

On the other hand, for low level development on a lab device, jail-breaking is invaluable.

<comment><USER6> The one missing "tweak" \- open tethering. MyWi was an amazing Cydia app, allowing for 3G > wifi, and even wifi to wifi sharing.

The iPhone still feels totally crippled without this functionality, and there's not even any way to side load the app.

If anyone has any solutions for this..

<comment><USER7> Maybe I misunderstand, but my iPhone seems to have this out of the box...? (Not the Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi one, but tethering to LTE via Wi-Fi.)

<comment><USER6> You are correct, but tethering ability is controlled by your carrier, meaning many have it disabled or charge for more if you tether.

The wifi to wifi ability is fantastic when you are in hotels, etc that charge per device.

It's the _one_ jailbreak all that I miss sorely, that is obviously built into android by default.

<comment><USER8> Does Android not allow carriers to control tethering as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Either the user controls the program or the program controls the user. It's time already for a truly FOSS phone (and no, android doesn't cut it... lineage/replicant barely do). I shouldn't have to use some strange third party questionable methods to get root on my fucking device.

<comment><USER10> >Either the user controls the program or the program controls the user. It's time already for a truly FOSS phone

And McDonald's is an instrument of oppression because you can't order pancakes after 10:30am. Either the customer controls the restaurant or the restaurant controls the customer!

If you want root on a device, buy a device that allows root. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones. Meanwhile people who want a reliable device with billions of dollars worth of investment in industry leading security and standout features like first class accessibility can have them. And yes, it turns out there's a trade off between platform security and user system access. We're all better off because there are a range of platforms available to us that provide different choices between those trade offs.

Nobody is stopping the FOSS community break by my out first class phones with industry leading features. The fact that it hasn't isn't a failing of Apple and smashing Apple wouldn't make it happen anyway.

<comment><USER11> >And yes, it turns out there's a trade off between platform security and user system access.

I'm an iPhone user for security reasons but this arument rubs me the wrong way. You can allow users system access at their own risk, if you design it correctly. The problem with Android is that "Install from unknown sources" is merely a checkbox away and opens the gateways to hell.

<comment><USER12> But not really, though. Yeah, Android apps have a lot of power and how they do is poorly documented (imo), but they still can't break out of their sandbox. Unknown sources is not a replacement for root.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not having a jailbreak is a deal breaker for me and the lack of jailbreaks available is the reason I won't buy a new iphone (my current iphone 6+ is jailbroken).

I understand that a non jailbroken device is more secure but it also restricts what I can do on my own device which I bought with my money and I can't abide that.

<comment><USER14> The unfortunate part is that a "secure" jailbreak is absolutely possible, or at least mitigations for the vulnerabilities used to achieve the jailbreak. It seems there is not much demand for it though.

<comment><USER15> There are always other vulnerabilities that might not have been noticed that Apple fixes in later versions, though; like: jailbreaks that fixed their own exploit behind them and the handful of other known bugs weren't really sufficient. What really needs to happen to make this viable is for Apple to just let people do this kind of stuff _without the need for them to have made a mistake in their security_. They think they are smarter than everyone else, though, and if you are building something great that would run on their hardware that can't be done as an "app" you should just be working for Apple and be part of the smart club, so with that attitude they have this strategy to just coddle the user base so that they can't do anything dumb (as, to be very clear: I absolutely do not consider "user downloaded something evil from someone random and explicitly gave it permission to do something horrible" a security problem any more than a user can pick up a knife and stab themselves with it: that doesn't mean that all knives everywhere should be designed with a DRM that makes their sharp edges only work on certain kinds of branded food).

<comment><USER16> To expand on your first sentence: some past jailbreaks allowed booting different versions of iOS than the one with the bug, because they were lower- level (bootloader based). So you could upgrade for security fixes, upgrade for the latest features, or restore to fix a hosed system, all without losing your jailbreak. For a long time I wanted to implement that for userland jailbreaks, but I never did, and now it's not really possible anymore. But that would have solved the "jailbreaks are inherently insecure" problem.

But yeah, much better if the cat and mouse game weren't necessary to start with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Jailbreaking my iPod touch taught me a lot about technology and software at an early age. I'm not sure I would be where I am today (working in technology and very well off compared to my peers) if I didn't pick up that hobby in middle/high school.

</comment><comment><USER18> I miss having the date in the status bar[1] through SBSettings[2]. I still keep a jailbroken iPhone around to auto-reply to text/iMessages[3] via iBlackList[4].

[1] [http://www.iphone-tips-and-advice.com/image- files/sbsettings...](http://www.iphone-tips-and-advice.com/image- files/sbsettings-extras.jpg)

[2] [http://cydia.saurik.com/package/sbsettings/](http://cydia.saurik.com/package/sbsettings/)

[3] [https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/201307210700_iphone_text_auto...](https://tinyapps.org/blog/misc/201307210700_iphone_text_auto_reply.html)

[4] [http://www.iblacklist.com.br](http://www.iblacklist.com.br)

</comment><comment><USER19> I had the 1st iPhone on T-mobile via jailbreak and unlock. My company paid the bill and used T-mobile so...

Thank you to the Jailbreakers and Unlockers..

Today I can see no reason to Jailbreak. There is no kill application I care about that anymore.

Given the state of security and the stance of some governments I am happy Apple is locking things down!

<comment><USER20> Every time Apple tells me I can't tether due to carrier settings or iTunes refuses to download over 3G I wish back fondly on jailbreaking

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Jailbreaking iOS devices might be dead but rooting android based devices is thriving.

With a jailbreak / root you can get around carrier restrictions on tethering, which in some areas without high speed wired internet options this is very important.

<comment><USER22> Back in the 2.xx days rooting was basically mandatory to get decent performance and regular updates, but now the OS is more optimized and has most of the features of rooted devices anyways. Regardless, Google is trying their best to kill off rooting and custom ROMs. Apps like Snapchat and Google Pay don't work without hacks on rooted/unlocked devices because of Google's SafetyNet, which is a huge disincentive to root

<comment><USER23> Although it's an extra step, Magisk is there for rooted phones to hide root/custom roms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> i've never understood comments saying jailbreaking is no longer needed, particularly among technical people (it comes up in every single story about jailbreaking across the web).

jailbreaking gives you root access to your mobile computer, which means you actually own and control it, not some corporation.

one thing you can do after jailbreaking is install a real firewall on the device so you can control what information passes into and out of it. that's a real boon to privacy (it's not perfect secrecy of course).

</comment><comment><USER25> I used to automatically jailbreak all my iOS devices right from the first iPhone.

From installing apps before the App Store existed , to attachments in mail, to download managers in safari, to a fully featured files app, the ingenuity of the early jailbreakers and coders was incredible.

I have fond memories of my wife and I spending hours playing iZoo, a pre App Store candy crush-like game.

</comment><comment><USER26> Jailbreaking is dead, and now Apple is deciding which symbols are and aren't acceptable in apps. I think we are approaching the worst point ever in software freedom history. Very sad development.

<comment><USER27> Android is open source and the Pixel allows custom ROMs. Worst point ever seems like a stretch of a statement.

<comment><USER28> Not to mention we have the whole Raspberry Pi ecosystem for embedded ARM development. That's been a huge leap forward for open embedded systems. And Broadcom deserves credit for hiring Eric Anholt to make open drivers for the hardware.

I think freedom will be fine as long as low-cost open devices like the Pi exist. If they go under and Android continues on its trajectory of becoming more closed, then I'll be more concerned.

<comment><USER15> What makes it fun for a kid to pick up a device and play with it often comes down to "a bunch of my friends also have this same device and so my software can be used by them and it makes them happy", not "I get to sit alone with the Pi that my parents got me and play with technical stuff". This is the same argument for why platforms with more market share get more innovation as there are more developers all over the world who think "if I bother to build that, there are people out there who can use it and might even pay me for it". That's why the programmable TI calculator ecosystem was so powerful, why jailbroken iPods as a development platform for kids was so powerful, why having open PCs with compatible open expansion ports was extremely powerful, and why it just isn't sufficient or really even terribly relevant that there _exists_ an open platform but that _the platforms people have are open_.

<comment><USER28> I agree to some extent, and I'm worried about the war on general purpose computing too, but in the case of the Pi it's mitigated by the fact that the hardware starts at $5. That's a fraction of the cost of, say, a PC in the '90s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I feel like downward trend in jailbreaking is temporary. iOS 10 has proven to be the most secure version of iOS. iOS 11 adds some additional complexity with the new file system and the possibility of sharing files between apps. I can only imagine there are new vulnerabilities to go along with that. In addition, the new, faster hardware provides opportunities for mods that were previously not possible.

My hope is that the severe lack of jailbreaks this year lulls Apple into a sense of complacency opens up new opportunities for jailbreaking iOS 11.

<comment><USER30> I think the lack of jailbreak in iOS 10 was not only due to lack of availability, but also lack of demand. Jailbreaks on early iPhones added tons of great features that made the risk of jailbreaking worthwhile. These days, I think most users are generally happy with the status quo.

<comment><USER15> As the developer of Cydia, I work very closely with the people who work on these exploits (and am often, though not quite always, seen as sufficiently "neutral" to be talking to multiple groups at once), and the primary factor for iOS 10 really is that the device is now extremely secure combined with "some of the people who previously had worked attacking the device played mercenary and 'switched sides' when Apple came by looking to hire them" (which both makes it more secure and reduces the brain power available to the side of the resistance). Apple also changed their policies for fixing bugs, even low- priority ones, to get patches out sooner (and the jailbreaks also started being forced to use higher priority bugs, so the windows of applicability for various tools has been extremely low in the last couple years).

A big thing to understand is that the jailbreaks have also become "more complex to use and maintain for the user" in addition to "less likely to be found" for the developers: the jailbreaks available for iOS 9.3 and later versions are brutal... they take the form of an app that you had to install using a tool I wrote called Cydia Impactor, which pretends to be Xcode and do all of the signing for a "free developer account". Every time you reboot your device, it is no longer jailbroken, and you have to run this app, which sometimes doesn't work (on iOS 10 I'd even say it "only" sometimes works ;P); and the app itself expires every 7 days (Apple restriction on free developer accounts), and so you have to keep reinstalling it using Impactor. Finally, if you break anything at all that causes SpringBoard to not be able to pop up (as you need to get all the way to "I can see this app and click it" for the jailbreak to work), you have to format your device (losing all your data) and restore to fix it... older jailbreaks were much more forgiving, as you could still log in via SSH if the device even sort of was able to start.

I'll also say that the general issue you bring up was also true for iOS 7 and 8, but there were _tons_ of people who jailbroke even with iOS 9. When jailbreaks are available and easy to use, developers do cool things that are able to tempt users to do it; it is like: why does anyone install an app when I bet they don't really need it? Well, spending $3 for some random app that only slightly affects what you do is worth it: the cost is low to match the low benefit; so it doesn't really matter that much if the benefit isn't "insane killer thing that everyone has to do or the phone is worthless": it only has to be greater than the cost, and the cost went up so high and so fast during the past year and a half that even I have been "living without" a feature I used every single day numerous times and am constantly sad to not have right now, because "damn it, I just don't want to have to spend ten minutes rebooting my phone over and over again in the hope that this broken jailbreak works".

<comment><USER31> Another factor is that previously the last point update of an iOS version was always jailbreakable. So there was the long period over the summer where there was a stable jailbreak that people could experiment with and utilize while Apple was focused on the next big iOS version. Now Apple is very aggressive about making sure the most recent iOS version is locked up and preventing downgrades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just recently got my first iOS system, an iPad. I was planning to write in cafes with it and a bluetooth keyboard. Too bad I'm a customisation freak, and in the end, I didn't find a suitable setup.

The problem is that I use three languages daily: Finnish, English and Japanese. Besides that, I use The Dvorak keyboard layout. There is no commonly used Dvorak layout for Finnish and Japanese, but it's jarring to have to change the key arrangement when changing language, so on my Mac, I customized myself a layout that contains the English alphabet, the Finnish extra characters ä and ö, and type also Japanese with that.

On iPad, I couldn't find a keyboard that allowed that. The 3rd party keyboards are a step into a right direction, and I think that the JB community has played their part at that.

Needless to say, I'm not willing to switch away from Dvorak after 10 years of muscle memory and a generally more pleasant typing experience.

I'm still hopeful for the future of my currently read-only device.

</comment><comment><USER33> Jailbreaking is the best thing that could have gone to iphones, IMHO. The reality that I can modify my hosts file, install a firewall with "learning mode" (too bad it hasn't been updated for iOS10), all these cool switched on Control Center, and many many more fun tweaks.

To begin with, Apple's privacy settings are pretty good, but things like PMP and AppAdmin (downgrade apps to previous versions) rock! especially when you lose functionality or you get a revamp you never asked.

I hope JB will continue as long as Apple does, and PLEASE update the Firewall IP :)

<comment><USER34> Could you elaborate on the intelligent firewall?

I haven't rooted my device since ancient times, but this might make me reconsider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If you discover an exploit for iOS, it can sell for up to $1 million on the open market.

Not sure how many people would choose to make a publicly released jailbreak instead of taking the $1 million.

</comment><comment><USER36> I jailbroke for these reasons:

GuizmoDNS - OpenDNS+DNSCrypt

TetherMe - free tethering

Pandora Downloader

Pandora Skips

Unrestrictor 3G - Remove IAS and other limits by fooling apps into thinking they are on Wi-Fi.

Bytafont2 with Futurama font

iTransmission - torrent client

Also nice were bandwidth meter in the status bar, Fake Carrier, Five Icon Dock and Freeman's work porting aptitude, yum and deb packaging to iOS to make installing tweaks and apps easy.

It's a shame that Apple doesn't provide more app/os integration, customization and middleware hooks.

</comment><comment><USER37> It feels boring without ability to jailbreaking your device but overall that's better for end-user security (less malware) and developer profit(less pirate).

<comment><USER15> It is absolutely possible to build a device that no only is secure but also lets you--the owner of the device--actually run anything you--again, the owner of the device--want to run; as it stands, the device is secure _despite_ you, by saying that only Apple--who is actually the owner of your device, which they have effectively only lent to you and which they heavily restrict your usage of--can decide what can and can't run on your device... to me this is like saying "my apartment is secure because I am not trusted with a key: in order to get in, I have to call Apple and give them my password, and they open the door"... honestly, that seems a lot less secure to me than "I have the key".

<comment><USER37> That's certainly technically possible to achieve both security and "hack- ability", but having a reasonably attractive business model and user experience to make it available for general public is another layer of challenge.

The analogy of apartment is interesting, as today people may have equal or more to lose on a cellphone breach comparing to apartment, while managing the security is much more difficult on cellphone for common users. That fact certainly contributes to the prospers of walled garden (apartment management company) like Apple.

btw thanks for all the great work, saurik. //hatoff

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> About two years ago I switched back to IOS, purely for iMessage. The desktop SMS applications for Android just aren't there yet.

With the 9.3.3 JB, I am basically set. I'm an extremely light mobile user and I'm going to hold onto this 5S for as long as possible.

I might be completely wrong about this, but has Apple brought out any significant feature that wasn't first available through Cydia?

</comment><comment><USER39> Do people still jailbreak their phone? What's the point now?

</comment><comment><USER40> _" It started as a group of teenagers writing NSA-grade exploits intended to spread software freedom," said a former Apple employee_

It wasn't them who were sloppy programmers, it was the teenagers who were writing NSA-grade exploits... SMH Apple employees need a reality check...

<comment><USER41> You think very highly of the NSA.

There's been plenty of "NSA-grade" exploits recently leaked, and they didn't seem significantly more complex than what jailbreakers use.

<comment><USER40> And I'm pretty sure what the apple developer who called the jailbreaks NSA- grade meant was that NSA was the pinnacle of professionalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Are you calling Google Keyboard the stock keyboard?

EDIT: It's an honest question. If you're not going to answer or don't know, shove the downvotes up your ass, OK?

<comment><USER42> We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that.

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14673840) and marked it off-topic.</comment></comment>


The Mach Loop – low-level training areas for fast jet aircraft - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_Loop <comment><AUTHOR> > Mach Loop is among the few places in the world (Star Wars Canyon is another) > where photographers can see combat aircraft flying below them.

Some amazing footage on youtube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wzh7Hou30s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wzh7Hou30s)

<comment><USER2> That may be true today. When in school sometime in the 80ies somewhere on a hillside in Germany, i could look down on them too from the classroom, maybe 100 to 150meters away. I've seen A10, F4F, F15/16/18, Tornado, Jaguar, Harrier, various Mirage that way. Sometimes the pilots had their facemasks loosely dangling down, sometimes they waved back when i did. Half a year after i left school this happended [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Remscheid_A-10_crash](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Remscheid_A-10_crash) maybe 30 klicks away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds amazing, and also a little distracting! That must have made it hard to concentrate in class :-)

Sad to hear how that ended - and crazy to be performing low altitude flight exercises so close to a populated area.

<comment><USER2> That was normal at the time. At least for the allied forces. Notice how i didn't mention F-104G Starfighter? That's because they didn't do that, at least not there. One DID "buzz" me with an almost deafening sonic boom, really solid pressure wave when bicyling in some forest somewhere else in maybe 1984. Suddenly, out of nowhere, and then _gone_ again, except for the roaring of the air for maybe a minute after. Also at that time: looking out of the window at home, again on a hillside, a F-111 roaring down the little valley from behind the house, hopping over some ridge, becoming visible again, and rising almost vertically to the top of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachenfels_(Siebengebirge)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drachenfels_\(Siebengebirge\)) over the Rhine, waggling its wings, then nosediving again to the right to vanish into the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siebengebirge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siebengebirge) All in what seemed to be a minute and VERY LOUD! I later reconstructed the flight path on a map, which showed it going over the Russian embassy and consulate first, then over the American one. As to why the F104 was supersonic while so low, i have no clue. Maybe a near crash? Its direction pointed to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%B6rvenich_Air_Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%B6rvenich_Air_Base) roughly. As for school? No problem, had effortless Ones or Twos/A-Grade/B-Grade. It was mostly boring, really.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Russian embassy and consulate first, then over the American one.

I like to imagine a few spilled spilled coffees that day. Thanks for sharing :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google takes 32% of your advertisement profits - <AUTHOR> http://websitetutorials.net/google-adsense/how-setup-and-use-google-adsense.html

<comment><USER2> As my ad revenue is currently $0 a year, I don't really mind google taking their 32%.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Google evil?</comment>


DHH: The silent majority - <AUTHOR> http://www.loudthinking.com/posts/26-the-silent-majority

<comment><USER2> when i read the title i expected it to be about asp.net

most people do use it :/ and they are silent</comment>


Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/07/22/donald-trump-and-the-coming-fall-of-american-empire/ <comment><USER2> Quite the exaggeration. Yes Trump is causing instability, but a massive amount of US cultural influence on the world stems from private enterprises operating from within the US. Public sector chaos in the US isn't really having a significant effect on US private sector dynamism.

Where Trump does impact US influence in the world and benefit China is through changing global attitudes on democracy. As US democracy allowed Trump to come to power - and thus caused the instability we're seeing - people are more likely to question the viability or value of democracy now than in an era in which the US government was operating more effectively.

Chinese citizens are taking notice, and the Chinese Communist Party is obviously taking full advantage of the situation. The CCP can use the current debacle in the US and the relative (outward appearing) efficiency of a CCP dominated China as evidence for why democratic revolution in China would be unwise.</comment>


How do you do documentation in terms of tools? - <AUTHOR> I want to replace our current documentation pipeline as it is to clumsy and complicated.
We currently write documents in asciidoc. Then we do:
asciidoc     -[asciidoctor]-> docbook
docbook      -[custom xslt]-> custom latex
custom latex -[xelatex]-> pdf
Sadly this is quite fragile -especially the latex part - and I want to replace it with a more robust method. Some requirements are generation of header, footer and a cover sheet from meta data and a TOC from the headlines. It should also support the usual formatting stuff and source code highlighting. Ultimately the raw source should be version controllable.
How do you do documentation? Do you have any suggestions that could fit my requirements? <comment><USER2> will doxygen work for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> As we document much more than just sourcecode doxygen is not sufficient. The documents mostly consist of howtos, faqs and guides. \--edit-- I mostly miss the styling options and the resulting pdfs don't look 'professional'

<comment><USER2> another thing you can try is [https://pandoc.org/](https://pandoc.org/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting :) Although it also seems to mostly use latex to generate pdf :/</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin as a Notary - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@craig_10243/bitcoin-as-a-notary-d260589fcd06 <comment><USER2> I think that Ethereum and smart contracts would be better for notary. By the way, you should not forget that he is Faketoshi</comment>


Making Contact with Trivium - <AUTHOR> http://leemart.in/trivium

<comment><USER2> Great write up, and an interesting use of existing libraries to transform tech into art.</comment>


Call Me Maybe: MariaDB Galera Cluster - <AUTHOR> https://aphyr.com/posts/327-call-me-maybe-mariadb-galera-cluster <comment><USER2> I don't find it surprising that so many distributed databases fail at ensuring consistency; it's a very hard problem. What really gets me is that they _deliberately, knowingly_ sacrifice consistency for performance, and then claim the opposite in their documentation/marketing.

See [https://github.com/codership/galera/issues/336#issuecomment-...](https://github.com/codership/galera/issues/336#issuecomment-136635018) (linked from the article)

<comment><USER3> >I don't find it surprising that so many distributed databases fail at ensuring consistency; it's a very hard problem

It's not hard — it's slow. Sending reads and writes through Paxos or Raft gives you sequential consistency. But not surprisingly, touching a quorum of nodes for every operation is too slow to be practical for many workloads.

And that's usually _fine_ — most data aren't bank account balances.

<comment><USER4> Banks are eventually consistent.

Online transaction processing creates "pending" transactions, and the data is often inconsistent. Your charge may exist in the merchant's database but not post to your online banking for several hours. Or it may be a wildly different amount - i.e. gas stations will place a $100 hold on your debit card and it will stay that way for days until it's settled for the actual (lesser) amount. If you were accidentally double-charged, than rather than processing a separate refund, the merchant may simply not settle the duplicate charge, and it will drop off your pending transactions... eventually. The lag time may be several days or weeks. If it's a debit card, you can't spend the money during that time and you may be temporarily broke because of it.

If you make an ACH transfer, money will disappear from your account one night, spend a business day in the aether, and then post to the recipient's account on the third day. The system is in inconsistent state (i.e. money is missing) for at least a day, possibly a whole weekend.

The actual transaction is settled and goes into "posted" state with a lag of 2.5 * 10^8 ms - i.e. 3 business days. That's if you're lucky. Banks do need strong consistency, but not in anything approaching realtime.

Even ZooKeeper could probably handle the U.S.'s financial transactions faster than current infrastructure.

<comment><USER5> And what would shock you most is some of the methods used to send those transactions (eg ftping a text file, and if it gets corrupt, someone opens it in vi to fix it - I have a friend who used to do exactly that).

<comment><USER6> For anyone who wants to read more, this blog post series goes into quite a lot of detail on ACH (including the FTPing and the fixed-field file format) [http://engineering.zenpayroll.com/how-ach-works-a- developer-...](http://engineering.zenpayroll.com/how-ach-works-a-developer- perspective-part-4/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks to aphyr for the testing. Certainly it will help focus efforts on improving things.

I am a MariaDB contributor and operate Percona Cluster in production, so I can talk a bit about Galera.

It's recommended that writes go to one master, rather than be distributed across the nodes. That will help with isolation issues.

Also, some commenters have complained about year-old releases. PXC has improved significantly in the past year regarding manageability, so you may want to try again. For example, the startup script has a bootstrap option now.

For most people, vanilla async MySQL replication works best, esp. 5.6. But Galera gives you another option when you need something else.

Having said that, it takes 5-10 years for a database or filesystem to mature, so anybody using Galera now is an early adopter.

</comment><comment><USER8> I flirted with MariaDB Galera Cluster. This was on Amazon EC2. Frequently mariadb would just go down, not the server mind you. Frequently the whole cluster would go down as well. To bring it back up, I'd have to bootstrap the whole cluster.

Essentially, what a pain in the backside to use.

This did not fill me with confidence and thankfully did not go into production and later on went with Postgres/CitusDB.

The difference is day and night!

<comment><USER9> Has a similar experience a year ago. The only difference being that I did go into production. Man, what a mistake.

<comment><USER10> We've been using PXC, which is still Galera but a Percona variant of MySQL instead. No problems at all.

I've been strongly considering MariaDB on Galera for encryption-at-rest. Is there something about MariaDB that was not working well with Galera?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Everytime i read one of those post (or other about mongodb failures), i keep thinking about this talk [http://youtu.be/4fFDFbi3toc](http://youtu.be/4fFDFbi3toc)

And why noone tried to repeat their strategies for building a robust db system : start by building an extremely robust failure simulation and testing facility. Then build your product.

Actually, i think what those guys at foundationdb did was so exceptional, that by buying the company and killing the product, Apple harmed the software industry for the next 10 years. The fact the foundationdb is mentionned in OP as the only distributed db system one could recommend makes me more confident making that statement.

<comment><USER12> This might be overdoing things a bit. FoundationDB was a rigorously tested KV store with strong consistency (uncommon for such a product). Yes, that talk from StrangeLoop was great, but there's two common misconceptions here:

(What follows is my opinion / guesswork as a VoltDB employee)

1\. FoundationDB wasn't killed by Apple; it was rescued by Apple. The product couldn't compete on just being a KV store and wasn't doing well in the market. Apple saw a very bright and now experienced team and scooped them up for a song.

2\. Before this happened, FoundationDB realized they needed a way to query their system to compete, so they bought Akiban (a failing SQL db company) to add SQL to their system. But they assumed they could do this without deep integration, which was wrong. They added a SQL "layer" on top of the KV store and it was way to slow to be practical. The benchmarks they published were embarrassing.

I wrote a blog post about this: [http://voltdb.com/blog/foundationdbs-lesson- fast-key-value-s...](http://voltdb.com/blog/foundationdbs-lesson-fast-key- value-store-not-enough)

SUMMARY FoundationDB: Great Testing, Great Engineering, Not particularly good product...

<comment><USER11> Very interesting pov, thanks for sharing.

Actually, the thing that i find most impressive in their tech stack is the approach they took for building it starting with the simulator + c++ extension. Those are the technology that i think would benefit all the community, if they were ever open sourced.

As a voltDB engineer, how do you ensure your implementation doesn't compromise the theorical correctness of your system ?

<comment><USER12> I'm actually going to be discussing this at Strangeloop next month.

[http://www.thestrangeloop.com/2015/all-in-with- determinism-f...](http://www.thestrangeloop.com/2015/all-in-with-determinism- for-performance-and-testing-in-distributed-systems.html)

VoltDB is actually a bit simpler with what it promises, full serializable ACID for all transactions. This is much easier to understand and verify than lesser isolation.

We think what we've done is pretty clever too. We've built a determinism checker into our replication engine, so that we can verify that each replica has the same state at each logical point in time, and each operation makes identical changes to that state.

Then we built test patterns that are designed to be as co-dependent as possible and run them against a replicated VoltDB cluster. That VoltDB cluster goes though one or more kinds of failure, including multiple simultaneous failure, and then a checker ensures no data is ever lost, corrupted or run in the wrong order.

It's different from the FDB thing. The simulation they did is certainly easier to run on a pure KV store, but keep in mind we also have to test SQL that queries millions of rows, along with upserts, materialized aggregations, etc...

We're working on some blog content on this in addition to my talk. Stay tuned.

<comment><USER11> Great, i'm looking forward to see that talk. To me, it seems that the only way you can make sure that an implementation is correct, is either via extensive testing ( and when talking about acid property over a distributed system, i think the kind of simulator fdb built is a requirement), or run a theorem proover ofer your source code, ala Coq. But i've never heard of any code analysis tool that is able to guarantee properties over a distributed system.

But, since i'm absolutely not working on the field, i'm really looking forward to see what professional people like you are finding to tackle those issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish more companies supported people like Stripe does for Aphyr. Research is so valuable, but there's so little incentive to be in academia. There's a certain irony that undergrad left me with so much debt I couldn't really consider joining a research university...

<comment><USER14> > I wish more companies supported people like Stripe does for Aphyr. Research > is so valuable, but there's so little incentive to be in academia.

If you're talking about incentives, don't forget that Kyle's research is some of the most commercially useful research out there at the moment, and Kyle is also skilled at implementing his ideas (a rare combination among researchers). I'm actually quite pleasantly surprised that he's putting so much effort into these blog posts rather than writing a string of journal papers.

<comment><USER15> Is there a point to writing journal papers if you're not playing the academic publication / citation game? Web sites are easier to publish and have wider distribution than academic journals.

<comment><USER16> The point is to receive peer review from domain experts (including those in academia). But aphyr already gets that anyway :P

<comment><USER17> But there has been damning evidence coming out recently that much of the historical "peer" reviewed studies are in fact wrong or have outright flaws. Further, I'd say that with the tools being provided for free and the blog posts Kyle's findings are most likely peer reviewed... And copany reviewed... And product team reviewed..

<comment><USER16> > But there has been damning evidence coming out recently that much of the > historical "peer" reviewed studies are in fact wrong or have outright flaws.

Sure, I agree (well, I'd probably replace "much" with a less strong word, and skip the "damning", but that's just semantics). Plenty of studies haven't been demonstrated to be wrong, and plenty of others were wrong despite being correctly designed experiments (something both peer reviewers and the scientists performing the experiments could not have caught). Moreover, many flawed studies _haven 't_ been accepted by peer reviewers, which is in fact the purpose of peer review. The biggest problem with peer review is probably publication bias against negative results, without which I suspect most demonstrated scientific fraud wouldn't exist, but that doesn't mean the whole process needs to be thrown out.

> Further, I'd say that with the tools being provided for free and the blog > posts Kyle's findings are most likely peer reviewed... And copany > reviewed... And product team reviewed..

Yes, Kyle does (hell, he's been cited in academic papers). The average person publishing blog posts does not, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there _any_ data store that has come out of these tests looking good? Every Aphyr post I've read had a pretty big failure at some point, even for datastores I considered solid, like Riak or Cassandra.

<comment><USER3> Zookeeper came out looking good:

[https://aphyr.com/posts/291-call-me-maybe- zookeeper](https://aphyr.com/posts/291-call-me-maybe-zookeeper)

<comment><USER19> Also riak with 'allow-mult' turned on:

[https://aphyr.com/posts/285-call-me-maybe- riak](https://aphyr.com/posts/285-call-me-maybe-riak)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's no mystery that the kinds of systems with massive reach--Google search, Facebook, Twitter--are really _not_ data-consistency-critical applications.

Who'll ever know if a search result isn't perfectly up to date or perfectly accurate?

Who'll ever know if you missed a Facebook feed entry because it "wasn't relevant" or simply wasn't seen due to DB vagaries?

And who'll ever know about a few tweets going astray here or there?

In all cases, they're all likely "eventually consistent" (or close to it), but it's no accident that it doesn't ultimately matter in those massive scale examples.

And maybe that's the secret to massive scale--it can't ultimately matter.

<comment><USER21> One of the startups I worked on was a classifieds aggregation engine pulling data from external feeds.

We basically queued all retrieved items for processing with no attempts at avoiding data loss whatsoever - including using in memory queues for lots of things.

Our reasoning was that if a machine crashed, worst case was that a few listings would take up to 24 hours to update, but generally much less (we adapted crawling rate for our sources based on change frequency; so large sources of listings would get re-indexed far more frequently, so if a feed didn't update or 24 hours it'd be because it wasn't a source of much data), and we could force refreshes of the data.

Some people were horrified at the approach because the idea of ensuring consistency and not losing data is so ingrained. But the reality is that you need to measure the cost of consistency up against the value it provides. And often it's not very valuable, _especially_ when there is an authoritative source of the data to recover from and when the data will be outdated quickly anyway.

A lot of the time any notion of consistency is an illusion anyway - by the time the page has returned, the results are outdated - and what matters is maintaining the illusion (e.g. ensure that if a user makes an update it's reflected in the page that's returned).

The key is you need to know the tradeoffs and apply them consciously rather than get caught out by tradeoffs components you rely on makes without telling you..

<comment><USER22> I wonder what kind of people were those horrified by this very simple and completely fine approach.

<comment><USER21> People used to purely transactional systems where every piece of data they received were important who were not used to think about data as potentially disposable... Nothing they didn't pick up quickly enough, but a bit of a mental adjustment (for my part, my job right before that one was running a billing system; I was very happy not to have to worry about that any more...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Can I point out that I'm utterly impressed and astounded by Kyle's ability to remain detached and professional in the faces of what appear to be _outright falsehoods_ stated by some of these companies?

If I had gone to his lengths to critically evaluate the safety of a database system, and then it comes out that the marketing materials or the words of the developers were.. _significantly misleading_ at best, my first response is likely to be a profanity laden rant, not a cool recounting of how and why they're wrong.

</comment><comment><USER24> Despite the reliability, that product sounds nice -- is there anything for Postgres with similar ease of setup for replication etc. that someone can recommend? E.g. EnterpriseDB ?

<comment><USER25> PostgreSQL replication isn't hard these days, since 9.x and beyond its just a couple of lines of config, if you want active/active that's a different story for any ACID compliant databases, I'd look at CitusDB / Postgres-XL

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What about AWS Aurora? I have not used it, but I definitely would if I was using MySQL.

<comment><USER27> I predict in 5 years... this will be the standard.

Its not so much about wanting to bolt onto amazon's eco for stuff -- but just allowing an org to focus.

AWS allows for an ops team to completely have no concern for hardware. Lovely.

I also don't want an ops team doing DB cluster mgmt.

I want to deploy and delve into my data.

I want my data/eng/dev/ops teams to be pummeling the shit out of my data without concern for the instances/hw/cluster.

aurora adds to the cloud fabric.

One thing amazon is moving to is to define compute capacity vs defining instances at all.

Their vision of abstraction is amazing.

<comment><USER21> > AWS allows for an ops team to completely have no concern for hardware. > Lovely.

I split my time between managing a few racks worth of servers at one company, and an AWS setup at another client. The amount of ops work per server/instance is _higher_ for the AWS client than it is for the company I manage physical racks for. That's despite the fact I do physical cabling and racking of equipment as necessary.

The issue is that there are so many aspects of the AWS infrastructure that takes extra effort because we don't have full control. E.g. we can stuff whatever disk subsystem we want in the servers and not have to work our way around the lack of any truly fast disk subsystems in EC2. So for every day I don't physically move serves, I spend 3-5 working around AWS limitations.

I agree with you with respect to what you _want_ , but we're taking baby-steps today - AWS is way too expensive for most people to move to it, even before you factor in the ops complexities.

<comment><USER28> Same on Azure. Their networking stack is ... strange and undocumented. It's the worst IP network I've used in a while. Dealing with IP/TCP-level issues should not be something that's taking up any noticeable amount of time on a modern network. With Azure, it is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


"Terra" is Rot13:"Green" - <AUTHOR> http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/008772.html

<comment><USER2> Some observations:

[tang ⇔ gnat] are not only the ROT13 of each other, but also the inverse of each other. It seems these two properties coincide in this pair only.

I'm also surprised that the longest pair is [nowhere ⇔ abjurer] at 7 letters, with [terra ⇔ green] being second with 5.

<comment><USER3> He limited it to words that weren't "Scrabble words", that is, ones he recognized. Another rot13 pair of length 7 are purpura⇔Chechen, in my /usr/shared/dict/words. Pairs of length 6 are, cheery⇔purrel (what is 'purrel'?), greeny⇔terral (what is 'terral'?), orphan⇔becuna ('becuna' is a type of fish?).

<comment><USER4> I had to Google "purrel -purell" to track that down, and even then it wasn't an immediate hit.

According to WordNik.com, which cites the "Century Dictionary", a purrel is "A list ordained to be at the end of kersies to prevent deceit in diminishing their length."

Wasn't that helpful?! According to Wiktionary, a kersie is Afrikaans for cherry.

Ergo a purrel is a list at the end of cherries to prevent lies about their length. Clear as mud, eh?

(Yes, none of this is helpful at all, but I'm cracking up)

<http://www.wordnik.com/words/purrel> <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kersie>

<comment><USER3> That's the same conclusion I found, using the same tools. I tried something different this time and searched for "purrel oed". Managed to find a citation from c 1617 in "The Acts and Ordinances of the Eastland Company". "Noe brother of this Companya .. shall .. halfe or Cut .. in the myddle of any Cloth .. Nor shall after the Laste daye of August 1618 shipp any Cloth into Th'eastparts which shall have two purrells or a particon in the middle."

I think I just added more mud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also, Rot13 contains the longest pair.

Here's a list of all words (in sowpods.txt) of six or more letters which translate in rot-N for some N:

       1   anteed   bouffe
       1   azlons   bampot
       4   ganjah   kernel
       4   lallan   pepper
       6   fusion   layout
       6   alohas   grungy
       6   jigjig   pompom
       6   bombyx   hushed
       6   mulmul   sarsar
       7   inkier   purply
       7   manful   thumbs
      10   muumuu   weewee
      13   cravat   pening
      13   harira   uneven
      13  abjurer  nowhere

(sowpods.txt is at [http://code.google.com/p/scrabblehelper/source/browse/trunk/...](http://code.google.com/p/scrabblehelper/source/browse/trunk/ScrabbleHelper/src/dictionaries/sowpods.txt?r=20))

</comment><comment><USER6> This suggests a fun interview problem:

Junior engineers: here is an English dictionary. What words in the English dictionary have a ROT13 representation which is also in the dictionary?

Senior engineers: here is an English dictionary. What words in the English dictionary have a ROT13 representation which is also in the dictionary AND that fact would be amusing to people.

</comment><comment><USER7> Terra means Earth in Portuguese... (and also means soil, land)

<comment><USER8> Yes, it comes from the Latin. So maybe this is not a coincidence, since Julius Caesar invented the ROT13 cipher.

<comment><USER9> Also, he had no idea what "earth" means.

<comment><USER10> What do you imply by that?

<comment><USER9> He had no idea what the modern English word "earth" means, even if he somehow could have stumbled upon it.

<comment><USER11> Greek astronomers knew the earth was spherical around the 6th century BC (easily deduced by observing ships sailing in the Mediterranean, as well as the visibility of the stars at different latitudes) and had already demonstrated that the moon was a sphere 150 years before Ceasar's reign. Pliny records that Gaius Sulpicius Gallus enjoyed promotion for winning a battle by correctly predicting an eclipse and timing his military action around it, also before Ceasar's birth. Around the same time, Seleucus (who lived in what we now call Iraq) postulated that the earth orbited the sun rather than vice versa.

Ceasar himself was interested in astronomy, to the extent that he replaced the previous Roman calendar with the Julian Calendar (a modification of the Egyptian Solar calendar), the first to feature a year of 365 days and and include a quadrennial leap year, which endured for 1500 years before the Gregorian Calendar tweaked the leap year scheme for centenary years; considering that the inaccuracy of the Julian calender only amounted to 3 days over 400 years, it error factor was < 0.001%.

Ceasar may not have thought of the earth as just another planet orbiting just another sun in just another galaxy, but it's highly unlikely that he believed the earth to be flat.

<comment><USER10> Thank you.

<comment><USER9> I suck. I thought we were still talking about rot13-ing words and that I should point out that Julius Caesar could not have known what the modern English language word "earth" means and that it is the same as "terra" in Latin, i.e., a point about historical linguistics instead of astronomy and natural philosophy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Satanic Temple Wins IRS Recognition as an Official House of Worship - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-26/the-satanic-temple-gets-irs-nod-as-official-house-of-worship <comment><USER2> Good!

I don't agree with giving churches tax-exempt status just for being churches (I do agree with giving nonprofits tax-exempt status), but if that's the policy then I'm glad to see it's being applied across-the-board.

<comment><USER3> > I don't agree with giving churches tax-exempt status just for being churches > (I do agree with giving nonprofits tax-exempt status)

Tax exempt churches are a subset of tax exempt nonprofits.

<comment><USER2> Yes, I know, and it is probably hair-splitting in practice. I just disagree with there being a special category for religious organizations. I think nonprofit status alone is sufficient to cover everyone.

<comment><USER3> > I think nonprofit status alone is sufficient to cover everyone.

There's a whole bunch of major categories of tax exempt non-profit status with different detailed rules, and within the main categories (e.g., charities) there are often minor categories with different variations on the rules.

If you have concrete, disagreements with the rules (including better, simpler alternatives that require fewer distinctions), great.

<comment><USER2> (Edited for clarity)

I don't. My attitude is more of a political/philosphical one than a policy one.

My take on the First Amendment differs a bit from the government's. I interpret "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" as incompatible with making an IRS category about them. This is because it requires the government to decide what does and does not count as a religion -- which seems to be, at least in spirit, what the first amendment says should not be done.

That said, this is not really something that I get terribly upset about. In practice, I don't think a great deal of injustice results (meaning that if I'm going to make a big stink about injustice, there are much bigger fish to fry.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Because Bloomberg does not like noscript or my enterprise shared IP: [https://outline.com/Pa85w4](https://outline.com/Pa85w4)</comment>


PunyForth programming language for the ESP8266 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zeroflag/punyforth <comment><USER2> One thing I really want for the ESP8266 is REPL-over-WiFi with persistence. MicroPython doesn't seem to have this AFAICT and from the docs Forth doesn't either. Does anybody know of an environment for the 8266 that has a feature like this? I don't really care if the language is Forth or Lisp or Python, but I'd like to be able to modify a live running environment on an embedded device over the network.

<comment><USER3> Hey, you can access the PunyForth over a TCP session (as implemented here: [https://github.com/zeroflag/punyforth/blob/master/arch/esp82...](https://github.com/zeroflag/punyforth/blob/master/arch/esp8266/forth/tcp- repl.forth)). Not sure what you mean with "persistence", you can write to memory in one session, and read back in another? Or are you talking about the stack here?

EDIT: swapped for correct URL

<comment><USER2> I mean that I would like the running image I am building in Forth to persist in non-volatile storage (so if I power the device off and back on, the program remains). Is this possible?

<comment><USER3> Sure thing, read this: [https://github.com/zeroflag/punyforth/wiki/Developing- and-de...](https://github.com/zeroflag/punyforth/wiki/Developing-and- deploying-Punyforth-applications)

<comment><USER2> This is fantastic! I'll be flashing this on one of my Wemoses tonight!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're not into the ESP8266, there are some good Forth implementations for other types of microcontrollers:

ARM Cortex-M0/M3/M4/M7 (STM32, Teensy, etc.) and TI MSP430: Mecrisp-Stellaris - [http://mecrisp.sourceforge.net](http://mecrisp.sourceforge.net)

Atmel 8-bit AVR: AmForth - [http://amforth.sourceforge.net](http://amforth.sourceforge.net)

<comment><USER3> Indeed! Here's two other ones that proved useful and interesting to me:

ARM7/9 types (Cortex like STM32, several NXP LPC, ...): Riscy Pygness - [http://pygmy.utoh.org/riscy/](http://pygmy.utoh.org/riscy/)

Microchip PIC18/24/30/33 and Atmel Atmega: FlashForth - [http://www.flashforth.com/](http://www.flashforth.com/)

Enjoy!</comment></comment>


Message to Our Customers: Shopify Incompetence Is Causing Us Problems / Delays - <AUTHOR> https://www.combatsocks.com/blogs/news/message-to-our-customers-shopify-incompetence-is-causing-us-problems-delays <comment><USER2> always have a backup processor don't know if its possible with shopify, but lesson learned</comment>