What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50460712 <comment><USER2> Search: DDG is the obvious answer. But also reducing usage of general search is a major life improvement. Wikipedia and Stack Overflow have reasonable built-in searches, as do most sites I view as reasonable sources of information. Most discoverability comes from feeds (blogs, HN, Reddit)--searching limits you to terms you've already thought of. General search seems to lead either to the places already mentioned in good cases, and to low-quality results that waste time and mislead you in bad cases. You can save time and improve thought process by going more directly to sources.

Email: Fastmail. But again, just using email less is helpful. My most common form of communication is using text messages to set up meeting in person.

Facebook: Does this even need a replacement? I haven't made any intentional effort to replace Facebook since I stopped using it, and don't feel any sense of loss. The same goes for Twitter/Instagram. The only thing these services ever did for me was make me feel angry, lonely, or inadequate.

Random side note: Stack Overflow has a serious content quality and up-to-date- ness issue. An alternative is using documentation, reading code, and mastering debuggers/REPLs. This gives you a much better understanding of your tools, and gives you much better solutions as a result.

<comment><USER3> >Facebook: Does this even need a replacement?

Do you go to parties? Serious question. It's hard to discover events without Facebook these days. It's the only place some promoters advertise.

<comment><USER4> I'm in a demographic that's very heavily invested in Facebook. FOMO was real when quitting, and I'm sure I've missed some event, someplace, sometime. But the neat thing is, people actually use other means of contacting me if they really want to hang out. I mean, it's not even hard: a text, a mail, whatever.

What I've noticed is that I actually meet people IRL more often now, because the events I get information about are the ones that really matter to me, and they don't get lost in a constant buzz of less important but attention- grabbing stuff.

I also realize I can miss talking to someone. It's a feeling I haven't had in a long time, because people used to show up in my feed every day and it was like they were there anyway. Now I can get a sudden urge to just shoot a few texts back and forth with someone about something that's actually meaningful and not just the usual facebook wall banter.

I'm quite introverted, so being selective is something that suits me well, but facebook also made me even more socially lazy and avoidant than I really am.

<comment><USER5> >But the neat thing is, people actually use other means of contacting me if they really want to hang out. I mean, it's not even hard: a text, a mail, whatever.

Maybe I just have friends who don't care too much, but I wouldn't expect any of my friends to notify me if they're going to a run of the mill event without me, but they would suggest it/notify on Facebook about it. It's a lot less personal, I feel, to notify someone on Facebook than to message someone personally and invite them. Chances are, they'd see I'm no longer on Facebook and think I've gone into some kind of social seclusion.

It also doesn't help solve the problem of _me_ finding something I want to go to (that my friends might be interested in) but they didn't see themselves. There was recently a Studio Ghibli film showing in my city, and after I found it on FB, I suggested it to two friends and we went. I wouldn't have found that event without FB, and even if I did, it would feel awkward (for an equally introverted person like me) to specifically message the two people and ask - now they have some kind of obligation, and they can't claim they just haven't checked Facebook in a while if I sent them a text/Telegram/whatever.

<comment><USER4> I'm having a hard time writing a reply to this that doesn't come off as unsolicited life advice from a stranger, so I'll just say that my positive experience with quitting Facebook is of course highly personal. We all have different life situations and, unfortunately, we have to make trade-offs accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article talks mostly about e-mail and search, but you know what's still the best social network on the interwebs? E-mail.

When I dumped social media two years ago, I gave my "friends" my e-mail address.

Now, instead of getting an endless stream of reposted political image captions and photos of people's lunches I get messages about the things that are actually worth seeing: news about family, friends, life events, funny stories — all without the dross and anger-inducing cruft of a social media "feed."

E-mail has all of the benefits of social media: photos, group chat, near- instant delivery; with none of the drawbacks: tracking, advertising, stalking, third-party influences.

More importantly, what happened is that I found out who my actual friends are. I think the whole social media "friends" button has cheapened the word. We don't make a distinction between friends, acquaintances, associates, and people we just know. Your real friends will e-mail you.

<comment><USER7> > The article talks mostly about e-mail and search, but you know what's still > the best social network on the interwebs? E-mail.

I'm pretty sure if you replaced "social network" by "ticket tracker", you would had made quite a bit of people laugh here, still here we are, unable to accept that some tools are just much more efficient in a task.

For me Facebook is something where I can reach everyone that I need to reach at once. The sad thing is the best social network is the one that people use. Sure everyone got an email, as this is a requirement to even have a social network account, but it's the usage that people does of it that make it impossible to use it as such.

I remember at nearly every team project at my university, we tried to make Slack happens, or Discord, or whatever else to communicate, instead of Facebook, but the response was never as instant and each time we came back to Facebook, simply because that's what most people in the group were online on at the same time.

Personally my actual usage of Facebook is mostly to quickly organize events, it's only useful to reach "everyone" at the same time. I remember one of the best example of event we organized, it was mid afternoon, I was in class with a friend and we decided to organize a friend gathering that night. We had nothing, not even somewhere to do it. We simply created a Facebook event, we invited about 20 friends to the event, 5 hours later we had a place, we had food, plenty of board games and more than a dozens people present.

Sure we can send 20 emails or SMS, hope that everyone read them in the afternoon, have everyone send a bunch of answers in random order, again hope that everyone read the one that are important mixed with all the random "I'm in". That's 20x more effort for each and everyone involved. At that event, my friend and I were the organizer, and we only had to send an handful of messages, the event was the source of truth easy to follow by everyone. Minimum effort, quick and easy.

Sure we can text you on the side, but the truth is, that add friction for each and everyone that aren't on Facebook. If something get updated and I forget to tell you, well I'm now responsible for you missing the update.

The older I get, the less this kind of thing happen, so yeah Facebook is less important, but that still why I used it, and it's still what makes it the best social network. It allow you more easily, more quickly, and more efficiently to be social.

> Now, instead of getting an endless stream of reposted political image > captions and photos of people's lunches I get messages about the things that > are actually worth seeing: news about family, friends, life events, funny > stories — all without the dross and anger-inducing cruft of a social media > "feed."

I would like you to have a talk to everyone grandparents. The amount of emails chains I got from my family when I was younger...

I personally don't really follow people posts, in fact almost no one does them in my friend circle, it's mostly stuff shared from the news, which isn't important.

> none of the drawbacks: tracking, advertising, stalking, third-party > influences.

Gmail and Hotmail don't track email and advertise?

> More importantly, what happened is that I found out who my actual friends > are. I think the whole social media "friends" button has cheapened the word. > We don't make a distinction between friends, acquaintances, associates, and > people we just know. Your real friends will e-mail you.

That's kind of weird. Think a bit about it, why would a "real friend" e-mail you? Are you a "real friend" by not sending a message to your friend over Facebook because that's what he use? That would means you are not really a real friend to anyone... I'm sure that's not the case. You didn't found out who your actual friends were, you simply lost actual friends by making it harder to contact you and you slowly made them become acquaintances.

<comment><USER8> I think there's room for a Webservice/app focused on events only that defaults to using sms for people that don't have accounts.

The idea being that people can optionally make accounts with just their contact information which they can then give people access to (this way contacts stay updated by everyone with access rather than local copies on everyone's device that goes out of date).

The app would handle basics like RSVP, sending out SMS reminders for people, tracking number of people coming etc. Right now handling this over SMS and tracking it is a pain so people default to FB, but I think there's an opportunity here to get a foothold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When 90% of the people you email are on Gmail or GSuite does Proton mail really help? Yeah you get end to end encryption for other Proton mail users, but I don't know a single one. Google is going to have all of my emails anyway.

As for Facebook it is best just to quit. I don't even use Facebook to keep in touch with friends anymore. The value in Facebook is some of the groups. Local neighborhood groups seem to be the best source of information or things happening around your area if you care to know about it. Also different hobbies/interests have local FB groups that are the most active place for discussion with far more users than a small subreddit or dying forum community.

Perhaps I am old but I don't know a single person that uses Whatsapp or Signal. Everyone just uses old fashioned SMS or iMessage if they have iPhones.

<comment><USER10> WhatsApp is massive in Europe, I'm currently in Spain and nobody uses anything else.

<comment><USER11> Argentina Brazil and France also are very Whats app dependent

<comment><USER12> France is actually a bit mixed between SMS, Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger. My impression is that it's been shifting slowly to Whatsapp but it might be my environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A better question is how you use or create an alternative to X without becoming X in the long run.

Facebook is kings because of its market share which is why people use it.

There are ways of communicating with a close group of friends that don't involve social media but for people who want to keep in touch with a large social circle there is really no alternative.

And far as the gmail replacement goes then it's by far the easiest thing to find an alternative for and also probably the least important one.

I have a feeling that people who rely heavily on emails to stay in touch also probably don't use social media so Facebook isn't an issue for them.

However the problem is that due social pressure it's a most impossible to drop from a platform without having it affecting your relationships.

Sure people switch as groups and slowly migrate from one platform to another but overall trying to drop X for Y tends result in you using both or quickly switching back.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would go as far as calling it a glorified address book with some extra features for having up-to-date contact details for everyone that has granted you the privilege of having them and a very cut down version of the feed.

Which brings me to the question of monetisation. I don't want ads or data collection of any kind so my first thought is to have a basic free account and a cheap premium account that lets you upload and share photo albums and that sort of thing. Thoughts on this strategy or possible privacy respecting alternatives?

<comment><USER15> I'd prefer people working on making existing alternatives better in terms of features than have yet another "Facebook killer" that doesn't survive. Check out the Fediverse, help the alternatives for Instagram and Twitter thrive. If you want to create something independently, I'd suggest a perfect replica and replacement for Facebook Groups. We need what's not yet supported by the current crop of FOSS alternatives and keeps people tied to Facebook.

<comment><USER16> 100% on the fediverse!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> DuckDuckGo is really changing my world. It's like I'm seeing a whole other internet I was missing before with Google search results. I get much more relevant answers and less SEO targeted garbage that says all the right words usually while saying nothing at all. I was skeptical, but I encourage you to give it a try if you haven't before.

<comment><USER18> I'm consistently surprised that this comment comes up _here_ so often. I've tried DDG at length, many times, and I always go back to Google because I find it SO much better for programming-related questions. Maybe the denizens of HN are accustomed to using SO's built-in search? But that's still only a piece of the larger puzzle. I get a lot of mileage from blog posts as well.

<comment><USER19> You're not missing anything. Google is far better than DDG and I'm shocked people claim otherwise because it's so fairly self evident.

That said I try to use DDG when I can but I don't lie to myself that I'm using it because it has better results -- it doesn't. It has better approach to privacy and thats why I use it. The fact that they know less about the searcher intrinsitcally means the results of searches will be worse.

<comment><USER20> I sometimes feel that we are in this echo chamber.

These threads always follow the same patterns, someone asks if they know of an alternative search engine and a HNer quickly mentions they have gone to DDG and haven't looked back.

DDG is decent but not even close to the search quality of Google. I know the folks here want to see Google dethroned but DDG won't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google is relatively straight forward to replace. Inexpensive 80% solutions exist for most of their services. Maps is a notable exception.

As for Facebook you're fighting against the greatest network effects in the history of mankind.

<comment><USER22> I had zero issues quitting Facebook but replacing Gmail and Android? That's going to be really tough considering Gmail is my online identify hub and Android facilitates so many utility services (banking, electronic identification, money transfers, etc).

<comment><USER21> Register a domain if you don't already have one and get Fastmail for 5 USD/mo (includes a calendar as well). If Gmail.com is your online identity hub, then you're not in control of your online identity.

<comment><USER22> Right but what about Android? What's the point of setting up email at my own domain - which I already have - when Google can track everything through Android?

<comment><USER21> Hey you're not wrong there. It's atrocious what Google has done to Linux on Android. We badly need an alternative smartphone that's actually built to be a tool rather than an ad optimization platform. Apple is better on that front, but they also want to ram their vision of what a computer is down your throat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unfortunately, it's a lot more difficult to fully switch away from Google than this article gets into. If you use a smartphone, your only real options for OS are Apple and Google. Sure, one can install a custom ROM on an Android phone, but that is well beyond the scope of most people's interest or ability, not to mention that it would lead to warranty issues. If you're using a stock Android phone, Google will know where you all at all times with extreme precision.

</comment><comment><USER24> After ditching Facebook for the past month I've realized it doesn't really _need_ a replacement for it's primary features. For talking to friends I just use messenger and email more, plus I have a blog and I do occasionally cross post blog posts to Facebook.

Google is fairly easy to replace. Aside from occasional second-opinion searches the only google service I use is Gmail and that only from remote clients... I should replace it but I'm just a bit lazy.

<comment><USER25> I'm in the same boat. Left Facebook years ago and realized I was naturally going to keep up with people in my social circles anyway. Email, text, and group messages make it a little bit harder, but the interaction is so meaningful instead of an all you can eat buffet of "social interaction".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> He mentions Brave browser, but Vivaldi browser combined with uBlock Origin (and uMatrix if you're savvy enough) works best for me as I want nothing to do with ads. Telegram is another fantastic messenger.

Concerning social media, you don't really need it: [https://www.quitfacebook.org](https://www.quitfacebook.org).

<comment><USER27> Worth noting that Brave is a open source browser while Vivaldi is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wish well-done XMPP/Jabber clients that do voice come up. If you are an XMPP protocol developer / implementer reading this, thank you for what is there so far. Please don't stop.

If you have been watching the news this week about Jeff Bezos.. I don't like that someone can share a message/picture/video on WhatsApp and crack into a phone. There are too many closed source vendor components in an Android phone even if you're using an open source phone OS like Lineage OS, and these may go stale over time or have something vulnerable in them on purpose.

WhatsApp always seems to need a phone. It works in a web browser in an inconvenient manner that still needs the phone to login. It is a centrally controlled system. While Signal is open source, it is also centrally controlled. I prefer and hope Jabber implementations get much better. Spam for Jabber can be managed the way it is managed for email. Some spam would get through, but it does on WhatsApp too.

Email hasn't gone away or lost its place because it's federated (distributed). It works on multiple platforms, and if you don't like a particular way of doing email, there are a lot of choices. Jabber is similar for instant messaging, but it can do with a renaissance. (I use Jabber at work and home, but the clients I use such as Conversations don't have the features and experience that WhatsApp/Telegram do.)

The oldest and most used services are federated - HTTP, email.. and at the start of a communication - DNS.

WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. are very entrenched services. It's not enough that you move from WhatsApp - your family, friends, businesses that you work with, all have to use the new service you are switching to, so you can chat with them on that other service.

It's easier to switch your search engine. :) DuckDuckGo has worked very well for web search for me. I use it about 95% of the time and Google Search the other 5%.

</comment><comment><USER29> We need a replacement for the universal public forum. In my community, Facebook has essentially become the public square. It's where most of the local public political dialog happens. It's where I get my local news, it's where I find out what my local representatives are doing, and it's where I can converse with them - and the rest of the community - about what local government should be doing.

This is all so valuable that I just can't walk away from it. I would be completely cut out of local events. The news media does an extremely poor job of reporting - and we have an unusually vibrant local news sector (I think in no small part because we have such an active political and governance community on Facebook).

So much of it is network effect, I just don't even know how we'd go about creating it in a new service, even if a new service were created that served the purpose better.

<comment><USER30> Your local news sector has no community/forum functionality?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here's a question: How do we adopt a replacement _and_ avoid creating an identical situation in 10 years?

I wonder how many people donate to/pay for/enable ads on DuckDuckGo, for example.

<comment><USER21> Incentives have to be aligned. Open protocols at a minimum.

<comment><USER32> This. Why ppl can move to another email provider? Because email protocol is public! (even some tricky protocols are added such as DKIM)

So, I hope any new social platform or communication platform has a public interface.to communicate with its replica. Mastodon can be an example but it is not widely spread yet .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For IM there are too many alternatives to count.

For search there are a few, DDG is the best known imo, however, none of them is as good as Google's search engine, especially when it comes to Hebrew (my mother tongue).

As for Facebook itself, the problem is that it's offering now a combination of social media, photo storage, discussion groups and an IM platform - to name a few. It's not easy to make an alternative to something so complex.

</comment><comment><USER34> If you use the Internet, you'll never fully cut Google out of your life. They have their tendrils in damn near every aspect of the Internet whether you know it or not. [https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it- screwed-u...](https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-up- everything-1830565500)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm excited by the [https://planetary.social/](https://planetary.social/) announcement this week.

"We're building an open and humane alternative to Facebook"

[https://mobile.twitter.com/rabble/status/1220075601337315328](https://mobile.twitter.com/rabble/status/1220075601337315328)

<comment><USER36> > Revenue for creators

> Keep some posts back for paid subscribers.

This is not what I want in a Facebook alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's pretty hard to 100% replace Facebook, but a more feasible strategy is a gradual/piecewise approach. Opt for non-Facebook alternatives for certain tasks when you can. Like if you're going to share a photo album with family, you could always email them a link to Flickr/Dropbox/etc instead. Anything that reduces Facebook usage is good.

</comment><comment><USER38> Title mentions alternatives to Facebook, but then doesn't list one?

For anyone looking for something there is Diaspora.

For a twitter alternative check out Mastodon.

<comment><USER39> Also If you have hard time figuring out which mastodon instance to join, I am working on a mastodon aggregator, to help you browse through the content without registering.

[https://mastodonia.club](https://mastodonia.club)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> How can you escape network effects? Not at all. Thats what they are. You cant force the public to leave this abusive relationship with a privately owned main street.

The only thing that could do that- is another layer around the whole eco- system, that subverts it and surplants it. I can not see anyone of the alternatives trying this. Those who pose a real danger (instagram, using the want for generational different medias) are bought.

The only way to escape, is to encourage institutional blindness in big companys. Convince microsoft that a desktop windows needs to be on there cellphones and tablets.

Convince google that no product except of search is actually viable- and these little turtles should all die fast before even reaching the ocean.

Tell facebook, that all that is longterm sellable is user-data, not user- usefullness.

The best way to archieve a new competitor, is internal self-sabotage of market dominant forces.

</comment><comment><USER41> Switch to own hosted searx instance.

[http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/admin/installation.html](http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/admin/installation.html)

One search is sent to multiple search engines and results shown as one. Just go to settings and select qwant and ddg.

<comment><USER42> If it's own hosted, what's the difference?

Whether i send queries to Google from my browser, or from my own hosted Searx instance, it's the same thing: a query from one of my static ip-addresses to Google (or other search engines.)

It seems to only make sense if this Searx instance is public and your queries are mixed with others. And in that case you have to trust whoever runs this Searx instance won't sell your data just like Google does.

<comment><USER41> You got point in your scenario it is just convinient (it still prevents fingerprinting) In mine it mixes 5 people search, is using proxy that goes over vpn to shared ip on other side of europe. And it agregates results, sorts them by results on multiple search engines not just one.

<comment><USER42> > it still prevents fingerprinting

I seriously doubt that, because the % of people using Searx is very small compared to for example Chrome. This should make you very unique in terms of fingerprinting.

Also note that simply changing the User Agent is possible in a browser as well, you don't need a self hosted Searx for that.

<comment><USER41> The search engine has no way of executing any script on you side, 5 people times 2 for two devices per person on my instance means you cant distinct them. Tens of users on other side of vpn, doesnt allow you to distinct on ip and none of useragents pass the proxy (actually squid randomizes them). And generation of random search queries prevents fingerprinting based on search terms. It doesnt allow fingerprinting.

(And no, in my house nobody uses chrome or any google account. They dont need to, they have all the infrastructure, but one of members is complaining from time to time why he doesnt have google play on his phone... :D)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've never used Facebook (or Instagram or any other Facebook technology - as a web developer I've even eschewed React in favor of Vue), so I'd say you don't need anything instead of Facebook. Google on the other hand is a bit tougher for me. I use Firefox instead of Chrome. DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search. iPhone instead of Android. Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. I still use Google Docs, but only for working on files with coworkers - I don't have anything personal in Google Docs (I use a variety of other tools like Evernote and Excel for personal stuff). The one I'd like to move away from, but haven't found a good replacement, is Mail.

</comment><comment><USER44> It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously

<comment><USER45> Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.

<comment><USER46> I've converted most of my friends to Signal. Easy switch.

[edit] The native desktop app is even better than WhatsApp's (doesn't stream data from your phone).

<comment><USER47> I've also got most to switch to Signal. On Android, it's much easier as it can handle both SMS and Signal messages, so there's much less friction for usage.

Group chats are also fairly decent on Signal, I just wish there was a way for an "admin" to exist to moderate users in the group.

<comment><USER48> > I've also got most to switch to Signal. On Android, it's much easier as it > can handle both SMS and Signal messages, so there's much less friction for > usage.

Except my friend's gf could never really see when messages were using data or SMS. And my friend put a stop to the experiment because the linux client was leaking RAM like a dam and we both had sync problems between the phone and the desktop client (we are both huge telegram users for the smooth experience when connecting to your account and for syncing. We both despise the privacy risks though).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> How many organized shilling posts for DDG are enough, @dang? isn't 3 in the top page within 72 hours enough for you or you people too get paid for it?

I am really not surprised that this journalist, just like most who get paid under the table, shilled for 3 of the most disgusting tabloid-tier tech companies of our time with the most aggressive marketing and astroturfing techniques in one article.

</comment><comment><USER50> I am pretty much planning on stopping to use the web at all. The only two sites I would really miss are Wikipedia and StackOverflow. Google's search results got shittier and shittier over the years, and facebook took content filtering to the next level of stupidity while making it possible to spread anti-vaxing propaganda on an unprecedented scale.

</comment><comment><USER51> I started thinking about blocking Google shortly after I (think it was on Google Earth) got shown my current location as a picture of the parking lot outside the apartment I was sitting in. The pix looked like it was taken from 50 feet up.

The clincher: G+ insisting I start using my real name on a 4-year-old Blogger account. SiyoNAHra.

</comment><comment><USER52> (As someone working on an actual alternative to Facebook,) this article seems to _mention_ FB but only really present Google alternatives. That said, I've switched all my default search engines to DDG, which would be even more great if I didn't have to type -yelp for most of my searches.

<comment><USER14> > working on an actual alternative to Facebook

Ditto, would love to hear what direction you're taking it in?

<comment><USER52> The product (not "mine," I'm a part of the team) has millions of users and ridiculously high review scores. We don't have ads or sell user data, but we make it possible for families and close friends to have real relationships despite scheduling issues or different time zones. If you haven't heard of this product, it may be because it's a family-oriented app with less tech- world adoption than mom-adoption. But fundamentally, it's not about feeds, because there's really not a way I can see that that type of UI doesn't take you down a rabbit hole rather than into a positive feeling about yourself and your relationships.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I know this is not an exact replacement for Facebook, but y'all should check [https://storry.io](https://storry.io) We are also planning to add a lot of cool features including end-to-end encrypted chat system.

</comment><comment><USER54> Alternative to social media. See real people in the real world. The social interaction will make you and others happier. Call people via voice instead of texting them its more personal.

Alternative to Google: Use Duckduckgo and a VPN+privacy extensions.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm pretty sure the next thing I want to use is very similar to sandstorm.io, but instead of apps being centralized, they're federated. The OS will moderate the connections between services. The services will just see messages and contacts.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm attempting to start a forum for my friend group using good ole phpbb. Its been an interesting challenge trying to get adoption, but as more of us are dropping facebook, we need a place to coordinate events.

It's been a fun experiment so far.

</comment><comment><USER57> Social media is about the social aspects, the media aspects, or a little of both.

HN and news aggregators covers the media aspect just fine.

Social is a lot harder - you want to know what your old classmates are up to and what interests them.

<comment><USER58> > you want to know what your old classmates are up to and what interests them

Honestly, no I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> My extended family and I are using diasp.eu (a diaspora pod) with paid accounts.

So far it's been working fine, we only need it to share photos in a closed environment.

I haven't had an account at facebook since around 2012.

<comment><USER27> How to you convince the entire extended family that they should use a paid account for something they can do for free, working (functionally on the surface) the exact same way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Increasingly, all Google is learning about me is the junk mail. I get 150 emails a day and one legitimate one everty two to three days. The rest of it is Youtube notifications and newegg sales.

</comment><comment><USER61> I don't have Facebook account and I'm happy with it. Now I"m using only Whatsapp because of all our family in there. I will get rid of whatsapp in few months.

And I'm okay with duckduckgo.

</comment><comment><USER62> As much as I appreciate DDG getting more press, this article is low quality. No alternatives to Facebook are mentioned, only that you can use Signal, & ProtonMail instead of WhatsApp.

<comment><USER21> There's still no realistic alternative to FB. It's a social network, not a service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > Google knows everything you have ever searched for

I thought this was an optional setting. It shouldn't be saving or collecting this data if you have that turned off in your Google account. Hope so!

<comment><USER64> I would assume that while they don't tie your search with your username (when you turn it off), they would still store it anonymously to your location, IP address, browser, etc. to 'improve their results using Machine Learning'.

Theoretically, this could be used to identify you if all those parameters were unique to you

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> People I know are switching to Chinese messaging apps and social networks. There's less negative coverage about them even though their privacy practices may be slightly worse.

</comment><comment><USER66> [https://prism-break.org/en/all/](https://prism-break.org/en/all/) is comprehensive

</comment><comment><USER67> How does search work for end to end encrypted apps/email? If they can't read it, they can't index it either. Does the index live locally?

<comment><USER68> Before IMAP, people stored their own mailboxes locally. I imagine you'd just build local search indexes like Thunderbird back in the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> News media (the bbc, for one huge prime example) can put resources behind its own implementation of ActivityPub. It would be smart to do so.

</comment><comment><USER70> For me, Facebook is useless I could easily avoid Google if I had to. But WhatsApp is frequently unescapable.

</comment><comment><USER71> [https://framalab.org/](https://framalab.org/)

</comment><comment><USER72> [https://runyourown.social/](https://runyourown.social/)

</comment><comment><USER73> A google alternative to gcal would be great

</comment><comment><USER74> Why must i use facebook?

A search engine, ok, but facebook?

<comment><USER15> So you can avoid using a search engine and just ask your "friends" on Facebook whatever you want an answer for and benefit from their collective wisdom? The answers may not be instantaneous, but you'd be connecting with humans instead of with machines.

/sarcasm

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> what's a good alternative to gmail?

<comment><USER76> For email clients, Thunderbird on desktop, FairEmail on Android. All open- source. It should be pretty straightforward for them to deduce what your Gmail SMTP settings are, and you'll be able to add your emails from other providers as well.

If you mean actual email providers, that'll be a bit harder to find. Most of the good ones don't have a free tier. FastMail is solid. ProtonMail has a free tier, but you have to pay to access the IMAP/SMTP bridge (which lets you use it with Thunderbird/FairEmail).

<comment><USER77> One thing that many don't talk about - what about Contacts, presuming we're using the Google Contacts integration? Email for me is kind of useless without being able to manage Contacts right alongside it, which Google integrates extremely well on Android.

<comment><USER76> Yeah, that's very true. I'm not sure what good alternatives there are for Contacts/Calendar/etc. You'd need to find a good service that can sync your CalDAV/CardDavs, as the best part about Google's Contacts is that you simply need to login to your account to get them all back on a new device.

I personally run my own NextCloud instance for that, which is obviously not a viable option for those without the time or technical skills to maintain that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> DuckDuckGo, IRC, and usenet would work.

<comment><USER79> Yes, I use IRC and Usenet; I suggest these and also Unusenet (which, like Usenet, is based on NNTP and can be used with NNTP software). Search is the only function of Google that I use, although I do not need to make searches on Google much. Sometimes I find what I want on Wikipedia, sometimes in local documentations (in man pages and so on), sometimes bookmarked stuff, etc. So, I do not need the Google search so much, but sometimes it is helpful (and sometimes it is worthless; I try to find something but whether I try Google or DuckDuckGo, I cannot find any).

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> What can we use instead of the BBC and NYTimes?

</comment><comment><USER81> DuckDuckGo and nothing.

<comment><USER82> Nothing is actually very decent alternative to facebook. I am using it for seven years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Why are Google and Facebook in the same jail?

What breach of privacy is Google guilty of?

<comment><USER76> Historically speaking, Google is the one who innovates ground-breaking privacy-violating technology, and Facebook copies them a year or two later with much less tact.

<comment><USER83> Name the privacy violating technology. How and please be specific. I can give examples of FB violating user privacy. Cambridge Analytica.

<comment><USER15> There are too many to list. An online search is a better idea.

Here are two instances:

Google was (and probably still is) tracking your location on Android even when you turned off location services and storing it against your account.

Google signed you in automatically into Chrome whenever you signed in to a Google property. This change removed the ability to keep your Chrome browsing data strictly locally. After some Internet outrage, this was reversed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Google maps with Street View, Translate and Search are 3 things I would not want to loose.

FB - If it disappears tomorrow I would not even notice.

<comment><USER85> If it supports the languages you use, deepl.com is as good or better than Google Translate these days.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Anyone interested in a Pittsburgh HN meetup? - <AUTHOR>

Monday, July 19. 8 pm at the Church Brew Works.  This will be the last time we can have a beer with rms (http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rms) who is moving to Berkeley next week.  Let's catch up with each other and give rms an nice sendoff. <comment><USER2> +1 for Church. I'm moving to Columbus in late August and if you have more of them, then I'd be up for hanging out there.

For a moment I thought rms == richard stallman. Sounds good though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ha. The last one was a bit of a letdown. Does anyone know if there is an event going on on that day?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll plan on being there. Didn't know rms was moving out west!

</comment><comment><USER5> Possibly! Added to my calendar just in case...

</comment><comment><USER6> I plan on being there.

</comment><comment><USER7> :) I'll be there.</comment>


What Is Tic Tac Toe? - <AUTHOR> http://cwoebker.com/posts/tic-tac-toe

<comment><USER2> I can't make any sense out of the xkcd figures. How do you mentally navigate them, where do they take you, and what do you know at the end?

<comment><USER3> It's a visual representation of the most optimal tic-tac-toe strategy based on a given game state. Assume you're playing as X, who goes first. The largest X in the whole figure is in the top-left, indicating that that's X's optimal move. Now, let's say O decided to play in the top-middle square. You would "zoom in" on that ninth of the board; the black X and O represent the fact that this is the current state of the game. There is now a large red X in the middle, so that's where you should play your next move. Repeat until the game is over.

<comment><USER2> Thanks, I follow now. I guess I don't have the tic-tac-toe mind.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Privacy-Focused Alternative to Google Docs and Microsoft Word - <AUTHOR> https://docs.arcaneoffice.com <comment><USER2> Can you provide any details as to how it will be free, scalable, and decentralized? The word blockchain doesn't inspire my confidence.

<comment><USER3> It's just a marketing ploy to entice the tech-challenged - you use fancy or obscure words to sweeten the icing on a cheap cake

<comment><USER4> If you are going to have icing why not make it sweet lol

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As we keep hearing about data breach news of big companies like Dropbox or WhatsApp, it is harder for us to keep trusting them with our file and personal data, and it made us think about finding a better way. We believe the best way to keep data secure is not having them in the first place. That's why we choose the server-less solution, in another word, blockchain. Here is a link to our launch on Product Hunt that was #1 of the day! You can find more info, images, and gifs there: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/arcane- docs](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/arcane-docs) Please hit me up with any question and I will be happy to answer.

<comment><USER5> How does blockchain promote privacy? Doesn't it just store the data in a decentralized, permanent way?

<comment><AUTHOR> We use Blockstack for authentication. It is made on Bitcoin blockchain to store your private key that will be used to encrypt all of your stuff. Making the master key will be done just the first time, and after that, every file gets a new password from the master one. No matter what, all the files will be encrypted, so you always have control over your data — something like ProtonMail but for Office.

<comment><USER6> Why are you storing a private key on a blockchain, where the primary purpose of a blockchain is universal visibility?

<comment><AUTHOR> Surly they are encrypted. But I invite you to check Blockstack authentication and how it works.

<comment><USER6> With what key are you encrypting someone else's private key? And who holds this master key?

I would love it if you could link a technical deep dive into how Blockstack fundamentally works because I've gotten very few answers from both implementors and founders, and their existing documentation isn't at all helpful.

<comment> jude- You (the user) hold the master key. It's generated for you when you sign up for a Blockstack ID. From there, the authenticator generates a per-ID, per- application key-pair via BIP32 -- each app key is a hardened child whose path is generated from the key that owns the ID on-chain and the hash of the application's DNS origin.

Authentication happens completely client-side. The Blockstack authenticator registers itself as a protocol handler for the "blockstack:" protocol, such that when you click a sign-in button, you will be redirected to your locally- running authenticator (or to a hosted version of the same, if you don't have the authenticator installed). The authenticator stores your master key, and will derive the ID- and application-specific key-pair for you when you select the ID to sign in as.

Once you sign in, the authenticator redirects you back to the application. The authenticator passes the app the Blockstack ID and application-specific private key via the URL string (encrypted with an ephemeral ECDSA key generated by the app on sign-in), and the blockstack.js library fetches and downloads the user's profile to learn the storage endpoint(s) as part of completing the sign-in. In so doing, the application learns the storage endpoint to which to GET and POST user data, and learns the key to use to sign/encrypt it and to authenticate to the user's preferred storage (access to which is mediated by a Gaia hub that the user selects when onboarding).

Agreed that a deep dive with protocol diagrams would be handy. We're working on it! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would like to see a preview before signing up. Is that possible based on the current app structure?

Being someone who is working on building a text editor myself, I know how many small details make or break the user experience. While the privacy focus is nice, I won't sacrifice the user experience.

Proving that the app state is up to par would be an instant factor to make me switch.

<comment><AUTHOR> The signing up process is simple and free and will not get any unnecessary info, give it a try ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> App idea: iOS/Android/PC/MacOs/ipad/linux clients to encrypt/decrypt documents on Google Docs.

Just encryption -- you don't need the whole blockchain.

Not sure there is a way to do that with Google Docs, though. You need a layer between them. You can use Google Drive of course, but then the client has to come up with all the clever features Docs provides.

<comment><USER9> That would be interesting, especially if generalized to support lots of different storage options - Google Docs/Drive, Dropbox, Github gists, pastebin, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Sign in with Blockstack" \- never heard of that, so won't be signing up.

No way to provide sign-in with e-mail & pw? :(

<comment><USER11> I am really confused how it's supposed to be "decentralized" if you have to have a sign-in with a specific provider to use it.

Can you log in if Blockstack-the-company goes down or has a technical issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Your identity is on the blockchain and that is decentralized so even in that case you or anyone can run a separate node to handle them. Also all the auth library is open source so anyone can work on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I click the login with blockstack button and nothing happens.

<pre> TypeError: "e is undefined" a base64url.js:17 o base64url.js:14 mounted Redirect.vue:69 VueJS 11 cd49 main.ts:9 Webpack 6 </pre>

<comment><AUTHOR> Can I ask what is your browser and its version?

<comment><USER12> The latest firefox on Windows 10 LTSC

<comment><AUTHOR> I can not reproduce the problem, but we will investigate it more. Please check it out later again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just a suggestion:

Give users the option to hide the controls. You already let people hide the formatting, but in order for me to want to use this to write, I would need the ability to hide the top bar ie

BACK TO LIST | HOME | ... | EXPORT & SHARE

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your interest, I noted this, and I will talk with the designers ;) We will contact you when we update it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised of the amount of blockchain hate in the comments from people who haven't even checked out the product...

<comment><USER6> There are some reasons to be skeptical of Blockstack in particular. They make a lot of claims, pump cash into apps without disclosing it's actual source (they claim it's from sales of a subtoken, but aside from a blog post, I can't actually find any evidence of that) and in general have built a JS heavy library that is setup for easy code injection.

None of these apps need a blockchain. None of these apps gain any benefit from a blockchain. Just, I dunno, don't use a giant universally observable blockchain that suffers from the majority issue in order to store private data? Seems easy enough.

<comment> jude- Blockstack engineer here.

Regarding financials, I invite you to read our SEC offering circular for details on the source of the money: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1719379/000110465919...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1719379/000110465919020748/a18-15736_1partiiandiii.htm)

> None of these apps need a blockchain. None of these apps gain any benefit > from a blockchain.

The blockchain serves as a "shared source of truth" for everyone's name/public-key/storage-URL bindings. So as long as you trust that the blockchain doesn't get re-orged, you may assume that your Blockstack node will independently calculate the same such bindings as everyone else's node. All other application activity (rightfully) happens off-chain, via commodity Web infrastructure.

EDIT: typo

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jude for helping out ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting! how are you planning to monetise it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It comes with 10GB free storage, but for more storage, the PLUS plan is needed. Also, we will provide specialized care and hosting for Enterprises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Which office suite are the tools based on?

<comment><USER17> [https://demos.devexpress.com/ASPNetCore/Demo/RichEdit/Overvi...](https://demos.devexpress.com/ASPNetCore/Demo/RichEdit/Overview/)

<comment><USER16> Is this the component in use here?

<comment><USER17> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Title text says "Blockchain-based alternative for Google Docs".

GDPR mandates "right to be forgotten", which afaik isn't very compatible with how blockchains work.

How do you deal with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The encryption key is on the blockchain, but not your files, and you can choose whatever storage provider you want when you sign up. So you are free to remove all your fills, and they will be erased entirely, although they are heavily encrypted and you are the only person that have the keys.

<comment> concert-gilled > you can choose whatever storage provider you want when you sign up

How do you do this? I just went through the sign up and I did not see any such option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'll stick with iCloud.</comment>


"Wolf of Wall Street" warns ICOs are "biggest scam ever" - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/739f8954-b61a-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399 <comment><USER2> Sensationalist headline. Key quote "Probably 85 per cent of people out there don't have bad intentions, but the problem is, if five or 10 per cent are trying to scam you, it's a f __king disaster. "

Even then he is being conservative. The scams are pretty easy to spot...</comment>


Ask HN: Does this AI-marketplace startup have a viable business model? - <AUTHOR> GenesisAI is raising money through a crowdfunding campaign[1] and notably, only three months after raising $908k from a different crowdfunding platform[2].
The founder is telling investors the "revenue target for 2024 is $100M and $200M for 2025."
Can any AI/ML experts comment on their stated business model(s) below and if you believe it is viable $200m business based on a 30% marketplace fee?
- "We would like to lay a foundation for the creation of Artificial General Intelligence and smash the current oligopolistic system of a few large companies basically owning all the AI."
- "Bringing AIs from all around the world to defeat COVID and get humanity back on track."
- "A global AI network that just works"
- "GenesisAI is a Machine Learning protocol. On top of this protocol, we are building a marketplace for AI products and services - an Amazon for AI services. The marketplace, which includes a built-in reputation system, connects companies in need of AI services, data, and models with companies interested in monetizing their AI tech. Initially, GenesisAI is focused on asset management space and recently entered the healthcare sector."
(all quotes from the NetCapital link)
[1] https://netcapital.com/companies/genesisai
[2] https://wefunder.com/genesis.ai <comment><USER2> I can't comment on the valuation but generalized AI (or the belief that it could exist) has some quasi-religious aspects. There are those who think it's inevitable and that some company or companies will actually come up with a general AI (in other words, an intelligence that could, on its own, apply one set of experiences to a different and unrelated field). Personally, I don't this is possible and I wouldn't bet on anyone who says it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> If I were to guess trying to be the Amazon of something that Amazon is already highly engaged in seems like an uphill climb.</comment>


Another.cat - <AUTHOR> http://another.cat/94

<comment><USER2>
        "If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today,
         what would be the most difficult thing to explain
         to them about today?"

        "I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable
         of accessing the entirety of information known to
         man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get
         into arguments with strangers."

[http://as.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15yaap/if_someone_...](http://as.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/15yaap/if_someone_from_the_1950s_suddenly_appeared_today/c7qyp13)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://another.cat/155](http://another.cat/155)

I'm no cat expert, but I don't think that's a cat...

</comment><comment> andrey-p How did they get the domain name I wonder? I thought .cat was reserved for websites that promote the Catalan language and culture.

<comment><USER4> It's quite easy. I own [http://sqr.cat/](http://sqr.cat/) for instance. You just register it through [http://gandi.net/](http://gandi.net/)

The only requirement for .cat is that you need to display a page in Catalan for a minimum of 6 months.

<comment><USER5> Nope, you need to have contents in Catalan in your .cat site, not for six months but forever. I couldn't find this 6-months clause anywhere, and the terms don't mention it at all: [http://fundacio.cat/ca/domini/sobre-el- cat/normativa](http://fundacio.cat/ca/domini/sobre-el-cat/normativa)

Furthermore, they clearly say that violation of the only usage restriction (contents in Catalan) can result in your domain being suspended.

edit: Just a little correction to your text in Catalan: L'idioma català és una llengua bonica. ;)

<comment><USER6> >> I couldn't find this 6-months clause anywhere ..

Actually if you try to add a *.cat domain through gandi.net, they included this clause as a tip-text encoded in the little warning image: "Warning: the registration contract for domain names in this extension require that you publish at least one page in Catalan within 6 months."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In a couple of minutes: Show HN: Post cat images automatically to reddit with nodejs and another.cat

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice work! Does it have an API like thecatapi.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, no API, but that can be put together really quick.

<comment><USER9> You should start at once

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cute</comment>


[Idea Validation]A platform for listing products of AI,ML,Crypto,IoT,AR and VR - <AUTHOR> I am planning to build a product listing website that will help us recognise products which are being built with technologies that have immense scope in future like AI, ML, Cryptocurrency, AR, IoT, VR, Bots.
The core features of the product will enable tech enthusiasts like us to 1) Review and rate the products by voting system 2) Share comments on how they can be better or if they are already on point with business value 3) Startup owners will have a market place to have their products reviewed with people who are technocrats and help them understand the business value in alignment with it's future. 4) We will also facilitate the website where contributors like us will have a platform to write about technical advancement in the field of future tech and help shape the future. Please let me know your thoughts about the same. <comment><USER2> What problem are you trying to solve?

What existing sites/communities do people visit to solve that problem today?

How do you hope what you're proposing will be better than those?

What mechanisms or incentive structures will you deploy to turn that hope into reality?

(You're talking about building a site based on user-generated content. This isn't easy, but maybe you can learn from other sites that have gotten good traction.)

(Also, you're talking about a really wide set of topics. It might be hard to tackle them all at once.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, there is no such problem that we are trying to solve, at this point I believe these technologies are going to be huge and they need individual status for content aggregation which I wish to start with listing their early stage products and subsequently generate content around it.

Since the point where the knowledge for such technologies will be needed has not come yet or as I said there is no such problem that we will solve not at least in phase 1

What I am proposing may not be better but it will be a targeted zone for people interest in all the technologies those have scope in future like the listed above

Incentives, this is a tricky one. In all honesty, we are still figuring that out. I agree with you on the fact user-generated content product is definitely not easy to build however we see potential here. Also, the topics are too wide to handle but initially since they haven't grown too much we may be able to cover it this point in time and scale them with product growth.

<comment><USER3> Your words like "targeted" sound like a pure spam to me. If you are genuinely helping people, "targeted" has no place, unless you are creating a marketing spam!

<comment><USER2> The description is hard to parse, but I agree it doesn't seem focused on solving a problem or creating value for users. Rather to build an audience or page views for <something>.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I need to work more on how can I make the description more convincing so that it can convey the true intentions behind the business model. Thanks for the help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well, the difference may not be in the core the business but it is certainly to in the type business niche the platform will cater too. In addition with some flagship features that revolve around practical challenges that have yet not been addressed. Definitely, it would be tough to stand out here but our target user will very easily relate the difference.

</comment><comment><USER3> How you are different from ton of such other websites?</comment>


AlterConf: How a Conference on Diversity Made Me Feel Uncomfortable - <AUTHOR> http://donpottinger.net/blog/2015/03/05/alterconf.html

<comment> D-Train Great post highlighting what you learned from the AlterConf, as well as sharing some of those stories of the presenters. This resonates me in a couple ways, at least, immediately in my mind:

1\. Dr. Cox's story... My business school recently appointed a new dean who is a black woman. She's the first dean of a Top 20 program, and one that created all sorts of ripples for her, the business school (and greater university), alumni, etc. Can't say that Dr. Cox and the new Dean share similar stories, but there was much ado about her being a black woman. Perhaps that's a good thing, though, when it comes to opening the door for openness later.

2\. Being an Asian male, there are some annoying stereotypes. I was thinking about this the other day how I don't feel there are powerful Asian male or female role models. Also, there's this cultural norm for being a little "quieter". When you bake all these ideas (and others) together, there seems to be a lack of "power" and respect given to Asian groups. So much so, that I feel it also creates associations and clubs that aren't as vocal or "extroverted" as other organizations like the NAACP or _insert any number of Women 's groups_. Smart? Sure. Strong? Not so much. I think the new show "Fresh Off the Boat" is trying to put an Asian family in the spotlight, but even then, it feels... weak. As in, the dad seems so shy and quiet... good father, hard working, but there isn't this feeling of strong like other characters in other shows. Maybe I'm reaching for too much for a single show, but it'd be great to have stronger Asian role models. At the end of the day, it feels as if many Asians don't actually relate or band together into a stronger "coalition".</comment>


90% of US credit card readers are secured using the same password (since 1990) - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/29/technology/credit-card-machine-hack/index.html

<comment><USER2> Yep, a major US news organization has just published the passwords used by 90% of all credit and debit card readers. And deserve loud praise for doing so because the passwords are already all over the Web.

About. Fucking. Time.

Kudos to CNN for ball and/or ovaries.

(Though I wish they'd kill their autoplay video.)</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a problem if STEM wages are kept low because of H1B workers? - <AUTHOR>

Ask HN: Is there really a problem if STEM wages are kept low because of H1B workers?
I guess I have trouble understanding this: Many claim that there is no shortage of STEM workers in the US. And they cite the stagnant wages for this.
My question is, if there are enough STEM workers in the US, why wouldn't they take up the jobs, even if the wages are low? Would they prefer unemployment over a low paying job?
On the other hand, if they prefer taking up jobs which pay higher and for which they're also qualified, what's the harm in that? Are they really hurt by the low STEM wages at all, then? Who is getting hurt by this system, if at all? <comment><USER2> There are many ways to answer. To start with, "why wouldn't they take up the jobs, even if the wages are low?" There aren't the jobs. There are twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs, and there are people working STEM jobs without degrees.

The most classical economic response is that it's collective action: if no one takes a lower wage position then the wage will stay high. Remember,

> the goal of many employers is to keep wages in check by using immigration to > increase the supply of workers. Alan Greenspan certainly has made this > point. Speaking at a U.S. Treasury conference on U.S. Capital Markets > Competitiveness in 2007, Greenspan argued that, "Our skilled wages are > higher than anywhere in the world. If we open up a significant window for > skilled guest workers, that would suppress the skilled-wage level and end > the concentration of income." Greenspan believes that reducing wages for > skilled workers, including those in STEM fields, has a number of desirable > policy outcomes. Given how active many STEM employers have been in pushing > for increases in immigration, they appear to agree with the former Federal > Reserve chairman that immigration limits wage growth. - [http://cis.org/no- > stem-shortage](http://cis.org/no-stem-shortage)

It is the _goal_ of most businesses to pay low wages. It is the _goal_ of employees to earn high wages. Idealistically, the government is supposed to balance these factors for the benefit of the nation as whole.

Or I can answer psychologically: from the ultimatum game we know that people will reject offers which are seen as 'unfair', and we also know that people tend to rank more highly those like themselves. Hence, giving smaller amount of money to foreign workers, instead of more money to local workers, seems unfair.

You could see it as class-ist: people who went to college expect to have a middle or upper-middle class job, so won't take a job which pays lower. I know one marriage which broke up partially because of this factor.

Or a debt fatigue issue: paying off high student loans on a $30K/year is much harder than on $60K/year, and being in major debt for decades can wear one down and make one irritated over the situation.

Or bait-and-switch: we were told that a computer engineering degree would be worthwhile, and spent years working to get the degree, only to find out we were told a lie, and now we want to take the anger out.

Or a control one: a company may prefer to hire a foreign worker, whose employment and residency both depends in part on the whim of the employer, vs. a local worker who is more free to speak out about illegal or improper working conditions. (This is an aspect of keeping wages low, but I think it's important to point out in its own right.)

Or a loss-of-passion issue: you implied the only tradeoff was between employment or low-paying job and that money was the key issue. If the STEM job pays too low, people will work in other fields, even if they would rather be working in the career they were trained for and love. If you need the money for your family you'll take a boring, soul sucking job for the extra $10,000/year. The exchange rate between money and happiness is not so clear cut as you suggest.

</comment><comment><USER3> "My question is, if there are enough STEM workers in the US, why wouldn't they take up the jobs, even if the wages are low? Would they prefer unemployment over a low paying job?"

They _do_ take up the resulting lower paying stem jobs if they can find them.

If there isn't enough demand for STEM workers, their wages are depressed. If you make your living doing STEM stuff, this Isn't Good. It's great for employers though. That is why they love the virtual indentured servant system (H1B).

Think about it. How would you feel if _your_ wages were lowered because employers colluded to lower them by saying "We don't have enough workers!." \- when there were already plenty? They just wanted _cheaper_ workers in order to accrue and even larger portion of the wealth form themselves.</comment>


Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth on dueling open-source foundations - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/canonicals-mark-shuttleworth-on-dueling-open-source-foundations/ <comment><USER2> Isn't this a bit ironical coming from the creator of Ubuntu that provided a foundation dueling Debian?

As a user I see myself as a gainer from the Debian/Ubuntu or GCC/Clang duels.</comment>


Words and chords: The semantic shifts of the Beatles' chords - <AUTHOR> http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME03/Words_and_chords.shtml

<comment><USER2> This includes some really neat examples of unorthodox chord changes in deceptively simple songs. But then the author goes off the deep end, alleging to have found overall patterns in these chords and coming out with a grand theory of how they relate to the songs' lyrics and emotions. This is typical of the poppycock that critics and academics invent. The piece is its own reductio ad absurdum.

Despite this, it contains interesting concrete observations, like that the Beatles blended their vocal harmonies with their more dissonant chords to make them sound right. That's pretty cool. But musicians do this by feel, and the way critics think doesn't (in my opinion) match the way art really works.

Anyway, thanks for one of the more unusual posts here in a long time. I'd never have run across it otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author lost me around the time I noticed there was no reference to Dominic Pedler's work on the subject in the bibliography.

</comment><comment><USER4> I read the news today, oh boy.

It was _not_ hacker news.

ED: For all you beatle noobs <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZez_k4vAzU>

<comment><USER2> Certainly, hackers have nothing to do with music, and aren't much interested in anything outside their techie little sphere.

Edit: it hardly matters, but I didn't downmod you, I just disagree.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are SMS verification codes typically numeric? - <AUTHOR> I am in the process of implementing an SMS verification process for an old website of mine and got to thinking about why most SMS verification codes (even those send by Google) typically consist of only numbers?
Surely an alpha-numerical code would be much more secure than a numeric code?
The only reason I can think of for numeric codes being prevalent is that perhaps latin/ascii alphabetical characters aren't readily available to keyboards around the world, while decimal numbers are?
Can you think of any reason why I should not implement alpha-numeric SMS verification codes? <comment><USER2> Much faster to type (and hence, much more likely to ever be typed).

</comment><comment><USER3> Because most people can have a single look at 5 numbers and remember them for a few seconds (until they finish typing them) without having to re-look at their phone for each character.

</comment><comment><USER4> Having a time and submission limit seems much more valuable than complex codes. 30 seconds and 1 failure seems acceptable for usability for a quick 6 digit input.

</comment><comment><USER5> they are faster to type from a feature phone.

verification codes don't have to be long. 4-7 numbers with limited amount of retry is plenty.

<comment><AUTHOR> >they are faster to type from a feature phone.

My customers are entering the verification phones through a computer keyboard, they are only _receiving_ the SMS verification messages to their mobile phone once so I can verify that they own a phone.

Unless you were assuming that their "browser" they would be entering the verification code into is on their feature phone?</comment></comment>


Ontario wrongly separated families on results of Motherisk hair-testing program - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2018/03/05/motherisk-hair-testing-program-was-junk <comment><USER2> There is one simple technique that would allow nearly any forensic analysis technique to be assessed. It would detect the difference between good science (DNA) and junk science (forensic hair matches). It would work down to the level of the individual laboratory (as in this example) or individual laboratory researcher (Annie Dookhan). And it would only cost 10% extra.

That technique is blind testing with published results. 10% of all submissions to the testing lab would be test samples -- a mix of a bunch of known negative samples (from individuals completely unrelated to the crime in question) and a few known positive samples (perhaps from someone already convicted with overwhelming evidence). The lab would not be told which samples were tests and which were "real", and the test samples would be evenly distributed (10% of the submissions from each department; 10% of the "rush" submissions, etc.). Finally, the results reported on these test samples would be made publicly available.

Although this simple, effective, and cheap method would completely transform forensic practice, it will not be implemented. The reason is incentives. The parties involved in forensics are the police or prosecutors and the labs. Both have an incentive to identify the guilty. The accused have a countervailing interest (in correctly determining innocence), but they are not part of the transaction, so their interests are not represented. In fact, the entire system is incented to find people guilty, not to correctly assess people's guilt. So most in the system are actually DISincented to discover and debunk junk science.

<comment><USER3> Something could trivially be done to the same effect. A private party, say an investigative journalist, could submit a number of samples and report on the results (perhaps that happened in this case and that's why we know about it?). But to keep costs under control, instead of testing like this on every lab on a regular basis, that private party could randomly select labs for testing. While they're at it, they'd probably prefer to select labs with complaints, rather than a random sample. And at that point, you have something resembling the system we currently operate under, which has--to be fair--been completely successful (if a bit later than ideal) in identifying this problem lab. But as taxpayers, is it worth instituting a new regulated program over this essentially free solution?

Besides, this seems like a case of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Successfully identifying a problem lab--albeit tardily--is a signal the system is working; not that it needs a complete overhaul. Rather consider what completely unrelated problems would benefit from regulatory oversight at a higher return on investment. Focus on those, not on a solved problem.

<comment><USER4> You're assuming there aren't any other problem labs that haven't or won't be discovered. How expensive are these tests? How much of the police's budget is it? Surely you know these things if you are talking return on investment, because you must know these things to actually know what your return on investment is.

25 years is a long time to be improperly ripping apart families. Is there a point at which it becomes a problem? Death tardily solves all your problems after only 80 years, so I assume somewhere between 25 and 80.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying it isn't a problem, only that we need to pick and choose where our dollars go. Is this really a better investment than, say, increased funding for public broadcast programming that might discover this kind of thing in a less directed way? That way you don't end up with yet another obsolete program hanging around costing money when this problem is no longer relevant.

And I think the onus is on the suggester to provide data to prove ROI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did anyone else think this article is saying that hair testing is "junk science"?

That's _not_ what the report [1] actually says. The independent review actually found specific flaws in the way the Motherisk laboratory was performing these tests, such as failure to wash hair samples, non standard hair lengths, misinterpretation of test results, failure to communicate the limits of the tests, and the lack of proper forensic procedures such as adequate records, oversight, and chain of custody.

1: [https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs...](https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/about/pubs/lang/)

<comment><USER6> To a lay person in a situation like this, how does the distinction you make (between bad science and an incompetent application) imply an actual difference? Parents got stripped of their children because of some "scientific" process that the court relied upon.

<comment><USER7> Bad execution can and should be improved upon. Bad science (eg, matching bullets to guns) needs to be thrown onto the trash heap of history.

The former can be debunked on a case by case basis. The latter needs to be categorically banned from judicial proceedings.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that ballistic fingerprinting is entirely bullshit?

<comment><USER9> I don't know if that's what OP is saying, but it seems fair to say that it's at least _enough_ bullshit that it should probably never be used as evidentiary.

The states who pioneered its adoption (New York and Maryland) have both abandoned it for being costly and ineffective. The FBI has abandoned comparative bullet lead analysis for similar reasons[1]. The National Academy of Sciences found the tests to be "full of holes", and that not enough study was being done to ensure its reliability, which was a finding that the United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under Obama concurred with.

The general consensus now seems to be this[2]:

> An understanding of the metallurgical principles operative in the > melting/casting process as well as the data acquired for this study, > indicate that any forensic conclusions which associate unknown bullets with > the "same source", and/or "same box" should fail most or all Daubert > criteria.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/11...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/11/17/AR2007111701681.html)

[2] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037907380...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073802001184?via%3Dihub)

<comment><USER10> >it seems fair to say that it's at least enough bullshit that it should probably never be used as evidentiary.

Doesn't this also apply to eyewitness testimony, if not many other forms of evidence?

<comment><USER11> Yes, ballistic fingerprinting was just brought up as an example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> IT is incredible how major decisions are taken because of this bad experts, the science community needs to find a way to properly handle this "forensic science" before someone invents a mind reader that will detect if you have bad thoughts like pedophilia or similar and destroys more lives.

Probably you will need some system similar to physics where you can claim something is true untill you have a big confidence in your experiments and the experiments are replicated.

<comment><USER13> It's called the scientific method.

Unfortunately, the people passing judgment (judges, lawyers, juries) are generally not scientists, and therefore are equally likely to believe the guy with the paedo-dowser as the next guy.

Unreliable witnesses are as old as the justice system - "science" gives them a veneer of respectability now, just as it has in the past.

I see two problems, neither of which have an easy solution:

1) scientific literacy is dire, and worsening. Education helps, but when anti- science sentiment runs rife in popular culture and media, as it does now, education is met with resistance. I have been reduced to a gibbering wreck trying to explain to otherwise intelligent people that science isn't "just an opinion", and that astrology and astronomy aren't "just different, equally valid opinions".

2) the concept of the jury trial is broken. It used to be that you would be tried by your peers - people who likely knew you, had a similar background to you, could empathise and make judgments based on a clear understanding of your world. Now, you're tried by strangers who have usually been carefully selected to be as hostile as possible without an outright admission of bias. I think there's a happy medium somewhere between the two, as there are obviously biases in both cases.

<comment> loup-vaillant > _I have been reduced to a gibbering wreck trying to explain to otherwise > intelligent people that science isn't "just an opinion", and that astrology > and astronomy aren't "just different, equally valid opinions"._

A short sarcastic laughter would probably have worked better. If people sense their status is lowering because they believe in this "equally valid opinions" nonsense, they will have a strong incentive to update their belief.

Of course, many will be offended, in which case I recommend turning the sarcastic laugh into a benevolent, condescending smile, with perhaps an appeal to their intelligence to soften the blow. Ideally though, you should spin it as if you were ridiculing a third party. This lets them avoid direct confrontation if they so chose, and you still get to make your point.

In any case, they cannot be taught as long as they subscribe to epistemic relativism. They first have to get rid of it, _somehow_. Doesn't matter if it's for the wrong reasons. Only then can they be taught how to properly change their mind.

<comment><USER14> > offended, in which case I recommend turning the sarcastic laugh into a > benevolent, condescending smile

Acting condescendingly will only serve to make people think you are a condescending git.

<comment> loup-vaillant Not if you have higher status to begin with. Not if you are their friends to begin with. And if you merely have power over them, they will notice that their beliefs will attract the contempt of people who have power over them. Of course, this probably won't work on public web forums. Of course, this won't work on your boss. Of course, this will not work well on strangers.

Then again, the best way to do it is to act as if you were ridiculing a third party. If they get offended, try not to notice, and direct your condescension at those other people you're pretending they're talking about. Give them a way to save face.

Whatever the means, the idea is to stress that epistemic relativism is not socially acceptable. Make them feel that thinking such thoughts has consequences.

<comment> loup-vaillant The downvote suggests I said something unacceptable. Maybe it was this:

> _Make them feel that thinking such thoughts has consequences._

I do not condone actually carrying out dire consequences, we've had enough dictatorships to show us how this plays out. I'm talking about manipulating people. A little. Because nothing more innocuous that I know of will do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _Just believe the parents_ seems like it may not always be the best policy either. There's some really terrible parents out there. I don't know off hand whether the numbers suggest more people are affeted by bad science and government overreach, or bad parents and government indifference, but I feel this blog is probably on the wrong side of the argument, even if there's areas everyone should agree on (no junk science for example).

Though the blogger doesn't actually say believe the parents, they say believe the mother (well, they say "don't automatically discount the mother" which in context appears to be a weaselly way of saying the same thing) which is a bit more specific. One of the cases seems to involve an accusation from a husband, that the test backed up. So even if the lab was tossing coins to come up with their results, we also have to assume a husband and father lied about his child's mother's behaviour.

<comment><USER16> Taking a child away from a family is one of the worst violations a government can subject someone to, all the way up there with imprisonment. The argument isn't a binary choice between trusting the mother or not, it's to raise the bar for evidence significantly - which is what I take don't automatically discount the mother" to mean.

This should be treated like a criminal matter, with the same standards of evidence. If we're comfortable letting a criminal go free of prison because guilt can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (and we should, for the record), we should be comfortable letting a child stay with its parents until the parents inability to care is established beyond a reasonable doubt. Or at the very least, the parents in question should have a court appointed defence lawyer.

<comment><USER17> I was with you until this:

 _If we 're comfortable letting a criminal go free of prison because guilt can't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (and we should, for the record), we should be comfortable letting a child stay with its parents until the parents inability to care is established beyond a reasonable doubt._

The difference is that in one scenario it's about punishing something that happened and is done and in the other it's to prevent ongoing/future harm. If you've seen some of the things parents are willing to do to their own kids, you would see why it's not that simple.

<comment><USER18> > The difference is that in one scenario it's about punishing something that > happened and is done and in the other it's to prevent ongoing/future harm.

Letting a criminal go free (think serial-murderer, rapist) is just as valid an argument for future harm.

I don't see why you treat these 2 cases differently.

<comment><USER19> The legal requirements to restraining an individual to prevent some future violence with a known specific potential victim (eg. restraining order, arrest) are lower than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.

The rights of a child to be abused and the rights of a parent to not have their child be taken away are both very important. It's my subjective impression that the "child abused" case is much more common than the "child taken away where no abuse occurred" case. I see no reason that our laws should be biased in favor of letting that case occur.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >Motherisk disingenously argues its tests were meant for "clinical" use only

They would've known their tests were being used in a court of law. They could've stopped this and they didn't. I hope they face consequences.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure they would even need to have known (add a big fat disclaimer to test results and be done with it)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The "family court" system in Ontario is provided by Social Justice Tribunals Ontario, a system of kangaroo courts set up to handle all the icky things Ontarians would rather not think about deserving a fair trial.

<comment><USER23> Kangaroo court? Based on what?

<comment><USER24> Family courts have different, less stringent standards than other parts of the legal system, even less than the civil part, which is why people could call them kangaroo courts.

For example, you could appeal a traffic ticket decision, but appealing a family court decision could be fairly difficult to impossible task in some jurisdictions.

"As you will learn from reading our interviews, in most states a "temporary" decision made at a 10-minute hearing is generally unappealable and, from a practical point of view, permanent. How reliable is the information that a judge receives? Judge Duncan headlines one section "Lies Usually Go Unpunished."

[http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Litigation](http://www.realworlddivorce.com/Litigation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0)

John Oliver did a special about forensic science. The skit at the end is hilarious.

</comment><comment><USER26> Even if true, the lone fact that a person had abused a substance (or not abused but used - taking a substance without a prescription doesn't imply abusing, there actually are some people capable of conscious and constructive substance usage) means nothing and should never be used against the person in any way. Separating families for just this alone is ridiculous. You still are to prove that the person has developed actual addiction/habit, aggressive behavior and really harms anyone but him/herself in any way (more than the sanctions will harm them).

<comment><USER27> "You still are to prove that the person has developed actual addiction/habit, aggressive behavior and really harms anyone but him/herself"

Nope.

If you get a minute, I would watch this video on child protective services:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETfgoSmTHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ETfgoSmTHI)

<comment><USER26> I don't mean it actually works this way (one actually has to prove the problem is real, serious and actually affects the children to remove them), I mean it should work this way (I've taken a look at the video, the first ⅓ of it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just as an FYI, Motherisk is a much larger program than just it's drug testing lab (which is closed as of 2015). It's primary purpose is teratogen (study of abnormalities of physiological development) information service providing up- to-date information about the risk and safety of medications and other exposures during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Translation: Info distribution on the pharmacology of medications on kids. I.e. is it safe to take Advil while breastfeeding? This kind of information changes as the latest studies are done and motherisk has people take studies and translate them to opinions mothers can use.

I've personally used their info and it's been very useful. Their drug testing lab scandal is a travesty and should be condemned, but other offerings of motherisk are scientifically sound. Did you know cough syrup for children is ineffective and shouldn't be given? It's a new thing apparently.

Off-Topic: Why the hell motherisk decided to run a drug testing lab is beyond me. It has nothing to do with its original MO.

</comment><comment><USER28> i'm more involved in forensics than, uh, apparently the rest of you.

i suggest that when thinking about the various forensic "sciences", a good way to think about their reliability is "was this concocted for purely legal reasons, or is this a bunch of normal scientific/medical techniques bent to forensic purposes?" that will quickly let you divide things up into "bullshit" and "not bullshit".

bite marks, tool marks, firearm testing? all concocted to generate convictions; bullshit. nobody uses any of those things for anything except legal cases.

forensic toxicology, drug chemistry, dna? normal science bent to forensic purposes; not bullshit. those were all developed elsewhere, by scientists doing real science, and then later applied to legal cases.

can the folks doing the testing go bad? yes. the best and only way to address that is for the defense in cases to bring in their own independent experts, and do their own testing if enough sample remains.

at least in the US, the best way to make that happen is to fund public defenders better, which solves all sorts of other problems, too.

</comment><comment><USER27> There are also people rotting in US prisons for 'bite mark analysis'.

[https://theintercept.com/2016/09/07/white-house-report- concl...](https://theintercept.com/2016/09/07/white-house-report-concludes- that-bite-mark-analysis-is-junk-science/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Well, what to say about a country that forces men to pay child support to ex- stepchildren?

</comment><comment><USER30> There's also shaken baby syndrome that has come under scrutiny recently:

> "Our main finding is that there's very low-quality scientific evidence for > the claim," says Niels Lynöe, a specialist in general medicine at the > Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and leader of the team, whose report was > published last month. "You can't use these studies to say that whenever you > see these changes in the infant brain, the infant has been shaken – it's not > possible according to current knowledge."

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230994-100-evidence...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230994-100-evidence- of-shaken-baby-questioned-by-controversial-study/)</comment>


"Kill the Sidebar" concept for WordPress bloggers - <AUTHOR> http://daze.nordwoodthemes.com/ <comment><USER2> Did away with my sidebar long ago.. [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/)

It has become an unnecessary distraction for the eye. More room and better use made for content! Kill the sidebar!</comment>


Introducing Ivy: a new smart contract language - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chain.com/announcing-ivy-playground-395364675d0a <comment><USER2> Tell us about capability-safety. Tell us about how you'll avoid plan interference. Tell us about about what makes this language fundamentally safe and not just hard-to-use.

</comment><comment><USER3> A step in the right direction. I'm still waiting for a TLA+-like language where you can build proofs for high level custom properties like "Robust to some parts of the contract being indefinitely delayed".

</comment><comment><USER4> what's a chain.com? I've never heard of them. Ethereum competitor?

<comment><USER5> looks like a private blockchain being sold as an on prem product to financial institutions

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone know how to do mathematical operations on an Amount? I can't seem to do this ie:

amountRequired: Amount amountNeeded: Amount

then...

verify amountRequired * 3 == amountNeeded

Any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER7> Is it Turing-complete or not?

<comment><USER8> Are there any useful contracts you might write that require Turing completeness?

<comment><USER2> Sure. For example, you might specify a contract which happens to require a solution to a Diophantine equation be generated for a certain handful of coefficients. This is known to scale up in complexity to Turing-completeness. [0] An example equation might govern the exchange or transfer of some resources, in which the contract only accepts a resource exchange which is equivalent in value.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_tenth_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert's_tenth_problem)

<comment><USER9> Even in this... implausible scenario, the contract would only need to verify the solution to the equation. The party creating the transaction would then be responsible for generating a solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> oh lovely, now you need to release tokens so we can ponzifi it

<comment><USER11> Or... they can release tokens so we can fund its continued research and development.</comment></comment>


Auto industry's fastest microprocessor is 128Mhz, with 3MB of flash - <AUTHOR> http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/news/news_detail.brand_gm.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2010/Nov/1109_gm_buick

<comment><USER2> _Three meg of flash memory and 128 MHz clock speed doesn't sound like a lot in terms of computing power until you consider the environment these controllers have to live in...Unlike most home entertainment and electronic devices, our controllers are made to operate reliably up to 260 degrees (127C) and down to -40 degrees (-40C) for the life of the vehicle_

On top of that, the ECU has to be completely sealed from dust and moisture, so cooling fans are out, they can only use heat sinks. Anyone who's used a laptop in a country like the Philippines knows that when it gets hot, you start to see glitches and slowdown. You can't have that in a car's computer, because lives are at stake. It's pretty impressive that they can design a piece of electronics that can withstand that much abuse and expect it to last 10-15 years without issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> You see this in a lot of industries for various reasons -- space hardware especially (in part due to rad-hard requirements but also due to programmer reluctance to move away from old architecture).

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly - people already know about the bugs. Just to give an example, the Core Duo errata list is 53 pages long and still growing:

<http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/specupdt/309222.htm></comment></comment>


De-duplicating Primary Storage - <AUTHOR> http://storagemojo.com/2008/09/30/de-duplicating-primary-storage/ <comment><AUTHOR> The next wave of file systems should have block-level compression (like gzip) plus automatic block-level de-duplication.

ZFS and NTFS can already compress your data transparently; on my computer, I am getting 50% compression without any reduction in performance.

Windows Server 2003+ has "Single Instance Storage" that does de-duplication of entire files.

ZFS has an open issue in its issue tracker for this feature, and the foundation work for it (block checksumming) is already in ZFS: [http://bugs.opensolaris.org/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6...](http://bugs.opensolaris.org/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6677093).

I am a Mozy user and their tech support told me that they already use de- duplication to cut storage costs. A single client only has to send each unique block (over all files on all computers on the account that use the same encryption key) once to the server, and that block is shared across all files on all computers on the account. The results: backups are faster because less data is sent, costs are lower because less storage space is used and less bandwidth is consumed. (Mozy told me they don't do compression.)</comment>


When the Checkpoints Come - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-police-state-america/608365/ <comment><USER2> "Americans are a unique people, our spirit cut from a different cloth than that of other nations."

How rich and deep thought! :)</comment>