GoodData threatens our student startup with lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://www.start2cloud.com/the-$28-5-million-backed-company-gooddata-threatens-our-student-startup-start2cloud-com-with-lawsuit.aspx <comment><USER2> It appears this would be litigated overseas, but I'd like to speculate based on sound legal principles that should hopefully apply anywhere.

I fail to see what sort of claim GoodData would bring against Start2Cloud. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Start2Cloud did violate the GoodData terms of service by signing up for the purpose of writing a review. What remedies would be available?

According to the GoodData TOS (<http://www.gooddata.com/terms-of-use>), GoodData could terminate Start2Cloud's account. But I don't see anything about GoodData collecting damages for something like this. So suppose GoodData does sue for breach of contract. How can they calculate damages? How can they demonstrate quantifiable harm arising from Start2Cloud's use of the service?

Normally, I'd expect to see a libel suit threatened in a situation like this. But there was no mention of that in GoodData's message. Apparently, they're basing their threats entirely on the TOS, which don't seem to offer a viable cause of action.

<comment><USER3> Why would it be litigated overseas? The TOS explicitly state that they're governed by US law, which (oh my!) is clear that truth is an absolute defense to libel. So IANAL but yes, all they have is a civil claim with no stipulated damages.

<comment><USER2> Based on the OP, it seems that both parties are overseas. But you're right about the TOS. I think it could go either way.

<comment><USER3> You're right - perhaps, even though their threat letter mentions the TOS, their legal strategy is based on the laws of their country instead (e.g. maybe they have a libel law that's more plaintiff-friendly than the US).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Simply replace your GoodData reviews with a notice saying you had to take them down after GoodData threatened you with legal action.

You are off the hook because you have complied with their demands, and potential customers will read between the lines, and assume the reviews were not flattering.

Assuming your site is well regarded, this will seriously hurt GoodData, and should also stop any other vendors trying the same trick in the future.

<comment><USER5> I second what you say.

This fragment below struck me as a particularly bad piece of logic/causation thinking.

"In such a case we will have to comply with the request of GoodData, which would most likely mean the end of our business, because we will be unable to continue in our mission of providing you with an unbiased and unrestricted description of cloud computing services (...)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disregarding the strange EULA, why are they calling themselves _a student startup_ , when the founders got their master's degrees 20 years ago and it's nearer to a corporate purchase guide than a startup (as in groundbreaking, repeatable, scalable)?

<comment><USER7> "formed by students of University of Economics in Prague and me as their teacher"

Not sure about other students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Heh, this should be 'competitor threatens lawsuit, hands over PR bonanza.'

Never fun to be threatened of course but when you can use it to enhance your visibility, well that is kinda priceless.

<comment><USER9> I don't see how these two companies are competitors. Start2Cloud appears to be akin to a directory or online magazine centered around providing information on "Cloud" services from many companies.

GoodData appears to be providing some sort of data collection and analysis services.

GoodData would just be another company/service reviewed by Start2Cloud, no?

<comment><USER10> Yes, the point seems to be exactly that --- how ridiculous the terms of use are which prevent a media review, acting as if they are competitors.

Why would a (seemingly) strong, funded business-startup be scared of competitors using their service? Is their business model that precarious?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Potential customers would be wary of overly restrictive EULA and lawsuit-happy companies.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really doubt this would be enforceable in an American court. The question is, can a little guy with no lawyers actually win the case if a motion is admitted by a judge?

<comment><USER3> I feel like the EFF could step in here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Fantastic, GoodData wants to put a nail in the coffin of clickwrap contracts. Petard, meet hoist.

<comment><USER14> Are they even legally enforceable? I know at least in the UK that a contract cannot supersede any statutory rights or existing legislation, any any offending clause is null and void.

Not that I could name what that particular EULA infringes, but I would hope it gets laughed out of court.

<comment><USER9> This is a really tricky legal area. There have been a very limited number of real cases involving EULA terms like this (and I'm not sure any have been decided at a trial), and there will be wide variability between jurisdictions.

You can, in principle, contract away your right to speak on a well-defined subject, at least in the USA (I believe all common law jurisdictions permit this to one degree or another). Consider NDAs, for example.

What terms like these get into, however, is a question of fairness and equity. Terms that are almost certain to come up in common law jurisdictions are "contract of adhesion", "unconscionability", "fair dealing", and most importantly, "consideration".

Just skim the Wikipedia entries for those terms and you'll quickly see how complex and subjective this gets.

<comment><USER13> Lori Drew was acquitted on appeal where she was initially convicted of violating the CFAA, largely through exceeding MySpace's TOU.

<comment><USER9> That's a criminal matter, there's no applicability to a civil action.

<comment><USER3> Plus, an amendment has been adopted that decriminalizes acts against the TOS (though I guess it has not yet passed the full Senate):

[http://cdt.org/blogs/joshua-gruenspecht/169senate-tweaks- bil...](http://cdt.org/blogs/joshua-gruenspecht/169senate-tweaks-bill-terms- service-no-longer-terms-felony)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a good example of hilarious EULA terms. I imagine start2cloud would win, but I don't blame them for not wanting the enormous hassle.

<comment><USER16> Oracle does the same. You can't publish benchmark results without their permission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This must be high in the runnig for "the stupidest EULA agreement" contest somewhere. If it doesn't exist yet, please someone start one...

<comment><USER18> it's not unique on the Web:

[http://www.google.co.uk/search?gcx=c&ie=UTF-8&q=%22I...](http://www.google.co.uk/search?gcx=c&ie=UTF-8&q=%22In+addition%2C+you+may+not+access+the+Service+for+purposes+of+monitoring+its+availability%2C+performance+or+functionality%2C+or+for+any+other+benchmarking+or+competitive+purposes.%22)

<comment><USER19> I guess I shouldn't be that surprised to see the extent to which companies literally copy/paste their EULA's. Perhaps the silver lining is that one instance of this contract language being rendered illegal would presumably set a precedent that invalidates all duplicated instances of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Has he never heard of the Streisand effect? "Please stand by for a demonstration of relevancy."

</comment><comment><USER20> I would add their ridiculous claims and threats to your review and tell them that you just don't agree with their ToS, and as such will now stop using their services.

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, how horrendously awful must GoodData's services be to require language like that in their TOS and actions like this?

</comment><comment><USER22> "Interesting reaction" by the GoodData CEO which is also Board Member/Advisor of the German Hackfwd incubator:

<http://hackfwd.com/people#roman-stanek>

</comment><comment><USER23> So basically their EULA says: "You can use but you can't judge."

How's that even enforceable?

</comment><comment><USER24> Could start2cloud just say something like, "GoodData refuses to let us review them or they threaten a law suit. We will let you draw your own conclusions from that."

<comment><USER25> You can't publish benchmarks on Amazon EC2 either. Doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to people that they're unable to find out whether an EBS volume will provide better or worse I/O than, say, a consumer-grade laptop 4800rpm 2.5" drive.

<comment><USER26> Is this true? Has Amazon/AWS asked people to take down blogs/articles that benchmark their systems?</comment></comment></comment>


268B Events with Snowplow Analytics and Snowflake - <AUTHOR> https://www.bostata.com/268-billion-events-with-snowplow-snowflake-at-cargurus <comment><USER2> Hey cool! Thanks for sharing :)</comment>


If you are storing important info in Evernote, think twice - <AUTHOR> http://www.gigpeppers.com/if-you-are-storing-important-info-in-evernote-think-twice/ <comment><USER4> There are many horror stories on the web of users losing their data. I thought it was already well known that Evernote software cannot be trusted. Recently, two HN users made comments about data loss[1][2].

I'm baffled that users continue to trust it. I do understand that it's a slick product with nice features but if it fails the _primary_ purpose (save the data _and also retrieve it_ later), the GUI bells & whistles are meaningless. (Example[3].) In other words, programming a flashy drag&drop tool that saves data to /dev/null negates the point, right?

Personally, I've been using ASCII text files as "notebooks" for 20 years and have never lost a thing. Understandably, that workflow is not usable for mobile devices and cloud sync. For the folks that can't use text files, is there really no other alternative product to Evernote that has a reliable track record for _saving_ the customers' data?

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010258)

[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010558)

[3][http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden- elep...](http://jasonkincaid.net/2014/01/evernote-the-bug-ridden-elephant/)

<comment><USER5> I agree. Nothing beats pure text files. These days though, I save them to my Dropbox folder so they're accessible anywhere. I feel like I'm getting the best of both worlds this way.

<comment><USER6> I do this. What happens if Dropbox deletes a file though, on the server? Then it would vanish from the computer as well. If it was an important but rarely checked file, you might not notice for months or years, by which time it might be difficult to retrieve a copy.

Does anyone have more info on the likelihood of this + the possible ways to solve it if it happens? It occurred to me that most of my important files are potentially deletable via Dropbox.

<comment><USER7> Dropbox is not a backup. Dropbox is a file sync service with some limited backup features. AFAIK it also hasn't actually ever reported profits, but it's well enough backed and dominant enough that it's unlikely to disappear.

What should happen in the case of missing a file deletion until beyond Dropbox's 30-day versioning windows is that you retrieve the file from your automated backups of at least one of the computers that Dropbox is syncing to.

<comment><USER6> >What should happen in the case of missing a file deletion until beyond Dropbox's 30-day versioning windows is that you retrieve the file from your automated backups of at least one of the computers that Dropbox is syncing to.

What would you use for these automatic backups? I use backblaze for my whole computer. However, I think they also only keep file changes for 30 days past change date.

<comment><USER8> I use Crashplan, which is a little slower and clunkier than other services but keeps infinite versions of files, including deleted files (unlike Backblaze).

<comment><USER6> I could try Crashplan again. When I attempted it before, it never successfully synced, despite hours spent emailing system reports back and forth with their support reps.

I would pay Backblaze double if they kept past versions.

<comment><USER9> Tarsnap ([https://www.tarsnap.com](https://www.tarsnap.com)) is great and easy to configure, if you can deal with not having a GUI.

Colin Percival (the guy who maintains it) is also amazing with support - <USER2> was responding to my emails on Christmas day!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One user experiences data corruption. Discovers that only one piece of data from entire store was not saved to cloud. Is nevertheless able to recover the corrupted data and resave to store and cloud. I'm not entirely sure this is sufficient reason to claim that the service is irredeemably flawed and should not be used.

<comment><USER11> The question is, why wasn't this one piece of data saved to the cloud. It seems to me that this is a critical bug.

How can I be sure, that all of MY notes in Evernote are being synced correctly? I also use only the mac app, never checked the web interface.

<comment><USER12> You cannot be sure with any service that synchronizes data that everything is being synced correctly unless you check it. Period. Full stop.

At best an app can build your trust over time by working correctly. But for all my critical data, I verify it is in multiple places periodically depending upon my tolerance for its loss.

The same goes for backups... you should be verifying them periodically, else don't be surprised if they fail when you need them most.

<comment><USER13> > Period. Full stop.

Don't don't try and put an end to disagreement, what you wrote was ridiculous.

The software you use should do the checking. A user doesn't have the time to manually check these kind of things.

<comment><USER12> Should? Sure, no argument. I was merely expressing reality. You go on trusting the software and I'll go on verifying my backups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If it's _important_ to you, back it up. No, backup does not mean to put it somewhere on a single cloud provider which can go belly up the next day or just fsck your files for any number of reasons (as seen in this example).

Put it either on multiple storage services at once, update it regularly, check that the backup works and put it on an offline disk and if it is even more important, put it in a fire grade safe or a safe place in a banks vault. Rotate those disks.

A rented bank vault is apx. 100 USD/y where I live. Well worth every cent.

<comment><USER15> I don't think there are many banks in the UK that offer a safety deposit box these days. Metro are about the only one I could find from a quick search: [https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit- Bo...](https://www.metrobankonline.co.uk/Personal/Safety-Deposit-Box/Safety- Deposit-Box/)

I have no need for this, but can't help but think it would be quite cool to have one. (I've probably watched "The Bourne Identity" too many times.)

<comment><USER14> Yes, everytime you go into the vault you feel like Jason. Not kidding. Free experience ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> According to Evernote's EDAM scheme ([https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam- sync.pdf](https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf))

> the synchronization scheme pushes all of the record keeping and conflict > resolution work onto the client so that the service can perform > synchronization in a scalable "stateless" manner. This means that the client > needs to keep track of the state of the server during each sync, and then > use this information to send and receive updates on the next sync.

Does this means that, if an error occurs on the client side and this erroneous state is propagated to the server and other clients, the data would be lost for ever?

<comment><USER17> Yes. The clients control the servers 100%. If the client bugs out and says "delete everything" then your account could be wiped clean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > If I didn't tell you already, here's my life's story. I have only one > Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note. Like the college > hostel room. It has my notes, flight ticket numbers, emails, project plan, > reviews links and just about everything.

LOLWUT?

Yes, Evernote is at fault for data corruption, but the user also did everything in their power to make the effect as damaging as possible.

Do you keep all of your software project in a single file in Git and then complain that updates don't merge cleanly? No. That's a recipe for disaster. So why would you inflict a pathological case upon Evernote and then complain that it's behaving pathologically?

<comment><USER19> I don't follow your reasoning here. If it screws up for this one meganote then it can screw n% of notes in general. The user will use some data - which is pretty much the one thing Evernote is supposed not to do.

Also your git analogy is a bit flawed - your argument is more like "evernote corrupted your one critical file - why don't you spread your critical information across several files?" \- it hardly affects the core fact that evernote shouldn't be corrupting files at all.

<comment><USER18> Again, it _shouldn 't_ corrupt any at all, and that bad is on Evernote. But I'd suspect that the odds of corruption is proportional to the size and activity of the note, and having 100 tiny notes is less likely to trigger corruption that having 1 hectonote the same size. I'm not sure why you'd ever want to do that anyway. Evernote has tags and folders to help you organize lots of bits of information in separate notes.

Whatever storage system you're using, it's never a good idea to poke a stick at it and dare it to cause you pain. They generally oblige.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I also carry a ton of critical information in notes. I've tried extensively Apple's iCloud-synced notes, Evernote, and Microsoft's OneNote. Apple is poor at solving trivial conflicts. Evernote is even worse, and really unreliable. Microsoft OneNote is great at reliability and syncing (UX is so-so in mobile, that's the only gotcha). I wouldn't have expected so, but they have the upper hand here.

<comment><USER21> I am also relying on OneNote - Do you know if I can export or backup my data, automaticly?

<comment><USER22> If you save notebooks to Onedrive (default option in latest versions) you can install the Onedrive app and have it sync the documents folder to your machine all the time so you will have a copy on Onedrive, and your machine. Onedrive also backs up your data though you might have to go through Customer support to get to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Evernote (both the web and Android apps) is one of the buggiest pieces of "professional" software I have ever used. When I use it to take notes for classes, I have given up on using any sort of special formatting (bullets, bold, etc) because I've had all of my formatting completely discarded so many times.

<comment><USER14> why do you use it, if it's so buggy? Genuinely interested to learn more.

<comment><USER24> You know the answer - inertia and lack of a better alternative. The concept is very convenient and its core incarnation: transparent sync, mobile platform suppoert, presentation (wysiwig text formatting), textual data management (notebooks, tags), and retrieval support (sorting, search) are exactly what I want in a basic textual information management tool. Each of these things individually is available in a number of products, Evernote was one of the first to package them together by design.

Then they got VC money, and like so many companies, it all went terribly wrong. They get an absurd amount of money for a service that stores data and syncs it in a cloud (a generic concept better executed by competitors) and have to somehow generate revenue to meet this valuation. So now all kinds of functionality that the users originally didn't need or want starts accumulating in the application. This introduces bloat, bugs, and UI cruft. It does chat now (lolwut). I feel they have been deliberately fighting Zawinski's Law, but it will come, it's just a matter of time.

I would welcome any suggestions for another service that is basically what Evernote 2 or 3 was.

<comment><USER25> Have you tried Microsoft OneNote? [http://www.onenote.com/](http://www.onenote.com/)

I can't believe no one's mentioned it yet in all these comments. I've been using it for 7 years and I've never lost data. The worst bug I've hit was the search feature has sometimes not reported every match across all notebooks correctly, but I haven't hit that since upgrading to the 2013 version. Everything's cloud persisted and cached locally, so if you're using it across multiple devices (I use it across phone, tablet, and 3 PCs) you should have plenty of redundancy. OneNote notebooks are single files, so you could map them to dropbox, but I've been happy enough keeping mine in OneDrive.

I use OneDrive because of its superior features over Evernote - <USER3> outlining support (shared engine MSWord has been using for years), hierarchical organization (notebooks > tabs > pages > freeform sections), being able to embed arbitrary files, fast global search. Haven't used Evernote in a while though so maybe it's improved on these fronts.

<comment><USER26> Is it still Windows only? I work in a mixed environment of Android, Windows, OSX, and Linux.

<comment><USER27> There are apps for all platforms except Linux, but you could use the web interface there.

I'm using it on Windows (desktop version, not the app) and Android and it works pretty well.

<comment><USER25> Yep. The Metro app on Win8 has a very poor UX, but the desktop version (also available on WinRT) is fantastic.

The OSX native app seems to have parity more or less with the Windows one. I use it at work and haven't had any issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think Evernote has first move advantage but the product is awful.

Really

The Web and the App load like Mammoths for something that supposedly just "take notes".

Now, why it can't sync a note silently like that? Size issues? Even a huge text is at most a couple of MBs. You don't even need to worry about sending diffs, you can probably compress and send it as is (and keep all the version history, it's text FFS)

</comment><comment><USER29> There's another strong reason not to trust Evernote: nothing is encrypted at rest on your system or their servers, unless you manually go encrypt selected text in a specific note in the desktop application, where you have to make a new passphrase for each note you want this on. Even this was only recently upgraded from RC2 64-bit to AES 128-bit.

They claim they can't perform searches over encrypted data, but that doesn't seem too difficult to solve with an index file that's also encrypted.

Evernote does have some detailed security policies and 2FA, but without encryption at rest where only the user has the key, what's the point?

</comment><comment><USER30> This is the main reason why I use Simplenote rather than Evernote. Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and extremely fast, and my preferred desktop client (Resophnotes on windows), _also_ backs up all my notes as ASCII text files to Dropbox. Unlike Google Notes, it is cross-platform, running on _everything_.

Downside is that it only supports text, no rich data like Evernote. That's why it's called Simplenote. It's simple. But if that meets your needs, and it sounds like it does, give it a shot.

[http://simplenote.com/](http://simplenote.com/)

<comment><USER31> > Its syncing mechanism is absolutely bulletproof and [...]

Hate to have to say this, but no, it isn't.

If you use Simplenote with multiple devices, especially if you use some of them only every few weeks or months in a no-reliable-internet situation or as a pinned tab in your browsers, it is the opposite of bulletproof. You have to deal with overwritten notes by much older versions and no indication it happened.

(Yes, I reported this multiple times but never heard back. Shame, because besides this I also really love Simplenote.)

<comment><USER30> I use simplenote on 2 iOS, 1 android, 2 windows, and 1 linux and have never had the problem you're describing. None of them have intermittent connectivity, though.

Thing is, since all the notes are backed-up as simple textfiles to Dropbox and Dropbox saves history, even if that does happen you'll never be screwed over by it.

Dropbox backup is a belt+suspenders type deal. Simplenote also saves full history; I just checked my version of "ToDo" (named "Misc Apartments" for reasons you can probably guess but aren't worth going into right now) and it has full history for every single edit going back 212 days inside Simplenote's web UI.

<comment><USER31> Hmm, is Dropbox backup still available? I have two accounts, one that is still premium from when this was available and have the Dropbox backup option, but it still only backs up when I hit the button. On the new one, Dropbox backup doesn'T seem to be available :(

<comment><USER30> The simplenote client I use on windows, Resophnotes, backs up to Dropbox. I know they used to charge for that functionality before they were bought-out, so not sure how to do it on other platforms.

<comment><USER31> Do you just save the Resophnotes .txt in a Dropbox folder or is there a special setting or functionality I didn't find yet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > "I'll now resort to manually backing up every Evernote file to Google Doc"

I don't think that's the lesson to take away from this...

<comment><USER16> > I have only one Evernote note that matters. Everything is in that note.

IMHO, sorting out versioning of one giant piece of note programatically is quite challenging.

FYI: Evernote implements EDAM scheme for synchronisation.

[https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam- sync.pdf](https://dev.evernote.com/media/pdf/edam-sync.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It looks to me like the data was stored in a temporary cache and never got synced because the application crashed. It's an unfortunate experience, but not one that warrants a fearful take on Evernote. Things happen. I've typed a draft in Gmail before and it never got synced so I've lost it, but it doesn't make me stop using it. Maybe we all need to just take a deep breath and remember how it was before everything synced.

<comment><AUTHOR> The note is over a year old. Maybe much more. The app should have told me something's wrong. A red icon or a message. What if I had continued status quo for another year.

My primary assumption with Evernote is that everything is stored somewhere "safe". Everything else is bells and whistles. It's a bit like saying Gmail/Outlook is unable to send mails, and you are not informed.

<comment><USER34> I think I have an explanation in a separate comment, see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9091737)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Evernote is my digital junk drawer. That's right, JUNK drawer. It works very well for this purpose, since it is easy to put stuff into, and (usually!) get stuff out of. Like my physical junk drawer, if I can't find something I usually just yell to anyone around, blaming them for moving my stuff.

I'd certainly caution anyone to store a single copy of anything truly important it it, but this is a good reminder.

</comment><comment><USER36> I deplore Evernote because they destroyed Skitch, evidence that they place end users low in their priorities. This experience does not surprise.

1: Revert.io backs up Evernote. 2: Scrivener and Dropbox work well (but sync badly) for managing a lot of text and screenshots. It's also a great writing platform. 3: glui is my current screenshot app - it provides Dropbox links to each picture.

</comment><comment><USER37> My main question is why Evernote doesn't allow you to pay for a premium service where snapshots of all your data is backed up off-site in a way where you can restore from it.

Every company that handles stuff that customers absolutely cannot afford to lose (like photos) should consider offering a premium service where data-loss is 100% not possible, even through an act of god.

<comment><USER38> Pain point product. Terms of service for memory issues (as a data/social issue).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I stopped using Evernote two years ago but before that I was a paying customer for several years. I used to export my notes as HTML and burn them to a backup DVD-R.

BTW, I stopped using Evernote because I spent a lot of time curating notes and very little time ever referring to them. I switched to a simple text note system.

</comment><comment><USER40> To me, the core problem here is that evernote's cloud synced notes are stored locally in some very proprietary cache.

I'm happy to use Evernote and assume that it will fail in some horrible way. When it does, I want to be able to easily get my notes back via file system backups or backblaze restore.

</comment><comment><USER41> I recently had a very similar experience with several notes not syncing up to the cloud service, despite hitting sync multiple times. Fortunately they're not important data however it did highlight to me that there are certainly complications in solving this problem.

It also got me thinking about the challenges involved here - both with UI and with trust. If I as a user don't trust that the sync button does what it says on the tin then how does a product regain that trust and what can the UI do to show that it's actually done its job?

</comment><comment><USER34> I would wager that the note belongs to a local (unsynched) notebook, which is why it wasn't on Evernote's servers. I apologize if this explanation is a bit long, buckle in.

Specifically I suspect the note belongs to a "Conflicting Changes" notebook, which gets automatically created a note you are trying to upsync conflicts with a copy already on the server. There might be other sync errors that trigger this as well.

If you look at the screenshot of the Mac app, the note belongs to a notebook that starts with "Con..." rather than something like "cherian's notebook" as seen in the screenshot from the Web app.

Users who run into this get a sync error and a modal dialog explaining that their copy of the note is placed into a local notebook titled, "Conflicting Changes [Date/timestamp]" There should be another copy of the note on the Evernote servers. It is possible that when Cherian saw this, he deleted the copy of the note on the Evernote servers and kept the local copy, which would be the opposite of what he'd want to do. (Total guess)

I would guess that this happened very early on and Cherian has been adding & editing this note locally in that local notebook, but not realizing it. The dialog can be a little confusing, and many of us just click away modal dialogs without thinking about it too much.

If you primarily ever work out of All Notes, you may not pay much attention to which notebooks your notes are in. Especially if you only edit that one note on the desktop. If you worked between desktop and mobile and/or web it would be easy to immediately notice that note missing entirely.

It is possible that there wasn't anything wrong with the note as the customer support agent said, but rather the note was just in a local notebook. Copy/pasting it into a new note would solve it in either case.

Local Notebooks exist only for the desktop clients. You can create one to put in notes you don't want sync'd up to the Evernote service. They're also a place to store notes if you're out of this month's quota.

Source: Customer Support agents escalate up to specialists, which eventually escalates up to Product Management. Almost exclusively with really weird and hairy problems.

</comment><comment><USER42> Small plug, but [http://revert.io](http://revert.io) is pretty great for backing up your cloud things, with excellent Evernote support.

<comment><USER43> I work at Revert, and I second this plug! Evernote is one of our most popular apps, and we also back up Dropbox, Google Drive, Tumblr, and more.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> There are tools to regularly, automatically backup your Evernote notes -

Evernote Exporter for Windows, for example ([http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules- no...](http://lifehacker.com/5845885/evernote-exporter-schedules-note- exports))

</comment><comment><USER45> I have been using Keynote [1] for years, without ever losing information. I find that its tree data structure is extremely useful. It is an open-source desktop program. Unfortunately its development seems to have been put on hold. It would be great if developers would keep it updated (on Windows 8, there are some small UX glitches).

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_(notetaking_software)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynote_\(notetaking_software\))

</comment><comment><USER46> So is the Evernote local content DB not included in Time Machine backups? My understanding is that it typically is, although it takes a little doing to restore.

I tend to put important stuff in DropBox because, as a collection of local folders and files, it is well-integrated with Time Machine.

Important reminder that NEITHER Evernote nor DropBox are backup solutions. They should be; they're a good approximation; but ultimately the only reliable way to back something up is to put a copy of it somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER47> Does evernote have a command line api tool, like s3cmd and gsutil ?

We built s3cmd into our environment a year or two ago[1] and gsutil is running in beta right now ... we'd be happy to build in an evernote tool so you could sync evernote to your rsync.net account ...

[1] [http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html](http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html) (scroll down to "Data Transfer to/from Amazon S3")

</comment><comment><USER48> My solution is pretty low tech. I keep a spiral bound notebook by my desk for notes. When it fills up, I run it through the scanner, copy to backups, and buy a new notebook.

<comment><USER49> I used to think as you, just recently I understood the fuss about Evernote: It's fast to search notes.

And once my notes are just a few KB of text, I can easily export them to html and make backups.

Ps: Try their windows desktop app, it's great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> You should never completely trust any single service with your important data, ever. Not Evernote, not Google, not Amazon. Always have backups.

</comment><comment><USER51> Evernote has lost important PDFs I've attached to notes multiple times.

Some would show up on my PC but be missing from my Mac and vice versa. If a note has many PDFs (10+) it's almost guaranteed to miss some on either of the two machines. I gave up on the idea of organizing books of receipts, taxes, etc. in Evernote, I just cannot trust it for anything more important than a grocery list.

</comment><comment> chris-at I only lost my data once but that was enough. My note got stuck in a sync conflict.

Support was unwilling to help me get the data out of the transmit queue... they actually told me to make sure to save my note before moving to another device. I guess I was the first user to forget that. They never apologized for their bug and I was a paid user back then.

</comment><comment><USER52> I've encountered bizarre sync/data loss issues with Evernote before, but thankfully with nothing that I cared about. Because I learned that I couldn't trust Evernote, I don't actually use it for very much. This blog post reminded me that I should go cancel my annual subscription.

</comment><comment><USER53> This just in: 1\. syncing is hard. 2\. The market share leader is always going to get lazy.

</comment><comment><USER54> I feel [http://yipgo.com](http://yipgo.com) might be a good jump-off point for something oriented to more of a power user. It lacks thinks like Dropbox/Drive/etc sync, but there's promise...

<comment><USER55> www.yipgo.com leads to an nginx welcome page... Not super confidence- inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> If you are storing important info in <only one place>, think twice.

This could have (and sometimes, has) happened with any single service/storage/whatever-cloud provider, _even yourself on your computer_.

</comment><comment> g-garron Keep all important data with you, both in your PC (better encrypted) and in an external disk (backup). If you are really paranoid, you may backup it in the cloud too, S3, Dropbox or any other service.

</comment><comment><USER57> off the topic a bit, I feel evernote is far too much business-stretched nowadays. For the past two years, almost all new features and improvement are cater to business users, like presentation, work chat and context.

Evernote premium actually has note versions, but the experience is pretty horrible. Unlike dropbox, you cannot revert to an early version freely since it is the server deciding the time to backup your note state.

Revert.io seems to be great. I have signed up. It will be better that they can offer limited revisions (2-3) for free users.

</comment><comment><USER58> SimpleNote - I started using it because it's lightweight. It lacks s lot of features of Evernote, but it seems to work after 1year plus of heavy use. Feel your pain.

</comment><comment><USER59> Linux users can back up their Evernotes using [http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/](http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/)

</comment><comment><USER60> Personal anecdote: I've been using Evernote Premium for 4 years (coming on 5). I have over 800 notes and I am not aware of any data loss issues.

</comment><comment><USER61> Who keeps important data like that in a single note on a cloud-based note taking app??? I only have to think once and I know how stupid this is...

</comment><comment><USER62> I believe this is the CAP theorem manifest itself in a cloud storage system. No big deal if you know it is really hard to mitigate.

</comment><comment><USER63> I never understood Evernote, but I've been using SimpleNote for years with only a few minor snags (with third party clients)

</comment><comment><USER64> > But then I wondered. Why wasn't "TODO" backed up?

And then I wondered, why isn't OP using Google Docs?

</comment><comment><USER65> I usually using simple text with dropbox and git repo, just in case dropbox failed pretty hard

<comment><USER66> If you're storing git repos _on_ Dropbox, that's a bad idea. The way Dropbox syncs and diff's files messes with the way git does it, and can result in corrupt history. There's plenty of anecdotes on the web about this.

Don't store git on Dropbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> TLDR: User had no backups, almost lost all his data after a crash.

Nothing but a pointless rant here.

</comment><comment><USER68> If you are storing important information anywhere, think twice

</comment><comment><USER69> If you are storing important info in $CLOUD, think twice.

</comment><comment><USER70> this is why I use zim notebooks in a git repo.

</comment><comment><USER71> I have some concerns about the tone of this article. First, no software is "bulletproof" \- failures happen. Second, making one note with all your important life information creates a single point of failure. This is a bad idea. Third, Evernote came to the rescue with their tech support guys and actually recovered this document! Seems like they provide a valuable service.</comment>


"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" - <AUTHOR> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/23/great-power/

<comment><USER2> corollary: With no power comes no responsibility

<comment><USER3> Sadly, that's not necessarily the case. In fact there's a metric I just ran across that basically measures your responsibility vs. power. And yes, responsibility w/o power to influence is very much a thing.

Usually it's the case of being unempowered but effectively being dismissable for any undesired circumstances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Everybody knows that this quote comes from the sudo(1) command on Linux :-)</comment>


Anyscale, from the creators of the Ray distributed computing project, launches - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/17/anyscale-ray-project-distributed-computing-a16z/ <comment><USER2> Project Ray is specifically more focused on scaling AI systems it seems. That is sort of important but also missing from the article.

[https://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2018/01/09/ray/](https://bair.berkeley.edu/blog/2018/01/09/ray/)

<comment><USER3> Previous discussions on the Ray project:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15481169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15481169)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16510610)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20064241](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20064241)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ray user here. Their adoption is exponential. Much faster than Spark when it was "the same age." It's not limited to AI workloads, that's just its flagship use case with RLlib.

<comment><USER5> Has Ray grown beyond reinforcement learning? Ray appears to lack a datastore or locality mechanism for at-rest distributed data, which is really important for ETL and SQL workloads. So far Ray looks like it has some nice features that are missing from the Spark RDD API, but for ETL / SQL it looks like you'd only choose Ray there for your own entertainment.

It would be compelling if Ray were to provide Horovod support versus the authors re-applying some of same research in their own thing. Ray programming API + code distribution + Horovod performance primitives is what the community probably wants.

<comment><USER6> It's still pretty early days for ray yet. That being said, spark never really got the hang of doing machine learning properly. It "works" but not for newer workloads which ray is trying to support.

It's good someone is building a company around it. I could see them building services on top of it and build a SAAS like databricks did with spark.

I'll be curious to see how ray matures.

<comment><USER5> I agree that ML on Spark was only a limited hit—- iterative jobs would actually be feasible versus Hadoop—- I still have yet to find a better ETL and SQL tool, and that's a big part of most ML projects.

I'm worried about Ray as a SAAS Co because so far it looks to me like they're riding reinforcement learning hype. They'd need to really penetrate the users of Horovod and Tensorflow Distributed to get beyond a beach head. And what if TPUs and Cerebras become more common? Because then the maker for multi-machine workloads becomes smaller (definitely not zero though).

<comment><USER6> Your concerns are right on point. I agree that spark is a great sql/etl tool. My thinking was on the "math execution" part. Ray is able to doa bit more there. I do feel like there is a bit of hype riding going on here as well.

One interesting thing that could happen is the hardware gets better, and then these distributed schedulers might not be able to keep up with all the different options on the market.

There is also the tension of the hardware vendors wanting to give away things that only run on their chips vs the software makers who want things to run on every chip. It seems like there will be a lot of competition among the various infra players in the next few years now that nvidia is starting to have real competition now (even if it's not big yet)

<comment><USER5> Just to qualify that "math execution" part, the beauty of Ray is that you get threadpool-like features to speed up arbitrary python code. So not just parallelism, but state/variable sharing _for relatively small data_. So this is great for some optimizers and definitely RL (where your "math" is some really complicated simulation / loss logic), but Ray wouldn't make much sense for BLAS stuff. Am I missing something here?

Ray shows expertise in multi-machine that's lacking in stuff like Jax, Tensorflow, and PyTorch. Horovod nailed down a lot of the performance issues for SGD in particular, but is missing the sort of rapid deployment / distribution stuff in Ray. If only they could all work together ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> another one!

berkeley rise lab is such a powerhouse - spark, mesos, etc. just in the past few years. it really puts some of these big tech companies to shame.

<comment><USER8> I think spark and mesos are about a decade old at this point. I'm not really sure anyone is being put to shame either, there are wildly successful alternatives to all of these.</comment></comment>


Google+ to surpass 10M Users - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/117388252776312694644/posts

<comment><USER2> The crazy thing about Google+ is that _ordinary people are already actually using it_. I have a ton of non-tech savvy friends on it already, and people are making posts that get 5-10 replies. This isn't just "yet another social networking site". I think Google finally managed to pull it off this time, and if they ride the wave of positive sentiment they've gained as a result of Android and other successful ventures as of late, they'll probably be able to get people to trust them with their data much more than Facebook ever could.

<comment><USER3> > if they ride the wave of positive sentiment they've gained

It's interesting to consider what the impact of the goodwill many people feel towards Google will be on Google+. With traditional commodities (e.g. cars, detergent, etc.) companies are keen to maintain trust, a positive image, and so on, amongst consumers.

That seems to have been less a factor in the success of companies like Facebook, perhaps because what they offered was so new and compelling that many people were willing to overlook trust issues, ethical and privacy lapses, etc.

Perhaps social networks are now becoming a commodity, and as a result, these factors may end up being much more important. It would be fascinating if Google+'s success was less about the technology and more about how people feel towards the company - if people say, "I can get the same experience from product X as I can from product Y, but I trust the company that makes product X more."

<comment><USER4> > "With Google+ in the open, Facebook finally needs to watch its step. ... > Google is the only web property which can even begin to threaten Facebook's > supremacy. ... That's the problem with monopolies, and the reason they're > illegal: if you have nowhere to go — if there isn't an alternative service > that you can switch to — the monopoly can simply milk you and stretch you > without recourse. But now there's Google+. With Big G hulking menacingly in > Facebook's shadow and just waiting for a misstep or mistake, Facebook needs > to be careful. Mess up now, Zuckerberg, and Google will gladly gobble up > droves of discontented denizens."

\- One of the main reasons I like Google+, from [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/89628-too-many-eggs- in-...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/89628-too-many-eggs-in-the- google-basket)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think one of the main reasons why Google+ is doing so well is that they have taken time to produce a really well designed user interface. Facebook's UI is really poor in comparison. As a user, interaction should come natural and with Google+ it does. This is highlighted by positive interaction from 'non-techy' users. It is actually a pleasure to use. I could happily create and delete circles all day long :)

<comment><USER6> there was a number of forecasts and predictions for some sort of lite interface that was to be crossbreeding of twitter and facebook UIs, in some shape.

This one might just be the winner. Time will tell... or maybe it will just find a niche and rest of the world will quickly move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The fact that random peoples' posts on Google+ show up as 'google.com' here and elsewhere is not good for Google's ownership of its messaging. On the other hand, their use of the blogspot.com domain for official news suggests they don't care, but on the _other_ other hand, what is 'googleusercontent.com' if not a separation of what's Google's from what's everyone elses?

<comment><USER8> The other, other hand? I believe the phrase you are hunting for is "on the gripping hand" :-)

<http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/O/on-the-gripping-hand.html> (fun books, as well)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Orkut was huge in the beginning too. I mean plus is a nice and clean interface and I am all for people to use that all kudos to Google for doing it.

There was Facebook Lite that somewhat resembled this (imo) . Maybe google has gotten the 'lite' ingredients just right. Because if they didn't - you know how _light_ mayonnaise tastes like ;-)

+

</comment><comment><USER9> Direct link to post: [https://plus.google.com/117388252776312694644/posts/bGJPTALD...](https://plus.google.com/117388252776312694644/posts/bGJPTALDkDe)

(There's a menu in the top right of posts (under an icon that looks like a circle with an down arrow) that has a "Link to this post" option. Saves having to click the "Expand this post »" link.)

</comment><comment><USER10> How many are actual users? About 50% of my friends in Google+ have no info, posts, pictures, etc., up. They're on Google+ because they got an invite and that's it. What's the use of having that many users if half of them don't use it?

<comment><USER11> Now that they have a profile, if they are loggued in there google account, as soon as some people in their social circle starts using it, the cost of interacting will be very low (because of the g+ toolbar).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was having a conversation with my non tech-savvy roommate last night about G+, and one of the things we noticed was that the name itself is just completely uncompelling. What does G+ mean? What does it imply? We concluded it would be a great name for a new calculator.

Facebook at least has the tangential meaning originating from printed college 'facebooks' which a substantial portion of the (American) population is familiar with.

<comment><USER13> I had no clue what a printed facebook was until recently. I went to a community college that didn't have one of these and have never actually seen a real one. I'd be willing to be that the substantial portion of Americans which you speak of is actually the minority when it comes to knowing about the etymology of the word facebook.

On the other hand Google+ sounds like a better version of Google. Which I feel is more in line with their vision than merely an attempt at a Facebook killer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is funny, because I haven't received an invite yet (and I'm a longtime GMail user). A couple of my friends have G+, but never use it. They created profiles with great excitement, but in a couple of days it petered away.

Until I can try it out it's hard to believe all these numbers. Only time will tell, I guess; but one should be wary of the people who chase the next shiny thing, for they are fickle indeed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Searching the Google Plus about pages returns about 8.88M users currently:

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1366&bih=653&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&biw=1366&bih=653&q=inurl%3Aplus.google.com%2F*about+site%3Aplus.google.com&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=)

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone else felt unclear about whose Friends are seeing some comment?

<comment><USER17> Yes, but I feel the same way about Facebook. You don't see everything that your friends post, and they don't see everything you post once you get above a few dozen friends. At least G+ is allowing you to teach it what your friend lists are and use that information to target your posts to relevant interest groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google+ > Twitter > Facebook > MySpace > Friendster

<comment><USER19> Is that an ordering of chronology or personal preference? Could be either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> this seems to give an indication.

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Aplus.google.co...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=inurl%3Aplus.google.com%2F*about+site%3Aplus.google.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> Not bad for first 2 weeks. If the growth rate continues, it should get 100 million users by the end of the year, or maybe in just a few short months.

<comment><USER22> Yep, If that growth rate continues, they should have 100 billion users in the end of 2012. Oh, wait ...

<comment><USER5> Come 2012... "Google responsible for sharp increase in population"...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Mark Zuckerburg has joined Google+: <https://plus.google.com/104560124403688998123/posts></comment>


Offshore Drilling Graph Speaks for Itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/oil-offshore-drilling-graph-us-consumption.php

<comment><USER2> This still vastly overestimates the impact of domestic drilling. We have a _world_ oil market. Thus, if prices drop in the US, less overseas oil will come here. This means that the impact needs to be compared against _world_ oil consumption, which is 4 or 5x as big.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I won't touch on the credibility of such a graph on a blog at treehugger.com, I will add, simply, that any additional oil production benefits everyone worldwide.

Renewable energy is critical going forward, but the technology isn't there yet to flip the switch and say good-bye to oil, and a few trillion dollars (more) in government grants and incentives won't get us there overnight.

<comment><USER4> _Renewable energy is critical going forward, but the technology isn't there yet to flip the switch and say good-bye to oil_

Bullshit. The technology for electric cars is viable right now, certainly more so with the price of gas sky high.

Now the will - with a multi-billion dollar industry dolling out kickbacks like they are going out of style and a public with an insatiable need to buy the biggest damn car on the road - that's another thing.

<comment><USER3> My point was not that electric cars cannot be produced -- they can, and in large numbers for low prices -- but that the electric grid in the United States cannot yet support millions of cars charging every day, especially when you consider the multitude of other electric devices those same people have plugged in 24/7.

Once we have nuclear power plants again and modern lines running to modern equipment in every American home, then we can talk about everyone switching to electric cars.

Technology is not used in a vacuum: a lot of pieces have to fall into place first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why I shudder when I hear political rallies full of people chanting "drill, baby, drill!"

Do they _know_ that they are tools for the oil industry?

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill There are a few points missing from this analysis:

1\. Oil prices are subject to price elasticity, that is, the relationship is not a linear one. For example, 10% more oil on the market than is being bought, would not reduce prices by 10%, it would reduce prices by perhaps 25%.

2\. Drilling is not solely about oil price. The reason that drilling will occur is that domestic oil production means more total dollars going into the US Treasury. There are royalties and other taxes, not to mention taxes on employment (humans, not robots, build the rigs and operate the machinery).

Right now, when the USA sends $500Billion per month, or whatever the number is, overseas to pay for foreign oil, the US gov't gets virtually none of that in taxes or royalties, and even the follow-on effects of Saudis buying our goods are weak. Domestically produced oil has much more positive effects on the US economy, per-barrel.</comment>


How the Biggest Fabricator in Science Got Caught - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/how-the-biggest-fabricator-in-science-got-caught

<comment><USER2> It doesn't seem that hard to generate entirely plausible fake data using simple randomized algorithms, that wouldn't leave any particular signature.

I don't want to actually publish fake data, of course. But it could be fun to have a contest, where one team cooks up fake data and the other team tries to detect it. You could take real papers, scrub all the experimental data out of them, and people try to cook up fake data to support the conclusions. If the other team can't reliably decide which paper is fake, the first team wins.

<comment><USER3> That's true. If you can detect fake data patterns, you can generate fake data that doesn't follow those patterns.

That wouldn't detect the researchers who were lazy and published fake studies because they are expected to. It would, however, foil the researchers who are creating supporting data to arrive at a particular conclusion</comment></comment>


Some People Are Their Own Identical Twins – The Fascinating Science Behind That - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencealert.com/tetragametic-chimerism-embryos-multiple-births <comment><AUTHOR> Tetragametic chimerism</comment>


Watching Movies in 'Fortnite' Is More Fun Than a Theater - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xg8gak/watching-movies-in-fortnite-is-more-fun-than-a-theater <comment><USER2> "A crowded theater on opening night fills me with a kind of energy I don't get anywhere else."

Wow, I couldn't be more different. I generally wait until the hype has died down around a movie before seeing it in the theater so that it'll be as empty as possible. To this day my favorite movie experiences have been in deserted theaters.

<comment><USER3> This is basically an introvert vs extrovert thing.

My favorite way to tell this is to ask if someone prefers beaches or mountains. Extroverts prefer beaches, introverts mountains, and a lot of the population sits somewhere in between.

<comment><USER4> Partly, but I don't think it's that simple.

I'm about as introverted as you're likely to meet, but I enjoy the hell out of MST3K. Making fun of a movie in ways the creators didn't intend, tickles my sense of humor. Doing so in a setting where I don't need to share my physical space with my co-conspirators is just awesome.

Going to a crowded theatre sucks. Going to a popular drive-in and knowing that there are hundreds of other cars full of people enjoying the show, and if the weather's nice and the insects are -icided and the windows are down and we can hear each other laughing, is a fun collective experience.

There are some movies that prefer to be experienced alone, or with one other. There are books that need to be read from the page, not narrated by Audible.com. There are albums that crave headphones and a comfy chair and a silent room, and there are albums that thrive on the open road with windows down and hair flying. I think that's part of the art, as much as the audience.

<comment><USER3> You're describing the difference between interacting with other people during an experience, and everyone sharing the experience together without having to interact. I believe that this is still a introvert vs. extrovert thing, although the media in question is certainly part of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My wife and I spent an hour or so in the Party Royale with our young kids last night, and it was very cool. As someone who has played a _lot_ of computer games, it feels like we're entering an exciting era of virtual connection. Being able to hang out in a virtual space that the kids enjoy, with obstacle courses and time trials that are interesting for adults as well, and everything graphically enticing...

I've spent a lot of time hanging out in MMORPGs, but something about the Party Royale felt more... real, though it's hard to explain. Maybe the movie playing offers some connection to reality, or maybe knowing that Epic is constantly adding content and making changes makes the world feel more alive... or maybe I'm just getting old. Whatever it is, it makes shelter-in-place feel less oppressive and it's one small sphere in which I'm excited for the future!

</comment><comment><USER6> Whenever topics like Snow Crash and the Metaverse come up, I'm amused at all the comments from people talking about what it will be like when the Metaverse is invented. The Metaverse already launched. It's called Fortnite.

Epic isn't done building it, of course, but they know what they are doing and have read every chapter of Gibson, Stephenson, and Ready Player One (just as those authors have paid attention to the actual real life career of Tim Sweeney at Epic). The team at Epic also has insane amounts of money to throw at their work because they have demonstrated success in game design, economy design, and large scale low latency architectures. The fact that it's an actual real functioning product is why it doesn't look like what most people thought v0.1 of the metaverse would look like.

</comment><comment><USER7> > I thought I'd hate all this chaos, but it was fun. I threw tomatoes at the > screen and launched myself into the air with the grappling hook, trying to > come down on top of the screen as Leonardo DiCaprio droned on about dreams.

So, like going to see _Rocky Horror Picture Show_?

</comment><comment><USER8> The Forbes game reviewer was less impressed.[1]

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/06/26/i-am- watch...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/06/26/i-am-watching- inception-in-fortnite-and-metaverse-aside-its-not-great/#5ca7173e6a26)

</comment><comment><USER9> I distinctly remember we would watch movies and music videos in Second Life. The feeling of presence was very strong.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok so I guess this is the level of the cinematic experience after watching movies on mobile phones.

</comment><comment><USER4> This really is fun. And it's like an underground rave, everyone there knows it's just a matter of time before the feds show up.

Just imagine if the film industry would figure out a way to embrace this and legitimize it, instead of (wait for it) trying to sue their most innovative and diehard fans...

<comment><USER11> There's nothing underground about it, the film screenings are organised by the makers of the game.

But if you want something a bit more underground, try the channels on [https://cytu.be/](https://cytu.be/) that pull content from google drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This, of all things, has finally convinced me to make a Fortnite account.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's a low bar. Even watching movies on my phone on a city bus is more fun than a theater; my headphones do a better job of blocking out other people talking, and there's less risk of somebody spilling their cola on me as they try to waddle past on the way to the bathroom.

If movie theaters finally die, I'll actually be glad. The only time I go to them anymore is when I'm socially pressured into going by friends/family/coworkers who already bought the tickets.</comment>


Everytime you add something you take something away [2006] - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2917-flashback-every-time-you-add-something-you-take-something-away

<comment><USER2> "Every object obscures another object."

        -- Luis Bunuel</comment>


Rachmaninov on the future of broadcasting (1931) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/rachmaninov-on-the-future-of-broadcasting

<comment><USER2> I always think of Rachmaninov as a composer from "the olden days". I was really excited when I discovered there were recordings of him playing his own compositions. Just imagine if we had recordings of Bach or Mozart playing their stuff. Having their written music is one thing (and a precious thing at that), but having recordings would be so much more…

<comment><USER3> Yes, but the real treasure would be the improvisations. Beethoven was a legendary improviser, and all those performances are completely lost (except for phrases and ideas incorporated later into written compositions, from memory).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm much more interested in his comments on recording than on broadcasting. I love old recordings: Rachmaninov, Fritz Kreisler, Eugene Ysaÿe, all excite me to hear. But the part that really fascinates me is to see my daughters listening with enjoyment and understanding to a recording of someone who was born 180 years before them. I'm often not a fan of the effects technology has on our lives, but that's a real joy.

</comment><comment><USER5> As fascinating as it sounds to listen to recordings by the composers themselves, I fear these "authoritative" renditions would deprive performers the room for interpretations.

</comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't sound like he's talking about the "future" of broadcasting but the present; specifically, that broadcast music in 1931 is worthless because the reproduction quality is too poor. He doesn't say anything specific about the future of broadcasting, but he seems fine with the idea of music reproduction in general, so we can only assume that he would be happier with broadcast music of a higher quality.

<comment><USER7> > 'On this account alone, I deplore the present depression in the gramophone > industry. It is a curious fact that when I began working for H.M.V. ten > years ago business was excellent, though only indifferent records were > available. Yet today, when we have first class recording, business is > worse than it has ever been. For this, I can only think that the universal > craze for radio is to blame. '

He's blaming the recent success of radio for poor record sales in 1931. Much like many were/are blaming streaming and youtube for the decline of record sales now...

<comment><USER2> Sure, but he's not lamenting the fact that his record sales are down, he's annoyed that something with crap music quality (in his opinion) is supplanting something with superior music quality.

Luckily, radio's gotten better since then. :-)</comment></comment></comment>


Trix: A rich text editor for everyday writing - <AUTHOR> https://trix-editor.org/ <comment><USER2> I love that the marketing text is presented inside the editor itself! Show, not tell.

<comment><USER3> Very glad you pointed this out - having hit the page using the browser on my phone, it totally wasn't obvious to me that the marketing text was a live editable instance of the tech.

<comment><USER4> There was a little blinking cursor for me, and the "add caption" placeholder under the image was the last convincing I needed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A couple comparisons of Trix to other similar modern in-browser rich text editors (both by folks who prefer other choices over Trix, not because I have anything against Trix, that's just what I found first while trying to understand how Trix compares in this ecosystem)

[0][https://quilljs.com/guides/comparison-with-other-rich- text-e...](https://quilljs.com/guides/comparison-with-other-rich-text- editors/)

[1][https://thib.me/why-wagtail-new-editor-is-built-with- draft-j...](https://thib.me/why-wagtail-new-editor-is-built-with-draft-js)

<comment><USER5> For anyone who wants to play live with Trix and Quill (as well as CodeMirror and the default contentEditable for markdown) see here:

[http://public.docs.xstatic.site.s3-website-us- west-1.amazona...](http://public.docs.xstatic.site.s3-website-us- west-1.amazonaws.com)

You will be editing of static HTML inside an AWS bucket.

Note: WYSIWYG toolbars require wider screen, so if phone, then rotate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Silly rabbit...Trix are for kids.</comment>


JQuery 2.0 ends WinXP support - Good. - <AUTHOR> http://skyhighcode.blogspot.com/2012/07/jquery-future-kills-winxp-good.html

<comment><USER2> The title is not an accurate statement. JQuery 2.0 will not support Internet Explorer 8 or below. While IE 9 does not run on XP, other modern browsers such as Chrome or Firefox do.

</comment><comment><USER3> And JQuery 1.9 will still support all the browsers the current core does, with the same API and features of 2.0. 1.9 will just be "heavier"</comment>


Show HN: B2blaze – A Backblaze B2 library for Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sibblegp/b2blaze <comment><USER2> I use rclone's B2 driver ([https://rclone.org/b2/](https://rclone.org/b2/)) as an rsync-style backup solution of about 1TB worth of my pictures and other media. Also, it's encrypted with my own local key using rclone's crypt module ([https://rclone.org/crypt/](https://rclone.org/crypt/)).

rclone supports multithreaded upload, and even has experimental support for FUSE mounting. However, the sync command gets you Dropbox-like behavior and can be cronned: [https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/](https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_sync/)

I really like the price of B2, I hope it stays low :-)

<comment><USER3> Why not use $60 you're paying per year for 1Tb of online storage to buy a 2Tb hard drive and use it for the backup?

<comment><USER4> Online/offsite backup is a different use case. They are paying $60/year so that, if their house burns down, gets flooded, disk gets fried by lightning, they still have their family pictures.

Local backup is cheap and fast, and you should do it too. But it doesn't provide geographic redundancy.

<comment><USER3> Another $60 buys a water and fireproof safe for the hard drive. I assume it also helps against lightning :-) I honestly think remote backup is an overkill for personal needs and new risks you get by placing your valuable data on someone else's hard drive are not always internalized.

<comment><USER5> And you take your non redundantly stored hard drive out in 5 years and you can't retrieve data on it.

But realistically, isn't it worth $60 a year to have a constantly backed up hard drive? The alternative is to take the hard drive out of the safe every so often and do a backup and put it back.

<comment><USER3> I've hard a few hard drives fail in the past decades but I've always been able to retrieve the data. I'm far less confident in a remote company.

Your point is valid and constant, seamless backup is indeed a good thing to have. Whether it's worth $60/year is one's own decision.

<comment><USER6> > I've hard a few hard drives fail in the past decades but I've always been > able to retrieve the data

Care to share what kind of procedures you use?

I've recovered some data for friends and employers who want it back but aren't prepared to pay > USD1000 for it but if I cannot connect to the disk I'm lost.

(My tricks: tilting the disk, freezing the disk, leaving ssds powered on but sata unconnected, and even before that photorec and ddrescue etc.)

Note: don't do any of the above if data needs to be recovered at any cost, in that case just contact a data recovery company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like nobody mentioned it, yet. Another great product is [https://www.rsync.net/](https://www.rsync.net/) and this just works. There are no bad surprises. You can overshoot your backup limits, and they will send you an email to fix this. But still you have your backup.

Your interface is rsync/scp/ssh.

They give you ZFS snapshots, you can use s3cmd from their machines, so you can delegate uploads to S3 via rsync.net.

Our prior backup setup was duplicity with GPG hitting S3, and this sometimes was flaky for listing the current keys.

Glad I read HN, I heard about rsync.net. They even have/had a HN discount. You should use the search functionality to find other threads.

[https://www.rsync.net/products/platform.html](https://www.rsync.net/products/platform.html)

[https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/12/rsync...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/12/rsync-net-zfs-replication-to-the-cloud-is-finally-here-and- its-fast/)

<comment><USER8> Great product but too $$$$$$$$$$$$$ for my taste.

<comment><USER9> The Borg/Attic/HN discounted price is a quarter of the regular price IIRC. Well worth it IMHO. They're reliable, answer emails very fast, and are happy to provide technical help should you need it to configure your system.

<comment><USER10> I use their Borg discount as well, and am extremely happy with it. I do wish it were cheaper, but I get 150 GB for $50/yr, which is enough for me with careful rationing.

I wish I had a TB for $50 so I didn't have to be so judicious with my photos, but the ability to use Borg is so fantastic that I can't complain.

<comment><USER11> Your account is about to get larger ...

We lowered the borg rate to 2c this past month and, as is our policy, existing accounts get enlarged to match ...

So in the near future, your 150 GB account will become ~208 GB in size ...

<comment><USER10> That's great news, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hetzner Storage Box[1] is an interesting alternative to Backblaze B2. It's not cloud-based, but provides free automated snapshots, free 1 Gbps bandwidth, and supports FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, rsync and BorgBackup[2].

[1] [https://www.hetzner.com/storage-box](https://www.hetzner.com/storage-box)

[2] [https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Storage_Boxes/en](https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Storage_Boxes/en)

<comment><USER13> I created an account with them recently and they asked for my passport or id card for authentication. Is this usual?

<comment><USER14> Yes, very usual for EU companies. Make sure to blank anything sensitive. If this seems weird, consider how many places require your Social Security in US.

<comment> ar-jan Not in my experience. Hetzner is the only one out of a dozen that I recall asking for ID.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> BTW, the Backblaze team themselves officially support a Python implementation of the API wrapper (the B2Api and Bucket classes):

[https://github.com/Backblaze/B2_Command_Line_Tool/blob/maste...](https://github.com/Backblaze/B2_Command_Line_Tool/blob/master/b2/api.py)

As these are used internally in their CLI, there's probably a higher chance that they'll continue to work in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. It's just never been publicized and personally I think the implementation could be better. Although with so many stars on this repo now I plan on maintaining it for the foreseeable future. Start adding feature requests everyone! :)

PS: They also don't even use their own library in their code examples so I don't think they meant it to be used in that fashion.

<comment><USER15> That would be great – it's always good to have some competition ;)

Regarding feature requests I'd love to see a well-maintained B2 Django Storage. I'm currently using an existing implementation, but it's not that well maintained:

[https://github.com/royendgel/django- backblazeb2-storage](https://github.com/royendgel/django-backblazeb2-storage)

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw that one. I'm not a particular fan of Django but integrating my library apart from Django's storage library wouldn't be difficult. Neither would be building a django library on top of mine. Any takers? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Backblaze now and once I get my NAS, I'll probably end up using a B2 based backup. But let's make an honest comparison. Backblaze does not replicate your data across data centers. The standard S3 storage class does (0.23/gb). The comparible storage class for S3 is one zone infrequent access (.01/gb). B2 still comes out ahead, but I wouldn't use either one for primary storage. For thier suggested "3-2-1" backup strategy, sure.

Then again, just for backup, I could use S3 glacier for $.004/gb. That's cheaper than B2 and I get multiple AZ storage. The data charges would be higher - but its backup. If catastrophe struck and I lost my primary _and_ my local backups, getting my data fast is the last thing I would worry about.

<comment><USER16> > Then again, just for backup, I could use S3 glacier for $.004/gb

Having done that in the past, I have to say that's just a million times less practical than basic S3-like storage. And if you want to _automate_ that setup, Glacier is even worse.

<comment><USER5> Why do you say that?

I could see using something like rsync + Cloudberry (maps S3 and make it look like a network drive). Set it up to use one zone infrequent access, and then after x days use a lifecycle policy to move it to Glacier.

My use case for backups is solely for movies and music. For source code I use hosted git repos, pictures Google photos, and for regular office documents, they are either on Google docs or One Drive.

<comment><USER16> Last time I used Glacier, it was a separate product from S3 and had its own API.

You had to upload pre-prepared "tapes" for backups. You couldn't mutate an existing backup, you had to create a new one. And frequently fetching and/or deleting existing "tapes" (backups) would cost you money (more so than the original cost of the backup).

That meant you couldn't just ZIP it all up, backup the latest version and the delete the previous one to avoid being doubly charged for storage either.

Basically at time of archiving you needed to determine what was already archived and create a new bundle with only what's new, and archive that only. In the same spirit, restore meant piecing together multiple such tapes into a full restore-set.

Absolutely terrible. It was like having traditional backup-software constraints, but none of the software-support.

If Amazon has improved on that now, good for them, but I figured they probably had to if they wanted any users at all.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, I've never used the Glacier api directly. I've only used it as part of a lifecycle policy where objects were stored in S3 and then using the console to have AWS migrate data after a certain amount of time.

My offsite backup would only be accessed in the case of catastrophic failure - my primary and local backup data is unavailable. Data transfer does cost more but if I had that type of catastrophe, worrying about getting my movies back for my Plex server would be of little concern. Everything that I would care about - source code, photos, documents etc are stored other places.

That's another strike against Backblaze backups (not B2 based backups). When we were in between residences last year - we left our apartment when the lease was up and stayed in an extended stay waiting for our house to be built, my main computer was offline for 5 months. One more month and my Backblaze backup would have been deleted. I forgot about it and I restarted my computer before I reconnected my external drive - so my backup from my external drive was erased from Backblaze as soon as I came back online. It wasn't catastrophic but irritating. Luckily I have gigabit upload.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> According to online.net "cold storage" C14 comparison, they are cheaper than Backblaze, most of the time:

[https://www.online.net/en/c14](https://www.online.net/en/c14)

<comment><USER18> C14 is really not at all an object store. Getting data in and out is a huge pain, even compared to other cold stores like AWS or OVH. We evaluated them and passed.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, I was looking for this type of feedback. The pricing comparison is still interesting.

Could you do a summary of your evaluation for others that didn't test most services?

<comment><USER18> Yeah, here's a quick stab:

S3 - not much to say, fast, durable, expensive...the gold standard. Given limitations of below, we use for rotating nightly backups despite cost.

Glacier - great for cold storage/archive, but has 90 day minimum

OVH hot - open stack based, cheaper than S3 but not absurdly cheap, charged for egress even intra-DC which is absurd and kills many use cases. They have crippled OpenStack permission management (i.e. no write-only keys with lifetime management per bucket which is necessary for doing backups securely)

OVH cold - charges for ingress but then storage is crazy cheap, and egress not as bad as Glacier. This is our preferred archival option.

C14 - not object storage, more like a "cold" ftp dump

B2 - pricing is epic, S3-incompatibility is a pain and lack of Backblaze- sponsored libraries (the library in the python b2 cli is not a proper API)...we've been working on adding B2 to WAL-E. However, their permission/user management doesn't cut it.

Wasabi - S3 compatible, great pricing if not for 90 day minimum, which they hide in the fine print

<comment><USER19> Disclaimer: I work for Backblaze.

> B2 - their permission/user management doesn't cut it

Have you seen the new "Multiple Application Keys" APIs we have published docs for (and the release coming in a week or two)? I'm curious if they satisfy your permission needs. The docs are here: [https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/application_keys.html](https://www.backblaze.com/b2/docs/application_keys.html)

A screenshot of the web GUI to these keys is here: [https://i.imgur.com/RdlgdAs.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/RdlgdAs.jpg) (NOTE: the web GUI does not expose the full power of the multiple application keys, it is meant to be easy to use and hopefully satisfy 95% of customer's needs.)

<comment><USER20> That looks great for me at least! I'd been using B2 a bit personally, but had written off using it for any serious projects because of the inability to make extra restricted per-project(bucket) API keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there a fundamental reason why B2 is (and will remain) cheaper than S3, or is it just because they need to compete with AWS and once successful the prices will be the same (or higher)?

<comment><USER22> From my understanding, they've put a lot of work into lowering the cost of storage. I know at one point they were using arrays of consumer-grade drives, and they've done a bunch of analysis on the cost and reliability of drives on the market. They also created the "Storage Pod" [1] to maximize storage density.

[1] [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage- serv...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage-server/)

<comment><USER17> Every cloud company does that. Google, Amazon, MS, all use consume-grade drives with software on top to reduce costs and increase reliability at a fraction of traditional enterprise storage solutions. Scality even provides a proprietary solution to do the same on-premise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Are you able to try multithreaded uploads too? I found that single stream uploads were too slow (< 10 megabytes per second) but I could get ~35 megabytes per second from packet.net to B2 by using 4 threads.

Edit: removed incorrect stuff.

<comment><USER24> If you use the large_file API (needed for multithreaded uploads), you do only hash chunks not the file.

<comment><USER19> Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze.

> If you use the large_file API (needed for multithreaded uploads)

We recommend for small files that you use multi-threaded where each thread sends a totally separate file. So if you have to upload both cat.jpg and dog.jpg, you upload cat.jpg in one thread and dog.jpg in another thread.

Based on the Backblaze architecture, that means cat.jpg will be sent to one "vault" in the Backblaze datacenter with one thread, and dog.jpg will be sent to a totally different "vault" in the Backblaze datacenter with another thread. This scales incredibly well, in that it should be twice as fast for two files, and 20 times as fast for 20 files if you do it correctly.

Source: I wrote a lot of the Backblaze Personal Backup client, which uses this philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This whole library wouldn't be necessary if Backbalze implemented a S3 compatible API. They give reasons like being able to load balance on the client for their API (which I do no think is a good reason), but ultimately they just push work from their end to a lot of applications and developers.

Maybe it also has a strategic advantage? Now every product has to announce they support B2 whereas nobody has to announce they support Wasabi, because they support any S3 compatible storage such as AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage or Wasabi.

<comment><USER26> Meh, I can see why they didn't. they aren't really in the same business. It makes sense for followers to implement APIs compatible with market leaders. Riak CS is API compatible with S3, which is nice. But it's literally intended to be an open source version of S3 that you can host and scale yourself.

Backblaze is in a different market. They may be finding out that there's overlap and allowing that use. But they are not the same and probably aren't prepared for developers to start using b2 en masse.

I think it makes business sense. You want to save some money? Do a little extra work for the cheaper product. Want to save even more money? Roll your own with Riak CS. Cloud services all work along the same spectrum where you pay more for convenience and ease of use, and you pay less up front if you're willing to pay in developer or devops or infrastructure costs. I think this fits in nicely on that spectrum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hah, I hadn't heard about Blackbaze in a while and I was even thinking about creating Ask HN asking if anyone was maybe using Blackbaze for a longer while and can say something about them (speed, data reliability). Now I'll take my chance:

Had you used Blackbaze B2? How was your experience?

<comment><USER28> I have used B2 for a couple of months. From Europe it is way too slow. They only have like 2 DC, which are both on the west coast I believe.

As I am using this for backups only, I went back to Google Drive where I can max out my Gbit upload.

<comment><USER29> If you are connecting from Europe, maybe you could consider exoscale.com 's S3 storage offering?

It's 100% european (with Swiss and German regions), and priced pretty aggressively. [https://www.exoscale.com/object- storage/](https://www.exoscale.com/object-storage/)

Disclaimer: I now work for exoscale, but was a happy user before that.

<comment><USER30> Cool, you guys should send out mailings to your customers when new offerings come online. I asked about s3 at the end of last year and was told it is currently unavailable for new customers. I haven't thought to check if it was available until now and may have gone to a more expensive competitor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This feels like a handy tool! The first thing I read when opening new code is the test suite - it's worth getting that right at the start. Would you consider deeper unit testing? S3 (and aws) have the indispensible `moto` boto mocks, I think something similar would be dead handy here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, on my TODO list is much deeper unit testing. I made this in four days and was just testing that it worked. It already has about 92% code coverage but I want to cover that fields are returned properly and such. Some help would be appreciated if people would like to, including mocking it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just wish Backblaze would fix their snapshots. You still have no way to tag a snapshot, put in any notes, anything. You literally make two snap shots 5 minutes apart and they only thing that differentiates them is the time stamp. unforgivable.

<comment><USER19> Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze.

> You still have no way to tag a snapshot, put in any notes, anything.

We totally agree, and the project is fully spec'ed, just waiting for an available engineer to implement it! On a side note, we also have open recs for engineers. :-)

<comment><USER32> Thank you! Please send it out in an email or something when it's ready. We've been waiting for this for a while now which is why I'm so grumpy lol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Hey that's cool. I made a B2 Ruby gem a few years back that gives a library and cli for the API. +1,000,000 for backblaze!

[https://github.com/erickj/bkblz](https://github.com/erickj/bkblz)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The best part is this API looks and feels very similar to AWS's boto S3 API.

Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> B2's API design has security implications: [https://www.danieldent.com/blog/restless-vulnerability- non-b...](https://www.danieldent.com/blog/restless-vulnerability-non-browser- cross-domain-http-request-attacks/)

<comment><USER23> I don't see how B2 is affected by this unless you assume malicious control of a B2 API server.

<comment><USER35> It's fairly standard for network clients to assume potential malicious control of the server they are connecting to.

It helps reduce the blast radius of a compromised server.

In the case where the server is operated by a third party (as is the case with the B2 API server), there can be many compliance implications if that third- party-operated server has access to an internal network.

We don't accept when SSH clients or web browsers have the ability to do things they shouldn't based on instructions sent by the server they connect to.

Why would we suddenly have lower expectations of our file storage API clients? (or any other network/HTTP clients for that matter)

<comment><USER23> Ah, I see what you're getting at. It'd be better if the URL for get_upload_url (I think that's what the API was called) could be calculated client side.

At the moment, you're probably still more at risk of downloading a malicious library from PyPi or npm but this is sure to turn up in a CTF at some point - even curl is technically vulnerable.

Have you talked to anyone from Backblaze about this?

<comment><USER35> Yes, client-side URL calculation and/or a whitelist of acceptable URLs would be a significant improvement.

Thankfully command-line curl won't follow redirects unless you pass it a special flag, though if you do need it to follow redirects, I'm not sure what the best way is to restrict the range of redirects that it will follow.

This issue was part of a broader coordinated disclosure and was only published today. I've gotten in touch with B2 support & I'm hoping my support ticket will make it to the correct people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Backblaze B2 provides the cheapest cloud object storage and transfer > available on the internet

Are you sure ? [http://gaul.org/object-store- comparison/](http://gaul.org/object-store-comparison/) says there are cheaper options

EDIT: Edited the link away from [https://wasabi.com/pricing/](https://wasabi.com/pricing/). Wasabi seems cheaper than B2 and claims to be a hot storage solution

<comment><AUTHOR> That does indeed look cheaper. I'll have to make an SDK for them next :D

edit: Woah, you edited your comment. What made you change from Wasabi?

<comment><USER18> Wasabi has a 90 day minimum storage period, just like AWS Glacier. This means it's pretty unusable for things like nightly backups if your retention is less than 90 days.

<comment><USER37> If your backup process involves downloading the backup artifacts in a different region (say for true off site DR + validation) then it's still a net win as the 90-day storage costs are less than the insanely high $.09/GB AWS charges for outbound bandwidth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is this the best way of dealing with Python 3 compatibility? What's wrong with sys.version_info? Or is there even some better way?

Ref: [https://github.com/sibblegp/b2blaze/blob/master/b2blaze/util...](https://github.com/sibblegp/b2blaze/blob/master/b2blaze/utilities.py)

</comment><comment><USER39> Duplicity has support for B2 back end now, I use it for a lot of backup and it works well. Versioning, encryption etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> This library is meant more for web apps and other applications built on Python. Not necessarily for backups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can I use B2 as replacement for S3? Namely, I need "get upload URL" like pre- signed S3 URLs.

</comment><comment><USER41> That's funny, I did the same thing for elixir, feel free to check it out [https://github.com/upmaru/upstream](https://github.com/upmaru/upstream). Not well documented yet but it's coming.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm loving B2 for my Linux desktop backup. I used Crashplan for many years until they pulled the plug recently. Now I'm using B2 via Duplicati and I'm actually saving money (I have about 500Gb of backup).

Borg was a runner up, but Duplicati had built in B2 support, provided scheduling, and a web interface which makes navigating for specific files in a tree easy when needed.

Crashplan had a nice Linux client, but it was blackbox/closed source, so problems came up from time to time that were hard to debug. So its nice to have more control of my data as well.

</comment><comment><USER43> Any ideas on using Backblaze as a driver in a Laravel project? We're currently using Digitalocean Spaces but it's very unreliable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe Laravel is PHP so you'd need a PHP library while this one is Python.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A little off topic. Did I miss the backblaze hard drive reliability report? I think it's been a while since they've done one.

</comment><comment><USER45> I thought the knock against backblaze is that (compared to Google or Amazon), uploading large amounts of data to it is very slow.

<comment><USER19> Disclaimer: I work for Backblaze so I'm biased.

> uploading large amounts of data to [Backblaze B2] is very slow

All reports we (Backblaze) hear is that if you only use one thread, Backblaze B2 is slightly slower than S3 (like maybe 90% of the performance). If somebody has better numbers I would LOVE to see them!

If clients use multiple threads, this issue goes entirely away. Using 500 threads can provably be 500 times as fast with Backblaze. This is because the Backblaze B2 architecture means there are no "choke points" like Amazon S3 has. Each thread will most likely be talking to a completely different "Backblaze Vault" maybe even in a completely separate Backblaze datacenter. Since they don't share any network switches or load balancers in common, there is no way they will slow down.

But again, I would love any measurements or reproducible tests showing differences so we can chase them down and improve Backblaze B2!

<comment><USER45> Fair enough. This is just what I've heard second-hand, so I definitely don't have any data to back it up. I may try it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> admins: Will you please change the title to a Show HN? Thank you!

<comment><USER46> Sure, done!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> B2 does not have the durability guarantees that s3 has it is not a fair comparison.</comment>