Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Becoming a Secret Travel Agent [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7964-where_in_the_world_is_carmen_sandiego <comment><USER2> This was a fantastic talk. Both the content and the quality of the talk itself exceeded my expectations. I knew that bar codes on boarding passes are PDF-417 and have lots of info embedded, but the attack vectors they discuss are NUTS.

I tried posting this earlier in the week and it didn't get any traction, but user sleavey posted a great summary of the talk in that thread in case you don't have an hour, which is worth reading: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273314](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13273314)

I'm pretty sure the attack vector they discuss about finding boarding passes and changing the frequent flyer number attached to the itinerary is what the people who sell flights for 20-30% the cost[0] do. I've been wondering who that scam hurts for a while, the common thought is that they're using stolen credit cards but from what I understand the "services" are way too reliable to be based off stolen cards.

[0] [http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/01/flying-the-fraudster- skie...](http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/01/flying-the-fraudster-skies/)

<comment><USER3> It's hard to get a clear picture of what's going on from the heavily biased coverage on Krebs's site, but based on the services being offered (flights, hotels, car rentals) they would appear to be purchased with stolen rewards points. If they weren't limited to spending these points, it seems obvious that they'd sell a greater range of services/products.

<comment><USER4> I'm not seeing the "heavy bias" in Kreb's coverage, could you elaborate on that?

I've always had a good impression of his work, and I don't get what you're implying. A bias for what?

<comment><USER5> IMO the quality of his reporting occasionally suffers because of his strong personal feelings on the people he's reporting on.

That particular article doesn't seem like a good example of such, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to work for an airline that used Amadeus and was fairly familiar with it. Every booking agent had access to a terminal connection to the mainframe (similar to ssh or telnet). Everyone had unique login credentials and every action can be tracked through the booking history.

Here are a few notes:

\- Credit card numbers are obfuscated right after they are first used. Only certain back offices have unrestricted access.

\- Viewing all the travel information in the PNR is important. For example, if a flight is arriving late, it can be useful to know that the passenger has a connecting flight with another airline on the same ticket to arrange for another connecting flight.

\- Reservations are archived after a certain amount of days after the last flight. They can be retrieved in view only mode but you have to specify a date range.

\- Most tickets and vouchers are non-transferable (at least for the airline I worked for) . Even changing a name on a reservation is a pain. You either have to make a new booking and re-issue the ticket or get a support desk to change the name on the current reservation and re-issue the ticket. A regular agent changing more than 3 letters of a name will result in a cancelled itinerary.

\- It is possible to enter restricted comments on a PNR. You can even set who can view them. Agency only, Airline only even a specific office.

I get that he was saying that the system is unsafe but a lot of it is only in relation to the web interfaces. You can't get direct GDS access unless you're working directly for an airline or travel agency. Those people definitely need to see most of the information on the record.

Anyways, just thought I would provide some info.

<comment><USER7> > I get that he was saying that the system is unsafe but a lot of it is only > in relation to the web interfaces.

I think that was the point though: when these systems were being built in the 70s (i.e. pre-internet), the security measures they had – many of them based on trust – were perfectly reasonable. You'd need to have physical access to a machine connected to this closed network to even do so much as look at a reservation. And then the internet comes along and these companies (with no experience in web security) hook up their closed, tightly controlled network to an open, not-at-all controlled network with virtually no additional security. I guess it's fair to say that trust alone doesn't work too well on the internet.

> You can't get direct GDS access unless you're working directly for an > airline or travel agency. Those people definitely need to see most of the > information on the record.

Yes, but the researchers addressed this in their talk about 14 minutes in. The authentication isn't hard to crack: it consists of an agent ID and a password, often in a format like WS<DDMMYY> (where <DDMMYY> is the date of first access to the system). These credentials are shared by the same office at the very least, and I have a sneaky feeling that I might find a conspicuous post-it note on a computer screen if I visit a few of my local travel agents.

<comment><USER8> If I recall correctly, he said that travel agencies often have their own system (with individual passwords) hooked up to the GDS using a shared login which was set up once long time ago and then forgot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> description for those puzzled by the title:

> _Travel booking systems are among the oldest global IT infrastructures, and > have changed surprisingly little since the 80s. The personal information > contained in these systems is hence not well secured by today 's standards. > This talk shows real-world hacking risks from tracking travelers to stealing > flights. _

</comment><comment><USER10> What's interesting is that back in May, EU parliament has approved the directive to use pnr data for intelligence purposes, meaning that every air carrier has to trnsfer this data to law enforcement agencies ([http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2016/...](http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2016/04/21-council-adopts-eu-pnr-directive/)). Have i read too much Orvell or...?

<comment><USER11> Coupled with IP addresses from web bookings being on the PNR, and the likes of the new Investigatory Powers Bill in the UK, it won't be long before border control agents will be looking at your recent Internet history.

It's truly frightening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tempting to make a system that captures publicly posted photos of boarding passes. Then email the poster a warning along with proof of the personal information that they made available. However, I suspect this could get one in trouble.

<comment><USER13> 90% of what's present in the boarding pass barcode (PDF417) is visible in plaintext on the actual document. The other 10% is relatively meaningless without access to the airline's systems (perhaps with the exception of FF numbers which are sometimes redacted).

<comment><USER12> My understanding (without trying this myself) is that it's potentially possible to recover a traveler's email and home address.

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

<comment><USER14> Also [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNR) for the personal information it stores.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnq0UfOUTlM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnq0UfOUTlM)

</comment><comment><USER5> Seemed like a bit of an odd talk for a crowd that largely flies to cons. This is mostly stuff your average FTer already knows.

And for gods sake don't try adding your frequent flier # on other peoples tickets. The airline _will_ catch you, and unless the tickets have your name on them you aren't gonna get any miles anyway.</comment>


Middle Men, Aggregators, And Apologies - <AUTHOR> http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-02-27.html <comment><USER2> I enjoyed Zed as a bringer of change and entertainment back when he did it loudly. I'm enjoying it even more now that he's toned it down - he's still got attitude in a good way, and brings a beatdown on specious thought, but he's much friendlier and courteous about it now. I think it actually makes his writing more powerful, and it's just as fun to read.

<comment><USER3> ... and now you know who he is. PT Barnum and all that

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want to sell your music online, why not just build a simple e-commerce site?

Zed's answer to this has to do with the feed reader.

So he actually has two problems: a "checkout" problem (how to actually accept money for the music) and an "awareness" problem.

An already famous artist could set up the simplest e-commerce store and sell copies of a long-anticipated album through it.

But Zed needs to get the word out. He has a hunch, like any entrepreneur, that there is a market for his music if only more people were exposed to it.

Sure he could pay Google lots of money for click-throughs to his e-commerce site, but that wouldn't be any fun.

So in comes the idea of using RSS. I admit, I've noticed that a lot of companies have a business model like:

1) Idea 2) RSS 3) ? 4) Profit

Zed is reinventing the wheel... the traditional music industry exists _not because it is evil_ but because it helps match musicians with consumers who happily buy the music.

Consider all the music fandom lore about waiting in line to buy an album, etc. People love making the purchase, they love the cover art, they love the unauthorized leak of a track before the album's official release date, etc. These things are part of the larger entertainment and social value of music.

So Zed wants to reinvent the wheel, with the help of RSS, to get all the clueless people, clods, and scammers out of the way so that people will discover his own music and the music of other tortured artists.

The real question to ask is to the consumer: "Do you have a music problem?" I personally do not. There is a lot of great stuff on iTunes, Pandora, etc., and I have maxed out the amount of leisure time and money I want to spend on music enjoyment.

In economic terms, the marginal cost of discovering another great artist is extremely low, effectively nil. I know where to go, I can afford the price of the album, etc. The reason I don't buy more music is because I don't care to. There is tremendous abundance and quality.

So to make a persuasive argument from the perspective of a consumer, Zed would have to argue that there are lots of artists who (if discovered) would make music listeners significantly happier, or would save them significant amounts of money, or both.

Zed's music-themed rants sort of remind me of an infomercial.

<comment><USER5> _If you want to sell your music online, why not just build a simple e-commerce site?_

Allow me to plug my favorite e-commerce provider: e-junkie makes this so easy even a coked-out rockstar can do it. Upload MP3s, set price, copy/paste cart code for page. Done.

To the extent that it is a take money, give music problem, they solve it pretty well. (The build an audience willing to pay you money problem... well, there is a reason the labels don't charge BritStreetBoys $5 a month.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Here's an actual question: If I sell my music on Amazon or iTunes can I sell it for $0.10 or $20.00? Do I have to charge $0.99? Just like the labels?_

 _If it's true that I can't set the price to compete with the labels, then the labels are guilty of collusion and price fixing. Someone should look into that._

The music labels? Guilty of collusion? Price fixing? Never! It's just that all music is equally worthy.

<comment><USER7> It's interesting, actually. The idea is that you should be able to set the price of your music, but there's quite a bit of weirdness and technical issues. For example, I'm selling an album I recorded on Amazon. It's a full- length, so you'd expect something like ~$9.99 to be the final price, but since it's only one track (21 minutes long), it ended up going for 99 cents at Amazon. I have no doubt that somewhere on the internet exists a form where I can edit the price, but it'd be a real pain to deal with. I'm glad selling music on Amazon/iTunes is a hobby of mine and not a business.

<comment><USER8> This is probably why The Mars Volta split up their longest songs into multiple parts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sold that a new "better" player/browser is needed. People need to be able to move songs onto their player/browser of choice, MPUI, itunes, ipod, car stereo, zillion dollar sound system etc.

I like Zed, but seems less than knowledgeable of copyright and music rights/ownership.

The not knowing .99 itune is Apple enforced and not the Industries doing(which hates it btw)

Not understanding/admitting difference between public performance (what ascap collects royalties for) and downloding/playing music.

"That's right, as long as you don't edit the content, when you provide hosting and search for an artist, and they pirate music, then you are safe."

Worked awesome for Napster!

prev article "The problem is gatekeepers in general." I didn't read all of this but I don't think Zed sees/said what I think is obviously(debatable I guess(like ID is debatable)) the main problem with music in general and esp online music and double esp independent music is The Music Industry. Destroy them and it will be all rainbows and kittens.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would love to be able to put music "ads" in my blog feed. Seriously, is that do-able? You pick a song you love, and at the end of each post an "ad" appears for it, which is really an embedded music player and allows a person to play 30 seconds of it. If someone clicks through and buys it, I get a commission, ala Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER11> Since this topic is right where my startup (<http://www.klictrack.com/mdt>) is trying to push things forward, please check us out and tell me where we need improvement. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.</comment>


Mobile firms unite to offer applications - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8515813.stm

<comment><USER2> Why is the article mentioning Adobe AIR? I find it hard to believe that this doesn't put HTML5 on the air.</comment>


What privacy does a VPN actually provide? - <AUTHOR> I am an American, and dismayed (but not surprised) that the US Congress voted to allow ISPs to cash in on data derived from my usage of the internet. Supposedly VPNs solve this problem. What does this hide other than my IP address? If I, in the USA, visit foobar.com, whose server is also in the USA, then all the HTTP headers are intact, and someone who wants to track me has everything he had before I started using a VPN, except for IP. Or is the IP actually that important to the people who make a living by selling my data? <comment><USER2> Home Network

         |
         |
         v

        ISP  <--->  Internet

Home Network

         |
         |
         v

        ISP  --->  Internet --> VPN <--> Internet

Your ISP cannot see what you do on the internet when you use a VPN, except for the fact that you are connecting to a VPN. The VPN is connecting to the internet for you, and your ISP cannot see anything beyond your and your VPN sharing encrypted data.

The point is its more than just an IP. Websites you connect to aren't actually sites you're connecting to, your VPN is connecting to them for you and sending you back what it sees, and so your real IP is hidden and, in theory, the encryption between the VPN and yourself makes it impossible for your ISP to see what it is you're doing online, it only sees garbled nonsense. But when your computer receives that garbled nonsense, it turns it into, for instance, data that will load into your browser and show you a site you don't want your ISP to know you are visiting.

There is always the danger of your VPN/hosting provider handing over your actual IP and a list of all your traffic, neatly folded and ironed in a log, over to a company for money. This is why some people avoid free VPNs and others set up their own on a server.

<comment><AUTHOR> But "what [I] do on the internet" is available to anyone snooping the internet between the VPN and whatever website I'm going to. HTTP request headers carry a lot of information, e.g. [https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a- few-bits-of...](https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/with-a-few-bits-of- data-researchers-identify-anonymous-people/?_r=0).

This is an arms race. If there is value in my data, surely someone is going to try to obtain it from the data flowing out of the VPN. No?

<comment><USER2> You're not wrong at all. If you had an OpenVPN server running up in Canada that you set up yourself - you still have to worry about the connection that the VPN in Canada is making to the internet. _It_ connects to the internet through an ISP, too.

One point of popular VPNs and overlay networks like Tor is that so many people do so many different things on the same IP that it becomes impossible to tell who's who from the thousands of people making outgoing connections from the same address, and the overlapping traffic is anonymizing in of itself. But yes no guarantee of privacy.

Take into account that its better to have some security than no security at all.

The argument you're making rings true, but I can say "Why have a lock on your door if someone can pick it and enter anyway?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, I will put a lock on my door. I was just trying to understand how many windows I had wide open.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Depends on what you mean by VPNs.

Traditionally a VPN was an overlay network, that interconnected a number of private networks and/or individual hosts over the Internet. For example, between your friends you could set up IPsec so that peer-to-peer IP traffic was encrypted between all participants. There's no client or server role in IPsec so either side can initiate the connection.

Then, it was used as a moniker for corporate PC software that connected the salaryman on the road to the mothership "intranet". Which was mostly about selectively punching holes in their own "intranet + firewall" network setup.

Then lately, the term has seen use in home computer use to circumvent their last mile ISP, to impose a small level of obfuscation in order to BitTorrent stuff more safely or curb ISP data collection. The traffic is still piped out to the public Internet at the VPN provider.

It's kind of a full circle and the term VPN does not make any sense for the latter use. You make a "virtual private" connection to the public internet, and there is nobody on the VPN that you share privacy with?</comment>


A Remarkable Case of External Hind Limbs in a Humpback Whale (1921) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/4849/N0009.pdf;jsessionid=55D6453968F5461B1B6BFF8D53C81F16?sequence=1 <comment><USER2> This was from British Columbia in 1920. "This particular whale was a female humpback of the average length, with elementary legs protruding from the body about 4 feet 2 inches" (Notes on the Occurrence of a Humpbacked Whale having Hind Legs)

</comment><comment><USER3> I can barely tell what's going on in that photo, is there any clearer picture?

<comment><USER4> Nope. But at least they apologized:

> I enclose herewith three photographs showing the unusual development of the > pelvic Rudiments in a whale captured at the Kyuquot Station last July, of > which you have the bones. It is to be regretted that better pictures in > evidence of this unprecedented development were not obtained.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a dolphin found, more recently, with rear legs/fins

[https://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=31071605...](https://www.underwatertimes.com/news.php?article_id=31071605289)

<comment><USER5> Ok super dumb question but I thought the tail fin was basically the two feet fused together. I'm not sure why this picture has the extra fins on the body and a tail.

<comment><USER6> A whale is a mammal, and the tail of a whale is analogous to the tail of a dog, or cat, or otter, or other mammal with a tail.

The hind legs of whales essentially atrophied away as they evolved. Some whales have small vestigial limb bones sort of floating inside their lower abdomen.

<comment><USER5> Ah you're right. Looks like seals are set up like I was describing though.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, the elephant seal in particular

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whales have vestigial bones of hind limbs, but are normally inside the body.

<comment><USER8> Yup. Unlike most sea creatures, the ancestors of whales used to live on land.

More info: [https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_0...](https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03)

<comment><USER9> IIRC from reading Dawkins books, hippos are more closely related to whales than to any land animal.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but their last common ancestor was not much like either. Lots about the sequence of changes seems to be established now: [http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/the-evolution-of- whale...](http://www.eartharchives.org/articles/the-evolution-of-whales/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A couple of years ago I visited a whale exhibition at the natural history museum in London. They had skeletons and models showing the evolution of the whale from a land mammal. The shrinking of the legs/pelvis and eventual detachment from the spine was fascinating to see laid out.

</comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate the "I know how this looks and sounds 'hoaxy,' but here's why I think I'm right" aspect by the author. (paraphrased of course)</comment>


Amazon Ready to Pour Billions into Policing Products on Its Site - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-ready-to-invest-billions-in-policing-products-on-its-site-11571787628?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Amazon needs to cut down on the number of products on its site for me to use it consistently again. It's ridiculous how searching for "spatula" returns 400 _pages_ of results, all of them near identical (many are actually identical), but almost all of them sold by sellers named by nearly random strings of characters.

I ended up just buying most of what I needed at local big box stores. If it's more expensive, it's not by much (I didn't price check every random $5 utensil I bought), it's a lot less overwhelming, and I feel a lot less need to think about things like material safety from effectively anonymous sellers under Chinese jurisdiction on Amazon.

<comment><USER3> Agreed, they need to curate their store, and take some responsibility and pride in what they sell. Need a battery tester? Take your pick from...

* VTECHOLOGY Battery Checker - [https://www.amazon.com/Battery-VTECHOLOGY-Batteries-Requires...](https://www.amazon.com/Battery-VTECHOLOGY-Batteries-Requires-Operation/dp/B07KJLBN2H/)

* D-FantiX Battery Tester - [https://www.amazon.com/D-FantiX-Battery-Universal-Checker-Ba...](https://www.amazon.com/D-FantiX-Battery-Universal-Checker-Batteries/dp/B014FEM0X6/)

* SURDARX Battery Tester - [https://www.amazon.com/SURDARX-Battery-Universal-Checker-Bat...](https://www.amazon.com/SURDARX-Battery-Universal-Checker-Batteries/dp/B07X46XYY1/)

* The Battery Organizer - [https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Organizer-TBO30343-Universal-...](https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Organizer-TBO30343-Universal-Batteries/dp/B07DLFMXX8/)

* Amprobe BAT-200 Battery Tester - [https://www.amazon.com/Amprobe-BAT-200-Battery-Tester/dp/B00...](https://www.amazon.com/Amprobe-BAT-200-Battery-Tester/dp/B005G7SBY4/)

* Battery Tester Checker by WeePro - [https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tester-Checker-WeePro-Monitor...](https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tester-Checker-WeePro-Monitor/dp/B07VB4NTK8/)

I'll stop there, but there are probably 20 brands selling the same Alibaba battery tester on the first few pages with the only difference being the name stamped on the side. This is why I don't shop at Amazon. I don't trust their reviews. I don't trust that I'll receive a legitimate product. I don't trust that anyone cares about the quality of products being sold.

<comment><USER4> It's worth mentioning that the housings of many products are frequently sold to multiple manufacturers as components ( though in this case I suspect it's probably the same product ). I've also seen suppliers change the contents of batches of products once an order has been placed ( I'm talking palette loads of products that land with changes to the electronics - even as a single importer specialising in a given product it can be impossible to guarantee continuity of supply from the east ). This makes any attempt to police this kind of re-branding highly impractical since you need to disassemble any given product to verify it's contents, even within the same order.

<comment><USER3> My concern is why they need to sell them all. Take those 20 battery testers that all cost $7 and look identical, test them out, and sell the best one.

As the consumer I'll save time, receive a better product, and likely be more confident and satisfied with my purchase.

<comment><USER4> The only way for Amazon to do what you ask is to not allow third parties to list products in their system at all, and to verify continuity of supply by continually spot checking product, and penalising vendors for changing spec on them.

<comment><USER2> I think that's the point. Most retailers do exactly what you describe, and I prefer buying things at those stores instead of Amazon because of it. But that's just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Inspired by a court decision in Pennsylvania that, regardless of what Amazon says, Amazon is the seller and has the responsibilities of the seller.

<comment><USER6> Is eBay affected by this, or is an auction site clearly not the seller in this situation?

<comment><USER7> eBay actually punishes (most) sellers pretty aggressively. Reason I say most is there's one large shipping supply company on there that consistently shorts customers and has eBay remove the negative feedback. It's assumed in the community that they're large enough that eBay is willing to take the hit to keep them around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's a cheap thing they can do: you don't have to stop commingling entirely, but you can give me a way to opt out of it. Either via account settings or letting me specify during checkout.

Sometimes I may not care which seller it comes from and just want the closest one. Other times, I'm OK with waiting if it means I am more sure of what I'm getting.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I agree, but I think the problem is that Amazon doesn't know who the bad actors are. To actually verify all the goods would require an enormous amount of physical checking, requiring an enormous amount of staff trained to tell a good raincoat from a piece of shit one (a week of wearing?), compounded by bad actors simply shifting identities.

It's a similar problem to Facebook not being able to tame disinformation: how can a trust based system police maleficence at scale?

<comment><USER10> They can start to isolate and A/B test. Banks look for common merchants in cases of credit card theft... Seller A is a seller-in-common of 5 counterfeit goods, they're a likely candidate.

Even if you can't demonstrate it immediately, you can then start to bin out their stuff. High index that that seller is counterfeiting/selling it? Start un-mingling their stuff, internally - you don't -need- to physically verify authenticity, but if you're unmingling their stuff due to suspicion they're a bad actor and you keep getting complaints... probably a good sign.

> compounded by bad actors simply shifting identities

Identities have to keep getting paid. Start requiring ACH/EBT payments only for those actors (i.e. no more checks or whatever). They might be able to keep 'creating' identities - it might be harder to keep creating bank accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really hope they mean it. A few months ago I stopped using Amazon because of this. I knew electronics were bad but once I saw that someone was counterfeiting a raincoat I was going to buy and using Amazon comingling to get away with it, that was the end.

Turns out you can get basically anything elsewhere with better guarantees and lower prices. But Amazon is faster than everyone else and I hate creating new accounts. I'd be happy to return.

<comment><USER12> With the web and related technology comfortably 20+ years old I'm very surprised standards haven't developed where huge, annoying hacks have developed.

I checked out via ApplePay on a website by random. What do you mean shipping, email, payment, confirmation are all one streamlined step where no account is needed? This is way better than poorly auto-filling random fields based on name matching.

The other big one is WiFi captive portals with unencrypted connections. Can't there be a more elegant process that passes off to an encrypted connection instead of DNS spoofing? I have to manually type in [http://nossl.net](http://nossl.net) when it messes up because most all sites are https.

<comment><USER13> > Can't there be a more elegant process that passes off to an encrypted > connection instead of DNS spoofing? I have to manually type in > [http://nossl.net](http://nossl.net) when it messes up because most all > sites are https.

Which browser do you use? Firefox which I use has captive portal detection. It queries a mozilla provided http web site in the background and if there is DNS redirection, it displays a message.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly the kluge I'm talking about. I use iOS and macOS and it /mostly/ works. Primarily Chrome on the desktop, but use Firefox for work related stuff and Safari as a contingency. It seems to break on things like expiration (they seem to re-enable the captive portal after an hour or two) or waking from sleep. Some captive portals seem to let through iMessage or email, but block http traffic until you click through--this seems to confuse some portal detection. There have also been different "hacks" around it for decades to bypass it and get full web access.

Most of my personal frustration is around apps. I get an error downloading a podcast or connecting a game so I would fire up the browser because the captive portal handling messed up. Starting a few years ago my go-to domains started https by default so I took time to seek out http-only domains because it still comes up.

Assuming that all worked perfectly, you still end up with an unencrypted connection. I'm just kind of amazed that with all of the big players implementing this stuff on the client side; Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, and on the server side AT&T, xfinity, Gogo, and any other chains plus Google on both sides deploying to Starbucks and authoring Android. Nobody seems to see this as a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'll believe it when I see it. As of now, counterfeit products are the biggest reason I avoid buying things on Amazon. Not sure how I'd be convinced in the future that that should no longer apply, it's difficult to regain that trust.

<comment><USER15> Counterfeit products do seem to be a real problem. I've also seen an obvious rise in CD/DVD sets where there seem to be slight marks on some of the discs when opened, as if it's a returned item that has just been resealed.

The worst in recent years is their packaging, though. They just don't seem to give any thought at all to putting multiple items of very different sizes in one of their larger boxes with nothing but a bit of tissue paper and a feather to pad it. It turns up having been sliding and bashed all over the place on the journey, with book pages bent, electronic devices potentially damaged internally, discs loose in their boxes after a clip snapped and covered in scratches, etc.

This must be hitting their bottom line by now. I know we stopped using them for anything important, fragile or time-sensitive a while ago. They're still convenient for low cost, sturdy products or for ordering single books or discs/boxes if the order isn't time sensitive and can be returned if they pack it badly, but that's about it these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Amazon.com Inc. might need to spend billions of dollars in the future to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods, expired food or dangerous products on its platforms to preserve the customer trust that is critical to the company's future, Amazon consumer chief Jeff Wilke said Tuesday."

As the ancient Spartans would say: "Might."

</comment><comment><USER17> When I was living in the states I was surprised about the sad state of e-commerce there. I was used to e-commerce sites like bol.com and coolblue (local giants) in the low countries, which have a thousands time better service (on all levels) than Amazon, or basically any webshop I tried in the US. Of course, there's also just better consumer protection rights in the EU, but the above mentioned websites go way beyond what's required by law.

</comment><comment><USER4> Personally, I find browsing amazon impossible simply due to the widespread mis-categorisation of products. It seems that suppliers just chuck everything into inappropriate categories in the hope that it gets them more views. This renders the platform useless for product discovery, and suggests that you might as well be searching for the product elsewhere. It also gives me the feeling of rummaging through a bargain basement shop, rather than the higher value store that I think Amazon used to be perceived as ( vs e.g, ebay ).

<comment><USER18> When I interviewed at Amazon a couple of years ago (for a team on the retail side of things, this was their bread-and-butter) I raised this very point with my interviewer, about my concerns over the data-quality issues I was having lately with item properties/attributes and miscategorization. My interviewer said the main problem was bad data coming from their Marketplace and other third-party vendors. - he said this is was why they recently (at the time) brought in the great minds and heavy-guns for machine-learning to fix all of these issues - and at the time (2016-2017) I noticed things were improving.

But lately - over the past year or so - I've seen things getting worse - I'm assuming because the problem of well-meaning but ultimately inadequate data from Marketplace sellers is now solved - but what remains is fighting bad data from intentionally incorrect metadata from malicious third-party sellers seeking to game the system - which we see today in spades with counterfeit sellers, for example.

Amazon's data-quality issue mirrors Google's perennial black-hat-SEO problem - I think it'll keep their teams occupied for decades at this rate.

(This is why I want to work on self-driving cars...)

<comment><USER19> > (This is why I want to work on self-driving cars...)

This is why I'm skeptical (as much as I'd like not to be) about self-driving cars. Black-hat SEO, intentionally incorrect metadata, it's why we can't have nice things and it _will_ impact self-driving cars as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Perhaps Amazon are concerned that if they do not intervene, the legislature will make them liable for what they sell, and have supposed that this way is cheaper.

<comment><USER15> I've never quite understood how they aren't already liable for what they sell under our normal consumer protection rules here in the UK, at least for anything under FBA. They present themselves as some sort of marketplace, but since they're the ones taking the money, they're the one supplying the products, and they're the ones you communicate with if necessary, I don't see how they aren't also on the hook for all the normal obligations any merchant has under these laws, regardless of any legal weasel words they might include in their terms. Maybe they are and I just haven't come across any relevant examples of legal actions or regulatory interventions yet.

<comment><USER21> Legally they aren't. They also sever the link that lets you use Section 75 to force refunds of defective goods.

<comment><USER15> _Legally they aren 't._

I understand that they take that position. What I'm asking is whether it stands up to a substantial legal challenge. Both Parliament and the courts in England (and the EU, for that matter) have historically taken a fairly dim view of attempts by merchants to exclude liability, which is why various statutory rights can't be contracted away by consumers for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really wish someone would pour billions into saving the real Amazon.

I know I'll get down voted; However, it's just honestly how I feel at this point.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's about time

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd also like to see Amazon go after vendors that ask absurd prices for used merchandise. Predatory pricing is simply not acceptable. The highest price for a used item is often several orders of magnitude greater than the lowest price. Their strategy is simple: once the item sells out at more reasonable prices, the only vendor left standing will be the predator.

<comment><USER25> You're using the term 'predatory pricing' in a non-standard way. Predatory pricing is the practice of pricing low (sometimes lower than cost) to drive competitors out of business. But you seem to be using the term to refer to pricing _high_, which is the opposite.

In any case, why does it matter if a seller asks a high price for something? If you and I are unwilling to pay the price, no one will force us to buy the item.

Are you also against people placing very low bids for items you're selling on eBay?

<comment><USER24> Merchants sometimes try to gouge customers by raising prices greatly when supply is constrained temporarily, such as during a natural disaster. I thought the term for this behavior was 'predatory pricing', but perhaps I got it wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


Paradoxes, from Your Coffee to Calculus - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/paradoxes-from-your-coffee-to-calculus-1532532886 <comment><USER2> The article is also just fluff.

The central premise is that paradoxes allow us to change our way of thinking.

Some examples: can't find your glasses because you can't see without them; can't make coffee because you need coffee to wake up in order to make it; how can you be intolerant of intolerance etc.

They then describe the barber paradox and some of Zeno's paradoxes. How the barber paradox informs us how important it is for us to define things and set limits. And how Zeno's paradoxes led us to calculus.

They then say that they resolve their paradoxes by having a place they put their glasses, setting up the coffee machine the night before, and hating the sin, not the sinner.

And that's pretty much it. Over a thousand words to say that she's a tolerant person who hates intolerance.

<comment> s-shellfish How is what you do any different?

Paradoxes can change how we reason. Being able to think about them allows oneself to refine an understanding to a static context of parts. Once that is complete, a paradox can be resolved by defining a logic of which no paradox arises, and testing it to ensure that, which is still NP hard to prove but, for real life, some people just like to make points and feel smart and talk about things they maybe never got to talk about before.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic)

<comment><USER2> Huh?

I wasn't really disagreeing with anything, I was breaking down the article for people who don't have a WSJ subscription, don't want one, and don't want to bother with the archive link.

I feel the article is mostly pedantic fluff, reiterating a concept that most people are already familiar with in order to just say what she says in the final paragraph: That she can be a tolerant person, tolerate _people_ , while still disagreeing with their viewpoint. Basically responding to the whole "you can't be tolerant and hate intolerance" canard.

My issue isn't with her stance on paradoxes, it's with the fact that she doesn't say anything.

<comment> s-shellfish That's really not fair to women who want to be known as logical thinkers and are just starting to grow into it externally.

You can call it pedantic fluff, I call it a coupled fear of having one's own mind appear hypermasculinized while maintaining sensitivity to multiple perspectives of listening to many individuals without being listened to directly.

Big picture. The devil is in the details.

Edit: maybe wait a few hours before downvoting next time? at least give me the opportunity to not see it as being likely to be you

<comment><USER3> > maybe wait a few hours before downvoting next time? at least give me the > opportunity to not see it as being likely to be you

A user cannot downvote a reply to their own comment. (And complaining about downvoting is never productive.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://archive.is/CeB4C](http://archive.is/CeB4C)

<comment><USER2> BTW, this is an archive link to the article that bypasses the paywall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Paradoxes arise due to our descriptions or understanding or theories we use to understand a phenomenon. If we keep this distinction betweeen a phenomenon and its description, paradoxes tell us that we don't understand the phenomenon very well.

The other issue is the theory-laden ness of observations. Every observation is theory laden. Most of the time we don't even perceive this theory-ladenness because we see them as some atomic facts.

The trick here is to describe the phenomenon at a lower level when paradoxes arise at higher level.

</comment><comment><USER6> I believe Wittigstein said it best: philosophical paradoxes (if a tree falls in forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a noise?) are just word play, due to the inconsistencies of human language.

Adequate language or computer code makes them go away. You are not blind without glasses - you can distinguish shapes and remember the shape of the room and where you may have left glasses and probe with your hand to find them.

You are not comatose without coffee - you are conscious, and take coffee just to feel more alert.

And so on, that with the right language (but it is easier to do that with mathematics or code) the paradox goes away. Like the Zeno paradox with calculus.

<comment> s-shellfish No, paradoxes exist for people in real life.

Study zen buddhism, if you want evidence.

<comment><USER6> I did study, at length. Maybe too much. But I found no evidence and dropped many aspect of religion from my life.

Care to give me some examples?

<comment> s-shellfish [http://flatbedsutra.com/flatbedsutrazenblogger/?p=1714](http://flatbedsutra.com/flatbedsutrazenblogger/?p=1714)

<comment><USER6> Not a paradox for a buddhist. Answering will make him open his mouth and lose his grip. Thinking about answering will cause the want, and the suffering as he can not answer without forfeiting his life.

The answer is unthinking- as in meditation, clear thoughts from the mind. It is designed to show how the right answer is no answer, in both senses!

With the proper understanding, there is no paradox. I agree with you that noticing a potential paradox is sometimes a souce of inspiration to learn, mostly when you can not show the way and when it must come by self discovery.

I do not know how familiar you are with Buddhism. If you want to keep learning, ask yourself: if Kyogen was asked 3 times, would he change his "answer" ?

<comment> s-shellfish It's hard to unthink a thought when it's transcribed online.

> If Kyogen was asked 3 times, would he change his answer?

Probably depends on some stuff I don't have the awareness yet for.

<comment><USER6> Knowing when we lack awareness is knowledge itself, and this is a very correct answer!

Good luck with your study of buddhism!

<comment> s-shellfish We always lack some awareness.

Knowing the difference is sometimes not knowing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the insight about applying set-theoretic, Russell's-paradox- circumventing thinking to everyday scenarios. Not to detract from that, but I think the coffee and glasses situations are perhaps better described as "deadlocks" than "paradoxes".

<comment><USER8> It depends on how you choose to view them. The article chose to use imperative-sounding wording, but you could just as well look at them as declarative statements of logic:

(1) Operating a machine implies having been drinking coffee.

(2) Drinking coffee implies having operated the coffee making machine.</comment></comment>


Emotionally focused couple therapy can help love last - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-emotionally-focused-couple-therapy-can-help-love-last <comment><USER2> > "Real love stories reflect the wisdom of attachment science, which states > that love is an ancient survival code designed to keep a few precious others > that we can count on close. We are wired by millions of years of evolution > for this kind of connection, and it is as essential to us as our next > breath."

I _hate_ stuff like this because it's some of the most "just-so" evolutionary reasoning there is. It reminds me a lot of the way "ancient" or "evolutionary" stories are used to justify fad diets.

No amount of statistical studies on current couples therapy outcomes can confirm such a highly specific evolutionary marketing tag line. Not to mention that, like with many parts of social science, we should be hugely skeptical of the research basis for this technique.

I'd need much more compelling discussion of the study methodologies before finding it worthwhile to invest in really reading them and deciding if there is credibility to it, or if the outcomes are due to confounding factors or selection effects.

But hearing just-so reasoning about attachment bonds is a non-starter. What about forager societies with loose sexual norms and cultures that did not emphasize monogamy or long-term partner bonding?

<comment><USER3> I wish I could upvote this many times. This "just so" reasoning about evolution is basically pure pseudosience, and yet it is so prevalent in so many books, seminars, videos of today... It's like people assume that if they just think up of some reason that would losely make some vague sense and use some of evolutionary terms, if there is a way to picture a mechanism that they are describing and if that mechanism in the picture would have some evolutionary mechanics - that it automaticallt means that it applies to reality, to our physical historical evolution and the exact way that it played out; that they understand the evolutionary traits of those behaviors/qualities...

It's like they think that just because evolution itself is basically a status quo in the scientific community, then any other random preposterous bs argument that you make about it, or just use the evolutionary terms in, would somehow automatically by association have as much predictive power/internal coherence/pure basic connection to reality as the evolution itself. It's a disgrace this is so prevalent nowadays... It is a clear sign that whoever writes the content is no real scientist.

<comment><USER4> What irks me is that the every time someone finds an evolutionary reason for something, it is just as easy to find an evolutionary reason to explain the opposite of it, which makes the explanation useless.

For example, "men evolved to be promiscuous because having many children gave the biggest chance at surviving offspring" makes sense until you realize "men evolved to be faithful because nurturing their children gave them the biggest chance at surviving offspring" makes just as much sense.

When your theory can explain everything, it can explain nothing.

<comment><USER5> Both of those explanations vaguely make sense. And indeed both strategies are seen in nature.

Neither approach is strictly better than the other. It's situational.

You gotta look at how many resources are available how easy and predation pressure and probably lots of more factors.

<comment><USER6> But this isn't falsifiable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I got the book by the author ( _Attachment Theory in Practice: Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Individuals, Couples, and Families_ by Susan M. Johnson) on kindle but haven't read it yet. I was on a book buying binge a few weeks ago for anything related to attachment theory.

More on EFT: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotionally_focused_therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotionally_focused_therapy)

Regarding attachment theory itself: A major paper in adult attachment theory is _Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process_ , [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d36/ac75d7081fcd86d467f6d2...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1d36/ac75d7081fcd86d467f6d2ef408d60c8ffca.pdf).

For further reading, stuff by Cindy Hazan, Phillip Shaver, Mario Mikulincer is good

Attachment theory originally was focused on early stage development in children by John Bowlby. Later it was expanded as a way to conceptualize relationships beyond the child and caregiver, things like friendships, work colleagues, bandmates, etc.

Examples where modern attachment theory could be used formulate a hypothesis (or analyze if you have more than conjecture):

\- why a band breaks up

\- why CrunchPad failed ([https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad- end/](https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/))

\- in interpersonal relations, contradictory, anxious, afraid, erratic behavior - or on the other hand - secure and trusting around someone or a group.

Attachment can explain lasting, functional relationships.

I guess in HN-speak, there could be dyads between startup co-founders, founder <-> employee, investor <-> founder, employee <-> employee. Those cooperational things bubble up into group dynamics and product formation / stuff shipping.

New startup idea: Founder therapy :)

<comment><USER8> I really enjoyed _Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find and Keep Love_ by Levine and Heller [0].

The description of the "types" (avoidant, secure, anxious) was very eye- opening, especially while scoring your own "traits" / tendencies / "patterns" for each type. You sorta know what it means when you answer "very likely" to many questions that point to the same type.

As far as I understand, the book is based on this same Attachment theory — it's a lighter read / introduction to it, but still very good to get the point across. (I didn't find it as useful to help deal with / compensate for the non-secure type's thought patterns — not as much as David Burns' wonderful _Feeling Good_ , for instance)

[0] [https://www.amazon.ca/Attached-Science-Attachment-Find- Keep/...](https://www.amazon.ca/Attached-Science-Attachment-Find- Keep/dp/1585429139)

<comment><USER9> If you like David Burns, let me recommend his _Feeling Good Podcast_. One of the most impactful episodes is one where he works with a woman dying of cancer. You can hear him apply his techniques to a seemingly hopeless situation in real life. It was eye-opening for me, even having read _Feeling Good_.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the recommendation! From [0] (first question on the page), I gather that you're referring to Marilyn's case?

Thanks again

[0] [https://feelinggood.com/2019/03/11/129-ask-david-how-can- i-d...](https://feelinggood.com/2019/03/11/129-ask-david-how-can-i-develop- greater-joy-and-happiness-does-neuroticism-exist/)

<comment><USER9> Yes, it was Marilyn. She's in two episodes recorded two years apart. The one I listened to was the second one[0].

[0] [https://feelinggood.com/2019/09/23/159-live-therapy-with- mar...](https://feelinggood.com/2019/09/23/159-live-therapy-with-marilyn-what- if-i-die-without-having-lived-a-meaningful-life/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> EFT is one of the few couples therapies that has any sort of scientific track record. I looked into it a few years ago and it may have saved my marriage.

I highly suggest a therapist to guide you. They serve as a referee and coach (an impartial person who can call bs or timeout) to get you out of bad communication patterns between you and you significant other. I doubt you could turn this into an app because both partners are effectively learning to relate to each other in a more sustainable way.

I highly recommend this for married couples needing a tune-up and pre-marital couples who didn't grow up in an environment with parents in a stable relationship.

<comment><USER11> I wish I knew about EFT so much earlier in my life. Even just understanding the basic ideas has helped me immensely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > It has taken more than 4,000 years, starting from the first love letter – > carved in stone for a Sumerian king in the 8th century BCE – to crack the > code of love.

Comes off a bit self aggrandizing. Still, time will tell if this method really works

</comment><comment><USER13> How about using MDMA for couples therapy ?

<comment><USER14> That was totally out of the left field. Is this a random joke or do you have any interesting links to share?

<comment><USER15> Not the OP, but he's not joking — it's an area with an increasing amount of interest and research, although obviously tremendously hampered by the legal issues. I don't have any links, but you can find plenty on google.

There are also studies using it to treat PTSD in veterans.

<comment><USER16> Which is ironic, because that was the original use of MDMA to begin with. It started as a therapeutic drug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've got her "Hold Me Tight" book here but have stopped reading it a while ago. Good reminder to finish it now.

My impression - even with my parents - was that couples always replay conflicts following certain patterns. Turns out it's really the case.

"we cracked the code of love" would have been a better headline for that article. It's an actual quote from it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Brings to mind SSC's excellent review of all therapy books ever: [https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/20/book-review-all- therap...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/20/book-review-all-therapy- books/)

</comment><comment><USER19> This may be true, but one could argue: is making love last always the best option?

</comment><comment><USER20> Is there an app for this?

</comment><comment><USER21> Monogamy is still one of the biggest societal pressures that people struggle to escape, at the expense of their own happiness and emotional well being. And in some cases there are real punitive consequences for not conforming to it. You should not force exclusivity wherever it does not occur naturally. Not everyone can be 100% fulfilled from one relationship.

<comment><USER22> I do think that monogamy should be considered "ideal" in some sense (especially for raising children), but I do think we need to understand that not everyone's upbringing, which forms their (surprise, surprise) attachment style, will allow this to be a healthy constraint.

The statistics, obviously, bear out that a large number of, even happy, people cannot hack it under the constraints of monogamy. Either monogamy needs to be better defined or we need to drop it as a societal pressure/constraint on relationships. Probably a little bit of both is needed.

<comment><USER23> _I do think that monogamy should be considered "ideal" in some sense (especially for raising children)_

Naively, I'd wonder if children could be raised better by a group of adults rather than a couple.

<comment><USER22> Certainly a couple, by themselves, is the 2nd worst choice for raising a child other than a single parent, by themselves. Children _need_ to be raised by lots of caring adults. However monogamy does provide a sort of back-stop safety protection against adults prioritizing their own relationships with each-other over their relationships with their children (who are naturally less interesting and invigorating relationship partners). Non-monogamous raising of children probably has its own advantages and dangers, the point is to make sure that children are always protected and nurtured to the best of their caregivers' ability. I worry about diffusing responsibility for raising children too much, at the expense of them developing a secure attachment. However, as long as all the adults in a child's life are prioritizing that child developing a "secure" attachment style, I could give a shit who is fucking who.

And yes, this is very much my business, because how you raise your children dictates what kind of society my children will live in, so please raise them right.

<comment><USER24> Two adults earning incomes and a third (and maybe also a fourth) keeping house and taking care of the kids sure seems a lot better for everyone concerned from my perspective (normal 2-parent household with three young kids).

<comment><USER22> I don't necessarily disagree, but lets be wise to the dangers that can present themselves in this situation, and then lets make sure to legislate against them (seriously).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nope, mutual attraction is what couples need. People invent unsolvable problems in their relationship when they lose attraction.

<comment><USER26> Nope, this is silly. Mutual attraction is what leads you to become couples in the first place. The physical part of attraction is what leads you to notice the other person and then building an emotional bond with each other will increase the attraction. So attraction is a symptom not a cause. Like any emotion attraction comes and goes. IMHO believing this folly is what leads to so many people breaking up when they could be very happy together and why so many people are lonely these days.

My own experience after 15 years of marriage is that attraction comes and goes for both me and my wife. But by not doing anything rash when that happens we have both discovered that it also comes back. Sure the first few times it happened it was quite scary, but then we've found a rhythm with the ebbs and floods.

<comment><USER27> To be fair there are a lot of very unhappy coupled folks out there as well stuck with essentially the opposite problem: the attraction has left the building and hasn't been there for a very long time and waiting for it to come back is likely an exercise in futility. See r/deadbedrooms etc.

<comment><USER26> Well, rereading what I wrote I was maybe not so clear on that.

If you are just _waiting_ for the attraction to come back, chances are that it doesn't, even though it certainly could. It all depends on the reason that attraction disappears. Sometimes it's related to the things you do and sometimes it isn't. The key, I believe, is to always try to be a better spouse than you were a year ago, or even a month ago. But that of course presupposes that there exist mutual trust and respect between you. It won't work if only one part is trying to be a better self for the other.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Building a house for under $5000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm <comment><USER2> When I look at the pictures of this house, I have something like the feeling you get when you start to drink a glass of water and suddenly realize you were really dehydrated.

I often feel it when I see handmade things. There's something missing in manufactured stuff. It's information poor.

<comment><USER3> I agree, and while I think part of it is the organic nature of the subject, I also think some of that feeling comes from that fantastic quality of the photography. It just looks like a fairytale.

<comment><USER4> I think you make an important point. It looks great but obviously the guy who built it had an eye for visual design and put a lot of effort into finding the exact right location. Duplicating his setup would be next to impossible.

Conceptually though you could take any old patch of land and build a log cabin with the same functionality and general feel of nature (first one that came up on google: <http://www.lincolnlogs.com/askabe.html>)

<comment><USER5> When looking at the design I immediately thought of a Yurt. I guess primarily due to the roof structure. In this case, he just built it into the ground.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt>

There are actually several companies building modern yurts. It's one of those fleeting thoughts of escapism I often have that is about buying some land and putting a yurt on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Check out the planning and zoning page:

<http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm>

That's insane (in the cool sense). It seems like you can basically build the house and if no one complains, no one will ever bother you. if someone does complain, you file for the permit as a "Retrospective Application", and it may still be approved.

I live just outside of DC and did most of the building on our house. Every time I stuck a shovel in the ground there was some (often extremely clueless) "official" tittering over my shoulder about what fees and approvals I had to have in advance of applying for any permissions I might need to secure the professional opinion of some registered somethin-or-other that might pertain to something I might think of building. Its a severe understatement to say that this sort of thing is comically impossible where I live.

Something tells me that policies more like these would go a very long way toward encouraging greener housing in this country.

<comment><USER7> _Something tells me that policies more like these would go a very long way toward encouraging greener housing in this country_

Yes, but that would also result in people being able to build houses for $5,000 (plus one man-year of inexpert labor, granted), and there are a lot of people who would be discomfited by that, so I don't expect those policies to go anywhere.

Yeah yeah, I know, I know, it has everything to do with public safety and nothing to do with the fact that everything touching housing, from designing to building to selling, is controlled by guilds. (Guilds which could be replaced pretty much wholesale by recent immigrants or other dirt-cheap non- expert labor. After all, if a non-expert can snap together freaking Bag End in the English countryside, how much guild-approved expertise do you really need?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish people could enjoy and appreciate a house like this or a self sufficient hobby farm, or a "down-shifting" lifestyle without it being part of some greater anti-industrial ideology.

Why does eating locally need to be justified in terms of food miles or global warming?

Why does the author here who has obviously taken on a very enjoyable & fulfilling project creating something beautiful, need to take a poke at manufactured housing as some sort of evil (which makes housing more affordable for other people). Why can't it just be that he doesn't like manufactured housing.

<comment><USER9> You ask an odd question, paraphrased: "Why can't he be some of the things he is, while not being others?" Part of the reason he's done it is because he has these views. You can't ask him to separate them out. And I can understand it, because I share some of his views. If anything, it's admirable that he's walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

Some people _do_ enjoy living 'off the grid' (so to speak) and aren't as radical as this guy. They just less likely to set up web sites about what they've done, as they've no motivation to promote their message (if they even have one).

<comment><USER8> I'd prefer to stay away of calling him radical. Both building & living in that house seems pleasant to me and to many of the commentators here.

As I suppose is implied above, I challenge the notion that in this case (and many others), ideas about ecologically sustainability really do logically imply that people should build their own houses, live off the grid, eat locally grown foods, make their own yoghurt etc.

I think That the case is mixed (at best). I think that this is all besides the point anyway. I think that many people enjoy building their own houses, live off the grid, eat locally grown foods & make their own yoghurt. However, they seem to want these things to be moral imperatives, not just preferences.

Superficially, it's similar to people that like to photograph unusual doors or meet descendants of historical characters. It gives them a framework to travel & meet people. I have no issues with that.

But this case is problematic because it's political. it implies there are benefits to this far beyond the personal enjoyment of the individual.

I think the house is beautiful. I appreciate that he is an ethical consumer with regards to his chosen building materials. But I reject the case that manufactured housing is bad.

<comment><USER10> _However, they seem to want these things to be moral imperatives, not just preferences._

I think that sentence summarizes well the point you want to make. I'm sure there are people who do have a preference to live this way without any eco- political agendas. I think I might be one of them. The thought of being able to live independently from society (in terms of sustainability and self- sufficiency) is intriguing to me, just because it means that I am relatively protected from external forces which I have little control over.

<comment><USER11> What's the difference between a moral imperative and an extremely strong preference, I wonder? For example, I like peanut butter a lot, and I think torture is wrong, regardless of the circumstances. The first is a preference; the second is a moral imperative. If asked to defend either proposition, I can say only, "I am convinced that this is true."

There are, of course, lots of arguments for or against torture or peanut butter, but they aren't moral propositions. For peanut butter, they might be about health; for torture, they might be about what's legal, or what works to stop terrorism.

One difference I notice is that preferences extend just to myself, while moral claims extend beyond me, i.e. I think it's fine if you don't like peanut butter, but what I think is moral I think applies to everyone (modulo my uncertainty about it).

Perhaps that gets at what irks some people about the article-- the builder's implying not just that his way is good, but that your way is bad. (In this case, he makes his case in a pleasant enough tone, but I think it's fair to say that he condemns the modern system of housing and land management.)

<comment><USER8> That's an interesting line of thought. I also share the opinion that preference, aesthetic or otherwise, is intimately related to ethics.

 _"There are, of course, lots of arguments for or against torture or peanut butter, but they aren't moral propositions. For peanut butter, they might be about health; for torture, they might be about what's legal, or what works to stop terrorism."_

That's quite an assertion. It borders on Nihilism. You imply that there is no different between preference & what we see as morals.

I don't think you're free and clear though. There are all sorts of ways to draw a distinction between the two. From a utilitarian perspective, you could argue that torturing causes pain & is therefore bad. From a rights/liberty perspective, you could argue that it violates some ones rights or liberties. Form the Kantian/Deontological or many other perspectives, you'd see that you would not want torture to be widespread or that it is inherently wrong.

Basically, almost to the extent that morality can be said to exist, torture can be said to be wrong. Peanut butter eating can be said to be right. Hobbit houses are quite clearly in the peanut butter category.

In a more practical sense, you just answer the question about whether you should coerce or encourage others to eat peanut butter, stop torturing or build hobbit houses for any reason other then that they will enjoy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think it's pretty cool that he had a go at this, but how does he know that it's actually structurally sound?

I'm not sure how things are in Wales, but here in Missouri, you have to be concerned about things like high winds, earthquakes, etc, not to mention how your house fares if a fire starts. I'm guessing hay bale insulation isn't too fire retardant.

Most houses around here are built to stock plans, and the loads on the floors/roof have been calculated by a professional. I'd be a bit weary of hanging out in that place in storm. (Note: I know nothing of likelihood of thunderstorms in Wales. People built houses like this for hundreds of years in England so it's not _that_ harebrained).

It would make one heck of shed/club house though!

<comment><USER13> One of my friends built a large community of affordable straw-bale housing in Afghanistan. The officials thought it was a joke, so came over and shot their machine guns into one of the buildings. The bullets didn't penetrate the walls, so they were impressed and gave them the thumbs up to go ahead.

<comment><USER14> Obviously the building passed ISO-AK47 standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the $5000 for supplies underplays the enormous investment required to build this home.

1500 hours @ 30/hrs manual labour per week (could you do more?) works out to 50 weeks ... one solid man year of construction

Next question: What is required for ongoing maintenance and repair?

By the way, as an alternative, if you devoted one full year's salary, could you buy a better home?

<comment><USER16> Or another way of looking at it - he saved 50weeks of $100/week gym membership and 50 weeks of activity holidays in rural wales.

<comment><USER17> $100/wk gym membership? Are you an Olympic athlete or something?

<comment><USER18> New York City gyms can cost that much, sadly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Love the idea of living off the grid. But things like using a "Compost toilet" scare me.

<comment><USER13> If done right, it's the same as a normal toilet, but substitute the "flush" for scooping some sawdust down the hole. I've used quite a few, and if you do it right, you can't smell a thing.

<comment><USER20> I have a lot of experience with the unconventional animals, many of which have much more potent odors than human waste and sawdust does great. Cedar has great absorbency for liquid and odors, it also helps significantly that cedar generally has a really nice smell to it.

I've even composted the waste before and it doesn't change the odor given off by the heap. If you still frequently cut your grass, you're going to be smelling composting plant matter far more than the human element.

Personally, if I had the land available, I wouldn't have a problem with a composting toilet on my property. However, I'd probably stick with a low-water toilet for inside the house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Well, why spend 250.000 on a home built out of wood framing and drywall? You can build it yourself with lumber from Home Depot and some specs. Plumbing and electrical aren't that hard to figure out. And making walls with drywall and insulation isn't that hard either.

If you take a summer off work, you could probably build a decent house on your own for around 20.000 bucks. And that includes one foot apart floor joists (not the 16 inches common today) for stability. You first of course need the lot and somebody to come by to pour the foundation right.

My two cents. However, I can't currently take a summer off.

<comment><USER22> <http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=lofthouse>

A complete house-kit with outer shell, siding, roofing materials, doors, windows and all fasteners. Can be erected by 2 unskilled people in 2 weeks.

Starts at $17,185

I do not work for Shelter-Kit. I would like to build one in Austin, though.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the link. Very interesting. We need more ideas on how to break through this vicious cycle of paying that much for real estate.

Look at the Amish - when an Amish couple marries, or needs an extension on a barn, the whole community gets together and builds a structure within days: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising>

<comment><USER23> A family estate with a few acres and a few homes that would eventually be paid off could be one solution.

<comment><USER22> I played music at a wedding for a family that's doing this in rural Louisiana, where land is cheap. (It's the 3rd world.)

They have a barn out back and a pool of 3 1980's Mercedes 240 Diesels, and they do all the work themselves. The house started as a 120 year old wood- sided cabin, and they built additions to it to make it much larger. (The additions look like they're part of the original, though!)

The wedding was a dance. No wedding cake, just 500 of the most delicious cupcakes, baked by the bride, her mom, and the rest of the family. Party favors were home made jam. Lots of food that was grown by them.

It was "Consume the Minimum, Produce the Maximum" all around. Replace money with knowledge, attention, and time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I came across a place in Taos NM by accident several years ago called the Earthship. It does get you thinking about what could be possible if some of these ideas made it into mainstream housing.

<http://www.earthship.net/index.php>

</comment><comment><USER24> I love this.

I live near the equator so the walls and the flooring would have to do away if this was built from where I am at. It would be to hot to live in if this was built in Philippines -- it would have to be built above ground and made of bamboo.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am curious to know how well this house keeps out rodents and insects.

</comment><comment><USER13> Permaculture FTW</comment>


The Common Voice Project by Mozilla reached its first goal: 1k hours in englisch - <AUTHOR> https://voice.mozilla.org/en/datasets <comment><AUTHOR> The project wants to build up a dataset to train neural networks for speech recognition software. The first goal for every language is collecting 12000 hours. They have reached this, but they only release a dataset twice a year, that's why you still see 1100 hours at this download.

Other languages are looking good too. Germany has almost reached 600 h, French almost 500 h and the website was localized to many other small and big languages in the last year.

The main factor to build a good dataset is A having a diverse group of donors and B having enough sentences. So if you want to help you can either donate your voice, validate other voices or collect more sentences to record. All three tasks are equally important to create a good dataset.

[https://voice.mozilla.org](https://voice.mozilla.org)</comment>


Somebody's Watching: Hackers Breach Ring Home Security Cameras - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/Hacked-ring-home-security-cameras.html <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion of similar article a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21774203)</comment>


Lame showers, dishwashers that don't work, and dirty clothes - <AUTHOR> https://fee.org/articles/your-shower-is-lame-you-dishwasher-doesn-t-work-and-your-clothes-are-dirty/ <comment><USER2> What a bullshit article. Every low-flow toilet I've ever used clogs far less than my mother's 1980s toilets (and flushes more quickly, no less). 120°F is the MINIMUM water boilers are allowed to be set to; typically they're at 130°F or 140°F (which I personally find scalding). In Brazil, you can't even flush _toilet paper_ due to poor sewage systems.

I stopped reading there. This guy clearly has an agenda to push. Reminds me of a similar BS article a couple years ago bemoaning the lack of phosphates or something in soap, and calling out "government overreach" every other sentence.

If there is a scientific case to make for these supposed household woes (which I don't think there is), it can be made without appeal to a political ideal.

EDIT: Oh shit, I forced myself to keep reading and he got around to phosphates. It's probably the same guy.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, plus Phosphates are absolutely terrible for the environment: [https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/problem](https://www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/problem)

<comment><USER4> But of the amount of phosphates making it into bodies of water almost entirely come from commercial farming, not people's houses.

Removing it from commercially produced soaps is insane if commercial farming isn't also prohibited from using it.

<comment><USER5> It would be nice if Mr. Tucker mentioned that in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > We haven't talked about toilets but this much is true: they used to work > well but the low-flow model is vastly inferior. Combined with low water > pressure, toilets clog and break down, to the point that you always have to > have a plunger nearby (this didn't use to be the case). Folks, we know how > to make toilets that work: they need lots of water. Your constant problems > with flushing are not your fault!

My experience is exactly the opposite. After replacing an 80's era toilet with a modern one, it flushes much better (despite using a lot less water). Water pressure also doesn't effect toilet flushes (excluding commercial tankless toilets), it just effects how quickly the tank refills.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the early low-flow toilets weren't all that great, but they definitely got better pretty quickly.

The author also advocates for hot water heaters that go up to 140 or 170; at 140 you'll scald in 5 seconds and at 170 you'll scald 'instantly': [https://www.energyguide.com/library/EnergyLibraryTopic.asp?b...](https://www.energyguide.com/library/EnergyLibraryTopic.asp?bid=tva&prd=10&TID=25821&SubjectID=10182)

<comment><USER8> Here's a similar chart, with some sourcing.

[http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_wa...](http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html)

At 170F a person would get a second or third degree burn in half a second.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _The government forced soap manufacturers to remove from soap the thing that > makes them work for these purposes: phosphates._

Did it?

[https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/proctor- gam...](https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/proctor-gamble- remove-phosphates-laundry-soap)

> _But P &G already stopped using phosphates in laundry detergent sold across > the US in the early 1990s as part of a voluntary commitment from the > American Cleaning Institute, an industry group of which the company is a > member. It also removed phosphates from its detergents sold in the Europe > several years ago._

And while Mr. Tucker offers good reasons to remove flow restrictors from showers - domestic water use is only 2% of the nation's total - he doesn't tell us _why_ phosphates were removed from soap, just complains that his clothes are dirty (big ol' [citation needed] on that, by the way.)

Apparently phosphates damage the environment, leading to algal blooms and fish die-offs. But it's fine. I'll gladly read Mr. Tucker's article blaming the government for his inability to go fishing or swimming if phosphates are added back to laundry detergent.

He also blames "the government", a nebulous entity, but only seventeen states seem to have banned soap manufacturers from using phosphates in soap. An odd tack for someone who I would expect to be pro-states'-rights: [http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132072122/it-s-not-your- fault-...](http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132072122/it-s-not-your-fault-your- dishes-are-still-dirty)

<comment><USER9> _(big ol ' [citation needed] on that, by the way.)_

You won't get one because it's bullshit. My front loader using cold water with modern detergents gets my clothes clean just fine. Covered in mud from a trail run? Clean. Working at the dog shelter, dog poops his kennel, walks in it, jumps on me when I walk in? Dog shit on pants: gone. Blood on the sheets from that "tragic accident"? Lily white after one wash (I wish the same could be said for my soul).

Does it get clothes as clean as back in the "good old days" of phosphates, hot water, and top-loaders? Damned if I know, that was twenty years ago and my memory's not that good. And neither is the memory of the author when it comes to such subtle things as how clean your clothes were two decades ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Combined with low water pressure, toilets clog and break down"

There's all I need to know to stop reading: the author doesn't even know enough about how toilets work to write intelligently on the topic. (The point being that water pressure has _nothing_ to do with anything but refilling the reservoir tank.)

Go buy phosphates at the hardware store to add to your washer? Now I'm picturing someone who took Ayn Rand _just_ a little too seriously, stamping his foot like a toddler "don't you tell me what to do, no matter how much it shits all over everything for everyone else!" And then just makes shit up without critical thinking as long it supports the narrative. Because gummint. (BTW, I recall soap makers advertising their lack of phosphates before individual states started banning phosphates, probably because the overwhelming evidence said it was bad. So without wasting time on references to refute an article not worth refuting, I call bullshit on this one, too.)

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the best low flow shower heads I've used: [https://www.amazon.com/Delta-75158SN-2-0GPM-Shower- Nickel/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Delta-75158SN-2-0GPM-Shower- Nickel/dp/B0041G5H2U/) OR [https://www.amazon.com/75152-Single-Function- Shower-H2Okinet...](https://www.amazon.com/75152-Single-Function- Shower-H2Okinetic-Technology/dp/B000LV7W4K/)

In terms of dishwashers, I will be looking for 240v or a miele/bosch.

<comment><USER11> I use [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XEZH5I](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003XEZH5I), which is both incredibly cheap ($7.50) and one of the best shower heads I've used, low-flow or otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        fee.org wants to:
          Show notifications

I admit ignorance; does this mean notifications would show up while I'm on the site, or could they push system notifications when I close the tab?

Because either way, I see no reason to allow this website, and 99% of others, to do this.

<comment><USER12> This seems to work in Firefox. Disables notifications for all sites.

      about:config
      dom.webnotifications.enabled => false

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I found where to disable it in Chrome. I held back for awhile, thinking, "what if there _is_ a website that I would like to receive notifications from?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Free societies have a method for knowing how much of something to use or > not use; it is called the signaling system of prices._

Ugh. There is no way I would entrust the protection of our environment to "the signaling system of prices".</comment>


Free Software Foundation statement on PRISM revelations - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-statement-on-prism-revelations

<comment><USER2> While my wife and I donate quite a bit to charities like the Heifer Project, Oxfam, and Habitat for Humanity, we give very little money to EFF, FSF, and the ACLU.

I am rethinking that. I am starting to think that a few hundred dollars a year to the EFF, FSF, and the ACLU might be a great investment.

I used to be highly communicative with my elected Congress Critters, but for the most part, I have lost faith and now believe that most politicians care much less about us than lobbying $$.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's more likely that my life will be ruined by a drunk driver than by a terrorist.

Also, it's more likely that my life will be ruined because I ran my own email server using FSF-provided software and it broke and I lost all my mail data, or because my email server got hacked and someone spammed all my business contacts, than because I put my email in the cloud and Google sent all my emails to the NSA.</comment>


Remotely operated drones more tiring to fly than real planes - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/16/predator_pilot_fatigue_study/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. I wonder if it's because the "pilots" get all the stress but little of the thrill, especially on scouting missions. Flying an RC and looking for bad guys might be fun the first few times. But how many times can you play the same game? By contrast, I can't imagine an F-16 ever being boring. They have to force the pilots to a desk kicking and screaming.

<comment><USER3> _"... I wonder if it's because the "pilots" get all the stress but little of the thrill ..."_

Look at the type (and the mentality) of candidates who are being drafted to do this, _"Hundreds of US fighter aces reassigned as drone pilots"_ ~ [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/04/flyboy_equals_drone_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/04/flyboy_equals_drone_boy/)

      Forget It! ... I'm wondering what
      happens to the morale and career
      motivation of an [F-15] Eagle##
      driver who suddenly gets the nod
      to be Drone Boy

Hardly the desk-bound computer types.

<comment><USER2> I think you've missed my original point. It wasn't a contrast between the types of people but rather their experiences during the job demands. I love to drive fast (and passed the Aviation Selection Test - now I'm a desk jockey if there ever was one). But put me behind a driving simulator every day for a job and I'd rapidly become bored and especially stressed if making life and death decisions (who to drop a bombs on). My point was that the experience of flying fighters is inherently rewarding/stimulating in a way I'm not sure drone piloting ever can be. The best hope might be making the drone experience more real, rather than the 2D screen and joystick combo.</comment></comment></comment>


Mothers Who Regret Having Children - <AUTHOR> http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/a22189/i-regret-having-kids/ <comment><USER2> Raising children is difficult, not only due to the immense amount of direct contact required to see your children thrive but also while juggling shared responsibilities and managing the economics of a household.

There was a separate HN thread about rural America seemingly unable to move to where the best economic opportunities are, but one of the biggest issues a family must deal with are whether both or only one of the parents should work. This is a decision that's often based on a variety of childcare factors outside of a family's control. Sometimes, there's seemingly no choice if local caretakers (e.g. the proverbial village) or daycare centers are too expensive during a child's early years which can impact long-term family financials and take a heavy toll on the stay-at-home-parent who may not be behaviourally suited to raise a child on a full-time basis.

Often, parents staying at home, whether by choice or necessity, are mothers. Anecdotally, I find a growing number of SAHD (stay-at-home-dads) often have either part-time jobs or extremely flexible hours. The article didn't touch on this directly but the few choice anecdotes seemed to focus on full-time SAHMs who didn't have the choice to utilize outside assistance.

Speaking from personal experience, while we had the luxury to _choose_ to move to a city without grandparents or nearby relatives for caretaker assistance, it was a marital struggle requiring a lot of honesty and heated discussions to resolve the tension between home-building roles, child rearing and career trajectories for the both of us.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this really as "surprising" as the article says? I would assume it's obvious that not every woman is fit for motherhood. The reason why the majority of women used to have children as compared to the numbers of today isn't because they wanted it or were fit for it. They had to.

Now that's no longer the case (in our society), of course less women will want children. And these women speaking up, I guess they're old enough that they still felt the pressure and gave in to it. I expect that the number of births will continuously decrease as new generations are born. We still have people from the 50s living among us after all.

<comment><USER4> It's not surprising, but it's very difficult to discuss. It's one of those truths which we're culturally unable to admit; we all pretend it's not true even when we all know it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You've got to be kidding me. If you bring a life into this world you don't have the right to regret it anymore. You must feed and clothe that child, and give them the best upbringing that you can. It's not their fault you didn't understand fully what you were getting into. That's your fault not theirs. Get over your regret, it's only going to make your life miserable.

<comment><USER6> _you don 't have the right to regret it anymore_

Good advice! Obviously the best way to deal with negative feelings is to invalidate their existence by making them verboten and immoral thoughtcrimes, and then burying them waaaay down deep where hopefully no one notices them.

What could go wrong?

<comment><USER7> Yea but telling your kid you regret them or wish you aborted them is awful as well.

<comment><USER6> Uhh, where on earth did you get the idea that these women were _telling their kids_ how they feel? That isn't even intimating at in the article.

Strawman much?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Facebook hasn't ditched PHP - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/why-facebook-hasnt-ditched-php/9536?tag=nl.e550 <comment><USER2> Link straight to the Quora question and answer.

[http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away- from-...](http://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-Facebook-migrated-away-from-PHP)</comment>


Ask HN: What companies have/had good engineering blogs? - <AUTHOR> Engineering blogs have a lot of practical knowledge as well as content bridging theory and application. What are some that are good reading? Google has an engineering blog, First Round Capital: http://firstround.com/review/engineering/ Spotify: labs.spotify.com <comment><USER2> Artsy's Blog: [http://artsy.github.io/](http://artsy.github.io/)

Thoughtbot's: [https://robots.thoughtbot.com/ios](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/ios)

Realm's: [https://realm.io/news/](https://realm.io/news/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://blogs.janestreet.com/](https://blogs.janestreet.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Collection of engineering blogs : [https://github.com/sumodirjo/engineering- blogs/](https://github.com/sumodirjo/engineering-blogs/)

</comment><comment><USER5> From my feedly:

[http://techblog.netflix.com/](http://techblog.netflix.com/)

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

[http://blog.serverfault.com/](http://blog.serverfault.com/)

[https://engineering.quora.com/](https://engineering.quora.com/)

[http://corner.squareup.com/](http://corner.squareup.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.toptal.com/blog/](https://www.toptal.com/blog/) [https://www.paypal-engineering.com/](https://www.paypal-engineering.com/) [https://www.ebaytechblog.com/](https://www.ebaytechblog.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://blog.twitter.com/engineering](https://blog.twitter.com/engineering)

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're into PHP programming, application security, and/or cryptography:

[https://paragonie.com/blog/category/security- engineering](https://paragonie.com/blog/category/security-engineering)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog](https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog)

[http://nerds.airbnb.com/tech-talks/](http://nerds.airbnb.com/tech-talks/) (videos)

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/](http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/)

[https://nylas.com/blog](https://nylas.com/blog)

</comment><comment><USER11> _ahem_ [https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering- blogs](https://github.com/kilimchoi/engineering-blogs)

Edit: Too bad you can't use asterisks in HN comments...

</comment><comment><USER12> ThoughtWorks of course... [https://www.thoughtworks.com/blogs](https://www.thoughtworks.com/blogs)

</comment><comment><USER13> Etsy's tech blog: [https://codeascraft.com/](https://codeascraft.com/) is excellent.

They got me on to monitoring EVERYTHING with statsd. Great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER14> Workiva Techblog [https://techblog.workiva.com/](https://techblog.workiva.com/) has become a favourite of mine recently.

</comment><comment><USER15> One of my favorite ones is Instagram's: [http://instagram- engineering.tumblr.com/](http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Auth0 blog is pretty nice if you are into JavaScript and Security [https://auth0.com/blog](https://auth0.com/blog)

</comment><comment><USER17> Netflix is a good one. But remember most of them won't get you anywhere if you want to learn about their architectures. They are mostly used as a recruiting tool.

</comment><comment><USER18> SoundCloud [https://developers.soundcloud.com/blog/](https://developers.soundcloud.com/blog/)

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://blog.stackoverflow.com/](https://blog.stackoverflow.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> [http://engineering.zillow.com/](http://engineering.zillow.com/)</comment>