Why every cyclist needs a pool noodle - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1620913/the-best-cycling-hack-is-a-pool-noodle/ <comment><USER3> Side note: I commute to work on a bike occasionally. My commute isn't long (~3miles) and I try to be considerate and move to the side when possible, stop at stop signs, not run lights, not sneak up while waiting at stop lights, and stay off the sidewalk. You know: behave like a considerate driver sharing the road.

The reason I do this is because all the bikes I see when I drive are flagrantly disregarding traffic laws and acting like they own the road. These pool noodlers seem like they are doing more of the same.

I wish they got pulled over by cops more often because all they are doing is endangering everyone else who is actually sharing the road.

Cyclists are why I have a dashcam.

<comment><USER4> My response, when I hear someone tell me that they see cyclists breaking the law, is to ask how many - in a given day. Five? Ten? Sure, I could believe that. Then I ask them how many drivers they see breaking the law in a given day...

<comment><USER5> Bicyclists where I live - even otherwise well-behaved bicyclists - <USER2> violate traffic laws all the time. I guess we live in different towns, but where I live I don't also see drivers regularly blasting through red lights when they get tired of waiting.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the honesty? Everyday I see dozens of drivers blow through inconvenient stop signs - just like those lawless cyclists. But when they hit people, they maim and kill them. You could argue reckless cyclists are in contention for the Darwin Awards, but they're only going to get themselves killed.

<comment><USER6> Do you live in the US? Because if so, having travelled and lived all over the US, I call BS.

<comment><USER4> I do, in Portland OR. And I have a dashcam on my bars, so I film plenty of bikes and cars blowing through stops. But I may be a little overly sensitive, I was run over by an inattentive commercial trucker who blew through stop without braking, plowing into an SUV and then rolling over me head-on - when I was stopped at the stop sign at the opposite corner, foot on the ground and everything. I was in a wheelchair for months, and I have quite a collection of Ti implants to show for it all. But I still ride to work every day, and I stop at stop signs, even though that hasn't always worked out so well for me.

<comment><USER6> That sounds awful. I hope you got a good attorney and only work for the fun of it now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I cycle and also occasionally tow (which puts me in the group of annoying slow road users). My frustration with these type of articles is they only ever ask for the road to be shared, but do not share the road themselves. As a slower road user you should also be considerate of other road users. An example would be when towing and driving at a more sedate pace, when it comes to passing lanes - SLOW DOWN - to allow the pile up of cars behind you to pass. However most people simply maintain their speed, ignorant of the building frustration behind them. By slowing down you might add 30seconds to your travel time, but give 10-20 people back minutes to their travel time (a net win for society!).

In this case if the cyclist periodically slowed down and moved to the shoulder when going downhill (or in general), the pile up of cars and frustration might be mitigated.

"Through my eyeglass-mounted mirror, I watch cars inevitably pile up behind me. When the terrain flattens out and I move back to the shoulder, a stream of cars pass me."

I'd argue that the pool noodle may have unintended consequences, and will most likely increase road rage. It seems to scream EMPOWERMENT ("taking back the road"), but I think it leans more towards SELFISH BITCH.

<comment><USER8> If cars are piling up behind you, you should pull over to let them pass--even if you are in a car--but only if it's safe to do so. The implication in the article is that it's _not_ safe ("to protect myself from stumbling off the edge"), so the "selfish bitch" is the one screaming at the cyclist, not the cyclist herself.

<comment><USER7> Read the sentence immediately preceding the one you quoted, her reasoning is to "bask in a glorious downhill". She needs the full width of the road to give a larger margin of error due to speed and to maximize her enjoyment.

A simple considerate solution would be to slow down and pull over.

The crux of the issue is that people of every persuasion, be it cyclist or driver, would never consider inconveniencing themselves or sacrificing their enjoyment for the good of others. i.e. they are selfish.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This also deters the user from speeding between two lanes of traffic that has stopped ... a deed that carries with it some risk and that probably irks some drivers.

<comment><USER10> /r/Motorcycles had this posted a couple days ago:

[https://i.redd.it/59jp81szfdy21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/59jp81szfdy21.jpg)

A bicyclist likely would have lost their legs, if they survived at all.

Meanwhile, the risk of lanesplitting is that might sideswipe somebody and need to pay to get their paint fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll have to admit, that's pretty clever and the best actual use for a pool noodle I've ever seen. I still don't understand what exactly you're supposed to do with a pool noodle.

<comment><USER12> I have a 5 year old who comes up with a new use for a pool noodle every time he's in the pool. A raft, an octopus, blowing water through it, a spy glass,... The simplest toys have seemingly infinite uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The sad thing is that the type of driver that comes closer than 3 feet to a cyclist has a good chance of being the type of person who would be enraged by this. Could result in more conflict than its worth.

</comment><comment><USER14> Use a metal pipe. Drivers care more about scratching the paint of their car than they do murdering a human.

<comment><USER15> You mean, if someone drives too close, you prefer your whole bike to be pushed over? Because that metal pipe would have to be mounted in a secure way / not fall off accidentally.

<comment><USER16> Only the end needs to be metal. In fact it just has to look metal. Wrapping with kitchen foil would probably have the required deterrent effect. It would also look hilarious.</comment></comment></comment>


Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/valueofphilosophy.html <comment><USER2> As a philosophy major, what initially geeked me about the brain is that we could begin to understand philosophical problems in the material terms from which they arise. My work has shown that the British Empiricists were right, to a certain extent. Other work has shown that different forms of moralizing - utilitarian and the categorical imperative - use different brain systems. That's the story of philosophy in my eyes - asking questions and postulating answers well before the tools were available to address them. The great fracturing of science into different disciplines reflects how those questions have been addressed as the proper tools have emerged in the history of science.

A fun game is thinking about what philosophers would be doing if they had today's shoulders to stand upon. Descartes no doubt would be in robotics. Hume a neuroscientist. Spinoza in computer science. Heidegger wandering the streets. Kant a Republican. Even more fun to think about is whether the structure of their brains led them to their conclusions - less free thought than self-discovery. Sort of like how Picasso is thought to have painted with brain damage.

Of course, that historical perspective doesn't address the current state of the field. To me, the modern philosophers are struggling to maintain their "privileged" grip on problem spaces. And that's why I do neuroscience!

<comment><USER3> > different forms of moralizing - utilitarian and the categorical imperative - > use different brain systems.

Whenever a neuroscientist gets involved in these debates, I see a lot of claims like this. "Thinking about x uses brain system y, therefore [some outrageous claim]."

In this case, you seem to be suggesting that the brain activity proves "both types of morality are wired into us," but that doesn't follow at all. Brain activity doesn't tell us whether utilitarianism or the categorical imperative accurately model what is really happening in the brain, or whether the corresponding thoughts and behaviors are innate or learned.

<comment><USER4> It is actually a scientific documented phenomenon that many people believe outrageous claims as long as they seem to be justified by random neurobabble . PDF: "The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations" [http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Edls73/Assets/Weisberg- neuro%20ex...](http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Edls73/Assets/Weisberg- neuro%20explanations.pdf)

Quote: "Even irrelevant neuroscience information in an explanation of a psychological phenomenon may interfere with people's abilities to critically consider the underlying logic of this explanation."

A summary from Language Log here: [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004578.h...](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004578.html)

<comment><USER2> I know this exists because I've seen to happen and I shudder every time. But it's not just just "neurobabble". It's possible to obfuscate in any domain. The problem is: You can never be certain of what's babble and what's real without doing the intellectual heavy lifting yourself. In neuroscience, my ability to see a poorly designed study is only as good as the methods and theories get closer to what I know. So I decline being a reviewer of manuscripts if I don't know enough to sufficiently judge them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Russell can be read as a critique of PG. As he says, there is value simply in doing the thought experiments of philosophy even when this does not lead towards any greater knowledge of truth. In theory, this should allow one to greater appreciate what one does NOT know, which could (and, in my view, should) make one more humble.

However, part of the problem of philosophy is it occasionally makes truth claims about the nature of its work and designs. This most philosophy profs to teach it as if it is a science, which it is not. If one viewed the ramblings of philosophers as more akin to the musings of the great poets presumably there could be greater appreciation all around.

Still, there must be selectivity of some sort. With PG, I also wouldn't advise anyone to read through the collected works of Berkeley. Russell's history unfortunately also isn't great, although, IMHO, it is worth reading.

</comment><comment><USER6> If philosophy is to "enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation," how do you explain George W. Bush's relatively high marks for Philosophy 15b?

<http://2004.georgewbush.org/bios/yale-transcript.asp></comment>


What I Enjoyed – and Suffered From – Writing ReasonML Code as a Junior Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yukims19/journey-with-reasonml-as-a-junior-developer-17ee53a25fa7 <comment><USER2> That was a nice and detailed post on getting started with ReasonML. Thank you, great job!

I especially like how you told a real story with all the wtf moments in Reason and all the issues and hard things you encountered instead of just posting how awesome it is, like usually every one else does.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like you grew a bunch — I think learning reason is one of the best things you can do as an engineer, junior or not. The ml concepts can give you a larger toolbelt for attacking problems</comment>


Ask HN: How to have a meaningful runup to Christmas, especially for kids? - <AUTHOR> Christmas seems to have lost its meaning in many ways.
I'm talking here about the few weeks running up to Christmas day.
How to celebrate the run up to Christmas in a personally meaningful way?
Any ideas?
Obviously the answer is "it depends on who you are and your personal values", but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for making special experiences, especially for children. <comment><USER2> I've always really enjoyed the #LightTheWorld campaign, which puts the focus on service and helping others. This year it starts with a worldwide day of service on Dec 1, spends a week on serving the world, then a week on community, then family, then faith. It's an awesome way to get my kids involved in the Christmas spirit and thinking beyond themselves.

Here's a calendar download with activities/ideas (PDF): [https://www.mormon.org/bc/content/assets/pdf/christmas2018/C...](https://www.mormon.org/bc/content/assets/pdf/christmas2018/Calendar%20and%20Family%20Home%20Evening/LTW%20Calendar%202018.pdf)

And there will be videos will be coming out on [http://www.lighttheworld.org](http://www.lighttheworld.org), if it's the same as years past.

In general, I feel that if I can teach my kids to look for ways to serve and benefit others, then we're really getting at the core of why Christmas exists, and the core of who we are celebrating.

</comment><comment><USER3> \- Christmas Caroling

\- Baking Christmas cookies and making hot cocoa

\- helping out at a food pantry / homeless shelter

\- Decorating for the holidays

\- Getting Everyone special Christmas outfits or pajamas

\- Read the Nativity story

\- Have a Christmas cookie exchange with the neighbors

\- Go See the nutcracker, a christmas carol, or another christmas play live

\- Help participate in Secret Santa situations

\- Teach the kids to play christmas songs with instruments (piano, drums)

I'm a big fan of helping out others during the holidays, but the reality is that it isn't a service day, its for spending with family and friends! Eat, Drink, and be merry!

</comment><comment><USER4> I recall getting one gift per day leading up to the 24th. Gifts like a chocolate bar, $1 toy or whatever. Not actually sure if this memory is real though.

We did have a calendar on the wall with gifts, this helps increase the hype for the big day.

Generally baking Christmas food, watching movies and having music play during the day works as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Read them stories from the Bible (simplified version) and especially the Gospels. Then ask them questions and have them reflect on the messages of each. It works whether you are religious or not and they get to think for themselves. Plus, knowing the stories is good general knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER6> Advent calendar of whatever type works best for your family, whether religious/securlar stories each day or LEGO Star Wars mini builds, having something they look forward to doing with their parents each day means a lot to little ones.

</comment><comment><USER7> Regardless of your goals, establishing some family traditions is a nice idea.</comment>


Apple weighs delaying 5G iPhone launch by months, sources say - <AUTHOR> https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Apple-weighs-delaying-5G-iPhone-launch-by-months-sources-say <comment><USER2> good. find a new supply chain that is not so reliant on China.</comment>


Using Mathematica to generate Web 2.0 company names - <AUTHOR> http://collison.ie/blog/2009/04/using-mathematica-to-generate-web-20-company-names <comment><USER2> I don't know Mathematica, so I can't quite tell exactly what algorithm is being used in Patrick's code, but I do know that Markov chains are a useful way of generating similar names and are easy to program in common languages. (Patrick may be using Markov chaining - I see a RandomChoice from CharFreqs.)

Basically, analyze a word corpus and create frequencies for letter pairs, considering word start and end as letters for convenience. Then, starting with a word start, choose letters randomly based on the frequency of the pairs where the first letter in the pair is the last letter in your current word. Continue until a word end is chosen.

Building frequencies using letter triplets rather than letter pairs can get better results, where pairs may choose unlikely match-ups such as "cth", taking e.g. a"ct" as common, and "th"e as common. Longer tuples can be chosen but a slight adjustment of word start and end strategy is needed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know Mathematica either, but here's a Markov-model hack as barrkel suggested: [http://github.com/darius/languagetoys/blob/505309d5900ac49c6...](http://github.com/darius/languagetoys/blob/505309d5900ac49c6f10b7edf5218da9fef536b4/companynames.py)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a nice idea, but I was hoping for a big text dump of names I could look at. Maybe you could turn this into a web app.

</comment><comment><USER5> iCantThinkOfBetterName

... (iPhone app)</comment>


Timex's New $399 Smartwatch Hints At A Future Where Smartphones Are Obsolete - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/timex-ironman-gps-one-2014-8?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select&utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20%28Wednesday%20Friday%29%202014-08-06&utm_content=emailshare

<comment><USER2> If anything is going to replace a smart phone, it's something without the need to carry a screen, yet still let the user witness an easily readable and interactable experience.

Plus, I can't stand scraping a watch on my desk while at work. My phone is too big to properly fit in my pocket while I sit at my desk, so it's not on my body either.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...Timex unveiled Wednesday its new smartwatch.."

Never mind the recent "theatre" vs "theater" debate. At what stage did the mangled syntax above become standard 'Merkin' English?

Timex's new smartwatch is called "Wednesday"?

</comment><comment><USER4> In a market where phone screens are getting larger and larger, a watch will replace phones? I'm going to say that's unlikely.

</comment><comment><USER5> Linkbait/bad headline.</comment>


MacBook Air refreshed with all-day battery life, available today - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/10/4414150/apple-macbook-air-2013-announced

<comment><USER2> Has anyone posted a side-by-side spec comparison to previous version?

Here's one from the Verge's Compare builder: [http://www.theverge.com/products/compare/7141/5777](http://www.theverge.com/products/compare/7141/5777)

CPU change (lower base frequency, but new architecture, so....?), graphics bump, (much?) better battery life, (large) bump in SSD at the same price point as last year's model. Still under-loaded RAM (4 or expensive 8GB), considering how web apps have exploded in RAM spend in recent years.</comment>


Things That Go Bump in the Stacks (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://library.csun.edu/SCA/Peek-in-the-Stacks/Demons <comment><USER2> From the title, I thought this would be about stack smashing...</comment>


On Recent Controversial Events - <AUTHOR> http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2019/10/15/fsf-rms.html <comment><USER3> > It really doesn't matter what your view about the controversial issue is; a > leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about unrelated issues eventually > creates an untenable distraction from ....

I can understand his position, but this is part of the picture of a core problem in society today.

Its NOT that leaders aren't allowed to speak about controversial issues - <USER2> that they aren't allowed to advocate ONE side of an issue, while the other side is perfectly OK. You probably shouldn't say "diversity is important but not our only goal" as a CEO, but you CAN say "diversity is the best". That kind of large scale censorship only stifles dissent without changing the dissenters mind. Which is a state of affairs the far left happily accepts - "toxic people dont deserve a voice". Just pray you don't speak against mob or they'll cancel you. Better yet, just don't even think those unthinkable thoughts. Submit to the collective. All your opinions can be inferred from your tribe anyways. You don't really exist, only your tribe does.

<comment><USER4> If RMS had said "diversity is important but not our only goal", there wouldn't be any FSF drama. He didn't say that.

His comments are the wrong comments to defend, I think, for reasons adequately explained in the article. Minimizing the harm powerful people have caused to their victims is not "dissent" we should avoid stifling.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't defending his comments. I do think he's an a __hole. Not my point though.

<comment><USER4> Fair enough! I think elevating his types of position to the level of "dissent" sounds like a defense, because dissent is something I think is admirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a thoughtful essay. Kuhn clearly pored over those words most carefully.

> The question is whether an organization should have a designated leader who > is on a sustained, public campaign advocating about an unrelated issue that > many consider controversial. It really doesn't matter what your view about > the controversial issue is; a leader who refuses to stop talking loudly > about unrelated issues eventually creates an untenable distraction from the > radical activism you're actively trying to advance.

The inability to differentiate between "acute" and "chronic" plagues our day.

<comment><USER6> But then Kuhn gives the game away within a couple paragraphs, calling RMS's views 'problematic' and expressing disagreement with several of them.

If you're gonna go with that line, stay on-message.

<comment><USER7> I disagree with you, Kuhn expressed that he believes that a leader pushing a controversial message unrelated to an organization's purpose can become a distraction which has consequences, whether you agree with the leader's controversial message or not.

That is not invalidated by the fact that Kuhn also disagreed with the views RMS has expressed and Kuhn clearly wished to distance himself from those views.

<comment><USER6> "Give the game away" is too strong, you're right. I don't mean to imply that Kuhn didn't mean what he carefully wrote, he seems like a standup guy doing Free Software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > organizations need not and should not elevate spokespeople and leaders who > speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find do not advance > their mission, and/or that alienate important constituents. I, like many > other software freedom leaders, curtail my public comments on issues not > related to FOSS. (Indeed, I would not even be commenting on this issue if it > had not become a central issue of concern to the software freedom > community.)

I really respect this. Kuhn is articulating a principle here and then gives an example of how he himself makes a sacrifice to adhere to this principle. This makes him much more credible to me than if he was using the principle solely as an instrument against others.

<comment><USER9> Is this a good pattern though? Seems to me like a low standard for our leaders. You should be able to do more than one thing at once.

<comment><USER10> It's not really about leaders at all but about the public and press who will listen to and amplify anything leaders say even if it's off-topic bullshit.

<comment> lisp-missionary Trump says anything and it's fine. Guy tells blatant lies. Says he saw muslims cheering on 9/11 and he's the president.

But god forbid some computer programmer says something Americans don't agree with.

<comment><USER11> Please don't take HN threads further into political or ideological flamewar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER12> This new trolling account is annoyingly showing up in Algolia searches for "lisp" in quotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Most importantly, I believe we must find a way to stand firm for software > freedom while also making a safe environment for victims of sexual assault, > sexual abuse, gaslighting, and other deplorable actions.

I understand and I fully stand by his belief that software freedom does not mean egalitarian and morally righteous principles have to be undermined in order to progress.

However, it is not the FSF's job to make sure those values are upheld in every facet of moral righteousness. The goal is clear: make and keep software free as in liberty. That's it. Anything else should be completely within the realm of personal viewpoints.

I completely and wholeheartedly stand by the fact that we as a society need to deal with sexual violence much better than we are currently doing so.

Not an ounce of my being, however, places the burden on dealing with this onto Stallman's, or Kuhn's, or any other FSF member's shoulder. Help if you can. Help if you want, but if your _job_ is to make software free, you're doing great. If you can solve other moral issues while doing so, even better, but it's not required.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that RMS undermines the FSF's progress by being a dumbass. No one's expects him to solve a moral issue, they expect to him to avoid harming their mission by being a ridiculous troll.

<comment><USER14> Their mission is his mission. FSF didn't hire Stallman, he created it. I think it's baseless to say that Stallman is either trolling or harming the FSF.

<comment><USER15> He created it more then 30 years ago. It has evolved into something much, much greater than himself and so the organization has a very serious responsibility to more stakeholders as well.

<comment><USER14> That's exactly it -- 30 years of flourishing with RMS very publicly documenting his opinion on everything the whole time.

That's why I find it hard to believe that his behavior was so harmful to the organization.

<comment><USER16> It wasn't harmful as in it would kill the organization but I believe that a lot of people were turned away from the FSF or even FOSS entirely due to RMS' behaviour.

<comment><USER15> Also lets not pretend its just RMS. ESR has been ostracized for his weird comments and behavior as well. The presentation of this as without precedent is really disingenuous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > The question is whether an organization should have a designated leader who > is on a sustained, public campaign advocating about an unrelated issue that > many consider controversial.

I don't understand this. Are people in prominent positions not allowed to have opinions or interests outside of their job? As long as RMS wasn't actively using his power/influence as head of the FSF to advance his odd-ball views I really don't see what the problem is. The only argument I could see is that RMS's persona was so fundamentally quintessential to the FSF that the two could not be separated -- in which case firing him was obviously a boneheaded move.

<comment><USER7> > Are people in prominent positions not allowed to have opinions or interests > outside of their job?

There are absolutely jobs in the world where "don't be a distraction" is a requirement for the job.

<comment><USER17> Sometimes who you are, a physical trait, an accent, an unrelated disability is a "distraction". And, yes, personality and neurological traits can count as well.

I can understand "don't be a jerk", and maybe RMS failed that test. But "don't be a distraction" can easily be (and has been) an excuse to oppress in the name of pragmatism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >human sexual behavior not a topic on which RMS has adequate expertise

Ouch!

<comment><USER19> I think that's factually accurate. He's not a professor of sexology and (to my knowledge) has never pursued any formal study of the topic.

Not everybody needs to be Dr. Ruth, but in some sense, Stallman going on about sex topics when he's not is as much a problem as Sagan once going on about the "reptile brain" without considering how much of the neuroscience he was contemporary to had already disproved that hypothesis.

If you're going to have strong opinions on something and want to maintain your credibility in general, at least find a trustworthy and informed advisor on the topic.

<comment><USER20> > He's not a professor of sexology

It's not a question of sexology, it's a question of ethics. I doubt that any of his critics are professors of sexology as well, people are arguing on moral ground here.

Many of issues people are attacking him on, are not issues in my country. I don't see many fellow Europeans bothering what he said, it's American moral issue totally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very thoughtful and nuanced post-mortem. I generally agree with what he had to say.

I think I'm more on the side of thinking leaders should be moral people and not think that pedophilia is defensible. I do believe people in power should be held accountable.

I think "cancel culture" is the wrong term to use, I think is accountable culture. If you think it's okay to demean woman and defend someone exploiting young girls because his sex trafficker friend gives his institution lots of money, then I think you're a bad person.

Free speech doesn't mean you're free from consequences.

</comment><comment><USER22> > However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose views we > fundamentally disagree.

I don't know much about the author, but I really like this viewpoint. People are of course entitled to their opinions and to free speech. But we don't have to follow leaders whose values don't align with our own.

</comment><comment><USER23> While it doesn't match the FA title, I think an addition of "(FSF and RMS)" could be helpful to many people.

</comment><comment><USER24> RMS resigned!? I can't believe I missed something like that (I'm even a fsf "member")

<comment><USER25> Seems you have some drama to catch up on...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20990583)

<comment><USER24> Wow, 2100 comments. Thanks for the link

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The "Free as in Freedom" podcast, with Sandler and Kuhn, restarted this year. It hasn't had an episode in a few months however. I wonder if they will do an episode on this

</comment><comment><USER26> > It really doesn't matter what your view about the controversial issue is; a > leader who refuses to stop talking loudly about unrelated issues eventually > creates an untenable distraction

So this practically means the moment you become the leader, you renounce your freedom of free speech. RMS is a freedom fighter, there is no way he would agree to that. And I'm grateful he didn't give up.

</comment><comment><USER27> > In fact, RMS' views and statements posted on stallman.org about sexual > morality escalated for the worse over the last few years.

Each word is a linked to a comment, some of them fairly eye opening.

<comment><USER28> Except reading the links and keeping the timestamps in mind pretty much the opposite occurred. In 2016 he was blabbing about bestiality and pedophilia / rape of minors and excusing it, but later on he was mostly talking about not calling 18yos children, and saying that not all 'Sexual assault' is equal and different words should be used to describe different actions, he even provides a pretty logical argument for this.

His worst comment was probably this one [https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman....](https://web.archive.org/web/20180131020215/https://stallman.org/archives/2017-jul- oct.html#29_October_2017_\(Pestering_women\))

<comment><USER23> Regardless of how his stated views changed over time, the article is more about how such outside-the-mainstream views end up being a significant distraction from the already (unrelated) outside-the-mainstream views of the FSF.

Even were he to turn out to be an incredible coder and lover of open source, I also wouldn't expect the FSF to hire David Duke as a spokesman because the combination of two unrelated advocacy positions would be a distraction for both.

<comment><USER14> I think we need to keep in mind that RMS was posting this stuff very publicly all the while FSF was a runaway success. If RMS were being nominated to lead the FSF today, sure it might be appropriate to point out that he seems like a wack-job. However, as it stands we've lost one of the most impactful thought leaders of the past several decades over some mudslinging and theoretical "distraction".

<comment><USER29> Frankly, how?

He hasn't been silenced. He still has internet access and the many publishing platforms that affords him.

He's been dissociated from a role in an organization.

If his ideas so clearly stand on their own, then he should have no problems. What he will not be doing anymore is acting as a direct representative of the organization.

<comment><USER14> Well I'm sure part of it is that he's been unjustly branded as a pedophile. Also I doubt he cherishes the prospect of starting FSF Round 2.

<comment><USER30> I haven't seen him branded as a pedophile. I'll happily brand him as a former pedophile apologist, and have yet to read anything that suggests he has renounced those views explicitly.

<comment><USER14> I would argue the delta between calling someone a pedophile and a pedophile apologist is pretty negligible in the age of clickbaity news bites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is Bradley Kuhn trying to explain and justify his behavior to himself (and, to take a personal stance, I think he did - I think his actions and motivations are fine). I think it points out several things.

1\. Dealing with a controversial issue from inside an organization rarely works. Sure, maybe FSF has been grappling with Stallman's non-FSF stances and how they hurt the FSF and free software in general. But they had several years internally to make changes and nothing happened until it spilled over into the public. And then, yes, it did happen quickly.

2\. There is a huge tension between the mission of a group and how to interact with the society that group is embedded within. I agree that a group should focus on its mission, and leave other goals to groups more dedicated to those issues. I especially agree that a group with no particular expertise in a matter should avoid pontificating or trying to "lead" in that issue. And yet a group is composed of members from the society. There's a conflict here that no one really knows how to handle.

Why do people high up in very visible or very powerful organizations take on topics outside their remit? Because they have personal opinions and want to use the power of the organization to amplify their voice. I think this is a subtle form of corruption, even in the case where you "created" the organization. Because while Stallman did pioneer the idea of "free software", he's not personally responsible for all or even most of the success and visibility of the FSF. He hijacked the org to press certain opinions. And, yes, while he didn't pretend that the FSF was saying these things, he knew full well that he only had attention paid to him because of all the history of free software and the fact that he was the very visible figurehead. Saying these things to your friends and associates is one thing, but blogging about them is a public campaign.

I don't know the full answer. But an org can't avoid big issues for the society it's embedded in, because that often looks like it's made a decision (usually for repression - to wit, the many groups facing public approbation over apparent kow-towing to the Chinese position on recent events in Hong Kong). But also #metoo and LGBTQ+ rights and Epstein and any number of culture flashpoints in recent history. I think orgs need to make cautious statements that these things exist and that orgs will not endorse unethical or illegal behavior but that other things are up to the actual actors involved. So for example "Black Lives Matter" \- I don't expect companies to be champions, and I certainly don't expect any companies to attack it (whether flat-out or noxious things like "Blue Lives Matter"); but I do expect those companies to not make empty talk about equal rights and diversity but to work to make sure their companies aren't part of the problem (e.g. only hiring white men, for example). When a problem is exposed to you, you take that information in and you use it, you don't ignore it, and you certainly don't work to undermine it.

These things blow up because someone in a position of a lot of power does something either purposely or accidentally evil, and then the reaction looks like an overreaction, and we all "murmur murmur MURMUR MURMUR!!" about it for a while.

Let's all be humans. That means we have our goals (game companies make games - and profits) but we also are composed of members of the society we are embedded in, so we are part of those larger goals whether we like it or not. And we don't make social decisions based on "the market", but on foundations of morals and ethics - which we argue about constantly, but over the longer run are pretty easy to see.

Not quite on a tangent - companies today face a huge problem in that they employ people, and people have their own opinions and goals not related to the company's mission. For some companies, the expectation is that you take no position on matters, because that would harm the opinion of the company. I think this is very problematic, especially since a lot of self-censoring happens. I said very little controversial in public while I was employed by a certain large game company, for example, and no one in the company explictly told me to be like that. I think that caused society a tiny bit of harm. But the flip-side is also bad in that companies face unwarranted criticism because some employee says something that goes viral, and then if the company fires the person, the company is in trouble, but if the company defends the person, the company can also get in trouble.

I think this whole thing is only tough because we haven't yet figured out how to handle it. And then once we do, future generations will look back in dismay and say "what the fuck, how could you have been so blind?". I wish someone would figure it out already, so we can go back to being productive.

</comment><comment><USER32> Et tu, Brute?

</comment><comment><USER33> > However, we do not need to follow leadership from those whose views we > fundamentally disagree.

I hesitate to bring up Trump in this context but I know many wish they didn't have to follow a man who casually joked about sexual assault. Yet Americans do have to follow Trump on matters of law related to his office as President, like it or not.

> [...] organizations need not and should not elevate spokespeople and leaders > who speak regularly on unrelated issues that organizations find do not > advance their mission, and/or that alienate important constituents.

I agree on "need not" but disagree on "should not".

Just because Kuhn chooses to keep his public persona free from conflicts with his personal commitments to organizations does not mean anyone else must as well. Nor does his belief that he is doing something worthwhile mean it is a universal moral law. I appreciate his integrity but I do not consider it a requirement for leadership of software advocacy organizations.

I find it troubling that a common tactic when someone disagrees with someone else is they want to ruin them. They want them de-platformed and unemployable. It isn't enough to combat their ideas with better ideas, they need them to go away permanently. I would have preferred both Kuhn and RMS to stay on the FSF and engage in a public healthy debate.

<comment><USER29> RMS is being pushed out of a public relations role, because he has demonstrated that he cannot competently maintain relations with the public.

The Trump administration has, similarly, _repeatedly_ fired public relations representatives when it became dissatisfied with their performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Even setting aside RMS's indefensible behavior, his vision of what "free software" means is stuck in the '80s. [1] got flagged for its flame-baity title but it's a valid point. Nobody gives a damn about the firmware for your laptop's wi-fi card. Cloud services and mobile rule the world now, and RMS never came up with a good solution to either besides "don't use them." (There's AGPL but it's never won any victories for software freedom. All it means is "buy a commercial license.")

It's unfortunate that RMS loyalists will continue to control the FSF for the foreseeable future. This is one of those cases where progress is made one funeral at a time.

[1] [https://maffulli.net/2019/10/17/why-richard-stallman- doesnt-...](https://maffulli.net/2019/10/17/why-richard-stallman-doesnt- matter/)

<comment><USER35> > _" Cloud services and mobile rule the world now, and RMS never came up with > a good solution to either besides "don't use them.""_

I generally agree and I think the problem is bigger than SaaS. Consumers are now becoming accustomed to software "running" on low power hardware that simply cannot actually run on that low power hardware, which requires some sort of "SaaS" system, which in turn requires that they either trust somebody else (inevitably a for-profit corporation who very often has incentives misaligned with the user) or become their own system administrator (an unreasonable ask for the typical user.)

A concrete example:

Suppose a user wants a FOSS photograph organization application that supports organizing large numbers of images through tagging. A user coming from the proprietary world might reasonably expect this application to perform face detection and recognition to automatically tag all of their friends in the application. There are FOSS implementations of this kind of ML tech.. but what are the chances any of that heavy duty stuff can run on the users low power smartphone? Snowball's chance in hell. Even if you get it to run, it certainly won't scale as well as the SaaS alternative from Facebook/Google/Apple.

What's the answer though? I don't have a great answer to this, RMS obviously doesn't, I don't think any RMS supporters _or_ critics do. Not that I've heard anyway.

<comment><USER10> Apple's on-device ML at least proves it's possible even if the FOSS world would take a while to catch up. A bigger problem may getting access to training data.

<comment><USER35> It's only possible to a limited extent. A low power smartphone will simply never be able to do as much ML as a high power server, so there will always be a capability asymmetry here. And that's not even getting into the matter of FOSS drivers for such hardware.

And as you say, training these models is a different matter than merely using them. The data and power requirements involved are a huge problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

This is understood as the principle of freedom of speech.

We don't get that if you risk losing your job if you don't share every view of the majority.

The principle should be well understood by an organization that stands for, above all, these sorts of freedoms.

There is no freedom of speech left if you're only able to say what everyone agrees with.

When did we lose sight of this?

This posturing is shameful.

<comment><USER37> His freedom of speech hasn't been hindered in any way, shape, or form (as far as I can tell).

What I do see, is others utilizing _their_ right to (dis)associate with whomever they want.

Freedom of speech has never included any notion of "Freedom from societal repercussions".

<comment><USER17> "Freedom of speech" is a universal principle that is also crystallized in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution with respect to government suppression of private speech.

It's also important that the principle be applied in private interactions, weighing other considerations. Of course, a political diatribe at a funeral is a poor choice. But there need to be places for well intentioned and civil people to come together and discuss things, even if ignorance is spouted of from time to time. If we're all humble, we'll all understand we're each ignorant in our own way and have a little grace to let each other be wrong, annoying, and even circumstantially negative from time to time.

Yes, freedom of association is important and conflicts with freedom of speech sometimes. But deciding to shun people also has repercussions. We have to consider all the repercussions of all of our actions.

<comment><USER37> Well said. I agree completely.

The question I would ask next though, is whether RMS is _well intentioned_ , _humble_ and aware of his own capability to be ignorant? I don't have a strong opinion, but there does appear to be a long history of behaviours and musings which suggest he isn't.

I'm not saying he deserves to be a social pariah. But it seems reasonable for the FSF to want to disassociate with him.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sanic – all-in-one tool to develop, build, and deploy Docker/Kubernetes projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/distributed-containers-inc/sanic <comment><USER2> It's a bit unfortunate that they use the same name as the Python3 async web framework Sanic:

      https://github.com/huge-success/sanic/
      https://sanicframework.org/

They won't help each other in web searches, and considering they are using "sanic" project name on github too, it might confuse people some more.</comment>


Tor Anonymity: Things Not to Do - <AUTHOR> https://www.whonix.org/wiki/DoNot <comment><USER3> Here's one they missed: do not resize your window! If you do, your browser instance has a potential to have a unique viewport size and hence, there's a probability you can be tracked. Whatever size window Tor opens, do not re-size it.

I do not use Tor myself but few years ago I've analyzed an anonymized data site and was amazed how easy it was, with a high degree of probability, to track someone just based on screen resolution + viewport size (i.e. size of your browser window). Almost every viewport size was unique (when correlated with screen resolution).

<comment><USER4>
      > Here's one they missed: do not resize your window!

Under the "Don't change settings if you don't know their consequences." section:

      For example removing a menu bar or using Full Screen
      in Tor Browser is recommended against. The latter
      is known to modify the screen size, which is bad
      for the web fingerprint.

Also, the current version of the Tor Browser warns you when you resize the window.

<comment><USER5> >Also, the current version of the Tor Browser warns you when you resize the window.

I believe it only warns you if you maximize the window, not if you resize it.

<comment><USER6> Resizing it isn't a problem. It doesn't open at a magically untrackable size, the point of this advice is that if you are fullscreen you will be the same size always and therefore potentially trackable between sessions, if you are resizing it yourself even if you try to resize to roughly the same size as last time you won't be exactly the same. (Window management features like snapping to half screen instead of full screen of course would be the same as going full screen.)

<comment><USER7> Interesting. I'd have thought custom sizing would be bad for between-site tracking as it's much more likely to be unique, whereas fullscreen wouldn't have been much of a problem since resolutions are pretty standardised.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, my thinking was that Tor browser would randomly pick a size, but maybe it only has a certain number of options to make sure every user crosses with plenty of other users too? In which case resizing of any sort would make you more unique, just within the session. (I'm no expert on Tor/browser.)

<comment><USER8> For those with knowledge of how window size affects page layout, is there any technical reason for Tor browser not to fuzz with a random +/\- 5 pixels while in a single session (say, on every page load)?

Similar to what the nosleep utility does with jiggling the mouse by an unnoticable +/\- a few pixels.

<comment><USER9> Too easy to average that away.

Could make sense to do so on a session-by-session basis, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Many of these points can be summarised in one word: compartmentalisation

Your personas are isolated and segregated. They share no information, hobbies, interests and at a tech level they don't share connections, machines, browsers, apps.

Your anonymous personas use Tor in an isolating proxy configuration, where traffic is explicitly allowed and proxied rather than routing all by default (NAT) with explicit blocks (like a firewalls block all then allow vs allow all then block)

If you look at Opsec failures (read thegrugq[1]) you'll find that a very large number are the result of a lack of compartmentalisation and were found by establishing link(s) between known and unknown personas

[1] [http://grugq.tumblr.com](http://grugq.tumblr.com)

<comment><USER11> A case for Qubes OS?

<comment><USER12> Compartmentalization really needs to be a mindset as well. As noted in the article, certain user behaviors can also create linkages between otherwise disparate online personas, e.g. visiting a common subset of sites or visiting sites with low traffic and highly identifiable demographics. It would be difficult for Qubes OS to know that I shouldn't visit zikes.me while browsing in my "anonymous" persona, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is why, if you can, the best thing you can do is have a Tor computer. Have it run a live CD of some sort with Tor built-in, and only use it for Tor.

Of course, this is not perfect, and still allows for breaking some of the recommendations in the article, but it's a good start. Not to mention it's easy to switch compartments: restart the computer (still not perfect, but there's really no such thing as perfection here).

<comment><USER14> If you use a live CD you're most likely running outdated software unless you burn a new CD for each update.

<comment><USER15> Old software = good.

Newly patched software = who was it patched by exactly?

<comment><USER16> I suspect kpcyrd's point is that by not auto-updating, you stick out like a fly in the milk. Software versions (like browser versions, plugin versions) can be queried [1] and used to almost uniquely identify you.

[1] [http://detectmybrowser.com/](http://detectmybrowser.com/)

<comment><USER17> Right - but if your browser and OS signature is "the latest version of tails" [1] then presumably you look identical to other users of the same live CD?

[1] [https://tails.boum.org/](https://tails.boum.org/)

<comment><USER18> Yep, all four of them.

I (probably) exaggerate, but the problem is that your anonymity pool is now very small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The perceived "if you're keeping quiet, you must have something to hide" aspect of anonymity fascinates me.

Does anybody know if you might actually be safer from, say, a theoretical surveillance program by "blending in" as a typical Internet user vs. using Tor, where just one mistake might trigger a red flag?

I guess this technique wouldn't applicable if you _do_ have something to hide, though... Hmm!

<comment><USER20> > by "blending in" as a typical Internet user

How do you blend in? By not visiting any "subversive" websites and by not mentioning any "subversive" keywords. At that point you are a typical internet user. But how do you know what is considered subversive? Animal rights/environmental activists with no actual proof that they've done anything or planned anything are under house arrest right now in France just because the government wanted to free up resources to track Islamic extremist terrorists.

> using Tor. where just one mistake might trigger a red flag?

Btw as a point of interest your username just triggered a red flag and got put on a slightly elevated watch level by the US surveillance program. Why? You mentioned the word "Tor" (Snowden files for details).

> wouldn't applicable if you do have something to hide, though... Hmm!

Do you have genitals? Do you like keeping tabs on who gets to see them? Congratulations you have something to hide.

Would you like your boss to see what porn you watch? Congratulations you have something to hide.

<comment><USER21> > _Animal rights /environmental activists with no actual proof that they've > done anything or planned anything are under house arrest right now in France > just because the government wanted to free up resources to track Islamic > extremist terrorists._

Source? All I could find were warrants issued for actual protests during a state of emergency.

<comment><USER20> The Guardian and the Independent reported it.

As far as the reports stated the State of Emergency is ongoing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> On the contrary, please do browse the web normally with Tor. The more normal users Tor has, the more credibility it has.

</comment><comment><USER23> tl;dr Advice for lay users: Tor isn't an invisibility cloak. ex, visiting a social media site through a 'tweet this' type link will leave an identifying trace that others can use to narrow down my probable identity. Fifteen or so concise admonitions with reasoning.

</comment><comment><USER24> The OP makes many assumptions about why people are using Tor. Some people are not looking for total protection from all the enemies Tor is meant to protect against.

For instance someone looking to hide from a local tap, say while at work, can safely use tor to login to account they would normally access directly. The enemy isn't the website you are accessing, or some nation state with limitless tapping resources. You just want Tor to hide what you are doing from the boss. (But make sure you aren't sending your login details in the clear.)

<comment><USER25> Tor is a less than ideal solution to the problems of censorship or local traffic monitoring. It would be more performant, and in some ways more reliable, to use a VPN, SSH tunnel, SOCKS proxy with SSL, etc.

In many environments these are also less likely to be blocked or detected by network operators, as they're a common component of business network traffic, while Tor (identified by communications with publicly listed Tor nodes) is not.

Tor was designed for anonymity, not circumvention. Circumvention is a side- effect of Tor and some circumvention features have been added (namely bridges), but there are significantly more elegant solutions for when only circumvention is necessary.

<comment><USER24> Tor was not designed for circumvention? Bypassing censorship is a primary design feature.

<comment><USER25> That's just what I'm saying - bypassing censorship is _not_ a primary design feature. Tor's original design was only for low-latency anonymity. Circumvention was initially a side-effect of Tor functioning as a (very slow) proxy for its users, and later dedicated circumvention features were added (unlisted bridges, obfsproxy, etc) to make Tor more durable in hostile environments, for the purpose of making the anonymity features more available, which of course reinforces the side-effect of Tor being useful for circumvention.

Most recently, the rendezvous system and hidden services have been particularly powerful in reducing censorship on the end of content publishers, but this feature was added two years in, it is an area in which Tor performs significantly more poorly than, e.g., i2p, and very few people are actually talking about this when they discuss using Tor for censorship evasion.

I love the Tor project, but people should understand that it is an anonymity system, not an anti-censorship system. When you are facing censorship on your end (the reader's end) and do not require anonymity, just use a SOCKS proxy or a VPN. They're radically faster, often easier to use, and there are a million different options for evading blocking and detection - using DNS queries as a covert channel is a popular one, but the sky's the limit.

If you need to evade censorship on the publisher's end, then this generally comes down to an anonymity problem (the publisher must remain anonymous for their protection) and so onion-routing becomes a reasonable approach. This is relatively uncommon, though, and I believe people should more strongly invest in other projects that originally built around this goal, rather than having it added later. Some of these are more robust against attempts at direct censorship (rather than just punishing the creator) as well, as Tor is relatively centralized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So basically, don't use the Internet while using Tor. Because people might find out who you are. Got it.

<comment><USER27> This was also my takeaway after reading the list. In fact, it might be simpler to write a guide of "here's what you can do and exactly how to do it - <USER2> Tor".

<comment><USER28> Whitelist instead of blacklist, not a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I like this line:

> Heroes only exist in comic books keep that in mind! There are only young > heroes and dead heroes.

<comment><USER30> Very similar to: "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."

<comment><USER31> Too bad we don't have a saying like that for driving cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The conclusion I draw from this list is that it's almost impossible for an ordinary person to maintain anonymity using the current tools. Who has the discipline to maintain the level of operational security implied by this article? I mean, these are just the top _twenty_ things you're not supposed to do, and it's easy to think of more, for example:

* Don't type anything into an untrusted web page—you can be deanonymized by your typing patterns. Whenever you need to type anything, type it into a text editor and then copy and paste. [http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/07/how-the-way-you-ty...](http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2015/07/how-the-way-you-type-can-shatter-anonymity-even-on-tor/)

* Don't move your mouse over the web page—you can be deanonymized by your mouse movements. So disconnect your mouse and interact via the keyboard only (always bearing in mind the problem of deanonymization via typing, of course). [http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2046725](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2046725)

</comment><comment><USER33> Tor is a project originally by the US Navy developed to protect US intelligence. Given that background it would be a bit of a leap to trust security or privacy to technology produced by the government unless it is reasonable or rational to assume they will work against their own interests by releasing it.

For a long time time before NSA was exposed, it had been working closely with a lot of security related technologies, researchers, developers, companies, and was a key part of the software security industry including standards. For instance SeLinux is a NSA project pushed hard by a number of open source companies including trying to integrate it into the Linux kernel but stymied by Linux Torvalds. A lot of these technologies and companies often get a free pass.

For anyone with serious anonymity or privacy needs it would be pragmatic to think carefully before relying on technology that is linked to the US government or US companies which basically rules out a lot of computing. Using technology to fight an adversary with unlimited resources and access to talent, and has been an integral part of the security industry is foolhardy and seems difficult to win. We need to find alternatives.

<comment><USER34> Should we also avoid the Internet itself then?

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpanet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arpanet)

<comment><USER33> If your Internet needs are privacy or anonymity related perhaps. That's why I said it rules out a lot of computing.

For those with a 'serious' as in life dependent need for privacy, for instance whistle blowers or persons of interest it can be argued the Internet today cannot deliver the level of anonymity they require.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Things NOT to do:

\- Prevent Tor over Tor scenarios.

Sincere question:

Is that really what they meant to say? Do NOT prevent Tor over Tor scenarios?

<comment><USER36> No. He means to avoid Tor over Tor. English is a difficult language ;)

<comment><USER28> I immediately had to think when he/she wrote "informations": likely French (or sometimes Germans make the same error).

Since back in my demoscene days (which is a mostly European, non-native English speaking crowd) that one always stood out to me, almost exclusively French that made this mistake (pretty consistently, as well).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is there a way to block non-Tor traffic via iptables or similar? That would be really helpful since it's only human to make some mistake and leave another connection open. To connect to my VPN I use a script that changes all iptables policies to DROP and allows traffic only on lo and tun0. I still have to allow traffic on eth0 to the VPN IP, but that's unavoidable I guess.

<comment><USER38> Yes, it's possible. You run tor under its own user and block all ingress/egress traffic except from tor's user. You talk to the outside world proxying through tor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've given some thought on what a safe browser for tor would be like. Since it's hard to come up with the list of all possible information leaks, I suggest not attempting to do so. The system goes like this:

1) You open a new tab in your favorite browser. At this point, a new instance of a read-only, lightweight, virtual machine is resumed. The virtual machine doesn't know about tor, but its entire network traffic is torrified by the hypervisor.

2) The tab now displays a VNC connection to the virtual machine you just spun up.

Now, it's possible that some things will leak through the VM, but it should also be easier to control than an entire browser running in your OS. For example, enforcing that the VM image be read-only ensures that once a tab is closed, all sources of history are gone... no cookies, no history, no browser settings. You only need to whack one mole.

Yes, there might be exploits that jump out of the hypervisor, but these aren't as common as browser exploits and you would need both to jump out.

</comment><comment><USER20> Someone made a point about grammar and spelling mistakes... They were rightly flagged as their comment was non-constructively rude. However, it is a real point. Grammar and spelling error patterns are something I would attempt to fingerprint in order to correlate users across different forums if I were running a surveillance programme with sufficient resources.

<comment><USER40> In anonymity research this general problem is known as stylometry, and includes errors as well as other individual differences in how people use language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Kudos to the team for producing this! Perhaps the Tor Browser Bundle team could even incorporate some of these details into a more usable/translated draft of this information at the link provided when you start up the Tor Browser Bundle, which for reference/comparison is available at [https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en#warning](https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en#warning)

</comment><comment><USER42> Don't cross contaminate passwords or utilize like passwords.

So don't use the same passwords while utilizing tor that you have used with other accounts.

Or use similar passwords naming schemes. So if you are in the habit of using '@' for 'a' then try to avoid that and use random schemes.

</comment><comment><USER43> Use the tor browser.

Someone should make a short gif to explain this: imagine someone with a Guy Fawkes mask browsing facebook on his computer. Then some guy behind him look at his screen him and tells him "hey Mark Dupont, what's up?"

<comment><USER44> You mean this? [http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/222661-2/Anonymous- mom.gif](http://forgifs.com/gallery/d/222661-2/Anonymous-mom.gif)

<comment><USER43> I meant that facebook is a website which is designed to identify people, so tor and facebook are basically opposite things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Interesting.. shouldn't you do use Tor for as much as possible, including completely legal activities, so that when you do use Tor to legitimately hide something, you wouldn't generate traffic out of the ordinary?

<comment><USER45> I think only as much as you can do so anonymously in the first place. Regarding the resizing issue specifically, the use of "resolution + window size" is sufficiently unique in fullscreen (especially if you have a vertical toolbar like many devs do) that it can be deanonymized.

<comment><USER46> I don't understand the risk of the window-size issue.

If I am running a normal Windows installation(say, Windows 7 Home) on a commonly-sized screen (say, 1366x768) and have a normal sized taskbar, no odd widgets, toolbars, or other screen-space taking things, it seems I am only reducing the anonymity pool to those other users with the same features, which I suspect is more than 4.

For a non-persistent live-boot situation such as Tails, I would expect the risk to be even lower.

What am I missing, if anything? Was there some legal situation in which browser window size was used to de-anonymize someone that warrants the attention to browser window size? I understand it's another layer of protection, defense-in-depth and all, but it seems to be getting a disproportionate amount of attention.

<comment><USER45> You're exactly right. However, the concern comes from those who aren't using a commonly-sized screen with a normal taskbar, etc. That's precisely why certain versions of the Tor browser only resize to certain sizes/dimensions.

If (for example) you've got a vertical taskbar on a 4k monitor the pool will be much lower. Add in one other slip up, such as visiting a low-traffic website you've visited outside of Tor, and you've got a huge vulnerability for deanonymization.

As far as legal, I don't think there has ever been such a case, no. However, it definitely opens someone up to parallel construction, and there are always certain agencies for which a legal case is not necessary their end goal (CIA, NSA, etc).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A closer look at Google Duplex - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/27/a-closer-look-at-google-duplex/ <comment><USER2> Guys, c'mon, Google didn't make Duplex so that it could revolutionize restaurant reservations. Everyone here is getting so hung up on how there are better/other/existing ways to book a table. Of course there are, but that's clearly not the point of Duplex.

Reservations are just a convenient test bed for the underlying technology. And the underlying tech is 100% the reason for Duplex. Not table booking. It's all about training for AI - speech generation, conversation, language parsing. Making a reservation is a quarter step up and long staircase google sees for this tech.

<comment><USER3> i don't know what end goal you think they're training for, but duplex feels enough like an end goal to me. I know everybody likes to say everything google does is all about training the AI, but they have to be training for something.

This is a "something". it's a concrete, monetizable, and useful application of their AI work. making a reservation is the beginning of a sale. being able to book a reservation at any arbitrary restaurant with no extra work on the restaurantuer's part makes google ads more valuable. They can make money off this quite directly.

<comment><USER4> > This is a "something". it's a concrete, monetizable, and useful application > of their AI work... They can make money off this quite directly.

The interviews I've read point to an 80% success rate - hugely impressive, but 20% of interactions requiring human intervention is still a _very_ large, expensive staff hungry contact center to run when you are Google scale, for a product that ultimately doesn't really bring in any direct revenue. Each time Duplex fails in its current form, a human operator has to step in to finish the call.

Even Google are telling us not to expect this to ship in anything anytime soon.

From Ron at Ars' demo:

"We're actually quite a long way from launch, that's the key thing to understand," Fox explained at the meeting. "This is super-early technology, somewhere between technology demo and product."

<comment><USER3> My point wasn't to say it's a product _now_ , but rather that it is will be a product if everything pans out. The supposition was that this is just another way for Google to collect data, I believe that it's more of a way to use data than a way to collect data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Ars Technica writeup is superior, IMHO:

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/google-duplex-is- cal...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/google-duplex-is-calling-we- talk-to-the-revolutionary-but-limited-phone-ai/)

<comment><USER6> It "feels revolutionary" to the author, but it is literally only capable of handling the simplest restaurant and hair salon reservations (the kind of thing you could do yourself in about 90 seconds). Seems like a silly headline, although the details are interesting.

<comment><USER7> _> (the kind of thing you could do yourself in about 90 seconds)_

I can also walk over to my kitchen, stepping around the dogs and cats, and pour a glass of milk in about 90 seconds too, but a robot that can reliably do that would be pretty damn revolutionary.

Don't underestimate the insane quantity of wetware computation going on during a short conversation.

<comment><USER6> What on Earth are you talking about? The point was _not_ that anything humans can do within 90 seconds is non-revolutionary when implemented in machines. An artist can create something unique and beautiful in 90 seconds, and a mathematician can explain a short yet difficult proof in 90 seconds. Those things would absolutely be revolutionary if implemented in machines. Who cares about the quantity of computation? As if that matters for how "revolutionary" a software technology is.

It is entirely unclear to me that a bot that _might_ make _simple_ reservations at _small group_ of establishments that include _only_ restaurants and hair salons is in any way revolutionary. Even if it worked 100% of the time, who is making daily hair and restaurant reservations that would benefit from the extra 90 seconds? It's silly the amount of hype this is eliciting. You have a very strange definition of "revolutionary".

<comment><USER8> > […] who is making daily hair and restaurant reservations that would benefit > from the extra 90 seconds?

The wealthy have had assistants since practically time immemorial, and no one bats an eye at their "90 seconds". The promise of this tool is a democratization of both the convenience and the normalcy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So is Gruber eating his hat yet?

[https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/05/11/duplex- skeptici...](https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/05/11/duplex-skepticism) [https://twitter.com/gruber/status/995538518016487425](https://twitter.com/gruber/status/995538518016487425)

<comment><USER10> Considering that he went out of his way to express his opinion (calling it a "fraud" and "con"), it'd be funny if he sits this one out.

<comment><USER11> He didn't, though. He said the terms of the demo made it seem like one

<comment><USER12> He said he thought Pichai was lying:

>Pichai claims these two examples are actual phone calls to actual businesses. I'm saying I don't think that's true.

I'm not sure what distinction you're making.

<comment><USER11> Ok, that's a firmer commitment than he made in the blog post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > For instance, asked to "repeat the last four numbers," it restates the phone > number in its entirety. It's not a flaw, exactly, but it does show a simple > place where the system is pushed to its limitations with regard to the > understanding of the the subtle nuances of human conversation.

I chuckled. From experience, it turns out some humans don't understand the subtle nuances of human conversation either.

<comment><USER14> It's not that I don't understand, but I am unable to say the last four digits of my number without saying the whole thing (or at least saying the leading digits in my head). This is just how my brain recalls it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> >"We want to make sure that we're not wasting the business's time," Fox says. "We want to make sure throughout everything we do here, that this is good experience for the business and that they're not getting frustrated talking to an assistant while they're trying to run their business."

What's the added value of sounding exactly like a real person then? Why can't it be a robotic voice following a simple, efficient algorithm?

\- Hi. I'm a robot trying to book for 4 at 20 tonight for my client. Is it possible? Please say Yes or No

\- Wait what?

\- I'm a robot trying to book for 4 at 20 tonight for my client. Is it possible? Please say Yes or No

\- No

\- Is it possible at any other time tonight? If yes, when?

\- Yes, at 21

\- I would like to book for 4 at 21. Thank you.

We have had this kind of technology for years.

<comment><USER16> Because people will hang up on it like they do all other robocalls, or they will talk to it like many people talk to "computers". They won't use grammar, they will speak louder, they will slow down, and they will try to keep the conversation as simple as possible fearing that the system can't handle anything else.

It needs to sound human so that humans will interact with it correctly. If it sounds human, then the person on the other end of the call might say things like "We don't have anything available on the 3rd but we do on the 5th, is that okay?"

If it sounds like a robot, people will just respond to questions with "no", "yes", or say "phone number" instead of "can i have your phone number?"

Sounding human puts the human in the drivers seat, sounding robotic means the "robot" needs to drive the conversation.

<comment><USER17> _or they will talk to it like many people talk to "computers". They won't use grammar, they will speak louder, they will slow down, and they will try to keep the conversation as simple as possible fearing that the system can't handle anything else_

So, pretty much how we've trained ourselves to use Google, the search engine.

Nobody types "I'd like to know what the best way is to braise pork with white wine" into Google. They type "pork recipe braise wine" because we've been trained by Google that this will produce better results.

If Google's current search worked as well as it claims Duplex will, then we'd finally be getting somewhere. But Google's taken its eye off the ball.

Right now, at least for the things I search for, searching on Google is like playing an Infocom game.

<comment><USER18> Name a search engine that's better than Google. Nobody type "I'd like to know what the best way is to braise pork with white wine", doesn't mean Google can't give you good search result if you typed like that, you will get just as good result if you type "pork recipe braise wine", but its fewer words and more efficient to type.

It's less of "google trained us to type like that" and more or "We opted to use the more efficient way of doing that same thing". If Google didn't give us good results if we typed "pork recipe braise wine", it would be a pretty shitty search engine in my book.

<comment><USER17> _Name a search engine that 's better than Google_

I never stated that Google isn't the best search engine out there. I stated that I hoped the natural language learning from Duplex would filter down to the Google search engine.

But while we're on the topic, find a search query in which Google will return a list of movie reviewers in the city of Chicago. It can't. It is so focused on second-guessing search queries that it will only return lists of reviews of the film _Chicago_.

I had this exact very frustrating experience once trying to find the name of a woman I met who publishes a popular movie review blog in Chicago. There's even a "guild" of sorts of movie reviewers in Chicago, but Google could only surface that as high as the 10th page of results.

I know I'm not the only person frustrated with Google's desire to second-guess my searches because I heard a comedian on the radio last week who did a bit that lasted five whole minutes on Google second-guessing searches.

<comment><USER18> I feel that we have such a high standard for google search result quality that we can get frustrated by such highly specific search result edge cases. Google search is not perfect, but its the best search engine out there by a long margin for almost 20 years.

There will be a subset of users who will bemoan user privacy but expect highly specific personally tailored quality search result. You can't have both and there will always be edge cases in such a difficult domain. The fact that so many industry heavyweights can't compete with Google in search result quality, says a lot about how good Google is. Does it has problems? Yes, no one is denying it.

<comment><USER17> _we can get frustrated by such highly specific search result edge cases_

Every case is an edge case.

"Edge case" has become the tech industry's excuse for everything.

<comment><USER19> Every case is not an edge case. You can't be serious if you call of the following queries as edge cases -

1\. Chicago

2\. Chicago movie

3\. Chicago movie review

4\. Movies in Chicago

5\. Movie reviewers

6\. Movie reviewers in Chicago

7\. List of movie reviewers in Chicago.

If you still feel so, you may be talking about edge case in non-technical sense.

Disc: Googler but nowhere close to search or duplex.

<comment><USER17> _1\. Chicago_

But with Google, there is no pure search for "Chicago."

There is only a search for "Chicago" by someone at a particular location with a particular device using a particular browser with a particular search history with a particular number of other parameters that Google's pieced together that we don't even know about.

So, I'll be more specific: Every Google search is an edge case. Google spends billions making sure no two searches return identical results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Don't get me wrong I like the tech but I don't get the sentiment. It is just a gimmick or a bridge technology. In the end our phones should be able to talk to the booking system and make the reservation without human interaction. I think the resources could be better allocated, I guess it's just a show and tell kinda project for google but the novelty wears of really fast after the first wrong reservation.

<comment><USER21> Your comment misses the critical point though... this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems absurd because we're technically oriented. My barber, doctor, mechanic and favorite BBQ joint however still take phone calls to make appointments and you can talk to them about electronic scheduling till you're blue in the face, they have no desire to change. The goal of this technology is to bridge the gap... start thinking machine to human interaction where machine to machine isn't available.

Not to mention the language barriers. Think of a person still struggling with a language needing to make an appointment in that language. I can see an interface on this where you would select the location and time and have Assistant call them in the appropriate language to handle the exchange for you. No longer is that local pasta place out of my reach when I'm in Italy but can't speak Italian. This opens up a huge realm of possibilities.

<comment><USER22> _this hits all the places that have no electronic booking systems. To those here that concept probably seems absurd because we 're technically oriented. My barber, doctor, mechanic and favorite BBQ joint however still take phone calls to make appointments and you can talk to them about electronic scheduling till you're blue in the face, they have no desire to change. _

Sure they will change, my barber uses stripe, my doctor does everything else on computer - he's over 60 and three weeks away from retirement, my mechanic has to be technical to operate on modern cars and uses computers for estimates, sending pictures to insurance agents, etc.

<comment><USER21> At what point in our industry have we ever said "Let's stop innovating and making things easier, we've come far enough, now the people have to adapt to us." Natural language processing and conversation is the next step right now... to me this is such a logical progression I'll be shocked if it's not being planned by many teams.

<comment><USER22> Natural language processing has been "the next step" since the 60s. How often have you called in to a customer service center and as soon as you knew you were talking to an automated system just yelled "operator" until you got a human?

The minute a busy waitstaff person knows they are talking to a computer they are just going to hang up.

A voice assistant on one side talking to an API on the other side can be close to perfect -- even Apple can get that right with Siri for the intents that it supports especially since you know you're talking to a computer. But going the other way -- not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Google says that, in testing, the system has also gotten tripped up encountering another machine by way of a phone tree. Listening closely because our menu options have changed doesn't appear to compute just yet._

An assistant which deals with a response tree, handles hold time, and gets to the point where there's a human at the other end and they've been given whatever numbers and addresses are appropriate would be useful. Before the humans talk, the automated assistants on both sides should have all the routine stuff out of the way.

<comment><USER24> > Before the humans talk, the automated assistants on both sides should have > all the routine stuff out of the way.

Imagine if there wasn't _quite_ enough security built into all of this.

Store-bot: To confirm identity, what is users full name?

Phone-tree-bot: Thomas Arnold Pellington

Store-bot: What is Thomas Arnold Pellington's address?

Phone-tree-bot: 186 North 15th Street Minneapolis, Minnesota

Store-bot: What is Thomas Arnold Pellington's Social Security Number?

Phone-tree-bot: 183-44-5975

Now what if Phone-tree-bot called the wrong store number?

I remember a case awhile back where someone changed the phone number to the FBI or CIA was changed on Google Maps. IIRC, they forwarded the calls to the correct number, but could have just as easily intercepted the communications. A human has a chance of noticing that "the person on the other end is asking some weird questions that make me feel uneasy, maybe I should hang up". Hopefully bots could develop the same ability? Having a centralized source of phone trees for all the cable, cell phone, and service providers would certainly help.

<comment><USER25> > Imagine if there wasn't quite enough security built into all of this.

Fortunately, it seems that security was a consideration. From the Ars Technica article: _At one point, the callers ' email was asked for and Duplex responded with "I'm afraid I don't have permission to share my client's email."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Thep Thai's owner insists that such a service would be something of a godsend for the 100-plus reservations the restaurant fields on a daily basis."

I'm a little confused by this and it never seems to be explained. How does this system make the restaurant's job easier?

<comment><USER27> Two possibilities:

1\. She wants it to answer the calls

2\. The average person, when told "6pm on Tuesday is not available" probably either spends a bunch of time on the phone looking for another open spot on their calendar, or just calls back later.

<comment><USER28> Third possibility: Google is pushing this narrative because Step Two of their Duplex scheme is to automate the receiving end as well. No need for any human interaction that way.

<comment><USER22> So two standard APIs talking to each other or the person calling to make the reservation knows they are talking to a computer with limited domain understanding and speaks accordingly and the backend calls an API -- like programming an Alexa skill....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What about the question of no-shows? If your assistant can make bookings easily - you can make a load and then choose where you actually go later. That's actually one reason why restaurants like phone booking - because if you've had the human interaction of talking you're less likely to not show up. The likely upshot is that the industry will have to move to paying for bookings.

</comment><comment><USER30> Off topic: to all the UI/UX designers out there, I instinctively click all prominent "X" symbols on a page before trying to determine what they mean. Every time I visit tech crunch I end up clicking the X and then hitting the back button to bring the article back up. A "Done" button would be better. Non-modal article content would be best...

</comment><comment><USER31> > While the disclosures weren't there in the earliest stage, the company has > said since the beginning that it intended to add them.

> In my test call, I attempt to get Google Assistant to repeat that bit — it's > easy enough to not hear that opening line, particularly when you've got the > phone up to your ear inside a crowded restaurant. But the AI just barrels on > with the reservation. If you miss the disclosure, you're out of luck — for > now, at least. At present, the only way to opt out of being recorded is to > just hang up the phone — not the best way to get repeat visitors.

This part makes me deeply uncomfortable. Opting out of being recorded likely means being fired for not taking its reservations. Consent feels weirdly coercive. For a tiny improvement in someone else's convenience, we may end up inching even closer to everything being recorded.

</comment><comment><USER32> I get the idea of wanting to provide voiced communications for those that it may be difficult for (or for translation), but I still cannot rationalise why it needs to sound 'just like a real person.'

Would the initiator feel silly if a service called for them and sounded robotic, rather than like a friend?

Why does it need to distinctly act human? I cannot see the specific requirement for this imitation, other than it's cool/creepy. Or it's just tech marching on to deliver sci-fi dreams.

</comment><comment><USER33> I believe some of the questions around Duplex were not whether or not the recordings were "real," but whether or not they were edited. The article was not clear on this...

<comment><USER34> From my understanding reading the article, the journalist that were they each got to try out the system themselves. While they don't provide exact audio, I assume they would've pointed out if what they experienced was wildly different. Their description of the conversation sounds a lot like what we had heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think the refinement of saying "this is the google assistant" at the beginning is positive. Seems to solve the supposed ethical issues of the previous iteration.

</comment><comment><USER36> There are a lot of vehement responses here --- with such strong naysayers, maybe they (Google) are setting themselves up for something that really pushes the boundary of what's possible and people are actually quite excited. =)

I'm personally just excited to see where this goes. Either it will never live up to expectations (i.e., good enough for people to reliably use), it will take far longer than everyone things, or we'll see it soon!

</comment><comment><USER37> Interesting 'the next round will find Assistant inquiring about business hours.'

Probably a really valuable addition to Google Search Results, if they can use phones to verify open hours of businesses without having to pay people to make the calls (and without annoyance of older tech IVRs).

Google search and maps in particular are so great because of all these sources of data that come together to give me actionable info.

</comment><comment><USER38> Clever for Google to offer a tool to collect even more data about users and businesses. The Duplex is a golden trove to get data about orders and context -- the part that Google missed when people order just over a phone. Now Google could be all over the conversation and collect every bit of business activity and user data.

</comment><comment><USER39> Ethics aside, Duplex was built to overcome one key constraint: Restaurants are technology laggards.

Yes, booking a reservation with few taps IS easier/more accurate, etc, but that requires restaurants to pay/integrate with those systems.

With Duplex, you can schedule a reservation at ~100% of restaurants, right now, for free.

</comment><comment><USER40> Even the Google AI finds it frustrating to deal with automated IVR according to this article. That concept needs to get an award for one of the most awful UX to ever exist - to say nothing about its (mis)use in phone numbers that could field emergencies.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm curious how Google envisions the future of this technology. Will it be limited to specific, Google defined use cases such as making reservations, or will it be a versatile platform allowing developers to create various agents, much like Dialogflow?

</comment><comment><USER42> I wonder how Duplex would work if it rings a line powered by Duplex (for example, a business uses Duplex to schedule bookings). Would it just talk to the backend, or would Duplex talk to the receiving Duplex in the normal scheduling chat dance?

</comment><comment><USER43> "The wait time at REQUESTED_RESTAURANT could be longer than usual, would you want to try GOOGLE_DUPLEX_PARTNER, instead? I already have a tentative booking on hold."

</comment><comment><USER44> The article says "Eight percent is pretty good.." Actually, 80% success is unusable. I expect that is fairly close the the ceiling. If they really do roll this out (spoiler, they won't) google will need an army of humans to handle the other 20%. I guess I don't mind google paying a human to be my personal assistant, but I don't know if google will like it.

I hope the human assistants are not randomly selected, but weighted to select the same human you've used before. This will give the illusion that you really have your own personal assistant.

</comment><comment><USER45> > Duplex represents a rare early look into an ongoing project from a company > notorious for playing it close to the vest.

Wat. Google is notorious for announcing dozens of projects only to cancel/downplay them a year, a year and a half later.

Their I/O keynotes are usually replete with "awesome product, will be released some undefined time in the future" (many of those never materialise, or take on new forms).

<comment><USER10> 2 ways to look at this, although I assume you know both these already.

1\. Experimentation is key, and a willingness to accept mistakes and move on. If all a company does is play to its strength, you'd miss disruptive technologies. Some of these experiments work, some dont.

2\. Pursuing an idea without a viable business opportunity is suicide. The idea might be "cool" and "well received" but if it cant sustain in the long- run, it doesn't serve anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Just because something is possible doesn't mean it should be done. Google needs some non-engineers.

</comment><comment><USER47> Duplex is likely built with deep reinforcement learning, though i have not seen that disclosed yet.</comment>


First Indian Startup to be acquired by Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextbigwhat.com/facebook-acquires-little-eye-labs-297/

<comment><USER2> Facebook has stopped a possible next big innovator. Now its facebook only

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Never thought this day would come so soon!

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations ! keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool. Congratulations to the team!</comment>


It's becoming easier/more difficult to experience being an outsider - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/international/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15108690

<comment><USER2> Did Descartes really die of _cold_? [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/14/rene- descartes-p...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/14/rene-descartes- poisoned-catholic-priest)

<comment><USER3> Sad, there disappeared my native Sweden's single major contribution to philosophy... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So they mentioned artists and philosophers as foreigners, what about entrepreneurs? I wonder...

As someone who has just completed a contract with the Peace Corps in East Africa, its points ring strongly. How did I miss the article? Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER5> > How did I miss the article? Thanks for sharing.

Ditto. Thanks for posting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> hmmm. it completely misses the possibility that there's a point when "ooo different" stops becoming fun / interesting and starts being a drag.

living in a foreign country means you never feel completely _right_. if you're on vacation, that's a pleasant change. for a lifetime it's not quite as much fun.

<comment><USER7> That really depends of people, I've spent almost one third of my life living in foreign countries and I don't really feel that it's a drag... And on the contrary to the article, I do feel that I belonged in the different cities I've lived... I do however tend to want to move after 3-4 years in one place, get the rush again from discovering a new place...

<comment><USER6> i'm sure it does depend on the person, and the circumstances, but i am a little sceptical of the idea that you can consistently, every 3 - 4 years, learn a new language + culture to the point where you're, say, able to discuss politics in an informed way without offending people, or make a joke (that people laugh at!) at a party...

<comment><USER7> It depends, if you are in europe and learned foreign languages as a kid, it's entirely possible...

Where I am now, in China and before Japan, indeed the language barrier is much higher and while I feel that I can speak well enough to both discuss politics and make jokes at a party (working in a company with no foreign speakers and talking in japanese all the time at home with my girlfriend helps). I'm still an illiterate and often feel the barrier of the language...

But, that didn't stop me from having a sense of belonging there or, now that I don't live there, to be also sometimes a bit homesick toward Japan...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a foreigner living in America for now. The article writer is probably too old to realise this, but Facebook is a huge factor in blunting the transformation from foreigner to 'exile'.</comment>


Gulliver's Travels to be One Giant Apple Ad - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/gullivers-travels-to-be-one-giant-apple-ad/74532 <comment><USER2> Nice, but Apple wouldn't be caught _dead_ using Arial in one of their user interfaces. (The "slide to unlock" text in the screencap looks like it's using Arial rather than Helvetica Neue like it should be)

<comment><USER3> I think you're right, it's Arial. The angled t. And whenever I think "why fake it?" I realize why I'm not working hollywood. :)

<comment><USER4> Yahhh...you are pretty right..

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

<http://www.newbingosites.org></comment>


Venteo – a new picture sharing app. What do you think? - <AUTHOR> http://venteo.co/###

<comment><USER2> Typos in your About.

"college" not "collage"

"person's perspective" not "persons perspective"

<comment><USER3> "one event one album" doesn't make sense either. If you only have 16 words on your entire site, make sure they're correct.

<comment><AUTHOR> True that, being updated tomorrow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're on a way to $14 billion exit in a matter of weeks. When you do get vc's interested in this app don't forget about the first person that predicted this :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mariusz, hmmm I was looking for $14.5 billion but if $14 billion is offered it may change our mind. Mariusz this comment and prediction will be remembered forever!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't G+ do that? And it's already on my phone and browser...not really interested in trying another implementation. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this what "Color" was supposed to be before their giant valuation and implosion?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are def a few companies in this space. Google+ being one of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same can be said for everything pretty much. The question is: Are any of them doing it well enough for people to actually use it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> looks like event[s]tagram was already taken :(

[http://eventstagr.am/](http://eventstagr.am/)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right : ] Very different product though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the all caps in the "WHAT DO YOU THINK?" part of the title are out of place on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. Lower caps now.</comment></comment>