Electric bike trials in Australia see 50% purchase and change transport habits - <AUTHOR> https://cyclingindustry.news/electric-bike-trials-in-australia-see-50-purchase-and-change-transport-habits/ <comment><USER2> The actual study writeup, showing bike use before, during, and after: [https://rac.com.au/~/media/files/rac-website/pdfs/about- rac/...](https://rac.com.au/~/media/files/rac-website/pdfs/about- rac/publications/reports/2016/rac-ebike-trial-the-power-of-electric- bikes.pdf?la=en)

Total (bike and ebike use): Before: 11% 1st week: 55% 5th week: 65% (peak) 10th week: 50% After: 41% (not everyone bought the ebike)

Car use went from 61% (before) to 46% (after) — bikes decreased walking also.

100% of participants said they were satisfied, with more than half saying they were extremely satisfied with the e-bike.

<comment><USER3> how many were cyclist before this study? I would assume most. Usage surely has to be weather dependent. I just find studies like this to be highly contrived and too short to have actual real value in their predictions.

Did you find information of average length of trip, number per day, and such?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The biggest problem I see restricting the uptake of e-Bikes for urban transport is the risk of _theft_.

You really need secure bike parking at both ends of the journey given that these are typically $1000+ machines - locks are no obstacle for a determined bike thief!

A cheap push-bike, on the other hand, you can feel comfortable parking on almost any street - which is really what makes a bike so convenient in the first place.

Better security/anti-theft technology needed. Needs to be effective _and_ convenient!

<comment><USER5> All bikes get stolen, even the crappiest ones.

Theft is the reason I don't use my bike anymore, unless I don't stop.

<comment><USER6> Crappy ones don't get stolen. I lived in an area with rampant bike theft, had 3 bikes stolen, and bought a crappy bike. I didn't even bother locking it most of the time. I sold it when I moved, after 2 years of pretty much daily use.

<comment><USER7> Yes but limiting yourself to a crappy bike is depressing. You've giving in to fear of thieves. They have "stolen" your good bike ride, and you're okay with that?

Having a good quality bike makes riding more enjoyable, safer, more comfortable, more efficient.

<comment><USER8> A bicycle that looks like hammered shit doesn't necessarily make for a bad ride. Initial quality is largely irrelevant if:

0\. It's suited to the task (a Wal-Mart mountain bike is lousy for running around town) 1\. Stuff degrades gracefully (cheap index shifting generally does not; friction shifters are a far better choice on a cheap bike) 2\. You maintain it. 3\. You take the time (and money) to find a comfortable saddle for it.

Crappy bikes become unfun when they're neglected. Unfortunately, they usually get neglected because they were poorly suited for the intended purpose anyway, or because people don't want to pay a bike shop to tune up a $150 bicycle (which was probably poorly assembled in the first place).

This is a case where learning to do the work yourself pays the dividend of both raising the competence of the user and resulting in a useful tool for years to come.

Most people would be much better served by an old 10-speed than a new crappy mountain bike. They're better suited to getting around town, immensely tolerant of neglect because there isn't anything that truly needs to be in top shape to run, and easy to put right.

And yes, I say this as somebody who has a nice road bike, a nice mountain bike, and a road bike that lives outside all year long, looks like hell and that I wouldn't hesitate to ride 15-25 km.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I seriously considered buying an e-bike for commuting to work (I'm in Australia too). The biggest obstacle for me are the laws. We follow the euro laws (max 250 watts, and max 25km/h). The power is fine for a skinny-tire road bike, but you really need more for a suspension bike. Our roads aren't as nice as europe - you really want to ride a dual suspension mountain bike. Also my commute is 40 KM each way (very common), so you really want to be travelling faster than 25! I imagine people in europe don't commute that far. So it doesn't look to me like the rules work particularly well for us, at least it swung me against buying one personally.

<comment><USER10> I definitely ride my conventional bicycle up to 30kmph+ in bicycle lanes, both separated and beside the road. I think 25km/h is simply too low. I do think anything over 40kmph is getting silly however. You may as well be on a petrol scooter at that point.

I also have no idea why they insist on it being pedal assisted rather than throttle based. The regulation states that you have to be pedalling for it to engage the motor, so you can't just engage the electric motor on it's own.

Such a regulation really limits the possible kits and bicycles you can purchase, as the Australian market seems to be lagging behind the rest of the world and the options are fewer.

<comment><USER7> Well he can keep peddling beyond 25, the motor just doesn't assist past that speed. If road is flat, this would be easy enough.

I'm guessing by "conventional bicycle" you don't mean a mountain bike. Try riding a mountain bike at 30+, it feels wrong. Your whole posture is too upright, it's not designed for speed. Not easy to reach 30 on a mountain bike without going downhill.

<comment><USER11> I ride my mountain bike 30+ all the time, it feels fine. It definitely makes me a bit more sweaty, but is a sustainable speed for a few kilometres at least especially if there is a bit of a slope.

<comment><USER7> Right, so a slope is needed to sustain 30. I highly doubt any mountain bikers are sustaining 30+ on the flat with knobbly tyres and dual suspension.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> It references that RAC ran the study. I was curious. It turns out it's the "Royal Automobile Club of WA" (Western Australia).

More details: [https://rac.com.au/about-rac](https://rac.com.au/about-rac) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Automobile_Club_of_Weste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Automobile_Club_of_Western_Australia)

It's great to see a historically car focused org trying to replace cars with bikes! It sounds like a pretty incredible organization — curious what the Western Australians here think.

<comment><USER12> Hi, from Perth, WA.

I think it's a great initiative.

We have a similar climate to the US west coast with only a few weeks of rain a year, relatively flat landscape and way too many cars per person (due to public transport and distance).

It's pretty common to drive very short distances to pickup something small. I'm sorely guilty of it.

One reason I avoid cycling is that I feel it's somewhat risky. I lost a close friend in high school who got knocked down by a drunk driver. More bikes on the road raises awareness, so a net positive imho.

<comment><USER13> North of California it rains regularly for most of the year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's actually a curious result (though not surprising, based on experience). Ebikes are just a very light and low power motorbike.

We have motorbikes. There are obviously huge downsides to an ebike relative to an motorbike. They're faster, for instance.

I think a big part of the story is that ebikes are just fun to ride, aside from practicalities like travel time. This is kind of a weird conclusion, for a tranport policy person to digets. It can't be quantified and charted. What are they supposed to do with it?

This makes me curious about other things. Would a super-light, 4 wheel vehicles also be fun? What would a transport system look like if fun was the major guiding principle?

<comment><USER9> I commute by both motorbike and (push) bike. Pushbike has some nonobvious advantages IME: * You can ride in the breakdown lane which is _way_ less stressful than lane-splitting on the motorbike. * You can take off-road shortcuts between suburbs which is fun and saves loads of time. * Maintenance when you commute by motorbike costs a fortune! Tyres, chains, and valve shims cost thousands a year. Way more than a car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is ... odd. Some of the wording doesn't make a lot of sense. An example: " (Time of year not weather indication were not cited).".

From what I can gather, 60 participants were given an electric bike for 10 weeks, and around 50% later went on to buy the bike they were given. Usage was 60% at the beginning, dropping to 28% by the end.

So half or greater of the people who purchased a bike weren't even using it.

<comment><USER16> My employer did similar trial (I ended up buying the bike and now I do around 30% commute by bike).

I don't think you can expect high percentage from people that are not obsessed with cycling - and those already use regular bike. E.g. I need to be home early 2 days/week to drive my kids to classes, sometimes I need to go to grocery store after the work, on some days there's dentist, weather, etc. So the drop in the usage is expected.

<comment><USER17> why would someone who _is_ obsessed with cycling be interested in buying an electric bike?

All the cycling nuts I know consider them to be heresy...

<comment><USER18> There's your lycra brigade guys who will always think adding $1,000 worth of electric drive gear to a $500 bike is cheating, but spending $10,000 on an ultra-light carbon fiber frame with ultra-low-rolling-resistance tyres is totally legitimate.

But then there's also people who start off with an electric bike and love how convenient, cheap and easy they are. I have a couple of friends who've got e-bikes and use them as regular transport.

<comment><USER19> There's a pretty large difference between shaving 250 grams off your bike weight, versus replacing all your pedalling with an electric motor =).

One will get you banned from the Tour de France - the other will not...

I confess I'm one of the lycra brigade people (they're not all guys!), and have spent money on trying to save those couple of extra grams.

However, for me, I like cycling also for the exercise benefits - and using an electric monitor would remove all those benefits.

Although for somebody who doesn't want to pedal - I think they're great! You get many of the benefits, without arriving as sweaty.

<comment><USER20> Nitpick: shaving 250 grams off your bike weight _can_ get you banned from the Tour de France.

UCI regulations state a minimum weight for a bicycle of 6.8 kilos ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_bicycle#UCI_rules](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_bicycle#UCI_rules))

<comment><USER19> Fair point =).

Fortunately, I don't race in UCI events, haha.

My understanding was that the rule is around safety - i.e. they didn't want people pushing the limits at the risk of failure. There's calls for it to be scrapped, now that we know more about the limits of carbon fibre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Perth (and Western Australia generally) is pretty flat and has a lot of rain- free days.

I'm sure that is relevant.

</comment><comment><USER22> In Seattle, electric bikes and boosted boards a commonplace. Great for avoiding rush hour traffic.

</comment><comment><USER23> Also Zero Motorcycles are starting to have interesting models here. check them out if you're interested in electric motorcycles. I requested a quote for their 2017 models, waiting on a response.

<comment><USER24> Actually, they just shuttered their Australian distribution. [https://motorbikewriter.com/zero-electric-motorcycles- pulls/](https://motorbikewriter.com/zero-electric-motorcycles-pulls/)

<comment><USER23> wow really, what a shame. Thanks for letting me know as I just inquired about getting one!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've considered buying a bike with a gas engine, since they are quite cheaper.</comment>


Bokononism: a fictional religion based on harmless untruths - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokononism

<comment><USER2>
        Tiger got to hunt,
        Bird got to fly;
        Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

        Tiger got to sleep,
        Bird got to land;
        Man got to tell himself he understand.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cat's Cradle was the only book that was required reading in high school that I actually liked, and it's still one of my favourites. As a result I've read just about every one of Vonnegut's books.

</comment><comment><USER4> Vonnegut is great - I guess _Cat's Cradle_ is another book to add to my to- read list.

</comment><comment><USER5> Never read the book here, or any Vonnegut. It seems like some satire might be underway, but a little into the description of the words, I felt this wasn't teaching me anything. Is this here for more reason than just nostalgia?</comment>


Ask HN: API Method Naming Clarity - <AUTHOR> We are designing API and arguing with developers to death about clarity.
Let's say you have a service that allow to add entities to collections. For example, you can add Task to Feature. What name is better?
1. addToCollection(type, id, collectionField, collectionEntityId)
2. addCollectionItem(type, field, id, itemId) <comment> jerome-jh Lacking many details here, but assuming this is C (or another function centric language), I would favor: <collection>_<action>_<item>()

So with "feature" and "task": feature_add_task()</comment>


Making buildings, cars and planes from materials based on plant fibres - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/06/16/making-buildings-cars-and-planes-from-materials-based-on-plant-fibres <comment><USER2> Henry Ford created a car body from soybeans over eighty years ago:

[https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and- research/digita...](https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and- research/digital-resources/popular-topics/soy-bean-car/)

</comment><comment><USER3> _Their aim is to create a "super wood" that is stronger than most metals. Their approach is to treat blocks of wood with sodium hydroxide and sodium sulphate in a chemical process similar to that used to remove lignin from papermaking pulp. The difference is that they remove only enough lignin to make the wooden blocks easier to compress. They do that by squeezing the treated wood at around 100°C, which causes most of the pores and tubelike fibres within the wood to collapse. This increases its density threefold and its strength elevenfold._

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

The two biggest disadvantages of plant fibres are [1] they're flammable, and [2] easily damaged by moisture. Maybe I'm just cynical, but this feels like it can only advance planned obolescence --- in the same way as the rest of the "biodegradable" materials trend.

<comment><USER4> Not if encased in limestone or concrete. See hempcrete and fibre cement for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Was it William Gibson's The Peripheral which writes about cars where the exterior is made of cardboard?

<comment><USER6> The East German auto manufacturer Trabant made cars with panels made from cotton, wood pulp, and glue (similar to fiberglass, but with wood fiber). I don't remember which USSR manufacturer it was, but there was another car with cow hides for body panels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I got a paywall unfortunately. Seems interesting.

<comment><USER8> Here's a bookmarklet to get around that pay"wall" [https://bookmarkify.it/9810](https://bookmarkify.it/9810)</comment></comment>


Public Domain Day 2014: The fight for the public domain is on now  - <AUTHOR> http://everybodyslibraries.com/2014/01/01/public-domain-day-2014-the-fight-for-the-public-domain-is-on-now/

<comment><USER2> "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

I challenge anyone to honestly make the claim that a copyright that lasts 100 years after death aids the progress of science and useful arts.

<comment><USER3> I am generally in favor of reduced copyright terms, as a consumer of these works, but the thought has crossed my mind, that authors may be motivated, to some extent, by the idea that they are leaving a long-term financial legacy.

I come from an extended family that once had substantial commercial real- estate holdings, mostly bought by my great-grandfather, and my grandfather and his brothers, with the explicit intention that these properties would help to support multiple generations of descendents . Most of them were lost, but even now, I derive a small income from a share in one of the properties, that I am grateful for, since I apply it for the benefit of my own children.

Although the real-estate/IP analogy does break down at some point, should authors of works not have the right to ensure that their works benefit their granchildren, and great-grandchildren? Does this help to motivate at least some of them? These are not rhetorical questions, and it would be interesting to see what the answer is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To get more stuff in to the public domain we just need to enact mandatory euthanasia laws.</comment>


PyCon US 2012 Conference Schedule - <AUTHOR> https://us.pycon.org/2012/

<comment><USER2> Just to add to things - we have some pretty awesome stuff:

PG and Stormy Peters as keynote speakers: <https://us.pycon.org/2012/keynotes/>

An astounding number of sponsors: <https://us.pycon.org/2012/sponsors/>

Amazing tutorials: <https://us.pycon.org/2012/schedule/lists/tutorials/>

Startup Row: [http://pycon.blogspot.com/2012/01/pycon-startup- row-2012.htm...](http://pycon.blogspot.com/2012/01/pycon-startup- row-2012.html)

A PyCon 5k Run: [http://pycon.blogspot.com/2012/01/inaugural-pycon-5k-fun- run...](http://pycon.blogspot.com/2012/01/inaugural-pycon-5k-fun-run.html) (all proceeds to charity)

And we're raffling off a robot!

[http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/12/pycon-us-2012-i-got- someth...](http://pycon.blogspot.com/2011/12/pycon-us-2012-i-got-something- special.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> As always, I am hanging around ready to answer any PyCon related questions!

<comment><USER3> Are you aware that the website has layout issues with JavaScript turned off? How about adding a few CSS rules?

Other than that it's an awesome site, though. Nice work Eldarion!

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Honestly, not supporting JS is very low on my list of things to get working; but fwiw, the code is all OSS and located at: <https://github.com/eldarion/pycon/tree/2012>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm looking forward to my first PyCon, meeting a bunch of new people, and getting some new ideas!

</comment><comment><USER5> I am a long time perl user looking to pick up python this year. How much value would this conf be to someone like myself who knows a lot about programming but practically nothing about python?

I see that there are some intro-talks.... are they worth the overall admission price?

<comment><USER6> PyCon conference fees are very, very reasonable. I would take an intro tutorial or two, and enjoy soaking up all that is python. Talks range from beginner to advanced, and cover a wide range of development topics. I love this conference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What do you reccomend for ground transportation?

<comment><USER8> See <https://us.pycon.org/2012/venue/getting-around/>

You should also check <http://www.caltrain.com/> if you plan to go to San Francisco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hasn't the schedule been out for a few weeks?

<comment><USER2> this is with all dates/times in a good planning format

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What I find interesting about PyCon is the money trail, cronyism and nepotism. I see jnoller promote PyCon on Hacker News quite often, but shouldn't he disclose how he personally profits from PyCon?

<comment><USER10> Interesting - I usually stay quiet; sitting in the background as my husband takes a lot of crap from the community he works so hard for. However at the risk of upsetting him, as well as starting a flame war let me tell you as his wife who can barely work 15hrs to take care of our infant who has special needs and who has to sacrifice quite a bit of time for him to do what he loves (the Python community is his mistress), and on the behalf of two little girls who also have to sacrifice time spent with daddy - there is no monetary payment, there is no commission, there is no sense of a monetary compensation for what he does.

Quite frankly, our family could really use the extra money and I have actually argued with him on this - embarrassing fact: at the moment because I don't make a full time income, we have gotten back to living paycheck to paycheck and barely. He works his butt off doing these things because the "personal profit" you so want him to disclose - is personal, he is doing it with a ton of hope that at the end the whole community will profit from it. Anywhere from funding other conferences, helping people via financial aide, helping smaller groups via grants… this money you think he is getting – is going to everyone BUT him.

Plain and simple, my husband is a fanatic and crazy – he does this because that is what he does… all he wants is for people to have a community that supports one another… all I want is for one day accusations like this to go away, and instead for him to wake one morning and see a thank you on "xyz" site, for what he is and has been doing.

P.S. Get some cojones and don't hide behind a parachute account to ask questions, a few things come to mind when I see acts like this – a. you are embarrassed by it so you can't show your face; b. you are a passive aggressive and are afraid of being called out by your name; c. you are still very young and do not understand how to handle things as an adult. Life is short; be you, don't hide behind subterfuge.

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately, "haters gonna hate" doesn't offer much comfort when you are the target of the attacks. I hope you know that we all appreciate what you both do - and what you both give up.

<comment><USER10> I know there are many that are grateful for what he does, and the support he gets from us, his family - however the negative hurts a heck of a lot more and create deeper wounds. However I can't sit at the sidelines this time, and as I told jnoller, usually this stuff happens on lists or sites I am not on.. well this time it is on HN and my filter between my brain and fingers and keyboard is turned off for the moment.

<comment><USER12> I can't think of a single reason why you should have turned that filter back on.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The City of Los Angeles paid $300,000 for a vulnerable earthquake alert app - <AUTHOR> http://iamprettydamn.cool/2019/la-earthquake-app/ <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I wrote this post. The link uses Google Analytics, and if you don't want that, you can use this[0] link instead.

This is the first writeup like this that I've done, so if you have any feedback on the content/writing, lmk! You can comment here or DM me on twitter, @asg_027

[0] [http://iamprettydamn.cool/2019/la-earthquake- app/?notrack=1](http://iamprettydamn.cool/2019/la-earthquake-app/?notrack=1)

</comment><comment><USER2> I applaud the work done on the research to find the vulnerabilities. But writing about it just to criticize the creators is a shitty reason to do it. I've never known software that's perfect from the start. I hope the author has contacted Colworx to help fix the problems.

The app has a needed function and should be supported rather than just criticized.

<comment><USER3> If they really put the real password in a public repository, then it's not a minor mistake. It's a huge error.

Perhaps the author could have contacted them to give them a few days before the announcement, so can they delete[1] the data from the repository, but it's nevertheless a huge error.

[1] You can't really delete anything from the internet, it's only a hide button. They can try to change the password in the server anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome job, they should have hired you</comment>


Unquantified - <AUTHOR> https://nomasters.io/posts/unquantified/ <comment><USER2> I think I largely agree with his reflection(s): easily obtainable metrics to track physical fitness / health often do more harm than good.

But I can't help but think that partial quantification of the self could still be extremely useful, it's just that virtually all diet/fitness applications are focused on calorie counting and weight-loss. They should be focused on increasing bodily awareness. How long does it take for food to pass through? How often do you poop? What are those poops like? When you eat X, how do you feel an hour later, two hours later, three hours later?

If you begin tracking _these_ kinds of metrics, then you could become aware of how different foods, sleep patterns, etc, affect your mood, and subjective energy levels.

This kind of self knowledge -- whose discovery could be aided by some good UX, is fantastic. The only kinds of health applications that seem to take this moderately serious are period tracking apps.

<comment><USER3> I recommend "the plan" by Lyn-Genet Recitas, because it takes a systematic approach to figuring out what foods have bad effects on you personally. I found, for instance, potatoes give me minor gastrointestinal distress and eggs make my girlfriend slightly depressed.

<comment><USER4> >eggs make my girlfriend slightly depressed.

Possibly due to the choline content.

<comment><USER5> Wait, choline as a cause of feeling depressed? This one is totally news to me, can you point me to any more info?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I actually disagree with this heavily. It's feel good, for sure, but if you are looking for measurable results in almost any endeavor, then keeping metrics is almost textbook in increasing the chance of success. "That which gets measured gets improved". Human beings are inherently flawed and subject to natural impulses, adding in objective metrics is a way of taming that. Intuition is not going to help you make linear progress in small increments over a long period of time. Studies of weight loss for example repeatedly show you need to be keeping some metric such as weight or measuring body inches etc to keep on track and be able to guide your decisions each week. "intuitive eating" is a new fad but there is virtually no data to back up that it works at all.

EDIT: To add,I speak as somebody who lost 160lbs over two years after years of yo-yoing. I find it very unlikely you would be able to do this without tracking progress and having metrics to guide you.

<comment><USER7> > _if you are looking for measurable results in almost any endeavor, then > keeping metrics is almost textbook_

This seems like a tautology...

What if you aren't looking for measurable results?

<comment><USER8> If you aren't looking for measurable results, how do you know when you succeed? Perhaps you were already there before you started?

<comment><USER9> They might be looking for results that can be detected, but only by subjective, noisy measures.

You know, questions like "Am I enjoying a good life with my family?" and "Will I look back on this with pride in the future?" and stuff like that.

<comment><USER10> You can journal those things and use sentiment analysis to detect if you're moving in the right direction.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you're more likely to succeed in those goals if you stop worrying about stuff like that and just get on with enjoying your short time in this world.

<comment><USER10> I have seen no evidence to support that assertion.

Life is short relative to what? You will only experience one life, so to you, life is both infinitely long and only a brief moment. Life is what you make it; so you should make the most of it by applying scientific rigor to maximizing what is important to you.

<comment><USER7> You might enjoy Alfie Kohn's book _Punished by Rewards_ , which rigorously explores the demotivational and anti-creative effects of scoring things. [https://amzn.com/B01K0RH8L6](https://amzn.com/B01K0RH8L6)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think none of this matters except one change: going from fours hours of sleep to eight.

I'm interested in QS, but the metrics aren't the ends they are the means. Increased subjective satisfaction is always my goal.

When I run I don't track pace but I do track time and I start each run with an idea of what my RPE for that run will be. My goal is to decrease time when RPE is fixed. So some days I run hard and some I don't because I'm not always trying to set a PB.

If metrics are guardrails that you are gonna crash into over and over while attempting to change behavior then you won't like QS. Not tracking your bad behavior doesn't make it go away. It just makes you ignorant.

<comment><USER12> > Not tracking your bad behavior doesn't make it go away. It just makes you > ignorant.

In some sense, ignorance can be bliss, which I think the article hints at. I used to diligently track my workouts, for example, seeking clear and measurable improvement over time. If I could knock out 30 consecutive chin-ups in one session, I expected >= 30 consecutive pull-ups in the next. What I failed to realize is that progress isn't actually made by means of observed improvement -- progress is actually significantly more subtle. And, because it's deeply psychological...fuzzy.

At 32 years of age, I've realized that "bad behavior" is symptomatic of the mindset of self, and _sometimes_ necessary. Sometimes my workouts will go very poorly, for example. The quantified self laments those workouts, but the self- accepting self accepts those poorer workouts as an inevitability. Sometimes you simply cannot give it 100%; sometimes you'll fail.

Subjective satisfaction, as you put it, is the key to happiness. Do better than you expect in the aggregate and largely ignore the specifics. The specifics only bog you down.

<comment><USER13> > At 32 years of age, I've realized that "bad behavior" is symptomatic of the > mindset of self, and sometimes necessary. Sometimes my workouts will go very > poorly, for example. The quantified self laments those workouts, but the > self-accepting self accepts those poorer workouts as an inevitability. > Sometimes you simply cannot give it 100%; sometimes you'll fail.

Not to mention, that it's statistically impossible for you to infinitely improve in _every_ workout. There are going to be good days and bad days, and if your method of assessing metrics do not take those into account, then the method is worthless.

There was a good article about relationships advice for people who hyperfocus on things, and I think it's pertinent here. That basically, just because things have levelled out or not _improved_ , or just because there has been a momentary dip, doesn't mean that that is a negative thing. Any complex system, whether it be the human body, interpersonal relations, or even just water has ups and downs. Sometimes hyperfocusing on those downs, or predicting off those dips can lead you to believe things that are false. Sometimes to get correct information you have to zoom out a little.

Not to mention, that expecting 100% of yourself constantly is a surefire way to burn out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, I was always worried that I was missing out on all the benefits of quantifying the self. Now it seems that things have come full-circle and my lifestyle is in fact cutting-edge.

<comment><USER15> That's always how fashion/fads work, if you wait long enough you're cool again. As a bonus you'll have saved a ton of money and spared yourself untold aggravation.

<comment><USER16> And missed all the cool parties.

There's an upside to following fashion, but it rarely has to do anything with the actual merits of that fashion...

<comment><USER15> If the metaphorical parties require you to be fashion-obsessed, you missed nothing.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't going for metaphorical. I've been to _actual_ parties for e.g. startup people, and just showing up and talking with appropriate individuals won me an unexpected invitation to an expensive Quantified Self event. I didn't go, but I suspect that beyond the conference, there was a party planned too.

<comment><USER15> Alright, in that case I can't honestly disagree with your point, my bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't mean this in a negative way, but measuring something, be it weight, sleep whatever is useless without a goal metric and analysis of how behaviors impact the measurements.

The written account linked here is surely incomplete, however anecdotally I find that people use these systems expecting some kind of emergent property to reveal itself and wham bam just like that, you can take steps to fix it.

In fact it's the reverse. Set a goal, begin measuring as much as you can, tinker with the inputs, determine how input changes result in measured outputs, iterate to vector measurement toward desired goal, repeat.

What I do get from this account is that, in agreement with most anecdotes I have seen, they viewed this measurement system in the same "quick fix" category as other things. Maybe not to such a degree as "24 hour Holywood weight loss" drink but from a similar place.

I'm a firm believer in the quantified self concept, but I think it's incredibly hard to actually do. It takes serious discipline and you need to structure your life around it - the same way professional athletes or others do. However if you have clear goals with measurable inputs and really do the work required, it's incredibly powerful.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's really two big issues with 'quant' mindsets. The first one is a 'if I can't measure it, it doesn't exist' logic. Where people will mistake metrics that are easily accessible with metrics that are meaningful. People who like to take quantified approaches tend to drift towards methods that allow for easy quantification regardless if they're appropriate or not.

The second one is, as the saying goes, that 'life is not lived in the aggregate'. Quantified approaches give us general, macro ideas but may easily be less appropriate than subjective or individual experiences if you only care about specific cases (like your own well-being) to begin with. It's not always appropriate to trade case-specific knowledge for general knowledge if all you care about is one case.

Related to this is a loss of resolution. Aggregation ignores internal dynamics. The national GDP or corporate performance might mask huge internal divergence which again can result in instability, which then causes second order effects. Those dynamics only really show up in qualitative models, not data.

</comment><comment><USER19> A lot of unaccounted for psycological effects show themselves from underneath the veil of unknown unknown factors once you shift the tools engineers have developed, like logging and testing, into a different domain, an ecological environment different from the one they evolved out of. The fact that there's a stigma to mentioning that things that are hyped up cause you discomfort only exacerbate the problem. Not everything that worked in engineering is necessarily a good solution to problems in physiology.

</comment><comment><USER20> I also got rid of analytics on my websites as well. I figure if I make something people like, someone will tell me thanks or maybe something wrong with it that they want improved

<comment><USER21> Having a normal access log (possibly with anonymized IP addresses) should provide enough information for most private websites. I can't believe how many sites share their traffic data with Google...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I agree with this post. Rationalizing based only on data can lead to flawed conclusions and bias. Obviously, quantification is useful in many domains, but when it comes to your health then the worst thing you can do is ignore your intuition on the basis of data.

I also don't keep any metrics of my website, not even page hits. It's a hard sell to other webmasters, but I personally don't want to start writing for the wrong reasons. I think quantification is responsible for a lot of evils in our world today — and a lot of good too. I'm focusing a lot on where quantification can be applied for the benefit of one's spirit, rather than one's greed.

</comment><comment><USER23> This puts in to words something I've been struggling with. My Apple Watch gives me enough information that I've gone to see my PCP twice for non problems.

However.

I've had good reason to pay attention the last few years.

I think I'll let go now.

[https://blog.ryjones.org/2018/05/04/half-the-person-i-was- be...](https://blog.ryjones.org/2018/05/04/half-the-person-i-was-before/)

[https://blog.ryjones.org/2018/05/07/fully-quantified- self-2/](https://blog.ryjones.org/2018/05/07/fully-quantified-self-2/)

</comment><comment><USER24> The author also chose to emigrate to a minimally quantified society with abundant warmth, natural light balanced with natural dark. "Pura Vida" isn't just a marketing expression in Costa Rica.

</comment><comment> daniel-levin I used to be utterly obsessed with QS. I strongly believe that you can only manage what you measure. With that said, I've also found that quantification can have an emotional downside for individuals, especially when the stakes are low. However, this can be controlled or avoided. My suggestion is to passively track these things without using them as a target. That is, I recommend using only derived metrics as decision making aids. It also avoids Goodhart's Law [0]. Measures that become targets lose their value as measures. I also think that it's easy to start fetishizing the data, like becoming obsessed with small changes in weight or contributions on Github. Metrics descend to "mindless dopamine fixes" but this need not be the case. Metrics should inform decisions like "do I quit this expensive gym membership or stick it out?" or "Does a third cup of coffee in the afternoon improve my performance enough to justify the caffeine jitters?"

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

</comment><comment><USER25> "The removal of the alarm clock was also a big change for me. In Austin, I would get up early, go workout, or get up early and work before work (I spent most of my last 2 years in Austin as the CTO at a Series A funded startup and the quiet hours of the morning before my wife and daughter woke up were the only real quiet ours I had all day)... Now I get around eight hours of sleep per night because I prioritize sleep. The sun sets very early here, currently around 18:00, so I'm typically in bed by 21:30 and asleep by 22:00-22:30 and I wake-up between 6-7 the next morning."

\---

This is someone who no longer lives with his daughter it seems?

I don't want to diagnose strangers over five blog posts on the internet, but much of this blog reads like my last few weeks before a mental breakdown. I hope the author is ok/remains ok in the short term.

<comment><USER26> I'm fine. My daughter sleeps on her own through the night (sleep training. it works.) and wakes up around 7am. Almost always after we do.

If this is, in fact, a few weeks before a mental breakdown, it would be quite a suprise. I'll be sure to keep you updated if it happens.

<comment><USER25> Thanks for replying. I've had bad experiences in life; I'm glad you're not having them. (Honest)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Perhaps the author feels comfortable with their new minimalist approach _becasue_ of his history of quantification—not in spite of it.

Data begets intuition. He doesn't need to see the data because he understands the related symptoms of his goals.

<comment><USER28> I think this is the likely reason. For instance, 5 years ago when I'd never tracked a calorie in my life, I had no idea how bad most of the things I was eating were for me, or even how good some of the other things were. Quantifying this over time, as well as similar recording for workouts, got me to the point where if you took the tracking tools away I would still be able to roughly (but accurately) gauge both food intake and fitness progression intuitively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> These guys thoughts resonate 100% with me. I did the same things (including his previous blog posts that he links) over the past 6-12months and I am very happy with it.

It is difficult at first to break hard-wired patterns, but after you do it you feel more alive and in control. Also, you start to see how people live 90% of their lives on autopilot consuming content and stuff that the most competent (and competent is really a very nice word for what they really are) producer put in front of them.

</comment><comment><USER30> I agree the following two items have made me happier:

1\. Removing my alarm clock and all electronic devices when I sleep 2\. Stop measuring all exercise

</comment><comment><USER31> One can get an idea of how many views the blogpost have depending on the HN thread upvotes (no need for js or analytics) :D

</comment><comment><USER32> I tried to infect a quantified self company with the same gist about 7y ago. They did quite well at first, but failed to continue innovating in my point of view. Anyway, whenever my ideas were gaining traction the marketing head would convince the CEO that my ideas would be bad for the company. Now I'll never know :P

</comment><comment><USER33> I'd say perhaps limit quantification to say 15 minutes a day. That way you can have the positive effects, and also prevent the negative effects.

</comment><comment><USER34> > There is a secondary benefit that I've addressed in the post > nonparticipation in that I also no longer share those intimate details of > myself to startups and third parties who are pressured to monetize that > data. By going unquantified I'm in complete alignment with nonparticipation > in _toxic adTech driven panopticon of surveillance capitalism_

I wonder what epiphany the author had to start/change his opinion on the ad- driven model.

<comment><USER26> This is a fascinating question. I'll have to think about that one and see if I can figure out the root of it.</comment></comment>


The next billion users are the future of the internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.google/topics/next-billion-users/next-billion-users-are-future-internet/ <comment><USER2> I think the first and last point are fairly straight forward, but I'm still a typing believer. I don't think that natural language or other interaction will replace the written word.

Typing is faster than speaking and less disruptive. I can't really imagine how everybody on a train in Delhi is going to talk to their digital assistants without a noise proof helmet on their head. (or going crazy)

Also we've found many ways to condense information in written form. I can write "IIRC" but it's hugely uncomfortable to speak this way. You can't use smilies or emojis either when talking. In a way natural language is much less feature rich.

<comment><USER3> People claim that same about command line interfaces (and they are mostly right about them being more functional) but they are not the interface the 99% is going to operate their computer with.

Voice will be the next GUI.

<comment> Joe-Z >Voice will be the next GUI.

If we're talking really sophisticated interfaces like in "Her"[0] I agree. If the interface is working so flawlessly, it's difficult to see why you'd still want to occupy your hands with querying some knowledge base, composing blog posts/letters, etc.

However, I don't think we'll get there with current technology. When I think of the often awkward and cumbersome interactions I have with Siri, I find it really hard to imagine how this will evolve to a 'I don't need to worry about this at all anymore'-level in the next 5, 10, maybe even 20 years.

I suspect the giants of today won't be around anymore when truly voice- controlled interfaces come around.

[0] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)

<comment><USER4> _...it 's difficult to see why you'd still want to occupy your hands..._

Bandwidth. You have several degrees of freedom with each hand, with each finger. You have one linear stream with voice.

Latency. You can flick a switch in a few milliseconds, but saying "turn off the lights" or "lights off" takes half a second or more.

Privacy. You can overhear a voice command. You can't overhear (very easily) a buttonpress or touchscreen swipe.

Accuracy. Even with perfect voice transcription, people misspeak easily more than they mistype. And mistyping can be corrected within a few letters, while misspeaking will require interrupting the stream to switch the voice UI into editing mode or something.

<comment> Joe-Z See, but you're still thinking in current voice-interface terms. If I want to edit something that I "misspelled" (if this will even be a problem, since you are _talking_) I'll just tell my digital secretary "errr, I meant <x>" and it will know what to do.

Same for turning off the lights: Sure, it's faster if you only consider the flicking of the switch. It's another thing if you also incorporate the time it takes you to get up from your couch/bed/wherever you are without a light switch in arm's reach.

You definitely have a point with privacy though. Also, the volume of all people on a train talking to their smart assistants (though the question remains if this is really so much different from people talking to other people on a train).

EDIT: I misread your point about mistyping vs. misspeaking. Still, the interface I'm talking about does not work in modes. It's able to truly understand you and interpret your commands appropriately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google (and especially Facebook) are reaching a point a where they need these next billion, and the billions after that if there's anyone left, to grow their businesses. I would wonder about the financial value of these new users to the companies, though. I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but the first billion users are FAR more valuable to them than the "next billion" described in this article. Their revenue models are based on advertising, and the first billion live mostly in developed countries with have high spending power, and are therefore worth more to advertisers. The "next billion" may be part of an emerging global middle class, but currently and for the foreseeable future will significantly lag the first billion in purchasing power and therefore dollar value to advertisers.

<comment><USER6> What you're saying is true today, but not in the future. China's GDP is expected to surpass American GDP in the next decade, and India will follow suit in another ~3 decades. The combined South-American/African markets will likely surpass North America in the 21st century as well. Not because of any special merit on their part, but simply because their population exceeds America's by a factor of 3-4.

If you're a company like Google, that is well established to last for another couple decades, you'd be foolhardy not to ride this massive wave.

<comment><USER7> > China's GDP is expected to surpass American GDP in the next decade, and > India will follow suit in another ~3 decades

Right but aggregate GDP is not as important to these companies as GDP per capita.

> If you're a company like Google, that is well established to last for > another couple decades, you'd be foolhardy not to ride this massive wave.

Actually I'm pretty sure the big tech companies can make most of their revenue from high GDP-per-capita users. Not saying this is the moral choice, but financially I'm not sure that these less wealthy users will move the needle appreciably for the giants.

<comment><USER6> Sure, one wealthy consumer is more lucrative than one less-wealthy consumer. But what companies really care about is market size, which is number-of- consumers * per-customer-value. Ie, aggregate GDP. This is why Walmart is worth so much more than Macy's, despite their customers having a much lower income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The voice-only stuff is just building AI for the sake of it and romanticizing accessibility. What's actually going to happen is the younger generation in these countries will adapt to current technology and won't be caught dead asking their phone "Do I need an umbrella in Delhi today?". Voice interaction alone cannot possibly be the most optimal method, and Indian/Chinese companies that are more in touch with the market will define what mobile interaction looks like in the future.

</comment><comment><USER9> Google is all talk here and the technology they are talking about produces far worse results than a static display like the "web" used to be.

> for example, asking "Do I need an umbrella today in Delhi?" rather than > typing "Delhi weather forecast."

I routinely ask Google in the USA, "will it snow tonight?" and it is nearly always wrong. I don't mean that the data it accesses is wrong, or that the prediction was wrong. That stuff is usually right. I mean that Google will read the weather forecast's 45% chance of snow and then it will say confidently, "No, it will not snow tonight" as there is a near-blizzard taking place outside my window (because the snow was not "scheduled" to start for another 20 minutes, at a 45% chance, despite the fact that the snow is plowing down outisde). Or if there is a 100% chance of snow for 15 hours in a row, and it starts at 1am, but you ask at 11:55pm if it will snow tonight, it will say "No it will not snow tonight."

Or if it is going to snow between 1am and 5am and you ask at 11:55pm the night before if it will snow tomorrow, it will say "No". You have to ask, "Okay Google, will it snow early in the morning tomorrow?" if you want to know if it will snow overnight.

Google's example query for the Next Billion needs work. "Okay Google, Weather forecast" and then reading the results like on the web produces a 100x faster experience sometimes with much much much better results.

(Aside: has it snowed even once at Google HQ since it was founded?)

Edit: And don't get me started on temperature. On the Home Mini, "Okay Google, what temperature is it?" .... "35." 35 what?! Yes I know you have a settings/ units preference somewhere that I cannot see or access right now (that's why I'm asking the magic box for the answer!). But 35 is not a temperature, unless you are giving it to me in Kelvin and choosing to not say the unit, which is WTF too.

<comment><USER10> The other day I heard my brother say "Set alarm for 3:15" instead of "15 minutes from now" and when I asked him why he said that latter required Google Now which required additional permissions, so he would rather figure out the time to ask for rather than accept additional permissions.

If you say "Set alarm for 7", it will do 7pm, even if you use 24 hours time. And I know no one says 19 o' clock when speaking but it is interesting.

"Set alarm for 7 tomorrow" is 7am.

<comment><USER11> Our Echo is basically a glorified alarm clock/weather checker/music player. If you just give it a number, it'll ask you to clarify if you mean morning or afternoon.

"Set alarm for 7"

"Do you mean 7 in the morning or 7 in the afternoon?"

"AM"

"Setting alarm for 7 AM."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We've got a lot to fix before we worry about the next billion. Language Processing isn't up to task. AI driven UI's generally suck and TBH people only use the internet when they have to I feel (around under a certain income level). It's interesting the amount that people will interact with their handset based on it's price. Look at app installs on handsets with a net cost over $350 and they install apps and do a lot. Less than that it's just a phone that takes pictures with email. (this being a huge approximation but I hope you see my argument)

Everything on the internet is also becoming like everything on TV/print it's just the same dribble. Once when there was a sense of community now resides a vast echo chamber.

<comment><USER13> "I fight for the users!" ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author's photo is 3 megabytes, and the two even more tiny images attached to the articles at the bottom of the page are each about 3 megs. The next billion users, especially of they're on mobile, shouldn't have to use that kind of bandwidth for non-informational embellishments on a static blog.

</comment><comment><USER15>
      the fact that typing is difficult for people who never grew up with a computer keyboard

This is something I had not really considered in regards to "digital assistants". I abhor them with a passion but can understand their usefulness and desirability in this perspective.

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe tangential question - but are there any open source/paid well documented text-to-speech libraries for Indian languages?

</comment><comment><USER17> Even with voice-only stuff, isn't asking "Delhi weather forecast" much simpler than asking "Do I need an umbrella in Delhi today?". This doesn't sound right to me. Even if people are using the longer form that may be because of initial barrier and lack of training. Once they realize that they can get quality and accurate search results just by speaking keywords, they will switch to using keywords.

<comment><USER18> It's not only simpler, it's also more reliable. If I ask Google Assistant about the weather in the afternoon and it's 60F, it tells me the weather is great. But that's not the whole picture because if it's 60F now, it may be 50F or 45F in just a few hours. In which case, even though 60F fits some people's (not my) idea of great weather, I need to take a jacket and/or sweater with me when I walk out the door.

Point being, the AI doesn't know why I'm asking. It could make some reasonable guesses, but currently it doesn't even do that.

I could deal with that by learning the whole landscape of that it guesses about my question, when it's smart and anticipates my needs and when it doesn't, when I can and can't rely on it to do the right thing magically. Or I could just learn how to ask the question the way it needs me to, and that is a lot less to learn and worry about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe a quibble but to me "internet" is fibre lines, cell towers, network protocols, etc. aka infrastructure

What rides on top of the internet is what will change with the next billion users but the infrastructure will stay more or less the same. Also, just because the developing world works differently doesn't mean I'll throw away my keyboard.

<comment><USER20> It's a 20th century mechanical device and still the gold standard for transferring data from a human's brain to a computer.

Mobile is not a replacement for that, yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree but we have to regulate current behemoths better and democratise access to attention economy.

</comment><comment><USER22> > You should not have to learn English to use the internet.

But you need to learn it to program the internet. Get your muscle memory familiar with the hundred+ year old QWERTY layout.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if this means Google will begin developing features for the "next billion" at the expense of the "first billion"

<comment><USER24> Author of the post says

> The next billion users are not becoming more like us. We are becoming more > like them.

If we are to take his words on face value, then I would imagine so ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > We are becoming more like them.

Rather than understand and control our technology, we are forfeiting privacy and determinism to global megacorps larger than half the nations on Earth while they figure out what you _should_ want rather than doing what you _do_ want.

Lets just deep dive how horribly dystopic the "dream" is of the Brazillian cellphone user in 2022:

Proprietary mobile handset manufactured in Chinese sweat shops with pre- installed state backdoors that the user has no idea about because they don't even know what a computer is. But the state agents that can on-demand turn their microphones and cameras on to spy on them, and their ISPs recording and mining all their communications are fully aware of what they are doing.

Said device will be solid plastic bodied with no removable battery, such that battery replacement requires a solder gun and a semester of community college engineering to accomplish. If any individual part breaks, its live with broken hardware (cameras, gyros, gps, wifi, damage the screen, etc) because costs to repair are so catastrophically high or near impossible to do and parts are made unavailable on purpose that the device is designed to be disposable, to rot in a landfill where it can leak toxic chemicals from its manufacturing into the soil and air.

Locked bootloader to prevent anyone from running the software they want to on hardware they own. No documentation on how that bootloader works, no ability to payload alternative software from ROM. The SoC is proprietary, the baseband is a trade secret, nobody can operate their own cellular network because all the IP is top down policed by the state and privileged ISPs.

Kinda-open base OS. I'm still to this day not sure how Google messed up making Android a proprietary hellscape in the early days, but its unlikely Android 12 will have a new kernel or bionic / other base userspace. However...

Wholly proprietary app stack. Google apps are all proprietary, Google Play Services control about 80% of the functionality of the device, from poweron to shutdown everything is logged and sent to Google - GPS positioning, website browsing, microphone recordings, photos and videos taken, and all touch events / key presses.

Social media / ad farming shoved down the throat from day 1. Preinstalled Facebook, Instagram, maybe Twitter and / or Snapchat on the homescreen. No instruction manual on the technical details of how the device works. No means to even _know_ you can or how to _program_ the device yourself. No IDE, no compiler, no shell. No ability to install apps outside the Google Play store without knowing to navigate settings to toggle off the app lock.

And how would you even begin to start searching for information on the device you have? Oh right, Google. Who modifies your search results based on what they _think_ you need, rather than what you _know_ you want.

Its entirely meant to predate off the poor and ignorant. They aren't worth much to global corps, but advertising is damn good at operating on fractions of a cent, and they are already doing a good job draining the creative and emotional health of the first world into addiction rattled social hell.

And really, nothing summarizes more how horrible this is than in how they want you to use Google Assistant as your input - yes, Ma Google is here to record _everything you say_ and interpret the best thing to give you based on your words since you _cannot directly interact with the device because you are illiterate_. You have to use our proprietary remote listening service to _use your computer_.

Risc V save us.

<comment><USER26> It's comforting to see that someone other than me sees the future as this dystopic. I don't _want_ to, of course, but I've gotta prepare my two young sons for what I feel their most probable future is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great, the people late to the game, and are here just to get on facebook are the "future" yay.....

<comment><USER28> Facebook has actually done a lot of work to reach the "next billion users". See [https://info.internet.org/en/impact/](https://info.internet.org/en/impact/). They want to make Facebook essentially a portal to the internet for people in poor countries.

<comment><USER9> Facebook's efforts in that are self-serving and mean-spirited. Connecting people to your platform and hiding the rest of the internet while telling them they should love you just isn't right - and it's not done to help them, it's done to make Zuck more money.

See "Facebook and the New Colonialism", [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/faceb...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/facebook- and-the-new-colonialism/462393/)

<comment><USER28> I agree with you. While it may look altruistic on the surface (providing free internet to the less fortunate), they are actually creating monopoly on Internet for all future users. They can easily cut out competition.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Paypal alternative for adult sites - <AUTHOR>

I know Paypal, Stripe, and other major payment gateway processing services providers won't work with companies dealing with adult videos and sometimes related content.
It's sometimes none of their choice (e.g. Stripe can not because their bank have a strict adult content policy).<p>Has anyone had experience with one of the adult payment gateway providers in the market? <comment><USER2> This is a high risk market beside internal and bank policies, like gambling sites. You should check other companies in this area and look at their payment gateway.</comment>


I'm a founder in the current Y Combinator batch, Ask Me Anything! - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/6najyy/im_a_founder_in_the_current_y_combinator_batch/ <comment><USER2> How important are the ethics of the founders and companies that Y Combinator supports?

Is this something you explicitly take in to account when choosing companies?

<comment><USER3> This AMA isn't being hosted on HN. It's on reddit. You should ask there if you really are looking for an answer.

<comment><USER2> I don't have a Reddit account. If someone one here does and would be kind enough to ask it for me, I'd be forever grateful.

<comment><USER4> just create a throwaway account? You don't even need to give reddit an e-mail address to sign up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Sama, when asked about what would surprise people about YC, answered that people would be surprised at how much software there was. If the updates to the project tracking system only take up about 5 minutes a week, is there any other YC software that founders encounter or can make use of at YC?

There's an internal forum, internal investor database with founder grading and info-passing, I've heard they use a lot of AI on the back end to help them, there's scheduling software, etc. But that's all I'm aware of. I can't say I was particularly surprised at how much software there was._

</comment><comment><USER6> -

<comment><USER7> I laughed at that too.

Have you ever seen The Zuck speak? He does exactly the same.

Must be a "liberal tech" thing....</comment></comment>


Why I love Git - <AUTHOR> http://rawsyntax.com/post/6384354589/why-i-love-git# <comment><USER2> I'm getting in the habit of using git everywhere.

If I am going to make any changes to a config file, I just initialize a repo in that directory and make my changes. This is great to track what was done during outages when normal controls and processes are out the window.

I don't use rsync as much nowadays, as now I copy files around using git. It makes it easy to make sure two systems are in sync with one another.

If I want to compare directories A and B, often I will just create a repo in A and dump the contents of B on top of it.

And local clones and easy branches means it is easy to test crazy code and break source trees.

EDIT: One more thing, jgit is great for systems where you can't install git (like AIX, where it is a pain to get the packages). It's a single java jar that you can deploy to any system that has java <http://eclipse.org/jgit/>. I take the .sh script that wraps the .jar file and symlink it to a 'git'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting.. I hadn't thought about using git as a form of rsync

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How is git rebase different from svn update? Is it needed because in git I would locally commit small changes vs. keeping them sitting around in svn?

I like the look of the page, by the way.

<comment><AUTHOR> it replays your local commits on top of the changes you pulled down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Git is definitely a big step in the right direction.</comment>


Experiment Driven Development for Rails - <AUTHOR> http://blog.labnotes.org/2009/11/19/vanity-experiment-driven-development-for-rails/

<comment><USER2> I really like where Assaf has gone with this, and am interested to see what he comes up with as time goes on.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see this evolve into something that uses hardware and software decoupling to enable more effective and deep experiments.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious about why adding two additional fields to the registration actually improved the conversion rate. Was this just an example, or does someone have some ideas as to why this happened?

<comment><USER5> It's just an example. The idea of A/B testing is to prove what works better, and it doesn't always follow conventional wisdom. This simplistic example is probably not true, but that's why it's a good example.</comment></comment>


The VIC-20 remake is shipping soon pre-order on Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://hothardware.com/news/commodore-computer-returns-retro-glory-thevic20 <comment><USER2> As cool as these Vic-20 and C64 clones are, I think it would be even awesomer to have a small MCU with HDMI booting into a micropython IDE. Of course, this mostly loses some luster when the hardware isn't as completely open/documented as the C64 (or later, Amiga and Atari ST). I guess an ESP32's openRtos is pretty open but also mighty complex, and there weren't dirt cheap completely open audio/video systems available last time I checked.

The RPI is great as well, but it's just much "bigger" and harder to fully understand (like you could understand a C64) for a young 'un.</comment>


China Faces a Grad Glut After Boom at Colleges - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124087181303261033.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

<comment><USER2> This phenomenon is not unique to China. At the University of Waterloo here in Canada, we've been building out "hot majors" exactly as the article describes: hot-button buzzword-of-the-year degree programs that attract hopeful students and then kick them into the pit of unemployability.

Case in point: the new nanotechnology program, which has a dismal employment rate, and most of the employed students are cannibalizing existing chemical engineering jobs.

And it continues this year with the introduction of "management engineering", a concept that is still ill-defined and nebulous, and seems more like a grab at tuition dollars than a genuine academic affair.

Disclaimer: I am in neither of these programs, I'm just sick of this university and its profiteering ways, and how it has been run like a private business as of late. Maybe we should try expanding the campus instead of selling out our government-granted land to build a new office park (oh hey, the article covered that too), or trying to out-buzzword ourselves by building a campus in Dubai. Ugh.

This sort of academic gross mismanagement is global.

<comment><USER3> A lot of countries, most of then developing countries, see the connection between prosperity and a lot of advanced degrees and think correlation = causation.

It's a lot easier to send bright kids to school, then it is to fix the corruption and mismanagement that's keeping your country underdeveloped.

Canada might just be overenthusiastic ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Mr. Zhang got his degree from a school of traditional Chinese medicine with no history of teaching computer sciences._

China, like Dubai, is going to learn the hard way that you can't compress centuries of development into years, or even decades.

<comment><USER5> University was once akin to "finding one's place in the Universe." Yet it seems like the more the pursuit of profit overlaps the goal of furthering humanity, the more difficult it becomes for people who want to further humanity (science, engineering, etc.) to do so.

<comment><USER4> I don't know about that, the college I went to to get a degree in Mech Eng had strong ties to industry and did lots of useful research. Most of the professors had consulting gigs on the side; the chap that taught us Thermodynamics & Turbomachinery was doing real jet engine design, the chap that taught us about control systems was also working on real systems for North Sea oil rigs.

It's only in the humanities and so-called soft sciences that academia's disappeared up its own backside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got a "Page Unavailable" from the original URL [1]. On a hunch, I removed the "?mod=googlenews_wsj" part, and lo and behold, it worked. Is WSJ blocking GoogleNews links ? Or is this something much more mundane ?

      1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124087181303261033.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

<comment><USER7> WFM, much more mundane I expect.</comment></comment>


The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development - <AUTHOR> http://www.custdev.com/ <comment><USER2> The sample provided is too short for me to figure out if this is any good or not, but I think "a cheat sheet for The Four Steps to the Epiphany" is a great idea. I'm a big fan of Customer Development and of Steve Blank, but I think the methodology would benefit from a different presentation.

Is this any good? Can anyone post or point to a review?

Two things struck me as funny about this:

1) The title, "The Entrepreneur´s Guide to Customer Development for Tech Startups". Isn't that exactly the target of Blank's book? Virtually all the literature on CD is aimed at entrepreneurs, this is hardly a point of differentiation. (Versus, for example, books one could write such as "The Product Managers Guide to Customer Development" or "The Guide to Customer Development for B2C".)

2) The sample has something I've never seen in book before: "Tweet this" links that I guess allow you to share key points to your followers. For example, one such link tweets:

"Differentiator is not your compelling reason to buy, the benefit the differentiator provides, is." #CustDev

along with a bit.ly link. That quote a little awkwardly phrased in isolation, but I think this is a really interesting idea, I wonder if it will take off. Per the bit.ly stats (<http://bit.ly/info/a11ib5+>) the link hasn't been followed much yet, but I don't know how long this has been out there.</comment>


Google Nik collection now available for free - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/nikcollection/ <comment><USER2> This is a real bummer because it implies they are done developing it.

I bought the Nik Collection a couple years ago and I have gotten good value out of the product. I hoped they would continue to improve it.

If you like photography should should definitely download it.

<comment><USER3> I always thought it was a slightly odd acquisition for Google. Didn't seem like it would really fit with Photos use case, and I suspect, sadly, that you are right.

<comment><USER4> Couldn't they add it to Picasa?

<comment><USER5> Picasa is dead, Google Photos is the primary photo product

<comment><USER6> Such a travesty. Someday we will look back and see the whole web application trend as a technological plague that wiped out great native desktop applications replacing them with inferior web versions that nobody actually wanted.

<comment><USER7> Google Photos is amazing, superior, and everything I've wanted for years. Seriously.

<comment><USER6> I couldn't disagree with you more, Google Photos is garbage compared to Picasa. There's no folders and no tags (for writing a quick description that applies to a bunch of pictures), no manual face tagging (for when the magic fails, or tagging pets, or tagging people that were there but not in the photo, or just tagging things that aren't faces), no people pane (where you can select two or more people to quickly see all the photos of them together), no batch editing of any kind really, no bulk mechanism to give your feedback to the facial recognition engine to help it learn (did Google Photos perfect that technology? Is that why it doesn't need our help anymore? No. It just misses half the faces Picasa would've caught)

In lieu of these basic requirements, Photos presumes to be able to create collages automatically for me (sure put all those pictures that are basically identical together) and albums (oh yes call that one "Trip to California" it's not like I don't fucking live in California). Not to mention all of this is happening in a browser that is clearly sweating to scroll hundreds of thumbnails across my screen where Picasa would effortlessly zoom and resize on the fly.

I honestly don't see how Photos could ever deliver a superior user experience to Picasa without first abandoning the idea that it's all going to happen in a browser. I'm also curious what your use-case is that Photos is actually superior to Picasa in your opinion, are you a heavy user?

<comment><USER8> Manual face tagging is there now, and it definitely looks like they're trying to bring as many (relevant to web) Picasa features as possible to Google Photos.

Google Photos is 'partially' superior because of its super-search, which was not there in Picasa. People, place, things or time (and their combinations), it can search them all without any manual tagging required. Picasa Desktop or web couldn't search photos of "Alice and Bob riding hiking/riding a boat" by just typing that in. Sure, they could have built that feature to the desktop app as well, that would have been the best.

<comment><USER6> Picasa has a click-and-type description at each folder where you can write something like "Burning Man 2015" which becomes globally searchable (along with your people, place, etc. tags). I suppose an AI could determine that my photos are from Burning Man 2015 by inspecting the Exif tags and doing some Freebase magic but there's a whole semantic chasm between that and "Lorelei's first Burning Man".

Auto enrichment of my tags and descriptions would actually be a nice feature but that assumes some basic usable tags and descriptions first. It seems like the designers are too busy coming up with futuristic magic to think about good old practical usability. Worse they also seem completely out of touch with what's practically achievable so their futuristic magic ends up being useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome! I really like their HDR tool, although it was pretty much the only one I used.

For anyone interested in the history, this product was the result of an acquisition by Google (I think they wanted the team for their Google+ Photos product). While they don't seem interested in developing it further, it's nice that they continue to make the software available.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nik_Software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nik_Software) [1] [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/google-buys-nik- to-...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/google-buys-nik-to-lure- photographers-to-google-plus/?_r=1)

</comment><comment><USER10> Google acquired Nik for their mobile photo app Snapped in 2012 [1]

They got the Nik software along with it. At the time each of the tools were sold separately for $100-some (don't exactly remember). Eventually google combined them and priced them together as one package. Today they decided to give it away for free.

As someone else mentioned, it's unclear if it means google will stop developing it or if they opened it up to get more users and use it as a research tool to gather more data on type of filters users use and how they use them. So eventually to apply that to some type of automated filtering solution for android and/or Google photos.

[1] [http://mashable.com/2012/09/17/google-acquires- snapseed/](http://mashable.com/2012/09/17/google-acquires-snapseed/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Never heard of these. How do they compare to Lightroom's built in features?

<comment><USER12> I only used Silver Efex. It's more flexible and powerful than basic Lightroom and more specialized than Photoshop. It's great for black and white work, it is a tool specifically made for photography, not a general purpose one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Its probably not a coincidence, that this appeared on the front page the same day

"Google parent Alphabet ushers in 'fiscal discipline era' (usatoday.com)" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11357131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11357131)

</comment><comment><USER14> Only supports Macs & Windows, sadly.

<comment><USER15> Not surprising, given they are for photoshop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This seems like the rare case where a more descriptive title would really help this item.

I nearly didn't click on it, because I had no idea it was relevant to one of my major interests, photography.

<comment><USER17> Looks horrific. Tragic over sharpening, crossed with HDR. Best avoided unless you're into instagram filters to disguise cheap phone camera based photography.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do you need Photoshop or Lightroom to use these tools or do they work standalone as well? I can't find this info on the website at all.

<comment><USER19> These can be run standalone also (atleast on windows not sure about mac though)

<comment><USER20> I don't understand how you can run standalone. I just installed it on Windows 10. The only executable is the uninstaller.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like Lightroom (or Photoshop, maybe?) is needed to use the Nik Collection.

<comment><USER21> If you dig into the folders there are more executables.

They work as Paint Shop Pro add-ins, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh Crap, now they're probably going to make other individual developer who'e looking for monetizing their apps harder (discloser, I work for Polarr). The only good news for competitor here is that if Google decides to drop further development of it, then the opportunity to emulate and eventually surpass Nik's functionality is huge as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Nikon Collection was a significant piece of software - it used to be a pretty penny for all of them too.

It was much more productive than photoshop, and did some things that just aren't easy to do in PS.

I don't know how google got a hold of it, but it's a great thing for photographers.

</comment><comment><USER24> See [https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/4bsn5a/google_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/photography/comments/4bsn5a/google_are_now_offering_their_nik_collection/)

<comment><USER25> Worth looking at for the mention of folks obtaining refunds outside of the advertised period. Only offering refunds to customers in the last 2.5 months seems rough, but it appears that if you contact Google they're offering refunds up to about a year ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any idea if this could work with GIMP using something like the "GIMP PSPI plugin"?

</comment><comment><USER27> Who else had no idea Google worked on photography software?

I'm not surprised, given the breadth of their investments but this is the first I've heard of it.

<comment><USER28> They bought Nik Software a while back. This probably means they are done with the software collection and do not plan on making any updates to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hoping for Google Photos integration...

<comment><USER30> That would require a _lot_ of work. There are parts, at least, of the Nik collection that use deep hooks into Photoshop; it's not just a set of typical 8BA/8BF "give me a pointer to a TIFF I can play with" plugins.

<comment><USER31> This didn't happen in the last years. I doubt it will happen at all. I think they're more interested in the algorithms to reuse them in Google Apps the one or the other way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The Nik collection is editor</comment>


Central Londoners to be subjected to facial recognition test this week - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/londons-police-will-be-testing-facial-recognition-in-public-for-2-days/ <comment><USER2> _> According to the police, these trials ... "will be used overtly with a clear uniformed presence and information leaflets will be disseminated to the public,"_

This line really creeps me out. Essentially: "But it's OK, because we're being very clear about what we are doing, handing out leaflets and wearing our uniforms so you can trust us."

If these trials are successful - or, for that matter, if they are not - can we assume that they will drop all of that facade at the earliest opportunity in favour of silent and ubiquitous rollout?

Who will be wearing uniforms and handing out fliers in 1, 2 or 5 years, when facial recognition surveillance technology operates behind every one of the thousands of surveillance cameras that capture our faces and movements every single day?

<comment><USER3> This not a trial, in terms of what a real trial should be.

It is a deliberate wedge strategy that has been employed at least once in the UK before. (I couldn't find a source right now, will report back when I can.)

The goal is to be able to say to higher powers that «we reached out to the public and they didn't mind.»

And then it's made permanent.

<comment><USER4> I smell a market for facial prosthetics (good ones) and sunglasses. Maybe large hats.

<comment><USER5> They'll simply pass a law making disguises/obfuscation illegal in public.

Because why would anybody who's not a criminal or up to no good have any issue with the tracking, right?

<comment><USER6> Plastic surgery will likely remain legal. I could see a future where people avoid recognition by simply changing their features like a custom video game character.

<comment><USER7> Plastic surgery might remain legal, but you would likely be required to submit before and after photos. Making it pointless.

<comment><USER6> If the tech reaches the point where you can do it at home, that won't matter.

<comment><USER8> You can trivially build banned (some places;) inanimate objects at home, but that does not stop legislators from making those that do criminals. You didnt update FaceRegistry? That's a felony, and another felony for modding your 3d faceprinter to break the FR DRM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They mentioned it was used in South Wales to assure us it's been used before, but failed to mention that 92% were false positives.

[https://futurism.com/welsh-police-face-scanning-software- inc...](https://futurism.com/welsh-police-face-scanning-software-incorrect/)

<comment><USER10> It doesn't matter that there are so many false positives if the intent is simply to have a chilling effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't help but think that if this was done in beijing or shanghai, the headline would be far more ominous.

For all the politically motivated attacks on facebook and tech by politicians ( especially the british and their commonwealth ones ), they sure do love spying on their own citizens.

And for all the talk about dystopian china, it is britain that is leading the world on spying on its citizens and using an authoritarian "social credit" system on its people.

And I've no doubt that our politicians and tech leaders are using london/britain as testing ground for surveillance before importing to the US.

I would love for china and its people to be free and have individual rights, but I'm far more worried about the loss of freedom, privacy and individual rights in the US.

<comment><USER12> What "social credit" system does the UK have? We don't even have identity cards...

<comment><USER13> Maybe gp is referring to the extremely classist nature of UK culture? One of my best friends who got his Bachelors in the US but then did his masters at Cambridge explained to me that egalitarianism basically doesn't exist in reality there. They denied him his application for PhD, while the professor who read it stole his idea and made it his own... and this was to a dual American/British citizen. When I visited, I was taken aback at how snobby and disdainful of the plebs people at Oxford were. To me as an American who had made British military friends during the war that seemed awesome, it was really shocking how dystopian the UK was, and not just the massive government surveillance, (for example, imsi catching in The City stole my GPS signal for a few hours at one point) it felt much more like a thin veneer over oligarchical neofuedalism even the plebs participated in. There may not be an official social credit system (yet), but Brits are good at knowing it without the card.

<comment><USER14> It sounds like you met a bunch of arseholes tbh. Sorry about them. We are not all like that.

The only people who I have experience with who are overly classist, tend to be a bit older (50+) and consider themselves above other people, and are as mentioned arseholes. The vast majority of people think this whole thing is old fashioned, out of date, and disgusting. It is not something that people (at least myself, and the people I know) overtly come into contact with on a daily basis.

This is not to say things are perfect, or that there are not people like this. But that modern Britain is not, aside from some annoying exceptions, like this.

<comment><USER13> That is the impression I had too (that it was overstated), until I visited and experienced it firsthand, from Birmingham to Oxford to London. Perhaps the countryside is different. Of course it's true the same can be found in the US, but my experience with that is that the rich in the US only care if you are rich, whereas in the UK it seems much less than about just the money.

<comment><USER14> Was there another common factor that linked these people? You mentioned that the one's in Oxford were from the university? They tend to be a bit older and to think they're better than other people (joking!!). And old institutions do tend to drag a bit.

But you are right there is a 'class' element, like how you speak, where you went to school, that isn't just money. It does seem to be going, luckily.

Sorry again for your bad experiences!

edit - made statements clearer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Many premises already don't permit entry if you wear a face ski mask (balaclava) or a motorbike helmet.

I wonder how long until it's illegal to simply walk down the street wearing either.

Even if it's not actually illegal, I'm certain it won't be long before the Police stop and detain anyone that does, because obviously you have something to hide - your face!

<comment><USER16> They will never be able to outlaw "adversarial" make-up, specially designed so that the bearer is identified as another person.

<comment><USER4> Today in London, Richard Nixon was seen at 37 coffee shops, 18 shoe shops, and even buying a Lambo.

<comment><USER17> __at the same time __:)

<comment> village-idiot Pretty fit for a dead guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The best way to discourage its use at this point is via the courts. Declare facial recognition inadmissible, and its use will drop off. Not a fan of bench legislation, but keeping this out of widespread use is really, really important.

<comment><USER19> We are long past the point of discourage its use. The move now should be to make sure it is properly regulated so that retention duration is public and verifiable. That acting off the images has follow a well defined legal process. Most of it will be forensic in nature and the benefits of the technology far outweigh the horrors that many claim will come. Here's a hint, the governments of this world have already committed gross violations of human rights of the worst kind for centuries, this isn't going to change that for the worse.

If anything a trusted system will put the authorities on their toes too. It will provide the ability to not only track those who committed a crime but those in need of emergency services. It will even capture those who enforce the laws. Yes there will be real time applications of this tech in the near future and that is why those who can create this software should damn well be working to make sure it does work and is not easily thwarted by those in power or abused by them. Its going to happen, make sure if you can participate you do so that the wolves don't have free run of the hen house.

So make it work, make it public, make it obvious, regulate it, and regulate those who employ it. That is where we are now. If we keep running from it we give other people the opportunity to do wrong with it

<comment><USER18> No. I don't care how long they're keeping it. The problem is that governments have databases of citizens. The problem of governments is that they want to blow a hole in previous ideas of "assumption of privacy". Lots of people around the world have trusted governments in the past. Many of them are dead. If you haven't guessed, I don't trust the government. But I think that's with good reason. I don't believe any regulation can solve this problem. The government itself should regulate its own use of something? Like that's worked before.

Keep this away from me. My concern is only secondarily that someone using my data to run ads. My concern is primarily that government should never have access to such a tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How does this fit into GDPR? I can't see any reasonable claim that they need this personal data (and what's more personal than my face?) for processing purposes.

<comment><USER21> Easy enough via "processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person", or "processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller", and such.

<comment><USER20> > "processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data > subject or of another natural person"

ICO says "The processing must be necessary. If you can reasonably protect the person's vital interests in another less intrusive way, this basis will not apply." which cuts out that excuse because, since I'm not dead and the majority of Londoners are also not dead, the police seem to be "reasonably protect[ing]" our "vital interests in another less intrusive way".

[https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general- da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/vital-interests/)

<comment><USER10> Exactly how much power does the ICO have over the Met?

<comment><USER20> [https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and- bl...](https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and- blogs/2018/11/ico-finds-metropolitan-police-service-s-gangs-matrix-breached- data-protection-laws/)

> It has now issued an Enforcement Notice, compelling the MPS to ensure it > complies with data protection laws in future and has given them six months > to make these changes, which the MPS has accepted and already started to > implement.

Enough, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> First it's optional, and then it won't be. Do people from UK realize that the government, intelligence agencies, and the police see no end in sight for this type of (ab)use of surveillance and censorship technology?

To me at least it has seemed obvious for some time that the UK government wants to emulate China in this regard. So they see China as a "role model" to be followed. I mean GCHQ has even proposed a Great British Firewall for crying out loud. But like with the porn filter, they will promise to block only the "really bad stuff" with it -- at first.

Both "democratic" and undemocratic governments of the world have woken up to the fact that the internet gives people "too much freedom", so they are all working to restrict that freedom, with all sorts of "plausible justifications".

<comment><USER23> > To me at least it has seemed obvious for some time that the UK government > wants to emulate China in this regard. So they see China as a "role model" > to be followed

I may be overly cynical but it seems to me that China is the most honest country involved in governmental mass surveillance. They never tried to hide the intent behind their decisions whereas western nations always bring up false pretenses to eat away at their people's rights and freedoms. The most pathetic of all being "terrorism". We're all headed in the same direction, it's just going to be achieved through different means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They had this in Berlin city-train (S-Bahn) stop Südkreutz. I never consented, and now wear a scarf over my face in that station.

<comment><USER25> I'm sure your eyes and nose, which you probably don't cover, are more than enough to recognise you.

I think it would be more effective to wear big eyeglasses (like Wayfarers) but I'm not sure, maybe someone can chime in?

<comment><USER24> I try to cover up as much as I can. Sunglasses are a good idea.

Regarding sunglasses in Berlin, police stopped me on my e-moped recently and forced me into a restaurant bathroom to do a pee test for drugs, and they told me the reason was that I wore sunglasses when riding and thus looked suspicious. I wear then to protect my eyes from dust and bugs. I was absolutely sober, and going home from church. My takeaway is, Berlin police want your face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not a single comment on who developed this for the Met ([http://news.met.police.uk/news/facial-recognition- technology...](http://news.met.police.uk/news/facial-recognition-technology- to-be-deployed-on-17-and-18-december-340759)), but the second link ([https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition- trial/](https://www.met.police.uk/live-facial-recognition-trial/)) actually gives us a name: NEC NeoFace which was used in Dallas airport in July 2017: [https://dallasinnovates.com/necs-neoface-tech-tested-u-s- air...](https://dallasinnovates.com/necs-neoface-tech-tested-u-s-airports/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I prey we can get facial recognition to the public and we can start publicly tracking politicians and they can own their political decision anywhere they go. Have a CEO that wears fur coats, well facial recognition now knows he eats at starbucks every friday lets go there then and protest. A corrupt politician, oh facial recognition detects them at a conference lets go interrupt it. There will be no hiding in the future and I truly hope this applies to the elite as well. They have more to lose with being tracked then I do.

<comment><USER17> "This morning the Political Privacy Act was rushed through. MPs are now exempt from all face-recognition systems. The vote was unanimous..."

<comment><USER28> At first I thought this comment was just funny, then I had the thought that it's actually plausible, then it hit me that it's not only plausible but inevitable.

<comment><USER29> Not just inevitable, but it already happened. In 1992 the US Government banned people from receiving radio in certain 800MHz bands, because someone listened in on a politicians analog cell phone call. I'll let RadioReference say it:

"The motivation for this amendment had to do with an analog AMPS cellular telephone call into a political conference call made from Florida by now- incoming Speaker of the House John Boehner in which there was discussion of the ethics charges against then-speaker Newt Gingrich; a recording was made of the call and given to a Democratic Florida politician and whackiness ensued."

The AMPS systems that were impacted have been shut down for more than a decade, but you still can't purchase a radio receiver without that 'Cellular Blocking' enabled.

[1] [https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Cell_blocked](https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Cell_blocked)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Facial recognition is disturbing because it's one step closer to a system can't be voted out of office or overthrown by revolution. That is the dead-end I fear for humanity.

</comment><comment><USER31> I thought this ship sailed? I heard of CCTV control centres in London doing this about 15 years ago? I can't find a link, has anyone else heard of that?

<comment><USER32> The process of stealing peoples data, there physical appearance data in this case, in the name of security and billing the tax payer billions of pounds for the priveledge, isnt going away very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if there's a demonstrable correlation between level of police funding and support for such initiatives. In the UK's public sector there is definitely a strong drive for automation, but it does kind of coincide with austerity and drastic cuts in police services.

</comment><comment><USER34> When facial recognition is ubiquitous we will all wear masks.

<comment><USER35> Okay, let's jump forward in time a little ...

When FR is ubiquitous, we'll need a different mask for each section of the journey to prevent being tracked end to end.

Also Gait-DNA will soon be ready to implement, of course it'll be tested on existing "footage" first ... then it's not a huge jump to mapping your current disguised journey (say from home to work, at regular intervals) to some saved recordings from when you we're unmasked.

Fine for those who can change their routine perhaps, but less so for the great majority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is anyone donating to the Big Brother Watch campaign?</comment>