Fedora, UUIDs, and user tracking - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/776327/e0cf49b9b9976c5a/ <comment><USER2> Good on them for taking the time to think about how to do this properly. I use Fedora, I'm happy to them _know_ that I use Fedora, and even to make the check-in somewhat regular so that they can know if I _stop_ using Fedora.

Provided that they figure out a way that absolutely nothing can be done with the information other than to say, "This non-identifiable machine reports that it uses Fedora," I'd be okay with that.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a slippery slope, first you want to know how many use your software, then you want to know what features they use, then you want to know other apps installed, then you want to know what web sites they visit and what they search for, and so forth.

<comment><USER4> I can understand the slippery slope threat in a proprietary system, but Fedora is a open system. Should data collection at some point go beyond whatever it is the devs announce, someone is going to pick it up and everyone is going to drop the distro like a hot potato. So I'm not sure this is a big issue.

<comment><USER5> The lack of serious consequences to Canonical regarding their spyware-like, opt-out search integrations in Ubuntu with Amazon way back when (and then doubling down with legal threats against fixubuntu.com) gives me doubt as to this being the case.

That goes double given Fedora's position as what boils down to RHEL upstream. Too much corporate support for any backlash to make a dent, even if it could get critical mass.

<comment><USER6> IMHO, there were serious consequences. 5 years ago I would not have consider using fedora on my desktop because ubuntu was trustworthy and I was considering fedora as useless fragmentation. Now, I see redhat as a knight on my side to improve linux adoption (I hope that IBM will not ruin this) and I see fedora as stable and up to date than ubuntu.

<comment><USER7> Can I ask what was / is it about Debian that made you discount it, and embrace RH / Fedora instead?

<comment><USER8> Not the OP, but I made a similar transition. I got fed up with using APT to manage packages while Yum/DNF seem much more complete and elegant. I seem to get far fewer package conflicts with Yum, and the error messages when something does go wrong are more digestible, though this may be just due to my use case/package selection. I also dislike the use of the dash shell by default. To me, it just further muddies the water between compatibility of sh, bash, and dash. I'd rather just have bash and be done with it.

Fedora's packages are also more up to date while being as or more stable than Ubuntu. Debian is still probably king of stability, but when compared to CentOS, I prefer CentOS' default package selection and configuration (postfix vs exim, sudo installed by default, ssh installed and enabled by default) , especially since they embrace systemd while Debian seems to use it grudgingly while also keeping around old methods of configuration that don't quite fit with systemd (network configuration being the big one here, don't even get me started on Ubuntu's adoption of friggin' Netplan)

<comment><USER9> > especially since they embrace systemd

I will never forgive Red Hat for SystemD, and even more than that, I will never forgive Debian for adopting it. But that's off-topic.

<comment><USER8> To each their own, of course. I happen to like it a lot, but I'm still surprised Debian chose to use it as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting to see how this discussion steers towards privacy. Some distributions, like Ubuntu for example, are far less conservative. Besides the NTP tracking mentioned in the article, there's the Amazon fiasco of past, and Ubuntu 18.04 installs quite bit of telemetry [1], including tracking packages. It ships with a "dynamic" MOTD that runs a script periodically which downloads updates from Canonical. While this may be useful for server administrators who wish to be notified of products and updates, it has at one point shown ads for an HBO show [2].

Annoyingly, while installing the Xubuntu flavor, there appeared to be no option to opt out nor was there even mention of any such telemetry in the live installer interface. I had to track down and disable manually post installation - something the average user is not going to bother with and what Canonical is surely betting on. I appreciate how Poettering brings up trust and "red flags", knowing full well the lower the transparency, the larger the reactionary incentive for users to opt out or disable such telemetry. Canonical could perhaps take note.

[1] [https://askubuntu.com/questions/1027532/how-to-opt-out-of- sy...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1027532/how-to-opt-out-of-system- information-reports/1030168#1030168) [2] [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base- files/+bug/17...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/base- files/+bug/1701068)

</comment><comment><USER11> "Essentially, users would need to trust that the project isn't doing the tracking because it says it isn't."

The cynic in me is recalling that red hat just got bought by IBM and IBM is in the news for tracking people in a weather app in a sneaky way

I don't know any better though, maybe fedora is quite independent of red hat/IBM and its 100% legit to trust their promises. I'm not sure how it works tbh

Edit: added quote from article

<comment><USER12> (disclaimer: I work at Red Hat, not on any OS/distro)

This is a nitpick, but Red Hat did not get bought by IBM. What happened was IBM announcing the intention to buy Red Hat.

It's maybe a subtle, but possibly important distinction. Red Hat is still its own independent entity until the deal goes through (which means IIRC passing the board's approval, SEC and likely other stuff). This is expected to happen in late 2019 I believe, but it might still fall through.

This doesn't absolutely dispel any possibility of IBM's influence, but it should be very low/zero until the merger actually goes through. But I also don't know how all this works.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for clarifying for me, I had that mixed up

<comment><USER12> No worries! Pretty much everyone I talked to who was aware of the deal (online and off) thought the same.

These things are pretty complex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This post describes a bad way to track users, but the real utility of this post is in the email that describes a way to count Fedora users without tracking them:

[https://lwn.net/ml/fedora- devel/20190108152239.GA24118@garde...](https://lwn.net/ml/fedora- devel/20190108152239.GA24118@gardel-login/)

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h That actually sounds more reasonable, although it does run tiny risk of being trivial to mess with if a malicious client wanted to skew numbers. But I don't think it's possible to defend against that without being horribly invasive, privacy perspective.

I must say, it feels odd to support a Poettering proposal, but this actually does look like a good solution.

<comment><USER14> > although it does run tiny risk of being trivial to mess with if a malicious > client wanted to skew numbers

Is that not also the case with the UUID solution? Generating the UUIDs in virtual machines, or just replacing the UUIDs in the requests, doesn't seem out of the question

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't mind Fedora wanting to get counts of things, provided it is exclusively an opt-in feature. Debian's 'popcon' is an example of doing it right.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why not just track downloads from the mirrors? If you post a new version of package for fedora 29, just track how many downloads of that specific file are made. Write some scripts for log processing and require official mirrors to submit the logs to give you the package counts.

That way user info never makes it past the mirror (which has their IP anyways) and you don't need anything complex like UUIDs, playing tricks with NTP, or calling home.

This would give a reasonably accurate number. Use bash for measuring linux installs (pretty rare to have linux installed without bash). Then more desktop apps like firefox, eog, and xpdf to measure desktop use. If interested in server side track mongodb, apache, mysql, and similar.

This would also help fedora decide which applications they should pay more attention to.

<comment><USER17> But this would be either over-counting if some CI scripts download the version every once a while, or under-counting if some organization put the image on their own privately maintained mirror which is quite common.

<comment><USER18> Telemetry of any type usually fails to measure precisely the thing you want, but something adjacent that correlates strongly. What you mention are clear problems with inferring usage from downloads, but if you can infer the percentage of downloads that correlates to a machine running Fedora, you don't need much more precision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Any distro that phones home with a unique identifier is a distro I won't touch with a ten foot pole. I don't care what they claim they will or won't use that identifier for.

<comment><USER19> Maxims that act on the symptom rather than the problem rarely help in the end, as the problem just evolves to support its needs through other means.

For example, sending a unique identifier is not the problem. Tracking people through a unique identifier is. So, depending on your goals, you can design a unique identifier system that does not allow tracking (or at least makes the tracking period so small as to be unuseful for purposes other than designed) as outlined in the article through changing the identifier on the client side weekly.

If all you want to do is get a good estimate of how many users use what types of configurations of your software (major and minor version), a UUID that rotates weeks on the client side is perfectly acceptable to use for those statistics to a fair degree of accuracy.

On the other end of the spectrum, people long ago started reducing their trackable footprint online, and the online tracking ecosystem just evolved to finding people through other, trickier methods, such as browser fingerprinting.

<comment><USER9> You're right in general, of course. But here's the reason for my hardline stance on that: history shows that trusting promises or assertions made about things like unique identifiers is unwise, and so I have to take a strong defensive stance.

> you can design a unique identifier system that does not allow tracking

You can (sortof), but we run against that trust issue again. If I'm giving a unique identifier to someone, I have no way of knowing if their assertions about its use are accurate. Even if they are, there's no guarantee that won't change in the future.

> If all you want to do is get a good estimate of how many users use what > types of configurations of your software (major and minor version)

You're talking about the perspective of the publisher. I'm talking about my perspective as a user. A company's "need" to collect metrics is their problem, not mine. If their solution results in more information disclosure than I'm comfortable with (and a unique identifier absolutely is), then I will avoid their software or block communications to their home base.

<comment><USER19> > A company's "need" to collect metrics is their problem, not mine.

When it's couched in how to deliver software updated, it becomes your problem as well. That's a transaction, and they want to charge more for it now. You can decide it's too costly, as you indicate here, but it's not like they're giving nothing in return.

I think it's important to note the goals of those involved. In this case, it's the people that put together a free product for us to use and also supply free timely software updates looking for more information on who is using what so they can do a better job at delivering that free stuff to us.

And in this case, it's not adding tracking where it doesn't exist, it's making it better for the specific cases that are useful to them and that impact users the least (an accounting of software configurations). They already track through IP address, but that's inaccurate to a much larger degree for the information they want (but somewhat less so for the personal information you likely want to protect). Adding an additional system that allows better tracking of the useful information without increasing the personally identifying features of IP based tracking (which still exists) is laudable, in my eyes.

<comment><USER9> > When it's couched in how to deliver software updated, it becomes your > problem as well.

I honestly don't see how. If/when I'm ready to take an update, I can come get it myself. If they want to charge me (or charge me more) for it, then they can do so at that time. No tracking needed except for that associated with payment.

> Adding an additional system that allows better tracking of the useful > information without increasing the personally identifying features of IP > based tracking (which still exists) is laudable, in my eyes.

Not as laudable as not engaging in tracking in the first place. However, I don't see how this doesn't increase personally identifying features. On the contrary, it's adding one: a unique identifier.

<comment><USER19> > If they want to charge me (or charge me more) for it, then they can do so at > that time. No tracking needed except for that associated with payment.

That's what's proposed? An identifier sent along with the request to see the current list of updates available?

> I don't see how this doesn't increase personally identifying features. On > the contrary, it's adding one: a unique identifier.

An identifier that changes every week or so. At that point it is useless for identifying an individual, but can still be used statistically to determine how many systems are running what versions of Fedora, even behind NAT gateways. The only difference from before is now instead of "there's one IP with more than average check-ins, or check-ins from two or more different configurations", it's "there's one IP with X number of unique identifiers that randomize weekly seen over the last 28 days, so we can approximate X/4 different systems behind that IP".

<comment><USER9> > The only difference from before is [...]

Yes, I understand, but your explanation isn't reassuring to me. It's confirming that I actually do understand the mechanism and its ramifications.

Red Hat can do whatever it likes (although my take on it is that they're not likely to do this unique identifier thing). I'm not saying otherwise -- that's their right, after all.

All I am saying is that software that does this sort of thing is unacceptable to me and I will avoid it to the best of my ability. As is my right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> >unique user ID (UUID) for each installed system that would be sent with DNF mirror-list requests. It explicitly calls out privacy concerns: "We don't want to track; just count."

If Fedora server is compromised they can serve different packages to different users.

<comment><USER21> Given that package servers serve packages over HTTP, you can already do this, identifying the user you want to serve different packages by their IP.

However, the packages need to be _signed by Fedora_ for the package manager to accept them, so this has been considered a pretty weak excuse for an "attack" for a while now. "Getting access to code-signing keys allows you to attack the people consuming signed binaries"—wow, you don't say!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looking at the wiki page [0], I can see the benefits of the move:

> Better metrics overall

> Public stats page updated automatically

> Better knowledge of relative use of different variants

> Insight into Fedora's use in short-lived test systems and temporary > containers vs. longer-term installations

but nothing evaluating how and whether the proposed solutions will achieve those things.

With no method being perfect, I'm suprised that no one is calling for a quantitative evaluation of various ID collection schemes, and that there is defined "good enough" value, other than

> We need better data than that.

I'm not a Fedora maintainer, and I'm not maintaining any other software of such popularity, so I have to ask: why? I assume it's to allocate work better. At which point do the downsides outweigh that benefit?

[0] [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DNF_Better_Counting](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DNF_Better_Counting)

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's totally anonymous there's nothing stopping someone trolling the statistics.

<comment><USER23> Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat on Fedora

True but we're already in that boat with the way that we gather statistics from mirror hits. I have a hard time seeing how a method like the one proposed would be any more vulnerable to tampering.

EDIT: spelling

<comment><USER24> The idea is that it isn't less vulnerable to tampering, but you pay a privacy and public image cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This change proposal can be tracked here: [https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DNF_Better_Counting](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/DNF_Better_Counting)

In short:

Add a new "countme" variable. This variable will: \- Start as a "true" value, \- Reset to a "false" value the first time the client successfully makes a request to Fedora mirror servers, and \- Be reset to a "true" value after seven days.

This way, rather than filtering by unique IP addresses, we can count only the "true" requests, so we count each machine once — but no more than once.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure what they want to count. It definitely isn't users, as they ignore multiple users per system. It seems to be something like "currently active and online machines". But then you should not ignore machines that will not be updated. Maybe they mean "machines that follow the weekly update schedule this week"?

That seems to be what Poeterring's approach counts.

<comment><USER23> Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat on Fedora. Take that for what you will

As far as I know, the desire is to get better numbers on how much the parts of Fedora are being used. There is always more work to do than there are folks to do all of it; having better numbers on how much different bits are being used helps us make better decisions on what to focus on.

Granted, I'm not Matt but I've heard him talk about similar things and have run into the issue myself - "Is anyone even using this? Is it worth putting this level of effort into this particular thing?"

EDIT: Phrasing of the last sentence

<comment><USER9> But Fedora should remain wary of an over-reliance on telemetry. It's very, very easy to draw the wrong conclusions about things, leading to decisions that reduce the quality of the product.

As an example, there are very likely to be packages that aren't often needed, but are absolutely critical when they are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just count the number of bug reports. That seems like a more useful metric anyway. If the users aren't complaining who cares.

(about 75% serious)

<comment><USER28> It's not a consistent metric. You'll get both spikes around new releases and changes that reflect the automated reporting/ease of reporting changes.

<comment><USER29> Also, since Fedora is primarily an integration project, many users report bugs upstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> what funny is i just started using fedora (and i have actually been really enjoying it).. but to help me remember its not apt or rpm or even yum i have been thinking to myself Do Not Follow - for no reason at all other than i first learned about it after installing a new machine and configuring firefox etc. :)

</comment><comment> dane-pgp > Lennart Poettering ... did suggest using an application-specific machine ID, > like those calculated by sd_id128_get_machine_app_specific().

Yes, I'm sure he did.

</comment><comment><USER31> Please don't use "UUID" for that, it's taken (and useful).

<comment><USER27> Well, they could just as easily use a "real" UUID [1] variant, and all the concerns of this topic would still remain the same.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wonderful. I guess I'll now have to find a way to regenerate this UUID or to spoof it every time Fedora tries to phone home.

If you want to count users, ask for permission during firstboot. If that's too much to ask, then I'll be in the market for a new OS. Maybe I'll finally go back to my first love: FreeBSD.

<comment><USER33> Read the whole article. They seem to have decided against that and for a simple 'countme' flag on update requests to mirrors. Possibly by only a random subset of machines.

No tracking, just simple numeric data for for purpose.</comment></comment>


How to Use Firejail to Set Up a WordPress Installation in a Jailed Environment - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-firejail-to-set-up-a-wordpress-installation-in-a-jailed-environment

<comment><USER2> What's the advantage of using firejail over docker? By the use of debootstrap I assume you also need to install a base system in the "firejail".</comment>


Time to Dump Time Zones - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/time-to-dump-time-zones.html <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12887007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12887007).</comment>


Advice to a college sophomore programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/advice-to-a-college-sophomore-programmer/ <comment><USER2> I would advise that instead of reading SICP, you should just take the class:

[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson- sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman- lectures/)

Similarly, using available online courses to get through the crunchier topics (compilers, theory of computation, garbage collection, artificial intelligence, etc.) have always been more beneficial to me than just straight trying to read a book on my own.

<comment><USER3> Whatever you do, do the SICP exercises. You'll learn a lot (and discover that you don't really know things you thought you did).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish someone had given me this useful advice back when I was a sophomore.. oh wait, thanks! It's really good advice, IMHO.

With regards to the first point...

Most companies here (Pakistan) are in the web/mobile app development business or developing CRUD apps for clients. While I don't necessarily think that's bad, I'd prefer doing something more innovative or interesting, possibly AI, data mining, or just something that's good on the social/humanitarian front.

What I'm wondering is, how can someone like me have a chance of getting an internship at a place doing something really useful or innovative? Getting a visa would be difficult for just an internship.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the US visa system sucks. Maybe there are some countries in Europe that are more sane about it? Otherwise, Google Summer of Code is probably a good bet for doing something worthwhile without one.

<comment><USER4> I think a company wouldn't want to go through the bother of issuing a visa just for an intern.

The problem with GSoC is that it doesn't count as an internship for companies that need one. Or meeting my university's requirement for an internship, although that requirement could be fought against.

<comment><USER5> Try to avoid companies that would value a run-of-the-mill internship over a highly productive GSoC. :)

On the subject of visas: I know that in the US, if you come on a student visa, there are certain allowances for summer internships in technical fields. Your local consulate should know the details.

<comment><USER4> I don't have a student visa unfortunately. Time to build an open source portfolio and get in line for GSoC... Any suggestions? I have a few small useful scripts that I've written over the years but they're not of good quality to release. Should I work on those or find some project to work on?

<comment><USER5> Here's a list of last summer's mentoring organizations: [http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/program/accepted_orgs/google...](http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/program/accepted_orgs/google/gsoc2010)

I haven't done it myself, so I don't know if my advice is any good, but I'd suggest picking one that interests you and getting started fixing bugs as soon as possible. And when you have a chance, double-check that they intend to take part this summer, too.

A friend of mine did GSoC a few summers ago. If you like, send me an email and I'll put you in touch.

<comment><USER4> Browsing through that list now... I'm not sure but I think someone from my uni did GSoC last year, I'll try finding out about that first. Thanks anyway!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's refreshing to see an article like this not contain points like "My CS degree was pretty useless and everything I need for my job I learned on my own"... While college isn't for everyone, much of the "developer approach" that I use to learning a language (whether it be from the docs/blogs/book) are skills I learned from my CS degree.

<comment><USER7> CS degrees are just as useful as you make them! CS degrees require personal learning and development, something that your classes try to get you to do. To be a good developer requires going above and beyond what your class requires. Take the challenges professors/teachers/lecturers give you. Think for yourself: experiment, try stuff, read Hacker News and other RSS feeds, etc. Education isn't about receiving, it's about learning. Dive into communities related to technologies you're learning. Oh, do try to learn to work in groups: it's invaluable experience. (Written as a senior in college)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Find a project. It doesn't have to be something meaningful or important, just do it! Write a scraper to find the nearest Starbucks to you. Make a group management website for your study groups. Write software to control a LEGO mindstorm robot. Just do something, post projects online, put code up on GitHub, and write something about what you did, and put it on a blog. This gives you a public record of interest in programming outside of work, which is very, very appealing to employers and probably the number one thing in getting to an interview. It will also give you practice writing and show you how you improve over time._

In my experience, I don't think a single person who has interviewed me has gone to the trouble of sifting through my commit histories and reviewed any of my code. When I mention the open source projects I commit to, they usually just nod and say, "that's cool." I don't think that it really helps all that much tbh.

Unless you wrote a major project that many businesses rely on, don't hedge your bets on your bug fixes and feature enhancements turning any heads.

</comment><comment><USER9> Get laid as much as possible.

</comment><comment><USER10> Point 2 is somewhat of a difficult area on my opinion. When looking at programming books, I usually have the following process in mind:

* How in depth are the official docs? If you're going to read a book on a language, you need a way to validate the book's contents. How else will you be able to tell the book is not leading you down the wrong learning path? This also gives you a chance to check on if the language is right for you.

* How old is the book? If the book is talking about the language 5 years ago, chances are syntax and ways structuring your program (object oriented features may have gotten better for example) have changed. Make sure you have the most up to date edition, and complement it with checking the API docs. Well written API docs will generally indicate if a way of doing something has changed, or will no longer be supported.

* Look at the author of the book, and see how close they are to the community of the programming language in question. Are they the creator? Contributor? Someone else?

* What is the book trying to achieve? Some great books expect you to have basic knowledge of the language, or some other specific concept (MVC for example). Make sure you know what you're getting into. Some books also act as "desk references" that could be potentially replaced by more up to date API docs on the language's website.

There's probably much more that can be added to the list, but I think these provide a basic sanity check.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point, I added an edit to that effect.

How do you tell the good tech books from the bad? Ask someone who is good at that technology. Too shy? O'Reilly and Pragmatic Programmer books are generally good, and you can often get good recommendations by searching on StackOverflow or SearchYC (<http://searchyc.com/rails+book>).

<comment><USER11> Amazon book reviews and never buy a book you haven't held in your hands, are pretty much the two rules I follow. The idea is basically widen what books in the field you have heard of through amazon, then get a hold of them some how(I usually get an inter library loan for a few weeks) to check depth and writing style. So far skipping step two has stuck me with books I didn't really appreciate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> WHILE YOU'RE STILL IN COLLEGE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ALL YOUR NON-PROGRAMMING OPPORTUNITIES ESPECIALLY IN WRITING AND DESIGN HOW IRONIC THAT THIS ARTICLE IS FROM A GROUPON PERSON AND GROUPON HAS SUCH CLEVER AND HUMOROUS WRITING AND BEAUTIFUL DESIGN YET HIS BLOG LIKE THIS COMMENT IS PRACTICALLY UNREADABLE BECAUSE OF YUCKY TYPEFACE AND BLOG SETUP DO WHAT OP SAYS BUT NOT WHAT HE DOES

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you like it now? Better? (aside from the broken images for the RSS logo)

<comment><USER12> Not really. Firefox on Windows XP. Needs:

      - smaller font (too much scrolling)
      - darker font (not enough contrast)
      - proportionally spaced font
      - left margin way too small
      - right margin doesn't need to be aligned
      - white space between bullets

Didn't mean to pick, it's just that this design is so different from the Groupon emails I enjoy getting every day :-)

I also wanted to point out some of the best advice I ever got, that even for a programmer, there's a lot more to life than programming, especially while you're still in college and so much else is readily available. Once you're in a cubicle, you won't have as many opportunities to learn other stuff.

[EDIT: I refreshed and it looks great now, all except the left margin. Wow, I feel empowered. Thank you Peter and thank you Groupon.]

<comment><AUTHOR> Try a hard refresh. I put in a completely different theme that has most of those things. It sounds like you're still getting the old theme.

Besides, Groupon might as well close up shop if they had to rely on my design sense :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for mailing lists? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a book[1] that I'm currently leaning towards self-publishing. I discuss the book here and on reddit. I've got an increasing number of twitter followers, and I get a decent amount of incoming email about it.
What I don't currently have is a mailing list so that I can send announcements to anyone who's interested. I'm thinking it would be good to fill that gap, and I'm interested in what software/services others are using for this.
Mailchimp is the one that first springs to mind, but what are the alternatives and how do they compare?
[1] http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/ <comment><USER2> We use Sendy [1], because it makes using Amazon Simple Email Services (SES) easy and it's much cheaper than competing services. There are a few free software alternatives to Sendy to use Amazon SES, but it's inexpensive enough not to worry about it.

[1] [http://sendy.co/](http://sendy.co/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Mailchimp is great. Easy to use, tons of features, and they have a free plan to get started. I've never had to evaluate the other competitors.</comment>


Ask HN: Self improvement programs - <AUTHOR>

I have been looking lately at the various "self improvement programs" available out there. And I am tempted to give it a try.
Now, there are quite a few different types: * short daily exercises * full-time one-week and targets: * happier life * success * money
 (and more)
Has anyone tried any such (or similar) programs ?
Did they change your life in any meaningful way ? <comment><USER2> Do something based on science, not on some kooky self-help guru.

The scientific literature supports only a few interventions that can measurably improve happiness:

\- keeping a daily gratitude journal (in which you write down what your thankful for at the end of every day; there's a great iPhone App for this actually)

\- giving things to others

\- investing your resources in experiences versus materials (a new gadget eventually loses its shine, but fun experiences, especially with friends, improve happiness over the long-term)

\- join a group that meets regularly (regardless of what kind of group it is); there's actually really strong evidence that this measurably improves happiness

<comment><USER3> The book "The How of Happiness" has a some other good evidence-based methods for increasing happiness too: <http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com/The-How-of- Happiness>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would be wary of self improvement programs that charge money. I'm not sure what exactly you've looked into, but there's a lot of information out there for free or cheap.

I've spent a decent amount of time reading self-improvement books/blogs, and for me the stuff that made the most impact were things that were tailored to the problems I was having at the time.

Here's an overview of what I've read over the years that have helped me to some extent:

I Can Do Anything if I Only Knew What it Was: [http://www.amazon.com/Could- Anything-Only-Knew-What/dp/04405...](http://www.amazon.com/Could-Anything- Only-Knew-What/dp/0440505003)

Paul Graham's Essays: <http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html>

How to Win Friends and Influence People: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Win- Friends-Influence-People/dp/14...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends- Influence- People/dp/1439167346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272636886&sr=1-1)

Four Hour Work Week: [http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live- Anywhere/d...](http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live- Anywhere/dp/0307353133)

Randy Pausch, Time Management: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0>

GTD: [http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free- Produc...](http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free- Productivity/dp/0142000280)

Steve Pavlina: <http://www.stevepavlina.com/>

7 Habits of Highly Effective People (reading this now): [http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective- People/dp/0671...](http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective- People/dp/0671708635)

So I would say "it depends" on what you want out of life and where you are now. Self improvement is a life-long task and you will need advice that changes as you progress.</comment>


After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses - <AUTHOR> http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/after-244-years-encyclopaedia-britannica-stops-the-presses/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto <comment><USER2> It is easy to disparage the Encyclopedia Britannica from a modern perspective - out-of-step, overpriced, outmaneuvered by competitors - but there is a great sadness here at the demise of something that represented an effort by western scholars to "capture the world's knowledge." Imagine assembling a "A" team of scholars and scientists, getting them to make substantial, substantive contributions in each of their respective areas of expertise, and publishing the results under the guidance of a top editorial board. The results echoed in the western world at the highest levels for no less than two centuries, culminating in a famous 1911 edition that was widely regarded as the pinnacle in assembled human knowledge to that time - something to be marveled at. For years, collectors paid a great premium to buy the 1911 edition, just for that reason. Even in the period leading up to the 1960s, the EB was a staple in most every western home where parents valued education and academic achievement for their kids. Whole hordes of door-to-door salesmen supported their families very comfortably just by selling this particular product.

So, yes, the EB became kind of laughable with its clumsy marketing efforts and awkward efforts to adapt to modern technology in the past couple of decades, but be kind to its memory. It was one of the great attempts in all history to try to do what many dream of doing today through the internet and the advantages of the digital age: limited by the resources of that day, for sure, but an amazing achievement nonetheless. There is something special that has died here and, if only for old time's sake, we can mourn its passing.

<comment><USER3> I think the most notable aspect of the 1911 edition - and every edition before and since - is that each is still around, distinct and readable. I don't yet know whether people will be able to reference a '2011 edition' of Wikipedia in a hundred years time. I'm aware of various archival projects, but unless they receive continued support, we could very easily be at risk of losing vast checkpoints in the history of humankind. The written word on paper and stone has been proven to last hundreds of years in general and thousands in rarer cases. Magnetic and electronic storage is yet to prove itself in that respect.

<comment><USER4> Well, download a dump of Wikipedia and be done with it. When you say "still around", you should know that digital bits have the potential to be around forever while paper books require a lot of efforts to keep around just a couple of decades.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preservation_%28library_and_arc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preservation_%28library_and_archival_science%29)

I have an encyclopedia that's now 120 (or so) at home and I don't read it anymore because I'm too affraid to damage it. It's sad because it's gold mine of stereotypes and good words on blacks and gays.

I think your point regarding "checkpoints" is more interesting but still falls moot because Wikipedia uses versionning. If you really cared that much about digital data you would do what you are doing with your book: keeping it.

<comment><USER5> Well, they have that potential as long as the copyright holders won't go out of business, consumers stop viewing content as disposable goods and hence keep copies... and the FBI stops closing sharing sites. Now seriously, you're wrong. I've got a book from 1640 and looks fine: as long as they're printed on acid free paper they should last for centuries. Check your digital media after two decades... Hard drives/floppies from 1992 are mostly gone, CD/DVDs won't last that long because of decomposition of dye. Backup tapes, good luck with that. Now, go check which sites from the 90s keep their old files (thank God for the Internet Archive). People take for granted that every bit will stay forever, that's delusional. We have to keep moving them, if everybody stops copying a content it will be lost in less than 50 years. Now, if you think that every book with stereotypes should be discarded, that's sad. We have the responsibility to preserve history, and the moral duty to challenge what we consider wrong with our reason. To wipe it off, that's censorship and a recurrent disease of totalitarian mindsets.

<comment><USER4> No matter the quality of the paper, it will eventually decay. If you can still read your book from 1640 that's really great but realistically how common is that? There are a lot of environmental factors that affect paper duration and in many areas of the world, a decade is already very long for paper (have worked with an NGO based in Thailand that has 15 years of archives; the first 5 years are hardly readable)

As I said, digital data has the _potential_ to exist forever. Digital data is independent from the media. A media is mostly cheap and disposable.

> Now, if you think that every book with stereotypes should be discarded, > that's sad.

I certainly didn't mean that (cf. "gold mine").

> We have the responsibility to preserve history, and the moral duty to > challenge what we consider wrong with our reason.

My point exactly. Which is why my comment invited the op to get a data dump and archive it properly. We all know that paper is sensible and would be careful for storage. We need to build and apply a similar set of precautions to store our digital data.

> To wipe it off, that's censorship and a recurrent disease of totalitarian > mindsets.

Definitely OT.

<comment><USER5> "My" book isn't particularly resilient, it's just the oldest one I've got at home. It was covered in mud, maybe that's why it was the only one not stolen from a very old family house of ours. After all that abuse, it still works, and as a passive device, has needed no energy to keep its contents for 370 years without any change in format or computing platform able to read it every other decade or so. Try any decent library, very old books use to be in the basement, you'd be amazed. It's a bit embarrassing having to remind you that at least before the 1990s people used old books. Most of the Archives have survived without any special care for centuries (this one is a great example: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo_de_Indias>). Of course, they didn't use toner neither chlorine bleached paper.

> We all know that paper is sensible (...)

"My point exactly".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> Only 8,000 sets of the 2010 edition have been sold, and the remaining 4,000 have been stored in a warehouse until they can be purchased._

I suspect it won't take them very long to sell those copies after this announcement.

<comment><USER7> I thought the same thing, and I'm a little surprised they didn't do a larger print run for the last edition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's interesting how gradual history can seem, even when we're in the middle of huge changes. Online sources of information just kept getting better, too slowly to really notice, and print encyclopedias seemed less and less relevant, but it wasn't until today that this really hit me. _The Encyclopaedia Britannica is no longer being printed._ That's kind of shocking, though in retrospect it seems almost inevitable.

<comment><USER9> Indeed history is gradual, but the thing that shocks me about this is that in 3,000 years when our successors look back, is this the period they're going to think our society ended?

Is their society going to be digging through the buried remains of silicon valley and saying "their civilization seemed to disappear when they started mass producing these 3.5" and 2.5" boxes containing sheets of metal.

It seems far fetched, but when all our data is digital, how long before we have a "burning of the library of Alexandria" moment. Thankfully all the companies ripping wikipedia articles and serving them with adverts are actually helping avoid a moment like this. Multiple-redundancy is likely the only method to prevent huge amounts of information from being lost.

<comment><USER8> Redundancy is easier than ever. To use your example of Wikipedia, there are a few sites around the world that mirror the periodic data dumps from Wikipedia, and if you feel like donating about 7.7 GB to the preservation of history, there are torrents:

<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_dump_torrents>

On that note, this is probably the best general discussion I've seen of archiving our digital data:

<http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs>

<comment><USER10> The scenario where paper seems to have a serious advantage over digital is when people disappear or lose interest in maintaining digital copies for a few decades. Paper just sits, relatively inert, in libraries or boxes in peoples attics. Meanwhile, finding a reader for the Jazz disk with your thesis has become impossible.

<comment><USER8> This is an argument for large-scale backups. If you're already maintaining around 100 TB of assorted backup data, the extra effort of preserving another megabyte of data is negligible, even if you don't consciously care about that particular megabyte.

My thesis is in Dropbox, and I emailed it to my GMail address. Both companies seem likely to faithfully back up my thesis for the indefinite future, because it would literally be more effort for them _not_ to back it up. I also have it on a USB drive somewhere, but I forgot where I put it. Incidentally, I also made a printed copy, but I have no idea where it is.

<comment><USER10> I did GMail-myself backups before Dropbox was around, and now have stuff on a Time Machine backup as well. But the networked backups are dependent on Google and Dropbox actively maintaining their servers for me, which it makes sense for them to do, but it's hard to depend on. If Google lost all traces of me today, that would be fine because I have a local backup, but it would be no big deal to them because I'm not a paying customer. As far as I know, they don't even have a legal obligation to maintain my data. If I have a photo or text I want to be available in 30 years, I think that printing it out and sticking on a bookshelf is much more reliable than depending on a nebulous third party or trusting that I won't inadvertently lose a set of backups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Back in the day, it was a great product. My family had an edition endorsed (in the first pages) by Queen Elizabeth II and Richard Nixon, and I can't calculate how many hours I spent leafing through the pages. I guess that's been replaced by Wikipedia's "Random article" link, but with EB you never got crap about Pokemon.

<comment><USER12> There was huge value in thumbing through these as a child. We could never afford the set, but I had used copies of individual volumes and I spent many, many hours reading random topics. You just don't get that kind of discovery in an online version. Maybe you could, but you don't.

<comment><USER13> Seriously? YOU don't? You've obviously never experienced the Wikipedia death spiral: 30 browser tabs open all on unrelated Wikipedia pages. It was dangerously close to an addiction for me at one point and the amount of random crap I now know it irritates me I'm still so poor at pub quizes. There's probably some Godwin's Law equivalent where once you've opened a tab relating to Hitler or the Nazis, having started off on an article about Bengal Tigers, you know it's time for bed.

<comment><USER12> The problem is that you're selecting the topics. The value of a physical encyclopedia is that they've selected the topics and you're browsing them at random.

<comment><USER14> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Random>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recall reading a story (couldn't find it just now) about how Bill Gates tried unsuccessfully to license the Britannica content to create his digital encyclopedia product. Instead, Microsoft cobbled together assets themselves and built Encarta (1993).

Microsoft proceeded to trounce the print Encyclopedia business by creating a better product that severely undercut the traditional players.

Here we are, 2012, finally Britannica is dead. That took longer than expected.

<comment><USER16> One thing I remember about Encarta back when the Pentium 75mHz was king, If you copied a passage of text and pasted it into MS word, it automatically generated a footnote entry. To this day I've never seen any other software do that. (Not saying there isn't any, I've just not seen it)

<comment><USER17> There was (is?) some software called PC Study Bible that did/does that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> At least they had the good sense not to form the Encyclopaedia Industry Association of America (EIAA)--an organization whose charter would have been to sue random Wikipedia users.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why not move to an on-demand printing model, I wonder? I can understand not devoting a large amounts of resources towards typesetting and storing new editions, but it does seem (at least from the comments here, and anecdotally elsewhere) that people enjoy older editions as objects d'art. There might very well be a market for selling, eg, "new" 1912 editions if you can avoid the warehousing overhead and ship them direct.

Licensing opportunity, perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER20> It's too bad Encyclopaedia Britannica won't collaborate with Wikipedia. The company could bring their authors, reviewers, content, and experience from a sinking ship to an information platform that is successful but could be even better.

<comment><USER14> "About half a million households pay a $70 annual fee that includes access to the full database of articles, videos, original documents and access to mobile applications." That's $35 million a year, which is not as good as the best year of the print version (which would have $150 million in sales if I'm figuring correctly), but is still not too shabby.

<comment><USER21> Books don't need a cadre of software engineers pushing out updates for iOS + every Android device, video transcoding licenses, account servicing, servers, an 800-number staffed with tech support...

The book model was far better.

<comment><USER14> Do you have any actual stats to back that up?

Software doesn't need to be printed in 32 large, luxurious volumes and sold by a cadre of door-to-door salesmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> $1,400 to buy it in book form. That may be part of the reason it's not being printed anymore.

<comment><USER23> I wonder if selling the most popular Wikipedia articles in printed form for around $100 would have a market.

<comment><USER24> It's already being done. I stumble across books like that in Amazon from time to time. The reviews usually give it away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Well damn. Now I feel I need to go out and buy a copy, so I don't get sent all the way back to the stone age in the event of a massive solar flare or nuclear war or zombie apocalypse.

<comment><USER26> I wonder what technologies and goods would a survivor be able to recreate based on Britannica alone.

<comment><USER27> That sounds like a gameshow pitch in the making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I recommend the 1968 or so, EB editions if you are looking for an older one. The 1972 or 1973 was the last of the classic style ones, after that they went with Micropedia/Macropedia etc. which is not what you want.

The articles are well written, and if covering pre-20th century history, literature, or other topics, should still be excellent introductions.

<comment><USER29> I think the copy at my parents' house is about 1968. I remember when I was young and we got it. I guess I'll have to duke it out with my sister for who gets it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Right after I read this article, I read the wikipedia article on Encyclopedias. I didn't actually know a lot about them.

Edit: Typo.

</comment><comment><USER31> Looks like Britannica got flushed down the public toilet:

[http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2004/11/the- faith-b...](http://www.ideasinactiontv.com/tcs_daily/2004/11/the-faith-based- encyclopedia.html)

</comment><comment><USER32> What a pity. I wonder if they'll return to publishing when it becomes cheaper to print iPad-like devices in the near future?

I personally believe that EB had a place in the world. For example, I'd happily pay a few thousand Euro's/$/Pounds for "the complete, historical Encyclopaedia Britannica" that contains every single release of EB back to the beginning. The context of historical discovery that would provide would be amazing.

Of course, it'd have to be digital.

(Disclaimer: I collect old dictionaries for the same reason: culture context as things change over the decades..)

</comment><comment><USER33> Sad, but inevitable. I owned a copy growing up and it was an invaluable source of information. I remember flipping through the volumes and marveling at how much information I had at my fingertips. For whatever reason my computer has never given me that same feeling of awe and wonder. There's just something about staring at a bookshelf filled with those tomes of knowledge that triggers my thirst for information.

</comment><comment><USER34> I never really coveted EB but I promised myself that the moment I strike it rich with my startup I will order the print edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: the 20 volume 2nd edition set is just $995 ([http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/?view=usa&ci=01986...](http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/?view=usa&ci=0198611862)).

</comment><comment><USER35> You can get the complete EB on the iPad for $1.99 per month.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd just like to note that, as with the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, the fact that the _publisher_ is no longer going to print future editions does not accurately predict that future editions will be unobtainable in print format.

You just won't be able to get them on Amazon, for 4-figures.

</comment><comment><USER37> If you don't feel or understand the sadness others express in regards to this announcement, pretend it's hundreds of years in the future and you hear that Wikipedia is finally shutting down, having become an irrelevant artifact of the past.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yet $1400 is a reasonable price... There is a distinctive pleasure in reading a printed encyclopaedia that convenient on-line browsing can't fulfil. Old Macropaedia editions are still useful, I prefer their summaries about physics than those of Wikipedia for instance. I'd love that everything in this world were digitalized, but it's not yet and maybe it will never be. Despite the efforts of many people there are huge amounts of relevant knowledge available on paper only, it makes me sad to realise that this obvious fact -and all those sources- are almost forgotten now.

</comment><comment><USER38> I never used EB (I had a set of World Book Encyclopedias) but the thought is the same...it is a weird sense of finality that comes with knowing something you grew up with that was so oddly reliable is fading away due to technology that provides things it doesn't (fast iterations on rapidly changing data) but lacks others now possibly perceived as less valuable or assumed without testing the veracity (perceived up front accuracy/fact-checking).

</comment><comment><USER39> How in the hell is this just now happening if ENCARTA was discontinued over three years ago?

Seems like this should have taken place ten years ago or more.

<comment><USER24> There was still some demand for the printed books, and apparently it was enough to generate some profit. They really are beautiful-looking books. You couldn't decorate your study with Encarta.

On a related note, according to Wikipedia (!): "Microsoft had originally approached Encyclopædia Britannica, the gold standard of encyclopedias for over a century, in the 1980s, but it declined, believing its print media sales would be hurt; however, the Benton Foundation was forced to sell Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. at below book value in 1996 when the print sales could no longer compete with Encarta..."

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encarta>

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is a fantastic example of a company embracing technology (or more generally newer forms of business) and not holding on to the "old way" of doing business.

The fact that their printed volumes account for a negligible amount of their revenue shows that this wasn't even a spur of the moment decision, they saw the writing on the wall a long time ago and planned accordingly.

<comment><USER41> It's a terrible example (or perhaps a "fantastic" example of a company avoiding reality for eons). The writing has been on the wall for EB for at least 15 years, in fact there was even a book written about it:

[http://www.amazon.com/Blown-Bits-Economics-Information- Trans...](http://www.amazon.com/Blown-Bits-Economics-Information- Transforms/dp/087584877X)

How do we know they're even going to make money now?

<comment><USER42> "About 85 percent of revenues come from selling curriculum products in subjects like math, science and the English language; the remainder comes from subscriptions to the Web site, the company said."

They weren't avoiding reality. It looks like they've planned this years ago, but kept printing encyclopaedias while they were still profitable.

Let's say after the year 2015, demand for non-tablets will begin to reduce by 50% per year. Does that mean companies should stop making non-tablets in the year 2015? For some, maybe. What if several competitors has already exited the market (as had happened here), should you exit too? If your competitors left that means although while the pie has gotten smaller, you're getting a larger slice of it. Stay while it's profitable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Hopefully the electronic edition will keep going for the foreseeable future; replacing its effect ourselves would be a real pain. Wikipedia just does not replace it; Wikipedia aims to presents consensus of sources on the web (even when it is broadly acknowledged that consensus is wrong), EB aims to present correctness.

</comment><comment><USER44> I still have my grandfather's 1911 set, which I am trying to still cherish after recently discovering that the whole thing is now on the internet.

My affection for physical objects like books and CDs (and I have acquired a LOT of them) has become increasingly anachronistic, even just over the last five years.

</comment><comment><USER17> That's a real shame. I guess I had better look around to see if I can get one. There's still nothing comparable to an encyclopedia for being able to browse interesting topics that are reliable.

</comment><comment><USER45> Its sad to see, and in another way a little scary. I sure hope we have enough dinosaurs to burn to keep the Internet running. Long live "The Cloud".

<comment><USER46> I'm sure more carbon is being used in cutting down the trees to turn into paper, and then shipping all of that paper to customers.

<comment><USER47> Actually chainsaws are pretty efficient.

I say there is no way more "carbon" is used shipping a few thousand books than powering the entire internet.

<comment><USER46> you think it's more efficient to ship everyone an entire set of encyclopedias than to keep wikipedia's servers running?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> "Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it's much more expansive and it has multimedia."

The future is clearly <http://www.britannica.com>

<comment><USER41> The future is so clearly _not_ britannica.com. That site doesn't even work without javascript, and where the heck is the "Edit" button?

<comment><USER49> I think it's ridiculous in this day and age for people to expect webpages to work without JS.

<comment><USER50> Oh, really...

In an age,

* where the Internet can be seen on ever increasing number of diverse devices

* where every day people discover that every additional layer of software complexity adds security vulnerabilities

* where the default installation of even many existing heavily used browsers, for both personal and business, have everything except html and stylesheets disabled, especially for new sites

* where some/many people may wish to choose to use your site in its most bare form possible, including command line users

* etc.

you choose to ignore all of these usage scenarios by not even having a graceful fallback for your site?

Thankfully, most web administrators and developers are not as short-sighted as you, even most start-ups!

One more thing: if a new site, even one that has been heavilty recommended to me, does not provide even basic information without scripting or has a horrible front-page with a default NoScript Firefox installation, I treat it as I would a spam site and I immediately desist from using the site and ignore the link.

You will not waste my time with lack of basic Web competence and awareness.

<comment><USER49> First of all, calm down.

I think people disabling JS for security should be willing to accept the downfalls.

"where the default installation of even many existing heavily used browsers, for both personal and business, have everything except html and stylesheets disabled, especially for new sites"

I don't know what you're talking about here. I've never seen a default install of any browser (on a desktop) except IE in Windows server have JS off by default

"where some/many people may wish to choose to use your site in its most bare form possible, including command line users"

I will grant command line users should be accommodated where they will be expected to be a large proportion of your users (linux install instructions, for example) otherwise, give me a break. Why should I take my time working for .01% of users using a command line.

Now, I don't think this means that people should be using JS when it's not necessary, like if your page is mostly text. But all of the use cases you cite are a small minority of the users of most sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The World Book Encyclopedia will live on!

</comment><comment><USER52> Raise your hand if you thought they had already stopped printing it.

/me raises his hand

</comment><comment><USER53> It's weird, but I kinda wouldn't mind having a set of the last Encyclopaedia Britannica. The zenith of 244 years of tradition, an emblem of the transition of our knowledge to an online space, and still very functional in a quaint way...

<comment><USER54> I wonder what it would be worth in 40 years?

<comment><USER55> I have some old sets of books over 100 years old. They're still fairly worthless.</comment></comment></comment>