iPhone logs my complete movement profile - <AUTHOR> http://board.protecus.de/t42771.htm#360301 <comment><USER2> That's how the iOS core location API works (and it has been this way since iOS 5 atleast, if not earlier).

In particular, there is a |startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges| method ([https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLo...](https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/CoreLocation/Reference/CLLocationManager_Class/CLLocationManager/CLLocationManager.html#//apple_ref/occ/instm/CLLocationManager/startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges)), which "callbacks" into apps that have registered with the Core Location framework for significant change updates. The update is provided generally only when cell towers change, so it is not a battery drain (or not a significant one). Hence, your mobile operator definitely has this data, and is most likely already tracking it and/or piping it to the NSA etc.

Significant change monitoring is used by Google Now among other apps (I believe Facebook also does this, I find that more sneaky since they have no obvious need for it). Google Maps _navigation_ does not use this, since it needs more granular and accurate data hence it uses the more battery-intensive location APIs.

If the complaint is that it's okay for Apple to collect this data for apps to use, but there is no need to log it, especially since the user might choose to not allow any apps to access their location data, then that's a fair point. I don't know if iOS shows these logs only on the beta versions, or whether they are stored persistently on release versions as well.

Source: I am a iOS dev, and have built location based apps.

<comment><USER3> One _really_ important bit of information to add to the first full paragraph is that when the app tries to use startMonitoringForSignificantChanges: for the first time, the user is asked whether or not they want the app to. If they select "Don't Allow", then it's game over for that app until the user changes the setting in Settings. This doesn't stop iOS from doing what it's doing, but should quell fears that random apps are just logging all kinds of user data and sending it to who knows where.

<comment><USER4> Very true. I wasn't even aware of that part of the Settings app until I started developing. Apple should at least allow developers to "deep link" into the settings screen to remove that friction.

<comment><USER5> Apple used to allow that (well, developers figured out the right URIs to use), but they broke it in iOS 5.1.1 or 6 IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to build transparent context-aware services, your system will need to create this information. Nothing new to do with the iPhone, since Telcos already have had this information for ages (and could use them anonymously) - it's good at least that in this system you see how the data is being analysed and associated with Work/Home, etc... and not that it is hidden in the background.

<comment><USER7> Given current affairs, it's bad that this system doesn't inform the user about a new feature being activated on default. It is hidden in the background.

<comment><USER8> Actually when you setup your iPhone (including these betas) it _does_ ask you if you want to have the feature enabled. It certainly wasn't on by default for me, I agreed to it. Granted it doesn't go into incredibly great detail of exactly what it was tracking but it does give you the gist.

If the NSA wants to track you, there's far simpler ways than asking Apple to build a new product feature than can be disabled.

<comment><USER9> _> If the NSA wants to track you, there's far simpler ways than asking Apple to build a new product feature than can be disabled._

I don't know...letting a plethora of private entities collect and aggregate user data for easy access with (or without in many cases) a court order seems almost like the epitome of simplicity. Most of the hard work (both resource- wise and legal) has been done for you or is easy to do. Just cause one could design a simpler system of acquiring user data doesn't mean that features like this aren't profoundly simple and useful to them.

I take your point though, that the NSA doesn't need to direct a company to code features that collect data...because so many companies already do. It's a waste of their breath. They just need to concentrate on grabbing what has already been grabbed. We've been the product for a long time now, and we're either being sold to the government, or the government is taking what they want under (il)legal cover.

<comment><USER8> Which is why there's an off switch for the feature. Of course we don't know if the offswitch is an offswitch or a 'hide this from the user' switch but then we have to start mistrusting all the technology around us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Android does this too with Google Now.

iOS7 uses frequent locations, pretty much like Google Now, to provide the travel times, with traffic, between your frequently visited locations.

Here's a screenshot: [http://cdn.macrumors.com/article- new/2013/06/location2.jpg](http://cdn.macrumors.com/article- new/2013/06/location2.jpg)

<comment><USER11> Yes

Google Now is bordering scary

Here's what happens on Google Now when you travel

1 - Search for a place (this is usually the hotel you're going to)

2 - Get there

3 - Google Now will give a traffic alert "xx minutes until $PLACE" (the place you searched for in n.1 )

<comment><USER3> I didn't even mind that. What really freaked me out about Google Now is when it started showing package tracking cards based on having shipping notices in my email. Of course Google has access to all of that, but it weirded me out the first time I saw it.

<comment><USER12> Agreed.

Most of the times I check invoice emails I am looking for the Tracking Information.

This is what makes it tough to move away from Google. Yes they give the NSA access to my data and border on scary by analyzing all of my usage but they offer some really handy options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You mean that thing it asks you for permission to do when you set up the phone, and gives you a slider to disable? It actually does it? Well, I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked.

</comment><comment><USER14> Atleast they will show you the data, unlike phone companies who hold all this data anyway.

Once you have a phone device with an active signal you are tracked, and that's just not being paranoid either.

<comment><USER15> But how much of the collected data do they show you? IMO services like this should be opt-in, rather than opt-out.

<comment><AUTHOR> it's currently ios7 beta, i really hope they do it opt-in in the future.

<comment><USER16> The difference between ios7 and previous versions is not that ios7 is logging. It's that ios7 is telling you that it's logging and what it is logging. Location Services always worked this way - it just wasn't exposed to the user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The same happens with Google Maps [https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/](https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/) unless you disable location history.

I think it's naive to suppose that your location information is not stored anywhere. Moreover, your location can be determined also if you're using a dumb-phone using cell towers triangulation.

</comment><comment><USER18> A long time ago, when the first iphone location logs got attention, we made a little web-page for people to visualise this:

[http://markolson.github.com/js-sqlite-map- thing/](http://markolson.github.com/js-sqlite-map-thing/)

Blog post: [http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/15210221400/visua...](http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/15210221400/visualising- iphone-tracking-data)

> It turns out people have no squirms dragging and dropping their private > backup files - often all their files, and not just picking out the files we > ask for even - onto a webpage running code we wrote.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have been using the iOS7 beta since it came out, and before doing this, it had asked me for permission. This is opt-in, so if you don't like it you don't have to use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes on install it asks if it is allowed to use location services at all (for all apps) but not for this tracking feature.

<comment><USER20> Both iPad and iPhone iOS 7 betas asked me separately about this feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's wrong with this? Apple are openly providing this information for you to view - rather than others who don't even warn the user. Plus, it's improving their services which you more than likely need.

Why complain? You can opt out.

<comment><USER22> > Why complain?

Because the person in the article is German, and Germans love their privacy- by-default and opt-in. Datenschutz über alles.

<comment><USER23> Germany has the "benefit" of having experienced the Gestapo and Stasi so there is knowledge how dangerous omniscient parties are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why do our European leaders even plan RFID in licenceplates? With this in the default 'ON' position on all smartphones they can already keep an eye on everybody. [http://www.autoblog.nl/images/wp2013/tweet-2.jpg](http://www.autoblog.nl/images/wp2013/tweet-2.jpg)

<comment><USER25> Stop being paranoid - they can already track you from cell tower data.

<comment><USER26> We should stop being paranoid because we are already being tracked?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It is nothing new. In previous iOS, this data was not presented to users at all.

Android does this too.

At least you can turn this off in iOS 7 beta 5.

<comment><AUTHOR> \- It was invisible to the normal user! \- It collects these exact data since iOS 7 beta 4 and shows it since beta 5!

<comment><USER28> This is just flat untrue. It has collected this data since b1 and I found the screen that showed it in b2 or b3 (but it was probably present in b1 as well). It also explicitly asks you if you want this feature (separate from the location services opt-in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It also does analysis, similar to Google Now, that tells you how long it will take to get home from where you are now.

</comment><comment><USER30> Society has accepted to be tracked all the time/everywhere with the introduction of mobile phones.

If we don't like this, we should start to talk more proactively to people about the dangers our technology brings.

<comment><USER31> In my opinion, "accepted" is not the most precise word to describe it. If telco companies would say at the beginning: "You can buy mobile phone from us, but the part of the deal is that you will be tracked. Do you accept that?" If most people say Yes, that would be accepting it.

The reality was, that it was slowly revealed over time that the tracking is being done, and most people realized it only after mobile phones became a norm and very hard to get rid of.

<comment><USER30> True.

I'd say that it's the responsibility of those familiar with technology to reveal what possibilities it opens up.

And of course it's the responsibility of the Press to give these points the visibility they deserve.

And one problem of the past was probably the disconnect between tech people and Press people (tech was not understood by the people behind the presses). Today, we have tech bloggers and social media. Let's hope this will make up for something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Since this is a developer preview, there are plenty of other logging options as well.

For example, if you got to the Settings -> Developer -> Logging menu, you can dump all your network traffic.

You can also do this on (some) application-levels, e.g. if you go to the iMessage preferences, you can enable "iMessage Logging" and "Registration Logging", same for FaceTime (though I'm not sure why any developer would need this, it looks more like this is an Apple-internal thing that they forgot to disable for the public).

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm pretty sure this is completely against the NDA...No respect.

</comment><comment><USER34> Wow, this is an amazing find.

I can understand that Apple/govt would love this information. But anyone has guesses on why this would be a public facing feature?

<comment><USER6> Four years ago I led a project like this. In this slideset you can see on page 4 what we wanted to build and on page 5 whate we would need: [http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/slides/vodafone- pye.pdf](http://www.w3.org/2008/09/msnws/slides/vodafone-pye.pdf)

<comment><USER35> This is a super-interesting project, but not something I would be interested in using.

If I arrive at Piccadilly Circus, I don't want my phone to tell me what service I [should need/should be using] - I want to easily and consistently access any service that I want from my phone.

I want to be in control of my phone, not for my phone to be in control of me.

<comment><USER6> Even then people were overwhelmed by the phone functions and could not navigate the directory when they needed something quick. With people having installed tens of apps nowadays, this problem is even worse...

<comment><USER35> I feel that the correct solution to this is approximately the one that now exists: allowing people to control how the navigation screens look, and control for themselves how to access the apps they use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> BTW, it asks specifically if you want to share the information with Apple to improve maps data before activating that feature.

</comment><comment><USER37> What depresses me is, I see how this information could be used in many kinds of amazing ways, but since I cannot control who gets it and what they will do with it, I refuse to use it for fear that it will be used against me.

It is the tragedy of the modern connected world, one that Stallman and others saw coming years ago. And it will keep getting worse.

<comment><USER38> iOS let's you choose:

\- Whether this information is collected at all \- which specific apps can access it \- whether apple can receive an anonymized copy of it to improve their maps

The data is stored securely on your device and you can see it delete it.

What more control do you want?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Looks like they're just making visible what they've been doing for years, hardly a new controversy.

2011: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/225845/Why_Apple_Tracks_You_V...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/225845/Why_Apple_Tracks_You_Via_iPhone_It_Not_Why_You_Think.html)

<comment><USER40> True, but we all know from marketing/propaganda lessons that frequent repetition is the only way to drive a point home in most cases... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This was covered in The Verge this week: [http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4590794/ios-7-will-ask- user...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/5/4590794/ios-7-will-ask-users-to- help-improve-maps-by-sharing-frequent-locations)

</comment><comment><USER42> Im not related to this project, but I thought its worth mentioning here:

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/offpocket/off- pocket?ref...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/offpocket/off- pocket?ref=category)

</comment><comment><USER43> I thought this only happens with your permission. I remember this is in the first few screens after you update. Also in the screen shot of his it clearly shows he gave permission to remember location. Why is this news? What am I not seeing?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> a bit scary to see exactly how often and when i was where with my gf... nice to see they added a microphone privacy setting.

Anyway imho it's close to a perfect surveillance system.

<comment><USER30> I don't think it's wise to trust any such "privacy setting".

What devices really need is a hardware switch allowing us to physically disconnect cameras and microphones.

I've never understood why this was not introduced as a standard when laptop cams/mics started being built-in.

<comment><USER44> How can you trust a hardware switch any more than a software switch? Granted you can take your hardware apart to inspect it, but:

\- can you put your laptop together again? (especially tablets) \- will you be able to see the switch innards to ensure it is disconnected? \- who will bother?

<comment><USER45> Someone could take apart such a switch once and verify that it works, and then tell everyone else who owns such a device. With software, this is very hard, and when software can be updated at any time it is impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This does not exist :)) looked for it, and I have the same beta.

<comment><USER47> It does. Maybe you didn't look very closely, or maybe it doesn't exist on older devices (I have iPhone 4S and I have this feature).

<comment><USER46> iPad mini here A1455

<comment><USER48> If anybody was wondering, A1455 is the cellular model. So it should be able to collect this information accurately.

Although, let's look at the title:

> iPhone logs my complete movement profile (iOS7 screenshots) (protecus.de)

We're not talking about iPads here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: TV Today Mac App, track show schedules in the notification center - <AUTHOR> http://tvtoday.20dots.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the feedback.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you monetize a marketplace for commercial drone services? - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder and I run dronehire.org, where we connect commercial drone operators with clients.
Our core service is facilitating quote requests being sent to drone operators, based on the potential client's requirements such as location and type of service (aerial photography, mapping, hyperspectral imaging etc.). We are currently monetizing this service with premium operator subscriptions, which give them access to a higher number of quote requests.
We've also been approached by multinational mining companies and government departments looking to hire drone operators for lucrative contracts (in excess of 50k).  We don't currently have the infrastructure set up for subcontracting, so what we're looking at doing is asking the operators that we connect with these clients to give us a percentage of the invoice, and possibly a percentage of any work done for this client within a certain time period e.g. 24 months.  Is this reasonable?  How would you go about monetizing these contracts?
Any feedback would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> What you need to be thinking about is how different models affect incentives.

With your subscription model there's no way for the participant to work around you, but with a per-transaction based commission you need to think about how the participants are going to avoid paying you a fee.

If your drone vendors rely upon you for future work you could use the threat of kicking them off the platform to encourage them to be honest with you, but you'd need still need some independent way to verify if the transaction happened off-platform without them telling you.

Another approach might be to build a service (i.e SaaS) on-top of your marketplace that both sides of the market think is worth the commission-fee (it doesn't have to be SaaS, it could also be a traditional business service like escrow, arbitration, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER3> Do the governments and MNCs approaching you perceive you as working on their behalf? Are they willing to disclose a maximum rate they're willing to pay, or is there a reasonable "rule of thumb" estimate you can use to start off with?

If so, negotiate the lowest possible rate with your suppliers - who could get more similar work from you in future - and tell your government/MNC that you have one or more parties willing to do it for $xxk, and your fee for arranging everything is $xk. You'll put them in touch and walk them through the process of actually hiring the drone everything after they've accepted your $x fee.

Congratulations, you're now a drone charter broker, possibly the world's first.</comment>


Show HN: We are building a new type of voice assistant. Is our copy clear? - <AUTHOR> https://clinq.ai/ <comment><USER2> I don't use a voice assistant so perhaps the jargon is not clear to me. For what it is worth, your title here is much clearer for me at least:

If you asked me which is clearer:

 _" CLINQ provides you with AI-enhanced telephony that automatically completes important tasks during calls, minimizing your wrap-up time."_

or

 _" CLINQ is building a new type of voice assistant."_

I would certainly say the second is clearer.

It is also not clear if you are selling a product that someone would install to enhance their existing phone system or if you have some sort of cloud service.

Do I get to keep my existing phone numbers or not? Does this work for land lines and cell phones or only for zoom calls and hangouts or vice versa?

I guess it the end I think you might have something compelling but I really have no idea what it actually is other than an enhanced telephony experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> The general idea of what you're offering is clear. But your copy is missing some critically important information: where does your AI run, how does it get live call audio, and how do you do that in a way that keeps that call audio data private (where "private" here means "CLINQ doesn't have access to it either, even if they wanted to")?</comment>


A Victorian Lady's Christmas Gift Guide. - <AUTHOR> https://mimimatthews.com/2016/12/19/a-victorian-ladys-christmas-gift-guide/ <comment><USER2> "A costly gift from a gentleman to a young lady would be indelicate, as having the appearance of a bribe upon her affections."

I appreciate this line. There's some foresight here to avoid pressuring a woman or forcing some obligation on her due to an expensive gift.

Gender aside, that's a nice foresight to have with anyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting article!

The title as posted is a bit misleading, as the article covers not just gifts the era considered appropriate for men but gifts for both men and women of varying degrees of relation (married, family, courting/engaged, etc.) I'd suggest changing to the title on the article itself, "A Victorian Lady's Christmas Gift Guide."

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point, but I thought the actual title of the article was misleading since most of it is about gifts for men.</comment></comment>


What's the Difference Between Copenhagen and Everett? - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=11202 <comment><USER2> I highly recommend Eliezer Yudkowsky's Quantum Physics Sequence (of articles):

[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Quantum_Physics_Sequence](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Quantum_Physics_Sequence)

According to Everett / Decoherence interpretation, as explained by Eliezer, atomic or subatomic particles are not _physically real_ —let alone macroscopic objects made with them.

What's _physically real_ is the single _amplitude distribution_ over the infinite-dimensional mathematical space of all possible _joint configurations_ of all the particles in the universe. This distribution—as well as boggling the mind—is complex-valued, continuous, differentiable, and evolving with time according to the well known QM equations. Crucially, it may be _more or less factorizable_ over any given subset of its infinitely many dimensions.

"You" and "me" are just two (more or less) factored subspaces of The amplitude distribution.

Therefore, the question of where do the Born probabilities come from (an open question in QM) is shown to be inextricably linked to an understanding of the physical basis of consciousness (another big open question.) The Born probabilities may represent the "amount of consciousness" (of "you", the observer) that is split among newly factored subspaces, every time "you" get further fragmented, aka. decohered, aka. "entangled" with new blobs of amplitude.

I cannot recommend Eliezer's series of articles highly enough.

<comment><USER3> You will not gain much understanding of quantum mechanics from that series of blog posts and will accumulate a lot of woo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've found Sean Carroll's podcasts since starting to study and think about this subject more seriously. I can definitely recommend it.

Realism vs. subjectivism might be a false dichotomy in the quantum realm, hiding alternative narratives. For example, perhaps the measurement problem is able to give us a notion of true objects, as opposed nebulous clouds of atoms, where objects are strongly entangled internally and until they are entangled with each other they almost exist in separate realities. Background to this idea is back holes being the fastest scramblers of information, my limited understanding, and wild imagination.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm becoming more of a fan of Everett. Wave collapse feels like nonsense, and requires arbitrary notions of "observers". I don't fully grasp the ramifications of the Many Worlds interpretation, but if it means reality is deterministic, I'll take it.

<comment><USER6> MWI feels like nonsense to me.

The problem is that it's unbounded. It's not just about specific measured quantum events, because that begs the question about how and where and why universes branch off.

Without that foundation, it becomes about _all possible_ quantum events. Literally. Any moving particle that has a chance to decay may decay at any time, spawning a universe. And some of those spawned interactions will lead to other spawned interactions...

Somehow you have to get the Born Rule from a number of possible interactions that is so big it reduces the number of particles in the universe to an insignificant rounding error.

Assuming this number is even countable (up for debate) there must be universes in which quantum physics doesn't appear to work as it does here.

You can't just assume that somehow you get the right answer with a nice converging integral. Because the complete list of possible MWI universes includes a very small - but not zero - number where consistently unlikely interactions are the norm, so they operate with the "wrong" laws - for example neutrons that refuse to decay, or gluons that stay permanently glued.

Which being the case, we don't know whether _this_ universe is a probabilistic freak and the "real" laws are different to the ones we see here. Maybe our Born Rule is the freak, and most universes operate differently. With MWI, there's no way to tell.

And so on for other issues. MWI is best left to science fiction plot lines. I really can't see it making sense as either falsifiable science or consistent philosophy.

<comment><USER7> This is a very common misunderstanding based on the sloppy way people tend to explain Many Worlds. In the Many Worlds picture, branching of wave functions isn't built into the basic postulates of QM. Not every quantum event results in branching.

Branching an emergent property of large systems. Consider the following:

* I have a qbit in a superposition for 0 and 1

* I as a large, hot, wet macroscopic system interact with that qbit in such a way that my future behaviour depends on the state of that qbit (say if I measure it to be 1 I shoot myself and if I get 0 I go for a walk)

If I try to measure the qbit, I become entangled with it. According to unitary evolution, my wave function would be an entangled superposition of the two events. However, for macroscopic systems entanglement and superpositions are basically meaningless. I couldn't do an interferometry experiment on my body that would determine if I'm in a entangled state so a many worlds person would say that the wave function of be unvierse has effectively branched into two parts that never very little overlap or influence on each other.

——————————————————

Maybe this analogy will help: If I have a cup of water and we look at it on a macroscopic scale, there's a very clear difference between the liquid and the air above it. There's a division. However, if you zoom in, that division becomes very fuzzy. There's a region near the waters surface where air molecules and water molecules freely mix and interact and there's actually a somewhat smooth crossover between the air and water. So the phase separation between a cup of water and the air above it isn't a fundamental part of the rules of physics. It's just an emergent behaviour like the branching of the wave function.

<comment><USER8> Right. The problem of interpretation arises when the qbit has value 0 with probability 75%, and value 1 with probability 25%. In what sense can the universe be said to have branched into two, yet the probabilities are not evenly divided? What can probability even mean if both branches are in some sense realized - is one branch 3x as "real" as the other?

<comment><USER7> Again, I'd say you're misunderstanding the point. The branches aren't a real thing in quantum mechanics. They're just a particular way of looking at the wave function of the universe. In the evolution of the wave function, it sometimes will 'split' into two parts that are essentially independent of each other and may have different amplitudes associated with them. These amplitudes may be shown to correspond to the (square root of the) probability of finding yourself in one branch or another.

However, if you knew about the entire wavefunction as an outside godly observer to the universe might, then there'd be no point in speaking of 'branches'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of bikes and less of a smell.</comment>


Glow: Map Reduce for Golang - <AUTHOR> https://blog.gopheracademy.com/advent-2015/glow-map-reduce-for-golang/ <comment><USER2> Glow: Map Reduce for Golang

I enjoyed reading this post. What especially surprised me is, how easy it is to get going with Glow.

One caveat with the standalone example though is: You need to install Glow first (even though this is a one-liner and appears later in the tutorial)

You addressed the static nature of Glow data flows but also mentioned, that it is possible to do fix-point iteration (by the example of a linear regression). I would love to see an example for such a data flow. I've looked up the examples on [1] and [2] but didn't see one.

As I get it, it is also possible to branch a data flow depending on the result of a condition (if-then-else). Is there an example for this?

Wouldn't it be possible to do even general recursion with this programming model? (I can't come up with a reason why not if the aforementioned things work.)

It is possible to use distributed file systems (like HDFS) as well as distributed databases (like MongoDB) as data sources and intermediate data, as I get it, is sent via channels between processes. If such a channel breaks (e.g., because of a network partition) is there a some kind of failover (rescheduling, making sure a recovering process doesn't break the data flow, ...)? Any plans incorporating Hystrix?

This is great stuff. I'm looking forward to read more about Glow.

[1] [https://github.com/chrislusf/glow](https://github.com/chrislusf/glow) [2] [https://github.com/postfix/glow_examples](https://github.com/postfix/glow_examples)</comment>


Eight Features Windows 8 Borrowed From Linux - <AUTHOR> http://blog.websoftdevelopment.com/article/tips/4/Eight-Features-Windows-8-Borrowed-From-Linux/1677.html

<comment><USER2> I think some of the "features" windows is "borrowing" are pretty suspect:

native USB 3.0 support is almost laughable. Does anyone actually think Microsoft wasn't going to natively support USB 3 until they saw it was on linux?

I also don't think it's fair to say that cloud integration borrows from linux when both are really just an integrated dropbox clone.

<comment><USER3> SkyDrive has been online since 2007, before DropBox even existed. While I agree that it's not copied from Linux, it's hardly fair to call it a DropBox clone.

Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft (on SkyDrive, actually)

<comment><USER2> Wow, how have i not heard of skydrive? I think that proves the point even more.

<comment><USER3> Your ignorance of something can cause that thing to violate causality? That's some pretty impressive ignorance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While obviously based around the live linux distros, windows to go does sound pretty amazing.

It doesn't sound too difficult to extend this and use a phone capable of mounting as mass storage and boot your desktop off of your phone. A Windows Windows Phone anyone?</comment>


A Study on Private Browsing [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/download/Private_Browsing.pdf <comment><USER2> From the key takeaways:

 _2\. However, 75.8 ± 2.2% of people who use Private Browsing incorrectly identify the protection that it provides. As 66.5 ± 2.5% overestimate its benefits, this leaves a majority of Private Browsing users exposed more than they think they are.

3\. When people find out what private browsing actually does, 65.9 ± 2.4% feel "Surprised", "Misled", "Confused" or "Vulnerable." 64.0 ± 2.6% of people believe their web browser should do more to protect their privacy, and 84.2 ± 1.9% are open to trying to a different major web browser if it would provide more privacy protection_

Calling it Private Browsing is like installing antivirus on a computer and telling end-users that it's a "secure computer"; it only addresses one threat to privacy and not the largest ones.

When end users read "Private", they reasonably expect that it is private overall, and it's not at all. In other contexts it would be a form of fraud on consumers. I don't know how many end users are aware that there are serious privacy threats, but few grasp what they are, understand the technology, and can distinguish between the different kinds of threats, much less grasp what Private Browsing really does and apply that knowledge. (Heck, I'm not even 100% sure of what Private Browsing does.)

It's unintentional I think - the terminology is by and for geeks. The browser vendors really should change the term.

</comment><comment><USER3> As much as I like DuckDuckGo and believe that privacy is a real concern, it's always healthy to be skeptical of surveying techniques. For example, the entire section on 'How do consumers react to private browsing knowledge?' is based on the following question:

> Private Browsing mode only prevents your browser history from being recorded > on your computer and does not offer any additional protection such as > preventing the websites you visit from collecting your information (e.g. > your searches on a search engine). How does that make you feel?

> Options: Surprised, Misled, Confused, Vulnerable, Neutral, Content

Given the structure of the question and ratio of positive to negative answer options, I'm actually surprised that about a third of people were still Neutral or Content.

<comment><USER4> I'm not terribly surprised by it. There are a surprising number of people who don't care if they're being tracked as long as they're not being tracked by their family. The whole purpose of private browsing then becomes to hide their porn history from family.

Anything else? Nothing to worry about if you do nothing wrong seems to be the common saying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > 35.7 ±2.5% believe that Private Browsing "Prevents search engines from > knowing my searches."

This doesn't seem too inaccurate.

When you search for something on the Google search engine using private browsing, presumably you have not taken the time to login to your Google account in the private window. Therefore your search won't be saved in your account's search history. That's the behavior the user is expecting, and it's what they mean when they say "prevents search engines from knowing my searches".

It seems pedantic to point out that of course, technically, the search engine knows your search.

How else would you advise a typical user to perform "embarrassing" searches? Don't do it at all? Even if you use DuckDuckGo it will be in your browser history.

<comment><USER4> Not logging in to your Google account is not enough. It's already been demonstrated that sufficient information is leaked by browsers to uniquely identify without login information. Create a hash of IP address, computer display information, operating system, and user-agent; and it's a pretty good bet that hash would match your most recent _logged in_ session almost uniquely (especially if you're not sharing your internet connection).

<comment><USER5> But Google doesn't fingerprint your browser and add those searches to your account history.

What users care about is what's saved in their history. Many users probably don't even understand the difference between browser history and Google account search history.

But private browsing works for both (provided you don't login to your account in the private window).

Users don't care if, theoretically, Google _could_ fingerprint their private browsing session. Unless they care about ad tracking, which is why I only addressed search history in my original comment.

<comment><USER4> Unless you visit _only_ Google, I think your point's not as strong as you think.

Yeah sure maybe Google doesn't fingerprint users but there's nothing stopping other sites from doing it. Perhaps, for example, the site you're viewing in an incognito session. _Advertisers_ , for example, would have quite an interest in associating incognito sessions with normal sessions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not one mention of porn in the whole report.

<comment><USER7> I guess that's what "Embarrassing searches" would stand for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What if "Private browsing" also automatically sent everything through a vpn? Is there a way to make that work?

</comment><comment><USER9> Time for a DuckDuckBrowser?

<comment><USER10> I would much rather if DuckDuckGo and Firefox became a tight Google-fighting duo by focusing on search and browsing, respectively.

You wouldn't want Robin driving the bat-mobile now, would you?

<comment><USER9> Sounds good to me. (DuckDuckGo teaming up with Firefox, I mean.)

<comment><USER11> At the end of 2014, both Apple and then Mozilla added DuckDuckGo to their browser's list of search engines bundled by default.

This was the very first time _any_ meta search engine (search engine that combines results from multiple search engines) was added to any of the most popular browsers.

They've also added it to Firefox Focus (at least at the time when it was released on Android).

So, it's fair to say that they have some sort of collaboration between them. Wouldn't count on it getting more serious than that, but I would still love to see it happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Time to merge DDG and Brave.</comment>


Emailstartups.com Is for Sale - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-want-to-sell-emailstartups-13980f8ded <comment><AUTHOR> My email is: firat [at] hey com. Best</comment>


"I Was a Starter Wife": Inside America's Messiest Divorce (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advice/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/ <comment><USER2> Elon's perspective: [http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record- about-m...](http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my- divorce-2010-7)

<comment><USER3> Marriage is probably a high risk factor for entrepreneurs.

"In a California divorce, the wealthier spouse must pay both sides of the battle even if they are not the aggressor."

"I even had to endure her attempt to enjoin my companies, which would have required her participation and permission in every significant corporate decision."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pretty conflicted about this story. I am... not surprised by any of the details in it, and I'm not fond of startup founder hero worship. But I'm uncomfortable with this kind of public airing of grievances.

If Musk wrote this kind of piece about her, he'd come across as a massive asshole. But then, he's clearly the one with far more power, and he'd be punching down the power gradient, kicking her when she's down. Does that make a difference? I'm genuinely not sure.

<comment><USER5> I remember seeing this when it was originally written. While I laud Elon's professional accomplishments, it's not hard to accept that he has some massive faults when it comes to personal relationships, not unlike many successful entrepreneurs before him. At the same time, my immediate reaction to this piece was that Justine Musk is a professional novelist. Her job is to use words and her writing to entertain people, part of that entertainment being making people feel certain emotions and thoughts through the stories she tells. I couldn't read this without taking her side of the story with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER6> Why "faults"? It sounds as if he said "take it or leave it", isn't that fair? Why do you have to have a specific personality to be accepted? Nobody is forced to marry the guy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> What an awful title. "Messiest divorce"? The only thing that makes it messy is the staggering amount of money involved and the fact that Elon lives in the public eye. It sounds like there is no dispute over the kids, which is what really makes a divorce messy.

</comment><comment><USER7> There's a lot of pain here, and the article is of course one-sided and feels rather unnecessary to me (but I'm sure necessary to her).

All that said, surviving the loss of a child is rare. It's a nuclear explosion of the rawest emotion and pain that I've only, luckily, observed from the outside looking in. If things weren't rock solid before, it's difficult to imagine they would survive what must be the most horrible experience a human being can suffer.

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, that is what you get for marrying a psychopath.

Entrepreneur's first quality is to assess situation without the filter of emotions, it logically has a tendency to induce this as a routine. And it is wise.

So be it induced or be it a professional hazard, entrepreneur's will grow their tendency for control and maximimizing their utility in any dimesions without regard for emotions.

She is just a minor collateral victim of a normal trait that brilliant entrepreneur should have.

Elon is not a cold bastard, he is a cold visionaire: when he says all IT success are based on monopolies and that governments should allow them, he is right. Never go for competition, but always tell the one going for competition they have "fire in their eyes", this way you will have less competition on your monopoly. It is wise.

Morally he may be not be your cup of tea. But, what he is doing is socially profitable for at least some of us (investors, customers, employees, state (through taxes)).

As stated in Plato's Republic, the wisest amongst us should not be under the scrutinity of the people that don't understand what is required to rule the city.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is funny to me. If these people were poor they would be doing the exact same thing on Facebook. But since they have a couple of million they don't post this on their wall but on actual journalism website.

Keep your dirty laundry private - nobody wants to see that and it's ugly.

</comment><comment><USER10> The start of this article sounded like any modern story. Two adults going through education and trying to make a carer, both having long term plans and has jobs in order to support themselves.

And then, in a instant, he handed her his credit card and all that talk about bartending jobs and becoming an aspiring writer get pushed aside. Instead its about postnuptials, and how a life without him was unthinkable. He also seem equally changed, with "I am the alpha in this relationship", which sound completely absurd and nothing two equals adults would ever say to each other. When the divorce comes, the focus is solely on the entitlement from being a wife.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know why this is on HN, but here is Elon's version of things: [http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record- about-m...](http://www.businessinsider.com/correcting-the-record-about-my- divorce-2010-7)

"In addition to paying all of her household expenses and anything related to the children, I send Justine $20,000 (after tax) per month for clothing, shoes and other discretionary items."

I guess two lessons HN readers can take from this are:

a) Don't get married if possible. If she was just his girlfriend, this would be only a bad breakup story apart from the kids, which leads to....

b) If you do get married, don't have kids with the person you married if you are having constant interpersonal conflicts with them. Five kids probably turned the divorce pretty messy. No kids + the post-nup she signed might have made it more clean-cut.

</comment><comment><USER12> In case you guys haven't seen it, there is some great discussion of (bootstrapped) startup life here: [http://zenfounder.com/](http://zenfounder.com/) \- not all the episodes cover things that interest me, but there are some good ones.

 _Edit_ \- I don't get the downvotes - to me my family is the most important thing in my life, and anything I can learn to make things better for us is well worth it. I figured it was sort of relevant to an article about a divorce, especially since Sherry has advice for regular people who are not billionaires.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why are we re-visiting this 5 years later?

</comment><comment><USER14> A perfectly unbiased text :D

<comment><USER15> Since she's one half of the divorce in question, wouldn't it be a little sociopathic if it were unbiased?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know of at least a billion women who would trade places with her.

All that whining about how badly she was treated. He asked her to dye her hair, the horror. She had financial access to pretty much any activity one can imagine, and she chose to be bored and whiny instead of busy doing something cool.</comment>


Tool of the Day: Effortless Diagrams/Wireframes with LucidChart - <AUTHOR> http://www.usefultools.com/2011/02/effortless-diagrams/

<comment><USER2> I love this tool. I discovered it just this past weekend. I tried gliffy, dia, smartdraw, and a few others but finally settled on LucidChart. I used it to make this diagram: <http://ktype.net/wiki/_media/ktype-system.png> for my project <http://ktype.net> \- I'm pretty happy with how little time it took me to get it all done.</comment>


Office of Inspector General's Audit of the Office of the Secretary [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://cryptome.org/2016/05/state-oig-clinton-emails.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I think this meets HN criteria.

A quote:

        > Other employees have sought to use Dropbox, a cloud-based file hosting
        > service, but IRM has blocked access to the site on OpenNet since 2011 because
        > of the risk of unauthorized access to Department data.

That's a pretty huge endorsement of Dropbox, they should use that as an advertisement.</comment>


Lenin Lab: the team keeping the first Soviet leader embalmed - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/09/lenin-lab-team-keeping-first-soviet-leader-embalmed-moscow <comment><USER2> Another option: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#Death_and_the_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham#Death_and_the_auto- icon)

Bentham's head is a waxwork. As well as being lower-maintenance, this could also be for aesthetic reasons: [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/jeremy- bentham/about/bentham-h...](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/jeremy- bentham/about/bentham-head)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article goes into some detail on _how_ , but it doesn't answer _why_?

Why not let him rest in peace and be finally properly buried?

<comment><USER4> Lenin was an ardent atheist and materialist who believed in the power of human perception. This is arguably far more of a proper burial for him than a traditional Christian burial would be.

<comment><USER3> Then cremate him and shoot the ashes in orbit while chanting Marxist doctrines or whatever - he still deserves a burial, not becoming a permanent exhibit in a freakshow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Too bad there is no mention of Popes and Saints. The Catholic church believes they are preserved because of their holiness. More likely a conspiracy of embalmers.</comment>


Ask HN: You are not angry at Facebook, You are angry at your friends - <AUTHOR> With so many people stuck in their homes in quarantine, people have turned back to social media to seek social interaction.
Did you also notice people post these "games" & "experiments" that seek human connection with "friends"?
I saw a few about "reply with your initials of your name", "reply how you remember us instead of likes"
Why do people think they have to make it into a game, or call it an experiment to ask for messages from their friends?
I think this shows something about how our interaction with our friends have changed. We became reserved, resigned when it comes to online socializing. Nobody seems to be writing anyone these days. Before the quarantine, I thought it was just me, missing the sociable friendly days of online presence with our friends. Now I see everyone is seeking that thing when the physical world is fully under quarantine.
If everyone has been in this situation, what does that say about the society?
Are we all just pretending to be angry at Facebook? While in fact we have been angry at each other, resigned from social interaction online? <comment><USER2> Good observations. Yup railing against facebook prevents us from thinking up ways of connecting and growing connection.

Key point is they are seeking connection.

So connect.

When you are at work/school/have stuff going on in life, you have a lot more to talk about than if there is nothing going on.

If no one is writing anything, beyond simple games seeking connection, its probably because there is nothing interesting going on at home.

So spark something.

If there is no activity on both sides of a connection, the connection decays. It takes things happening on both sides to keep the connection healthy and alive.

You write if no one else is. Write and tell them what you have been upto/make a plan to work together everyday on something etc. Write and tell them what writing of theirs you miss. Connection will automatically re-energize.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! I think you are on point. We just all became resigned from each other because it is so stigmatized.

I ended up writing an article instead of the ASK HN format; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22842376)

<comment><USER2> Good! Keep writing and developing ideas about how to connect in healthier ways. It leads to healthy connections.</comment></comment></comment>


How A Desktop Background Can Improve Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://experimentgarden.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-desktop-background-can-improve.html <comment><USER2> My background is a vertical gradient. I have a script that runs via cron every 5 or 10 seconds that sets the top and bottom colors of the gradient to values that reflect the memory usage (top) and cpu usage (bottom) at any given time.

So if my memory usage is low, the top color of the bg gradient is blue and if it's high the top color is red. It varies smoothly in between. Similarly, the bottom color varies between two colors to indicate low/high cpu usage. This way, if I'm executing a long-running, cpu-intensive task, I have a subtle indication of whether it's still running.

<comment><USER3> would you be able to email the script to me? was always a fan of fedoras changing background (based on time of day) but this seems more useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On Plan 9, the default background is a light, solid gray. In fact, the only way to change it is to a) hack the rio source or b) download a pre-hacked version that someone like myself has written to allow starting with a different color.

The reason is that quite a bit of care was taken to choose UI colors which work nicely together, and when you throw a brilliant blue background in there the whole thing kind of goes out the window.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, I didn't know that. I've always preferred the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If my desktop background were red, I would be more productive because I'd want all my windows to cover it up. "My eyes! The goggles do nothing."

But actually, I don't have a desktop background. If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager is broken.

<comment><USER6> > If you can see your desktop, you are wasting space and your window manager > is broken.

I disagree. I think the sign of a broken windowing environment is when people find they need to maximize everything (like most Windows users do), which really goes against the point of windowed apps in the first place. Having negative space is important psychologically, lets you "breath" a bit, and not to mention, lets you more effectively use your apps together. There's a good reason MacOS has never had a true maximize button on their windows.

<comment><USER7> I'm guessing jrockaway was trying to refer to tiling window managers (e.g. xmonad) , only without being too obvious about it. ;)

<comment><USER8> He did specifically mention Windows, though.

Actually, I've also noticed that Windows users maximize everything (maybe from the Win 3.1 days?). Having the dullness of empty app-space makes me feel that same way that living in a sea of concrete buildings does. Having my (dark) desktop image visible is a bit like Central Park for NYC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> To make my background I took the best (manual) DSLR camera I could get my hands on, pointed it off my back deck at a view that I found eye wandering to whenever possible, unfocused all the way and took a picture. The only processing I did was to desaturate it a bit before making it my background.

This creates the pleasant illusion that my eye is focused on the near tasks in the windows but the outside view is present in the background, and blurred, just as if it were really there.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use a black background with a very carefully placed light grey diagonal line that corresponds to the lower left-hand corner of my second monitor, which is to the right of my primary monitor.

I use this line to align the bottom-left corners of cascading windows on the secondary monitor. In this way, the corners of the windows themselves form a kind of "spatial taskbar" that lets me switch between console windows, email, documentation, browser, etc. - all usually stuff that's auxilliary to the action on the main screen.

Here's a diagrammatic description:

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAI...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2GNT8vlZj48/Svme4EwbLWI/AAAAAAAAAIE/rmTTey5TQ0U/s1600/Cascade.png)

Here's a description of how I did it - and how awkward it is to do in Windows 7, for good measure:

[http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting- win...](http://blog.barrkel.com/2009/11/on-difficulty-of-setting- windows-7.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have 8 desktops, each a different color.

I use particular desktops for specific tasks or projects.

If I'm toggling through desktops it's easy to see which is which by color. I know, for example, that ctrl-f5 takes me to where I have Thunderbird running. If I don't see the familiar dark blue desktop I know I've hit the wrong key combo.

It's one reason I went with KDE3 over Gnome. Having the same color on every desktop deprives me of useful navigation and organization info.

There seems to be a cognitive advantage to having a different color; it's like walking to a different room to do a different task. There's a useful context switch that helps me focus.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think I see my background once a week. It serves almost no purpose to me. I'd probably disable it if I could to be honest. I'm in OS X. ⌘+Tab, my Dock, and Launchbar is all I need.

I personally find it odd when people out there have a ton of icons in their OS X dock... I only keep frequently apps in there (<http://grab.by/2yZF>) and then use Launchbar to do everything else. ^+Space lets me launch any app.

<comment><USER13> I actually hide the dock in OS X; it just clutters things up. I do pretty much everything through Quicksilver, or just Finder/Terminal when I need to go poking around.

In fact, I've gotten so used to doing it that way that I now use Gnome Do and Colibri as well (yes, I alternate among all three OSes on a near-daily basis... sigh).

<comment><USER14> I do the exact same things. Quicksilver/terminal on the macbook, Gnome Do/terminal on the desktop. If I'm working in the Windows VM, I use Launchy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is mine:

[http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat- shee...](http://phosphorusandlime.blogspot.com/2005/11/php-cheat-sheet- wallpaper.html)

Helpful for php projects. I find I use it almost exclusively for the date formatting section.

</comment><comment><USER16> "If you're really using your computer, your desktop should almost never be visible"

This is even more true if you use a tiling window manager like xmonad, dwm, or awesome.

</comment><comment><USER17> Forget the background — install xmonad [1] and never see it again. As a bonus point, you also won't have to worry about arranging your windows ;)

[1] <http://xmonad.org/>

</comment><comment><USER18> Aha, so Mac users tend to be more creative types because the default wallpaper is blue(ish)? That's my take away point and I'm sticking by it :-)</comment>


Computer Networks – The Heralds of Resource Sharing, Arpanet (1972) - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/ComputerNetworks_TheHeraldsOfResourceSharing

<comment><AUTHOR> Cross-posted from [http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/2ghj8d/comput...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/comments/2ghj8d/computer_networks_the_heralds_of_resource_sharing/)</comment>


Adobe Shuts Down for a Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_12716554

<comment><USER2> I've been interviewing at Adobe (strange but true) -- my interviewer said the shutdowns force people to use up their vacation pay. In CA, when you lay someone off, you have to pay them all their accrued vac. pay, which could add up to several months. The issue is that this is a liability on their books, which can affect their earnings as a public co.

No idea if this is really the reason or just what the top brass say to the worker bees.

<comment><USER3> I'd guess it's only part of the reason. The company has other ways to limit liability that don't constrain employees as much; for example they could limit the number of days that you are allowed to roll over each year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since people are still getting paid, according to my reading of the article, it's almost European. By that I mean that many companies in France and Spain generally shut down in July or August all at once. There's probably is an overall benefit to just about everyone (not just the company, but the country) taking their vacation at the same time.

<comment><USER5> > probably is an overall benefit to just about everyone

Disagree: the roads are packed, the hotels are packed, airlines raise prices a lot, and there's nothing you can do about it if you're forced to go then. I've always taken my vacations in July or September and remained in Padova during August, which is great - it's empty and has a relaxed, easy going feel which is absent during the rest of the year.

Also, if you're running a company that for some reason wants to stay open (by, say, letting your employees choose their own vacation time and having them not all go at once), you might still have a hard time of it because your suppliers and clients are all closed too.

Long vacations are good, but I don't care so much for the mass exodus in August.

<comment><USER4> It's good to hear the opposite arguments, and they're good ones, though those all seem to be specific to employees. From the company viewpoint often having employees leave for vacation individually is disruptive. Especially in so called knowledge based industries. I'm not really wedded to my theory, just kibitzing.

<comment><USER5> > having employees leave for vacation individually is disruptive.

Yes, but less so than closing the company down for a month.

<comment><USER6> The fair comparison would be 12 months of ~1/12th of the company team not being there, or 1 month of the entire team not being there.

I think it's pretty obvious that in a workplace where each member adds more than a constant value, the latter is favorable.

Edit: woah, I can't respond to your post, probably to prevent those back-and- forth chains. But you're right, it's only obvious in a simplified model of a workplace I had in my head when writing it. In real life, nothing is obvious :)

<comment><USER5> I don't think it's "obvious". If the company's completely closed, nothing at all is happening, no work is getting done, no one is available to cover emergencies. A better comparison might be to look at 1/3 of the company being gone in July, August and September, which, if you work with people to plan things just a bit, means that things keep running during those months. Also, what starts to happen here (Italy) _in practice_ , is that in July not a lot gets done because everything is going to shut down soon, so no one starts anything new (no new projects, no hires). Things already start to slow down in June. September is reasonably productive, but it takes a bit to get things turning over again.

Staying open conserves momentum and provides some continuity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


FBI used Graykey to unlock an iPhone 11 Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2020/01/fbi-used-graykey-to-unlock-an-iphone-11-pro-which-was-previously-thought-to-be-the-most-secure-iphone/ <comment><USER2> Stats from the article:

\- 4 digits takes 6.5 minutes to crack on average

\- 6 digits takes 666 minutes to crack on average

\- 10 digits takes 6665760 minutes to crack on average

All 3 of these work out to the same number: about 12.5 attempts per second.

So if you use a 5 character _alphanumeric_ passcode (62 character key space), then it would take 62^5 / 12.5 / 60 / 60 / 24 = 848 days to brute force in the worst case (and half that on average). With 6 characters it would take more than a century.</comment>


Like Google, Only Much, Much Worse - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2218594/pagenum/all/ <comment><USER2> Luckily, Wolfram Alpha has enough funding (and ego) behind it to survive for at least five years. If they throw serious effort into it during all that time, I'll bet we'll end up with something truly impressive (if perhaps not life-changing).

The core flaw with Wolfram Alpha in my opinion is that it relies on curated data. Such data takes time to source, verify, and translate into the necessary target format.

I sincerely hope the same thing for Wolfram Alpha that I do with the Palm Pre: that it'll get the market leader off its ass and spur true competition.

<comment><USER3> Wrong, the core _advantage_ to WA is that it relies on curated data. That you know it's from a verified source makes a world of a difference. That it can produce _actual_ answers, not just averages or random tidbits, is essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What Wolfram Alpha needed was to avoid the Spore-style overhype in the days leading up to release. It was nearly inevitable that a product touted as "the Google killer" would get slammed on the rebound, regardless of actual performance. As long as they manage to avoid getting a unit of measure named for them, or returning results about handing hamburgers to crying mimes while the universe abruptly fails to exist, they'll be doing better than some.

<comment><USER5> Yes, if they'd just described it as a free, online window into Mathematica for ordinary people, everyone would be talking about how cool it was that it could do such a huge range of calculations.

<comment><USER6> That wouldn't get as much publicity. Most people hate math.

<comment><USER7> pg submitted Wolfram's announcement of Mathematica 7 a few months ago, and believes in launching early and then iteratively improving the product. I think he might have been sarcastic.

I think Wolfram really does want as many users as possible. This is a type of search engine, not an online version of Mathematica. Students may stay for the step-by-step solutions to many types of math problems, but statistics on how real people use and seek to benefit from such a product are what Wolfram must really be after.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369056>

<comment><USER5> I wasn't being sarcastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stop comparing Wolfram|Alpha to Google! When did Wolfram ever say Wolfram|Alpha was supposed to be anything like Google?

<comment><USER9> See also: <http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/24/>

If anyone comes out with a website that purports to provide quick access to information, it'll inevitably be compared to Google (or Yahoo, or Live Search, or whatever comes next). Slate's comparison is actually even pretty close; the author took the examples provided and tweaked them slightly.

For example, "running 4mph 30 minutes 5'10" 160 lbs 40 year male" provides an answer, but "golfing 4mph 30 minutes 5'10" 160 lbs 40 year male" doesn't. I think that his conclusion was the most interesting part, about "the eternal problem for any wannabe Google competitor[: ...] Google can easily co-opt such improvements -- and suddenly everyone's got a better Google."

<comment><USER10> Yeah, Google already functions as a basic calculator and unit conversion tool.

Out of curiosity I tried seeing the the calories burnt were any different for a 60 year-old man or 9000 year-old man. Apparently, they aren't.

[http://www28.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=running+4mph+30+minut...](http://www28.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=running+4mph+30+minutes+5%2710%22+160+lbs+9000+year+male)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lookit, it's just a calculator. It's not a search engine. The phrase "computational engine" dresses up the former as the latter.

That said, it's a badass calculator and with some guided navigation, it could be really helpful. Mortgage refinancing, crazy sports stats, economic indicators, healthcare costs - anything that bloggers graph, Wolfram|Alpha has the ability to be really, really useful for. Wouldn't you like to tweak Nate Silver's assumptions and see what would happen? Wouldn't you like to be able to see if you could run a regression analysis to outwit PECOTA? You could wonk off with Ezra Klein to see which healthcare cost reduction opportunities would have the biggest impact on the deficit. And that's just off the top of my head.

It's going to be the best new tool for educated and interesting commentary since RedLasso, and no one will DMCA it to death.

</comment><comment><USER12> it kind of feels to me like this author willingly jumps into the exact same snake pit he's accusing wolfram and other journalists of falling into.

wolfram alpha isn't a google killer. but to expect any small company to somehow or another come up with a fully functional and completely superior-in- every-way product, and to get it right on the first try, is naive at best.

google has been at search for years and years. wolfram might develop into something that gives google a run. but to expect it to be a deux ex machina, catching up to google's more than a decade of development and billions of dollars sunk after only a year or two's worth of development, is fairly stupid.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wolfram Alpha is much more interesting to me than Google was when it came out (all Google had going for it originally was that it had no ads). Its calculating abilities are also more impressive than Google's Calculator feature has been at any point in time.

Wolfram Alpha will benefit from strategies that every other startup uses-- getting as many users as possible, monitoring what users appear to need, and adding algorithms and data to meet the needs of their most popular queries.

I think Wolfram Research is hotter than Google right now.

</comment><comment><USER13> For some queries, Wolfram Alpha is excellent. As mentioned in other comments, Wolfram's marketing sucks not the search engine.

Like all potentially disruptive products, it meets the needs of a particular niche well, For example, try "population density" in W-A and Google. Be sure to click on the "More" links to expand W-A's results. Amazing.

Over time Google may have a problem. I'm using Twitter for real-time search, W-A where it's strong, and even using Live.com when Google doesn't return meaningful results.

</comment><comment><USER14> i think they are missing the point. the _vision_ that Wolfram has for this service is probably not found in the product currently. but you can't get very advanced things if

      1. you don't actually shoot for it
      2. you don't have a solid foundation on the basics
      3. you don't have lots of people testing your service

you're not going to get something great by just aiming because the problem space for this kind of thing is massive. by shooting first you can get a better aim

i suspect the hyping for it was more for #3 than people think

from this perspective i find the data argument weird because data is easy. comparing it to Google is also weird because currently Wolfram Alpha is clearly not an internet search engine in any caliber

</comment><comment><USER15> maybe wolfram wants alpha to do many of the things that we now consider 'googling;' maybe he doesn't. regardless, the author's point stands that alpha doesn't seem to do too many things that are useful to me on a day-to-day or even week-to-week basis. as a biologist, i consider the results of gene searches on alpha to be, if not useless, then at least far inferior to what i get in more specialized databases. do people in other fields also find this to be true of their own searches?

this will be ideal for high school research papers (especially the edward tufte-inspired graphics) and get some new people into mathematica, but beyond that i'm not too excited about it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm. Try this Google search: "integrate 1/log(x)". Not very useful, huh?

Sorry, but Google and Wolfram Alpha are different beasts. Wolfram Alpha is aimed at a much smaller audience than Google. That doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be just as important one day -- the number crunchers get everything useful done in this society, after all.

<comment><USER17> On the other hand, try "4.7L/100km to mpg" in both. Alpha understands the question and reformats it nicely but then doesn't calculate the answer. Google just gives the answer.

<comment><USER14> it works if you match the ratio (i.e. 100km/4.7L : m/g) but it probably should understand that input and maybe have the result as blah^-1</comment></comment></comment>


Navy SEALs Tried for Months to Report War Crimes and Were Told to "Let It Go" - <AUTHOR> https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/25/navy_seals_tried_for_months_to <comment><USER2> They were also told to ignore rampant child rape by Afghan allies. [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers- to...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-told-to- ignore-afghan-allies-abuse-of-boys.html)

<comment><USER3> Surely the US should aim for a higher standard than child rapists?

<comment><USER4> You're right, the US should.

Whomever in the political decision making element who greenlit this tolerance must have been between a rock and a hard place

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Better link [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes- of-w...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html)

<comment><USER6> Paywalled link =/

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy sounds like a very talented sociopath.

NOTE: I read the New York Times article, not the interview.</comment>


Hong Kong and Shenzhen showed what quality early childhood education looks like - <AUTHOR> https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/quality-early-childhood-education-preschool-hong-kong-singapore-11534618 <comment><USER2> Shenzhen kindergartens are a bizarre place: a cross between a typical kindergarten and a mitary bootcamp.</comment>


Art of the Quiet Interface  - <AUTHOR> http://webstandardssherpa.com/reviews/art-of-the-quiet-interface/

<comment><USER2> If this is going to be an article on readable web design, it would be a good place to bring up the fact that the font you're rendering your page on shouldn't require the user to have 20/20 vision just to make out.

The problem is, that's exactly the font this (and many other web sites) are using. As an example, my screen is a standard 72dpi monitor, and sits about about 28" from my eyes. This is the recommended distance by many ergonomic consultants (arm's length) At that resolution, the font this website uses renders as roughly the same size as the 32" line on a near vision eye chart. This means that just making out the individual glyphs of their font requires you to have near perfect vision.

This is not, to my mind, comfortably readable. As a simple comparison, pull up any book you have lying nearby, and hold it at your usual reading distance and compare the relative glyph size to the web site's. For me, it takes 2-3 levels of magnification just to make the site comfortably readable.

Web designers, if you're making content you want people to read, please make it readable.

<comment><USER3> How does this have anything to do with what the article is talking about?

<comment><USER4> I think it is related in a 'practice what you preach' way. If the article is about readability, and the font it is written in is not readable for a large portion of the population, I think it is valid for somebody to open the discussion on that.

At the same time, I didn't have a problem or notice a problem reading the posts text. Looking back, it is a bit on the small side though not uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice post, but probably the thought goes much beyond websites focused around content consumption only.

Take search for example. Google has sold a completely dry and silent web interface for long. And it does work well for them. On the other hand there are companies which have adopted skeuomorphism to an extreme and yet made a buck. Apple, for example though an exceptional one by all means.

In the wild, there are also websites that make millions with absolutely terrible interface; even to the point of being called retards by many design gurus. Apparently the decision to have or NOT have a quiet interface depends on a lot of parameters, and not just "coolness".

What you're probably trying to emphasize is to focus on "wider audience first", "loyalty" second and then "monetization"? It may or may not be the right approach too.

Perhaps you may want to evaluate your design process from the perspective of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And then there is always difficulty in striking a balance between intent to reach a wider audience and to make money from that audience too.

Many entrepreneurs lose it at this stage, even with great products or content.

</comment><comment><USER6> While it is a lovely sentiment and I know I do personally prefer quiet pages, it is also the case that if you love A/B testing you will notice that clutter works. Each distraction is a chance for the consumer to swap from consuming (which costs us money) to whatever the profitable activity we are pushing is.

This is part of what I think subscription sites could offer, though I don't know of any that do. If consuming content makes you money, you can optimize for enjoyability of content consumption.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's a difficult balance, because on a particular page, you never know if the user is going to want to:

1) Consume the content without distraction

2) Preview the content, decide they're not interested after all, and look for other things to navigate to

Because of 2), millions of things are jammed into the page, and they do serve a purpose. Plus, usually once you scroll down far enough, only the main page content is left, as the right column ended long ago.</comment>


HID Conversion Kits - <AUTHOR> http://www.partsprovider.net A global online distributor of auto parts and car accessories, car diagnostic tools , HID Conversion Kits, wheel rims, car alarm systems and many more. <comment><USER2> spam in the ice machine?</comment>


Ask HN: Why do people think Macs are terrible for hacking? - <AUTHOR>

Long story short, I'm getting a new computer and all of my friends (mostly non-programmers) are telling me that if I want to program I'm going to hate the Mac. From what I can tell from recent trends this isn't the case at all, especially since OS X is basically a variant of Unix.<p>Why is there such a widespread idea that hackers and Macs aren't friends? <comment><USER2> If you were a plumber and your non-plumber friends told you what tools to use would you listen to them? The Mac is a nice gui on top of a BSD based unix system. You have access to all the nice command line tools and programs of unix. You get XCode for free if you want to do Mac/iOS development. Basically unless you are doing .Net development it's a great machine, and even then with Bootcamp that is possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to get a Mac anyway (well, I would if I had the money). I'm just wondering why people think the Mac sucks for hacking. Did it suck initially?

<comment><USER3> I think were it comes from is this: Ask yourself what your target audience is for your projects. Where will your code run later on? Is it going to be a Mac or possibly some UNIX/Linux server?

Your problem is going to be that you won't be able to have a development environment close enough to production as needed to test properly.

<comment><USER4> As long as you add a proper Model M to the Mac, VirtualBox should take care of the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Macs are the only machine on which you can legally use all major OS's, and thus the only machine on which you can legally compile software for all major platforms.

If that doesn't take the cake, I don't know what does.

</comment><comment><USER6> My hacker friend convinced me to switch to Mac. It's a great host OS to run your virtual machines. (And fun to explore something different.)</comment>