Reasons not to use Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://stallman.org/facebook.html <comment><USER2> I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics.

Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRITICISE HIM?")

Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No.

Just like I wouldn't listen to Usain Bolt if he were trying to teach me the biological mechanisms behind doping, I can't see why Stallman's opinion is considered so correct in these matters.

IMO his ramblings about personal liberties and freedom being infringed by everything under the sun from Amazon to Google to Facebook are oversimplified and childish. The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies. When Facebook makes you use a real name it's not because theres some "Mr. Evil" at the top level plotting to steal your freedom, it's because it leads to a better working social network.

Just his description of AirBnB is ridiculous: "Airbnb requires you to run nonfree software (an app, or Javascript). It puts you in a data base easily available to Big Brother (just like a hotel)."

That's an immensely stupid argument, because any _viable_ company that wants to provide a service that a consumer other than Stallman himself will use will "infringe" on those two idiotic requirements.

TL;DR. Just because he did something amazing in one field/area, doesn't mean he is not spewing complete BS. For a similar example, see: [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna- jam...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-james-watson- scientist-selling-nobel-prize-medal)

<comment><USER3> I'm with you. Seems like FUD here with this post, there are a few decent ideas about privacy but its a social network and used for connecting to people. Maybe they can relax the real name policy some more but I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem.

There are effective privacy controls in place now and things like being served ads is such a silly issue to complain about... it's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?

What is the overall point at the end of this? Basically we should all just be anonymous forever? Facebook is just a decade old, society/culture is still catching up and we really don't need all this doom/gloom every time. And yea, I didn't know who this guy was until this post.

<comment><USER4> _I have plenty of friends that don 't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem._

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement)

 _things like being served ads is such a silly issue to complain about... it 's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?_

Hum, charge people?

 _What is the overall point at the end of this?_

"Don't use Facebook." I thought that was clear.

<comment><USER3> Fine, the real name policy is a fuzzy issue and not really fit for discussion here.

Charging people doesn't work since most people want the convenience and ability to communicate with friends but don't want to pay for it. Not a viable model for Facebook. I'm sure you don't just browse the web and offer to pay every site you visit do you?

"Don't use Facebook" is not the point, this is all about fear of privacy in general and just targeted at Facebook but much of it is FUD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My problem with essays like this is that they don't address the more critical underlying point: most people don't recognize privacy as a human right, and most people don't realize _why_ privacy is important and worth protecting.

To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds _reasonable_.

That's the deeper problem at work here. With more people on board to why privacy matters, articles like this will be more of an "oh, yeah!" instead of a "so what?" kind of thing.

<comment><USER6> > To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" > sounds reasonable.

So what's the correct position, and why?

<comment><USER7> There will always be times when the moral and just thing to do is to break the law. Without privacy, you are not free to break those laws.

If you're happy living under a police state in meek compliance then you have nothing to hide. If you'd turn over Anne Frank to the authorities in a heartbeat then you have nothing to hide.

If you ever plan on doing the right thing by disobeying the authorities, at any point in the future, then you need privacy _now_. Later might be too late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There seems to have been a sea change in opinion of many HN posters here, especially among the more recent visitors to HN. A couple of years ago Facebook was considered by many here to be an invasion of privacy and just not worth the effort. That general opinion seems to have changed for some. A lot of newer posters seem to be of the opinion that lack of privacy is a cost worth paying for convenience and will apologize for, defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy.

<comment><USER9> Facebook doesn't invade anyone's privacy. They aren't going into your house and rifling through your things. People post things on facebook because they want other people to see them. If you don't want to do that, then don't use facebook.

You can't stop other people from talking about you, or from taking pictures of you or relating stories that involve you. That's always been a part of social life. If you consider that to be an invasion of your privacy, then leave society and live as a hermit. It probably won't be fun, but it will be very private.

I know several people who don't use facebook, myself included, because they just aren't interested in the service that it provides. Philosophical concerns about the nature of privacy don't really factor into it. The social fashions about what's cool and what isn't cool will change with the winds. It isn't worth paying attention to. If facebook or any other social software is valuable to you, then good, use it. If not, no sense complaining about what other people decide to do with their time.

<comment><USER10> There is no way to not use Facebook.

Let me repeat that: THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT USE FACEBOOK.

Everyone's photos: Mine, yours, Stallmans, get posted to Facebook, annotated with our names (which is increasingly becoming easy enough to do with ML -- the human component will increasingly decline). If at least one of your friends uses Facebook, Facebook has profile information on you.

Stallman doesn't have a Facebook account, but things posted to Facebook identify where Stallman is, who his friends and peers are, who he interacts with, etc.

Signing up for a Facebook/Google Scholar/Researchgate/etc. simply gives you some level of control over the visibility of the information collected about you. If you care about your personal brand, there is strong reason to do it. It's almost blackmail. But if you don't do it, you're still on Facebook; simply without the EULA, and without any control.

<comment><USER11> There is no way to not use life.

Let me repeat that: THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT USE LIFE.

Simply substituting one word for another shows you how you just can't hold Facebook responsible for this. People are and have been able to share information in myriads of ways. Facebook is just one of them. They could be telling information person to person, via a phone call, via e-mail or simply standing in the street and shouting it out. I can be in the next room and a friend of mine could show photos of me to a stranger. I could be thousands of miles away and a friend of mine could reveal my private information to someone else.

What's stopping me to simply create a personal website where I post information about me and my friends? Who's responsible then? The server host? Or is it the me, the one who put all the information on the site, visible for everyone?

People complain about censorship, but basically what they're saying is that they want all information except the one kind where something is revealed about them. If you don't want this information to be shared, then ask your friends to stop posting your name, photos, e-mail, whatever.

Please note that I'm simply responding to the argument that Facebook mines all the data your friends put up. In my wildest dream I wouldn't call FB one of the good guys, nor would I condone most of their practices (e.g. their "Like" buttons on external sites). All I'm saying is that people seem very eager to hand off responsibility to software, machines, corporations. And in some cases that simply doesn't work.

<comment><USER12> > Simply substituting one word for another shows you how you just can't hold > Facebook responsible for this.

Single word substitutions of words that have no relationship with each other do not prove anything. Facebook and life are from entirely different categories in the taxonomy of useful (and not so useful) terms.

The use of certain digital services should be voluntary, not implicit because your associates use it.

<comment><USER11> While I agree that substituting a single word is a very easy target and easily manipulated, so that I shouldn't have gone for it, I think "life" is very relevant in this case, as for many people it is either part of their life or their _social_ life exclusively evolves around FB.

All I'm saying is that when a friend of yours decides to share information about you in public, you should hold them responsible and not the channel he is sharing this information. That's it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A friend of mine was turned off of a potentially new employee the other day because the candidate exclaimed that they recognized a customer from their instagram profile and that they followed it, loved it, etc.

The customer was obviously embarrased, exclaimed that he had not used instagram in over a year, and promptly left the store.

This left an uneasy feeling in my friend (the store owner). Which confused me to be honest. What did that customer expect when they placed their picture and basically entire lives on a public website with geotagged images? The new employee was told to be talkative with all clients as they worked in customer service, and so they attempted to strike up a conversation or at least a similar interest in the customer's publicly viewable leisure activities.

That was how the candidate discovered him on instagram in the first place by the way. It was because he only posted pictures of the local area.

<comment><USER14> _" The customer was obviously embarrased, exclaimed that he had not used instagram in over a year, and promptly left the store."_

Was there a significant age difference between the luckless candidate and the customer? Just guessing.

<comment><USER13> Maybe 10 years, not much of an age difference as far as I know. They were all under 40 I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> His opinion may seem ridiculous to many here, but the following has happened quite a few times before:

1\. Stallman shares radical opinion

2\. He's ridiculed for his outlandish claims

3\. Some news breaks or things happen gradually

4\. Now people say 'Stallman called it' or realize he was right all along

<comment><USER16> Some examples, please

<comment><USER15> Sorry I'm on mobile so I can give one:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Read](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Read)

<comment><USER17> We are still far away from this short story reflecting reality. Do you have a better example?

<comment><USER18> Another great example would be the example of stallman "In the future, debuggers will be illegal to use" and a recent court case where a person was sent to jail for accessing a website with a spoofed user agent using wget.

<comment><USER16> If you're talking about weev, I can not think of a more disingenuous way of describing what he was sent to jail for. Otherwise, I can't find what you're talking about with a simple search.

I am completely unsure how you went from a prediction that hasn't come true to an unrelated computer crime.

<comment><USER18> There was a court case, where the argument was that "as spoofing a useragent is not a common use case that a normal computer user could do, it has to be considered criminal activity in itself". This is what I was referring to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another good article by Richard Stallman - his ideas keep gaining even more relevance for me.

I do use Facebook to plug my books and to hopefully drive traffic to my blog articles, but I have been considering cancelling my account.

I have similar issues with Google, but with Google I get much more value: using G+ to promote my own web properties, and generally really useful services.

That said, I have switched to using my GMail address as a secondary email that I don't often check, and having the people most important to me use my own email address. Also, I give this advice all the time: choose one web browser like Chrome for use just with social media (Google, Facebook, and Twitter web properties) and another web browser for everything else.

<comment><USER20> > I do use Facebook to plug my books and to hopefully drive traffic to my blog > articles

The trick is configuring your blog to autopost to facebook, for which I use [https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-link-to- facebook/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-link-to-facebook/) which also automatically grabs likes and comments from the facebook post and adds them to the wordpress comments database. Maybe this is acknowledging facebook's value, but at least I don't have to personally interact with facebook, nor are visitors to my blog tracked by facebook's javascript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I view my decision to use Facebook as a transaction. Sure, I lose some "privacy", but I also get a lot of value in return.

I use quotes around "privacy" because I'm not sure I understand it the same way that Facebook critics do. When I'm using a changeroom, I expect privacy. When I take on a pseudonym and don't identify myself by name, I expect privacy. When I'm knowingly uploading photos that I am happy for the world to see, I don't have much of an expectation of privacy, and without an expectation of privacy I'm not sure I have any privacy to lose. That said, I don't think about this too much, so would love to hear well-reasoned arguments against my point of view on that.

<comment><USER22> I think a main point is about indirect effects of privacy loss that are hard to see and reason about directly.

Example #1: You visit a website completely unrelated to facebook. The site has a "like" button on the page enabling them to access Facebook's data about you (depending on cookies etc). You observe advertisements or content tailored based on your personal information or things you like. Maybe you are offered different prices for the same product depending on your age, gender, location, etc.

Example #2: A potential employer accesses, perhaps indirectly, information about you that would be illegal to ask you directly (marital status, etc).

Example #3: One of your facebook "friends" signs up for some arbitrary service enabling that service to access your contact and personal information and connect it with e.g. the photos you mentioned. Arbitrary things happen, e.g. your photos are used to advertise some product you find distasteful, your contact and personal information is sold to telemarketers or spammers, and so on.

<comment><USER23> 1) This is more of how Facebook makes money with ads and providing "personalized experience" just as Google does. Fundamentally not a flaw in Facebook, but a debatable practice. And do you have source Facebook would share my age and my gender to third-party even if I list them to be private? The only thing that might be possible is Facebook internally does the calculation. Giving away to third-party vs FB doing the computation aren't exactly the same.

2) If you join an online community, you have to pay a price. You might tagged your friend or your friend tagged you and the setting is not strict enough, then how is that Facebook's fault?

3) Again, that's the price a social network has to pay.

Back in the days people take film-based pictures and there is no way to massively store and distribute to the world. Now the digital age has changed the way we distribute information about one another.

Doesn't matter if Facebook is 100% free software and decentralized. One person leaks everything leaks. There is no real 100% anonymity. You have to make contact with another human being.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Facebook is like a dentist. The benefit is that you get to spy on old friends who aren't really friends anymore, but you have to remember that a) the dentist is going to cause you pain, and b) he's going to invoice for for the pleasure of doing so. The difference is that the dentist has your best interests at heart, whilst Facebook has its own best interests as its primary focus, its customers secondary, and hint hint - you aren't the customer.

<comment><USER25> Thank you, I was fearing I'll see an ad-hominem argument criticizing Stallman and thereby nullifying the arguments while actually not saying anything against the arguments. Your points are right, and personally, I don't see a reason to follow people who're not friends anymore

<comment><USER24> My biggest problem with Facebook is that my contact details are uploaded to Facebook by my "friends" without my permission. I choose not to he Facebook user but people I know are persistently sharing my contact details with them and I assume even my contact details photo which they can later match using facial recognition to other photos uploaded by friends without my permission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Since this seems to just be a braindump, I might as well add Veritasium's comments on the matter:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag)

I found them pretty interesting listening from a content-distribution and -consumption side of things, rather than from a social-network perspective.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Algorithmic filtering can affect history, not just hide history. Facebook's > filtering algorithm suppressed news about the thug riot in Ferguson until > after it became national news.

Calling all of the protestors in Ferguson "thugs" seems pretty off base. I'm surprised he characterized everyone there like that when his previous few points seemed to be in favor of the ability to protest the government. I guess he only feels that way when it's not in the US?

It's interesting he drew that conclusion from the article he links to, given that they mention prior to things such as twitter it would only be characterized on the news as a place to avoid due to "looters, thugs, troublemakers" in a minor segment.

<comment><USER28> You misunderstood, he's calling the _cops_ thugs, not the protestors. If you read the rest of his website you will see that he refers to police as "thugs" regularly:

> US citizens: call on Obama to curb militarization of thugs.

> Everyone, call on Pasco to fire and prosecute the killer thugs

> "Flood Wall Street" protesters have been acquitted of charges; the thugs' > order for them to disperse was ruled unconstitutional.

> It is good that they were acquitted, but there must be some penalty for > thugs that violate protesters' rights.

and so on.

<comment><USER29> And that is one reason why he is so terrible at communication. Nobody understands what he really means in that particular case, unless you were able to derive his specific meaning of "thug" from his previous writings. Inventing your own private sociolect and using it in published texts is a bad idea.

<comment><USER14> UK note: I had to check the reference to work out that the thugs mentioned had uniforms.

I found the playful use of 'used' along with other vocabulary changes to be reasonable and engaging. This playfulness with language may create problems for readers whose first language is not English.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> From an avid FB user who spent three hours a day to someone who has his account deactivated for more than a month, that is how much convinced i am that FB is nothing but utter garbage and i just had enough with it.

<comment><USER31> I've also noticed a stark reduction in content from friends. Perhaps we're all growing up and posting less, perhaps Facebook's algorithms are hiding all their posts for some arbitrary reason, I don't know.

All I know, is that if it weren't for the few vocal friends and pages that keep things mildly interesting, I would have no reason to be on Facebook at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Would he be better off creating a minimal verified profile to de-legitimize other fake profiles? I know he would never do that but it's an interesting thing to consider in today's world.

Let's say you're not averse to social media/networking. Do you go ahead and claim your name so that someone with a list of compromised or usernames don't grab it before you do?

<comment><USER33> wouldn't it be easy for facebook to deactivate the current fake account?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Here's one thing I like about Facebook: it has stopped the flood of chain- emails I used to receive from random "friends". They post that stuff on Facebook now instead. It's the perfect honeypot.

<comment><USER35> why not make a list of good things FB has done for you and compare?

\- less chain mails -

<comment><USER36> \- Shadow profile (So that I don't have to waste energy creating one) -

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Although I can get the rationale of most things he says, I'm not sure that he's always offering sane alternative options:

> Don't be tracked — pay cash.

I'm wondering how he imagines this would pan out. Is RMS also against banking, since banks mine your data too. Does he suggest stuffing your mattress full of cash? (serious question).

In the US, where credit ratings are essential to be able to make any sizeable/significant purchases (car, house etc.), I'm wondering what he suggests as being the alternative. Or is he just supposed to reject all purchases that aren't feasible with cash?

I'm curious if he's opposed to Bitcoin too.

I'm not familiar enough with his writings to discern whether he's simply a dissenter or also someone that has a view towards sane, realistic solutions.

<comment><USER38> > I'm curious if he's opposed to Bitcoin too.

He likes the privacy aspect of it, but has concerns with how it enables tax- evasion, and lack of monetary policy, hence why TALER (Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserves) is a GNU project: [https://gnunet.org/taler2014ghm](https://gnunet.org/taler2014ghm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> > We call them "useds" rather than "users" because Facebook is using them, not > vice versa.

This line summarizes it all up.

</comment><comment><USER40> Considering that Zuckerberg is a great admire of China and apparently socialism[0], it doesn't come to me as a huge surprise that these "ethics" are guidelines for Facebook.

"I've also bought copies of this book for my colleagues," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying by a Chinese news website. "I want them to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics."

[0]: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/why- does-mark-zuckerberg-want-facebook-employees-to-read-the-chinese-presidents- book/)

<comment><USER41> You say "socialism" like it's a bad thing.

<comment><USER31> Well, to some it _is_ a bad thing. Then again, we do all have our own opinions. And we, as a society, have not yet achieved consensus/agreement on whether socialism is good/bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> RMS is a strange duality. On the one hand he's a freedom advocate and has put considerable effort forward to make our world a better place; it's hard to not have a great deal of respect for him. On the other hand he's brilliant but quite frankly a lunatic, benign freedom extremist... and I don't even have a Facebook account! I can only imagine how he might come off to people who're hardcore social media consumers.

</comment><comment><USER43> The worst thing about Facebook I personally see is the peer (or even professional) pressure to have an account there and be active. And them doing what all (American?) megacorps do: buying small companies, stripping them of assets, absorbing them and forgetting them.

Then again, some people build start-ups for this very reason, don't they.

</comment><comment><USER44> The #1 reason not to use FB is you cannot bitch about FB. I have little patience or sympathy for people who use FB and constantly complain about it. They should stop using it.

I don't use FB, which means I have little reason to bitch about it, and if I do want to bitch about it I don't sound like a hypocrit.

</comment><comment><USER45> As a complimentary perspective:

For those who haven't seen it, I think Slavoj Žižek and Paul Holdengräber on "Surveillance and whistleblowers" is worth a watch. The part about surveillance starts at 21:14 so this link will take you there [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os#t=21m14s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os#t=21m14s)

Žižek: "The most dangerous unfreedom is the unfreedom you don't even experience, as such. If some of you are feminists ... every good feminist will tell you the first step of feminism is just to realise your situation of oppression... We need something similar here. That's the first point. The second point ... I'm a little bit sceptic about this paranoia 'ooh we are totally controlled' and so on and so on, I think we shouldn't take this too seriously. And this doesn't make the situation any easier if anything it makes it more... it [paranoia] is justified, but we should be aware, again we go in to metaphorics again the NSA the Big Eye knows everything, again the mega- machinery is extremely stupid, they don't know what they know. Do you remember, this is a very superficial anecdote ... a guy in LA was Googling the ways to kill your wife something like that, a couple days afterward the FBI brutally entered his house arrested him blah blah blah. Why? Because Google reported this to FBI. But do you know what was the result, this guy was a was one of the you know all the [TV] series CIS / police investigation, we was simply writing a scenario and wanted to check you know, and you have this again and again or form China they told me a wonderful example of this stupidity a guy just before Tiananmen [Square] anniversary a guy was an English professor in Beijing was flirting with a lady in London, and since they were both educated he used a wonderful quote from Shakespeare, because you know in Elizabethan England the word "protest" meant also "I publicly declare" and he quoted to her "I protest my love to you" chop-chop and the conversation was cut short because the word "protest" was prohibited because of associations with Tiananmen, what I find so ridiculous is that if the guy were to be extremely vulgar and told the lady something like "I will fuck your brain out" everything would be okay, you quote Shakespeare... You know computers just give you immense amounts of data and you can play with it."

Errors and omissions intentional as I'm directly transcribing Žižek talking.

He then goes on to relate an experience as a young adult in Slovenia meeting with his friends and upon parting, knowing everything was recorded, they didn't hind anything and at the end of the conversation they would say something like "Mother baked a good apple pie" and then later found out this really confused the people monitoring their conversations.

<comment><USER46> Žižek's first hand experience of communism and being (somewhat) punsihed for being a dissident (by being unable to get employment for several years despite his strong academic credentials) are quite insightful, although he does take the scenic route when it comes to articulating his points. That's OK though, I find his talking pleasant to listen to even though I've heard most of his jokes many times now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> First I thought it was a typo, but it can't be, there are too many occurrences - looks like Stallman is intentionally referring to FB users as 'useds':

> Facebook carefully studies all the text that its _useds_ type in and then > don't submit.

> Facebook, as an "experiment", collected the text its _useds_ started to > enter as status updates and ultimately did not send.

<comment><USER12> I often have multiple really dumb typos in my text when I'm using an unfamiliar keyboard and they're remarkably 'internally consistent'.

<comment><USER47> This is not a typo, see jdkanani's comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> If you haven't watched it yet, I can highly recommend the documentary 'citizenfour', which is about the meetings between Snowden and Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill.

Free to watch here:

[https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/](https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/)

</comment><comment><USER49> "As your client knows, Mr. Zuckerberg goes to great lengths to protect the privacy of his personal life."

Which adds a wrinkle: Some people requiring nondisclosure are the very ones who have built an industry on its opposite, the disclosure of personal information.

</comment><comment><USER50> I've never understood why people insist on enumerating reasons why _not_ to use facebook.

There's already a lack of reasons to use it (unless you count funny games and cat pictures), shouldn't that be enough in itself?

</comment><comment><USER51> Stallman is becoming quite increasingly peculiar. Not really interested in his talks. His software was great but his ideology (and generally that of FSF) is probably a kind of out of touch with the reality.

</comment><comment><USER52> At this point in the evolution in technology, I find that Stallman is increasingly irrelevant when his commentary is basically stating every basic point of the site and then saying its bad. Don't want to use your real name? Don't join a site where the goal is to publicly connect with people you know. Don't want your privacy violated, post only what you feel comfortable with. With every new step in the advance of technology and the Internet of things, services such as, but not necessarily including Facebook will have access to an ever expanding array of information about our lives. This information can be used for good as well as bad, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't persue it.

<comment><USER53> Almost none of his complaints strike at essential features of a social network. Real names, censorship, tracking un-submitted text, etc are all just evil and not part of any functionality users care about.

<comment><USER54> Being able to search and find people by their real name is actually a feature I value very highly in a social network.

<comment><USER55> Being able to search and find people by the names they actually use on a day to day basis is actually a feature I value very highly in a social network. Being able to hide from abusive people in one's past is actually a feature I value very highly in a social network. I know a number of people -- transpeople, people from other countries, people who just don't like their given name -- who don't use their "real" name in "real" life. Why should facebook require one's legal name when no in person congregation requires you to wear a name badge that identifies you with a name you may not be comfortable with?

<comment><USER56> Because it's your legal name?

<comment><USER57> You may not be aware that in some jurisdictions (Quebec is an example), marriage is not a sufficient legal reason to change your legal name, yet most people informally identify with a spousal name change. It would seem like an overstep for Facebook to regulate against this by policy. That's only one of many, many examples where people shouldn't be forced into using their legal name simply BECAUSE it's their legal name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> With 112 mentions of Facebook I'd say this is a great ad.

</comment><comment><USER59> I like: [https://stallman.org/common/stallman.css](https://stallman.org/common/stallman.css)

<comment><USER60> why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Why is "user" replaced with "used" everywhere? It isn't a typo, it's Stallman's NLP-style punning?

<comment><USER62> See the footnote in the article (also noted multiple times above):

"We call them "useds" rather than "users" because Facebook is using them, not vice versa."

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> People tend to overthink this. The only reason alot of people use facebook is because that's where all their friends are.

</comment><comment><USER64> Why did this topic fall to the second page on HN so quickly, despite its relatively high upvotes, activity, and recency?

</comment><comment><USER65> Reasons to support free [http://www.getaether.net](http://www.getaether.net) and [https://www.matrix.org](https://www.matrix.org) software.

Desperate developers needing research time and money for supporting and advancing federatable networks.

</comment><comment><USER66> > if you talk about your friends in Facebook, you're ratting on them

This statement reveals the paranoid perspective behind this publication.

While there are many valid reasons why some people may not want to use Facebook, I think it's as interesting to wonder reasons why people would be so opposed to everyone using it.

I think had Stallman been less weird, he may feel differently about Facebook. For someone like him, any personal details visible to others is likely to result in harm to him.

When you don't fit, everything hurts, and it's easy to feel like all those institutions are evil. But that's just you Richard. For most people, Facebook isn't much of a threat.

<comment><USER67> So what are you saying? Its OK to hurt people who don't fit in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Yes, Facebook tracks you and complies with government requests in the countries it operates in. Is anything new or is the author just spreading FUD?

</comment><comment><USER69> While I agree w/ some of the points Stallman makes, essays like this that rely on hyperbole to rile up readers turn me off and detract from the issues the author is trying to bring attention to.

One example: Stallman states "Facebook's mobile app snoops on SMS messages" and links to this article: [http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=128859](http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=128859)

"... during installation, the Facebook mobile app for Android platform seeks certain 'permissions' with the latest update going a step ahead in asking users to allow the app 'Read your text messages (SMS or MMS)'."

So during installation (on android), Facebook is asking permission to access SMS, which you can choose to enable or not. This is a far cry from his statement that "Facebook's mobile app snoops on SMS messages."

There are good points in this essay, but the amount of alarmism mixed in makes it much harder to sift through.

<comment><USER70> It is not correct to say that you can choose to enable this permission or not; or, rather, it is true only in a narrow technical sense — if you choose not to enable this permission, standard Android will refuse to install the Facebook app. And what legitimate reason could Facebook possibly have to request that permission in the first place?

There may be some examples of hyperbole in that article, but the example you chose is not one of them.

<comment><USER71> Phone number verification? I have an iPhone, which doesn't ever let apps read text messages, which actually would be nice sometimes when my banking app would like to verify it's running on my phone, as opposed to somebody else's phone.

<comment><USER72> Why would Facebook need to verify a phone number? It's a social network, used for jokes, farmville and whatnot. Most people I know that are on FB don't even use their 'real' name. IF someone provides a telephone number in his account details, FB can treat it like a string.

I understand why FB would like to 'verify a number', but why should we allow that to happen? Why is this a valid reason to ask for permissions on my phone?

<comment><USER71> If you don't let people use two factor auth, they bitch about your lack of security. If you let people use two factor auth, they bitch that you're collecting phone numbers. Can't win.

<comment><USER72> The problem is scope.

TFA is nice. Maybe mandatory when you're providing a service that passes a certain threshold?

But that permission obviously isn't the right answer. FB should ask for permissions to read _all_ SMS to make TFA via SMS a tiny bit more comfortable?

No. TFA solutions exist. Google Authenticator (I wouldn't trust Google with anything, but that's "open" as far as I know) or the Yubico aequivalent are perfectly fine choices for T/HOTP. If you want to send SMS instead (why??), let the user enjoy their platform's copy/paste support to give you the code.

There is not a single reasonable argument, why Facebook (or.. any. Seriously: I cannot think of ONE reason) should be able to read your text messages.

Bringing up TFA is probably (hey, not my native language, I certainly never joined a debating group or whatnot) a failure to argue the point and has a nice latin name or something. Maybe about a true of false Scotsman or what do I know..

If I say "FB shouldn't read texts" that has no relation to "FB should not implement TFA". Nor is it reasonable to imply that they cannot, without that permission.

<comment><USER71> > FB should ask for permissions to read _all_ SMS to make TFA via SMS a tiny > bit more comfortable?

If Android had a permission called "Only read one text message to verify your phone number" maybe Facebook could use it.

Honestly, I don't know what Facebook is trying to do, but similar arguments come up frequently with Android apps. The permission model is IMO broken, because it requires upfront permission for everything the app may ever want to do. There's no way to install something, minus SMS permission.

Maybe Facebook is evil and does want to read all of your texts and upload them to advertisers. Maybe they don't. It's hard to determine that simply from the requested app permissions, given the poor granularity of those permissions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Today is the 50th anniversary of Star Trek - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek#The_Original_Series_.281966.E2.80.9369.29 <comment><USER2> I'm shocked that this isn't on the front page. Has Star Trek finally faded from the public consciousness? That would be sad.

(As an aside, the official Star Trek site has a nice little celebratory video from some of the actors in the various series: [http://www.startrek.com/article/happy-50th-anniversary- star-...](http://www.startrek.com/article/happy-50th-anniversary-star-trek))</comment>


Early access codes to MyCube for HN Readers - <AUTHOR>

I have a few early access codes to a network out of Singapore. They are called MyCube. Their big selling point is that you get the money from the ads on your page, not them.
To sign up:
1. Go to http://beta.mycube.com
2. Enter mctrevorg as the activation code
3. Fill out the form
4. Confirm in your email
5. You're now a super-early adopter! <comment><USER2> I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with the site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its still looking way too incomplete.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had the same thought. However, it is in beta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slow as hell too!</comment>


Growth hacking your career - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/growth-hacking-your-career-karan-walia?trk=prof-post

<comment><USER2> Interesting connotation between Product/market vs skills/employability.

</comment><comment><USER3> uselful post for someone looking to make career progression

</comment><comment><USER4> interesting post

</comment><comment><USER5> kudos</comment>


Infographic: US campaign finances revealed - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/10/201210995526117912.html

<comment><USER2> Just to put these numbers into perspective, something the infographic fails to do even though it slaps on the label "Big Money", Americans spend 15x more on pet food than both political candidates and parties combined spend on political speech.

[http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSale...](http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSales)

<comment><USER3> I don't know why comparing political donations to food puts these numbers in perspective. A better comparison is other nations fundraising.

Canadians spend less on campaigns than the "biggest spenders" on that chart combined, with 37 million citizens.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada)

During the 2010 presidential election Brazilians spent $2 billion on campaigns and have ~200 million citizens.

[http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_global- campai...](http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_global-campaign- finance_1_party-spending-public-funding-political-parties/3?_s=PM:WORLD)

<comment><USER4> Because pets are a luxury, but political participation is a necessity for the country to work properly.

<comment><USER5> Political donations are not a necessity for the country to work properly.

Pets may be a luxury, but once you have them feeding them is arguably a necessity. What's missing is whether they are buying more luxurious food than necessary.

Anyway, in the end it's a completely arbitrary comparison.

<comment><USER4> Point taken about having to feed them once you have them.

And I agree that political donations are not a necessity, but only if donations are banned, which is not the case. If your opponents are getting donations, then you are at a net loss if you don't. In that sense, being idealistic does not get you supporters, and donations really _are_ necessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yet another example of "Hot Topic" Data Journalism.

All of the "infographics" that are made this way break the web, and are hostile to verifying the facts that they are claiming.

News orgs, please for the love of Journalism, stop making these.

<comment><USER7> Can you expand on what you mean by "break the web"?

<comment><USER5> What I guess he means is that the content is not readily indexed by search engines, and does not have a fluid layout which adapts to different screen sizes such as with normal text. And perhaps the absence of linked sources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it me, or are the proportions of a least the first graphic off?

Here are the data is in Wolfram|Alpha: <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(0,+654.6),+(0,+536.3)>. I don't think W|A supports bar charts for some reason.

Edward Tufte would not be pleased.

<comment><USER9>
      654.6 / 536.3 = 1.22
      232px / 195px = 1.19

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So I read a little bit more about Open Secrets on their website, and they spare no detail in explaining what their data is used for. But does it say anywhere how they get their data? If so, could someone kindly point it out for me?

I would think that they simply compile reports from other places, but am curious nonetheless.

<comment><USER11> The data comes from the Federally mandated campaign finance reports. See <http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml>

So the data comes from the candidates themselves and the data is heavily scrutinized for accuracy.

<comment><USER10> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how much money would have to be raised before everyone acknowledged this is not even close to democracy and political leaders are just being bought.

i.e. Next election a Super PAC backed by health insurance companies spends $20 Billion for the candidate they want.

Surely this can't go on.

</comment><comment><USER13> Unusually, this is a ~good~ infographic!

<comment><USER14> And a depressing one, at that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Huh. As a non-American I was under the impression that the Romney camp was significantly out-spending Obama.

What do the numbers look like if you add the earlier spending by the various Republican presidential candidates?

<comment><USER16> This impression may come from the money being spent supporting Romney by 'unaffiliated' Super PACs.

<comment><USER15> Aha. This is almost certainly the reason I was thinking that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, but the text is so blurry I can't read it half the time.

</comment><comment><USER18> Very interesting, I have only one nitpick (maybe for the paranoid only) : why not show the cumulative distribution but pick 200$ as a threshold?

</comment><comment><USER19> There is something about Morgan Freeman giving $1m to the Obama campaign that I find comical, but I can't figure out why.

<comment><USER20> Maybe because he played a US president in a movie about a meteor hitting the Earth?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Dofsome.com - Chrome-less photo hosting - <AUTHOR> http://dofsome.com Hi, this is a project I've been working on for about 2 months. I am definitely not a designer, so I tried to keep the GUI to minimum and really make the presentation about photos and as fluid as possible.<p>Any feedback welcome! :) <comment><USER2> Nice, looks like you've been annoyed at some of the same things I have for a while. A couple of questions:

1) Unlimited. So you will keep a copy my 1000s of 10-20mb RAW files for 8 USD/Month ?

2) Unlimited part two: How about a x/dollars/month > N _xGB of storage (Where N is magic:)? IE: Some transparency towards your margins? And accounts for those that don't need quite 100USD/Year worth of service? I absolutely see that having a treshhold makes sense, but to me 8/Month seems high.

3) Since you're probably _not* actually _unlimited_ \-- who are your target users? Someone with 1000s of high quality jpegs? Someone fed up with picasa/flickr/etc ? Do you have an actual roof on bandwidth?

4) The scaling: Do you do it browser side (ie: most of the pictures are rather shoddy quality compared to custom scaled/cropped images?)? Some of it server side, some browser side?

5) Which formats do you support? (Jpeg2000, other high quality formats?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

1) At the moment we only support jpg and png. So a copy of your 1000s of avg 10MB (max worst case global image size average, probably lower). Which is fine.

2+3) Our motivation with single tier was simplicity. Simplicity of the homepage, simplicity of thinking while you read something before you hit that 'Try' button..

I am not sure if a general user thinks about our margins and I can be wrong, but I think we should try to match the value he gets + position ourselves regarding to competition. If somebody cares about margins the S3 prices are a pretty good general storage reference point ;-)

To be completely transparent, we currently think that with an unlimited account we shouldn't get much more than ~40GB of jpegs from a user over his lifetime ON AVERAGE. Once this is amortized across big enough number of users I doubt it will get much more than that. zenfolio.com has been around for many many years and they have an unlimited account for $50/year and cater to professionals with huge files (think a wedding photographer who uploads couple GBs each other weekend).

Our average target user is not a pro (we are not aspiring to be a portfolio website at the moment) but has photography as a hobby and wants a clean no- bulshit way to upload and share his photos across online and offline personas.

4) All server side, with aggressive caching and on-the-fly scaling. No scaling on the client.

5) Just a jpeg and png to simplify the pipeline in MVP, if we see an interest in other formats we will investigate. Would you like to see a support for jpeg2000? For upload or also for serving? At the moment, the browser support seems still weak.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for your clear answers :-)

I absolutely see the simplicity argument. Personally I'm not sure if 8/month is too high though. I'll have to think about it -- with the (very swift) scaling on the server, I see more what you offer -- not sure if you really fit _my_ use case though. But you're much nicer IMNHO than flickr/picasa.

I recently priced some storage and found that Amazon/Rackspace are at around 10 cents/GB/Month (without transfer...) and a cheap dedicated server would end up around 3 cents/GB/Month (with limited transfer -- free in, 5000GB/Month out) -- but this is for ~2TB of usable storage.

With overhead (all kinds, people, hosting, transfer) -- I suspect it's not very realistic (or rather, attractive) to compete with Amazon on price. I certainly don't need 2TB "in the cloud" right now... and can't quite justify paying for it... yet ;-)

As for formats, I see a use for jpeg2000/webp (yeah, looks like jpeg2000 is pretty much dead for web...) - and for DNG. But DNG would (for now) be for archival storage. Which may or may not be a use case you want to cover.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the compliment :) The focus of the service has to do with the focus of the interface, that is why community based services (500px, flickr, social networks as such) will always have a polluted interface (comment widgets, buttons etc) because they need to generate engagement around user content. I could be wrong here about the extent to which this pollution actually matters for users.

With dofsome we are trying to separate the photo presentation into a stand- alone service and allow the user to use their social services as distribution channels for their content.

Yeah, no point in competing with S3, better focus on a product built on top of it ;-)

At the moment I am thinking about just doing imports from online backup solutions and really focus on the presentation. For a viable storage MVP you definitely need device specific uploaders..

<comment><USER2> The reason I mention DNG is because it can be used as "superset" archiving format. It should be feasible to accept pretty much any kind of RAW in, archive a copy of the raw in the DNG (or just trust the conversion) -- and so let the users have an original on your servers. Again, not sure if you want to be a backup/archive for images, or just a point of publication (for me that is all that jpeg/png will ever be -- and it's not really something _I_ am interested in paying for -- I would still have to deal with the headache of "publishing" from my Digital Negatives -- and maintaining that collection).

As camera technology continue to improve and storage continue dropping in price (at least on the camera end, flash cards etc) I suspect more and more low end cameras will support some form of DNG-format.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice interface.

When you click on a picture, the slideshow should be paused by default. I found it annoying when the picture I was checking changed automatically.

I did not see the pause button at first sight, you should make it bigger and put it bottom center, and by default it should be a "play slideshow" button.

<comment><USER4> When I clicked on a few pictures, they expanded, which I expected. Later (in Berlin) I clicked on a picture and got a slideshow. I much prefer seeing all the pictures and clicking on the ones I want to zoom in on. It is indeed a great interface. My vote is a "play slideshow" button; otherwise, make zooming in on the pic the behavior when a pic is clicked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Because I want to share photos across all my online and offline personas - not tie them down to a single social network or app."

I'm personally happy to know that this is the underlying sentiment, and I'd guess that the photo community feels the same way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, this is the key idea that makes/breaks dofsome as a product. I'm a hobby photographer myself and dofsome is aimed to fix my own problems, so in this way I hope it to be at least somewhat representative of other similar people's needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is your target professionals or consumers?

As a consumer I'm always incredibly wary of things that seem too good to be true. I don't understand how you can scale the economics of $8/month with _unlimited_ storage. When I see that it induces scepticism that you'll be around for the long term, and one thing I _really_ do not want is my lifetime archive of photos suddenly disappearing on me one day.

A second point - for me these days, getting photos uploaded to storage is as key as the storage itself. If you have a story about that (smart phone apps, background uploaders, APIs, dropbox, picasa, flickr or other integration) then I would like to see it. The drag and drop is neat, but it doesn't work at scale. I want something that's going to upload the photos automatically.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

zenfolio.com and similar cater to a professional market where people shoot photos for a living, e.g. events like weddings & ceremonies and they upload lots of big files. And they offer an unlimited account for $50/year. In this case it is always important how the average volume amortizes across a big user base.

Yep, an uploader would be neat but it gets really ugly really fast with many different platforms to think about.

The problem with an import from other services seems to be image quality (services like social networks) or API availability (photo hosting services for pro photographers).

The drag'n'drop is the best we could do on the "our effort"/"user convenience" scale for an MVP, I am definitely thinking hard about ways to get in images fast and in the original quality.

Maybe the right way is to focus on dropbox/backup storage imports.

If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them :)

<comment><USER2>
      > an uploader would be neat but it gets really ugly really
      > fast with many different platforms to think about.

Support webdav (or sftp). There are good free dav-clients for windows now (and all the other os' have supported webdav for years). Webdav should be easier to integrate with an existing infrastructure based around http.

edit: You might even easily create your own webdav-client for windows (the black sheep when it comes to dav-support), either working off existing dav- libraries, or possibly by throwing some money at an existing free/shareware project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Initial thoughts:

\- "Dofsome... How am I supposed to pronounce that?" After a minute of hypotheses, I realized that it's a clever mashup of DOF (Depth of Field, i.e. photography jargon) and Awesome. I wonder how many people will figure that out. Maybe give a pronunciation hint somewhere, e.g. (pronounced DOFF-some). (Doff some? Doff some what? Some clothing? Is this an intentional double entendre?)

\- The key feature, the full-width gallery of thumbnails, seems like a feature that would be easy for others to replicate. Google+ albums are already similar but with chrome around them. Squarespace has some templates with similar look; their hosting also starts at $8/month, but they offer way more than photo galleries/portfolios.

\- I'm also reminded of Jux (jux.com) which is a beautiful idea. If you haven't explored their demos, please do! I'd happily pay for a Jux-based website, but they decided to be free, and so I won't go anywhere near them; why would I host my photos on a service that has no way to keep running long- term?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

\- Yeah, we were afraid that the name is too clever for System 1 [1] to understand. On the other hand it feels good once you get it and it makes you feel kinda like a photography insider :) Also I'm not a native English speaker, but my English friends could pronounce it even without having an idea about d.o.f.

\- There is no single particularly clever part about this, just the G+ style grid made possible by on-the-fly image rendering/resizing with imgix.com [2] and the absence of chrome/distractions. My company is working on a much more advanced photo hosting solution and we basically launched this to have a really minimalistic service to which we will be able to trickle down advanced behind-the-curtain stuff once it is proven to work for users.

\- will check jux.com out thanks!

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel- Kahneman/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel- Kahneman/dp/0374275637) [2] imgix.com - these guys are just starting out so it is bumpy sometimes, but I've been recommending them because it is such a good idea

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd like a way to be able to access a full-resolution version of the image. (Fwiw I didn't watch the video.)

I couldn't zoom in the image with with browser zoom (ctrl-+/wheelup), it breaks badly when I do that (Firefox nightly Ubuntu).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually at one point I had a branch with a 1 step zooming functionality in the slideshow (basically a 2x zoom with a huge image download and 'follow- cursor' panning).

But I abandoned it to improve focus and simplify the UI.

Zooming on the client brings no additional details, so I doubt is very useful. Care to share a use-case for this?

<comment><USER8> Zooming in makes it easier to discern certain details. This is true, to a point, even if it increases the zoom beyond 1:1. This is increasingly true as the screen DPI get higher, and you can't make out individual pixels. Even zoomed in to 200%, a photo displayed on a "retina" iPad doesn't look jagged, it's just bigger. The same is true on a regular TFT viewed from a few feet away.

Apart from that, breaking browser zoom is just rude. It's a standard feature of the browser and apps/pages should never mess with it. I'm not saying you must have an application level zoom (e.g. by hooking the mwheel events), but breaking browser zoom is just not okay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> $8/month ($96/year) seems kind of steep considering that's more expensive than Flickr and 500px pro-type accounts.

FWIW I really like this idea and focus.

</comment><comment> shawn-butler My initial response was that I would use it but I'm price sensitive thanks to 500px accounts ($20 & $50 yr).

Flickr also includes video so that might be something to iterate.

Maybe you could offer subdomain for that price?

Excellent design. I prefer the static display as default over the slideshow. I want to appreciate the image quality not use it as a digital frame.

</comment><comment><USER10> The video is a nice idea but it would be better if I could browse the demo shown in the video myself, just try the UI out, w/o register, w/o uploading photos. Just see how it looks and works.

Edit: Just found the demo, but it is too close to the "Register" button. I didn't notice that it is a separate button.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the terrific feedback guys, here AND the UserVoice.

To be honest, I am super-surprised that nobody complained about the google- only login. Maybe a sampling bias here at HN?

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like this. Great idea. The main issue I see is pricing. I would offer a yearly option. Also, creating a Lightroom plugin would go a long way with more serious photographers.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is one thing to write the price on the homepage (it seems to me that a monthly smaller price is easier on the eyes than the yearly lump) and to actually charge, where you can offer a monthly and a slightly discounted yearly option.

LR plugin or really any kind of uploader would be nice, I'll definitely look into how hard it is to do the plugin. General desktop syncing with a full- blown GUI seems much harder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> well-focused service in an interesting space. i'm not serious enough about photography to pay the price tag, but would love to see how this develops - best of luck to you.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think you're missing a trick. Genuinely chrome-less could be pretty useful, and more attractive.

The small black navigation bar at the top of the screen could be done away with, if you change your URL structure to be more easily understood & manipulated.

From shoulder surfing various people of various levels of tech experience, i've noticed they are quite happy to edit a logically structured url in the address bar to navigate where they want to go quickly. For example, if the site doesn't provide an easy "up one level" ability.

<comment><USER14> Argument against: some browsers don't show the URL, e.g. Firefox on Android, which shows the page title in the URL bar when the focus is away from the field.

<comment><USER13> Safari for iOS is probably a less obscure example - as you scroll down the page, the address bar will scroll off screen.

These interactions are expected by their users, and they know how to navigate around them.

I wouldn't be hasty and say i don't think it'd be a material concern, on the contrary, it could make for some interesting A/B testing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You should disable the Google Ads in the video.

</comment><comment><USER16> Er, I'd say that "Chrome-less" is a better description. You do have a GUI, it's just its chrome that is mostly invisible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, fixed the title!

I am used to explaining to non-computer people and they have no idea what chrome is and GUI = buttons basically for them. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The video quality is not sharp and it's got ads from YouTube so it doesn't look professional. Other than that, congrats!

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately youtube loads a resolution that is smaller or equal to the embedded frame, I didn't find a way to force full hd. If you full-screen it and then change the resolution, it should play nicely.

The adds are there because I might have mixed some copyrighted music in the background, will have to iterate on that.

In general, the youtube embedded videos are probably not a professional way of putting a video on a product homepage. But it is definitely the cheapest+easiest way.

<comment><USER18> Try Vimeo instead of YouTube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe that's too late for you to see it, but it would be great if there would be other login possibilities than google.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any other authentication provider you had in mind, or just a direct login?

<comment><USER19> Hum, even less likely you would see that one, but I meant direct login (or Mozilla Persona)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think your pricing per month is a bit too high. Looks like a good service though.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are still trying to figure it out, but based on the feedback we got here we will probably bring it down a bit. I'd like to avoid multi-tiered pricing if at all possible.

What would be an acceptable price from your point of view? (it would also help to know a bit more about your relation to photography ;-)).

<comment><USER20> Have been into web photography for around 5 years, past flickr pro user. Finding a upload service that accepts large (10 mb) photos has been tough. I just think the price is too high and $5 a month would be my target.

<comment><AUTHOR> We will probably go with $5 mo./25GB with some mechanism to extend the limit if needed.

How many of those 10mb photos do you roughly have in your use-case?

<comment><USER20> Over 5000. But doubtful that I would upload them all. maybe 200 max. I think a photo limit as flickr has done is the best format that a site like your can go with. Heavy users are willing to shell out extra for more photo limit (unlimited). I think you need a free option though (even if it's limited).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think this looks really slick. Good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am not a front-end guy and this is really an experiment and a learning experience so this goes a long way :-)</comment></comment>


Cross-Origin Resource Sharing with All Modern Browsers - <AUTHOR> http://www.kendoui.com/blogs/teamblog/posts/11-10-04/using_cors_with_all_modern_browsers.aspx

<comment><USER2> I think the idea is that if you have to write JSONP to implement the cross- origin requests for non-CORS browsers, then why even write the CORS part of it? We've had issues with JSONP handling long strings and had to change our API slightly, but other than than it is working cleanly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be nice if the difference between IE and the other browsers was handled in $.ajax(). Maybe one day I'll submit a patch..</comment>


Ask HN: Any advice for an iPhone user switching to Android? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an Apple fanboy. I have a MacBook, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and iPod Shuffle. The Apple devices have accumulated throughout the years and, while I like them all very much, I feel that I need a little change in my life. When I saw some of the fabulous features Android has to offer, I knew I needed one.
To let you know, I'm an AT&T user and therefore my choices are somewhat limited. I think that almost every review I've read or person I've talked to recommends the Samsung Captivate for AT&T users. However, the camera does not seem to be as good as the Sony Ericsson Xperia. There are also a lot of other features that one needs to compare, and I've been having trouble keeping track of all of them. For an iPhone user who never has to make a decision in their life, the countless compromises that need to be considered when purchasing an Android phone seem intimidating. What do you all think are the most important features to look for in a phone? Is the Samsung Captivate really the best one for AT&T users?
And along with those questions, do you have any other general advice for an iPhone user switching to Android? I've heard it takes some getting used to, but I'm willing to put in the effort to become accustomed to it.
tl;dr - I'm an iPhone user switching to Android and am confused by all the choices that have to be made when picking a non-iPhone phone. <comment><USER2> I _was_ an iPhone user and switched to Android three months ago without a single complaint. In contrast to what others have said, I say, Switch.

Of course, your mileage may vary depending on which device you choose, but I've had no problems moving from iOS to Android on a HTC Desire. Some thoughts from a past user of a 3G and 3GS, all opinions are massively subjective:

 _Pro's_

\- Battery life is far from dismal. Good, in fact. Better than the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

\- The default keyboard was very poor: inaccurate and horrible to use, even with some tactile feedback turned on. I switched to Swype a few weeks back and now can't imagine using anything else. Typing on my gf's iPhone is a horrible experience in comparison.

\- The HTC customisations are surprisingly nice (I removed them for two weeks to test the alternatives and went back).

\- Web browsing is not as fast, but provides a better experience.

\- No iTunes. I can't stand the application, and being able to manage my music using a simple folder structure was a breath of fresh air.

 _Cons_

\- The apps are not as polished as those available for the iPhone and not as numerous. Your favourite and most-used apps may not be available.

\- Contact management _can_ be a bit of a pain (more in a moment).

 _How should you prepare for the switch?_

\- If you don't already, get yourself a Google account. It will make life so much easier.

\- Get yourself over to <http://www.google.com/contacts> and correct mistakes, merge contacts that it, and remove any unnecessary entries. If you don't, it'll cause havoc when/if you import your Google contacts into your phone.

 _Conclusion_

\- I wish I had moved to Android (or, more specifically, Android on a HTC Desire) sooner.

\- I've had no regrets about moving.

\- My girlfriend (a bigger nerd than me) is convinced: when her iPhone contract ends she's already said she'll be switching.

<comment><USER3> I'm another avid Apple user who switched from an iPhone 3GS to an HTC Desire, and love it.

Granted, it's NOT as "smooth and polished" of an experience as iOS but I think the pro's FAR outweight the cons.

I found battery life to be much better (and I don't do any of the stupid suggestions such as "disable internet for longer battery!", I use all the features, all the time).

I also like that I can actually PLAY with the phone as a geek. Download and mess with .apk's from random developers, mess with settings, store/manipulate files on the phone, etc.

The biggest reason to do it though, is what you've already said: For a change. That was my main reason, and it has opened my eyes to how much fun it is just to change your ways for the sake of change itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Advice: don't.

I switched from iPhone to Android, and while there are some advantages (mainly: I'm not on AT&T), overall it's not nearly as nice an experience.

Top complaints: poor battery life (I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S, but I think iPhone4 beats all Androids), inaccuracy of keyboard, and overall lack of fit and finish - eg. sometimes the phone will freeze for a few seconds and then come back to life.

</comment><comment><USER5> I believe the Xperia and Backflip are being discontinued by AT&T.

If I were to buy a 3G phone on AT&T right now, I think the Captivate would be the model to get. I've not looked at the Aria, but, I just put a G1 and G2 on AT&T within the last week and am pretty impressed with HTC right now. <http://www.google.com/phone/> might help you a little.

If you can get a Motorola Milestone, you can unlock that from Rogers.ca and run that on AT&T and get 3G (Droid 1 'clone').

</comment><comment><USER6> 1.) Don't. In your use case, I think you'll end up hating Android.

Or.

2.) Keep the iPhone around, buy your desired Android handset and use the hell out of it during your 30 day grace period.If you still prefer it great. Keep it. If you don't, return it and go back to your iPhone.

The Captivate is garbage and you _will_ hate it. I got to play with a Nexus S (EDGE only on AT&T, but wasn't a huge deal) for a month and it almost made me want to switch, but for dependability, battery life, and elegance the iPhone is still king.

Many apps are much much better on Android though, because of its enhanced capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't switch. Period.

Android is a huge step up from Blackberry or Windows Mobile, but it is a big step down from iOS. Android lacks basic usability touches; the manufacturer customizations don't make things any better. Battery life is dismal. Additionally the system pauses all the time when performing basic tasks.

Some of these problems, I think, are fundamental to using a virtual machine for everything. The performance overhead is exacerbated by the less powerful mobile hardware. The garbage collection causes noticeable pauses. And more battery is used to accomplish less.

The other problems are rooted in design. Whoever was doing the UI for Google did not understand good UI. Sorry. Impressive looking UI elements waste space, get in the way, and actually slowed me down for no reason. Little iOS UI touches like the elastic scrolling that let you know you're at the end of a list are absent, making you wonder if you're at the bottom of the list or if the device is just taking a break to collect some garbage. I usually scroll repeatedly just to make sure whereas on iOS I see the bounce and I know I'm done immediately.

You're on AT&T. As long as you're happy with the service stay there and stick with an iPhone for now. Personally, I would not even consider another Android device until after 3.0 fixes some of the UI problems. And even then I have serious reservations about Android's technical fitness due to the VM.

I realize lots of people have all kinds of confidence in Android's technical fitness. People far more accomplished than myself. But whatever. The emperor has no clothes. It might be a good design for a portable OS, but it's not a good design for a mobile OS.</comment>


Artificial Intelligence Can Look at a Photo and Give You a Recipe - <AUTHOR> https://yellrobot.com/facebook-ai-photo-into-recipe/ <comment><USER2> SO CAN HUM0N! _glares at picture of a cat_ ADD 2 TBL SPOONS OF SALT!</comment>


Stanford Whizzes Develop an Astoundingly Cheap Fix for Clubfoot - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2014/01/curing-kids-style-design-thinking/

<comment><USER3> This passage:

> Before this brace becomes the standard of care, it will face challenges. In > parts of Brazil, doctors often stay faithful to less effective solutions > because they make more money delivering them.

Struck me as mildly derogatory; my impression (I'm not from the US, but I parse Wired as speaking from a US perspective) is that it's not ... completely rare to make that accusation for US doctors, too. :|

Of course, saying "this is a problem in Brazil" is not the same as saying "unlike in the US, this is problem in Brazil", but that's how I read it, for some reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the note. Just FYI, I'm the writer and there was no malice intended in my description. The sense I got in the interview was that the medical system in Brazil is fragmented to a much greater degree than in the US/EU where national healthcare establishes a more uniform standard of care. Of course there are cases of this same behavior in the US, but I'd wager they're far more rare.

<comment><USER4> There is no national healthcare system in the USA.

<comment><AUTHOR> About 1/6th of the country is covered by Medicare. Medicaid covers another 20%+ and increasingly being nationalized. All told, we're looking at 1/3 of the US population's healthcare being paid for by the Government. The prices set by the government tend to drive the price levels adopted by the private payers. So while there is no NHS equivalent, the US government is critically important in the set up of the reimbursement structure.

<comment><USER4> Heh. Point. Let me amend that to - the majority of Americans are not covered by a national health care system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics "whiz" Dr. Ignacio V. Ponseti developed this astoundingly cheap fix for clubfoot in the 1950s: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponseti_Method](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponseti_Method)

Of course, these guys are doing good work and don't claim to have cured clubfoot. But the Wired coverage is, unsurprisingly, sensationalized and misleading.

<comment><USER6> > Adding insult to injury, these thoroughly low-tech braces cost more than > iPads, generally coming with a $300-700 price tag.

I think "astoundingly cheap" is the important part here. While the title might lead you to believe that these students came up with the idea for using a brace to fix clubfoot, the article itself doesn't give that impression. These students came up with a low cost implementation of the Denis Browne bar. This means that the Ponsetti method will be available to the masses. Since the brace they developed is more comfortable than other braces, and more like a toy, it will also lead to more effective treatment of clubfoot through better compliance.

<comment><USER7> It said elsewhere in the article that many braces were not well made with a doctor bending a metal bar over a chair as he gave the diagnosis. Does not compute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> just googling "club foot brace" seems that there are similar solutions already out there and some look better at first look (not a specialist, so may be missing the point of Wired's excitement). Nothing in all these other braces looks like it costs much (i.e. BOM and manufacturing-wise). With regard to price to end-user, especially in US, - it doesn't matter whether your device costs $20 or $200 - it will be sold for the same $700, and thus expandable braces may be more cost effective because they minimize the occurrence of that $700 charge. Though, again, i'm not a specialist and may be really wrong - <USER2> guys most probably did improve the situation, just hard to see it behind the hype.

<comment><USER9> Excellent point, often when people talk about disrupting the medical industry, it looks like what they are really doing is making a similar product to what exists, but choosing not to collect the monopoly rent like other players.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can we PLEASE stop posting sponsored ads from wired.com?

</comment><comment><USER11> Surprised they didn't use 3D printing.

<comment><USER12> If you already have a form for the shape, casting is faster and easier.

<comment><USER13> And way, _way_ cheaper for mass production.

<comment><USER12> True, but I don't think these are mass-produced (yet). One of the advantages cited was precise calibration of the angles for each user.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is totally off topic, but the woman in the video, Chesca Colloredo- Mansfeld, has a really distinctive accent that I can't place at all. Does anyone recognize it?

<comment><USER15> Her facebook page says she attended college in Australia. But she has lived in the US ever since, so... a well-sanded Australian accent?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> v cool</comment>


Underscores vs. dashes in URLs [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQcSFsQyct8

<comment><USER2> He said Google uses over 200 signals to rank a page. I am not sure if Matt accidentally revealed small insight into Google's ranking.</comment>


Show HN: EvenCart – Next Generation ECommerce Software on ASP.net Core + Liquid - <AUTHOR> https://www.evencart.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, EvenCart is an eCommerce software built on top of ASP.NET Core and Liquid View engine and supports Microsoft Sql Server and MySql with an integrated API.

The software exposes various API endpoints to customize the shop using plugins. However the source code will be made available to the enterprises which want to customize the solution for their clients or want to build an entirely new solution on top of EvenCart. The documentation is available at [https://docs.evencart.com](https://docs.evencart.com)

Early feedback is very much required for the improvement of the product. Therefore for early adapters, we'd be providing special incentives when the marketplace is launched.

More coming soon :)</comment>


MongoHQ (YC S11) changes name to Compose, launches Elasticsearch - <AUTHOR> http://blog.compose.io/mongohq-is-now-compose-and-launching-elasticsearch/

<comment><USER2> Hmm...Seems like you lose a lot of brand equity - but then what do I know.

<comment><USER3> I was also very surprised by the name and domain change.

That said, my old mongohq.com account works fine on compose.io, and offering Elastic Search does make sense since it fits nicely with using mongoldb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Suspiciously close to when the former CEO left to be with his family...

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm so very excited about this</comment>


German domination of Euroland is a disaster - <AUTHOR> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/03/16/176711/german-domination-of-euroland-is-a-disaster/

<comment><USER2> For those interested in learning more about all this, the latest edition of The Economist has a special feature on Germany.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's really going to be an interesting twelve months for the EU. Considering the recent special report on Germany in The Economist, there are several possible viewpoints on the merit of Germany as a model-citizen for the EU.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is also an interesting read in this respect: [http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100315_germany_mitteleuropa...](http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100315_germany_mitteleuropa_redux)

<comment><USER5> "But this was not the "union" the rest of Europe signed up for — it is the Mitteleuropa that the rest of Europe will remember well."

So that's the way they want to go, comparison-wise. I don't know whether that's where you would want to go when discussing policy in the EU. Seems unnecessary.</comment></comment>