Ask HN: What's Your Favourite Browser? - <AUTHOR> I am always on a looking for new browsers to try out. Currently I am using Firefox (for HN, Stackoverflow, freenode and Gmail), Chromium for Banking and for everything else.<p>Would be interesting to hear what's your default browser. <comment><USER2> Definitely Brave Browser (brave.com). In-built ad-blocking (via Brave's shield) with a bunch of useful features I often had to wrangle a few extensions for (ublock origin, ghostery, and more) when I was using Chrome.

It's still using webkit (based off of Chromium; and Chrome apps work) but the Brave Shield is a great plus. Block ads, trackers, force HTTPS upgrades, block javascript, block cookies 1st or 3rd party.

There are some quirks, Netflix refuses to play nicely in Brave but that's the only exception I've found and supposedly over the past ~1 year I've had it installed I've blocked some ~70,000 trackers, ~800,000 ads, forced ~10,000 HTTPS upgrades, saving me ~11.1 hours of time (open a new tab to see statistics).

I have Javascript set to be blocked by default, forcing HTTPS upgrades, and blocking all trackers. If I need a website to use Javascript I can whitelist it and 3rd party cookies are always blocked. So the first few days are a bit annoying as you whitelist all the websites but from that point onwards you're in a good state of only allowing what you want to run instead of at the mercy of whatever bundle a website decides to give you.

It has BAT integration as well but I've personally never used it. I recommend it to anyone and everyone who uses Chrome to just make the change.</comment>


How Dilbert's Scott Adams Got Hypnotized by Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-22/how-dilbert-s-scott-adams-got-hypnotized-by-trump <comment><USER2> Some Fake News About Me from Bloomberg: [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158709087061/some-fake-news- abo...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158709087061/some-fake-news-about-me- from-bloomberg)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hit piece rerun.</comment>


Snowden an eccentric, but hardly stood out at NSA - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nsa-snowden-20130622,0,4608330.story

<comment><USER2> [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2340565/Edward- Snowd...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2340565/Edward-Snowden-I- like-girlish-figure-How-NSA-leaker-Snowden-bragged-physique-online-ability- attract-nubile-young-girls.html) =)

</comment><comment><USER2> wtf - In later years, Snowden was proud of his career advancement, bragging about his salary ("I make $70k, I just had to turn down offers for $83k and $180k") and dispensing online advice like a world-weary veteran. .. what a teen</comment>


I mean, why not tell everyone our password hashes? - <AUTHOR> https://theobsidiantower.com/2017/07/12/aef453e9f6c1a6125bcb97cc6a97ec2fde128574.html <comment><USER2> PSA to everyone responding to the title: please RTFA, it's sarcasm.

<comment><USER3> No, by all means share the MD5 hash of your passwords. After all it's a one way hash. /S

<comment><USER4> It's my understanding that even an MD5 hash of a not-terrible password is still virtually impossible to crack, is that wrong?

Here's an md5 sum of a not-that-great password I just made up. It's 14 characters long, but has plenty of guessable features. Is it crackable?

1cf016ea3cb1f2aa2ccb59c196d0e704

<comment><USER5> In reality while that would be really easy to crack (measured in minutes as others pointed out).

However, any possible password with a standard printable ASCII character set will typically be found in Rainbow tables up to 10 characters long making expensive cracking unnecessary. [not quite right see edit]

Rainbow tables are just giant tables where the key is the hash and the value is the string that generated it.

However, your example being 14 characters long is a bit long to be in most readily available rainbow tables.

This is why using salts and peppers are incredibly important regardless of what hash you use.

Edit: minor(ish) correction to the previous sentence. Full alphanumeric with punctuation and digits is available readily in smaller password lengths but the 10 character long datasets seem to be mostly only lower case characters and digits.

<comment><USER6> If you know the md5 hash, why not login with another password that generates the same hash value? Does it actually need to be the same passord?

<comment><USER5> It will work but a common reason to crack passwords is because people use the same password on multiple sites. Getting the wrong value may work to log into that specific site but will not work where the user the real password elsewhere. (unless that other place is using the same hash algorithm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One reason: you'd be surprised how many companies allow entering the hash as an alternative password to login to customers' accounts in production. Lazy method for customer support teams who don't have support tools to access customer information. Also frequently done to allow developers to debug problems on a customer's account when a bug cannot be reproduced elsewhere.

If such a company's database of hashed passwords is leaked, then an attacker doesn't even have to crack the hashes - the hash itself is a valid version of the password. Yet I've seen this behavior at multiple companies; only one of them pushed back against my request to remove that "feature", and I didn't stay with them much longer after that.

<comment><USER8> What would it take to get you to name and shame? That whistle pretty likely needs to be blown on the one that didn't agree to abandon such a policy.

<comment><USER7> Small private company, nobody's ever heard of it. There are a lot of shady ones out there.

<comment><USER9> Agree. MANY small development shops will build these kinds of backdoors into systems because they don't have the skill or the resources to build proper customer support features.

<comment><USER10> Remember "Chuck Norris"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That inspired this idea: make all password databases public, in an encrypted form. Just post them in a standard location. This is to get rid of the fiction that these are ever private and to eliminate an incentive to break in.

<comment><USER12> Instead of password hashes, why don't we just use Argon2id as a KDF to produce an Ed25519 keypair, and then publish the (salt, memcost, opscost, Ed25519 public key)?

I can throw this into a structure indistinguishable from a blockchain if any VCs want to invest ;)

<comment><USER13> Needs more FIPS to be enterprise ready.

<comment><USER12> Okay, let's throw in an invalid curve attack vulnerability and call it even. I'll contact NIST for a grant. Let's get this ball rolling!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What exactly are these passwords used for? The post mentions "controlling this object in the RIPE database" but I'm missing some context necessary to understand that.

<comment><USER15> Basically you can take ownership of their IP ranges, modify routing information, etc.

Even if you took a small percentage of the IP addresses in Europe, this could have a snowball effect. You take the IP addresses belonging to a popular mail service used by other domains, then you use admin email addresses to reset and eventually Europes internet is stolen.

<comment><USER16> It's not quite that simple. The RIPE database stores mostly administrative information, and doesn't _directly_ affect Internet routing.

In order to "steal" IP addresses (get them routed to you) you would need to buy a connection to at least one exchange point, probably several if you want all the traffic for the target to route to you and not just some traffic from some networks. You'd need to buy rackspace somewhere with a connection to the exchange point, install routers, establish BGP peerings with the exchange point (if they're doing route reflection) or with all the other major networks at the exchange.

There are multiple steps along the way where humans would look at the prefixes you were going to be announcing. This would include looking them up in RIPE, but anything more than a cursory inspection would likely reveal your ruse.

At this point it becomes more of a social engineering attack, and even if you got as far as announcing it, there are things like BGPMon that would pick up the fraudulent announcement pretty quickly and you'd likely find that the cable was pulled out of your router pretty fast.

<comment><USER15> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Shots fired.

That ending was an incredibly well delivered stab at Deutsche Telekom. This is why I love vigilante security.

</comment><comment><USER18> It depends on the hash type. Cryptographic hashes (MD4, SHA1, SHA256, etc.) are made to be efficient and fast to compute while password hashes (bcrypt, scrypt, etc.) are much more difficult to compute. The difference is staggering.

      john --test --format=nt

      Benchmarking: NT [MD4 128/128 X2 SSE2-16]... DONE

      Raw:	29037K c/s real, 29037K c/s virtual

      john --test --format=bcrypt

      Will run 16 OpenMP threads

      Benchmarking: bcrypt ("$2a$05", 32 iterations) [Blowfish 32/64 X3]... (16xOMP) DONE

      Raw:	5472 c/s real, 490 c/s virtual

___Edit: NT hashes are one round of MD4. These are Microsoft Active Directory hashes. OpenBSD uses Blowfish hashes by default._ __

<comment><USER19> Password "hashes" are generally just cryptographic hashes run multiple times (known as key stretching). Cryptographic hashes are also designed to be slow. A key stretching algorithm will only be slow if the underlying cryptographic hashes are sufficiently slow.

<comment><USER20> _> Password "hashes" are generally just cryptographic hashes run multiple times (known as key stretching)_

1\. Password hashing functions are not regular hash functions run multiple times. This is not only false at a macro level (i.e. we don't just run SHA-2 several times to get something resembling PBKDF2), it's false in terms of core construction. Password hashing functions rely on fundamentally different mathematical properties than regular hash functions. It's not like 3DES and DES: a secure password hashing function requires more than just a higher iteration count.

2\. "Key stretching" does not refer to running cryptographic hash functions multiple times. Key stretching refers to the act of generating a secret key from an otherwise weak passphrase or input, generally supplied by a user. You use the user's passphrase to (in effect) seed a function that outputs something much more resistant to brute-forcing. Key stretching is used in key derivation functions, but what you described is not key stretching.

3\. General purpose (as opposed to password) hashing functions are designed to be fast, not slow. Take a look at BLAKE2's homepage for speed comparisons - speed is a selling point: [https://blake2.net/](https://blake2.net/). In addition you can read the following from the handy FAQ:

 _You want your hash function to be fast if you are using it to compute the secure hash of a large amount of data, such as in distributed filesystems (e.g. Tahoe-LAFS), cloud storage systems (e.g. OpenStack Swift), intrusion detection systems (e.g. Samhain), integrity-checking local filesystems (e.g. ZFS), peer-to-peer file-sharing tools (e.g. BitTorrent), or version control systems (e.g. git). You only want your hash function to be slow if you 're using it to "stretch" user-supplied passwords, in which case see the next question._

<comment><USER19> Well that was embarrassing. Thanks for the corrections!

There's a Wikipedia line that could use your input (unless I'm missing why this would still be accurate).

> _Key stretching functions, such as PBKDF2, Bcrypt or Scrypt, typically use > repeated invocations of a cryptographic hash to increase the time required > to perform brute force attacks on stored password digests._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function#Pa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function#Password_verification)

<comment><USER21> > > Key stretching functions, such as PBKDF2, Bcrypt or Scrypt, typically use > repeated invocations of a cryptographic hash to increase the time required > to perform brute force attacks on stored password digests.

This is not false, it is indeed one of the techniques that they use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's also nice enough to mention the hashing algorithm used - MD5, just so you don't have waste time guessing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Passwords are broken for precisely this reason. You are operating under the fiction that permanently handing over entropy from a limited source to an untrusted party, even through a (for a time) one-way function, is ever a good idea. Please do make all password hashes public. It will finally force the move away from passwords.

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice, they even have a rest API and web form to update the information:

[https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and- asns/db/support/updating...](https://www.ripe.net/manage-ips-and- asns/db/support/updating-the-ripe-database)

</comment><comment><USER25> Stupid question, but what does this particular password hash unlock?

<comment><USER26> I was wondering, too. From the article,

>"I hope like me you were immediately drawn to the 'auth' fields. As the name implies this field contains authentication information for controlling this object in the RIPE database. RIPE supports a couple of different auth types like Single Sign On (SSO), public key cryptography, and of course md5."

It's authentication to manage that entry in the RIPE database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's hard to imagine worse, except maybe putting the passwords in the clear...

Single unsalted broken MD5 is a far cry from scrypt... and even scrypt is probably a bad idea with all this crypto currency hashing hardware out there, unless you have a seriously strong password.

Just don't publish hashes.

</comment><comment><USER28> The PGP option has been the preferred option for as long as I can remember (circa 2000).

</comment><comment><USER29> Threads discussing rainbow tables are not applicable.

These hashes are not unsalted MD5. They are md5crypt ($1$[salt]$[hash]), as found in many Unix-likes and some Cisco IOS.

</comment><comment><USER30> As you might have guessed, my password hash is password.

<comment><USER31> Were this true, you would have achieved a pre-image attack.

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h I like to think that if I ever gained the ability to execute preimage attacks, solve P=NP, etc. I would use it to troll everyone by making my passwords hash into "password", grabbing heylookicrackedpublickeyencryption.onion, and emailing prominent security researchers messages signed with their own keys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> a simple unsalted hash wouldn't work due to rainbow-tabling, and even a salted hash would be vulnerable to someone gaining unauthorized access to the salt and regenerating a rainbow table with it (although if one used bcrypt, that might be practically impossible)

<comment><USER33> There's not really such a thing as "gaining unauthorized access to the salt" when you already have the hash; the salt is just as secret as the hash, and the hash is useless as a means of authentication without the salt, so obtaining the hash, unauthorized or not, generally also means you obtain the salt. Libraries for algorithms like scrypt even usually give you one string which contains both a random salt and a hash.

You can regenerate a rainbow table which uses that salt, but you'd have to generate a rainbow table for every password, since each password has its own random salt. I don't know how rainbow tables work exactly, but I'd assume an old fashioned brute force attack or dictionary attack is cheaper than making a rainbow table for each password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> ELI5

<comment><USER35> TL;DR Don't tell people your passwords, even if they're "obscured" by a hashing algorithm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> >whois -h whois.ripe.net DTAG-NIC

Wait, was that just a straight bash command? Is this installed on my computer?

>$ whois usage: whois [-aAbdgiIlmQrR6] [-c country-code | -h hostname] [-p port] name ...

Holy shit lol, that's neat.

<comment><USER37> > Wait, was that just a straight bash command? Is this installed on my > computer?

Welcome to 1982..1985. This command predates bash.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc812](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc812)

[http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi- bin/utree.pl?file=2.11BSD/src/ucb...](http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi- bin/utree.pl?file=2.11BSD/src/ucb/whois.c)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Because your password is part of your identity and is actually used to cross check during identity matching.

<comment><USER39> Leaving aside the fact that changing my password doesn't mean I have a new identity, having the _hash_ $2y$10$/Aglzm2zpHO7m1dIv5vSp.GHPUd1D8uODn/jtBv3gpe8yS5e/D9PW doesn't tell you my password is "tinkerbell".

<comment><USER40> If your password is "tinkerbell", even an attacker with very few resources can probably crack the hash for it in seconds on their desktop PC.

<comment><USER39> My password is not "tinkerbell". It serves as an example.

My real passwords look a lot more like the hash.

<comment><USER41> Is your real password hunter2?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nah, why even give an inch? Yes, if you properly deal with passwords, the artifact you store gives virtually no information to an attacker, but on the other hand, why give them even almost nothing?

</comment><comment><USER43> Sure, in an ideal world: post the hashes, the salts, the hash algorithm, everything. If it's done "right" (e.g., the hash function has enough complexity), then brute force cracking, rainbow tables, etc. would take so long that it wouldn't be feasible to crack them with any volume.

Of course, you could still crack _some_ (problem), so keeping multiple secrets hidden through obscurity (the hashes, the salts, etc.) is another layer of security.

This doesn't guarantee _security_ , but it's certainly _more secure_. But it is additive: there's no reason to just use MD5 (or plaintext) because "my hashes are secret".

</comment><comment><USER44> I was kind of disturbed that GitHub publishes every user's public key.

[https://developer.github.com/v3/users/keys/](https://developer.github.com/v3/users/keys/)

This is a different situation and public keys are not directly analogous to password hashes: there isn't a reliable way of cracking public keys in the same sense that there's a semi-reliable way of cracking hashes. But it was still strange and uncomfortable to me that they would reveal this "target" (and if there were specific key generation bugs, like RNG seeding errors, people might actually be able to crack a few of them and know that they had suceeded).

Relatedly, I was thinking about the magic crypto-cracking device in the movie _Sneakers_. Once they had it, they could immediately use it to log on to random network-connected services, defeating the authentication. So, how is that supposed to work? How do they automatically know what credentials would be accepted for a particular service? Are there common network authentication protocols based on public-key cryptography that have the property that the verifier tells the prover the public keys that it trusts?

<comment><USER45> You can have a GitHub specific ssh key.

      ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -b 4096 -N "passphrase" -C "firstname.lastname@example.com" -f ${HOME}/.ssh/.ghub

then in your ${HOME}/.ssh/config

      IdentitiesOnly yes
      Host github.com
        Hostname ssh.github.com
        Port 443
        User git
        IdentityFile /home/username/.ssh/.ghub
        ForwardAgent no

Not that it matters in this case, just sayin'.

<comment><USER46> 2048 is enough.

<comment><USER21> For now. [https://www.keylength.com/en/compare/](https://www.keylength.com/en/compare/)

Why risk it when generating an ed25519 or rsa4096 keypair is cheap?

<comment><USER46> The same logic would apply to an 8192 bit key. One more bit doubles the key space. Someone who is be able to crack 2048 bit keys, probably also has the opportunity to crack 4096 bit keys. It may not be cheap for your communication partners to use your 4096 bit key. Smartphones and embedded devices want to use as less energy as possible. With an 4096 bit key, you force your communication partners to spent an unnecessary amount of energy.

<comment><USER21> > One more bit doubles the key space

Yes, except that a 4096 bit key is not just "one more bit", it's double the amount of bits.

> Someone who is be able to crack 2048 bit keys, probably also has the > opportunity to crack 4096 bit keys

No, it would require an impossibly large amount of effort to crack 4096 bit keys compared to 2048 bit keys.

> Smartphones and embedded devices want to use as less energy as possible

They can use ed25519 then.

> With an 4096 bit key, you force your communication partners to spent an > unnecessary amount of energy.

They spend more energy by running ad-ridden "apps" and electron monstrosities.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I Lived Out of My Car for Six Months While Bootstrapping My Startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/3066181/startup-report/i-lived-out-of-my-car-for-six-months-while-bootstrapping-my-startup <comment><USER2> I commend your persistence and motivation to last six months. I know I wouldn't be able to do that, unless forced.

I always believe, success = Preparedness + Persistency + Opportunity.</comment>


The Dawn of PC Multimedia: Laser Discs and CD-ROMs (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.filfre.net/2013/05/the-dawn-of-multimedia/ <comment><USER2> Ah, this article brings back some nice memories of Christmas in 1993 and receiving Myst as a gift[1]. I was dismayed it required a CD-ROM drive, which we didn't have... except... hey what's this other gift? Our family's first CD- ROM drive! It was a momentous occasion! Nowadays CD drives are basically thrift shop throwaways, but back then they cost $hundreds and you were lucky to read at 4x speed. Fortunately, demo CDs suddenly became widely produced and it was easy to find huge libraries of neat new stuff to check out. Far more convenient than trying to download stuff at 1-2kB/sec over dialup! :'D

[1] [https://www.flickr.com/photos/amatecha/9930279265/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/amatecha/9930279265/)

<comment><USER3> > Fortunately, demo CDs suddenly became widely produced

So many AOL CDs in the mail...

I think my first drive was a 2x Plextor internal SCSI that used the caddies. Pros: Never a scratched disc. Cons: You had to acquire & deal with caddies.

<comment><USER2> Hey, before that was AOL floppies which were great -- free disks to use! Just put some scotch tape over the "write-protect" hole in the disk! hahaha :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember the switch to CD was huge.

1995 I got Lands of Lore (the LoL of our time, hehe) from my uncle in a box of 5-10 floppy disks.

1997 I got one CD with about 20-30 games like WarCraft, Doom, Command&Conquer etc.

It was orders of maginitude bigger than what I was used to and only a few times smaller than my 2GB HDD at that time.

I only got that feeling again with my USB3 drive I bought 3 years ago that was 128GB big.

On the other hand it took a bunch of years till I could get my hands on a used CD burner, because they were so expensive and only a few kids at school could copies, most of them taking around $10 for a copy.

<comment><USER5> > 1997 I got one CD with about 20-30 games like WarCraft, Doom, > Command&Conquer etc.

Good old Walnut Creek CDROM.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if i still have the stack of cover CDs i accumulated during a lonely student year (resulted in a deep seated appreciation for the flexibility of Quake1's Quake-C).

I also recall that i developed a habit of making my own utility collection discs once i got a modem and a net connection, to avoid having to download all the various shareware and stuff i invariably found missing after a Windows install.

<comment><USER4> Same here, back in the days when stuff wasn't outdated every week :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Surprised the article didn't mention Dragon's Lair[0] -- probably the most popular example of a "interactive" LD app. Probably the first game with full- motion video as well (albeit analog).

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Lair_(1983_video_ga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Lair_\(1983_video_game\))

<comment><USER8> After the novelty, it wasn't that great a game.

<comment><USER9> It's basically the prototype for the Quick Time Event you see in most AAA games these days. AKA "press X to not die".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Myst was huge and I was working 90 hours a week doing a cross platform CD ROM in 1995/96, using action script/ macromedia director, debabilizer for 256k color palettes and quicktime ui interction video snippets. It was a black art getting the disk to play on mac and pc - I had an in office ethernet network with mac and pc connected together. The product/project was obsolete a few years later. The big lesson for me was not to go down the cutting edge rat hole, problem solving and details ensnare you and you lose track of time and the market...

<comment><USER6> Ugh, that reminds me of some cover CDs that used some fancy/horrible macromedia based menu if you didn't kill the autoplay "feature" with fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I found a "blender" magazine on cd rom and decided to see if it was still usable recently.

While the menus don't work on my intel Mac, the video files are readable but so small and very pixelated. It really was pretty full, but the web has really replaced this kind of thing. The disk was surprisingly full though at 600 mb of content.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(magazine)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_\(magazine\))

<comment><USER12> Probably because early video codecs are terrible. Nowadays with modern codecs we can encode "higher-resolution" (like 320p or 480p) videos that are _smaller_ in file size than the old postage stamp sized videos.

<comment><USER6> Yep, when divx hit the net and could compress (mangle?) a full length movie to fit on a single CD was a big deal.

Before then there was VCD that used MPEG to split a movie across multiple CDs, iirc.

<comment><USER13> Usually 2 CDs, at lower resolution than DivX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I managed to save up enough to get a plextor 8 speed cd writer. I started a record label with it!

<comment><USER15> the stuff of legend.

few days ago I saw a yamaha 24x writer in an electronic dump, it was a god of the second wave of improvements.. weird feeling, almost tempted to take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Loved Laser Discs, home theater a decade+ earlier than anyone I knew.

Also had an IDE? 2x CD burner in the late 90s, great for making mix CDs for my car and hoarding warez before moving on to libre software. Good times.

Been a while since I've been ahead of the technology curve, and tend to lag it now. Let others do the debugging, haha.

<comment><USER17> Yeah. I have a shelf full of laserdisks and a Pioneer player. Annoyingly, it's the sort of thing that I know is probably worth something to someone but has negative value to me taking space. But I can't really be bothered boxing it up and trying to sell it on eBay either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> BTW: anybody remembers Commodore CDTV? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_CDTV](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_CDTV)

<comment><USER19> Who could forget Mehdis baby, useless and overpriced disaster. And how to recover? by doubling down with CD32!

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Found a good series the other day on youtube about this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg8tK1LpLS8&list=PLv0jwu7G_D...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg8tK1LpLS8&list=PLv0jwu7G_DFUoByWSHHoSTlUIxY7VkJLi)

The same channel also has some nice videos on CDs and VHS.

</comment><comment><USER21> Another early project missed here was the MIT Media Lab's "Aspen Interactive Movie Map (1981)"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf6LkqgXPMU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf6LkqgXPMU)

</comment><comment><USER22> ...and shortly thereafter, the built-in PC cupholder was born.</comment>


Should (and could) you ditch Apple, Google and Microsoft? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thememo.com/2016/01/04/should-and-could-you-ditch-apple-google-and-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> There are fundamental flaws in the argument

> He now uses a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop

And that is relevant in what way?

> with GNU and Linux software

Alright, fair enough.

> he's swapped Microsoft Office for LibreOffice

As before, fair enough, if one believes in FOSS being "better" than commercial software.

> he doesn't use Gmail but Mozilla's Thunderbird

Apples with oranges. The former is mail provider, also offering a web interface. The latter is an email client, which is pretty useless without a place where you receive emails. So what is actually using instead of Gmail?

> and, despite considering the iPhone the best on the market, he uses an > Android handset with the Cyanogenmod operating system.

Not only contradicts the "ditching Google" credo, but is also a useless move in this context. If he really wants to follow through with his FOSS approach he should be using Sailfish OS, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch or Firefox OS.

<comment><USER3> > Not only contradicts the "ditching Google" credo, but is also a useless move > in this context. If he really wants to follow through with his FOSS approach > he should be using Sailfish OS, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch or Firefox OS.

I kind of disagree, though those are all worthwhile projects. Running an AOSP or CM ROM with _no GApps_ is a reasonable choice for mobile if you want to avoid Apple/Google/Microsoft services.

<comment><USER4> The other day I convinced myself to flash CM 12 on my HTC One M7 without GApps. However, within a couple hours had no choice but to flash it. Open Whisper Systems doesn't provide Signal's APK outside of Google Play (surprisingly Spotify does), and neither does Pebble. In addition there is some bug in messaging that prevents me from sending any SMS at all. I'd argue that GApps is a requirement for any Android device today. Unfortunately I see the iPhone as the only smartphone where it's even _possible_ to avoid Google services.

<comment><USER5> At least for something like Signal you can compile it yourself. They even provide instructions. So you could avoid gapps for that one with a bit of work.

[https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/How- to...](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Android/wiki/How-to-build- Signal-from-the-sources)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've completely ditched Microsoft, mostly ditched Google, and haven't even tried to ditch Apple, yet. Of the three I think Google is the hardest to ditch entirely - and that's because of the ubiquity of YouTube. There's a lot of DIY, how-to, product information and conference videos on YouTube.

I've willingly allowed myself to be lulled into the Apple ecosystem because their hardware/software combination is so good. The wife and kids also like it and yet I still retain a Unix work environment. So ditching Apple probably isn't going to happen for me anytime soon though for me personally I'm thinking when my MacBook Pro dies I'll probably replace it with a ThinkPad and run FreeBSD on it. The family will more than likely still be running Apple.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm completely in bed with Apple, ditched Microsoft 20 years ago and am slowly weening myself off of google (primary reason I used google now is work requires uses google docs.)

I'm very happy with the stance Apple is taking regarding privacy and security. When the FBI director is bitching about a companies products being too secure, then that's a company I want to give money to.

Also, personally, I've been using Apple products for 30 years, and when they've had problems Apple has always gone above and beyond in helping. Recently, I ran into a problem, that I thought was a hardware problem, went to an Apple store, saw a Genius without an appointment and it fortunately turned out to be a software issue easily fixed- but that's much better than the 2-3 week turnaround I could expect shipping another companies device off to be serviced.

Apple puts the user first in a way that other companies do not (though to their credit Microsoft is clearly trying these days)... and I reward that with my money.

That said, I don't quite like my choices for laptops these days, and am considering going with a generic laptop running Linux or a hackintosh... I just wish Apple would offer 32GB in a laptop and/or more discrete graphics options.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ditch the iPhone for Android, uhm, ok, apart from the fact that Android = Google.

You could use Thunderbird with GMail, so that argument doesn't make any sense.

etc. etc.

<comment><USER9> CM is based on OSS code largely developed by Google, yes. But if you avoid Google apps you're sort of ditching Google.

Google is one of the biggest contributors to Linux and also contributes to Mozilla in various ways, for example. You can't (practically) avoid all the fruits of Google, but you can avoid directly using them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, nonsense in the article aside, sure you can, but only for isolated personal use.

As for myself, I've actively been avoiding all of them. Not because "everything FOSS is better", but because none of them are someone I like. Personally, I have never owned or used an Apple device or service (for my own need), the only Google thing I use is Youtube. As for MS, that's "worse". I need Windows with DirectX for entertainment and I need MS Office for some work, as much as I'd love to use LibreOffice if just because of the UX...

</comment><comment><USER11> Most people work for a company that make software and hardware decisions, and the user cannot make such choices to ditch a brand, unless they also decide to ditch their job.

<comment><USER12> Computer ecosystem is a factor when I consider a job. Granted, it's not high on the list, but it's there. I suppose though that this consideration is far less important for, say, a waiter, whose reliance on Windows for their POS system doesn't really affect his job much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've gone the opposite and decided to jump into bed with Microsoft; I got the surface book and upgraded everything to windows 10. Besides the ads in the games, it has been delightful.</comment>


Official: vb.ly Link Shortener Seized by Libyan Government - <AUTHOR> http://techyum.com/2010/10/official-vb-ly-link-shortener-seized-by-libyan-government/

<comment><USER2> Who cares? They bought a vanity name from a repressive crypto-Islamist dictatorship and built a company around it. Chickens roost. That's what they do.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Libya>

"We intended vb.ly to be a link shortener that celebrated tolerance [...]". And so you hosted it on a _Libyan domain name!_

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't panic yet as a .ly domain owner:

"While letters 'vb' are quite generic and bear no offensive meaning in themselves, they're being used as a domain name for an openly admitted 'adult friendly URL shortener'. Now, had your domain merely been a URL shortener for general uses similar to bit.ly (as you claim) there would have been no problem with it. It is when you promote your site being solely for adult uses, or even state that you are 'adult friendly' to promote it that we as a Libyan Registry have an issue."

That said, the value of .ly domains definitely just dropped.

<comment><USER4> perhaps. where does the line get drawn though? if someone stumbles across an adult-oriented link in your url shortener, will the libyan government take this to be a violation? will they order you to police the links shortened? will they take down your domain? etc..

<comment><USER2> The line gets drawn wherever they want to draw it. This country banned political parties 40 years ago. Why would you give them money?

<comment><USER4> i wouldn't, but clearly people have. thats more my point -- if they're okay with doing this, they're probably going to be okay to pull arbitrary content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks like there is a crackdown on .ly domains. See also: [http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space- to-b...](http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/2010/10/the-ly-domain-space-to-be- considered-unsafe/)

<comment><USER6> Both posts are about the same domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To be honest, I'm just surprised they didn't see this coming.

Obviously, if you buy a domain from an old-school ultra-orthodox Islamic dictatorship, you should expect to follow an extra set of laws to please them. The fact that they then decided to build a "sex-positive link shortener" company around it is just astounding.</comment>


Who does cut the wood? (a meditation on Object Oriented Design) - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3835299/object-oriented-design-problem

<comment><USER2> This is a good example if you also include a Saw class and an Axe class. Saw and Axe implement ICutter and IUsable. The Tree class implements ICuttable. Then Worker class calls ICutter.cut(ICuttable)</comment>


How To Become A Hacker - <AUTHOR> http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html <comment><USER2> I've probably read this a dozen times. I used to read it for motivation.

"Trying to learn to hack on a Microsoft Windows machine or under any other closed-source system is like trying to learn to dance while wearing a body cast."

I never agreed with this. The only time it's possibly a problem is if you want to learn about operating systems, and in that case the source to a current release of the Linux kernel is probably too complex. You'd be better off running Minix under a virtual machine, which you can do in Windows (or Mac OS X, or other proprietary OS) just fine.

A much more compelling argument is it's much easier to experiment with and install open source software on systems that have package management systems like apt-get. Certain excellent pieces of software run best on Unix-like OSes: Emacs, the MATLAB clone Octave, numerical libraries like ATLAS and GSL, Intel's LAPACK implementation, etc.

Whether you have the source to your kernel in particular is irrelevant in all of this and has everything to do with the open source community and traditions surrounding free software instead.

I view things this way because I've always cared more about making enduser applications/solutions instead of libraries and systems packages.

<comment><USER3> try installing something like LFS (Linux from scratch) and see how much you learn about Linux. Maybe I'm just old school but even on Windows I was always studying the OS internals, the specs of the various protocols and the details of the filesystem. The difference is in Linux I have access to the sourcecode so in addition to reading a book on the specs I can study the implementation ad well.

Does this really make me a better programmer? I hope so. But it might be just an extreme form of procrastination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> the problem with esr's 'definition of a hacker' is it is basically how he views himself at some point in his life.

<comment><USER5> Havoc Pennington makes a similar point in his essay "Working on Free Software" (<http://ometer.com/hacking.html>):

"Eric Raymond's thoughts on this topic are here; his HOWTO describes how to join "hacker culture." The culture isn't really necessary to participate in free software projects though, IMO. As long as you follow the community way- of-working you don't have to get into the social aspects (unless you'd like to)."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Attitude #2 is precisely what our startup <http://bug.gd> is intended for:

 _2\. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.

[...]

To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re- address old ones._

</comment><comment><USER7> _"During the first ten years of this HOWTO's life, I reported that from a new user's point of view, all Linux distributions are almost equivalent. But in 2006-2007, an actual best choice emerged: Ubuntu."_

Ubuntu sort of spoils users by making a fancy GUI available for most every aspect of system management and administration. When I was starting out with Linux, I must've went through about a half dozen of broken Slackware installs (and a lot of banging my head on the keyboard) before I really got the hang of how to work with a Unix system, but it was a great learning experience nonetheless.

This isn't to say that Ubuntu isn't a great distro--it is, but I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process, while other distros practically force you to learn a lot to use them, and that's a Good Thing.

<comment><USER8> _I'm afraid that its ease of use impedes the whole "learning to be a hacker" process_

I have extensive graduate training in the art of building transistors from raw silicon. I guess I'm some sort of god in your world. :)

In my world, however, building transistors from raw silicon is an esoteric skill that doesn't have much use. Most of us prefer to spend a few bucks to buy our transistors by the billion, because transistors are a solved problem.

And I'm happy to use Ubuntu and the Mac to actually get things done, rather than pretend that repeatedly fixing bugs in the Slackware installer represents a valuable form of education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Don't call yourself a 'cyberpunk', and don't waste your time on anybody who does."

Whoa! Where did that come from? Perhaps ESR had a bad experience watching Blade Runner or something, but this is entirely uncalled for. Quite frankly, cyberpunk remains fresh and still alive and happily uninfected by the mainstream -- just how we like it.

<comment><USER10> I think what he's getting at is that while cyperpunk and hacking culture are not mutually exclusive, they do not entail each other.

From what I've seen a cyberpunk "hacker" is usually the "other" kind of hacker (again, not mutually exclusive)

I'm sure ESR wouldn't tell you to not waste your time on an amazing hacker (in the original sense of the word) who also happened to be into "cyperpunk", but most cyberpunks are not amazing hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> of course no one should want to be a hacker ... in the same sense that no one want to be a book reader, you just can't suddenly force it on you to like reading book! either you do or you don't like to read, think about what you read and than discuss what you read ... if this ever gets a better name than a 'book reader' ... you can't choose to be one

i am of course a book reader

anyway, if you ever decide to be hacker, please read the article in the link above, actually i would recommend you read all of esr writing, particulary the cathedral and the bazaar ... learn python too, and hack on the twistedmatrix networking framework... this will surely make u a great hacker ... :)))

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This should be be made required reading for this site.

<comment><USER12> No offense, but I guess most of us here would have read this already, don't you think?

<comment><USER13> I hadn't seen it until just now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't believe at one point he recommended Java...

</comment><comment><USER14> How to Become A Stereotype</comment>


Multi-Task Learning in Atari Video Games with Emergent Tangled Program Graphs - <AUTHOR> https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3071303 <comment><USER2> I was a little surprised at the headline, since I expected 'outperforms' to mean that it had better end-results, which is of course not the case. GP is just much faster due to it's relative simplicity and the results are close enough to those achieved with NN and deep learning.

> Finally, while generally matching the skill level of controllers from neuro- > evolution/deep learning, the genetic programming solutions evolved here are > several orders of magnitude simpler, resulting in real-time operation at a > fraction of the cost.

> Moreover, TPG solutions are particularly elegant, thus supporting real-time > operation without specialized hardware

This is the key takeaway and yet another reminder to not make deep learning the hammer for all your fuzzy problems.

<comment><USER3> > I was a little surprised at the headline, since I expected 'outperforms' to > mean that it had better end-results, which is of course not the case. GP is > just much faster due to it's relative simplicity and the results are close > enough to those achieved with NN and deep learning.

From figure 3 in the paper it seems like it outperforms DQN on all games but one. So, it has better end results as well.

Edit: There are other results linked in this thread that are better than the 2015 DQN results that the paper refers to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the huge benefits of GPs over NNs is the ease of reverse engineering a GP tree compared to NN models. Its not effortless however. Its just not mathematically complex like NNs i.e. a programmer who isn't a mathematician can analyze GPs with a lot of patience

EDIT: I have found GPs to be relatively slow-to-very-slow. But very likely that is because of the lack of interest and development compared to NNs

<comment><USER5> Would some form of computer-aided tool be able to help the programmer analyze GPs? It sounds like there's some repetitive process when you say 'GPs with a lot of patience'. I was thinking along the line that if such a tool is possible, then it might be possible to let the development and evolution of GPs iterate faster than deep learning. I found this thread really interesting, because of the small size, such implementations can be easily done locally without expensive and huge hardware setup. I'm definitely amazed at what DL has achieved so far. But it looks to me like a brute force way to solve a problem by gathering huge amounts of data, crunching on huge amounts of hardware, to solve a very specific classification problem. Not saying that is not good, just saying it is hard for mass participation at a high production quality level due to lack of hardware and stuffs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Those are really old results. They should compare to this one: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06581.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06581.pdf)

<comment><USER7> How can the results be old when the paper is from 2017?

<comment><USER8> They are comparing their genetic programming results with a deep learning paper published in 2015. [1]

[1] [https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/abs/nature1...](https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/abs/nature14236.html)

<comment> phoe-krk What a time to live in, when papers from 2015 are "really old" in 2017.

<comment><USER9> What is "exponential growth"!

<comment><USER10> It's more logarithmic, isn't it? Right now we're at the beginning stage, where there's massive discoveries and changes happening, but in say, 50 years time, there won't be much changing year-to-year.

<comment><USER11> Logarithmic or logistic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The convenient thing about Atari games is that there is usually a numerical score that can be used as input for the fitness function.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is super cool, but it doesn't outperform deep learning based RL methods.

In fact, I'm not sure how much more compute efficient than something like A3C it would be. That can produce 4x the score of DQN in a comparable number of hours (and on a CPU).

<comment><USER14> A3C is only ever run on one game at a time[0]. This paper gets good performance on all games with the same agent

[0] read as: I have only seen papers with 1 agent per game for A3C

<comment><USER13> So it can train on one game and play without training on a previously unseen (but also atari) game? That's pretty neat, DQN and A3C certainly can't do that.

<comment><USER14> No, in this case it is trained on all the games, but retains good scores on all of them. If you train basic AC3 in all the games, you'll get poor performance on all the games due to catastrophic forgetting

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Genetic Programming seems lightweight, what are some cool applications they have?

<comment><USER16> There are actually lots of very exciting GP applications! One of my favorites is "Fixing 55 out of 105 bugs for $8 each", in which GP is used to automatically repair code: [https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/p/weimer- icse2012-genpro...](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/p/weimer- icse2012-genprog-preprint.pdf) . They've also achieved better-than-human level results in antenna design for NASA ( [https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/pub- archive/1244h/1244%20(Hornby)....](https://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/pub- archive/1244h/1244%20\(Hornby\).pdf) ) and in discovering novel quantum computing algorithms ( [http://faculty.hampshire.edu/lspector/pubs/GP-quantum- GP98-w...](http://faculty.hampshire.edu/lspector/pubs/GP-quantum-GP98-with- cite.pdf) ).

I'll also shamelessly hock here my GP framework for Python, in case you're interested in experimenting: [https://github.com/hchasestevens/monkeys](https://github.com/hchasestevens/monkeys)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's a good starting point for someone interested in building game AI?

<comment><USER17> Current game ai is vastly different than this I think. I think there is a good writeup on the ai from FEAR that might be a decent read

<comment><USER18> [http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/goap.html](http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/goap.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This sounds interesting. I will like someone from the field of genetic programming on how this works and how it differs from current DL approaches.

<comment><USER20> Kelly's approach involves evolving teams of programs.

His basic strategy is to have a scalable problem decomposition strategy.

So programs that process pixels and the teaming of those programs are grouped together. The groupings (teams) themselves are co-evolved with the programs, simultaneously.

This enables niching and specialization behavior.

This builds on earlier work on 'symbiotic bid-based genetic programming' from other people at Dalhousie, the same university Kelly is at.

The innovation of this paper is that teams can reference other teams.

This allows for the creation of hierarchical teams. (There are rules to prevent cycles and other edge cases.)

Everyone commenting here is probably going to just look at numerical game score and ignore the fact that the runtime performance of Kelly's tangled program graphs. They are 1000 times smaller than a deep neural network. That matters for things like running on mobile/embedded devices.

<comment><USER21> > That matters for things like running on mobile/embedded devices.

Ding ding ding. This is where the money is at, good yet cheap sensors that sense human level actions are needed for IoT to be impactful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like GP, but the problem is AST. These can get huge. But the only advantage is ease of reverse engineering

</comment><comment><USER23> Slightly relevant, here's a state of the art drone AI built using genetic fuzzy systems: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/06/28/ai- drone/#...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jvchamary/2016/06/28/ai- drone/#50908d8b7081)</comment>


Ask HN: Web search is broken. It does not work for making purchases? - <AUTHOR>

Web search (Google in particular) evolved and optimized over last decade. It has been optimized for users to search and find the most trustworthy sources of information in context of the query.
However as web evolved and economies evolved, a majority of web searches are to make a purchase(concert/bus/train/airline tickets, order food, buy anything off of amazon/ebay etc).
So for the times, when you know exactly what you are looking to buy. You are still sent of to different websites/app to look for best price. So there no knowledge graph like feature for shopping.
What if an app had your default shipping address, and knew all the card you have and then once you look up for an item it hunts the best price across all reputable sites and applies any discount codes. Also figures how you should pay depending on which card will get you maximum cash back.
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Isn't that basically Amazon? They patented one-click ordering and shipping back in the late 90s, and now they've brought many smaller suppliers under their umbrella (that's the "X new and Y used from $PRICE_MUCH_LOWER_THAN_MSRP) blurb next to the product. They even sorta do the cashback thing - many credit cards offer "5% cashback on purchases at Amazon.com!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Amazon is kind of like it. But searching for a product on amazon is like searching of some info on wikipedia.

However, Google search spans a across all of web.

So, we do not have something that spans across all sites to hunt for the best airline ticket. Taking into account all of the preferences.</comment></comment>


Design choices of the Go garabage collector - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.linecorp.com/en/blog/detail/342 <comment><USER2> It looks like the Go maintainers are playing with a generational GC now. Rick Hudson has posted a patch series on Gerrit: [https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/137482](https://go- review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/137482)

<comment><USER3> How is this compare to G1GC?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really interesting. I'm in love with Golang, it has some weird design decisions (hello GOPATH!, what's up 3rd party popular libraries with no folder structure!..) but at the end of the day it's my favorite programming language: performant, neat, simple and with several built-in tools (godoc, godep, golint, go test, etc..)</comment>


Opal: Ruby to Javascript compiler - <AUTHOR> http://dev.mikamai.com/post/65322179075/opal-give-it-a-try

<comment><USER2> It's nice to see this is getting posted more and more. Also check [https://github.com/opal/opal-jquery](https://github.com/opal/opal-jquery)</comment>


Impenetrable? Not for long. Malware is becoming a problem for Mac OS X. - <AUTHOR> http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/20/8413274-malware-can-cripple-your-macs-built-in-security-tools

<comment><USER2> Okay, that article can easily be ad-content disguised as a legitimate objective article. The fact that only a single security company is quoted leaves it highly suspect.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who ever said OSX was impenetrable? Anyone with a clue said there wasn't much being written to target it. I want the few minutes back that I spent reading this.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Unmeltable? Not for long. Heat is becoming a problem Ben & Jerry._

The entire article is a sales pitch, skip to the final paragraph for the pay off.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why anything from MSNBC even makes it to HN, let alone the ridiculous content...?</comment>


Demonsaw is a secure and anonymous information sharing application - <AUTHOR> https://www.demonsaw.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This company appears to be involved with John McAfee now: [http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-mgt-capital- going...](http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-mgt-capital-going-to- make-the-cloud-completely-obsolete-2016-9)</comment>


The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/11/paying-for-fake-friends-and-family/545060/?single_page=true <comment><USER3> Went into reading this article expecting it to be a one-off, rental boyfriend type deal (that kind of trope is used very frequently in movies/tv shows/manga there), but this way _way_ deeper than I expected. I'm pretty mind blown at how far they are taking this fake/real replacements. Pretty close to some dystopian scifi actually.

>If the client never reveals the truth, I must continue the role indefinitely. If the daughter gets married, I have to act as a father in that wedding, and then I have to be the grandfather. So, I always ask every client, "Are you prepared to sustain this lie?" It's the most significant problem our company has.

>Morin: You're offering a more perfect form of reality?

>Yuichi: More ideal. More clean.

This is so Truman Show esque.

<comment><USER4> Now imagine a future technology where you could undergo some hypnosis / gaslighting treatment to forget you even hired this person.

I.e. pay a lot of money in advance, it's invested and the actor gets paid from the interest. You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor you hired years back because your actual mother died.

<comment><USER5> >You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor

Sounds like a sort of reverse Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having partial memories.

But also, possibly a brilliant way to fund nursing homes/increase visitation.

<comment><USER6> > _things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having > partial memories._

 _All_ memories are partial.

<comment><USER7> Memories are modified on retrieval and colored by current emotional state and ideas (and vice versa :)). So they're not even partial. They're messy re- imaginations of past re-imaginations.

<comment><USER8> read-modify-write

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > There was one case of a man in his 60s. His wife died, and he wanted to > order another copy of her. We provided that.

This was incredibly poignant to me.

Japanese society can be incredibly restrictive in its social circles; it's too simple for me to imagine a guy in his 60s with few friends, few opportunities to make more friends, and then his only friend and long-time partner dies. It's too easy to imagine how lost and desperate he might be, why he might want this kind of service to create a fake reality to live in.

Some people might read this and think "wow, twisted that people can sell this kind of thing in Japan," but as someone who's lived here for a while, I think "wow, twisted that Japanese society forces people to feel like they need this kind of thing."

I struggle to find any kind of up side to the fact that society enables this kind of service, or rather, that this kind of service is even made necessary. Does anyone else see one?

Edit: To go into a bit more detail, my problems with society enabling this kind of service are really:

1\. Social expectations and pressure

2\. Lack of mental health care/counseling/options and awareness

<comment><USER10> What's stopping an otherwise normal late middle aged man from making friends?

<comment><USER9> It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries.

For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people."

But that's assuming that you do have a golf group or whatever. A large number of people just go through life with their friends from elementary, junior high, or high school... and then their friends from college. Then friends from the workplace, if you make any beyond the level of "drinks after work."

I know a lot of people who have "drinking friends" from various adult social circles, but their only "real" friends (in the Western sense of people you can chat to about almost anything, do almost anything with, etc.) are a tiny handful of people they've known since junior high or high school.

Loneliness is a huge problem in Japan.

<comment><USER11> This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average.

But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where I went to a ton of Meetup.com events, writers groups, board game groups, and the like. Generally speaking I just had to keep showing up, make a little small talk, and then eventually people knew me and trusted me enough to start inviting me to things outside of it.

And I'm an introvert at heart. I still struggle to talk to people outside of these events and I still get exhausted by social activities.

Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why they struggle (also there's some personalities that are either very abrasive, self-defeatist, or otherwise off-putting, and those people struggle as well). I find it's harder to keep up with myself now that I have a long term girlfriend and a puppy, but I still make an effort.

I wonder if that's possible in Japan as well, or if that's not even really a valid avenue over there.

<comment><USER9> > Most people don't make that effort here, though, and that's one reason why > they struggle

As far as "making an effort" goes, I can only speak for myself (in the sense that it's not worth judging whether other people are "trying" from their appearance), but it's definitely pretty difficult to get past that initial "social circle" restriction.

For example, I've worked at the same company for a few years, gone out for drinks with a few coworkers... attempts at casual chats between work, invitations to stuff beyond work, etc. are all politely rebuffed.

I've also done airsoft before; with the exception of one guy who's also actively looking for friends, nobody is interested in doing anything beyond airsoft. As far as I can guess, they're in that group to do airsoft, not to make friends or do other things with those people -- they just want to do airsoft.

As I said in the beginning though, this is just me and I don't think it's fair for me to judge whether other people are "making an effort," but my own efforts seem to indicate that it's a problem beyond that.

<comment><USER11> Well there are certainly friends where I mostly just do board games nights or talk about board games with. However, board games are inherently social and you tend to talk about other things while playing the games usually. In fact, I count some of those people among my closest friends now. It's also my primary hobby (in fact I design board games now), so I naturally spend a lot of time thinking about them anyway.

So part of it may be the activity. I've noticed it's been easier or harder to make friends depending on what it is. Dinners seem to work well, movies less so (although if you pair the movie with dinner it can be good). Board games are nice because if you don't really feel like chatting you can just be quiet and focus on playing the game. I bet other sports can be that way too. I remember Pool and Darts feeling that way at times. Trivia nights at pubs sorta worked as well for the same reason.

As for people at work.... I'm friendly with coworkers, and from time to time I will do something with them outside of work, but I've noticed that coworker friendships tend not to stick very well. I've actually found my first coworker friendship that I think might stick in over 20 years, and that's because we both have dogs and set up times to go to the dog park together (he also helped me find my dog when he went missing for a week).

I actually used to feel pretty cynical as well about making friends because I had such bad luck turning coworkers into friends. I stopped trying there a while ago.

I've also had bad luck at "Networking" events. Too many people are just there trying to find the next person to hire them or work with or pass their business card to. I have started having some luck at Hacker nights, though, again because I found one I just keep showing up to, and it's pretty low key.

And for the most part I didn't reach out too aggressively. I mainly just showed up to events, said hi to other regulars, listened in on some conversations, say something here and there, and showed up often enough to become a regular myself. I didn't start getting invites to private events by some people until I'd seen them at 10-20 events previously sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I'm deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. <...> Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my client is there standing off to the side—the one who actually made the mistake—and I'm prostrate on the floor writhing around, and the boss is there red-faced as he hurls down abuse from above. Sometimes, I wonder to myself, "Am I actually doing this?"_

This actually sounds like something that could be spun into a separate startup in Japan - people who will pretend to be you in intense politeness-related scenarios.

<comment><USER13> I understand within that culture an apology must be made, and there's a ritual to apology that has to be observed, but I don't understand why an employer would be willing to put up with the ruse. Is there really no social or cultural stigma involved with paying to have someone else to do it on your behalf?

<comment><USER14> The implication I believe is that the company is large enough that the boss would not personally know all the employees. The actor is pretending to be an employee that is responsible for the mistake that the hiring party made, but is not pretending to actually BE the person who hired them.

<comment><USER15> Or, the client company never met the employee responsible for the service company's error (they were just tracked down by an internal investigation in the service company) and so theoretically the service company could have sent anybody and the client company wouldn't have known the difference. The service company wants to send the error-committer, because going through this process is a punishment of sorts; but the client company doesn't know/hasn't met who they're being sent, so the error-committer can fake things along the way.

They could probably correct the problem by just sending an escort along with the error-committer, but maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen enough for them to really care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think there are a couple of really different types of situations these actors resolve.

The fake groom for a wedding is just a workaround for a cultural issue, maybe not uniquely Japanese. The society requires a groom, so here is one. I wonder how many politicians today have fake family lives due to similar reasons, for instance.

But there are other situations, like fake boyfriends/girlfriends. What the company provides here is trust, sort or removing counter-party risk. The client needs to know that the friend will confirm to certain protocol, will be in a certain way. Many people would do that for free, but the actors are guaranteed to do that. If there was some mechanism to establish that kind of trust without the company, that would be nice. Without that trust, its just the usual dating, of course.

And then, there is a commitment aspect. That man acted as a father for _8 years_. The must have been growth in that relationship. The actor and the girl developed an inner world in which they exist, are part of each other's lives, and, the girl at least, relies on him to be there in the future. Many man could probably act as fathers for some time, but 8 years, they'd actually have to want to _be_ fathers.

edit: maybe its worth adding that this is not a suggestion that that business is a good thing overall. Just an attempt at the analysis of why it might be "booming" (if it indeed statistically is).

<comment><USER17> _The fake groom for a wedding is just a workaround for a cultural issue, maybe not uniquely Japanese. The society requires a groom, so here is one._

Am I missing something? Is this a typo? This isn't just cultural; how can there be a wedding, without a bride and groom?

<comment><USER18> I think the fake groom was in the context of societal pressure to get married, or for a gay couple to marry opposite sex partners. Having a fake groom fulfills these obligations without actually having to live with the stand-in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow, feels straight out of a Black mirror episode. What really disturbs me is this:

> With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from _infants_ to the > elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to provide a surrogate > for almost any conceivable situation.

Infants!! Reminds me of a Jim Carrey movie - The Truman Show.

<comment><USER20> > Yuichi: We have a huge variation of employees and the dedication to create > an experience that surpasses reality. That's why our motto is "more than > real." We had a case recently where a dying man wanted to see his > grandchild, but it would not have been born in time. His daughter was able > to rent an infant for the day.

This whole interview was way more gripping than I expected it to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This interview makes me wonder where we are heading as the human race. The Japanese society, so certainly very different in some aspects, does strike me as a glimpse into the future of western society. Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there and I believe that this is one of the main reasons, why (face-to-face) social interactions are becoming more infrequent. What struck me the most from the article was the impression that the customers of this service seem to feel especially lonely - or even more worrysome - <USER2> some of them view social interactions as hasselsome and being work. If that is the way humans as a whole start thinking than we will have a lot of problems in our future.

> For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. Imagine investing five > years with someone and then they break up with you. It's just easier to > schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend.

> I don't have a real girlfriend right now. Real dating feels like work. It > feels like work to care for a real person.

<comment><USER9> > Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there

I see this a lot and I'd like to see what kind of technology you think exists here and has an impact on daily life here that doesn't exist/have an impact elsewhere.

Japanese technology that reaches the west is often the high-concept/prototype kind that definitely does not have any daily impact on anything, urban or rural.

The most ubiquitous pieces of technology I can think of that exist here that do not exist elsewhere are:

1\. washlets (fancy bidets)

2\. suica (cashless payment via touching a card)

and while neither of those exist as such elsewhere, similar things do... and neither of those really impact Japanese society to such a degree that I would consider Japanese society to be a "glimpse into the future of western society."

To me, Western society seems to be much further along any curve of alienization, with automatic cars and outsourced phone support (Japanese being a niche language, you're almost guaranteed to be talking to a real Japanese person for phone support).

One of the reasons I'm responding to this so strongly is that I dislike the continued "exotification" of Japan as some kind of strange, ineffable future- land and really strive to correct that kind of opinion wherever I can. It's nothing personal, but it only hurts all parties involved when Japan is seen in this light.

<comment><USER22> if 'cashless payment via touching a card' is what I think it is, it is completely widespread in London, in all shops/restaurants, and also on public transport.

<comment><USER23> > it is completely widespread in London, in all shops/restaurants

Probably needs "major" after "all" there. There's plenty of reasonably sized shops et al that haven't quite got around to contactless machines yet (Holland and Barrett, Ryman, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. Imagine investing five > years with someone and then they break up with you. It's just easier to > schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend.

I fail to fully relate to this sentiment. I get that a failed relationship that you've invested huge amounts of time in is heart breaking. It seems logical (albeit unhealthy) to thus stop chasing real relationships. What I then don't understand: Why is having a fake relationship preferable to one that might go south?

Either the "real" relationship turns out to be "fake". In that case the one that is "fake" from the beginning is no better. That is, the upshot is no true soulmate in both cases. Or, the "real" relationship turns out to be great. In that case the acceptance of uncertainty will pay dividends.

To me it seems that these people don't actually want a real relationship because no real relationship can come with the limited amount of attributes they desire. It's like they're complaining about an awesome Italien Pizza because it doesn't match a frozen one.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can someone confirm that this is real? It reads like (dismal) satire.

<comment><USER26> Having been living in Japan for 4 years, i doubt this is fake. Loneliness is huge problems in Japan, you just can't become friends with stranger

<comment><USER27> If loneliness is a huge problem why don't people become friends with strangers more often?

<comment><USER28> If they could do that then loneliness obviously wouldn't be a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of an episode of the podcast Weird Work where they interview someone who works as a bridesmaid for hire. For a fee, she'll help with wedding planning and go as far as flying out to act the part of bridesmaid in your wedding [1].

So this isn't just a Japanese thing. Just as I think that _most_ people in the US would find hiring a bridesmaid in the US to be a little bit weird, I'm sure most people in Japan would feel the same way about the service described here.

[1] [https://bridesmaidforhire.com/](https://bridesmaidforhire.com/)

<comment><USER30> there was even a kevin hart movie about it

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is sick. That girl is going to find out one day that he is not her father and she is going to be very fucked up when she realizes her entire life is a lie and she can't ever trust anyone.

I can't believe someone would be willing to do that to someone for $50/hr.

<comment><USER32> Playing devil's advocate: how much different is this from adopted children to which adoptive parent's don't tell the truth? Is it mostly how likely is the truth to come out at some point?

<comment><USER33> The difference is when the truth comes out, the adopted child learns that someone cared enough about them to raise them, 24x7.

Still crappy, but less crappy than learning your dad was a $200/month actor that had no actual emotional investment in you.

<comment><USER34> I've read the article, it appears for the father role, the actor has some level of emotional investment. He enjoys creating happiness as the father, and feels guilty when he leaves her, and dreams about her even.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> top notch journalism, I couldn't stop until I read the entire article, not skipping any paragraph.

the whole thing is just an interview/dialogue, but it's incredibly captivating

also, you could make three separate movies on existentialism just with ideas from the article.

lastly - the interviewee, he must have such strong philosophical dilemmas

<comment><USER36> It is in fact a suspiciously perfect interview with a man who specializes in giving optimized impressions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Trophy wife relationship might be not so different.

We already have commercial close day to day relationships like daycare, teachers, taking care of elderly. Then we have therapists and prostitution. Many lonely people have only workplace friendships that are more artificial than the importance they have in the life of lonely people.

But these are all fundamentally honest relationships with defined roles in the society. If a mother wants tho hire father figure for her child, I think the relationship should be honest towards the child and not based on lie. "Hired uncle" would be honest.

</comment><comment><USER38> Familia 1996

'Santiago wakes up like any other morning. He goes down to the kitchen and his whole family is waiting for him: it's his birthday. They all sing "Happy Birthday to You" and give him presents. But when he opens the present of his youngest son, he gets angry and says he doesn't like it. The boy starts crying and saying that he loves him, but Santiago answers that he doesn't believe him and he tells the boy that he is fired and that he wants another son, who is thinner, who doesn't need glasses and who resembles him more.'

</comment><comment><USER39> The story seems fake.

Does anyone have a link to this "Family Romance" corporation? Where is the proof?

Why would the guy be so ruthlessly candid about his immoral failings? Why does he talk in a carefully manicured, but cruel and amoral way -- why is he dissing his own product? Why would he plaster his face on The Atlantic when he depends on anonymity? They have 800 employees -- that's large; why haven't we heard of this before? Why is he so knowledgeable about what English-speakers don't know about Japan and so able to help us understand -- has he lived and studied extensively abroad? Why is he able to understand what he does is immoral but is unwilling to change even as it affects him so deeply -- why doesn't he get a new job? What would happen to his clients if he decided to stop working for them -- how legally binding would his contract be? Is he legally obligated to keep lying even if he changes his job -- that's impossible, right? No one is legally obligated to lie. Is the business really "booming" when it seems to be so unknown -- and, in fact, relies on keeping a low-profile for maximum effectiveness? How did the clients find them -- and how did everyone else not find them?

Where are other, reliable articles about this? The only other source I find is The Sun and people have mentioned Yahoo! Answers, which aren't reliable sources. Can someone in Japan confirm this?

It screams of fictional writing.

<comment><USER40> Link is provided in the article. Am also surprised that the actor allowed his photo to appear. In fact, the website, which is in Japanese, has many photos. I wonder if they are of employees who work there. That would seem counterproductive.

<comment><USER39> You are indeed right that there is a website.

A website could be manufactured if this is part of a clever viral campaign for some dystopian book or film.

Where is reliable proof? Can someone in Japan confirm this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This book is very much aligned with the topic presented in the article if you want to examine how similar services are springing up in the west [https://www.amazon.com/Outsourced-Self-Happens-Others- Lives/...](https://www.amazon.com/Outsourced-Self-Happens-Others- Lives/dp/1250024196)

</comment><comment><USER42> "In an increasingly isolated and entitled society..."

If true, it seems an odd mix of outcomes for a national psyche, but perhaps it can be explained.

How would a society become both isolated and entitled? Are they independent outcomes with independent causes? Correlated by some common cause? Or did one cause the other?

</comment><comment><USER43> The article is titled "Rent-a-Friend" but the whole story is about a "Rent-a- DAD" for a little girl.

That is so much different than Renting a Friend....

</comment><comment><USER44> How wrong was Robet Nozick in his argument about the Experience Machine [0].

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

</comment><comment><USER45> >There are certain memories, yes. There's a blank sheet, and the client writes the memories that he wants the wife to remember.

>For them, it's a lot of hassle and disappointment. Imagine investing five years with someone and then they break up with you. It's just easier to schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend. There's no conflict, no jealously, no bad habits. Everything is perfect.

The fundamental problem with being human is that there are other humans. They're so unpredictable to deal with. Let's hope the AI finally comes soon, at least you can save/reload those.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wow, this was a surprising article. I am shocked that they are renting themselves out and lying to children about who their parents are. It's unethical and he speaks about it as if it's just fine.

<comment><USER47> Except that it was presented as a reaction to other unfair situation: being refused the entrance to a school or being bullied because the father is not here..

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> >Yuichi: There's a manual for everything in this company. We use psychology to determine the optimal outcome. In this case, the standard tactic is to make me look like a yakuza [gangster]. Typically, I arrive with the wife, and the husband is there, and suddenly I will just bow then deeply apologize. Usually, the husband will berate me, but because I appear to be a yakuza, he won't pursue the matter further.

Ethical questions aside, this is dangerously brilliant. Better hope the _actual Yakuza_ doesn't find out...

</comment><comment><USER49> Wow, I recommend everyone to read the whole piece. The title does not do the interview justice.

</comment><comment><USER50> There is an industry in japan where people can get fake married[1]. Its very popular among women. Its a sad outcome of a country that penalizes marriage. I remember when a Goldman advisor told Japanese govt to make baby and child care easier to bringing more woman into economy, he quipped "But madam, thats why we are building a big robot industry"(presumably to solve the child care system which is heavily backlogged[2][3]).

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06Y1JVLD4](https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B06Y1JVLD4) [2] [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/17/national/day- ca...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/17/national/day-care-crisis- stuck-vicious-cycle/#.WgR-l62ZNTY) [3] [https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/05/460801951/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/05/460801951/will- more-day-care-help-boost-japans-sluggish-economy)

</comment><comment><USER51> Is this the world that we're creating in modern life?

<comment><USER52> The best world money can buy, with organic gluten-free interaction with real humans./s

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This is so wrong on so many levels. A friend of mine (Germany) was told that the mother's boyfriend is her real father. When she was told that he is not, she started suffering from panic attacks.

The article already describes the problem but not really the consequences which must be devastating.

IMHO this practice should became illegal and if at all there should be programs or even companies to fix the actual problems.

</comment><comment><USER54> A danish director made a film on the topic: he follows a Rent-A-Friend business boss who hides what he is doing for a living to his own family Imdb: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3242460/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3242460/)

<comment><USER55> A greek director also made a movie based a very similar idea [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859446/?ref_=nv_sr_1](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1859446/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

Also check out his newer movies like The Lobster... really good movies!

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> I wonder if having your picture appear in a relatively high profile publication like this would be wise...

<comment><USER57> It would be funny if he hired someone to take the picture for him

<comment><USER56> haha someone from a competing firm

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> This, especially the case of the grandfather who wanted to see his grandchild before dying reminds me of the game "To The Moon".

Creating new memories, new reality because the one people are living is just not good enough....

<comment><USER12> The logistics also remind me of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> This made me weep a little bit. Such loneliness in this world!

I feel like this is what the logical endpoint of total capitalism would look like- things have been headed in this direction for a while with first the making of household items, and farming, then the preparation of food (restaurants) and the raising of children (schools) now performed by paid labor. I guess it could go even farther, one could imagine a future in which all relationships are mediated through money.. it's not a future I like.

</comment><comment><USER60> Reminds me of one of the main plot lines of Noriko's Dinner Table [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468820/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468820/)

The main character works for a similar company to the one mentioned in the article. Not sure if there was a precedent at the time of the film's writing. Looks like fiction has become reality.

</comment><comment><USER61> If anyone of you reading this comment from Tokyo and want a buddy to work from cafes/co-working, hit me up :)

same username on twitter

</comment><comment><USER62> [http://family-romance.com/index.html](http://family-romance.com/index.html)

translated to english, you will find in the page: Establishment: April 1, 2009

the only reason i would consider this real at all is because "Japan", but i can't buy this

this must be an (enjoyable) work of fiction

<comment><USER63> I googled the Japanese name of the company and there are Yahoo Q&A threads about if it's awkward etc. so it is very real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> remind me of Whores of Mensa [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/12/16/the-whore- of-m...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/12/16/the-whore-of-mensa)

</comment><comment><USER65> Seems like a focus on money and everything fake has left us to this. This is very depressing.

</comment><comment> white-flame The first example is bringing on a fake husband because the private school doesn't accept children of single mothers.

Regardless of the social weirdness, I wonder how often a service like this is used for straight-up fraud?

</comment><comment><USER66> I really hope that employees of this company are provided with access to mental health services as one of their benefits. Without judgement one way or the other, in that line of work, you'd need it.

</comment><comment><USER67> There's a movie on business like this: The Bride of Rip Van Winkle by Shunji Iwai. But not sure if it is inspired by the exact same company.

</comment><comment><USER68> There is a lot of buzz around virtual reality, but it seems to me this kind of business is scarier than any head-mounted display.

</comment><comment><USER69> Fascinating. The level of dedication reminds me a bit of Christian Bale's character in The Prestige.

</comment><comment><USER70> horrible interview. Who cares about actors playing as your spouse or whatever.

Why didn't interviewer get into the logistics of being able to rent a human infant!? This is perhaps the most inconceivable aspect of this business.

Any guesses on the logistics and safety protocols for renting one's infant?

<comment><USER23> Probably the same as already exist for when you rent* one's infant to modelling agencies or film sets?

<comment><USER70> the guardians can be on set while an infant is on the job. You can't have the real mom follow around while the fake mom is using the rental infant.

<comment><USER23> A fair point, well made.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Sounds like the mind of psychopaths.

<comment><USER72> Obviously not, he's just pragmatic.

<comment><USER71> He is building up a lie that if unleashed could destroy a person. If not the person, defensively the relationship between the kid and the mom that hired him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> "booming" business ? Does it indicate something wrong with the society ?

</comment><comment><USER74> Why is he showing his face by the way? What if his fake daughter find that out?

</comment><comment><USER75> How can they possibly get anyone to do this job for $50 per hour?

</comment><comment><USER76> Just imagine the cost for providing five-nines on that service.

</comment><comment><USER27> Reminds me of a flick called The Wedding Ringer.

</comment><comment><USER77> Unbelievable. I am shocked. This is so sad on so many levels.

</comment><comment><USER78> This seems to be one step away from The Island movie

</comment><comment><USER79> Sounds like the script of a Black Mirror episode.

</comment><comment><USER80> > the CEO predicts the exponential growth of his business and others like it, > as à la carte human interaction becomes the new norm

That's neither human nor interaction.

</comment><comment><USER81> I'm pretty sure this company is real, but that the man being interviewed decided to have some fun and act as an unreliable narrator [1].

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

</comment><comment><USER82> > Yuichi: Sometimes we dine together. We've been to theme parks, like > Disneyland. We go shopping in Harajuku once a month. The mother pays about > 20,000 yen per four hours, plus expenses. That's about $200.

Nice, this looks like a great way to break even on your alimony and child support payments.

</comment><comment><USER83> This concept has been explored in many sci-fi shows and movies. Example: "Be Right Back" (Black Mirror Season 2, Episode 1), "Dollhouse", "Robot", etc.

</comment><comment><USER84> Honestly on the issue of the mother renting a father for her daughter, I think what needs to be emphasized is that this issue is not black and white. I personally think that perhaps she ought to be more up front about this to her daughter. Even something like "this person is not your father, but you can think of him a father figure", is better than straight up concealing the truth. Although that's just what I think. No one is actually fit to judge the mother's actions because no one has been in her place or had the same, exact experience/situation. So it's unfair to simply accuse her actions of being "immoral" or calling her names. To be fair everyone has done things which wouldn't be considered "righteous" by other's standards. Only you can determine your actions. No one is not fit to judge others.</comment>


The New Science of Building Great Teams - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2012/04/the-new-science-of-building-great-teams

<comment><USER2> I love seeing quantitative attempts to study social dynamics, even if it's tricky to extrapolate them to other environments. There definitely seems to be a growing research consensus that people with emotional intelligence-- sensitive to others, good at team-building--are more important than previously thought, especially relative to, say, technical skill.

One thing I'm very curious about, with respect to this study's findings, is the relationship with similarly-convincing research about the important of private offices and minimizing distractions. The two aren't totally exclusive, of course, but there is at least some tension:

 _For example, we now know that 35% of the variation in a team's performance can be accounted for simply by the number of face-to-face exchanges among team members. We know as well that the "right" number of exchanges in a team is as many as dozens per working hour, but that going beyond that ideal number decreases performance._

That style of interaction does sound a lot easier to facilitate in an open- plan office.

<comment><USER3> >That style of interaction does sound a lot easier to facilitate in an open- plan office.

What about something in the middle i.e. small teams working in offices by themselves, who've sufficient privacy from the grand noise of a totally open- plan office yet can communicate/chat/etc. amongst themselves very freely?

<comment><USER4> Private Offices with open doors and a communal meeting place in the middle seem to be rather effective in my experience. You hear just enough of what's going on that you can join in if needed but also separated enough that a pair of headphones can put you in silence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Haha, Arguably all of the greatest inventions/discoveries of mankind were made by individuals.

Teams are good for some things but there's a lot to be said for quiet time to introspect.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this research is interesting and valuable, but it seems to oversimplify. If I intentionally hired a group of goofballs who loved each other's company, would I really expect outstanding results?</comment>