Clear cookies/reset browser doesn't delete your Flash cookies - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/adobes-flash-and-apples-safari-fail-a-privacy-test/ <comment><USER2> There's also javascript persistent storage that doesn't count as cookies.

Paul from Meebo gave a great presentation on all the sneaky persistence options a few months ago: <http://www.slideshare.net/idontsmoke/client-side- storage>

Interesting takeaway: more visitors have some form of persistent storage than have cookies enabled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's a great summarization of all the persistence technologies available.

I found the stats at the end to be deceptive though. You'd have to code support for 3 different native client storage APIs in JavaScript + use Flash in order to cover enough users to rival cookies. It's no wonder most web devs just use cookies.

<comment><USER3> The end result isn't an alternative with a 1% gain over cookies. The end result is a system that writes & reads to all possible data stores available simultaneously. The gain from that is a site where an "always logged in" can be potentially much, much longer.

There are still a large number of people who have terrible problems managing web site logins. Reducing the barriers to using your site for returning visitors is definitely a goal with a lot of value and clear ROI.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To my mind, this isn't a problem with just the browsers, but with Flash as well. An in-browser cookie flush shouldn't screw with plugins unless they specifically request it. Thus, I think that there really should be an API for that kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER5> That's pretty interesting, I didn't even know about Flash cookies. Feels kind of weird to learn about technology first hand from the NYT, but pretty cool nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER6> One heavy handed way around stuff like this is to use a VM (with shared storage to your laptop) for browsing and rolling back at the start of a session. Something polished and stable like VMware on Linux has never been overly annoying for me.

</comment><comment><USER7> I didn't know about this either.

Here's a way to manage plugin settings on Mac:

[http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplay...](http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Firefox 3 also doesn't clear what zoom setting you like for each site on Tools -> Clear Private Data. <https://bugs.launchpad.net/firefox/+bug/288236>

</comment><comment><USER9> I still remember when there wasn't a restriction on the size of flash cookies and you could put in as many MB as you wanted.</comment>


That Xbox One Reveal Sure Was A Disaster, Huh? - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/that-xbox-one-reveal-sure-was-a-disaster-huh-509192266 <comment><USER2> It's like they didn't even do customer research. They developed in an echo chamber - and got something that ultimately no one actually likes. I've had my 360 for a long time but I won't be getting a one. Steam box probably for me.

<comment><USER3> Developing in an echo chamber is kind of a hallmark of many of Microsoft's designs.

(full disclosure: I hold a grudge against MSFT for echo-chamber design affecting me personally)

(full disclosure 2: I actually kind of like the Xbox One and will probably buy one if they're not insanely expensive)

<comment><USER4> I found it interesting that they didn't discuss pricing. I wonder why not and I wonder when they will.

<comment><USER3> I presume Xbox One pricing is still being hotly discussed to figure out how much of a loss they can sell it for and make up the profit in Xbox Live services and software.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Australia outlaws warrant canaries - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government-minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/ <comment><USER3> What happened in the last few years to allow our civil rights in the most forward thinking countries to unravel so easily? And why do citizens not care? How is it possible that all countries have elected such a group of corrupt, nearsighted politicians to the point where freedom is an inconvenience over them consolidating practically dictatorial power? And again, why does no one care?

<comment><USER4> _And why do citizens not care?_

This is the real mystery. I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with smart people that just don't seem to care. After the PATRIOT ACT was passed I was livid and knew it would be used for non-terrorism things. As we know now, it's mostly used for non-terrorism. People would look at me like I had some tin foil on my head. It couldn't even get people to talk about it. (Lest readers think I'm sort of conversational pariah, I don't recall any other subject that causes this effect.)

<comment><USER5> What does "care" mean in your mind? You say were you livid and you expressed your lividity by talking to people? I think a lot of people "care" they are just not given anything actionable to do. Expressing impotent rage on FB is not really helping AFAICT.

<comment><USER4> _Expressing impotent rage on FB is not really helping AFAICT._

Very nice straw man. I didn't mention FB. And these were conversations in person.

<comment><USER6> And yet, all you did is talk. That is the parent's point. You talked. Maybe you voted for the _other_ puppet of the elites that is ideologically 0.3% different from the current puppet. Maybe you convinced your interlocutors to do the same.

But participation in the farce of modern democracy is exactly what you're intended to do. You somehow feel like your talking or voting matters. It doesn't.

I'm no different, of course. Our lives are too comfortable. There is only one form of political action that ever works to depose despots, and it's a form that's not worth interrupting our comfortable lives to engage in.

At the end of the day, you need to either take _real_ action, or accept that you're too comfortable with your affluent life to risk losing your comforts, and enjoy these comforts without complaint. You've chosen this path, as have I, as have we all.

Life is too good to meaningfully rock the boat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _the Australian government made the usual argument that metadata needs to be retained for long periods in order to fight terrorism and serious crime—even though the German experience is that, in practice, data retention does not help_

Which only goes to show that it's not about fighting crime, but supporting it on the highest levels. Civil rights and the rule of law are obstacles to the coming rule of institutionalised crime, so they have to be abolished.

<comment><USER8> I'm embarrassed to be on the same site as nonsense like this getting posted honestly.

<comment><USER9> That's rather closed minded of you. If you don't want to be bothered by differing perspectives, there are plenty of echo chamber outlets for you to choose from so we can further distance and alienate ourselves from each other.

Homophobia, racism, politics - everything gets better when we share openly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cool. So, if I was to publicly announce "I have never been given a warrant demanding I hand over data by the Australian government", then I will have committed a crime attracting a two year prison sentence, and I should never visit the country?

<comment><USER11> Yes.

At least, that is how it reads. We will have to see how it gets enforced.

<comment><USER12> How strong is Australia's right to free speech?

<comment><USER13> Australia has interesting laws in that case, and they're not very good:

>Australia does not have explicit freedom of speech in any constitutional or statutory declaration of rights, with the exception of political speech which is protected from criminal prosecution at common law per Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth. There is however an implied freedom of speech that was recognised in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation[48]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Australia)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The warrant canary is not a solution to the problem of secret legal actions. It's merely a protest.

As we see the warrant canary idea institutionalized - with companies like Apple and Twitter adopting them to a certain degree, and cataloguing them on sites like canary watch[1] we are falling down a rabbit hole of speech about speech (and speech about speech about speech, etc.).

The real issue is NSLs and other secret warrants. These are older than you might think. Look up PRTT (pen register trap and trace, for telephones, which can be served with a gag order) or the All Writs Act. This is what we need to be working against, and this is what falls to the background as we find new and better ways to run our warrant canaries.

I am guilty of this.[2]

[1] [https://canarywatch.org/](https://canarywatch.org/)

[2] [http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt](http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt)

<comment><USER15> Yes, people and companies need to openly defy unjust laws. NSLs should immediately be published upon receipt and litigated against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article linked in the article about how to dodge these new laws has some particularly asinine advice:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian- govern...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government- minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/)

The guy says "just use skype" because then the telco doesn't know who you're calling, just that you called skype.

Sure, because there's NO POSSIBLE WAY for Skype to get a subpoena, right?

<comment><USER17> _Sure, because there 's NO POSSIBLE WAY for Skype to get a subpoena, right?_

But that's exactly the point!!

Subpoenas and warrants require due process and probable cause (especially in the case of Skype, which is cross borders). The data retention regime - <USER2> the most part - removes that and requires nothing more than a (possibly automated) request.

<comment><USER16> There's an easy fix for that.

"We have classified your service (Skype, whatever) as 'telecommunications' and unless you give us this stuff without a warrant we're going to start arresting your folks in-country and work on extraditing your executives"

Due process averted.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, except we (Australia) never, ever try to exert any power over a US based company.

(Actually, Skype would be under the telecommunications act if they were Australian anyway. See [http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/9.%20Overview%3A%20Impac...](http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/9.%20Overview%3A%20Impact%20of%20Developing%20Technology%20on%20Privacy/voice- over-internet-protocol))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone have a nice SVG image of a canary? Or it illegal to put that on a website?

<comment><USER19> Not sure why were downvoted here. It does seem that there is some plausible deniability about having a picture on your website that may or may not have anything to do with warrants that could still convey information to those looking for it.

<comment><USER20> Lawyers aren't idiots. Judges aren't idiots. Lawmakers aren't idiots. If a law says you cannot disclose a government request, then trying to get around the injunction by playing games isn't going to do anything for you.

<comment><USER21> Thing is though, this and stuff like "hand over the keys to that encrypted data" are really easy ways of getting just about everyone into prison.

I could for example argue that you, by changing the profile picture on your blog, have used a warrant canary too. Do you have any way of proving that you didn't? You certainly can't argue that you don't need one (this would imply you haven't receive a NSL which would be a warrant canary statement in itself), you can still argue that you haven't used your profile picture as one, but then we're back to square one, with them saying "You have!"

If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.

<comment><USER18> >> If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.

The issue isn't that they want people in prison. The issue is that they don't want people to know what they're doing, and they're resorting to the threat of prison to keep people quiet. It's actually perfectly reasonable to try to prevent the "bad guys" from knowing what they're up to or what their methods are, but that is getting to be more and more in conflict with peoples desire for transparency and in some cases peoples explicit rights - to free speech and privacy in US for example.

This raises an interesting question to me, as I see similarities in many other places where conflicts of different types tend to escalate to absurd levels. Do people just default to yelling louder, pushing harder, more of whatever? Why does this keep happening?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Someone should make a website where you can check off a list of countries you want to be barred from, and then it sends out an illegal tweet for each country.

</comment><comment><USER23> Australia is officially the only place in the world where the laws and technological restrictions make me never want to go there. Bandwidth is capped, porn is filtered, videogames cost a ridiculous amount. I know the country was founded by criminals, but I didn't realize they still ran the place.

<comment><USER24> Enjoy your world tour of such havens of freedom as most of the Middle East, North Korea, Cuba...

Obviously, the current Australian government is a disaster in many areas, but there are a large number of places which are considerably worse.

<comment><USER25> Maybe the Australian tourist board could adopt the slogan, "Australia, not as bad as North Korea".

Or maybe the Australian people could aim a little higher?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Australia seems to be leading the world in oppression in a way even the US has yet to manage.

<comment><USER27> Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

<comment><USER27> Just wondering if I was downvoted because people don't get the joke (it's a famous quote from the Princess Bride) and thought I was calling all Australians criminals? Or because humour has no place on HN?

<comment><USER28> You need to provide a reference to a peer-reviewed study proving that your joke is funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm honestly surprised they had to make a law against it. It has always seemed to me that warrant canaries would not survive their first contact with the judicial system; it's a clear attempt to circumvent the intent of the law through a technical loophole. Judges aren't stupid and they tend to not look very kindly on such legal "hacks".

(Related: [http://xkcd.com/1494/](http://xkcd.com/1494/))

</comment><comment><USER30> Can we just all agree that governments, all of 'em, are the damn enemy?

</comment><comment><USER31> This also puts Australia on the blacklist for hosting a VPN service, if they were not already, I assume.

<comment><USER32> Prohibitive bandwidth costs already made it a very poor location for one.

<comment><USER33> Torguard has a VPN gateway to Australia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have not been served with a warrant. In so saying, I have just committed a crime? WTF

<comment><USER35> This should be meme-ified: #IHaveNotBeenServedWithAWarrant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws- warrant-c...](http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws-warrant- cana.html), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Nothing will change until people stop complying with government demands.</comment>


Seattle-Area Patient With Coronavirus Dies - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/02/29/810722517/seattle-area-patient-with-coronavirus-dies <comment><USER3> Is it possible that the virus has been circulating in the states since Christmas or earlier?

I live in the states, though not in Seattle. My wife's best friend teaches ESL at a major university. She has several Chinese students in her class who went home over the semester break in December and January. In mid-to-late January, the teacher, her husband, my wife, and I all came down with the "flu" in swift succession, we all rode it out at home and none of us were tested to see if we actually had the flu virus. We just assumed flu because what else could it be? At that point, we'd never heard of novel corona virus.

The illness we all got was characterized by a deep and persistent cough and chest congestion, brutal sore throat, and a fever with teeth chattering chills and soaking sweats. We all had various levels of relapses of the cough and chest congestion (generally without fever) after the initial recovery.

I stayed home from work, of course, when I was ill, but a few people I had contact with at work also came down with something similar right after me. Many had had the flu shot since we get it for free at work. The general sentiment was that this years flu shot was a dud. I've been wondering if it wasn't actually flu going around.

<comment><USER4> FWIW our family got hit with the same thing. The cough was... different than anything we've experienced in recent memory. I assumed it was the flu (we stayed home and didn't get tested, but it was pretty brutal.)

<comment><USER3> Yes. I have trouble describing how bad the cough and lung symptoms were. At one point I remember saying "my lungs itch" and wishing I could find a way to scratch them from the outside.

<comment><USER4> My wife fractured a rib from coughing just to give a sense of how bad it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazon recently announced that all non essential work travel is cancelled. Friend who works there said they are taking it very seriously - <USER2> "essential" travel must be approved from the highest levels.

They also announced that interviews will be conducted via VC going forward during the outbreak.

I wonder if they 'shut down' campus and encourage everybody to work from home after this, self quarantine kind of thing.

IMO it's the right thing to do. Not all sectors can have all of their workers stay home, but Amazon employees (in Seattle, fulfillment centers are a totally different thing) can easily work from home in almost all cases.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if this "temporary alteration" will impact the way business is conducted long-term. Instead of choosing between conference calls or flights, choose VC.

<comment><USER7> As someone who doesn't have to do business travel very often, I enjoy the trips to go meet with long-lost colleagues. But at the same time, it's pretty clear at least to me that most of these things are a waste of company money and don't really move the ball forward much compared to typical electronic collaboration. Selfishly, I'd be sad if business travel suffered a large permanent reduction. But it would be better for the business and the environment if it did, even ignoring the risk of propagating diseases.

<comment><USER8> I have to ask—since you admit to causing environmental harm with your admittedly unessisary travels—how do you morally accept the damage your selfish actions are causing? I'm genially asking, and not trying to be judgmental.

<comment><USER7> The company I work for uses high quality carbon offsets to reach carbon neutrality for all business activities, including business travel by employees. Of course, this isn't scalable, so it doesn't _really_ absolve me. But the travel I do is also not _really_ optional. I just personally don't think it's necessary or helpful. Doesn't mean I don't have to do it when I'm called upon to do so.

The other thing I do is live a fairly carbon efficient lifestyle. I travel much less than other folks in my income bracket, and I live in the most carbon efficient city in the U.S. I take mass transit to work and don't own a car. There is of course more that I could do, but if I zero out my usage it will make precisely no difference to the outcome. So I also vote with my dollars and my actual votes for political candidates who will push in the right direction on this issue.

But more than anything, I think if I'm honest, I don't justify it. I just do it. These scales cannot be balanced -- the human mind cannot encompass actions whose harms are so incrementally minor and diffuse, but corporately so major and severe. Our social heuristic engine is not equipped to process it, and mine isn't an exception.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for an honest and good answer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> First posted this on another article before seeing this one.

Not much information in this article, but given they only just reported new cases that makes me wonder if this person didn't come to a hospital until they were in severe condition - probably because they had no idea it was coronavirus and were thinking "it's the flu, it'll pass." If so it likely means many more cases in the community than we currently know about.

<comment><USER10> The fact that symptoms are mild in the vast majority of cases and there have now been a couple severe cases positively identified basically guarantees that we have widespread community transmission at this point.

Even among people with health insurance, the costs of visits combined with the likelihood of being told "it's viral, just wait it out" mean that many people simply won't bother with going to get a diagnosis from a doctor.

<comment><USER11> And it's not even just disincentives, right? If I feel bad but not deathly ill, I don't _want_ to go to the doctor in the first place; I want to lie in bed, where I have Youtube and crackers and there's nobody around to infect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally, I believe most people should just accept that they are going to get COVID-19. It's going to get spread around, and it's not containable. You're likely going to get it. That's the bad news, but the good news is that we have immune systems and we know how to take care of each other and ourselves. Yes it's going to kill some people, no it is highly probably not going to kill you. People will be sick and going on with their lives and doing their jobs.

It feels like we're teetering on the verge of hysteria, but a little acceptance about the situation would go a long way.

<comment><USER13> There are 86k confirmed cases globally. That's 0.001%

Why would you think most people will get it?

<comment><USER14> The number of cases per day outside of China is still growing exponentially:

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus- cases/...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-cases/#case- tot-outchina)

Until that changes it's a fair assumption that a lot more people will get it

<comment><USER13> If you look at the log graph on that link it's clear it won't get 50000x more severe unless the course drastically changes.

<comment><USER15> Looks like doubling every 5-6 days. So a million cases in 35-40 days if trend continues?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One person has died in the US. It's not time to panic. I expected more logical comments here.

<comment><AUTHOR> The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do.

Other countries are already trying to slow down spread via cancellation of events and closures of schools. The same needs to happen here so that our hospital system has a chance to cope. The real danger is what happens when the 19% of people who get infected that require some level of hospital care can't get it. The death rates will then rise considerably. Those are preventable deaths if we slow this down.

There needs to be clear and fact based communication from authorities every day about the current situation and what the public can do to play their part. People panic when information is hidden from them, they aren't stupid they will see what's going on. They need to know that all the correct things are being done.

<comment><USER17> > The concern is people have not been taking this seriously for the past two > months. This has resulted in the US being on the back foot and only acting > in a reactive manner. The CDC has fallen flat on its face and now state > public health departments need to try to pick up the slack. I hope they do.

Oh please. There's likely absolutely nothing the CDC could have done to prevent it from entering and spreading within the US, given the nature of the virus. What would have been an ideal situation in your mind, have the CDC order a complete halt to domestic/international travel early January?

<comment><USER18> Over the last 3 years the CDC funding for participation in international epidemic detection and management programs was cut by 80%. In addition the several most senior positions responsible for pandemic preparation and response were cut. The budget proposed just a few weeks ago again included significant cuts in CDC funding, so the governments eye has not been on the ball for quite some time.

Having said that you're right that the CDC and health systems in general have mainly and advisory and coordination, rather than a direct role in preventing the spread of a disease. However they need to have the funding, focus and senior representation in order to do that quickly and effectively.

<comment><USER17> Care to explain what "on the ball" would realistically look like for this specific situation we are in right now? Because everyone else seems to be avoiding the question.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're genuinely interested go read how other countries such as Singapore have been handling it. For example Singapore has done a thorough job of testing, tracing, and quarantining individuals and it's slowed the spread dramatically there. They've also been communicating opening and honestly with the public so that the public knows what is happening, knows the right things are being done, and knows what their role is to play.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When is it time to start freaking out? I have a friend who may be starting to unhinge a little bit. Whereas I have some sort of stoic "this is completely out of my control and will happen or it won't" response that is probably not that much more rational.

<comment><USER4> It's never time to freak out. That leads to poor decisions. It is time to take this seriously. Beyond personal hygiene, plan on how you'll deal with school closures if you're a parent (and ensure your school has a remote study curriculum in place.) Consider if you get it, it could be fairly benign — so you want to think about your role in reducing the spread to more vulnerable populations. WFH if possible.

Preparedness begins in the household, to the community, to the state. We should all do what we can to spread the impact of this and prevent a strain on resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you are under 60 years old, the lethality of Covid19 is only 2-3x that of the regular flu. Why are people spreading these types of news and commenting on them like it's the end of days? We may yet see a severe pandemic in our time but I don't see anything indicating this would be it, especially not since lethality goes down with spread. The biggest concern so far people should have regarding this virus is what it's going to do to your portfolio seeing as the supply chain of half the companies in the world seems to be disrupted in the coming months.

<comment><USER21> > _If you are under 60 years old, the lethality of Covid19 is only 2-3x that > of the regular flu._

That does not pass the smell test. According to the CDC, in the 2017-2018 flu season, there were an estimated people 14.4 million cases of the flu for people 18-49 years old, of which 2,803 died. That's a fatality rate of 0.02%.

The latest fatality rates coming out China show a 0.2% to 0.4% CFR for that age group. Which is 10-20x higher.

It seems like you reached the 2-3x lethality factor by comparing against the flu's overall CFR of 0.1%, which includes a lot of elderly people.

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm)

[2] [https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age- se...](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex- demographics/)

<comment><USER20> I think you're correct, so I apologize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> We have no idea what's happening[1] so maybe paranoia is a reasonable default?

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us- coronaviru...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus- pence.html)

<comment><USER4> Meta point but when NYT introduced their paywall they said access would be free during emergencies. Certainly this qualifies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For others confused like me, this isn't one of the cases reported last Friday that were reported as 'doing well.' Seems this is part of a collection of new cases that weren't reported to the public (and still aren't).

</comment><comment><USER24> The article leaves more questions than it answers:

> A person in Washington state infected with coronavirus has died, according > to the Seattle and King County Department of Health.

Was this one of the reported cases on Friday, or yet another new one?

Unfortunately, I suspect we've already moved past the point of worrying about individual cases.

<comment><USER25> It was not one of the reported cases on Friday, the person that died was a 19 year old male.

<comment><USER25> Hmm, the president just said that it was a 50 year old woman that died. But the Seattle Times stated that that woman was at home resting comfortably. We'll probably know more after the 1 pm press conference by King County health officials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think I'm going to start working from home.

<comment><USER27> It's way past time for that. Meaning I agree with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> .

<comment><USER28> Trump just said in his press conference that the deceased was almost 60 years old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm not going to stop saying this. This looks very dangerous and we should take very precaution possible to slow transmission. All nonessential travel should be avoided, don't touch your face, wash your hands. Slowing this virus down makes everything so much better.

[1] Estimate that the case to fatality ratio is between 5-8%. The transmission rate is between 2 and 3. Both of these numbers are similar to the earlier SARS outbreak in the early 2000s.

[2] The death rate in Wuhan is significantly higher than that outside. We want to buy time so our healthcare facilities can handle the volume of patients.

Take precautions everyone! This may not seriously affect you but you can help prevent the spread to people you love.

[1] [https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523](https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/9/2/523)

[2] [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.17.20023630v4)

<comment><USER30> > This looks very dangerous, fatality ratio is between 5-8%.

We're better than this at HN. There are stats on the mortality rates, and given you are younger than 50 there is a less than 0.4% mortality rate.

Furthermore, recent autopsies have shown this is a virus that hits the lungs more than anything else. China with it's incredible pollution, might have skewed mortality rates that are higher than we may expect in Europe/US.

Yes, we should do all we can to prevent the spread. The biggest risk is health facilities not being able to handle the amount of patients. This is very contagious. So please don't spread panic, more people going to the ICU without case doesn't help

<comment><USER31> 0.4% is number of deaths / number of cases. Problem is that not all cases have recovered and there will be more deaths among them.

But yes, main takeaways, don't panic, slow down spread as much as possible (aka wash your hands)

<comment><USER32> Presumably there are also many cases that are mild and will never be tested or reported.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yeah this weekend is going a whirlwind, let's see what the President Trumps remarks are today.

<comment><USER27> "Pence tells me no new cases or deaths, so it's a hoax"

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We need to shut down mass transit (trains, planes) and shut down group events including elementary school (which is almost like a bioweapon in terms of its ability to exchange viruses).

Honestly, we should probably all start working remotely as well until this is better understood.

We need to slow the transmission of the virus.</comment>


Children in planes: Would you like to see adult-only flights? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2011/02/children_planes <comment><USER2> Personally, I'd rather see no-fat-people flights.</comment>


AT&T, T-Mobile sold real-time location data: Make a legal claim under their ToS - <AUTHOR> https://fairshake.myradvocate.com/2020/02/03/fcc-cell-service-providers-broke-the-law-sold-customer-location-data/ <comment><USER3> Read the terms, basically you agree to give them 20% of the claim, if its less than 20 dollars, you still agree to pay 20 dollars to them - also if ATT or whoever takes some money off your bill you have to pay 10% of that...

I have filled out a lot of class action type things, it takes like 5 minutes...

Don't give your information to this company.

Also, find this kinda comical

You understand that Radvocate spends significant time and money pursuing your Claim

followed by:

If you fail to respond to multiple requests for information about the status or outcome of your Claim from Radvocate ("Ghosting"), you authorize Radvocate to charge any payment card connected to your account for $30 - the approximate cost of preparing, delivering and managing your Claim

<comment><AUTHOR> Hesitating if it makes sense to reply to every skeptical comment, but the legal background here is actually pretty interesting:

There are actually no more class action suits against most big companies that you've signed a contract with:

Thanks to Supreme Court decisions over the last decade your only option is typically to go through an opaque individual arbitration process – [https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/decade-class- act...](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/decade-class-action-was- gutted.html)

And very few people actually do this – [https://myradvocate.com/press/2019-q3-consumer- arbitration-c...](https://myradvocate.com/press/2019-q3-consumer-arbitration- claims-growing)

Our mission is to give people more access to this consumer arbitration process. And our business model is that when they win we will receive a commission.

Most of our business to-date has been helping people take on telcos over issues they've experienced as individuals (like when a company promises to buy out your old contract if you sign up, and then after you've signed up tells you "sorry, no")

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I being weird, or does this look like a shameless plug? Feels shady to me unless you're willing to disclose what you get out of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's a plug. Radvocate is a product; we make money if you use us... But only if you get money out of it. If we file documents for you and guide you through the process we ask for a commission on any compensation you get out of it.

<comment><USER5> Can you provide information about terms of service before taking my information? It's nowhere to be found. How much do I get? How much do you get? What happens next?

<comment><USER6> From the TOS:

> In return for doing the paperwork to process your Claim and providing other > services to help you through the dispute resolution process, you are > assigning Radvocate a 20% stake in any monetary relief resulting from your > Claim against the Counterparty (the "Stake").

> In addition to its Stake, you agree to pay Radvocate 10% of any amount > payable that's removed from or written off of your bill or debt (the "Debt > Relief Fee").

> If you accept a settlement offer but the Stake and the Debt Relief Fee are > less than $20 when added together, then you agree to pay Radvocate $20, > instead of and not in addition to the Stake and the Debt Relief Fee, to > partially offset the costs that Radvocate incurred pursuing your Claim.

> If you fail to respond to multiple requests for information about the status > or outcome of your Claim from Radvocate ("Ghosting"), you authorize > Radvocate to charge any payment card connected to your account for $30 - <USER2> > approximate cost of preparing, delivering and managing your Claim.

However:

> 100% SATISFACTION GUARANTEE: Radvocate's fees are subject to a 100% > satisfaction guarantee - if you aren't completely satisfied with our > service, then you don't have to pay Radvocate anything.

So if I'm reading this right, anybody can say they're dissatisfied for any reason (even, ostensibly, if they're dissatisfied with the terms of service) and that gets them out of any fees to Radvocate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wouldn't give this website my information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stay tuned -- we're working on a new and better one.</comment></comment>


Source of the famous "Now you have two problems" quote (2006) - <AUTHOR> http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247 <comment><USER3> It really bothers me that Google has allowed groups to deteriorate so much. At one time, it was actually a decent archive of Usenet history, but since then, search has deteriorated, and apparently, posts are sometimes missing.

Perhaps the people who are now famous that posted on Usenet back then didn't want posts from their college days in the spotlight, and their friends at Google implicitly let the site go to hell. </conspiracy-theory>

Edit: Hmm, I may be wrong. A while back, many of the links in this list of "memorable Usenet moments" [1] were broken, but they seem to work now.

Edit #2: Okay, I was not wrong. For example, take a look at the link on that page to "December 1982: First thread about AIDS" [2]. The link takes you to a Usenet post that doesn't even mention AIDS, in the newsgroup fa.telecom.

[1] [https://support.google.com/groups/answer/6003482?hl=en](https://support.google.com/groups/answer/6003482?hl=en)

[2] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fa.telecom/EmQ- s_EGgSA...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/fa.telecom/EmQ- s_EGgSA/Jq6xiaLM8ncJ)

<comment><USER4> Some Google usenet fun. Go to the main Google Groups page [1].

Use the search functionality to search for "tim smith csh callan". You get one result, which is a 2007 post from comp.os.linux.advocacy where someone is quoting a 1984 post of mine that was in net.unix-wizards. Note that my 1984 post is not found.

Now go to the Google Groups version of net.unix-wizards [2].

Search there for "tim smith csh callan". Now the above mentioned 1984 post _is_ found, along with another 1984 post.

Lest you think that there is some problem when searching from the main page, click on the "Search all groups" link on the net.unix-wizards search results page, and it only finds the 2007 COLA post that quoted my 1984 post.

A search from the main Google search page, as opposed to the search within groups, finds the first 1984 post as the first result.

I've seen vast numbers of posts become unfindable by search, and then weeks or months later become findable again. For instance, there was a long time when if you searched for "Bill Gates" in Google's usenet archive, it would only return something like a dozen posts.

To put it bluntly, Google's handling of the usenet archives has been negligent and/or incompetent.

[1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!overview](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!overview)

[2] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/net.unix- wizards](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/net.unix-wizards)

<comment><USER5> _I 've seen vast numbers of posts become unfindable by search, and then weeks or months later become findable again._

I think this is an effect of the way Google searches/indices things; I am equally frustrated by pages that disappear from Google's web search which may or may not come back eventually (although I've seen more disappear than come back...) Remember that they're running a huge distributed system, and so consistency/completeness is probably relaxed in order to optimise other things they believe are more important. It's the same reason why even if Google says there are X results in a search, you often cannot view them all.

(Not that I'm actually agreeing with this behaviour, however. It's less noticed on the web where there tends to be a lot of redundant/similar information, but still not desirable at all.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was confronted with a problem, so I thought I would use Java. Now I have a problem factory.

<comment> yoz-y Of course the currently trending answer would be to use monads. Preferably implemented in Go.

<comment><USER7> I remember a colleague who wrote Common Lisp in the style of Occam - <USER2> concurrent process and communication channels. His code actually looked a lot like some Go code I've seen - hardly surprising I guess given the common ancestry to CSP.

<comment><USER8> Btw., CSP in Hoare's Book is a Lisp...

[http://www.usingcsp.com/cspbook.pdf](http://www.usingcsp.com/cspbook.pdf)

Page vi:

> The proposed implementations are unusual in that they use a very simple > purely functional subset of the well-known programming language LISP. This > will afford additional excitement to those who have access to a LISP > implementation on which to exercise and demonstrate their designs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TLDR: Everyone always attributes it to JWZ, but it was actually coined by David Tilbrook.

It's not mentioned in the blog post, but David told me in 2007 that he said it at a EurOpen conference in Dublin circa 1985.

David also told me this is only his _second_ favorite quote; the one he was most proud of, from 1981, was: "Software is the only business in which adding extra lanes to the Golden Gate bridge would be called maintenance."

</comment><comment><USER10> Keep in mind at the time people were using regexs for tree structures like the DOM, and calculating time.

Manipulating the DOM with regexs generally known to be impossible these days, and using regexs for time only happens on the Unix command line where there aren't better alternatives.

<comment><USER11> I assure you that people are still manipulating DOM with regexes.

<comment><USER12> Time for the classic bobince Stack Overflow post:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match- open-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags- except-xhtml-self-contained-tags)

<comment><USER13> I know this is a famous meme, but why, in response, does no one mention that sizzle, the selector engine in jQuery is based on regexes? ([https://github.com/jquery/sizzle/blob/master/src/sizzle.js](https://github.com/jquery/sizzle/blob/master/src/sizzle.js)) It suggests to me a very large proportion of DOM parsing code in existence uses regexes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use the Banach–Tarski Theorem."

<comment><USER15> Now they have their original problem (assumed to contain a sphere), an additional sphere, and a dependency upon the axiom of choice.

<comment><USER16> True story, did you know you can have paradoxical sets without choice? You just need infinity.

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

[http://www.math.hmc.edu/~su/papers.dir/banachtarski.pdf](http://www.math.hmc.edu/~su/papers.dir/banachtarski.pdf)

<comment><USER17> While I don't dispute your claim, neither of the links substantiates it. The Wikipedia article _says_ that you only need the axiom of infinity, but mentions only Banach–Tarski (which does require choice); and the minor thesis says on p. 2 that "the philosophy adopted in ths paper will be the unquestioned acceptance of Choice as a useful foundation in our work".

Do you have any other references for this? (I'm interested, not snarking.)

<comment><USER16> The paper is kind of long. Look at Theorem 4 in it.

[https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/30001.1-2-8.shtml](https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ffiles/30001.1-2-8.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's as versatile a joke as the old Slashdot Meme (apparently originally from South Park, which I did not know):

1\. Do some stupid thing

2\. ????

3\. PROFIT!

In fact:

1\. Use regexp

2\. ????

3\. PROFIT!

[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit)

(While we're at it:

I had a problem and decided to use regexp. Now I have two first world problems.)

<comment><USER19> The South Park underwear gnomes joke was a parody of dot-com startups (i.e. around 1999/2000) who didn't have a clear business model.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts)

<comment><USER18> According to the linked article the episode was from 1998, which actually makes it fairly early in the game even for poking fun at stupid dotcom sites.

<comment><USER20> The modern version:

       1) Acquire millions of users
       2) Get acquired for billions of dollars
       3) Not my problem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I enjoyed some of the remarks about Postscript in the comments, particularly this one [http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247#comment-18269](http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247#comment-18269) with its link to "a C-like syntax to PS compiler... called PdB" ([http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/93-01-152](http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/93-01-152)).

Some of the binaries for PdB appear to be still available, but it looks as if the source was never published? I like the idea of an alternate world in which Postscript, rather than Javascript, became the new universal "assembly language" for compilers to target. I imagine that may have been what Sun were aiming for with their Network Extensible Window System ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeWS)). My only encounter with that was via Xnews, about which I remember little except that it was very slow.

<comment><USER22> Arthur van Hoff wrote PdB, and we used it for to develop HyperLook (nee HyperNeWS nee GoodNeWS). You could actually subclass PostScript classes in C, and vice-verse!

I still have source code of PdB, although you'll have to ask Arthur for permission if you want a copy.

I wrote a PostScript "pretty plotter" in PostScript -- actually an interactive visual programming environment and debugger for NeWS:

[http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/97](http://www.donhopkins.com/drupal/node/97)

Check out the NFS version 3 spec (NeFS) -- sorry but the pages are ordered backwards for some reason (well it is based on PostScript):

[http://www.donhopkins.com/home/nfs3_0.pdf](http://www.donhopkins.com/home/nfs3_0.pdf)

The Network Extensible File System protocol(NeFS) provides transparent remote access to shared file systems over networks. The NeFS protocol is designed to be machine, operating system, network architecture, and transport protocol independent. This document is the draft specification for the protocol. It will remain in draft form during a period of public review. Italicized comments in the document are intended to present the rationale behind elements of the design and to raise questions where there are doubts. Comments and suggestions on this draft specification are most welcome.

The Network File System The Network File System (NFS™* ) has become a de facto standard distributed file system. Since it was first made generally available in 1985 it has been licensed by more than 120 companies. If the NFS protocol has been so successful why does there need to be NeFS ? Because the NFS protocol has deficiencies and limitations that become more apparent and troublesome as it grows older.

1\. Size limitations. The NFS version 2 protocol limits filehandles to 32 bytes, file sizes to the magnitude of a signed 32 bit integer, timestamp accuracy to 1 second. These and other limits need to be extended to cope with current and future demands.

2\. Non-idempotent procedures. A significant number of the NFS procedures are not idempotent. In certain circumstances these procedures can fail unexpectedly if retried by the client. It is not always clear how the client should recover from such a failure.

3\. Unix®† bias. The NFS protocol was designed and first implemented in a Unix environment. This bias is reflected in the protocol: there is no support for record-oriented files, file versions or non-Unix file attributes. This bias must be removed if NFS is to be truly machine and operating system independent.

4\. No access procedure. Numerous security problems and program anomalies are attributable to the fact that clients have no facility to ask a server whether they have permission to carry out certain operations.

5\. No facility to support atomic filesystem operations. For instance the POSIX O_EXCL flag makes a requirement for exclusive file creation. This cannot be guaranteed to work via the NFS protocol without the support of an auxiliary locking service. Similarly there is no way for a client to guarantee that data written to a file is appended to the current end of the file.

6\. Performance. The NFS version 2 protocol provides a fixed set of operations between client and server. While a degree of client caching can significantly reduce the amount of client-server interaction, a level of interaction is required just to maintain cache consistency and there yet remain many examples of high client-server interaction that cannot be reduced by caching. The problem becomes more acute when a client's set of filesystem operations does not map cleanly into the set of NFS procedures.

1.2 The Network Extensible File System

NeFS addresses the problems just described. Although a draft specification for a revised version of the NFS protocol has addressed many of the deficiencies of NFS version 2, it has not made non-Unix implementations easier, not does it provide opportunities for performance improvements. Indeed, the extra complexity introduced by modifications to the NFS protocol makes all implementations more difficult. A revised NFS protocol does not appear to be an attractive alternative to the existing protocol.

Although it has features in common with NFS, NeFS is a radical departure from NFS. The NFS protocol is built according to a Remote Procedure Call model (RPC) where filesystem operations are mapped across the network as remote procedure calls. The NeFS protocol abandons this model in favor of an interpretive model in which the filesystem operations become operators in an interpreted language. Clients send their requests to the server as programs to be interpreted. Execution of the request by the server's interpreter results in the filesystem operations being invoked and results returned to the client. Using the interpretive model, filesystem operations can be defined more simply. Clients can build arbitrarily complex requests from these simple operations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My favorite variation:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use multithreading". Nothhw tpe yawrve o oblems.

</comment><comment><USER24> So, I guess I'm a monster raving loon[1]. Oh, well, I like Forth too, but always found Postscript to be easier to read and program.

1) [http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247#comment-3085](http://regex.info/blog/2006-09-15/247#comment-3085)

</comment><comment><USER25> My first experience with this joke was:

[https://xkcd.com/1171/](https://xkcd.com/1171/)

>If you're having perl problems I feel bad for you son, I had 99 problems then I used regular expressions and now I have 100

</comment><comment><USER26> I really don't get the hate for regexps. They aren't very hard to learn and they are hugely productive. I use regexp in my text editor search _constantly_. It bothers me that I don't have regexp enabled search on everything. Web browser, I'm looking at you!

And regexp-based search-and-replace! Swoon! Regexp has made me significantly more productive and less error prone. I haven't made copy-pasta data errors in quite a long time because of it.

Yes, particularly hairy regexp looks like line noise. What poorly written code doesn't? I think people get caught up in the idea that they have to try to write one regexp to rule them all and perpetuate until the end of time. Sure, yeah, if you don't understand how to write regexp and have to look up a cheatsheet all the time, I can see how you would want to avoid touching it ever again. But that applies to SQL or CSS or whatever braindead config file format we're using on our project today, or any other language that isn't your wheelhouse.

Seriously, learn regexp already.

<comment><USER27> The hate is when they are used for code where a parser would be better. (e.g. parse an e-mail address).

I don't think anybody has an issue with regex search in an editor, but we are more talking about regex as a core language feature.

Even in an IDE there are times that regex is the wrong solution. e.g. regex based refactoring can introduce bugs in most languages where a parser based refactoring wouldn't.

<comment><USER26> Sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER27> Can you please let me know what the "baby" is in this case? Nobody is seriously against regexes for all cases (all developer editors have a regex search, for example).

However, they aren't even always the clearest way to parse regular languages (depending on the language, automata can be more clear than regexes or vice versa).

Perl regexes can parse many context free languages, but again it's not always the clearest way to represent it.

Despite the original quote, I use awk as a standard part of my toolbox. I'm not going to write a web-browser in it though. Nearly every time someone says "now you have 2 problems" or "considered harmful" it's a reaction to overuse or misuse, not a literal call to abandon it altogether.

<comment><USER26> > not a literal call to abandon it altogether.

No, that's literally every case I've seen for the use of the "now you have two problems" phrase. It's like someone has a bot on the lookout, alerting them to mentions of regexp so they can run in and say "now you have two problems!"

I think it's another symptom of the common trend of modern programmers not wanting to do any programming anymore. Breath mention that you might want to implement your own text editor control because you haven't been able to find one that suits your needs and immediately get jumped no with "don't reinvent the wheel!" Spend a small amount of your spare time toying around with _toy_ programming languages and it's, "you have too much time on your hands!"\--as if being massively overworked on business interests is some kind of virtue. Make a puzzle game without using Unity or some other overblown framework on your small project and it's "you're nuts!"

No, literally, I got called insane once for not using _Angular_ on my _personal website_ that mostly just amounts to a list of links to my social media profiles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's included here (along with some other gems): [http://install.lon- capa.org/bugzilla/quips.cgi?action=show](http://install.lon- capa.org/bugzilla/quips.cgi?action=show)</comment>


IPv6 Excuses - <AUTHOR> https://ipv6excuses.com/ <comment><USER2> I had IPv6 enabled for a few months but eventually turned it off since I wasn't confident I had configured my home network securely. When I tried asking for help, I was criticized and told that I should just read the RFCs...

Does anyone have suggestions for a beginner friendly home networking guide? How are others setting up their home network?

It's also a bit frustrating to me that routers provide so many options, yet it seems nigh impossible to find clear explanations of what different features mean, along with clear examples of use-cases of when I might want to enable or disable said features. I'll typically keep the defaults if I'm not as familiarized with a subject matter, but if experience has shown anything it's that most system's defaults are typically not designed with security as the top priority.

Can't say I saw any benefits during my brief IPv6 trial. First of all, typing out an IPv6 address is rather tedious. Second, I wasn't able to get a URL with an IPv6 address as the host to work with my browser. Maybe I had to include a scope, or perhaps I screwed something else up. I have no clue.

<comment><USER3> I am in the same boat as you. I took a few days to read the RFCs to figure it out (as I never found any sort of good guide for IPv6), and I am not confident I set up my hone network securely, mainly because of the "I don't know what I don't know."

I also had a few different subnets (to separate IoT and untrusted devices from my network), and I could never consistently get a stable subnet from my ISP outside of a /64 (mind you I am using Pfsense, not a consumer router). When did get a /56 subnet, I had a lot of connectivity issues I never had with only IPv4, and they went away instantly once I blocked all IPv6 off my network. I was also never able to confirm outside connectivity into my network via IPv6 either.

I may try it again, but I really don't want to go through a lot of pain and suffering to try and get IPv6 "working" to only have those connectivity issues again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's something to be said for aesthetics when it comes to anything human. IPv6 appears far more complex than the traditional 4 octets and its an immediate turn-off especially to those (most) who don't know that octal and hexadecimal are just different ways of representing the same thing. If they simply would have extended IPv4 to 8 octets (64 bits) I think that would have been a better middle ground solution from an intuitive standpoint. 128bit addressing is overkill and I doubt we will still be using the Internet Protocol if 2^128 (3.4X10^38) devices are ever online.

<comment><USER5> It's not "real" 128-bit addressing; for addressing routable networks you have only 64 bits. The rest is for devices inside that network. Additionally, it is quite possible that any single device will have more than one IP (with SLAAC, it can ask for how many it needs. With DHCPv6, it can be limited, and that's exactly why Android doesn't support it. Your cellphone company would be able to prevent you from tethering). There's no NAT, so you can't hide a network behind a single IP.

<comment><USER6> "There's no NAT..."

Are you saying that NAT is technically impossible with IPv6? Because I have doubts about such a statement.

<comment><USER5> Not imposible, but brings more problems than it solves. It's better to forget, that it exists.

RFC6296, by Cisco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What irked me about IPv6 was extension headers. At first they sound like a great idea. It is very flexible to chain headers. However, hardware engineers _hate_ them, because the number of IPv6 extension headers is potentially unbounded, leading to all kinds of "interesting" corner cases in networking hardware. So they end up not being supported in hardware, which means the either don't work at all, or they kick into a slow firmware exception path. I would not be surprised if there is eventually a DOS attack against IPv6 enabled gear using extension headers.

</comment><comment><USER8> Or you can go straight to the IPv6 Bingo:

[https://ipv6bingo.com/](https://ipv6bingo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> In my case it's largely "I tried and it didn't work so I gave up because I didn't know nor care enough to figure out why".

At this point it seems to me it's more of a nice to have than a requirement.

<comment><USER10> > At this point it seems to me it's more of a nice to have than a requirement.

Except for the fact that, you know, we've _literally_ ran out of addresses bar a very, very limited supply? And that _billions_ of people won't be able to access the internet as a result?

I can only imagine we'll be this complacent with things like oil, or plastic pollution or anything. Only acting when it's _far_ too late. Every ISP around the world should have pledged IPv6 20 years ago, but some are _still_ not starting today!

You may think you're fine because you are able to access ycombinator.com and leave your message, but imagine how many people simply cannot access the v4 network due to address shortages.

<comment><USER11> ISPs can always (and sometimes do) use NAT, Then they only need a few IPs. I know most mobile providers do this.

<comment><USER10> That is absolutely, entirely useless and a completely stupid way of prolonging the demise of IPv4; CGN doesn't help in regards to you wanting an IPv4 for your next billion-dollar project which may require several v4's for all the different layers (because most web apps are not that simple these days).

So sure, sharing an IP amongst many people may help a little, but we've already ran out _today_. There are people living right now that will _never_ be able to access the internet or make a website because of this.

One example: Digital Ocean have a cap on the number of servers they can run at one time due to the fact each droplet gets a unique v4.

V4 is dead, time for money to be spent in the right places :)

<comment><USER12> > There are people living right now that will _never_ be able to access the > internet or make a website because of this.

Well, if that's the only problem then I think we can tone down the sense of urgency because 1) there are much, much bigger problems to deal with in life and 2) the web has become a shithole with its growth in popularity.

That's my opinion of course. I'm guessing that you think Internet access and Internet publishing are basic rights of human existence, but I would disagree with that.

<comment><USER10> How do you think problems are resolved if not using the internet as a medium to share thoughts with the world? And even if you think it's a 'shithole' you cannot deny how important it is in everyday life. Entire government services are going and have gone online only, and if you were barred from using the internet you'd find it very difficult to exist within modern society.

I don't know you, but I bet given enough information I can find ways the internet are vital to your way of life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For me, the turn off was that any ipv6 connection on Linux was ALWAYS slow as hell to resolve, often leading to timeouts. Tore my hair out for ages, only to discover after much frustration and searching online that the solution was as simple as disabling the kernel's ipv6 module.

With ipv4, never had a problem.

<comment><USER14> That's a local configuration error but it's common enough that the community standardized a better approach which is widely implemented now:

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6555)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Verizon (Fios), are you listening? Comcast has you beat by a mile here...

</comment><comment><USER16> For the first three times I enabled IPv6 on my home network, it broke at least one functionality (typically, something involving apple and streaming).

More recently, I enabled IPv6 and everything Just Worked. Now I want to turn off IPv4...

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe it would be good to develop IPv5: just add another octet or two to IPv4 addresses, without the all the added complexity and overengineering that made the IPv6 rollout & adoption the failure that it is?

</comment><comment><USER18> Not seen: IPv6 makes unique user tracking easier</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think a Google subscription business model would work? - <AUTHOR> So this is in the context of privacy, data breaches, cookies and all that. Google relies heavily on ads, I presume much of their revenue is dependent on ads network.<p>To tackle privacy concerns and user data collection. If Google hypothetically considered to get rid of user data, they'd need another income source. Would a subscription be something you pay for? Sure, they wont customise search results, maybe at worst (?) you end up like DuckDuckGo. <comment><USER2> No. If a multi-billion dollar company completely overturned its revenue model, it wouldn't be the same company anymore. And the billions of people who have used their services for years wouldn't be happy with suddenly having to pay. Can some subscription services work for some people and some products some of the time? Sure. But Google has so many services, coming to so many people for free, and making them so much money from ads, that even the hypothetical is ridiculous.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would consider paying. I don't mind Google selling ads, just don't do it while tracking users.

<comment><USER2> The reason for the tracking is to better target the ads, you can't separate the two in Google's model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hate the Google model, but the appeal of everything in one place is too high for the lazy!

The only way I see this changing and people shifting to an alternative search engine is if that engine is 10x better in terms of results...

</comment><comment><USER4> Well anything apart from adds never paid Google. Android is doing good as it's open source and based on Linux. Time will tell.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why subscription? Why not pay as you go?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, anything else than 'free'</comment></comment>


THE WORLD'S FIRST OPEN-SOURCE MASS MARKET VEHICLE PLATFORM - <AUTHOR> https://www.osvehicle.com/renaultpomsignup/?ref=producthunt <comment><USER2> Thanks very much for sharing!</comment>


Sony asks for restraining order against Geohot, fail0verflow over PS3 exploits - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/11/sony-sues-geohot-fail0verflow-over-ps3-exploits/ <comment><USER2> "have the jailbreak and any information about the jailbreak removed from the web"

Wow. Well, that takes care of that, I guess. Maybe they can have all of those old articles about their CD rootkits redacted while they're at it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "have the jailbreak and any information about the jailbreak removed from the web"

Thanks for the morning laugh. The horse left the barn a while ago. Sorry, Sony.

<comment><USER4> Ditto. As soon as "... removed from the web" is stated I believe the subject spontaneously spreads itself throughout the internet.

It's like hybridizing whack-a-mole with a hydra and a worm.

</comment></comment><comment> X-Istence More discussion in this Hacker News thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2094613></comment>


Your Facebook app is a disaster, and I was right. - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupnorth.ca/2008/02/29/your-facebook-app-is-a-disaster-and-i-was-right/ <comment><USER2> Stanford conducted a class where the students built Facebook apps to see what worked. The conclusion? The more inane the app, the more users would install it. Touch me, hug me, throw a dodgeball at me, fuck me...

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the real problem is the the vast majority of the apps are absolute crap.

Let's take a look at the one referenced:

"The most glaring example of this comes straight out of Toronto, the TD Canada Trust "Split the bill" application, which I have to admit seemed like a decent idea to me when I first heard about it"

Split the bill? Really?

You're really going to:

\- go to a restaurant

\- bring along a laptop

\- expect a net connection

\- fire up facebook

Just to use this app?

Sturgeon's law is alive and well.

<comment><USER4> I see you're the inquisitive and intelligent type. So I'll make this explanation to those that aren't:

[http://www.netbanker.com/2007/08/td_canada_trust_launches_sp...](http://www.netbanker.com/2007/08/td_canada_trust_launches_split_it_on_facebook.html)

"What first crossed my desk this week was SPLIT IT, an application they created that allows roommates who are on Facebook to manage how they split basic bills."

Hmm... This reminds me of something: <https://www.billmonk.com/>

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/30/minimerger-obopay- aquir...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/30/minimerger-obopay-aquires- billmonk/)

Hmm... I wonder who might find this app actually useful?

<comment><USER5> If it's for splitting roommate bills, that sounds like a better app. I've seen friends' roommates that split the cost of a dozen eggs, and even mark the levels of milk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Generally if you do a startup and you are totally dependant on one customer or supplier you are in trouble. The day facebook changes their strategy you are finished. No matter how great you plugin.</comment>


Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-markets-most-influential/ <comment><AUTHOR> Tech and Asia focus makes this list different and more unexpected than other similar lists.</comment>


Show HN: Virtual pet game made for my daughter - <AUTHOR> https://bsawyer.github.io/tamagotchi/index.html <comment><USER2> Personally, I think a little more feedback into what effect each action has would be good. I couldn't figure out if the buttons did anything at all except change the animation. Perhaps a status bar showing the hunger/thirst/boredom going up or whatever.

The animations and the aestetic are great though!

<comment><USER3> I thought clicking around different combinations of buttons to discover what would happen was part of the fun. I kept trying to kill it to no avail.

<comment><USER4> I'm actually laughing out loud at that statement.

>What a neat game, let's see what it does. Nah. Let's kill it.

Humans. So weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've never seen this pattern before in JS, in the parameters for the constructor. playing with it in the browser, I can see it lets you define default values for expected arguments when calling it but you can provide other values.

What is this called? I'd like to read more about it.

      class Resource{
        constructor({
          min = 0,
          max = 1,
          count = 0
        }={}){
          this.min = min;
          this.max = max;
          this.count = count;
        }
      }

<comment><USER6> From the post, I wasn't sure if you knew, but JS also has regular default parameters if that's all you want.

<comment><USER7> Not as nice though, as the arguments still depend on the order. Passing a object gives the benefit of named arguments AND position of the arguments no longer matter (as object keys don't have order and also, it's a object with key/values)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Github code [https://github.com/bsawyer/tamagotchi](https://github.com/bsawyer/tamagotchi)

<comment><USER9> I've never said this before but, I really wanted a read.me file for this...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Love the game! It would be nice to wrap this up in an Android app and put it on the market place just because when I build games like these my kids end up closing the browser somehow :) I built a few of these at: [http://putty.minhajuddin.com/](http://putty.minhajuddin.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good idea!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks amazing! How did you make the SVG/animations?

I'm just a developer, but seeing stuff like this really makes me want to learn design.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just separating different css transform animations across nested divs

<comment><USER11> How did you make the SVGs though? Did you draw them yourself, or get them somewhere else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Drew them in figma

<comment><USER11> Thanks! I had never thought to draw in Figma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> console javascript hacking ;)

var ele = document.createElement('div'); ele.setAttribute('id', 'foo'); //$('.stage').append("
m
"); document.getElementsByClassName('stage')[0].appendChild(ele);

var dict = { pain: { energy: 'paddle', waste: 'needs to fart' }, sad: { ideas: 'coffee' }, frustration: { fatigue: 'sleep', energy: 'food' // 'paddle' }, restless: { concentration: 'knit?', waste: 'fart' }, tired: { fatigue: 'needs sleep' } };

// happy concentration // estatic ideas / waste // restless waster

trigger = setInterval(function() { var s = getState(STATE); var msg = s.mood.name + ' ' \+ s.mood.reason ; if (dict[s.mood.name] && dict[s.mood.name][s.mood.reason]) msg = dict[s.mood.name][s.mood.reason]; var other = ['concentration','energy','fatigue','ideas','waste']; for (var i = 0; i < other.length; ++i) msg += ' ' \+ other[i] + ':' \+ (s.creature[other[i]].count).toFixed(1);

        document.getElementById('foo').innerHTML = ''+ msg +'';

}, 100)

/* i couldnt find the mute button */ function playSound(state, sound){}

</comment><comment> dynamite-ready Great artstyle. You should make it a fully fledged PWA. I would have downloaded it in a heartbeat.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like the style of the code. Can talk about your inspiration for it? I haven't seen Javascript written in that way before. It's clean but, at least to me, unintuitive. What is your background?

<comment><AUTHOR> Been a frontend dev for 10 years angular and react. You're right it's a little mix of functional state management and imperative structures for the game objects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I try to find the time to write a small game for my daughter for so long! I'm jealous. Good job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! It is definitely hard to find time. Certainly helped that she wanted to "help"(she's 6) write it with me sometimes :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> great job! only a couple of seconds with the game and i felt calmed down somehow lol we need more slow paced, calming things like this

<comment><USER16> Try playing death stranding. It's very calming making "deliveries" while enjoying the great graphics and music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been playing Pwnagotchi with my daughter. (Not really, cause she's still too young.) Thanks for the inspiration though.

</comment><comment><USER18> Ah, my heart. It was sad for such a long time and I just didn't know what it wanted.

Reminds me of my son until he was 1 year old(ish).

</comment><comment><USER19> great :) add more stuff, I cant teach my daughter things can live on coffee and cookies... just kidding of course we can :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Neat

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, glad you like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Can you add a brown face choice? Right now the choices are peach (caucasian) or alien.

<comment><USER22> Caucasian? It's an imaginary pet, not a person.

<comment><USER18> Even for an imaginary pet brown makes perfect sense though?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very cute! Maybe someday this will inspire her to learn how to code. :)

</comment><comment><USER24> It's very cute!

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd rename it. Tamagotchi is still a trademarked name, and someone still owns it and produces toys with the name.

Ignoring that, it seems a fun little thing. I have trouble understanding the faces, but I assume that just takes practice.

It's pretty neat, fast, with the all-important cute animations that trick you into caring about a state machine.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're absolutely right, would love any suggestions!

<comment><USER26> perhaps emotchi

<comment><USER27> I give this the millennial stamp of approval</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making Sure the Shoe Fits at Zappos.com - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/making-sure-the-shoe-fits-at-zapposcom/

<comment><USER2> It's easy to under-estimate how good the service is at Zappos.

I tried them once and discovered I'd ordered the wrong size (totally my fault). The exchange process was amazing - I called the number they included with my package and got through immediately to someone who was very friendly. I had my replacements within 48 hours.

Now it's the only place I buy shoes at all - and I tell everyone I know about them as well.

<comment><USER3> Why don't you buy shoes at the mall and avoid the hassle of exchanges and wrong sizes and the ability to wear it out of the store? Clothes, to me, consistently sound like one of those silly things that doesn't work in terms of online shopping.

<comment><USER4> Selection, selection, selection.

I pretty much exclusively wear Doc Martens. In any given shoe store there are at best 1-2 different styles of Docs. There is one outlet store in the US, in Portland, several thousand miles away from me.

Zappos has dozens upon dozens of styles of Docs, pretty damn close to every single one that's available. They have most of them in the size 13/14 I take, which can also be an issue at shoe stores.

<comment><USER3> In a transaction where you already know exactly what you want, then yes, it would most likely make sense to purchase online for the sake of price savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> really like how he talked about go to work at his last company and not liking it, not wanting to be there, that an amazing confession from a founder and a huge responsibility.

Building a company that doesn't suck has far more to do with people / culture / and fit then free sodas and catered lunched.

additionally, he talks about the huge value of WOM and repeat customers which are often overlooked by tech startups where its all about uptime and new features. Love the perspective he brings to the table.</comment>


Headstart Ventures - new seed fund with mentoring in India - <AUTHOR> http://www.headstartventures.in

<comment><AUTHOR> Via Kallol Borah:

HeadStart Ventures (<http://www.headstartventures.in>) is yet another small beginning towards creating an organisation to support entrepreneurs and innovators in India.

HeadStart Ventures is set up as a limited liability partnership (LLP) firm with the objective of mentoring and seed funding startups in India. We are supported by large technology companies and the first one I wish to announce is Intuit, with whom we are launching an online brainstorming and collaboration platform (available to use at <http://ideas.intuit.com>).

I have been involved in two successful community initiatives as co-founder of the HeadStart Foundation which is a not for profit community platform that has grown from 15 people in 2007 to over 15000 people now and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Bangalore which is a professional association for computer science researchers and practicians which has grown to over 5000 people taking part in activities. What I have seen as 'gaps' in the startup and innovation ecosystem is what HeadStart Ventures has been set up for. These are -

1) angel investments : starting up and innovation is stifled in India due to lack of seed stage funding available today. Not that India lacks high net worth individuals, this is more due to lack of an effective organisation to manage angel money. HeadStart Ventures is setting up an 'angel fund' where we are involved in getting interested, experienced and able individuals to come together and manage seed stage investments. As an entrepreneur myself, I feel that going to angel networks that have slow decision making processes, too many people to talk to and a risk taking aversion similar to VCs in India is frustrating and the HeadStart Ventures fund will address this.

2) effective mentoring : mentoring startups in India is mostly done pro bono and the results are not too encouraging barring a few exceptions. Again, as an entrepreneur, I do not want 'help' from a mentor, I would much rather have a mentor who sets some milestones for us to achieve together and works on them. HeadStart Ventures is going to announce an incentive based mentoring initiative very soon and we are starting with workshops in July to start identifying startups to work with.

3) market access : one of the main reasons Indian startups reportedly do not display much innovation is because of the lack of knowledge about markets. 'Problem spaces' need to be defined and worked upon in collaboration with industry early adopters. HeadStart Ventures is therefore working on partnerships with large industry organisations to help accelerate time and relevance to market of Indian startups</comment>


Ask HN: Installing Linux (Ubunutu) on Google's Pixel Chromebook - <AUTHOR>

Has anyone done this? Thoughts? I'm trying to buy a good dev computer running linux that both looks good and works smoothly with linux. Thoughts on buying the Pixel? <comment><USER2> I'm typing this on a Pixel running Ubuntu 14.04. Nearly everything works perfectly, and the hardware, as you probably know, is superb. If you're going to be staring at a screen all day you should consider getting the best one you can afford. As far as I know the best screens are in the Pixel and the "retina" screens from Apple. The Pixel, however, at least the original model that I got (used), has a pretty bad image persistence problem.

I tried Crouton and found it too awkward, so deleted ChromeOS and installed Ubuntu from an SD card set up in the normal way. Things will not work right out of the box. You need to make a recovery SD card in case you accidentally drain your battery:

[http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information- fo...](http://dev.chromium.org/chromium-os/developer-information-for-chrome- os-devices/workaround-for-battery-discharge-in-dev-mode#TOC-Introduction)

Do not skip this step, as it is possible for a crash can put you in the same state - it happened to me.

Your machine will probably reboot when you try to suspend/resume. The fix varies depending on the kernel/Pixel model; I fixed this by adding

tpm_tis.force=1 tpm_tis.interrupts=0

to /boot/grub/grub.cfg (and remembering to run update-grub).

You need to add an .xmodmaprc file to your home directory to get the hardware volume, etc. keys to work. After rebooting, sometimes this doesn't "take" unless you log out of the desktop and back in a couple of times. I can suspend by running "pm-suspend" and wake up by opening the lid, but suspending by simply closing the lid doesn't work. I'm used to that, as it was the same deal with my Ubuntu Thinkpads. You can probably fix that if you care enough. While you're setting up your keymappings you can also change the "search" key to cntrl, etc.

I plan to put up a more detailed guide on my website eventually (it has an Atom feed).

The Pixel is a pleasure to use all day (but gives me only five hours of battery). Don't be put off by the small SD drive, you can use the convenient SD slot to supplement that.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is incredibly helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to write it and would definitely benefit if you wrote a full blog post about it.

I think I'm going to buy a used 2013 version as well and setup Linux on it. Thank you!

<comment><USER2> Good luck. Some other minor issues are: keyboard backlight works only until first suspend, never comes back on after that, until you reboot; I haven't figured out how to get actual function keys working - xev reports right code, buts apps like htop don't respond correctly; plugging in headphones doesn't mute speakers or route sound to phones until you change settings using alsamixer. These all have fixes, I'm sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't have a Pixel Chromebook, but I recently bought a Toshiba Chromebook two and installed Linux without X11 [http://blog.markwatson.com/2015/07/ubuntu-linux-on-my- chrome...](http://blog.markwatson.com/2015/07/ubuntu-linux-on-my-chromebook- without.html)

I like running Linux with multiple shell windows along side Chrome OS, but for me having a good emacs setup and Haskell, Clojure, and Ruby installed is fine. I also use nitrous.io for development.

<comment><AUTHOR> I took a look at nitrous.io. What's your opinion on it? Have you found that it provides you all the tools you need?

<comment><USER4> There are a couple of Cloud IDEs to take a look at other than Nitrous. Including Cloud 9 IDE, Koding and Codeanywhere (which I am the founder of).

If you have time to try out Codeanywhere I would love the feedback. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


$1M Dollar Page - <AUTHOR> https://themilliondollar.page <comment><USER2> Yikes, dude... you are 13 years late to the party.</comment>