'One Ring' Phone Scam - <AUTHOR> https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/one-ring-phone-scam <comment><USER3> From the website:

How to avoid this scam: Don't answer or return any calls from numbers you don't recognize.

If the FCC is recommending we don't pick up our phones, isn't something really wrong with the system?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. The phone system is totally broken. A few years ago I disabled the incoming call part of my phone to everyone except a few family members and my wife. So far it's been great. Everyone who needs me emails me. I've yet to run into a situation where someone I _needed_ to hear from would _only_ call me.

<comment><USER5> Just not willing to do this. I never want to miss a call from someone talking about an emergency with a family member, the FAA calling about an unclosed flight plan, a recruiter (if job hunting), a delivery person, etc. I answer virtually all unknown numbers except the ones T-Mobile puts in as "Scam Likely."

What I do not understand is, given that the phone is a computer, why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro. I mean, I had tech that could do that for a landline 25 years ago.

<comment><USER6> > why there is not an on-phone IVR which can solicit a brief intro.

Google has that, but I'm not sure if it's on-phone.

I'd wager someone could write an app to do this.

I would probably pay $50 for an on-phone version of Lenny; basically a voice- based chat-bot that keeps spammers occupied, without having to conference another number in.

( [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of- lenny...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3b7na/the-story-of-lenny-the- internets-favorite-telemarketing-troll) )

<comment><USER7> heard a review of this app a few days ago that reminded me of Lenny [https://www.robokiller.com/](https://www.robokiller.com/) \- apparently the conversations it spews out are pretty hilarious also. Annoyingly I can't figure out what the subscription rate is, but can try it for a week for free

<comment><USER8> I've been using this for the last 3 weeks and it works really well. It has blocked 21 spam calls up to now. After the free week they charge $30 yearly or $4 monthly.

You can set the spam calls to be answered with selected funny time-wasting recordings, but since that would be embarrassing if I get a call from a professional contact, I set them to be answered with a plain fax tone.

Now I am back to being able to pick up all calls that ring.

<comment><USER6> Can you toggle over to the "funny recording" on demand? I want to be able to say "ok, let me get my dad", and push the button to waste their time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't imagine why anyone ever answers the phone. I get at least ten robocalls every weekday. I don't ever look at my voicemail and I haven't answered a call in ages.

Edit: I know I'm not alone because CNN just released a poll with no responses from people under the age of fifty, because they couldn't reach enough of them by phone.

<comment><USER10> What's your phone for if not to answer when people call you?

<comment><USER11> This question reminds me of Kraftwerk's method of using a phone. I'd love a mobile phone that did this;

>When the German electronic band Kraftwerk were in the studio, they refused to be disturbed. Working for hours on end, patiently perfecting their sonic arrangements, required zero interruptions. So much so that they even took the ringer out of the only telephone in the studio. So what happened when someone wanted to call them? Simple. If someone wanted to speak to them when they were working in the studio, the band would instruct that person to call at a precise time - not 2 minutes before and not a couple of minutes after, but exactly at that time. Then, at that precise time, a member of the band would stop what they were doing, walk across the studio, pick up the none ringing phone and say 'Hello' and the call would begin. That's the only way you could get to speak to them. You made an agreement. You said what you were going to do and then you did it.

[http://www.youneedstandout.com/blog/2014/10/20/how-to- call-k...](http://www.youneedstandout.com/blog/2014/10/20/how-to-call- kraftwerk)

<comment><USER12> Intriguing, but in order to lift the phone at the precise time they'd need to have some form of alarm or notification. At which point, their concentration would be interrupted.

So really I don't see the point.

<comment><USER11> You mean that musicians would have to be keeping track of time? How very distracting for them.

<comment><USER13> For me, when playing/recording, it would really distract me (more than e.g. having a phone in silent mode so that when flow mode ends, I notice I'm hungry and need to wake up to the outside world, I can see who has tried to call).

The Kraftwerk description sounds a bit eccentric to me. Their business model is about being eccentric, so no surprise there.

<comment><USER11> >For me, when playing/recording, it would really distract me

I think this might be easier if you are working as a group and have a big clock on the wall. I am a rubbish instrumentalist, but do hang around with a hell of a lot of musicians, and 'how long was that' does seem to be one of the most commonly asked questions of each other when they are in a studio. Also, if paying for a studio, they generally become very good at estimating the current time.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but I think things like "we can now do one take and then it's phone call o'clock" would set an unnecessary pressure to the performance. That's just me of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like if FCC/Telephone providers don't fix this soon, traditional cell phones will become unreliable and we will need to adopt a new system or just use existing framework (facetime, whatsapp, etc.).

If every cell phone has LTE and internet connection, why the fuck do we need traditional cell phone number? I never use it except for calling my pharmacy, customer support or restaurants/shops. All conversations with friends and family happen over messages and Facetime Audio or Whatsapp.

While I don't wish to suggest we move to a proprietary system such as Facetime, I think there is a real need for email equivalent of a VOIP solution where there is automatic spam filtering just like emails.

Also, why can't cell phone providers use same spam filtering techniques used in email filters? I don't know the details of spoofing but I feel like telephone providers are scum of the earth and they have some kind of a reverse incentive to continue allowing spam calls.

<comment><USER15> I occasionally contemplate trying to find a data-only plan for my cell phone, with no associated cell number.

<comment><USER16> That may be impossible under current cell designs. WiFi hotspots even have assigned phone numbers.

<comment><USER17> You'll always have a phone number, but on an SMS- or Data-only plan it will never ring (MVNOs in my country offer these types of plans at a discount because reserving a voice phone number here is subject to ID verification and higher fees)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> German authorities call this 'Ping Call', and ordered telecommunications providers to make pricing transparent via voice announcements prior to calling, due to ~14.000 complaints in 1/2019 [0]

[0] [https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilung...](https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/2019/20190208_PingAnrufe.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if the solution is remarkably simple: Make phone calls expensive again.

Get rid of unlimited/free/super-cheap rates and make all callers pay by the minute again. Especially inbound international calls.

Let people who want free communication use FaceTime and SMS and Email and whatnot. But make phone calls expensive enough that you know if someone is paying to call you it must be important.

I got my first document scanner in 1997. Because of that I still have all of my phone bills going back to that year. I just looked up my April 1997 Cincinnati Bell bill. A five minute call from Cincinnati to Charleston, West Virginia cost $1.45 ($2.31 in 2019 money).

If we can raise the cost of customer acquisition there will be far fewer scammers.

Incidentally, my total bill for that month was $104.34 -- almost the same as what I spend for cell service today. Except that now I'm paying for unlimited texts and minutes that I never use. The only advantage my phone has today is its mobility, which feels more like a burden than a benefit.

<comment><USER17> I believe this is one reason why spam calls are less of a problem in Europe - in Europe the caller pays the higher rate to call mobile phones (vs the north America system where the cell phone user pays for incoming "airtime"). Just looking at skypeout rates and an example, UK landlines cost 2 cents/min vs 10 cents for mobiles

<comment><USER20> >in Europe the caller pays the higher rate to call mobile phones (vs the north America system where the cell phone user pays for incoming "airtime").

So in Europe, is receiving calls on a mobile phones free? Or do you still have to pay for minutes?

<comment><USER17> Yes, receiving calls (and text messages) is free. (unless you are roaming and then you pay the international sector of the call)

As far as I know this is true not just in Europe but everywhere outside of North America. It's certainly been true in the Asian countries I've been to (I get prepaid SIM cards everywhere I visit). It comes down to the numbering plans - in the NANP (north american numbering plan), landline and mobile phone numbers are mixed together and you can't distinguish them without a database. In other countries, mobile phones have their own "mobile phones" area code which is non-geographic and applies to all mobile phones. This means that callers beforehand know if they're calling a mobile phone or a landline.

<comment><USER21> > In other countries, mobile phones have their own "mobile phones" area code > which is non-geographic and applies to all mobile phones.

Here in Brazil it's slightly different. The area codes are the same for fixed and cell phones, but if the first digit of the local part of the phone number is in the 7-9 range, it's a cell phone (if it's in the 2-6 range, it's a fixed phone; 1 is reserved for special services like emergency, 0 is the interurban/international/toll-free/etc prefix). So a number like +55-11-9xxxx- xxxx is a cell phone in the São Paulo region (area code 11), while a number like +55-11-2xxx-xxxx is a fixed phone in the same region.

<comment><USER17> It's interesting that they've managed to merge the numbering systems in that way! Who pays the extra cost for a call to a mobile phone, the caller or the receiver? I've yet to visit any South/Central American countries, they seem to have inherited a lot of North American phone operator customs (like 850/1900 radio bands and CDMA).

In the European country I used to live in, they even had different mobile area codes per-operator, so you knew which mobile operator the person you were calling to was on. They would have deals where calling someone on the same operator was free. This got complicated when number portability was added (and the number of mobile phones increased)

<comment><USER21> > Who pays the extra cost for a call to a mobile phone, the caller or the > receiver?

The caller. You don't pay to receive normal calls unless you're roaming (since the caller can't know you're roaming, it wouldn't be fair to make the caller pay the roaming charges).

> they seem to have inherited a lot of North American phone operator customs > (like 850/1900 radio bands and CDMA).

The radio bands make sense, since the whole American continent is a single ITU region. As for CDMA, here on Brazil initially it was only Vivo on CDMA and the rest on GSM, but then Vivo also switched to GSM some time ago.

> They would have deals where calling someone on the same operator was free.

We also have these deals here. And also here, number portability muddled things: while before for instance 95xx to 99xx was Vivo and 90xx to 94xx was Claro, nowadays you can't be sure (and that's before they added an extra "9" digit before all cell phone numbers, making them 9 digits instead of 8).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm from europe (the Netherlands). Everytime I see these american robocall threads it blows my mind.

What about your system is so bad that allows this to go on? It's not a problem here at all.

<comment><USER23> Might also be because the Netherlands is a small and relatively expensive country in Europe where international rates are quite high. So, it's not compelling enough for them to open an call center in NL, and placing it outside of NL would increase their phone costs.

Also, not many people on the planet speak dutch, so the addressable market is quite small.

<comment><USER24> Germany is very big (4th largest economy in the world) and we have no problems with robocalls at all. I don't think I've ever experienced a robocall.

<comment><USER25> I've had the same number for like 14 years now and I haven't gotten a single(!) robocall. So I share your experience.

<comment><USER26> Same here.

The landline gets a few scam callers and surveys a year though, always real people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I started with an experiment about a year back and now I've practically stopped answering phone calls. My phone responses are now async. Just like an email, I look up the missed calls list once a while and call back if I know someone or was expecting a call from a particular number.

The phone is kept silent at all times and is on DND mode from the first minute of the day to the last.

The only call that passes through are the ones in the favorites, which will never exceed 10. Even they won't ring but vibrate. (My wife knows how to make my phone ring via Find my Phone.)

This is my No Phone Life - [https://no.phone.wtf/](https://no.phone.wtf/)

<comment><USER28> That only works if others don't do it however because they won't get your call back.

<comment><USER29> Nah, it just degrades into voice mail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Scammers are getting more and more sophisticated now a days. It seems like most of these scam calls are a result of the ability to spoof phone numbers.

Spoofing phone numbers does have legitimate purposes (for example a phone number from a customer service company is able to use their company phone number as the caller ID) but these scammers seem to abuse this. It's quite similar to how SMTP for emails allows the "From" field to be set to something other than your actual email. Email scammers abuse this same thing too but the difference is that in SMTP emails, you can still tap the detailed headers of the email and see what the actual "from" email is. But for phone numbers, this isn't the case.

I think, the best way to solve this phone scam issue would be by modifying the phone protocol (I am not sure of the details) to allow users to be able to see the "Real" underlying phone number.

<comment><USER31> This is apparently being implemented as we speak ( SHAKEN/STIR, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHAKEN/STIR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHAKEN/STIR) ).

(which seems a US focused initiative, which I guess makes sense as the problem seems much worse there than in other countries... but I wonder if that means that you guys will be getting lots of robocalls from unknown foreign numbers in the future ;)

<comment><USER32> "This is apparently being implemented as we speak ( SHAKEN/STIR, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHAKEN/STIR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHAKEN/STIR) )."

I see twilio at least mentioning shaken/stir:

[https://www.twilio.com/blog/your-phone-your-call- eliminating...](https://www.twilio.com/blog/your-phone-your-call-eliminating- robocalls)

... but I am curious if anyone knows: can this be interacted with, currently, with either twiml or twilio functions ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Why do we allow pay-per-minute phone services to even exist? There's no point to them in this day and age. If someone wants one of those services, there are plenty of ways to make it pay-per-minute without the phone company acting as a broker. Just end support for it, immediately.

<comment><USER34> I agree. If not this, then the phone company should at least require acknowledgment of the extra cost of the call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> One pattern I noticed but haven't tried to circumvent yet is that I noticed robocalls identify on the caller ID as having the same area code as my normal phone number and my Google Voice number.

If we were to acquire a phone number from say, some small town somewhere you have no business with, then could we block all caller ID with that area code and avoid all such robocalls?

<comment><USER36> > identify on the caller ID as having the same area code as my normal phone > number and my Google Voice number.

Most of my spam calls copy my area code _and_ the first 3 digits of my phone number. In fact, I installed an android app called Calls Blacklist solely to make any call that began with the same 6 digits as me to not even ring - <USER2> now I get about 1 spam call per month.

YMMV.

<comment><USER37> Ooh, I need to look into that. I acquired my mobile number about 15 years ago in a town 20 minutes away where I know practically no one. I get plenty of calls that have the first 6 digits pattern and it is virtually certain that those calls will not be from someone I know. It would be great to have them never even ring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Another trick these spammers are pulling is prompting you to search the number on Google and you clicking thru to a malware infested site.

The phone system we once knew needs to be obliterated!

</comment><comment><USER39> Similarly, I don't understand why people answer the front door when they can hear or see (through peephole or Ring) that it's a stranger. I don't need your magazines, your house-painting services, your church, or whatever else. If you're lost and looking for your friend's house you're supposed to be at, sorry I'm not gonna be able to help you anyway.

<comment><USER40> Sometimes a neighbor you haven't met is the one ringing the doorbell.

I recently had to leave my car parked in front of a stranger's house, so I rang the doorbell to let them know, but they didn't answer even though they were clearly home. Capitalism might be great and all, but door-to-door marketing and phone spamming have killed reasonable methods of communication.

I refuse to let these things die, so I still open the door if I don't know the person (I have a hotel-like door latch now to help prevent someone from kicking in the door or shooting an arrow at me). You just have to learn to be aggressive and say "I'm not interested" if it's a salesman or Jehovah's Witness.

<comment><USER41> > learn to be aggressive and say "I'm not interested"

That's not aggressive, actually you're helping both parties.

<comment><USER42> Sometimes you have to be very persistent, and that gets interpreted as aggression. For religious cults, diffuse charity collectors and similar it's usually sufficient to politely tell them they've come to the wrong person, and to leave the building and never come back. The electricity and internet salespeople otoh are extremely aggressive and I have often had to shout at them or physically chase them out of the building, and threaten with law enforcement. They shout back that they're trying to do their job but I don't see why that should make a difference. I'm in Germany, for reference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have a Seattle area code and for the last year or so I've been getting daily calls from various 206 numbers that also match the first 3 digits of my number. I answered the first one and there is no one on the line. After that I block each new number but they keep calling. I guess it'll eventually end as there are only 9998 possible numbers.

<comment><USER44> Maybe phones should have a whitelist feature.

Only allow my contacts to call me and anyone else hears a message saying they must text me first to be added to the whitelist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> In the last few years, my phone has steadily become more and more a pocket (textual) communicator and less a telephone. The amount of spam calls I get at the peak numbered about 20-30 per day and that is with my being on the do not call list. I spent some time wasting telemarketers time and that seemed, somewhat ironically to get me blacklisted from some of them and things trailed off.

From what I gathered, it seemed that none of the tele marketers were really all that interested in really landing a sale. Most of them are quick to hang up at the first sign of a troll, even if its minor. There are no hard sell tactics that Ive encountered. It makes me wonder who is spending the money to make these things profitable. Seems to me that its really just a vetting to see if the number is active so they can sell your contact info to another spamorg.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is my solution for my home line:

[https://imgur.com/eLFvavS](https://imgur.com/eLFvavS)

Note the ANI check. There are a couple extremely aggressive callers that I've had to blacklist their exchange to keep them from leaving weekly voicemail. The most recent is a company who calls monthly insisting I won a car, that this is their final attempt to reach me, that they aren't a telemarketer, and that they are aware of the Do Not Call list.

For my cell, Google Voice seems to be working well enough for now. I do wish iOS had a voip app that was worth a damn, and that iOS would let you choose a custom app for outbound dialing. The Google Voice iOS app frankly stinks.

</comment><comment><USER47> Funny thing is, I got hit by a flood of these calls on Saturday. Funny seeing it here right after it happened.

Unfortunately, I called one of them back before I realized it was an international number (Android's dialer, for some reason, seems to record everything as an unbroken string of numbers before updating them several minutes after the missed call, so I just thought it was a US number with area code 232. It wasn't until after the callback that it resolved to a Sierra Leone number, so I asked about it on Facebook, and I got a link to an article on the scam.

I immediately felt like a heel, and then I blocked the number, just in case I forget to never call it back. When my statement comes in at the end of the month, I think I'm going to try to contact my carrier and dispute the charge. Though I'm not holding my breath: I'm on Fi, and Google's customer support is notorious for being virtually nonexistent.

</comment><comment><USER48> It occurred to me just last week that land line phones have caller ID as I was helping my parents port their land line into a VOIP service. How is it that cell phones, a nominally more advanced technology, lack this function which was retrofitted into the analog phone system? I'd love to read or hear more about how that came about.

<comment><USER49> Caller ID is an untrusted advisory best effort service. It has absolutely no integrity of any kind today. There's an American law against spoofing it in theory, but it's not very enforcable at the moment. Understand it's literally a string that you can set to any value, including complete nonsense, and calls will often work.

Heck, we constantly receive calls with invalid phone numbers. And it's not always on purpose, sometimes it's just crummy or small-time carriers in rural areas (no disrespect intended, this is just an honest statement from experience). If we ingress filtered all invalid numbers, it would almost certainly be devistating to our customers.

This is like with email. First we need an integrity mechanism, then we can start doing reputation and identifying bad actors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Imagine if the web didn't have SSL certificates. That's what the legacy phone networks are foisting on the public. It's a garbage service and if the caller identity problem can't be solved, we should shut the whole thing down as it's actively harmful.

</comment><comment><USER51> I have received dozens of phone calls a day that almost-but-not-quite match the 'One Ring' scam.

I get calls from international numbers, 'private numbers' and 'unknown numbers', (I'm not sure the difference between private and unkown, it's what android displays in caller id). The calls ring once and hang up. I've managed to answer it a few times but they usually disconnect before I can. When I answer I hear a few sentences in a language I don't recognize then they hang up.

The unknown and private numbers don't match the 'One Ring' scam because you cannot call back a private or unknown number.

</comment><comment><USER52> This problem (and telemarketing in general) is incredibly easy to solve, especially if you are Google or Apple. In fact it's almost a disgrace that they don't.

Back in the day, did this with the apps for local.ch in Switzerland ( some fluffy details here: [https://tel.local.ch/en/advertising- calls](https://tel.local.ch/en/advertising-calls) ) which something like 40-50% of the Swiss population have installed on their phones.

As a Yellow pages phonebook app we provided an "Incoming Call" lookup service against our search engine of Swiss business phone numbers, so we could see who you received calls from (data which we treated as strictly private).

These types of robocallers (and telemarketers in general) were really easy to spot in logs - you see a number that's been calling many different people but _wasn't_ in our official database of businesses (we had good coverage of all businesses in Switzerland), we'd flag it our users with "We don't know this number but we suspect telemarketing" leaving the user to decide whether they wanted to call back or not. The Google Places API or the Yelp API ( [https://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v3/business_se...](https://www.yelp.com/developers/documentation/v3/business_search_phone) ) would probably suffice for the same purpose.

The only way to get round this is for robocallers to rotate the numbers they're using with a very high frequency so they don't "peak" in the logs but that can get expensive for them.

What's nice is this approach is also dynamic - you don't need an official database of blacklisted numbers. You just need a big enough sample of users with your app installed and you'll catch Robocallers as soon as they start peaking in any logs.

Apple and Google have way more insights into who's calling who than this (e.g. number of rings, email signatures, the users address books, which numbers have been blocked and a ton of analytics) which could be used to kill telemarketing for good. Given the solution is so simple, it really surprises me they don't.

<comment><USER53> This would be entirely predicated on callerid being trustworthy. But it isn't. At all. Some scammers who have call lists based upon surreptitiously stolen contact lists now call people 'from' their own contacts.

<comment><USER52> True but I'd assume (at least right now) faked calledid makes up < 1% of telemarketing / scam calls.

Plus the type of robocalling described in the article where they ring once and hang up wouldn't work if you fake the callerid - you'd just get them to call back someone from their contacts

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I've never understood why we allow telephone operators provide unwanted premium rate call services to their clients without any opt out. These scams will just keep coming until it's no longer a matter of simply calling a number to spend a large per minute premium rate.

I'm guessing the average hacker news user is unlikely to get scammed by this one, but it's a common one and it works.

</comment><comment><USER55> This happened to my gf few weeks back. Number came from some eastern European country. We thought it could be one of our friend who was traveling in eastern europe I'm that week. Luckily we saw her online on WhatsApp to make sure she wasn't the one calling. Quick Google search I did that time confirmed our hunch.

</comment><comment><USER56> I take phone calls now—but I expect them. Either from people in my address book, or from customers I set up a call with in advance.

Recently, I had a payment service call me on behalf one of my customers—from my area code. I nearly told them to beat it. I was sure they were spammers.

Anon Phone calls are approaching completely spam bucket status. I doubt they will recover.

</comment><comment><USER57> What does someone gain by doing this? Wouldn't the charges just go toward the caller's phone company?

<comment><USER58> If they make you call a premium-rate phone number[1], they get to charge you more for the call and keep a percentage of it.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium- rate_telephone_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium- rate_telephone_number)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> What baffles me about this is that getting people to dial these numbers has been a known scam for many years. The fix seems stupidly trivial: break up the North American Numbering Plan to move them out of the +1 zone. They just don't belong there. Frankly, Canada should be moved out the +1 zone too.

<comment><USER60> > Frankly, Canada should be moved out the +1 zone too.

Why? Who does that benefit? It's pretty common for phone plans in both the US and Canada to treat the US/Canada as a single region for the purpose of long distance calls and texts.

<comment><USER49> Good point. The purpose of my comment you replied to above was that there should be _either_ pricing normalization such that callers aren't surprised, OR split the +1 country code.

Its not just "kick everyone out of the US country code", it's protect consumers by principle of least surprise sorta. But again, this only protects against toll fraud and not all of the other "Appear to be in a nation you aren't" scams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I thought this was going to be some new Tolkein themed phone scam, I might actually fall for that.

</comment><comment><USER62> For the U.S., where most people rarely need to make international calls, an easy solution would be to use an option (which i am sure is provided by every operator), to just disable any international calls. Sounds like an easy fix.

</comment><comment><USER63> I just got a bunch of these yesterday, all from Sierra Leone

<comment><USER64> Me too; weird!

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I have received a lot of these one rings from international numbers, and always wondered what they were about. I'm grateful to now know why.

</comment><comment><USER66> And the "you missed a call message" without ever ringing

</comment><comment><USER67> "you can file a complaint with the FCC at not cost."

</comment><comment><USER49> As someone who has worked in the telecom space for nearly 20 years, I really think we need to remove other countries from country code +1. People in any country should have confidence when they dial a number that it isn't unexpectedly billing them for international calls. This applies to people in any of the +1 nations, not just the United States.

Otherwise, we need to set the rules and pricing conditional for being a part of +1 to mitigate this issue.

No disrespect to Canadians, but I wonder if most Canadians are aware of how much fraud operates out of Canada and takes advantage of the +1 area code plus the protections of being in another nation. This isn't just Carribean Island nations as people tend to stereotype.

(Please miss me with the whataboutism, I'm not throwing stones simply sharing information and experience.)

<comment><USER60> If it's done for their own benefit, probably easier for the US to remove themselves from the +1 area code than to remove other countries.

<comment><USER49> I tried to be clear that I believe the principle should apply to all callers. No on planet earth should second guess whether they're calling a different nation or not. That principle includes other +1 nations.

<comment><USER60> Sure, but as a Canadian, I'm not bothered by it. My phone and VoIP plans all include US calling/texting. I'd prefer to keep the +1 prefix. The US is free to change theirs.

<comment><USER49> I'm just going to nit on your phrasing here. NANP and the associated +1 country code originated from the United States. Technically I am talking about "changing theirs." The fact that it's very reasonably shared with other North American countries in a manner that allows for plenary power on the part of each other member nation is the source of this issue. I'm suggesting the US revise NANP and put more conditions on sharing the +1 country code, although most preferably with a consensus of the other members.

Bad actors in different nations than consumers shouldn't be able to leverage sovereignty or agreements like NANP to be bad actors with impunity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> OK, so if someone calls me from Turks and Caicos about a lottery I never entered, I shouldn't call back?

</comment><comment><USER69> "at not cost." A scam warning with a typo.

</comment><comment><USER70> Great work FCC. Now that all our communications are done over the internet, and ISPs are effectively no longer common carriers [1], you've enabled those internet fast lanes and we'll all get rich.

Just kidding, we will pay more for slower internet. But hey, you alerted us about robocalls, so not your fault right?

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/12/14...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- switch/wp/2017/12/14/the-fcc-is-expected-to-repeal-its-net-neutrality-rules- today-in-a-sweeping-act-of-deregulation/)

EDIT: Please explain downvotes. You feel the current FCC are saints and would never think such things?</comment>


Show HN: dumd – tiny async amd/umd javascript initialization - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/skiano/dumd <comment><AUTHOR> dumd helps ensure that a set of umd/amd javascripts execute in proper order. It doesn't have the overhead of a true amd loader or the sophistication of webpack loader or systemjs, but if all you want to do is use async script tags with umd bundles, this may help.</comment>


Show HN: #Near 1.0 – Social discovery based on hashtags in your proximity - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/near/id1023642826?ls=1&mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> I find myself in a crowd many times wanting to connect with people but get frustrated because I can't tell who is interested in the same things as I am. For example, meeting Taylor Swift fans by going to her concert is a good idea because everyone there is a swiftie, but what if you wanted to connect with swifties at your school or while on the go?

So, I built a simple iPhone app that shows who in your proximity has matching interests (hashtags) with you. #Near for iPhone is social discovery based on hashtags in your proximity and I believe it could change the way we socialize.</comment>


Project Trillek, a game inspired by Notch's 0x10c - <AUTHOR> http://trillek.org/ <comment><USER2> I count myself among the many people that were disappointed that the game got shelved, but I had hoped someone would take up the mantle and make something in its same vein. Looking forward to following it, playing it and maybe contributing to it!</comment>


Ooyala Wins Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi%2dcontent=NEWS%5fVIEW%5fPOPUP%5fTYPE&newsId=20071206006270&ndmHsc=v2%2aA1196946000000%2aB1197040954000%2aDgroupByDate%2aJ2%2aN1000837&newsLang=en&beanID=202776713&viewID=news%5fview%5fpopup <comment><USER2> Surprised this isn't higher. Pretty cool tech behind this.</comment>


Faking Human Input While Interfacing with X11 Applications - <AUTHOR> http://pratyeka.org/fake-x-input/

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://freddy1990.com/scar.php> \- Is a similar tool for Windows. It was originally built, and is wildly used today, to cheat on an online RPG called <http://runescape.com/> (it does the boring, repetitive tasks of the game for you while your are sleeping).</comment>


XPath Navigator for Visual Studio - <AUTHOR> https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/7949b3a6-37c7-4b82-96d7-93bb05d33116

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this because I tried 10 or so different free XPath tools and they all had really sucky UIs. They are based on the design philosophy 'how do I make this UI as pathologically unusable as humanly possible'. And some throw in a random crash or too for good measure.

So when I finally found a half decent simple tool to run an XPath (as a C# developer) I decided it was worth a submit.</comment>


Dnjs: A pure subset of JavaScript that wants to replace configuration languages - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leontrolski/dnjs <comment><USER2> Other pure languages with similar goals: [https://cuelang.org/](https://cuelang.org/), [https://dhall- lang.org/](https://dhall-lang.org/), [https://gcl.readthedocs.io/](https://gcl.readthedocs.io/), [https://jsonnet.org/](https://jsonnet.org/).

<comment><USER3> Interesting use by \ by dhall to define functions - though you can use λ as well.

<comment><USER4> It's from haskell, which uses \ to define lambdas

<comment><USER3> Thanks, in case anyone else is interested:

[https://wiki.haskell.org/Anonymous_function](https://wiki.haskell.org/Anonymous_function)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Creating languages is fun but writing code in a half-assed language created by brilliant but not too experienced engineer with no real support for anything, is not! Then, when this engineer leaves your company, you are left with a mess to clean up...

IMO better strategy would be to reduce config files to absolute minimum and let the code that reads them handle all the complexity. Whatever is your main language, it is better supported than any of this.

<comment><USER6> Yeah at one job I worked, a smart but then-inexperienced guy had developed a language, implemented a transpiler, written a bunch of tooling in the language, and left the company. We'll call him "Steve". By the time I got there it had been largely replaced, but one still heard rumors about the dreaded "Stevecode".

<comment><USER7> I wrote a little mini language[1] for a project last year (I only inflicted it on myself, not any poor user). It served its purpose well: allowing me to quickly implement people's requests in a way that was sandboxed/isolated from other people's accounts, was impossible to take the system down no matter how bad the bugs, and I could implement these requests without redeploying the underlying system. In that respect, it was a huge success (and that's what it was for). But in every other way, I think it was a failure: I came to hate writing code in it, despite having designed it. It had missing language features that I never got around to implementing, strange bugs that I didn't have time to fix (so just avoided doing those things), nobody else but me could use it (the project was just me developing, but the users couldn't use it either despite having access to it. It replaced a simple but very limited command language, but in doing so added too much real programming). So while it succeeded in what it set out to do, it wasn't a sustainable or future proof solution. I did learn what users actually wanted though and got to test/prototype it before adding it to the underlying system. I'm also working on a declarative replacement now (basically a TOML file where values can be expressions -- a template system), that supports everything the users actually want, but is vastly simpler and has much less custom logic.

It was a great learning experience though and I'm glad I did it, both in terms of learning how to write grammars (I used Clojure's Instaparse) and interpreters, and in learning about the users needs and wants.

But I shudder to think about if anybody else would have had to use it...

[1] Some interesting (IMHO) technical details: it was a synchronous language (of the transformational system variety), meaning that while it was executing, time was essentially frozen: it would gather all of its inputs, then evaluate the code as a pure transformation of its inputs (made it very easy to interpret!) and then write its output. The inputs are essentially immutable while the evaluation is happening. This was run in a database transaction for consistency. Each individual script was basically stop-the-world non- concurrent, but the scripts were independent and many could execute at once. I'm a very big fan of event driven synchronous languages.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing. There are often good reasons for creating DSLs, internal or external.

However I argue that I haven't seen many cases where configuration DSL were well justified.

By configuration here I mean something that describes differences between different deployed instances of the same code. If you take all deployed instances of the existing system and see what is minimal amount of configuration to describe these, you would usually find that very little information, just a few lines would be enough.

The rest of configuration file complexity comes from the designer's attempts to predict the future extensions. My point is, these should be resisted for the sake of future generations of maintainers.

<comment><USER7> What do you think of the HashiCorp configuration language (HCL)?

Overall, I completely agree with you, but I do find that HCL seems to be a pretty good fit for what its used for (at least for Terraform, which I have more experience with than their other tools).

My little story was really just me dumping my thoughts after reading about Stevecode, as someone who made a little language (not a configuration language though) and isn't an argument for doing so at all. I'm definitely in favour of sticking with an existing format for configuration (personally, I like to use TOML or EDN for my own projects' configuration needs, or JSON if its not normally meant to be edited by humans) and even for scripting, normally I'd stick with Lua or Javascript. My language came into existence because neither of those was sandboxed in the way I wanted (it was also deterministic and guaranteed to halt as there were no unbounded loops).

<comment><USER5> Hah...Terraform is called "Infrastructure as code", so it's HCL language is "code", not configuration, at least by my definition.

The whole point of configuration is that it's not code.

I use a simple litmus test: can your system work at least to some extent with empty configuration file? If not, you went too far and need to simplify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wouldn't use any turing-complete language as configuration :-/

Determinism is essential for a configuration language. I don't want to load configurations that may or may not crash your computer.

<comment><USER2> Turing-completeness, determinism, and crash safety are three independent properties; a given language may have any 0, 1, 2, or 3 of them.

<comment><USER9> usually, a freeze is considered a crash too. In this sense, you cannot be turing complete and crash safe.

<comment><USER10> You can be turing complete without meaningful freezes. You can be non turing complete with meaningful freezes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I feel like clojurescript but with all mutable functions removed would be a good option.

You get a cleaner literal syntax than Json, and easily composable functions.

The hiccup list syntax for html in clojure is a joy to work with.

<comment><USER12> Just EDN would be good start. When more dynamism is needed - it's already a Clojure subset.

<comment><USER7> EDN with a few added reader tags is great for configuration. I love Duct[1] configs: its just EDN, but it adds tags for including other files, reading environment variables, referencing other keys in the config (that's added by Integrant[2] not Duct itself): [https://github.com/duct- framework/duct/wiki/Configuration](https://github.com/duct- framework/duct/wiki/Configuration)

[1] [https://github.com/duct-framework/duct](https://github.com/duct- framework/duct)

[2] [https://github.com/weavejester/integrant](https://github.com/weavejester/integrant)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Author here, thanks for the feedback. This is v. much a work-in-progress, I'm in the process of trying to build something non-trivial with it. Just a couple of things to address in general from the comments so far:

\- I'm aware of dhall, jsonnet and friends, I think they're cool, but I think the most important for me is this is _just js_ \- that means nothing new to learn + you can use it from front end code + free linters etc.

\- I think the to-html bit is important, this is something I tangentially talked about in more detail here - [https://leontrolski.github.io/dom- syntax.html](https://leontrolski.github.io/dom-syntax.html). There was some discussion on hacker news about that one too, again, I think the important "feature" is that it's _just js_. Again, to me that's really important, so hiccup, jsx, etc don't cut it.

<comment><USER13> To clarify, the non-trivial thing I'm building is more for exploring the "unified templating language for backend and frontend" bit. I want to be able to use the same code to:

\- render entire pages from a Python backend

\- use as components in mithril [https://mithril.js.org/](https://mithril.js.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> By now I shouldn't be, but I'm always a little surprised when people come to the conclusion that the best way to represent HTML is JSON or Javascript (or anything but HTML).

<comment><USER15> Why is XML a better way to represent HTML than any other hierarchical data representation language? "JSON doesn't have Multiline strings" would be a good argument, but there are lots of good reasons that XML is a bad format (overly verbose, overly complicated, parsers frequently have security vulnerabilities, etc etc).

<comment><USER16> Element attributes are awkward to express in JSON, at the very least. Maybe if the markup language was originally designed around json it would be a more natural fit.

<comment><USER15> I think this is fine:

        {
            "type": "div",
            "style": "...",
            "children": [ ... ]
        }

If you really want to treat attributes specially you could put them under an "attributes" key:

        {
            "type": "div",
            "attributes": {"style": "..."},
            "children": [ ... ]
        }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I do think that something that's enough more than JSON to make it more usable for config (comments, imports, reference env vars, etc) would be great to have, but I don't see the two goals (config and templates) of dnjs as particularly compatible. HOCON[1] is the best attempt at a "better JSON" that I've seen but it's cross support of Java properties syntax makes it a little weird to use in a JavaScript centric stack.

[1] [https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md](https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md)

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree that there's a ton of value in only using a subset of JavaScript, but wouldn't this be better implemented as a set of lint rules?

Are there other advantages to a custom runtime that I'm missing? Even if it's only a subset of the language, the Python runtime probably isn't faster than Node.js.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://cuelang.org](https://cuelang.org) is what I use. Wrap code in data, not data with code

</comment><comment><USER15> This seems a lot like Starlark (go.starlark.net). Apart from the JS vs Python dialectal distinction, are there other differences?

</comment><comment><USER20> I just wanted to say that hydra is a mature, supported, well designed config library for python:

[https://hydra.cc/docs/intro](https://hydra.cc/docs/intro)

Great for machine learning and generic config too

<comment><USER21> > defaults: [db: mysql] is a special directive telling Hydra to use > db/mysql.yaml when composing the configuration object.

Oh no. This sort of implicit magic has no place in my hear and my configuration files.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was immediately reminded of [https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Can someone explain why you wouldn't use python or lua, or even just plain JS?

<comment><USER21> I don't understand dnjs either, but the reasons I use jsonnet over a mainstream language (like Python, Lua or JS) for configuration:

       - purity (within bounds of the local filesystem state; no dynamically computed imports; no networking; no file writes)
       - declarative, lazily evaluated
       - override syntax (allowing for a balance between explicitly defined APIs and some level of monkeypatching)
       - file-relative import syntax
       - simple interpreter that's easily embeddable into tools (no modules, no interpreter path, no global configuration files, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This seems neat. I feel like i've re-invented less complete versions of this dozens of times.

</comment><comment><USER25> FYI some of the python imports in the README are like: `from djns`

I think that's a typo?</comment>


Do we really need javascript frameworks? - <AUTHOR>

I started learning javascript and web development a while a go. I decided to learn javascript without any frameworks or libraries so I would properly learn the basics.
So far I haven't really felt the need to use frameworks or libraries. I've been close to using JQuery but I've able to avoid it until now. But even if I end up using JQuery, it is just a library and not a framework.
What do frameworks like Backbone.js, and ember.js have to offer? These frameworks offer functionality at the cost of adding a lot of complexity. <comment><USER2> I have asked myself that question over the last few years and I have come to the conclusion that I really want these frameworks. In the case of jQuery, for example: you can program everything in Javascript without using jQuery. On the other hand, jQuery is not just a lot of code, it's tested code. It's not much fun having to add browser/engine-specific code to everything you do. Thankfully, the need for this specifically seems to be slowly fading away now that all browsers are to a certain extend on the same level.

In the case of such frameworks like Backbone/ember/Angular: these are implementations of MVC or MVVM or other such patterns, in Javascript. These make it easy to share data between web services you create, and, in the case of e.g. Knockout, bind data to controls on your page. You save yourself from having to write AND test all these things yourself. I have tried, for the first time, Backbone mere days ago, to see what the added benefit is. It gave me what's required to send data (in JSON format) to, for example, my controller, but what's nice about it is, for example, model binding.

It might not be entirely unlike PHP's situation: you can program your projects in plain PHP, or you can use the Zend Framework or Symphony or whatever you prefer, which adds a lot of (tested) logic that you otherwise would have to program yourself.

Do you NEED it? Not using these won't limit you, but you'll probably find yourself programming these things out yourself in a lot of cases, where many smart people have done this already.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _On the other hand, jQuery is not just a lot of code, it 's tested code_

I haven't really looked at it from that point of view, I guess that is a pretty a pretty big advantage. The basics of writing a widget are pretty simple most of the time, but testing it on different browsers and edge cases always takes more time than I think it will.

<comment><USER2> Before I started using jQuery, I hadn't thought of it that way either. But after seeing that something that would normally take me days to program (in a way that it'd work in IE7, for example) only took me hours in jQuery, and finding that, indeed, it worked in all major browsers right away, I thought of it that way since! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Same question I did myself with HTML/CSS. Do we need those frameworks to do a website?

The question came to me after I did my 3rd bootstrap like architecture for some projects I've been working for. You will end doing something like JQuery in the end, if you want to be organized and want to maintain all in a large team, you end up doing a framework so everyone does the same.

After doing it 4 times, I realized I can use Boostrap and do the same on 1/4 of the requiered time and, avoid the testing phase for many, many things.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you feel like Backbone adds a lot of complexity, your project is not yet big enough to need it. For projects that need Backbone, it actually removes complexity by helping to enforce structure. Organizational tools always seem pointless until you have a lot of stuff to organize.

</comment><comment><USER5> No! You don't need them. But ... you'll save yourself lots of time by reusing tried and tested code instead of writing everything from scratch and having to debug all the edge cases and behaviours on different browsers.

</comment><comment> workhere-io Whether or not you need a framework like AngularJS depends on your website. If it's just a normal website there's no reason to use a framework. But if it's more like an app, say a calendar where you can add/edit/delete items without reloading the page, then AngularJS and similar frameworks come in handy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Aside from functionality and complexity, frameworks can offer consistency and reliability. The latter two are very important when trying to create large applications rapidly with larger teams.</comment>


The poisons released by melting Arctic ice - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190612-the-poisons-released-by-melting-arctic-ice <comment><USER2> Believing that we'll be able to reach the 1.5°C goal[1] (much less th 2°C goal) is starting to look unscientific to me.

David Roberts put it this way:

> Basically, stopping warming at 1.5C would involve an immediate, coordinated > crash program of re-industrialization, involving every major country in the > world. It would be like the US mobilizing for WWII, only across the globe, > sustained for the rest of the century.[2]

This is not happening and will not be happening because the the way our economic system is structured. Any country that wants to go first with the regulations needed will meet severe economic consequences. And well, time is too short for truly substantial coordination.

Deep adaptation[3] is our only hope. That and doing everything we can, considering the limitations imposed by geopolitics and our economic order, to slow things down.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warmi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Report_on_Global_Warming_of_1.5_%C2%B0C)

[2] [https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760](https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1049114118270197760)

[3] [https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf](https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf)

<comment><USER3> I am pretty convinced nothing serious will be done. We may get lucky and technology will improve to reduce CO2 output but most likely we'll just deal with the consequences of climate change. The world has been always been at flux so we may see refugees, wars and realignment of political power. As it has always been.

<comment><USER4> And IEA admitted that peak oil (conventional) occurred in 2008 and that shale oil may peak before 2025. Russia announced its own peak oil for 2021.

We'll be struggling soon with the worst of climate change at the same time we'll run out of fossil fuels, with no serious alternative available. This looks decidedly like the "Business as usual" World3 simulation of "Limits to Growth"...

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

<comment><USER5> The issue is that we seem to have triggered two positive feedback loops; methane release from melting ice and loss of Arctic albedo. This means the Earth will continue to warm even in the absence of new emissions, in a runaway fashion.

<comment><USER6> The runaway fashion isn't obvious to me. Once the ice is gone the albedo won't get worse, and atmospheric methane decays in some decades.

<comment><USER5> Oh my god, the ice "being gone" is basically the definition of catastrophe. If we get that far then it's way, way, way too late. Saying "once the is is gone the albedo won't get worse" is kind of like saying "eventually the plane that hits the mountain has to stop, and the crash can't get any worse".

And yes, atmospheric methane does decay in decades but the point is that before it does, it depletes sea ice and warms the ocean. The absolute worst- case scenario in a runaway climate model is something like the clathrate gun. [2]

> "One of the most eminent climate scientists in the world, Peter Wadhams, > believes an ice-free Arctic will occur one summer in the next few years and > that it will likely increase by 50% the warming caused by the CO2 produced > by human activity" [1]

[1] : [https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf](https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf) (sorry, not the primary source)

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Melting permafrost effectively introduces a new country at number two on the > highest emitters list, and one that isn't accounted for in current IPCC > models.

Is this correct, or is it just hyperbole? Asking because it's not like melting permafrost wasn't a known potential problem 20 years ago, so I find it dubious that IPCC models might not have factored it in already. Might it be that the IPCC models don't account for the scale of the phenomenon turning out to be worse than expected?

<comment><AUTHOR> IPCC models don't include feedback loops in general. IPCC models are extremely conservative indeed.

<comment><USER8> My head is reeling. Do you have a source for that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a good read on IPCC conservatism [http://climateextremes.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/Wha...](http://climateextremes.org.au/wp- content/uploads/2018/08/What-Lies-Beneath-V3-LR-Blank5b15d.pdf)

The sea level chart on page 31 is particularly telling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm getting extremely pessimistic about our chances at stopping this. It looks like even though we drastically reduce our emissions (which looks very much unrealistic) we haven't yet factored in all these variety of negative feedbacks that exacerbate the problem even more. It looks more and more like the chain of negative effects like the lost albedo effect, the methane released by the melting permafrost and tons of others will create a unstoppable runaway reaction. :(

<comment><USER10> Yea, I'm generally an optimist but the last few weeks of headlines all seem to be of the "worst than expected, "sooner than expected" variety.

It's infuriating how cheaply and seamlessly this problem could have been solved if we started gradually, 30 years ago.

<comment><USER11> People that knew about it and decided to do nothing should be prosecuted and put to jail. They wont have to live with those decisions long enough to see how disastrous they were but OUR children will..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Readers: reducing your emissions will make a difference, not just your reduction, but you will lead others, who otherwise might feel alone, to join you. And after reducing small things, you'll find it easier to reduce big things.

Eventually large number of people will reduce large amounts of emissions. Corporations, governments, and other institutions will follow.

You will make a difference. You will also find after reducing driving, flying, meat, etc, that you'll wish you had changed earlier. You replace those things with other things you like more.

<comment><USER5> There is no more time for individual action. We're about 20/30 years too late for this plan.

Positive-feedback has kicked in, so slowing down emissions will achieve very little. Because of positive feedback, even _halting_ emissions might not be enough.

The only possible path I can think of to stem the catastrophe is a two-step plan:

1\. The immediate enactment of a global carbon tax, priced high enough to materially reduce carbon emissions, and quickly.

2\. Massive investment in sequestration technologies to help us scrub the air of CO2 and methane.

The challenge is colossal. Even if (1) could be done, (2) basically involves un-doing every emission of the past 20 years. Every mile driven must now be driven backwards, every good manufactured must be un-done...and with far more energy than it took the first time (thanks, thermodynamics!). And that energy must come from clean sources. And it must be done quickly; every day the carbon debt accelerates. Note, not _grows_ — accelerates!

A friend once gave me the following metaphor. Imagine you have a glass jar, filled 1/16 with bacteria. The bacteria look up and say "we have plenty of room to grow!". Two weeks later the bacteria are half way up the jar. "Hey, it took us two week to get here, we have time to curb our growth".

The bacteria suffocate in about two hours.

<comment><USER13> Carbon sequestration seems like the (political) winner because it's much easier to convince people to spend money on something than it is to take their money for doing something (in a democratic society at least).

Edit: Of course not emitting the carbon is better and more efficient but from a practical "affecting change ASAP" perspective sequestration seems like an easier pill for society to swallow. That should go without saying but I forgot that weekends here are basically Reddit and those kinds of things cannot be considered obvious.

<comment><USER14> Please learn some basic facts.

The idea that carbon sequestation is an _alternative_ to reducing emissions needs to die as quickly as possible. It's rooted in fantasy, not in facts.

All climate scenarios from the IPCC that don't end up in a huge catastrophy rely on rapid emission reductions. Most also rely on carbon sequestation for negative emissions in the future (which many think is too optimistic, because it needs yet to be shown that the technology can be scaled up enough). There is no scenario of averting catastrophic heating with carbon sequestation alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great to see more and more climate related posts on HN. Posted this a couple of times already, but I'd encourage everyone to check this paper[0] that recently came out ("Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning").

Among one of the initiatives mentioned is a startup called Tomorrow [1] that integrates with services (Uber, Instacart, etc) to calculate your personal CO2 emissions. They need help to get more of these integrations and more CO2 models. Consider giving a hand to them or other projects like this one [2].

[0] [https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.05433)

[1] [https://www.tmrow.com/](https://www.tmrow.com/)

[2] [https://openclimatefix.github.io/](https://openclimatefix.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Another BBC story linked in the article has these amazing claims:[1]

* 2005 "NASA scientists successfully revived bacteria that had been encased in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years. ... Once the ice melted, they began swimming around, seemingly unaffected."

* 2007 "scientists managed to revive an 8-million-year-old bacterium that had been lying dormant in ice, beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica"

* 2007 "bacteria were also revived from ice that was over 100,000 years old."

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are- diseases...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20170504-there-are-diseases- hidden-in-ice-and-they-are-waking-up)

</comment><comment><USER17> Methane that will be released from Siberia is equal to hundreds of years of modern industrial activity, and can be released in a span of years. Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking that we can do anything about it is naive.

<comment><USER5> > Warming is unstoppable, second order effects are already happening. Thinking > that we can do anything about it is naive.

This is probably true. However, it is possible—if highly unlikely—that something _could_ be done. This would involve effectively halting CO2 emissions in the next 10 years and massive investment in carbon sequestration research.

Is this likely to succeed? No, not really. But why on earth would we be spending our time trying anything else?

(Well, I guess we could be spending that time preparing for the coming changes. Which we should also do.)

<comment><USER18> Anything that involves halting CO2 emissions is not something that "could be done" anytime soon except in theory. Coordinating at that scale across the globe will simply never happen, and the sooner we admit it the sooner we can move on to figure out how to deal with it not happening.

CO2 emissions will reduce to the extent that alternatives become cheaper, better and more convenient. And while that's moving forward it won't happen fast enough to prevent the problem from getting worse in the mean time.

So let's stop kidding ourselves and prepare for what's coming, both in terms of dealing with the consequences and finding ways to counteract the effects of ongoing fossil fuel usage.

<comment><USER5> I don't disagree with this comment, except insofar as I think there's room for both. Even a partial success on the mitigation side buys us more time on the adaptation side.

On a personal note, what steps do you think an individual can do to prepare for what's coming as an individual/family?

<comment><USER18> I agree, the more we can reduce emissions the smaller the resulting problem we need to solve.

On a personal level I would look at where you live and how that area is likely to change over the next 20-30 years if the current trends continue. And then either consider moving somewhere else or see what you need to do to deal with more extreme versions of floods, draughts, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > The Northern Hemisphere winter of 2018/2019 was dominated by headlines of > the "polar vortex", as temperatures plummeted unusually far south into North > America. [...] What such stories masked, however, was that the opposite was > happening in the far North, beyond the Arctic circle. [...] In November, > when temperatures should have been -25C, a temperature of 1.2C above > freezing was recorded at the North Pole. [1]

In November... 2018? Why do they link to an article from November 2016?

[1] [https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above- freez...](https://weather.com/news/climate/news/north-pole-above-freezing- siberia-cold-nov2016)

</comment><comment><USER20> Removing material from the atmosphere is a constant process that requires vast amounts of energy. Would there be any benefit from altering the albedo of the land instead of the upper atmosphere? By laying down white reflective material solar radiation can reflected away but this constant reflection of sunlight requires no energy besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind. Wouldn't this be an ideal solution in places like Australia that have vast deserts and suffer from extremely high temperatures?

<comment><USER21> _...besides making sure the surfaces stay clear of dirt or debris deposited by the wind._

Here's a 60 sec video of how they clean off the large panels at a vast solar plant.

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

<comment><USER22> Do they need to operate the cleaners manually? It seems like with just a couple of adjustments those cleaners could be automated and not requite a two people operating them. They could be scheduled to run once a day, every day, half an hour before the sun comes up. One sweep back and forth and the job is done. You just need to build a few more, give them a timer and two motors, and maybe make those solar panels rows longer so you need less cleaning robots. And that's it.

They could even be themselves solar powered, charging during the day when they are not working. And those people who operate them could instead go around after the "robots shift" to check for problems and fix them.

Am I vastly underestimating something here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The article estimated that thawing permafrost will release the equivalent of US emissions, every year.

Is there any such equivalency for methane's effect? Hiw much will that warm things?

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps Jeff Bezos or his ex wife could devote most of their fortune to help alleviate the coming catastrophe.

</comment><comment><USER25> Tangential, but will increasing temperatures make lands habitable for a um... billion climate refugees? Has there been any research on that? Maldives started saving up for a new homeland in 2008, exploring India, Sri Lanka and Australia.

</comment><comment><USER26> Whenever these articles come up the focus is on behavior changes and policy. What about good old fashion ingenuity? We know volcanos and nuclear winter can cool the planet so why not start there and work backwards? Controlled volcano eruption, generate the effects of nuclear winter without the radiation and contamination. Or even do something in space with asteroids to block the path to the sun occasionally or something else. I'm sure there are a ton of options but I rarely see any mentioned.

<comment><USER27> Obviously it would be nice if a crack team of scientists and engineers ordered some pizzas and had a marathon science session that comes up with something that solves all our problems and lets us continue burning fossil fuels as usual.

But that's simply not how it works, no matter how much money you throw at it. And you won't even have money to throw at it in the US at least, because belief in climate change is a political opinion.

<comment><USER28> > in the US at least, because belief in climate change is a political opinion.

Which is a strange state of affairs. In the European countries I am familiar with, all the mainstream parties agree with core mainstream science. Their voters largely do as well. They may have more or less credible plans to address the problem but they don't have their own private scientific conclusions.

Why is the US (and maybe Australia?) different? Is it because voters are ignorant or short termist, and politicians follow? Or politicians are corrupted and mislead their voters? Or just a higher level of scientific ignorance all around? Or a heavy dependence on fossil fuel prosperity in key districts?

Can someone suggest the answer? Clearly Europeans are not more intrinsically virtuous or sensible.

<comment><USER29> Well, do they? The science is telling us that global pollution is an existential threat to humanity and that immediate drastic action must be taken. Which parties are behaving as if they believe that? Maybe Green parties are, but they aren't in power. Which parties in power are BEHAVING (not talking) as if they believe the science?

This:

Talk: "We believe in climate change"

Action: "Going to increase fuel mileage standards by 1%, that'll do it"

doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER28> Fair, but it's still interesting to understand why they feel compelled to publicly hew to scientific fact, but leaders in the US do not.

<comment><USER23> Maybe a 10-20% difference in public opinion compared to canada, add 15% more for us.

Enough to mouth belief, not enough to demand action. It's a smaller difference than it seems.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google CTF 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://capturetheflag.withgoogle.com <comment><USER2> Dig at Apple from the third stage of the beginners' quest;

"Your first thought is "Why does the display stand need to announce its price? And exactly how much does 999 dollars convert to in Xenonivian Bucklets?"

<comment><USER3> Stuck on this one, can see readme.flag but not sure how to proceed

<comment><USER4> Same. As far as I can tell, none of the usual restricted shell escape tricks work, so you just have to search through all the binaries on the system until you find one you can abuse to print the file contents, and that seems like more of a time sink than it's worth.

<comment><USER5> Use iconv.

<comment><USER6> LOL; I used split in the temp directory to create files of a single byte each and ran md5sum on them.

That's quite a bit more straightforward :)

<comment><USER5> Well I spent an hour trying out as many commands as possible before giving up. Then came across this comment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20252612](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20252612) and went through his Twitch recordings to see if he could get past this stage. That is how I learnt about iconv. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does someone do in-depth posts/videos/talks about any of these (Google or FB) CTF challenges by breaking up what is happening, what, why and how they tried per challenege and how did they finally come to the solution step-by-step?

These things have always intimidated me and I'd love to know more.

<comment><USER8> I started streaming it yesterday on my Twitch channel, but I was asked not to by a Google employee.

I've been working through the Beginner's Quest instead, which is actually a lot of fun and has a cute story.

[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/442406188](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/442406188) if anyone wants to see the broadcast from yesterday.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the tip on using iconv. I spent an hour trying to figure out which command to use for that README.flag! Learnt something new!

<comment><USER8> Always happy to help! <3

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> CTF = Capture The Flag

(I didn't know what it stood for at first).

<comment><USER10> And what it means in this context:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_secu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag#Computer_security)

> In computer security, Capture the Flag (CTF), a type of wargame, is a > computer security competition. CTF contests are usually designed to serve as > an educational exercise to give participants experience in securing a > machine, as well as conducting and reacting to the sort of attacks found in > the real world (i.e., bug bounty programs in professional settings).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The emoji virtual machine (step 3 or 4) is cool. I'm trying to understand what it does to speed it up.

<comment><USER12> I'm on that as well, for me it seems it just decodes some Unicode characters and does arithmetic to print the message, I don't know why it's taking so long or how can I speed it up.

<comment><USER13> It's calculating prime numbers which is why it's slow.

Now if only I was to work out which prime numbers it wants... :)

<comment><USER14> have you guys figured it out? I got stuck here too.

<comment><USER15> I'm having a hard time even getting it to run.

"python vm.py program" results in "SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xf0' in file vm.py on line 19, but no encoding declared;"

adding the relevant encoding (# - _\- coding: utf-8 -_ -) then results in "RuntimeError: Unknown instruction ''\xf0\x9f\x96\x8b\xf0\x9f\x92\xa0\xf0\x9f\x94\xb6\xf0\x9f\x8e\x8c\xf0\x9f\x9a\xa9\xf0\x9f\x8f\x81'' at 370"

I assume debugging the program is part of the challenge? Or is it just supposed to work?

<comment><USER16> Run it with python3, not 2.7X

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm lost on the beginners task. These things always make me feel stupid.

<comment><USER18> yeah, the beginner one is definitely higher level that I would've expected a beginner level one to be. Definitely starting with a binary/reversing challenge is already quite a bit more than I'd expected from the very first beginner level.

<comment><USER2> You really don't need to reverse the binary to pass that one haha. The string isn't obfuscated in the ELF, you can just look at the file in a text editor to see the flag

<comment><USER18> Haha I feel extremely stupid now! Thanks though, after being unblocked I'm making decent progress, already gotten then next 4 levels. This is really fun for beginners!

<comment><USER2> No problem.

I think that feeling is extremely important when learning new things. It show's that you are starting to build a model of the problem space and filling it with things that were non-obvious to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can't wait until Facebook team wins it

<comment><USER20> For those not in the loop, Google's team won the Facebook CTF a couple of weeks ago and then used it as an opportunity to advertise Google CTF: [https://www.fbctf.com/scoreboard](https://www.fbctf.com/scoreboard)

<comment><USER21> Seems like I am even more out of the loop; what type of CTF is this? It appears the original article dives right into teams and rules and write ups without explaining what it is all about, which just leaves me even more confused.

<comment><USER22> There is a link in the "What is the Google CTF?" section that leads to the following:

[https://buildyourfuture.withgoogle.com/events/ctf/#!?detail-...](https://buildyourfuture.withgoogle.com/events/ctf/#!?detail- content-tabby_activeEl=about)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know about anyone else but this is a pretty hard ctf. It's a lot harder than other ones online

<comment><USER20> Google CTF is generally pretty challenging, yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Three of the problems in the beginners quest have 2 flags. In two of the problems, the problems themselves tell you that there are two flags (or give you very obvious hints), but I have no idea which one is the third problem that has a second let alone how to get it...could anyone give me a hint?

</comment><comment><USER25> stuck on [https://govagriculture.web.ctfcompetition.com/](https://govagriculture.web.ctfcompetition.com/) this task, any help?

<comment><USER18> Same here. Unless there's some steganography, I'm really all out of ideas. I see see the content of folders (/static/, /static/images/, etc), but that doesn't help. I can't get anything out of /admin and the content of /post don't appear anywhere for any sort of XSS attack.

<comment><USER26> There isn't any steganography (at least for the flag that I found). They have a bot that actually "reads" your post, which you can verify for yourself. This is alluded to in the message that you get when submitting a post:

> Your post was submitted for review. Administator will take a look shortly.

<comment><USER18> > which you can verify for yourself

How can you verify? That's what I was stuck, it's hard to test things if you're not getting any sort of feedback. That message seemed pretty constant.

EDIT: I see, managed to verify it by putting an image on my own webserver and seeing the log hit. I got a rough idea now, thanks!

EDIT2: Got it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Firefox ext:Canvas blocker crashes on your site.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Eligibility: The Contest is open to individuals who are (1) over the age of > eighteen (18) at the time of entry; (2) not a resident of Quebec, Cuba, > Iran, Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or Crimea; [1]

Why Quebec is banned?

[https://buildyourfuture.withgoogle.com/events/ctf/#!?detail-...](https://buildyourfuture.withgoogle.com/events/ctf/#!?detail- content-tabby_activeEl=about)

<comment><USER6> Stringent local laws with respect to competitions.

[https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/why-are-so-many- competiti...](https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/why-are-so-many-competitions- void-in-quebec-896835)

<comment><USER29> > Why is Quebec excluded from the CTF? Local laws and regulations make it > extremely challenging for us to run a competition open to residents of > Quebec. We are truly sorry about this, and hope to change this in the future > if possible.

<comment><USER30> This aspect could be the real hurdle:

"Pay a fee of up to 10% of the sweepstakes' value, depending on who is allowed to enter."

So they would need to pay Quebec $3K just to have the competition available there, even if it is a global competition.

It sounds to me that Quebec have got to have some reason for these Quebec special laws. It has nothing to do with France, there has to be another reason. Does anyone have any ideas?

<comment><USER31> Almost everything in Canada, every ad, promotion, service has some kind of special section for Quebec.

They insist on having completely different laws for every little thing. From a companies POV, its probably as legally onerous as operating in a different country altogether - not worth it.

<comment><USER32> > From a companies POV, its probably as legally onerous as operating in a > different country altogether - not worth it

It's much worse than that. Google didn't research the sweepstakes laws in, say, Paraguay or the Gambia before making this announcement. They figure that, in the worst case, their legal department will tell them not to award the prize if the winner comes from a country where they can't legally award it, and they'll scramble the necessary PR people if that comes to pass.

For Quebec, on the other hand, they'll be forbidden from carrying on business in all of Canada if they advertise this competition as one that can be won in Quebec. A terrible chilling effect - and I say this as someone who universally favours the freedom and self-determination of small nations such as Quebec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Q: I got an error: PERMISSION_DENIED: Permission denied.

> A: Try picking a different team name, the team name you inserted is already > taken.

A: How to tell your software was built by security people.

<comment><USER34> I would think it's more secure if it didn't leak which were taken. For example, "Name invalid or already taken, please try another"

<comment><USER20> There's literally a scoreboard with a list of teams…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Acronyms suck

<comment><USER20> "Capture the Flag" is pretty long if you use it frequently, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Q: I got an error: This browser is not supported or 3rd party cookies and > data may be disabled.

> A: Enable 3rd party cookies.

Come on Google, why do you require third party cookies for a competition amongst the most privacy conscience people on the planet?

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm always amazed how a company that creates the world's most popular mobile OS and web browser is unable to code a decent mobile webpage.

Scrolling this page is sufferable, anchor links don't work well, etc. Basic stuff.

Look no further than G Suite, Google Cloud for more examples.

<comment><USER38> I have heard of this argument often, and I don't quite understand it. It's similar to saying "I'm always amazed at how a country that has the most number of Nobel prize winners has some citizens that can't do calculus"

The people that work on Android and Chrome are not the people who work on websites. It's okay to say the website doesn't meet your expectations, but it's better to recognize that those are different projects worked on by different people with different set of requirements and resources.

<comment><USER37> Companies are not countries. People are hired in the first and born in the second.

Companies should be concerned when their actions don't match the narrative they are trying to sell about themselves. If the Mobile Web is important to Google (and it should be), it must be a company wide effort. The "that's not my department" excuse doesn't cut it.

<comment><USER20> "I'm always amazed at how a college that has the most number of Nobel prize winners has some professors that can't do calculus"

<comment><USER37> That's a better analogy.

Still, colleges are usually much more eclectic than companies. Even MIT, usually known for STEM, has one kick ass humanities department.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I notice they're continuing the proud silicon valley start-up tradition of building a website that doesn't actually tell you what Google CTF is :P

Even when I click on the beginner's quest, I've got paths, flags, endings, challenges...

...but nothing to tell me what the hell the thing actually IS!

<comment><USER20> It's in the link at the bottom of the "What is the Google CTF?" section.

<comment><USER39> Ah, I actually followed that link trying to find out. All i see on my browser is a bit of text with a big blue button that says "will you capture the flag?", which isn't really helpful, which takes me back to...the original website.

Now on the one hand I'd say, ok, its not google's responsibility to try to have websites/non-standard browser configs set ups actually work with their web pages...

On the other hand, I'm sure the kind of security people google is looking for all surf the web with standard browser configs and permissions enabled...

And as the other commenter has pointed out, I know its radical of me, but I would have thought the "What is the google CTF" section should contain text which answers "What is the google CTF".

<comment><USER20> Scroll down

<comment><USER39> I did. Its not a big page. There's nothing there.

Now I'm not a (total) idiot, obviously I can debug it if i have to (and if other people are telling me "there's stuff there, you just can't see it").

If i open it in chrome with extensions turned off or a default mobile browser, stuff now appears, so yeah, its got to do with script permissions and the like.

But again, why not just include actual text in the "what is google ctf" section that answers "what is google ctf?", and/or in the beginner's section that explains what's going on, and of all the groups of people you'd build your webpage for, are security people the ones that you want a website that breaks if they block your default scripts/permissions?

<comment><USER23> If your having this much issue with figuring out what a ctf is its probably not for you. Googles ctf is pretty damn hard

<comment> r-w If their goal was to minimize participation and competition, then they certainly succeeded. I don't think being unfamiliar with something should ever be outright disqualifying.

<comment><USER40> If I were holding a competition for bakers, I wouldn't feel obligated to include a paragraph explaining what a "bake-off" is. I knew what a CTF was years before I knew enough to compete in one; it's a central part of hacker culture going back to the mid-90s.

Every puzzle here places you in a different unfamiliar situation. The only "outright disqualifying" thing is whether you can figure out something on your own. You essentially failed the first test.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I ask for more pay if I'm not bringing any change? - <AUTHOR> I'm 25 years old web developer living in Melbourne, Australia.
I'm not learning anything new at my current company mostly because the company does not have resources to invest into learning. We are pressed with deadlines all the times and this is the one of the reasons that I think I'm loosing interest in my job.
I'm been with the company for 3 years now and there is not a single day that I got a chance to research new things or work on things. A few times, it gets worse where I work on old technology stack which is far below than my level and it is very uninteresting. Part of the reason, I can't ask for more pay. Have you been in this situation before, any advice ? <comment><USER2> I've worked with some seriously boring stuff (copy-pasting stuff from citrix into reports for hours a day and days a week, and that wasn't the worst part: the worst part was that it was obvious after a while that nobody read those reports.)

Meanwhile that mindnumbingly stupid work put me in a position to do some more exciting work (going on site, talking to customers, landing a customer liaison position etc).

I never got rid of the boring work but it became a lot more tolerable with those changes.

Now we are obviously in different positions in a lot of ways so this is possibly not directly applicable to your situation.

But there's one thing you write that has me puzzled:

> A few times, it gets worse where I work on old technology stack which is far > below than my level and it is very uninteresting.

I think I might have worked with some almost crazy tech stacks but I wouldn't want to use the word "uninteresting" for anyone except the best of them ;-)

As I get older (40 now) I guess I'm also most valuable because of what I know about working with people, working with old stuff and general problems we face again and again, not because of how good I was with the most popular or (in my opinion) most promising frameworks from 2005.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it hard to believe that you haven't made even modest growth as an employee and as a developer in those 3 years. But assuming that is true: in my city, average developer salaries have gone up at least 25% in the past 3 years. Hell, even inflation is a couple percent per year. So you should definitely ask for more pay or start job hunting.

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like you just need to change jobs. A pay bump is like adrenaline that fades quickly</comment>


Why You Hate Google's New Logo - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/why-you-hate-googles-new-logo?mbid=social_twitter <comment><USER2> I love the new Google identity. It's a difficult rebrand, but the design direction and identity system is no surprise given the foreshadowing from Material and Alphabet. It's not "amazing", but it's about as good as it gets for such a well known company with a humble design beginning. The original logo was so bad that anything new would be better. The new word mark no longer sticks out like a sore thumb in Material designs.

I think people hate the new word mark because it's so damn geometric. Geometric typefaces evoke rigidity, sterility and lifelessness. Perfectly circular "o" and "g" is also how many of us learned to write in primary school, hence many people's comparison to children when criticizing the word mark.

</comment><comment><USER3> The reason I don't like google's rebrand, aside from its lackluster aesthetic, is because I think it is a betrayal of the brand itself.

I saw Google as elite, to foster excellence, to be authoritative, and mature, in a tech sphere where the news often features yet another adolescent enterprise. The brand inspired hope because of its ability to accommodate seemingly dichotomous imagery: the sober, reliable, establishment with the playful, Easter egg packed, wonders that blurred the lines between engineering and magic.

It made me hopeful because I saw an adult with the heart of a child and that's what I want the whole world to be.

I'm not saying Google has changed as a company because of this rebrand. These are merely what their symbols meant to me.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like Google's new logo. Good article, though.

<comment><USER5> I wonder when they will go completely lowercase?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree. I can't think of a time when I cared in the least what a brand did with it's logo, but .... Ugh! It's so ugly! Playskool is what I think of.

<comment><USER7> Playskool is how I thought of the old logo. At least this one is inspired by a desire to conserve bandwidth rather than being the best aesthetic decision a bunch of engineers could come up with using microsoft word while just trying to check off the logo requirement of running a company...</comment></comment>