Gmail: Trap my contacts now (warning when exporting contacts to Facebook) - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html <comment><USER2> I approve a warning 1000% - it's not like they are stopping you from exporting.

This will slow down my AOL-using friends who gave away all their contact info to Facebook and now I get pelted with spam from Facebook using my name and list of friends (and I don't even have a Facebook account).

Google has never spammed me or share my name and location, Facebook does it all the time, pick who's more evil.

<comment><USER3> > This will slow down my AOL-using friends who gave away all their contact > info to Facebook and now I get pelted with spam ...

Right; there are practical usability problems with allowing willy-nilly access to your contact list. Some of your contacts have now given your email address to a company with which you never wanted to have a relationship.

Which is precisely Facebook's reasoning for not providing an API to download your friends' email addresses. Thanks for providing a concrete reminder of the legitimacy of this choice.

<comment><USER4> _Right; there are practical usability problems with allowing willy-nilly access to your contact list. Some of your contacts have now given your email address to a company with which you never wanted to have a relationship._

This is a red herring. Facebook lets _me_ choose whether my friends can give away literally anything else that's part of my Facebook presence to third party apps. In fact, there's a strong recommendation that I allow as much access to apps as possible, in the name of a "more social" experience. They let apps that I've never used spam me daily, I don't really get the sense that they care whether they force me into relationships with companies I have no interest in, as long as it happens _within_ Facebook.

Why should _I_ not get to decide whether to expose my e-mail address? If I want to, I'm allowed to set my e-mail address to "Everyone" visibility in my profile, literally the only thing I'm not allowed to do is expose it via the API.

That's a very deliberate choice, and maybe I'm a cynic, but it strikes me as mighty telling that the lack of API access to the e-mail part of the social graph is just about the only barrier in the way of Google being able to reconstitute the entire Gmail intersection of Facebook's social graph (Facebook UIDs don't suffice, because Google can't match these to e-mail addresses without the users explicitly doing so for them).

<comment><USER5> This makes the assumption you already have a relationship (an account) with Facebook. If you do not have an account with Facebook, you do not have this control. kmavm's post indicates that they do not have, nor do they want to have, such an account.

However, this wish has no effect on Facebook, they will continue to send him invites on the behalf of his friends, who uploaded his email address for him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Le sigh.

I think Google has lost sight of something very simple in this fracas:

With Google Contacts, _the user directly manages his contacts' email addresses_.

With Facebook, _the user delegates management of email address to his contacts_.

These are not the same thing. The Google contacts team seems to think that Facebook is an address book _just like them_. They are not. And to me, that failure to understand the differences is the root source of all this tomfoolery.

\--

Edit after some very welcome discussion downstream:

On GMail, my contacts' email addresses are MY data.

On Facebook, my contacts' email addresses are NOT my data. The FACT that I am _connected_ to my contacts is my data, but any information about those contacts does not belong to me.

This is why Facebook is not an address book, and pretending it as an address book where "your data gets stuck" is bound to lead to frustration for everyone.

<comment><USER7> And juste because I _delegated management of contacts_ to Facebook, are they excused for not letting me get my data out whenever I want to switch _contact management_ services -- for example -- to diaspora?

<comment><USER6> Again, this hinges on the meaning "my data".

From your statement, I am guessing you believe that the email addresses of your contacts is your data.

So here's the thought experiment:

Amy uses GMail and has been corresponding with Bill, who works at Acme. Bill's email address, email@example.com, is in Amy's GMail address book. "email@example.com" is now a piece of data that is, unquestionably, "owned" by Amy.

Amy joins Facebook, uses the GMail importer to detect if any of her GMail contacts are also on Facebook, and sees that Bill is on Facebook. She asks to be Bill's friend, and he accepts.

Several months later, Bill gets a new job. He now works for The Nonprofit Foundation, and his new email address is email@example.com. Bill logs into his Facebook account and updates his email address.

Because Amy uses Facebook and is friends with Bill, she can see his new email address.

Is the piece of data "email@example.com" now "owned" by Amy?

\--

Personally, I think it's a complex question. I don't automatically ascribe ownership of "email@example.com" to Amy, and it's hard for me to say that she has a right to export that email address out of Facebook. Others may disagree. But I would hope we ALL can agree that the above scenario is not black and white, and that we can have a reasoned discussion about data ownership.

<comment><USER8> If Bill puts his new e-mail address on Facebook - he has effectively chosen to give it away. It is now information that all of his friends own.

Choose your friends carefully, but choose the data you put on Facebook with even more discretion.

<comment><USER9> You can make email addresses private on Facebook, so that none of your friends can see them. However, people who _already have_ your email address can use it to find you.

Facebook and Google are using those email addresses for very different purposes: Facebook uses them to identify the profiles of your contacts (the user id is the lasting identity) whereas for Google the email address itself is the relevant identity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "I recognize that once it's been imported to another service, that service may not allow me to export it back out."

I could see how this could scare the average user into thinking their contacts are moved from Google to facebook and stuck there, thus loosing their ability to use them within Google's products.

Do you think this is the intention?

<comment><USER11> The wording is definitely questionable. The savvy user will understand that if contacts are imported into Facebook and maintained there, changes can't be exported or synched back to Google--a valid concern. But the current warning copy doesn't quite capture that and seems to imply, as you've mentioned, that your data is moved.

Google is so engineering-oriented, I can't tell if this was an honest, poor choice of wording or intentionally vague for the purpose of inducing fear. I'm not against the warning if it's in the spirit of educating users about how to keep their data "free", but if this is indeed vendetta as others here are suggesting...well, that's Google's prerogative, but this method would seem a bit unprofessional. If they want to attack Facebook, I'd have more respect if they were explicit about it in this warning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm just waiting for the backroom deal between the two that will allow two way sharing between only them.

<comment><USER13> But Google lets you export your data. So if Facebook exports to Google, then your data can go anywhere, and we've won!

<comment><USER14> It appears that Google only allows you to export your data as long as the metrics show that no significant number of people actually do so.

<comment><USER15> I would also like to see any evidence you have for this claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's so nice of these two companies to be spending their time and money creating this great entertainment for all of us

<comment><USER17> Maybe this can inspire some better movies?

<comment><USER18> Maybe this can inspire the replacement for Face book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's what _Google_ had to say about social networks and email exporting less than one year ago:

"Mass exportation of email is not standard on most social networks — when a user friends someone they don't then expect that person to be easily able to send that contact information to a third party along with hundreds of other addresses with just one click."

The occasion was Google disabling exporting of contacts from Orkut to Facebook. I happen to think that both Google then, and Facebook now, are perfectly correct. However, I am curious how those who see Google as clearly in the right, and Facebook as clearly in the wrong, would reconcile Google's statement and actions of a year ago with its statements and actions of the last several days.

Edit: citation [http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging- to-...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/26/orkut-slows-hemorraging-to-facebook- by-making-friend-export-tool-nearly-useless/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this a new warning page that has been added following Facebook's actions, or one that has been around a while?

<comment><USER20> This gets better and better. Time to grab some popcorn.

And i really like this move from google.

<comment><USER21> Actually this is boring - where are the HD explosions? The glib remarks by the heros? The hot babe they are trying to save?

Even Michael Bay was better than this.

<comment><USER22> Are you kidding me? Clearly you don't have the kickass bookmarklett installed.

<http://erkie.github.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Interesting how the tide seems to turn. My Conspiracy theory:

I think Facebook might have gone to far with Facebook Deals. Now Groupon, its friends and other bystanders start to react less kindly to Facebook's business model: Copying ideas from other websites with nothing in return. Oh, well.

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems to me that their wording pushes their anti Facebook data locking agenda, intimidating novice users. To me, this goes against their "don't be evil" company motto.

<comment><USER25> To me it embodies their "don't be evil" company motto. I think Facebook is being evil here, and Google is fighting the good cause.

However, I can see your angle as well. It seems that the world is not black and white after all :(

<comment><USER24> That Facebook is evil or not is irrelevant, I think. (I happen to think that their interests and the privacy interests of their users are not aligned at all). Google is fighting the good cause, ok, I agree. But the method they used in this instance is not the best. They could've simply said: "Hey look man. Facebook wants us to give them your contact data. These are the possible consequences: 1., 2., 3. Are you sure?" Their current wording implies (to me) that a user's data is all going to be imported and kept inside of FB and nowhere else (which is a key point), which is not true as Google holds the user's data as well. There will be divergence afterwards as the user begins to use Google and FB in different ways. But yeah, I do see that FB is not an easy place to get your data out of, but Google is using users' data as a pressure point to force FB's hand. What would be interesting to find out is if they are defending privacy because it's a noble thing to do, or if they are just defending privacy because it happens to benefit them in some other way.

 _edit: added "and nowhere else (which is a key point)"_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Fortunately this gives more info to average users about their data and what's happening with it

Maybe they will care some day ...

</comment><comment><USER27> There is a point that hasn't yet been mentioned here about the fundamental difference between an address book, and Facebook.

Facebook is _okay_ to be a dead-end for contacts' emails, since the email upload is used once to find others on the service. After that, if you need to contact someone else on Facebook, you can do so with a wall post or an inbox message. The email address is irrelevant.

With an address book, you _need_ it to be portable, since the medium is accessible from many different locations and services.

The fact is that you dont _need_ to get your friends' contact details out of Facebook. You sign up for Facebook to make Friends on Facebook and communicate over Facebook. Not to communicate over email, etc. (And certainly not over a rival network.) When you add someone to your address book, you do so to communicate with them over email, or phone, or whatever, which are inherently completely open and interconnected systems. [Surely there is a debate to be had here about the ubiquity of Facebook as a platform and that it should be open - could you imagine Facebook Clients? But I dont believe that's a debate about exporting existing contact info.]

To that end, Google warning users about the terminal nature of their exported data is unnecessary and only confuses the process of finding friends for users (who, by the way, aren't thinking about data portability, or building up an address book/contacts list on Facebook, they're thinking about making Friends on Facebook, to communicate over Facebook)

TL;DR: This whole mess doesn't matter, and Google is only making things complicated for users.

<comment><USER28> >The email address is irrelevant. I disagree. My usage pattern is to use facebook to find a person, then get their email and contact them through email, since I check my email more frequently than I do my facebook. (which is almost never, since I have it send me anything important by email.)

<comment><USER27> Sure. But then Facebook doesnt really have a reason to care about you, as a non-user of their service, and keeping data locked in is their best way of keeping you coming back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Google should also point out that if Facebook lets you export your friends' emails then your friends can do the same to your email. And that if that happens one bad or compromised friend can give yours and everyone else's emails to spammers.

Same thing can happen with Google Contacts, but the difference is that on Contacts you give out your email. On Facebook you signup with an email and then you "friend" someone.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's great how they used check boxes to make the submit button appear. It makes it more likely that people will actually read the warning.

</comment><comment><USER31> Google is being silly. First because they're breaking the usability of THEIR own site out of an invented vendetta against a company that is just using the feature they created and made available. If they don't believe people should be able to export data from Gmail they should stop offering it generally and compete against other email providers with a more closed platform, not whine about reciprocity from sites that are not in their business.

Second because they are in the wrong. The last thing in the world I want is my friends on Facebook to be able to give _MY_ email address to random third- parties in return for free virtual pets or whatever Zynga is giving away this week. Google's moralism would mean much more spam and a far worse experience with Facebook. My being a "friend" with someone does not imply permission to let them give my contact information to third parties. Who is Google to say otherwise?

<comment><USER26> Don't get it wrong, facebook it's not protecting you against anything, they are just monopolizing your relationships so that you won't move on with ease to other services.

<comment><USER31> What does Facebook's motives have to do with anything? The question under discussion is whether a random stranger who can convince one of my friends to sign up for a virtual pet should suddenly be able to spam me.

Facebook has good reasons not to open their social graph -- and Google's lecturing them about noblesse oblige on this front is silly. Google should make decisions about its data portability policy based on its own needs. If they don't like this kind of access close the API. Keeping it open but shrill and insensible like this is amateur.

<comment><USER32> While I understand your point - businesses should act in ways that benefit themselves. I think that is simply a recipe for a business to succeed, but it is a short-sighted one. I think the guideline which Google is putting out is better for the system as a whole, our economy, and the end user. And that seems to be - businesses should act in ways that benefit themselves and their users. The fact that what Google is really saying do what is good for your end-users (and us) is irrelevant in terms of my support of their stance.

None of the existing companies have to let you leave freely or support the movement of your data, but to a large extent they have been willing to and it has benefitted the end users, the economy, and the web, in the form of new start-ups, new mash-ups, and interesting ways to view and share the data you've put into other systems. If one company wants to benefit from that sharing, but not return the favor, I think consumers ought to call them on it. The unfortunate fact that most users don't understand the effect means that other companies are going to have to make them aware, and Google is taking that step.

I hope they succeed, but it isn't because I think Google needs the graph access: it is because in the end it will benefit the end user in general and us (hn/new startups) to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Select one or more options. Cancel and go back"

I liked this. So Godfatheresque!

<comment><USER34> The other options are the check boxes. New buttons will appear when checked.

<comment><USER35> The check boxes aren't even visible in my chrome. <http://imgur.com/qMpND>

I don't know if this is a bug.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am not sure if the back and forth between Google and Facebook is intriguing or just childish at this point.

Neither is doing this for the users. They are doing it to help their services grow and ultimately to help their bottom line grow. Believing anything else would be naive at this point.

</comment><comment><USER37> As luck would have it, I picked today to set up a Facebook profile for me girlfriend. I'm now really angry with Google.

It used to be a 30 second task to sift through your address book and check off people to send friend requests to. Now, thanks to Google behaving like children, I need to figure out how to export her contacts as a text file so that I can upload it to Facebook.

Google, please stop.

You are pissing off your customers.

Edit: subsititure Users for Customers in the previous sentence if it helps you to parse it. The end result is still the same: The people who use Google's service are being punished by Google for the actions of a 3rd party.

<comment><USER38> Customers? How much money have you paid Google for services this year?

<comment><USER39> This argument is such an annoying fallacy. People who use Google's services are Google's "customers" in the same way people who watch television are the network's "customers". You may not be the direct source of income, but if they lose all the "non-customers" that are using their services, they're going to lose all of their advertisers, which is their direct source of income. The audience is a crucial component in a business model that depends on advertisement.

Even if it wasn't, Google opens itself to criticism and review _whether their service is free or not_. We definitely shouldn't temper our ideas or give Google a pass because "it's free"; that might excuse some advanced features, but it definitely doesn't extend into basics like contact exporting. That's a fundamental, and something that many have blasted Facebook, also ostensibly a "free" service, for not supporting well.

Google is making money off of Gmail. If they weren't making money off of Gmail, they would have discontinued the service a long time ago. Even if the nominal costs exceed the direct profits gained from Google Apps licenses and the display of AdWords, etc., which I tend to doubt, the indirect benefits are obviously valuable.

Should we all feel a great gratitude to the for-profit corporation Google for pursuing their best interest? Certainly we all appreciate the free services, but Google is no charity and expecting an altruistic, anything-goes attitude to their products is silly. They are a serious company making serious money and competing in a serious space, there's no need to make up excuses for them, especially naive ones like, "Well it's free anyway so you shouldn't expect anything out of it".

<comment><USER40> Hmmm, no. They are a valuable audience, but they are not customers. A customer is someone who pays you for a service. That is the definition.

Why do TV networks continue interrupt their "customers" with ads even though their "customers" don't want ads? That's because their "customers" are not their customers. Their customers are the people paying for those ads and they get to interrupt the "customers" with ads.

It's very important to recognize distinction the between users (aka "customers") and customers if you want your company to survive. "Customers" are the product you sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The warning says: "Here's the not-so-fine print. You have been directed to this page from a site that doesn't allow you to re-export your data to other services, essentially locking up your contact data about your friends."

I think this is misleading - Doesn't Facebook allow you to download all of your data, just like Google? As much as I dislike Facebook's privacy policies, the mudslinging seems a little thick from both sides.

Facebook and Google - two of the biggest privacy violating companies on the planet. May you live in interesting times, indeed.

<comment><USER12> Facebook to my knowledge does not let you export your friends email addresses in a way that they could be synced with your email service. I think that if they did, it would be beneficial to everyone. Their claim that email addresses are private is bogus. They could add buttons to the privacy settings that would allow a user to block their email from being access by friends. There is no valid, as in non anti competitive, reason to hold on to names and email of your Facebook friends.

I'm just waiting for Facebook to release a real email service ala gmail in the near future to escalate this battle.

<comment><USER42> There already is an option not to show your email to friends. Just set the email field to 'Only Me'.

<comment><USER43> It does not apply to export, only allows or forbids display your email to your "friend"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just used this link and saved my contacts, just in case this story leads to more dramatic actions. I also tested the register complaint button and, sure enough, my complaint was duly registered (though nobody explained what this means). Interestingly enough, I could have done both in one step, by checking both boxes and getting a long button reading: "download my contact information and register complaint".

</comment><comment><USER44> This is a really clever move from Google and I think many people will read this and stop giving there data to Facebook. I have a dump feeling about giving _all_ of my data to Facebook cause they have sure enough. Otherwise: it's free and they are making money with your data right?

</comment><comment><USER45> Apparently, it's just for Facebook only.

[https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.htm...](https://www.google.com/mail/help/contacts_export_confirm.html)

By the link of this, one can see that only exporting to Facebook would render this confirmation message.

</comment><comment><USER46> Facebook could allow users to "Opt-in" an email export. If I'm not "Opt-in", only my name would be exported by me and my friends.

We all know that Opt-in is like "does not exist", but they could at least say they are open.

edit: They could even sell it as a privacy feature ...

<comment><USER42> Facebook already offers your contact information to Microsoft and Yahoo. However, I think friends who have emails set as "only me" or equivalent do not export. I tried the feature today and 10% of my contacts did not export to yahoo :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Ironically, control of personal data ends once the data has been shared, by you or any of your friends. Terms of Service often enable a company to collect and share your data as they see fit.

</comment><comment><USER48> Are there any publicly traded betting pool for this? I've got 10 bucks saying FB will open up their data silos (at least for Google) within the next 12 months :)

</comment><comment><USER49> I want a page to see the total number of "complaints" Google has collected so far. Just curious as to how many people actually picked that option.

</comment><comment><USER50> Maybe google is trying to get facebook to open up now, so it'll be in time for everyone to be able to use it to migrate to Google Me.

</comment><comment><USER51> It allegedly registered my complaint without me being logged-in, so whatever they do, it's for show only?

This reeks of a cheap shot.

<comment><USER52> Just because your not signed in doesn't mean it can't register a complaint - by not tracking username or personal details with the complaint the point of being signed in is reduced to nothing. They can't even make sure you do it twice without tracking your user ID (which they won't do because they could then get username or password).

Therefore being able to register a complaint not signed in seems odd but fine.

<comment><USER51> That's the whole point I was making. When it doesn't register username or any kind of identifiable information, it just counts 'votes', which doesn't amount to anything, as in the end it's just an arbitrary number open to manipulations.

What do they want to achieve by having the user click a button just to feel good?

<comment><USER53> I think it would be short-sighted of Google to simply count votes without recording some sort of "authenticated" bit for later use.

Counting 'votes' provides useful data for Google internal decision-making.

Counting 'authenticated votes' provides useful data for Google to publish.

Lacking any information from Google, it is unclear whether this is just a "feel good" button or if it's an actual authenticated vote-counting system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> But does it work with Orkut?

</comment><comment><USER55> Alternate heading: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

</comment><comment><USER56> This is such bullshit.

A service that won't let me "get my contact information out"? Nice way to frame this in terms of "openness" too, apparently riding "open" for all it's worth with Android is not enough.

Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google? No? Isn't Google "open" enough to let me do it?

 _We think this is an important thing for you to know before you import your data there._

Did you also think it was super duper important with a cherry and smarmy bullshit on top to let me know before you gave Facebook my GMail contacts behind the scenes when I was registering there earlier this year?

No, and I was disgusted when Facebook started suggesting them for "friends" right away.

<comment><USER57> > _Can I just "get out" all of my personal information from Google?_

Mostly yes. <http://www.dataliberation.org/>

<comment><USER56> And Google won't be keeping a copy of anything you export or "move" out, right?

I'm not terribly interested in a chance to "get out" my data from services that will keep my data anyway.

They also did give Facebook my GMail contacts, which I thought was scuzzy, but hey that's alright as long as I can export stuff out from various Google services!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> jajajaja Gmail rules!

</comment><comment><USER59> A big middle finger to FB.

</comment><comment><USER60> What bothers me is that Google is taking the stance that they have the right to lock my data in their service if they feel like it.

That's why that position, to me, is untenable. Don't do evil indeed: you just conceded the other side (Facebook) their main argument (that they don't have to be open, only if they feel like it).

<comment><USER61> In what way is Google taking that stance? Last I checked, Google was taking the exactly opposite stance.

<http://www.dataliberation.org/>

<comment><USER60> Obviously I must have phrased my position wrong, based on the reaction.

Yes, they are taking that stance, since they are imposing conditions on exporting data from gmail. If I owned and could do anything I wanted with my data on gmail, then Google _could not_ impose restrictions. They just did (in their API restrictions). That's what I'm very concerned about.

<comment><USER61> Well, I want an API where I can get all my Gmail messages with their metadata, all formatted as Clojure maps. Is Google imposing restrictions on me because nobody has bothered implementing that? Not really. It's analogous.

As long as Google provides ways to get all your data that are free, public, easy to parse, and well-documented, they aren't imposing restrictions. If they add extra APIs or additional formats on top of that, it's gravy. Remember, the point of having these exports is to be able to get your data out and switch from service to service, so that the market stays competitive. It's not so that you have a fully-automated Google API for your profile that other programs can interact with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Stanley Kubrick's use case for the iPad [img] - <AUTHOR> http://img45.imageshack.us/img45/3025/poster0qr.jpg

<comment><USER2> If only he'd realised it wouldn't be available until the sequel.</comment>


Databranches: using git as a database  - <AUTHOR> http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/databranches/ <comment><USER2> There is also GitGraph ([https://github.com/tinkerpop/tinkubator/tree/master/gitgraph...](https://github.com/tinkerpop/tinkubator/tree/master/gitgraph- sandbox))...

"GitGraph is a Blueprints Graph which stores its data in a hierarchy of plain text files and plays well with version control software such as Git. This allows multiple parties to edit a graph concurrently and later to merge their changes.

GitGraph also enables partitioning of a graph into functional hierarchies, and to combine graphs in a tree-like fashion. For example, if you have a graph with information about cities, and another with information about people, you can place the two graph directories side by side in a parent directory and load this as a single graph. You can create new vertices and edges, at the parent level, which connect people and cities, and then you can save the whole thing and check it in to Git. Another developer can then check out your work and either load the whole graph or, if he is only interested in either cities or people, one of the subdirectories.

Even if he only loads the graph about cities, he can make local changes to it and push them back to you without invalidating the top-level graph".

See this discussion on the Gremlin Users group ([https://groups.google.com/d/msg/gremlin- users/trBKdAW105U/qB...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/gremlin- users/trBKdAW105U/qBfckF0bOiIJ)).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for posting that, it looks really interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're interested in this concept — even (or especially!) for just hacking around on a bored afternoon — Rick Olson gave a fun talk on it last year at RubyConf. "Git: the stupid NOSQL database" [http://confreaks.net/videos/443-rubyconf2010-git-the- stupid-...](http://confreaks.net/videos/443-rubyconf2010-git-the-stupid-nosql- database)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wasn't distributed SCM always really just a database for files? Besides hack value, what's the benefit of using git as a (non-file) database when I can just use a proper database?

<comment><USER6> I would guess that the only real advantage is that you can use git tools to manually explore the object store. So it's highly transparent from a debugging point of view for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Giddy - Schema-less, versioned media/document database based on Git. [http://search.cpan.org/~idoperel/Giddy-0.013_001/lib/Giddy/M...](http://search.cpan.org/~idoperel/Giddy-0.013_001/lib/Giddy/Manual.pod)

</comment><comment><USER8> this makes Haskell look interesting: [http://source.git- annex.branchable.com/?p=source.git;a=blob;...](http://source.git- annex.branchable.com/?p=source.git;a=blob;f=Branch.hs;hb=HEAD)

</comment><comment><USER9> Save the database on the torrent worldwide network, it allows for: easy worldwide publishing, access, distribution, immorability (no loss possible 4 eternity, even safe 4 evil politicians' needs), ..?, Third Millenium Proof.

This duo: git-torrent is hitting the streets soon.

It is safe, even where/when internet is forbidden by law.

<comment><USER10> Don't torrents have to match checksums in the .torrent file for each chunk? Every time you changed your data, you'd have to publish a new torrent, and all the clients would have to download the new .torrent file.

<comment><USER11> IIRC it doesn't actually use BitTorrent, it's just inspired by it. The Git and BitTorrent models are related enough that an intelligent synthesis could work nicely.</comment></comment></comment>


The Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out of Reading - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/how-ebook-pricing-hurts-us-in-more-ways-than-you-think <comment><USER2> I have a Kindle and have never paid for a book. There is (sadly) very little in the way of great literature that hasn't had its copyright already expire.

<comment><USER3> +1 for that... and you don't even need to go to extra trouble, there's a huge number of free Kindle editions of classic books on Amazon itself (just normal Amazon books with a price of zero), so you can take advantage of Amazon's very convenient infrastructure for finding them and getting them easily onto your Kindle. Often there's a choice too, with some versions of a work free (long out of copyright etc), other versions not (more recent translations, etc), and even the non-free versions of classics often fairly cheap, as they're not recent.

... and of course if you go to a bit more trouble, there's a huge choice from places like Project Gutenberg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's strange how the author gives for granted that ebooks have DRM, so the piece ends up attacking all ebooks and not DRM (not mentioned at all).

<comment><AUTHOR> i didn't think that was the focus on the piece but rather the collusion in pricing (as found in the anti-trust court decision on this point with apple). while i have a home library that's bursting at the seams, i buy physical books because they're cheaper. if i could get a used ebook for one cent, i would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Posted four days ago (53 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6482382](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6482382)</comment>


Snake sex is every bit as peculiar as you would expect (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170608-snake-sex-is-every-bit-as-peculiar-as-you-would-expect <comment><USER2> This was a profoundly weird read.</comment>


Start Hacking With Java 8 - <AUTHOR> http://functr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/start-hacking-with-java-8.html

<comment><USER2> Yes, I know Java is behind every other language but speaking as someone who is stuck with Java in the workplace I heartily welcome these changes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Even though the features lag behind some of the more 'flexible, newer' languages, its exciting to see some of these come down the pipe. After using libraries like Google's Guava, I'm anxious to see some more functional-esque styles get integrated into java.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this usable in Android?

<comment><USER5> I don't think so. It will be awhile before Dalvik supports the new bytecodes in Java 8. I'd like to know how long though.

edit: or new bytecodes from Java 7 which will be required for Java 8 features

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no new bytecodes in Java 8. Lambdas will compile down to invokedynamic calls (jdk7)

<comment><USER6> Which will be fine once Android starts supporting Java 7.

<comment><USER7> You can compile invokedynamic into reflection pretty easily. Obviously you lose the method call optimization, but you can keep the syntatic sugar.

I would be very surprised if the backports folks didn't offer this within a few months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another nice addition (that will never happen) would be to make variable declarations final by default, and adding a var keyword to declare them mutable.

Also, pattern matching would be nice.

Wait a second, this is all starting to look a lot like Scala.

<comment><USER9> Lombok has 'val'. <http://projectlombok.org/features/val.html>

Lombok really brings some sanity to Java...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The functional additions are very welcome and long overdue. The article also mentions virtual method extensions, which also look useful/necessary wrt binary compatibility.

</comment><comment><USER11> .. no.

<comment><USER3> This comment does nothing but make you look ridiculous. Either discuss the article or don't.</comment></comment>


Why You Shouldn't Wait for Meteor 1.0 (to start using it) - <AUTHOR> http://joshowens.me/why-you-shouldnt-wait-for-meteor-1-0-to-start-using-it/

<comment><USER2> Wow, thanks for sharing this! Love the meteor community :)</comment>


Wbobeirne/stranger-things: Intro of the Show Stranger Things in CSS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wbobeirne/stranger-things <comment><USER2> Found the rendering on codepen: [http://codepen.io/wbobeirne/details/pEjqGR/](http://codepen.io/wbobeirne/details/pEjqGR/). Looks great! I would however point out, only because they make a big deal of it in a short documentary, that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a1lp_ygGB4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a1lp_ygGB4) it's missing the light shining through the background effect. I wonder if that's something that's coming down the line?</comment>


Museum of me - A museum made from your own facebook data - <AUTHOR> http://www.intel.com/museumofme/r/index.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> A couple of comments. I am not trying to defend anything here. Just really puzzled

1\. It basically takes all your data and creates a beautifully rendered museum filled with your stuff.

2\. As far as I am aware it's only used for that unless you believe Intel have some other motives. Frankly I have no problem putting my data on there, It's not that secret

3\. It needs to be able to share your data on the wall because it gives you the ability to share your museum with your friends.

4\. Why is it that people are so against using their facebook data for third party apps while they have no problem being on FaceBook itself. It's not like Facebook don't use your data to sell it to third party.

Just wondering.

<comment><USER2> Regarding #4: with Facebook, at least I know where my data is going. I put it on Facebook; obviously they'll have access to it. But I don't like the idea of taking that perfectly curated data (for me) and handing it over on a platter to someone else, whose policies I don't know.

<comment><USER3> What is it about their policies that is unknowable? Every time you install a FB app, you get a link to the app's terms & conditions and privacy policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do they _really_ need the rights to publish on my wall? Why? To advertise their product and go viral? But is the "like" button not enough?

That's too intrusive for me I'm not allowing access to my facebook profile.

<comment><USER5> It seems that every application nowadays needs the rights to post on your wall. I wish it was possible to negotiate with them. I always end up just not using things instead...

<comment><USER6> You can go into you application permision options later and remove any non required permissions. Can sometimes stop the application from working but then you can re-evaluate worth. I do this periodically everything I have authorized to use Facebook Connect. Good time to get rid of anything you are no longer using also

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everyone seems to be commenting about the Facebook app permissions or how beautiful the flash demo is, no one has commented on Intel finally coming into the New Marketing age.

I think its quite nice to see Intel taking new forms of marketing seriously, which is what this app demonstrates.

Or am i being too obvious?

<comment><USER8> It's a rather _odd_ sort of advertisement though. It has nothing to do with Intel's actual products which, in any case, are hardly ever directly bought by the consumer. It's a brand-building exercise, but not nearly as effective as some they've done in the past, which have focused on Intel's expertise and people. _"We're not just banging rocks together here, guys, we know how to build semiconductors!"_

I'm guessing that this exists only because some guy at Intel's ad agency thought it would be a cool idea, and Intel was the only client he could think of to pitch it to.

<comment><USER7> Part of me wonders if this is more of a marketing data acquisition exercise, since the FB App would probably enable them to do that?

That in turn would aid market research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The FaceBook callback isn't working for me (chrome on ubuntu), so the app's not doing anything :(

</comment><comment><USER10> This is nice but the truth is that most of the time the video shows the capabilities of the 3D designers at Intel over actually putting images contextually.

I remember there was a game trailer about some doom pending game that took your facebook images and status updates and merged it into the game trailer creating a very personalized experience.

Mind you this was over 2 years ago and sadly I cannot seem to find it. Any help?

EDIT: I think it was <http://www.prototype-experience.com/> EDIT 2: Another one: <http://www.nationalguard.com/momentsofpride>

</comment><comment><USER11> For those without a Facebook account, can someone do something like a TL;DR?

<comment><USER12> It creates a nice animation showing your profile pictures, friends, tagged pictures, status updates, videos etc on walls in a museum with people walking around your 'exhibits'. It's a fun timewaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm wondering if they store all gathered information permanently. They don't give exact information on that matter.

<comment><USER3> If they do, they would be in violation of Facebook platform policy for app developers. Impossible to know if they do or not though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> this might seem cool to some, but its actually a wake up call personally. this shows how much facebook knows about me, and if people were freaking about about google knowing my search history, facebook has wayyyy more than just search history.

i wonder, if there is a way to actually "delete" history on my account?

</comment><comment><USER15> Does anyone have a link of this working with someone else's Facebook account? I only have an account for other people to find me, I don't actually use it (and I wouldn't give an app access to all my data even if I did...)

</comment><comment><USER16> Very impressive but I'm having a little problem at the end of the video. Things were rendered incorrectly. Latest version of Chrome for Mac (stable), probably latest version of Flash. Anyone?

<comment><USER12> It turns into a mosaic of you using other photos. Worked fine with me (Chrome PC, latest flash)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I get "Page Not Found

We are sorry, there is no Intel.com page matching your request."

</comment><comment><USER18> Can anyone comment on how it's built? I presume that the images are loaded in place-holders in the video, but I would love to know more about it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I didn't really use it just because it asks me to allow alot many things which am not comfortable with.

 __off topic Those who are skeptical like me about over sharing and not allowing apps to get full access should try using this add-on.

<http://liisp.uncc.edu/fbs/> / <https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/fbsecure/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Impressive. Though showing random information does not necessarily create positive experience.

</comment><comment><USER21> My gut reaction to this is: "But I'm not dead yet." Really? I need a museum of me?

<comment><USER22> I would say approximately 99% of the people on Twitter and Facebook are so self-involved and full of themselves that they'd wet themselves at the proposition of even a virtual "museum" of themselves. I've said it many times - you can't go wrong catering to people's self-centeredness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just get a constant gathering data. Anyone experiencing similar?

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone else just get a black page after everything's loaded?

</comment><comment><USER25> awesome, tried a flash app other than video/slideshare player after a very long time.

any idea which creative agency did it?

I would love to download the video to play on my TV, there should be a download button

</comment><comment><USER26> Quite impressive.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is great.

</comment><comment><USER28> Beautifully made.</comment>


PR for Startups: Advice from TechCrunch & VentureBeat - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/04/09/pr-for-startups-dogpatch-labs-event-with-venturebeat-techcrunch/

<comment><USER2> Also of note: What is the value of the coverage you're courting? Getting TC coverage for a blogging widget is probably worth quite a lot. Getting TC coverage for a product aimed at senior citizens, probably not worth a lot. Maybe you'll get some attention from possible partners, but don't expect it to drive many customers.

</comment><comment><USER3> There should be a site to help startups manage their PR, which also interfaces with press outlets. It could involve Relationship Management, Materials and Literature, Schedules and Results.

I bet press outlets would like it, as they can be swamped with requests. So on their side, there could be What's Hot, Exclusive Unreleased Company Updates, Journalist Feedback for Companies.

\- can also involve event participation and openings: so a <http://sonicbids.com> for startups.

<comment><USER4> you mean something like this? <http://presslift.com/>

or this: <http://www.pitchengine.com/>

(both via [http://www.inc.com/howard- greenstein/2010/02/2_services_to_h...](http://www.inc.com/howard- greenstein/2010/02/2_services_to_help_startups_pr.html?partner=newsletter_Startup) )

<comment><USER3> Yeah, some sort of major improvement on net newswires, eg <http://www.prlog.org/></comment></comment></comment>


Discussions on the future of R - <AUTHOR> http://www.r-bloggers.com/RUG/2011/02/discussions-on-the-future-of-r/ <comment><USER2> Eee gads, no... but it has all of those libraries...

How would a replacement gain traction? Can we at least make sure it can call R code?

Can we not just include the features of R in python, instead of using a new language? Has anybody used Rpy? How does it do with packages?

</comment><comment><USER3> R is a language that also plagues beginners. I am well versed in nearly a dozen languages ranging from procedural to functional but I find R as mysterious as LaTeX. Those languages are incomprehensible.

<comment><USER4> Secret to understanding/using LaTeX is to have at hand two books: Guide to LaTeX by Kopka and Daly, and The LaTeX Companion by Mittelbach and Goossens. That plus a project to publish (similar to have a task you want to program) should be enough to get you going. The real problem with LaTeX seems to be retention over time without continued use--- if you don't use it more or less all the time, you tend to forget a lot of the basics...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The presentation reads as a nice advertisement for Clojure. I do not like Clojure because it runs on JVM and all the Java stuff leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - it is a language that was forced down our throats by industry.

If they really want to rewrite R from the start to create a new language why don't they use Haskell? It will compile to machine code, it is ready for using multiple cores, it does not embrace JVM.

My 2 cents

</comment><comment><USER6> hopefully the R community is avoiding the same mistake that python did with python3000.

my 2 ct to the future of R: a compiler from R code to LISP would more than fill the gap.</comment>


Please update your Facebook privacy settings - <AUTHOR> http://frog.posterous.com/17787829

<comment><USER2> No doubt.

I've been very careful to ensure that my FB profile is as locked-down as possible, yet last night when I was uploading the latest round of baby photos I caught, out of the corner of my eye, that the album was public by default.

If a technically-inclined person like me can find this difficult, what chance does the general public have?

<comment><USER3> If you really want your FB profile to be private, you should remove it from Facebook. I don't know if you have noticed by now but Facebook is essentially an open platform. Get the clue, remove anything you want to be be private from Facebook and stop complaining.

<comment><USER2> When I signed up with FB there was a reasonable level of privacy. Sure, I was posting my photos to some startup/corporation's servers, but that was an acceptable trade off to me for the convenience of sharing baby pics with my friends and family.

Since then their privacy settings have become convoluted (as expressed by the OP). Meanwhile I have uploaded countless photos, made comments, etc... and become quite invested in their ecosystem.

(FWIW, I'm a web developer. I can create my own photo sharing site for my friends and family. FB is just really, really good at doing that stuff. Part of my disappointment is mourning the erosion of an otherwise excellent web app.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ...Arctan? Haha, what the hell is that?

This does well to illustrate what a fiendishly difficult thing it is for a typical Facebook user to maintain privacy settings, and how difficult it must be for Facebook to actually adhere to this rigamarole in every view, API, feed, et al. presented by their site. (And they do screw that up from time to time.)

Part of the reason I think they want to "simplify" privacy by making more stuff open is because it is such a royal pain to implement. Compared to Twitter, the logic that must go into every database query to determine viewability of friends or comments or pictures must be ridiculously complex. The current ability to group friends into lists is roughly equivalent to implementing ACLs on groups, which is just as much fun for the user to set up and maintain as it is for a programming team to get working (not fun at all).

<comment><USER5> If they really wanted to simplify privacy, they would have simplified it. Making some "Privacy Level" presets then allowing tweaks for advanced users is not that difficult.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is truly missing is: "Opt me out of all open graph APIs - make me invisible"

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can easily do this. All you have to do is erase your Facebook profile. If you need help doing this, let me know.

<comment><USER6> It just ruffles my feathers a bit that Facebook says "come on in, connect with your friends, keep in touch" and then after everyone is comfortable and gets used to it, 5 years later says "and now all of you and your friends private relationship and correspondence is public to anyone who wants it. And you have no control over it."

I want an application that allows me to keep in touch with my long distance friends easily, as I've moved around the country. Is it so much to ask that I'm not manipulated and exploited in the process?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seriously? This is not even remotely what adjusting Facebook privacy settings is like.

At the risk of being down-voted due to lack of agreement, Facebook is an opt- in service. They are making their priorities and privacy changes abundantly clear.

Concerned? Opt-out of using Facebook.

<comment><USER3> Every time I see a comment on hacker news that is sympathetic to Facebook's privacy policies it gets down voted.

I don't get it; do the monitors of HN not think the users of hacker news are intelligent enough to decide if Facebook's privacy policies are positive/negative on their own?

Or to put in another way... Why do pro-Facebook privacy policy comments continually get down voted?

<comment><USER5> Up-vote = "I agree" OR "This is a valuable comment"

Down-vote = "I disagree" OR "This is not a valuable comment"

I would guess that most people disagree with pro-FB privacy policy statements.

<comment><USER3> I find this funny because Facebook is an opt-in service. Why are people so against the policies people are choosing to be a part of?

<comment><USER8> Because Facebook is pulling a bait and switch.

The vast majority of users (debatably all, outside of the ones that signed up since this went into effect) signed up for Facebook under the pretenses they had control over their privacy. To varying degrees depending on when they signed up, of course- for instance when I signed up it was (in theory) only shown to users at my school, and I had the option to only allow friends (which of course I have control over).

I agree- for the people signing up from this point forward, they're opting into it and should educate themselves enough to know what they're opting in to (though I would argue they get duped anyway, but such is life and was, for instance, MySpace before). But what about all the current users, that aren't even going to realize that all their data is no longer private and they no longer have control over it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sadly, I was hoping to find some secret setting to I didn't know I should have turned on/off.

</comment><comment><USER10> Goodness. Today I was surfing CNN.com and it had my friend's updates embedded into the sidebar. I was like, WTF? Seriously Facebook?</comment>


Street by Street, Amsterdam Is Cutting Cars Out of the Picture - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/10/amsterdam-car-ban-knip-driving-public-transit-zero-emission/599521/ <comment><USER2> As someone who's interested in living in Amsterdam, I wonder what are options to commute other than by walking, cycling or taking a public transport? As far as I know, electric scooters are illegal in the Netherlands. I fancy motorcycles but I'm not sure if they'll be banned right after cars (at least those that use ICE).

<comment><USER3> As someone who has lived in Amsterdam for a few years, and have several friends who were very bike adverse when they moved here, everyone ends up biking. It's very convenient, safe, and enjoyable here, and you can get electric bikes or electric scooters to help if you bike long distances frequently (or just don't want to bike).

With weather apps that give you the rainfall down to a few minutes, you can escape the weather by either biking in the lulls, participating in a e-bike scooter sharing system, or falling back on public transport when you need.

Very rarely can you get someone faster by driving than you could by biking or public transport (at least according to google maps) so long as you live within the ring. Outside of that I don't think cars are going anywhere, and there is ample parking near the major public transport hubs. I know plenty of people who park there and take a quick train or metro to their work and don't complain about the hassle.

It's a different way of living and I miss driving sometimes but it's really nice once you acclimate!

<comment><USER4> I've only spent 3 days in Amsterdam and I enjoyed the ability to walk the city. I covered quite a bit of ground there and most of the areas were void of cars. Pretty great for tourists; although I'm not sure how much locals like the tourists.

I think I was in "the ring", if we're talking about the adjoining canal systems that circle around the center part of the city.

<comment><USER5> "the ring" is considered the freeway that encircles the city.

<comment><USER6> And the ring of canals is called the "grachtengordel". I challenge any non- Dutch-speaker to try to pronounce that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They should make the public transport cheaper. At least as cheap so that gas for driving alone in a car is more expensive. Even among other big cities in the Netherlands Amsterdam per km rate for public transport (€0.162 p/km) is quite high.

<comment><USER8> Plenty of people in major cities across the globe are fighting for _free_ mass transit. It's not that unreasonable at all when you consider that, in many cities, the per-trip subsidy is already higher than the fare price anyway.

And if you reverse the situation, and imagine a city with free public transit that is then considering adding a fare to it, said fare would be extremely regressive and would hit the worst off the hardest.

<comment><USER9> Most free fare experiments have been failures from what I've seen. City Beautiful has a video about it. Free fare can attract people who are less desirable to ride with, even potentially decreasing ridership.

<comment><USER8> Can you provide a link? What major cities have tried free fares?

I'm also really curious to know what "less desirable" means, exactly.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccxVYborUcU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccxVYborUcU) was the video I was referencing. It was far more positive than I remember.

[https://ftp.fdot.gov/file/d/FTP/FDOT%20LTS/CO/research/Compl...](https://ftp.fdot.gov/file/d/FTP/FDOT%20LTS/CO/research/Completed_Proj/Summary_PTO/FDOT_BC137_38_FF_rpt.pdf) is the research I remember that was more critical.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport) is also good.

Less desirable means people that other riders are less likely to want to ride with. From the paper above:

> In the Austin, Texas fare-free demonstration, both anecdotal and official > data suggest that problem riders increased substantially and drove away > other riders. Joy-riding youth and inebriated adults, as well as vagrants, > increased. In addition, in both the Mercer Metro and the Austin, Texas > experiences, problem riders actually drove away many of the regular bus > commuters. In none of the experiments did the increase in transit ridership > include automobile commuters enticed by the fare-free service (Connor, 1979; > Kounes, 1993; People for Modern Transit Technical Committee, 2001).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the future it seems completely logical that all surface level traffic would be by walking, scooter or electric bike, etc, and everything else would be subsurface.

<comment><USER11> It would go up with flying cars before it went down. Down is very expensive while up is free.

<comment><USER12> Up is very much not free. It costs a lot of energy to keep something suspended in mid-air. Airplanes that move hundreds of people are already under scrutiny for how much energy they use, there's absolutely no way we'd accept personal flying machines. Personal automobiles that can rest firmly on the ground are already criticized for their consumption even without having to lift off the earth.

Down is _much_ cheaper.

<comment><USER11> Not sure what the future holds but if we could just remove this gravity effect they could float.

What if they were more like balloons?

I think in the far future we will be able to transport and it will be the cleanest method of travel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I recently needed to commute to the airport in Amsterdam during rush hour and, in trying to figure out how bad traffic would be, stumbled upon this[1] YouTube video.

It's incredible how many people are able to commute at once using the bike lanes.

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

<comment><USER14> I know it's fast forwarded but it's hard to ignore the cyclists/riders sneaking into the car lane to get to the head of the pack. That said the great majority observe traffic safety rules.

<comment><USER15> In many instances a cyclist riding in the "car lane" is not illegal. It's not in Texas, in fact, it's legally required in some instances. I'm a cyclist, and recently I had a driver road rage at me because I was using the left turn lane, which is _required by law_ when turning left!

I don't know specifically about Amsterdam, for what it's worth.

Also, a cyclist riding in the road is not necessarily unsafe either. Many bike lanes are poorly designed and contribute to safety problems.

<comment><USER16> the amount of times i've been yelled at to "get out of the middle of the road" when trying to turn left...

<comment><USER17> It's reassuring to me when drivers honk at me on my bike because I know they see me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hopefully other city centres built before the advent of the automobile will follow suit. Edinburgh (Scotland), I'm looking at you ...

</comment><comment><USER19> This 'knip' idea is exactly what my town needs to implement. We're a small town with a small population of folks who actually live there, but our two main roads connect the freeway and large towns south of us. From about 3-7pm, the town is just one giant thoroughfare.

One or two knips would solve the entire issue.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if there will be statically significant health benefits

<comment><USER21> Just look around and you'll have a hard time finding the combination of obese people and cyclists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There seem to be articles from citylab (and other 'urbanist' outlets) flooding Hacker News daily. Somehow they all end up on the front page. This article's submitter ([https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gmck](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=gmck)) is a 5-month old account that submits almost entirely just citylab articles.

Clearly there are people looking to influence the HN crowd one way, especially with the anti-car narratives. Here's a different narrative about cars that shows the other side:

Cars are fast, and in areas that are not ultra high-density, they save time relative to ANY alternative (walking, biking, buses, trains) and therefore drastically improve your quality of life. They don't require you to wait on someone else's schedule, especially given the often inconsistent timing of buses. They work in all weather (such as rain) and in all terrain (such as hills) and are viable for older folks who may not be comfortable riding a bike everywhere. They don't require you to risk sitting down on dirty seats (6-year-old girl stabbed by uncapped needle on bus: [https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/08/girl-6-injected-needle- hidden...](https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/08/girl-6-injected-needle-hidden-two- bus-seats-9873386/)). They don't require you to expose yourself to violence (40 to 60 teens rob BART train: [https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART- takeover-robbery-5...](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover- robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php)). They let you travel all over the land, including away from cities, and therefore give you a greater degree of freedom than the reach of fixed rails or transit systems that are limited to cities.

It seems most of these anti-car articles conveniently ignore the massive benefits we get from fast, private, point-to-point motorized vehicular transport.

PS: literally less than 10 seconds after I posted this comment, it was down- voted. No one reads that fast, and this is clearly a spiteful downvote from someone who doesn't want any visible challenge to the prevailing narrative. That's unfortunate and a sign of degradation in discourse within the Hacker News community.

<comment><USER23> Cars _were_ fast, in the sixties and seventies. There was space on roads. I used to enjoy the "freedom of the _open road "._ Miles of twisty roads with just a few roadblocks to navigate around. Even better on a motorbike...

Not any more. Now a car is an expensive pain in the ass and aside from in the early hours, roads are pretty much constantly full. Full enough that even a motorcycle isn't quite the fun or freedom it was when I passed my test 40 years ago.

Anything that reverses the trend to a car (self-driven or not) being a necessity is good in my book. I'd far rather have an infrastructure that promotes public transport and cycling like the Netherlands does.

The sooner we get back to streets safe for children to play in, the better.

I won't play tit-for-tat with equally emotive and useless links to stories about people having watches and wallets lifted at lights etc.

<comment><USER24> You make general conclusions based on your non-general results. For many the car is not expensive, is not a pain, and their roads aren't constantly full. What trends you might want to reverse may be based on an even narrower view of reality than what makes them persist.

<comment><USER25> I am interested where this place you are talking about where cars are not expensive. Where I am in a smallish city, cars are a massive expense with the purchase cost, registration and insurance, fuel, maintenance and for a lot of people parking costs.

<comment><USER24> What is and isn't expensive is subjective. That's the whole point of my comment, don't make generalizations on what other people think about convenience or cost using your own opinion. My vehicle is not expensive in my view compared to its utility.

<comment><USER25> I would think expensive would be in terms of the cost of other transport options. A car is very very expensive when compared to public transport, cycling, motorbikes, walking.

Other than air travel, a car is probably the most expensive transport option there is.

<comment><USER22> A car is often cheaper than other alternatives when you consider time or convenience.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Memefs – A filesystem for your memes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/svenstaro/memefs <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

This started as a silly idea. Now it's a silly "product". Basically, it will mount a subreddit's media using FUSE. You can then access your memes from your terminal. I don't think this will ever be of use to anyone (and that's for the better).

Enjoy.

<comment><USER2> This is such a cool idea! Does it scrape reddit, or use the API?

<comment><AUTHOR> It uses the JSON API.</comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus Official Media Misinformation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@russellirvinjohnston/coronavirus-official-media-misinformation-e955236a29f3 <comment><USER2> The irony is that this post is misinformation. It's based on guesses and tweets you saw online.

While I don't think the official numbers are correct, we really don't know the truth yet.</comment>


Two standard alcoholic drinks a day no longer safe, health officials say - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/16/two-standard-drinks-a-day-no-longer-safe-health-officials-say <comment><USER2> Imagine a sci-fi story where you encounter human settlement that consumes solvent that is known to causes violence and accidents and is addictive carcinogen. The inhabitants use various methods to add little taste into it, bottle it into fancy bottles. Sophisticated solvent enthusiasts recognize different tastes and treat solvent fruit juices as the highest form of sophisticated hedonism.

Alcohol as a solvent is very similar to many inhalants as a drug. Closer to paint thinner than nitrous oxide. Similar cultural affection to hallucinogens, pot or even pure methamphetamines would be less harmful.

Some things are hard to perceive odd when it's everyday phenomenon. Women wearing high-heels is be another very odd cultural artifact.

<comment><USER3> > similar cultural affection to hallucinogens, pot or even pure > methamphetamines would be less harmful

As someone who lived in a region with heavy meth use, I can tell you that I would much rather deal with drunk people than meth heads. Also, your sentences before this one don't make any sense, "alcohol as a solvent is very similar to many inhalants as a drug" what does that even mean?

> Imagine a sci-fi story where you encounter human settlement that consumes > solvent

In your sci-fi story you forgot to mention that this solvent people drink also tastes very good, produces a sense of euphoria, lowers social inhibitions and reduces stress.

> Women wearing high-heels is be another very odd cultural artifact

No, same as your sci-fi story it would not. The reasons behind high heels are sad and ridiculous, but rather obvious. High heels make you look taller, give more definition to your legs and make you look a bit helpless and fragile. All of this is in tune with making females look more attractive in a male dominated society.

<comment><USER2> Illegality increases harmful effects.

Methamphetamines were used legally long time before they became illegal. Paul Erdős was probably the most famous (amphetamine and methylphenidate) user. Using meth when studying was also common.

Methamphetamine derivatives have reentered the society in the form Adderall and other drugs.

<comment><USER3> > Methamphetamines were used legally long time before they became illegal

Methamphetamine was invented in 20th century. So "long time" is a few decades max.

<comment><USER4> Nitpick: Invented in the 19th century. Mass manufactured for OTC self- administration from 1921 onward. At least in Germany, available OTC for the next 70ish years. Became prescription-only in 1988, became banned from prescribing in 2008 -- i.e. it's been legal a lot longer than it's been illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These guidelines generally shift both ways over time, but anecdotally, I notice that "a few drinks a night" every night is a lot more harmful than occasionally having a few drinks at once with friends. The folks who go home and have a whiskey or two every single weeknight end up with a lot more repercussions.

<comment><USER6> I think it's often because "a couple of drinks a night" is more like "drinking yourself to sleep".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The original studies didn't control for wealth. Wealthy people drink moderately, and live the longest. So technically it was never safe if you control for wealth.

<comment><USER8> Wealthy people drink more; drinking is correlated with income [1][2]. The catch is that wealthy people don't suffer like poor people do when they drink, and wealthy people are less likely to be full-blown alcoholics. It's not clear which ways the causality goes, though.

[1] [https://www.healthline.com/health-news/rich-people- drinking-...](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/rich-people-drinking- more)

[2] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170511095038.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170511095038.htm)

<comment><USER9> "wealthy people are less likely to be full-blown alcoholics" \- total bullshit. Sorry, but walk into any once a week church AA meetings and you will find many wealthy alcoholics there. The difference is that wealthy people can afford a lawyer and don't suffer the same devastating economic consequences from their drinking as the poor so it takes them longer to hit their bottom and finally admit they have a problem they can't control.

<comment><USER10> _> Sorry, but walk into any once a week church AA meetings and you will find many wealthy alcoholics there._

This type of anecdata is meaningless for assessing anything. Not only is your sample size tiny and biased based on where you live, but there's selection bias due to the fact that some types of alcoholics don't go to church AA meetings.

 _> The difference is that…_

As usual, there are likely many differences, rather than just one. Studies have shown that wealthy people drink more, likely because they can afford to drink more. They're also more likely to seek and afford healthcare, therapy, gyms, healthy food, etc., not just lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most public health officials fail to use statistics properly; this is about as useful as advice that broccoli gives you cancer (or cures it; whatever it is this week). It's obvious that health effects of moderate use of alcohol are ... moderate.

I certainly appreciate public health officials for their efforts; not dying of cholera when I drink water is a nice feature of modernity, but them jabbering on about how many drinks you can have before you have "health effects" is just a lot of horse shit. I'm pretty sure oral sex is more dangerous than consuming alcohol at such levels (it's statistically mildly carcinogenic).

There are obvious things these people could be doing which are tremendously more useful: assessing the human health impacts of ... pesticides, herbicides, widespread use of soy protein (which is highly estrogenic and has almost certainly had a huge negative impact on human health), BPAs and so on. Such things should be reassessed by public health officials, and are likely vastly more dangerous than people having a couple of beers, but somehow we keep getting obsessive advice from teetotal nitwits.

</comment><comment><USER12> I find it funny when satire from the past becomes the truth of the present. It's not hard to find examples such as the dystopian satire of "Network" (1976) becoming depressingly accurate.

In this case, Mitchell & Webb performed a sketch on the power of having just shy of two drinks. The Inebriati is "a group bound by the creed that humanity is better and more noble after very nearly two drinks than at any other time."

Video here: [https://streamable.com/wtsn](https://streamable.com/wtsn)

<comment> blaser-waffle See also: XKCD's "Ballmer Peak"

[https://xkcd.com/323/](https://xkcd.com/323/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of the doctors I know seem to agree on something: more than anything you can do, decrease stress to improve your health. Alcohol does that.

Sitting and having drinks, even sitting and having a LOT of drinks occasionally, with your close friends, is good for you because it helps decrease your stress.

<comment><USER14> No. If having a good drunken time with your friends actually does decrease stress in the medically important sense, it's in spite of the alcohol, not because of it. Metabolizing alcohol is inherently stressful for the body.

<comment><USER13> Exercise is stressful for the body too, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you.

(I'm not equating these two)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> globular-toast Strange wording. Saying it's "no longer safe" implies that it once was and maybe alcoholic drinks are now more dangerous or humans are now more susceptible. I suppose it means it is no longer _considered_ safe. That's a non-trivial difference.

Personally, I've stopped using alcohol completely. At first I just tried to drink less, but that's difficult because using it lowers inhibition and makes it more likely to be overused. It's much easier to just stop entirely and remove any possibility of a bad decision. I've found that I actually enjoy mocktails, alcohol-free beers and soft drinks when I go out and don't miss alcoholic drinks one bit. I know I won't get a hangover or be in a compromised mental state at any point. It feels great.

Even though I only did this for personal reasons I do now see many more of the negative effects of alcohol as an outside observer. I hope that within my lifetime I'll see much less use of this drug much like what's happened with tobacco.

<comment><USER15> People don't drink for the taste.

<comment><USER16> What do you think people are doing at wine tastings?

And what do you think is the point of alcohol free beers and wines?

<comment><USER17> I believe that wine tastings are primarily for the social value, with the socializing eased by the alcohol. Having a guise of learning about the wine (or whatever) is useful.

And my second belief (again generalizing, how I see it, etc.) is that alcohol- free beers are so that you can fit in when at the bar (where again, socializing is the main value) and choosing not to drink alcohol.

<comment><USER18> >I believe that wine tastings are primarily for the social value

You have apparently never tasted wine with a sommelier or wine enthusiast, because I can assure you it is 100% about the wine. Socializing is minimal

>with the socializing eased by the alcohol

...the alcohol in the spit bucket?

<comment><USER17> I have never been to a wine tasting where people are spitting out the wine. But I have read of them so acknowledge that they exist and that you have a fair point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Safe is and was a relative term. Historically alcoholic drinks such as beer were often safer than just water in days gone by.

Also true: Water purification is still a challenge even today. Plenty of cities don't even have drinkable water in people's residences.

<comment><USER20> It wasn't full strength beer in the past, people weren't wasted 24/7: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer)

<comment><USER19> I've made that and its why I know beer was safer in times past. Probably still is in a lot of places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Based on what we now know about the health effects of alcohol, I think if alcohol was "invented" today there's no way it would be legal, we just have a 10,000 year long status quo bias.

<comment><USER21> It would be impossible to have any degree of control over the black market though. Unlike other drugs where you need difficult-to-obtain seeds or extremely convoluted chemical synthesis processes, alcohol can be made by accident with stuff you normally buy at the grocery store.

Are they going to make grape juice illegal, too?

<comment> blaser-waffle Plus bread yeast and any sort of food that has easily accessible carbs: fruits, grains, refined sugar, etc.

Prohibition tried to ban booze, and it failed for those reasons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This brings Australia's drinking recommendations up to par with pretty much the rest of the world, so this is a good change. (Last I checked, I think 100–120 grams a week for men was most common.)

If anyone's into fancy alcohols and wants to ensure they're sticking to safe drinking limits, I made a free iOS app called Good Spirits just for that purpose: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/good- spirits/id1434237439](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/good-spirits/id1434237439)

You set a weekly drink amount (with suggestions based on government recommendations) and check in every time you drink, and the app tracks your progress and lets you know how you've been doing over the course of the week/month/year. For convenience, you can automatically pull your recent beer check-ins from Untappd.

The source code is available under the GPL here: [https://github.com/archagon/good-spirits](https://github.com/archagon/good- spirits)

(I think I'm pretty much the only user at the moment, but it's been invaluable in tempering my craft beer obsession!)

</comment><comment><USER23> When did reporting tacitly turn into reality? It was either always safe or never safe. What we considered it to be is what changed.

It's this really insidious subtext of "What we tell you _is_ reality."

<comment><USER24> I think it's a subtle anti-science attitude that pervades throughout society. "Next thing they'll be telling us apricots give us cancer! Those stupid scientists, eh?"

When of course it's really the media itself to blame.

<comment><USER19> Eating apricots does cause cancer if there is enough remaining pesticide residue that hasn't been washed off.

I also agree that most of the scare is media neglecting their public interest responsibilities in the name of sensationalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> My favorite part:

'But Anne Kelso, the NHMRC chief executive, said the guidelines were "not telling Australians how much to drink".'

Isn't that exactly what you are doing? (And should be doing?)

<comment><USER26> It's a sensitive issue for some. Especially those that should cut back or quit.

<comment><USER27> I haven't had any alcohol since 2011. Most people don't really care, but ever so often you run into someone who is offended that you don't even want a single beer... and it is always, without failure, the kind of person who themselves drink too much, too often, and/or just handle it poorly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> One Australian standard drink is 10gm of alcohol.

A (UK) pint (568ml) of beer at 5% ABV will have 2.24 standard drinks.

A 175ml glass of wine at 12.5% ABV will have 1.8 standard drinks.

Important advice is to have at least one day a week with no alcohol at all.

</comment><comment><USER29> Always lots of pushback when anyone suggests limiting alcohol. Defensiveness, projection, anger are common. Has to be a reason for that.

<comment><USER13> Probably for the same reason you get that response when you tell a vegan to eat meat, or a meat eater to stop eating meat.

<comment><USER29> Really? Alcohol is a moral choice, like vegetarianism? That's a new one.

{Defensiveness}

<comment><USER30> Alcohol has always been a moral choice. For over a billion people that choice is central to their religion, but the moral choice is certainly not limited to them. I can't think of an instance where consuming alcohol doesn't have moral implications due to its massive effects on consciousness and indirectly on society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "It is no longer safe to have two standard drinks a day". Dear Australian health officials. Nothing has changed. It has never been safe to have two standard drinks a day.

It's inconceivable to me how anyone but the most uninformed could have ever thought that something that melts your liver would be safe in any concentration. For decades I've rolled my eyes at the "one glass of wine a day" or whatever phrase was used in the current era.

<comment><USER32> High consumers of peanuts and pistachio products are at greater risk of intermittent exposure to aflatoxin. ... Longer term exposure to dietary aflatoxins in combination with chronic infection with hepatitis viruses, particularly HBV, significantly increases the risk of liver cancer.

Best watch your peanut consumption as well.

Point is, there are likely many things in a day that are consumed that are not tha great for people, but they don't even know. Some are even thought to be good for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Dosage and frequency are 2 different things. Smoking a pack of cigarettes every year wont kill you, but smoking one cigaratte a day for a year might.

<comment><USER34> I'd be interested in a good study that compared smoking one cigarette a day with smoking 365 cigarettes "at once". (or more likely a less immediately lethal dose both for daily as well as "at once" consumption)

My intuition would be the opposite of yours. I think our body is reasonably well equipped to handle low dose exposure, but large doses at once are more likely to cause irreversible damage.

<comment><USER35> There are studies that show not this level of extreme, but that there is what is called "wasted harm" - the harm done by 3 packs a day is not 3x the harm done by 1 pack a day, and 1 pack a day for 5 years is thus worse than 5 packs a day for 1 year.

<comment><USER3> 5 packs is a 100 cigarettes. About one cigarette every 10 minutes if you account for 8 hours of sleep. I have seen some obsessive smokers, people who smoke 2-3 packs a day, but I have never seen a 5 pack a day person or anywhere even close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm pretty sure no amount of alcohol is safe. I remember before college (in other words: before all the binge drinking.) I felt bad weeks after I had just a glass of wine.

<comment><USER16> > I felt bad

This isn't the same as being _unsafe_ though, is it?

<comment><USER36> I guess we have different meanings for safety?

For me: safety means not causing permanent damage.

<comment><USER18> You said you feel bad, in what way did that cause permanent damage? I stubbed my toe this morning and it felt bad but no permanent damage was caused</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can California Be Saved? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425885/california-high-taxes-immigration-democrats <comment><USER2> I f-ing hope not.

To be a little more constructive :) the article is kind of needlessly alarmist. The fact that no one is taking action of the lack of water several years in a row is kind of crazy, but hey, is Boston doing anything about their shitty public transportation after their crazy winter?</comment>


Startup allows flash games, video on iPad - <AUTHOR> http://video.allthingsd.com/video/start-up-allows-flash-games-video-on-ipad/1FBE258C-70BB-4395-97AF-7B24D48A85C2/

<comment><USER3> This looks like another solution looking for a problem. It's basically remote desktop as a service. The flash app runs on a remote server, and you are viewing/controlling it via a vnc-like app on the iPad.

Look at the iPad sales numbers. Do you really think there would be a measurable increase if it had Flash capabilities?

<comment><USER4> It's not about generating iPad _sales_ , it's about monetizing iPad _users_.

Would people like to access their favorites (not to mention new content) on Armor Games, MiniClip, Addicting Games, Kongregate etc? Just because they _can't_ doesn't mean they _wouldn't_ if these guys can pull it off.

<comment><USER3> You make an excellent point.

The question then will be, how much is it worth to play silly Flash games? Will there be a monthly access charge, or will it be advertisement funded?

While I'm sure some subset of iPad users would like to such up more of their freetime with silly content, I'm still doubtful that this is a "business".

<comment><USER4> Silly is very offensive and dismissive of how big flash gaming really is - <USER2> of millions of people spend millennia every _day_ playing Flash games _without even counting Facebook_ , and some of those games achieve or inspire great success! It's very unfair to label them as silly just because there is a high volume of bad games - iOS is _definitely_ not immune to that.

Flash games are also a big business - SPIL Games, Armor Games, Addicting Games, Kongregate, MiniClip, MaxGames, ArcadeBomb, Slix Media, Bored, not to mention all the social games and giants of that industry are massively popular and collectively investing many millions into producing and licensing new content every month.

At the top end the content is so great assholes _steal_ Flash games and port them to iOS themselves under new names.

For monetization there's some interesting strategies they could take there - their own marketplace/portal for Flash games, working directly with the giant arcade portals to create apps for them, in-game advertising/virtual goods, etc.

<comment><USER3> _Silly is very offensive and dismissive of how big flash gaming really is_

I think you're much closer to it than I am, though I admit I _did_ mean that comment somewhat dismissively.

IMO, Flash is dead. It never properly innovated into the mobile device market, and it frankly never even innovated properly into OS X. There are lots of flash games, but probably even more annoying-as-fuck-all flash ads.

I think there is a huge opportunity for someone to create a new iteration of the flash concept, but one that is properly multi-platform enabled, and gives users more control and abilities to prevent cookies and unwanted popups.

This remote desktop as a service just to get flash content thing seems like, to me, a prime example of "you're doing it wrong".

I agree that _gaming_ is huge, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. But _Flash gaming_ is a concept/technology that is over.

<comment><USER4> What this really does is bridge the gap between Flash-and-mobile for the many companies & devs who created the mountains of games in Flash and will likely continue to for several more years even if Adobe continues to screw everything up - if Flash is doomed it's going to be a slow, slow death because in spite of Adobe it _is_ a massive platform that's not going to disappear overnight.

But beyond that if these guys can make it bi-directional and pull mobile games to _web_ then they're going to have an absolute killer product. If they can also go mobile-to-mobile then it'll just be crazy - publish to a platform, publish to all platforms. Streaming games, weird as it seems, looks like its got legs - onlive etc are doing it, it's really only the scale of the games that is changing.

As far as ads go I don't think that's even worth exploring (although that's in large part my bias towards _games_ ) - they have such short shelf lives they can adapt to new platforms without even considering legacy material.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Disgusting. That thing looks slower/jerkier than vnc.

This has nothing on onlive's ipad streaming:

[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4796299/onlive_gaming_service_...](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4796299/onlive_gaming_service_demoed_on_an_ipad/)

</comment><comment><USER6> This article should have been tagged as being a video.</comment>