Update: I returned my Apple Watch 3 Cellular - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/im-returning-my-apple-watch-3-cellular-602d24899bfd <comment><USER2> Do you _need_ to give HN "updates" (with _no_ new content) every day or two?

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Update:%20I%20returned%20my%20...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Update:%20I%20returned%20my%20Apple%20Watch%203%20Cellular&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> From the FAQ [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

> Are reposts ok?

> [...] a small number of reposts is ok.

I posted this update twice, and typically repost 3-4 times total. Feel free to ignore my next posts.</comment></comment>


Working on the iPad: One Year Later, Still My Favorite Computer - <AUTHOR> https://www.macstories.net/stories/working-on-the-ipad-one-year-later-still-my-favorite-computer/ <comment><USER3> Hidden lede: Author is a fulltime blogger.

Sure, that can work. However that is only one niche, and for most professions out there that require computers, the iPad will not be sufficient, or at best wildly inefficient.

<comment><USER4> Yes. This is such a specific use case that most workers don't follow. If he was doing a job using the full microsoft office suite - or alternatives - <USER2> would be far more representative of office workers. Of course, that misses all developers, but then again we know how far they are to actually letting us develop on an iPad.

<comment><USER5> Even for blogging, the iPad is a series of compromises. While there are image editors, none are on the level of photoshop and the audio software, while it exists isn't nearly as powerful or fast. I'm sure anything the author does, I can do faster and more efficiently with OS X. As a front end developer, sometimes contractor for TV Shows, and hobbyist musician who's made the odd dollar, not a single one of these activities are viable on the iPad.

Sure, the author does fine with an iPad and seems to like it but for most people this is simply not a reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My nexus 9 have changed a lot the way I work. As a professor, my time is split between teaching and research. I still use my computer to prepare my lectures and a big part of my coding but, giving lecture, reading papers and taking notes are all done on it.

The combination of termux and SSH means than I can do some dev on it if I have the Bluetooth keyboard with me, it's not ideal but enough to not justify taking my computer with me for one our of coding in the day. The interactivity of being able to move through the classroom and ask students to write answers on a virtual whiteboard keeping the results and going back later to this is invaluable. For a lot of things I do with it, there seems to be only half finished poorly written applications and still it's a big improvement in my work

I truly wait for the day were we have good PDF library app with a reader that can take notes, a good whiteboard app that allow you to have an infinite canvas, ... but even now it changed my way to work for the better.

</comment><comment><USER7> What a disappointment realizing the story is "I can blog from my iPad". I guess welcome to 2016 and page 2 of hacker news.

Now time to remember my HN password (from my iphone 4)

</comment><comment><USER8> Welcome to 2016, where the most revolutionary feature on a popular device is that you can now look at two windows at the same time.</comment>


Show HN: Caman – A self-signing certificate authority manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/radiac/caman

<comment><USER2> How does this compare to CA-baka?

[https://github.com/SethRobertson/CA- baka](https://github.com/SethRobertson/CA-baka)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't come across this when I wrote caman; from the looks of things caman is simpler to use, but missing a couple of features - alt hostname support for SAN certificates (which I'm adding at the moment and should be up later today) and ability to use a subsidiary certificate authority.

I wrote caman because I could never remember what to type, so it has simple syntax - 4 commands, to add a new host, sign, revoke and renew; the only argument they take are the hostname. Configuration is a one-off when setting up your CA - there are two openssl config files with sensible defaults based on openssl best practice, with a few values for you to customise, and some basic templating for caman to fill out later.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added an experimental branch with SAN support, but I haven't had a chance to test it fully yet; any feedback would be appreciated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> In the past I've used etcd-ca[0] to perform a similar function, though probably not it's original intention.

[0] [https://github.com/coreos/etcd-ca](https://github.com/coreos/etcd-ca)

<comment><USER4> Just playing with SaltStack's recently added x509 state for a fully autonomous/self-signed CA incl deployment to the clients.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Ethereum Time Travel, trade 2 years in 2 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://merklex.io/time-travel/ <comment><USER2> Great stuff! It was quite exciting to play! I figured I'd attempt to go long when above the trend line, and get out when the price fell below the trend line. Only in the world of crypto trading would an annualized return of 640% over 3.75 years be described as "Better than nothing" and "At least you came out ahead". I guess those lackluster assessments are deserved when you consider that my net return of around 25K was only about ten percent better than just buying and holding. Did you use some kind of javascript framework to create this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah the comments are a little cheeky :). Pretty much everything was build in house with the exception of ReactJS and Redux. I mainly reused a lot of components from our front-end on [https://merklex.io/trade](https://merklex.io/trade).

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the info on that. It's an entertaining little app. With a wide range of data sets (e.g., other crypto coins, stock market, Forex), this sort of thing could be turned into a fun group game at a party, with onlookers cheering on participants as they compete simultaneously on their tablets. It would be way more entertaining than most board games. Upon further examination, I've noticed that when you click the sell button, you're selling roughly ten shares (about a tenth of your starting position). I wonder if you'd consider adding a button or two to "Sell All Shares"/"Buy With All Funds"?</comment></comment></comment>


Multiple Sclerosis Cure? - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3572695.htm

<comment><USER2> >A team of maverick scientists

That's what I hate about science-journalism - this constant need to portray science as a field so different from other fields to work in, where supposedly egos rule and the status quo is upheld, and only a few select "mavericks"/"outlaws"/"geniuses" "dare" to break the cycle. It's untrue and keeps a lot of non-scientists in the dark on how scientists actually are like, and how "normal" science is.

In reality, there's plenty of evidence that infections trigger MS, a lot of it has even made it into Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis#Infections>

There's also at least one study that couldn't find any support for Zambioni's ideas: [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and- fitness/massi...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and- fitness/massive-study-disputes-zamboni-theory-of-multiple- sclerosis/article590119/)

According to the Wikipedia-article on his theory, there's research going on but most of it doesn't look promising: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_cerebrospinal_venous_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_cerebrospinal_venous_insufficiency)</comment>


Don't Build Push Notifications Yourself - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@gdeglin/dont-build-push-notifications-yourself-15e2002f1034 <comment><USER2> this is an ad</comment>


Social media as a tool of mass impact: remember 2016 US presidential election - <AUTHOR> https://reportagram.net/medicine/1281-social-media-as-a-tool-of-mass-impact-just-remember-2016-us-presidential-election.html <comment><AUTHOR> But what are social media anyway? A means of communication, a new stage in the development of social relations, a platform for advertising and promotion of goods and services, or global systems for manipulating and controlling people? There are both positive and negative aspects of the use of social networks. Another question is whether they can be prevented from having a negative impact.</comment>


Interview with Richard Miller, President of Olin College of Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/ingenious-richard-k-miller <comment><AUTHOR> "If you think about what engineers do, they are people that create new things that change the world. So we've concluded that an engineer is a person who envisions what's never been and then does whatever it is to make it happen."

Certainly a bit different than the traditional conception of an engineer, but I'm a fan.</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with losing interest in your passion? - <AUTHOR> I have four and half years of professional programming experience. Two years ago, I was very passionate, always learning, coding etc.,
Slowly over the the past couple of years I have lost interest in everything I suppose. i am not speaking philosophy here, but I am feeling tired of everything.
I am just 25. I'm too young to say such things. Anyone else have been through this before and "came back with a bang" ? <comment><USER2> Take a break.

I had the same thing when I was 25. I ended up quitting my job and buying a one-way ticket to Europe. I didn't think I would ever write code again. I spent about three months backpacking Europe, then came back and spent a few more hanging around and doing odd jobs around town. Eventually, I started code in my free time again, and about a year later, came back into the profession refreshed.

Now I know what I need to do to prevent burnout again, and it's primarily that I keep other hobbies, and I have friends that aren't work-related. It lets me get away when I need to and still stay interested in what I do the rest of the time.

But that's more maintenance, sometimes you need to shotgun into that stage by cutting out everything for a lengthened period of time. If you really are a hacker at heart, and it sounds like you are, you'll start writing code again soon enough, and you'll know you're back.

You'll also have stories and other life experiences as well, which make you a better, more rounded person.

<comment><USER3> This is the best advice here. I got incredibly fed up with my programming career after about 5 years or so. I went off and traveled around the world for a year, met my wife, opened a coffee shop, spent a winter at a ski resort and freelanced in Tanzania (on Zanzibar).

After all that I found I missed programming, and realized what things I didn't like about my career choice, such as long meetings, boring projects and so on. This helped me direct my programming career back to what I enjoyed and has made me much happier and more productive.

So, get out there and do something different! You've got your education and experience now and there will always be a job somewhere for you.

<comment><USER4> How did you play it on your resume? I know in some circles, having a lapse in employment in your resume is about like having a lapse in insurance coverage; e.g. it's a red flag and can really hurt your chances of getting the job (economy notwithstanding).

<comment><USER3> I put it exactly as it happened. The travelling has never caused me any problems, in fact it usually is the cause of some interesting discussions with potential employers.

As for running my own business, I can point to all the skills gained during that experience as benefits to the company as well. Leadership, discipline, time management, working under pressure and so on.

The sort of companies that wouldn't like my past experience are exactly the sort I would never want to work for, so it works as a nice filter for me too! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Find a hobby. Something that is completely mindless, and won't use any of the centers of your brain that you use for programming. If you do love programming, you may just be burnt out; if you are like me, you spend long stretches coding for most waking hours. Eventually you'll run risk of burning out.

Me, I build plastic robot models. It's no brain power at all, just precise physical motions. It's mindless and enjoyable, and at the end of the day you have something to show for it.

There's a lot of posts here saying take a break, but you _really_ have to make sure that you are truly taking a break, and not just substituting programming with something else that uses the same parts of your brain.

edit: Here's one of the first models I built. Unpainted just to see what it looks like. [http://www.flickr.com/photos/37553996@N07/sets/7215762298535...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/37553996@N07/sets/72157622985354189/)

<comment><USER6> I've spent almost 30 years in computer/electronics engineering (both hardware and software) and I think one thing you will suffer from is a lack of accomplishment. When it takes months or years to complete a project, you need to gain a sense of accomplishment from the little victories along the way.

As the parent notes, finding a hobby that's unrelated is useful, but not only as a diversion ... you can gain that sense of accomplishment in the preparation of a good meal or in completing a weekend woodworking project.

<comment><USER5> Yes, it's the sense of accomplishment, of _finishing something_ that is the primary benefit of building these little models. You get to do it, it's relaxing, and you can say "I built that" at the end.

<comment><USER6> Hmmm ... I missed one other point.

It's much easier to show your friends and family the mission-oak picture frame you built than some obscure bit of software. It needs no explanation and you'll be gratified (hopefully) by their response. Explain a low-level library you built to these same people and their eyes will glaze over while they hope you talk about something regular humans deem important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Passion can be rekindled, but doubling down on the subject is not the right way to do it. You are probably a little burnt out and a little jaded. Pickup a hobby far away from programming and use that as your fun time for a few years. When you get back to programming as a fun thing, you will enjoy it far more.

Snowboarding has been my passion for about 10 years. I snowboard 50+ days a year, I moved out to Colorado for a time just to snowboard absolutely as much as possible. I race, I go into the park a lot, I jump off cliffs, I go into the backcountry, I worked at a ski shop, I read all the magazines, buy the DVDs, and I watch the weather forecast incessantly.

But I'm burnt out on it. I moved back to the east coast, the mountains and weather aren't as good, and I'm totally jaded. If its not fresh snow, steep trails, perfect weather I feel like I'm wasting time and money. Unless I live at the mountain, I can't get any better than I am now (whereas before I enjoyed the challenge of getting up the learning curve). So I just decided to stop.

I picked up surfing instead. I'm terrible at it, but the challenge is thrilling. Now I can enjoy the learning curve again and I don't need 'perfect' conditions. It's fun just to get out there and do something.

And I'm sure when I do go back to snowboarding in a few years, it will be far more interesting.

So for you, I would say make programming your job, and something else your passion/hobby. Take a couple years off from programming outside of work, and come back to it with renewed purpose.

</comment><comment><USER8> I went through the same thing you're describing, and I came to a very simple conclusion (in hindsite) that the other commenters haven't touched upon. I quietly suspect that I'm right, and it makes me sad that it feels like such a dirty secret.

When I was a kid, I loved coding. From the ages of 6-19 I didn't really want to do anything as much as hack on cool projects. The only thing that would make my life perfect — obviously — would be to get paid to code, so that I could do it all of the time and pay bills, too. I'd be the luckiest guy on earth.

So, why was I horribly sad (not depressed, btw - that's a disease which you don't bring upon yourself) as a professional developer at 25? I used to be so engaged, but then I could hardly concentrate on what I was doing, and it was very difficult to get started each day.

One day it hit me like a lightning bolt: the reason you do something impacts whether you can enjoy doing it or not. That's why being a prostitute is not generally considered the best job ever; I found that coding other people's ideas was like not getting to choose who, when or how to have sex.

For me, the solution was to gradually move out of coding day-to-day into a more pure consulting role while reintroducing lots of fun personal coding projects, which are mostly just as fun as I remembered from when I was a teenager. 8-9 years later, I simply don't take on paid coding projects.

As a corollary, I'm really into film photography and I flat out refuse to get paid to shoot, because I have no interest in difficult brides or screaming babies. I figure that I deserve a passion that isn't corrupted by my need to pay a mortgage. It's like an endless chain of discoveries and happy accidents that brings me mental calm and occasionally professional (consulting) opportunity.

I recently went to the Luminance photography conference in NYC, and during breaks I met as many people as I could. Every working photographer seemed stoic and anxious, and all of the aspiring photographers verbally differentiated between their "arty" work and the stuff they had to shoot in order to pay the bills. Not one of them thought that there was any hope of them having fans that would appreciate them the way a painter would. [Granted, painters often have patrons... but I digress.] I found it all quite sad.

Needless to say, I suggested that they all learn to code as a career so that they could take photos out of love. I said that if they needed to pay their bills with their camera, they would develop an increasingly abusive relationship with photography.

Don't worry about "coming back with a bang". You only live once, so stop hitting yourself.

<comment><USER9> This.

From time to time, I say that 'the worst thing I've done was to turn a hobby into work'.

It it not strictly true, there are worse things I could be doing instead. But I have lost some of the that initial spark.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, I'm exactly the opposite.

I started learning to program in the 3rd grade. From there, it was a hobby. Come time for college, I decide I don't want to do that a job because I don't want to ruin my hobby.

Fast forward 10 years, and I finally decide I need a career, not a job. I look at my skills and decide that programming is the only one worth doing.

Turns out, I love programming more than ever now! It was absolutely a mistake for me to try to avoid it. I'm better at it than ever, and I can do more things than ever.

I still, sometimes, do it as a hobby. So in that respect, yes, it kind of killed my hobby. But I have _that_ fun at work now, and I get to do other hobbies at home. It's a positive thing all around.

The key is that my job isn't the soul-sucking variety. I work in a positive atmosphere and (mostly) on projects that I enjoy. I'm valued, and my employers prove it by paying me what I'm worth as well as having great benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having worked in software engineering for 17+ years, I've learned a few things (and gone through at least two-bouts of serious burnout). One was at the end of the first dot-com boom when getting engineering jobs was nearly impossible, so it was a forced long-term vacation. I went to Europe for a bit.

1) In my 20s, I worked all the time. Didn't live a very balanced life, this lead to burnout, especially if you're working in a startup environment where you think you'll retire at 30.

2) I quit engineering twice (but after 6+ months off, new developments in technology that stimulated my imagination eventually brought me back)

3) I've learned to manage not working the burn-out dream, that likely in the long run, your 80 hours weeks aren't going to pay out. It's proven to me that there's plenty of successful people and companies who work realistic hours.

4) Hobbies. I prefer those where I get excercise (like cylcing). Gives me time to clear my mind and keep my body fit and invigorated. I also enjoy gourmet cooking.

5) Managing workload, prioritizing things that are important and recognizing things that you think are work but really procrastinating.

6) Learn other professional skills than typing text into your favorite editor/ide. Speaking at conferences/local user groups, managing project budget, managing teams, managing bigger teams. Doing these other things makes you appreciate the few hours of coding you have left in the week.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is a misconception, extremely prevalent on HN and in the startup community, that you're dead at 35. Really, if you are 25 and not certain about what you want to do, the real 'risk' you should be taking is trying something completely different.

Don't set yourself up for a miserable life. Become a well rounded person. Try something else and see if it clicks for a while.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a programmer, 15+ years, and I took up beekeeping. It's nice to do something so completely the opposite of what I do at work. Bees are captivating because they are such complex creatures, but they are almost completely driven by instinct, so they are somewhat predictable. They drive what I need to do to help them succeed, but I still need to use my brain to figure out what help they need. It's a nice balance from writing code and being completely in my head all day.

</comment><comment><USER14> TL;DR - Aging is weird, but it beats the alternative.

Other commenters are giving you excellent advice about burnout. I agree with what they say, but want to toss in a different perspective.

When I was in Grade 9, there was a hip hop group called Kris Kross. At the time, I thought they were great. So great, that I went out and bought their CD, put it on repeat and listened to it for weekend long BBS marathon.

Today, I'm a little embarrassed to admit I was that passionate about the wack emcees who wore their clothes backwards. I haven't listened to them in years. Yet other bands that I worshipped in Grade 9 (ie - Bad Religion, NOFX and the Dead Kennedys) are still extremely important to me.

I'm 35 now and my passions have ebbed and flowed through the years. They are more fixed now, but they went a little wild between my teens and mid 20s. Heck, in high school, I was a straight edge post punk who wouldn't be friends with people who dared to smoke pot near me. By my third year of university, I was conducting pharmaceutical experiments on myself at raves.

We ebb and we flow. We change just as constantly as the landscapes that surround us. We fall in and out of love with new ideas, people, sounds and pursuits.

Take a deep hard look at whether or not you may be burned out. Try new things, immerse yourself in whatever seems exciting, and read new books. Learn to climb. Scare yourself half to death. Write a book. Get tattooed. Your passion for programming will likely come back. Or, it may be gone forever. Embrace the changes, my friend, you're going to learn an awful lot about yourself over the next few months!

Best of luck and remember that smooth seas never made a skilled skipper.

<comment><USER15> for the original post: there's not much more i can add other than what others are saying worked for me, too. Got sick of fundraising, moved to marketing. Got burned out of marketing, took up a side project (print-only diy zine) and then i discovered the startup scene and my love for marketing came back. im still at the same organization and love it.

for @hluska: im 27 but as of last year started experiencing the "aging is weird" phenomenon.

btw, i listened to kriss kross in 3rd grade, in high school became a straight- edge 70s revivalist (only listened to zeppelin, sabbath, doors and other typical gateway artists). oddly enough, i then went post-punk and partied my brains out. i love business and the startup community but still love dk, misfits, screamers (and canada had a killer music/movie scene in the 80s!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think every developer faces the same problem at one point. What helped me personally was actually working less and find new hobbies (that don't involve computers), and one thing in particular: running. It's hard to keep your enthusiasm at a high level if all you see is work - despite the fact that you might enjoy it. Go out, meet your friends, eat well and excersize.

EDIT: Recently I was attending a startup meeting and there was this video, where one developer said _Sleeping and eating are overrated._ What a load of crap - following this advice is the best way to burn out. We are not robots.

<comment><USER17> +1 for running. It can do wonders for you. Before I started exercising regularly, I used to get stressed out just trying to get through my office work everyday. But since I started running, I don't feel any mental stress anymore. I now have a lot of free time available, in spite of spending an hour or so exercising everyday, and I have managed to design and develop a few iOS apps in my 'spare' time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Currently in the same position. I am only 22 and still studying in university about computers, but I have not touched to vim now for 3 months even though I used to write few hundred lines of code everyday as a hobby since i was 15 or something like that.

Most likely my dilemma is that I seem not to be able to decide where to specialize and programming alone has become quite boring. I kinda want to do everything and can not decide which is the most fun of games, web, mobile, desktop or security.

<comment><USER19> > Most likely my dilemma is that I seem not to be able to decide where to > specialize and programming alone has become quite boring. I kinda want to do > everything and can not decide which is the most fun of games, web, mobile, > desktop or security.

This sounds familiar, I experience the same thing whenever I sit down to do anything (not just coding stuff) that's supposed to be 'for fun' only, and has no clear utility value. There's simply too many things I want to do, which paradoxically has a paralyzing effect on me. There's at least 20 things I still want to develop, at least 20 books I still want to read, 20 video games I'd like to finish, 20 things I want to improve around the house, I have a car disassembled to pieces I still want to put back together, I want to learn to play the guitar, I want to pick up sports again (tennis, so I'd have to join a club), I want to travel and spend weekends outdoors hiking and such, etc.

The net result is that every time I sit down to do something, in a strange way I feel guilty not doing any of the other stuff that's in the back of my head. This in turn distracts me from what I was planning to do. In the end, nothing gets done.

One thing that has helped me a little is to try and do one thing of each activity at a time. In other words: work on only one code project at a time, not multiple. Read one book at a time, not multiple. Play one video game completely through, or drop it completely if it gets boring. Pick one thing you want to improve around the house and finish it completely before starting something new.

This works for some things, but not all. Travelling more or picking up sports requires a different kind of discipline, but I'm not sure how to get myself to actually get moving. It's a character weakness I think.

<comment><USER18> Yeah I kinda try to complete one project at a time, but mostly the projects get shelved when I lose interest in it because I keep thinking about other stuff and find them more interesting.

Currently I am trying to complete one small project without putting it aside. Though I am still thinking other projects, but luckily at the moment those projects in my head require cash which I don't have, so I can't drop this and start the next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It gets everyone who's really passionate from time to time. I'd recommend Richard Feynman, who (as a Nobel Laureate) also completely lost interest in physics at a time - here's an abstract about the subject, but the whole book is gold and funny as hell on top: [http://loooongway.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/my-english-is- ver...](http://loooongway.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/my-english-is-very-good/)

For me, it's about composing and IT. When I studied musicology, I couldn't compose anymore and just wasn't creative. Then I changed to studying physics and soon burned my interest in the same way. Both of them definitely came back, and by now, I try to keep my interests more balanced!

</comment><comment><USER21> I wanted to quit computers several times but always gravitate back to them eventually. I even did a whole masters program in economics to find something different. I personally am just the type to cycle between workaholism and hedonism. After putting too much into work I get really appalled by it and need to spend time travelling and just generally living life. Every time I spend 6 weeks not working I have a burning desire to do and learn again. Maybe you just did too much. The hardships of travelling are vital for me because at first everything is so great and you really need to do it until it isn't anymore. Eventually you will long to get back to your passion.

</comment><comment><USER22> Another angle unfortunately without a solid solution.

If I told people to associate me with one word (a subject), pretty much anyone who knows me would say the same word. I've spent over 10 years learning about it but I've become jaded because just like any subject, you can study about it and you can do it. It's the doing it that has made me jaded and that has effected my will to study it as well.

My best theory is that I simply never defined it for what it is and has been: a goal. In effect, I summited and now I just feel like I'm at the top looking at the view. The solution, it seems, will inevitably be to search out another mountain to summit.

<comment><USER23> What was the word they associated you with?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I went through this a lot later in life, and what worked for me was "going academic". I hit Lambda the Ultimate and started challenging myself to learn a lot of really advanced stuff. I'd pick out papers that were hard to understand and go through them step by step, as many times as necessary.

I'd also recommend learning to do something complicated in your personal life, like flying, or diving, or fixing cars. Complexity doesn't exist just in software; it's all around us. Embrace it in your personal life and it will balance what's in your professional life.

<comment><USER25> ugh, if only it were that simple. I've been in technology for almost 20 years, I build cabinets, fix cars (currently swapping engines in an RX-7), garden, etc. I'm just burned out - I'd love to take a 6 week break, but need the money (5 kids, a wife, a mortgage, a car-payment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm no psychologist, but is it possible that you are suffering from a bout of depression? I have found that my depression caused me to lose interest in most things. It came back, but it took a while...

</comment><comment><USER27> TL:DR - Stop, be ok with taking a break. Give yourself chance to discover what's left.

The thing to remember is that it's ok to have changes in interests. If our interests never changed we wouldn't make progress.

It sounds like you've got to a point where you are super comfortable with what you know.

Personally after I finished my CS degree I took a big break (2 years) from technology, building things and fixing things. Actually I felt like I hated all of it and that worried me a lot. I wanted to let all the learning settle & see what interest in the field I was left with - if at all.

After two years I made the decison to go into the applications support side of things as I realised I still loved the people part of it. Being the bridge between customers & developers, fixing things & I'm still doing that now. Even my interest in development has come back and I'm building things in my spare time again.

Also my partner & I have transitioned from taking photographs as a hobby, to professionally. I find that each time we get a photography job there's a little 2 month cycle where it goes from being great fun to just being 'done' with it. At that point we take fewer personal photos.

After a little time, the interest comes back we start photographing for fun again and then we get another job and it goes full circle.

I think you can only force creativity so long before it becomes work with obligations etc - that's when the interest fades.

</comment><comment><USER28> After graduating from college, I completely immersed myself in computers, programming, networking, system administration, etc. I taught myself how to program, got a job programming, learned just about everything I needed to learn. I would work, and then when I came home, I would sit in front of the computer learning. It got to the point where if I didn't spend time learning, I would feel guilty.

This helped me immensely, because I accelerated in my career and knowledge really quickly. But then, after about 10 years, I had gained about 50 lbs, and suffered through some personal issues. I was completely and utterly burnt out. I stopped being curious about technology, and couldn't bring myself to even turn on a computer after work, except to play games or online poker. This period lasted for about 5 years.

What rekindled everything for me was that I found something new to be passionate about, namely algorithmic trading. The entire topic absolutely fascinated me and continues to fascinate me, and that's where I regained my passion. I've been spending a lot of time on this topic over the last few years.

My advice to you is just take a break. You're probably burnt out. Give it some time, and you'll probably go back to doing it, or you'll find something new to be passionate about.

<comment><USER29> Do you mean you now use algorithmic trading to make money, or just interested in different approaches, algorithms, etc?

<comment><USER28> Yes, trading using algorithms to try to make money. Emphasis on the word "try".

I love it, regardless of my level of success in it. My friend is a day trader, and he gave me one of his setups for trading. I didn't believe him, so I downloaded the data, wrote the code to simulate it across a few years, and then all of a sudden, this became a computer problem that I could try to solve through programming. I've been hooked ever since. There are a lot of much smarter people doing a lot more successful ventures than me, but for a hobby, I really do love it, and it completely reinvigorated my interests in programming.

<comment><USER29> Yes, I always thought I could use my math/CS skills to _try_ to make some extra cash on the side, but not even sure where to start (working in healthcare now). I was always under the impression you have to be "close to the market" to be able to trade effectively, i.e. pay a lot of money to have direct access to the latest information, trading API's etc.

<comment><USER28> No, I think you mean High Frequency Trading, which is a specialized form of algorithmic trading. Algorithmic trading just means you use a computer to execute trades based on algorithms that you define.

It can be as easy as "buy at market open, sell at market close". Or it could be much more complicated, for example, the stuff that quants do. I'm much closer to the former than the latter. You can definitely pay for things like a real-time data feed (less than $100/month) and trade real time, or you can choose to expand your time frame and do swing-trades with daily data which you could probably get from Yahoo.

And believe me, it's very, very hard, to the point where I almost don't think it's possible. But I still love it.

<comment><USER29> Thanks, how would you recommend learning about trading platforms. Say I can write a basic trading program in Matlab and Python, who should my program be communicating with?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Similar story but unlike the brave travellers in this thread, I switched to a related profession instead.

I was a Search Engine Optimser and worked for several large companies and agencies, leading teams and getting results. Over the course of about 12 months, I felt my passion fade, wither and then die.

I (wrongly) decided to keep focused on the money and was able to extend my career by about 18months. 18 miserable, unsatisying months.

Knowing that I like the web and feel like I know what works, over the course of several months I developed a sideline in WordPress development. I then slowly built this sideline into an income that would help me ditch SEO for good. It's now what I do full time.

So my advice is this: Be truthful to yourself, if you don't have the passion, don't stick it out hoping it'll come back. Change track, take a break, do something unexpected to give you a refresh/restart If you have responsibilities, try to develop a side project, or several, to give yourself a new direction

</comment><comment><USER31> Make programming a mean, not the end.

There are countless fields where what you have learned over the last 5 years can be of use, and feel fresh again.

Let's say you have spent the last years learning programming for web applications. Find a job (or star a personal project) where programming is applied to embedded systems, or medical devices, or videogames, or finance, or whatever.

And do not think that because you have been learning about "programming" you have to be a "programmer" if you don't want to. Try to have an experience in sales, management, design. You might lack specific knowledge in the role, but will have much more knowledge in the technical details than other people with specific experience in the role.

If you have been working just on private projects (say, a start-up), find a job as an employee in a good-sized company. Or the other way around, if you have some savings.

You are so young there is plenty of time for finding where you want to set, do not feel constrained by what is expected of you.

</comment><comment><USER32> Short answer: Take time off (a few months) and then work on your project.

Long answer: I worked for 4 years at Apple as a software engineer and I exactly felt like you. When I quit to find my passion again, I could not touch a computer for more than 3 months. It was really hard. I loved engineering and design so much. It felt like I lost the most important thing in life.

I was seriously burned out. I spent time with family, travelled and started appreciating life again. After 5 months off, I was eager to get back in technology. I am now working on my own thing (<http://beta.shoeboxify.com>) and love my life again.

</comment><comment><USER9> It could be temporary. As others have commented already, this could be burnout.

There are other angles that you should consider. Is it only affecting your job, or are you apathetic on other things too ? If it is the latter (specially since you said 'everything'), it could indicate depression.

In my particular case, a mild form of depression always sets in whenever I am sleep deprived. This can go on for months if left unchecked. Go out, have some fun, sleep a lot and see if it helps. Have your health checked (physical and mental).

If everything checks out, you might just need a change of scenery. Another city, another job, a slightly different area, etc.

</comment><comment><USER33> I found a break and then working on what I only found interesting (playing around with weird languages, open sourcing things etc) was the trick, it got me really excited again about what will always be my life

</comment><comment><USER34> Grad school is a popular choice, and many would favor candidates with 3-5 years of work/project experience. The application process also helps you reflect on what your goals are, why you did what you previously did, and so forth. Taking an exam like the GRE/GMAT/LSAT/etc can also be good mental exercise and give you something mindless to do in between introspection for essays/apps.

Alternatively, it can also be cathartic to do some volunteer work. It certainly would put a smile on someone's face and perhaps provide some different perspective on life.

</comment><comment><USER35> The "take a break" is spot on but I think a lot of burnout/loss of passion is related to what sort of work you are doing. If you are "paying your dues" in job that doesn't interest or challenge you it's going to be hard to stay excited. I look forward to going to work (almost) every day and I've been a software developer as long as you've been alive. At one point I was getting burnt out doing C++ and then C#/.NET came along and all the "newness" reinvigorated me. Maybe you need to change jobs or technologies?

</comment><comment><USER36> There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding exactly how passion works and what causes people to enjoy their work. Cal Newport wrote a very good book that dispels many of the myths surrounding the idea of passion and loving your work that might help you diagnose what's bringing you down and how to get past it: [http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore- You/dp/145550912...](http://www.amazon.com/Good-They-Cant-Ignore- You/dp/1455509124/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0)

</comment><comment><USER37> Been through the same too, it was about your age at the time too - wonder if that's a common theme.

I fixed it with a change of direction. I'd been tackling a bunch of stuff that my heart wasn't in, figured out what i did still like (turns out i wasnt doing _any_ of it day to day), engineered a change of circumstances at work and popped out the other end feeling happy again.

End to end about 4 months. Did involve a fair amount of persuasion - what i wanted to do didn't fit with the organisation at the time.

</comment><comment><USER38> In my early twenties I got tired of programming and started studying history at the university instead. I lasted about two years, at which time I had so much freelance programming work that I couldn't focus on the studies enough to pass tests. So I dropped out and got back into programming.

Not only did I regain my passion for programming, but I actually like to believe that the skills I learned there made me a better programmer to boot.

TLDR; You're young - Try something different for a while.

</comment><comment><USER39> Last time I felt like that I had a serious vitamin B12 deficiency. Not that I agree with all the responses here but you could also get you annual medical checkup

</comment><comment><USER40> I lost interested in everything for.. a while, right around when I was diagnosed with depression. After eventually getting on the right brain medicine, I found my desire to work on the things I enjoy came back with a vengeance. Now I just need to make sure it doesn't happen again :)

</comment><comment><USER41> I dated a Biochemist for a while to get out of my burn out. The effects were chemically soothing.

</comment><comment><USER42> Change is as good as a rest. I've certainly found that to be the case when these sorts of feelings manifest. Working on a different team, a different project, a different boss or company down the street often completely refreshes your outlook.

</comment><comment><USER43> Youthful enthusiasms subside, tastes evolve, you mature. Programming is cool as an unpressured activity, less so with bosses and customers demanding results. Do something else, you may not come back to it.

</comment><comment><USER44> You need to take a vacation/sabbatical where you don't touch anything electronic. Get your head out of the game, your passion may return.

</comment><comment><USER45> Take a vacation from it.

</comment><comment><USER46> I started Scuba diving, now I got two passions..

</comment><comment><USER47> Read Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson.</comment>


Maine town tries to charge MuckRock $750 for opening an email - <AUTHOR> https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/nov/16/maine-750/ <comment><USER2> > We won't be paying the $750 because according to the Maine Freedom of Access > Act, if the cost to fulfill the request exceeds $30, the requester must be > notified in advance.

In the US, when you ask a government for documents, they can charge you a fee determined by formulas in various laws, usually $x per researcher hour, to track down said document and send it to you. If the estimated cost exceeds $y, they have to ask your permission first. $750 sounds wildly unreasonable for a PDF that I'm sure every administrative employee in this small town already had in their inbox, but then I'm not familiar with the Maine law.

The title should be: "We made a FOIA-like request and the town made a bureaucratic error wrt billing", but that generates fewer clicks.

<comment><AUTHOR> The law is different for every state and for the federal government. Fees are allowed for requests, but they can be challenged if exorbitant. Which is what requesters do, and which is why governments aren't nickel-and-diming you for every type of request, nor do they automatically resort to a large fee as a deterrent.

The Maine law states this:

> _A person may inspect or copy any public record in the office of the agency > or official during reasonable office hours. The agency or official shall > mail the copy upon request. The agency may charge a reasonable fee to cover > the cost of making the copies for you, as well as actual mailing costs. 1 > M.R.S. § 408-A(1), (2), (8)(E)_

[http://www.maine.gov/foaa/faq/](http://www.maine.gov/foaa/faq/)

States have even less defense if there is no print out or delivery cost on their end.

In any case, your criticism about the headline is unwarranted. The article clearly states the issue: that the government is _not_ allowed to assess a fee _before_ fulfilling the request.

The content of the agency's reply does not suggest a "bureaucratic error". They explicitly state their reasoning and the conditions of assessing the fee. This would indicate willful action on their part to deter their responsibility to the law, so the headline accurately sums up the situation. And the OP also links to their research on the Maine law that finds the fee to be $15/hour:

[https://www.muckrock.com/place/united-states-of- america/main...](https://www.muckrock.com/place/united-states-of- america/maine/)

edit: * Maine; added reference to the content of the response

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My husband FOIA's every day it seems, and sometimes he pays fees. I think it's perfectly reasonable for a government to charge a modest fee for research, retrieval, printing, etc. Otherwise you might get trolls FOIA'ing huge amounts of stuff just because they can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Many public records laws do allow for a fee, or at least a delay if the search requires extensive work. However, the counter-argument is that if fees go unchallenged, they not only become a defense against following the public records law, they reduce incentive for the government to actively be more efficient in disseminating records. There'd be much less incentive for a government to publish online if they were able to charge for any kind of work.

In this case, $750 to email a PDF is not at all a reasonable request.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the fee for opening the email or the attachment? If the email says opening the attachment incurs a fee, does that constitute advance notice?

<comment><USER5> You can't send an envelope through the USPS with two letters, the first saying that if you read the second you owe them $750.

I'm sure Muckrock has a larger legal force than a city of 20,000 in Maine.

<comment><USER4> Unsolicited? No. But if I ask you to send me the letter, things can be different.

Consider if the attachment were a password protected zip, password "iagreetopay". Does opening the zip indicate consent?

<comment><USER6> It doesn't unless there is an agreed upon contract.

<comment><USER4> So in one world, Maine emails back "that report costs $750. Agree or disagree?" If you agree, you mail them a check, and two weeks later they process the payment and send the report. Apparently that's ok.

But it's kind of slow and tedious. They can expedite the process by just including the report. Open if you agree. Delete if you don't. Or even defer the decision until later, but there's an "instant unlock" option available at any time. That seems a lot better than the above alternative.

Maybe Maine flubbed the implementation, but it seems like a "for your consideration upon agreement" facility should exist that doesn't require multiple round trips. Certainly more convenient than the alternative.

<comment><USER6> I would argue that $750 to email a copy of a proposal is not "reasonable." I don't see anywhere in the statue that allows for payment of legal fees:

[http://www.maine.gov/foaa/faq/index.shtml](http://www.maine.gov/foaa/faq/index.shtml)

This is all irrelevant if they sent the information before agreeing on payment terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As they say - any publicity is good publicity. Anyone talking Amazon proposal will now also discuss this stunt from Brunswick.

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow. I don't know whether to classify this as beaurocratic incompetence, bloat, or malice.

<comment><USER9> If it's any consolation, Brunswick probably wont win the bid. Amazon will probably pick a much larger city in the Eastern US that has a healthier/larger talent pool.

<comment><USER10> Brunswick does have a lot of cheap land - at least by urban standards, and it's a stone's throw from Portland. I haven't been following the news back home, but I've got to imagine that this involved the old Brunswick Naval Air Station location. They've been trying to follow the model Portsmouth is charting with the now-closed Pease Air Force Base, but with less success.

<comment><USER11> Up here, we still consider Brunswick to be Northern Massachusetts.

Why does that matter? Nowhere in what my neighbors consider Maine actually wants Amazon. But, BNAS might be a brilliant location for it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A former Microsoft employee is suing over sex discrimination - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sued-over-sex-discrimination-2015-9 <comment><USER2> > Non-engineer "policy wonk" feminist

> Regularly attends female-only conferences

> Regularly shares female-only shortlist articles

> No proof that women are paid less or discriminated against, CEO has looked > into it

hmmmm.... call me unsympathetic but we've seen this crap being pulled before. These conferences indoctrinate women with a victim mentality.

<comment><USER3> "Microsoft investigated and concluded that he had in fact been sexually harassing female employees." A quote from the article.

<comment><USER4> The complaint calls stack ranking sexist, and calls for the suit to be made into a class action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awful to hear about this, Katie (@k8em0) has been a hugely positive force for Microsoft's security team. Definitely the most visible champion of their bug bounty programs and responsible disclosure practices.

</comment><comment><USER6> _The new Ellen Pao his here, suing an employer over sex discrimination: former Microsoftie Katie Moussouris._

Well, at least this reporter is up front and honest that the news and it's readers don't give a single fuck about the person in question, just new entries in the serial drama narrative the news crafts around sexism.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unsurprising, but disappointed, that the article opens by typing one woman losing a gender discrimination to the claims of another. The Microsoft CEO told women to shut up and accept what they are given. Not really surprised at the suit.

Meanwhile, the Business Insider author appears to be semi-literate and they do not seem to employ an editor.

>The new Ellen Pao his here

>She also says she lost out on a promotion opportunity in 2012 while she on maternity leave.

>...many women supported Pao and was happy that she brought public attention to the situation.

<comment><USER4> > The Microsoft CEO told women to shut up and accept what they are given.

"Women should $x" does not implicitly mean "Men shouldn't $x."

I expect that most CEOs would like _all_ of their employees to shut up and accept what they are given.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can read her civil complaint here: [https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/wawd/220713/1-0.h...](https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/wawd/220713/1-0.html)

It's interesting reading.

</comment><comment><USER9> > The new Ellen Pao his here, suing an employer over sex discrimination..

Surely it's some kind of record to have a typo five words into the article.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's impossible for me to know about what happened to the ex employee. That said, class action seems to be a strategy to bolster the image of the suit by making it more visible.

If it's clear the clams are truthful, then hope the plaintiff prevails. That said, given some people statistically will be overcompensated and others undercompensated as a consequence of imperfect measure and assessment, how can companies guard against this kind of phenomenon which is bound to happen in companies with thousands of employees? That is, if on average things are proper, but individually, some individuals are disadvantaged, what can be done?

</comment><comment><USER4> Reading the complaint, it's clear that, if true, the plaintiff was discriminated against, but it's not immediately clear if it was because she was a woman or if it was because she was a bad employee.</comment>


China net hijacking may be random mistake - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f5cc4ba-f437-11df-89a6-00144feab49a.html#axzz15uFZK41U

<comment><USER2> Sometimes I feel news stories also operate under the mantra: "release early, update often."</comment>


Internet.org Is Not Neutral, Not Secure, and Not the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg-not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet <comment><USER3> I don't know what Zuckerberg has in mind, but in India at least, there have been literally a million[1] mails sent to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in favour of Net Neutrality: and hence India has taken a negative stance on Internet.org, since it sets a wrong precedent.

So yeah, we don't need first world people to speak for us saying how it's helping the poor and stuff.

If they are so interested in connecting the poor, then they can just allocate a certain amount of data for consumption rather than act as gatekeepers.

Also, Facebook is a corporation aiming to increase their shareholders money. Why would anybody trust them with Internet.org? Wikipedia is non-profit, so it's fine with me if it's offered for free.

[1] : [http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/trai-receives- over-1-m...](http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/trai-receives- over-1-million-petitions-on-net-neutrality-685028)

<comment><USER4> This is so right. It's not that the rich countries can't do anything to help, but that they are so often clueless in their approach. Internet.org is one such example even if you assume it's well-meaning.

This reminds me of all the ridiculous cheap laptops for the Third World projects - all of which completely failed. Meanwhile the factories in China keep churning out ever-cheaper laptops and phones which are having a real impact without any of the grandiose talk about Helping The Poor.

Cheaper laptops work. Laptops with hand-cranks because The Poor Don't Have Electricity don't. Internet.org is at best the Internet with a hand-crank. It's not even a step towards solving the problem.

<comment><USER5> And I wonder what the problem is exactly? Getting internet to the poor?

How about the mobile network providers first stop robbing them blind with numerous scams and offers with hidden costs and ambiguous claims?

"New offer! Reduce your call charge to .9 Rs per 60 seconds when when you charge[1] for 350 Rs".

\--Charges with 350 Rs.--

"Congratulations. Now you just need to charge again to enjoy the offer you just paid 350 Rs for!!"

Yes, that is the kind of exploitation that can happen with things like this, and there is not one damn thing that the poor can do about it.

[1]. Around here in India, "Charging" refers to adding prepaid talk time to a mobile connection often by purchasing a coupon.

<comment><USER6> This is sort of veering off topic, but it does seem appropriate to mention in this context..

They have similar nonsense in Mexico, Carlos Slim (incidentally the majority shareholder of the NY Times) make billions off of the backs of the poor in Mexico. The cell phone costs in Mexico are more expensive than in the US. So when adjusted by purchasing power, cell phones represent a huge financial burden on those least able to afford it but most likely to need it (due to decayed or non-existent telecom infrastructure in many parts of the country.)

If you want to see the effects of limiting competition (especially on the poor), Mexico is a case study. Before the Downvote Brigade starts naming Telcel competitors, one must remember that Carlos had an over 5 year monopoly on telecoms in Mexico before other market entrants were allowed to join the market, so essentially Carlos Slim and Co. were able to own the market before they had to compete, however by the time competition happened, they had a massive head start. Slim also owns/controls Telmex giving him almost total control of the internet infrastructure (and land lines) as well as cellular infrastructure. Mexico is a place where your cell phone plan might include "5 SMS messages a month" as part of your plan. That's right, 5. There's a reason WhatsApp just went nuts down there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > By setting themselves up as gatekeepers for free access to (portions of) the > global Internet, Facebook and its partners have issued an open invitation > for governments and special interest groups to lobby, cajole or threaten > them to withhold particular content from their service. In other words, > Internet.org would be much easier to censor than a true global Internet.

IMO, this is the key argument against Internet.org. Internet needs to be decentralized to truly remain a populist medium. Facebook knowingly or unknowingly is sowing the seeds for fracturing and killing off free, unrestricted access to the internet.

<comment><USER8> It's a Microsoft strategy.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish)

Doesn't Zuck have enough of the Internet?

<comment><USER9> Or the AOL strategy. Both failed, but that doesn't mean this will.

I can imagine Facebook would have thrived on AOL or MSN (or teletext). Zuck wouldn't have been able to start it from his college room though.

<comment><USER10> > Both failed, but that doesn't mean this will.

In the end, yes, they did fail. But untill that day, they managed to stiffle progress and do great harm to otherwise good and valuable initiatives and technologies.

So, even if internet.org will fail at some point in future, it has a great potential for harm untill that day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "You can have all the free Monsanto brand water you want, but only to irrigate Monsanto seeds. You know, the ones that require Roundup by Monsanto to grow and don't create viable seeds of their own to replant or resell. You can't drink it, and you certainly can't build your own seed business that might compete with Monsanto either."

Getting any bits there and back at all is the hard and expensive part. A forum full of people who make a living because the internet is an open, p2p network, and we are really in favor of turning it into a TV with only one channel for billons of people just so Facebook can get a better ROI?

Congratulations: your next startup won't be viable in third world countries and your job is safe from all those people who might start their own start up or learn to code there.

Make no mistake: this is business development, not charity.

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet- org/participat...](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/internet- org/participation-guidelines)

> Any data (e.g., proxy requests) or reporting we provide is deemed Facebook > confidential information and cannot be used by you for any advertising > purposes or shared with third parties.

So they are putting a giant adblock on all of the internet.org sites? How is that in any way neutral/productive/fair?

<comment><USER13> So...they can be the ones that serve ads. This is pretty obvious, isn't it?

<comment><USER14> Facebook doesn't serve ads on facebook.com when accessed via Internet.org.

<comment><USER13> ...yet

<comment><USER15> Facebook serves ads only in countries where it is actually profitable to do so. Why would this change?

<comment><USER13> You're assuming it's not profitable to run ads in 3rd world countries? Have you tried that?

You're assuming that that won't change? Countries won't gain capital influence? You don't think that might affect spending habits & advertisers won't adjust? You really want to make that bet?

<comment><USER15> I'm not assuming anything. I'm only stating a fact. It might very well change. If people don't have disposable income, how could it be profitable to advertise to them? But if the country itself develops a stronger economy, sure, then it may become profitable to advertise to its people. And at that point, everybody is winning.

<comment><USER13> > Have you tried that?

You didn't answer the question.

Oftentimes, other languages or undeveloped areas are MORE profitable because there's less competition.

Also, I laid out out how it might actually CHANGE - which was a direct response to your question "why would it change?" Now you're asserting it very well might change?

I don't understand your argument.

<comment><USER16> There is also less regulation. And there are also lots lots of people. And their economies grow much faster than the first world's. And they haven't yet maxed all their credit cards.

The ammount of money that can be made in the thirld world is staggering. Another case of shlep blindness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's the classic Seinfeld "muffin tops" problem:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jGeIwebvk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6jGeIwebvk)

Giving away free stuff isn't enough. People feel entitled to _the best stuff_ for free, not just the free stuff you gave them. And if you offer the alternative of "then don't use the free stuff we're trying to give you" all you'll do is make them more angry at you.

You just can't stop people from looking a gift horse in the mouth.

<comment><USER18> How would you feel about me giving your kids free cigarettes and painkillers?

<comment><USER19> As far as I can tell, Facebook is offering free access to websites whose operators agree not to be burdensome on the network. That is nothing like cigarettes, and analogizing poor people to children seems a bit degrading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I hear people try and describe this Internet.org in terms of how Facebook will have control over what information huge numbers of people can access.

Thats a distortion of the the way Zuckerberg presents the effort though. He seems to really want to give the impression that this is about helping people— and not about the power of being the filter through which all information and commerce has to flow. The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.

<comment><USER7> > The poor in India etc will almost surely have the option of giving up their > free plan and paying for the Internet, and then Facebook will have just > served as a stepping stone and aid along the way to 'full' Internet access.

This is not going to happen the way the Indian telecoms are screwing up Net Neutrality. Internet.org is only part of the problem. Indian telecoms want to charge extra for OTT (over the top) services. This includes many internet messaging (ex: whatsapp) and VOIP (ex: skype) services. Internet.org sets a bad precedent where the telecoms can come up with various packages that are "free" while charging exorbitant amounts of money for the rest of the internet.

<comment><USER21> I'm all for keeping the net neutral. But let me play the devil's advocate here: When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum (there was an auction for the spectrum), how can you dictate what services they should charge for and what services they shouldn't charge for ? The spectrum is a public resource, but when the telecoms have paid for it, aren't they entitled to charge for the services they provide ?

<comment><USER22> When the telecoms have paid for the spectrum, why can't they dictate what phone numbers you can call?

<comment><USER21> To be sure, there are numbers that are toll free and the receiving party is charged for calling, much like the arrangement that Indian telecoms are proposing to get into with e-com sites like Flipkart. Toll-free numbers can be seen as incentives to call a particular number more than others. Aren't they violating the "Telephony Neutrality" principle ?

<comment><USER22> Yes, I am aware of toll free numbers and the like. The phone number analogy is not quite suitable as a counterargument against internet.org, but it was not meant to be one either. It was more a conter to the devil's advocate line of questions.

The tariff and regulatory structure of telephony is different from internet access. "Telephony Neutrality" basically says that you can call anybody you like as long as you can afford it _and_ you are free to receive phone calls from anybody.

Internet.org is thus more like: "you can call these toll free numbers, but you cannot receive calls from anybody we haven't preapproved".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Facebook and other companies are trying to make a fool out of people in developing words, Internet.org is trying to break the internet actually.

<comment><USER24> world _

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I posted about internet.org not supporting SSL/TLS two weeks ago, didn't get any upvotes: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9493253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9493253)

I'm really glad the EFF is making a broader audience aware of some of these issues.

</comment><comment><USER26> There's a lot of back and forth between "we applaud Facebook for this initiative" and "But that's not the right way to do it" in this piece. I usually find EFF articles well written but this one was particularly painful to read and not really insightful either.

<comment><USER27> If you prefer polarized opinions you can find that on any mainstream news venue. In real life people tend to have nuanced and conflicted opinions about many things.

<comment><USER26> > If you prefer polarized opinions you can find that on any mainstream news > venue

I'm fine with balanced opinions but there is no need to do the back and forth multiple times through the same article.

<comment><USER28> I actually respected the way they did that.

They're trying to make some very serious criticisms without detracting too much from the fact that Internet.org actually got off their arses to do something about the digital divide.

I think its fair. They're trying to give some degree of credit where its due, as opposed to an all out attack. Its hard for me personally to agree with an all out attack piece when I'm conscious of the seemingly good intentions of the project (conspiracies aside).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This article is straight up more nuanced than I was expecting.

</comment><comment><USER30> There is an open letter signed by 65 advocacy organizations in 31 countries against Internet.org [https://www.facebook.com/notes/accessnoworg/open-letter- to-m...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/accessnoworg/open-letter-to-mark- zuckerberg-regarding-internetorg-net-neutrality-privacy-and-/935857379791271)

</comment><comment><USER31> This is pretty easy to stop.

Supply the poor with open free internet.

Oh wait, then you'd have to stop being a bunch of whiny privileged people and spend your own time and, god forbid some of your own money helping the poor.

Helping the true poor is going to have a catch, there is no utopian society that's going to do it instead, grow up.

Television, which is generally consider to be very positive in impoverished countries, especially around issues like equality, had ads.

And the stations lock users down to their content often using monopolies in radio spectrum. All the while the world goes on as it always does, helping not at all.

<comment><USER32> I have an even easier way, lets find a hack. Lets find a way to use this pipe that Facebook is building to allow access to the wider internet. Lets make it easy, like popcorn time and then lets give it away for free.

<comment><USER33> Popularise tunneling? It can already be done, and they can't easily stop people from sharing information between Facebook and the outside, the _real_ Internet.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8171477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8171477)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203946](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9203946)

What they can do, however, is severely limit the bandwidth this way; it's not net-neutral at all, but tunneling does effectively break out of the walled garden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is one of those things that I don't understand, don't have time to research but just inherently don't trust because it is a corporation that I don't trust disguised as a "dot org" when I can just feel their are ulterior motives.

<comment><USER12> dot org isn't like dot edu where you have to verify anything. I actually bought a dot org it was as easy as a dot com. It's not really meant to look/be "trustworthy"...

<comment><USER35> That the .org TLD is open to anyone is a shame, and that it's used like this is even worse.

I know it will probably be an unpopular view here, but I actually quite like the approaches taken by Australia (where I grew up) and Thailand (where I live and run my business now)

In Australia you have to be a registered non-profit to get a .org.au domain, and you have to have an ABN or ACN to get a .com.au or .net.au. In the case of commercial domains, while it isn't checked at registration, if your domain name isn't somehow related to your company/brand name, (or even if it is and you aren't using it actively) you can lose it.

In Thailand, your .co.th domain name _must_ match your company name - e.g. if you have HappyHamburger Co., Ltd, you can only register happyhamburger.co.th - this means new companies don't need to rush out and make sure they get the domain matching their company name (or even that it might be taken) to prevent squatters.

<comment><USER36> It being open to anyone isn't bad. It allows groups not formally incorporated as charities to have them, and many of those groups are befitting of a .org domain.

<comment><USER35> I don't know about the U.S., but in Australia a non-profit org is not necessarily a charity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> One does not simply call oneself the 'Internet', and act in its name, and behalf. There's all kinds of wrong with this.

<comment><USER38> No, that's pretty much the only thing I find wrong with it. And if they are willing to share the name once other groups start their own similar programs, I would even withdraw that objection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> 2/3 of humanity isn't connected to the internet they say, but the problem here is that 2/3 of the population probably isn't having their basic needs met on a day to day basis. Just take for example the bathroom situation in India, let alone Africa. I don't think these people give much of a damn about getting on the internet to update their status.

<comment><USER40> maybe someone with unmet basic needs would make a better use of the Internet then the average Facebook user, but that's just a guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Maybe this is just like the debate around driverless cars. "They're not perfect!", they say. "They're flawed just like anything else.", they say.

Well, they don't have to be perfect; they just have to be better than humans. And it turns out that's pretty easy.

So maybe rather than beat up on internet.org because it's not free as in perfection, maybe we should be happy that a billion dollar corporation is trying to do SOMETHING to help 4 billion people who can't afford the current option.

It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be better, for those billions of people with no access to the internet, than having nothing at all. And I think they are meeting that and far above it.

<comment><USER22> The correct solution is to make real, uncensored internet access available and affordable to the masses, not to provide a better version of the North Korean intranet for free.

<comment><USER15> There's an important difference between "right" and "good". Providing free basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is doing that. Many people argue, validly, that the manner in which they're doing so is not right.

But that's as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to people is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria itself. That's probably true, but the practical thing to do _right now_ is what's good, not necessarily what's right. And you can work on both fronts at once: they're orthogonal.

I don't pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable than myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be done.

<comment><USER22> > Providing free basic internet access is clearly good, and internet.org is > doing that.

If it were only so. I would have no issue with internet.org if they provided free basic internet access. They do not, and this is a VERY important distinction. Internet.org is a gated community with a gatekeeper and no security. It is like AOL or an intranet. It is by definition limited, excluding and discriminatory. It is very much not free basic internet.

> But that's as if I were to tell you that giving anti-malarial drugs to > people is wrong, because the right thing to do is to eradicate malaria > itself.

The malaria analogy is a straw man. The resources and effort required to eradicate malaria are vastly larger than the effort and resources required to distribute anti-malaria drugs to a group of infected people. If they were the same it would obviously be both good and right to eradicate malaria. However, they are not.

The effort and resources to provide a gated internet.org and the effort and resources to provide an open internet.org are the same. Thus it is both good and right to provide an open internet.org.

> I don't pretend to understand the massive logistical challenges involved in > implementing this, and it makes me sigh when others no more knowledgeable > than myself make armchair proclamations about what should or should not be > done.

Unlike you, _I_ do know what I am talking about having made a career in the telecoms industry.

Feeling good about internet.org is about as smart as feeling good about price dumping. All short turn gain for long term loss. Or if you feel like a more concrete example, it's about as smart as pissing in your pants when you are cold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Anybody else getting a 404?

<comment><USER43> Here's a cached version:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/internetorg- not-neutral-not-secure-and-not-internet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > been pitched as a philanthropic initiative ...

With strings attached. It's like giving someone money & telling "you can only buy products that I approve of...". _(Missing fine print: we will track you and trap you into buying these for as long as we can)._

No matter how much they twist the motivations, given their history, I've no faith in them doing any good, except for their bank accounts. It's one company that has shown utter disregard for the privacy of their users.

The primary aim of internet.org is to map and build a deep graph of every living being and bolster Facebook's monopoly. In the short term, some might applaud the "free" internet carrot but the whole concept is detrimental to innovation in the long term. Either provide "real" internet without any strings attached, or else don't be surreptitious about your intentions and claim to do it for the good of humanity.

Billions of people would be happy accessing the free-but-limited internet and wouldn't have any privacy concerns. However their privacy isn't the only issue here. The problem is that these people would be unknowingly contributing to the success of the walled garden developed by FB & friends. In the future, companies aligned with them will have access to a trove of data & eyeballs. Those that aren't aligned or want to compete with them, would be shut out. This is anti-competitive. One might argue that without internet.org, these people would not have contributed anyway. However, the premise of "free" will result in a lot of paying customers to switch. And, many of those who don't have an internet connection today, might get one in the near future. One that's low speed and perhaps subsidized by the government. To understand that, you have to look at the growth rate of mobiles in 3rd world countries. The bottom of the pyramid does contribute to the success of many tier-3 cellphone manufacturers. There are people who earn less than a dollar a day but they stay connected with a mobile phone. With a connection that's not limited by any corporation.

As the old saying goes, "there's no such thing as free ...". One way or the other, someone has to pay for the internet. It's not going to come out of the FB shareholders pockets. The question we need to ask is, who is actually paying for it and what's the actual cost (not literal cost) to this freebie.

It would be a lot better if the government or a neutral organization like Mozilla takes up this initiative. I would be happy to contribute to an initiative that provides free or subsidized internet to the masses. An internet, where there's no restriction on which site you can visit. An internet, where nobody will track you or collect your data or re-sell it.

<comment><USER45> "Here are some charity donated food vouchers. You can only isethem to buy food from KFC, McDonalds, or IHOP. Of course you can use them to buy any food you like, but that will cost extra".

<comment><USER38> Thanks! I haven't had anything to eat for days, this is a real help!

<comment><USER46> Please feel free to be so flippant several years from now when you are obese, undernourished, and diabetic; as well as being financially dependent on food assistance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I think maybe the main issue with this rhetoric is the assumption that it's any of our business what facebook does with mobile characters in somebody else's country.

This is probably none of your business.

That being said, it would be nice to engineer a way to meet the bandwidth and content requirements without losing cryptographic integrity, but that's of secondary importance to getting another billion people reading Wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER48> I would feel better about this initiative if it were being carried out by a neutral party (a charitable organization for instance) rather than Facebook. As it is I don't think it's a good idea. It has the potential to undermine the real internet by trapping people in "good enough" service and the motives are highly suspect. I'm hopeful governments will tend to agree.

<comment><USER38> It's providing them a free service that is by your own words, "good enough" when they currently have nothing, and you are calling that a bad thing? Come on.

<comment><USER22> "Good enough" is not really good enough and even if it were good enough for now, it will most definitely not be good enough in the future.

If "good enough" displaces or prevents real and open internet access from becoming a reality for all users then it is a very bad thing.

<comment><USER38> >Why yes, the perfect IS the enemy of the good.

<comment><USER22> What point are you trying to make? For clarity, I haven't said anything about perfect. That being said "good enough" and good are two very different things, especially with internet.org defined as "good enough". Let's have internet.org offer a non-walled, non-discriminatory service and I'll be happy enough to call it good, even if it is far from perfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Isn't this just what AOL was in the US in the 1990's? When the "open" internet got better than the walled garden AOL provided, people switched. But AOL was a critical step in getting the masses onto the internet in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER50> We need a system where everything is cached what is posted on HN. Here is one more cached version; [https://archive.is/SmC8U](https://archive.is/SmC8U)

</comment><comment><USER51> Not to oversimplify this (things are not black and white etc. etc.), but it seems like the world is in a constant struggle between cynicism, greed, egotism and hypocrisy on one hand vs. idealism, generosity, selflessness and integrity on the other. In many cases, the former wins. Internet.org is just another one of these cases. Hopefully, there will be enough initiatives without a hidden agenda to balance it out.

</comment><comment><USER52> At least when netzero did this 15 years back they werent trying to pose themselves as a philanthropy...

</comment><comment><USER53> Poor people need internet and they don't care if someone spies them when they are browsing wikipedia.

People making these arguments have never been to 3rd world countries, I assume.

Privacy comes at the top of Maslow's pyramid, we are talking about basic needs here.

<comment><USER54> _Privacy comes at the top of Maslow 's pyramid, we are talking about basic needs here._

This has nothing to do with basic needs of the recipients and everything to do with cementing Facebook's stranglehold on social networking in the developing world. There's no "next step" from here that would make Internet.org a reasonable path on a community's technological development -- this is a dead end.

<comment><USER53> The government is not doing anything to further the internet reach - <USER2> is doing it, who cares if there is a vested interest as long as the benefit is much more.

When you buy medicine it makes the pharmaceutical companies cement their stranglehold in medicine world.

<comment><USER22> Facebook is not doing anything to further the internet reach. All they are doing is furthering the reach of their walled garden. There is little to no longterm benefit from this.

<comment><USER55> You consider wikipedia part of facebook's walled garden? Or you just don't see any benefit to providing poor people around the world with access to it?

<comment><USER22> It's their wall and their garden. If Facebook says Wikipedia can be included in their walled garden then obviously it is part of their walled garden.

Beside the above obvious point, the real point is not whether there is a benefit to providing access to Wikipedia with strings attached. The real point is this: are we giving up more than we are getting if we consent to Facebook zero rating some content and putting up walls to deny access to everything else?

My personal option is that the bargain is very bad for all parties involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> free internet.org access is not so free after all. It's philanthropy outside, but scam inside. Let me put in to context. Most of the people in developing countries use android based smartphones. And users can't control the application connections in android phones due to its creepy structure- any app can run anytime in the background. On the other hand, mobile operators mention that any traffic other than internet.org supported sites will be charged at usual price. So, when users enable their data connection in mobile devices to use internet.org free service, a bunch of apps connect to other servers to update, and/or sync. So, users end up paying for data anyway.

If Facebook wants to do real philanthropy, they should do it right. Develop and distribute an android app that will disable internet communication for all the apps (user controlled) and will only connect to the free services.

</comment><comment><USER57> electronic frontier foundation is non democratic, not inclusive and not the internet.

</comment><comment><USER58> ...and not found :/

</comment><comment><USER59> WOW Huge bullshit on this website (internet.org). The story with Neesha tells us that her father "knows impressive tricks. But let's get Neesha online and see some real magic" OMG, of course, you need internet to live. Of course real life is not as magical as fake facebook friends. Of course, Neesha's father tricks are not as magic as internet... How condescending colonialist shit is this web site ?!

<comment><USER45> For a better example of how Internet connectivity can help people in developing nations see these Internet huts used by refugees.

[http://www.trust.org/slideshow/?id=356b4ab3-7e12-440f-9781-b...](http://www.trust.org/slideshow/?id=356b4ab3-7e12-440f-9781-b40d97df7b89)

> > Abdul Salam, a 47-year-old Rohingya, asks a friend in Malaysia for advice > [...]. His friend Muhammad Rafiq, a Rohingya in Thae Chaung village, has a > son held by traffickers, and they are raising the money to pay the ransom. > Abdul Salam's question is: How can he be sure the trafficker, once paid, > will let the boy go?</comment></comment>


Airbnb's worst problems are confirmed by its own data - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/4/9849242/airbnb-data-new-york-affordable-housing-illegal-hotels <comment><USER2> What a weirdly written article, describing data analysis with _zero_ tabulated data and visualizations.

The Terms and Conditions for using the AirBNB dataset must be incredibly restrictive.</comment>


How M.I.T. Ensnared a Hacker, Bucking a Freewheeling Culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/technology/how-mit-ensnared-a-hacker-bucking-a-freewheeling-culture.html?hpw&_r=0 <comment><USER2> In order to understand why this incident was even more shocking than usual, one just needs to read this snippet

        The arrest shocked friends of Mr. Swartz, as well as
        M.I.T. alumni. Brewster Kahle, an M.I.T. graduate and
        founder of the digital library Internet Archive, where
        Mr. Swartz gave programming assistance, wrote: "When I
        was at M.I.T., if someone went to hack the system, say
        by downloading databases to play with them, might be
        called a hero, get a degree, and start a company. But
        they called the cops on him. Cops."

I find the change of perspective - from hero to criminal - from MIT quite astonishing. I wonder if this incident makes current students wary about the change in _MIT ethos_.

<comment><USER3> _I wonder if this incident makes current students wary about the change in MIT ethos._

As an alum, I don't see a change in ethos. During my time there ('91 to '95) things were open, but if you were doing something that the institute considered improper they asked you to stop. If you persisted in the behavior, they escalated the response. In my four years there, I witnessed this philosophy applied to drinking, trespassing in forbidden places (roofs for example), harassing behavior and yes, behavior on the network.

Students often "explored" the network (myself included) but it was possible to go too far.

(no, I don't think Swartz's transgressions warranted multiple years in prison and the whole situation is a tragedy)

<comment><USER4> I don't think this is only MIT. It's just a new ecosystem growing up. I remember when spoofing a superior's email was fun. I remember when accessing other people's emails via misconfiguration, etc. was 'fun'. I remember when very few paces had any kind of firewall.

None of these things are true any longer. As things mature, they take on a new importance and are treated as such.

When the first aeroplanes were around, did one need to get a pilot's license (no), could you buzz buildings (yes)? When the first autos came about, where there any traffic regulations? Nope. They were both freewheeling till they took on importance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "At 9:44 a.m. the M.I.T. police were called in; by 10:30 a.m., the Cambridge police were en route, and by 11 a.m., Michael Pickett, a Secret Service agent and expert on computer crime, was on the scene. "

Less than 1.5 hours from campus cops to Secret Service _on scene_.

<comment><USER6> The Secret Service office in Boston is a 2 mile drive from MIT. Once you decide to bring in the police, it makes sense that they'll contact specialist law enforcement that focus on computer crimes, especially since the Secret Service is so close.

<comment><USER7> The surprise isn't that they got their easily from their nearby office. It's that they so quickly decided to leave their office.

<comment><USER6> If I were a USSS officer specializing in computer crime and MIT called me after discovering a laptop that was used in an ongoing crime, I'd run like hell because I wouldn't want decisions to be made by the local Cambridge cops since they don't know anything about computer crimes. I mean, if you think the laptop represents a crime scene, you really don't want non-specialists handling it right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _"'M.I.T. had to identify the hacker and assist with his apprehension in order to prevent further abuse,' the government argued in court."_

Or they could have just tried talking to him and giving him a verbal warning.

<comment><USER9> What would a verbal warning have been useful for? He already knew his behavior was unwanted, and that's what verbal warnings are for. He wasn't stupid, so the verbal warnings wouldn't have been the first time that he learned that there were actual laws against unauthorized network access.

Besides, what's there to warn him about, he's 100% right in what he was doing, wasn't he? To hear it from the hacktivists, he did nothing wrong (and so there's nothing to warn him about). If he did do something to warrant a warning then he was already past the point of needing one.

<comment><USER8> First, by talking to him, MIT would have revealed that they knew who he was. That alone might have dissuaded him, as he was clearly acting under the assumption that he had successfully hidden his identity (or otherwise he would not have bothered to hide his face from the camera).

Second, they might have learned his motives and either found another way for him to achieve his objective (perhaps through some sort of compromise) or persuaded him to stop.

Third, they could have made clear to him what the penalties the government was ready to use against him in this case were, and that they had enough evidence to take him to court if he persisted.

Any of these might have been enough to lead to a less tragic outcome than what wound up happening when they immediately threw the book at him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what "activity from China" was.

Also, looks like this went all the way up to the Chancellor, so it's not as if it was just the libraries or someone pushing for this.

<comment><USER11> "Counsel for the government understands that a number of external connections were made and/or attempted to the Acer laptop between January 4, 2011 and January 6, 2011, including from a Linux server at MIT and from China."

("Attempted" means his laptop probably had a public ip address assigned through dhcp and someone was knocking on ports from China. This "attempt" happens constantly 24/7 and is nothing to write home about.)

"7. Exculpatory Evidence. In paragraph H of the government's letter, the government described but refused to provide almost all of certain exculpatory evidence, including evidence that, during the period covered by the indictment, persons other than Mr. Swartz at Harvard, MIT and China accessed the Acer laptop that was seized by the government, and persons other than Mr. Swartz at MIT and elsewhere were engaging in "journal spidering" of JSTOR data using a "virtual computer" that can be hosted by anyone at MIT. The government has no basis for withholding the electronic evidence described as exculpatory in its letter."

<http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/aaronsw-lost-pirate-treasure.txt>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why did MIT call in the secret service right away?

The answer must lie with certain Charles M. Vest who, in 1990, became president of MIT and served in that position until December 2004. He is now MIT professor and president emeritus.

He also happens to be a key member of the board of trustees of Ithaka, the owners of JSTOR.

I would not hold out my breath for MIT investigation criticising its own President Emeritus.

<comment><USER13> I think it's a bigger change than with JSTOR specifically, so I'm skeptical that connection is the root cause. Another example, completely unrelated to IP, is that MIT used to quasi-tolerate tunnel/roof exploration, and in any case certainly didn't report students to the cops for it. But now they charge students with felonies for doing it: <http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N4/hackers.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, is there anything in this story that we didn't know from the indictment? Or any bits of the indictment that have been confirmed by NYT reporters talking to sources who were there? If the NYT is just summarizing the indictment, this doesn't seem very helpful at all.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think one of the keys of this incident resides in the article posted by thaumaturgy (<http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N66/hacking.html>):

"At the meeting, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD '75 told the faculty that administrators were working with the district attorney's office to move the felony trials out of the Cambridge court system to an internal Committee on Discipline process. The charges against the students were dropped on Feb. 28, when the prosecution filed nolle prosequi orders for the three students, indicating that they would not move forward on the charges."

My personal opinion is that following identification by MIT and clarification of his intent, this should have been dealt with internally. While it was totally within the power of the prosecution to persist and press charges, the article shows an example where top MIT management did the right thing and insisted upon dealing with this internally (again: my opinion).

As an MIT student, it worries me that a measured response was not achieved by MIT management in this case. Whether that means MIT should not have called the police and allow uncontrollable escalation or should have done a better job in convincing the prosecution to not press on, I cannot be sure. It is of course also possible that what happened is just a reflection of the prosecution's resolve to treat this with the full force of the law and whatever MIT management may have said fell into deaf ears.

I am unsure what weight each of those has in this sad case and I deeply appreciate President Reif's initiative to carry an internal investigation into MIT's response.

However, two other things bother me with regard to this case. First, it strikes me that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is inadequately broad and allows for dangerous interpretations. Second, it is very scary to think that individuals in the prosecution are insentivized to press for the maximum amount of charges, with little to no regard for proportionality. I can only hope for a system in which sentences are not used as a metric for a prosecutor's competence.

It seems to me that the concept of proportionality -as it is applied in armed conflict- is an essential one when talking about this whole issue. I fear that it is the root failing in this affair both in MIT's inability to treat this internally and later, in the prosecution's attitude towards the case.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish these stupid universities would soon stop mattering and go into oblivion.

</comment><comment><USER16> So not only did Aaron try to hide his crime, he ran away when police tried to talk to him about it? Why are we defending him again?

<comment><USER17> You created an account solely to post this dumb comment?</comment></comment>