Rustconf 2016 – What was cool and what surprised me - <AUTHOR> http://www.agildata.com/rustconf-2016-what-was-cool-and-what-surprised-me/ <comment><USER2> I was fortunate to be able to attend. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not built for conferences: I prefer solitude, and people usually go to conferences to confer. That said, this was an exceptional group of people to be among: smart, friendly, helpful, passionate, and accepting. I know it's been said before: the rust community at this stage of its evolution gets this right.

I also attended the beginner and intermediate training on Friday, and I feel like this pushed me over the hump. Thank you, Steve and Aaron, for presenting the material so well.

I even attended the tokio hackathon on Friday night to push myself out of my comfort zone. I wasn't able to contribute anything that night, but I spent some time troubleshooting a build problem in the tokio-line project, just for the sake of learning.

I would recommend attending next year if you get the opportunity.

<comment><USER3> > That said, this was an exceptional group of people to be among: smart, > friendly, helpful, passionate, and accepting. I know it's been said before: > the rust community at this stage of its evolution gets this right.

I wasn't at the conference, but I've seen the same thing online. I wonder if it's because we've all been humbled by the borrow checker _constantly_ it seems.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it's because Graydon established and enforced a positive culture from the very start -- backed up by a good Code of Conduct -- and everyone since has continued to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was one of the presenters at RustConf this year. Despite being a new conference, the organizers did incredibly well; everything went as smoothly as any of the top tier of Open Source conferences. And of all the Open Source conferences I've been to, I found RustConf by far the most welcoming and energizing; great reflection on both the Rust community and the RustConf organizers.

I've found this about Rust in general: despite being a very new community, it manages to come across as quite mature and established in many ways. For instance, the language's stability-marking infrastructure allows experimentation with new language features _without_ requiring stable applications to build with a nightly compiler because key dependencies want nightly features. Many of the mistakes and missteps that I've seen in new communities, as they rediscover problems from other communities, seem to have been anticipated and avoided in the Rust community.

RustConf was a reflection of that; despite being the first RustConf, it went as smoothly as any established conference that's been running for years.

<comment><USER6> Have you posted you content online? It was an excellent talk. Nice job!

<comment><USER5> > Have you posted you content online?

The video should go up soon. I haven't posted the slides anywhere, but I should fix that.

Ideally, I'd love to see all the slides posted on rustconf.com linked from the talks.

> It was an excellent talk. Nice job!

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let me use the opportunity to advertise the rustfest, Europes first rust conference in Berlin, this upcoming weekend.

[https://rustfest.eu](https://rustfest.eu)

(I'm not part of the orga team, but affiliated)

</comment><comment><USER8> I was also there as one of the presenters, and concur, it was a great experience. The strength of the community is absolutely one of the threads that ran throughout the conference. I've been involved in open source a long a long time and had sadly revised my expectations downward, but Rust is going a long way towards restoring my confidence.

Kudos and thanks to the organizers!

</comment><comment><USER6> There was something Julia Evans said at the end that really struck me as the key to Rust (I can't quote it)

The language gives you the security to try something new, convinces you that a mere mortal (as opposed to a C expert) can write systems level programs without fear. This is an amazing feature of the language.

It's democratizing what used to be exclusive to a low level community.

<comment><USER9> Obligatory links to talk and HN comments:

[http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/09/11/rustconf- keynote/](http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/09/11/rustconf-keynote/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12477211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12477211)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For those interested in more Rust conferences, RustFest is September 17-18 in Berlin (no idea if tickets are still available) and Rust Belt Rust is October 27-28 in Pittsburgh (tickets available at [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rust- belt-rust-conference-regis...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rust-belt-rust- conference-registration-25729515674) ). Yours truly is giving one of the beginner tutorials at the latter, and I'll be handing out custom-machined rusty metal doodads to my attendees. :)

<comment><USER11> I'd really love to be there. My third child will probably be about 3 or 4 weeks old by that time, so I at least have good reason to miss out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I haven't been to many tech conferences, but RustConf was hands down the best I've been to. Classy group of people. Smart, entertaining talks. I can't recommend it enough. There's no doubt in my mind that the quality and diversity of speakers, content, attendees and general atmosphere was due to community that has been curated. And I think that curation has been very intentional and has paid off. It was repeated numerous times that the Rust community is helpful and inviting... including IRC.

(Thanks Steve, I think you're a powerful force in shaping the awesome, welcoming tone in the Rust community)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is the webpage loading for anyone else? I'm being sent the Wordpress PHP code!

<comment><USER14> I have the same problem. Oddly, even using archive.org sends me php code.

<comment><USER15> Me three. Tried it on Chrome/Windows and Safari/Mac, same breakage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> All talks were recorded, we'll have them up at some point.

<comment><USER17> Is there a youtube channel or confreaks we can subscribe to so we can watch them when available?

<comment><USER16> I am 99% sure that it was confreaks who did the recordings, but I'm not sure if there's something you can subscribe to. They'll be tweeted from @rustlang and @rustconf for sure as well as posted to the users' forum, and I can't imagine that /r/rust won't pick them up.

<comment><USER17> Perfect, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Rust is an awesome community. They are patient and helpful to newbies. As oppose to the 2 other communities i know of, the rust community can handle criticisms maturely. Its so refreshing. Cheers to rust!

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't attend many conferences, but I've been to a few and the quality of the speakers at RustConf was above and beyond any I've ever seen. Kudos to everyone that organized the event and spoke at it, it was a great experience!

</comment><comment><USER20> Agreed with my fellow co-speakers. It was humbling to be surround by such brilliant people. But it was also so inspiring to be a part of a community that takes pride in welcoming and empowering every developer, regardless of background.

</comment><comment><USER21> I apologize for being harsh here. But if you're submitting your own articles to HN, I think it might make sense for it to not read like an ad for your company. There is nothing technical in the article, not even links.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand where the assumption that there must be something 'technical' in the post to 'deserve' a place on HN came from, but it's wrong.

<comment><USER6> Agree. Even if it is promoting their own company, this is a great example of someone using new technology to profit.

I get excited when I see this, even if I don't learn anything from the content.</comment></comment></comment>


Please join us for startupweekly chat. - <AUTHOR> http://asable.com/2010/06/join-us-again-for-startupweekly-chat-right-here-today-at-12pm-pst/ Plese join us for startupweekly chat.  Hosted by Giang Biscan producer of Mixergy.  Startupweekly is a weekly chat about startups and entrpreneurship. <comment><AUTHOR> Plese join us for startupweekly chat. Hosted by Giang Biscan producer of Mixergy. Startupweekly is a weekly chat about startups and entrepreneurship.</comment>


Frozen mice cloned; wooly mammoths on horizon - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/03/science-mice.html

<comment><USER2> Forget wooly mammoths, its velociraptor time

<comment><USER3> with wooly mammoth clones we can use surrogate elephant mothers. what surrogate could be used for dinosaurs? we lack the technology for artificial gestation.

<comment><USER4> Good point. Have any egg-laying species been cloned yet? My knowledge of foetal and shell development in egg-laying animals is effectively non- existant. Maybe crocodiles would work? Komodo? Ostrich?

Aside from that of course, dinosaur remains are, as far as I know, all petrified, which is somewhat worse than species that became extinct in the last couple tens of thousands of years.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to find remote job on C/C++? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
I am an engineer experienced mostly with C++, Python and Node.js, total 6 years of experience.
During the last few years I have been having deal mostly with scripting languages, but now I realized that I want to switch back to C++ (or may be better to plain C) because I want to be more close to metal and write code that is really fast. I interested mostly in networking, DSP or implementing of some learning algorithms, and I would like to develop it for GNU/Linux.
The problem is that I am looking for this kind of job only remotely, and it looks for me like jobs of this type are usually on-site. There is a plenty of remote jobs for Node.js or Python, but it is nearly impossible to find a job that suppose working with C++ or C, is remote and not looking for a guru (I do not feel me a junior, but I am not a guru too).
What do you think about it, HN? Am I looking for not good enough, or it is really impossible to find one of such type? <comment><USER2> I work remotely (even though I'm only a half-hour from the office) and practically all of my work is in C. So yes, it's possible to work your way into such a situation. However, that doesn't mean it's easy to get _hired into_ such a position. Many employers are quite reasonably wary of hiring someone who has _never_ worked closely with anyone else on the team. Usually this means working in physical proximity for a while, though exceptions are often made for people who have been deeply involved in an open-source project for a while. Either one serves as "proof" that you can be productive that way, and that proof is what reassures management enough to hire you.

My impression is that companies which aggressively embrace new technologies and markets are also more likely to embrace new management/logistical models such as fully distributed teams. Therefore the pickings overall are better, but mostly in certain technical areas - notably not in low-level areas such as networking and DSP (which you mention). I think you'll have to make some compromise between your preferred technical areas and your preferred working environment, because the overlap between the two isn't very large.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the kind of companies that hire C/C++ engineers are not the same companies that post jobs on rentacoder or whatever it is called today. The companies that have remote positions that you can "find over the internet" tends to be small young shops or possibly single persons implementing in PHP, Ruby-on-Rails or similar platforms that offers high productivity for small scale projects (at least in the short run).

That are plenty of C/C++ jobs inside banks and telecommunications but they will not advertise remote job opportunities and if they to, they do it thru recruitment agencies or consulting firms that subcontracts to freelancers. However I think it is quite possible to build a relationship with say a departement at telco thru regular consulting that eventually will let you work remotely.

It just requires some legwork and that you work on-site in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, it is possible. We are hiring, learn more at [http://Backtrace.io](http://Backtrace.io)

<comment><USER5> Interesting looking product - Not really obvious that you entertain remote workers from your website however, you may want to specifically state that.

(Offtopic - do you support non Intel platforms?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't think there's a correlation between the primary language used at the job and the employer's willingness to allow remote working. Investigate C/C++ listings, see if they allow employees to work remotely. Obviously you'll be expected to appear in-person for the interview, but if they are sufficiently convinced that you can be left alone to get your work done, they might agree to let you work remotely.

<comment><USER7> Certainly there is. I'm currently working on a JSF project for a client ... it's nightmare to bring a new remote developer on board, their environment configured properly, eclipse working, blah blah blah.

My last Django project, a remote developer had the app up and running in their environment and was fixing bugs before lunch to get a feel for our code.

C/C++ jobs tend to be more more like the former than the later. Many C/C++ jobs are not even possible to do remote; the last time I managed a C programmer it was for an application appliance and I would have had to ship them prototype hardware if they were remote.

<comment><USER8> If your build environment is that difficult to setup and undocumented, that's a big problem, whether or not you are remote or an on-site developer.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, but that's often the case with large legacy projects. I'm slowly pushing them to more modern approaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mozilla allows almost every job to be remote and Firefox is written in C/C++. I'm sure there must be other companies :)

<comment><USER10> Remote Mozillian here: can confirm!

<comment><USER11> But not in every country. HR told me that Mozilla can't hire in Georgia (the country in Europe). She contacted me because she initially thought I'm from US state Georgia...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been freelancing for quite a while and I think you can find some projects that you can do in C++. I don't think it's easy to find remote work in, specifically, C++ for several reasons:

1 - Companies want cheap productivity developers (yeah :S), it's very common that they force you to use some hype productive new framework/language regardless of what you think about it.

2 - If a company is going to invest in system level development, it's very hard to find another new decent C++ remote programmer. This is a very critical point. If you fire a javascript/python developer you can find another on in a matter of hours.

3 - If a company needs stuff in C++, probably the company is scaling and needs to recode some components. Usually they have the budget to hire decent C++ developers non remote.

4 - Myths like "C++ is for genius", "You can't be productive in C++", etc.

5 - C++ is not trending these days and it impacts the hiring and/or project stack decisions.

6 - Most remote projects are easy shit, you'll be amazed by the quality of projects and, sometimes, the freelancers hired themselves. Most of the time the projects don't need a fast runtime but new managers.

7 - Agile methodology is often used as an excuse to change the requirements every 2 weeks or so, it's not rare to find such management. You need to have the right tools and community to survive such environments. C++ was my 3rd language but I never used it during freelancing/remote work. Today I feel very comfortable using node because I know this kind of stuff happens, and when it does, it's much better to have things like NPM and a big community just to remain sane and keep up with deadlines.

Keep in my that these "reasons" are based on my personal experience as a freelancer. It's possible to find some remote work for C++ but you'll find to try much harder than, for example,a node/python developer. Try to focus on areas where C++ is critical. If you contribute to well know C++ open source projects, it's just a matter of time to get noticed and hired remotely.

</comment><comment><USER13> You can find plenty of them over at careers.stackoverflow.com. I'm not saying this to evangelize them, but see this link:

[http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=c%2B%2B&job...](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=c%2B%2B&jobType=&location=&range=20&distanceUnits=Km&allowsremote=true)

There are plenty of them available and most pay on an international level. Not the kind of rubbish pay that freelancing sites offer. Since you have some experience with Python and Node, you'll see that you're good for a lot of jobs over there.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is misleading if you examine the search results. At first there are only 5 positions concerned on C++ as a primary language, other just mention C++ as an additional skill. The other three contain Visual Studio in description of the job which means that they are looking for Windows developers, and I not interested in development for Windows.

So there is actually no jobs on stackoverflow careers which satisfy the requirements I mentioned in the question.

<comment><USER14> Indeed the stack overflow search is very misleading and completely useless for figuring out how many "X" jobs are on the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure why the programming language matters. I'm part of a small team that works remotely for a US company (we're in Thailand), and the company couldn't care less about what language(s) we use - they hired us because of what we can build for them and the value we bring to their business.

Having said that, getting the job was more a combination of luck and knowing the right people than anything else. I expect it's harder trying to find advertised jobs.

<comment><USER16> C and JavaScript are suitable for very different tasks, and thus for different clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Do you know anything about audio dsp? I've found jobs in the pro audio industry are pretty easy to do remotely. I do a mix of VST/AU plugins, small audio apps and control surfaces. I get most of my jobs through my network of contacts, but there are a few jobs that get posted here as well: [http://www.juce.com/forums/juce-jobs](http://www.juce.com/forums/juce-jobs)

<comment><USER18> Where do you get started learning about DSP? Any recommended reading?

<comment><USER19> XIPH has a great video series about it. [http://xiph.org/video/](http://xiph.org/video/)

(well that's video, but close enough)

<comment><USER20> "Series" is a bit generous, as it's two videos...

<comment><USER21> ...which have nothing to do with programming DSPs.

<comment><USER20> Well, they certainly contain content that is part of the foundation of DSP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> C++ seems very niche for web development, but it is actually very popular for game development.

Try asking in the /r/gamedev and the /r/gameDevClassifieds subreddits. I'm sure someone is wondering how to contact a C++ developer.

</comment><comment><USER18> I too wonder this. I write C++ for my dayjob and use wxWidgets under Windows and OSX but have used Qt a long time ago, as well as VCL and MFC. I would prefer to avoid MFC and VCL nowadays!

I can also write Java (done that for Android), various bits of SQL (used PostgreSQL, MySQL, MS SQL and Informix), C# where necessary and PHP/JavaScript/HTML but would prefer sticking to C++ nowadays instead of front-end web stuff.

Swift/Obj-C is coming along slowly for me.

I am in the UK and would welcome any interest / work.

<comment><USER18> Replying as too late to edit: this wasn't meant as a hijacking of the thread but it could have been better-worded. Apologies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm working (albeit freelance) remotely on a project that is 100% COBOL at the moment. They have offered full time work for me, so I know it's possible.

I know COBOL isn't C, but it's the same concept - systems programming/secure stuff rather than bashing out websites.

<comment><USER24> I landed my first programming job writing COBOL(this was in 2012) and have always been on the lookout for remote COBOL opportunities, mind if I ask how you found your current gig?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if Golang might be an option for you? It's seen huge surge in use, and is more "modern" so might be more likely to be used by company that understands benefits of remote.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I've thought about it. I doubt do they hire me if I read "The Go programming language book" and say that I have C/C++ experience? Or it is necessary to spend a lot of time learning Go and contributing to open source projects just to get hired anywhere? Do Go jobs nowtimes actually require just general programming experience assuming that Go could be learned in first days of working?

<comment><USER26> I think so. Unless you're writing code for rockets and medical devices I'd say fake until you make it... or we can call it "on-the-job training".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'd ask the same question but with Java. Virtually all the remote jobs I see are Python/Rails/Javascript and maybe PHP.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yes, I get occasional such C++ / C jobs on Toptal ([http://www.toptal.com/#hire-astute-engineers](http://www.toptal.com/#hire- astute-engineers)) - yes, it's a referral link, sosumi ;)

The job and the community are nice enough that I don't mind evangelizing.

<comment><USER13> Saying that is the same as saying that there are C++ opportunities on freelance and odesk. I doubt the OP is looking for a reference to a freelance site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For C++, you'll need to know Qt.

It's probably easier to find an Objective-C job than a C job.

<comment><USER30> Qt? Because there are a lot of companies hiring specifically remote for Qt? It's not my impression that in general, the majority of jobs using C++ expect/leverage Qt.

There's tons of embedded work using C/C++, but indeed remote work is harder to find there.</comment></comment>


How do you find your passion? Am I off course? - <AUTHOR> I'm in the deepest, darkest part of my life.
I'm not overly depressed. But sad because I don't know what I want. Directionless
I've been making income by crypto daytrading/localbitcoin. It's been great, not the most income but $2000-3000 a month. I do stake about $25,000. Some days I lose money, some days I get locked in a trade, some days I make $300 some days I make $500-4000. The past few days have been fantastic and reading about strategies, risk management and risk aversion have been rewarding.
The idea of a traditional job isn't fun, but that sounds pretentious of me, doesn't it?
I've put out resumes, got interviews, got job offers ranging from $40-50/hr and I balked at signing. I even had a recruiter berate me over the phone for being the perfect candidate and taking away his December bonus because I declined. It was $50/hr, the biggest offer I ever received and I declined it.
I question it now. The money would've been nice, but to dress up business formal and be a half assed sysadmin just doesn't seem as fun as it once used to be.
I was a contractor at Microsoft and it burned me out, it really did. Maybe it was the lack of respect from everyone, doing soul-less work or being constantly compared to cheaper labor in India and Philippines. Ironically, thanks to that role I took some time in Philippines and loved it. It made me realize it was really a toxic role. I do miss the prestige, but in the end I was just a V- and I hated my managers. Looking back, I realize they were probably under more pressure than me. It was a rewarding experience, but not fully positive.
I miss traveling and roaming in SE Asia. I haven't' done Vietnam, Indonesia nor Cambodia yet.
I haven't exercised and made my body perfect.
I haven't finished my 4yr degree.
I'm horrible at time management.
I have ideas, I get energy and then in the end it fizzles out.
How do you find true passion? Are these are signs of depression?
Age: 26. <comment><USER3> If you are worried that you are experiencing depression, you should see a doctor/psychiatrist and get a professional opinion at the very least.

It depends on where you work for burn out. It can happen again, but it would seem that now you're experienced you would probably notice some signs that you are. I would try to get a gig somewhere that can be a bit more relaxed. Contracting work can lead to burn out quite typically, but a good day to day job won't always.

I've experienced burn out after several attempts at personal projects where I needed a team, found one and they didn't pull their weight, or I didn't find a team and tried to do it all myself. It goes away in due time and sometimes the scariest thing is returning to work after burn out (gun shy).

My best advice is that you're 26 and in a great place to earn money cause you're young. I wouldn't dive deep into crypto-currency. I'd say take a look at what you want your passion to be and head that direction. The only way you can move forward is by trying something and seeing if it really is you, it's okay if it isn't there is a whole world of opportunity and possibilities out there.

You mentioned you miss traveling. Have you thought about studying abroad?

As far as time management goes, it is hard. If it was easy to manage time and get things done, the world would be a much more perfect place. A lot of things are hard and you will feel as if you have less time growing up. So you'll need to start forcing yourself into better habits. There is no secret sauce, only your persistence.

All I can say is that it sounds like you may need to answer some questions for yourself. If you are close to finishing your 4 year degree, it may not be a terrible idea to see that through. That university degree is a good thing if the economy goes to shit.

</comment><comment><USER4>
      The idea of a traditional job isn't fun,
      but that sounds pretentious of me,
      doesn't it?

The only part that sounds bad, is that you (counterproductively) feel some insidious kind of shame for casting off the shackles of traditional work. In reality, it often sucks to work for the man even if you're making millions a year.

Maybe there's more to life than marching in a straight line.

Fuck your recruiter. His job is to connect BOTH ends of the deal, not just to satisfy the hiring party. It's not your fault that he couldn't sell you on a job.

Go travel for a bit; your career will not magically disappear during a vacation, even for several months.

And check out this poem, _Desiderata_ by Max Ehrmann:

 _Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy._

</comment><comment><USER5> Passion is overrated. No, worse than that. All that advice about "finding your passion", etc. for work, is corrosive.

Oh, yes, there are people who love X, make a career out of it, and continue doing X for the rest of their life and are successful.

While there are people who love X, trying to make a living doing X, only to find it's not a viable career. Only, their "passion" makes them continue to do X far longer than they should, causing them to burn out.

There are all sorts of fields where the number of passionate people are far greater than the number of available jobs. Look at people who are passionate about dance, or sports, or horses, or art. Only a few of them can make a living from it. Yet everyone successful had to be passionate about it.

Now, get this. There are also people who start doing Y because a job is available, and find that, after a while, they enjoy doing Y. Some even find they are passionate about the job. Others use the money from Y so they can do what they are really passionate about as a hobby.

(And sometimes that hobby can, over time, become a career. I knew someone who was a manager of the grounds crew for the local cemetery, and a hobbyist woodworker. There was enough demand for he work that he now makes custom furniture for a living.)

The worst case in this scenario is to find that they really don't like Y, but nothing says you have to do Y for the rest of your life, and at least you have the money saved up to support you while you switch jobs. Otherwise, a lot of people do X for a living, and let the income fund their passion as a hobby.

(For another example, my dentist decided to stop his practice and be a musician. I think it was a mid-life crisis, but at least he had the money saved up for it.)

Here's another thing - most jobs aren't fun. Most jobs are boring. For that matter, David Graeber argues that most jobs are bullshit, that is (quoting [https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs](https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit- jobs) ):

> The answer clearly isn't economic: it's moral and political. The ruling > class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time > on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this > even began to be approximated in the '60s). And, on the other hand, the > feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to > submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their > waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

One way to interpret the general call for "passion" in your job is that reinforces the cultural norm "to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline".

As for your specific situation, not all work environments are like Microsoft. There are companies which are more supportive of their employees. One friend of mine, with a mostly system adminstration job, worked for several programming-centered companies for a while, but it wasn't until he worked for a company doing light industrial work where he really enjoyed himself in his job. He liked that they were making actual things, rather than bits, and the owner/boss also did a great job of looking out for the employees.

If you're currently making $3000/month = $36K/year, then that doesn't give you time for the one thing you said that you are passionate about - <USER2> travel. While $50/hour is $100K/year. That's much more than is needed to support a travel hobby.

You might consider looking at how much vacation time you have for a given company, or negotiate for more unpaid time off instead of salary.

Or, since your in your 20s, it's pretty common to change jobs. Some people will work for a company for a year or two, then take 3 months off for travel, then work again.

Ignore what a recruiter thinks. Making you happy is far down the list of what they are supposed to be doing.

And drop this idea that you need to make your body "perfect." That's another corrosive attitude. Your body will never be perfect, making it all to easy to give up before doing what you should be doing, which is to get some exercise every day. It could be walking, dancing, going to the gym, cycling, swimming, martial arts ... something that gets you moving.

(Edit: To be clear, "exercise" doesn't have to mean a gym membership or something formal. At your age I mostly bicycled for local errands, like shopping. It helped that I was still in a college town. Later I walked my partner's dog for 30-45 minutes. Later I started salsa dancing, and go to the point where I was dancing 4-5 times per week. (A passion, perhaps, but not a good career choice.) Now I walk, and swim 30 minutes twice weekly. :)</comment>


Energy balance: the simplest climate model - <AUTHOR> http://climateblab.github.io/energy-balance/ <comment><USER2>
      absorb more radiation from the Earth

Should that say _Sun_ , rather than Earth?</comment>


Ask HN: What Are the Best Current Methods to Delete Yourself from the Internet? - <AUTHOR> For those of us interested in dropping off the grid, what are the best current methods of removal of information from search engines and servers that host information about you, whether known by you or not?  How could these methods be improved upon to increase the coverage of erasure?  And what do you think the future of personal identify cleanup will look like, or will it even be possible after a certain point? <comment><USER2> Don't try to change the internet, just change everything else.

Move country, change your name, change the industry in which you work and change the hobbies in which you are interested. Change the clothes you wear and your style of haircut.

All of that is a lot easier than trying to track down all lose-ends over the internet. You won't escape state-level actors if that is your concern but you'll have some distance between your offline and online history.

<comment><USER3> You won't even have to go further than this site to run into obstacles, you can't delete your HN account, I've tried. And, like me, OP seems to have used their real name.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, this is an issue for those of us who came online in a different era of the Internet. Nowadays people can and should assume that the Internet is actively hostile and malicious before they even log in for the very first time. We grew up in a far more innocent age. Loads of us used our real names on Usenet for example because it simply never occurred to us that someone was archiving it all, after all, why would anyone even want to do such a thing? And who had the money for it? And they didn't tell anyone they were doing it until years after they started, which was in very poor taste.

<comment><USER5> Even way back when, archives of Usenet postings were a thing. (Although it wasn't really systematically or completely archived.) Perhaps many people didn't fully appreciate how things they wrote under their True Names could be out there "forever." Or they assumed that Usenet was pretty much an exclusive club and things they wrote wouldn't be visible to the general public. But I'm not sure why someone posting on Usenet would assume that whatever they wrote was ephemeral and wouldn't be seen by anyone else a few years hence.

<comment><USER4> I don't think anyone anticipated the shift in online culture from "what goes online stays online" to the present day when people are actively scouring forums, mailing lists, archives etc for something to weaponize and brigade in the "real world".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the purpose is to make it hard for a 3rd party to use internet searches to find out information about you, there's an easier way.

Instead of the impossible task of making web pages with your name go away, instead, flood the internet with fake information tied to your name and identity. Create profiles with your real name, but everything else faked on popular sites. They'll have a better chance of crowding out pages you want to push down in search results if you make them actually valuable, versus just junk profiles. For example, a fake github identity, but with some actual useful project hosted there carries more weight. Or a profile (your name, faked job, faked photo) on LinkedIn that's tied to actual, insightful posts.

Not easy to do in a way that's there's enough volume to crowd out whatever you're trying to hide. But, it's certainly easier than trying to convince third parties to take down existing web pages.

<comment><USER7> The interested party could just look at the timestamps and ignore everything posted after the date when contradictory information began to appear.

<comment><USER8> The interesting stuff is what happened after the date when contradictory information began to appear.

Most people's identity gradually changes over time. The usefulness of knowing what they've done comes entirely from being able to predict what they _will do_ in the future. If all you've got is stuff > ~5 years old, it's virtually useless. Occasionally, if you're running for public office, some newspaper will dig up dirt of something inappropriate you did in college, but all you have to do is say "I'm horrified and ashamed that such embarrassing old stories have been dug up now, and they in no way reflect my beliefs or actions today" and most of the public will give you a pass. Most of them did pretty horrifying and shameful stuff when they were in college too.

This also suggests a general way to erase yourself from the Internet: just stop posting. Eventually, all of your old posts - if they don't get deleted by sites going out of business - will simply cease to be relevant, and becomes active misdirection for people trying to predict your actions now.

<comment><USER9> > _This also suggests a general way to erase yourself from the Internet: just > stop posting. Eventually, all of your old posts - if they don 't get deleted > by sites going out of business - will simply cease to be relevant, and > becomes active misdirection for people trying to predict your actions now._

It is most definitely not that simple. You're giving people too much credit in thinking that they can let go of the past, rather than making snap judgments from first impressions. You really think an employer is _not_ going to be negatively impacted by seeing an off-color racist joke in an old blog post you made in college? Especially if that blog post is the second thing that comes up in Google results after your LinkedIn page because you don't have anything else attached to your name?

No one cares about predicting your future if they have no interest in associating with you in the present.

<comment><USER8> Just ignore the people who don't want to associate with you, and focus your energy on the people who do. It's usually a good idea anyway: people might not like you for one of a zillion different reasons, and you probably will never know which one it is, and it doesn't really matter anyway since you're not likely to change that assessment once made.

It's good to _stop making those racist jokes_ because it'll bias the folks who want to hang out with you towards those folks who a lot of other folks don't want to hang out with, but most people judge based on the present reality, and the ones who don't usually aren't folks that you'd want around you now anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem is that the user has no control over his data, so you are at the mercy of the service provider.

Surprisingly, a _lot_ of websites/services don't even give you the option to delete your account.

Best method to delete yourself from the internet:

* make a list of all services you are on

* if a service lets you delete your account, delete it

* if there is no delete option, email customer support and ask them to delete your account. Most sites will not create a fuss about it though it takes time and lots of back and forth with the customer support

* search for yourself on google and ask google to remove links to your profiles(social media). They won't remove links to eg- articles about you, since it does not belong to you

Depending on how generous you were with your personal info, it is most likely not possible to delete yourself completely.

Funny story: I had a LinkedIn account where I signed up with only my email ID and gave no personally identifiable info(like a fake account). A few days later I get an SMS from LinkedIn telling me person XYZ sent me a request or something. How the f_uck did you get my number? To say the least, that scared me so I deleted the account.

Also note that when a service _deletes_ your account and data, it is more often a soft delete so your data is still with them. Good luck getting a hard deletion of your account/data.

<comment><USER11> For example you can't even delete your comments/account on hacker news

<comment><USER12> Luckily not. I've seen what happens on Reddit when people do that, and it's awful.

Come back to an old thread and it's full of [deleted] and "This comment has been deleted by a script blablabla by the way fuck you"

<comment><USER13> Is that so bad? Granted maybe it's annoying looking at old threads, but as a user, the ability to go through and remove old and potentially regrettable posts is quite welcome.

Maybe a good compromise would be to remove the user information after a certain time period (~2 years). Hashing the username salted with the post title would be a decent way of systematically respecting user privacy while also keeping old threads readable. I wouldn't mind if HN did this.

<comment><USER14> You'd be surprised how much you could piece together with obfuscated (but still unique) usernames. I'd be in favor of your system if the hash was salted with the article's id, so that the hash of my username in one article was different than the hash of my username in a different article.

One day I'm going to run for office and I'm going to have to get lawyers to scrub HN of all my comments because they have no way for users to manage their content :-)

<comment><USER15> Really, usernames only have to be unique within a single thread, don't they?

You could get away with something as simple as incremental ids in that case - user1, user2, etc.

<comment><USER13> Yeah that was my reasoning. The salted hash would be an easy way to implement single-thread username consistency.

Edit: for better readability it could be further mapped into a table of human readable handles, similar to how Google does the "Anonymous Lemur" thing in gDocs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only way to win is to never have played.

At this point, forget about data privacy. If the data is out there, it's out there and you're never going to change that. The best you can hope for is for the actual practical consequences to be mitigated by effective legal constraints on what people can do to you based on your data.

In the US, there are a few examples of this kind of protection - the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act prohibits genetic information being used to deny/price health insurance coverage, or to discriminate in employment. The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) prohibits denial of health insurance coverage for (or due to) pre-existing conditions. (Note that life insurance in the US is not covered by these laws, so people who may ever need life insurance coverage would be ill-served by ANY kind of genetic testing for any reason - the information can only hurt you. And god help you if you have a bad credit rating; in most places you won't be able to get a decent job or housing.)

Many European countries have better protections against discrimination in housing, employment, and insurance coverage on the basis of personal data (in addition to granting individual rights over that data held by third parties.) As an American who suffered identity theft in the US and suffered all kinds of hassles for years as a result, the single thing that ameliorated them best was leaving the USA and moving to an EU member state.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Recently I decided to try to 'remove myself from the internet'. I just wanted to be a bit more private personally. The best way I could come up with was to Google myself, go through the first 2-3 pages and work on removing that data. So I had to get some stuff removed from Crunchbase (had to email them for this), delete my Twitter, tell Facebook not to let search engines index me (same for LinkedIn). I also changed from using my real name to using a handle on some services (e.g. GitHub). It too some time but recently I had a new friend tell me they were trying to find me online and couldn't so it was quite a successful approach.

<comment><USER17> Nice! Yes that's quite a good method. I also found that googling my name + some relevant keywords (like ruby, programming, resume, etc. in my case) found relevant results

<comment><USER14> Fortunately my name is fairly common, and a google search for it alone shows no links related to me, well past page 10 or so of results, so horay for good opsec. Use the right keywords though and you can still find me. A good newbie approach is to start by not using any of the popular social media stuff (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and if you do, make sure it has no information about you or fake information.

EDIT: Of course I acknowledge a determined attacker could obtain all sorts of info about me. Not bragging or inviting doxxing, kthx.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> \- Google and Facebook currently allow you to delete your data, and both say that they really mean it. I doubt that this policy will be around in a few years, so it's worth taking advantage of now. Even if you want to still use these services, it's worth 're-incarnating' yourself without decades of data and phone numbers, email addresses, etc. tied to a name. This is easy for Google, but very difficult for Facebook; it's explicitly against their TOS, and algorithmically enforced. If you've got spare cash, it's easiest to buy a $40 dollar burner phone and do it over 4G; spare your IP address, and the sign-up flow is slick (paid for UA channel).

\- The email address, phone number, credit card number, and the SSN are still the canonical forms of identity in the data industry. You can almost always transact without an SSN, and the rest can be re-generated so that they don't follow you around, with some money and effort. For example, buy a burner domain, and use a different email address for each service (e.g. joespizza@user_id.lol).

Abine Inc. (I'm a customer, no other affiliation) offer a service which:

* Generates burner emails, and forwards mail to you

* Gives you a virtual phone number which forwards calls and texts (but which you can ditch/rotate)

* Virtual credit cards, no real name needed

I rolled my own solution for the email thing, but the cards and telephone numbers work great. Making-up outlandish names to buy cinema-tickets and burritos with is still entertaining my wife and I after a whole year!

They also have a service called 'DeleteMe' which I think is basically paying an intern to click-through all the opt-out forms of the data brokerages on your behalf.

<comment><USER19> If google and facebook - who make their money off data - are willing to delete data for free, then they probably have some legal mandate to do so. If so, then they will continue to allow deletion while the laws remain in place.

<comment><USER20> What makes you think that they have a legal mandate, when so many other websites and services don't offer the option?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The answer depends a lot on location... where do you live, and what's your full name?

<comment><USER22> The profile page for user _christianbryant_ links to a page on darkreading.com that claims the name for that user is Christian Bryant, so, if the name isn't Christian Bryant, he (or maybe 'she'?) shows another way to 'delete' information about oneself from the internet: bury it in misinformation.

That's a lot of work and won't erase everything, but it can help.

<comment><USER23> Swoosh

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In the United States, if you register to vote your name, age, address, and the names of people who live at the same address all end up on [https://voterrecords.com](https://voterrecords.com) and they don't let you remove it. If you are 40+ this may subject you to age discrimination--you may not even make it to the interview stage. I am now looking into how I can unregister to vote.

If you fill in an application to rent an apartment, or purchase property, your information ends up on the internet.

Our laws need to be updated for the internet age. There is public interest in knowing who owns the property at a certain address, but the reverse lookup of the same information--where does a certain citizen live--should be made illegal without the permission of the citizen.

<comment><USER5> That site appears to only cover some states.

I'm not sure how your proposal would work in any case. If a database record with your name in it exists (because you bought a house, have a telephone number, got married, got arrested, etc.) looking up any permutation of that data is just a search. I don't know how you make that illegal.

It's true that some laws/decisions about what constitutes public data arguably made more sense when finding that data required making the effort to physically look through the physical files of some town clerk who was probably out for lunch. However, this has been a topic of discussion since companies started selling databases on CD-ROMs and nothing much has changed. So I'm inclined to think that genie is well out of that particular bottle.

<comment><USER24> It shouldn't be "just a search". In other words, it should be possible to go to a web site, enter an address and find out who owns the property at that address. But the same site should not allow the user to enter the name of a citizen and get the address where that citizen lives, or who else lives at the same address. So businesses who possess the data should not be allowed to just dump the entire data into Google's search indexes, they can only allow certain narrow searches.

<comment><USER5> So, again, you're basically proposing that even though data is legitimately in the public domain, somehow people should be prevented from connecting that data with a search. Good luck with that.

<comment><USER25> The government should not put citizen's personal information in the "public domain". When government collects personal information about its citizens there should be laws governing what is allowed use and what isn't.

<comment><USER26> The list of people who voted in a particular election is placed into the public domain as an anti-fraud measure. It's an important part of the US version of democracy. Other info like property ownership is public for similar reasons. Rich people form trusts to buy property and obscure their names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In 4th grade, they started teaching kids about their "digital tattoo". A reasonable analogy -- like a tattoo, it's very hard to erase whatever you put out there.

Non-profit: [http://www.mydigitaltat2.org](http://www.mydigitaltat2.org)

<comment><USER28> Props 4 da super cool naming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> For those of us who aren't looking to totally drop off the grid, but are concerned about their online footprint and privacy online; check out [https://www.privacytools.io](https://www.privacytools.io) (not affiliated). It's a good starting point for choosing trusted third party services. I'd be interested in other responses or advice for people who try and do the same.

<comment><USER28> Nice resource, I like the endorsement by GG. Will definitely be checking it out...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> First, delete all the content you published and social network accounts like I did. Change the name first of those accounts to be sure that if they wont totally delete your account, it will not be your name in the system. In the case of some websites you may be able to convince the owners to delete the content you posted. Some other websites, might not be easily convinced, but you can bait them with money to achieve your goal.

I did all that. Currently the only place my full name shows on the internet in on Companies House, because they keep those records, for almost 20 years after you close a company. And those same records get published by third parties also. Other than that, I'm GHOSTING.

<comment><USER28> Are we sure social networks aren't versioning almost every piece of metadata about you? After all, storage is cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> First, change your names on social media accounts and then delete the account.

Second, use the right to be forgotten laws in Europe (even if you aren't European). They've got Google by the balls and at the very least you'll be scrubbed from google pages in Europe, perhaps very soon - or not - you'll be scrubbed from Google worldwide.

Third, might want to change your phone number. But at the very least, even if you have poor impulse control or are too attached to do the first step, just remove your phone numbers from your social media accounts. Uninstall those apps from your phone. Clear your cookies. The main goal is to disassociate your phone number from social. You inadvertently upload it in a variety of ways, and this is a key component to their graphs. Changing it is better because your friends upload your number anyway. Now you will have a new number and no social media profile linked to it.

Fourth, be conscious of what/where you post. Now that you won't have privacy anxiety, this will be much easier to pay attention to.

Fifth, at your leisure, send sternly worded 'remove this content' emails to any web pages that still reveal info about you. Don't do this from free email and gmail accounts, do it from more authoritative sounding domain names. But in the email, refer to yourself as "my client"

<comment><USER32> > Second, use the right to be forgotten laws in Europe (even if you aren't > European). They've got Google by the balls and at the very least you'll be > scrubbed from google pages in Europe, perhaps very soon - or not - you'll be > scrubbed from Google worldwide.

This isn't quite accurate.

The search results are only removed for browsers within Europe.

Google will only removed "outdated" or "irrelevant" search results.

Google approve less than half the requests it gets for RtbF.

</comment></comment><comment> the-dude You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave ...

<comment><USER28> "You can deactivate any time you like, but you can never delete!..." (Guitar solo...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Best is to first replace all your information on those services by fake information. Then create a bunch of accounts with the same name, and also enter fake information. Then delete all the stuff.

Remember: you can decrease the signal-to-noise ratio by decreasing the signal, or by increasing the noise.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't think there's any way. There are too many identity aggregators. I think the only way would be to create lots of fake profiles and fake information tied to your name, thereby drowning out the signal.

</comment><comment><USER35> Give all service providers a unique email, and a fake name. It will be very hard to correlate your identity between two providers. And most providers don't need your real name.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/](http://backgroundchecks.org/justdeleteme/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The question stems from a hypothetical problem. A person who works undercover, let's say, and has a fairly unique name, is concerned that their real name, if ever revealed, could be searched and then the associations to family and friends revealed from this search be used to either coerce the undercover person to work against the law, or simply to hurt the associated family and friends in retaliation for duty performed. The agency for which the undercover person works does not aid in any way the cleaning up of public data available against the person's true identity.

</comment><comment><USER37> Off the grid is a good phrase. Have you ever tried living off the electrical grid? You either spend a ton of money building your own "grid" so your life doesn't have to change or your life becomes radically different from everyone else you used to know including yourself.

</comment><comment><USER38> "John Smith"

I personally found that having a very very common name provides a lot of privacy. If you look me up by my real firstname/lastname, you'll find out we are borg, we are 1000s, and I'm burried somewhere far and deep in the search results.

<comment><USER5> For better or worse, having a very common name is one of the best ways to hide. By contrast, my name is effectively unique (at least among people who have any web presence).

The worst of both world though is probably having an almost unique name that you share with someone notorious who could plausibly be you for reasons of age, location, etc. I once knew someone who shared names (in the pre-Web era) with someone who was a widely hated figure at one point in NYC. My acquaintance literally got death threats on his answering machine aimed at this individual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Distributed social media where all your posts are on your own private server/NAS box next to your router. This means only people you "connect with" will have access. No companies will collect data. At the time of your choosing you can just delete your info. This doesn't prevent your friends from making copies, but they usually won't. As for sites like HN, use an alias so the posts can't be connected back to the real you. That's hard to put leakage, so let's try to create such sites so that when an account is deleted it really is. Not sure how to ensure that.

<comment><USER40> You just described a major feature of the imaginary federated social network I've been designing in my head for the past several years: you have a "profile information provider" (your phone, a third-party website) that you subscribe into your various social networks, SNs then existing only to provide a social graph within their context. Your personal info then remains under your control (as the idea goes) with access granted and revoked at will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> There are companies that can help you removing your `digital shadow` - [https://www.digitalshadows.com/the-digital- shadow/](https://www.digitalshadows.com/the-digital-shadow/)

disclaimer - I happen to know digital shadow from event I once attended. I'm not associated with them and for that matter I had not used their product, however I find the idea pretty interesting and kinda cool :-)

</comment><comment><USER42> Impossible to completely delete yourself - especially with things like the Internet Archive, so even if you delete current pages, there'll be an archive.

Best thing is delete all your accounts, request any mentions of you to be removed, and as others said change your name so that things like Zoominfo and bots don't pick up on you.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you _do_ change your name/identity/city, do you also switch careers?

How do you approach applying for jobs? Do you make a fake resume/CV? Or just a new empty one focused more on "skills" vs job history?

And what do you say when they ask about job experience? Honesty, I guess, but it might make them curious/suspicious/nosey.

</comment><comment><USER43> I had sent emails to websites I held accounts for but I forgot logins to e.g. myspace to delete my content and they did :) I was not happy with pictures I posted years ago just before my interview after finishing college. I have active social network accounts I m not paranoid about the information there

</comment><comment><USER44> Do you have a phone number? Ever received a package? Do you pay taxes? Then you are already on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER45> Repairing Online Reputation? [https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/02/17/1824232/repairing-- e...](https://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/02/17/1824232/repairing--establishing- online-reputation)

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm pretty sure that claiming you want to drop off the grid just makes them want to track you more.

</comment><comment><USER47> If I want to remove something, I edit as much of it as possible to be underscores and/or fake/nonsense, then delete the comment/account. So unless the service keeps various versions of the same comment (some may, many don't) that info is effectively gone.

</comment><comment><USER48> \- Facebook account is like herpes, it stays with you for life.

\- No, Facebook is worse.

\- How?

\- Herpes goes away when you die.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is there anyway to delete/DMCA those white page websites (whitepages.com, spokeo, instantcheckmate, etc.) that list all your relatives and your past physical addresses?

<comment><USER20> No, because none of that information is protected by copyright. You could try contacting their CS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Sounds like a great SaaS product. Get to work, guys.

<comment><USER26> There are already several SaaS products in this space. They do things like: (1) giving you instructions for deleting yourself on sites that allow it, (2) flood the Internet with fake content about your name, (3) file (potentially bogus) DMCA notices/RTBF requests for stuff that wasn't buried by (1) and (2).

It's called "reputation management" by some.

As an example of (3), sites like Ripoff Report won't remove info, but, if you can get a copyright logo or photo onto a Ripoff Report page, you can DMCA google & have the entire page unindexed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> You need to find a job that will hire you without I-9 verification, pay cash, and not withhold taxes or report your employment to the IRS. You need to sublet for cash (without the landlord's knowledge, so he doesn't generate any records like a lease) and not have your name on the apartment or any utility accounts.

The banking system is loaded with KYC rules; you will need to steer clear of it. Do not get an ID at all unless the photo no longer resembles you and the address listed on it checked out at the time but is no longer considered a threat (remember that your old neighbors might sit with a sketch artist or remember a comment in passing about where you might be headed next). Obviously no car registration or driving. Switch transit fare cards frequently; be careful of the CCTV cameras on the farecard vending machines.

Use distinct prepaid device for each call. Make your way to a pseudorandom location (the locations of all your calls plotted on a map should not let anyone infer the general vicinity of your home, workplace, or where you might surface next). Make the call over a unique Signal account, be brief, and securely destroy the phone.

Obviously no flying, and especially no crossing international borders. You most certainly cannot do anything predictable like show up at your parents' house at Christmas.

If you must use email, use Tails, use a different email address and PGP key for every message, come up on secondhand laptops over Tor on public wifi at places that can't individually identify laptop users mechanically, and places too busy to remember the faces of specific laptop users.

Obviously, social media of any form, any sort of communication (even letter- writing) with people who won't apply this tradecraft as carefully as you every single time with no exceptions ever, legitimate employment, anything licensed, and anything related to the banking system are totally out of the question.

... by now it should be clear that "dropping off the grid" is almost certainly not what you want to do, and that 95% of what you have to fear from "the grid" has been here long before social media and doesn't care that you deleted your Facebook account, because it is integral to every part of life.

The relation name ~ face ~ residence ~ phone ~ email ~ occupation ~ employer ~ financials is _probably_ not something you _actually_ want to "erase" or keep secret, unless you are willing to go to extreme lengths. And at that point, the government's "someone is using tradecraft" senses will likely go off, and they'll likely come at you with some old fashioned human intelligence work that your Hacker News sensibilities won't protect you against.

You might want to think more deliberately about which pieces of information you're trying to _disassociate_ from that relation, because that's a much more tenable project.

</comment><comment><USER52> Fake your own Internet death.

</comment><comment><USER37> You have to consider who you are trying to hide from. Hiding something in the face of an active pursuer is an act of aggression or at least, counter- aggression. In warfare there is the concept of enemy combatant. An ethical force will adhere to the idea that they only actively pursue and disable combatants not merely resistors, demonstrators or those taking countermeasures to protect themselves.

Some people may be combatants by things other than actions of violence. Wearing an enemy uniform even if you are not holding a rifle or actively participating in a battle, spying, providing serious material aid to the combatants etc.

I think these are apt comparisons to privacy and personal information because having them is a sort of ephemeral habeas corpus (I'm aware of the contradiction). You 'have the person' (that's what habeas corpus literally means) in a digital/information sense. Of course there's no exclusivity as there is with an actual bodily person.

Warfare is ultimately about controlling the bodies - you kill the bodies and then you win. If more of your bodies are standing or if more of their bodies can be convinced to stop fighting or to come over to your side or just lose the will to fight then you win (trying to encompass more than just battlefield warfare here which is quickly becoming less important)

So this very long winded setup is just to say that the "future of personal identity cleanup" is an oxymoron or at least a contradiction. "Hiding" whether digitally or otherwise is an ACTIVE thing. I guess the cleaning concept is useful to a degree. If I clean my kitchen then it stays clean...until I make dinner the next night - which, because I need to eat, I will inevitably do. And then it's just as messy and requires just as much effort as it did previously to clean.

So unless you are dead, you can't just clean up your digital trail and be done. This is assuming that you want to go about living a relatively normal life and not smuggle yourself to an uninhabited island.

So the future of digital privacy will be a series of compromises and trade offs. I don't want to be at all disrespectful about the situation in Syria because it is grief ridden disaster but I think this illustration is a good one.

There are still people in Syria. You may think to yourself, "Why are people still in Syria? People with families". Because some people can't leave, some people don't think it's that bad for any number of reasons such as blind luck, blind faith or any other form of blindness. Regardless they are still there.

And that's how digital privacy is. Most people won't care which means there won't be a demand which means you will stand out when you do demand (to be not seen)

This is too long.

TLDR:

1: TOOLS - tools to help you just like new kitchen gadgets. Some will be fads, some will be workhorses like the classic kitchenaid mixer and others will be just for pros or people with a passion for it.

2\. KNOWLEDGE - Knowing how to hide what you really want to hide. This is going to be helped more and more by tech. People who don't want to hide anything won't ever know about these but those who do will. Starts with VPNS, separate accounts, never bringing a device with an EMF signal to certain places, how to use strong encryption etc. but includes basic digital tradecraft.

3: COMPROMISE - Don't ever use social media. Or do and realize that part of your life is never going to get a privacy cleanup. It's the fryolator of your digital life. Makes things delicious, unhealthy and never clean. Other compromises and realizing that just like credit, it's hard to repair mistakes in digital privacy.

The question is so simple. . . . I wish the answer was. Sorry this is so rambling. I was going to include a why you should listen to me section but then I'd have to tell you who I am.

</comment><comment><USER53> Time machine. Probably.

</comment><comment><USER54> Don't put it on the internet to begin with.

</comment><comment><USER55> change your name, email adress and phone nr.

</comment><comment><USER56> I have a fairly unique name. Anyway 5 years ago I was on a date, met the girl online. She started asking me about places I had lived... and she just knew way too much about me. She confessed she had paid like $20 to look me up on one of those extended search services before the date. There was no second date. Totally creeped me out... but I did get the name of the service she used, and when I got home I ran a search on myself to see what all was there.

What's worse than all the information being out there, or parallel I guess, is that the shitty service had a bunch of information wrong. It said I lived in a state where I co-signed a lease for my sister (and since I have the same last name as my sister the service drew the conclusion we were married), it said that I still owned a home in yet another state (I had sold it years before)... It also returned my year-by-year income (most of which was fairly accurate), court records (even from when I was a little kid showing up at my parents' divorce hearing), and the exact amount I still owed on my house. No clue how they got all that shit.

Around that time I went looking for ways to purge it all, I stumbled across this post:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_re...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/j1mit/how_to_remove_yourself_from_all_background_check/)

I filled out every opt-out form I could find.

Here we are, 5 years later... I can say... a few less scammy sites show up when you search for me... but on the whole not really much impact. A bunch of information these sites have is still wrong, and a lot of the sites... even if you go through all the trouble of opting out... they only honor the opt-out for a year.

I asked my lawyer if there was a way, how do celebrities and such keep their records out of these people's hands... and his response was, "You probably have to contact each site and pay then to take you off..." At which point I decided to cheer if anyone ever fire-bombed the offices of Radaris or Spokeo or Yatedo or any of the other shit-information sites.

We need laws that make it legal for us to all kick the CEO of these companies in the nuts -- one good solid kick each. Freedom of information, all that... necessary for democracy... and it's just a short hop from there over to aggregation services... but we should at least ensure that people who want to profit off eroding privacy shouldn't be able to reproduce.

Seems like there was an update to that post.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/31u84n/how_to_r...](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/31u84n/how_to_remove_yourself_from_most_background_check/)

<comment><USER57> _...fire-bombed the offices of..._

To be clear, just in case anyone reading does not understand, this would have no impact as data is now routinely stored at multiple, geographically disparate data centers run by disparate companies within completely distinct legal jurisdictions, as contracted by distinct legal entities, and these are increasingly all kept secret via services like Cloudflare, corporate service agents, DNS privacy services, international accountants and lawyers.

So... don't go getting firebombing ideas. Instead, take your pyro inklings out through the retro game _Pyro ][_ in which our protagonist begins by burning down the IRS - [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pyro+2+abandonware](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pyro+2+abandonware)

<comment><USER15> A large scale, sustained global atmospheric thermonuclear barrage might do the trick - generate a wave of electromagnetic pulses and fry all the electronics on the planet.

<comment><USER57> You'd need some serious power to get the subterranean ones and the shielded ones.

<comment><USER15> If you take out enough of the internet's infrastructure, the rest of it becomes pretty useless.

You'd have to take out the satellites too, though - I forgot about that. All the satellites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> we've run this service for a number of years and processed probably a million or so opt-outs successfully. nothing "deletes you from the web" obviously, but happy to answer any questions from anyone: [https://www.abine.com/deleteme/landing.php](https://www.abine.com/deleteme/landing.php)</comment>


How to build FreeBSD EC2 images - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2014-02-16-FreeBSD-EC2-build.html

<comment><USER2> Thanks for writing this up and all your work in the area! I was struggling with getting FreeBSD running on a cloud server last year when I came across your original EC2 defenestration post. I ended up using Rackspace once they added FreeBSD support, but they do not support 10.0 yet. I will have to play around with building my own image on EC2 using your provided code!

</comment><comment><USER3> Outstanding work here Colin. This rocks, I hope we'll be able to do more together soon!</comment>


The Portal 2 that could have been - <AUTHOR> http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/08/the-portal-2-that-could-have-been/

<comment><USER2> Awesome article! I love this game so much, it's a lot of fun just reading about what could have been. Here's hoping that Portal 2 was NOT the last episode!</comment>


Onion names reserved by the IETF - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/blog/landmark-hidden-services-onion-names-reserved-ietf <comment><USER2> It's the sensible, pragmatic thing for them to do. Allowing .onion to be allocated as a "real" TLD would just be disruptive and confusing at this point.

The implications with regard to SSL certificates are interesting, though, and I'm curious how long it'll take for SSL providers to start supporting that. :)

<comment><USER3> What are the benefits to using SSL/TLS certificates on a hidden service?

Perhaps a better question is: _are_ there any benefits other than just providing an additional layer of encryption that a potential attacker would have to defeat -- there's already end-to-end encryption when using hidden services (even if there isn't any encryption at the application layer)?

ETA: I just remembered that hidden services use 1024-bit RSA keys and there's been some arguments lately that that may not be enough bits. For some sites, using (at least) a 2048-bit key may be necessary.

<comment><USER4> Well, it would encrypt the traffic from your TOR endpoint to the application. Usually this is on the same box so it's not a big deal, but not always.

<comment><USER5> All traffic to TOR hidden services is encrypted end to end, SSL can add additional level of authentication tho.

If it's not a hidden service then you can't really use an .onion address anyhow.

<comment><USER3> You're correct, but I think his point was that the Tor endpoint (i.e. the host connected to the Tor network) and, e.g., the host actually serving up the content aren't necessarily one and the same (although they usually are).

In those instances, an SSL certificate would provide encryption all the way from the "Tor client", through the Tor network, the rendevous point, Tor endpoint, and to the actual application server. Without additional encryption in use at the application layer, the link from the Tor (hidden service) endpoint and the actual server would not be encrypted and, thus, vulnerable.

To (perhaps) explain better, this would be similar to how Cloudflare offers SSL for all sites and while the path from the end user to Cloudflare is (can be) encrypted, the link from Cloudflare back to the origin server isn't necessarily encrypted. Alternatively, think of the link from an SSL terminating device to the backend web servers. Again, in most cases, this is a non-issue but there certainly are some instances in which it would apply (and this is probably more likely the bigger a site (hidden service) is).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Measuring the Leakage of Onion at the Root "A measurement of Tor's .onion pseudo-top-level domain in the global domain name system"

[[https://www.petsymposium.org/2014/papers/Thomas.pdf](https://www.petsymposium.org/2014/papers/Thomas.pdf)]

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't SSL on .onion domains redundant? It makes sense for onion -> open web, but shouldn't onion -> onion connections be already both authenticated and encrypted?

<comment><USER8> I believe the exit node may still be able to view traffic in plaintext. This is part of the reason that running an exit node is so "dangerous" in the US.

edit: Though with a quick Google, I'm led to believe that an exit node is only important when you are leaving the onion network (i.e. when entering into the Internet), and thus it sounds like SSL on a hidden service would indeed be superfluous to me.

However, SSL also proves authenticity, not just encryption. It would let you know that the hidden service you are accessing is indeed who you think it is.

<comment><USER9> _However, SSL also proves authenticity, not just encryption. It would let you know that the hidden service you are accessing is indeed who you think it is._

So do .onion address; they are an hash of the key pair you get when you generate a new one, and the client verifies that the server it's connecting to does in fact control the associated private key.

By abdicating readable domains, the Tor hidden services system eliminates the need for external authentication mechanisms like CAs; the address is all you need.

[https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden- services.html.en](https://www.torproject.org/docs/hidden-services.html.en)

<comment><USER8> Assuming a .onion's key were to be bruteforced or stolen however, you would also need to steal the SSL private key in order to continue to appear authentic.

I'm not saying Tor doesn't cover authenticity, but that SSL provides an additional authenticity check on top of that.

edit: On the topic of bruteforcing, the linked Stack Overflow post leads me to believe it's not terribly infeasible.

Additionally, stealing the .onion's key would likely expose the SSL private key as well (as you'd likely have access to the server at that point), unless the .onion's key is exposed due to misconfiguration or another form of human error.

I also think, lastly, that the point about the browser understanding its dealing with a secure connection and enforcing general browser SSL rules has merit.

edit 2: Forgot the link - [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/29772/how-do- yo...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/29772/how-do-you-get-a- specific-onion-address-for-your-hidden-service)

<comment><USER10> _14:2.6 million years_

<comment><USER8> With a single core.

<comment><USER10> So a million cores still takes years. What would you consider infeasible, may I ask?

Also, you're wrong about bruteforcing the domain implying you can decrypt if not for ssl. If you bruteforce (for millions or billions), you won't get the same key. You'll get _a_ key that shares the first 80 bits of its hash with the other key used. So you can use it to mitm or impersonate the site, but you can't use it passively to decrypt connections to the onion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've always thought that these addresses should have a different scheme, not a different TLD. For example, _onion: //aoeusnth_ instead of _[http://aoeusnth.onion](http://aoeusnth.onion) _

Is there any reason in particular why the TLD approach was settled upon instead of a scheme-based approach?

<comment><USER12> The reason it has to be done at the DNS level, rather than at the URI scheme level, is because any protocol can be routed over TOR.

<comment><USER11> Well, there's nothing keeping a well-defined tor scheme from including the protocol information in it, is there? For example, I could imagine specifying a tor URI in my git config: _onion:ssh:pcl@aoeusnth_ or _onion:http:aoeusnth_

<comment><USER13> The point is its still http.

Think of TOR as acting like a VPN or point-to-point tunnel. You can conceptually think of it as another network interface plugged into your network. The policy you choose what to route over it is your own. It doesn't affect how any other protocols function.

I can still access regular sites over TOR. I can also access regular websites over a VPN. openvpn+[http://](http://) isn't exactly useful either for the same reason.

And there are other special tld. Your multicast domain group (e.g. .local) is also special. Your dns resolver sees the TLD and resolves it specially. But once again, doing multicast DNS doesn't impact http, git, ssh, etc. So it be silly to have to write mdns+[http://..](http://..). as well.

And if you where to join them, then you have to describe what kind of behaviour should happen if, for example, on openvpn+[http://foobar.tld](http://foobar.tld) you hit a hyperlink to [http://baz.tld](http://baz.tld). Do I rewrite this to prepend openvpn+? Fail? etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now we just need to find a Tor user with enough money to buy EV certificates...

<comment><USER15> like facebook?

[https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/](https://facebookcorewwwi.onion/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What's Facebook (privacy enemy) doing in there.

<comment><USER17> They're not the enemy of privacy in general. They're the enemy of privacy between you and them.

If they can make sure that not only _they can_ get your data, but also that noone else can get it too, that's a win in their book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tor gets an upvote from the establishment. Is that furthering the cause of privacy? So we'll now get more exit nodes?

Personally believe that nothing less than a wholesale transport-layer alternative to the internet is necessary to maintain communications freedom. Not far fetched to suggest that rooftop antennae running peer-to-peer mesh networks will gather momentum in coming years. Not to replace the internet, just as backup, to keep centralised government interests and moneymen at bay.

<comment><USER19> It's not far fetched to suggest people start seriously running peer-to-peer mesh networks, it's ridiculous. You won't be able to convince the people who know about them to run them and you'd need to convince far more people than that to actually get mesh networks to run reasonably well.

This is ignoring the technical and legal challenges not to mention the fact that people have tried this for a very long time now and they've failed to get anywhere significant for just as long.

<comment><USER18> If your criteria for "getting anywhere significant" is to be even within two orders of magnitude as performant as the current internet, then you are correct. If however the aim is to build a distributed, no single point of failure/control, kbps-class, backup communications system, that's primarily community-based, and that is NOT controlled by any corporation, ISP, or government, then there are many such networks already in existence. They're based on wifi, and completely legal. Clearly they're hobby projects but that doesn't make them uninteresting or indeed, potentially extremely useful in low-delta scenarios of societal breakdown and/or centralised oppression.

<comment><USER19> I'm not talking about bandwidth, I'm talking about coverage alone. Berlin for example are many people that are into Freifunk and such networks. There are many more people into technology and the culture and politics associated with it. Nevertheless they can't even get decent coverage.

The network is worthless not because it works badly, they fail to create an accessible one to begin with.

<comment><USER18> > many people into Freifunk .....

I rest my case. There is demand for such a thing even if it's far from perfect. Not everybody is willing to trust the increasing encroachment by the authorities into the mainline internet. They're willing to experiment to ensure that technologies are being worked on that permit independence from potential authoritarianism (corporate or government).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Private Internet Access Servers Raided, Cancelation of All Russian Servers - <AUTHOR> https://sg-mktg.com/MTQ2ODI4NjEyNnxGUjlheFppYkNkZl9BcXRSZDNrVmZralVkdGQ3RXdKeXlfRVYzN285RXhjOFF4bUlEZXlycXFnWjNua2V5TUxkVDdILTJqczZTYk5mM0tXRk9hSi1qN284dTBBN0tLbFpqZTh0eWtuM3U5Ul9rSFQ5eGs3ZDczVWlVMTVscXk2akhUOHp6RE5WTEFzU0hPWng1Y0c5QnpiT3JUWlI4NENuQVg2R0c2Znl3LVRGcmtLRi0yVTdKdkVZdkJEZUxlYjByakplQ0pWaUhra0taLXpnMGxlZWZLUjNwUFFYbEhTTXR4S1dGYS1GN0tyNjk1ZWpEbVFfOGdkQVdOcVhxdU02VHN4cXy7KEPGtf0O6YBM7okqpbhk2PCbKVoUjLaUGPpd0BvZCg== <comment><USER2> > Luckily, since we do not log any traffic or session data, period, no data > has been compromised. Our users are, and will always be, private and secure.

How is it even possible? They're subject essentialy identical data retention laws. "All telecommunications data in the UK is kept for a minimum of one year and a maximum of two years" [0]

US' and UK' companies are the latest in the list of VPN companies with whom it makes sense to deal.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retent...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#United_Kingdom)</comment>


The Great German Energy Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/featured-story/428145/the-great-german-energy-experiment/

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion with almost 200 comments:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4130949></comment>


Is the Academic Publishing Industry on the Verge of Disruption? - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/23/is-the-academic-publishing-industry-on-the-verge-of-disruption

<comment><USER2> The publishing industry is a huge component of academia. If it implodes like many are guessing it will (and honestly, the writing is on the wall), it's going to send ripples through all of academia.</comment>


The Commentaries of Julius Caesar [audio] - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/Commentaries_Gaius_Julius_Caesar <comment><USER2> Interesting! This is an audio series (think audiobook) authored/translated by Henry Stuart Jones[0]. _Commentaries_ , _The Gallic Wars_ , and _The Civil Wars_ are included, broken down by books/chapters.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stuart_Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stuart_Jones)</comment>


Hacking PR for startup growth - <AUTHOR> http://blog.symcat.com/post/37715955863/hacking-pr-for-startup-growth#.UMeWWXfVW5y

<comment><USER2> Be creative....Create interesting content...that's not hacking, that's common sense</comment>


How to implement revenue sharing with users - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I've been lurking this site for a while, and find the content great. I'm working on a startup idea of my own. I've previously worked at large companies developing their websites, so I've got a pretty good idea of how to build the technical parts of it, but my concept kinda requires that i pay the users money.
I've previously worked with billing systems, and to tell you the truth, I'm scared beyond belief from working with these systems.
What I'd like to have, is an account system, where the users earn up money, and then once in a while, can request to get the money out.
How would i go about implementing that?
I'm curious about the following aspects a) are there any technical solutions that i can take and use already (low end (perhaps paypal?) to high end) b) Legal implications (will i be considered a bank, for instance.. I have no knowledge of what i need to be aware of) c) Fraud etc; i guess it won't be that big an issue if the users can only get money they've already earned up, but still.. fraud always comes up when talking about money. d) Anybody has existing experiences with this area?
Most of all, i'd just like to get a good overview of how to go about it, and what to expect, for this part of the project.
Oh, and, i won't say what the project is, because -- as everybody elses -- it's brilliant and never seen before... Well, perhaps not, but the above question should be taken stand alone.
Crosses fingers for good replies. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Charging compound interest on debt could lead to loansharking. Allowing payment between accounts could lead to money laundering. For these reasons, such activities generally require financial regulation.

However, you probably don't want to do such activities. You probably want to allow customers to earn commission and get a lump payment when they reach a threshold or an amount of time elapses or they request a pay-out. This would be quite acceptable for a business. The reason for this is quite simple.

It is legal for individuals to owe money and to be owed money. Likewise, it is legal for businesses to owe money and to be owed money. However, a business may have to declare money owed in annual accounts. Additionally, it may be neccesary to hold the full amount in a separate bank account. Even if it is not strictly neccesary, this would be a concise way of showing that your company is trading solvently. Consult an accountant for regional details.

You may wish to make payment by cheque. It is fairly simple to write a program which prints two or three fully written cheques on a sheet of paper. You can minimise mis-addressed cheques by using envelopes with windows and placing the recipient address on the cheque in the appropriate place. Regardless, cheques will go missing. Be gracious. Trust your customer. Fix the problem quickly.

Make an arrangement with your bank to accept your sequentially generated cheque numbers. After the first 1000 cheques or so, you may also wish to make an arrangement to omit your signature from the cheque.

You may want to make an administrative fee for premature withdrawals. Make it small and absorb that admin cost for payments above your preferred threshold. If this fee is excessive then you may run afoul of unfair contract law.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sounds to me as though you might want to check out Amazon's Flexible Payment System (FPS).

[http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sc_fe_c_1_3435361_1/102-8843924-...](http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=sc_fe_c_1_3435361_1/102-8843924-6550514?ie=UTF8&node=342430011&no=3435361&me=A36L942TSJ2AJA)

It allows, as the name implies, for very flexible payment transactions between you and the users, or even between two third-parties where you take a chunk out of the middle.

</comment><comment><USER4> What you're talking about has been done by (at the very least) Jellyfish.com. They give you cash back by shopping through their portal. How do they do it?

</comment><comment><USER5> Not all people are motivated by money...esp. if it's small chunks of money.</comment>


Ask HN: What's currently the best way to get global phone service? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to upgrade my dinosaur-age mobile phone to an Android.  I'm currently living in the States, but I'll be in Puerto Rico for a couple of months during the winter and going to Hungary for a year or so in the spring.  I don't know when I'll be back in the States.  Never, maybe.  Or maybe next fall, just depending on how life turns out.<p>The question: is it better just to get new service in Hungary, or is it practical to have a global service of some kind? <comment><USER3> Global SIM cards tend to use VOIP dial-back tricks to use the "free incoming calls" features of most countries to make outgoing calls "free" as wel1 - <USER2> they still charge you for the outgoing call. I find this results in poorer general service (as sometimes the call doesn't connect), and you get seriously degraded call quality as a result.

After trying the Worldsim for a number of years I found a better solution for my needs: Get an unlocked phone, buy a SIM card locally, and then redirect a SIP # for didww.com or similar to your local number so people in the US can still call you easily / you can maintain your US phone #. You'll get the service quality of having a local provider (as well as the affordable cost), as well as the convenience of having your number from home. When you jump to a new country, just re-forward your DID. You will pay long distance for the DID forwarding, but it will be minimal for most countries (1-2c /min)

</comment><comment><USER4> Buy an unlocked GSM phone. When you arrive in-country, buy a prepaid SIM card. Put it in your phone.

It might also be ideal to get a Google Voice # and temporarily forward it to whatever your temp # is.

<comment><USER5> Google Voice refuses to forward to a non-US number, so that doesn't work without forwarding your Google Voice number to some other phone forwarding service, which gets messy in a hurry...

<comment><AUTHOR> Twilio, though, is happy to forward overseas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (And of course I could always just do _everything_ through Twilio. I think I'm in love.)</comment>


Auto-detect timezones, time zone offsets and daylight saving in javascript  - <AUTHOR> http://www.javascriptkata.com/2010/10/14/auto-detect-timezones-time-zone-offsets-and-daylight-saving-in-javascript/

<comment><USER2> This looks nice!

I recently had to implement something similar on one of my projects. Other areas that would be good to address would be translation between client time, server time and GMT (in unix timestampt format). A library that offered that functionality, combined with what you've built, would be very useful!

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact, I wanted to do a gem/plugin for ruby that would make the boring task of asking a user for a timezone easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks pretty neat and something I wish I had last time I had to deal with stuff like this. Definitely bookmarked in case of future needs.

I know this comment doesn't really _add_ much to the discussion, but still thought I'd throw out some appreciation.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, I really appreciate you take the time of showing your appreciation!</comment></comment>


Angel investor groups: To charge or not to charge? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/angels_to_charge_or_not_to_charge.html <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=885303></comment>