PPK backs down: iPhone developers are not stupid - <AUTHOR> http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/11/native_iphone_a.html

<comment><USER2> First, I would like to see an example of a rich iPhone webapp he has created (if any) to show off exactly how "native-like" it actually feels to use...

As for me, I have written an iPhone webapp which is located at <http://tweetgrid.com/iphone/> (it is a twitter search app). I used the <http://iwebkit.net/> framework (which is brilliant), but overall it was an exercise in frustration.

A few points:

1\. You can create a webapp that will launch as an independent "app" if you save the page to your homescreen (i.e. it loads in a one-tab Safari "full- screen" mode, so no Safari navigation bars are displayed). As such, I built in some smarts that will actually detect whether the site is loaded from "normal" Safari or "app" Safari. If it loads in "normal" mode it shows some instructions about how to install the app on your home screen. If it loads from "app" mode those instructions are gone. I also use this mechanism to determine how many times the app has been "installed" onto phones. This is done server-side because I need to see the user-agent to determine this. This is where I ran into a huge issue with the Safari caching mechanism. I am not sure if it is part of the HTML caching spec, or something specific to Safari's implementation, but which ever page you use to specify the cache manifest file _also gets cached_ even if that page is _not specified_ in the manifest. This is idiotic. The only logical place to put the manifest reference is in the "home" page where the app loads. This means that any updates to the page won't be seen for a long long time (if ever). This also subverts my normal-mode/app- mode logic because the home page doesn't ping the server when it loads. Ultimately I had to do away with most of the caching in order to regain the other functionality. This means that everything loads very slowly compared to a native app.

2\. The average user doesn't understand "webapp." When somebody hears "app" and "iPhone" they immediately go search for it on the AppStore app. There is no realm of understanding about webapps. Finding (and installing) webapps is hard. "Open Safari, type in this URL, click the plus sign to create a bookmark or add it to your homepage..." is orders of magnitude harder for Joe Public than "search for XYZ app, and click Install." You don't even need to say "open the AppStore" because that's already implied. I would get complaints from users saying, "I can't find TweetGrid in the app store!!!" Then I had to politely tell them that, "No, it's not a native app, you need to load it in Safari and save it to your home screen..." which just caused more confusion.

3\. PPK speaks of interoperability of webapps, but he also talks about using iPhone specific javascript APIs to access hardware on the iPhone... once you head down this path, you can't really call it interoperable anymore, imho.

I didn't even deal with the payment stuff with my webapp because I made it free, but that would be a huge pain.

Conclusion: I am learning Objective-C with reckless abandon.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the info! One question: would it be possible to release a web app as a "normal" app, too? Like submit the "app Safari" version to the app store or something like that?

<comment><USER2> I suppose you could wrap everything in a WebKitView (or whatever it is called) and just submit that to the AppStore, but as some have pointed out before, you will probably get a "Mature" rating because all data is loaded from the web...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I developed a webapp (project management) before deciding to go native.

Some of the additional reasons why I believe users prefer native apps are:

1\. The app store app and iTunes make it easy to discover native apps. Webapps are simply posted on a link from apple. This makes it harder for users to discover them. Here is the link to webapps: <http://www.apple.com/webapps/>

2\. With native apps, users can take advantage of built in UI elements reducing the learning curve and creating richer applications.

3\. Web apps can suffer from performance issues especially when you are on an edge network.

4\. Payment processing was already mentioned. Its an issue but probably not a huge one.

I think the native look and feel and Apple's own promotion are the two big factors in favor of native apps.

</comment><comment><USER5> _"I was wrong about Web apps being able to replace native apps right now"_

Strange, as I'm fairly certain he didn't say that.

He said the lower end could be replaced with web apps right now and if Apple opened up more API's to web apps then many more apps could too. Which is true.

Also, Apple's "App Store" for Web Apps:

<http://www.apple.com/webapps/>

</comment><comment><USER6> YHBT. YHL. HAND.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWDYaWAVQQ>

"Whatever position I took originally, I would change the position to exactly the opposite and tell the Macintosh people that I was completely wrong and they were completely right all along, and the numbers would go through the ceiling!" -John Dvorak

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting. I wrote a similar blog post that I had planned on posting this morning. Guess I don't have to now! [http://ryanleland.com/2009/11/iphone- developers-arent-stupid...](http://ryanleland.com/2009/11/iphone-developers- arent-stupid-consumers-know-what-they-are-willing-to-pay-for/)

<comment><USER5> I own an iPhone but don't really follow the development side of things so maybe you could answer a question:

A short while ago all the iPhone devs were complaining that their apps were being overshadowed by total crap that was being churned out and sold at 99c.

Did that get fixed? Because that seems to be the downside of the easy charging of consumers, yet no-one has mentioned it during this recent storm in a teacup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree, I still think the first article was spot on. If you don't want to play by Apple's crappy App Store rules then write a web app for the iPhone. Unless you're doing a 3D game you can accomplish the same result on the Web and you're free from their 'control'.

iPhone devs who write native apps and then complain to Apple about the app store policies are stupid, because they are tilting at windmills when there is a much easier solution to the problem.

<comment><USER9> I couldn't disagree more. iPhone devs who write native apps are trying to get the best usability out of their products - have you played with an iPhone webapp recently? They _approximate_ the native experience, poorly. The UI doesn't flow, it's not fast, it's not responsive - it's a pale shadow compared to a native app, even for mundane tasks like menus and buttons.

There's "good enough" and "excellent" - these are not the same thing. It seems like the webapp apologists are in the "good enough" camp, and they're certainly right: Apple's webapp facilities are good enough.

But they're not great, and great UI is the _defining_ feature of the iPhone. If you lose it all you have is a piece of plastic that has fewer features than the competition. IMHO also, the constant settling for "good enough" UI is a hallmark of programmer-driven UI, which rarely results in usable apps by regular people.

<comment><USER10> Another important argument in favor of a native app over a webapp is the iPod Touch - sales of the Touch are doubling year over year, getting pretty close to the iPhone, in terms of units sold.

Requiring iPod Touch owners to connect to wifi before they access your webapp just puts another hurdle between you and your users, one which they won't always be able to clear.

<comment><USER8> That is a great point, although there are some things you can do with local caching it's not really a solution in that instance.

My main argument is, as a developer you KNOW what the App store approval process is like, it's been beaten to death all over the Internet. So either accept that you're going to have to play by Apple's rules or make a web app and save yourself the trouble. It's Apple's garden and we all just play in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think he deserves a good degree of praise for having an amenable opinion.</comment>


Netflix: Take as much vacation as you want. - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_5493698 <comment><AUTHOR> take home point, for startups and big slow companies: "The worst thing is for a manager to come in and tell me: `Let's give Susie a huge raise because she's always in the office.' What do I care? I want managers to come to me and say: `Let's give a really big raise to Sally because she's getting a lot done' - not because she's chained to her desk."

</comment><comment><USER2> You have to wonder if Reed Hasting has read <http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html>

It'd be awesome if we could find out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting policy. It sounds great, in theory, but would be hard to implement.

A recent employer gave me 3 weeks of vacation. Great! Never mind that they kept asking me to delay it, for a year because each artificial deadline they created ended up slipping. There's never a good time to take vacation.

EDIT Therefore, it's always a good time to take vacation (given sufficient notice).

<comment><USER2> _"It sounds great, in theory, but would be hard to implement."_

There's nothing difficult about implementing it. Clearly your employer just doesn't buy the concept at all. They probably only offer 3 weeks (slightly higher than average) as a recruiting incentive, which is pretty dishonest if they don't actually let you use it.

The reasoning behind this concept is what's important. It's about treating employees as equal partners in a relationship, as opposed to children, like most employers do.

Definitely read this essay if you havent: <http://paulgraham.com/opensource.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sounds good to me

</comment><comment><USER5> Where do I sign-up?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://jobs.netflix.com/cojobsFlix.asp></comment></comment>


Diederik Stapel's Audacious Academic Fraud - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=all# <comment><USER3> I was going to write a response, but the following comment from the site summarizes my thoughts: "If Staple's ambition says a lot about science as a business, then the credulity of his reviewers and colleagues speaks volumes about science as a religion. The sacred trust people place in science and the scientific method is sadly misplaced. The awe evoked by science popularizers like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson isn't all that different than the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the pope. And yet, it really should be the night sky that moves us, not the flattering self-portrait that science paints of ourselves and our intellects.

Simply put, science isn't all that different than other human endeavours wherein people compete for prizes. Stop putting scientists on a pedestal."

<comment><USER4> Another powerful quote (this one from the article), especially taken in the secular atmosphere of Europe:

'"People think of scientists as monks in a monastery looking out for the truth," [Staple] said. "People have lost faith in the church, but they haven't lost faith in science. My behavior shows that science is not holy."'

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Academic science (at least what I have seen in North American research- intensive universities, as it has changed over the past 24 years) is no longer about scientific truth. The system is constructed (partially by design and partially due to circumstance, i.e. such scarce resources) such that scientific truth is no longer the goal. The goal now is self preservation and self promotion. The truth today is that it is no longer good enough to "just" be a good (or even great) scientist. Now you have to sparkle. Now in order to get postdoc funding you have to show how your science is not just great but also how it links up with industry. Now in order to get hired into a tenure track stream you not only need to have published your PhD work in prestigious journals but you must also show evidence to your hiring university of your ability to attract money. Now in order to get tenure you need much more than "just" a solid, respected track record of doing science. You need articles in high-end journals. You need patents. You need links with industry. You need to have been featured in the popular press. You need a track record of attracting money to the university. The more of this you produce, the higher your salary, the more perks you get at your home university.

Lots of people excuse the system by saying something like: well, sure, the system has changed, boo hoo, but after you get tenure you can stop being concerned about all the BS and return to just doing good science.

The thing is, people don't do that. People build a "brand" as a professor- scientist, and as their profile gets higher, so does their salary, so do their perks.

At my university, perversely, the highest-profile scientists, with the highest salaries, (1) teach zero. I mean zero. (2) travel 70% of the time away from home base. (3) supervise grad students by, truthfully, farming out the supervision duties to their postdocs, who by the way, often write the grants for the supervisor as a sort of write-of-passage (sic); (4) are trotted out by the university anytime they need to boast about how good the uni is.

The system has been twisted so that the goal is to get money and the means to that goal is to publish high-profile papers with simple stories in high- profile journals, and the means to THAT is to "do science".

The goal ought to be good science, and the means to that ought to be funding (money). It's backwards.

PS, I speak from experience, I got my PhD in 1999 and I've been tenured since 2006. I'm not a high-flyer (relative to the academic celebrities in my faculty) but I am on the A team, so to speak.

PPS I'm not excusing scientific fraud ... but it's important to understand the context in which it occurs.

<comment><USER6> This doesn't translate well to Dutch academia, where Stapel was working. Private funding is an irrelevant percentage of their income, and each school, prestigious or not, gets the exact same amount of money per student. The man had a tenure and kept doing it. He loved the media attention, loved appearing in TV shows to talk about every remarkable finding he published. He was more in the business of producing mass entertainment than knowledge, and simply didn't want to take the time to actually conduct the experiments his papers were supposedly based on.

To this day he continues to write more episodes to his reality TV show at a staggering pace. He has been writing books about how ashamed he is and keeps begging journalists to interview him about his downfall. I'm sure reading an article about himself in the New York Times gave him a massive hardon.

<comment><USER5> Yeah part of me thought, as I was reading the NYT article, why am I supporting this guy's personality disorder by reading what amounts to an extended biography of him?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am not to worried about Stapel. He is an outlier, and just as all outliers he is getting his share of attention in the media.

I am in general much more worried about the dubious statistics and protocols that are deployed on real data. The torturing of the data, shoddy experiment design, the unpublished negative results, and the somewhat sobering realization that research is actually hard. Ioannidis formulates this quite elegantly in "why most research findings are false" [1]

One thing that is painstakingly obvious, is that this whole affair was only possible because people do not, and are not obliged to, share their data and code.

[1]: [http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

<comment><USER8> I'm all for sharing data and code but don't you think that someone as determined to cheat as Stapel would have simply been a bit more careful in preparing his spreadsheet? Publishing carefully crafted fake data does not help, only replicating the experiment would but you can't do that for every publication. You can also demand that some kind of notary is present while performing the actual experiment, but ultimately you need a large amount of trust in science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The experiment — and others like it — didn't give Stapel the desired > results, he said. He had the choice of abandoning the work or redoing the > experiment. But he had already spent a lot of time on the research and was > convinced his hypothesis was valid. "I said — you know what, I am going to > create the data set," he told me.

> Sitting at his kitchen table in Groningen, he began typing numbers into his > laptop that would give him the outcome he wanted. He knew that the effect he > was looking for had to be small in order to be believable; even the most > successful psychology experiments rarely yield significant results. The math > had to be done in reverse order: the individual attractiveness scores that > subjects gave themselves on a 0-7 scale needed to be such that Stapel would > get a small but significant difference in the average scores for each of the > two conditions he was comparing. He made up individual scores like 4, 5, 3, > 3 for subjects who were shown the attractive face. "I tried to make it > random, which of course was very hard to do," Stapel told me.

This sort of misconduct is shockingly common in academia, such that it is often not even seen as misconduct.

<comment><USER10> Really? The other elements (stopping once your data fits your hypothesis, ignoring contradicting data in analysis) are fairly common, but does any really think that making up data isn't misconduct?

<comment><USER11> As someone who works in science, I've never ever ever met someone who confessed to making up data (nor have I made up data myself).

Generating data and passing that of as measured data = fraud = loss of contract.

<comment><USER12> Contract? Are we taking about business or science?

Now I am really worried. Is the goal to produce "tangible results" (papers, press, professional aclaim, popular fame) or try and maybe, even probably, fail to uncover something new but true?

Is everything corrupt?

<comment><USER13> "Contract? Are we taking about business or science?"

Are you living under a rock? How do you think research is funded? The people actually doing research are funded through short-term contracts with "Tenure" being dangled in front of them as the proverbial carrot. However 1) most people starting out on this track never get tenure; and 2) those who do, mostly give up the nitty-gritty of research, because of a combination of reasons.

Sometimes I find the apparent lack of understanding of how academia actually works (as opposed to how undergrads and the general public with a university degree but no real exposure of the behind-the-curtains of academic research think it is, or feel it should be) just as jarring as the way things go on universities.

<comment><USER12> Yes I must have been living under a rock while academic research (we are not talking about corporate R&D) became completely dominated by the persuit of funding. Yes I've heard that grant writing has become a key "research" skill. And I know about all the academic scandals, the frequent inability to reproduce published results, the bias against publishing negative results and general abuse of statistics.

However as a non-academic science lover I still held on to the ideal that science was mostly about the pursuit of knowledge. I certainly got that impression from the few great researchers in medicine, economics, physics and math I happened to get to know. I guess they were just exceptions.

Thanks for opening my eyes. Science is a business. And academic research is just as corrupt as every other human activity. Why should I have ever though anything else.

<comment><USER13> Look man, I don't mean to rag on you. It's just - how do people think academics make a living? They're normal people just like the rest of us, with grocery bills and mortgages, and daydreams of having enough time to watch their kids grow up. Money is tight everywhere, and has been before the crisis, because so little research can be shown to have actual uses. Dreary-eyed grad students flock to academia hoping to not have to think about such mundane things as _gasp_ money, full of youthful idealism about Advancing Human Knowledge(tm) only to find out that their contributions, in all likelihood, will not matter at all, and after 10 years in their university coming to terms with the fact that they'd rather find other ways to give meaning to their life rather than wasting it on more of the same publish-or-perish grind.

Obviously this is exaggerating things - some research is genuinely useful, and overall the state of the art advances in all fields, even if in very small increments; and very few academics (at least of the ones I know, which is a considerable number) drag themselves to their desks every day thinking about shooting themselves in the head. But the core point that academia isn't the romantic ideal that some have of it are undeniable, and won't be denied by anyone living the life (because that's what it is - a lifestyle, with advantages and drawbacks like any other).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone shed light on how a paper is published? I am guessing the process requires some higher authority to review the paper to check for legitimacy. If so, he committed fraud in 55 of his papers, not 1 or 2! So what irked me while I was reading is, "how was fraud missed so many times?"

Someone else said that this is common in academia...if so, something HAS to be done to stop it. That's why I would like to know the process behind a paper being successfully published--it seems like a broken system if fraud like this occurs remotely often.

<comment><USER15> Typically papers are reviewed by anonymous peers (other researchers in the field) and the journal's editors. This is why the fraud review board chastised the field of Psychology as a whole.

Note that it would have been nearly impossible to detect fraud in a single, isolated paper His data were fabricated in such a way as to seem believable, and it's not like researchers are expected to record video evidence of their experiments actually taking place or anything like that; they just report the results. He was ultimately revealed by those who were familiar with his work noticing patterns that appeared over many papers. I don't think there is any formal mechanism in place to review entire bodies of work as a whole.

<comment><USER16> Missing raw data should surely be a big red flag; maybe not video but surely you're expected to include the individual response numbers so that other people can check your analysis, and it sounds like he claimed to not even have those.

<comment><USER17> Usually these kinds of data are not part of the publication or up for review. I don't know why exactly, but I suppose it is a combination of: 1) paper publishing tradition, where distributing this material is too much work. 2) too much work for reviewers to comb through raw data, the real solution would be to require sharing of the raw data, so readers rather than the reviewers would find mistakes, but this is often difficult because of privacy issues. E.g. videos of the Utrecht train station study would make fraud more difficult, but publishing the videos would probably require permission from all participants 3) Trust in the authors' integrity. Most scientists would not make up data, but they might make logical errors in their reasoning, or use bad procedures. Peer review can find these errors, but if the authors lie about their procedures, it is very hard to check. Peer review is about internal consistency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article inspired me to write an essay about my disillusionment with academia after completing a PhD. I've posted it at <http://mytimeinacademia.pen.io>

HN comment thread: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5624903> \- I'd be grateful for your feedback

</comment><comment><USER19> In situations like this, people should take an empathetic stance. Sure, what Stapel did was wrong, and he deserves no _sympathy_ , but everyone deserves _empathy_ , even criminals.

I'm not one who "blames the system" for malicious actions of individuals, as for anything to make sense, we must have free will. The system is not _at fault_ , but it may be poorly constructed in such a way that individuals prone to abuse it can easily do so.

Regardless of whether I keep my front door unlocked, if I'm robbed, the robber deserves legal punishment. But this doesn't mean I should keep the door unlocked.

Ultimately, Stapel has paid for his actions. He's completely discredited as a scientist and researcher, and will never regain his reputation as an academic. But that's not the important question.

What we must ask is why and how this got so far. How can we change the system so people like Stapel will not be able to abuse it?

</comment><comment><USER20> CICLing : Computational Linguistics and Intelligent Text Processing (Natural Language Processing) conference [0] uses an open data/software method to eliminate such frauds. They have a _Verifiability, reproducibility, and working description policy_ which reads as follows

 __ _Starting from 2011, CICLing implements a policy of giving preference to papers with verifiable and reproducible results:

If the authors claim to have obtained some results, we encourage them to make all the input data necessary to verify and reproduce the results available to the community.

If the authors claim to advance human knowledge by introducing an algorithm, we encourage them to make the algorithm itself -- and not only its (usually vague and incomplete) description -- available to the public. We do not require any demo or tool based on your paper, but instead a form of proof and working description of the algorithm in addition to the verbal description given in your paper. An approximation of the idea is the code submitted with Church & Umemura's paper to be permanently hosted at CICLing servers, and cited in the paper (see last line): you see, we don't mean anything complicated. Obviously, you are also encouraged to show demo programs or tools based on your method, either as part of your talk or (better) at the demo session, and we will also be happy to host on our servers such software that complements your paper. However, this is not required. In contrast, we do believe that a publicly published scientific paper must be accompanied by a minimal working description of the algorithm, open-source and available to the community.

Also, we do not ask for impossible: if you present a large system, especially commercially distributed or a property of your company, then we do not expect you to provide the system. Our point is that when the software and data can be provided, it should be provided.

We do not yet have specific rules: we hope to elaborate the rules basing on this year's experience, so please use common sense. See the problems this policy is to address, as well as the list of software reviewing committee and instructions for the reviewers._ __

[0]<http://www.cicling.org/2013/>

<comment><USER13> Right, and which is perfectly useless to prevent what Stapel did. "We _encourage_ them to make <etc>"? Instead of spending 5 days fabricating coherent data, you spend 6 - an additional day to come up with a plausible reason for not having to divulge raw data. I'm not a proponent of requiring everybody to submit their lab notes with every paper submission, in fact I have no credible solution to the whole problem at all - but feel-good policies like this are no more than something for editors of a journal to point at later when fraud is found, to be able to say "yeah but we did _something_ " (i.e., the classical politician's fallacy).

<comment><USER20> > Right, and which is perfectly useless to prevent what Stapel did.

Nothing of that sort is claimed; just because you do not have a fool proof method doesn't mean you take limited steps to stop it. The least you can do is put hygiene checks. Most reputed conferences wouldn't even do that. Also, how and why is this a feel-good policy? The program committee of the conference is reputed enough to check for fraud/discrepancies. After all, the Stapel fraud (like many others) was detected by his peers. FYI - this is not a journal either.

<comment><USER21> You used the phrase 'to eliminate such frauds.' The suggestion (to me) is that this is a fool proof method that eliminates such frauds. I would contend this is not true; fraud is still relatively easy. The question is how much this promotes a false sense of security.

Stapel's fraud was only detected after many years, and after his results had been widely published. I still hear some of his conclusions quoted now and then as if it were established truth, by people who have not yet realised that it is one of the famous Stapel ones.

<comment><USER20> Some clarifications -

\+ No method/suggestion is fool proof in the world of publications; simply can't be

\+ Stapel's fraud was "data fraud" which is eliminated if your work on publicly available datasets

\+ NLP community encourages work on public data and you can't get Stapel level of recognition if you do not have your data/tools out in the open

\+ Any suggestion/method if not fool proof can be said to promote a false sense of security; it is important to start somewhere rather than maintain status quo

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> No doubt many scientists are ethical and do good work. Others may produce reports that are either not honest or not accurate.

I wonder how we could encourage honesty and accuracy - perhaps by getting funding agencies to increase the rewards for people who show others' work to have been deeply inaccurate, or worse, fraudulently wrong.

Consider: what were the global costs of Rogoff & Reinhart's error? How - <USER2> how much - will we reward Herndon, Ash, and Pollin for their diligence in uncovering that inaccuracy?

What would the long-term effects on science be if the revelation and correction of such inaccuracies were better rewarded, and the perpetration of any scientific fraud involved more effective penalties?

<comment><USER23> Ah, a way to encourage _more_ academic infighting. What could go wrong! :P

I don't think an incentive like this would work very well. What you need is more people attempting to reproduce work, which means funding the _attempt_ , not the result.

<comment><USER22> Less would _be_ wrong. Plenty could still go wrong.

Consider whistle-blowing by grad students & post-docs - should that be rewarded as increasing accuracy, or punished as embarrassing to an institution?

Also, I mean science to include the (often better funded) areas beyond academia - think medicine and health care.

 _funding the attempt, not the result._

Possible outcomes: 1) Reproduces as expected (all real, or all faked?) 2) Reproduction fails (failed attempt, or not reproducible?) 3) Exposes fakery in previous experiments.

We should fund all of those, but reward 3) better afterward.</comment></comment></comment>


MIT Aaron Swartz report to be released "in a few weeks" - <AUTHOR> http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/swartz.html <comment><USER2> I am not a member of the MIT community. But I would like all communications between MIT and the prosecutor to be included in the investigation. In particular Aaron's lawyer claimed that a plea bargain with no jail time was turned down due to MIT's objections. Who was objecting? What were they asking for? Why were they objecting?

In short I want to understand MIT's role in pushing for punishments that were out of line with community expectations.

<comment><USER3> Moreover, I would like to see all correspondence relating to the prosecution of this case, from MIT, JSTOR, and among the prosecutors themselves. The public has a right to know why the government, which is supposed to be working on our behalf, chose to prosecute Swartz in this manner (starting with 4 charges, then expanding to 13 -- yes, we can theorize, but how about letting us see what the people responsible said to each other so that we can actually _know_?). I would understand redacting any personal information relating to Aaron in that correspondence, but otherwise there were no individuals involved in this case and privacy should not be a major issue.

<comment><USER4> These are federal documents, they're not related to a living person, and there is no more case/investigation. Presumably they should be available to a FOIA request. Has anyone requested them?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N63/abelson.html>

"We don't know what we'll find as the answers unfold, but I expect to find that every person acted in accordance with MIT policy. More than that: they acted in the belief that their actions were legally and ethically proper."

I'm a little concerned with Mr. Abelson's comment here. Given that he expects to find everything was done correctly and states as near fact that they were before starting, is he really impartial enough to be in charge of such an internal investigation.

<comment><USER6> It's funny, when I first read that sentence, I heard a very different tone in my head. I heard: "I _expect_ to find..." in the sense a parent might say "I _expect_ to find that you cleaned your room." Of course they don't expect it, but they do expect it.

Please remember that Prof. Abelson is one of the founders of Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation. He was undoubtedly chosen because of his credentials in the area of free culture. It is fairly insulting to suggest he will simply ignore the truth out of some unknown motive.

<comment><USER7> Just to add to your list (Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation): Abelson also cofounded MIT Open Courseware, Public Knowledge, and he is a Director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. His contributions to free culture and technology are amazing.

<comment><USER8> and an author of one of the more mind-expanding computer programming books ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"Members of the MIT community can suggest questions for Abelson's analysis via<http://swartz-review.mit.edu> "_

<comment><USER10> Apparently, alumni are not part of the community.

Any current MIT folks reading? Please submit: "Who _exactly_ rejected a plea bargain with no jail time?"

I believe it would speak volumes, knowing many of the cast.

<comment><USER11> Definitely. I've been around MIT a long time, and have seen it go from a hacker friendly place to one where charges are filed for undergrads acting according to ethical hacking on campus.

It's a shame, and I know who _I_ blame, but I am 100% certain that my assumptions about the inner workings of the MIT corporation are incomplete.

Besides, Hockfield is gone, and I largely blame her and Vest for the new liability-sensitive administrative culture that's so antithetical to the MIT tradition of supporting students, unconventional exploration, and if not being helpful at least not being actively hurtful when things go wrong.

So if they're both long gone, what is going on? Leftover poor policy? Deans who were hired under a bad paradigm of operating their department? Faculty pressure (I sure hope not on that one)?

<comment><USER12> years of toadyism?

<comment><USER11> It's so disappointing. I'm inspired by stories that end with "all tech men carry batteries". But then I see their treatment of my friend when she had far more benign intent.

Disappointment is almost too weak of a word when it comes to my opinion of most of the administration. Hopefully Reif will stir things up, but I'm doubtful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It will be interesting to see what MIT's response to Aaron's allies were...Edward Tufte said that he went to bat on behalf of Aaron with JSTOR (who more or less dropped their case), others must have done so with MIT. Did those petitions get to the right people? And if so, what justification did those MIT officials use to carry on with the case?

Also, did MIT feel any pressure from the Justice Department to carry on with the case? Perhaps MIT was reluctant to take action against Aaron but was convinced by the DoJ that something had to be done?

</comment><comment><USER14> I am ready for the white washed report saying MIT did everything right. Since MIT is made up of humans and humans are perfect.

<comment><USER15> Even the people the most angry with MIT right now have almost universally said that they hold Dr Abelson in high regard.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What bank service are you using? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an EU resident, but I welcome everybody to share their good and bad experiences that will surely be helpful for all of us. <comment> shane-armstrong I use Bancaja mainly, it is a Spanish bank which recently integrated with another larger one, Bankia. The transition was awful, I didn't have access to my card for 6 days, then I didn't have access to the funds in the account for a further three.

My wages were not successfully paid in due to the bank not changing my account over to the international bank number, which had to be rectified.

The process cost me money for 12 days and made me incur an overdraft charge (Which Bankia, after several stern phone calls from the family solicitor agreed to pay back, plus a generous compensation packet totalling near 40 euros.)

I almost lost my home (and this was right before I was due to move back to the UK, so it would have been catastrophic) due to this.

This is by no means the typical Bankia experience, and I would still advocate the use of the bank, it is normally a fabulous one, but my experience in particular was terrible, and I shall be swapping to another bank (preferably Santander or a british one) prior to being paid again.</comment>


What exactly is Membase? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.northscale.com/northscale-blog/2010/07/what-exactly-is-membase.html <comment><USER2> It looks like all reads and writes for a specific partition must go through the master node for that partition. Is that the case? If so, are there any plans to allow clients to read from the replicas if they are willing to get less fresh data? Another option would be to have Membase return a sequence ID as part of the result of a write to the master. Then a subsequent read request could present that sequence ID to a replica and have it block until either a timeout occurred or it was able to serve data at least as fresh as that sequence ID.

<comment><USER3> A couple of points. Some deployments do query from replicas already, but we can make this a bit better in the vbucket world. A second point is that moxi actually has functionality to non-coherently cache some items locally. Moving the cache closer to the application is always the best thing to do if you're willing to relax consistency. This is better than having it elsewhere in the cluster. The fastest network read is the one you don't actually have to do.

moxi does this with a key prefix and a timeout per item (even 1 second makes a big difference for hot data), then fetching it from the authoritative server.

We've not really exploited this moxi functionality in membase deployments yet, but it's been there in moxi for a year now and could be easily turned on if we had a deployment which needed it.

Having said all of that, with membase (as with memcached) the limit you'll hit first for an item you're fetching is network throughput. It's not that common to be fetching a few items so much that you overrun network. Even if you do, then the answer is simple: add a few more nodes.</comment></comment>


Ballmer sets a new (and potentially much later) retirement date - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1599 <comment><USER2> _Ballmer told attendees that he is going to stay on at Microsoft until Microsoft's search share exceeds Google's_

Not going anywhere for a while?

</comment><comment><USER3> Since January 2000 when he became CEO, MSFT stock has been flatlined around $25, more than eight years delivering nothing!

In the same period of time, Steve Jobs has taken AAPL from $25 to more than $140 delivering iPods, iPhones, iTunes, iMacs, MacBooks, Tiger, Leopard, etc.

Ballmer will be remembered as the worst failure as CEO in the history of corporations.

Ballmer, you're fired!

<comment><USER4> I don't know about "worst failure". I think Steve Jobs is actually the unusual CEO here.</comment></comment>


Old drug slows cellular clock, treats multiple neurodegenerative diseases - <AUTHOR> http://www.physorg.com/news150483871.html

<comment><USER2> This is intriguing news. From the article:

 _Recent animal studies have shown that clioquinol - an 80-year old drug once used to treat diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disorders - can reverse the progression of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases. [...] Researchers at McGill University have discovered a dramatic possible new answer: According to Dr. Siegfried Hekimi and colleagues at McGill's Department of Biology, clioquinol acts directly on a protein called CLK-1, often informally called "clock-1," and might slow down the aging process. [...]

"Because clock-1 affects longevity in invertebrates and mice, and because we're talking about three age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases, we hypothesize that clioquinol affects them by slowing down the rate of aging." [...]

"The danger is that you can buy a kilogram of this compound at a chemical wholesaler, but we don't want people to start experimenting on themselves. Clioquinol can be a very toxic substance if abused_</comment>


Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform - <AUTHOR> https://china-underground.com/2019/02/09/reddit-is-experiencing-a-user-uprising-against-china-because-tencent-will-invest-heavily-in-the-platform/ <comment><USER2> Reddit has long been plagued with censorship. The CEO edited the post of a user because they criticized him or something. I can't believe how quickly that's been forgotten.

The Reddit situation reminds me of the post about failing to build a billion dollar company a few days ago. Reddit is trying to make VCs happy and continue to grow the business, but a platform like Reddit is best as a less reliant on growth, but stable platform. That allows the most ideas to be shared and the most natural interaction between users. I really think there is space for a competitor, but the switching costs will be high.

<comment><USER3> Can you imagine the reaction if a _user 's_ post on HN were edited by YC?

I guess it'd be the instant death of the network.

That this action a) happened on Reddit + b) was mostly/quickly forgotten says a lot about the different demographics.

Audiences who largely come for cat pictures and political snark don't have to worry about CEOs breaking the 4th wall.

I've been a Redditor for 9+ years and I still am one. But today's Reddit isn't the one I signed up for.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. I think the comment editing (and immediate capitulation afterwards) was horrible, but the fact that they allowed the_donald to continue to break their own rules was way worse. They constantly would dox, harass, downvote brigade (in posts stickied by mods), and in general act entirely in bad faith. Other subreddits were banned for much, much less.

Either they wanted their advertising money or were simply supportive of their platform/actions, but eventually it was enough for me to leave Reddit entirely.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if the presence of a controversial subreddit like the_donald is good for business, increasing discussion, site traffic and thus revenue? Perhaps Reddit has a financial incentive to encourage (or at least not punish) subreddit drama.

<comment><USER6> Most probably. It's about the current US president after all, and it's the closest thing to an official forum/social network his fanbase/supporters have.

If Reddit banned it, then they'd likely drive said users to a competitor (like Voat) and divert all that media attention from Reddit to said competitor in the process.

<comment><USER7> T_D went to voat already back when I still used it (I gave up because they refused to add the ability to mute users), they couldn't handle it for even a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I smiled on the inside when I noticed this -- people posting all kinds of content exposing China -- earlier in my r/all feed. Great effort by the community.

<comment><USER9> Protesting a site by engaging with it more. Excellent work, reddit.

<comment><USER8> You can always create an account and _join the party_.

<comment><USER9> I deleted my accounts a while back and don't regret it at all. [https://archive.fo/qIDX7](https://archive.fo/qIDX7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are there examples of companies that said "this is enough money" and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? I think of this a lot lately. It seems companies don't want to just do what they do well anymore and be satisfied with that. Can someone give me some inspiration? Companies that have such pride in their work that they aren't constantly looking for the next thing they can take on to grow and instead just focus on being the best and most ethical at what they do? Are there examples that this business model is actually more sustainable than the one where you are constantly trying to grow to more more more?

<comment><USER11> > _Are there examples of companies that said "this is enough money" and > stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to > satisfy VC or stock investors?_

Yes, except they're most often private companies and not publicly traded. Many of these inspirational companies are family owned and operated. Eventually, however, someone will get in charge of the company who isn't satisfied with "good enough" and they'll take the company public or accept investors and choose to place profit over concerns like customer satisfaction and employee well being. In other words, eventually someone will decide, "My pocket book is more important than the community I live in."

If you want inspiration, look at the Chelsea Milling Company, makers of Jiffy mix. It's nearly 90 years old, has approximately 65 percent of the pre-mixed cornbread market in the United States, and has never had a marketing department and does not advertise.

<comment><USER12> Off topic: I love the Jiffy Mix except last I checked it has trans fats in it. I wish they would remove that.

<comment><USER13> IIRC, trans fats were banned in the US. I don't think it works be legal for them to contain them anymore.

<comment><USER14> Partially hydrogenated oils, a major source of artificial trans fats, have been banned. Not all trans fats have been banned and they are not all artificial, they are also naturally occurring.

Jiffy corn muffin mix doesn't contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and contains zero grams of trans fats per serving (I have seen it claimed that products may have less than 0.5 grams per serving and round down to zero).

[https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodad...](https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredientspackaginglabeling/foodadditivesingredients/ucm449162.htm)

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

[https://site.jiffymix.com/product/](https://site.jiffymix.com/product/)

<comment><USER12> I believe it did last time I looked at a box of it that I had in my kitchen. Maybe they removed them a little while back?

<comment><USER14> That's very possible. However, looking at 3rd party site that lists ingredients and nutritional information, Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix did not contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and listed zero grams of trans fats [0]. The site doesn't list when the information was added but the comment history goes back to 2011.

They do also have a page for a Jiffy Baking Mix (no corn, sounds similar to Bisquick) that did contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, enough for one gram trans fats per serving.

[0] [https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43DBDE62-E10F...](https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43DBDE62-E10F-11DF-A102-FEFD45A4D471)

[1] [https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43BFE144-E10F...](https://www.fooducate.com/app#!page=product&id=43BFE144-E10F-11DF-A102-FEFD45A4D471)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am surprised no one mentioned Digg here. It was the original Reddit. Arguably its demise is attributed by inflow of VCs capital following by pivoting direction. Which resulted in community leaving for Reddit.

P.S. found this old article [https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/07/13/reddit- didn...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/07/13/reddit-didnt-kill- digg-digg-killed-digg/#b9400ca336ff)

<comment><USER16> I'm still amazed by how ill-conceived everything having to do with that redesign was, including the new design itself, the rollout plan, apparent lack of load testing, and no ability to roll back. Contrast with reddit's redesign, which was rolled out slowly and incrementally.

More recently Snap had a redesign that was received almost as poorly, but at least they executed it competently.

<comment><USER17> >but at least they executed it competently.

and gave all their users to IG

<comment><USER18> They're doing fine, their Daily Active Users is higher than Twitter even.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How would tencent owning a minor stake in reddit allow it to censor the site? Or is this outrage mostly because tencent is a Chinese firm?

I mean, censorship only works if you have the government backing you, are people legitimately fear the US government is going to bow down to a Chinese company?

<comment><USER20> There was a very similar reaction years ago when Conde Nast bought reddit about how things would now be censored by the corporate overlord and the platform would be inundated by ads and sponsored posts pushed to the top just like what happened with Digg. It never happened and the outrage came to pass.

As an aside: how does reddit look like a good investment for tencent? The size of the site alone? I bet 9/10 reddit users use an adblocker, and even top top comments and posts from massive subreddits might only be guilded a couple times.

<comment><USER21> At least Condé Nast is a privately held magazine publisher. Separation of church and state is already part of their DNA.

> how does reddit look like a good investment for tencent? The size of the > site alone?

Good question. It's either user count, betting than an IPO is soon, a bet that it can have Facebook-level appeal (and ad targeting), or dumb money that's tired of sitting on the sidelines. Not sure if I buy any of those stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reddit already does some of the most aggressive tracking for surveillance, censors content they don't like, uses shadow bans, is run in an authoritarian way and has a score system that shows how good of a user you are - and reddit users are afraid of China because ...?

<comment><USER23> Because the media says so. But they forget China increased their quality of life for the last 2 decades by producing cheap products like their iphones.

<comment><USER24> The word cheap and iPhones don't go together.

<comment><USER25> Just because iPhones are expensive compared to competing brands doesn't mean the hardware isn't vastly less expensive than it would be without China's inexpensive labor and lax environmental regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think calling what's going on a "user uprising" is a wild exaggeration. This is some users who are predisposed to whinge about this sort of topic seizing the chance to do so and a bunch of other users jumping on the bandwagon.

<comment><USER27> Going through my personal feed or /r/all it seems like nothing even happened. How quickly it evaporated

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> cache of the site: [https://web.archive.org/web/20190209121623/https://china- und...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190209121623/https://china- underground.com/2019/02/09/reddit-is-experiencing-a-user-uprising-against- china-because-tencent-will-invest-heavily-in-the-platform/)

</comment><comment><USER29> There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything.

My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logistical or engineering challenge that I'm not considering?

The way that Reddit is structured seems like it would be very vulnerable to a coordinated attempt to move users. In my experience, most subreddits have a heavily skewed distribution where a handful of users post most of the content, especially for the long-tail hobby and region-specific subreddits.

Intuitively, it feels like there are probably clusters of Reddit users who are subscribed to largely overlapping sets of subreddits, and who derive most of their utility from content generated by the same small-ish set of power users.

Depending on the terms of the investment, I wonder if some of these users might become very amenable to a migration to a new platform.

A quick aside. For those unfamiliar with Tencent, the Chinese government essentially has direct access to, and control over, all communication on Tencent's platforms. Nothing about the company in particular, its just part of doing business as a media company in China. But the fact of the matter is that you can be jailed for things you say in private group chats, and any chat can be arbitrarily censored, with no notification to the sender or recipient that the message was caught in a filter.

<comment><USER30> As Digg found out many years ago. There is nothing stopping Reddit users from leaving. The question is which straw breaks the camel's back... and also lack of viable alternatives, a la Reddit to Digg.

<comment><USER31> Apart from the fact there is no decent reddit alternative. That is after reddit offered their entire product free with the source code and data (and the data is still offered for free...)

If there was going to be an alternative, it would be here by now.

People just don't care that much, contrary to what you may believe.

<comment><USER30> I believe their open source copy is no longer maintained. [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6xh3xp/reddits_main_code_is_no_longer_opensource/)

But a code base is not an alternative, an alternative is an actual community with a similar focus. You could potentially build it on Reddit's code base if you wanted... but you have to build that somehow. Network effects prevent that from forming and from people leaving existing communities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think the concern shouldn't just be about censorship but also about political interference. First Russia and now China. Foreign ownership of media is a national security concern.

<comment><USER33> What direct, trustworthy evidence is there of Russia political interference? Not a criminal charge, but the most convincing _evidence_?

<comment><USER34> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections)

<comment><USER33> > First, the Internet Research Agency "troll farm", based in Saint Petersburg, > created hundreds of social media accounts impersonating Americans supporting > radical groups, planning and promoting rallies, and reaching millions of > social media users between 2013 and 2017.

Is there any proof for this claim? Writing it on a piece of paper or web page is not proof.

Was the proof perhaps IP addresses?

I don't think I've ever had anyone even try to answer this question.

<comment><USER34> I could offer you the numerous citations around the web, but I have a feeling I'll get tired of following the goalpost before you get tired of moving it.

<comment><USER33> Citations of evidence?

You could try once, but keep in mind the goalposts in this case are actual _evidence_ , not an impressive story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Deleted my reddit account. They can take their $150 million, but freedom of speech and more specifically being able to criticize the state is more important than your daily dose of catpics.

<comment><USER36> it's a private company, there's no freedom of speech involved. You want a baker to create a cake that says an offensive message, the baker doesn't' have to comply.

<comment><USER37> What if the telephone company doesn't want to carry your offensive message to your friend? It's a private company, the telephone company doesn't have to comply.

In other words, I don't think your analogy entirely fits here, as Reddit is more of a platform for communication, they're not paying an artist (baker) to create some art. Jus' sayin'

<comment><USER38> The telephone company actually does have to carry your message, because they are a common carrier and regulated by the FCC.

In other words, you argument is a bit ignorant. Reddit is a private forum that's allowed to what they want as long as they don't discriminate against protected classes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Ignorant people outraged by something they have no clue about.

This summarises Reddit and social media in 2019.

</comment><comment><USER40> We need to find ways to untrap people from their online networks. Perhaps a common friendlist protocol with global identifiers? The market should be able to offer alternatives to reddit. User uprisings are just proof that the platform is a monopolistic trap.

</comment><comment><USER41> i still use old.reddit.com even on my phone because I like info density

</comment><comment><USER42> Not according to the first 50 posts on r/all. I don't see anything about China. Must have blown over already.

<comment> abc-xyz Still on the frontpage of [https://old.reddit.com](https://old.reddit.com) (for those who subscribe to default subreddits) - /r/pics, /r/videos and /r/documentaries (maybe more) all occupied the frontpage for many hours with focus on the Tiananmen Massacre, and seen /r/pcgaming highlighting the investment as well.

Project idea for activists: a small code snippet that everyone could easily include on their websites that ran every year from April 15 to June 4 (with special emphasis on June 4) highlighting the Tienanmen Massacre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I wonder how many strings come attached to this investment. I.e. if Reddit does something offensive to China - for example, publishes some state secret they'd like to keep hidden, etc., - would Chinese government lean on Tencent so that they lean on Reddit to change it?

</comment><comment><USER44> What irks me about all this is that it's entirely a one way street – American companies can't go buying influence over Chinese social media companies because that's simply not possible. These Chinese companies really want to have their cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER45> Pretty much the front page is purged of the "protest". I air quoted it for the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Why?

Pretty sure you would find many posting and or reading from their Chinese made phones in their homes with Chinese made appliances and other such accouterments all the while having ignored some of these events that occurred during their adult lifetime but where many occurred long before.

In other words it is a disappointing sign of what constitutes standing up for one's beliefs. Where posting on a social network, hash tag tweets, and more, are the only effort they will ever make. Yet they wonder why the world ignores them for the most part.

Oh I am quite sure there are politicians willing to exploit them, many willingly will line up for it, if anything to feel as if they make a difference. Then they forget by the next time they line up for their morning latte

</comment><comment><USER46> Reddit has gone downhill a lot in the last 2 years. It's becoming an echo chamber.

However, there is still enough quality posts and comments to keep me hooked until something better comes along.

</comment><comment><USER47> I will not accept them influencing our affairs with their dirty money that they earned from being used as our slave labor. When will they learn their place?

</comment><comment><USER48> I feel like it would be incredibly easy for 1 person to make a reddit clone with what's available today. Reddit's advantage is its network but a competitor's platform would sky rocket in situations like these.

<comment><USER49> There is one (voat) but unfortunately it turned into a cesspool. What I would like to see is the concept of sub-reddits decentralized. Each subreddit could be it's own instance and you peer with the ones you like. It could even be API compatible with Reddit so app developers could just let users enter all of the domains they want to follow. If Reddit bans a subreddit they could just move to their own server and users could just add the domain to relay, sync, Apollo, baconreader or whatever

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> reddit is the best example for jumping into conclusions.

here's a video explaining it : [https://youtu.be/8BIYsdulTgU](https://youtu.be/8BIYsdulTgU)

</comment><comment><USER51> where can the rest of us go? obviously not happy with this decision but voat.co is just so bad and alt-right crowd moved there.

</comment><comment><USER52> tencent on the dollar is the worth of any company with their stain on the brand.</comment>


A Conversation with Jeff Bonwick and Bill Moore: The Future of File Systems - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1317400 <comment><USER2> 2007\. Still interesting.</comment>


A paranoid guide to fighting the 'bugging epidemic' - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/technology/surveillance-bugging-protection.html <comment><USER2> > Tiny cameras have been found in places where they shouldn't be, like Airbnb > rentals, public bathrooms and gym locker rooms. So often, in fact, that > security experts warn that we are in the throes of a "bugging epidemic."

Even more concerning, I feel, is cameras in places where they "should" be, like on every street corner, in stores, or in drones. If you place a camera surreptitiously in a place it shouldn't be and someone finds it, you're going to jail, somewhat limiting their use. There are no consequences to the latter, which means they're everywhere and people have come to accept them, meaning they may end up _more_ invasive overall.

<comment><USER3> I don't have any problems with security cameras that simply store their video for a few weeks and then delete it. In the case of a crime or other real need for the data the owner can pull that bit of video off.

The problem comes with cameras that will be constantly monitored by ai with facial recognition networked up to some mega tracking datacenter. We have no way of knowing which one the camera operates at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am seriously interested in a device which will spam garbage to the smart devices in my house so that the companies monitoring my data will not be able to extract anything useful.

E.g. some kind of speech synthesizer which mimics my voice and sends engineered requests to Alexa while I'm not around.

E.g. A GPS spoofer that will occasionally tell my phone that I am visiting places I don't.

E.g. A browser extension to send random browsing info to trackers.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like you'd want this, but for it to truly work, you could also end up suffering. For example:

> A GPS spoofer that will occasionally tell my phone that I am visiting places > I don't.

Sure, but the next time you want to see your Google Maps history, you'll question your own sanity.

> some kind of speech synthesizer which mimics my voice and sends engineered > requests to Alexa while I'm not around.

Sure, but then you're liable for everything your spoofer says if it truly isn't distinguishable from your own voice. If it is distinguishable, then it defeats the purpose of hiding your true behavior in the first place.

<comment><USER6> > Sure, but the next time you want to see your Google Maps history, you'll > question your own sanity.

Indeed I'd question my sanity, as I can usually remember roughly where I've been yesterday and don't see much use in looking up where I'd been a year ago. Of course I might be missing out on something, since I don't use Google Maps at all. (I prefer OpenStreetMap.)

In what kind of situation is being able to look up one's own location history actually useful?

<comment><USER5> > In what kind of situation is being able to look up one's own location > history actually useful?

      1. Remembering the name of a restaurant you went to two weeks ago.
      2. Tracing your steps to look for something you might have lost.
      3. Proving you were somewhere at a certain time.
      4. Documenting a trip you took in the past.

The more personal information you generate, the more technology can help you. But if that information is tarnished or does not exist, then so too are the insights and benefits.

<comment><USER3> And in the many years I have had a smartphone I have never once had a reason to look up my location history.

<comment><USER5> You're a single data point, so I'm not sure what your conclusion could even be.

<comment><USER3> That android should not be by default tracking every user and sending a of that data to google since most users aren't aware it is even happening and most users have no use for this data. They know where they have been.

<comment><USER5> You're cherrypicking. A user does not need to know what or how much data they produce in order for that data to do useful work for them. I've already explained why a recent location history could be useful to a location- suggestion algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let's not forget about smart phones with always on microphones, voice assistant speakers, IoT devices, and laptop webcams. What a world we've built!</comment>


Goodbye Mac App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.stclairsoft.com/blog/2017/03/02/goodbye-mac-app-store/ <comment><USER3> I have said it before.

I pulled my app from the mac app store after 5-6 months and haven't looked back since.

My sales were quite good but the sandboxing made it impossible to do any real innovation on the OS X platform which my app is trying to do. Getting any help from support was impossible and so I decided to sell from my own website instead.

Whether pulling it was the reason why my sales have gone up I don't think there is a way to validate but it had no negative effect on my sales quite the contrary.

I was in the top 10 on the app store for a while and it had no effect on my sale. Only getting featured means anything for your sales which makes me conclude that the mac app store add no value what so ever to either user nor developer.

Apple should shut it down and simply focus on featuring apps they think are worth featuring instead of creating an app store which create a million apps with no value to anyone not even the developers yet they still create a lot of noise.

If not that they they should at least allow the user to decide whether they want to give access for the specific app to things outside the sandbox.

<comment><USER4> Anecdotal evidence but…

I've been a Mac user since almost forever and an iOS user since also almost forever. I never use either store for discovery, largely because I can't imagine any way to do that and get good results. If I open the App Store on iOS and see something neat, I'll check it out. If I open the App Store on macOS, then either I'm going to my 'purchased apps' or 'updates', or I'm following a link from someone's website.

Both stores are terrible places to find apps; I think it was John Gruber who said that the Mac App Store is a warehouse, not a storefront, and I think that's only become more true on macOS. People find good apps on the webs via Google and then click through to the app store.

Getting featured is neat, but beyond that you have to do all the hustle yourself, and if you're doing all the hustle I don't see the point in paying Apple a 30% cut if you can avoid it.

<comment><USER5> Agree about warehouse vs discovery and finding links elsewhere.

But contrary anecdata -- if I have a choice between a great app not in App Store and a just ok app in store, I buy from the Mac app store.

The experience across multiple Macs and new Macs is too convenient to give up.

I'd imagine this is even more true with a multi-Mac family with family purchasing enabled.

I will happily pay 2x for "don't make me think" features like one stop updates, purchase history and new machine restores, etc. Time is money, in the long run this convenience is cheaper.

OTOH, I buy a ludicrous number of apps so maybe my problems aren't typical.

<comment><USER6> I used to do the same, but then...

1) I moved countries, now half my apps are on a separate account I have to log into separately randomly (sometimes updates need it, sometimes not...) and logging in and out of Apple IDs always confuses their system mightily.

2) Several of the apps left the app store...

So now if I see an app in the app store I'll look for it on the web to buy from the dev directly.

<comment><USER7> IIRC (from when I moved countries, but that was close to 4 years ago), you can change the country associated with an Apple ID.

<comment><USER8> When I moved countries (also 4 years ago), you could. However, you would lose the list of all applications that you purchased (this also happens with purchased music). However, when you repurchase them, you get the application for free. Of course, it is a bit difficult to guess for each application if you already had it and at the same version.

Even after re-purchasing an app that you already bought, it does not always show up in your purchases list. E.g., I bought Pixelmator before I moved. It won't show up in my purchases list. I have to purchase it again (for free) every time I install a Mac.

The next time, I will just try to keep a local bank account and will not migrate the account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > For both applications, complying with Apple's sandboxing and feature > constraints to get them approved for sale would have required significant > rewrites.

As a user, this makes me want to get apps from the app store rather than downloading directly. It bothers me that apps can write arbitrary files. I'd much rather they be sandboxed so that when I tell the OS to delete the app, everything goes with it.

<comment><USER10> But what about apps that you are downloading that are SUPPOSED to do things to files outside of the 'sandbox'? I can think of a million use cases that require access to arbitrary files or system functions - a backup app, an app that compresses infrequently used files, a network analyzer, etc. The blog post talks about an app that needs access to things beyond the sandbox - <USER2> jettison app requires the ability to eject disks. Sure, there are a lot of apps that CAN work in a sandbox, but not all of them. There should be a way to grant apps permissions beyond the sandbox.

<comment><USER11> An iOS-like approach seems natural.

-download from App Store; app runs normally

-function in app hits boundary

\- OS: "app Example has request access to <files: all/this directory/this folder> this time/always/not now/never"

Would solve this problem pretty quick right?

I don't want handbrake to have access to my photos, I'd love Native fine-tuned permissions like this.

<comment><USER12> Haven't we learned that users will click "yes" on any dialogs that get in the way of what they want to do?

If you put an exit door on a sandbox and give the user the key, it isn't a sandbox anymore.

<comment><USER13> Have we learned that? I don't have any data, but my impression is that granular permission dialogs in iOS (and Android) are considered good things, at least in the tech community.

<comment><USER14> iOS's permission dialogs are great, but they're not very granular; it's just stuff like "Foo wants to use your camera", "Foo wants access to your calendar", etc. It doesn't ask you about individual files, and the questions are very clear.

But this sort of thing is universally considered a bad idea: [https://i.imgur.com/H0uVqFe.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/H0uVqFe.jpg)

<comment><USER15> The image you've linked to doesn't really imply that iOS' dialogs are a bad idea because, as you said, Apple's dialogs ask very clear questions. They don't intimidate the user with tech voodoo.

[http://nshipster.s3.amazonaws.com/core-location-always- autho...](http://nshipster.s3.amazonaws.com/core-location-always- authorization.png)

Anecdotally, my tech-adverse friends choose Don't Allow when in doubt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It doesn't make sense for Apple to enforce sandboxing at the store level, since it merely incents developers to distribute outside the store. And some apps that remain in the store have a worse UX, like not having certain capabilities, or requiring a helper app, which is a horrible solution.

Instead, permissions should be implemented at the OS layer, not just for Mac app store apps. Here's how it would work:

\- An app could specify a list of permissions, like on Android.

\- One of the permissions would be "unrestricted", which is equivalent to today's unsandboxed apps.

\- The first time you try to run an app that requires unrestricted permission, macOS will tell you the app could be dangerous and ask for confirmation. This is similar to how Gatekeeper warns about unsigned apps, but here the focus is on what the app can do, not who made it.

\- If a legacy app didn't specify a list of permissions, it would be treated as "unrestricted".

That way, there's no incentive for developers to leave the Mac app store. Security is increased for all users, no matter where they download the apps from. This mechanism doesn't restrict the power of the platform, what developers can do.

<comment><USER17> UAC is basically that except only for when administrator permissions are required, and apps still abuse it. Most users just click through things like that without reading, and don't really have the knowledge to evaluate whether it makes sense for an app to need such access in the first place.

I don't see how your idea would lead to anything else when it asks in even more cases that UAC does. Most developers will just not specify a list or just specify restricted, like they did on Windows when UAC came out.

<comment><USER16> I haven't used UAC, so I can't comment about it, but permissions on iOS work fine. I'm asked only once, usually the first time I use an app, or access certain functionality in an app, not constantly.

<comment><USER17> Yes, but there's no broad "catch all" permission, and the permissions are things every user will understand (e.g. access contacts). Additionally you don't have the option to pretend your app is older than it is and bypass permissions altogether. Your proposal is very different from the iOS model.

<comment><USER16> Broadly, my proposal is the iOS model + a catch all permission. Apps that try to bypass permissions are treated the same as apps that request unrestricted permission.

You're right that the permission prompts need to be expressed in an understandable way. For example, don't ask "Do you want to allow Skype to open TCP port 800?", which sounds like gobbledygook to non-technical users. Instead ask, "Do you want to allow Skype to expose your device on the Internet?" or something along those lines. Or maybe skip this prompt, since if Skype is sandboxed, the danger of opening a port is reduced. Basically, make an intelligent tradeoff between security and usability.

You're right that it will be harder for users to understand than iOS, but it's still better than the "anything can happen?" status quo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not familiar with Apple's guidelines for publishing apps to the Mac App Store, but this post highlights an interesting point--

Traditionally, the burden of security was on consumers: which emails or files to open, programs to run/install, actions to approve, etc. Efforts to enhance the security of third-party software have been sporadic and limited, e.g. SELinux policies, changes to ports to use OpenBSD's pledge (systrace before) and FreeBSD's capsicum.

This is the first time I see a mainstream OS vendor forcing third-party software authors to use advanced security mechanisms (like sandboxing) as a prerequisite for software distribution through official channels.

I think it's great. I hope similar policies make it to Android and Windows.

<comment><USER3> It's not great because it basically hinders any real development and innovation on the platform.

It's not felt as much on iOS because so much effort goes into building new features, tools and improve hardware that it feels like you are innovating even though you are sandboxed.

The OS X haven't had any real love for a long time so Sandboxing it is slowly suffocating the entire ecosystem.

<comment><USER16> As implemented, yes, sandbox is a hindrance. But it could be implemented better: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13844014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13844014)

<comment><USER3> I completely agree have also been my suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a user this frustrates me no end.

I want my apps to be sandboxed to protect my computer. I want my apps to all be in a central repository that automates a bunch of painful processes (buying, updating, etc).

But the Mac App Store is a dumpster fire at the moment. Its impossible to find the thing you want, its hard for developers to comply. Its the worst possible outcome of the store concept.

Apple really needs to lift its game.

<comment><USER20> If you think it looks rough check out the Windows app store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The Mac App Store provides real benefits: reduced app permissions, effective malware screening, improved auto-update, and easy uninstallation.

I do see that it's incompatible with many OS augmentation programs, but for the App Store to reduce security would be pyrrhic. What we need is a user- granted sandbox opt-out, so that I can unencumber only programs I believe need it and won't abuse it, without taking the App Store's benefits from those programs.

</comment><comment><USER22> My app store is homebrew. It's extremely seldom that I don't find what I need there.

</comment><comment><USER23> As an iOS developper, i feel really jealous. I see those mac developpers running away from the jailhouse, dancing and chanting about their freedom, while i miserably keep giving 30% of my revenues to a company that keep looking at third party developpers as a burden.

</comment><comment><USER24> At this point Apple may as well just shutter the Mac App Store and bring back the software update utility. The restrictions the place on apps in the store are too onerous and are inconsistent with the nature of the platform.

</comment><comment><USER25> A common theme I'm noticing in these comments is that the MAS provides value by 1.) allowing easy reinstallation of all apps on a fresh system, and 2.) mitigating malware risk. I'm very surprised by these opinions, to be honest. Reinstallation of applications on a fresh OS is such an infrequent event that it makes no sense to optimize for it. And malware? Really? Was it such a problem before the MAS? I agree these things have value, but not enough to give away so much power to Apple.

<comment><USER26> Many users don't seem to agree :)

I'd add a third one: buying is 1-click and shares no info with the seller. As opposed to the usual "navigate this crappy checkout process and get spammed forever" one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am increasingly against sandboxed platforms on the desktop. We have a perfectly great sandboxed platform on every desktop already. It's called the browser.

What our OS overlords need to do is create great App Stores which are intended to promote the apps that explicitly cannnot do things within a sandbox, etc., and for the rest, increase hooks that are provided to web apps so they can act as first class citizens as well.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just because you can't or won't use the sandboxing required by the AppStore, that doesn't mean that you should just not go to the MAS and ignore sandboxing... maybe you should _always_ sandbox?

</comment><comment><USER29> If any developer thinks that in a few years, sandboxing won't be mandatory and fundamental on macOS, I don't know what to tell you. So running away from it now is prolonging the inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am against any form of sand boxing and crippling my control of a system as a developer. Which is one of many reason I hate web developing with a vengeance. Even more than I hate Windows ( though win 10 seems to have potential ).

I am a big , not huge, but big fan of Apple but in this case of me surrendering control.

Μολων λαβέ

</comment><comment><USER31> There is a big opportunity for Homebrew Cask[1]. It's already a fully-fledged app catalog. It's only missing a GUI for normal people to use it.

[1]: [https://caskroom.github.io/](https://caskroom.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER32> It would be interesting to do a study of what features developers require no- sandbox for, then maybe Apple could address those specific areas.

Most of the apps I make use the sandbox with no problem.

</comment><comment><USER33> The other day I tried PixelMator and loved it right away. Only thing holding me back from buying it is the 'Mac App Store' :(

</comment><comment><USER34> Ultimately, it comes to these apps not making money from the App Store and it's not worth the hassle anymore

<comment><USER35> The company's products looks like a bunch of simple utilities; I would be surprised if they any made any money at all from the App Store.

<comment><USER36> You'd be surprised with what you can actually make money on the App Store. Yes, there's money in utilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Jettison looks like a nice app.

</comment><comment><USER38> Apple should shut down the Mac App Store and open a Product Hunt style website for all Mac Apps instead.

</comment><comment><USER39> Please replace this title, it's misleading.

<comment><USER3> Thats the title of the post, so not misleading at all.

<comment><USER40> The title makes sense on that company's blog, but in the context of HN it could appear to mean that the Mac App Store itself is going away.

<comment><USER41> Not with the domain indicated right next to it.

<comment><USER42> It's what I thought at first though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >let's just say that while the Mac App Store is convenient for consumers, it doesn't really serve the needs of some developers

Boo f __king hoo. If you didn 't want to sell to consumers then the choice of selling your app in a less consumer convenient way would make sense. If you just don't want to do a little extra work or are put off by Apple's consumer focused restrictions, you can just go away if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER44> This post just goes to show how many people use the upvote button as a way save articles without reading them first.

The flywheel of clickbait titles in action.</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't GitHub allow issues to be deleted? - <AUTHOR> Is it an ethical decision or a technical one? Surprised they make no mention of it in their docs on managing disruptive comments.<p>https://help.github.com/articles/managing-disruptive-comments/ <comment><USER2> Probably more of an ITIL mindset. They should never be deleted, because this would be as if they never existed, but instead closed with an appropriate status.

It kind of trusts that people will generally do the right thing. I imagine they have a way to deal with issue abuse if you're seeing that happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a great question. I saw this earlier, and it's the kind of thing that people need to be able to delete.

"What good is this shit if it can't even recognize level.dat?"

[https://github.com/mrkite/minutor/issues/94](https://github.com/mrkite/minutor/issues/94)</comment>


Show HN: Prisma – Turn Any Database into a GraphQL API - <AUTHOR> https://www.prisma.io/?q=a <comment><AUTHOR> Søren, Co-Founder of Prisma here!

We have raised $4.5M from KP, but Prisma stays open source. Happy to answer any questions about Prisma, GraphQL and databases :-)

<comment><USER2> Ok, I have question about GraphQL in general: is there any tool that supports offline-first use-cases with GraphQL? I mean storing the data in a local database in the browser, then syncing it back to the server.

<comment><USER3> It's not exactly what you want, but I think realm comes closest to that kind of an offering.

[https://realm.io/](https://realm.io/) [https://realm.io/blog/realm-scales-to- the-web/](https://realm.io/blog/realm-scales-to-the-web/)

<comment><USER4> AppSync does this as well: [https://aws.amazon.com/appsync/](https://aws.amazon.com/appsync/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any? We use MS SQL at my work, I didn't see that its supported. Will you support it?

</comment><comment><USER6> This is great news for GraphQL adoption. I also really like the landing page design

<comment><USER2> I don't like it that much, but the explanatory drawing/schema is wonderful. I've tried to understand where exactly Prisma fitted before, but couldn't before watching it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks very cool - How do you see permissions/roles/authenticated access being managed for APIs where say most gets are public but most puts and a few gets are private? (I apologize if I missed that in the intro)

<comment><USER8> I have done this in a node app that acts as the intermediate / proxy between your frontend and the prisma service. Infact you can even run it as a serverless endpoint just fine to keep it lightweight.

<comment><USER7> Is that whitelisting routes? I'm sure there's a good solution, I'm just not sure how to make sure I've got the full surface area properly covered (which naively feels tricky to do with GraphQL but again I'm still trying to understand what are the best practices)

<comment><USER8> I have had good results with [https://github.com/maticzav/graphql- shield](https://github.com/maticzav/graphql-shield) but I am also keeping an eye on [https://github.com/prismagraphql/graphql- middleware](https://github.com/prismagraphql/graphql-middleware) as it is written by the prisma team but isn't ready for production just yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love Prisma and use it daily for the backend of our apps</comment>


A World Without Clouds: early attempts to make photos look more like the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/world-without-clouds <comment><USER2> >Colored photographs occupy an undeservedly questionable situation: the artist curls his lip at them, and the photographer regards them with a sneer. The one says they are no paintings, the other that they are no photographs; thus the art of photographic coloring, unrecognized by either

This reminds me of the early days of computer graphics. I remember many traditional artists looking down on the technology, while many digital artists got started without much traditional background. These days though, much art is made as a combination of both and in the end, most art most people see these days end up being represented as scanned digital images on the internet.

<comment><USER3> I remember Clifford Pickover describe computer art being beneath the artists because they didn't like the "plastic guts aesthetic" of early procedural renders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just a chance to highly recommend a subscription to _Lapham's Quarterly_. A few back issues helped considerably with my experience of the lockdown (the first one, in case we have to start numbering them).</comment>